The Gifted Heart (Marks of Inheritance: The Orkeia Cycle #1)

26. Where the Dead Weep

Chapter twenty-six

Where the Dead Weep

T he next week was even more hectic than when we’d been preparing for the wedding. Word was published throughout the kingdom of Arabella’s birth the very next morning. All of the lords and ladies visited in turn. We were very careful to make sure Arabella’s dresses covered the mark on her arm, but I don’t know if anyone would have noticed even if it was visible—they were all blinded by her charm. Lady Rosalyn was the most excited to see the baby girl, and squealed as she insisted that Arabella smiled at her.

Every time I saw Kiernan now, there was a smile on his face. He kept canceling meetings in order to spend his time with the two of us, ignoring my insistence that he needed to work as well. Nothing else seemed to matter. He even stayed up all night on occasion to look after Arabella so I could rest. Abi would have performed the task, but Kiernan didn’t seem to want to let his daughter out of his sight for longer than absolutely necessary.

As much as we wanted to continue to bask in the wonder of our daughter’s birth, our responsibilities couldn’t be put on hold indefinitely. Kiernan continued to work towards declaring the Slaughters over, and while he didn’t feel the time was right to reveal the truth about magic to the Orkeian people—and certainly not the fact that the queen and new princess were both magic holders—we grew increasingly confident that the time was coming soon. The letters we were receiving from Gideon and my father were encouraging as well .

“‘Last week, a few of us went into town,’” I read out loud to Kiernan, holding Gideon’s letter in one hand while I cradled Arabella with my other arm. “‘Neal was with us and decided not to cover his mark. Your father wasn’t very pleased with that decision, but it turned out to be enlightening. When one merchant noticed it, he was surprised, but then he lowered his voice and asked if there was anything we could do to help his crops grow more effectively. It turns out that most of the people, at least on Hairan, are more curious about magic than scared by it. In fact, the knights’ armies were more intimidating to them than we ever were, and they’ve been relieved ever since the patrols stopped.’”

I paused, letting out a bit of a sigh and setting down the letter to readjust my hold on my daughter. Seeing that my arms were beginning to get tired, Kiernan stood from his desk and took her from me, kissing me quickly before kissing her sleeping forehead.

“That’s incredible,” he muttered as I sat down. “I don’t know if the people here in the city will be so easily swayed, but if those in more remote villages are receptive, it’s certainly a good sign.”

I nodded in agreement, picking up the letter and continuing to read. It had been a relief to get word a couple months before that they had found the Grison clan, and even more of a relief to hear that everyone was still safe and accounted for. Darius had fought the idea of moving the clan to Hairan, especially hesitant to gather in larger numbers as a Gifted community, but Julius eventually convinced him. And with Julius’s help, they were able to traverse the islands with more efficiency, using his Gift to find more clans and help them travel to the sanctuary instantly.

Though I didn’t say it, I missed all of them dreadfully. Part of me wanted to arrange a trip to Hairan just so I could see them in person, but even though I had recovered uncommonly quickly from giving birth, Bella was too young for me to feel comfortable with the journey. For the moment, I had to resign myself to reading through Gideon’s letters.

Shae often wrote her own letters and sent them with his, all of them full of questions about life in the castle, what the king was like, and if I could please describe the wedding in detail. I received occasional updates on the other members of the clan, but I noticed that Gideon didn’t say much about Neal. I wished Neal would write to me himself, but I suppose I understood why he didn’t—I doubted he’d taken the news of my marriage very well, let alone Arabella’s birth. Still, I felt confident that when we did eventually meet again, it would be a joyous reunion.

Abi came in a few minutes later to take Bella from us and put her down in the nursery for the night. Both Kiernan and I began to change into our night clothes. Through the open door between our rooms, I noticed Kiernan pause with his nightshirt only halfway on. When I turned to get a better look at him, he was staring at the wall—the wall that held the door to the secret passage we’d discovered months before.

My shoulders tensed. I hadn’t forgotten my promise to try to find his father, but I had been avoiding the topic, using the excuse of taking care of our daughter and the resulting exhaustion to justify myself. And it wasn’t exactly a lie—I hadn’t even tried traveling to the Land of the Saved yet to find Kindra. But the real truth was that I was just out of practice, which worried me. It had been over a year since I’d last traveled to the other worlds, and more than seven years since I’d attempted to make my way through the dark forests of the Land of the Lost.

Kiernan sighed, finishing putting on his nightshirt. As he did, he caught a glimpse of me, frowning a bit when he saw my expression.

“What is it, My Heart?”

I hesitated. Whenever I felt nervous about trying to use my Gift when I was young, Elizabeth always said that the only way to get over that fear was to take the leap. My eyes drifted past Kiernan to the wall for a moment and I let out a heavy sigh. My hands trembled slightly as I turned away from my husband and moved further into my bedroom. I opened up the cabinet where I’d stored my candles and began pulling them out.

Kiernan entered my room as I began setting up the circle, watching me intently. “Can you summon my father?” he asked after a long silence.

I shook my head. “I can only summon people I’ve already met,” I explained, willing my hands to remain steady as I set up the last of the candles. “If I’ve only ever heard of someone, I need to make the trip in spirit myself.”

Kiernan watched intently as I stepped into the circle. Looking up, I met his gaze.

“You’re confident he’d be in the Land of the Lost?” I asked.

He nodded. “Even if he’s not the one responsible for the demon, he…well, he wasn’t a good man. I suppose it's possible I could be proven wrong, but somehow I doubt it.”

“All right,” I said quietly, closing my eyes. My nerves were threatening to take over and make me step outside of the circle, but I willed myself to stay still. It wasn’t enough to keep Kiernan from noticing my shaking voice and trembling hands, however.

“Kenna, you don’t have to do this,” he said with concern. “I know I asked you to, but if it’s this dangerous…”

“I just have to be careful,” I breathed, lifting up a hand to begin to trace the pentagram over my chest.

“I wish I could come with you,” Kiernan sighed.

A sudden idea occurred to me, and I opened my eyes. Lowering my hand, I stepped outside the circle once more, rearranging the candles. I had seen Elizabeth do this when training me, of course, and had read about Kindra doing the same thing with her daughter, but I hadn’t ever heard of someone attempting it with an Ungifted partner. But something told me it would still work.

Kiernan stepped forward curiously. “What are you doing?”

“Take my hand,” I said instead of answering, practically pulling him into the circle with me. Holding his hand tightly, I traced a pentagram over my chest with my right hand, chanting the words of passage. Kiernan jumped when the candles around us lit, but he didn’t try to leave the circle.

“Do you desire to visit the Saved or the Lost?”

Kiernan looked around the room with wide eyes. “Who said that?”

“The Lost,” I said in answer to the voice.

The voice spoke again. “Do you desire to bring this traveler with you?”

“Yes,” I said.

Kiernan’s hold on my hand tightened as a heavy gust of wind blew through the room, extinguishing the candles. My spirit left my body and traveled quickly downwards, landing on the edge of a thick, dark wood. When I opened my eyes, I was relieved to see the spirit of my husband next to me, staring around in wonder and fear.

“It worked,” I breathed.

“Is this the Land of the Lost?” he croaked.

I looked into the dark forest. “Yes. This is the only entrance and exit for our spirits.”

“So if we get lost in there…?”

“Our spirits will be lost,” I confirmed. “Do you want to go back?”

After a moment, he shook his head. “I want to be with you every step of the way,” he said. He reached out to take my hand, and was surprised when his went through mine.

“We’re mortal spirits now,” I explained. “When a spirit is still mortal, it can’t interact with other spiritual things, only physical and mortal things.”

He smiled wryly. “So I won’t be able to punch my father?”

I grinned. “I’m afraid not.”

He sighed, losing his humor as he stared into the never-ending expanse of trees. “So how do we find him?”

I took a deep breath. “We walk into the forest.”

We both shivered, but the decision had been made. Kiernan had the urge to take my hand again, but drew back at the last second. Now that we weren’t speaking, we could hear horrible and heart-wrenching screams and sobs coming from every direction. Slowly, we made our way into the trees, leaving the light behind us.

We searched for hours, walking straight in one direction, then moving to the right and walking straight the other way in hopes of preventing ourselves from getting lost. Most spirits, when they felt our mortal spirits approaching, coiled away from us. Some, however, drew closer, trying to pull us into the darkness with them. They knew that if we lost our way, we would have no way to return to our bodies and be trapped down here. Kiernan began to understand more why I’d been hesitant to search for his father in the first place, and seemed to regret asking me to try, let alone bring him along .

I was careful not to go too far into the forest. Though his father might be deeper within, it wasn’t worth the risk. If we ventured too far, we would fall off the edge of a sudden cliff into a dark abyss. The only thing past that cliff is the Lost One’s castle, standing on a high, steep hill miles from the edge. Many spirits see the castle and head toward it, inadvertently finding themselves trapped in complete darkness instead of just the darkness of night. Even in the front of the forest it was difficult to see, and I didn’t want to imagine what it was like at the bottom of that cliff.

When we turned around for the seventh time, Kiernan stopped. “Maybe we should just give up,” he said. “I don’t know how much help he would be anyway.”

“Kiernan,” I said, coming to his side. “If we—”

“Kiernan, did you say?”

We both turned sharply to see a horrid looking creature approaching us. He clearly used to be a man, but boils and cuts covered him head to toe and his overgrown, gray, knotted hair disguised his youth. I shrank back as he neared us, repulsed by the image. Kiernan, on the other hand, stepped closer, staring at the man intently.

“Father?”

King Rafael gave us a toothy grin, showing rotten teeth. “Hard to recognize me, isn’t it?” he said, partly in humor and partly in sadness. “I was always so put together in life. But this is what happens when you bind your soul to a demon. I wouldn’t suggest it, Son.”

Now that he stood so close, I could see the resemblance, however eerie the setting. He’d clearly been very handsome once, but his actions turned him into a vile and disgusting creature of the Lost One. Kiernan’s mouth hung open, and his father laughed at his expression.

“I never thought I’d see you here, let alone while still alive. When I was alive, it was hard to find white witches willing to travel into the Land of the Lost, and near impossible to find ones willing to bring me along. Looks like you’re following in your father’s footsteps.”

Kiernan stood up straighter and closed his mouth, his expression hard.

“I’m nothing like you. ”

His father raised his eyebrows. “Then what are you doing here?”

Kiernan got straight to the point, ignoring the continuing screams in the forest around us. “Why would you have started the Slaughters when you were using dark magic yourself?”

“I thought you would have figured that out by now,” he said, his eyebrows still raised. “I left a record of the prophecy in the chamber.”

“What prophecy?” I said.

Rafael smiled wickedly at me. “She’s a fine one. Where’d you find her?”

“What prophecy?” I repeated as Kiernan stepped forward protectively, eyes narrow.

“You’ll find it all in my record,” he said, bored of the conversation. “Life would have been grand if I’d just ignored it.”

Before we could ask anything else, he turned away from us, disappearing in the darkness. His cackling echoed through the trees, and Kiernan’s face hardened even more. He stepped forward, ready to follow him.

“Kiernan, no !” I reached out to stop him, even though I knew it would do no good. Thankfully, he paused before disappearing in the dark, dense forest, facing me with fury in his eyes.

“He hasn't told us anything we needed to know!”

“But he told us where to find it.” I took a careful step toward him, making a note of which direction we’d come from. “Let’s go.”

“He’s not going to get away with not talking to me,” he yelled. “He never spoke to me in life, but I’m going to make him when he’s dead.”

“He’s tricking you!” I cried as he turned away from me again. “He wants you to follow him and get lost!”

Kiernan wasn’t listening, hurrying after his father’s laughter. I searched in my mind for a way to stop him, to bring him back—

“Think of Arabella!” I cried out, my voice cracking. “Think of your daughter!”

He stopped, staring ahead of him into the darkness. His father’s laughter could still be heard, but he slowly turned and made his way back through the darkness toward me .

“I’m sorry,” he muttered when he reached me. “I couldn’t control myself.”

“It’s all right,” I said, my voice shaking.

Carefully, we turned back to make our way back. I felt a huge wave of relief when we reached the edge of the wood, a small ball of light visible a little ways from us. We ran toward it, eager to get away from that horrible forest.

When we reached the light, my heart sank in realization and I bit my lip. “I’m not going to be able to just bring you with me this time.”

“Why not?”

“Because we can’t touch,” I explained. “You’re going to have to return yourself.

“How?”

Though he seemed confident I wouldn’t lead him astray, I was terrified of him never being able to return to his body. I hadn’t thought this far in advance. I took a deep breath, trying to recall how Elizabeth had explained things to me so many years before.

“Think of your body—how you were last standing, where you were, what you were feeling. Close your eyes, and imagine your spirit returning. But think about what you’re going to do after you return to your body, not simply returning.”

My instructions were definitely confusing, but he closed his eyes to focus. I let out a deep breath when his spirit slowly rose, disappearing from my view. Only then did I close my own eyes, relieved when I opened them to see that his were open as well.

Without speaking, he hurried to the wall, pushing aside his desk and searching for the stone to open the secret door. He was out of sight before I could say a word, taking the one lit candle in the room with him. Anxiously, I waited in the little moonlight coming through the windows. I didn’t even think about joining him—I wasn’t going to go back to that evil space if I could help it, especially not immediately after returning from that horrible forest .

He returned quickly, a small brown book in his hands. Out of breath, he closed the door and sat next to me on the bed, holding the dust covered record between us.

“He’d better have been telling the truth,” he breathed.

I placed a hand on his shoulder. “Maybe we should wait until tomorrow.”

Kiernan shook his head. “He’s kept secrets from me long enough.”

He opened up to the first page, and we both began to read. It was a log of the experiments King Rafael performed down in that room with a trusted group of sorcerers and witches. At the time, very few of the Orkeian people even knew that magic was real. He had learned of its existence through reading in the library and sought out Gifted members of the community, using their power to increase his. Many of the names Kiernan recognized as captains or nobles from his childhood. The first thirty or so pages went on like this, detailing ceremonies performed and who had performed them. I shivered uncomfortably, knowing full well how the magic they were performing could twist someone into barely a human being at all.

After about an hour, we came to the last entry. My eyes widened. It was dated almost nineteen years ago, on the day I was born.

Everything’s changed today. Wendell had another one of his visions. Luckily he and I were alone. He spoke these words:

In the midst of Slaughter, the King will be conquered—

Magic will reign and Witches be royalty—

Until Life leaves the Kingdom—

Souls will wander the new World—

Carefully watching the Heir—

And the fate of the Gifted will be decided.

Needless to say, I killed him the moment he finished. Orkeia will not be ruled by magic, and I will not be deposed. On our next hunting trip, I will kill the rest of them myself and blame it on their own kind. Then the people will join me in destroying every last one of them, preventing this prophecy from coming true. They need not ever know.

Kiernan and I stared at each other. Suddenly, everything made sense. Prophecies were ambiguous, but from his interpretation of what it meant, King Rafael had decided to kill all magic holders, including his own captains, to protect his throne. Battling the witches had been a complete lie—he led his captains to a secluded place and killed them himself, and all because of these six lines.

“‘Until Life leaves the Kingdom,’” Kiernan muttered, frowning. “What does that mean?”

I looked at the line he was referring to, but my eyes flickered to the one above it. Magic will reign and Witches be royalty…

I sat up straighter.

“It’s me.”

Kiernan’s frown deepened. “What did you say?”

“It’s me—the prophecy’s talking about me , Kiernan.”

My husband shook his head. “It can’t be—”

My mind raced, putting the pieces together. “It was given on the day I was born. Prophecies aren’t random, they’re triggered by events.”

“It could just be a coincidence—”

“‘In the midst of Slaughter,’” I read, pointing to the page. “I was captured because of the Slaughters. ‘The King will be conquered,’ ‘Magic will reign,’ ‘Witches be royalty’—”

“But I haven’t been conquered.”

“Maybe not in a political or military sense, but one could say I conquered your heart.” I flashed him a teasing smile before continuing. “Prophecies are often figurative in their speech and descriptions.”

Kiernan’s eyes widened. “So my father caused the prophecy to come true,” he said quietly. “If it hadn’t been for this war, we would never have met.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes. I’d never heard of a prophecy not coming true, no matter what anyone did to try and prevent it. The Slaughters were part of the prophecy, and King Rafael had inadvertently put all the events in motion that would bring us to this day.

He closed the book with a sigh. “It still doesn’t tell us much.”

I put my hand on top of his. “Prophecies can be hard to understand,” I acknowledged. “But now we know that we were fated to end this war and unite our people. It must be possible.”

He turned his palm upwards to interlock his fingers with mine. His grip was tight.

“We know something else, too,” he said, a quiet anger in his tone. “We know where the demon came from.”

I frowned slightly at that, not as sure myself. Usually, if a demon was bound to someone’s soul, they would return to the Land of the Lost when that person died. For one that King Rafael had summoned to remain at the castle was abnormal. I thought back through everything we’d read over the past hour, but the king’s journal wasn’t always detailed with who was involved in the ceremonies and what exactly the goals of them were. Perhaps there had been someone else who had bound themselves, someone close to him…

Kiernan stood, determination on his face. “It’s time the people knew the truth,” he said firmly, tossing the book aside with enough force that it slammed against the wall with a thud.

My breath caught in my throat. “Kiernan—”

“Things are never going to change if I keep acting like I’m content with how they’ve been,” he said firmly, pacing the room. “I am the king, and I owe it to my people—Gifted and Ungifted alike—to bring this treachery to light.”

“Do you really think they’ll be ready?” I asked in a whisper, slowly standing as well, wringing my hands.

He stopped pacing and faced me, taking my hands in his and holding them tightly. “I’ll make a speech at the founding celebration,” he said, his mind clearly made up. “I’ll tell them everything we’ve learned, about my father, about the true founding of Orkeia, all of it. Yes, it will be a shock, but who is going to question the king? ”

My frown remained, but I was reminded once again about Elizabeth’s advice—that when you were scared, you just needed to take the leap. Swallowing hard, I nodded gently.

He cupped my cheek and kissed me deeply. “We’re going to end this once and for all,” he said, already sounding triumphant. He then rushed to his desk and pulled out a parchment and quill, writing furiously as he began to plan his speech.