Chapter Thirteen
Kara shook her head. “If it's valuable, we should keep it.” She handed the pieces to Icari. “Do you have something to wrap them in?”
He grinned and pulled out a bundle of scarves from the satchel. “You know I do.”
“Destroy them,” Lyla said softly. “I can do it right now.”
Kara shook her head, not understanding her reluctance to destroy the token. She knew it was evil, yet she and Icari both seemed unable to harm it further. “Sorry, Lyla. If we can sell it, we are keeping it.”
Lyla fell silent for a moment. She looked between them and said, “You need something valuable to sell?”
“Always.”
Lyla stood and strode off into the forest without a backward glance.
Icari and Kara looked at each other and burst out laughing. He said, “She takes a bit of getting used to, but I like her.”
Kara had an odd little twang in her stomach, a minor tightening. She brushed the feeling aside. It was likely just left over shivers from fighting the demon.
As if he had heard her, Icari asked, “How did you know breaking the token would cause the demon to fly apart?”
“I didn't. I just thought of the demon as a mark and the token as its purse.”
Icari stared at her, his blue eyes sparkling from the reflection of the pool. She had never realized how attractive blue eyes and warm brown skin looked together...
Her face began to go red the longer he stared at her. She said, “Well, it worked.”
His face split into a huge grin then he was laughing so hard tears were streaming down his face. She joined in, collapsing on the flowers.
For one minute, one perfect, shining moment, she forgot all her cares as she laughed with her best friend in a unicorn's glade.
He managed to choke out, “Remind me to never get on your bad side. You have a reputation for being tough for a very good reason.”
“You could never be on my bad side. Please. You are the nicest person I have ever met.”
He looked touched. “You must not have met many people, then.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “Stop being so modest. You know you are the only person in the whole carnival who has manners.”
She paused, then asked, “Do you mind if I break the unspoken rule? About sharing our pasts?”
He blinked and said, “No. You have told me bits and pieces, but never the whole story.”
“It's kind of a long story.”
He looked around and spread his hands. “I expect Lyla will be gone quite some time.”
She smiled. “Promise not to tell anyone about my sordid past?”
He laid his hand over his heart. “I do so swear.”
She wondered where to begin. She decided her birth was the natural place to start. So she told him how she had been born to a slave woman named Esha Manut. How her father was the Lord Doye Brahm and her owner. How her other owner was Lady Brahm, a bitch if there ever was one. How Lady Brahm despised her. How Kara had to work in the house and kitchens while her half-sister paid social calls and learned horseback riding and sewing and made her slave sister's life hell any chance she could. She told how her father had let Kara share lessons with Anna and she had learned how to read and write and other important things.
Then Lady Brahm had put her dainty foot down and the lessons stopped, leaving Kara with half an education and a thirst for more.
She told him how weak her mother was, how passive, how Kara had to protect her from Lady Brahm even as a child. It just kept spilling out, all the injustices, large and small. She did not tell him why she had been spurned from her father's estates nor did she quite tell all of Anna's dark secrets. Those two subjects would have been another hour of talking...
But she told him as much as she dared. Later she would tell him about Anna and the spurning.
When she had finished, her throat was dry and so were her eyes. She looked at him and said, “That's about it, besides my father freeing me on my eighteenth birthday. I think you know the rest of my story as you were with the carnival when I joined.”
Icari said nothing for a little while. He finally said, “You have had a hard life. It has made you strong.”
“I think everyone who joins the carnival has had a hard life.”
He smiled, yet it did not reach his eyes. He said, “Thank you for trusting me with all of this. I know it was not easy to tell.”
“It was easy to tell to you. I don't think you care that I was a slave, but I will carry the stigma around with me for the rest of my life. Lots of people look down on freed men and women.”
He shook his head. “I would never look down on freed men and women.”
She smiled and waited for him to say something else. She had been curious about his past ever since she had met him and wondered if he would open up since she had. All she knew was that he was from the kingdom of Libya.
He did not open up, just pretended to stare into the crystal pool. After a few long minutes, she asked, “Do you think it is safe to drink? Do you think the unicorn would mind?”
“I am sure she would not. She purifies it so we can drink it.”
Kara dipped two fingers in the icy water, tasted it, then scooped a whole handful. It was the sweetest, purest water she had ever had. She guzzled it greedily until her stomach made a mild protest at so much cold sluicing it.
She said, “Have some. It is delicious.”
He took a careful handful, then two more. He murmured, “Heavenly.”
When he was done drinking, he twirled a nodding lily around his finger. It sprang back. She watched and said quietly, “I wish I had a thousand gold coins to free my mother.”
He shook his head and rubbed another patch of flowers. “It is a fortune.”
Lyla strolled back into the glade, rubbing dirt off her hands. Kara jumped, then started giggling. “Lyla, please make some noise. Sneaking up on me is going to stop my heart.”
“I apologize. Your mother is trapped by another human?”
Kara nodded. She was starting to believe Lyla really was a fae. She talked of humans as another race entirely, in such a casual manner...
“And the only way to free her from the trap is with those golden coins men cherish so?”
“Yes.”
“Do not men hold gems at similar value? Diamonds?”
“They are more valuable than gold. I don't have any of those either.”
Lyla put her hand forth and opened it. In her palm lay a sparkling fortune in diamonds.
Kara and Icari shot up and stared. Kara extended her hand and the diamonds fell into her palm. She asked, “How? Where?”
Lyla said, “Fae can hear gems. Ones cut like these sing sharply. I just followed the sound.”
Icari asked, “Where were they? We are in the middle of nowhere.”
“A traveler fell long ago. He had these diamonds upon him. I took them since he no longer has use of them. May he rest in peace.”
Kara was still mostly speechless. She looked at Icari for confirmation that yes, she was holding a fortune in her hand. She could not believe it, could not believe she would be so lucky...
Her fingers curled around the treasure and she tucked it in her inner hidden pocket. They sat in a cool lump between her breasts. That such small things could change her mother's fate was insane...
Lyla said suddenly, “Do not tell anyone I can find gems. Humans have taken us against our will to help them find treasure before. I hope they have forgotten we can do such things.”
Icari said, “We are not going to tell anyone you are a fae. You would be in a lot of danger.”
Kara asked, “From dark mages and humans?”
Lyla nodded sadly. “Alone, I am much more vulnerable than I would like. I think I ought to go to the record keeper and ask for the location of my family. I would wake them to help me with my purpose.”
Icari said, “Is there anything I can you help with?”
She shook h
er head. “If you keep quiet about my ancestry, that is all I ask. My purpose beyond waking my kindred is dangerous.”
Kara asked, “What's your purpose?”
Lyla frowned. “To stop the dark ones from taking over. They wield too much power already thanks to the folly of the King. Perhaps I was meant to wake and call my people to arms.”
“Ah. And where is the record keeper?” Kara was imagining a little hidden fae cave in the woods, a magical place with tiny flowers and a tinkling stream nearby.
Lyla blinked. “There are several record keepers. I believe the closest one is in the capital. He...” She trailed off. “I cannot remember his exact location.”
“You mean our capital? The city of Pruia? Where the king's palace is?”
The fae nodded, then an ear-splitting howl sounded nearby. Icari and Kara glanced at each other as they scrambled up. That was a jaguar, a remnant of the old times before the world was poisoned. It was half a ton of snarling feline fury.
And it was coming after them.