Treason: Book Two of the Grimoire Saga (a Young Adult Fantasy series) (41 page)

She stared into the fire, the flames leaving twirling imprints on her vision. “Peace is something you have to find for yourself, Gavin. No amount of revenge will ever give you that.”

He stood and walked slowly closer. “Please, Kara. I will forever protect you if you will only help me kill Carden. You can even turn Braeden into a vagabond if you like, if he’s not too far gone. I can bring him back from the battle if that’s what you want. This is no small favor I’m asking of you, but it’s one I will forever reward.”

She sighed. He hadn’t listened to a thing she just said. It wouldn’t be any different if she agreed to this crazy little scheme of his. He would never listen.

“And what happens after the war? You and I go our separate ways?” she asked.

“No, Kara. Yakona bond for life.”

“This is ridiculous, Gavin. I can’t even give you an Heir!”

“You probably could, actually, but Evelyn’s new bloodline has proven that to be a moot point. I’ve thought this through. I don’t offer it lightly.”

“Do you still love her?”

His jaw tensed, and he didn’t breathe for a moment. Eventually, he nodded.

Kara leaned against the wall. “So you’re giving up on ever loving someone else because she broke your heart?”

“Hardly. I’m sacrificing a marriage based on love so that you and I can destroy the Stelian race and mend an evil that has plagued Ourea for too long. I’m not saying you have to be faithful to me. You don’t have to hate me for it.”

“That isn’t going to work, Gavin.”

“Kara, listen!”

Hot anger flashed across Gavin’s face, and he reached a hand to either side of Kara’s head. She flinched, unprepared for the outburst, but he seemed to contain his temper just as quickly as it flared. His fingers rested lightly on her cheeks instead of grabbing them.

Gavin leaned in close. “I cannot kill Carden on my own, Kara, especially not with Braeden at his side. Even though draining the muse failed, the Bloods are still going to go ahead with the plan to kill Carden’s forces when Braeden leads them into that trap. When I face Carden, I’ll need extra power on my side to actually defeat him. If you aren’t there, I can’t do that. Your Grimoire is incredibly powerful, Kara, and the Vagabond is a serious enemy. I need
you
to win this.”

“I don’t even have the Grimoire. Evelyn stole it.”

“She will be forced to return it when you become my wife.”

Kara’s heart skipped a beat at that word—wife. It terrified her. She set her hands on Gavin’s chest, and his heartbeat quickened under her fingertips. His hands slipped lower, cradling her head with a more tender caress than she’d imagined him capable of achieving.

But that wasn’t what she’d meant when she touched him. She pushed him away.

“I can’t give up that easily,” she said.

“Marrying me isn’t giving up. It’s fighting!”

“No, it’s giving up. I would rather take my chances than be your pawn.”

“But I can’t protect you when you’re caught, and you
will
be caught if you leave. This is your one chance to have a voice in the yakona court—your one and only chance.”

“Since when are the royal spouses at the war room tables, Gavin? I wouldn’t have a say. I’d be playing along, useless and unhappy. Compliance isn’t going to change anything. That’s exactly what marrying you would do—nothing.

“Ourea is broken, Gavin, and whenever I play by your rules, it gets worse. Uniting the four kingdoms was meant to eradicate Carden because he’s murderous and cruel, but all it did was give you a common enemy to hate. Two enemies, if you count what you all did to me. That was my fault, really, for not seeing it sooner. But what happens when you kill Carden? If you kill Braeden?”

Her lip trembled ever so slightly at the thought of someone running Braeden through with a sword. She took a deep breath, hoping Gavin hadn’t noticed. According to what he said earlier, though, it didn’t matter if she showed how much she cared.

She stepped closer to the door. “Even if the Stelians all die, the yakona kingdoms will be down to four and you all will just continue bickering. Maybe they’ll turn on you, Gavin. Maybe Hillside will become the next ‘threat.’ It won’t get better. It won’t stop.”

Gavin ran his hand through his hair and let out an exasperated sigh. “So what are you going to do, Kara? Run around Ourea, picking fights? Will you make more vagabonds? At least you have a direct line to the Bloods if you stand beside me!”

“I’d stand
behind
you, Gavin, not beside you. They won’t listen to me just because you make me go through the motions of a wedding or whatever it is you all do here. They don’t respect me. Ithone thinks I’m obstinate because I won’t wear a dress. Frine thinks I’m a weak tool and no amount of training will ever change his mind. Aislynn has already made it clear what she’s willing to do to further her own agenda. And you…”

Gavin arched his back and crossed his arms. “Yes?”

“You want me to kill the man who killed your mother. I’m just a weapon to you. You’re no better than them, Gavin. You’re just a little nicer about it.”

Gavin didn’t respond for a while. He didn’t even breathe. It wasn’t until he rubbed his face and sat back down on the bed that he moved at all. He waved a hand toward the door, which swung open on its hinges at his command. A stairwell disappeared into the shadows of a dark hall.

Kara knelt until she was eye level with him. Gavin looked up at her.

“Thank you,” she said.

“You should really go before I change my mind,” he answered.

She couldn’t. Not yet. She needed her Grimoire pendant back. “Can you tell me where Evelyn’s room is? I assume you must know by now.”

His shoulders sank lower, and he nodded. He pulled out a small piece of paper covered in elegant script.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“Evelyn slipped that to me at dinner. It has the directions to her room, from the dining hall, which will be on your right as you walk out of this stairwell. She’s expecting me, not you, so you’ll have the element of surprise on your side when you see her.”

“Thanks again,” Kara said.

She grabbed Gavin’s shoulder and smiled, but he shook his head. That was likely her cue to leave.

The only guiding light in the stairwell came in a cold, blue stream from a few small slits in the wall below. She hurried down the steps. The outline of a door appeared as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. She set her hands against the wall and peeked through the slits in the stone.

The room beyond her hidden cell was none other than the grand hall. Though she couldn’t see it, Kara knew the throne room was to her left and the dining hall, as Gavin had said, was to the right. No one stood in the massive hall, so Kara pushed the door open.

The stone grated against the floor. She cringed, but she had no other way out. The door scraped against the tiled floor, and she only stopped when she could slip through into the hallway. She had to hurry in case anyone heard the noise. Kara looked again at the paper Gavin had given her, but she didn’t have time to read it.

“You!”

Kara looked up to see Evelyn standing opposite, blocking the only way out of the hall that Kara knew.

“Guards! G—!”

A blinding light pushed past Kara, knocking her to the ground as Evelyn’s voice cut off mid-sentence.

Kara hit her head against the wall. Her vision blurred again. The world came slowly back, first as black and white dots, and then as gray blurs. When Kara could fully see, Gavin sat across the hall, kneeling by Evelyn’s unconscious form.

“What—?” Kara asked.

“I don’t think anyone heard her, but I’m sure guards will be by soon,” he said without looking up.

Gavin examined something in his hand. Its silver chain slipped from his fingers as he rubbed his thumb over the sparkling metal. His skin blistered from whatever it was he touched, but he didn’t flinch if he was in pain.

That had to be the pendant.

“Gavin,” Kara said softly.

It took him a moment to catch her eye, and it almost hurt to see the desire on his face. Between the pendant and unconscious princess, he held the two things he so craved but couldn’t have. Kara took a cautious step closer. The bags under his eyes made her think he hadn’t slept in days.

“May I have that back, please?” she asked, reaching for the pendant.

“Without this, you’re nothing but an ordinary girl,” he said.

She ignored the jibe. “Maybe. But without me, it’s just a necklace that burns you when you hold it.”

His jaw tightened, and he rubbed his thumb over the clover symbol in his hand.

In a motion so quick she barely registered it, Gavin tossed the pendant to her. She caught it in reflex. Relief flooded through her body.

“I would carry it everywhere, too, if I’d taken it,” Gavin admitted.

“Thanks for giving it to me, then.”

He shrugged. “I almost didn’t.”

Kara didn’t know how to respond to that, so she put the necklace on and headed for the hall. Gavin stood, though, and stopped her by putting one arm around her waist. His touch made her skin crawl, but she resisted the impulse to push him away. He’d helped her, after all.

He glanced over his shoulder. “Take the first left and just keep running. That will take you to the forest line, and from there, you can get a head start. Look for a path. Once you find it, it will take you to a lichgate that can get you out of Ayavel. Once they call the Bloods together, I won’t stop them or slow them down. Don’t get caught.”

“Thank you, Gavin.”

Kara slipped out of his reach and didn’t look back as she ran toward the exit. Of course, Gavin would know where to go if she followed the path he’d told her about, but she didn’t have any better ideas. Running willy-nilly through the forest would be stupid. At least Gavin’s instructions gave her direction.

Just as Gavin had said, the hall ended in a door that opened out onto a field. A forest began about a dozen feet away. Kara bolted toward it, her throat already stinging from the exhaustion, adrenaline, and panic. Tendrils of the spikes’ poison still lurked in her body, slowing her movement and thought.

Once a few feet into the forest, Kara summoned the Grimoire. Its weight materialized in her hands, and she sighed with relief as it opened on its own. She had worried the Vagabond was still too angry to let her use the Grimoire to even escape.

“Get me out of here, Ryn,” she said under her breath.

Braeden charged through the forest on Iyra’s back, urging her to run faster than he imagined she’d ever had to run in her life.

Kara was worth it.

He stopped just within the tree line on the outskirts of Ayavel. The waterfall loomed nearby, but he didn’t need it. An army waited in the field by the lake. Some poured into the forest, even.

Troops from every kingdom pooled together in close groups, restless and yelling at each other. Some prodded those from the other kingdoms, pushing as they passed or taunting each other with sidelong glances and sneers.

Braeden’s shoulders tensed. Everything had just gotten far worse.

One Ayavelian soldier nearest to the trees ran by, still tucking in his uniform as he ran over to another soldier nearby.

“What are we waiting for?” he asked. “The Vagabond attacked Heir Evelyn! We should be chasing her!”

Braeden smirked.

One of the other soldiers in the group answered. “We’re waiting for the Bloods. They want to lead the chase themselves.”

Blinding silver light appeared at the base of the waterfall. The roaring water parted as the stone path and carved stairs once more appeared.

Gavin, Ithone, Frine, and the Ayavelian General Krik charged along the path from the temple. They all rode griffins and tore through the pass as if racing.

Braeden cursed under his breath and turned Iyra back into the forest. She ran off at his panic, silently bolting through the thick forests he once thought were safe. He had never been so wrong.

If he didn’t get to Kara first, there was no telling what would happen.

Barely thirty minutes after the incident with Evelyn, Kara passed through the lichgate Gavin mentioned. Ryn ran to the thrum of her heartbeat which, thanks to the still-pumping adrenaline, was pretty fast.