Gathering Darkness (Falling Kingdoms 3)

Fury ripped through her at the sight of someone she loved so horribly abused.

“Damn it.” She tore a piece of cloth from her shirt and tried to clean his wounds. “Damn them! I’ll kill every last one of them!”

“It’s all right, little Lys. It’ll be over soon.”

Tears began to stream from her eyes and she angrily swiped them away. “Don’t say that! We’re getting out of here and we’ll leave this stinking place far behind us. We found each other again for a reason. We’re not going to die here. Just tell them what they want to hear so they’ll stop hurting you.”

“There aren’t enough truths in the world to get them to do that.”

It pained her to hear the defeat in his voice. This was so unlike the brother she’d grown up with—her rock, someone who showed strength even during the hardest of times. She’d always envied him that, ashamed of her own weaknesses.

“What did they want today?” she asked.

“Same as every other time.” He leaned against the stone wall. “The king wants to know what Phaedra told me about the Kindred. He asks me the same questions again and again, but my answers never satisfy him.”

Not so long ago Lysandra wouldn’t have hesitated to tell Gregor he was a fool to believe in immortal creatures from a different world or magic crystals. What a laugh.

But no one was laughing now.

“She’ll visit me again,” he whispered. “I know she will. And then she’ll tell me what to do.”

Lysandra lowered her voice. “Did you tell them what Phaedra said about the sorceress?”

It pained her even to say such a thing aloud, but it was what Gregor believed. Helping him hold on to his beliefs might give him the strength he needed to hold on to life.

He squeezed his eyes shut. “I tried to say as little as I could. I need to be patient. Phaedra will visit me again. She wouldn’t abandon me like this.”

If this Phaedra really existed, then Lysandra hated her for what she’d done to her brother. For what she’d said to him.

“When the sorceress’s blood is spilled, they will finally rise. And the world will burn.”

Who would rise? There was no such thing as magic, only foolish people who believed in foolish things to better explain what they didn’t understand.

“So tell the king that—about this sorceress and her powerful blood,” Lysandra whispered. “Let him scurry off to find some girl to blame! Get the attention off you.”

“You’d wish something horrible like that on someone else?”

She flinched. Would she wish for something cold and brutal to happen to some innocent girl, all to save someone she loves?

She wasn’t sure anymore.

Gregor touched his forehead, then brought his hand in front of his face and looked at the smear of crimson on his fingertips. “Blood is the key to all of this, little Lys. Remember that. Blood is life. Blood is magic.”

“If you say so.” She tried to keep her frustration out of her voice. Gregor had been through so much; she only wanted him to rest and regain his strength and his mind. “Do you know the identity of this sorceress your dream-girl told you about? Any idea at all?”

“No,” he admitted. “But she exists.”

Lysandra let out a shaky sigh. “That doesn’t help us very much.”

Tarus spoke up from the corner. “My grandmother once told me of a prophecy about a sorceress. One who can wield elementia more powerfully than anybody else. She’s the one who can recover the Kindred.”

“Your grandmother sounds like a great storyteller,” Lysandra said.

Tarus shrugged. “Maybe it’s not just a story. Maybe it’s fate.”

Paelsians might not believe in magic, but they did believe in fate. They believed in accepting the harsh realities of life in a land that was wasting away day by day—empty stomachs, dying children—as if such horrors could not be prevented.

Lysandra had never subscribed to such fatalistic beliefs. She knew there was only one person who could change your destiny, and that was yourself.