The Legend of the Eight: The Wicked (Book 2)

23: The Lost Princess

TWENTY-THREE: THE LOST PRINCESS
MARCH 28
KATE DIAMOND

WATER FROM HER HAIR SOAKED the back of her shirt as she sat on the foot of her bed, folding her clothes and placing them in one of her Mat & Nat duffle bags. Nicole was on the other bed with hair just as damp and she was doing the same. The girls packed in silence. What could they say? They were leaving the Academy. Nothing was going to be the same again.

Kate could feel her stomach twisted into a thousand different knots as she placed her things in her bags. Her father was just hours away from setting off to the Shadow Lands with Eva to rescue Wil. Soon they would all be safe again and headed to the Mortal World.

But something didn't feel right.

She couldn't place it, but something was just off.

Her hand found the bandage on her neck, beneath which was a bite from a vampire—Cam Miller. She didn't remember him biting her, only that he had, and it would heal soon enough. Eva's spell wasn't strong enough to heal all their wounds.

She should have been happy Cam was alive. Despite all evidence to the contrary, he made it out of the Shadow Lands and he was back. Sure, he was technically a vampire, but he was back. She knew he was under Bartemius's control when he bit her and that the real Cam—Her Cam—would have never hurt her like that, but it didn't matter.

Looking at Cam, she didn't see the boy she loved most of her life. She saw the dark room. She saw the chair where she'd been strapped down and she saw the Darks who had interrogated and tortured her. She didn't see Cam. She saw the soulless vampire, just another one of Bartemius's cruel tactics.

A tear rolled down her cheek and she flicked it away quickly. She didn't have time for tears. She had to be strong. She had to pack. She had to—

"Ah!" Nicole screamed out suddenly, doubling over and clutching her side in pain. "Oh my God!"

And when Kate opened her mouth to ask what was going on, a very familiar pain struck her foot. She cried out and stared down to see her skin inflamed and red. She may have been an optimist but she wasn't an idiot.

"No, no, no!" she began sobbing. Right before her eyes, the tattoo on her foot began to change and the seventh knot loosened.

"Kate?" Nicole gasped through the pain. "Does this mean—"

Kate fell to the ground but it wasn't from the pain in her foot. In fact, she didn't feel her foot at all. She sobbed uncontrollably. Her chest felt like someone had reached into it and snatched out a handful of her soul. She felt the aching of the empty hole left behind. She never felt like pain like that before. Not when her tattoo appeared. Not when it changed for the first time. Not even when she was in the Shadow Lands, enduring unspeakable abuse at the hands of Bartemius Thawne.

But there it was. The pain she was terrified of. It came rushing to her in big waves and it washed over her, drowning her. It pulled her under and took the breath straight from her lungs. There was no wading in the waters. No floating on the surface. No swimming safely.

There was only drowning.

BY MORNING, WORD HAD SPREAD about Wil Diamond's death and the entire Realm joined Kate in mourning. She stared at the six knots on her foot, her eyes blotchy, and she cried until there weren't any more tears to cry.

She saw her parents in the morning and found her father on the floor of the Main Office with a map and several different potions. He had exhausted spell after spell and charm after charm in an attempt to locate his daughter and each time, he came up with the same results.