Dreadgod (Cradle Book 11) (67)

As well as some nervous questions about the sky turning black, and the approaching Dreadgod, though she assured Mercy that she wasn’t pressing for any family secrets.

Mercy answered and reassured the woman as best she could, and by the time she got around to asking about opening the restricted records, Mercy didn’t even have to invoke her mother’s name. Constance just opened it up and let Mercy take whatever she wanted.

If Mercy had cleaned out the library of all the records and all the Books, she suspected Constance would have asked if she needed a bag to help carry it all.

Mercy only suspected something was wrong when she left the scripts around the library and couldn’t contact Dross.

She knew something was wrong when she flew back to the rooftop and found Lindon gone.

The next place she checked was Windfall, in case he had been forced to flee. It was abandoned, and the guards of the hangar hadn’t seen him all day. She checked her office. Then she put out word in the clan to look for him.

Everyone was preparing to face the Wandering Titan, so a missing Sage was high priority. Charity wasn’t in the city, but a few Archlords remained to join in the search. No one could find him.

Mercy even called her mother’s name, but the Monarch didn’t answer. That, in itself, wasn’t surprising. There was a Dreadgod on its way, after all.

But all throughout the night, Mercy never stopped searching.





Charity felt Malice all alone in a cloud fortress, like a miniature model of Moongrave floating on a dark purple cloud. It was one of the many fortresses made in that style Malice preferred, the aesthetic of foreboding purple-and-black that had become the banner of the Akura clan the world over.

“Grandmother!” the Sage shouted, and her voice shook the fortress.

Charity hadn’t been this furious in decades.

Malice was ignoring her, but she’d had enough of being ignored. She marched up to the doors and blew them off their hinges with aura. She shot up the stairs and found Malice exactly where she had expected.

Lounging in the highest tower, in a room with no windows. The Monarch didn’t need them. She was monitoring the Dreadgod and the surrounding tower with her spiritual sense.

Malice wore a black dress and had draped herself over a couch while constructs and scripts shone in the air over her. At a glance, Charity suspected she was in contact with other Monarchs all over the world, as well as coordinating the city defense and watching what appeared to be some kind of melodrama.

The Monarch looked up at her granddaughter through her own cloud of drifting black hair. “That was quite rude, Charity.”

There was another plush couch in the room, and Charity dumped her burden onto it. She had carried the dead weight all the way here, and it was about time she put it down.

Lindon fell onto the couch and convulsed. He weighed two and a half times what she did, but such weight was negligible to an Archlady’s body. Though his size had been an inconvenience.

“What is this?” Charity demanded.

She meant…everything. Obviously Lindon had violated his oath to Malice, which had involved not revealing the connection between the Monarchs and the Dreadgods.

But why had Malice set him up by not telling him there was a Sage who didn’t know? Why had she allowed it to be possible for him to violate the oath?

More importantly, why had she never told Charity?

“You could have left him there,” Malice said. She returned her gaze to the shining lights that hung over her. “I was always going to save him before he died. First, we let him soak long enough for the lesson to sink in.”

“What is the link between the Monarchs and the Dreadgods? And why didn’t you tell me?” A horrible thought had haunted Charity since the moment she’d found out. “Did my father know?”

Malice languidly waved a hand. “Of course he knew. He was a Monarch, remember, though he knew for centuries. He was one of the first I made swear to silence.”

“What did he know?”

“The Dreadgods are the price we pay to remain in Cradle.” Malice made a frustrated sound and swiped the scripts and constructs away. She turned, brushing her shadowy hair behind her as she faced Charity.

“I see you’re upset, but there’s nothing to be done about it. Advancement is the process of pushing against the natural order. Making it work for you. The existence of the Monarchs upsets a sort of balance, and the Dreadgods are the consequence of that.”

Charity’s jaw worked, but she could find no words terrible enough for the truth. Finally, she choked out, “So…all you have to do is leave?”

“You know what would happen if I advanced, Charity. The others wouldn’t, and then the family would be vulnerable. If we all did, the Dreadgods wouldn’t just vanish. They’d fade over the course of decades or centuries, during which time they’d wreak havoc. And then the very next Sage or Herald to advance would rule the entire world with an iron fist.”

Malice gave a motherly smile and held out her hands. She beckoned Charity to come to her.

The Sage of the Silver Heart remembered her dignity, her responsibility, and hesitated. But after a moment, like a little girl, Charity moved into her grandmother’s embrace.

“I’m sorry you found out this way,” Malice murmured. “I planned to tell you myself, with your father gone, but the world has required my attention. And of course I had no idea Lindon would risk his oath so quickly.”