Lichgates: Book One of the Grimoire Saga (an Epic Fantasy Adventure) (19 page)

“You know, of all the places in Hillside, I was pretty surprised that you came here,” he said.

“Why?”

“This is where I used to come to be alone. I doubt that anyone knows about it, not even Gavin. I always find the noise comforting.”

The coursing water rushed over them, its echo reverberating through the rock as if to prove his point.

He cleared his throat. “I also apologize if I was curt with you down at the lake. I had a lot on my mind.”

She sighed. “It didn’t help that I was trying to pry into your life. It’s not my business, so I guess I’m sorry, too. We’re even.”

“That works for me.”

“So how did you find me?”

“I track things for a living.”

“Ah, right.”

The rush of the waterfall overtook the small cavity. In the hush, Kara’s mind shifted everywhere: the cave and its dank honeydew smell; Twin, sopping wet and screaming that there was no bringing the dead back; her mother’s hand releasing its grip seconds before the hospital heart monitor flat lined. Kara’s cheeks flushed more with each passing image, so she grasped desperately for the next available memory: her conversation with the Vagabond.

There were three more pieces to that map, and finding the old ghost’s village was as good a distraction from the pain as any. It was purpose and a sense of direction. If the other kingdoms wanted her to visit anyway, it was the perfect chance to find the map corners without letting anyone know what she was doing.

At some point while she was lost in thought, Braeden had closed his eyes. A thin smile played on his lips as the water roared over them. He might not be able to go to the kingdoms with her, but at the very least, he might have some advice.

She opened her mouth to tell him about the map, but her words fell flat. Her gut twisted at the thought telling anyone about the village. The hair on her neck tingled, just as it had when she’d found the Grimoire.

She held her tongue.

“You okay?” he asked, eyes still closed.

“Not really.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really,” she repeated.

“Would you rather be alone?”

“No. Sort of.” She sighed. “Yes.”

“I’ll leave you, then.”

He shuffled out of the cave, the retreating crunch of his footsteps adding to Kara’s lullaby of rushing water and crickets and wind.

The Grimoire shook from its place on the floor. Its cover parted when she glanced over to it, as if something was wedged beneath its pages, so she flipped it open. A wrinkled handkerchief lay on a blank page, a plain “V” stitched into its corner.

“Thanks,” she said. The knot in her throat tightened as she picked it up, and memories flooded back to her without warning.

Her mother had already looked like a corpse in the ICU, with all of those hoses and tubes keeping her alive. Kara’s hand ached from her mom’s unconscious grip, but that wasn’t the punishment. The real torture came when she woke up and tried desperately to speak, even though her mouth was always too dry. When she looked around, she’d seen everything and recognized nothing.

Kara didn’t know which of her parents’ deaths hurt her more. Her dad’s face had contorted in unimaginable pain when Deidre stole his soul. The expression hadn’t faded, even when he was a corpse on the living room carpet. She didn’t know how, but he’d somehow controlled the isen long enough to tell her he loved her.

That, she had not deserved.

Twin asked me what my most influential memory was, but I have no idea. It has to be Mom or Dad dying, but how could I possibly pick one?

She leaned back against the rock wall and closed her eyes, rubbing her temples. Maybe it wasn’t something she could choose for herself.

Sleep came without much of a warning, circling her mind until she pressed her cheek deep into the smooth boulder she’d so unknowingly borrowed from Braeden. Her last fleeting thought before she slept wasn’t about Twin or her mom or even her dad. As she let the exhaustion take her, she realized she’d forgotten to ask the Vagabond for his real name.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

THE WATERFALL

When Kara woke still in the cave behind the waterfall, she covered her eyes with a hand to shield them from the blinding sun. She lay on the floor, the handkerchief stained and stretched over the Grimoire as if it was a pillow. The waterfall diluted the sun into a haze as she looked out on the brilliant morning. She shoved the handkerchief into her pocket and rubbed the clover pendant to wish the Grimoire back into the stone.

The day was even brighter when she ducked out onto the path and hiked back to the cliff. Empty forests loomed on all sides, and as she looked around, she started to wonder if Braeden really had left. That was, at least, until she found him asleep on a boulder the size of a car.

He sat up and rubbed his eye. “You might not want to walk much farther. I always set quite a few traps before I sleep on a rock.”

“Do you often sleep on rocks?”

“Sadly, yes.” He laughed and offered her a seat beside him.

“I hope I didn’t worry anyone,” she said, pulling herself up onto the boulder.

“Of course you worried people. You’re the Vagabond. You’re priceless. Richard almost rallied the army. The Queen had to assure everyone that you were safe as long as I found you.”

Exhaustion stung the skin around her eyes, so she didn’t respond. She was flattered and insulted all at once at being considered “priceless.” She wanted to say something, anything, but every time she looked up, the sun made her eyes sting and water. Relief pooled in her temples whenever she closed her eyes. He set a warm hand on her back.

“Did something happen yesterday, Kara?”

She wanted to rest her head on his arm and just go back to sleep, but she leaned back on her palms instead. When she didn’t answer, Braeden brushed her shoulder with his. She glanced over and shook her head.

He nodded and slid off the boulder without another word, offering her a hand once he was on the ground. She took it and slid off as well, but he motioned for her to wait as he took a few steps toward the forest. The woods were quiet. Besides the rushing waterfall, there weren’t any sounds. The birds didn’t sing, and even the wind had disappeared overnight.

He lifted a hand to the forest and bowed his head. Sharp hisses sprang from the underbrush in response, and the bushes rustled. Gray light snaked through the trees. The silence broke all at once. Birds chirped, and leaves scraped each other as if on cue.

“What was that?” she asked.

“Those were the traps I mentioned. I needed to release them, so that no one would run across them later on accident.”

“What happens if someone gets caught in one of them?”

“That isn’t something you want to know,” he said. He forced a smile and led the way back to Hillside.

No one in the castle acknowledged that Kara had disappeared for a night without telling anyone why. No one asked what made her run off, or even mentioned that she’d left at all. Braeden assured her this was out of respect for her privacy, but when she went to the dining hall, the averted glances of the soldiers suggested something more. The conversation lulled when she passed, and more than one Hillsidian stretched across two places, making their half-filled tables seem full. So, in the week after that first breakfast back at the castle, she brought her meals to the waterfall and spent her time training by Braeden’s boulder.

Each morning, the sun would break through her open curtains and illuminate the small gift that always appeared overnight: a small satchel filled with fruits, cheeses, and a water flask. She never questioned it and hoped it came from Twin, who had vanished. No one else appeared to replace her.

A week dragged by. Kara pried more secrets from the Grimoire while in her solitude, using the isolation to master the flame. She then graduated to fireballs and an intense technique she called sparklers, which set the ends of her hair on fire the first time she tried it.

The waterfall served as her backdrop as she meditated, read, and practiced; with each new technique, her panic at what Ourea expected of her as its last vagabond ebbed ever-so-slightly. The Grimoire seemed to prefer lectures to lessons, unfortunately, and in her studies, she read more magical theories than she had time to practice. Still, it was valuable.

Magic had nothing to do with spells and structured law, but was more a mastery of focusing her mind on a certain task and bending energy to control it. It was tiresome. She often walked back to the castle before the sun set just so that she could sleep, always slipping through the halls to avoid any communication on the way back to her room.

On her eighth day of the solitary lessons, Braeden caught her attention as she walked through the door by the orchard on her way to the waterfall. She sighed. She still didn’t want any company, even his.

“Can I join you?” he asked, grabbing her satchel from her arm without waiting for her answer. He snatched a roll from its depths and took a bite.

“I—hey, don’t eat my food! And no offense, but I’d rather be alone.”

“Be nice.” He nudged her and grinned. “If you let me come, I’ll show you a magic trick.”

“Which one?”

“Come on.” He winked, but didn’t answer her question as he jogged along the trail toward the waterfall with her food and water, leaving her little option but to follow.

He slowed to a walk as she came up beside him, but they didn’t talk for a fair bit of the way. Birds chirped in the twittering forest, hidden in the canopy, and now and again one would dive into the underbrush beside the trail. The woods were sprightly today, the trees doing their lively dance with the wind. Little rodents with bushy tails as long as their brown bodies raced across branches, but she stopped herself from assuming that they were squirrels. Considering the other creatures she’d already met in Ourea, the little squirrel-things could probably breathe fire or something. She kept away from them.

“Why have you kept to yourself this week?” Braeden asked. The breeze rustled his hair. He kept one hand in his pocket and wrapped the satchel’s strap around the other as he moved closer to her.

“I like being alone,” she said.

“Something tells me that isn’t true.”

She shrugged. The distant roar of the waterfall started as they turned a corner in the trail.

“I hope this doesn’t seem rude, but you should remember that you’re the Vagabond,” he said. “Most of the kingdom hasn’t even seen you. You’re supposed to be shaking hands and—well, what’s the phrase? You should be out kissing babies.”

“I don’t like kids.”

He laughed. “That’s not quite what I meant.”

“I know.”

They took a bend in the trail and the waterfall loomed in front of them, its mist rising as the day warmed. Braeden set her satchel on the boulder, but she picked it up and slung the bag over her shoulder. She missed her hiking pack; it was a thing of comfort to have some weight on her back.

“So, what’s this magic trick you said you were going to show me?” she asked. She rolled up her sleeves as the sun climbed higher and toasted her skin.

“It’s called blades. Have you learned it? You make an arrow from the air around you.”

“Nope. Will you show me?”

“Gladly.”

He faced the woods and pressed his fingers together, settling his hands close to his chest. The breeze picked up as if in response to his movement and blew harder when he turned his fingers away from his body. His hands shook for a second, as if he was trying to steady them in an earthquake. A ripple of air shot from his fingers with a sharp hiss. It broke through a limb on a tree and sent the branch crashing to the ground.

“That’s so cool!” She laughed, clapping before she set her hands in front of her to mimic him.

“Whoa! Hey, now.” He shuffled out of her way before she realized that she’d been aiming at him.

He stepped behind her, wrapping his fingers around her wrists so that he could angle her toward the forest. Her heart skipped a beat. She held her breath and tried to tell herself that she was just nervous about performing magic in front of someone.

“Keep your arms relaxed and focus on your fingers. Pull the air toward you,” he said, his voice low.