A Crown of Cursed Hearts (Kingdom of Blighted Thorns #3)

34. Tempest

34

TEMPEST

I jolted back into myself and stared about wildly. Darkness had swallowed the room. How long had I remained in the vision?

I didn’t understand. Vera had taken Vexxion from his mother when he was a baby? She must’ve brought him back because his mother had raised him until Ivenrail murdered her.

What had Vera done with him? From Ellyn’s sobs, it may have been awful.

“Why was I shown that memory?” I snarled. “Where did she take him and why?”

The word echoed back at me, each why, why, why clawing across my exposed skin, leaving the wetness of his mother’s tears behind.

Rising, I hurried to the fireplace and added wood from the pile to the right of the big stone structure. Flames gobbled it up, making it snap and pop. With chills wracking my frame and my hands outstretched to suck in the heat, I stared at the flickering gold and orange, trying to figure out what the vision meant.

A flutter to my right sent me spinning in that direction. I pulled a blade from my side and slashed it through the air.

Drask landed on his perch and flapped his wings, stretching out his neck to squawk.

Returning my blade to its sheath, I rushed to him and stroked his back. “You startled me. Where did you take the third bone?” It wasn’t with him.

He peered up at me and pecked at my hand.

I shut the window before more of the heat escaped, and returned to the sofa, sitting as far from the tiniest bone as I could.

Vera’s bone had not returned with me, telling me I no longer needed it. I couldn’t make sense of the vision, but I’d bet anything I would understand when the time was right.

“Will Vexxion’s bone tell me the meaning of Vera’s?” I whispered.

The unknown clawed at the inner wall of my belly, spreading anxiety and dread with my every heartbeat.

Staring at the fingerbone all night would give me nothing, so I grabbed onto it quickly.

It stole me away . . .

“You thinkssss you can hide from ussss?” a voice snarled.

Hide?

I peered around, but it was almost too dark to see inside the big cave. A lance of fear told me I knew this cavern much too well.

Kinart died here .

Then I saw Vexxion crouched behind a boulder near the looming cavern entrance.

“Where do you hide?” the billowing voice cried out.

The words raked through me, though Vexxion didn’t flinch. He huddled lower, tucking his head close to his crouched thighs.

“You can’t hide from me!” Blue flames erupted in the cave, turning night to icy day, revealing Iasar blustering his wings to hold position near the top of the cavern. Wind swept through me and across Vexxion, fluttering his dark hair.

He was not yet the man I knew, but he was also not the boy who’d hung on the wall in his wretched father’s dungeon while Ivenrail tortured him for information.

“Where issss my mate?” Iasar snarled, blasting fire against the roof, the walls, and even the boulder behind which Vexxion huddled. “What did you do to him?”

Vexxion lifted his arm, and his threads whipped out to encase him. He straightened and walked around the boulder to stand boldly below Iasar. His clenched hand held something, but I couldn’t tell what it might be.

“I didn’t do it,” he said, his voice strong but still higher pitched than that of the man I loved. From his size, I guessed he was twelve or thirteen.

“You did!” Iasar shot fire at Vexxion, but his threads protected him from harm.

He lifted his chin, and even now, I could see hints of the brave, heroic man he would one day be. “He stole the memory from me.”

“You . . .” Iasar’s snarl echoed in the cavern, cratered with enough pain to make me stagger and fall against the stone wall. “Amronth. Amronth.”

“I’ll fix it,” Vexxion said. “I promise.”

“You cannot. You are jusssst like him. Your tortured ssssoul matchessss your tortured sssskin.”

Vexxion sucked in a sharp breath and his hand rose, his fingers jerking back before he touched the scar on the right side of his neck. Despair flashed across his face before it tightened to a mask of indifference. His hand dropped back to his side. “I’ll find a way. I swear it to you.”

“Your word meanssss nothing.” His mouth a gaping, jagged-fanged maw, Iasar dove toward Vexxion.

Vexxion flung himself to the side, rolling across the rocky floor before coming up to a crouch near the boulder. “I had to do it. You know this.”

Iasar landed on the floor of the cavern but kept his wings outstretched. The dragon I’d thought was a friend and ally was actually an icy blue menace, a murderous beast who’d erupted from another world or time. He arched his neck and flexed his spine, making the jagged spikes jut toward the peak of the cavern.

His spiked tail whipped around and gouged the ground in front of Vexxion. With his claws raking the stone ground, he stalked toward the slender boy who remained in place, stoically facing the enormous threat with steel in his eyes.

He’d already been molded into the man I loved, the one who would sacrifice his very soul to protect everyone else.

Iasar might think Vexxion had hurt Amronth, but if he had, he was given no choice. He’d never told me if he could foretell or not, but he must be able to see something because he knew me right away, and he sensed what I could one day become.

He’d given me the spell to free Amronth and Iasar. This was one of the many reasons he’d brought me to Bledmire.

“You’ll die here,” Iasar bellowed.

“Don’t. Please.” Vexxion held up his hand. He flipped it over and revealed what it held.

“What good are bone coinssss to me?” Iasar roared. “They serve one purpose only.”

“What’s that?” Vexxion asked, shrewd curiosity alight in his voice.

“Ask the monsssster. He may tell you. They will not free Amronth.” He tipped his head back and shot blue flames at the ceiling, scorching across the black stone until the flames winked out. He thrust his head toward Vexxion, stopping when the tip of his snout was so close to the boy’s belly that he flinched.

That one uncontrolled gesture told me Vexxion hadn’t been fully molded yet, that he still held out against his father. By the time he was fully grown, he’d learned to hide his response to something like this.

“The bone coins can make things better,” Vexxion cried. “I don’t know how yet, but they will.”

“You knowssss nothing.” Iasar lowered his wings, crumpling them against his sides. “Amronth,” he said in such a mournful voice that my heart shattered. “Amronth.”

“I’ll right this,” Vexxion said. “I’ll fix everything, and I’ll do it with these.” He carefully slid the bone coins into a black pouch and placed the leather bag in his pocket. “I’ve collected many. He took most, but I know where they are. Trust me. Please.”

“I will never trusssst one ssssuch as you.” The scorn dripping from Iasar’s words could burn through the stone beneath his claws.

“It will take time, but I’ll make it happen.” Vexxion flitted from the cavern.

I woke up, splayed out on the sofa, my feet dragging on the hardwood floor. Only smoldering coals remained of the fire I’d built. Rising, I limped over to the fireplace and fed the hungry flames again.

Then I hobbled across the room and collapsed on our bed, rubbing my thigh that spasmed as if I’d worked with a dragon from dawn until the sun had been consumed by the horizon.

“What can bone coins do?” I murmured.

Drask flew over to perch on the lower rail of the bed, watching me with his head tilting one way and the other.

He stretched his neck back to caw.

I swore, if I looked close enough, I’d find the answer to this question and every other in the crow’s inky eyes.