The Raven Flame [The Crown Saga III] (First Draft)

Betrayal

I couldn't believe my ears.

No. It was Tarkan. His father's beliefs had likely poisoned his mind, and he was desperately trying to stop me from closing the ripping veil, just like the Darkness would want.

Right?

Yet, my feet refused to move as if glued to the stone below me.

Pangea reached toward me, stretching her arm as far as her body would allow without leaving Ariya's side. "Hurry, Child. The Darkness will burst through at any minute now. We need the relic."

Caiden grumbled behind me. "What are you waiting for?" he said, his voice coarse but with a softness to the crumbling sounds that left me with no doubt Raelyn was doing everything she could to heal him. "Calix has done nothing but lie and deceive, Will. We cannot—"

"Do not speak that way about your brother, Atlas," Pangea said sternly, her face softening as if pitying her rebelling son. "He is only confused. He will learn to understand once we complete the mission."

I clenched harder around my bag as I stared at Tarkan's wide, desperate eyes. He shook his head. The gesture was vague, but it was there.

Why did I doubt Pangea's intentions? Because of Tarkan?

Caiden was right. Tarkan had done nothing to deserve my trust, but I couldn't seem to shake the scene from the castle. The king and Tarkan had looked nothing less than staggered when Pangea had shown up to assist us.

Something wasn't adding up. There had been no guards to protect the castle when we'd first arrived, no one to guard the halls. It had been too easy to get to the gauntlets. Shouldn't he have known everything and been able to prepare a counterattack if the Darkness had controlled the king?

I needed more than just words. "Come get them yourself, Pangea," I said, digging my heels into the ground.

"Will," Caiden said, sighing. I could tell he was straining to lock his emotions away. The king had been his father, after all. "What has come over you?"

I didn't waver from Pangea's eyes, noting that she still didn't move. She was hiding something.

"Doesn't it strike you as odd, Caiden?" I said, scrunching my nose when Pangea straightened her back and lifted her chin. "The lack of security when we first arrived, the surprise on the king's face when your mother stepped in to help us get away?"

Caiden didn't speak again for a few seconds. "Mother," he said, doubt sinking into his words like claws.

Pangea seemed to grit her teeth, but her general composure lost not a speck of resolve. "Do not let my poisoned son spoil your trust, children. I can—"

"Then step over here and take the bag from Willow," Caiden said through clenched teeth as if it took everything he had to say it.

A muscle twitched near her eye, making her entire face and smile twist uncomfortably. Then she started laughing, and my whole body stiffened, tremors making each of my nerves spike.

"Well, well," she said, pinching the bridge of her nose. "You're certainly one persistent troublemaker, Miss Aldwyn. And I was so close, too."

Her arm fell limp along her side, and the background started blurring, including the thin rip behind them.

A shaky breath blew past my lips when the darkened shapes grew into silhouettes, and the shadowed rip widened. Colors stained the dead grass, and the tar gathered in the pool below the widened rip bubbling. One bubble didn't pop, slowly morphing and rising until a deformed monster stood with a grinning opening across its barren face and teeth like sharp stalactites.