Treason: Book Two of the Grimoire Saga (a Young Adult Fantasy series)

by S. M. Boyce

Kara nodded. At least she knew this isen. He’d helped her once already. Of her limited options, he was her best bet.

  She ran through the exit as fast as her limping leg would carry her, but Stone followed at a stroll. His long legs carried him faster than her down the sidewalk, even at his leisurely pace. Kara huffed, half-wishing he would offer her a hand, but she knew better.

  They turned a corner, and a sudden realization hit Kara hard enough to make her stop in her tracks.

  “Wait! Stone, I need to find my friend.”

  “The human you came with? She’ll be fine.”

  “But Niccoli—”

  “—is after you,” Stone interrupted. “The girl will be safe as long as you stay away from her.”

  Kara’s shoulders slumped, but he had a point. Stone began again down the sidewalk, and she forced herself to continue after him.

  “How did you find me?” she asked.

  He smirked. “By chance, really. I monitor those I don’t trust. Niccoli mentioned a trip to Scotland not long after your stupid boyfriend showed up with the Grimoire and not you. I put two and two together. The rest was luck.”

  “The rest? There’s more?”

  “I have a hotel room across the street, so we can hide there until Niccoli takes his search back to Ourea,” Stone said.

  “You didn’t answer—”

  “Would you like a monologue or a place to hide? It’s one or the other at the moment.”

  She bit back a retort. “Where’s this hotel of yours?”

  “There.” He pointed to a double door entrance with a red carpet out front. A teenager in a red polo shirt sorted through what looked like valet tags while a man in a slim cut suit tapped his foot, waiting.

  Stone walked into the hotel without changing his stride and ushered Kara forward by pressing his hand against the small of her back. A clerk behind the black marble welcome desk glanced up and did a double take when he saw them, though Kara had the nagging feeling he was looking at her frizzy hair, smeared makeup, and flushed cheeks. She must have looked like hell.

  When they made it to the elevator, Stone pushed the button for the top floor. The elevator chimed, and the motor began to pull them up.

  Kara looked over to the isen standing beside her, who slid his hands into his pockets as the elevator climbed. Not even a week ago, she’d walked up to his cave in a freaking mountain in a hidden world that wasn’t supposed to exist. They had talked about magic and books and immortal beings. And now, they were on their way to the penthouse after she’d destroyed a nightclub by setting off the sprinklers.

  “This is surreal,” she said under her breath.

  “Magic has that effect on the young,” he answered.

  “I—yeah, I guess.”

  “That did not require an answer.”

  The doors chimed again. Kara shook her head and followed Stone into an ornate hall. He led the way to a door on the far end and swiped his key card in the lock.

  “I prefer real keys, but no, humans enjoy fixing things that aren’t broken,” he mumbled under his breath.

  He opened the door and walked in. Kara followed. A full kitchen stood off to her left, a living room filled the space in front of her, and a hallway to the right led down to a few doors that must have been bedrooms or bathrooms.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Stone nodded and closed the door.

  Kara wanted to add more, to explain that she didn’t know what she would have done without his help, but her head ached. She just wanted sleep.

  Stone lifted her chin and examined her eyes, as if looking for something. “How do you feel?”

  “Tired.”

  Every inch of her body ached. She scratched her wrist. Her fingernails scraped leather. She looked down to see the wrist guard with a trail of blood coming from it.

  “I guess I can take this off, huh?” she asked.

  She reached for the guard, but Stone grabbed her hand. In a move so fast she barely saw it, he reached for the back of her neck. Something slid into her skin at the base of her head. She gasped, but it came out as more of a choking sound. Numbness spread down to her fingers, her stomach, her toes. Spots dotted her vision.

  He had just pricked her spine with the barb in his palm. If she was human, he would have stolen her soul. Niccoli had said an isen couldn’t steal another isen’s soul if he tried, so—she gagged.

  Kara really was an isen.

  “Wh—?” she asked, but it was all she could manage. Her throat closed.

  Stone didn’t answer. He picked her up so that her head rested on his shoulder and carried her down the hall. White paint whizzed by. He kicked open a door. Her eyes flitted around and caught only glimpses of a bathroom. Porcelain toilet. Roll of toilet paper with the little fold marking it as unused since housekeeping last visited. Black towels with the hotel insignia.

  A bathtub filled with water.

  Stone paused at the entry. “I’m going to awaken your isen nature, Kara. It’s a painful process. First, I had to prick your spine—that will rouse the isen instinct within you and give you the strength to fight if you want. But it will also make me your master if you come back. Second, you must be killed, either by suffocation or drowning. I’ve found drowning to be less—impactful.”

  No. No, his voice was too calm, as if this was routine and not murder. But she couldn’t speak. Her body wouldn’t move.

  He continued. “Third, you will face Death. You must have a reason to return. If you do come back, I will tell you the truth about what you are. You will have unimaginable power. You can save millions. You don’t have to be evil. You can be good, if you want.”

  He offered the choice as if it was the same as choosing chocolate over vanilla.

  Stone laid her in the tub. Cold water lapped over her ears. She forced her chin up so that she could stay above the water, and a happy pang raced through her when her body obeyed.

  But it wasn’t enough. Stone set his hands on her shoulders, face as blank as if he was reading an encyclopedia.

  “Ah, one more thing,” he added. “This hurts less if you don’t hold your breath.”

  Weight pressed against Kara’s chest as he forced her under. Fear tore through her. She would never avenge her dad. She would never see Twin’s army. She would never hear Flick purr in her ear or make that odd gurgling noise that meant he was happy.

  But above all else, she wouldn’t see Braeden again. She’d never get to tell him—

  Water rushed into her lungs as she released the breath she didn’t know she was holding. Oh God, it was painful. The movies, books, television that describe drowning—they were all wrong. They were too gentle. Drowning was the ultimate death, the most painful of them. Her blood pulsed in irregular beats, thrumming as her heart lost oxygen.

  But the panic—that was worst of all.

  Her body convulsed, twitching until she lost all feeling. She lost touch with her fingers. Her toes went next. Her lungs stopped trying. Her heartbeat slowed.

  Light splintered through the ripples in the water. Stone reached for her pulse, looked at his watch, and stood.

  The room blurred. Something pressed against her cheek. Her stomach lifted, like when she used to float in the pool during summer break.

  There, the pain hadn’t lasted all that long. At least it was gone now.

  Chapter 26

  Death

  When Kara opened her eyes, she stood on top of a circle of jet-black cliff about a hundred feet wide. Fog hugged its sides in all directions. The rock hovered in the sky like an island surrounded by clouds. A red sun burned the horizon, distorting the world around her into shades of orange and amber.

  A tall man with dark red skin stood near the edge, his back to her. She couldn’t tell if the strange light tinted his body or if he was actually red. He wore only black pants. Layers of muscle seemed to push against the skin on his shoulders and back in an attempt to find space on his body.

  The man cracked his neck and turned.
His eyes made her stomach lurch—they were all white, with no irises to them. He watched her. For several minutes, neither spoke.

  “Am I dead?” Kara finally asked.

  “That is your choice.” His voice echoed in her ear long after he spoke.

  “Then I want to go back. What do I have to do? Stone said—”

  The man held up his hand. She stopped talking.

  “You must first answer to me,” he said.

  She paused. “Who are you?”

  “I am Death.”

  “I thought you would have less”—she paused—“skin.”

  “A mortal’s imagination is often quite impressive.”

  “I’m imagining you?”

  “No. You are in the middle ground between your old life and the next world.”

  “But I can go back, right?”

  “Why would you want to return?”

  “What kind of a question is that?”

  “One you must consider. You may easily move to the next world, but you will not as easily return to the last. You must prove yourself. Answer me. Why should I let you go back?”

  Her back straightened involuntarily at his blunt tone. When she did finally speak, her voice came out far softer than she’d intended.

  “I’m not done yet,” she said.

  “You aren’t done with what, exactly? Your mentor abandoned you. The Grimoire will not answer you. Those you protected betrayed you for the thinnest hope of greater power. And as an isen, you will be thought of as a monster for the rest of your life.”

  “How do you know all of that?”

  “I am Death. I know all.”

  “That must make your job simple.”

  “Focus!”

  The cliff shook, as if trembling at Death’s voice. Kara lost her balance and fell to her knees. The terrifying sound of splitting rock rumbled beneath them. She braced herself with her hands, but Death didn’t move until the trembling stopped.

  He continued. “You forbid yourself from loving Braeden in an attempt to protect him, which is foolish at best. But worst of all, he left you, defenseless, in a world you no longer understand when you had no one else to trust. He did not think you were capable of protecting yourself or others, and in his misguided effort to save you, he made you vulnerable to Niccoli—the one creature in all of Ourea who wanted you most. You are here with me because of Braeden’s decision. What do you have left? Who in that world will want you when they learn what you are?”

  A lump formed in Kara’s throat.

  Wow. Death is a jerk.

  Her forbidden anger pulsed beneath the layer of calm that kept it in check. It threatened to rip free and force her to say what she couldn’t even admit to herself. She bit her cheek.

  Death eyed her. “More often than you might think, it takes getting to your lowest point before you realize you need to make a change. This moment is your lowest point. The world you knew tried to break you, child, but nothing can take away a person’s will to fight. That’s something you have to give up. But you don’t have much to gain by staying. You’re not really a fighter.”

  Kara arched her back, but couldn’t speak. Not a fighter?

  An orb of blue light floated by, distracting Kara with its movement. It slipped past, much like the healing lights the Ayavelian seers had performed with at the Gala. It dove into the ground next to Death. Spindles of light grew from the rock. They spun and splintered until they formed the outline of a person. Details emerged: eyes, a nose, a mouth. Shadows and depth emerged from the body, creating everything from a neck to bare feet sticking out from beneath a hospital gown. Hair sprouted from the glowing light, curling over the figure’s shoulders.

  Recognition set in. Kara gasped. Her throat tightened.

  “Mom?” she asked.

  The woman made of blue light opened her arms and curled her fingers, beckoning Kara to come closer.

  Kara stepped forward, more than willing to obey, but a hand grabbed her shoulder. She looked up to see Death’s white eyes staring down at her. She shuddered. A second ago, he had been on the other side of the cliff. She hadn’t even seen him move.

  “If you touch your mother, you will die and go to the next world with her,” Death said.

  Kara’s voice failed her, and her words came out as a whisper. “That’s not fair.”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “Can I at least talk to her?”

  “No. She is dead, and you are not. Not yet, at least. If you go with her now, she will explain everything—why Niccoli wants you so badly, why she never told you the truth of what you are, why you never met your maternal grandparents. Of course, none of it would matter anymore. But if you return to your old body, you will have to live a full life and learn those things for yourself.”

  Kara bit her lip. “Do you like what you do? This is just cruel.”

  “This isn’t cruel, child. Death isn’t good or evil. It just is. Your mother is waiting for you, restless to find peace with her mistakes. You owe her that much.”

  Kara brushed Death’s hand off her shoulder. “Don’t tell me what I owe her.”

  “Then you tell me.”

  She tightened her hand into a fist. “You want to talk about what I owe people? Fine. I owe it to Mom to bring Dad back to her. I owe it to Dad to free his soul from Deirdre. I have to help Braeden find peace with himself.”

  Death shrugged. “You have all the time in the world to wait here for those things to unfold naturally. Deirdre will die in due time and release your father’s soul. Braeden is guaranteed to find peace when he dies, which will likely be soon. You can simply wait for them both. Tell Braeden how you feel when he crosses over. I can ensure you appear when I see him, if you wish. So why should you go through the pain of being Stone’s slave just to expedite your parents’ reunion or Braeden’s peace? What if you fail?”

  Kara paused. Her gut twisted. “I won’t fail. And what about Twin? She and all the vagabonds she created are waiting for me to come back. I can’t just leave them.”

  “Why not? They are intelligent enough to survive.”

  “I’d be abandoning them like the first Vagabond abandoned me! I refuse to be remembered as a coward!”

  Death didn’t react or respond to her outburst. He simply waited. Kara took deep breaths, but it wasn’t enough to slow her racing pulse. Death just got under her skin.

  She paced. “Whether I like it or not, history will remember me. That’s the consequence of being the Vagabond. But I control what’s written. I won’t let Ourea remember me as the pathetic girl chained in a cell because the Bloods beat me. To hell with that! If I go down, it’ll be with a fight!”

  “Why is pride so important to you?” he asked.

  She paused. “It’s not pride. It’s more than that. Yes, I have eternity to wait for my loved ones. But I only have a limited time to make a difference in life. To enjoy life. I can change the world. The powerful cause so much pain simply because they have never known what it means to be weak. If they have, they’ve forgotten. I can remind them.”

  “So this isn’t about peace. It’s a vendetta.”

  Kara suppressed a groan. “No. This is my chance to show the yakona how strong they could be if they’d only unite with each other.”

  “Why you? You’re hardly qualified.”

  “I’m beginning to think that doesn’t matter. For whatever reason, yakona believe in the Vagabond. They believe in the Grimoire. I might be an isen now, but I was the Vagabond first. I don’t know how to lead. I have no idea why people should follow me. But I can’t run away from that anymore.”

  “But you can run away. You can run right over to your mother and never have to think about it again.”

  Kara glanced over to the woman made of blue light and swallowed hard. “I misspoke. I don’t want to run away. There’s so much left of my life in Ourea. For once, I want to be great. I want to do something that changes lives for the better.”

  “Whose lives, exactly? Those you
meant to save betrayed you.”

  “So you’re saying I shouldn’t forgive them?”

  Death was silent.

  Kara crossed her arms. “What they did was wrong. I won’t deny that. Maybe I should hate them. Maybe I should make them figure things out on their own, but that won’t fix anything. They won’t change. They’ll keep fighting until they kill each other off.”

  Death shook his head. “Nothing is left for you in your old life but a war, and I will meet most of your friends before it ends. They will not have the option to return. So tell me, what do you have to live for in a world full of loss?”

  “Everything,” Kara said without thinking.

  The anger within her dissolved at the word. Peace surged through her in a way magic never had; it rippled and pulsed with its own life force, strengthening everything it touched with an unimaginable power.

  Kara smiled. “There are good people that make life worth living. There’s beauty. Have you ever sat beneath a waterfall and just watched the mist? I have. I sat next to Mom on a trail, and we just listened to the forest. We didn’t say anything, and it’s one of my favorite memories. She and I used to watch sunsets after hiking trails most people don’t even know about. Mom taught me that I can find peace from the world if I just walk out into it.

  “Ourea is beautiful. My life there is complicated, but it’s mine. I don’t know what comes after death. I don’t want to. Whether it’s terrifying or breathtaking, I’m going to enjoy as much of this life as I can while I still have the option.”

  The corner of Death’s mouth rose in the barest hint of a grin. “So you wish to return despite all the yakona have done to prove themselves unworthy of your help?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you certain?”

  Kara glanced over to her mother’s ghost. The woman wrapped her arms around herself, which left wrinkles in the hospital gown. They watched each other for a moment, guilt churning in Kara’s stomach. But she had to free her dad. She had to help Twin. She had to find Braeden. But most of all, she wanted to live.

  “I’m sure,” she finally said.

  Death eyed her, and Kara resisted the urge to squirm under his glare. He nodded. The cliff shook yet again as he moved.