Lichgates: Book One of the Grimoire Saga (an Epic Fantasy Adventure) (53 page)

“Please trust me,” he said. “Yes, I failed, but not because I created vagabonds. It was because I didn’t offer them the same power which I possessed. I kept it for myself, afraid that they would misuse it. I didn’t trust them and I should have. That was my mistake.”

“I’m sorry, but you’re wrong. I trust Braeden and I trust Twin. Twin defied an order from her Blood to protect me.”

“Are you certain?”

Kara paused, Twin’s scared face flashing across her mind. A familiar, flickering doubt came with it: that the tiara was all a ploy to learn where the village was. If Twin learned its location without becoming a vagabond, Gavin could force her to tell him the next time he was close.

“Yes,” Kara finally said. “Yakona are stronger than you think.”

A cloud parted, and light shoved its way into the room. The library shifted and brightened, animating the Vagabond’s face with its sunbeams. His lips were twisted in a smirk, but his face was tensed and wrinkled with worry.

“I hope you’re right, then,” he said.

“Me, too.”

“We will find out soon enough.”

The flickering wisps that made up his outline began to fade, each twisting out of its proper shape as it dissolved into the air until he was gone.

Kara looked again around the library before she walked into the hall and closed the great, wooden double doors. An ornate brass key sat in the lock, now, new and glimmering. It was definitely not there when she walked in. She turned it, locking the library doors, and slid the key into her satchel before trotting down the stairs and out onto the porch.

She took a deep breath of the valley’s crisp air and glanced out over the courtyard. The rocking chair creaked beside her, moving slowly back and forth in a lazy way. She watched it for a moment before she sat in the seat and leaned back. The rocking stopped. She set her feet on the railing and crossed her arms, unsure of what else to do.

“I have a question,” Braeden said, appearing in the doorway.

“That’s nice,” she muttered, closing her eyes.

He leaned against the railing across from her and nudged her toes to get her attention. She cocked an eyebrow and peeked through just one eye.

“Why did you rush over here alone when I told you that I’d come with you? All you had to do was wait a while longer.”

She sighed and examined her fingernails. “Gavin tried to trick me into wearing a tiara that was tainted with Hillsidian blood so that he could control me. I didn’t want to stay in Hillside after that.”

Braeden bit his cheek and glared at her with unfocused eyes. The sun shifted so that half his face was hidden in a shadow. Whatever he was thinking, wherever his mind had gone, it was dark. He snapped awake with a sharp breath and rapped the railing with his knuckle.

“He isn’t ready to rule,” he said, shaking his head. “It would be understandable if you didn’t attend the Gala next week. I hope you know that.”

“So you know when the Gala is? And where?”

“You would be surprised how much the muses know. They told me where to find you, even.”

“Hmm,” she muttered, unsurprised. Her thoughts drifted back to the Gala. “I actually really want to go.”

“Why?” Braeden asked.

“The Vagabond showed me his most important memory. Kirelms killed the love of his life, but he still wants to help the yakona unite. He really wants peace. He forgave them, and I want to forgive Gavin. Ourea is all I have left anymore. I want to make it safe. If I’m not at the Gala, we’ll lose the momentum we’ve built thus far.”

“You’ve done more than enough as the Vagabond,” he said. “But if you want to go, then we will go.”

She smiled and her grin spread to his face as well. His eyes lit up, the darkness in them dissolving.

“So what do we do next?” he asked.

“Relax.”

“Just relax? Sit and do nothing? How boring.”

“My, how the tides have turned,” she said, grinning. “But yes, I think we should enjoy this quiet time while we have it.”

“You look exhausted.” His voice softened. “Did you find something up there on the second floor?”

She chewed her lip and watched a robin—at least, she thought it was a robin—duck through a line of trees by one of the cottages lining the courtyard.

“The Vagabond made more grimoires. He wants me to create vagabonds to go with them.”

“But making vagabonds was what upset the Bloods in the first place. What is he thinking?” Braeden rubbed his neck, apparently just as confused as she was.

“He doesn’t believe that’s why the Bloods really feared him, I guess.” She sighed. “But he’s wrong. I won’t do it.”

“How did he take that?”

“I don’t really care.”

Kara sat and listened to the summer day. Birds chirped, and the wind rolled off the mountain, carrying a sweet, biting chill and the smell of snow from the distant summits.

“I’ve never been so content to stay in one spot before,” Braeden said. “If we get too comfortable, we might miss the Gala and let the world fend for itself.”

Kara wanted to reply with something sarcastic, but the weight of what was ahead distracted her. The Gala was a great start, but it was just the first step on a long road. Gavin wanted a war with the Stele, and if the treaty with the other kingdoms was signed, he would have it.

She thought of Twin and Adele and Garrett and Braeden and wondered how many of the people she still had in the world would survive. After all, she didn’t quite have the best track record with that sort of thing.

The warm summer took over. A war was coming. There was no stopping that, so she might as well enjoy herself until it found her.

EPILOGUE

THE ISEN

Deidre knelt behind a tree and looked out over a sparse meadow lit by what pale light the moon could offer. The field’s tall grasses reflected moonlight and bent in a quiet wind she couldn’t feel. She was very early.

A tall man dragged a young Ayavelian woman into the meadow and glanced around. Deidre ducked behind a tree and listened. She didn’t have to watch to know who it was, since she could recognize the man’s thin blond beard and sharp glare anywhere: it was Niccoli, master of the most powerful isen guild in Ourea. Deidre had no idea who the young woman was, so she held her breath and listened.

The girl whimpered. “Please, let me go!”

“Do be quiet,” Niccoli said, his baritone threaded with the Russian accent he’d never tried to shake. His syllables rolled together.

“I’ll never tell anyone so long as I live!” She sobbed.

“No, you will not,” he agreed. “However, I must know how you came to discover such a thing.” His voice echoed, louder now that he thought that he was alone with the girl.

Deidre smirked.
Yes, Niccoli. Let me hear what she knows.

“I—I—” The Ayavelian sniveled and lost her voice. A bone cracked. The girl screamed.

“Tell me!” Niccoli said with a snarl.

The girl gasped through her tears. She cried so hard that her words were almost inaudible when she did finally manage to answer him.

“A guard followed Blood Aislynn the last time she came to visit you. He was worried that you would kill her, that you had tricked her into coming to you, but then she kissed you. He ran away and told me, unsure of what else to do.”

Deidre’s stomach churned with betrayal and revulsion. Niccoli was the master of the most feared isen guild in any world—her master—and he’d snuck away in the night to woo a yakona Blood! He’d had the power of an entire nation in the palm of his hand and let it walk away more than once from the sound of it.

“I see,” he said.

Deidre peered around the tree, taking care to press herself as close to it as possible. Niccoli knelt over the girl, who lay curled around herself on the ground, her arm bent backward from his torture.

“Is there more?” he asked, his voice gentle now.

Deidre rolled her eyes. He was just playing with his food at this point. He wanted the girl as confused and frightened as possible when he stole her soul. The high was more powerful that way. She did it all the time.

“It has been an exciting summer for the kingdoms,” he said over the girl’s sobbing. “I’ve heard many rumors.”

No, you heard news from me!
Deidre seethed, and her teeth clinched in annoyance. He didn’t listen to rumors.

“I heard the Vagabond has returned,” he continued, brushing the hair out of the girl’s eye. “A human by the name of Magari.”

The girl nodded. “Yes, but she’s safe and strong. You leave her alone. She’ll give you hell if you go near her. We all will.”

Deidre slipped back behind the tree, reminded of her failed attempt to steal the Magari girl’s soul.

“Well, you won’t give me trouble, little one,” he said, laughing. “But I suspect the rest will. I ask only because her name is familiar. Now, I have just one more question for you. Who is this guard that discovered me?”

“No! He is my brother! Please leave him be, please—” Something else snapped. The girl shrieked.

“Tell me his name.”

“Never!”

“Then you’re useless.”

There was a plopping sound, like a knife slicing wet skin. The girl gagged, and Deidre heard the thump of a body hitting the grass. She peered around the tree again. Niccoli stood over the young woman’s corpse and sighed with relief and pleasure. The barb in his hand retracted as he conquered the girl’s already weakened soul. He looked up and caught Deidre’s eye. She swallowed hard, caught in her eavesdropping.

“You’re early, my friend. Come,” he said with a frown.

The weight of her master’s command pulled on the space between her ribs. Her body obeyed while her mind fumed. She stood and crossed to him, stepping over the already dissolving corpse of the Ayavelian girl as the wind rustled deeper in the trees. Branches and leaves clapped against each other in the breeze.

“Find this Magari girl and bring her to me, whole,” he said.

“Why?”

He glowered down at her. She shifted her gaze away in reflex. A master was not to be questioned.

“I will,” she said, clenching her fist.

“And you’re forbidden to speak of Aislynn to anyone, living or dead.”

“With all respect”—she paused, trying to word her thoughts carefully—“She’s a yakona. There’s little to love there.”

“If you believe that, then you have never known love, my friend.”

“I did once,” she snapped before she could stop herself.

Her chest panged with regret as his eyes narrowed. His muscles tensed. This would hurt.

He grabbed her arm and pulled her closer, ripping away the fabric covering her wrist to show a blue scar shaped like an eight-pointed star. She twisted in his grip and pulled away, but he would not release her.

“I know you blame me for your lover’s death all those centuries ago,” he said. “But I must remind you of your last attempt at revenge. That didn’t bode well for you, and it was your only warning. Don’t try to kill me again.”

He dropped her arm, and the weight of his power over her forced her eyes to the ground. She heard him leave as her torn sleeve twisted in the wind and listened for his breath to disappear into the woods.

Deidre had known love; she’d worshiped it. It had been the demon darkness that stole it from her, and she would have her revenge. She couldn’t destroy the darkness itself, but she already had a plan to destroy the master that forced her into it.

She would not
try
. She would succeed.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

S. M. Boyce is a lifelong writer with a knack for finding adventure and magic.

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BOYCE’S NOVELS

The Grimoire Saga