Heritage: Book Three of the Grimoire Saga (34 page)

“You missed,” Aurora said.

Kara covered her mouth with her hand. She choked on a sob. Flick jumped off her shoulder and stared out of the hole, shaking with his ears pinned back against his head. Kara, on the other hand, couldn’t move.

Oh God, no.

Aurora sighed. “Your attack blew a hole through a material we believed could not be destroyed. Carden and many of his troops escaped through it. The rest escaped through an abandoned lichgate in the tunnels below the castle. Only Kirelm royals knew the portal exists, and it has always been locked. While I don’t understand how he could have found it, much less used it, I suppose we became arrogant. I don’t know the last time its locks were changed, and it’s possible one of his allies learned of its location. Regardless, I have since changed the locks on that lichgate, and only Gurien and I have access to it now. That portal is how Carden and most of his army got into the city, while a small portion of his troops distracted us by attacking the front gates. His dual attack crippled us.”

Tears welled in Kara’s eyes. She sobbed again. Regret snaked through her body like lead, weighing her down. Her knees shook.

Aurora continued to stare through the hole. “This morning, the village’s final tally of the dead and missing was ten thousand four hundred seven. As their Blood, I could feel each one.”

Kara dropped to her knees and wept into her hands. Her shoulders trembled. The tears would not stop.

A warm hand rubbed her back. Someone knelt beside her. Boots crunched along the rubble and grass, suggesting someone else had walked away.

“I’m not angry,” Aurora said, her voice soft.

Surprise slowed the tears. Kara glanced through her fingers. “What?”

“Lives are irreplaceable. I feel the guilt, same as you. But if you hadn’t intervened, Carden may have claimed the palace. He would have captured me and killed Gurien. And then those in the village below would have died anyway. More than ten thousand for sure.”

“But I killed—” Kara couldn’t finish the sentence.

“Yes.”

The young queen looked again at the hole in the wall. Her eyebrows bent with the same grief that tore through Kara. Something had changed in the Kirelm royal—Kara couldn’t quite name it. She seemed older, somehow. Tired.

Aurora set her hands in her lap. “Only four Kirelms witnessed your final attack, and I have ordered them to never breathe a word of it to anyone. No one else in Kirelm knows what happened, nor will they ever. When I spoke to the kingdom, I told them Carden attacked the village out of spite after he threw you against the wall.”

The guilt tunneled deeper into Kara’s core. “You can’t lie to cover for me.”

“I already did, and it cannot be undone. The Kirelms are wounded, Kara. To hear the Vagabond killed their people...they would never recover. They would demand I kill you as retribution, but that would undo everything we’ve achieved thus far. It would ostracize us from the other kingdoms and throw our world deeper into war. Regardless, I could never hurt you. Not after what you sacrificed to save us when we needed you most. But I cannot change the will of an entire people, and thus, I lied to protect them from themselves. You must live that lie with me.”

Kara rubbed her face. Every bit of her trembled. Still kneeling, she curled against herself in the vain hope it would help her steady her shaking limbs. It didn’t work.

This can’t be happening.

Aurora continued. “For what it’s worth, you have Kirelm’s loyalty. You have my loyalty. We will follow you wherever we are needed.”

Kara nodded. It was all she could think to do. She couldn’t speak, so it would have to suffice.

Aurora stood. “We should return to Ayavel soon, but not until I make sure Kirelm is safe in my absence. The village’s survivors are already evacuating. For the last couple of days, I have been scouring our old texts for ways to move our floating city, and I believe I’ve found one. We’re not safe here anymore and need to find a new location. The move will take a great deal of energy, but I should be ready to leave with half our army in four days.”

“I need to go back sooner than that,” Kara said. Her voice came out so much softer than she intended.

“That’s fine. I will meet you in Ayavel when I can.”

Kara nodded again.

“You missed my father’s memorial,” Aurora added.

Kara looked at her. The newly appointed Blood stared at the ground, her shoulders hunched. A loose curl hung over her long neck.

“I’m sorry,” Kara whispered.

A tear slid down Aurora’s cheek, but she wiped it away. “He and I fought so often. I didn’t think I would miss him this much.”

“Losing family always hurts,” Kara said.

“I suppose so.”

Kara stared through the gap in the wires, her eyes going in and out of focus as clouds passed by. She didn’t want to move or talk or think. If anything, she just wanted to curl into a ball.

“You don’t look well. Please rest,” Aurora said after a while.

The young Blood stood and offered her hand. Kara forced a thin smile and accepted, whistling for Flick to join them. He ran to her, and she picked him up before following Aurora into the castle without looking back at the disaster she created. Her eyes remained on the floor as she walked.

At some point, Aurora’s shoes disappeared. A maid’s slippered feet took the queen’s place. Kara didn’t really take note of who it was, when it happened, or where they were going. Her ears buzzed as her feet moved on their own. Step after step, stair after stair, Kara lost herself to her thoughts.

When she came to, she stood in the bedroom where she’d prepared to talk some sense into Ithone. Everything was exactly as she left it, except that her now-clean traveling clothes lay across the bed alongside a white nightgown and a blood red dress that reminded her of her Gala gown.

Kara drifted through the motions of getting ready for bed and barely registered the world around her. She bathed and slipped on the nightgown before folding the other clothes and setting them on the floor.

She crawled onto the mattress, and the plush comforter dipped under her weight. She slipped under the blanket. Flick curled under her chin. His warm fur pressed against her neck, and she set a hand on his small back. He vibrated as he purred.

A cold hand rested on her shoulder. Even through the comforter, her skin chilled like she’d been touched by ice. She didn’t have to turn around to know it was the first Vagabond, Cedric. She wanted to confess to the thousands of murders, but he already knew everything.

“Why didn’t you stop me?” she whispered.

“I tried, but I couldn’t get through to you. The sheer amount of power you harnessed trapped me inside the Grimoire. I couldn’t move the entire time. I could only watch. I even tried to stop you from taking off the wrist guard, but you silenced me. I don’t think you even realized you did it. It was like something else controlled you the entire time.”

The cool comforter soothed the burning ache in her body, but tears pooled in her eyes. She wanted to apologize for letting him, Stone, and her long-dead grandfather down, but it wouldn’t be enough. Nothing could undo what she’d done.

Her mentor sighed. “You didn’t disappoint me, Kara. You did what had to be done. I see it clearly now. You had no choice. For what it’s worth, I’m in this with you. Aurora is with you. Braeden will be, too, if you choose to tell him. You’re not alone.”

A ball formed in her throat. Braeden—what would he think of her if she told him how many innocent people she killed?

“Get some sleep. I’ll be here if you need me,” the first Vagabond said.

She didn’t say anything. The cold hand disappeared. She wished she could go back to Ayavel right then, but her resolve crashed around her. She cried into Flick’s fur. Taking off the wrist guard cost ten thousand people their lives. People she never met dissolved into dust the moment her attack touched them. Children. Mothers. Families. Pets. Despite whatever good it may have done for Aurora and Gurien and even the Kirelm people overall, Kara had ignored every warning her grandfather left for her when she took off the leather cuff. She wasn’t ready for that kind of power.

An icy wave of fear raced through her. It didn’t matter if she was ever ready. She would never, ever take off the bracelet again. Nothing—and no one—was worth losing control of herself. She was already a mass-murderer. She wouldn’t repeat that mistake.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

LOST

Braeden’s skin burned. He itched, as if a thousand spiders bit him at once and wouldn’t let go. An ache seeped through every muscle. He tried to scream, but his voice caught in his throat. Bones cracked. Pressure weighed on his chest, seeping through every pore in his body. He tried to move, but his fingers wouldn’t twitch. He couldn’t even open his eyes.

He slowly lost all sense of his limbs. The sensation in his fingers faded away. The pain in the soles of his feet dissolved. Numbness wound its way up his legs and arms, seeping toward the gaping wound in his chest. He craved the apathy. He wished it would hurry and dull the pain. Flickers of agony pricked at his gut like hundreds of needles stabbing him again and again.

A chill pooled in the wound. He took a deep breath, but still couldn’t open his eyes. Relief washed through him. The numbness stopped. A cool wave rippled through his veins, washing out the pain. He sighed and smiled—or tried to, anyway.

Voices filtered through his dulled senses. Men. A few cursed. Others spoke his name, though he couldn’t understand anything else. One voice called to him, familiar and louder than the rest. It had a name, this voice, but he couldn’t remember it.

Hot water dribbled down his neck. Steam pooled in his ear. He shuddered. Cold linen pressed against his forehead. He sighed again.

A searing pain cracked against his temple and splintered through his neck. He screamed. His muscles tensed. The pain worsened. His entire body roasted. Every vein boiled. He screamed until he couldn’t hear himself anymore. He thrashed, trying to shake whatever attacked him, but every movement amplified the pain.

Tears rolled down his face. He couldn’t take this. It was worse than anything Carden subjected him to in life. It broke him, right to his core.

Darkness pulled at him. It tugged him under, down toward the agony breaking his body. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t shake the pain. And eventually, he couldn’t move. The agony wrapped around his limbs, binding him to whatever attacked.

He searched for the white light—the one that saved him from Carden’s torture the last time he visited the Stele’s infamous prisons. Kara would be there, waiting for him. She would shield him from the pain until the worst passed. He could survive if he found her.

His mind sifted through his shifting thoughts, searching for the white light. Nothing came to him. No one stepped in. His searching became panic. His memories faded. And right before he lost himself to the searing pain, he screamed her name.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

THE HERO

A steady pulse beat in Kara’s ear.

Da-thump. Da-thump. Da-thump.

Something warm pushed against her chin. Blades of fur tickled her neck. She smiled, half-awake, as a wet nose burrowed against her jaw. She laughed and pulled away, her eyes snapping open. Flick batted her face with his tail and chirped.

Kara glanced around the room. It took a moment to remember where she was, but the realization crushed her.

Kirelm.

Her smile faded. She curled her head back into the pillow and pulled the blanket up to her neck. She didn’t want to think about the guilt or murders or her conversation with Aurora. She just wanted to go back to sleep.

A wispy figure bled into view by the window, the trails of his cloak turning solid as she watched. The ancient ghost of the first Vagabond stared into the bright sky outside, a hood over his head, his arms crossed.

Kara’s heart skipped a beat. She didn’t know what to say.

He turned. “Are you all right?”

She hesitated but ultimately shook her head.

He nodded. “It’s understandable. The situation is hardly fair. Though I’m heartbroken at how many were killed, Aurora is right. If the truth got out, you would never again have a chance of establishing peace in Ourea. You would be hated, despite however much you were trying to help.”

Kara burrowed her face into her pillow.

“Are you going to lie in bed all day?” he asked.

“Sounds tempting, actually.”

“You can’t hide from this. Guilt or not, you have to accept what you’ve done and find a way to move on.”

She rolled her eyes. “I know, Vagabond. I’m just trying to process it.”

The wispy ghost sat on the edge of her bed. “You’re right to do so. Grief is part of life, and you can’t deny it. The modest acknowledge their mistakes. The wise both confess to their failures and vow to never repeat them. But it takes a strong warrior to forgive herself as well.”

She hugged her knees and nodded. She didn’t figure she fit in any of those categories at the moment.

He smiled. “You’re all three. Just give yourself time.”