Page 13

Chapter 13

Karus

Watching all the people I loved pack their things into the two carriages at the edge of Felgren caused a lump in my throat I couldn’t swallow. The turmoil of emotions from the last six weeks since the trials had me constantly breaking down into sudden joy, sudden fear, and sudden tears of sadness. I turned my back on the scene to say goodbye to the forest I loved, the lumens I loved, the Overseer I loved, and Lia , whom I was disappointed with, but still cared for deeply.

Parvus bit the hem of my black Baron skirts, pulling me away from the line of trees that marked the edge of Felgren .

“ I know, I know.” I sighed, scratching behind his ears covered in a thick moss. I stared into his eyes which had grown more angular and redder in the weeks since the Blightress had helped heal the lumens from their fall into the underground tunnel.

He whined looking up at me, his tongue pulled into his mouth for once. I wiped a tear and bent to his face where I held it. “ It’s only two weeks. It will be nothing to you. And no, you cannot come with. You and Rauca need to stay here and get better.”

I scratched his neck, feeling the vines growing beneath my fingers.

Figuerah approached, assuring, “ Madame Zoreyah might know what to do about this change in the lumens. We’ll ask her about it when we get to Radyx .”

She had examined both of the giant wolves thoroughly, finding nothing wrong with them except the vines, thorns, seeds, and moss that bloomed over their coats of fur each day.

“ Everyone is saying their last goodbyes and we’re ready.” She squeezed my hand and gave a last hug to Parvus before joining Clairannia in one of the carriages.

Lia stepped up beside me, holding out a pine green silk band with one and a half moons embroidered across the front. “ I have something for you, love.”

I took it, smoothing my hands over the intricate design.

“ I had just enough time to finish it last night,” she added. “ Do you like it?”

Holding the growth band for my child, I nodded, pressing my lips closed to stop the tremble I felt all the way to my heart. I’d wear the band all throughout Saelyn’s growth, adding moons until I gave birth. Then we would wrap the band around her crib to bring peace and good health in her first year of life.

“ It’s beautiful. Thank you, Lia .” I handed it back to her and turned so she could tie it around my waist.

“ I wasn’t where I should have been all those years ago.” She sniffed behind me, finishing the bow. “ I won’t make that mistake again. So , I’ll be here when you return for all of it. I promise you.”

I pulled her into a hug and held on tightly. Somehow , she felt like more than a friend, but family. “ How do I know I’ve kept the Blightress out? How can I be sure she isn’t there right now, inside my thoughts?”

“ You must shove her away. Put her in the darkest corner of your mind. Close the door on her, and she cannot get through. I know you have the strength to do this.”

“ I feel her there,” I murmured into the breeze. “ But I have covered her corner in webs. In ice. In a dark place. She can speak to me, but if I don’t respond, she goes away.”

Lia pulled back to look at me. “ She used to speak to me often. I decided that if I did not respond, she would stop.”

“ Did she?”

“ Eventually , yes.”

I bit my lips, hesitating on my next question. “ Can she be healed, Lia ? Maybe we don’t need to destroy her, maybe we just need to?—”

“ She’s been broken longer than she’s been good. Remember that.”

I straightened my shoulders, nodding. “ I haven’t seen Moira today, so if she returns, please let her know when we’ll be back.”

“ I will.”

I smiled and left her side, walking the path that led to where Pompeii and Mychael embraced each other as they said goodbye. Mychael whispered something in his ear, and I slowed my pace to give them privacy as they shared a long, deep kiss.

I bent down to pull a few yellow blossoms growing in a patch along the dirt path, waiting until the last possible second to leave. I hadn’t been so hesitant in leaving at our companion celebration, but now, so much had changed.

I was growing our child.

I couldn’t go through Rev’s portals.

The Blightress lived in the minds of those touched by diseases of the Blight .

She’d had a stillborn child, and Lia had left her.

The most haunting of all, the Blightress had ripped her own heart from her chest and gave it to Adaynth . He had kept it warm for centuries before she convinced Baron Ereyth to steal it back for her. We’d learned so much and had even more to do.

“ Baron Karus . ” Pompeii’s voice interrupted my somber thoughts. I lifted my eyes to say goodbye, but he was still far ahead, his back to me, watching Mychael climb into the seat next to the carriage driver.

I jolted upright at the discovery that he was speaking to me in my mind.

“ Bring him back. ” He turned his head, still fifty feet away, catching my gaze with golden eyes lined in kohl. “ Please , Karus . Bring back the man I love. ”

I swallowed, replying through my mind, “ The Blighted trees in Viridis … I grew those. ”

He nodded, looking back to watch everyone gather into the carriages. Rev leaned against one of them, patiently waiting for me.

“ I grew the Blight that caused the Black Lung . The Blightress gave me that power. We are both in your mind. ”

“ Yes . I found you there with her, but seeing how pale you grew upon the confirmation, I didn’t want to upset you more. ”

I held onto my buttercup stems tightly, following the path to reach his side. “ I promise not to pry into your thoughts,” I spoke upon the wind gusting around us. I watched Rev smile in the breeze as it blew through his hair.

Pompeii said with urgency, “ I don’t care what you do to my mind, just bring him back.” He faced me, pressing his hands to my shoulders.

“ We’re not even going to her heart yet, this is just to?—”

“ Do not underestimate her determination.” His usually pleasant face broke into something hard. “ I have heard her cries of rage. I have dreamed of what this forest once was. She will not stop, and she will not let anyone get in the way of what she wants.”

He glanced once again to the carriages. Several heads of the people I loved and must care for, stuck out of the carriage doors, waiting for me to finally join them. “ Bring all of them back.”

“ This is quite the ominous goodbye,” I said in a nervous laugh. “ But I promise.”

He pulled me into an embrace and admitted, “ It’s the only goodbye I can give you.”

A shiver ran up my spine and he let go, stepping aside so I could continue on to join everyone else.

“ Ready ?” Rev asked, taking my hand.

I took one more look at Felgren . The thick tree line was a stark contrast to the edge of frozen earth that marked the border of the forest, telling the story of winter settling over the rest of the isle.

I pulled my warm cloak tighter over my shoulders and nodded to Pompeii before brushing Rev’s hair behind his ear, planting a quick kiss on his lips. “ Ready .”

* * *

A dusting of snow covered the fields of grasses and rows of broken stems from the wheat grown in summer. I watched a few flakes fall outside of the carriages we’d commissioned to take us all the way to Radyx .

Inside our carriage, Clairannia and Figuerah spoke to Rev about their plans for our daughter’s nursery, catching him up on the details of the sun and moon painted ceiling they had planned. I had let them take over the details, thankful that I wouldn’t need to plan them myself now that I was Baron and considerably more busy training channelers.

Revich added his own thoughts, and my mind drifted to our task at hand. Mychael sat with our carriage driver at the front, and behind us, Philius sat with his. That carriage held Renn , Rell , Ilyenna , and Nyeimah with Talon sitting on the bench at the back.

We all agreed to take our turns outside of the carriages along the way. Clairannia and Figuerah had assured us there were no real dangers on our first stop to Lythglyn , especially not to two carriages full of Barons , conduits, and channelers. If anything, we were the safest travelers there could be, and I wondered what Pompeii had been so concerned about.

Perhaps I’d ask him more this evening when we arrived at Lythglyn and test the distance between our connection. I was tired of ignoring my power and dismissing what I could do. I held the power of each type of conduit magic: iumenta, lapis, medicus, and agricola. I was and had always been adept at using each type of magic if I’d just admitted it. Now that I was Baron , I could easily control the earth, the wind, and the water of the isle. There was only one soul more powerful than me.

The Blightress had been left. I could not turn a blind eye to that. She’d been broken, and she’d been left by those who should have stayed to love her. I thought of Philius . I thought of myself, of Revich . We’d all seen the darkness at some parts of our lives, and yet, we’d never been abandoned. Revich and I had made it through and Philius was getting there, so what was it that made us so special? Why did we get the nurturing we needed in those darkest times and Visalia did not?

Baron Adaynth said he kept her heart safe, kept it warm, loving her still, but was that enough?

Rev had watched over my care for years, speaking to me each day, checking on any sign that I was finding my way back to my memories. He had given me space to heal, looking consistently for the rhyzolm in the hope that it could help my memories return. Did Adaynth do any of those things?

I should ask.

I should reach out to him in my mind.

I didn’t want to. I didn’t particularly like him and our first introduction weeks ago, when I had passed the Baron trial, didn’t exactly emit warm feelings between both of us.

But he said he’d try.

He told me as I accepted half the power of Baron that he would try to give me the ability to keep Revich happy, safe, and loved. I didn’t feel any different on that front. I didn’t notice any new power or any new way to do those things for him.

I turned my head toward Rev , still resting my body against the window of the carriage. I missed why they were all laughing, but seeing the three people I loved most, warmed my heart in the slight chill of winter that pressed on the carriage. Rev held my hand in his lap. He squeezed my fingers and winked, murmuring, Caloren to warm the cabin. My heart fluttered, always prone to fall at the attention he gave me.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, listening to my loves speak quietly in the jostling of carriage wheels over frozen roads. My thoughts drifted to the first days of falling for Rev .

“ Show me what you can do. ”

The memory of his words drifted on the warmth of that spring day years ago, and I took a moment to adjust to the dream I found myself in. Rev wasn’t there beside me by the small stream with the charred maple tree above the outcropping of rocks, but someone else was.

“ Which one of us called this meeting?” I asked, glancing at the first Baron who leaned against the blackened tree above the stream.

“ You have not so forcefully pushed me from your mind as of late.” He shrugged, sweeping his hair back from his face where it fell across his forehead. “ I took the opportunity to see how the second Baron fairs.”

“ Do you know the story of this place?” I asked, bending down to glide my hand across the cold water.

“ I know more about this place than you, Karus .” He lifted himself off the tree and jerked his head in its direction. “ I know the story of the origins of this tree.”

“ A tale you’d like to tell me?” I gave him a small smile, attempting to be polite to the man who shared a space inside my head.

“ Centuries ago, a fae and human planted this tree together in hopes that their love for each other could grow and be nurtured in this forest as a symbol of unity.”

I smiled, admiring the massive maple tree even more.

He hopped down, splashing into the water and walked toward me, adding, “ That was until you burned it down.”

My smile faded into a glare. “ Why is it, truly , Adaynth , that you dislike me so?”

“ I told you before. I see Visalia in you.”

“ Yet , I am not her.”

“ So you’ve said.”

I stood, brushing the wisps of white hair back from my face. “ You find your self-worth in what? Keeping her broken heart locked away beneath your black fortress?” I scoffed. “ Tell me, what did you do to kill your child?”

“ I did not kill our child.”

“ Why does she insist you did?”

“ Because .”

I splashed through the stream to reach him and gritted through my teeth, “ Because why ?”

“ You think you know her? You think you’ve got her figured out?” He sneered. “ You know nothing of what we went through. You know nothing of who she was before she fell to her own sorrow. You don’t know loss, Karus . You don’t know what it is like to watch the person you love most fall to their own pain, blaming you the entire time for the whole of it.”

“ Then tell me. Help me understand her better so that I can stop her from taking everything I love.”

“ You know everything you need to know. I cannot provide any more insight to her.”

“ Bullshit ,” I spat, stepping closer.

He grabbed my shoulders, shaking me. “ You know what’s bullshit? I can feel her there, in your mind. She occupies the same space I do and because Revich decided he needed to give you half of my power, the power that I gave him, I now live there inside of you, too. With . Her . ” His nostrils flared and his hazel eyes turned glassy. “ I feel her there. I know her presence like I know my own soul and that is bullshit. Because of you, I share with her a place I never wanted to. Because of you and Revich’s somehow undying love for you, I’ve had to relive parts of my past that I have kept at bay for fucking centuries .”

He jostled me again, letting go in a huff. “ And don’t you think for one second, for one minuscule moment of time, that I wouldn’t leave your mind if I could. But I am now bound to it, just as I am bound to Revich’s , and I will continue to be until the day you both die and my power moves on to the next Baron . You will die. I will keep living. You will fade into nothing, and I will jump to the next, and the next, and the next, doing my duty to this forest. My legacy will live on, and you will fade into mere memory, then history, until not a single soul on this isle recalls anything about you all.”

I huffed a laugh. “ And what a Baron you’ve turned out to be. Admiring your own legacy more than the people who are working to change lives. Tell me, Baron Adaynth , what have you done to bring more prosperity and happiness to the people here? What whispers have you let seep into the minds of the countless Barons you’ve given power to? What attempts have you made to soften their hearts, hmm?” I closed our gap, refusing to back away from him. “ Tell me what you said to Heimlen to try and convince him to choose another way to get me here. Tell me what you said to show him that murdering thousands was the wrong choice!”

His nostrils flared, his silence telling.

“ I thought as much,” I pressed. “ You have all this power? All this ability to siphon into one Baron then to another, and yet, all you do is stay silent because you are a coward. All you do is sleep in these minds and scoff at the people now trying to change what has always been.” I drew a deep breath, feeling the fast blink of my eyes as I began to wake. “ Tell me why she blames you. Help . Me .”

“ Karus . Karus , wake up.”

My eyes flew open and I shot upright, holding my chest with one hand, smoothing over my belly with the other. Rev held my cheek tilting my face to meet his. “ Just a dream. It was just a dream.” He pulled me to his warm body.

“ We’ve stopped?” I gasped, searching out the window for Clairannia and Figuerah .

“ Just to change carriage positions. Talon and Philius will join us here. Clairannia and Figuerah will ride outside for a while.”

“ No , no I’d like to instead if that’s alright with them. I think a bit of cold will help me stay awake.”

He kissed my forehead before bending to step out of the cabin. He called to Clairannia and Figuerah who were stretching with Nyeimah and the others.

I took a moment to be still in the silence of the carriage. I didn’t dare address Adaynth in my mind. I didn’t know if it would open a channel to the Blightress as well. He was hiding something. I felt it there, speaking to him.

Rev popped his head back inside, offering his hand. “ Come , my love. Let us ride on the back of this carriage together all the way to Lythglyn .” He glanced behind him, then back to me as I placed my palm in his. “ If this is an attempt to get me alone for your wicked desires, consider me a willing pawn.”

I laughed, falling into his arms where he caught me. “ Baron Revich , I wouldn’t dare.”

He kissed me lightly, wrapping a hand around the back of my neck to whisper in my ear, “ Yes , you would.”

I would.

Of course, I would.

For a moment, I held him there. Time stopped, voices faded. My lover, my companion, my heart, my life, my bonded soul and I stood on a dirt road, sodden by winter’s biting chill, surrounded by those we loved and cared for, and I kissed him in the moment we shared.

Just us.

Only us.

“ You’re glowing,” he murmured on my lips in what I knew was a smile without ever seeing it. I could hear it in his voice as I’d heard it a thousand times in his arms.

“ You make me glow, Baron Revich .”

“ She glows?” I heard Nyeimah’s question somewhere near us.

“ Yeah , she does that,” Figuerah answered.

“ Why don’t you glow for me?” Nyeimah pouted.

I peeked over Rev’s shoulder in a smile as Figuerah replied, “ I’ll glow for you tonight, if you’d like.”

Clairannia’s laugh burst from her chest and her cheeks reddened as she hopped back into the carriage.

Once everyone was into their seats, Rev gave the order to keep moving. He wrapped his cloak around both of us, and I leaned my head on his shoulders, reciting my dream.

He grunted when I spoke of the feeling that we didn’t know the whole truth. He added, “ I also felt like Adaynth was hiding something when he came to me in my dream.”

“ And another thing,” I paused, settling in closer. “ Pompeii discovered I’m in his mind as well.”

Rev frowned, asking how that could be.

“ The Blighted trees in Viridis ,” I explained. “ I made those trees. I grew the Blight that you accidentally created the Black Lung with.”

“ Fuck .”

I nodded my agreement. “ He was incredibly concerned about the safety of Mychael on this trip. I’ve never seen him like that.”

“ I think he cares for Mychael more than he’s admitted to. I’m sure that frightens him.”

“ Well , we won’t let anything happen to our channelers. Of course we won’t. Lia told me that if I keep the Blightress locked away in my mind, she cannot reach me. Now I just need to teach that to Philius and we’ll be even safer.”

We heard my brother’s laughter booming from the carriage behind us.

“ He’s loosening up.” Rev nodded toward the sound.

“ I think he’s adjusting to the responsibility of becoming an uncle.”

“ It’s about time he adjusted to any responsibility, so I approve.”

I mumbled my agreement and we continued on down the frozen road to Lythglyn , filling the chill with the sound of our excitement for the future we believed would be ours.