Treason: Book Two of the Grimoire Saga (a Young Adult Fantasy series) (29 page)

Braeden smiled. He’d forgotten all of that.

Richard grinned. “One of the best days of my life was our first isen hunt. It was the first time I truly felt as though I had a son. Even if I have lost Gavin, at least I still have you.”

Braeden didn’t know what to say. His throat stung, and the corners of his eyes were wet. Tears? No. Braeden didn’t cry.

But Richard did. The retired king who had killed hundreds of isen and an untold number of yakona in battle now stood before Braeden in a foreign kingdom, crying. The tears were rare, even now, and slid down the sides of his face in just one or two thin streams. There was no sobbing. No sounds. Just a warm smile and happy tears.

“Come here, my boy,” Richard said, beckoning with one hand.

Braeden leaned down and hugged him again. When the shock faded and he still couldn’t bring himself to cry, he simply hugged his father tighter.

This man was his father, not Carden.

Richard took a deep breath. “Gavin might be beyond my ability to help, but you can still save him from the madness. Remind him what it means to be a king.”

“I’ll try, Father.”

Richard laughed and patted his shoulder. “Please always call me Father.”

“I will.”

Movement caught Braeden’s attention. At the far edge of their row, Gavin leaned against the garden wall with his arms crossed. His brows furrowed when he caught Braeden’s eye, his face a mask of cold hatred.

Braeden loosened his grip on his adoptive father. Had Gavin been controlling Richard all this time? Had this just been a ploy to make Braeden weaker?

Considering the strength of a yakona’s blood loyalty, how did Kara trust anyone in this world? How could she trust Braeden, even? He didn’t know how she did it.

“May I have a word, Heir?” Gavin asked.

Richard sucked in a small gasp at Gavin’s voice, and Braeden all but sighed with relief at the retired king’s legitimate surprise. That meant he hadn’t known Gavin was near. He’d spoken the truth. The look of hatred on Gavin’s face, though, implied he’d heard the confession. That was a problem.

Braeden whispered in Richard’s ear. It was so quiet, he knew Gavin couldn’t have heard it. “Find Twin. Kara will be with her, and she will watch out for you.”

Braeden turned to Gavin and spoke in a normal tone. “What would you like to talk about, Blood Gavin?”

He led Gavin away from Richard and out of the labyrinth. He had to get the king far enough from Richard to give their father a chance to leave.

“What would you like to talk about,
brother
?” Braeden prodded. He used the term intentionally, and got the grimace he’d expected. Hopefully, it would redirect the Blood’s anger.

“I believe I already made it clear you’re never to use that term with me,” Gavin said.

Gavin stalked out of the garden when they neared the exit, letting the gate swing shut behind him even as Braeden passed through it. Braeden caught the door and brushed it off, following the Hillsidian Blood into a small side door in the palace.

Five minutes of silent walking and unrecognizable hallways ended in an open door. Gavin stopped in front of it and gestured inside.

“Ah, no. After you, Blood Gavin,” Braeden said with a grin.

Gavin shook his head and walked inside. He stood in the center of the room and raised his arms as if to say,
are you happy now?

Braeden followed. The door slammed on its own behind him, but Braeden resisted the instinct to flinch at the sound.

“What do you want, Gavin?” he asked as calmly as he could muster.

“I wanted to discuss the rescue. I want to know how you did it.”

“And why would I tell you that?”

Gavin sneered. “Aren’t we all friends here?”

“You don’t care about the rescue. You would have left them if the Vagabond hadn’t interfered. So why am I really here?”

Braeden had been careful to avoid using Kara’s name. He didn’t want to imply intimacy. If he could make them think he didn’t care about her, he would. He didn’t think it would do any good, of course, especially if his expressions were so out of control that Richard had picked up on the longing in an instant. No, it wouldn’t do any good, but he would try anyway. For Kara.

Gavin laughed. “Yes, you are so perceptive. A lifetime of lying to those who treated you like family—”

“Get on with it!”

Gavin arched his back, but didn’t respond. He stared at Braeden as if internally debating with himself as to whether or not to continue. “You are here, Braeden, because I have a plan to kill Carden. I need your help.”

Braeden wanted to grin, but resisted. It had to hurt for Gavin to admit
that.

“What’s your plan?”

Gavin began pacing. “I want to draw Carden out of the Stele. So far, everything has been on his terms. We have been exposed when we thought we were safe, even in our own homes”—he paused, eyes slipping out of focus for a second before he continued—“but I want to trick him. I discovered a valley not far from where we believe the Stele to be located. I want to lure him to a camp and ambush him.”

“And that’s where I come in, I suppose?”

“We need someone he trusts. Someone who will take him there. All we need to do is kill him, and the war is over.”

Braeden tensed his jaw. Somehow, he doubted the war would end with Carden. There was the whole matter of Braeden following in Carden’s footsteps, of becoming the next—
no
.

He didn’t want to think about it. He couldn’t.

“Carden does not trust me,” he said.

“Make him. Tell him whatever it takes to make him think we did wrong by you.”

“That won’t take too much convincing, Gavin.”

“
Blood
Gavin.”

“When you begin acting like a king, I’ll address you like one. All you’ve done since—”

“Don’t. I heard Richard’s tirade. I don’t need to be
saved.
”

Braeden relaxed his shoulders. “If you don’t need to be saved, then where is the Gavin I knew before you took the throne? You—”

Gavin held up his hand. “Please stop.”

The ‘please’ made Braeden falter. He’d been prepared for yelling, cursing, or even a fight, but not kindness.

The Blood leaned against a wall. “The weight of a kingdom will change you. I always dreamed of greatness without knowing the consequences. I was a child before. I’m a man now. If you can escape your fate, Braeden, you should.”

Braeden took a step back.

Gavin continued as if their tangent never happened. “As I said, I need you. I can’t make this plan work without you. Can you do this?”

“Say I do. Say you kill Carden on the battlefield. What then?”

“What do you mean? The war would end.”

“I would become Blood. Are you telling me the rest of you would simply let me be? Let me go back to that mountain and rule my cold little pocket of Ourea?”

Gavin looked at the floor and didn’t respond.

Braeden slammed his fist on the door. It rattled and sent shivers into the walls.

“Answer me!” he shouted.

“You hate what you are as much as we do, Braeden,” Gavin said.

Braeden could barely breathe. They meant to kill him before he even got the chance to rule.

But wouldn’t Ourea be better off without Stelians? He’d already said as much himself. All his people knew was pain, murder, and torture. They were vicious. Evil, even.

He looked down at the rug. Was Kara better off without him, too? He’d nearly killed her once already. She’d gone into the Stele to save him and nearly been killed a second time as they escaped. He’d gotten her into more trouble than she’d managed on her own, and that was saying something.

He wanted her. For a while, he’d thought he wanted her more than anything. But even more powerful than his desire was his wish to protect her: the one thing in his life that gave him peace.

Kara was safest without him. The whole world was safer. The first Vagabond had told him once that Braeden’s part in the war would be more important even than Kara’s. Is this what he’d meant?

“I need an answer. We don’t have much time,” Gavin said.

Braeden nodded. “I’ll do it.”

“Thank you. Come on. We have to meet with the Bloods. I need to show you the maps and discuss the full plan.”

Braeden nodded again and waited for Gavin to lead the way. He didn’t have much time, true, but he would use what time he had left wisely. When he finished speaking with the Bloods, he would find Kara, tell her to protect Richard, and kiss her once more. After that, he would be out of her life forever.

Kara took a deep breath of the brilliant late summer air. Instead of taking Kara to a bedroom, Twin had surprised her with a picnic by one of Ayavel’s many waterfalls. Flick nuzzled against Twin’s leg, purring as the girl pet him.

Beams of light broke through gaps in the trees. The lake shimmered. Ripples broke the water whenever a fish swam too close to the surface. In the quiet of this isolated bit of the forest, Kara almost forgot about how much she wanted Braeden, or how the first Vagabond—Cedric—had threatened to kill him if she gave in.

“I missed you,” Twin said with a grin.

Kara smiled. “I missed you, too.”

“How was the rescue? I was so scared when you and Braeden didn’t come back. I thought—we all thought—”

“I know. It’s a miracle we escaped at all.”

Twin winked. “Did you enjoy the time alone?”

Kara’s smile disappeared. She cleared her throat and looked into the lake without answering.

Twin sighed, apparently gathering all she needed from the lack of an answer. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

“Well, what do you want to talk about?”

The tiara.

Before Twin became her second in command, Kara had to know exactly what happened the day Twin brought her Gavin’s cursed tiara. Twin had snatched it from Kara’s fingers seconds before she put it on. If she hadn’t, the tiara would have pricked Kara with some of Gavin’s blood—he’d have been able to control her until his bloodline worked its way out of her system. But he could always add more. If she’d been pricked, Gavin would have had unlimited control over her. Yet Twin had somehow defied her king to save Kara.

Something didn’t add up. Yakona couldn’t disobey.

“I need to ask you about the tiara,” Kara said.

Twin sighed. “I already apologized a million times, Kara. I never wanted to hurt you.”

“I know. But how did you defy a direct order from Gavin?”

“It wasn’t a direct order.”

“Wait, but I thought…what was it, then?”

Twin shrugged. “I’m not sure. I feel so guilty about it that I keep playing that day over and over in my head, just trying to figure it out. He handed me the tiara and told me to give it to you. That was it. He didn’t tell me
not
to say anything—I just assumed I wasn’t supposed to. I think he knew I’d been eavesdropping and that I knew what it could do to you.”

“Then why would he give it to you?”

“I think he tricked me. It’s the only thing that makes sense. He scared the life out of me—I still can’t look him in the eye—and I think he wants me to go with you to the village. He wants to know where it is.”

Kara nodded. Now
that
made sense.

“You should leave me behind, Kara. I can’t let Gavin trick you again.”

“He wouldn’t be powerful enough to do that if you became a vagabond.”

Twin caught her breath, the hope in her eyes almost too painful to bear. “Really?”

“You’ll even have a Grimoire of your own.”

“Yes! I’ll come!” Twin lunged and wrapped Kara in a hug that sent them rolling onto the grass.

Kara laughed and brushed loose dirt from her pants. “Great. I need to find Braeden, so I’ll meet you somewhere. Your room, maybe? Where is it?”

Twin pointed at the palace. “See that door? It leads to a stairwell. Take it to the third floor and turn right. I’m the first door on the left.”

“Got it. I’ll meet you there. Pack lightly—only what you need, okay?”

“I will! Thank you for trusting me, Kara.”

“You’re one of the kindest people I’ve met in Ourea, Twin. I’m just lucky to have you on my side.”

Flick nuzzled closer to Twin, so Kara left her pet with her friend for the moment and turned toward the castle.

Braeden settled into a chair in an office just behind the Ayavelian throne room. The Bloods trickled in, sitting in the plethora of chairs that littered the room, silent while they waited for everyone to join them.

Icy apathy seeped into his core. He didn’t let himself feel or worry or think, afraid doing so would change his mind.

Ithone said something that involved the word ‘Stelian’ as he walked into the room, but Braeden hadn’t been listening. It had no doubt been a taunt, anyway.

The insult didn’t matter. Nothing did.