Page 9 of A Baron of Bonds
I sighed and settled back to my task, pulling the blade taught between my thumbs. “Tell me more about my father, Pah-Pah,” I spoke sweetly, knowing full well everything there was to know about him already.
“Your mother named you after your father, as you know. You have your father’s eyes and hair. His mannerisms, his humor. I miss him, but watching you grow up helps a little.” He blew between his thumbs and a sharp trilling sound flew through the trees.
“My mother misses him, too.” I looked down to my lap, recalling our last conversation at breakfast this morning. Her words had been short, her lips taut and thin. She hadn’t even looked me in the eyes.
My mother was powerful. It seemed to run through my family as I knew my father had been too. With each day, my own power grew. Even at ten, I knew it would one day surpass her own. I wondered if it would surpass everyone’s.
“Yes, my little one. Your mother misses your father, too.” Pah-Pah grinned as a dull noise came from my hands. It was not a true whistle yet, but at least I had made more sound than Thevin had managed. I grinned smugly at him and he shoved me away.
Thevin and I had grown up in Felgren together, both born in the forest and only a few months apart. Though, in the past few years he was often gone, traveling with his parents to distant places that I longed to see. Every summer, he would return, just as annoying, but just as fun as the last.
I shoved him back, this time so hard he fell over, and I let out a yell of triumph before landing on top of him to pin him to the ground, giggling in our usual game.
Pah-Pah sighed and threw grass on top of us as we tumbled and rolled along the open field, both trying to pin the other.
It was good to be ten.
It was good to be loved.
And as we rolled, I heard my name as it was whispered on the wind.
Chapter 9
Rev
The rain was relentless.
So was my heartbeat as it tore through my chest. I stood in a hardened calm, knowing I could snap at any moment.
Moira had led us to the field of clover and I recognized it as a place the Blight once grew.
I scanned the field’s edge, looking for any sign of a fight. Figuerah encased her hands with her golden magic, whispering to the three lumens we’d brought with us. She would be able to use her iumenta power to guide them in their hunt for Karus.
Clairannia had already run to the middle of the field, yelling her name, though it was cut short by the downpour and barely audible across the field.
I tried to think like Karus.
She would not just leave me. She would know my panic, my torment when we discovered that she had not returned.
I refused to dwell on thoughts of her death.
I would not fuckingbelievethat she had come back to me after seven years only to die two months later.
No.
If she was hurt, if she was conscious, she would have tried to leave a sign of herself.
“Figuerah,” I called, “can you communicate to the lumens to look for a rhyzolm?”
I knew exactly what she would have done. She would have been clever, leaving behind what I could use to find her again.
“Karus’s rhyzolm?” Figuerah thought for a moment and then continued to swirl her magic in front of the three lumens sitting in rapt attention.
I felt useless.
All I could provide was rage and panic. I could move mountains, rivers, and trees if I so desired. I could move the very earth we stood upon, but that would not bring us to Karus.
I began to walk the perimeter of the soggy field, rain pouring off my face, slipping from my hair, chilling my very soul. I called her name over and over just to hear it, announcing to the world I still needed her and would not let her go.
