Heritage: Book Three of the Grimoire Saga (9 page)

Blood.

Before the dust engulfed her completely, the memory began to play out. Blood sprayed into the air without a source. Kara gagged, but the world blurred with blues and greens and yellows. Rot and rust stung her nose. She stepped back, trying to get her bearings, and the world snapped into focus.

Agneon spun a sword in his hand. Fury stained every inch of his face, distorting it into a grimace of hatred. He glared at something just past Kara.

She swiveled. A Kirelm soldier rushed toward her, his white wings outstretched. Sweat dripped down his silver skin. He let loose a battle cry and sailed through her body on his way to Agneon. Her grandfather just smirked and shoved his blade clean through the Kirelm’s gut. The yakona retched, and Agneon flung him off to the side.

Soldier after soldier ran toward him. Each man swung weapons in a slow arc. Everything moved in slow motion, and each swing of Agneon’s sword found a vital organ. Kara flinched with every blow. After minutes of nothing but death and blood, she nearly screamed with the desire to escape this memory.

Green light pulsed on Agneon’s skin, just as it had in the memory with the tree house. The glow hovered over his body, illuminating his victims’ corpses with a growing radiance. It bubbled and grew, until finally Kara had to shield her eyes.

Men screamed. Horses followed suit. Metal clanged. Something roared. The patter of skin smacking against the earth over and over rolled through the clearing. Smoke wafted by, choking Kara as she tried to clear it from her lungs. She shuddered, but she couldn’t escape until the memory ended. She had to wait it out.

The light faded, but she hesitated. Without a doubt, she did not want to see the aftermath of whatever attack Agneon just used. But when the memory didn’t fade, she peeked over her arm.

A sea of dead bodies filled the clearing. Corpses littered the ground. Pools of silver blood soaked the grass. Some survivors moaned, but dread shot through Kara’s gut. She doubted they would live.

She turned back to her grandfather, hatred boiling her blood. Instead of a gloating victor or the smug smile of satisfaction, she found him on his knees. His eyebrows twisted upward as he stared at the dissolving soldiers around him. The anger in his face faded. It was as if he had been possessed before and could only now understand what he had done.

He frowned and twisted his head to the left. Kara followed his gaze. Niccoli stood on the edge of the field a hundred feet away. The ancient isen crossed his arms and grinned.

Agneon sighed, stood, and sheathed his sword. He reached into the collar of his shirt and pulled out the medallion—the one Kara had touched—and kissed it.

“I’m sorry, Miriam,” he whispered.

Kara’s throat tightened. The office returned once more, its cold gray a relief from the endless death she just witnessed. She leaned forward in the chair and hugged her knees. Deep breaths filled her lungs, but spots lined her vision. If she didn’t settle her breathing, she would vomit. What a disgusting vision. She rubbed her face as her heart rate settled. There had been so much blood. She eyed the dagger. If a medallion housed a memory filled with so much death, what kind of memory would an actual weapon hold?

She swallowed hard and hesitated, but she’d come this far. Judging by the memories from the first floor, Agneon’s life contained as much good as it did evil. This was her curse, now, and she had to learn to control it. With a deep breath, she reached for the dagger. If it meant she could learn to control her power, she would force herself to see every memory in this house.

More glitter sprang forward and spiraled around her, painting a completely new world in shades of brown and green. A wooden bar counter appeared before her, and a stool sprang upward to give her a seat. Oak barrels the size of horses rose from the floor behind the bar. Other stools blipped into view up and down the room. People filled them. Chatter rippled through the room as framed paintings popped into the memory along the walls.

Agneon walked behind her and sat in the seat to her right. A brunette in a tight green dress smiled at him, and he grinned in return. His eyes never left her face, though her shirt hung low enough to entice the imagination. Kara couldn’t quite figure if this woman was human or Hillsidian.

“What can I get you, honey?” she asked.

“Whatever’s good,” he answered.

She nodded and walked toward one of the oak barrels behind the bar.

“Nice place, isn’t it?” Agneon asked.

He turned toward Kara. Panic snaked through her chest. He couldn’t possibly see her. After being ignored in every memory thus far, she couldn’t possibly be able to interact with him. She didn’t want to, not after watching him murder all those soldiers.

“I guess,” someone said from beside her.

She sighed with relief and spun to see her neighbor. His salt-and-pepper beard gave her a start. Of all people—Stone sat next to her, wrapped in a brown cloak as he nursed a silver mug.

Kara swiveled on her barstool and examined the men and women filling the pub’s tables. Swords covered most surfaces. Half of the men had a scar of some sort across his face, but almost everyone wore a dark green tunic. Some laughed and pointed at each other. Others frowned and inched their fingers toward their belts, likely in search of weapons Kara couldn’t see. This had to be an Ourean bar. The bartender stopped by and set Agneon’s drink in front of him. She winked and walked off.

Agneon nodded to Stone. “What are you having, stranger? I’ll have to try it next.”

Kara furrowed an eyebrow. Stranger? Unless this was Agneon’s poor attempt at humor, it had to be the memory of how he and Stone met.

Stone sighed. “I haven’t smelled one of our kind in a while, boy, but we’re hard to mistake. I know what you are, and I have a pretty good idea of why you’re here. You might as well get to the point.”

Agneon grinned and sipped his drink. “Works for me.”

He reached into his shirt and set a familiar dagger on the counter. Its bright blue sheath and the brilliant gold of its hilt contrasted with the earthy undertones of the bar.

“I’m here to kill you,” her grandfather said.

“You’re not doing a very good job of it,” Stone answered.

Agneon shrugged. “I don’t really want to kill you. From what I’ve heard, you deserve nothing but respect. I mean, who escapes his master? How does someone like us even achieve such a thing? But Niccoli...well, he holds grudges.”

Stone nodded. “That he does.”

Agneon frowned, and his grip on the beer tightened. “How did you do it? Escape, I mean.”

“And why should I tell you?”

“What have you got to lose?”

“I fail to see what I have to gain from it, either.”

Agneon leaned over his drink. “There’s nothing for you to gain. I just don’t want to kill anymore. I despise what I’ve become. I want a way out, but I can’t kill myself. I have a family. There’s no way out for me unless you tell me what to do.”

Stone didn’t look up. He swirled his mug.

Agneon sighed. “I should kill you and get it over with.”

“I doubt you would get very far.”

“You don’t know what I can do, old man.”

“Of course I do. I know who you are. I’ve heard the rumors. Many know your name, even if they don’t survive a run-in with you. I’m surprised they let you in here.”

“Me, too. I think everyone’s too drunk to recognize me.”

“Yet they could any minute. Do you have a death wish?”

Agneon hesitated. “I don’t know.”

Stone grinned. “I hear a yes.”

“My wife is pregnant. I can’t leave her.”

The elder isen sighed. “Ours is not the best life for a family. I had an adopted son, once. I outlived him.”

“I’m sorry to hear it.”

“It’s quite all right. We still talk sometimes.”

Agneon glanced over to Stone, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Kara laughed. Her mentor must have visited the Grimoire in the centuries before she found it. She doubted the Vagabond ever appeared for him, but Stone probably talked to the chained book anyway.

“You’re a little odd, aren’t you?” Agneon finally asked.

Stone grinned. “You speak your mind. I can admire that.”

“Do you admire me enough to tell me how you escaped Niccoli?”

“I stole a drenowith’s soul.”

Agneon flinched, as if surprised asking a direct question had worked. “Wait, what?”

“That’s how I broke my tie to Niccoli. I stole a drenowith’s soul. He can’t control you if you’re stronger than him.”

“And how did you steal a muse’s soul?”

“The trick is to make it trust you.”

“Well, ain’t it that easy,” Agneon said with a snort.

Stone shrugged. “You asked. I answered.”

Agneon downed the last of his beer and scooted the mug closer to the bartender. “I still have to kill you, you know. An order’s an order.”

“It is.”

“I’ll do it next time.”

Stone nodded and stood. “I can live with that agreement. But boy, watch out for your child. What we are is inherited, as is your—well, gift. If your kid has power even remotely like yours, Niccoli will want your child same as he wants you. He will want your children more than he wants anyone else, and he’ll turn everything you love into leverage if he has to.”

The smile faded from Agneon’s face. “I know, old man.”

The warm glow of the bar snapped away. The dark office returned. She leaned back in her chair and shook her head, a grin stuck to the corners of her mouth. Relief sent a rush of adrenaline straight down to her toes—at least it hadn’t been a violent memory. She sighed.

Three memories down, and a whole second story to go.

After going through the memories in the office, Kara didn’t even bother keeping track of time. At some point, the gray sunlight faded. Stone came in and handed her a lit candle in a lantern before returning to his place on the porch, all without saying a word.

Kara explored nearly every room—all except the one with the trail of dried blood coming from it. As a child, her mother slept beside Agneon’s office, her bedroom complete with white wicker furniture and stuffed animals. The chamber next to Ellen’s was Miriam’s personal space, filled with books and sewing materials. The room between that and the blood-soaked door was an armory.

The second story contained much darker memories than Kara prepared for. She witnessed Miriam cross-stitching while Agneon lay in her lap, confessing his recent murders. The woman had grimaced, but remained silent. Kara also pressed herself against the wall in yet another memory, when Agneon screamed at the top of his lungs in his armory, his anger boiling over after a recent battle. He’d killed families. Mothers. Children—even one who looked remarkably like Ellen. He’d come home and sent the girls on a picnic only minutes before he hurled an axe into the armory wall.

Memory after memory sprang forth from the various objects upstairs, each more hateful than the last. It seemed like they got worse as Kara moved toward the blood-stained door. She wondered if the blood had been left on purpose, to steer her toward the office first. But now, Kara stood before the last door, her lantern’s candlelight casting flickers on the paneled wood. Part of her didn’t trust herself with a candle after her episode in her own study, but it wasn’t as if she had a flashlight. She could probably make one of those explode, too.

Her grip on the lantern’s handle tightened. She steadied herself with a deep breath and straightened her back.

Here goes nothing.

She reached for the polished handle, and a pang of relief shot through her that no blood managed to get on the doorknob. The door creaked open at her touch. The lantern’s flickers swept into the darkness, bringing the shadows to life. A mirror on the opposite wall snatched the candlelight and shot it across the room. The corners of a dresser popped into view. Near its feet, a shattered vase and wilted flowers lay on the floor in a circle of carpet one shade darker than the rest. The posts of a bed appeared beside the broken vase, a white down comforter across the mattress. Though exhaustion tugged at Kara’s eyes, she wouldn’t dream of lying down in her grandparents’ bed.

Carpet fibers muffled her footsteps as she walked in. She peeked back at the smeared blood on the hallway wall and followed it inside. It wrapped around the doorframe and slid to the carpet. Halfway up the wall and shy of the smear was a bloodstain the size of a torso. Drip lines covered the stain, blurring its edges.