Light the Reign (The Forgotten: Book 3) Read Online Free Page B

parents who were responsible for others’ deaths
and indirectly their own – she couldn’t imagine the turmoil he was
going through.
    She relaxed. “Well,” she told him, “lucky for
you, they seem to have patched me back up good as new, so we can
forget the whole thing happened.” She paused a moment awkwardly,
never having been one for understanding her own emotions, much less
someone else’s. “Do you want to talk about it?”
    He squirmed uncomfortably. “I don’t know what
to think anymore,” he confessed, “I think I just need to let it all
sink in.”
    Katya nodded, relieved. “What’s going on out
there?”
    “The Dena’ina have told their story about the
events that have gone on between the tribes, including the
incident.” He paused and looked closely at her. “Are you really
Gareth’s daughter?”
    She glanced quizzically at him. “I had just
found out before you helped me escape and he got shot by an arrow.
I had thought he had died, or else I would have come back for
him…”
    “He would not have blamed you,” Lorcan
said.
    “When Hunter told me…” she trailed off,
unsure of her voice. Lorcan seemed to understand and remained
silent. “Yes,” she said finally, “he was my father. My memory came
back in pieces, more when I recovered a memory stone Gareth had
left for me, and then as a flood when I found Hunter – who was my
childhood friend. I remember growing up here, and Gareth, and my
mother. I was a Myaamia once.” She felt a tear forming in the
corner of her eye and brushed it away, annoyed. It was one thing
she definitely did not care for that came along with all these
emotions. She seemed to cry at the most inopportune times.
    “So you really have a mark?” he asked, this
time the emotion behind his words was fear.
    “I really do,” she agreed, moving her hair
out of the way and facing away from him so he could see where the
scar covering it was. He moved away almost imperceptibly.
    “The Dena’ina are using what you just did to
try and convince people that the Dark King’s ancestors aren’t all
like him.” He said it as a statement, but there was a question
behind his words.
    Well, how many people did I kill as an
assassin for Karl? She wondered, pondering her own morality. But is that on my conscience or his? And did I not fall in love
with the man trying to take over the world? Out loud she said
firmly, “Queen Layna of Gelendan has the mark…and she is the most
non-evil person I have ever met. Having the mark does not mean you
are necessarily like the Dark King.” But it doesn’t mean I don’t
have some of his traits too… the voice in the back of her head
added. She ignored it. She was comfortable with who she was.
    Ever since finding Hunter once again, she
held on to the memories of who she had been before the priests had
taken her and allowed her to be corrupted by Karl. Still, she
didn’t think that her actions were the best ones to be comparing
all of the marked to…
    “Did the Three really talk to her in her
head?”
    “They did,” Katya answered simply. They both
fell silent for a long moment.
    “I don’t think you’re an evil person either,”
Lorcan told her and she smiled. He glanced at the ground for a
while. His eyes flitted up to meet hers, then dropped. “Gareth was
a really important man, until…”
    “Until they made him throw his wife and
daughter out of the tribe?”
    “Yes,” he bobbed his head up and down. “I’ve
been doing a ton of research on our histories, and after finding
out that he was somehow connected to the incident, I started
looking him up too. He did a lot for all the tribes, and was one of
the only tribesmen who bothered to keep in touch with the others.
But then after…” he shrugged his shoulder to the side and widened
his eyes to indicate the event again, “…he started speaking out
against the practice of exiling children. He disappeared for a
while, I think looking for you, and Kali really started