Dreadgod (Cradle Book 11) (69)

Charity reached out…and closed the gap.

She dried tears that she had never felt fall, fixed her makeup, and made sure her hair and clothes were pristine. The Sage of the Silver Heart represented the clan, so she needed to radiate control.

Even now, Charity still believed in the purpose of the Akura clan. There were people here who needed her.

Starting with Mercy.





Mercy had been reduced to flying up to literally random buildings and asking if they’d seen Lindon.

It was a terribly inefficient way to search, but she’d mobilized everyone she could among the clan, so there should be thousands of people searching for him all over Moongrave. She would have turned the entire city upside-down if the Wandering Titan hadn’t been on its way. The city had been flipped already.

But she couldn’t just wait for their reports. They would reach her wherever she was, by courier or messenger construct, so she may as well keep searching.

She threw open the doors to a restaurant and shouted that she had a reward for anyone who had seen the Sage of Twin Stars that night. She projected an image of Lindon into the air.

People tended to remember the hulking young man with the white arm that disturbed their spiritual senses, but no one had seen him in the last night.

If that were all, each of her visits would take only thirty seconds. But there were drawbacks to being the Monarch’s daughter as well as benefits. Whenever she showed up at the door, every single person in the building stood up and saluted at the same time.

Usually, they also greeted her and summoned the highest-ranking person they knew. Mercy didn’t have time for that, and their manners tended to delay answers. It took time even to convince them that she meant it when she said they didn’t need to greet her politely at all.

But the same power that they respected was the one she was leaning on to find Lindon, so she couldn’t complain. She could only keep searching.

Which she did until Charity stepped out of the shadows beneath her.





Charity controlled her emotions as she watched Mercy pull Suu to a halt in midair, then swoop down to the streets. Most of the surrounding buildings were boarded and scripted up, but there were still plenty of people out, preparing to defend their homes.

Every one of them bowed at the waist and stayed there.

“Aunt Charity! Have you found him?”

Mercy had sent persistent messages to Charity—almost as many as she’d shouted to her mother. She hadn’t expected them to reach, but she’d had to try.

“I left him in the same guest home we assigned him before the Uncrowned King tournament,” Charity said calmly. “I can guide you if you don’t remember the way.”

“What happened? Is he okay?”

“He violated an oath to your mother and suffered the penalty for that. He was on the verge of death before she saved him. I’ll send one of my owls with you, so you can inform me when he wakes. I will need to work on his mind to prevent permanent trauma.”

Mercy gasped, and her eyes went wide, so Charity forestalled her before she assumed the worst.

“His life is no longer in danger. This threatens his future advancement, if anything, which in his case might be a good thing. Breaking a leg is a blessing if it stops him from sprinting toward a cliff.”

“He was trying to help me advance!”

“Yes, about that.” Charity held out a hand. “I’ll need the dream tablet you withdrew from the library.”

It wasn’t so long ago that Mercy was a little girl, and Charity expected her to act like a child caught breaking the rules. Instead, Mercy’s expression hardened. She reached into her void key and a String of Shadow grabbed a small stone, which snapped back into her palm.

But instead of holding it out to Charity, she kept it in her fist.

“What oath did he break?” Mercy asked coldly.

“I cannot tell you.”

“Did he betray the clan?”

“You might say that.” That was as specific as she could get without leaving any information that could point toward the truth; even revealing so much made invisible hands tighten around Charity’s throat.

“Was he trying to hurt me?”

Charity considered lying, but Mercy wouldn’t believe her anyway. Not only that, but Charity herself was…less than pleased with Malice at the moment. She was not inclined to go further to protect the Monarch’s secrets than necessary.

“The oath had nothing to do with you at all, and that’s the most I can say about the subject.”

Mercy watched her for a long moment, presumably trying to read something in Charity’s expression, but she finally tossed the dream tablet over. Charity caught it with aura rather than using her hand.

She Forged an owl, animating it with a will of its own, and sent it fluttering after Mercy. “The owl will lead you to Lindon. Send word to me when he wakes up, though I have left word that you not be allowed into his property.”

Mercy’s expression slid toward anger again, but Charity continued calmly. “It is for your own protection. He will be disoriented when he wakes, possibly even violent. With his powers, he could kill you before you had a chance to react.”

“Then how am I supposed to know when he wakes up?”

“Don’t be difficult. You have a perfectly good spiritual sense. Besides, if he reacts as I suspect, he might level the house.”