Page 49 of A Petal in the Crown

"What does he want? What did we do to deserve this?" the woman asked.

"Nothing," Lea said, pushing off the ground to stand. "You didnothing. Youdidn'tdeserve this. Alaric is nothing but evil." Even now, she could feel the vile fingerprint of the wicked false king.

She looked to the woods—toward that tiny trail of magic reminding her that Alaric had been here and fled.

"Go," Gray said, nodding at her. "See if you can track him. Maybe if we know the direction he fled, we can follow behind. We'll take care of the villagers. They've all taken the cure."

Lea turned, her stomach twisting as she realized why Gray wasn’t insisting he come along. Alaric was long gone. They all knew it. There was no danger. No risk.

"And Lea," Gray said, stopping her with a hand on her arm. He reached out and cupped her cheek. "I'm proud of you. For accepting the darkness. You saved them." He tilted his head to the villagers, all now awake and recovering.

Lea couldn’t speak as she choked back tears. Not because Gray was proud of her. He was always proud of her, whether she deserved it or not. And someday, when the war was over, she would find the words to tell him how much it meant to have his unwavering and unquestionable trust and love and support.

But the emotions churning inside her weren’t because of anyone else. She was simply proud of herself, too. Proud of herself for making the choice she did, for embracing the darkness when it had been the last thing she’d wanted to do. It was her greatest fear. Lea had thought she’d lose herself if she gave in to it. That she’d become as evil and wicked as Alaric. But she’d been so wrong.

She didn't feel evil or wicked. She still felt the need for vengeance—sharp and bitter in the back of her throat. But unlike before, she now felt like she could handle the emotions that had threatened to consume her.

Lea closed her eyes, trusting her shadows to alert her to obstacles as she focused on Alaric’s trail. The glimmer of his magic and essence. Now that she’d embraced her primary magic, her senses seemed sharper, her understanding of Alaric deeper. On the backs of her eyelids, his movements played out like a movie. His magic felt weak at the entrance to the town, then stronger at the church from when he walked away.

She pictured him reciting the spell for the Lonely Death, ensuring that everyone with magic was infected before slaughtering them mercilessly to take it. She could see him walking inside the church, enchanting it to explode when Lea neared it. But to kill the villagers or taunt her, she wasn't sure. The spell igniting the fire in the church hadn’t killed anyone. Hadn’t even managed to kill those within the church. Had it been a miscalculation on Alaric’s part?

Or had he wanted her to know he was one step ahead of them.?That his callous disregard for life had only grown since their last encounter. Was he trying to show her she couldn't defeat him?

The wind blew at Lea's back, pushing her further north. Sweat dripped down her spine as the sun burned her skin. She called clouds into the sky, but within seconds they evaporated, the sun god’s magic too hot and too powerful for her to overcome it. Not even her shadows could find relief from the heat.

Lea walked on, Alaric’s trail becoming more sparse and harder to follow until she reached a stream where it washed away completely, disappearing as if he had never been there to begin with. Lea waded into the stream, the hem of her riding dress pulling at her legs as water filled her boots.

She spread out her shadows, searching for where the trail might pick back up again, but it was simply gone. Her heart sank, her body suddenly heavy. She closed her eyes, begging the goddess of the moon to help her, to give her some sort of clue as to where he may have gone.

But there was only complete silence. Until a branch snapped to her left. Lea startled, drawing her sword and summoning her shadows into her hands.

There was no voice begging her to destroy. Not anymore.

Shewasdestruction, and gods help whoever was trying to sneak up on her from the forest beyond. Lea wasn’t afraid as she coiled her shadows into a dense ball in her hand, ready to explode them outward at the first sign of danger, but she stopped when a familiar voice met her ears.

"Lea?"

The white tips of a horse's ears appeared through the trees, the head and body following as they pushed through the dense brush. And on top of the horse was a witch with horrible, scarred eyes.

"Lea? I know you're there. And I think you need my help."

Chapter 30

Gray

The bodies would need to be burned. While burial was traditional in Desia, Gray was unwilling to risk the chance the Lonely Death could spread to other unsuspecting, innocent civilians. The spell had morphed and changed since his father had created it, expanded in a way he hadn’t foreseen and hadn’t been prepared for. But if there was even a chance that trodding upon the ground of those infected could cause the disease to spread, it wasn’t something Gray was willing to risk.

What if a nearby town came to check on their neighbors? What if Tanad sent soldiers behind them to help and Lea wasn't here to plant and pick the moonflowers? They didn’t know what Alaric, or the spell, was capable of. Not anymore.

Gray lifted a body into his arms—an older woman with a kind face and blood coagulated around a slit in her throat. It was sickening, but he refused to look away, determined to honor the deceased by, if nothing else, acknowledging their suffering. One by one, Gray, Erik, and Thomas gathered the bodies. They moved them from where they'd been haphazardly discarded like spoiled meat and lined them up in neat rows in front of the half-burned church.

As the men who’d been inside the church recovered, they joined them, picking up those they loved and fixing their clothing, covering them withwhatever cloth they could find. Emma closed their eyes as she passed by the bodies one by one, reciting a prayer before turning to look into the blank air. Tears streamed down her face as she held space for each of those who had passed. She spoke to the dead, soft enough that Gray couldn’t hear her words, and Gray worried about the toll this would take on her. It was one thing to see those who had passed long before, or passed in battle, but this had been nothing short of cold-blooded murder.

Fighting to control his shadows, his anger, he turned away from Emma only to find Janelle, her eyes red and mouth pinched in as if she might be sick. A pinch of guilt shot between his ribs. He couldn’t help but feel like he was failing. These villagers had lost their lives, and all he could do was burn them. Couldn’t even protect his friends from having to see the horrific destruction his brother had caused.

Gray looked to the tree line, searching for Lea. How far had she been able to track Alaric’s magic? His chest tightened with the sinking suspicion that whatever trail she had found wouldn’t lead them anywhere, just like the hut at the back of the castle grounds. But still, he could hope. Hewouldhope.

Just as he had hoped that Lea would find a way to control her primary magic. He’d never doubted she was capable, but he hadn’t known how to help her. Day after day, he’d watched her struggle. Encouraging her while guilt ate him alive. Loving her through her pain, but dying inside because he was unable to help bear the burden.

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