Eight of Hearts: The Vision - Book 2

Chapter 34

Kaya's heart wrenched inside her chest. At that moment, she saw Pahana reflected in Isaac's gray eyes and her rage faltered. He might have even said something like that himself once, though she couldn't remember for sure. She realized in that instant that she knew almost nothing about the boy; that everything she believed about Isaac had been born from delusions of hatred and thoughts of revenge.

Isaac held out a hand to her, welcoming her even as she still poised to strike him again with her power. She started to reach for Isaac's hand, her certainty in her cause shattered.

"You're forgiving him for what he did to me?" a voice echoed through Kaya's mind, and she froze as she recognized it.

Pahana... Her brother's face seemed to hover in front of her, blocking her vision of Isaac.

"He taught me to fight so that he wouldn't have to," Pahana said, bitterness lacing his words. "He only ever cared about his friends; everyone else was a sacrifice. He is manipulating you, just like he manipulated me. The only deaths he's trying to prevent are his and those few he cares about. How else could he be able to smile after so many have died."

The image of Pahana's face shifted aside, revealing Isaac once more. Isaac still smiled at her, but he appeared confused now, as though unsure why she hadn't taken his hand yet.

"I know his secret though," Pahana whispered in her ear. "A secret he has told no one."

Kaya's lips curled into a smile for the first time since she was first torn from her home. A terrible glee filled her, a madness that buoyed her receding rage until it bubbled out of her mouth in painful laughter.

"You are doomed," Kaya said once her delirium had calmed enough for her to speak, though it still strained to wash over her again. Her hand shot out and she grabbed the boy by the face, holding tight so he couldn't pull away. "You know you are marching toward oblivion, but you strain to hide behind a delusion! Whose death have you seen?"

Power surged through her, thick and venomous as she forced the information from his mind. She didn't care where the power came from, just that it gave her the strength to overwhelm the boy she hated. Now it showed her a vision: a wasteland; two impossible armies; that fool, Bryce Sheffield, still wearing his eyepatch, crushed under a wave of shadow. Kaya became aware of the laughter that tore from her lips now, though it sounded strange to her ears.

"Master!" she cried, tears brimming her eyes. "At long last! With my own eyes I have seen your return! Ah, what sweet madness!" She did not know where those words came from, only that they reverberated through her very bones from the power they carried.

Isaac wrenched free from her grasp, and he backed away slowly, carefully. "Stop hurting her," he said, his voice a barely controlled sob.

Kaya turned her eyes to him, her spark of rage reignited now that she had seen what haunted him. "Fool, fool, fool!" she spat the words at him. "You wandered into my nest with such confidence, but I have you trapped now!" With the flick of her wrist, she banished the door to her mind, leaving the blank surface of the wall in its place.

Isaac took another step back, his eyes wide as he looked at her with horror. "You would seal yourself inside your own mind for a chance to kill me?" he gasped, clutching at himself to still the trembling that he could not hide from her.

"If that is what it takes to destroy you," Kaya said, her throat aching from the rawness of her voice. Now that she could feel the power, she opened herself fully to it, allowed it to flow through her, enveloping her in its terrible might.

Isaac watched as Kaya's power burned her from within, turning her pupils white. The house which represented her mind trembled from the strain she placed on it, until Isaac was sure she intended to kill him, even if it cost her life. The noxious smell of the shadow being soaked through her, the source of her power. Her words, prophesying the return of a "master", were not her own, though she would never become aware of this on her own.