Zan
After seeing the shape her father was in, I prayed her mother wouldn’t be the same. Cassarah was brave and strong, but everyone hit their limit of things they could handle. Seeing your family beaten and brutalized in such a way was not something anyone should have to deal with.
I paused in the hall and gestured with my head to the door behind me.
“She’s here, in her bed.” Ezzu showed me Cassarah’s face, wet with tears.
I was glad I’d been the one to investigate, giving her time to break down.
“Looks like they dealt with her while she was asleep. It was quick and peaceful.”
The bastards had stabbed her in the back, and her mother didn’t even see it coming. I’m sure they took her out first then went after her father since he seemed to be the one they wanted. What could he have known that would make them desperate enough to use that kind of torture?
“I want to see her,” Cassarah croaked out as she pulled away from Jade.
When she reached me, I held out an arm to block her. “Do you, though? What good will come of seeing her like this?” I challenged, needing to protect the one person in my life who loved me despite my disability.
She gave me a watery smile as she tried to fight back more tears and placed both hands on my arm, pressing it down. “I need to see if only because the memory will be seared into my brain, and if I doubt for a second I shouldn’t kill that bastard, I’ll remember what he’s done to me and my family.”
With my ability to see through Ezzu’s eyes, I essentially had the perfect vision of a dragon.
It also gave me a wide field of eyesight, so I could easily see the grimace on Jade’s face while still keeping my attention on Cassarah.
He didn’t want her to do this any more than I did, but we both knew when she had that wrinkle between her brows, there was no way for any of us to talk her out of doing something.
“If you insist,” I surrendered begrudgingly.
Instead of letting her walk past me, I caught her hand, holding it securely as we entered her mother’s room.
At first glance, you would think she was just sleeping since the coverlet was a deep burgundy color hiding the blood, but the body’s smell hit you soon enough.
I don’t know if it’s because she was still under the covers that she was decaying so much faster, but her body reeked, unlike the others we’d come across.
Cassarah let out a sob, covering her mouth with her free hand. Tears once more rolled down her cheeks in large drops. Turning to me, she placed her forehead on my shoulder as if she needed the support to keep standing.
“You’ve now seen her, my heart. There is no reason to stay and put yourself through more pain. Come on, let’s leave… there’s nothing more to be gained from this,” I urged, wrapping my arm around her shoulders and guiding her out.
She let me remove her, but she dug her heel in the moment we were outside the door. “We can’t leave them like this. They need to be buried. I won’t leave until that’s been settled.”
“Is there a place you have in mind for them to be laid to rest?” Jade asked.
She must have already said something to him since he didn’t seem surprised at all. “The garden. Mother loved that place, and Father loved her so much he’d spend time with her out there whenever she requested to take her tea there.”
“That sounds like a great idea,” Jade agreed as he came to stand before her.
“Now, what I want to have happen is for you to go to your room. Check to make sure there isn’t anything there you want to take back with you.
Once we finish here, there will never be a reason for you to come back here again.
This place is no longer your home… that died with your parents. ”
Sniffling, she nodded and shuffled down the hall, looking as if all the life had been drained from her.
When I felt she was far enough away, I kept my voice low as I spoke to Jade.
“Let me grab a sheet from his bedroom. It will be easier to manage him wrapped up… who knows what else they might have cut off him.”
“Smart plan. Her mother won’t be a problem since we can just roll her up in the blankets. The garden is just below her balcony so it will be easy to get both of them there,” Jade shared as I opened the door to her father’s room.
It had been utterly trashed—everything was pulled out and tossed on the floor. Clearly, they’d been looking for something and couldn’t find it on their own. Hence, the torture.
“What could they have possibly needed this badly?” I asked, the question pricking at my subconscious. “This is extreme for anyone, whatever they needed, no matter what.”
“Part of me hopes we never need to find out, but if they broke him, I have a bad feeling this is going to bite us in the ass,” Jade grumbled as he yanked a sheet off the floor.
There was a massive gash running through it, but seeing as they sliced open the mattress, I wasn’t shocked. “Her father was only the second generation from the man who deserted the clans, correct?”
“I’m not the right one to ask that. I didn’t keep up with all the gossip going around the clans. I was just trying to keep from being put to death by my brother.”
He made a good point, but I remember Cassarah saying something about it when they revealed the legend of the Dragon Queen.
“Okay, this could be nothing, but the last king of Sheca knew that Cassarah would be born of a deserter. What if somehow there was information given to that man when he left or found its way into his hands along the way? What if the Lost King is trying to find a way to deal with the fact that Cassarah is so much more powerful than him now that she has the Dragon Throne’s magic? ”
Back in the office, Jade and I laid out the sheet as close to the chair as we could while keeping it out of the pool of blood. With the flick of a knife, Jade cut the man free, and I had to move quickly before the body fell to the side. The man’s head lolled back at an unnatural angle.
Whoever slit his throat used so much force they almost cut off the head.
Together, we wrestled the deadweight onto the sheet and tied it.
Hauling it down the hall into the mother’s room, out on the balcony, and down the stairs into the garden was no easy feat.
Her mother was much easier to handle, already being surrounded by sheets.
Jade located the gardening shed and picked the lock, earning us a pair of shovels.
Not knowing how much time we would have left while Cassarah was preoccupied, we got to digging.
It was clear this wasn’t the first body dump that either of us had done, with how we didn’t question how large or deep of a hole to make.
When Cassarah finally joined us, we were putting the last few shovelfuls of dirt back into place.
Dangling from her hand was a pillowcase filled with what looked like books.
“Did you want to say a few words or any sort of farewell to them?” I asked, not knowing how they’d raised her and their thoughts on death.
Cassarah dropped to her knees between the two graves and set the pillowcase aside so she could put a hand on each plot.
“I forgive you,” she whispered. “While everyone will tell me you don’t deserve my forgiveness, I choose to live a life free from that burden.
I know you both loved me in your own ways, even if you were terrible at showing it, Mother.
Father, you were my hero, and knowing you would turn your back on me for the sake of appearances hurt more than you’ll ever know, but I still choose to forgive you.
May whatever secret you kept hidden prove to be one that will be the Lost King’s downfall and not mine. ”
Her voice started to crack at the end, telling me she was most likely crying again.
Everything in me just wanted to steal her away from all this.
This woman whose heart was so full of love and forgiveness didn’t deserve this.
With hit after hit the Lost King sent her way, this woman got back up, dusted herself off, and kept moving forward.
How anyone couldn’t see the power and strength in that didn’t deserve to know her at all.
Now, I was supposed to get her back to Creisal, where we were fighting a war on all fronts.
King Thomas might be on our side, along with a few trusted members of his personal entourage, but that left us at such a disadvantage.
Dark magic was in play, made evident by her father having been killed, allowing that face changer to use the man’s death to fuel his magic.
What I’d much rather be doing is convince her to run away, get the others, and fly across the sea to discover what might be out there, and leave all this behind and live a life free from this pain.
Yet, I knew she would never allow me to do that.
Her sense of duty was so strong she wouldn’t be able to look at herself in the mirror until she finished the job assigned to her.
“My heart, we should be heading back,” I murmured as I crouched next to her. “I wish there was more we could do here for the others, but we can’t bury them all.”
Cassarah looked up at me, her eyes red and puffy from crying, but they glinted with anger. “We can send them to the afterlife when we set the house on fire.”
“What?” I asked, thinking I’d just misheard what she said.
“Like Jade said, there won’t be anything to come back to now that my parents are gone.
This house holds no life, and only evil remains, so we are going to burn this place down.
Let those whose lives were lost be set free in the fires of rebirth,” Cassarah explained as she got to her feet and brushed off her legs.
“The dragons will be able to do the job with all three of them hitting different points. When the world sees the blaze, the Lost King will know I’ve been here and received his message. ”