I laid Kate on the couch for Mama Lucy. I tucked a loose strand of her braid behind her ear as she relaxed in sleep.
“What did you do?”
I straightened to see Lucy scowling at me and Forrest. “Don’t look at me.”
Forrest rolled his eyes and huffed. “I merely told her the truth, which is what she asked for. This is not my fault.”
“Eh, seems like it might be a little bit your fault.” I held up two fingers an inch or so apart for emphasis. “I mean it was your family that killed her family, and then your father that sent the orders that killed her parents.”
Lucy’s scowl deepened as she crossed her arms. “You’re lucky those chains are all you’re bound in.” She walked around the room and peered out the window, Harry obediently following at her heels.
Guess he found his new home and it wasn’t with me.
Mama Lucy whirled around. “Do you know why your father went after him?”
Forrest shook his head. “I only overheard the orders, but never the reason. I found it strange Maddock would’ve shown his face at all honestly. It had been years since the fallout.”
Kate stirred on the couch, and all three of us held our breath. Her eyes blinked open, and she glanced around. “How did I get on the couch?” She sat up slowly and rubbed her forehead, swinging her legs over the side.
“You have to learn to control your emotions,” Forrest informed her.
I laughed in disbelief. “Do you have a death wish?” I asked.
Kate mumbled for him to shut the hell up at the same time.
“All I did was tell her the truth.”
“Yeah well, maybe no more talking about my family right now.” She held her stomach and looked ready to be sick, but after a few deep breaths seemed fine. “What else do you know about this plague thing?”
“Only the bit I could learn before I was booted out of Boshen,” I admitted.
“Well, let’s start with that,” she insisted, and propped herself up on the couch better to listen. “You said this Burnt World was taken over by it?”
“Or created for the plague to be sent there. There’s very little information on it anywhere, an interesting fact,” I added as I plopped down in an armchair, “that world didn’t exist until a thousand years ago. Before then, no Burnt World was recorded, and the only mention of it was during the trials of the Darrahs who tried to kill the royal family.”
“What did they say?”
I leaned back in my chair and let my gaze linger on Kate’s. “They claimed after the breach was broken, they had no way to stop the plague, so they sent it to another world, one they created. It was meant to hold the darkness forever, but clearly, something went wrong. I’m guessing if the shield was taken from them, then whatever power they did use to seal it is failing, has been for some time.” I shrugged my shoulders. “Makes sense since their lands are said to be cursed. It was probably the plague that drove them to madness. What caused them to fight the dragons they spent so many centuries trying to protect.”
“Does not matter what drove them,” Forrest grunted darkly. “They tried to murder my family in their sleep.”
“I know, but I don’t think they did it on their own volition. I think the plague was controlling them.”
Kate’s face paled, and she swallowed hard. “What is this plague thing?” she asked, diverting the subject.
“No one really knows for sure. It appeared one day, out of a crack in the world, or so the story goes. It swarmed forth, devouring everything in its path. No one knew what drove it, or where it came from, but there was only one way to seal it away.”
“The shield of the Vindicar,” Kate breathed. “My dad, when I saw him, he told me we were betrayed. The shield was stolen and destroyed.”
My mind raced with possibilities, recalling every detail I could remember on the plague and the Darrah’s involvement with it. “It’s why they had to send it through a portal. They didn’t have their weapon to trap it again.”
Kate reached into her pocket and pulled out the shard. “But this time I will.”
The shard caught the sunlight sending a prism of red and orange light against the floor and ceiling.
“If we want answers, we need to go back there,” I told her earnestly. “We need to return to the Darrah lands and see if there’s anything left behind for us.”
“I need to know where I come from,” Kate agreed, but Lucy was already shaking her head. “Mama Lucy, you can’t expect me to stay out of this. Not after everything’s that happened.”
“That’s exactly why you shouldn’t go, not there.”
“I have to,” Kate argued gently. “If I’m the last of this line, of the only dragons able to stop this plague from spreading, I can’t sit back and do nothing. Craig said it’s already spread to Boshen. What happens if it gets further? If it gets here?” She tucked the glass away and took Mama Lucy’s hands. “What about the kids?”
She squeezed Kate’s hands. “There’s nothing I can say to stop you, is there?”
“I wish there was,” she admitted with a bitter laugh. “This is not exactly how I thought my life would go, you know? Figuring out who my family really is. I was hoping for something boring.”
Patting Kate’s cheek, Lucy said, “I knew from the day I first met you, you were special. Saw it in your eyes, that promise of a great destiny.”
“A Darrah.” Kate shook her head, and her glance drifted to mine for a brief moment.
A rush of heat stirred in my chest and I rubbed it, unsure of what I felt, but then Kate looked away as Lucy pulled her to her feet.
“If you’re going, then you will need supplies. Come with me to the greenhouse. Craig, you two can get cleaned up in the bathroom upstairs,” Lucy told us. “And don’t you dare take those manacles off him,” she warned.
I smirked. “Didn’t plan on it.”
Kate and Lucy walked through the house, Harry following behind, and I heard the back door open and close.
Forrest was already on his feet when I turned around, and I gave a mock bow and a flourish of my hand, letting him walk ahead of me to the stairs.
“The second we step foot in dragon territory, my father will know.” His steps were heavy on the stairs, and the chain rattled. “He will come for me.”
“Not if we’re careful.”
“You don’t think the demons will be there searching for you, too? Where do you think your cousin went to after he could not find you here? He won’t stop hunting you. None of them will.”
I ground my teeth and imagined grabbing him by the neck and throwing him over my shoulder to thud down the stairs. He might even break a few bones, if I was lucky. “Let me worry about my family troubles.”
“As you wish.”
“And if we get caught that means Kate is caught as well. Do you truly want your father to know she’s a Darrah?”
Forrest’s shoulders stiffened as we hit the hall and moved down looking for the bathroom. “As I said, I will plead her case, and once we explain what we have seen, I have no doubt my father will see reason and let her live.”
“For how long?” I grunted. “I doubt he’ll let her keep breathing after she helps return this plague to its cage, if he lets her live that long. For all you know, his men might have orders to kill Darrahs on sight.”
“He would not do that.”
“No? Then explain to me how her father and mother wound up dead,” I snapped.
I glanced to the right and grabbed his shoulder to stop him.
He shrugged me off, whipping around with a growl, but I jabbed a finger into the bathroom then flipped on the light.
“Get cleaned up. I’ll be right out here.”
He held up his wrists, but I shook my head.
“Don’t understand how I’m to properly tend to myself if my hands are bound.”
“I managed.” I gave him a wide grin, and he sulked into the bathroom, slamming the door shut in my face. “Touchy.”
The chains would hold Forrest without a problem, so I pushed away from the door and wandered down the hall. It wasn’t hard to sniff out Kate’s room.
Her cherry vanilla scent from some lotion or another stuck with me, and I pushed open a door in the middle of the hall. Her room was small, but cozy looking. There was a hanging hammock in the corner; I could imagine her sitting and reading there. The bed was a mess, and there were clothes scattered around the floor and tossed carelessly over the bed. I peeked towards the stairs, but there was no sign of her or Lucy yet, so I stepped further in.
Shelves of books hung over a tiny writing desk with a laptop and stack of textbooks. A sketchbook sat open beside them. Gently I turned it so I could see the images better. Most were of a garden, and a greenhouse. A few were of kids, probably the others that lived here.
When I reached the back of the sketchbook, my fingers stilled to see images of a half-destroyed castle, ruins, and dark destruction left behind by an unseen tragedy.
I flipped to another page, and another and my chest tightened with apprehension when I came to the final few sketches. Images of Boshen stared back at me.
Images of it burning and shrouded in darkness.
The floor creaked out in the hall, and I turned around to find Lucy watching me closely.
“Going to give me a lecture on snooping?” I asked, unwilling to leave the sketches alone.
“It’s not my room, but if Kate finds you in here, she might deck you. Or set you on fire.” Her lips twitched in a soft smile. “What were you studying so intently?”
I hesitated to show her if Kate hadn’t yet, but she needed to know. “These.” I held up the sketches to her and Lucy let out a strangled noise of surprise and fear. “Exactly what I was thinking. How would she know what my world looks like if she’s never been there?”
“I don’t know, but these images, these look as if they haven’t happened yet.”
“That’s what worries me,” I sighed. “You think she glimpsed the future somehow?”
“Anything is possible. The Darrahs are a strong family given a task of great importance. There may have been a buried ability to predict when this plague would strike.”
“Then Boshen doesn’t have much time.” I tore out the sketch and folded it up to ask her about later.
Lucy arched a brow at me but said nothing.
“I came up to fetch you both some clean clothes,” she said and headed off down the hall.
I waited in the hall as she disappeared in a room at the end then returned a few minutes later with two shirts and two pairs of cargo pants.
“Did you kill the previous owners of these?” I teased, and she tossed them at me with a mischievous grin.
“You’ll never know. Now then, I’m running into town to gather supplies with Harry. And to see if I can’t replicate the potion you used against the plague, but it will take time, so I doubt I’ll have any for you today. Kate is in the greenhouse. I suggest the two of you give her some peace and quiet for a few moments at least. I would prefer to return to a house that’s still standing.”
She turned to go, but I stopped her as I called her name.
“After we went through the portal here, what happened? What of the others? My cousin?”
“Those who enter a witch’s house against her permission always get what’s coming to them,” she said quietly. “Your cousin will be feeling the beating for a few days at least.”
“And the dragons?”
“They ran off once their prince, along with their target, was gone.”
I shifted uneasily on my feet. “I’m sorry, truly I am, for whatever harm I caused.”
Lucy spun around and bobbed her head. “I appreciate that, I do, but something tells me you were meant to find Kate that day. Otherwise, she never would’ve started on this journey and that horrible plague, it would keep spreading.” Her bright eyes glimmered as she held my gaze. “Fate is funny sometimes, acting in ways you don’t expect. All I ask is you do your best to keep her safe.”
I scuffed the toe of my boot across the floor. “I don’t have the best track record for staying out of trouble, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”
“You care for her.”
Not a question, so I didn’t answer.
“You’ll keep her safe because you are more than just the bastard son of a demon king,” she said firmly.
I was compelled to meet her eyes again. They shone with power, and I had no doubt she’d been able to hold her own against my cousin long enough to chase him off.
“You are meant for great things, Craig, do not let anyone tell you differently.”
Swallowing hard, I fiddled with the clothes in my hands and felt a surge of knowing flow through my being. What it meant, I had no idea. “I will do my best to keep her safe, I swear it to you.”
“Good.” Her voice was thick with worry, but she said nothing else, and left me alone.
I stood in the same spot for a long while before getting my feet to move again.
Whatever happened once we reached the dragon territories, I would not be the one to let Kate down.