The Shadow Beasts: The Sunclaire Chronicles

by Eleanor M. Byrne

  “Mommy!”

  Rayna stands in the middle of the room crying. Her parents are nowhere to be seen; she is all alone. Someone crashes into her, causing her to fall to the ground. Hot pain shoots through her knees as they scrape the ground.

  Wailing, she tries to call for them again. “Mommy! Daddy!”

  Something moves through the smoke, heading toward her. As the person approaches, Rayna can see the glittering sword in his hand. He raises it upward, preparing to strike. Before he has time to land a blow, another shape bursts out of the smoke, crashing into the man. The attacker draws a blade and slashes him. He crumples to the ground, lifeless. Rayna’s savior picks her up and carries her off into the smoke.

  Rayna looks and sees her protector’s face now. “Windy!” she shouts.

  “Shhhh.”

  Wind Blade glances around a corner at the end of the room. The coast is clear. It is time to move. They run down the hallways, getting as far away from the fighting as possible. Rayna clings to Wind Blade tightly. Finally reaching the library, Wind Blade flings open the doors. The clamor of shouting voices can be heard nearby, getting louder.

  “Find the Princess!”

  “Find the girl!”

  Wind Blade puts down Rayna on the stone floor of the library and stares at her. “We are going to play a game, okay?”

  The little girl nods happily. She is scared, but maybe this whole thing is part of a game. She loves to play, especially with Windy. She is really funny during their games.

  “We are going to play hide and seek. We both need to be quiet.”

  Not waiting for Rayna to reply, Wind Blade drags her to the back of the library. She pulls on a brick that is just barely jutting out of the wall. A narrow doorway opens before them. Putting a finger to her lips, with her other arm she pushes Rayna into the passageway. She follows close behind. Rayna hears the door slide shut behind her, as the soldiers begin to split the Library doors with their axes.

  “Go down these stairs,” Windy whispers to Rayna. “And remember, we are playing the quiet game.”

  The stairway spirals downward into darkness. Rayna slips on a step and Windy catches her. Upon reaching the bottom of the stairs, Windy pushes against a wall, moving it to reveal another passage. Quickly, she closes the entrance behind them.

  “You are doing great, Rayna!”

  Stumbling through the tunnel, Rayna can just make out a faint light. Beside her, Windy picks up the pace, causing Rayna to run after her. Bright rays of sun briefly blind her as Windy moves aside a slab of stone. Looking behind Windy, outside, she can see the crumpled walls of her home, smoke billowing from where it once stood. Rayna cannot understand what is happening.

  “We are also going to play another game,” Windy told her.

  Nodding her head slowly, Rayna is now afraid of what will happen to them. Windy smiles at her and rustles Rayna’s hair.

  “You are so brave. We are going to play pretend house. I will be Aunty May and you are Emily Grey, got that?”

  Emily found herself lying on the floor. Fortune stood over her. Fortune handed her a warm cup, and when Emily tasted it, the liquid was bitter. Forcing herself to finish, she gave the cup back to Fortune.

  “What was that? All those images...”. She couldn’t wrap her mind around what she had seen. The last part had terrified her.

  “That was me,” she breathed out as she realized the truth. “My parents are really dead and gone, and Wind Blade saved my life. But who were those other people?”

  Fortune sat down at one of the chairs. “You should sit, child. This will take a while.”

  She felt like she couldn’t sit. All she wanted to do was scream, cry, and yell at the world. So many emotions were going through her at this moment. Shaking, she sat down and fixed her eyes on the ground, ready to listen.

  “As you probably have guessed, you are not from that other world. You were born here.”

  “But… I don’t understand. Why did they call me a princess? There are no princesses in the royal family of Sunclaire.” Emily paused a moment. “Not that I know much about it. But I have been reading.”

  The woman smiled at her. “Your family had their own small kingdom. Not many people knew about it beyond its boundaries. It was called the Land of the Heralds.”

  “That's an interesting name.”

  Laughing, the woman said, “Yes, I know. But there is a reason for it. Legends claim that a goddess came down from the heavens and blessed the land and blessed a certain family there. That family was yours.”

  Fortune grew serious. “It is said that your family possesses powers that equal those of a god’s. However, when people from this dimension went looking for the kingdom, it could never be found. It remained a legend.”

  “But...people did find it! They sacked it and killed my parents. I saw it! I remember now!”

  “That’s because someone from your kingdom gave away the location and let the intruders in.”

  Fortune was still.

  “No one has ever discovered who did those terrible things, who destroyed the Land of the Heralds.”

  “Strange,” Fortune went on. ”I wouldn’t be surprised if those people are still around...”

  “Why are you telling me this?” A thought suddenly occurred to Emily. “You're going to tell the royal family, right? And they will never let me live. If you are correct and if people find out, they will imprison me. They will try to get rid of me.”

  People had already tried to kill her when she was a young child. It would be no different now.

  “They will never know,” said Fortune.

  Slowly, it became clear to Emily.

  “That’s why they brought you! You are a Searcher. It’s your job to understand the mysteries of life, and how these worlds work. They sent you here because they wanted to find out my origins. Don’t you have to tell them now?”

  Fortune looked at Emily and spoke slowly.

  “I am not a servant of the prince or the royal family. I am part of an order that studies science and magic. We can be used as advisors, but we must never take sides when it comes to destiny. They are not meant to know who you are yet. That time has not come.”

  Emily felt the panic begin to ease.

  “Well, no,” said Fortune. “Not for the time being. I will tell them when the time is right.”

  “Oh...So I see you know what I was going to ask.”

  Fortune smiled slightly at her.

  Emily was quiet. She asked, “What is a Searcher? Do all of you have the ability to read minds?”

  Fortune shook her head. “Only I have that gift. As I mentioned before, we study the world. We write about our experiences, and about experiments that we conduct, and our philosophy.”

  The fire burned low, the light around them dying. Everything looked different from Emily. She couldn’t explain it, not even to herself, but for some reason, she was changed. Her life had taken a drastic turn and she was not fighting it, something she always found herself doing. As impossible as it seemed, it just was the way it was. Railing against it was useless. There was nothing she could do. She must learn to accept whatever came her way in this new future.

  “What do you recommend that I do? I am alone in this world, with people who view me as a mystery, someone to be feared.”

  Fortune looked thoughtful for a moment, then she smiled. “You have Windy and Kator here. You are not alone.”

  Rising quickly from the chair, Emily knocked it over. “I know what I have to do,” she said. “I can’t do this without them.”

  She rushed to the door and flung it open. “Thank you for all your help,” she shouted at Fortune before she raced down the stairs.

  First, she needed to escape this place. Next, she had to find her friends and her homeland. Emily would have to fight. She now realized that Prince Declan would never change his mind about Kator. He was bent on revenge for his father’s death.

  She realized at that moment that she had as much right as
anyone to avenge her parents’ death. Weren’t their lives unfairly cut short? But she knew she was not going to follow him down that dark path. She had decided that she was going to fight if she had to, but not alone.

  Turning a corner in the hallway, she collided into Clover.

  “So how was the visit with The Searcher?”

  “Sorry, I really have to go.”

  Dashing past Clover, she could see a look of shock cross her face. Emily felt bad for not telling about what had happened, but Clover served the prince. Even though she considered her a kind of friend, she couldn’t take the risk. During her stay here, she had learned that loyalty to the royal family was everything.

  Upon reaching her room, she noticed a long package on her bed. Emily unfolded the wrapping and found herself holding a pike. It was similar to the one that she had practiced with at the training ground. The metal looked different, with a smooth shiny blade and a silver edging. It took her breath away with its elegance.

  A note was attached to the package that read: Since you really seemed to work well with the training pike, I had this made especially for you. Warmth filled her as she scanned the carefully printed words on the paper. Lionel wrote this. The feeling was short-lived as she remembered that she needed to leave, to take off without telling him, too. And it probably would end with them chasing after her as a fugitive. Emily didn’t like to admit it, but she was going to miss these solid walls and the predictable routine of this place.

  Sure, the prince was a little odd and Clover was still warming up to her, but this was the only place where she felt treated as an equal. And Lionel had taught her so much about defending herself.

  Emily spoke aloud to herself, with conviction. “It has to be like this. Wind Blade and Kator will be hurt if we stay in this kingdom. I have to find the City of the Heralds, my home.”

  It felt strange to have those words on her lips: my home.

  The weapon lay on her bed shining in the sunlight. Deep in thought, she rapidly paged through the ideas in her head for escape. She knew that she couldn’t make a break for it yet. She needed time, time to plan. To be able to survive on her own she would need provisions. Until then she would train with Lionel and figure out a way to save food from her meals.

  With her eyes closed, she imagined the faces of James and Wind Blade. “Wait for me”, she pleaded. “I will get out of this place soon, I promise.”

  Chapter 10

  Emily dodged smoothly out of the way as Lionel brought his sword down. The blade missed her arm by a hair. A deep groove was cut into the soil. She let out a big sigh of relief. If she had moved half a second later, she would have been in big trouble. But she hadn’t. Her reflexes were quick and becoming more and more honed as she trained.

  She aimed a heavy blow at Lionel’s thigh. Lionel barely managed to block it and seeing him distracted, Emily aimed a blow at his chest, knocking him off balance. She swung her blade at his neck but stopped centimeters from his sweating skin. Lionel dropped his blade and put his hands up in defeat.

  “Yikes, you had me.”

  She lowered her blade, smiling. “That's because I have a good teacher.”

  Lionel laughed heartily. “You also have natural talent. In just a few short weeks you have really improved. I would say that you’re an advanced beginner at this point.” He bent to pick up his weapon. “But I have to ask: What made you want to continue such strenuous training?”

  “Oh, you know, the usual. I should know how to defend myself, right?” Emily gave him her most convincing smile.

  “You should try fighting me,” a familiar voice said from nearby.

  Emily spotted Clover who stood a short distance off to the side. She wondered how long the bodyguard had been watching them.

  “Doesn’t the prince need you today?” Emily said.

  Clover took out a blade, spinning it into the air and then catching the handle easily. “Nah, he told me to take a day off.” She grinned. “You up for a little sparring?”

  Emily shrugged. She wouldn’t mind fighting Clover. It would help her become aware of any of her weaknesses. If she escaped and Clover was there, she would know how to defeat her. As Lionel said, any practice could only make her better.

  Before Emily could go into a fighting stance, she was sent tumbling backward by a force like a sledge hammer. It burned her, like a hot blast of flames. Her breath was knocked out of her. As she was getting to her feet, she noticed that Clover stood over her, holding a group of cards fanned out in her hand.

  “This is your ...ability? Cards?” Emily coughed. “Do you, like, do card tricks or something?”

  She couldn’t help smirking, even with her insides feeling as if they were melting.

  Her opponent didn’t reply. Clover grabbed a card and flung it in front of her. Emily's eyes widened as a ball of lightning shot towards her. She threw herself to the ground and watched in awe as the tall wooden rack of spears behind her exploded from the impact. Fire consumed what was left.

  “What the heck was that?” she yelled at Clover. “Use a proper weapon!”

  Clover bore a smug look on her face. “This is my weapon and it is the one that I am using currently. You won’t survive if you keep running away. Come at me!”

  Clenching her teeth, she grabbed her pike from the ground and lunged at Clover. Her blade was blocked by a glowing shield. In Clover’s hand was a card that had a symbol of a shield.

  “I don’t just specialize in attack cards. I do have defensive ones, too.”

  “That is not cool!” hissed Emily.

  Emily dropped low to the ground and swung her pike at her rival’s legs. To her surprise, Clover easily dove over it with a flourish and rolled to the ground. Great. So Clover also knew not only how to physically defend herself, but do so with unpredictable acrobatic stunts. This was going to be much harder than Emily thought.

  Before she had time to avoid Clover, Emily was hit with another sharp blast. She attempted to use her pike to block the attack. It partially worked and she was pushed back, mostly unharmed.

  Twirling the pike in front her, she deflected the next attack. In the background, she heard Lionel call out support to her.

  “That’s the way to use your weapon! You're doing a great job!”

  An idea came to her. It might just work against Clover. Clover was talented, but there was a lag since she had to go through her cards to pick an attack or choose a defensive one.

  She bolted toward Clover who was in the midst of sending another attack card toward her. Dodging it, Emily faked a strike at Clover who put up a shield to block her attack. Rolling under the shield she got behind her. Everything was coming together. She brought her blade to Clover's neck.

  “Give up? I’ve got you.”

  The blade lightly touched Clover’s neck. For a moment Emily thought that Clover was going to give up. However, she was not putting up her hands as Lionel had.

  “No, you don’t.” Clover laughed. “And you should probably look down.”

  Emily focused on her attacker’s left hand and she froze. A card. Before she could react, a large bolt of lightning shot down from the sky and struck her. She found herself on the ground with Clover standing next to her.

  “What the heck was that?” she moaned as she tried to get up. “That was powerful.”

  “You should always disarm your enemy, right?” Clover smiled. “In this case, you failed to do so. ”

  Emily took the hand that Clover offered to her. She brushed off her pants and sleeves.

  “I admit that you survived longer than I expected. Not bad.” Clover started to walk towards the edge of the field.

  “Thanks, I guess,” muttered Emily.

  Lionel walked over to her with an amused look. “Well, that went well. You almost got the drop on her.” He patted her on the shoulder. “A few more years of training and maybe you will be able to defeat her.”

  “Hey, can I ask a few questions? “Emily continued to stretch her arms and her
legs, the adrenaline receding from her muscles.

  “What is the prince’s ability, Lionel? He is from the House of Shadows, so it has to do with shadows. Whenever I see him, that’s what I associate him with.”

  Emily turned and watched Clover as the bodyguard stood watching and evaluating the other trainees as they practiced their moves on a nearby field.

  “Ah, yes,” Lionel said. “It works with his personality, doesn’t it? His family does have the gift to control shadows, but Prince Declan is something apart. His mother is a direct descendant of the last legitimate king and his father was from a noble family.”