Kindling the Moon (Arcadia Bell #1)(94)

“Regardless, we might need to pay them a little visit soon to keep them quiet.” My father shrugged. “Almost time now.” He smiled and turned to Frater Blue and gave him a silent signal. The man stepped inside the circle and lifted the hood of his robe.

Panic sobered me. I screamed at the top of my lungs.

“Calm down, don’t wear yourself out,” my father said. “We’re deep inside Balboa Park, off a private hiking trail. There’s no one for miles. The ritual will go smoother if you remain calm and centered.”

“How could you do this?” I sobbed, tears blinding me, stinging my eyes. “I’m your daughter. You loved me—I know you did. Why did you stop?”

“Darling,” my mother said, moving her hand near my cheek but not touching me, “how many times have we told you that strong emotions are weakness? That’s not to say we don’t care. We planned your conception. Meticulous, careful planning. You weren’t just an accident or a result of some unplanned erotic passion, like most savages are.”

“I was the result of some stupid, loveless ritual—that’s worse!”

“No, you are very mistaken, it was not loveless, and we were so happy when you were born. We treated you like a goddess. Gave you every tool you could need to be successful and enjoy the life that you were given. We were good parents.”

“Good parents don’t kill their children after raising them!”

“It’s an honorable death,” my father argued. “Not a wasted one. People die honorably for their country in war every day. How could dying for this be any less?”

He said this like it was the most reasonable thing in the world. And instead of being repulsed by the motive behind the words, all I could think about was trying to get back what I’d lost. Raw, painful sobbing hobbled my reasoning. And I snapped, racked by memories of better times.

“I can change,” I pleaded. “I can be what you need me to be. Whatever you envisioned, you can teach me. I can learn.” A shadow crossed my mother’s eyes. Emotion. I know I saw it. “You can take me overseas with you. I can stay hidden. I’ve never been caught, not in seven years. I’m smart. I can …” What? What would I do? “I can help you start your new Aeon. I’ll summon whatever you want. Please. Give me a chance to show you.”

For a moment, just a moment, I thought I might have reached her. Thought I spotted some spark of motherly instinct inside her that would override her insanity. But then my father touched her shoulder, whispering something low in French that I couldn’t hear. And her face hardened along with her will.

“There is no shame in this,” my father said gently. “It is a beautiful gift, what you are giving us today, and we are grateful for it.”

My head spun as madness overtook me, and I screamed again. It reverberated off the rocky hill and echoed around the dark trees, the only witnesses to the my last breaths.

“Shh, now.

Calm and centered,” my father repeated. Calm and centered? Ironically, it was good advice. Begging them to spare me had been weak and pathetic. A mistake made in desperation. I had to pull myself together. Focus. This was no time to fall apart. If I could survive, I’d have time for that later.

I compartmentalized my panic and surveyed my escape options.

The bonds around my hands and ankles were too tight to break. Maybe my wards? I tried to spit on my arm to activate one of them—any of them—but my mouth was dry from the drugs they gave me; what little saliva I could muster just stuck to the red shroud or trickled down my upper arm, stopping far above my elbow.

There was no electricity nearby. I reached out, straining to pull anything at all, but came up empty; we were too deep in the woods. And Priya was dead, so I had no guardian to call for help. My mind flashed back to the incubus in the caves. He gave me his name, Voxhele of Amon. I could summon him. But why? How could he help? Offer to have sex with my parents to distract them? Useless.

Think, think. What else?

The caliph was trailing my parents, they’d said. Could he have been one of the people running out of the Luxe temple? It probably didn’t matter; we were hidden and warded.

Then there was Lon … He’d begged me to let him come with me that morning, and I’d foolishly told him no. Stubborn, he’d called me. He was frustrated and angry; but I insisted, and he didn’t argue. This memory kick-started another round of tears. Everything he’d done for me, the time and work, the money he’d spent. It was all for nothing. Apart from that, I was losing him, and Jupe, and I’d only just found them. My aching heart shriveled.

Years of lukewarm relationships, noncommittal and joyless, lined my stomach like a lead weight. No happiness, no friends, no love, all because of my parents.

Hiding from the law, living a lie …

While they were running around scheming up crazy rituals to harvest some stupid power from me, I put my life on hold and lived in fear and silence. I ran from their enemies— the Luxe Order, Riley Cooper … I took the brunt of it for my parents. Their sins, not mine, but I paid for them. Me! How stupid was I?

“One minute,” my father whispered to my mother as they took prearranged places in front of me.

I was out of options. Broken. They won. Nothing I could say or do would stop them.

But just as I’d accepted my fate, a light flashed. Not in my head, but out in the woods.