Chapter 39 #2
Kayce looked over at Lia, scarlet and black smeared over his face.
She knew their thoughts were in tandem. They didn’t know if her papa’s Initiis piece was hidden in the castle, but the one who killed him—likely the same who caused this diversion—didn’t either.
But they would need the castle cleared, its forces occupied, to find out.
“Go!” Jace urged, grabbing Kayce’s sleeve to push him toward the gate.
Lia followed Kayce, the two of them slipping into the courtyard and racing inside. With every step, Lia felt an urge pulling her, inching her closer to the one who’d taken someone precious from her. A snarl formed on her lips, her arms pumping to sprint faster.
The halls were deserted and sealed until open doors greeted them in the wing of royal chambers, those set apart from the Lions’ tower.
Glimpses into Kayce’s and Terranth’s rooms offered nothing.
Kayce darted into Kristof’s, also finding it empty.
All were in a state of disarray, like a tornado had whipped through in a desperate search.
Jace’s door was open, and Lia ran toward it—another figure colliding with her. Stars burst in her vision after their skulls clocked together, Lia unable to keep the curse from her breath.
“L-Lia! Kayce! Th-thank heavens,” the figure stammered. “The Order sent me when we got word. Terrible, just terrible—”
Rubbing the pain from her face, Lia found Adrian rambling in front of her, cloaked in black.
“Wha—Adrian?” She looked at Kayce, who hadn’t lowered his sword. Lia turned back to Adrian, who refused to meet her gaze. “What are you doing here?”
He tried to speak several times, shifting to put the door to his back. “I-I told you I came to help—”
“You’re lying,” Kayce said in a low voice that promised violence. “Fee only just left for the Order. You’ve come to find out if Julian has a piece of the Initiis. A piece to match the one you gave the Seekers. Isn’t that right?”
Lia fought to keep her composure, but her skin, slick with gore, had turned clammy, her breathing shallow.
Looking at Adrian now, she realized the dark clothing was medieval in style.
There was no way he would have thought to change before coming.
And the crumpled paper behind him, coming out of Jace’s room, the others already ravaged… Lia knew.
She was staring at her papa’s murderer.
“Why?” Lia croaked, blinking hard against tears gathering of their own accord. “You said—you said it was a shame. That Papa was a good person!” The light of her sword burned brighter. “You helped us!”
It hardly made sense. Adrian, of all people?
“I-I didn’t mean for Julian to die!” Adrian balked at the swords before him. “But he was sticking his nose where it didn’t belong! He knew what I had discovered, that I was—”
“You trashed his study,” Lia seethed. “But you weren’t looking for his Emperium story, his information on the Seekers—you were looking for his piece of the Initiis.”
“You were supposed to be at school,” he muttered. “I had no choice but to leave it like that.”
And she had revealed as much when she and Kayce had visited his bookshop. Lia wanted to berate herself, but there was no time as snarls and shouts echoed from the streets below.
“Adrian—”
The man paled further. “You don’t understand, he didn’t understand—they’ll kill me if I don’t find the second piece!”
“Who?” Kayce demanded, his blade level with Adrian’s sternum. “Spit it out.”
“The Seekers, the ones running ImaginX! I-I helped them find the first piece three years ago. It’s how they got their MemoryBank to work, but I-I just thought they wanted creations back on Earth, like I did!”
Fool. He didn’t realize Malum was puppeteering them, or he didn’t care.
“How did you know we moved Papa’s things here?” Lia questioned. Then it dawned on her. “You were watching the house.”
“I have been since Julian started poking around the myths on the Initiis months ago.” Adrian’s throat convulsed. “I saw Kayce’s brother. Knew you’d move what you found to the safest place you could.”
“Why would you do this?” Lia shook her head, disgusted. “They don’t care about you!” It was harsh, but it was the truth. Seekers only cared for their greed, their thirst to be above all else. A way to get what they foolishly believed they’d been owed, but passed over for, millennia ago.
“Because I’m tired!”
Lia hesitated. The familiarity of Adrian’s words, the desperate plea misting in his eyes, ensnared her.
“Don’t you ever want to be more? Be who you are in your wildest dreams? They offered me that.” Wiping his nose, Adrian straightened. “Wouldn’t you want the chance to have more than the hand dealt to you on Earth, Lia?”
Lia studied the anxious, fraught man before her.
There was a time she would have given anything to be in Norenth, to see Kayce like she could anyone on Earth.
To sail the skies with him. Eat take-out with him and his brothers.
Laugh with him. Be held by him. But more than those things, Lia had wanted to be who she dreamed she could be.
She’d thought she could only be this way in Norenth.
But what was reality but what they chose to make it?
In Adrian’s glasses, the reflection that stared back was a girl who’d once longed for the exact things he did. But the young woman she was now opened her mouth, saying, “My name is Aurelia.”
A spasm pinched Adrian’s face. He raised his arm, glowing pen in hand—
She struck, knocking his arm back. Breath left Adrian, the man stumbling as her papa’s papers fluttered to the ground. Her own pen was ready, already flaring to life. And there, tucked in his cloak, the half of a book—
Kayce was about to grab hold of the Flameheart when the walls vibrated, chandeliers clicking. The crystal beads trembled. Each vibration, like a steady pulse, made them sway, each louder than the last. They looked down the corridor.
A minotaur consumed the archway. His snout flared, twin axes dragging over the marble floor, screeching like nails raking over glass.
She looked back at Adrian only to find the space empty. The rebel Flameheart rushed through Jace’s room to the balcony before a portal of light swallowed him, whisking him away.