Lichgates: Book One of the Grimoire Saga (an Epic Fantasy Adventure) (46 page)

“I tried my hand at the Hillsidian form when I visited the Queen.” Carden cracked his neck and frowned. “But I don’t really see what you like in it, boy.”

Braeden took a deep breath and moved in front of Kara, blocking her view of the Stelian Blood. She peered under his shoulder as Carden continued slowly closer, his boots leaving the hollow echo of his path in the still air of the chamber.

“That’s hardly necessary, my boy. I’m not interested in your pet.”

“Hey!” Kara said, bristling. Braeden pinched her sharply on the arm and cut her off with a fleeting glare.
Enough of that,
his look said. He inched toward the exit as his father circled. She followed.

“She has spunk, at least,” Carden admitted. “It seems we share a weakness for those types.”

“I’m nothing like you,” Braeden said, but Carden’s sneer widened.

“We’re more alike than you think, son.”

Carden pulled the missing amulet from a hidden pocket in his cloak and examined the black gem as he continued speaking.

“I figured you would come for this. I’ve researched the Vagabond as well, you see. It seems he always yearned to know where he belonged, since he was an outsider from birth, so it’s only natural that he would send her after such a treasure. I’ll give it to the girl, in good faith, if you do something for me.”

“And what’s that?” Kara pushed Braeden’s arm down so that she could better see Carden. The Blood’s lip curled in a half-grin that reminded her of a used car salesman.

“I didn’t give you enough credit when we first met,” he said. “You’re far braver than you seem.”

“Thanks, I think. But what do you want?”

“All I want” —he mimicked her frank tone—“is for Braeden to return to the Stele. You can go about your Vagabondish business and continue on with whatever little quest brought you here while Braeden returns home. After we talk, boy, I’ll permit you to return to her if you choose to do so.”

“Not an option,” Braeden said. He continued toward the door.

Carden let the silence settle as they circled, the hollow
thump, thump, shuffle
of their dance continuing.

“You belong to the Stele, Braeden,” he said. “Nothing can free you from that. There’s no escape from what you are. Why fight what you were bred to be?”

“If you’ve showed me anything, it’s what not to be.”

The insult hung in the air.

“Stop inching!” Carden demanded. Even Kara stopped moving at the terrifying sound, but Braeden became rigid. His arms locked beside him and his face twisted with conflict, so that only his chest moved as he fought for breath in the thinning air. He gritted his teeth, and she could feel his body shake.

“I can’t move,” he whispered to her. “You need to run.”

“Look me in the eye, Braeden Drakonin.” Carden’s eyes narrowed as he spoke.

He focused his trembling gaze on the floor. Anger and helplessness contorted his face, melting into hatred when he obeyed his father, and he lifted his head to glare at the Blood from under furious brows. Carden laughed.

“I’m glad to see that you’re still loyal to me. I want you as my general, boy, but I want you to return willingly. This battle of ours is just a misunderstanding. You think I’m a monster, which is simply not true. I’m fighting to restore the glory of our people. I’m trying to end the banishment that we suffer at the hands of the hypocrites!

“The coming tide will turn swiftly, and the fate of all worlds on this Earth will change for it. I simply don’t want my Heir to suffer with those who are beneath him. Return to me and your inner battle stops. You won’t be forced to hide what you are any longer.”

Braeden opened his mouth to speak, but stopped and looked back at Kara. Her hand had found its way to the hem of his shirt. She squeezed it tighter when she realized that she’d needed to touch him, to find some way to tell him to hold on. They could still get out of this.

“I learned a long time ago how to see through your lies. Let us leave,” Braeden finally said, grinding his teeth. Relief flooded her heart without her entirely understanding why. They weren’t free yet.

Carden sighed. “There isn’t anything for you to see but facts, but you seem uninterested in such things. Fine, then. I must remind you of the life led by those who defy me. This is no longer a game.”

The Blood made a small gesture with his fingers. Braeden’s body, in response, wheeled around to face Kara in a motion that was almost too quick to follow. Panic ate away at his face in some realization she hadn’t yet made. His arms moved like a puppet’s, controlled by the Blood behind him.

He shoved her up against the wall and pressed her shoulders into the rock. She shrieked at the searing pain crunching her spine. Numbness chased down her back. She couldn’t breathe for several seconds, and when breath did come, it was painful.

Braeden’s face was the only part of him still left in his control, and his eyebrows twisted in fear when both his hands shifted to her neck and tightened. She wanted to scream, but the short bursts of air that did make it past the aching tension in her throat were reserved for her lungs. The violet fire in her palm flickered out as he suffocated her. Carden lit his own flame without care for the remaining oxygen, and it illuminated them all with a brilliant gray light.

“Braed—” She gasped, her voice breaking on his name.

His eyes snapped between horror and regret. He gritted his teeth, wrinkles of frustration and terror trailing from his mouth to his brow. But, when she caught his gaze, everything but remorse dissolved away.

“Stop!” he yelled over his shoulder to Carden.

The white dots along the edges of Kara’s vision grew thicker, until she could see only flickers of movement without fully understanding what was going on.

“This is the world beyond my walls,” Carden said as he walked closer. “If you disobey me, I will hunt down everything you love and make you destroy it. I am the fury within you that you’ll never control. Your stubbornness will only hurt those who help you.”

“No, please!” Braeden begged.

Kara’s knees gave out. All that held her against the wall, now, were his hands against her neck. Carden’s hazy outline lifted the amulet and slid it over her head. The king’s next words echoed in her fading consciousness.

“Do you want to see where you belong, boy? Look into her eyes as the light fades. Once she’s dead, look down to the stone to see the only world that wants you.”

Braeden bit his cheek and choked on whatever he was trying to say. His eyes shook, and she saw a hint of wet in the corners. Carden stroked her cheek. His touch was warm, but she flinched until he pulled away. She fought through the vice grip on her neck to breathe.

“Vagabond, I regret that you were caught in this web,” Carden said carelessly. “You might have been quite useful.”

“Father, please! Stop!”

“Will you return to me if I spare her?”

Braeden didn’t answer.

Kara couldn’t see much of anything anymore, but she shuddered with unfocused disbelief and fought the surging wave of lightheadedness, trying to weigh both options. Neither was the right choice. She didn’t know what she wanted him to say.

Something tickled her side, but she barely sensed it through the numbing tremors in her body. She couldn’t pivot to see what it was until it jumped onto Braeden’s arms and let loose a bark too vicious for something so small.

In one fell swoop, like a punch to her stomach, heart, and head all at once, her final breath in the cavern left her. The room went black, and her body hung in the air like she was floating. There was no sound, no fear. If this was death, then at least there wasn’t any pain.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

SURVIVAL

Something cracked. Kara thudded on the ground. Air forced its way back into her lungs with a searing bite, forcing her to cough and sputter until her breath was normal again.

She gasped and turned over. At first, all she understood was the color green, but then the rough itch of grass irritated her skin. Flick scampered onto her shoulder, purring and whimpering. She picked him up and stared into his ridiculously massive eyes.

“You can teleport?”

The little thing chirped and licked her nose as Braeden walked into her peripheral vision. Flick squirmed out of her hands and stood on her head, growling at the prince with all his tiny might. She cupped him in her palms in an effort to contain his minute ferocity, but he watched Braeden with bared teeth from between her fingers.

The prince knelt over her, his eyes furrowed with worry and regret. He bit his cheek and looked at her with deeper concern than she’d ever seen in his face before, but her neck ached and her body shied away from him as she tried to make sense of what had happened.

“I thought—” She coughed again. “I thought I’d died.”

He shook his head and pulled her into a hug. Though she wanted to kick him to the ground, she just burrowed her head into his chest until she could subdue the stinging threads of pain still lingering in her throat. Flick growled with useless twists of his body from somewhere in between them.

Braeden cradled her head in his palm, but nothing could make the sharp pain in her throat disappear completely. He rubbed her cheek with his thumb, and her skin prickled under his fingers. She pulled away, resisting the urge to run her hand over any bit of her that he’d touched.

She returned Flick to his place on her shoulder and looked into the forest to distract herself. A dirt lane curved through the woods, cresting over a distant hill before it turned down another. A tavern stood on the road nearby, the sound of clinking glasses escaping through the windows.

The amulet glistened on the ground a few feet from her, near where she’d landed after Flick had rescued them, and she preoccupied herself with lifting it off the ground and slipping it into her satchel. Flick snuck in after it.

“How were you going to answer Carden?” she finally asked.

He paused. “I don’t know.”

She glared over her shoulder, trying to catch his expression, but flinched and sucked in a sharp breath because he was closer than she’d expected. He looked at the ground in shame and stepped back, his expression twisted with the same searing pain that burned in her neck.

“Kara, even Aislynn can’t always look me in the eye,” he said. His voice was gentle, and he didn’t try to touch her again. “I know that when she sees me, she remembers the most painful time of her life, even though she will never admit it. Carden wants me back in the Stele, but it’s because he’s after something that I haven’t yet figured out. Richard and Gavin would disown me the moment they found out what I am.

“But you—you’re the one person in this entire world who knows what I truly am and stayed by me without caring. You’re the last person I want to hurt. We were lucky this time, but we might not be if it happens again. When it happens again. I need to fight this ba—”

“Oh, shut up.” She rubbed her neck.

“What?”

“Save your ‘I have to fight my battle’ speech. I don’t want to go around Ourea alone, and you’re the only one I trust here, despite—that. I just don’t want to be alone, not right now.”

It wasn’t the only reason she didn’t want him to leave.

“Kara, when Carden gets that close again—”

“He won’t,” she muttered, but she looked to the ground when she tasted her lie. She nodded to the pub farther up the hill. “Now buy me a beer, and let’s go to the village.”

Braeden walked beneath an overhanging branch and whistled for Rowthe. “This isn’t a time for jokes. I always held on to the belief that I could free myself from my tie to the Stele, but since that isn’t an option anymore, I need to find someone who will help me control myself.”

“You’ll never be that close to him again.”

“But I will! He’s always hunting, always chasing, and I have no idea why!” He smacked a branch. Leaves shook off from the force.

“Braeden—”

“No! Listen to me.” He marched over, getting so close to her that she could smell the oaky cologne on his collar. He whispered, his voice a breathy growl.

“I was going to kill you, not ten minutes ago, because he told me to. I was going to strangle you and watch you die because that was what he wanted at that moment. I need someone to teach me to be stronger than him, or Flick might not save you next time.”

She held her breath and fought the impulse to shield her neck. His intense gaze froze her. Even as a Hillsidian, he was just as terrifying as his father.

He stepped away and watched the forest. “I think Adele will be able to help me. She and Garrett are the most powerful creatures I’ve ever met. When the Vagabond possessed you and told me off, he said that a muse would guide me. I think he was referring to them. I need to do this, and I promise this is best for both of us. I can be lucky for only so long. Once I take you back to Hillside, I’ll set off for the drenowith.”

She didn’t answer, preferring to look off into the trees instead. Twigs crunched. Rowthe appeared behind a bush, barely visible in the bright daylight. His head hung low and his tail curved between his legs as he looked up at her with pitiful eyes.

“We know you were scared, Rowthe. It’s okay.” She scratched his ears and the creature let out a soft growl.