Treason: Book Two of the Grimoire Saga (a Young Adult Fantasy series) (14 page)

But how—?

“You will find your way home to me,” Carden said.

A small, black creature with a large head and a long tail crawled onto Carden’s shoulder. With yet another
crack
, Carden disappeared, leaving behind only a small cloud of smoke.

Someone screamed. Actually, several people screamed. Some yelled, but Braeden closed his eyes. He still couldn’t move. Eventually, the screams faded until only a dull murmur echoed through the massive room.

After a few moments, his fingers twitched. He smiled and moved them. He curled his toes in his boots and sighed with relief as they obeyed. Out of instinct, he shrank back into his Hillsidian form. Gasps and murmurs echoed in his mind.

“Traitor!” Gavin yelled from somewhere in the crowd of bodies.

Braeden flinched at the word and opened his eyes. He pulled himself gingerly against the wall as Gavin barreled toward him.

“Coward! LIAR!” Gavin screamed.

Pebbles cascaded from the roof as the Hillsidian’s voice echoed through the hall. Partygoers stood back to let Gavin through.

“For twelve years you have lied to me and to my family, and here you will pay your debt for our kindness!”

Braeden could barely move. Gavin donned his daru, and green thorns pushed from his pores as he drew his sword. Vines pulsed over his skin, wrapping around him, shielding him like armor until all that could be seen of the Blood were his blazing green eyes. Hillsidians standing nearby dropped to the floor, unable to stand without the strength he sucked from them.

Gavin cocked his sword over his shoulder. Judging by the angle, Braeden guessed Gavin planned to simply cut off his head. Even though it wasn’t a Sartori—Carden still had Gavin’s Sartori blade—it would likely work.

Braeden’s wounds still needed time to heal. He didn’t stand a chance against a Blood as healthy as Gavin. He could let Gavin end him. He could finally be done with Ourea, with politics, and with all the lies.

A memory of Kara’s smiling face flashed in his mind. He wasn’t done yet.

He took a deep breath. Turning to his own daru was the only way to defend himself, so he let his anger and his shame take him, too. His skin rippled with heat, and the raw power for which he would never openly admit he lusted tore through him. He conjured a black sword from the air and gripped it. The thing blazed like his skin.

Gavin swung. Though Braeden couldn’t move from his space by the wall, he parried the attack. Metal clanged as Gavin’s blade hit the solid energy in Braeden’s sword. Bystanders flinched. Braeden managed to parry two more blows before his elbow shook and the last of his strength dissolved. His sword shattered with a
hiss
and evaporated into a cloud of steam.

Gavin kicked him in his gut. Braeden doubled over. He forced himself to look up at Gavin, but the king wouldn’t look him in the eye. Gavin set his sword on Braeden’s neck, likely aiming for the final blow.

Braeden couldn’t move. He’d pushed his body to its limit, and now it only shook and twitched as he tried to roll out of the way. All he wanted was to escape and find Kara, but the last flame of Braeden’s resilience flickered out in a heavy dose of shame. He would always be the enemy. As Gavin lifted his sword, Braeden didn’t even put up his hand to block the final strike.

But Kara did.

Gavin stopped mid-swing as Kara stepped in front of Braeden without a word. Her mess of blond hair and the torn shreds of her dress appeared out of nowhere. She faced the Hillsidian, her loose curls and arched back blocking Braeden’s view of the king.

“Get out of the way,” Gavin spat.

“No,” she said, her voice calm.

“He’s a Stelian!”

“I know.”

Gavin cursed. “How long have you known?”

“That’s irrelevant. The point is killing Braeden would be a mistake.”

“He’s a traitor. If you don’t move, I’ll take you down with him.”

She crossed her arms. “That’s enough! He has always been loyal to you. He saved your life tonight. Carden would have killed you!”

“His father killed Mother!”

Gavin raised a hand to brush her out of the way, but a blue light pulsed through Kara’s fingers. It struck him in the chest as he touched her and shot him backward into the growing crowd of onlookers.

Kara arched her back. “
Braeden
didn’t kill her. There’s a distinction.”

“This is your last—”

“You would never sleep again, Gavin, knowing you killed the
brother
who has always protected you.”

No one spoke. A distant humming echoed in the silent hall. Gavin stood, and Braeden could see him now—he glared at Kara as if he wished he could kill her, too. She didn’t flinch, even as Gavin brushed past her.

Gavin knelt and whispered in Braeden’s ear. “Having your life is more mercy than you deserve. I think your shame will be punishment enough until your trial.”

The king walked off and signaled into the crowd of nearby bodies, but Braeden didn’t realize why until Captain Demnug shuffled forward with a set of spiked shackles.

“That isn’t necessary,” Braeden managed to say.

“I must,” Demnug said without looking him in the eye.

Braeden’s old friend knelt beside him and waited for Braeden to offer his wrists. Braeden sighed. In his state, he couldn’t run. If he did somehow manage to escape, Kara would likely become leverage to lure him back. Gavin evidentially knew there was something brewing between them.

A broken bone popped back into place somewhere in Braeden’s arm. He stifled a groan but lifted his hands to the captain in surrender.

Demnug snapped one cuff onto Braeden’s wrist in a fluid motion. The spikes bit into Braeden’s skin. Pain tore through his arm. He flinched and sucked in a sharp breath. Black blood snaked down his arm from the holes around the handcuffs’ barbs.

The captain snapped the other shackle into place. The agony doubled. Braeden tried not to yell. His veins burned from the poison in the spikes. Ringing boomed in his ears.

He looked up to see Kara watching him from beside Gavin. She stood so close—only a dozen feet off. She leaned forward, as if she wanted to run to him, but Gavin grabbed her arm and pulled her back. She flinched at Gavin’s grip, but smiled nonetheless when Braeden caught her eye.

Despite the pain and humiliation he’d endured in the last few minutes, Braeden’s heart lifted the barest inch from where it lay at the pit of his stomach. Kara would be all right, and he had nearly disobeyed a mandate from Carden. He didn’t know it was possible to resist at all. The thrill of hope shot through him again. If he survived whatever came next, perhaps he could find a way to disobey his father entirely.

A Hillsidian guard shoved Kara into her room. She stumbled and leaned against a wall, balancing Flick in her hands. She had pulled her still-unconscious pet from his hiding place moments before Gavin assigned a guard to watch her.

The guard shifted in the doorway. “We leave in a few hours, Vagabond. Pack your things. You are not to leave this room. I will give you five minutes to change, but you are to otherwise be supervised at all times.”

He left and closed the door behind him without waiting for an answer.

The Bloods’ presents to her littered the bed. Someone must have put them on her bed during the Gala before all hell broke loose. Kara sat beside the boxes and laid Flick on a pillow before she buried her face in her hands.

What a disaster. Standing up to Gavin might have saved Braeden’s life, but it had been political suicide. She had become a prisoner, an accomplice to the secret Braeden kept from the world for so long. She hadn’t seen the other Bloods on her way to her room, but she could only imagine they would be as furious as Gavin.

She could teleport Braeden out of trouble when Flick woke up, but that wouldn’t prove anything. It would make her a fugitive, effectively undoing everything she’d achieved. So she had to be delicate. She had to do this the Bloods’ way and make them see reason.

Kara took a deep breath and forced herself to her feet. She couldn’t wallow in self-pity. She had to change, after all—if she waited, she would have an audience.

Two guards tossed Braeden into a prison cell beneath the head table where he’d sat hours earlier. Gavin strode through the throng of soldiers gathered at the door.

“Leave,” he ordered.

The guards bowed and obeyed. Within seconds, the prison door closed, and Gavin strode deeper into the cell. He knelt and reached for a chain around Braeden’s neck—the chain on which Braeden kept an ornate golden key that could open the lichgate into Hillside.

Gavin yanked on the key. Its chain snapped, slinking into the king’s hand, and he stuffed it in his pocket. Braeden’s neck stung where the clasp had broken, but he didn’t flinch.

“Hillside is no longer your home,” Gavin said.

Braeden shook his head. “I’ve only ever protected Hillside. Why should what I am matter, Gavin?”

The king put his hands behind his back and grimaced. “You lied to my family for over a decade. Of course that matters! You should be ashamed of yourself, Braeden. And look at you, still in your Hillsidian form. It’s insulting. Change!”

“I wish you hadn’t found out this way, but I won’t change. This is who I am, brother.”

“Don’t call me brother.”

“I’ve done so for twelve years. Why should that be any different now?”

“Because you’re a liar! Why would you lie to us for so long?”

“Because I knew this is how you’d react!” Braeden’s voice echoed through the cell and down the hallway.

Gavin shook his head and rubbed his temples. “The Heir of Kirelm is gone, as is the Heir and Queen of Losse. What part did you play in that? Were you so desperately pushing the Vagabond’s agenda in a ploy to get all the Bloods in one place?”

Braeden shook his head, but the movement sent a wave of exhaustion through him. He needed sleep. His legs and neck and arms all ached.

“Stop lying!” Gavin shouted.

“I’m not! Did you forget that I came to Hillside when I was twelve? I was escaping Carden, not working for him!”

“Stelians are dishonorable,” the king said with a growl.

Gavin kicked him in the stomach. Braeden fell to the stone floor and curled around his gut, but the agony doubled as the poison barred his body from healing.

“That’s right. You don’t heal so quickly when you’re chained, do you?” Gavin asked.

He laughed and kicked Braeden again. The pain swelling in Braeden’s core blocked out all thought in his mind.

“What do you know of this attack?” Gavin asked.

“Nothing!”

Another kick hit Braeden in the side. Ribs cracked.

“What do you know!”

“
Bloods!
Nothing!”

Thorn-covered vines pushed through the rocks at Braeden’s feet, bending with every move of Gavin’s hands as the king controlled them. They shot toward Braeden and wrapped around his neck, pinning him against the wall. Their spines bit into his skin, and more black blood dripped down his suit.

More of Braeden’s energy faded with each breath, but he would use the last of it to keep his Hillsidian form even if it meant dying. If he died here, it would be as he saw himself.

Gavin knelt. “This is your last chance to tell me what you know about the attack.”

“Nothing,” Braeden muttered, weak.

The vines unwound themselves and retreated back into the earth. Braeden sighed with relief. Gavin stepped back and brushed the dust from his ripped suit.

“I suppose we’re lucky no more were taken,” Gavin said.

Braeden suppressed a laugh. “You mean you’re lucky Evelyn wasn’t taken.”

“I didn’t say—”

“You don’t need to. I’ve known for years, but I kept your secret because you were my
brother.
”—Braeden spat out the word, hating it—“You’ve already trapped Evelyn, so don’t drag Kara into this spiteful pit you call a life! Whatever plans you have for her, stop!”

“You will stay away from the Vagabond,” Gavin ordered.

“I won’t. You’re using her, just like you use everyone around you. Leave her out of this.”

Gavin knelt again until he met Braeden’s eye. “She could never love you. You’re pathetic. Your father’s stunt has cost the kingdoms what little faith we had in each other. The Bloods blame me for their losses. Me! After the month I spent securing this place, the only possible reason Stelians could have gotten through is because you told them where to look.”