Lichgates: Book One of the Grimoire Saga (an Epic Fantasy Adventure) (20 page)

Water misted on the backs of her arms, carried by a strong gust that flew along the falls and tangled her hair. The wind poured over her hands and ducked through her palms. Her muscles tensed.

“Don’t be frustrated if—”

Braeden’s words were cut off by a dull thump in a nearby tree trunk. Kara jogged over to take a look.

The top layer of bark had been stripped away, leaving a small nick in the tree. The clean sliver of wooden skin lay on the grass, and the wind picked it up and carried it deeper into the forest.

“Darn.” She sighed and used the trunk to push herself to her feet. “That wasn’t nearly as good as yours.”

“I—” He pouted in a stunned silence before he laughed.

“What’s wrong?”

“It took me two months to do what you just achieved on your first try. That’s just not fair, Kara.”

“Oh. Sorry?”

He shrugged. “No, it’s a good thing. This one can help you out of almost any situation, and it might even impress the Kirelm Blood. He’s not easy to win over.”

“Have you met him?”

“No, but I have heard stories, and none of them are very flattering. Mind, few of them are actually from his people, but the Kirelm Blood isn’t very fond of women in positions of power. I’m curious to see what he thinks of you.”

“I caught that little compliment.” She poked his side. “You can’t get on my good side that easily.”

He grinned. “You watch. I’ll win you over.”

“So, are we supposed to go to Kirelm first?” she asked. It took an awkward, silent second before she remembered that he wasn’t going with her.

“Yes, you will be going to Kirelm first,” he answered. “I will be hunting isen in the nearby villages.”

“I forgot,” she said. “When are you supposed to leave?”

“Yesterday. There was a delay in my travel plans.”

“What was the delay?”

He just smiled. “Try again.”

“I, um—do you want me to rephrase the question?”

He laughed. “No, try the technique again.”

“So you’re not going to answer me?”

“No.”

She laughed along with him. “All right, then.”

Kara turned to face the trunk, locking her fingers and pointing them toward the tree. He took a step closer, looming in her peripheral vision.

“Try relaxing your fingers more this time,” he said, brushing his hand along hers to demonstrate. “Curve them, instead of locking them out like that. Focus your mind on your fingertips and pull the air itself into your palms. If you relax, you will be able to harness the energy in the elements instead of using your own. That way, you can fight longer. Just pull in the air and direct where you want it to go.”

Kara settled into her stance and set all of her weight on her heels. The wind whistled by her ear and shifted through her loose hair, tickling her neck as she took a deep breath and cleared her mind. A pulse blinked in her fingertips, but it wasn’t hers. It beat at a much slower pace.

She closed her eyes. The rhythm grew stronger, so she reached out to it with her mind and tried to breathe in a deep, steady pattern. Her veins boiled, and a shock raced through her body. The zing reminded her of the spark which had blown Deidre across the library. A hot breeze blew again over her shoulders, along her hands, and down through her palms.

Another thin ripple broke from her fingers and cut through the air, but it was much more prominent this time. Wood split with a sudden whack, like an axe hitting a tree. A white slice broke across the bark, visible even from where she stood a dozen feet away. She hadn’t cut anything in half, but Braeden’s expression would have suggested otherwise. She threw her hands in the air in victory.

“That is entirely unfair,” he muttered. “How can you improve so quickly?”

“I didn’t do it right, though,” she pointed out. “I didn’t cut anything in half.”

“I couldn’t even make the tiniest blade for ages,” he said, crossing his arms. “What else can you do?”

“I’ve been working on a few fire techniques,” she said, shrugging. “And I think I found another one that can let me control roots.”

“I guess I shouldn’t doubt anything about the Grimoire and its keeper.”

He ran a hand through his hair and leaned against the boulder. After a minute, he stood and began pacing, his black hair slightly brown in the sunlight as he looked out over the waterfall and its river below. He bit his cheek as he walked, but otherwise, his carefree face was smooth. There was no way of telling from a glance just how much of his life was a lie. She sighed.

“Braeden, I’ve been pretty selfish.”

“What? How?”

“You—” She stopped, uncertain of how to word what she wanted to say. “You’ve done so much to keep me safe, and I appreciate that. I figure that you must have plenty of questions for the Grimoire. I just want you to know that I’d be happy to ask it anything you wanted. It’s my way of saying thank you for everything.”

“Thank you, Kara. I admit that I do have a question for it, but it’s not safe to ask while in Hillside.” A shadow crossed his face, but he rubbed his neck and looked away before she could figure out what it meant.

“Oh,” she mused, glancing around the forest’s empty morning. “I thought this would be a safe place, though, if Gavin doesn’t even know about it.”

“We’re still in Hillside,” Braeden said. “You’re almost never alone, even when you’re certain no one else could be around.”

“Sure, but—”

“There you are, Vagabond!” a woman shouted from beyond a curve in the trail.

Kara jumped and turned to see Adele’s coppery skin as the muse walked along the trail toward them. Garrett was close behind, but while Adele walked with a smooth and carefree gait, his eyes flitted across the forest. His gaze would linger on a bush or in the canopy, his jaw clenched as he watched, before his eyes shifted again to examine the rest of the underbrush. He finally looked at Kara, settling his intense scrutiny on her. She curbed the impulse to shudder.

Adele smiled. “We have convinced the drenowith Council to meet with you. It was not an easy task, so we must take you there now, before minds change.”

“Where is it?” Braeden stopped pacing, his hand suddenly resting on the hilt of his sword. He was calm, but his smile was gone, and he rubbed his thumb on the handle. Kara balked. Where had the sudden tension come from?

“We have discussed your joining us, prince,” Garrett answered. “And you may. However, you may not come into the Council.”

“But—”

“There is no debating this,” Garrett interrupted. “It’s not your world, Braeden, and you aren’t welcome there. It took us this long to even convince them to see Kara. Verum would never allow you as well.”

“Is Verum really someone’s name?” Kara interjected. She stepped between the men and nudged Braeden’s shoulder in what she hoped was a subtle warning for him to relax.

“It’s more his purpose than his name,” Adele answered, glaring at Garrett. “There are three sides to every story: yours, your foe’s, and the truth. Verum always knows the truth. The Council wants to see your intentions before they will make any further decisions regarding you.”

“What decision do they have to make? I don’t matter to them.”

“The Grimoire matters to everyone, Kara, as does its keeper,” Adele corrected. “Even those as old as the dirt have something to learn.”

“We will take you, but we must blindfold you both.” Garrett cupped one hand and reached into it the other one, like a magician pulling cards out of his sleeves. Instead of cards, though, he pulled two red silk scarves from the air.

“Braeden, you must stay hidden once we arrive,” Adele said. “The Council can never know that you were there.”

“I may not know much about drenowith, but I’d imagine it’s a crime to lie to your Council,” Braeden said. “Why should I hide?”

“Sometimes one must disobey in order to protect those who simply don’t yet understand,” Garrett retorted, glaring at the prince whose hand wound ever-tighter around his sword. Kara wondered who would win if they fought, though she was fairly certain Braeden would lose in a matter of minutes.

“Come,” Adele said. She turned up the trail, her hair billowing behind her, but Garrett stood motionless.

Kara finally set her hand on Braeden’s arm. He snapped his head toward her, his eyes even darker than before, but his gaze melted ever-so-slightly when he saw her expression. Garrett turned without another word and began up the trail after Adele.

“What is
wrong
with you?” she asked.

She made to follow Garrett without waiting for an answer, but Braeden wrapped his fingers around her arm and pulled her back. He moved in between her and the drenowith and leaned in to whisper.

“Kara, how did they know to come to the rescue? The Stele isn’t a place to be infiltrated, not even by muses. The timing was too perfect.”

She huffed, but stumbled over a response when she couldn’t think of any reasonable explanation. Her heart beat a little faster at the realization.

“We shouldn’t go,” he said, his voice urgent. “And you definitely shouldn’t go into their Council alone.”

“Look, you have a point, but there is such a thing as coincidence. We were lucky, Braeden, and we should be grateful. Some things you just can’t explain. I mean look at this place!” She gestured around to the waterfall and to the glowing blue clover pendant on her neck.

“It’s foreign to you, but not to me. I fully understand this world,” he said.

She spoke quietly, so that only he could hear. “You understand your world. Not theirs. They may live in Ourea, but you don’t really know anything about them. There is no possible way for them to have coordinated us both being kidnapped like that. So, since it’s more likely that they were just passing through when they saw us, the fact remains that they didn’t have to save us. You could still be there, locked in shackles or already dead. Who knows what would have happened to me. If we can’t trust them, we can’t trust anyone.”

“If those are our choices, then we can’t trust anyone.”

“Well I trust them, Braeden. You’re wrong.”

“I hope so,” he mused.

“Are you with me or not? I can’t make you go.”

“Of course I’ll go,” he said, grumbling.

“That was the least encouraging ‘yes’ I have ever heard.” She turned and walked toward the muses.

The red silk scarf Garrett had summoned from thin air was cool when Adele wrapped it around Kara’s face. The fabric pressed on her eyelids, so she kept them closed and just listened. She heard Braeden groan as a breeze scurried by, thick with lavender and maple. The waterfall still thundered nearby. Twigs cracked as the muses finished tying the blindfolds.

The air to Kara’s left shuddered. A sleek limb slid underneath her, lifting her feet off of the ground. It rose and she slid downward along it until it leveled out into what she assumed was the base of a neck. She grabbed it in instinct, and the thin crevices of delicate scales were as soft as a cotton shirt. Her stomach rocked and wind gushed in a cold gust over her face. The steady beating of wings flapped beside her.

She leaned into the neck and took a deep breath, hoping with all her heart that Braeden was, in fact, wrong.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THE DRENOWITH

Wind pummeled Kara’s face as she soared, blindfolded, on the back of whatever creature Adele—or was it Garrett?—chose to become this time. Her hair whipped and stung her neck. The current of air swarmed past her ears with such ferocity that after a few minutes all she could hear was an incessant ringing. The frigid wind numbed her cheeks and the tips of her ears, and it wasn’t long before she couldn’t feel her skin at all. The loss of feeling did, however, distract her from the biting cold that raced up her sleeves, along her back, and out her collar, and for that she could only be grateful.

Her stomach lurched again and the wind blowing over her face slowed, signaling a drop in altitude. She clenched her eyes tighter behind the blindfold and wrapped her arms around her mount’s scaly neck. The air warmed, but her skin still tingled. The momentum stopped with a sudden, soft thud. The cotton-soft scales moved out from underneath her so that she was once more on her feet.

Garrett’s voice broke the ringing in her ear. “You may remove your blindfold, Kara.”

A lazy wind teased the curls on her neck, tickling her. She pulled off the red sash and blinked until the world came back into focus.

They’d landed on a level platform cut into a mountain that looked out over the treetops of a forest. Vertigo shook her center of balance. She threw herself against the mountain wall to stable herself, but the dizziness stuck. Every nerve in her body prickled. The sheer cliff face stretched above her, blocking out half of the sky.

There was a small cave in the wall of the mountain, only a few feet taller than Kara herself and not much wider. It was dark inside. The smell of moss and the echo of water dripping through the rock made the crevice an unwanted mystery. A streak of blue slithered in her peripheral vision.

Garrett stood nearby, but Adele had not shifted back into her human form; she was a small blue dragon, about the size of a horse and completely different from the red one that had rescued Kara from the Stele. Its scales were softer, and its thin head was long, probably three feet at least, with two spiraling horns jutting from the top of its head. Adele’s rich blue eyes distracted Kara—for a moment, at least—from the fact that Braeden was not with them.