Page 8 of A Baron of Bonds
“I know Barons,” she countered. “I know their power. I am intimately aware of their strength as the Barons of Felgren.”
She slid off Rauca’s back and patted her head, moving to her back legs to inspect their healing. “We are here, Karus.”
I glanced around, finding that where we’d traveled in the blighted tunnel looked no different than where we had been moving the last hour. Behind us was a dark path and before us was utter abyss. The constant pulsing of the roots along the dirt walls was beginning to drive me mad.
“What is it you wanted to show me? And what do you mean you know the strength of Barons?”
“You’ll rush my story, Little Sprout, with all these questions. A good story is told in many parts over much time.”
“Stop toying with me!” My voice sunk into the dirt walls, barely traveling through the tunnel. I jumped off Parvus’s back and seethed before her, done with her cryptic way of speaking.
Her head tilted. “Would you believe I never once stole a child when they showed their anger?” She grinned in cloying amusement, referring to the nursery rhymes parents told their children about the Blightress. “Since the days of old, my anger has been touted as something to fear, something to avoid, and yet,”—she gripped my arm firmly, her long black nails digging into my skin and pulling me closer to the walls of the tunnel—“anger has never been my downfall, Karus. Nor yours.”
I squinted in my pulsing light. Black blooms formed along the blighted roots. More and more of them budded and bloomed down the dirt-clotted walls, and the pulsing of my orb quickened along with my heartbeat.
I reached out to touch the soft petals. My conduit ring, given back to me by my love, seemed to glisten brighter in the darkness.
Each bloom was small, no bigger than the tips of my fingers, and each held a glowing blue center. They nestled together, hundreds of them now, clustered and growing from each of the Blight’s roots.
“I’ve never seen these before,” I whispered in the stillness.
The Blightress bent down to inhale the blooms’ scent. I smelled it too. A salty breeze mixed with decay overpowered my nose.
“As I said, you do not yet know what you will become, nor what your anger can do.” She reached out to brush the white streaks of hair that fell to frame my face—the color matching her own. “I know how you got these, Karus. I know what it takes to be strong when you have no other choice. And I know whatpower is held in anger. Let me teach you. Let me show you what you can become when you embrace what lives inside.”
She clicked her tongue and called the lumens to the dark shadows ahead of us. “Go on,” she called to them both, and before I could move to stop them, they jumped into the dark, disappearing immediately.
“Is that a portal?” I stated in shock, realizing now that the darkness ahead of us appeared misty, yet flat, as if it held a surface.
“It is. I cannot produce them as I once could, but I keep this one here so that I may return to Felgren from my home when I wish.”
I stepped closer, my curiosity reeling me forward. “Where is home for you?”
She moved beside me, silent, tall, and cold. “If you wish to know, you must follow your lumens and see.” She placed a delicate hand into the portal, swirling the black mist and laughing to herself. “Our bargain still stands. You may leave when you are ready and no harm will come to you or anyone you love.”
She took a step into the portal and I heard her last words before she left completely. “Curiosity is nothing to fear, Little Sprout.”
Chapter 8
Saelyn
I was ten,and I understood why my mother struggled to look at me.
Pah-Pah smiled my way, remarking, “My, my, Sae, each day you look more and more like your father. It’s as if I’m teachinghimto whistle through the grass, not his daughter.”
The man who I thought of as my grandfather was sitting cross-legged in front of me, Thevin to the side.
“Who doIlook most like, would you say?” Thevin asked, and I rolled my eyes, pulling a thick blade of grass to use as a new whistle.
“You know perfectly well you look exactly like your mother.” Pah-Pah raised a sharp brow, adjusting his hold on the grass.
“You just want to talk aboutyouall the time, Thevin.” I shoved him and his dimpled smile lit his face in mischief.
“Do not.” He shook his head of golden curls and stuck his tongue out at me.
“Do, too!” I stuck mine right back out at him, making a face that I hoped he found disgusting.
“Children,” Pah-Pah scolded, interrupting our usual argument, “we are not bickering or making faces. We are learning how to whistle through the grass, and if I must, I willsend you back to your rooms where both of your mothers can reprimand you as they wish.”
