Page 90 of A Baron of Bonds
“What if I did?”
“Well, that’s a lie, then, isn’t it? Omitting can still be lying. You never once told me you had magic, too. You know how lonely it was for me to grow up being the only one.”
I listened to them bicker like siblings, realizing how very much they were. Karus crossed her arms at her chest, one knee hanging over the other while her foot bounced in irritation.
“I…I wasn’t sure that it was anything. I was able to ignore it most of the time.”
“Well, that didn’t work in your favor because now you need to draw it out.” She leaned in close, her body tense. “And Revich is going to be the one to help you do it. So I don’t want to hear any more of this. He lied to save me, end of story.”
“Maybe we could have saved you.”
“You could not. We’ve been over this, Philius.” She pounded her fist on the side of the cabin. “Driver, please stop. I need to get out.”
The carriage rolled to a stop and she continued, “Stop telling yourself you could have saved me. Stop telling yourself you deserved a chance to try. Felgren is my home. Revich is myheart, and if you cannot see that by now, then you are blind to whatever doesn’t suit youas usual.”
She opened the door and flew out of it in one swift drop, storming through the broken fields.
The Prince glared at me before following her, slamming the carriage door, running to catch up to her.
Mychael grimaced, and I sighed heavily.
“In his defense,” he murmured as we watched them argue in the field, their hands gesturing wildly, “the Prince really did suffer in the knowledge that she was dead. We all were grieving after the Black Fever—I did my fair share—but the Prince never even knew she’d been taken until he recovered. He didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye and then she was gone. It broke him…something I suspect you know a little about.”
I nodded slowly, listening, but keeping my eyes on Karus.
“I’m not saying I think you were wrong to lie. I’m saying the Prince will need more time to heal.”
I bent forward on my knees, my body cold since she had left my side. “Me too, Mychael. Me too.”
When they reachedsome sort of compromise and got back into the carriage, not another word was spoken, both of them resolved to look out the window for hours.
Mychael and I didn’t feel the need to speak either as my own thoughts wandering to what Philius had said.
The truth was, I felt no guilt about lying.
I held no hesitancy in my decision, and I would not apologize for it.
Karus understood as well as I that love was the only way to bring her back, and the people she had left in Hyrithia would never have cut it.
I thought about who she’d been when she showed up for the first time in the Fortress. If I closed my eyes, I could remember that woman, resolute on proving herself useless and returning to Hyrithia.
I had waited and waited for weeks that turned to months for her to realize where she truly belonged. Even then, I was sure Felgren was her home.
But now that I was not wrapped up with her in The Spinning Wheel in Hyrithia, I worried.
I worried about the Blightress. I worried about her plans for Karus. She wasn’t done with her, that much we both knew. What would she do with my power if she could somehow take it?
The answers must be in Viridis. There must be something we missed about her history. There must be some line, some small paragraph about the Blightress and the power she held. Something about her origins or how to really stop her as the first Baron had done hundreds of years ago.
Felgren was threatened. The power of a Baron was threatened; therefore, conduit training and Karus herself was threatened, and I would never let that happen.
If we needed to destroy her heart, fine. We’d do that. We’d do whatever we needed to save the forest and to save ourselves.
The carriage slowed through the village and the single inn was a welcomed sight.
The Fields and Forest was charming in a quaint way. Two storeys tall, its front was covered in creeping ivy. The shape of windows was cut out at the top rooms so that patrons could look out into the muddy street. It was still autumn outside of Felgren, and the ivy was in the midst of changing its hue from deep greento a brilliant crimson. Two chimneys at either end of the inn puffed tendrils of smoke into the early evening air.
As the carriage rolled to a stop, I opened the door, thankful to be able to stretch my legs. The two guards from the back of the carriage hopped off and did the same. They’d accompany us to the boundary of Felgren before returning with the carriage to Hyrithia.
