Free The Darkest Magic (A Book of Spirits and Thieves) by Morgan Rhodes Page B

walked about five paces ahead of them—certainly close enough to overhear. He didn’t turn around or slow his steps, so Camilla turned back to Maddox and lowered her voice to just above a whisper. “I never met her personally. But I have heard many stories. It hasn’t been all that long, really, since she . . . passed.”
    “Valoria and Cleiona killed her,” said Maddox matter-of-factly. “Yet Valoria denies she had anything to do with her murder. Is Cleiona solely to blame?”
    “Don’t you dare say that name again,” Barnabas growled.
    “What name?” Maddox asked. “Eva?”
    “No. The name of the southern goddess.”
    “Why not?”
    Barnabas groaned. “Camilla?”
    Camilla cleared her throat. “Well, there are rumors, you know. She is the goddess of fire and air, and some say that with air magic as powerful as hers, she can hear the sound of her name no matter where, when, or by whom it’s spoken. This is how she comes to know her enemies.”
    Maddox had never heard this rumor before. Then again, it was forbidden to publically discuss the southern goddess in the North.
    “All right then. I’ll never say her name again,” he agreed. “But please tell me more about what really happened to Eva.”
    Camilla sighed, but not unkindly. “No one knows exactly
who
was responsible for killing her. But it is rumored that, at almost the exact moment of her death, she uttered a prophecy.”
    “What prophecy?” Maddox prompted when Camilla went silent.
    A moment passed before Camilla continued. “She allegedly foretold that, in a thousand years’ time, her magic would be reborn in the form of a mortal sorceress. It’s said that Eva was by far the most powerful immortal of them all—a truth I’m sure Valoria’s scribe would like to scrub from history—and for that reason she was the envy of many of her kind. When she found herself with child—a
half-mortal
child—some say that the pregnancy made her . . . vulnerable.”
    All this information—whether it be rumor or truth—had made Maddox’s head start to spin.
    “I should have protected her,” Barnabas growled.
    “How?” Camilla’s voice turned harsh. “With your bow and arrow?” She scoffed. “You weren’t much more than a child yourself at the time, Barnabas. And you did what you could. You must stop blaming yourself.”
    “Never. She’d lived thousands of years before she met me. If it wasn’t for me, she’d still be alive.”
    “You don’t know that.”
    “I do. I know it as well as I know I’m the greatest hunter Mytica has ever seen.”
    Maddox had heard this lofty claim enough times to know not to argue with it.
    Barnabas turned to Camilla, his expression tense, his fists clenched. “All of this talk of the past reminds me. Do you still have it?”
    Camilla raised her chin. “Yes,” she said, her tone empty of the confusion that had suddenly gripped Maddox.
    “Right now? On your person?”
    “I always keep it with me. Just as you asked me to.”
    “Show me.”
    She blinked. “Are you sure?”
    He nodded. “I want to carry it with me now.”
    “My hope was that all those years of traveling overseas would help you find some peace. But it seems that isn’t the case.”
    “There can be no peace as long as those two monsters rule this land.” Barnabas stopped, turned to Camilla, and held out his hand, palm up. “Please.”
    “Very well,” she sighed. She tucked her hand underneath the neckline of her blouse and, after a moment’s fishing, pulled out a gold necklace strung with some kind of charm or pendant. She unfastened the delicate chain, removed it from around her neck, and placed the necklace in his outstretched palm.
    It was only exposed for a moment before his father closed his fist around it, but that was long enough for Maddox to catch a glimpse of the pendant, which looked like a brilliant purple stone in some kind of golden setting.
    “What is that?” he asked.
    Barnabas tucked the necklace away in