Treason: Book Two of the Grimoire Saga (a Young Adult Fantasy series) (18 page)

“When Kara first found the Grimoire, it gave her only a basic understanding of this world. She had to discover Ourea for herself, and in doing so, she saw the truth to which you are blind. But my book did tell her this: the power she has been given must be used to protect those that need it, not those who quarrel. She loves and respects all life. That is what it means to be a vagabond; of that, you cowards are afraid.

“You, Ithone,” she continued.

Braeden’s heart skipped a beat at the lack of a title before the Blood’s name. The first Vagabond must have been furious.

Kara pointed to Ithone as she spoke. “Your ancestors killed my vagabonds all those centuries ago. If any in this room owes me kindness, it is you. The griffin you think I stole came to me willingly and is a friend. I did not steal him; he would simply not return to you.

“Frine”—she turned her attention to the blue yakona—“you,
not
your ancestors, tried to kidnap my only surviving vagabond in an effort to weigh her as leverage in your petty political duel with Kirelm. You would not be here if the drenowith had not reminded you of your debts to them. That, to me, is true shame.

“And you, Gavin”—she turned to the Blood trapped in his chair—“youngest of them all, you have failed most of any. He who would kill his own brother, adopted or no, is one I refuse to protect. Braeden is the only reason you are alive, and you know this. Yet, you weigh his fate as if you deserve to do so.”

Gavin fought in his chair but couldn’t break free. “Kill them both!”

The Blood’s fury channeled into his soldiers as he controlled them. The Hillsidian guards along each wall turned with the same expression of disgust and rage as their king. Soon, the soldiers of Kirelm and Losse joined suit in the attack. Only the Ayavelian soldiers remained along the wall.

“Kara, you have to get out of here!” Braeden said.

She didn’t move as the guards charged. Instead, she lifted her hands out firmly beside her. The air around her whipped to life. Soldiers flew backward into the wall, just as Demnug had minutes earlier.

As the guards regrouped, Kara twisted her palms to the floor. The flawless tile along the room’s edges fell into whatever lay beneath the throne room. The ground shook, and the entire castle trembled from the force. Dust fell from the roof and walls. Guards screamed and cursed. Thuds echoed from the ground dozens of feet below.

The dust settled, though bits of tile still rained from overhead. Most of the throne room survived; even in her rage, Kara had been careful with Aislynn’s beautiful palace—or, at least, as careful as she could.

Kara grinned and looked over at Gavin. The Blood sat in his chair, no longer struggling. He took deep and steady breaths and leaned as far from her as he could with his limited mobility.

“Compromise,” she ordered.

He looked down to Braeden, but didn’t respond.

After a few moments, Ithone spoke instead. “You said you could return my daughter to me, Stelian. How would you do such a thing?”

The poison in Braeden’s blood zapped more energy with every second, but he forced himself to answer. “I know the Stele by heart.”

“If you rescue my daughter, I will forgive your lies. Especially after such a vote of confidence,” Ithone added with a glance to Kara.

“As would I, should you return my Queen and my son,” Frine said, watching Kara with wide eyes.

The few yakona still above ground turned to Gavin, who twisted in his chair at their scrutiny.

“Blood Gavin?” Aislynn asked, her lips twitching in what seemed like a painful effort to hide a smile.

He gritted his teeth. “I’m warning you, Braeden. Cross us and you will not live long. You have two weeks to bring the three lost ones back, so I suggest you leave quickly.”

Braeden nodded.

Kara shook her head but released the chair’s hold on Gavin seconds before Demnug climbed out of the hole. With a nod from his king, the captain released the shackles from Braeden’s wrists.

Braeden sighed with relief and knelt on the floor as the day-old wounds began to heal. The black blood pooled in his scars until his olive skin grafted over and all signs of the spikes were gone. Inwardly, though, he was still weak.

He looked up in time to catch Kara as she turned to each of the Bloods and locked eyes with them. Her eyes narrowed, each glare making its victim lean back in his or her seat. The Vagabond must have taken over every ounce of Kara’s body to channel this much power.

“Do not make me return,” she commanded.

She turned to Braeden, her hands shaking. He glanced down—her knees shook as well. It seemed as though the first Vagabond was losing his grip on Kara’s mind.

“We must go,” she said.

He nodded, and Demnug led them from the room without a word. Braeden toyed with what to say, but no words could articulate his gratitude. He owed Kara and the first Vagabond his life.

The three of them turned into the hall and walked a short ways before Kara glanced over her shoulder, as if checking to make sure they were alone.

“Good luck,” she said.

With that, her eyes snapped out of focus and rolled into the back of her head. She fell through the dissolving black wisps of the cape that had engulfed her, and Braeden caught her just before she hit the hard stone floor. His limbs buckled, still weak from the cuffs’ poison, and he fell to the ground under her.

Demnug knelt beside them. “What happened?”

Braeden just shook his head. He tried to lift Kara in his arms, but with all he had suffered in the last two days, he couldn’t. Demnug reached out and picked up Kara instead, so that Braeden could walk. He smiled, and Braeden grinned back at his old friend before the captain headed off again down the hallway.

They turned a few corners, but every step left Braeden dragging his feet a little more. Demnug glanced back and nodded to the next door on the right. Braeden nodded and followed him into a bedroom, where the captain laid Kara on a bed.

“I’m glad to have you back, Master Braeden,” Demnug said with a grin.

Braeden smiled. “I never left, and stop using that stupid title.”

Demnug smirked and stepped out of the room, closing the door behind him.

A little more strength inched into Braeden’s limbs with each passing moment. It would be a day before he would be fit to travel, but he had to leave now. Two weeks was not enough time to infiltrate the Stele and rescue three royals.

Despite the panic swirling in his gut as he tried to formulate a plan, he pulled a chair beside the bed and held Kara’s hand. He massaged her palm with his thumbs, wishing he had something to say even though he knew she couldn’t hear.

A floorboard creaked behind him. He whirled around. Adele leaned against the window, gazing out on the late morning sun.

“When did you get here?” he asked.

“I saw enough. You cannot wait much longer, Braeden.”

“I can wait a few hours, right?”

“No. She will be out for quite some time. I have witnessed a powerful channeling like that before, and it is not an easy recovery. I assume that each time she has channeled the Vagabond thus far, it has been a minor act. Until today, he has not used much of her power.” Adele paused. “She thinks highly of you to risk such a thing.”

Braeden nodded, but he didn’t know what to say. He didn’t move.

Adele sat on the bed beside Kara. She leaned closer to Braeden until he had to look at her. “Greatness is not an inheritance. It is discovered fault by fault, and it is earned. You, more than anyone I have seen in a thousand years, have the potential for true greatness.”

“I hope you’re right,” he said.

“I wish Garrett could join you, but he is distracting the council from my absence. I will stay with Kara until she awakes, and we will meet you at the village once you succeed.”

Braeden toyed with the small amulet in his pocket, but didn’t answer.

“You
will
succeed,” she added.

The muse stood and crossed to the window, no doubt to give Braeden a moment alone with the girl who saved his life. He lifted Kara’s limp hand and kissed the palm, hesitating to savor the warmth of her skin as his fingers curled in hers.

It took effort, but he set her hand on the bed and forced himself to stand. He strode from the room without looking back and left her in Adele’s care.

In the days following the trial, Kara dreamed only once. She was seven and wanted a bedtime story. Her mother tucked her in and crawled into bed with her. They lay there, reading
Where the Wild Things Are
with a flashlight.

It was only a flash of memory, gone in an instant in Kara’s unconscious state, but it made her smile nonetheless. 

Four days had passed since Braeden’s trial.

He took a deep breath and listened. In this series of caves along the outskirts of the Stele, there was nothing to do
but
listen. The dark grottoes were a labyrinth, an endless network of tunnels and hallways littered with the occasional abandoned dwelling carved ages ago into the rock. Guards once used these forgotten rooms as homes or defense posts, as the grottoes used to be the unofficial back entrance to the Stele, but they were abandoned when the feihl moved in.

Braeden shuddered. He’d encountered a feihl as a boy, when he’d gone into the grottoes on a dare and found a wounded one curled into a small cave. Something had ripped the creature’s right side open. Dark red blood pooled beneath it in what Braeden had assumed was its dying place. Even wounded and waiting to die, the thing had nearly taken off his arm.

The feihl were ancient creatures, ugly as sin and just as mean. Their long, scaly bodies usually grew to about fifteen feet long on average, though rumor was they got bigger with each generation. Each creature had dozens of feet and poisonous venom in its saliva, but it was the thing’s face Braeden most remembered: two slits in its round head served as a nose that hovered over a lipless mouth with rows of endless, razor-sharp teeth.

Little food ever roamed the old cave network, so most believed a feihl could make a meal last for days. It supposedly kept its prey alive until only the essential organs remained—dessert.

Braeden had no intention of meeting one of those monsters again. Ever.

If he remembered correctly, the creatures even made Carden nervous. That meant the caves would work as an undetected passage to and from the kingdom. Well, Braeden hoped so. It was still a pretty big gamble.

Because feihl had no distinct smell, he’d never sense one coming. They could even crawl on the ceilings and could likely see in the dark. He was in
their
territory. His only warning would be the scuffle of their feet along the rock, and he wasn’t even sure what he’d do when he heard it.

So he listened.

He’d been traveling through the caves at a painfully slow pace, walking with such care that he couldn’t even hear his own steps. It was a tiring game that wore on his nerves, but he had little choice in the matter. Any faster and he would probably be dead within an hour.

Braeden’s hand slipped into his pocket as he checked for the Stelian talisman again. The small black square brushed his fingers, cold as ever, but his heart slowed with relief as he touched the stone. The sharp detail from the thorns in the Stele’s coat of arms scratched his skin, but it wasn’t enough to break the surface.

He took slow, steady breaths that went unheard on the air, but he’d still expected to hear shuffling, or at the very least, dripping water somewhere far off. Instead, the silence weighed in on him—so quiet, so still, that he occasionally toyed with the fleeting fear he’d lost his hearing.

That
quiet.

Something was wrong. Sure, stealth came naturally to him, but he wasn’t that good. He shifted his mind off the growing unease by listening to the kingdom that would someday be his.

The Stele offered all its subjects protection, but the grounds spoke to Braeden. He knew every inch of the black forest and every dead end of the caves through which he walked. It was instinct. He and the kingdom had always shared a connection, one he guessed it had shared with every royal before him as well—even Carden.

As much as Braeden hated to admit it, the Stele was his home.

His instinct drove him now, weaving through tunnel after tunnel with a sense of direction that didn’t come from experience. He’d never been this far into the tunnels before and only found their entrance by circling the Stele’s perimeter until the grottoes presented themselves. His plan was one of impulse, which meant he didn’t really have a plan at all.

A nagging fear in the pit of his stomach brought his feet to a halt before he could question himself. Something shuffled farther down the tunnel.

The patter of a hundred feet came from somewhere just ahead. A growl rumbled through the corridor, and it was all Braeden could do to not reach for his sword. If he stood still, the creature might think of him as an extension of the wall instead of food.

The whispering shuffle of feet grew louder, and he swore his racing pulse would give him away. He took one last breath as the thing approached. His fingers itched to grab his sword.