The Sweetest Burn (Broken Destiny #2)

After we had lunch at the underground restaurant—yes, there was an underground restaurant—and the group was starting to reform, I pulled Adrian aside.

“We need to try going deeper,” I told him. From our guide, I now knew that the Tourist tour only descended a quarter of the way down into the parts of the mine open to the public.

“Edgar,” Adrian said, sidling up to our brown-haired, slightly portly guide. “This has been wonderful, but my wife wants to get more adventurous. We’ll need to go back up to get tickets for the Miners or Mystery tours.”

“I’m sorry, my friend, those require purchasing two weeks in advance,” Edgar replied.

Adrian smiled at him and pulled out his wallet, fingering through the still-impressive stack of bills in it. “Are you sure there isn’t anything you can do? I’d hate to disappoint her.”

Edgar’s features tightened in obvious offense. Great, we’d been assigned an honest, unbribable man as our guide. Now we were probably about to get kicked out entirely.

I rushed to place my hand over Adrian’s wallet, giving Edgar my best guileless smile. “So sorry! I’m afraid we’re a little too used to how things work in America. Plus, this is our honeymoon, so he’s tripping all over himself trying to make me happy. I hope you excuse his exuberance. He meant no insult—”

I stopped my apologetic gushing when Edgar suddenly grabbed my hand. His grip tightened when I tried to pull away, and then Adrian’s arm shot out, landing against Edgar’s throat.

“Take your hands off her,” Adrian said in a dangerous tone.

Costa sidled over, giving a concerned glance at the standoff. “Everything okay?” he asked quietly.

Edgar still hadn’t relinquished my hand. He couldn’t stop staring at it, even as Adrian increased the pressure to push his forearm deeper into Edgar’s throat.

“Let. Go,” Adrian said, each word heavy with threat.

“Wait,” I breathed, realizing what Edgar was starting at. I pulled up my sleeve, revealing more of the braided-rope tattoo, and Edgar’s eyes bugged. “You recognize this, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Edgar managed to say.

Adrian stared hard at Edgar. I hadn’t seen any telltale shine over Edgar’s eyes or other minion characteristics, and when Adrian dropped his arm, I knew he hadn’t, either.

A small crowd had started to gather as members of our group stopped what they were doing to watch this. I ignored them and tapped Edgar’s hand, which was still clasped over the lower part of my tattoo. “How do you know this mark?”

Edgar finally let go of me to rub his throat where Adrian had half throttled him. Then he shocked us all.

“Because I am one of the Guardians of the staff, and we have been waiting a long, long time for you, Davidian.”





CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

EDGAR FOLLOWED UP his stunning announcement by pulling the fire alarm. We stayed below, but the remaining members of our group plus all the other tourists and most of the mine’s employees were rushed up to the surface. Only Edgar and an old, spindly man he introduced as Piotr remained with the four of us, and as we waited for the mine to completely empty, Edgar told us its real history.

“Piotr and I are both Guardians. The roots of our order can be traced back to 660 BC, when the first of us smuggled priceless relics out of Jerusalem before the Babylonians invaded. Later, some of us became Templars, but our primary responsibility was always the same—guard the staff until the day of the last Davidian.”

It was beyond unbelievable that a group of people had been expecting my arrival for over twenty-six hundred years. Then again, it was also unbelievable that I had a hallowed weapon even older than that supernaturally embedded into my arm, so who was I to judge?

“Is it here?” I asked, everything tensing in me.

Both Edgar and Piotr appeared surprised by the question. “Of course,” Edgar said. “Can’t you feel it?”

My breath exploded out of me as relief nearly weakened my knees. We’d finally found it!

“Ivy’s only recently begun to embrace her abilities, so she’s still learning how to hone them,” Adrian replied.

Piotr still looked doubtful, but Edgar seemed satisfied by that. “It is also much deeper than where we stand.”

“You were the Guardian entrusted with its location?” Piotr asked, sounding very surprised.

Edgar bowed his head. “Now that the awaited day has come, I can at last admit that I was the one chosen among our order.”

“And where is the staff, exactly?” I prompted.

“Beneath the Russegger Chambers,” Edgar replied.

Piotr looked at Edgar as if he’d lost his mind. “You alone out of dozens were entrusted with its location, and you were foresworn never to reveal it to anyone!”

“Except her,” Edgar replied, gesturing to my right hand for emphasis. “As foretold, she bears the mark of the Davidian.”

All this “foretold” stuff was starting to creep me out. Wait until these guys found out that I was here to retrieve the staff but wasn’t going to use it yet. They might believe my lineage made me all that, whereas I knew I wasn’t nearly strong enough to attempt to wield the staff yet. It would be safer for me to play Russian roulette with a half-full cylinder of bullets.

Piotr gave me another skeptical look, then turned back to Edgar. “I will ensure that all the chambers are empty and send the rest of the employees away. Only Guardians should be present for this.”

Adrian began to strip the nearby restaurant tables of their tablecloths, clattering dishes and glasses to the floor. “We need lots of these to wrap it in,” he muttered, and Costa hurried over to help.

Jasmine stayed with me, and I was startled when she came closer and her hand slid into mine. Then I squeezed back, infinitely glad by the wordless gesture of support. She might be mad, worried and highly disapproving of recent events, but she was letting me know that, no matter what, she was there for me.

“So, you’re the one who took the staff from the Milwaukee chapel and left the tablet behind as a clue?” Jasmine asked.

Edgar smiled. “Yes. And my predecessor was the one who journeyed with it from France to its two homes in America.”

“Why move it so much?” I asked, glancing around at the mine. “At the bottom of this place seems pretty safe to me.”

“We do as we’re told,” Edgar replied. “And the Messenger is never wrong. Shortly after it was moved from here to France, the mine flooded, so it would have been damaged had it remained. Then the Messenger told us to move it with the chapel from France to America. Less than twenty years later, Nazis overran France, and among their many cruelties, they were obsessed with stealing religious relics. Then the New York chateau burned in the 1960s and the Messenger told us to take the staff along with the chapel to Wisconsin. Ten years ago, when its responsibility fell to me, I obeyed the Messenger’s instructions to bring it back home and leave the tablet as a clue for you.”

“Who’s this Messenger that tells you what to do?” I asked, suspicion growing along with my anger.