Page 14 of Bright Blinding Ruin

“A plan to beat Invictis?” If I sound incredulous that’s because I am, you know, incredulous.

“Not exactly.”

Okay, color me confused. If he doesn’t know how to beat Invictis, what was so important about getting him here? Empress Morimento made it sound like he knows how to turn the tide or something. Ugh, stupid visions, not being clear.

The three of us head through the upper district, and soon enough we stop before the doors separating us from the markets. Fred sounds commanding when he says, “Let us through.”

The guards glance at each other. It’s evident they don’t think they should, but in the end, they step aside and let us pass.

I take another bite of my apple as I slip through the door after Fred. Frederick is right behind me. Where we’re going is anyone’s guess, but soon enough my curiosity is sated. We endup in the field that doubles as the cemetery and the area where the blight-free animals are kept.

Truly, we were fortunate the storm didn’t touch them. Laconia would be in dire straits if all of their livestock was wiped out.

I don’t ask what we’re here for. Frederick takes the lead, guiding us through the field. He brings us to a place where the dead still have stones marking their graves, and we stop before one that’s chiseled with LaRoe.

It shouldn’t have taken me so long to figure out that we’re before Frederick’s mom’s grave. I make sure I stand back to let Fred do what he has to. Don’t know why I had to be here at all; isn’t this a personal thing?

I step back as Fred kneels before the stone. She must’ve died back when they still did headstones.

Fred drags his fingertips along the stone and whispers, “My love. I’m sorry I couldn’t come back to you.” The emotion is plain in his voice; it trembles, almost breaking, no longer the voice of a madman but the voice of someone who’s lost almost everything while he was imprisoned.

Frederick places a hand on his back, comforting his dad, and I step back as I finish my apple. It’s a private moment, so I try not to listen to whatever they say next. I give them my back.

It’s as I’m turning around that something wet nudges my side, and I nearly fall back out of shock before I realize it’s just a goat wanting what’s left of my apple. I don’t know much about goats, if they can have apples, but seeing as how I’m done with it and the goat is staring up at me with hope in its eyes, the only thing I can do is give the damned goat what it wants.

The goat slobbers all over my hand as it takes the apple and chews the entire thing right there. Ew. I don’t want to wipe that slobber off on my clothes, so I instead pet the goat’s head, right between its tiny little horns.

I’ve never petted a goat before. Their hair is kind of coarse and rough, ain’t it? Not really petting material.

More goats venture closer, and I swear, I blink and I’m surrounded by goats—and a sheep here and there—all wanting their own apples. All staring at me with their crazy eyes. It’sChildren of the Corn, animal-style, and I’m about to be overrun.

I hold both hands up, as if to show them they’re empty, and I tell them, “I have nothing else. I’m sorry. So just… go do whatever it is you do.” None of them move. “Go away. Shoo.” I make a shooing motion in the air, but not a single one listens. “Brats, you’re all brats.”

The goat near my left hip nudges me with his nose, and I make a squeamish noise. Not that I’m scared of an army of goats and sheep, but… uh, I’m pretty outnumbered here, and I don’t need to be covered in saliva or hair.

I hear someone chuckling, and I whip my head around to see Frederick moved away from his mom’s grave. He now stands just beyond the army of goats and sheep, his arms folded over his chest, an expression of amusement on his face. “I think they like you,” he tells me.

“Yeah, well, I don’t really like them.” The seconds those words are out of my mouth, I swear the animals around me give me pitiful, wide-eyed looks, which then guilt me into adding, “It’s not you, it’s me. I’m more of a cat person.”

Fred must be finished at his wife’s grave, because he moves beside his son and surveys the scene: me and a whole bunch of hairy, needy beasts. “Huh. Perhaps you should rethink that. It looks as though you could be the flock’s guardian, once this is over.”

Once this is over, AKA once Invictis is defeated. Fred’s putting a lot of pressure on a girl with no magic.

“Let us go,” Fred says. “We have one more stop to make in the lower city.”

We leave the field after that, much to the disappointment of the animals that gathered around me.

Our last stop in the lower city turns out to be Frederick’s hut—which, I guess, used to be Fred’s hut, too, before he left for Acadia and never saw the light of day for years. Fred’s the first to venture into the house, and he immediately sees the journal left on the table.

“Ah, what’s this?” He picks it up and flips through it. “My journal!”

“I told you I asked Rey to follow your trail through Acadia,” Frederick speaks as he steps around me, moving toward the table where he does his experiments. It’s cleaner now than it ever has been—probably because he’s been stuck in the upper city since that storm. “She brought this back to me. I hoped there would be something in it that would point me in the right direction when it comes to the woes.”

“Yes, yes.” Fred flips through the pages absentmindedly, rambling on, “You want to reverse the effects of the blight and plague, of course. Noble goals, but short-sighted. Crops and well-being of animals mean nothing when the scourge can zap a shadowstorm at your doorstep and turn you into the walking dead.” The man snaps the journal closed and tosses it behind him. “Useless, trust me.”

The journal’s pages fly open as it hits the wooden ground, and Frederick rushes to pick it up like it’s discarded gold. To him, I suppose it might be: the only thing he had left of his dad for the longest time.

“Is there something we’re looking for?” I ask, but Fred doesn’t answer me. I watch as he disappears into the bedroom, and it sounds as though he rummages through everything. Frederick and I exchange clueless glances. At least I’m not the only one who doesn’t know what’s happening.

---