Light the Reign (The Forgotten: Book 3) by Laura R Cole

thoughtfully, rubbing
his chin as though stroking an imaginary beard. “We cannot,
however, just hand over the stone to you. I’m sorry.”
    “Surely there must be some way she can prove
she is worthy of the responsibility?” the Dena’ina leader
suggested.
    The Kanza leader looked sourly at him. “It is
not a question of responsibility. It is simply impossible. The
stone not only controls the chaos in this region so that we are
able to survive the harsh magic, but it also counteracts the
atrocities done to us during the Dark King’s rule.”
    “What do you mean?”
    He took a deep breath, narrowing his eyes
slightly, obviously not happy at having to explain himself to an
outsider. “Many of those mages who had been,” he paused, pursing
his lips, “experimented on by the Dark King’s regime decided to
follow our founder here. Understandably, many were not comfortable
in the company of those who had not also been horribly deformed.
Though over the years we have been able to unravel these changes
from our blood, we cannot undo all the damage. Every one of us here
is still affected by his atrocities even today.”
    Katya looked around, confused. No one she
could see looked horribly disfigured. In fact, they were all fairly
attractive, with their sun-kissed skin and dark features. “You all
look fine to me,” she stated, beginning to feel as though she was
just being given the run-around.
    The Kanza leader smiled. “That is because of
the stone. If it was to be taken from its resting place, the
enchantments that our ancestors placed upon it would break, and we
would revert to our natural unnatural states.”
    It took a moment for Katya to contemplate
that. But of course he meant that the stone was magically stopping
the spells, which had unfortunately become a ‘natural’ part of them
from the experiments, from showing.
    “So you see, Katya, I cannot do this to my
people. It would ruin them. Though I sympathize with your plight
and may not have condoned our involvement had I known the true
purpose, my hands are tied.”
    He didn’t particularly seem sorry to Katya.
“Do you not agree that sterilizing the Dark King’s descendants is
wrong?”
    He did not answer right away. “It is not a
question of agreement, as I said, we are simply unable to help
you.”
    “So you don’t disagree with Kali’s assertion
that the Dark King’s bloodline should be wiped out? And you don’t
care that it has been altered so that instead of sterilizing
people, it will spread the blood-magic affliction?”
    The Kanza leader gave her a hard stare. “It
would seem to be a rather fitting end.”
    “A rather fitting end?” Katya repeated
incredulously. “A rather fitting end to make innocent people turn
into raving blood-thirsty beasts?”
    “It was their own fault that they were
playing around with blood-magic and spoiled the spell. It would
have been harmless.”
    “Harmless? You call taking away their freedom
to have children harmless? Taking away MY choice to have kids or
not because my great-great-great-great,” she didn’t know how many
generations it really was so she just repeated this word until her
anger stopped her, “grandmother might have been raped by the
Dark King!?” She felt Hunter’s restraining hand on her arm and
realized that she had moved forward threateningly. Marak was
squeezing her arm so tightly she thought it might fall asleep for
lack of blood. She forced herself to calm down, taking deep
breaths.
    The man frustratingly persisted. “It didn’t
hurt them directly, and the next generation would be free of the
Dark King.”
    “We are already free of the Dark King,” Katya
said softly, closing her eyes and shaking her head. “You think that
reducing the population in the Lost Lands, as you call them, by
more than three-fourths would have made the world better? How about
now, when it’s that number who will most likely kill the rest
off?”
    The man had no response, but his expression
did