Treason: Book Two of the Grimoire Saga (a Young Adult Fantasy series) (32 page)

 “Are you sure about this?” Twin asked.

Kara nodded and looked around the moonlit meadow near the lichgate that would take her back to Ayavel. Twin had teleported her here as practice while Richard sewed the maps she’d given them into his Grimoire.

Kara couldn’t bring herself to look at Flick. He just sat on Twin’s shoulder, staring at Kara like she was leaving him at the pound. She reached out and scratched his head, but he pinned his ears back and grumbled.

“Take care of him,” Kara said.

Twin pulled Kara into a hug. “I will. You take care of yourself.”

Kara laughed. “I’ll try. Now get out of here before I cave to that little tyrant and take him from you.”

Twin smiled and brushed her finger over Flick’s forehead. She closed her eyes, but Flick glanced back to Kara.

Crack!

Kara flinched at the booming echo. Twin and Flick disappeared in the blink of an eye, too quick to see.

She turned back to the small tunnel that hid the lichgate. She groaned. In five minutes, she would be on her way back to the Ayavelian castle, drumming up some excuse about how she’d gotten lost on a hike and desperately wanted food. Or something.

After she found Braeden and knocked some sense into him, she would have to distract the Bloods from the fact that their subjects were disappearing. The question was how.

Kara took a deep breath and shimmied into the hole. The sting of mold and wet dirt burned her nose, but she kept going. A kick in her gut and the telltale flash of blue light told her she’d crossed through the lichgate. The sudden roar of the waterfall on the other side confirmed it. After the silence of the forest, the water seemed to thunder.

She pulled herself from the hole and stood, trying and failing to brush all the dirt from her clothes. She stretched and looked around, but she was alone. She headed toward the castle and kept her eyes on the forest floor as she tried to come up with a good lie. The longer she toyed with the words, the faker they sounded.

She groaned and ran her hand through her hair. She would wing it.

Kara didn’t have any trouble getting back to her room once she found the castle. A maid showed her through the labyrinth of hallways, a huge smile on the young woman’s face. Kara asked about Braeden, but was told he’d left. The woman didn’t know where, and said the Bloods wouldn’t be available until the next day. After the maid left, Kara punched her pillows in lieu of screaming in frustration, but there was nothing she could do but wait.

And wait, she did. The Bloods wouldn’t see her. She spent the entire next day trying to meet them or catch them in the hall, even going so far as to simply sit in the throne room until they showed up. They never did. They definitely hadn’t left for their homes because none of their soldiers left the kingdom.

The Bloods were avoiding her.

Entire agonizing days passed this way. As the sun set on day four, Kara paced her room in an effort to drum up a plan when the door opened without a knock.

She groaned. “Knocking isn’t hard to—”

She stopped when she looked over to see Aislynn in her doorway.

The Ayavelian queen smiled and bowed her head in the briefest of welcomes. “How has your stay been so far, Kara? I’ve missed speaking to you.”

“I—what? I’ve been trying to find you for days.”

Aislynn’s brow furrowed. “You have?”

“Yes! I needed to ask you about—”

Aislynn interrupted. “I must apologize. I thought you were avoiding me! But I have something exciting to show you. I can promise you will not want to wait, and it might answer your questions. Even Braeden was too excited to wait until tomorrow morning.”

“He was? I thought he left.”

“Who told you that?”

“One of the maids. She—”

Aislynn laughed. “The maids gossip more than a swarm of bees. They’re usually wrong. He’ll be there if you wanted to see him.”

Kara suppressed a sigh of relief. “What exactly is this thing you want to show me?”

“My scholars found an ancient artifact, one they believe was created by the Vagabond. We have no idea what it is, but I cannot escape the feeling it will turn the tides in this war. It might finally be the answer to stopping this incessant fighting altogether.”

Kara waited for her intuition to flare, like it had the moment the queen saw Adele change form. While the twinge of worry sat at the bottom of her gut, it didn’t shoot through her like it had the first time. Aislynn might actually be telling the truth.

“Where is it?” Kara finally asked.

“In Ethos. Braeden is trying his best to dislodge it. The other royals all tried and failed. It’s embedded deep into a cave wall, and we cannot remove it. We were hoping you and your Grimoire might have better luck. Will you try?”

She nodded.

Aislynn relaxed her shoulders. “Thank you, Vagabond. My griffin is saddled and waiting. I’ve heard you can summon mounts with that book of yours. Do any of them happen to fly?”

Kara couldn’t help it. She grinned.

Kara flew for hours, Aislynn always slightly ahead and leading the way on a beige griffin. To keep from scaring Aislynn’s mount senseless, Kara had chosen to summon the Grimoire’s griffin as well. The black dragon would have probably made the creature jump out of its skin.

They flew through a small valley between two mountains. These low peaks didn’t have snow on them, but the chilly night still ate into Kara’s body. She hoped they would land soon.

Finally, Aislynn slowed until they flew side by side. “See that cave below with the light? That’s where we’re going.”

Kara glanced down, and sure enough, light emanated from one of the mountain’s caves. Guards stood on the ledge in front of it. A figure with dark hair clad in Hillsidian clothes walked up one of the paths, too far away to distinguish. That had to be Braeden.

“We’re in Ethos already?” Kara asked.

“Yes and no. The Gala was held far from here, but Ethos is a massive place with many lost caverns. Shall we?”

Kara nodded. They slowed and headed for the cave, but Aislynn pulled back to let Kara land first on a narrow ledge by the entrance. Kara braced herself as the griffin’s hooves clattered on the rock. She dismounted and peeked into the cave.

Narrow walls and a low-hanging ceiling meant she wouldn’t have much space to move. She patted the griffin on his shoulder and wished him away. He disappeared in a puff of blue dust.

She walked in as Aislynn’s griffin landed outside, its hooves clattering on the rock. Kara headed for a large bowl against the far wall. A fire crackled within it. Its flames cast sparse flickers across the cave, the light barely enough to illuminate the only item in the room: a stone table.

The table’s feet jutted from the stone, as if the rock had melted to swallow them. Its surface, however, caught her eye. Thin crevices wove across its face like a tiny maze, or a network of tiny veins. She ran her fingers over them, tracing the indents.

Only two chairs sat in the cave, one on each end of the table. They, too, had been carved from the stone and melted to the floor. A small stone square lay on the table’s surface in front of each seat like a thick placemat. She walked closer to one to get a better view. The raised stone on the table was about as wide as her shoulders, with two curved indents in each one. Kara didn’t have a guess as to what the indents were for, though.

She hadn’t seen the Grimoire symbol anywhere on this table, and she definitely had no idea what it was.

“Aislynn—”

Kara turned, but the Blood hovered only inches from her face. She stifled a gasp and stepped out of Aislynn’s reach. The queen stumbled, as if caught off guard that Kara had ducked out of the way.

Kara reached for her sword. No. This wasn’t happening. Aislynn had just tried to—what exactly?

Aislynn shot a beam of light at Kara. She ducked. Sparks danced along her skin as it brushed her neck. Her muscles tensed and twisted. Numbness seeped into whatever bit of her the sparks touched.

A trap. This was a trap.

The queen reached her hand out again and aimed for Kara’s chest. Kara dropped her sword and summoned the air into her palms. Her neck wouldn’t relax. Her eyes began closing as the numbness spread. She would probably lose control over the rest of her body soon.

Kara pulled the air into a shield. Tension pulled on her fingers as the air bent around her hands and blurred her view of the queen. She pushed against the tension and threw the shield at Aislynn, hoping to knock her over.

All Kara needed was a second to summon the Grimoire, and the griffon would fly her to safety. She just had to hold on.

Aislynn leaned into the blast of air and broke through it. Kara reached for the air again, but Aislynn moved faster. She shot another beam of light at Kara’s chest. Kara pulled the air to block it, but the light tore through her shield and hit her square in the stomach.

A bolt of electricity burned through Kara’s body. Her arms and legs tensed like her neck. Numbness seeped into every muscle. Her throat closed. She slumped against a wall. Her vision blurred until she could see only shapes.

Currents of crippling pain tore through her wrists and up her arms. She screamed. Someone grabbed her collar. They dragged her along the ground and threw her against something solid. She blacked out.

Dry panic scratched against Kara’s throat with each breath when her mind cleared. She looked around. The same bowl flickered nearby, its fire illuminating the stone table as it had before. She sat against a wall, no clue whether seconds or hours had passed.

Aislynn sat in one of the stone chairs, Kara’s sword lying on the table beside her. The queen stared at the hilt, her eyes out of focus. “At least you fought back, Vagabond. I wasn’t expecting that.”

Kara bit back the urge to spit at the queen. “Traitor.”

“Do be quiet.”

Kara shifted her weight to ease the numbness in her thigh. Pain shot up her arms. She looked down. A pair of shackles wrapped around her wrists, inward-facing spikes dotting her skin with a dozen bleeding wounds. Red streams wound down her hands and into the crevices of her palm.

Kara gritted her teeth through the pain. “Braeden is right outside! What are you doing? He’ll kill you!”

Aislynn laughed. “That was one of my guards dressed in his clothes.”

Kara flinched at the realization. The spikes in her wrists dug deeper into her skin, tearing it open. She stifled a scream. Tears blurred her eyes.

Aislynn shook her head. “Stop whimpering. When I was in the Stele, I spent four days in those chains. Four days straight. You can’t even take ten minutes.”

“I don’t heal instantly.”

Aislynn leaned back in the chair. “It doesn’t matter. You won’t be in those cuffs for much longer.”

Kara tensed. “Just tell me what this is about, Aislynn.”

“You can’t figure it out? This is about power, child. You were the most powerful thing in Ourea until I realized the muses who rescued you were still helping you. I discovered a way to take their power. You are nothing but bait.”

A tall soldier walked in—the same general who had given Kara and Braeden such a rude welcome when they returned to Ayavel. Kara took a longer look at him now. The beginnings of wrinkles covered the edges of his eyes, and his long silver hair was paler even than Aislynn’s. He wore an ornate tunic with gold trim. Metals lined his chest pockets.