A Battle of Blood and Stone (Chronicles of the Stone Veil 4)

“Then you should have an answer ready for me,” I quip.

“I don’t know how I feel,” he mutters, moving my way toward the low table. He bends slightly, staring at the crystals. “My gut instinct says he betrayed us while Carrick seems to think he was tortured.”

“Regardless, he’s dead,” I say, not unkindly. “Are you okay with that?”

“What do I care?” he asks, his voice flat. He reaches out, then picks up one of the crystals in the bowl to examine it. “I hated him. I’m relieved he’s out of my life for good.”

“Really?” I ask in surprise. I thought death might change his feelings.

“Of course, really,” Zaid replies snappishly as he sets the crystal down and picks up another. His interest in the crystals keeps him from having to look me in the eye. “He made my life a living hell.”

Zaid sets the crystal down, but before he can pick up another to ignore me, I reach out and nab his hand. Zaid’s not one for touch, so his head whips up. I grip his hand hard so he can’t pull away. “I don’t think it’s your dad you hate. I think you hate yourself for what he made you become.”

A flash of fury skitters over his face, but it immediately melts into astonishment. I use the opportunity to press, squeezing his hand. “Zaid… you’ve more than made up for all the things you did with your father. You need to forgive him, but, more than that, you need to forgive yourself and move on. It’s over, and you are not the same person you were all those centuries ago.”

He might be grumpy on most occasions, but Carrick told me that Zaid has time and again performed acts of charity, kindness, and sometimes bravery to defend others in his quest to right his wrongs. It’s why his aura went from black to gray. I expect it will be white one day if he continues on this path.

“Maybe you’re right,” he mutters as he pulls his hand from mine, only to bend and pick up the crystal on the table with my hair on it.

Pulling the lock of hair from the crystal, he frowns, noting the color as he holds it up closer to the light source above us. “This is the color of your hair.”

I nod. “I gave it to Arwen on our first visit. No clue what she wanted it for, and all these crystals were glowing different colors at the time.”

“They’re memory crystals,” Zaid says off-handedly as he stares at my lock of hair, then his eyes move to the crystal in his other hand. “They were probably glowing when she was alive, because her memories were alive.”

My heart sinks. More confirmation that Arwen is dead. “I didn’t realize there were memory crystals outside the Hall of Histories.”

“Of course there are,” Zaid replies as he moves around the table, his gaze alternating between the crystal and the lock of hair, appearing deep in thought. “It’s the magical version of taking photos or video to preserve memories, but I’m guessing they all die when the person who created them dies since they’re not glowing anymore.”

But then he halts as if something strikes him. His gaze moves from the crystal to my hair, then back to the crystal again.

His head snaps up, and his eyes are wide. Thrusting the crystal at me, he says, “Take this.”

My eyebrows knit in confusion. “Why?”

“Just do it,” he snaps, and there’s my grumpy Zaid.

Stretching my arm out, I turn my palm upward. Zaid places the crystal there. The minute it touches my skin, it lights up a deep red with orange and yellow streaks pulsing within it.

“What the hell?” I murmur, my gaze lifting to Zaid’s.

He holds up my lock of hair that had been twined around the crystal. “I think she made that crystal personally for you.”

I can feel power within it, and it feels like Arwen. Like she is standing right here with us. My fingers close and I grip the thin cylinder, causing a shot of warmth to flow through me as a light shoots out from one end of the crystal.

I let out a tiny yip of surprise, but I manage to hold on. Twisting my wrist, I turn the crystal so the end from which the light is coming out points upward. I’m stunned when a 3D-holographic image forms before us of the inside of Arwen’s tent.

“Whoa…” I murmur.

Then the picture starts moving as if it’s a movie playing before us.

At first, I’m confused because it’s the table with the bowl of crystals, and they’re glowing. A hand comes into view—delicate and female, most likely Arwen’s—and it’s holding the crystal with my lock of hair.

I hear her murmuring in a language I don’t recognize, but then the point of view of what we’re seeing changes. It’s as if Arwen, who I think is holding the crystal, is being swirled around, and the crystal and my hair drop to the table. The point of view shifts again, and it’s like the crystal has become a camera of sorts to record the interior of the hut.