Page 26 of In the Dark

“Is it really you?” The soft sweet voice of her older sister croaked out from a throat made raw by agony.

“It’s me.” Karsia kept her eyes trained on the floor to avoid the elephant in the room. “What the hell happened?”

The gravity of the situation made sense, the constant throbbing ache in her gut lessening now that she was here. Hell begged to break loose and it took every ounce of skill she possessed to keep it in check.

“Karsia, my girl.” Thorvald’s voice hitched. He rose from his vigil, a moving mountain, and held out his arms. “Come give your father a kiss. Please?”

No matter how she hated the show of weakness, she could no more deny him than stop breathing. She fought down urges and wrapped her arms around her father’s thick torso. He smelled familiar, of pipe smoke, liquor, the hard-caramel candies he always carried. There was safety and reliability in that hug. The antithesis of the horror she’d felt since the accident.

Thorvald squeezed her once before releasing, saying nothing about her long absence. “I’m glad you’re here,” he told her softly. “It would make her so happy to see you.”

“Will someone please tell me what is going on before I go out of my mind?” Karsia spared a single glance at the bed, the rails along the sides, and crisp white sheets tucked under the mattress.

How had she never realized how small her mother was? She’d always seemed larger than life, flinging her arms about in typical theatrical fashion. In their house, along with a swift temper and swifter retribution, there had always been laughter. A flair for drama and a keen magic honed by years of practice and a strong legacy. Varvara filled up a room and lit it from within.

The slender figure in the hospital bed was childlike and frail. Too small.

Black hair fanned out on the sheets in stark contrast. A tube wound down Varvara’s throat, her chest steadily rising and falling. Bruises colored most of her visible skin, like watercolors on canvas. Varvara’s beautiful eyes were closed, as if they’d never reopen. She had always been strong, invincible. This woman with her face was too shrunken and still.

Astix rubbed her raw eyes with one hand, the other curving over the bed railing. Her normally restrained hair was tousled by agitated fingers. She’d always been the sure one, with a plan and a desire to execute it. Now, with her bravado gone, she didn’t look so tough.

Astix and Thorvald were mirror images of each other, Karsia decided. Hollow-eyed and pale.

“There was an accident,” Astix said, returning her attention to the bed. “Yesterday. The police said she was inside the crosswalk when a garbage truck rounded the corner and hit her. We got the call almost six hours later.”

“She would never do that. Not my girl.” Thorvald wrung his hands as he vehemently denied the statement. “She would know better than to step out on the street without proper clearance.”

“That’s not possible.” Karsia stopped several feet from the bed, her dirty boots sinking into the pristine white carpet.

“It wasn’t an accident,” Astix snapped. She drew in a forced calming breath. “We’ve had a nurse here to get her through the night. We’re pressing charges when I can think straight.”

“It must be serious if you left the safety of the cabin.” Karsia walked to the edge of the bed, punchy and freaked, and stared down at her mother. Intrinsically she knew the worst of the injuries, where they were and what it would take to push her over.

She lifted a hand—one that had held her mother’s at every occasion until she hit puberty, that had encouraged young things to grow and only recently showed the world the utter chaos she had the potential to unleash—and raised it to her face. Her fingers shook.

“I’m done with the cabin. Let them find me here,” Astix declared. “I’m going to find whoever set this in motion and drop them. That’s a promise.”

Astix’s stone cottage far out in the countryside was a sanctuary, protected by magical wards until it disappeared from every map. After Aisanna had attacked two members of the Claddium, the three sisters had needed the protection. Then came the showdown in the cavern. And Karsia’s horrible choice.

If Astix was here without her safety net, she meant business.

“I wanted you to come. Hoped you would.” She turned and watched Karsia drop into a nearby chair.

For a moment the girl stared blindly at the morning sun shining brightly through the east-facing windows. “I had a feeling.”

“Glad your feelings are still up to snuff.”

Thorvald looked away from his wife only to send his middle child a glare. “Karsia, we could use your healing when Aisanna gets here. Then your mother will be fine. Of course she’ll be fine. Our best healer is home again.”

Karsia opened her mouth and then snapped it closed.

“She can’t, Dad. Don’t you get it?” Astix looked as though she was holding on to her sanity by the smallest tether. “Karsia isn’t…she isn’t herself.” She glanced up and their eyes met.

The unspoken question hung in the air between them, of how Karsia was dealing with her dark passenger. What would happen now that they were together.

And how grateful Astix felt.

Karsia broke eye contact, drawing an ottoman closer to the bed and situating her feet there. “I’m doing the best I can.”

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