[This post is from Kailey Astoris’s point of view.]
She tried not to look inside the cottage—she didn’t want to see the man that Phelan had said was his nephew, didn’t want to see or know more. The shock of what she’d overheard in their discussion with her father was enough—more than enough.
Who the hell do they think they are, looking for a mythical king that may or may not actually be something that ever existed—or exists today?
Lin was staring at her, though, with that look of knowing that she sometimes hated more than anything—right now was one of those times. It was all she could do not to snarl at him in front of strangers.
“I think you can handle this from here, Lin,” she said stiffly, then stepped away from the door.
Let this be a freaking lesson, Kailey, she thought as she resolutely walked away, not entirely knowing where she was going to end up as long as it was not where she’d been standing a minute ago. Don’t go looking for answers you don’t want to know the answers to.
The answers always seemed to catch up with her somehow, though, no matter how much she tried to avoid them.
After a few minutes of walking without seeing, without thinking, she found herself at the edge of the wards, staring out over the ravine and the old bridge across it. There was still blood on the cracked pavement between the edge of the wards and the bridge—Lin’s blood, she realized, and darker splotches that must have come from whatever attacked him. There was a spot in the grass with a scorch mark. Her stomach lurched, bile rising in her throat.
Why now? Why us?
Sucking in a few breaths and trying not to give in to her churning stomach, she glanced back toward the village proper. Tears started to sting in her eyes.
What if it’s all true? What would that mean?
Why didn’t they tell us? What else don’t we know?
Why?
