The Darkling Read online

  The Darkling

  Book Two of

  The Awakening Series

  KL Hagaman

  Copyright © 2019, KL Hagaman

  All rights reserved.

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used by any means whatsoever without the express written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations in critical reviews or articles.

  Twitter.com/hagaman_kl

  www.katiehagaman.wixsite.com/mysite-1

  The oldest and strongest emotion of

  mankind is fear, and the oldest

  and strongest kind of fear is

  fear of the unknown.

  - H. P. Lovecraft

  Chapter One

  The Broken

  Kaden was quick to follow through the woods, closing the gap between them with just a few long strides. Truthfully, for as able as he appeared, his muscles burned sourly from the haul the night before. It had been no easy thing to run with her over his shoulder like he had, for as long as he had. But he’d never been a man to complain of such things.

  Well, outside of jest.

  But there in the new-found calm, trekking through familiar woods behind Lilja towards his childhood home, he took a moment to look the Princess over somewhat discreetly for propriety’s sake, taking in her profile as he checked for anything out of the ordinary, despite her assurances that she was alright when asked.

  It had just been so…painful, when she’d looked upon him before with such unfamiliarity. He was thankful such gazes were gone—that her memories had been restored and that he was once more regarded as her Keeper by her own knowledge.

  But as to what could practically be gleaned of her heart, mind, and overall well-being from her outward appearance, Kaden didn’t really know. He just found it eased his heart to simply see her there, lucid, walking the woods, and he was having trouble taking his eyes off of her.

  He’d missed her.

  Was it truly behind them now? Could it really have been that easy?

  Well, perhaps easy wasn’t the most accurate word for what Lilja had been through. Oscine’s weavings to restore her memories after her fall had been long and exhausting. Not to mention treacherous in the end. But, it was over and done with now. Kaden had his Princess back, walking in front of him, lucid and able.

  The man was lucky. And he knew it.

  A set of almond eyes eventually tossed him a glance—Lilja having long sensed her Keeper’s exploration. She thought that by perhaps acknowledging the fact she was aware of his steady eyes might put an end to the exam, or at the very least, lessen its frequency. But this was Kaden and it didn’t quite work that way.

  He stayed an ever steady observer. He was annoyingly dutiful like that.

  Lilja was trying to be patient, letting out a quiet and controlled sigh while they carved their way through the forest to his once home. In her heart, she understood Kaden meant no ill by the study, but the more she felt his eyes the heavier her heart grew. His watch played as a reminder of all the very valid reasons he did have for being concerned.

  Her father had been murdered before her eyes, her uncle was trying to kill her, her people were disjointed, and she’d been injured as they’d been forced to flee their home, only to find themselves betrayed once more by a hand they’d sought help from, leaving them on the run again.

  She was adrift in heartbreak, lost to unguided winds…

  Around them leaves were turning, overeager for autumn. The squirrels overhead, oblivious to the plight of man, were running their seasonal scurry to collect a decent harvest before winter, bounding between the trees above with a rustling of branches. Something about the mundaneness of the creatures was somewhat comforting to Lilja, but finally, after what felt like the hundredth look-over from her Keeper, her patience had run out and no solace of the forest could sooth the brewing irritation.

  “Will you stop staring?” she asked plainly, coming to a full stop.

  Made, Kaden’s brow shot up over a meek smile. “Sorry,” he breathed in a bit of an apologetic sigh before nearly bumping into her. He gave a scratch to his temple, thinking that would be the end of it, but his Princess seemed to be taking root, preparing for…more.

  Lilja took a deep breath as she turned to face him and squared her shoulders there before him. …Then that was it.

  Kaden paused as she continued to block his path, uncertain of why his Princess was still standing in front of him as she was—as if waiting for something. His eyes swept to the left and right after a moment, trying to get a beat on the scene, but nothing came.

  “What?” he chuckled lightly.

  “Is it going to be like this now?”

  “Like what?” he huffed beneath a furrowed brow, not exactly understanding.

  “…Keeper, I’ll be fine.” He didn’t need to watch her so closely.

  With a sigh, tongue to cheek, he hung his head, knowing that wasn’t true. He took in the forest floor between them for a few seconds in thought before glancing back up at her beneath his curls, deliberating. He very obviously didn’t take her at her word. But there was a balance here that he needed to be careful with—respectful of.

  His face was soiled by the journeys of the past few of days—his stubble thickening and just as ridiculously blonde as the rest of his hair. But his eyes were still that crisp green—fresh as the dew-soaked grass on a spring morning, and they bore into her very heart. And looking back into them, it was clearer than ever to Lilja that he couldn’t help himself but to worry for her.

  “Princess,” Kaden started gently but was cut off as Lilja shook her head, not ready to go down this path despite…everything.

  “I’m fine,” she insisted in a dull-tone.

  His brow knit. “No, you’re not,” he hushed the truth. And she didn’t have to pretend she was. Not with him.

  He didn’t like the idea of that—of her hiding her heart from him. Not at all.

  She’d just lost her father, her people were in turmoil, she’d suffered a rather hearty injury, and her uncle was hunting them down with only one thing in mind: to take even more.

  And she’d had absolutely no time to mourn, heal, process, sit….breathe.

  He worried for her. He couldn’t help it. But he didn’t mean to distract her either or bring about more pain. He knew what that was like after Ms. Mai—to feel someone was constantly looking at you through a gaze of the pitied.

  But the difference here was that he wasn’t looking at her that way. No, no there was something far different breathing behind his eyes that had nothing to do with pity. Lilja’s heart…was Kaden’s everything. And he wanted to protect it, help it, and heal it so much as he could. He was desperate to in a way that surpassed any duty he’d been bound to. Any oath he’d sworn by.

  And she knew that.

  And taking it all in, understanding the emotion behind all he left unspoken, Lilja’s eyes danced lightly in his, searching for even more it would seem.

  He was so sincere. Always. And the longer she gazed into that face of his, the softer her expression grew before something helplessly relented and faded behind her dark eyes.

  But that moment lasted only briefly before she withdrew once more.

  Kaden’s chin fell a little along with his brow. “Just…talk to me,” he asked of her quietly against the voices of the forest, unfamiliar with the look she wore and finding himself unnerved by it. “—whenever you’re ready.”

  After one more stolen moment staring into his face, Lilja licked her lips and gave a soft shake of her head, not knowing if that time would ever come and unable to give voice to even that much.

  “We just need to keep moving, Keeper,” she sounded off, determined. She could only handle one task at a time for now.
<
br />   He considered her for another second, and holding his tongue, gave a nod. But before any more chances could be lost, he took the time to sweep some hair back over her ear, thumb brushing her jaw before his hand fell away.

  “Alright. This way then,” he spoke cleanly, moving past her to lead them on.

  As Kaden advanced on their course with his back to her for that brief moment, Lilja closed her eyes with a deep, shaking breath, and pinched her suddenly trembling lips together before breathing out a more steadied and control one, turning to give follow. Steadfast.

  From there, they walked on a ways in absolute silence. Usually such a thing didn’t merit anything ill—they’d always been comfortable around each other in both times of chatter and rest. But this silence carried about the weights that pressed heavy on both their hearts.

  As the sun dipped lower and the woods grew darker with birds singing their final songs and beginning to nest, Lilja finally broke the quiet to ask if they were close.

  “Yeah,” the Keeper answered distractedly as the sound of moving water finally caught his perked ears. “Not much further.”

  Before long, a slow moving river came into view—no doubt a forgotten, slender branch of the great Leeuvah that ran through the heart of their territory.

  Kaden paused for just a moment on its bank, looking down at a bed of clams before wading across the body without a word.

  Lilja felt it, though—the way the air around him changed subtly in that moment. Her lips parted to say something, but she stopped herself.

  “It’s shallow this time of season,” he promised, unaware of her internal struggle, but she was already following.

  The water was freezing, and even though its depth was low, it was still high enough to spill into their boots and be uncomfortable.

  Lilja sucked in a sharp breath against the unwelcomed cold and gave an involuntary shiver—the chill biting her toes.

  Kaden glanced over his broad shoulder at the bitty gasp, catching her twitch, and was helpless against the humored grin that sprang over his lips.

  Her eyes narrowed on him when she looked up from the water, but the corners of her fine lips had risen just the smallest pinch before she’d tucked the almost-smile away.

  Not far beyond the river, the sound of chickens clucking tickled their ears and Kaden unknowingly picked up the pace. And when he saw it, that little cabin peeking through the woods, his heart pounded.

  He came to a stop as he looked up an overgrown path that had once lead into a tended garden, now decrepit and weed peppered, sitting flush against the side of an old, ramshackle cottage.

  Home.

  Chapter Two

  The Confession

  He looked around quietly for a time, taking in all there was left to see of his home while what remained of the sunlight cast a sprinkle of shadows through the shedding trees above.

  The fence was broken down, eaten away by years of rot, and the windows against the tattered weather-stripped siding were glazed over with the grime of the woods, not having been cleaned in years. A few large stones from the once tall chimney lay on the ground

  where they’d tumbled off as the mortar had aged and given way between them, now covered with fuzzy moss. And wide, visible patches riddled the thatched roof, just as decayed by time as the rest of the place.

  It was in shambles.

  As that’s what became of abandoned places.

  Lilja had given her Keeper time, standing back behind him in silence as he grounded himself. She couldn’t imagine what was taking place in his heart and mind, but she didn’t need to in order to be respectful of it. Not to mention, she too was taking it all in.

  Thinking of her Keeper as a young boy here, living a completely different life—knowing he could have continued living a completely different life, made her as grateful that she knew him as it did regretful.

  She didn’t deserve him. And he didn’t deserve what life had done to him. Leaving him where it had.

  A pecking at his shins broke Kaden from his daydreams and he looked down, startled, as a hen looked back up at him with beady eyes—its head twitching back and forth and up and down as if sizing him up.

  He gave a puff of a smile and nudged the creature on with a gentle boot, then looked for Lilja behind him before ticking his head for her to follow him on.

  Up the path they walked—a path lined with shed dandelions before they stopped short of the front door for Kaden to open it. The wood was swollen and took a decent thrust or two of his shoulder before it popped free, but when it did, he tripped over something on the stumble in—something tin and hollow, based on the modest gong it made before it skidded across the floor.

  The watering can.

  In an instant, Kaden was that boy again, unexpectedly transported to a different time as a fresh but familiar pain tore through his heart. The flash of a memory—the memory of his own screams echoed in his head like a foul beast of agony, biding its time in the distance before it would come back to finish him off.

  “…Kaden?” Lilja called in a soft wariness when he seemed stuck someplace far away in that head of his.

  He blinked a few times before truly seeing her standing in front of him, her eyes gently wide in curious concern.

  “M’sorry,” he returned, clearing his throat as he ran a hand over the back of his neck. He hadn’t had a spell like that in a long while—a period of lost time, like the days of his youth when he would drift off and away into his daydreams and nightmares to find the sun having moved on without him.

  Slowly, Lilja knelt down and picked up the can, placing it in a windowsill next to some overgrown pots while Kaden took a few deep breaths and looked around the rest of the dark home. As she did, she remembered a similar potted plant she’d once seen in Kaden’s own bedroom window, back in the spire.

  Her precious Keeper…

  “I’ll start a fire,” Kaden suggested, heading to the cold hearth without meeting her eyes, working to banish the painful chill being home had brought as much as the literal one creeping in with night fall.

  They needed to be here. They did. They needed the provisions, the rest, and the scrolls, but it was harder than he’d expected.

  Lilja let him be and quietly watched as Kaden took some of the stocked logs that had been lying useless next to the fireplace for more than a decade, and stacked them, speaking life over them with a gentle hum of a weaving, “Vuur,” and the accompanying serpentine-like gesture of his hand.

  While he stoked the newly-born flames with a poker plucked from a rusty hook screwed into the mantle, Lilja looked around a bit, but didn’t wander too far.

  Her eyes were trailing about in thought when he summoned her, wondering what the home had looked like with a little curly haired boy with bright green eyes bounding about with his mother, no doubt flitting in and out, muddied from the forest.

  “Give me your boots, Princess,” the boy-turned-man hummed with well-worn hands outstretched. “I’ll dry them out for you.”

  Agreeable, she bent down and unlaced them, pulling off her soggy socks along with them before handing them over.

  Kaden hung the cold and wet lot up on some pegs mounted into the stone of the fireplace that were used for drying such things.

  While he situated his own boots and socks after, the fire grew to a warming light, and the darkening home was illuminated just as the stars began popping into existence through the open pockets of the thatched roof overhead.

  It was then Lilja saw it—the note on the table. The familiar handwriting caught her attention and she tilted her head in instinctive blamelessness to read it.

  Mom,

  I’m sorry. I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to protect you. I’m sorry I lost you. I’m sorry I’m not here now. I know you’ll say it wasn’t my fault, but I know it was. I was irresponsible with our magic.

  I followed what trails I could for as long as I could, looking for you, but the snow is gone now and there isn’t anything left for me to foll
ow.

  I don’t know—

  The letter was suddenly slipped out from beneath her innocently traveling eyes as Kaden took the paper from the table. He balled it up without meeting her gaze, and casually tossed it into the fire. The knee-jerk reaction left them standing in a moment of awkwardness.

  Her attention flicked up to him in an uncertain bit of a start, confused and troubled by what she’d read and what he’d just done.

  “You hungry?” he asked dutifully though quietly, voice low as he tried to ignore the realities around him and instead attempt to focus on the ones ahead.

  Dwelling on the past never changed a thing. Not for him anyway.

  “Kaden,” Lilja breathed, dark cheeks flushing as her eyes met his. She hadn’t meant to invade any privacy, but now that she had—now that they were someplace still enough to talk…

  “I’ll get you something to eat. I know we had some pemmican and honey, maybe some dried lentils—they should still be good,” he thought aloud as her voice went without acknowledgement. He headed to the kitchen cupboards, finding they’d gotten lower since the last time he’d searched them.

  Lilja watched her Keeper from behind as he rummaged about, pulling some cans and packages from the tattered shelves. But eventually, she couldn’t bear the weight of…anything anymore. And she understood in that moment just how he must have felt on their walk when she had ignored his pleas to talk—to share her heart with him.

  And just why they felt such a way towards each other.

  It hurt—it was maddening even, to know someone…someone you loved so desperately was hurting. Hurting and keeping you at bay…

  At its roots, it was a foolish and ridiculous thing they were doing, really—no matter the claimed justifications. The laws that kept them apart (Lilja believed, no, knew that was all it was now), were at their core nothing more than man-made instruments that changed with tide.

  And in a world that could be so cruel and hard, few were blessed enough to find a love that sparked…something beautiful.