Heritage: Book Three of the Grimoire Saga (8 page)

He shrugged. “I don’t care about many, but Cedric has always been like a son to me. And now you have become like a daughter. You two are the only family I have ever known and the only family I suppose I will ever know. An isen’s life is not a happy one, child, and that’s what you must understand. You have the same rare power as your grandfather. You must see what he endured to understand the temptations and limitations of your new power. If you don’t, you will destroy your family just as he destroyed his.”

Kara’s jaw tensed. Her eye stung, but she couldn’t tell if she were about to cry. Though Stone hadn’t lost his monotone, this was the closest he had ever come to sharing his emotions.

“All right,” she whispered.

“Don’t open the letter until you’ve seen the entire house. Will you wait?”

She nodded and handed him the folded paper. He took it and gestured to the front door.

“Go on,” he said.

Kara pushed herself to her feet. She passed the rocking chair on her way to the front door and resisted the impulse to touch the armrest once more. She wasn’t sure if she would relive the memory, but she had plenty of others to worry about as it was.

Her fingers hovered over the brass doorknob. She didn’t know if she was really ready for this. Agneon could have embedded a memory in nearly anything, including the handle. With each step, she wouldn’t know what memory would come next—it could be a happy one that made her smile or a terrifying one that brought her to tears.

But such was life. She took a deep breath and turned the handle.

The door opened onto a living room. Off to the left, a loveseat faced a stone fireplace. A wooden dining table with a red tablecloth filled the space to her right. A kitchen counter peeked through a doorframe in the far wall. Beside it, a hallway ended in a closed door.

Kara took a step farther into the room and closed the front door behind her, leaving Stone on the porch. He hadn’t moved from his place on the first step, and she doubted he would enter while she explored.

She glanced around the living room, taking note of anything that might contain a memory. A glass globe sat on a coffee table near the couch. A blanket lay draped over a chair in the corner that Kara hadn’t previously noticed.

A thin table sat against the wall under the stairs, its surface covered with framed sketches and a few items that glittered as she moved. Kara inched closer, and the glimmering items turned out to be jewelry. A diamond necklace lay spread in the center of the table, blue and green light reflecting from its jewels. A few rings sat nearby, their gold just as bright as the gems. A brooch, a comb, and a bracelet—all of them lined with sapphires or some other colored stone—glittered from their places on the counter.

Kara shuddered. That table had to be a minefield of memories.

She peeked through the open doorframe and into the kitchen. Granite countertops reached across three of the four walls. Oak cabinets filled the space beneath the counters, while cupboards with glass doors lined the space above. An island counter with a sink lay in the very center of it all.

Kara walked into the kitchen, her hand brushing something cold as she entered. She turned even as the gold dust sprang from beneath her fingertips. A black iron oven sat in a massive fireplace by the door. As the glitter enveloped her, she sucked in a breath to steady herself. A soft hue took over the air once more, and Kara disappeared to another time.

A small woman with red hair leaned over the stove. Her hair pooled over one shoulder, caught on the neck hem of a blue gown. A white apron stained with beige smudges covered most of the dress. She opened the oven door and smiled, her eyes creasing as she glanced over whatever filled its trays. The scent of cinnamon and sugar tickled Kara’s nose. She grinned. That had to be her grandmother.

Ellen—she had to be six or seven, now—ran up and tugged on the woman’s apron. “Are they ready yet, Mama?”

“Not yet, baby. Five more minutes,” the woman said.

Agneon skidded into view from behind Kara. He grinned, and his entire face lit up with the smile. “Can’t we have one now? No use waiting when your family’s hungry, Miriam!”

Miriam bit back a smile and shook her head. “You impatient man.”

He reached his arms around her waist and nuzzled her neck. “Just one, please?”

“I got them, Papa! Run!” Ellen shouted. She squealed and darted out of the room holding a towel in her hands. Two cookies lay on top, the air above them steaming.

“That’s my girl!” Agneon shouted. He thundered after her.

“You two are trouble!” Miriam yelled, but she burst into laughter before she could finish the last word.

The gold dust imploded yet again, and the cold kitchen snapped into view. Kara took a deep breath and laughed. Trouble indeed. There was no question where she got her mischievous nature.

Nearly three hours later, Kara sat on the stairs and rubbed her face. She had touched nearly every item she could find. She probably witnessed fifty memories, just on this floor alone.

The first floor had been a relatively happy place; she witnessed an argument or two, but most memories showed her the blissful moments Agneon had treasured.

She witnessed little Ellen’s first birthday and Agneon’s lopsided excuse for a cake on the occasion—he’d conceded to letting Miriam bake all the family’s sweets after that. She saw Agneon carry a four-year-old Ellen on his shoulders as they hiked through some unknown forest for the first time. She smiled as she watched the family play a game on the coffee table...a game of cards that reminded her of the rainy nights spent with her own mom and dad in the Tallahassee house.

So many of her mother’s passions—hiking, games, food—came from Agneon. Kara wondered if her mother ever realized that.

Kara glanced up the stairs to the empty hallway above. If the first floor had been happy, the second had to house Agneon’s dark memories. She took a deep breath and stood.

Bring it on.

CHAPTER SIX

AGNEON

Kara didn’t know what she expected to find on the second floor of her grandfather’s cottage. Bedrooms, perhaps, and a closet or two. Maybe an office. But not blood. She hadn’t expected to find that. Streaks of blood stained the white walls, dark red and a little crusty. It had been allowed to dry before the house had been sealed.

She swallowed hard.

The stairs led to the center of a hallway. Three doors lined the hall to her right, with just two to her left. The streaks came from the last door to her right and carried halfway down the stairs, where they disappeared.

Kara figured she wasn’t quite ready for whatever lay in that room.

Instead, she turned left and opened the last door in the hall. A desk filled a corner, with bookshelves along the near wall. A lonely window on the far wall let in light. Shadows danced along the wall like waves as the waterfall crossed in and out of the low sunlight streaming in through the ring in the dome above. A leather chair sat against the wall nearest to the door. She narrowed her eyes and tightened her grip on the door handle. This was the room from the memory attached to the letter Stone had given her. This had to be Agneon’s study.

She crossed to the desk but didn’t touch anything. A few quills crowded a corner, each laid perfectly next to the others. An ink jar stood by them, its lid closed. A neat stack of blank paper sat on the surface near the wall.

Kara turned toward the bookcases. She glanced over every shelf, taking in the various items set in front of the books. A green orb the size of a marble rested in a wire holder. Yellow smoke sizzled inside the orb, snapping at its edges like bolts of lightning. A gold nugget sat on another shelf, and letter opener on yet another.

A rusty old nail lay beside the letter opener. Kara furrowed her eyebrows and leaned closer. What an odd thing to leave on a bookshelf.

She touched it, knowing in her gut that it held a memory. When the gold dust jumped into the air from under her finger, she smiled. Maybe she was getting the hang of this after all.

The memory pulled her from the office and into a forest. Agneon sat on a branch, hammering planks of wood to its limbs. He had already fashioned a crude box between the tree’s limbs in what Kara assumed was a tree house. A ladder leaned against the far side of the tree.

Agneon straddled the branch and held a nail against a board. He aimed the hammer and drove it toward the nail, only to smash his thumb instead of the iron spike. He cursed and chucked the hammer into the woods. It crashed through the foliage at least fifty feet away. A string of curses poured from his mouth, some of which Kara didn’t even understand.

The isen stuck his injured thumb in his mouth and threw a left hook at the board he was trying to nail into the tree. It splintered into a dozen pieces. Shards flew in every direction. Cracks spiraled down the other boards he had already nailed into the tree. Something snapped. The tree house groaned. Agneon grabbed a branch, but not in time. The house collapsed in on itself. Nails and planks rained to the ground. Agneon landed on his shoulder with a thud.

He pushed himself to his feet. His scowl deepened. Wrinkles bore into his forehead, turning his glare sour. His cheeks reddened.

Kara shivered. His anger had apparently dipped into cold hatred. She didn’t recognize him as the man holding his daughter in the porch rocking chair anymore. This was the look of a murderer—one who would kill anything that moved. There seemed to be a fine line between his two personas.

A spark jumped along the tree’s trunk. Kara flinched, half-believing she imagined it until an orange flame burst from one of the boards. More fire sprang from the planks littering the ground. A green glow skittered over Agneon’s skin. It pulsed, growing dim and brighter with a steady beat. The isen gritted his teeth. His eyes narrowed.

Nails levitated, shaking. They shivered and inched free of the planks. The green light on Agneon’s skin grew. It cast murky shadows on the grass around Kara’s feet. She squinted, trying to keep an eye on the scene as the light grew, but she finally squeeze her eyes shut. She raised her arm to cover her face and heard one last curse from her grandfather.

A pulse of energy blew past her—no, through her. She was a ghost in this memory. Trees toppled. Fire crackled on timber. The green light faded, and Kara lowered her arm.

Roots of fallen trees stuck out of the ground, some easily taller than her. Flames tore across the forest’s canopy, eating away at any tree still standing. Only a charred trunk and piles of ashes remained of the tree Agneon had once used for the tree house.

Her grandfather stood in the middle of the clearing, the earth beneath his feet smoking. He stared at the burnt tree, his eyes out of focus. His shoulders relaxed, and he let out a quiet breath. He rubbed his neck and shook his head, but never once took his eyes off the smoldering remnants of the tree.

“I only wanted to do something nice for her,” he said under his breath.

The dark office returned in a rush. Kara collapsed into the chair by the door. Annoyance churned in her gut as she gripped the armrest. He burned down a forest because he hit his thumb with a hammer. That wasn’t a temper. That was just childish.

She shut her eyes and forced herself to take a deep breath. She couldn’t be a hypocrite. After all, she did burn her own desk to bits in much the same fashion. She was all too familiar with Agneon’s frustration. His anger bubbled out of control, as did hers.

Sunlight caught on something yellow, blinding her for a moment. A table sat beside the chair, and on it lay a dagger in a brilliant blue sheath. She leaned closer. A golden hilt protruded from the sheath, its end curving to a rounded point. Carvings wove across the metal in tight circles, giving off the appearance of tiny hills and valleys.

This was the first weapon to surface in the house. She reached for it, curious as to what kind of memory it held, when she noticed what had actually glimmered: a small golden medallion the size of a quarter. It rested beside the dagger, its chain hanging off the edge of the table. The image of a man covered the medallion’s face, a halo around his head. The words
Saint Nicholas
stretched along the top-most curve of the metal.

Kara picked up the medallion without another thought. Gold dust spiraled from beneath her fingers, and curiosity ate at her. What memory could a relic from the human world hold?