Heritage: Book Three of the Grimoire Saga

by Boyce, S. M.

  A few yards to his right, the ground broke away into a steep cliff. Rocks jutted through the underbrush. A dead trunk toppled over the edge, half of its decayed branches hanging in the air beyond the forest.

  “Why are we slowing down?” Gavin asked in a whisper.

  “You wanted to see the Stele. That’s the castle.”

  Gavin pulled up beside him. “How close are we going to get?”

  “Close enough to see into windows. I hope you haven’t lost your edge sitting in all those council meetings.”

  Gavin smirked. “I’ve always been a better tracker than you. That doesn’t disappear after a few stuffy meetings.”

  Braeden laughed. “You’ve always had a bigger ego, you mean.”

  Iyra snorted and stomped her foot. Her silver claws dug into the dirt.

  Gavin nodded toward the castle. “What’s our focus while we’re here?”

  “We need to see if any more towers go up, and if so, we need to figure out why. Track troop movements. Look for routines. So far, they change every time I visit.”

  “That doesn’t worry you?” Gavin asked.

  Braeden grimaced. “Of course it worries me. He’s planning something, and I can’t determine what it is.”

  Gavin opened his mouth to speak, but shut it with an audible click.

  “What were you going to say?” Braeden asked.

  “Nothing. Let’s get going before someone spots us.”

  Braeden frowned, but nudged Iyra forward. Gavin had a point, and they couldn’t sit around talking all day. He wanted to examine the most recent towers and search for clues as to why they existed at all.

  Carden’s absence tugged on Braeden’s mind, distracting him. Instinct warned Braeden to run, as it always did when he visited the Stele. But Braeden didn’t run anymore. The Stele belonged to him, and his father belonged in the next life. Braeden would end the man himself—and soon.

  Four hours later, Braeden inched toward a newly constructed guard tower. He slunk behind a bush on his forearms, keeping low as he crept closer to the half-built pile of gray bricks and mortar. Dozens of Stelians bustled around the construction site, carrying stones and buckets to and from the clearing. Some wore rags around their heads to keep their black hair from their eyes. Sweat dripped down their gray arms as they toiled. Not one man looked away from his work.

  One Stelian lifted a charcoal brick the size of his head and wobbled on his feet. He stood for a moment, eyes on the ground as if waiting for a dizzy spell to pass. Eventually, he hoisted the block up to his shoulders and set it on the tower’s growing framework.

  “They’re exhausted,” Braeden said under his breath.

  Gavin nodded. “Whatever Carden’s doing, he’s doing it in a hurry.”

  Braeden gestured backward and retreated. Gavin followed suit. They snaked away from the tower and stole the fifty yards to where they left Iyra and Mastif near a dense patch of thorns. They ran without so much as crunching a leaf thanks to their childhoods of Hillsidian stealth training.

  Once they returned to the thicket, Iyra raised her head in welcome. She and Mastif lay curled near the thorns, mostly out of sight. Though Iyra’s black hide blended in with the thick underbrush, Mastif’s gray fur clashed with the vines.

  Braeden crossed his arms and stopped in his tracks. “This is the twelfth tower I’ve seen since I started these surveillance trips. They’re everywhere, circling the outskirts of the castle. I don’t think I ever ventured this far before.”

  Gavin shrugged. “He’s setting up a perimeter.”

  “The Stele has a perimeter already, farther out. There are towers or guards by every lichgate and at every corner of these woods, except for in the impassible mountains. Not even Stelian guards can survive up there for very long, and nothing can survive a trip over the mountain except for drenowith. Every known entrance is well guarded, and as soon as Carden finds the lichgate I’ve been using, he’ll guard that as well. But these towers he’s building don’t serve a purpose.”

  Gavin frowned. “Unless...”

  “Unless what?”

  The Blood grimaced and shrugged. “Never mind.”

  “This is the second time today you’ve almost said something. Get it out of your system.”

  “Fine. If none of this makes sense, that’s probably for a good reason. He might be throwing you off. What if he knows you’re here?”

  Braeden laughed. “There’s no way he can know I’m here. And if he did, why wouldn’t he use the knowledge as an opportunity to kill me? He has no idea what I’m planning.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Braeden tensed and mulled over the question. He hadn’t been seen. He spent twelve years in Hillside with the finest trackers and hunters in Ourea. He learned from the best. He used to track isen for weeks without his prey knowing. He even managed to get three royal prisoners out of Carden’s dungeon. If Braeden didn’t want to be seen, no one could see him.

  “It’s not possible,” he finally said. But even as the words left his mouth, doubt tugged at the corners of his mind. The Stele obeyed its Blood. Even if Carden hadn’t seen him, it was possible the forest had betrayed him.

  The hair Braeden’s neck stood on end. He took a deep breath to calm himself, but panic shot through his nerves like a bolt of lightning. He took a deep breath and pushed his worry to the back of his mind. He needed to focus.

  Braeden nodded toward Iyra. “Let’s see what else my father has waiting for us.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  DEFIANCE

  Kara leaned against the stone wall of a secret room beneath Kirelm’s castle. Aurora lay on the red couch not ten feet away, still muttering under her breath. An occasional sob escaped the princess—well, she was the Blood, now—but the pain seemed to have subsided. She shivered less, and Kara took that as a good sign.

  Every five minutes or so, explosions rocked the castle. Tremors would shoot through the walls. The sconces lighting the room would rattle, their light flickering with the echo. Kara tightened her fists with each boom, but forced herself to take deep breaths. She didn’t know what else to do.

  Flick paced at her feet, wearing circles into the carpet. Now and again, Kara debated using the little creature’s gifts to teleport Aurora away to Ayavel. She ultimately scratched the idea—Flick couldn’t teleport through lichgates, and Kara couldn’t carry Aurora through the portals once they reached them. She would end up dragging the already ill royal through the dirt and might even get caught in the process. She couldn’t risk being that exposed.

  She cursed. There had to be something she could do.

  Ten minutes passed. Twenty. Thirty. Still, the world above shuddered and shook. Kara couldn’t tell who was winning.

  “Vagabond,” a small voice said.

  Kara’s head snapped toward the couch. Aurora lifted her chin enough to peek over the armrest without moving. Her neck strained. A vein pulsed near her jawbone.

  “Please,” Aurora said. It came out like a moan.

  Kara walked to the Kirelm and knelt. She slipped her hand into Aurora’s. Sweat slid over the woman’s fingers, and she didn’t squeeze back.

  “What can I do to help?” Kara asked.

  “Save them,” Aurora said.

  “I’m supposed to protect you. Gurien can handle them.” Even as she said it, Kara wasn’t sure she believed herself.

  Aurora shook her head. “I can feel them. They’re losing.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I don’t...I have no idea,” Aurora said.

  “Where are they? Can you tell where Carden is?”

  “Throne room.”

  Aurora leaned her head back against the armrest. Her chest rose and fell with exaggerated breaths, enough to make Kara’s lungs starve for air as well.

  “Please,” Aurora said again.

  “But you—”

  “A Blood is useless without her people,” she said, her voice almost too low to hear. Aurora’s eyes fluttered closed
. Her breathing slowed, and the color drained from her cheeks.

  Kara rubbed her own face in frustration. Staying meant waiting for a horde of Stelians and who-knows-what-else to tear down the door. Leaving meant abandoning the already vulnerable Aurora. Either way, this story ended with the enemy kicking in the door. If she stayed, her finale would be a final, hopeless battle in close quarters. Kara might as well take the fight to them.

  Aurora’s fingers tightened around Kara’s hand, but the new queen didn’t open her eyes. Only her chest moved in its labored breaths.

  “I’ll do my best,” Kara said.

  She picked Flick up off the floor and set him in a small gap between Aurora’s head and the back of the sofa. He stared up at her with his wide eyes, and she forced a smile. She scratched his ear.

  Kara didn’t stand a chance against an army. Not really, not even after all of her training. If the army found her—if Carden found her—she would have to take off the wrist guard that kept her power at bay to even stand a chance of survival. She didn’t want to do that, but she didn’t want Flick to be caught in the crossfire if it happened.

  “If anyone but me comes in, teleport her somewhere else. I don’t care where. I’ll find you,” she said.

  He whimpered and pushed his head into her hand. She swallowed hard and forced herself to her feet. In a few strides, she crossed the room and set her hand on the wall.

  The hidden door slid open at her touch to reveal the empty spiral staircase. Stone stairs disappeared into the darkness on either side of her. Sconces still lit the stairwell, but the lights hung too far apart to provide steady relief from the shadows.

  If Aurora’s hunch was right, Kara had to get to the throne room. What she would do when she got there, however, was another matter entirely.

  She inched up the stairs, ears twitching at every half-imagined whisper. The explosions settled. No more booms rattled the sconces. No one screamed.

  The stairs leveled off into a narrow hallway. Kara stopped, certain the door to the castle had to be in the wall. She pressed her ear to the stone, listening for a voice on the other side. For footsteps. Anything.

  A distant scream shot through the rock. Kara shuddered. She took a deep breath to steady herself and listened once again. On occasion, a mumble drifted through the cracks. No loud voices passed by on the other side.

  Now or never.

  Kara ran her hands along the stones, pushing each of them in an effort to find the one that opened the hidden door. One after another, the solid rocks resisted her touch. She moved down the wall, pressing stone after stone after stone.

  A minute passed. Two. Five. She cursed. Finally, one gave way under her touch. As it sank into the wall, Kara sighed with relief.

  A gentle hiss escaped from the bricks to her right. The stones groaned. A section of the wall inched backward into the hidden stairwell.

  Kara peeked out before it stopped moving. The empty hallway stretched off on either side of her. It took a moment to get her bearings. On her left, the hall split away into a labyrinth of rooms and corridors. On her right, the blue throne room doors stood ajar.

  A scream broke the silence. Definitely a man. Someone spoke, the voice too fast and low to make out. The man screamed again, but it died off with a gurgle.

  Kara took a deep breath and stepped into the hallway, her back sliding along the wall as she moved. The door creaked shut behind her until it once more looked like just a wall. She took a mental note of its location: between the ninth and tenth sconce. Hopefully she would be able to open it again.

  A chorus of men’s laughter bubbled through the crack in the doors. A woman whimpered. More laughter.

  Kara inched closer, her bare feet registering the cold stones beneath her with each step. Her dress swished along her legs, the slit revealing too much of her thigh. The frayed ends tickled her shins.

  She peeked through the door and forced back the reflexive curse that shot into her mouth.

  Stelians filled the throne room. Thousands of them. Many grinned. Others chuckled. But all of them watched the front of the room—the platform on which Ithone, Gurien, and Aurora had argued barely an hour earlier.

  Kara shifted until she could see the platform through the crack in the main doors.

  Carden stood in front of the center throne. He sneered at a Kirelm curled at his feet. Silver wings drooped to the floor, twitching. Off to the side of the platform, four Stelians held Gurien at bay: two held his arms, and two held his wings. He fought against them, but their grip dragged him backward with each attempt to escape.

  “She’s only a girl! Let her go!” Gurien shouted.

  Carden’s grin widened. Without looking down, he kicked the Kirelm at his feet. Something snapped. The Kirelm screamed, her voice breaking.

  The Stelian Blood eyed his victim, a smile still on his face. “I can make the pain stop, Elana. Just tell me where Aurora is, and we’ll be done.”

  Elana—that name struck a chord in the back of Kara’s mind. Why?

  She scanned through her thoughts, palms sweating, until it clicked. Elana left a note in the Grimoire warning Kara of Ithone’s intention to kidnap her. Elana was Aurora’s lady in waiting and—more importantly—a vagabond.

  Hatred burned through Kara’s gut. The skin on her neck prickled. No one touched her vagabonds.

  Her hands tightened into fists. Her core tensed. Her elbows shook from the sudden strain. The hallway dissolved from her peripheral vision as Carden kicked Elana once more.

  Kara’s eyes narrowed. The world around her faded until the Stelian Blood’s laughter shoved aside the last of her rational thought. Elana’s screams faded. Gurien’s shouts dissolved until it seemed as though he moved his lips without making a sound.

  A green glow raced along her arm. It spiked and faded as quickly as it had come. Another trail of light pulsed beneath the skirt of her gown. It raced across the slit in her dress. Its brilliance left a white streak on her vision.

  A dull ache throbbed in her wrist. She glanced at the band Stone forced her to wear for her own good. It gave her the modicum of control she had over her power. It limited the flow of magic through her body, even though that was exactly what she had been designed for: power.

  If she walked into that room with the wrist guard on, she didn’t stand a chance. If she took it off, she could kill them all; just like her grandfather, she would leave nothing but corpses. Hopefully her allies would simply get out of the way.

  Time slowed. She tugged at the leather strap. It unwound itself. Tension in her arm eased as the restraints fell away. Her pulse raced. She sucked in breath after breath as her stomach churned with excitement. She slipped her fingertips between her skin and the leather, prying the band away from her body.

  Small spikes in the band lifted away from her body. Shivers of delight raced through her. The air settled against the sweat-soaked arms.

  A spark slithered through her veins. It traveled from her wrist clear down to her heels. Another appeared within her, and another, until electricity coursed through her core.

  Her fear became glee.

  The glow returned, brighter now. It flickered and raced over her skin, reflecting off the door like the northern lights. Something clicked in the back of her mind—this same green glow preceded a murder in each of her grandfather’s memories.

  Good.

  A smile spread across Kara’s lips. She could take on the whole room. She would kill them all.

  She clutched the wrist guard in one hand and walked through the doors. The room hushed. Everyone turned and stared. Gurien stopped fighting his captors. His lips parted in shock—horror, maybe—but he must have been terrified Kara left Aurora alone. That didn’t matter.

  Carden frowned. “Kill her.”

  Kara’s grin widened. Power burned within her, igniting the last traces of her self control. This would be fun.

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  DESTRUCTION

  Kara never took her eyes off of Ca
rden. He stood on the platform beside the Kirelm thrones, one of her vagabonds curled at his feet. Elana whimpered from what had to be lingering pain after Carden’s abuse.

  Green light pulsed over Kara’s skin, casting a glow across the ash-gray faces surrounding her. Thousands of Stelians shifted in the audience around her, most likely wondering what made her glow and whether or not they should run.

  Carden glared at his army. “What are you waiting for? Kill her!”

  The wrist guard hung limp in Kara’s hand. Carden could probably smell her, so he probably knew she was an isen, but he couldn’t know of her ties to Agneon. He didn’t know that taking off her cuff meant sacrificing her self-control. He didn’t know she was about to kill everything that came between her and ripping off his head.

  And nothing could stop her.

  Ten of the nearest Stelians inched closer. They drew swords, but it didn’t matter what they held. They would die.

  Her eyes shifted to them. The one in front froze. His hands tightened around the padded hilt of a sword. Kara’s ear twitched at the creak of skin on leather. He licked his lips, eyes darting to his neighbors as if uncertain what to make of this girl he was supposed to kill.

  Kara smiled.

  Sparks danced along her arms. The glow raced again across her body, stronger now. A string of light broke away like a lasso aimed for the Stelian’s head. He screamed. The light thickened, casting its aim at more of the soldiers. When the light touched them, they dissolved into ash that fell to the floor. Steam radiated from their remains.

  Kara hadn’t even moved.

  Voices boiled over the crowd. Panic. Fear. Kara’s grin widened. Joy and madness ripped through her like the light had ripped through her attackers. It ignited something within her—something dark. Beautiful. Terrifying. A voice echoed through her head—it sounded like her but came unbidden.

  Fear me.