Heritage: Book Three of the Grimoire Saga (30 page)

He stormed off toward the section of wall where the door appeared earlier. Yet again, it slid aside for him.

When the entry sealed behind him, Kara was left in a secret room below the one kingdom that hated her most, yet was now the most vulnerable. But for the sake of Ourea and ending this war, she wouldn’t let the Kirelm people down.

CHAPTER TWENTY

MISTAKEN

The midday sun beat on Braeden’s neck through breaks in the forest canopy. A bead of sweat ran down his back. He sucked in a breath, wishing for a breeze. The humid air clung to him. Not even the forest’s shade could shield him from the heat. His clothes stuck to his skin, but he pressed on toward the hidden lichgate he’d used on every scouting mission thus far.

Iyra bolted through the underbrush with Braeden on her back. Gavin followed closely behind, his giant wolf Mastif grunting with every footfall. Once he’d found Iyra and prepped her to leave for their trip, Braeden shared Gavin’s taunt about how she wouldn’t be able to keep up with his wolf. She made a point of proving him wrong.

It took roughly two hours and six lichgates to arrive at the stone arch that would take them to the Stele. The two statues framed the lichgate, mouths still frozen in silent screams. Braeden sighed with relief, itching to be through the portal and in the cool mountain air of what would soon be his home.

Braeden urged Iyra through. As they passed, a flash of blue light broke across his peripheral vision. His stomach churned. Once he was through, he smiled. This kingdom belonged to him.

Iyra stopped. Her feet dug into the earth, kicking up dust. Braeden tensed and tilted forward, sliding in his seat, but she hunched her shoulders in an effort to keep him on her back.

He looked over his shoulder. Gavin sat on his wolf’s back, eyes narrowed as he eyed the lake. He squared his shoulders and sat up straight, fists tight around his mount’s reins.

“Is there a problem?” Braeden asked.

Gavin cleared his throat, but didn’t speak. Mastif took a step back. A growl tumbled from the beast’s mouth.

“We’re definitely in the Stele,” Gavin finally said.

A muscle twitched in Braeden’s jaw. “What makes you say so?”

Gavin shook his head. “Never mind. Lead on.”

Annoyance bubbled in Braeden’s gut. He opened his mouth to press Gavin, but Iyra growled. He set a hand on her neck to see if she had any input.

Focus, Braeden.

He rolled his eyes.
Don’t scold me.

You have enough to deal with as it is. Don’t start bickering with him when you’re in Carden’s kingdom. You can’t be distracted here.

He sighed. As usual, she was right.

She laughed, the husky growls grating on the air. Mastif shuddered behind them.

Braeden nodded to the forest. “Come on.”

He charged into the woods without a backward glance. He assumed Gavin followed, though he couldn’t hear the Blood’s mount as they tore through the trees. He would have preferred Gavin sneak back to Ayavel.

After a few minutes, the black spires of the Stele appeared through the canopy. The towers loomed in the distance, visible only because he was still so high up in the mountains, but Braeden shivered nonetheless. A dozen cliffs and a hundred acres of forest separated him from the castle, but a steady buzz began in his ear. His father wasn’t here, or the unease would be stronger. Still, Braeden swallowed hard, and Iyra slowed without being asked.

A few yards to his right, the ground broke away into a steep cliff. Rocks jutted through the underbrush. A dead trunk toppled over the edge, half of its decayed branches hanging in the air beyond the forest.

“Why are we slowing down?” Gavin asked in a whisper.

“You wanted to see the Stele. That’s the castle.”

Gavin pulled up beside him. “How close are we going to get?”

“Close enough to see into windows. I hope you haven’t lost your edge sitting in all those council meetings.”

Gavin smirked. “I’ve always been a better tracker than you. That doesn’t disappear after a few stuffy meetings.”

Braeden laughed. “You’ve always had a bigger ego, you mean.”

Iyra snorted and stomped her foot. Her silver claws dug into the dirt.

Gavin nodded toward the castle. “What’s our focus while we’re here?”

“We need to see if any more towers go up, and if so, we need to figure out why. Track troop movements. Look for routines. So far, they change every time I visit.”

“That doesn’t worry you?” Gavin asked.

Braeden grimaced. “Of course it worries me. He’s planning something, and I can’t determine what it is.”

Gavin opened his mouth to speak, but shut it with an audible click.

“What were you going to say?” Braeden asked.

“Nothing. Let’s get going before someone spots us.”

Braeden frowned, but nudged Iyra forward. Gavin had a point, and they couldn’t sit around talking all day. He wanted to examine the most recent towers and search for clues as to why they existed at all.

Carden’s absence tugged on Braeden’s mind, distracting him. Instinct warned Braeden to run, as it always did when he visited the Stele. But Braeden didn’t run anymore. The Stele belonged to him, and his father belonged in the next life. Braeden would end the man himself—and soon.

Four hours later, Braeden inched toward a newly constructed guard tower. He slunk behind a bush on his forearms, keeping low as he crept closer to the half-built pile of gray bricks and mortar. Dozens of Stelians bustled around the construction site, carrying stones and buckets to and from the clearing. Some wore rags around their heads to keep their black hair from their eyes. Sweat dripped down their gray arms as they toiled. Not one man looked away from his work.

One Stelian lifted a charcoal brick the size of his head and wobbled on his feet. He stood for a moment, eyes on the ground as if waiting for a dizzy spell to pass. Eventually, he hoisted the block up to his shoulders and set it on the tower’s growing framework.

“They’re exhausted,” Braeden said under his breath.

Gavin nodded. “Whatever Carden’s doing, he’s doing it in a hurry.”

Braeden gestured backward and retreated. Gavin followed suit. They snaked away from the tower and stole the fifty yards to where they left Iyra and Mastif near a dense patch of thorns. They ran without so much as crunching a leaf thanks to their childhoods of Hillsidian stealth training.

Once they returned to the thicket, Iyra raised her head in welcome. She and Mastif lay curled near the thorns, mostly out of sight. Though Iyra’s black hide blended in with the thick underbrush, Mastif’s gray fur clashed with the vines.

Braeden crossed his arms and stopped in his tracks. “This is the twelfth tower I’ve seen since I started these
surveillance
trips. They’re everywhere, circling the outskirts of the castle. I don’t think I ever ventured this far before.”

Gavin shrugged. “He’s setting up a perimeter.”

“The Stele has a perimeter already, farther out. There are towers or guards by every lichgate and at every corner of these woods, except for in the impassible mountains. Not even Stelian guards can survive up there for very long, and nothing can survive a trip over the mountain except for drenowith. Every known entrance is well guarded, and as soon as Carden finds the lichgate I’ve been using, he’ll guard that as well. But these towers he’s building don’t serve a purpose.”

Gavin frowned. “Unless...”

“Unless what?”

The Blood grimaced and shrugged. “Never mind.”

“This is the second time today you’ve almost said something. Get it out of your system.”

“Fine. If none of this makes sense, that’s probably for a good reason. He might be throwing you off. What if he knows you’re here?”

Braeden laughed. “There’s no way he can know I’m here. And if he did, why wouldn’t he use the knowledge as an opportunity to kill me? He has no idea what I’m planning.”

“Are you sure?”

Braeden tensed and mulled over the question. He hadn’t been seen. He spent twelve years in Hillside with the finest trackers and hunters in Ourea. He learned from the best. He used to track isen for weeks without his prey knowing. He even managed to get three royal prisoners out of Carden’s dungeon. If Braeden didn’t want to be seen, no one could see him.

“It’s not possible,” he finally said. But even as the words left his mouth, doubt tugged at the corners of his mind. The Stele obeyed its Blood. Even if Carden hadn’t seen him, it was possible the forest had betrayed him.

The hair Braeden’s neck stood on end. He took a deep breath to calm himself, but panic shot through his nerves like a bolt of lightning. He took a deep breath and pushed his worry to the back of his mind. He needed to focus.

Braeden nodded toward Iyra. “Let’s see what else my father has waiting for us.”

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

DEFIANCE

Kara leaned against the stone wall of a secret room beneath Kirelm’s castle. Aurora lay on the red couch not ten feet away, still muttering under her breath. An occasional sob escaped the princess—well, she was the Blood, now—but the pain seemed to have subsided. She shivered less, and Kara took that as a good sign.

Every five minutes or so, explosions rocked the castle. Tremors would shoot through the walls. The sconces lighting the room would rattle, their light flickering with the echo. Kara tightened her fists with each boom, but forced herself to take deep breaths. She didn’t know what else to do.

Flick paced at her feet, wearing circles into the carpet. Now and again, Kara debated using the little creature’s gifts to teleport Aurora away to Ayavel. She ultimately scratched the idea—Flick couldn’t teleport through lichgates, and Kara couldn’t carry Aurora through the portals once they reached them. She would end up dragging the already ill royal through the dirt and might even get caught in the process. She couldn’t risk being that exposed.

She cursed. There had to be something she could do.

Ten minutes passed. Twenty. Thirty. Still, the world above shuddered and shook. Kara couldn’t tell who was winning.

“Vagabond,” a small voice said.

Kara’s head snapped toward the couch. Aurora lifted her chin enough to peek over the armrest without moving. Her neck strained. A vein pulsed near her jawbone.

“Please,” Aurora said. It came out like a moan.

Kara walked to the Kirelm and knelt. She slipped her hand into Aurora’s. Sweat slid over the woman’s fingers, and she didn’t squeeze back.

“What can I do to help?” Kara asked.

“Save them,” Aurora said.

“I’m supposed to protect you. Gurien can handle them.” Even as she said it, Kara wasn’t sure she believed herself.

Aurora shook her head. “I can feel them. They’re losing.”

“How do you know?”

“I don’t...I have no idea,” Aurora said.

“Where are they? Can you tell where Carden is?”

“Throne room.”

Aurora leaned her head back against the armrest. Her chest rose and fell with exaggerated breaths, enough to make Kara’s lungs starve for air as well.

“Please,” Aurora said again.

“But you—”

“A Blood is useless without her people,” she said, her voice almost too low to hear. Aurora’s eyes fluttered closed. Her breathing slowed, and the color drained from her cheeks.

Kara rubbed her own face in frustration. Staying meant waiting for a horde of Stelians and who-knows-what-else to tear down the door. Leaving meant abandoning the already vulnerable Aurora. Either way, this story ended with the enemy kicking in the door. If she stayed, her finale would be a final, hopeless battle in close quarters. Kara might as well take the fight to them.

Aurora’s fingers tightened around Kara’s hand, but the new queen didn’t open her eyes. Only her chest moved in its labored breaths.

“I’ll do my best,” Kara said.

She picked Flick up off the floor and set him in a small gap between Aurora’s head and the back of the sofa. He stared up at her with his wide eyes, and she forced a smile. She scratched his ear.