Treason: Book Two of the Grimoire Saga (a Young Adult Fantasy series) (33 page)

“What is it, General Krik?” Aislynn asked.

“Still no sign, Your Highness.”

“The muse should be here by now.”

The Ayavelian Blood pulled a dagger from a sheath hidden in the forearm of her gown. She walked to where Kara sat against the wall and knelt, pressing the dagger to Kara’s arm.

“Aislynn, don’t!”

The blade cut her skin anyway. More pain shot through Kara’s arm and up into her neck. The muscles around her throat tightened. She couldn’t breathe. Another stream of red blood pooled and dribbled across the freckles on Kara’s arm.

“You are the bait, child”—Aislynn’s voice softened—“I wish there had been another way.”

Kara gritted her teeth. “There
is
another way.”

“No, there isn’t.”

“But they were already helping us!”

“It was not enough. What a muse is willing to give is never enough.”

“What are you going to do, Aislynn? What could capturing one of them possibly do for you?”

Aislynn walked over to the table without answering. She ran her fingers along the veins in the table’s stone, her eyes downcast as she spoke. “Do you know what this is?”

“Answer my question!”

“It’s the reason Ethos fell,” the queen continued. “That nameless Stelian Blood created it, all those thousands of years ago, with the help of an isen. Together, they discovered how to transfer powerful blood from one being to another.

“He killed the isen as soon as it was finished. That’s all we know about him. We don’t know how the other Bloods discovered it, but when they did, they wanted it destroyed. Only, he’d hidden it. They couldn’t destroy it. Out of fear for themselves, they disbanded. That’s why Ethos fell, Kara. They couldn’t trust each other.

“But in our era, the other Bloods know of this machine. They know I found it. They think it’s brilliant. Barely a week ago, I used it to give Evelyn my bloodline. This machine saved the Ayavelian race. And now, thanks to more research from my seers, I can use it again—this time, to take power from an immortal. Only, I’ll take it all.

“It’s risky, but I have an Heir now and nothing to lose. None of the other Bloods would dare try it. They fear the power, that it will be too much. But I can handle absolutely anything.”

“You’re insane, Aislynn.”

“Perhaps.”

Aislynn walked to the table and sat again at her end. For several minutes, neither of them spoke.

“Does it hurt?” Kara finally asked.

“What?”

“The table. If you catch one of the muses, will they feel it?”

Aislynn’s voice softened again. “It’s agonizing. Evelyn almost couldn’t bear it. She begged for us to stop, but I refused. I thought it wasn’t the pain of the machine, but the thought of losing Gavin that made her beg us to stop. I would not allow such weakness.”

Despite the pain of the shackles, Kara laughed. “Wait, Evelyn and Gavin are together?”

“For years,” Aislynn said with a hint of disgust.

“It’s not like they’re obvious about it.”

“They were. You simply didn’t know what to look for, I suppose. She still loves him, but no lover should interfere with the right to rule. Evelyn has a responsibility to her people, one I ensured she would fulfill. No one was meant for the throne but her.”

“If she were meant for the throne, she would have been born with the Bloodline.”

Kara hadn’t even tried to stop herself. She was right.

Aislynn glared through the corner of her eye in a look that sent a shiver up Kara’s spine. Regret flared for a moment in Kara’s gut, but she refused to show it. She straightened her back and met the queen’s eye. Aislynn stood in a movement too fast to see and smacked Kara across the face.

The sting crept up her neck. Her cheek ached where Aislynn hit her, but she bit her lip to keep from showing how much it hurt.

Aislynn paced the cave. “No wonder none of the Bloods respect you! I tried. I tried to make them see you as an asset, but you’re a tool. You don’t understand politics. You don’t understand what it takes to rule. If my niece had chosen Gavin, she would have lived a lie, just as Braeden did for so long. No matter how accepting Hillsidians may seem, they would never accept a queen of a different race. No Blood is powerful enough to change the will of every subject, and there is no denying that Gavin would urge her to live in her Hillsidian form. She is so much more! Evelyn sees that, now. She knows in her heart what is right.”

“I bet Gavin was devastated when he found out.”

“Yes, and he needs to hate her for it. It’s the only way he can get over this…this
infatuation
.”

“I had no idea you were heartless, Aislynn.”

“You can’t bait me, child. I’m not heartless. I have loved. I am in love. And he would never dream of distracting me from my people.”

“Why does no one know he exists?”

Aislynn turned the full force of her glare on Kara. The look made breathing difficult.

“He isn’t Ayavelian, is he?” Kara asked.

Aislynn walked over with stunning speed and lifted Kara by her shirt until she stood. “You will never mention this again.”

Pain tore through Kara as the spikes ripped open her wrists. She reached for Aislynn’s arms out of instinct, but that made the agony worse. The careful control the Vagabond had taught her in her week at the village disappeared. Instinct returned, and Kara’s magic pulled from Aislynn the queen’s most influential memory.

Light dissolved from the cave. Aislynn disappeared. Wisps of white and gold light blipped into being around Kara. They twisted around each other and created the glowing outline of a forest. A path of broken grasses wound through a meadow, and Kara—seeing through a younger Aislynn’s eyes—watched the dark sky above.

A horse unlike any Kara had ever seen walked over the hill ahead. A thick beard covered its chin, and a long mane hid its neck. A silver horn protruded from its forehead.

Information sped through Kara in an instant, the stream of thought unlike any other memory she had ever experienced. Knowledge flooded into her brain bit by bit and pooled there until she didn’t know what to do with it.

Aislynn had only recently begun hunting for a way to pass along her bloodline. She was barren. That shamed her, but she was also in love with an isen—Niccoli. She could never bring herself to marry another Ayavelian, especially when a barren queen would do no good.

Her seers brought her rumors, useless bits of information with no truth, until one found ancient scrolls with everything she needed. To pass her bloodline on to another, she had three possibilities: steal the blood of a drenowith; steal the horn of a unicorn; or find the lost table of Ethos. These were her only leads.

Drenowith were nearly impossible to find. She’d hunted everywhere for them without any luck, but she’d always thought she had better odds of finding a drenowith than a lost table or an extinct animal.

But unicorns weren’t extinct. One stood before her now!

Aislynn walked slowly to the creature, but it walked away at the same pace. She followed it through the field, into the forest, into a glen—

Pain.
Pain shook the foundations of Kara’s mind, nearly kicking her from the memory. This part of the memory fragmented. The wisps broke apart into shards. They sped by, each showing a fleeting image with no meaning.

The unicorn shifted into a snake and slithered away—a drenowith. Aislynn cursed, the sound booming in the darkness.

Carden’s laughter echoed around her. His face appeared in a shard of glass, wrinkles smoothed into a younger image of himself. A young boy with Braeden’s dark eyes whispered an apology to her. A woman screamed. A dark line creased across Kara’s vision, blotting out all light and all hope. Something wriggled into her mouth and shocked her from within.

Kara screamed and pushed away. Rocks dug into her back as she fell, no longer held against the wall by Aislynn’s hand.

The mountain cave and the table reappeared in blurry streaks. Men’s hands grabbed her, pulling her away. Aislynn screamed again. A guard’s grip on Kara tightened. She looked up.

General Krik narrowed his eyes in a glare that told her she’d done something wrong, something out of line. His fingers pinched her skin, cutting off her circulation. Kara’s fingertips bleached from the lack of blood.

Aislynn glared at Kara. “You should never have seen that! You had no right!”

Hatred pooled in Kara’s gut. Aislynn was a coward. She had hunted drenowith and learned nothing from her experience. Hunting drenowith the first time had cost her days in Carden’s dungeons, and even that had been for a nobler cause than stealing power for a war.

Kara glared back. “The drenowith tricked you because you deserved it! You were hunting them!”

General Krik shook her. “Be silent, child!”

The spikes struck a bone in Kara’s arm, and she buckled under the pain.

Aislynn pushed the guards aside. “Do not slander me! I never hunted drenowith!”

“Your memory said otherwise, you liar!” Kara screamed.

“My lady, the muse is coming! It is close!” a soldier called from outside.

Aislynn balled her hand into a fist. “Then let us welcome her.”

The Blood’s skin rippled, sending waves of red and purple light flashing across the ceiling. She grew. Her hair curled, the ringlets getting tight as her hair shortened and glowed like the moon. She turned to Kara and grinned, eyes pink.

“Is that—?” Kara pushed herself against the wall. This had to be Aislynn’s daru, her soul. If Aislynn’s daru was anything like Braeden’s, even the muses might not stand a chance.

This wasn’t the Aislynn she had come to know—this was the
true
ruler of Ayavel. Aislynn was insane. Whatever Carden had done to her all those years ago had broken her completely.

Men screamed outside. Kara willed the muse—she assumed it was Adele—to go away. Her brow wrinkled as she focused on the threat of a trap, but without any luck. Their connection was one-way.

Adele broke through a line of men. She dove into the cave, a fury of feathers and talons. But Aislynn braced herself as if she had nothing to lose. She caught the charging muse with both hands. They flew backward into a cave wall. Guards closed in at the entrance, too many of them to count. The tiny room became suddenly smaller, and Kara feared Adele would pay for her kindness with her life.

Aislynn ducked a jab from the muse, inwardly wishing she hadn’t let the Magari girl distract her.
She
was supposed to take the muse off-guard and surprise the wicked thing. This drenowith spun and attacked almost too quickly to see, but Aislynn had to be faster.

Two of her guards’ bodies flew past and slammed into the wall. Their silver blood splattered onto her gown, but she couldn’t falter. She couldn’t pause. This was her one and only chance to steal a muse’s blood and thereby steal its magic.

It was finally Aislynn’s time to be truly
powerful.

She dodged the muse yet again. Her daru was a gift, certainly, but it was not enough. Every Blood’s daru was different. She’d heard tales of the dead Queen of Hillside—rest Lorraine’s soul. That woman’s daru was a vicious thing that could barely discern friend from foe. It sacrificed control for power. Gavin’s daru was nothing but focused rage; whatever the object of his desire, it was either taken or destroyed. Carden—that vile man seemed to have focused control
and
increased power. She had no idea why he didn’t walk around in his daru all the time.

No—Aislynn’s was different. Weak. It had very little physical power, only enhanced senses. She could predict movement, hear a branch snap a mile away, taste a change in the weather—she could even smell
emotion
. But each of those gifts was useless if she wasn’t strong enough to stop an attack.

So today, finally, she would have the power of a god and her revenge, all at once.

The muse’s movements blurred across the cave, always a streak of brown and gold. Limbs flew as it tore through the room, clawing and decapitating Aislynn’s men. There was no telling what it was the drenowith had changed to, but Aislynn didn’t care. All she needed were its wrists and neck.

It. Muses were creatures—monsters that had lived too long and deserved to die.

A black shadow snaked across Aislynn’s vision. Her heart skipped beats. She faltered as the sliver of darkness passed. No other eyes acknowledged the streak; none stopped to gape, or to wonder why their Blood had all but frozen in place.

The slivers from Carden’s torture never left her.

She waited for the telltale shock, the tremor that always rattled her brain when the slivers made an appearance. It came. The agony burned in her neck and raced up to her temples. She closed her eyes, fighting the bile in the back of her throat. Her mind tensed. The veins in her neck bulged. Her breathing stopped. One, two—three seconds, and it was over. Barely enough to even notice.

“MY LADY!” a guard screamed.

Aislynn opened her eyes.

Time slowed as her senses felt around the world, discerning and predicting movement before it happened. The muse, in its human form, stood over a fallen guard. Its copper hair fell over the guard’s face. Its hand blurred, changing shape into a claw. It raised its arm to strike. The soldier screamed.

Aislynn aimed her hand at the muse, focusing her energy into an attack. White light shot from her fingers, arching in splintered lines to the muse. It traced the creature’s body, engulfing it in jagged lines of broken light. The muse opened its mouth to scream, but the sound was a cacophony of heartbreak: splintering wood, snapping bones, sizzling flesh. It was not a scream, but a wail.

A call.

“It’s calling for its mate!” Aislynn yelled.

Aislynn doubled her effort and focused all her energy into slowing time. With her weak daru, it was the only way to get the upper hand. Her body tensed. She called on every ounce of energy from her guards—she needed it all to make this work.

Everything knelt to her: her guards, even the tension in the room bent before her, yielding as she gave forth every ounce of her magic into suspending time. It wouldn’t last long, but she only needed a few seconds.