Heir to the Throne (The Wardbreaker Book 4) Page 2

  Danvers walked over to Axel and Karim, peeling one of her gloves off like she was about to whack it across someone’s face. She didn’t. Instead she tossed it, and her other glove, to the ground to let her hands air out.

  Becket’s place had gone from insufferably cold to agonizingly warm in the last couple of days. They blamed all the work they’d been doing, constantly hammering, and sanding, and painting, but nobody knew what the real reason was.

  “We’re Mages,” Danvers huffed, “We can create fireballs, speak with ghosts and demons, we can literally tear holes in space and appear in other places, but we can’t use magic to fix a broken table. What’s up with that?”

  “A little bit of manual labor never hurt anyone,” Axel said. “Besides, I think you’re enjoying bossing us around.”

  “I have to admit, it feels pretty good telling you two what to do for a change. But I would love to be doing… anything else.”

  “Really?” Karim asked, “Would you rather be skipping naked across a lake of lava? Or performing an exorcism? Or be at the DMV?”

  “I bet I could find fun in any of those things—and be better than you at them.”

  Karim gave her a sarcastic stare. “I’m a Necromancer, you’re a Tempest. If either of us is going to be good at exorcisms, it’s going to be me.”

  “Doubt it.”

  “Oh please. What spirits have you had to exorcise in your life?”

  “There was a creature from the Tempest, once. A Wraith. It tried to possess one of my friends. The exorcism was brutal. It nearly killed both of us, actually.”

  Karim cocked an eyebrow. “You’re having me on. That never happened.”

  “It did. I had to rip it out of him with my bare hands.”

  “See? That’s how I know you’re bullshitting. Exorcisms don’t work like that. You don’t just rip a creature out of a person. You need materials, tools.”

  “Oh, yeah, like what? Rings of salt and crystals?” Danvers scoffed and flexed her muscles. “You can keep your trinkets. We Tempests need only our might.”

  “As much as I’m enjoying this back and forth,” Axel said, “Could we… stop?”

  “And maybe go back to talking about Izzy?” Danvers asked, wiggling her eyebrows, suggestively.

  Axel sighed and glanced up at Izzy’s window. “I’m worried, okay? We don’t know how long she’s going to keep herself locked up. It could be a day; it could be a week.”

  “It could be a year,” Karim said, looking directly at him. “If only someone could get through to her.”

  Axel cocked an eyebrow. “Someone?”

  “We all know I meant you.”

  “Why me?”

  “Do you want me to spell it out?”

  “Please.”

  Karim made an O with two fingers on his left hand. He was about to insert his right index finger through the O when Danvers slapped his hand down. “Don’t be gross,” she said. “What he means is, as much as we’re all friends here, you’re probably the only person she’ll talk to, so it’s pointless all of us taking turns trying to talk to her.”

  “I wish that were true, but it isn’t.” Axel shook his head. “The truth is, if she wanted to talk to me, she would’ve done so by now.”

  “You don’t know that. You have no idea what’s going on in her head right now. She went back into the Tempest, man. No one’s ever done that before.”

  “Is that accurate?” Karim asked, “I mean, that’s the drowned Queen’s crown, right? If she created it, then it’s logical to assume she’s gone back into the Tempest before.”

  Danvers waved both her hands in front of his face as if she were shooing an annoying bee. “Yes, whatever. She went insane, that’s why they also call her the mad Queen. My point is, the journey we all take off the Precipice and into the Tempest for the first time royally fucks with our minds, that’s probably why we’re not meant to go back. She’s done it twice in… what, two months? It’s been three days since she locked herself up in her room, maybe she’s had enough time to process what happened to her.”

  Axel shook his head. “I don’t get it. She seemed fine when she came back from the Tempest. Lucid.”

  Danvers nodded. “And then she grabbed the crown, bolted off to her room, and locked herself inside without another word. I know. I was there.”

  RJ stepped out into the cool, New York afternoon. He was the only one not wearing a mask—or gloves—and he had a black tank top on, his dark skin gleaming with sweat. “What’s good?” he asked, “We on a break?”

  “I guess so,” Danvers conceded.

  He walked over running a cloth through his hands that were covered in dust. “You guys talking about Izzy?”

  Danvers rolled her eyes. “You and your superhuman hearing.”

  RJ shrugged. “Don’t hate. You guys think she’s alright?”

  “I hope so,” Axel said, looking up at the window again. “Maybe you should try next?”

  “Nah, I tried a couple of hours ago. It’s your turn. I don’t blame her for not coming out of her room. She went back into the Tempest. Who knows what she saw in there?”

  “That’s just the point,” Karim said, “None of us know, and I think it’s time we did.”

  “Yeah, but you can’t make that call,” RJ said, “That’s up to her. If she don’t wanna talk, then she don’t wanna talk, and you’ve gotta respect that.”

  “We all respect her,” Danvers said, “But, like, we’re running out of chores around here, and when that’s all finished, what do we do? She has the crown, but none of us know what she wants to do with it. Think she’s using it?”

  Axel shook his head. “We would’ve felt it. Trust me. Every mage for a hundred miles felt it the first time she put it on. I doubt she’s touched it since.”

  RJ, Danvers, and Karim all fell silent, and each of them looked over at Axel with searching eyes. They didn’t have to say it, or even think it. The expression on their faces, their intent, was clear. It was time that Axel went up and talked to Izzy.

  Axel nodded. “Alright,” he said, “I’ll go. RJ, stay close. If she throws a fireball at me, I’ll need you.”

  “I got your back,” RJ said, walking into the house after Axel.

  He headed up to Izzy’s room with her on his mind. The rest of the group had been taking it in turns to try and talk to her, but she hadn’t said a peep to anyone. Not a soul. Thinking about that made him think twice about knocking, his knuckles hovering a few inches away from the door. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this indecisive. Talk to her, or don’t talk to her? Knock, or don’t? Offer his support, or keep his distance?

  Dammit.

  Finally, he knocked on her door, a pulse of anxiety moving through him as the sound reverberated inside. He thought he heard someone move on the other side of the door. It sounded to him as if she’d suddenly sprung off her bed, the springs creaking.

  “Izzy?” he called out. “It’s me.”

  No response.

  Axel sighed softly. “Listen, I don’t know if you want to talk to me or not. You don’t have to. I just thought I’d come up here and see how you were.”

  Still no response.

  “We’re almost finished fixing things up downstairs. I think you’d like what we’ve done with the place. If you want to come down and check it out, we’re all down there now, putting the finishing touches on.”

  Axel waited a little longer, then nodded, his heart sinking. “Alright,” he said, swallowing hard, “I’m gonna head back down.” He placed his hand on the door. “I’ll see you.”

  He let his hand slip from the door, turned, and started heading for the stairs when he caught sight of Becket standing in his study. The shades were drawn, the room was gloomy and dark, and the Demonologist’s eyes gleamed like red jewels. He nodded at Axel, and Axel returned the gesture before heading back downstairs.

  Izzy didn’t want to talk to him, so now he had to do what RJ had said, and respect her right to talk
to whoever she wanted to, whenever she wanted to. It had felt like a rejection, a rejection that had left a tightness in his chest he wished wasn’t there. But this wasn’t about him, and he needed to keep reminding himself.

  This was about her.

  Her journey, her experience in the Tempest, her wellbeing. He’d wait as long as he had to, and that was all there was to it.

  When he reached the living room, the others perked up, but Axel walked in alone, shaking his head. “Not yet,” he said. “Maybe tomorrow.”

  Danvers nodded, then gave two quick claps of her hands. “Alright, well, what are we standing around for?” she asked, “Let’s get back to work. Break’s over, grunts.”

  Axel walked over to the pot of varnish he’d left by the side of the living room table. He fastened his mask to his face, picked up his brush, dipped it in the mixture, and got back to work. For now, that was all he could do.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I stared at the door, my heart hammering inside of my chest, my mind racing. It was as if I’d been stuck in a trance; the sound had shaken me violently back into the world.

  “Izzy?” Axel called out from the other side. “It’s me.”

  It was him, but he sounded distant, muffled, like I was hearing him through water. It was insane, but I didn’t know if I could trust my own ears. Was that really him, or was I dreaming? I licked my dry lips, trying to figure out whether I should respond, when he spoke again.

  “Listen, I don’t know if you want to talk to me or not. You don’t have to. I just thought I’d come up here and see how you were.”

  Is it him?

  “It’s him,” Ifrit said. He was sitting on my dresser, right in the middle of the drowned Queen’s crown; his little eyes watching me intently.

  What should I do?

  “That’s up to you. Do you know what you want to say to him?”

  So many things… but I can’t find the words. I feel like I haven’t spoken in days.

  “You haven’t.”

  “We’re almost finished fixing things up downstairs,” Axel said. “I think you’d like what we’ve done with the place. If you want to come down and check it out, we’re all down there now, putting the finishing touches on.”

  My lips curled into something of a smile. I’d heard them working from time to time; the hammering, the power tools, the music. Sometimes I used magic to block the sound out. Other times I couldn’t hear it no matter how loud the racket was, as if my brain couldn’t process the signals from my ears.

  I took a step toward the door, then stopped.

  I don’t know what to do.

  “Then do nothing,” Ifrit said. “He will wait.”

  Will he?

  That wasn’t a question I thought Ifrit would be able to answer. Even though I’d phrased it as a simple matter of, would he wait at the door or not, the real question was much, much larger than that. I was aware we hadn’t spoken in days, and before I’d put on the crown, he and I had…

  The fact I could even think about any of that was enough to prove to me I wasn’t dead, or crazy, but I still didn’t know how to face him. There were too many connections there. Too many emotions. Too much baggage.

  “Alright,” Axel said, “I’m gonna head back down.”

  I reached for the door, a breath held in my lungs.

  “I’ll see you,” he said.

  I stopped reaching for the door, my fingers contracting, retreating from it. I heard him walk away, and I let him. I sighed, then I turned to look at the crown again. It had been sitting there, on my dresser, ever since I brought it into the room with me the day I came to possess it.

  I hadn’t touched it since, hadn’t moved it, didn’t want to get near it. And yet, all I’d been able to do was stare at it. Stare at it and think. When I wasn’t staring, my mind would be working; sometimes piecing everything together, other times failing to make sense of anything and just devolving into a cacophony of mental white noise.

  Sleep?

  Laughable. I wasn’t getting a break from my thoughts during the daylight hours, and the night time hours weren’t faring much better. When I did manage to doze off, I would dream, and toss, and turn in my bed, and then I’d wake up thinking of the crown, of the way Oktos had looked in the Tempest; the way his feathers were falling off, the way he cowered from me.

  The worst part?

  I kept feeling like there were parts of my dreams I wasn’t able to remember during the day. Like something was missing, as if there were memories I couldn’t access. Trying to untangle that mess was taking up most of my thinking power, but these were riddles I couldn’t solve, not even with Ifrit’s help, and that worried me.

  There was nothing about me he didn’t know. Every single thought, dream, and memory I ever had was perfectly indexed and categorized so that I could pull the information up whenever I needed it, and at a moment’s notice.

  So, what was this dark spot inside of my dreams that neither of us could reach?

  And why did it feel like it was growing?

  Another knock on the door sent my heart hurtling back into my throat. It was a soft, firm rapping of knuckles. “Isabella,” Becket said, his voice coming through a little more clearly than Axel’s.

  I still couldn’t be sure if I could trust what I was hearing, but I decided to answer him. “I’m here,” I said, a little hoarsely. I had to cough to hear my throat. “What do you want?”

  “Would you be willing to speak with me?”

  Good question.

  I had just avoided Axel. He had gone away thinking I didn’t want anything to do with him, and that just wasn’t true. I just didn’t know how to face him, how to face any of the others. I felt like I had failed them, like I’d made a horrible, horrible mistake. I felt… shame, and talking to the others, I’d have to deal with that shame.

  I didn’t want to. I wasn’t ready for that.

  But with Becket… my relationship with Becket was different to my relationship with everyone else. In some ways I considered him a mentor, maybe even a father figure, but despite all that, I still didn’t know enough about him as a person for there to be any baggage between us. Talking to Becket felt safe.

  At least, it did this time.

  With a quick flick of my wrist, I unlocked the door from a distance. “Come in,” I said.

  A moment later, Becket entered my room. Instantly his red gaze was drawn to the crown, but then he settled on me. The glow in his eyes dulled somewhat, maybe because of the ambient light in the room, or maybe he’d done it to appear a little less intimidating. But he stayed where he was, by the door, shut at his back.

  “You still won’t talk to him,” Becket said.

  “I can’t,” I said.

  “Oh?”

  “You and I both know very well why I can’t, and if you don’t mind, I’m not in the mood for a lecture. You can leave if you want.”

  Becket paused, narrowed his eyes. “I didn’t come here to lecture you. I came here to check on you.”

  “Why now?”

  “Because I felt like you’re ready to talk, and I was right.”

  I scoffed. “You’re always right. You never make a bad move, every action perfectly planned. Do you have any idea how insufferable you can be sometimes?” He cocked an eyebrow, and I caught myself. I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap.”

  Becket waved it off. “It’s quite alright. We’re mostly human and prone to our passions. No one can fault you for that.” He looked over at the crown. “Have you come any closer to finding the answers you’ve been looking for?”

  I shook my head. “Not at all. If anything, I have more questions.”

  “Care to tell me what happened to you that day? I would be lying if I said I wasn’t at least mildly curious.”

  “Mildly curious?”

  “Just a little humor. Please, I want to know what happened, if you’re in the mood to tell me.”

  Sighing, I sat down on the bed again and ran my
fingers through my hair. “I don’t know where to start.”

  “You’ve kept your cards close to your chest.”

  “Only because I don’t know what the damn things mean or how to use them.” I looked up at him. “I went back to the Tempest. I… I was there, in the tower where I found my Guardian.” I laughed. “My Psychopomp, too.”

  “Your guide…”

  “Oktos. His name is Oktos… he’s a funny guy. Karim would like him.”

  “Strange. Your memories of your time there aren’t cloudy, or distant?”

  “Nope. Clear as day. After my time, the night I found Ifrit, everything seemed a little hazy. I’d all but forgotten about Oktos until I saw him again.”

  “Psychopomp are meant to disappear from our memories gradually, over time. I could not tell you who, or what, my guide through the Tempest was. None of us could. But you say you returned to the place where you last saw him.”

  “I did. But then the whole world shifted, and then I was… standing above the drowned city.”

  Becket took a single step closer. “Ashelor… you found it?”

  “Unless there’s some other drowned city in the Tempest that this same crown can take us to, yes. It’s there, Becket. Shimmering like an open clam under the water… a clam filled with pearls. At least, it was. It’s not underwater anymore,” I added, trailing off. I shook my head. “I hated it.”

  “Hated it?”

  “Something was happening. I felt drawn to the city, like I was being pulled toward it. And Oktos… the crown was doing something to him, and I couldn’t stop it. It was like I had no control over the crown.”

  “But you came home.”

  “Only because my Guardian was with me. It was Ifrit who helped me wrestle control of the crown long enough to make it bring me back.” I paused. “I don’t know if I would’ve ever been able to leave that place otherwise.”

  Becket stayed silent for a while, maybe processing everything I’d just said, or maybe only to give me a little space to think. But I didn’t want to think. Thinking took me back to the Tempest, back to images of Oktos cowering away from me, back to the smell of the roiling ocean, back to that voice.