Page 29 of A Haven of Brimstone and Darkness

A dark figure dressed in a dark gold robe appears from the shadows, carefully moving across the messy embankment with ease. There’s no sound of boots crunching or even footsteps left in her wake. I don’t move as she draws nearer, not stopping until she’s between Caedmon and me, closer to me.

Bending, Makeda reaches up and carefully removes her robe’s hood. A cloud of curly dark hair fans out behind her head, pulled back, away from her forehead by a gold crown of sorts. Her eyes, kind as they have always been, are darker thanI remember, clouded by pain and sorrow and something else I recognize because I’ve seen it in my own gaze for the last ten years. Guilt.

“Come on,” she whispers, holding a hand out for me to take. “We should talk.”

“Not with him,” I snap, even as I lift my arm and take the peace offering of her assistance.

“Yes, with him,” she states. “There is much you need to know.”

“You don’t know what he?—”

“Did?” Makeda hauls me to my feet as she finishes my statement with an arched brow. “Do you think I would be here if I didn’t know what Caedmon was here for? What he’s done?”

If that’s true, then she knows more than what he’s done. She knows about her—Kiera. Inhaling deeply, I find myself unsurprised by this information. After all, Henric is her son, and therefore, our child is of her blood as well. It makes sense that Caedmon would seek her assistance.

Before I can respond, though, the man in question lets out another loud hacking cough, blood droplets landing from his mouth onto the white snow. The way his body bows as he releases the noise looks painful.Good,I think.I hope it hurts.

“Ariadne, I understand your wrath,” Makeda starts as I pull my hand away from hers and let my own legs hold me up.

A scoffing noise erupts from my throat as I turn away from her. Kind as she is, even she hasn’t been able to stop Tryphone from doing what he will. “My wrath?” I bite out through gritted teeth. “He stole my child from me.”

Whirling back to her, I clench my bloodied hands into fists at my sides. More of the tendrils of power slip free from the confines of my flesh to curl around my sides, protectively, anxiously. It’s as if the shadows that live within me sense an impending battle.

Somewhere in these woods, my daughter needs me. The images from my spiders flash through my mind once more. “I don’t have time for this.” I take a step back and turn, trying to ascertain how far we’ve come from where I’d originally been.

The snow flurries come down harder and the dark jutting trees that stick up from the ground like knives in a butcher’s block encircle me, seeming thicker than before. As if they, too, want to hold me in this place.

“If you go to her, she will die.”

I freeze. The words are spoken in a near whisper, so quiet and hoarse that there’s no doubt where they come from.

Slowly, with infinitely small movements, I turn back to the man crawling up from the ground. Caedmon is as I’ve never seen him before. Disheveled. His clothes torn. Blood on his lip and his face half swollen and bruised. I let ice fill my veins as I stare back at the dark eyes I’ve known since childhood.

Only those words could have stopped me. Only the threat of my daughter’s life would give me a single pause and oh, how I hate him for it. His power, unlike many others, is one of great importance. It is one of the primary reasons my father keeps him so close.

Unlike many others of our race—Caedmon’s gift and curse is a knowing. The future has many paths and only he can see down them all. Perhaps if I were not so overtaken by my protectiveness and rage for my child, I might have guessed that this was his reason.

Though it doesn’t erase his betrayal, some modest part of me—small though it may be—understands that this must be why he took her.

“What do you mean she’ll die?” I demand.

Caedmon shoves one booted foot into the hard-packed snow and nearly falls for his efforts. I don’t move forward to help him and to my slight surprise, neither does Makeda. Together, theother woman and I watch as Caedmon struggles to his feet and then sways for a moment.

His eyes are so puffy that the minuscule slits of them seem almost impossible to see out of. Somehow, though, he manages to stumble across the clearing until he’s a few feet from me. He stops and lifts an arm as the scent of blood and sweat filters towards me on the wind.

“See for yourself, Ari,” he mumbles, his voice still barely perceptible. No doubt, it will take days for him to heal from his ordeal.

I take great pleasure in that fact as I reach out and grab ahold of his palm. I crush his fingers in my fist, squeezing until his bones threaten to shatter. To my utter disgust, Caedmon doesn’t even flinch. A moment passes and then a second, on the third a handful of images slam into my mind. An old power. Ancient and wasteful considering the pain it will cause him in the near future; I stifle any old concern for my once friend and the payment he will have to make on behalf of sharing his visions with another.

Long pathways open to my mind, and I have to close my eyes from the real world to sift through the timelines that have yet to happen. A face much like my own appears—at first in infancy, the same as that of the child I held to my breast nearly ten years ago. My hand clenches harder on Caedmon’s as fresh tears burn against the backs of my eyes.

Her looks change, going from the soft roundness of babyhood to the similar plumpness of a toddler, then that of a child through different childhood stages into adolescence and beyond.

Find the strongest two lines.Caedmon’s whisper penetrates my mind, clearer now because he’s sharing it through our connection versus his actual voice.

Annoyed at having to listen to him, I still follow his direction and see two similar paths, brighter than any of the others. To the right and to the left, the silver illuminations appear like snakes drifting down a river. Mentally, I brush against one, knowing from experience what will happen.

I’m sucked into the future it holds and find myself standing in a small cabin.Crack!I jump and whirl to see a reflection of myself sitting on a rug near a fire hearth. Her long silver hair drawn back into a low braid, the child of my heart glances up from a worn book in her hand and smiles at me.

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