The Puppeteer and The Poisoned Pawn (The Pawn and The Puppet series Book 3)

My back stiffens as we stop in front of a cemetery.

But it isn’t just any cemetery… this is the same land where my father was buried. The same place I planted a red oak tree. The same headstone Dessin told me to visit on my father’s birthday.

This is where they’ll be laid to rest today.

I crank my head to face Aurick, who is watching me closely with those cold, arctic eyes. He nods, knowing the question I’m about to ask.

The buggy door opens, and I follow the line of Demechnef soldiers to the red oak tree. Why would they assume that this is where Dessin, Kane, and the other alters will be buried? Is that what he wanted?

Despite the gloom around us, the sky is sunny and bright blue. The cool breeze flutters through the tall red oak tree, carrying a few fiery red leaves through the headstones across the cemetery. I stop in front of my father’s grave but quickly see that the large rectangular hole is not far behind it. I can feel Chekiss’s presence behind me as I step closer, noticing the three other headstones side by side.

Sophia Valdawell

Arthur Valdawell

Kaspias Valdawell

His—his family was buried next to my father? I was here only a few months ago… and of course, I wouldn’t have put the pieces together because I didn’t know his last name at the time.

But who is Kaspias? Could that have been Kane’s twin? The one Aurick said was stillborn? I look back and forth between the headstones covered in the leaves from the great red oak nearby. I can’t believe this has all been under my nose.

My attention is quickly drawn to the priest and the giant wooden coffin. An anchor that reels in my heartbreak and centers it in my chest. I suck in a sharp, painful breath at the sight.

He’s in there. They’re all in there.

Alone.

My knees quiver, and I sway toward the ground, but a pair of strong hands grip my waist, holding me steady against an iron chest. For a moment, my body remembers the gesture, the masculine presence, the unmovable stance behind me to catch me before I fall. And for that awful, cruel moment, I think this was all a bad dream. He came back. He fooled everyone again. Defied death itself.

But a familiar voice breathes into my ear, “I’m here.”

And my throat tightens, and my eyes shut as the single string of hope is burned into a small pile of ash.

I look down at a pair of light-brown hands, and my nostrils fill with the subtle aroma of a crackling fire and dark spice.

Warrose holds on to me and doesn’t let go. Chekiss and Ruth take their places at my left side. And I suddenly wish they would all leave. Go back to the mountain. Leave me alone with this coffin, to cry, to scream, to pray over his dead body for life to be poured back into him.

But the priest begins speaking, and the birds stop singing, the wind stops dancing, and every soldier seems to hold their breath.

As the prayers come to an end, a few eyes land on me.

“I think it’s only appropriate that the people who say their final goodbyes are those who were closest to him,” Aurick announces.

“How merciful of you,” Warrose clips back, letting go of my waist to step up to the closed coffin. He tucks a strand of his long hair behind his left ear, then places his hand on top of the wooden lid.

We all watch as he closes his eyes, whispers a few words, then places an old book where his hand once rested. As he walks back, my feet begin moving because we both know there isn’t anyone here who knew any of the alters the way we did.

I will be the last to say goodbye.

I quickly notice the old book Warrose left, The Legends of Aquarus and Kalidus. But the second my shoes sink into the dirt closest to his coffin, I think I might be sick. My stomach lurches, and my sore heart twists into a tight knot. I can’t stop myself from trembling even as I wrap my arms around my waist.

A million tiny moments fracture in my mind, tapering off until I’m overrun by memories of them. The moment Kane kissed me under the waterfall. The moment Dessin pulled me from the isolation tank, or when he held me while I confessed what really happened to my Scarlett. Each second of time I spent with him barrels into me. I let the tears flow freely, blinking rapidly and ejecting them from my eyes until they splash over the wooden lid.

“You told me I was safe with you,” I mutter with a quivering bottom lip. “But I don’t feel safe anymore. You brought joy back into my life, and now… I feel so lost.”

I imagine him sitting in front of me, watching me cry with anguish darkening his beautiful brown eyes. And I want so badly to hug him, to kiss him goodbye, to thank him for every moment of love and happiness he gave me.

“Before I let you go, I’m going to make one last promise.” I swallow down the growing lump in my throat, making it painful to speak. “I won’t ever love again. And I’ll never lose hope that I’ll see you again, either. Until hell freezes over.”

And even then.

I picture Scarlett reaching for Dessin’s hand, guiding him into a warm, loving light. And my chest burns with a broken heart that will never heal. Tears well over my lids and drip soundlessly down my cheeks as I nod to her.

“Please, take good care of him,” I whisper. “I’m sure Sophia and Arthur have been waiting long enough.” With sputtering sobs, I lean down and kiss his coffin, pouring every last drop of affection I have for him as if he’ll be able to feel it through death.

With two steps back, the wooden box is lifted and slowly begins lowering into the hole.

My entire body locks up, coiling in on itself like a bear trap snapping shut. The finality of our life together filters through my veins like a steady stream of poison. I realize I’m not ready to say goodbye. My anxiety bursts through my nerves like the violent surge of a storm.

I take two more steps back.

He’s leaving me. His body will rot under the dirt, and I’ll never see him again. I lost my father the day he nearly killed me with his bare hands and a wooden club. I lost Scarlett the day Violet ripped her heart out and tossed it at our feet. And now I’ve lost the men that pieced me back together, that accepted me even after learning of my darkest secrets.

The world shrinks, and I look around at the group of men and Ruth staring back at me. And even though no one takes a step toward me, I feel like I’m being cornered, like I’m backing into a cage where they’ll keep me until I’m their perfect soldier.

“They’re going to lock you up,” a voice whispers in my ear. But I can’t tell if it’s real or not.

Ruth reaches out her hand as she wipes her wet cheeks with the other. But I shake my head profusely. No, this is all wrong.

“Let’s get you home.” Aurick’s authoritative voice snakes around my trembling body. His face the palest shade of white I have ever seen.

But it’s all wrong. The reality of this setting, this coffin, this building ache in my heart sits like a bolder in my gut.

“I don’t have a home anymore,” I hiss through my teeth, continuing to back away from his hand. “My home is about to be under six feet of dirt.”

“Going to lock you up!” I shake my head against the voice spinning in circles around me.

Chekiss steps forward with his hands up in surrender, attempting to show me that he isn’t a threat. And I can see the all-consuming torment tightening his facial features.

“Your home is with me, child. With Ruth. With Niles.”

My guard softens for a second but then quickly hardens into agitation, disbelief, and hatred.

“They’re going to take you away.”

Get out of my head!

“No,” I say, looking into Warrose’s worried hazel eyes, then to Ruth, then back to Chekiss. My anger gets the better of me; it swells under my chest like a tumor, hardening my organs and burning through my bones fiercely. I can’t accept this reality as my own. I can’t accept that life goes on after Dessin. After Kane. After all of their alters.

“I don’t belong with any of you, dammit!” That acidic rage vibrates through my muscles, coating each syllable in deadly doses of venom. I begin stumbling back, heels digging in the dirt as my body screams to run, to hide, to put as much distance between me and this place as possible.

“Oh, Skylenna, please!” Ruth chokes out. “We’re sisters. We’re family.”

The urge to wound and harm the people I care about burns through my senses, scorching my verbal filter. “You. Aren’t. My. Sister,” I grit out, throwing each word at her as if it were a weapon that could easily puncture her skin. “I had a sister! And because of me, she killed herself! She didn’t even get a funeral. I’ll never be able to visit her grave because her ashes are scattered in the wind!”

Ruth is a withering flower under my murderous glare. But I won’t let the guilt in for what my words have caused. There isn’t room for any other emotion.

“You aren’t my family. And I don’t belong here.”

Unable to look in their eyes a moment longer, I spin on my heels and begin running toward the forest. Each step shoots life back into my limbs, and I’m sprinting as fast as I can. Only one other set of footsteps thumps behind me.

I nearly stop as Chekiss howls. “I’ll come with you, child! Please!”

Tears burst again from my eyes at his raspy sobs and that rough fatherly voice begging as he tries to keep up. But his lungs won’t allow it. His wheezing breath grows quiet as I put more distance between us.

And even as I disappear into the tree line, I can hear the cries of a father that has lost his daughter.

Again.