Page 23

Kit

S omething had pulled me to this place.

I don’t know what. If I could have turned and run away, I would have. But whatever it is pulling at me was like a steel cable and I had to find it no matter how much I hated this place.

My memory was still a mess of fractures and rivulets but there were flashes of being inside. All of them brought horror and misery.

A cold, almost prescient whisper danced down my spine as I turned from the pit. Look… look!

There was something in here I needed to find.

It wasn’t a weapon. I’d never felt anything like this and I knew that even with my memory still muddled and twisted. The voices of my weapons were becoming familiar again and this sense of calling was discordant and wrong, even more so than the cursed blade I knew as Death.

I could see that weapon in my mind’s eye, as clearly as if I held it in my hand.

We had come to an uneasy alliance and some of the memories about that sword had worked loose—seeing the Keep had done that.

Something here had woken a part of the blade that had gone dormant.

He was awake now. Awake and angry . This wasn’t like the bond between Lemeraties and her dagger, either. I couldn’t think of how to describe, but the blade…that thing …carried someone’s essence inside.

He had sensed the Keep and come awake with a deafening roar, shoving against my sense of self in an attempt to take control.

If I had wavered just a little, he would have succeeded. But I’d pushed back and the crushing presence of his personality had ebbed. I’d told him I’d call him when it was time and he’d accepted it.

As I moved down the hall with Damon at my side, he stirred in the back of mind and I felt him watching from my eyes. “ I know this place. ”

Yeah, yeah. So did I.

“Not like I do, girl .”

I bared my teeth in a snarl at the insult, but even as I did so, a part of me knew he wasn’t trying to be condescending.

“I know this place. I know it in my bones ,” he murmured. It didn’t matter that he no longer had bones. I understood what he meant.

“The queen lived here,” I said out loud without thinking.

Damon gave me a strange look and I shook my head, not sure I wanted to tell him that the Death blade was speaking to me.

This is a dead place, I thought .

“It’s an evil place.”

I almost spoke out loud again but stopped myself, although I couldn’t silence my agreement with the blade. These halls were eerie and desolate, but there was an underlying malevolence that hung in the air like fog.

Aneris Hall, the entirety of my grandmother’s stronghold had consisted of the Keep, the inner bailey and the outer bailey, which had held the training grounds and trade facilities.

Most of the trade facilities had emptied out, like the lone weapons forge. It sat silent and cold, the once-mighty fires dead. But those empty buildings were just that—empty.

The Keep felt haunted.

No. Worse. It felt tainted .

I’d never liked being forced to come inside these walls but it hadn’t felt so… wrong before.

It wasn’t that it was, objectively, unwelcoming. The palace was sparse but appealing with the unique style of aneira art that was familiar to me even now. But I’d only ever been here during the tournaments or when I’d been dragged in front of my grandmother for some infraction.

I’d always dreaded coming here.

And even though she was here, my desire to run was worse than ever.

My revulsion was so strong, my skin crawled and my feet felt heavy.

Yet I couldn’t turn away.

It was like ghosts haunted my steps.

No.

Not ghosts.

Lemeraties was a ghost and her presence didn’t set my instincts screaming like this.

This was something else.

Turning toward the hall that led to the northern wing, I paused and took a breath.

The lights didn’t extend this deep and I didn’t want to jimmy with the fixtures and find the issue—that would take too much time and I needed to get the hell out of here. Reaching into my pocket for the phone Damon had given me, I pulled it out and turned on the device’s eye-searing bright flashlight.

It cast a stark, pitiless glare on the hall that stretched out before us, flanked halfway down with doors on either side before continuing its relentless march to the end where two double panels waited.

The doors.

A hard shudder wracked me and Damon reached up, gripping my shoulder.

“Kit?”

Wordlessly, I shook my head, gaze still locked on those doors. Each held a wooden panel, carved by skilled hands. The left featured a stunning relief of the aneira as they marched toward some unseen opponent.

And the right? It showed a beautiful woman, tall and broad-shouldered with defined muscles, wearing a short tunic that fell halfway between her buttocks and knee. In one hand she held a shield, in the other a spear.

A weird corona that suggested a halo crowned her head. I’d never asked about the story behind the female who marked the door to the queen’s quarters but I’d heard variations all the same.

Our goddess , one of them claimed. She’s the one who blessed us with our magic and skills and she watches over us still.

Another, more practical version suggested she was an amalgam of previous queens.

There was no hard and fast answer.

Or rather, there hadn’t been.

But as I stared at her profile, hours spun away until it was like I was trapped in the dream again, staring at the being who’d taken over my grandmother—the being who’d wanted my body.

Arsay .

The deteriorating veil between my mind and whatever had held back the memories of… everything crumbled into pieces at my feet. I jerked in response and Damon was in front of me, just like that.

“Kit,” he growled. “What’s wrong? Talk to me.”

I had to suck in air. My throat had gone tight, too tight, and my head was spinning.

One painful memory shoved to the forefront of my mind, all but pulsing there.

I stared through his chest as if I could still see the doors, still remember that night. Her eyes, the cold pleasure in them…the satisfaction—that look I’d seen when I faced a nightmare earlier. But there was something else —someone else. Somebody half-mad and all malice.

Fanis .

Bile surged up my throat as hopes I hadn’t realized I was holding onto died.

“The guards dragged me here,” I said to Damon. “When she found out about the Dominari, she sent them to my quarters—I stayed in a tiny room built adjacent to the outdoor kitchen. They came after me. One kicked in the door, knocking it off its hinges. He dragged me out with his hand in my hair. Every time I tried to stand up, he just knocked me down.”

He was one of the guards who came after me after I’d killed Rathias—I could feel that brutal fist in my hair all over again.

I blinked and the memory twisted in my mind, reforming. He’d thrown me to the ground. I’d still been aching from the attack by Rathias, and half-mad with fear. The blade came to my hand as he came for me and I skewered him. The look of dumb shock on his face registered now in a way it hadn’t then.

“He hauled me in here and the queen’s retinue opened the doors. He threw me down and kicked me because I wasn’t kneeling.”

“My grandmother picked me up.” Shudders gripped me and I battled them down back by sheer will. “She slammed me against the wall and laughed at me for daring to consider the Dominari. Then she realized why…”

Swallowing, I looked at him. “That’s how I ended up in the pit. The same guard hauled me out there and threw me in. Aa few minutes later, Rana came. She sent food down…warmer clothing.” I’d never thought about that in the face of her cool response, the chiding she’d given me over trying to run the fatal race. “And then she was gone and the next person I saw was Rathias.”

Damon’s hands flexed, his fury a violent flame around me but it couldn’t chase away the cold.

“I killed Rathias. And I killed that guard,” I said dully. “He was one of the ones who came after me when they realized I’d killed Rathias. He found me first—him and one of his bastard cronies. I was hurt pretty bad and hadn’t made it far from the pit. He laughed when he found me hiding in a mess of brambles and underbrush, hauled me out by my foot. They taunted me…” My breathing hitched. “If they’d just taken me back , she would have had her hands on me. But they had to have a little fun.”

Without thinking, I reached for Damon’s hand and his fingers closed warm and firm over mine.

“And I killed him. Before the other guard got over his shock, I ran for the cliffs and dove into the water. Death was better than going back. But I made it to the nearest island.”

My throat hurt, whether from memories of my grandmother’s hand on my throat from the confrontation with her earlier that night or my own screams, I didn’t know.

Something in my gut tightened into a tight, cold ball as I realized that suddenly, I sympathized with what Chang had done, hiding away memories of whatever had happened to Damon. I didn’t agree, but I understood .

“I wanted to pretend it wasn’t always her. That maybe Madae was in control this whole time. But it wasn’t.”

“Your memory is back.” He cupped my cheek.

I covered his hand with mine.

“I’m afraid so.” Gripping his wrist, I watched him while my world spun around and fell to pieces around me again. “I wanted to think that maybe, just maybe , there was something in her that hadn’t hated me. But I can think clearly now. I remember . I remember times I’d look at her and something would look out at me that I knew wasn’t her—my gut knew something wasn’t right. It became more and more common, but when she was at her ugliest ? That was when Fanis was in control.”

The hurt and misery of dying hope was a painful knot inside my chest.

Damon cupped my chin and nudged my gaze up to his.

“You can’t force love, baby girl. No matter how much you deserve to be loved, no matter how much some owe you that love, you can’t force it. But…even if you could force it, is that the kind of love you really want?” He brushed his thumb over my lower lip. “You had a mother who died to make sure you would live. You have an aunt willing to risk you hating her to ensure you survived. Then you’ve got your personal monster…me.”

It startled a laugh out of me and I moved in closer, slid my arms around him.

His big body trembled as he clamped me tight against him.

“Don’t go away like that again,” he said against my temple.

“I wasn’t planning on doing it to begin with.”

For a moment, we stayed like that.

Then the wind picked up and it was a high, eerie whistle through the windows and I eased him back.

“I have to find out what is calling to me,” I told him.

“I’m right here.”

I held out my hand to his. “I know.”

It was just a room.

Larger than most, done in an old-world style that remained grand despite sitting abandoned for two years. There was no dust. Weird, considering how grimy the floors beyond the doors were.

“Somebody’s been in here,” Damon said even as I puzzled over the pristine condition of the room.

I looked up and saw he had his head angled back slightly and was breathing the air in, deep and slow.

“How recently?”

“Within the past few days. A woman. I don’t think we’ve met her yet but she’s been in the general area. I’ve crossed the scent before but I haven’t seen her face to face.”

I frowned. Demetrio said we’d met everybody who was still alive and on the island. Less than five hundred, excluding almost a hundred kids. Half those kids were sick with a third of that number being hospitalized. Frankie seemed to think they’d survive but Demetrio had already told us that over a dozen children had died from the sickness.

There had been nearly eight hundred of my people when I’d left.

So many gone in a decade.

Worry about that later. There’s something weird going on . Jerking my attention back to the sparsely decorated room, I looked around. “How did anybody get in if not through the main corridor? That dust hadn’t been disturbed in weeks, if not months, until we came inside. You can see our footprints.”

Damon grunted. “And you leave them when you fade out. You’re usually just too good at moving where prints can’t be tracked. But that’s not doable in a plain stone corridor with dust and grime nearly half an inch thick. Unless she’s climbing walls and ceilings like Spiderman.”

We both considered the ceiling.

“Nah.” Damon shot me a cocky grin. “I didn’t smell her outside these rooms except for a few faint traces—those come from in here.”

Intrigued and disturbed all at once, I moved to the windows. The panes were thick and wooden, set with irregular glass panes carved in an artistic style. It drew the eye away from the uneven nature of the glass, making it art instead of imperfection. I had to fight with the heavy fixture to throw them open but even as I looked down the wall, I knew what I’d find.

Damon joined me and peered down the smooth stone wall.

“Could you climb it?” he asked.

“Not without leaving some sign,” I told him. I smoothed a hand over the rough wooden window frame. If somebody had tossed a rope up this way or used some other means to access the room, it leave some trace. I saw nothing. It didn’t. “Smell anything?”

“Not from here. It’s all inside the room.” He sounded frustrated. “But tracking isn’t my strong suit.”

I pulled away from the window and met his gaze. “You’re all we’ve got.”

He grimaced but just as he went to answer, he stopped and paused, peering outside. “Who is that?”

I spied the slim figure moving furtively away from the Keep’s walls, away from the people prepping for evacuation on the opposite of the Hall, and frowned.

“I don’t know,” I said. Bracing my hands on the windowsill, I squinted into the distance, but she was already half-hidden and I knew, whoever she was, she knew the terrain and the natural camouflage provided by both the landscaping and the play of light and shadow too well for me to easily pick her out again.

She’d crossed through a patch of earth no more than five or six feet across and that alone had allowed Damon to easily pick her out.

Even with my ability to track, from here, I struggled to isolate her moving through the winter garden.

“I don’t know,” I told him.

He dragged air in through his nostrils and grunted in frustration not even a second later. “The wind’s changed. I can’t pick up anything from her this far away.”

The next moment, the wind picked up, screeching through the air and sending a howl through the halls beyond the closed door.

As it died down, we both heard it.

The wind howled in areas where enough air came in to allow it.

But in other places, it was barely above a whisper…the eeriest of whispers, the kind the wind made when it crept in through cracks and crevices.

One of those eerie whispers came from directly behind us.

I knew the layout of this room intimately. And there was only one entrance—it lay directly to my right, not behind me.

Slowly, we turned and studied the solid stone wall.

There was another whistle of wind.

Damon closed the windows.

I started forward while the dread in my gut twisted into ever-tightening knots.