by S. M. Boyce
Kara headed down the stairs and into the Vagabond’s war room, which Braeden had turned into an armory on their first day. Swords, maces, and other assorted sharp things now adorned the walls, all of them freshly polished and mounted for display. She hadn’t seen him on the way into the room, but he would be back soon. He was probably off realizing what a terrible girlfriend she would make.
Kara scanned the weapons, but one in particular caught her eye.
A thin sword hung at the far end of the room, framing the head of the table with its shining silver. The blade was about the length of her arm. An ornate hand guard curved over the hilt in thin flourishes. As she stepped closer, an etching of the Grimoire clover flashed along the base of the blade.
She lifted the sword from the wall to examine it, but it didn’t weigh down her hands at all. Light as it was, though, the sharp edges still glinted in the midday sun streaming through a window.
“There is a sheath for that, if you need it,” Braeden said from behind her.
She turned and offered a thin smile, but he was already heading for a trunk in the far corner. He rifled through it for a few silent minutes before he pulled a scabbard from the heaps of leather, walked over, and offered it to her. The leather was smooth in her hands when she reached for it.
“Thanks,” she said. The sword whistled as she slid it into the scabbard.
He nodded and opened his mouth, but closed it just as quickly without saying anything.
Kara toyed with the belt buckle on the scabbard. “I’m sorry about my outburst earlier. It was inappropriate.”
“Hardly.”
“What?”
“It’s exactly what I needed to hear.” He glanced out the window to avoid her gaze, and she couldn’t quite tell if he meant that in a positive or negative way. She wasn’t sure which was better.
“Oh,” she said.
They just stood there for a while without talking. Kara waited for him to speak, though he no doubt wanted her to break the ice.
“I hope I—”
“Could you—”
They laughed. The icy chill of their silence faded.
“I’ll do my best to respect what you want, Kara. I just want to be nearby. Someone has to catch you when you trip.”
She chuckled. “Thanks, I guess.”
The day’s final hours passed more quickly than Kara could appreciate them. Before she knew it, the moon rose from behind the windowpanes of the Vagabond’s study. She sat on the floor, resting her weight on her palms as she stared into the bookshelf that housed the one hundred Grimoires she was meant to simply give away.
It was ludicrous. It would get her killed, and the dead man in her own Grimoire just couldn’t see it.
The door scraped along the rug. An old floorboard creaked. Kara’s heart skipped a beat at the sound, but when she turned, Braeden froze in his retreat from the room.
“You’re still up?” she asked.
“I wanted to leave these keys on the desk before I forget them again and accidentally take them to the Gala,” he said.
He opened his hand to reveal a blue orb and a slab of stone with a rose carved into it: the keys he’d used to gain entry into Losse and Kirelm. Only citizens of each kingdom were supposed to know what they looked like, and even then, only a select few ever had the privilege of owning one. If the muses hadn’t given him those keys, he wouldn’t have been able to stay with Kara as she toured the various kingdoms.
Kara whistled. “Good idea. You wouldn’t want anyone to ask you where you got those or why you even have them.”
“Exactly.”
“Why didn’t you leave them with the muses when you were training with them?”
“Adele was too busy beating me senseless in our sparring to ask for them. I was too busy healing myself to remember.”
“Oh,” Kara replied. There wasn’t really a suitable response to something like that.
He set the keys in the first desk drawer and sat next to her. He leaned against the desk’s oak base and stretched out his arms as if asking for a hug.
“Come here,” he said softly.
“Braeden—”
“Don’t think about it.”
She sighed. Sleep played on the corner of her eyes, and he would probably make a comfortable pillow.
Sure. That’s why she wanted to oblige.
Carpet fibers rubbed along her palms as she readjusted herself and leaned backward into his chest. He wrapped his arms around her, and the warmth from his forearms chased away her fear.
He rested his head against hers. “This is the last peaceful moment we’ll have for a while.”
She nodded, eyes drooping from the warmth and comfort that came from touching him. The Gala was tomorrow, and the growing war would come shortly after. But for now—for what was left of the moonlight—they could just be.
Chapter 2
Desire
A blinding ray of sunlight woke Braeden.
He had fallen asleep against the desk with Kara in his arms. A flood of excitement flurried in his gut—she was still there.
Kara had curled into him in the night. She’d tucked her knees under her chin and leaned her left side against his chest. Her head burrowed against him now as he moved, and he smiled. Her soft hair pooled against his neck, so he ran a hand through it without thinking.
She stirred. His heart fell. The peace was almost over.
“What time is it?” she asked, rubbing her eyes.
“Time to pack up, I’d imagine.”
She didn’t let go. They sat there, looking everywhere but at each other.
Kara cleared her throat. “I found out that Flick can’t teleport through lichgates, so we have to travel on foot until we’re outside the Amber Temple. Once we do, though, can you show Flick where to go so we can teleport to the Gala?”
Braeden hesitated. He could, sure. He just didn’t want to. He wanted to steal every last second he possibly could from the tranquility. The moment they reached Ethos, that peace would be gone. Worry and doubt and fear would return. Kara would pull away.
So he lied. “I don’t want to risk it. What if I teleport us over lava or something by accident?”
Kara laughed and shook her head. “Let’s take the giant wolf, then.”
Her gray eyes caught him in their gaze, spurring on that tingling feeling in his gut he used to hate. He swallowed hard. She paused, watching him, and forced a smile even as her real one faded. She kissed the line of his jaw before pushing herself to her feet and walking from the room.
He meant to get up and follow her, but he needed a moment. His knees gave out when she looked at him that way.
The door shut with a bang, probably harder than she intended. Braeden didn’t care. He knew she wasn’t mad. She was frustrated, like him. Kara had lost people she loved, and apparently thought Braeden was next. He could appreciate why she wanted to push him away, but that didn’t make him want her less.
Braeden sighed and pushed himself to his feet. When he died, it wouldn’t be because of Kara. In time, she would realize that.
He walked into the hall and headed for the stairs, trotting down to the echoes of his own footsteps ringing around the vacant hall. The village was primed and ready for life it would never see. Well, not as long as Kara had any say in the matter.
Either Kara had to make more vagabonds, or she had to play by the Bloods’ rules. Braeden sure didn’t know the right answer, even after a decade of military training. Sure, more vagabonds would mean more allies, but at what cost? Kara was right. Stealing the Bloods’ subjects would turn them against her. She didn’t have much of a choice but to trust them—and it was a choice he hated. Besides Aislynn, there wasn’t an honest royal among them. He didn’t even trust Aislynn’s niece, Evelyn.
He cringed. What Gavin saw in that girl, he would never know. Of course, he couldn’t exactly ask his adoptive brother, either. Both Gavin and Evelyn thought they were being secretive in their affair, despite the fact Br
aeden had often covered their trail to keep nosy maids from figuring them out.
“Whoa. What are you thinking about? You look angry.”
Braeden looked up to see Kara a few feet away. She watched him, a pack weighing down each of her shoulders. They sank low across her back from the weight of whatever was in them.
“Sorry. It’s nothing. What do you have there?” he asked.
“A ways back, Gavin mentioned that I needed to find presents for all of the royals. Apparently, it’s part of the ceremony. So I grabbed a few things from the treasure room. I put blankets and food in the other bag.”
He glanced across the hall to the treasury—the only room in the mansion with no doorknob. It had sat open during their week’s stay, but it was now closed. It was yet another sign they were really leaving.
“Do you need help with those?” he asked.
She smiled and slid the packs into his hand. The weight pulled against his grip, but he wasn’t about to let her see that. How she’d carried them at all was beyond him. Their training must have had a greater impact than he’d thought.
“So when are we leaving?” he asked.
“As soon as possible since the Gala is tomorrow night. I let us sleep in because I hadn’t counted on having to travel there on foot, so we’re a little short on time. Ryn should be fast enough, though, depending on where it is.”
“Well, the Gala is supposed to be tomorrow. That means it will be delayed.”
Kara stopped in the doorway and turned around. A breeze played with her hair such that it framed her pinched eyebrows. Braeden’s jaw tightened on its own as she caught his eye.
“What?” she asked.
“Yakona are always late, Kara. It’s just our way.”
Kara laughed. “I guess there’s no rush, then. Let’s just chill here for a bit longer.”
Braeden inched through the door, stopping when he was directly in front of her. The crackled musk of leaves wafted up from her hair, and he wondered what she would do if he leaned closer.
He grinned, but kept as much distance as was possible for sharing a doorway. “Bloods can be late. We cannot. We should leave now, but we can take our time getting there.”
They stood in the doorway, neither moving. Braeden waited for her to do something, to relent maybe. To let him explore what it might be like to love someone, whatever that meant.
“Well, let’s get going,” she said.
She turned and headed down the steps. A short ways off, Ryn turned in welcome as she approached. The giant wolf leaned into her as she patted its head.
Braeden sighed, but the disappointment flared for only a moment. It had been a long shot.
He trotted down the stairs, still holding the heavy bags, and walked toward the giant black wolf Kara so loved. It eyed him, watching him even as Kara rubbed its face.
“Why don’t animals like you?” Kara asked.
“I don’t know,” he lied.
“Is it because you’re Stelian?” she asked, looking away.
She was trying to be coy, he could tell—to offer the suggestion as if it was nothing. He lifted one of the bags onto Ryn’s back and shrugged.
“Perhaps. I do radiate evil, I suppose.” He smirked to cover the sting from the truth in his statement.
Kara laughed. “You’re hardly evil, Braeden.”
“Many would disagree.”
“Enough of that, come on. I’m sorry I brought it up. Let’s just get going.”
Ryn knelt to let her hop onto his back. Braeden draped the last pack over Ryn’s shoulders, in front of Kara, and jumped on behind her. He reached for the fur on the wolf’s shoulders, wrapping his arms around her as the wolf stood. He didn’t need to do it, of course. Usually when he rode a drowng or a horse, he didn’t even need a saddle or reins. He just wanted to be close.
The ancient wolf stood and headed toward the lichgate behind the Vagabond’s tomb. In minutes, they stared into the lichgate’s darkness. This lichgate was unlike any Braeden had ever seen, and he still couldn’t understand why it didn’t show the other side like any other lichgate.
Ryn trotted forward on some silent command from Kara Braeden had missed. Kara’s body tensed as they neared the lichgate, and it was all Braeden could do to not hold her. She had a lot to fear: Gavin, the Gala, the other Bloods. He wished he could steal her away from it all.
Moving through a lichgate had two signs: a flare of blue light and a jolt that passed through the body. But this lichgate was different. Instead of blue light, a kaleidoscope of color broke across Braeden’s vision, and instead of a kick to the gut, warmth spread through his body, soothing every muscle until all that remained was contentment.
The spattered colors dissolved into pure white, which faded away to the green glow of a forest brighter than the one surrounding the Vagabond’s village. A dirt path curved through the trees, disappearing around a bend.
“What the hell was that?” Kara asked.
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Braeden answered.
“Was that—the colors—?”
Braeden laughed. “I really don’t know. You should ask the Grimoire later.”
Kara nodded and urged Ryn on with a small tap of her heels.
They traveled for only a few minutes before they found yet another lichgate. It was normal, though, built from two branches that twisted away from their trees and met over the path in an arch. Through the gate, a platform carved from solid amber housed an hourglass in a hole at its center. Grains of sand drifted to a small pile in the hourglass’s bottom chamber.
Beyond the platform, the muted darkness of a temple cast a sharp contrast against the bright glow around them. Columns faded away into the depths of the dark shrine.
“Think they’re really gone?” Kara asked.
“Those shadow demons?”
“Yeah.”
He hoped so. The demons had guarded the temple, which housed the only lichgate into the Vagabond’s village. Kara had gone alone, and Braeden had only barely made it in time to help her. How the Vagabond had expected his successor to go alone and face the demons was beyond him.
Kara nudged Ryn again, ushering him through when Braeden didn’t respond.
Blue light flared in Braeden’s peripheral vision, and a kick to his gut meant they’d passed through the lichgate. A chill raced over his body until the hair on his arms stood on end. Ryn’s shuffling footsteps echoed through the vacant hall, leaving Braeden to wonder if daylight ever touched the place.
“Ryn disappeared the first time I came in here,” Kara said. Her voice echoed.
Braeden shrugged. “The hourglass was empty, then. Maybe that’s part of its magic.”
“Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t like this place.”
“I don’t either.”
They trotted past the hourglass and down the stairs that led to it. Ryn kept his eyes trained on the door, but Braeden couldn’t help glancing around. The columns dissolved into a dark haze. He leaned into Kara, silently urging her to hurry. They shouldn’t stay in the temple any longer than necessary. Whatever the Vagabond had invited here—or whatever had been here before the Vagabond—was truly evil.
The temple doors opened as they neared, the iron hinges creaking as the doors came to a stop and beckoned them to the warm air outside. It was still dark, but Braeden and Kara sighed together as Ryn walked down the steps and onto the leaf-covered cobblestones that led away from the shrine.
“How lovely! You both survived,” a voice said from behind them.
Braeden turned, one hand already on his sword, when he saw a creature the size of a tiger and the color of ditch slime lounging on the small roof that covered the door. The beast’s orange eyes glowed with a light of their own. Sharp teeth curled through the thing’s lips even when its mouth was closed.
“It’s good to see you, too, lyth,” Kara said, nudging Braeden in the gut.
Braeden turned to her. She nodded to the sword in his hand and shook her head. He slip
ped the sword back into its sheath, but didn’t let his hand stray too far from its hilt. He didn’t like this thing.
“What is it?” he mouthed to her.
“The lyth protects the village, Braeden. Though if he didn’t appear when you came to the temple, I guess he’s not that good at his job.”
The lyth let out a few rasping breaths in what was either a laugh or a sigh. “I knew you’d be fine, but figured prince charming over there would help you out. That’s why I let him in. I do hope that was all right.”
“I was kidding. Braeden is always welcome,” Kara said.
“Wait, what is going on? Why do you protect the village?” Braeden asked. He’d never seen this thing or anything like it before in his life.
The creature stretched its long legs and yawned. “We all need a purpose. Don’t you agree, yakona?”
Its glowing eyes trained on Braeden with a knowing glare. Braeden didn’t like that look at all.
“Should we take the lapis map, since we’re leaving?” Kara asked, apparently having missed the creature’s glare.
The lyth chuckled. “Not unless you want to fight all of those demons again. The Vagabond wanted to add an emergency failsafe, so removing the key resets the hourglass and awakens the demons. They happen to have excellent memories, by the way, and will recall your last visit. Besides, is an immortal lyth not enough protection?”
Kara shook her head. “I guess we’re leaving it, then. Take care.”
“Stay well, Keeper,” the lyth called. It jumped from the roof and, as it touched the cobblestones at their feet, dissolved into smoke.
“That thing is so weird,” Kara mumbled.
Braeden resisted the impulse to agree, as much as he wanted to. It was probably still listening.
Ryn trotted down the path, but Braeden kept an eye on the temple as they left. The world darkened, the light fading as they moved away.
Sunlight flared around them, forcing Braeden to close his eyes in the sudden glare. When he opened them again, light streamed through thin gaps in the rows of trees lining the path. Their branches leaned over the road, creating a canopy that rustled in the midday sun.
