Catching Stars by Cayla Keenan

Author:Cayla Keenan [Keenan, Cayla]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oftomes Publishing
Published: 2018-05-07T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Three:

Maddix

A wall. A great, big, skyforsaken wall. In the time it had taken them to get this close to Pavaal, fifty feet of wood and stone had been constructed to stop them.

Skies.

“Then let’s go around,” Maddix offered once she’d finished with her explanation. Jayin shook her head, her movements jerky and stiff.

“If we go around,” she said slowly, “then we have to go through Kaddah, and if I go to Kaddah, I won’t make it out. And you need me, remember?” Maddix bit his lip to keep from using those words to reassure her. The last time he tried she’d nearly carved him a second smile.

He should have gone after her. He should have proved she was wrong—she had to be wrong. But Maddix let her go, and he kept the bracelet on. He was still using her. Shame bubbled up inside him, and Maddix tasted the acid of it on the back of his throat. Maybe he was worse than Hale.

“So what, magic is outlawed in Kaddah. It’s practically outlawed here. How will they even know you’re there?” Maddix’s patience was waning, worn thin from the stress of the night.

“I don’t know,” Jayin answered, the words sharp and bitter. “Witches who go into that place don’t come out.”

“So you have no proof? Nothing that says we won’t be able to just waltz in. How do you—”

“Because Om told me!” Jayin shouted. She glared at him like she meant to say more before something splintered in her gaze. Her hands trembled, and she slid down the wall as if her legs couldn’t support her any longer. Maddix could only watch, horrified, as she collapsed in on herself. He didn’t know what to do, what to say, and settled for pacing, his hands flapping uselessly by his sides.

“He survived half of his life in that skyforsaken queendom, and then I got him killed.” The words were so soft that Maddix wasn’t sure he heard her correctly. Jayin lifted her head and he tensed, readying himself for an attack.

“You were there,” she said, not looking at him. “He was trying to protect me.” Maddix struggled to stand his ground as he recalled the firewitch from the docks.

He waited for her to turn the blame on him, to call him sahirla, traitor, any number of names before threatening to gut him like a carp. But the words didn’t come, and Jayin simply stared through him, trapped somewhere he couldn’t reach.

“I killed him,” she said finally. Tears glittered on her cheeks. “He survived Kaddah and he survived the Palace, but he didn’t survive me.”

“It wasn’t—” Maddix started, but she cut him off before he could finish. He wished he’d let her say the words. He was glad she stopped him.

“No one knows how the Kaddahn can sense magic, but they can. And the moment a witch steps over their border, they send in kill squads. However they do it, it’s real.”

“So we go through,” Maddix said, scrambling for some kind of solution. Anything to erase the terrible, glassy-eyed look from her face.

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