Chapter 16 #2
Venay’s hands weren't strong enough to fight his strength, and Kohen thrusted up to a stand. His back arched so far it looked as though his spine could crack. His head tilted back towards the sky and he screamed into the nothingness of the night.
Pia sobbed. My arms tightened around her, praying that she wouldn't try to run to him and screw this up.
“We are almost there,” Venay confidently called out, her tone a plea for Kohen to hold on. “I can almost feel it.”
Kohen growled an animalistic, misery-coated sound. His head ripped back and forth as if he had no control over the motion. His hair almost looked black with his sweat. His eyes were empty.
In an instant he went silent, slamming to his kneecaps. He braced himself on his forearms, dropping his forehead to the cool rock patio.
The glow of the moonlight fled the blade to return to the heavens, leaving only Kohen’s clotted blood.
Venay reached out and granted Kohen a reassuring pat on the shoulder. You did good, I read her lips.
Not waiting a single second, we all rushed forward. Sawyer pulled Kohen upright, bracing his limp body against his chest.
“What did you do to him?” Pia cried, cupping Kohen’s cheeks in her hands. She frantically jolted his head back and forth, though he was hardly conscious.
“He is okay,” Venay answered simply, rubbing dirt from her palms into her robe, “he is in shock. The blade was linked deeper to Sebastian than I had expected it to be. Kohen experienced everything Sebastian is currently going through all at once. He just needs to rest. I will give him something so that he doesn’t remember any of it when he wakes up. ”
“I’ll take him to the infirmary ward.” Sawyer picked a slumped Kohen up, throwing him over his shoulder as if he was as light as a feather.
Pia’s tears splashed on the stone as she shuffled behind them.
I felt the color fade from my skin, no doubt leaving me with a similar pallor as the moon.
Sebastian had been going through hell. Gods… I had been so horrible to him. I hardly even let him speak to me. Hardly let him explain.
I thought I would be sick.
“Did it work?” Delani’s voice countered the chaos in my mind when I remembered she was even here.
Venay picked up on the skepticism in my expression.
“I was not able to see a precise location for where the journal is. But it is inside of something that looks like a bookcase. The room looked like some sort of study maybe.” She picked up Cicily’s dagger, handing it to me.
“I did discover where this room is, however.”
“Where?” I asked through clenched teeth.
Venay’s eyes locked onto mine. “Draemor.”
“Is he okay?”
Pia sat at Kohen’s bedside, her nose red and raw from crying.
“He will be. One of the menders came and gave him that memory thing Venay was talking about. He just needs to sleep now.” She brushed a lock of his sweaty hair away, her gaze blatantly avoiding mine.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized under my breath. “I would have done it instead of him if I could have. If she let me—”
She held a hand up to silence me. “Don’t. Just…don’t.”
My eyes caught on Sawyer, sitting on a padded bench in the back of the room. His elbow sat on the armrest, his head leaning into his hand. He exhaled sharply, using his free arm to pull me into his shoulder when I took the seat beside him.
“I don’t think she's too thrilled with me,” I breathed into his chest, the smell of fresh linen wafting off his shirt. “Can’t say I blame her.”
I should keep a tally of all the people who get hurt because of me. If I had a coin for each one, I could rebuild Caelestis.
Sawyer nodded into his hand. “She’ll be fine. It just scared her.”
It scared all of us.
“Now I know why Archer was so hesitant about Venay doing this.”
“Mhm.” Sawyer's head moved to rest against mine instead of his hand. “Did you get what you needed?”
I blew out a breath, hesitant to share the answer. “Yeah. It’s in Draemor. In a small bookcase in an office it seems. Don’t ask how it got there, because I have absolutely no idea.”
“You’re joking.” Sawyer was stunned, but kept his voice low enough so Pia didn’t hear. “How many fucking times are we gonna have to go to this place? We should just move there at this point.”
“Wish I was. This was all for nothing. We can’t use the journal to help Sebastian if we can’t get to the damn journal.” Tears threatened to consume me.
“An office…Beaumont’s study?” Sawyer suggested.
I scoffed. “That would be our luck, wouldn't it.”
“We will just solve two problems with one solution. Unfortunately the solution has to be going back to that shit hole, but we will get Seb out and find the journal at the same time. There still might be something useful in it—like a way to kill our target without creating a full blown war. Or something that can help us keep you safe, or explain Blythe’s bigger purpose for gifting you. ”
A tear leaked free, absorbing into Sawyer’s shirt. “I guess so. But I feel horrible. Knowing what he is going through over there…We should have gone back to Draemor as soon as you guys came back, like I wanted to.” We had really waited for nothing now.
“He wouldn't have wanted that, and you know it. He would take that torment for years if it meant keeping you safe. So would I.” He cleared his throat and added, “Any of us would.”
I looked up at him, our eyes locking, the way his gaze set upon me creating an anxious flutter in my stomach.
His hair was rumpled, covering his sunken eyebrows.
His nostrils flared when he drew a deep breath as though he was going to say something.
I thought it was a fluke—the way his eyes had lingered on my lips in his room—but they just repeated the same exact motions.
My mind jumped back to what he admitted when I compelled him the other day, and for a brief moment, I wondered what would have happened had it been him appointed my guard last year instead of Sebastian.
The thought made me sit abruptly upright, tearing myself from his embrace.
“I’m gonna go get some sleep. We should all meet in the morning and figure out when we are going to head back to Draemor.
” I stood up and brushed the wrinkles out of my pants with my palms, then cleared my throat.
“You know where to find me if they need anything.” I angled a thumb towards Pia and Kohen.
With a solemn nod, Sawyer returned his head to his hand.
I hurried from the room, my breathing picking up with my strides.
What the fuck was that?
Archer stomped into the dining room the following morning, disrupting my lonely breakfast. He pulled a chair right up beside me and lowered his eyebrows.
“Good morning?” My greeting came out as a skeptical question as I swirled my spoon through a hardly touched bowl of oatmeal. “Why do you look like you're about to ground me?”
“I’m not happy with what you had Venay do last night,” he answered amidst a grumble, leaning back in his seat.
“She offered—”
“But—” He held a silencing palm up, “—I am happy that everyone is okay and that you got some answers about the journal. Hopefully it can be of some use in all of this.”
Setting my spoon down and replacing it for a mug, I scoffed into my steaming cup of coffee.
“Don’t get your hopes up. I have no idea how to find the damned thing without getting caught or killed.
And it won’t be able to help us with saving Sebastian, so the whole ritual thing last night is seeming pretty pointless right about now. ”
Sawyer strolled into the room, his hands tucked into the pockets of a jacket that reminded me of his former winter training uniform. He granted me a slight grin, to which my gaze fell to my lap.
Archer’s eyes narrowed at my reaction, but he did not address it. Instead, he moved to the head of the table, leaving an open seat next to me that Delani thankfully took.
“Is Pia coming?” She reached for the fruit bowl in the center of the table, selecting a nectarine.
A drip splashed from my mug as I set it down. “No. She’s still with Kohen.”
“The boy hasn’t woken up yet?” Venay’s surprise was brazenly obvious in the way her cheeks sank.
My head shook, a sense of unease congesting my lungs. “No. Is that bad? Should he be awake by now?”
She brushed me off with a flick of her wrist. “I’m sure he is fine. It’s just taking him a bit longer to rouse than I'd expected. I’ll check on him after.”
“Well, that's reassuring,” Sawyer mumbled.
Once Jensen and Kade showed up, we commenced our meeting, Kade taking the lead by interrogating me. “I heard about your little, dark magic adventure last night. How’d it go?”
“Fine.”
“Did you feel little pieces of your soul dying while you watched?”
My eyes rolled. “No.”
“Did you have a revelation that the gods may not want you beyond the veil now?”
I blinked once, then glowered across the table at him.
“I’ll take that as a no. Well, what did you discover then?”
“Nothing that will help us save Sebastian, which is why we're gathered here. So, can we focus on that please?” I snapped.
Kade’s cocky grin faded. “Fine,” he snarled. “Venay already told me, anyway. But now that we know the journal can’t be factored into this mission, the only option is to go back without it. And I know we all want to keep Maeve safe, but hear me out.”
My posture straightened. “I’m listening.”
“We can use you as bait. Beaumont holds Sebastian in the hopes that either A, you’ll come save him, or B, that we will turn you over in order to save him. So, I suggest we give him what he wants,” Kade said all too casually.
Finally, someone was suggesting an idea that made fucking sense. “That’s what I’ve been saying this whole time. Why’d you change your mind?” I glanced at my father, noticing how Archer didn’t try to argue with Kade.
“If it were solely up to me, I’d suggest leaving him there to die,” Kade said with a shrug, pausing to try and make out Sawyer's mumbling.
“But, besides Venay, he’s the only one who can get into that journal, and I have a feeling that inside the pages of that notebook lies the answer to destroying Beaumont.
Maybe even the answers to saving Lumosia, Mealioria, and Caelestis—what's left of it, that is.
So while we're there, we need to find that book.”
“So really you just want me as bait so we can find the journal.” I didn’t ask—I accused.
“Does it matter why I want to use you? We are getting Hawthorne out, too, which is what you wanted.”
“Wait. Mealioria is in danger, too?” Kade’s words at last registered, stumping me.
“Our entire continent is in danger.” He clasped his hands over the table.
“Don’t you see it? Beaumont doesn’t just want Caelestis.
He wants control over the entire empire.
From there, I’m sure he’ll spread his greed, not stopping until every square inch of this world belongs to him.
Why do you think he wants you so bad? Even though you control it about as well as I’d expect a toddler to, you have the most powerful magic in the world. ”
“These are some awfully big assumptions, Lyrise,” Sawyer cut in.
“Assumptions that I am willing to bet my life on, Sinclair.”
“Hold on,” Sawyer held a finger up to silence Kade as his suggestion truly sank in, “let's take a step back to when you suggested using Maeve as bait.”
“What about it?” Kade shrugged and leant back in his seat.
“Have you lost your fucking mind?” Sawyer shouted, to which Kade released a deep, gravelly laugh.
“Not yet. But I surely will if I have to put up with you much longer. Therefore, let’s get this over with as quickly as possible.”
“That's exactly what Seb wouldn't want us to do, which is precisely why we haven't gone back yet,” Sawyer fought.
I stood, putting myself at the center of attention to try and stop the power trip between them. My eyes steadied on Kade. “What did you have in mind?”