—CHAPTER EIGHT—
KARA
HAYDAN
Amara is making even less sense than Clea and Kol’s odd relationship.
And that’s saying something because I do not understand them at all.
I’m in her head. I don’t know what time it is in Vakrov, but here in Llíria it’s early morning. The twins will be dragging my ass out of bed any minute to go down to the dining hall for breakfast as they do every morning. But Amara woke me up about ten minutes ago with her screaming.
I’d like to blame my recent lack of sleep on my incessant babies kicking me at all hours of the night—now that I’m five months pregnant that’s been happening more and more frequently—but it’s not because of them that I am up all night. Amara has nightmares. Terrible nightmares and she drags me into them every night. She doesn’t mean to, but we have yet to figure out how to keep the Echo from dragging us into each other’s head each time we are frightened or in danger. I suppose it’s only right then that I was in her head for most of her torture yesterday afternoon given she’d been forced into my head during some of the more painful episodes of pregnancy stomach pains over the last couple of months. I was there for a while. I felt the ice chilling her blood, working its way through her veins, but I pulled myself out fairly quickly, before that devil king started in on the interrogating.
Today’s nightmare is different though. They’re usually basic, and always memories. Terrifying king kidnapping her for her blood, Tristan dying before our eyes, the chaos of the funeral shooting. But tonight is very different. It’s of her and Keenan, on the beach back in Baal. They’re kissing, which is an odd thing for a little sister to watch in general, but when she starts to tell him to stop and he doesn’t, I want nothing more than to wrench myself out of her head. But she wakes screaming before I can. Then, once she’s calm, she proceeds to tell me an incredibly crazy plan she’s come up with.
“You want me to tell Theon where you are?” I can hear everything she’s saying, see everything she’s doing, but what throws me the most is the fact that I can feel everything she’s feeling too. Anxious, scared, determined.
“I know what you’re thinking.” she presses on. She sits on her bed, staring out at her room, unsure where to look since she can’t see me and vice versa. Only when she’s in my head can she see me. it’s an odd ability, our Echo. “What’s gotten into her? But what happened today, Kara,” I feel her pain before I see the tears pool in her pretty blue eyes. “I love you, Kar and I love Aaric and all our friends, and I’ve never felt like I wanted to die, but today I did because what he did, it broke my heart.” she cries.
“Who, Mar? Who are you talking about?” I press, even if she can’t hear me.
She continues, unaware of my own heart breaking for her. “And this world, this hateful world we’re living in, I don’t want your babies to grow up in that so if I have to marry Kol in order for this revolution to take root, in order for my people to be vindicated then I’ll do it. I’d rather be there with you than here with him.” I know she must mean the king, Bastian, but there’s something in her eyes, a pain in her voice that tells me she is talking about someone much closer to her heart. “So please, Kara, tell Theon where we are so he can get us out of here. Missy, Finn, Haven, and me. I won’t leave them behind. Not with that monster. Do it Kara, for me.”
“I will, Amara, I will.”
I’m bolted out of Amara’s head when there’s a sudden knock on my door. A wakeup call from Clea no doubt.
I don’t have much of an appetite lately so I don’t bother staying in the dining hall once I realize Clea and Kol aren’t there. Instead I find them down the hall. I drag them to a room where we won’t be overheard so I can explain to them what Amara is asking me to do.
“Wait, Amara wants you to tell Theon where she is?” Clea is as surprised as I was and Kol, he has a pensive look on his face, as if he were trying to figure her out, hundreds of thousands of miles away.
“That’s what she says. After what they did to her yesterday afternoon, she’s decided that she would rather be here than there. There is something in that place that has got her running scared, Clea. I don’t know what it is, but it’s not just Bastian. It’s something else. Something she won’t share with me.”
“But why would she be willing to escape one cage for another?” Kol asks skeptically. “It doesn’t make sense.”
I scoff at him. “What do you care? You were going to trap her in this cage one way or another. Why does it matter that it’s her idea?”
Kol does not like me calling his emotional feelings toward Amara into question so I am used to the daggered glare he gives me next, the same one Clea flinches away from every time it is aimed toward her.
“Because it doesn’t sound like Amara.” he says finally, pushing through my condescension. “Amara is not exactly the take it lying down kind of girl. She fights, in all things. It doesn’t make sense that she’d be giving up now.”
“She’s just been tortured by a girl she considers her friend. Of course she wants to give up. She’s being hurt, Kol!” I snap.
“Exactly, Kara.” Clea cuts in. “She’s hurt and she’s scared. I think you need to give her some time to think it over before you say anything to my brother.”
“I agree.” Kol adds.
I am surprised by this. “This is what you want. Amara back. So why haven’t you told him already Kol? What’s stopping you?”
“I already told you, Kara. Theon is only going to get more of our people killed if he sends in a fleet of Serpentarians to get Amara from Bastian the same way he got nearly two hundred of them killed at the funeral shooting. Theon is reckless in his desire to get his hands on Amara. He’s not thinking clearly so I have to.”
“Little odd coming from a boy who professes to want Amara back more than any of us.” I mutter back. As if he could possibly want her back more than me.
Another daggered glare. “I want her back.” he says darkly. “I want her back more than anything else, but one of us has to be smart. We are not going to win a war by going in blind and stupid.”
For a moment I see Theon in him, his father figure, a man bent on a war born of hateful persecution, but then I see him fade back to the boy I knew once upon a time, a boy in love. Only this time it is love for my best friend and suddenly I know how it feels, how Amara must have felt to know I’d been with Tristan, and I hate it. I hate that he can’t even look at me the way he once did. His feelings are for only her now. He sees right through me.
“No matter what I want, I can’t have it until we have a plan that doesn’t kill half of her people.”
“And it’s been three months. Have you thought of something, Kol?” I challenge him. I am being brave and he knows I know it. It’s what brings that subtle smirk back to his face.
“Wouldn’t you like to know, my beautiful little inferno.” His grin widens.
“He’s got nothing.” Clea says, feeling particularly valiant herself since she does not challenge Kol often. She won’t tell me why she’s so scared of him, but I suspect he has something on her that keeps her in compliance. Clea never was the sit still and look pretty type. Maybe she’s still just scared he’ll tell Theon her soul is back, but I know he won’t. He doesn’t want Theon to take away Clea’s soul again. He likes her dependent on him.
“How do you know?”
“Because I know him. He’s being cocky because he has nothing. This isn’t like it was with Limacore. Limacore’s army is lacking. Vakrov’s isn’t. Right now it would be a suicide mission.”
“So telling Theon would be pointless.” I sigh.
“He’d still attempt it, suicide mission or not.” Kol replies. “That’s what I’m saying. When it comes to Amara he doesn’t think clearly.”
“Why? Why is it so important to him to get his hands on her? It cannot be just because of Llíria.”
“That isn’t any of your concern.” Kol says dismissively and then turns to go. “The de
cision has been made. We don’t tell Theon anything until we have a solid way to get Amara back without causing mass bloodshed.” I see a flicker of sadness in his dark blue eyes before he is gone, out of sight.
My eyes fall back on Clea. “What do we do, Cle? Amara, she does not make decisions hastily like we do. Everything she does and says is calculated.” Everything, but her brief dalliance with Kol back in Limacore. “She wouldn’t have asked if she hadn’t thought it through, torture or not.”
“What do you need me to do?” she asks, unbiased. As scared as she is of Kol she’ll do whatever I need her to do. She is riddled with guilt after everything she said and did while without her soul and she is willing to do whatever it takes to win me back.
“The only way me and Amara can seem to trigger this Echo to get inside each other’s head is when we’re scared or in danger so I need you to help me do that.”
“Kara,” Clea says cautiously. “No. I am not going to intentionally put you in harm’s way.”
“Not even for Amara?” It’s no secret that Amara’s always been Clea’s favorite so it’s a challenge. Clea does not rise to the bait.
“No, not even for Amara.”
“Fine. I need to think. I’m going for a ride.”
I leave Clea, feeling even more disappointed and confused as I had been before this morning’s trip into Amara’s cluttered mind. I can’t do much, but I can try to get some air and figure out what to do so that’s what I do. I head down to the stables to see the only person I truly like in this palace. Phoenix, a beautiful black stallion who no one bothers with anymore because she’s been skittish ever since she was nearly burned alive in a stable fire that killed all the other horses. Every single one, but her.
Because we’re leaving the palace, Meg and Ari escort me. It’s for my protection, but it’s also to make sure I don’t try to escape, feeble as it may be.
I saddle Phoenix and pull on the reins to steer her to the right through the trails that wind through the trees. Phoenix huffs and tosses her head around and I get the feeling there’s something wrong. “Shh, it’s okay girl.” I coax her gently.
I know a little bit about PTSD myself. Any time I hear a loud, popping noise it sends me right back into the chaos of the funeral shooting. The screams, the blood, Tristan’s body lying slack in his overturned coffin. The sight of his cold, pale corpse disrespected the way it had been brings on my rage, knowing the man responsible for it is sitting pretty on a silver throne that belongs to Amara, or one of her brothers.
I’m not really sure which of them is meant to rule since they’re triplets. Maybe Aaren because he was technically born first. Maybe Amara because she’s more powerful. Either way, it isn’t Theon’s to claim. It isn’t Kol’s and it makes me ill just thinking about them using Amara as some figurehead while they rule her people behind closed doors.
We’re making our way out of the trees and back to the open grassy fields when Phoenix stops abruptly, turning around toward the trees in the distance. “Phoenix?” I say questionably. She huffs again, never taking her eyes off the trees. She sees something I can’t and I know she’s going to buck. I don’t have time to scramble off of her before she does. I’m tossed up into the air in the next second. I scream out, brace for whatever bones are going to break on impact, and pray I don’t meet some terrible fate here in this field. What a tragic way for me to die given all the grand ways I could go out in the midst of a revolution. It takes me a second to realize though that the impact never comes.
I peek my eyes open slowly to see I’m not on the ground, but in the arms of a stranger. “I’m dead, aren’t I?”
My handsome hero chuckles adorably. “Now that would be a crying shame.”
It takes me a moment to realize the blue eyes I’m looking into are oddly familiar. They remind me of Kol. His face does too. The dark hair, the style of it, his smile. They could be brothers.
“You—you look like—”
“Kol? Yeah, I get that a lot, ya know, since we’re brothers.” he says with a grin and all I can do is gape back at him in confusion. “What? You think your Serpentarian bestie is the only one with a twin brother? Fraternal, thank Ophiuchus. I’m the good-looking one. Also known as Haydan.” A charming smile creeps across his face and I find myself locked in his blue gaze. His eyes, though blue like his brother’s, are not dark and endless like Kol’s. They’re the color of the sky, warm, welcoming.
“Wow. Kol’s brother.” I say in disbelief.
“That is correct. Although I like to think Kol is my brother.” he jokes, smiling widely, making me laugh for the first time in months. It is quickly silenced though by Amara’s presence. When I jolt forward Haydan helps me to my feet while I wait to feel Amara’s presence inside my head.
It’s always weird when I feel her creeping into my head. It’s like taking a walk knowing you’re alone and then suddenly someone is by your side. It’s silent, but I always know when she’s there.
“It’s happening again, isn’t it?” Clea is at my side now, grabbing for my hands.
“Yes.” I’m wary of saying anything out loud in front of this stranger, but I have to talk to Amara while I have her attention because I don’t know when I’ll get another chance. “Amara, I know what you said, but we can’t do it. Kol says it’s too dangerous, that too many Serpentarians will die and that Theon doesn’t think straight when it comes to you. But Kol’s gonna find another way, Mara, I promise. We’re gonna get you out of there.” The words break my heart because I can sense her fear. It’s crippling her and that cripples me. She can’t stay.
“Then don’t.” I tell her. “Get out of there. Find a way and we’ll find you. Amara—” But she’s gone before I can finish what I’m saying, of no fault of her own. Our connection usually breaks when something around us distracts us enough to let go of the magic that makes the Echo work. When we aren’t focused we lose it easily, which is why I had to get flung off a horse in order to connect with her. It takes so much for us to make the connection, but so little to break it.
“I’m so sorry, Mar.” I whisper. With her gone my heart sinks to my feet.
Clea squeezes my hands tight. “You had to, Kara.” she assures me, but it still does not make me feel any better, to tell my best friend that I can’t come rescue her.
I look at Clea and shake my head, fighting tears. “We’ll talk later, okay?” I say softly to her. Clea looks at Haydan, back at me, and understands.
“Okay.” She nods. “Haydan.” she says to him before turning to go.
“Blondie.” Haydan mutters back. They don’t sound hostile, like her and Kol, but they don’t sound friendly either.
Once she’s gone I turn back to Haydan who is speaking calmly to Phoenix, trying to calm her down. “I’d like to walk back with you if you’ll let me.” he says.
“Oh no.” I object thoughtlessly. “There’s no way in hell I’m getting back on that horse.”
With a smirk Haydan says, “Ya know, I think she’s really sorry for what she did.”
“I’m sure she is.” I say bitterly.
“Well, what if we road back together on my horse?” he suggests.
I peer down at his horse who appears a lot calmer than Phoenix. “I guess that would be okay.”
Haydan takes to tying Phoenix’s reins to his horse’s saddle and then he stands to the side. “After you,” he says.
I hop up onto the horse and a moment later he climbs up behind me. We both grab for the reins instantaneously, his fingers sliding over mine. I’m suddenly made very aware of his breath on my neck. I move my hands to the horse, feeling his white mane on my skin and the act calms me, driving out the fear.
Haydan yanks on the rains, sending the horse into motion. I untense my legs and settle back comfortably.
“Should you even be riding a horse anyway?”
I scoff, but find I’m smiling. “Why? You mean because I’m pregnant?” I shrug. “Probably not.”
I feel his smile beh
ind me. “Do you mind if I ask what happened back there?”
“With the horse or with me talking to myself?”
Haydan chuckles. “I know about you and Amara Boudelaire’s Echo. I meant what you guys were talking about.” Haydan must feel me tense because he adds, “You don’t have to worry. I know everything you three are up to. Kol updated me on everything when I returned last night.”
To distract him from his own question I ask, “Is that why I haven’t seen you around the palace? You’ve been gone?”
Haydan isn’t fooled by my distracting tactic. “Hah, if I tell you will you answer my question?”
“Maybe.”
Haydan laughs again. “While Kol was sent to infiltrate Limacore I was sent on a mission of my own, to recruit as many Serpentarians to our cause as possible.” He pauses. “Your turn.”
I face forward and grip the reins of the horse tighter. “You could easily just be telling me that Kol has told you everything we’ve been doing just to extract information from me.”
“You can trust me, Kara.”
“Trust does not come easily in the world we live in. Everyone has an agenda. What is yours?”
“Well you’re right.” Haydan says, yanking on the reins so that Phoenix will turn to the left. “Trust is a privilege, not a right. Cliché I know, but it’s the truth. Do you remember when we were children and you believed in everything? But more importantly you believed in everyone? Wasn’t it nice to be so innocent that you trusted everyone until they did something wrong to break that trust? Now it’s the other way around. We trust no one until they do something that is worthy of trust.”
Savage Reign Page 10
