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

62. Tempest

62

TEMPEST

V exxion, my aunt, and I ate a quiet dinner together before we retired to our rooms for the night. With our door shut, I walked over to Drask’s perch, and he hopped off to land on the windowsill, peering out through the closed glass.

Vexxion followed and wrapped his arms around me from behind.

“Do you think he wants to go outside?” I asked.

“We can open the window. Then he can decide.”

“When I found him, he was horribly injured. His poor wing still doesn’t work right.” Like me with my scarred leg. We were quite the pair. “Someone hurt him badly.”

“I’ve thought about this. I found him in an abandoned nest and raised him.” He sighed. “I was scared.”

“Did you think he’d die? ”

Drask crooked his head to look our way before turning back to the window.

“I worried he’d live,” Vexxion said.

“You thought Ivenrail would kill him.”

“He threatened to do it often enough. For whatever reason, he was afraid of Drask. He’d snarl whenever the crow came with me to the throne room. I wasn’t as bold as you, bringing him to the dining room.”

“That’s me. Impulsive.”

“Loyal. You know Drask stresses when you’re not around.”

He did. I didn’t know if the Drask who was left cared about me one way or another. My heart hurt, though it shouldn’t. What had I truly lost?

Something I didn’t even realize I had.

“I didn’t give him a name,” Vexxion said. “And I regretted that after he was gone.”

I stroked Drask’s back, and he preened, peering up at me with inky eyes full of . . . nothing and everything. I couldn’t tell what might be left. “I think your mother’s spirit was with him all this time.”

Vexxion paused, clearly thinking, before he finally nodded. “I believe you’re right. When he was with me, I could feel him supporting me if only in a birdlike way. When he left me, she went with him. She knew you needed her more than me.”

“I think she also needed to make sure Reyla was alright. I wish I’d known it was her all this time.”

“Would you have treated him any differently?”

I shrugged. “I might not have scolded him every time he followed me to the bar. I worried someone would hurt him. His wing healed, but it was never the same. You see how he flies.”

“He’s still your Drask.”

I turned in his arms, taking in the sadness on his face, the way his soul appeared equally cratered. He would’ve given anything for even one more moment with his mother. I’d had her with me and hadn’t even known she existed.

“I’m grateful she was with you,” he said. “She watched out for you and Reyla when I couldn’t. I believe she guided me there that day. She knew it was time for me to find you.”

“To put all of this into motion.”

“To love you, Tempest. Forget the king and the dregs and whatever it is that Liege plans to do with the sack you gave him.”

“Five hearts from Ivenrail’s room.” The third part of my bargain.

“You returned there?” he rasped.

“I had to. We both do what we must. Always.”

Cupping my cheeks, he stared into my eyes. “Love you.”

I pressed myself against him, desperately trying not to cry. We had very little time left for each other.

Forget battle strategies and the Blade of Alessa and whatever you need to do before you can wield it, he said. Right now, there’s just us. I love you. If nothing comes of this, if we don’t make it through the battle, we will have had this. You. Me. It’s a blessing, and I won’t let him take that from me too.

Vexxion. Desolation crushed me. Each heartbeat was a countdown to an inevitable end. My throat tightened and tears blurred my vision as the terrifying reality sunk in. We may only have now.

But when did we ever have anything else? I worried more about losing him than myself. Even the thought made every breath torturous, heavy with grief that would drown me. Our dreams might soon be dashed against the jagged rocks on the shore of Lydel. I love you. Let’s make now last a lifetime.

Dance with me?

I smiled through my tears. Here he was again, soothing my sorrow and bringing out my smile. Here?

Why not?

We’ll bump into things.

How his beautiful sapphire eyes sparkled with humor. Not if you let me lead.

My laugh snorted out. I’m still not a good dancer.

You will be one day.

You have more hope for me than I do, I said.

You’re perfect. Remember that. Everything you are and everything you will be is . . . exquisite.

I melted into his arms, and he swept me up, swirling me around as he hummed.

I was wrong to think this man was made up of only sharp edges. He was imperfectly perfect, which was exactly what I needed.

I’d love him until every part of me no longer existed.

I woke sometime during the night and rolled over to face the window.

Drask’s inky gaze met mine before he twitched his head toward the other side of the room. Unease slashed through me, leaving claw marks behind.

I slipped from the bed.

The moon remained hidden behind heavy clouds, but something sparkled on the other side of the room. Mesmerized, I tracked in that direction, finding the mirror fragments lying on a broad table. Each facet winked, nearly blinding me, as if someone shifted them in sunlight.

Look, and you will finally see.

I whirled around, but the fairy I’d freed from the wax didn’t float in the air behind me. Her words did, however, echoing softly in the room.

Vexxion stirred on the bed before his breathing deepened.

This is for you, not him.

Yes.

With trembling fingers, I gently slid the shards into place, assembling them until they slowly reformed the mirror. Each piece I moved into position fused itself into a solid, as if it had never been broken.

Finally, with only one sliver left, I paused. Was this a mistake or . . . No, this was a gift, and despite gifts burning me in the past, I needed to see what the king had been keeping hidden.

With a careful nudge, I tucked the last piece into place. The mirror flashed light before going dark. Swirls erupted below the surface, and I leaned closer, determined not to miss a thing .

The smoke cleared, and I gazed down at the center of a village, though from a distance. Mountains loomed far away on the right, and the wasteland spread out on the left.

I’d been to many villages like this on the border to battle dregs. And me, Reyla, and Brodine used to sneak out during festival times to slip into the role of a villager. We’d dance to bright music, drink too much wine, and tumble together, laughing.

This scene didn’t show a festival. No flags fluttered in the air, and the people wore simple clothing, not their best carefully donned for a celebration. Vendors had set up tables along the outside of the village square, and they shouted about their wares, desperate to lure shoppers close for a sale.

People strolled around, stopping to buy food or whatever item caught their eye.

Men. Women. Children.

Families.

They smiled and laughed.

A few guards walked among them, appearing as distracted by the goods for sale as the villagers.

Why didn’t any of them look to the sky?

We’d given numerous lessons to the villagers, showing them simple ways to hide. We’d run classes to teach them how to battle attacking dregs. A few joined our fortresses, and we turned them into riders. Others mastered sword battle and remained to protect their friends, family, and neighbors. Down to each tiny baby, everyone knew that you always kept part of your attention on the sky. Otherwise, you’d miss a dreg attack, and then it would be too late .

Not one guard stood outside the village, facing the wasteland from where the next attack would come.

I was tugged closer to the village until I hovered so near, I could be one of the villagers walking past with coins jingling in my pocket.

A child’s laughter trilled out, and I turned, smiling as the little girl raced among the villagers while her doting mother gave chase.

The little girl raced toward me.

She passed through me.

Ghosts of a past long forgotten.

I’d already seen why I’d come here to this time that no longer existed, this place that had long been abandoned.

Reeling around, I studied each person’s neck to confirm my suspicion.

Every single powerless wore a simple necklace with pendants I’d seen before. We collected them as trophies. Pinned them to tunics to give us good luck.

And the king collected them like every other treasure hidden away inside his bedroom.

“Bone coins,” I hissed.

The mirror dimmed before it melted, disappearing into the top of the cabinet. It had fulfilled its task, and it was no longer needed.

Finally, I knew what I had to do.

I flitted to Brodine’s room. Had anyone bothered to enter his suite since I killed him? Striding to his closet, I thrust the door open and stepped inside. I was swamped by his scent I knew well from sitting with him in classes, lying beside him in tall grass to gaze at the stars, and from all the traitorous hugs he’d given me since he appeared like a hero at the fortress to save me.

My moan of sadness slipped out. I missed the person I’d believed in, my friend I’d loved, even if it had all been a lie.

I pawed through his clothing, focusing on the jangle, and ripped the bone coins from his leather tunic when I found them.

No more trophies, Bro. I’ve come to claim them.

I rushed to my own room, but despite going through every leather outfit I owned, I couldn’t find my small bag of bone coins. Where was it? I searched the entire room but didn’t see it anywhere.

Vexxion slept through it all.

That’s when I remembered something. Jessia took me to see the flying dreg, and it lumbered to its feet. Shocked, I fumbled with my leathers, scrambling past my pockets to pull my blades.

Something shifted by my feet, but I ignored it. This wasn’t the time to check out a rock or whatever it might be.

What if I’d dropped something and stepped on that?

Jessia wrote in the journal that she’d found a pouch containing three bone coins outside the flying dreg’s cage, and I’d bet anything they were mine. My pouch had contained four, but one was stolen.

No, not stolen. Reclaimed. Taken by the dreg.

The fates sure did enjoy playing games with our lives.

Since I needed to collect as many of them as I could, and Jessia had burned the ones she found, I flitted to Reyla’s room. I stood by her bed, hating to wake her .

She roused on her own, perhaps sensing me watching. We’d honed our instincts into devastatingly effective weapons, and I would’ve been surprised if she hadn’t woken up.

She sat and shoved her hair off her face, giving me a few sleepy blinks. “What do you need?”

“Do you still have your bone coins?”

“I think so. I don’t know.” She waved to a leather rider outfit lying across a chair on the other side of the room.

I crossed to the shirt and took them from the side pocket.

“Why do you need them?” Her voice stretched through a yawn.

“I think . . .” I didn’t dare name it. “They may be the secret we’ve been looking for.”

A way to restore the balance? I hoped I lived long enough to find out.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I’ll let you know later.”

With a nod, she flopped back down onto the bed and dragged the covers back up over her frame.

After sucking in a few breaths and steeling my spine, I flitted to the king’s sitting room.

Spying no one around, I walked carefully around the furniture to the king’s bedroom door. My aunt said he was advancing on the border with the dregs, but I still needed to be careful. He knew I’d stolen some of his treasure. He must realize I’d figure out the meaning of the items I’d left behind.

Had his distant relatives stolen the bone coins from the powerless? I hadn’t assembled all the pieces of this puzzle in my mind, but I suspected the coins would play a pivotal role in the upcoming battle.

The dregs thirsted for the bone coins.

The Lieges had taken them.

If there was a connection, I was going to find it.

“I should’ve taken the jug of bone coins the first time I saw them,” I whispered.

Unless the time to take them was now. The fates still played their own game of Wraithweave, and even they might not yet know the final outcome.

The closed door gave way at my touch, easing inward without making a sound, and I stepped inside his bedroom.

A suffocating tightness gripped my chest, and my every breath became a ragged struggle. I gripped the hilt of my blade; one I didn’t remember pulling. Slick sweat coated my palms. A pit opened in my stomach, its emptiness making bile roar up my throat.

Darkness cloaked the room, a heavy, cloying thing that made breathing feel as if I’d been dragged down into deep water.

Time stretched out unbearably long yet blindingly short all at once.

Don’t linger. Take what you need and get out of here.

These words came from my self-preservation dangling over a cliff by a mere thread.

The urn stood near the bed, and I crept toward it. Only now did creaks ring out, the ancient floorboards announcing that a thief stalked in their midst .

Pausing, I studied the made bed, grateful the king didn’t lie beneath the blankets.

We have a surprise coming for you, you nasty thing, I whispered in my mind to one certain king. My feral grin rose as I stooped down and cupped the sides of the urn with both hands.

So many bone coins. They whispered of the past and the future, their words making the droplets of sweat on my temples razor down my cheeks faster.

I straightened with the urn in my hands, finding it surprisingly heavy.

I gathered power to flit back to Lydel . . .

Someone grabbed me, binding me with magic too much like Delaine’s. The High Advisor was dead but—

“Stealing, are you?” Kerune purred by my ear.

My flit didn’t work, but everything inside me had not yet frozen. I flung my power at the urn, and it shifted from my hands, moving to Lydel.

With a grunt, Kerune flitted us to the king’s dungeon.

A blink, and I hung on the very same wall where I’d found Vexxion, my hands stretched overhead, chains linking around my wrists.

I shrieked toward my well, but I could no longer call my magic.