AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Walker suddenly straightened. His expression was crafted into grim determination. He gently pushed his fretting sister aside and walked toward the woods.
I stood in his path. “Walker.”
He stared at me in confusion. As if I were a rock in his path, he grabbed my shoulders, picked me up, and moved me out of his way. He continued down the slope of the mountain and into the thicket of trees.
Something was very wrong.
“Cadence,” I ordered. “Go get your father. Tell him to prepare whatever weapons he has.”
She hesitated. Her gaze darted to her brother, but she sighed and raced back to the house. Left with no other options, I followed Walker into the goddessforsaken forest.
Walker charged through the brush and foliage. Branches scraped his skin, but he paid them no notice. His focus remained fixed on something in the distance. As I weaved around rocks, trees, and bushes, I kept my gaze firmly on him and my senses on high alert.
Pine and dirt and the musk of animals was all I could smell, but something darker lurked ahead of us. It was the stain of dark magic, intermingled with the Bloodblade’s power. It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand and left a sour taste in my mouth. A vague ringing pierced my ears, and my heart raced rampantly.
We walked and walked, until I wondered if I’d need to use force to stop the cowboy.
Walker halted.
It was so abrupt, I nearly stumbled into his back, but I caught myself.
Trees ensconced us, but their branches drooped to the ground. The grass beneath my feet was brittle and brown. The frosty air was completely still. That lingering magic called out to me from afar. Like a dissonant chord, it rang louder in my ears. My gut churned, and everything screamed at me to run, but I could feel I was on the cusp of discovering what really happened the night my mother perished.
Walker crouched to the ground and picked up a stray log. He cradled it to his chest and stared at it as if it held the world’s secrets. The log fell from his hands, and he hissed in pain.
Panic and hope warred inside me. I couldn’t let Walker get hurt, but I couldn’t tear my gaze from the small smear of blood on his coat. My mother’s blood.
What if he remembers something?
He crumpled to the ground and groaned. All my foolish hope subsided, and I crouched to his side. It didn’t matter what he might or might not know. Walker was in pain.
I rolled him onto his back. “Okay, cowboy.”
He groaned.
“Time to come back to the present,” I ordered.
I grabbed his face to get him to focus on me and gasped. Magic coated Walker like a second skin. I’d never sensed a spell so concentrated to one individual. It couldn’t have been cast recently.
Golems were incapable of casting their own spells, and I would’ve sensed if Walker had wandered into someone’s curse while I was with him. It wasn’t the dark magic I’d sensed either. This was so personally crafted, it almost felt like Walker himself—powerful, but understated. Clearly of this earth. It was why I’d failed to notice it for so long. Now that he was on the cusp of breaking it, I could finally feel it.
As Walker’s eyes snapped open, he sat up and gasped.
“Freya,” he whispered. “I remember.”
My heart stuttered.
Tears brimmed in his eyes, and a furrow formed on his brow. He broke his gaze from mine and stared at his hands.
“What do you remember?” I asked just as quietly.
I already knew the answer, but I asked anyway. The truth I’d longed for had become all too attainable. I didn’t want to know if Mom had screamed or if she hadn’t even seen Josephine’s attack coming. I didn’t want to know if my brave, fierce mother had been afraid. I didn’t want to know if my own goddessmother had truly been the one to end her.
But I needed to know.
Walker wouldn’t have been drawn back to this place if we weren’t meant to uncover the full truth of that night.
“She told me to run,” Walker said. His eyes searched mine. “I didn’t listen.”
