Ashes of Chaos (Legacy of the Nine Realms #2) - Amelia Hutchins Page 0,141
ask you when it happened. I asked you if you murdered children for your war.”
“Leave it alone, witch. You won’t like the answers you find here.” He turned, leaving me alone with the dead.
I closed my eyes as tears slipped free. Anger rushed through me as the wind picked up, causing the sense of foreboding to slither around me. Grasping my throat, I looked for a higher vantage point.
Silently, careful not to disturb the dead, I moved to an altar, frowning deeply. I crawled on top, staring down at the deceased. I had to get higher to see the design of the large grid.
I walked to the tallest house and slipped inside, carefully climbing the stairs, fully aware that Knox was once again behind me. He was like a silent shadow, enjoying my horror at what he’d done to the witches of this village.
At the window, I stared down at the circular pattern of bodies spread out through the entire meadow. It was a beautifully morbid display of the dead with colorful flowers blooming through the earth. Some flowers had pushed through the ribcages or mouths of the dead to reach for the sun.
“We are not in Norvalla, right?” I asked.
“We are close enough to it that these people shouldn’t have been here,” he whispered against my shoulder as if he feared I would retaliate against him for the crimes he’d committed against the witches, and planned to subdue me should I put up a fight.
“She was just a baby. What crime could she have committed against you, King Karnavious?” I murmured, turning to peer up at him.
“They had no right to be this close to Norvalla after what they’d done to the queen and prince,” he repeated, as if it explained everything, or should. “They trespassed where they weren’t welcome.”
“So the big, bad King of Norvalla slaughtered them? Babes included because he feared she was a threat to him and his people,” I whispered thickly through the emotions tightening my throat. “We trespass now against the dead. We shouldn’t be here. It is forbidden. I can feel the warning.”
“So can I, but its close enough to my land that I am still the ruling king here.” His eyes searched mine for more argument, and I shook my head, knowing he wouldn’t leave no matter what I said.
“Did you place their corpses in this pattern or did the dark witches come here afterward and create the grid?”
“What does it fucking matter? They’re dead.” Knox stared out the window, noting the pattern I spoke of, and turned, watching me. “It’s a grave. Who cares how they were placed after death?”
I frowned, noting the way we studied each other’s reactions. It was as if we expected to glimpse some explanation for the body’s positions, and their placement on the field. Hundreds of corpses were placed in circular patterns, all touching somehow, except the furthest one that pointed west through the small hole in the cliffside.
In the middle of the design was the family. Their hands, all except the babes, touched together, pointing west? It was a power grid formation, similar to the one I found in the other village, but it normally took living witches to wield the magic.
Plus, there were large, raised altars further out that I hadn’t noticed before, and on them were what appeared to be feminine corpses, dressed in purity gowns. Moss had grown over the altars, making them near impossible to see from the ground, unlike the babes on the way into the village.
The walls of the valley weren’t walls at all. They were rooms with altars, each one carrying the remains of yet more witches. This wasn’t a village. It was a tomb.
Stepping closer to the window, I leaned out, noting the large rocks that adorned the high cliffs that hid the village. Apparently, not good enough if Knox had discovered it and slaughtered them.
I peered up at the sun, noting how it hit the altars, creasing my brow before I turned around, only for the wood beneath me to give way. Knox grabbed me before I could fall, pulling my body against his as we both breathed hard. After a moment of panic, I frowned while sucking my lip between my teeth before releasing it.
“I’m good,” I murmured as pain sliced through my chest, where my ribs ached. Stepping away from Knox, I glared at the window ledge that had given out from decades of rot. “You came upon them during sacrifices, I take it?”