G'vonni Avner
Palatinii Cycle
The Adventure Begins
First published by Brickington Publishing 2020
Copyright © 2020 by G'vonni Avner
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
G'vonni Avner asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
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Contents
Acknowledgement
Tag, You’re It
1. A Visit from the Past
2. The Queen’s Plan
3. Water, Pie, and a Whole New World
4. Graduation Day
5. Cyrus Padrigian
6. The Jungle of Eden
7. The Father of Channeler Serena
8. Of Dark Deeds and Fairy Tales
9. Voices of the Shrine
10. The Treasure Down Below
11. A Memory Unforgotten
12. The Pillars of Dusk
13. On the Edge of the Equire Plains
14. The Queen Rising
15. The Crossing
16. The Fountain of Chance
17. The Jade
18. Dawn Ascending
19. The City of Oasi
20. A Meeting with the Council
21. The Dolphin of Alaysia
22. Attack on Oasi
23. The Banishment
24. The Shadow of the Universe
Bonus Chapter
Are You a Writer?
Acknowledgement
To all those in Florida who helped me get through the first part of writing this book. You know who you are.
Tag, You’re It
It was early July, meaning summer had just started. The sky was partially cloudy, but the sun had dodged the clouds and was shining magnificently down on the street. The elementary school of Silverlake had ended three days ago.
The street was long and curved out of sight. It was relatively quiet with only the occasional car passing by. The houses were lined in a row, one upon another, each complete with a small front yard.
It was one of those neighborhoods in which every child would grow up alongside each other until the day came when it was time for them to lead their own lives. The once young neighborhood, full of new parents, would turn into a home of the elderly.
A small group of children was playing tag in the streets. Each of them was around the age of seven. Two of them were hiding behind a parked car. The eldest had dark features with an especially noticeable tan that would no doubt get darker as she grew up. The younger had angelic features of both pale skin and hair. She was in fits of silent laughter as she and her friend watched a young boy who was walking on the other side of the street, looking for them. Her name was Katie Dimes.
Katie’s eyes were on her friend, Sabrina, when she whispered, “Do you think he’ll ever find us?” Her curls were reflecting the sunlight, shimmering as the wind passed gently through it.
“I don’t know,” replied Sabrina, a subtle contemptuous look on her face. “He probably won’t ever find us. He’s stupid.” Her brown eyes narrowed as she watched Tyson search under the cars on the other side of the street.
“He isn’t stupid,” Katie said indignantly.
“Whatever you say, Katie. He’s your friend, not mine,” Sabrina replied. “I never liked him. I don’t know why you like him. We are much smarter and stronger.” Katie didn’t reply.
Tyson Everties had pinstraight brown hair that was long enough to obscure his vision if he didn’t purposely flip it away from his face. He held his hair back from his face as he looked under another car and spotted two pairs of feet on the other side of the street. Having found his target, Tyson smiled and snuck behind some larger cars.
Sabrina returned her gaze to Tyson. Her eyes widened when she noticed that Tyson’s feet were no longer to visible.
“Where did he go?” she asked in a hushed tone.
There were a few seconds of breathless suspense before – “Tag, you’re it!”
Tyson had successfully snuck up on the two girls and caught them by surprise. The sound of their playful laughter could be heard for a moment until it was replaced by Sabrina’s scream.
“What’s wrong, Sabrina?” Katie asked. “It’s a game! Now it’s your turn to find us!” She said with a playful smile. Her smile quickly faded when she saw Sabrina’s face glow red.
“No, I won’t play if I’m it!” Sabrina shouted. A few cars drove by, unaware of the three children.
“But that’s the point! You hide and if you get tagged, it’s your turn, and you have to tag someone else,” Katie explained, her face now showing signs of annoyance. “That’s how we’ve always played!”
“I won’t!” Sabrina said with such a tone of authority that she seemed to believe herself a queen, though others would call her a brat. In Sabrina’s world, she was in command, and she always got what she wanted.
“But you have to!” yelled Katie.
“No, Katie, I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do,” Sabrina was shaking with rage. She tried to control herself, but with little success. Tyson was standing behind Katie, who was kneeling in front of Sabrina.
There was a slight breeze. Sabrina’s eyes were slowly turning red, and her hair was turning darker and darker by the second until it looked jet-black.
“Sabrina, your hair!” shrieked Katie as she pointed at it. Sabrina’s eyes began to lose their brown color, growing redder and redder until she more resembled a demon or a vampire than a second-grader.
“Your eyes!” shouted Tyson as he too pointed at Sabrina. The breeze grew stronger, and the sun hid behind clouds, enveloping the street in shade. The temperature had dropped about ten degrees.
Then, without warning, Sabrina lunged at Katie, throwing her to the ground. Her nails had grown three inches and she thrashed them about, scratching every part of Katie that she could find. The cuts, though not deep, began to bleed. The green nail polish that had looked vibrant and fun on Sabrina’s nails just that morning now looked eerie and venomous. Katie’s eyes filled with tears as she screamed at the top of her lungs.
“Stop!” shouted Tyson. His voice shook with fear and confusion. Sabrina ignored him. All her concentration was on Katie. In that moment, she hated Katie with all of her being. She wanted her dead. She didn’t know where this impulse had come from. All she knew was that if Katie wasn’t around, things would be much easier.
After a second of thought, Tyson decided that he would help by throwing himself on top of Sabrina to knock her down. He never made it. Tyson was midair when Sabrina took a swipe at him. She hit him across the face and he slammed to the floor, unconscious. There were three bloody gashes across his left cheek.
Sabrina glanced down briefly at Tyson with malice in her eyes, before returning her attention to Katie. Katie was still conscious. She wasn’t screaming anymore but silent tears were still pouring down her face and she was holding back her sobs.
“Why are you hurting me?” Katie asked. Her voice was relatively steady through the
pain and fear. “We’re your friends.”
Sabrina raised her hand behind her, ready to make a final blow. “No, you’re not,” she said, surprising herself more than Katie. Sabrina looked at her hand, then down at Katie. Her eyes widened with fear when she saw what she had been doing. Sabrina’s eyes faded back to their normal color. She released Katie from her grasp, lowered her other hand and ran away. When Katie looked up, Sabrina was gone.
Katie rolled over to her side and coughed up blood. She let out a moan of agony and finally began to sob.
At that moment, a stranger approached. “What happened?” asked the older man. He and an orange-haired woman ran towards Katie and helped to get her up. She had numerous scratches across her pale face and her flower shirt was torn to shreds.
A tan SUV drove up to them and skidded to a stop. The door burst open and a man leapt out and ran towards them. “Hey! Get away from my daughter!” He was tall, powerfully built and had brown, tightly curled hair. “What the hell did you do to her?” He grabbed the stranger by the shirt, pulled him close to his face and then tossed him back onto the ground.
“We didn’t do anything, we swear!” the man answered quickly, getting up and putting his hands in the air in surrender. Katie’s father clenched his jaw, considered punching the man, but then thought better of it. He exhaled through his nose to calm himself while the stranger spoke again. “We saw this little girl, your daughter, being attacked and we ran to help. Some bully or something. She was around the same age as these two.”
The stranger finally noticed Tyson’s injuries and let out a gasp. “Oh, wow.” Katie’s father also hadn’t noticed Tyson until now.
“Your daughter was on the ground when we arrived. Another girl with dark hair was pinning her down. We were just taking a walk through the neighborhood,” the woman explained, eyeing Katie’s father determinedly. Katie was sitting on the ground, silent, running her hand through Tyson’s hair.
“Thank you for your help, but I’ll take it from here,” Katie’s father said. He hurriedly explained to the couple that Tyson was a friend of his daughter’s and that he’d get them both help with their injuries. The couple looked at Katie and hesitated for a moment before leaving the strange scene and continuing with their walk.
“It was Sabrina,” Katie said weakly. Katie’s eyelids started to droop, and before long she fell to the ground, unconscious. John bent down to pick up his daughter and noticed the scratches across her face. Her skin was slowly turning purple. He then looked over at Tyson, who was also turning purple, and much faster than Katie was. John Dimes picked up his daughter in one arm and Tyson in the other and jogged as quickly as he could manage back to his house.
The Dimes family lived in a beautiful white house. One could describe it as idyllic. The front yard had vibrant green grass and white gravel that marked the driveway.
John hurried up the stepping-stone pathway that led from the street to their front door and shouted, “Natasha!” He yelled again as he kicked the front door open. “Natasha!” He carried Katie and Tyson to the living room and laid them on the couch.
John’s wife, Natasha, came running in. Natasha Dimes had pin-straight blonde hair that rivaled even her daughter’s hair color. Her perfect smile had always been able to dissipate any sadness, though it was markedly absent now.
“What is it?” she asked her husband as she frantically rushed towards her daughter.
“They were attacked by Sabrina,” he said. “And they’ve been poisoned. I don’t know how much time they have.”
Natasha nodded and said, “Bring them to the bathtub. I’ll take it from there.” She then hurried towards the bathroom and started to fill the tub with warm water.
One of the many reasons that John loved his wife was that she worked so well under pressure and never asked questions at the wrong time. Relieved to have her help, John carried the children to the bathroom and placed them both in the tub.
Natasha placed her hand on Tyson’s face and then Katie’s. “He’s much worse than she is,” she determined. “But I think he’ll be fine. I can get the poison out and heal him. Katie will also be fine, her body is fighting the poison well.”
John let out a sigh of relief, kissed his wife on the top of her head and murmured, “Thank you.” He soon left the bathroom so that his wife could work in peace. He waited in the living room, pacing back and forth and eventually resorted to sitting on the couch with his head in his hands. Twenty minutes later, Natasha came back in.
“Done,” she said. “They’re sleeping now. The poison has drained from their bodies, and they won’t feel its effects.”
John sucked in a breath for a moment and then released it. “Thank you,” he said. “I don’t know how this happened. I don’t know how I missed it.”
Natasha came over and sat next to him.
“We knew that this day would come,” she said. “And we’ve done everything we can to protect our daughter and ourselves from the threat. But the forces that we must face are almost inevitable.”
“Yes, I knew this would happen, but so soon?” John asked and looked up at his wife in despair. “I hoped that she would be an adult before we would have to go back.”
“And maybe that’s still possible,” Natasha replied. “This was one attack and from a child at that.” Natasha looked at her husband. He looked back with a worried face, still hunched over in his position on the couch.
“You don’t think Sabrina was hers, do you?” Natasha asked.
“She must be,” John replied. “You saw the condition Katie and Tyson were in. This wasn’t normal. It must have started.”
“Maybe, but we can’t know for sure,” Natasha reassured.
1
A Visit from the Past
About ten years had passed since the incident with Sabrina. Both Katie and Tyson’s families had moved to New Jersey to chase work opportunities. Tyson’s father had passed away shortly after the move, right before Katie and Tyson started high school. As for Sabrina, after she left, no one remembered her. She had completely left their lives as if she had never existed.
Katie and Tyson’s very last class of their very last day of senior year had ended, and they were walking down the hall, on their way to freedom. Students lined the hallways, standing and chatting away as they emptied their lockers, realizing how much junk they had stashed away over the years. Their graduation was scheduled for the following evening in the school auditorium.
“So, this is it. Our last year, Tyson. Our last day. After tomorrow we won’t have to deal with any of this,” said Katie, happily as they walked down the front steps of the school and into the parking lot. “It’ll be weird though, not going to school every day, don’t you think?”
“Yeah,” agreed Tyson. “It’s like we’re adults or something. Who would have guessed? After tomorrow’s graduation, our lives are in our own hands. What a thought.”
Before Katie could respond to Tyson’s sarcastic reply, they heard a voice come up from behind them.
“What are you two lovebirds doing?” Tyson and Katie’s friend, Emily, had caught up to them, carrying a backpack stuffed with books and awkwardly holding another four in her arms. She had pushed through a crowd of unaware girls who were talking excitedly in the middle of the parking lot.
“We’re just friends,” Katie informed Emily, who very well knew that. Emily had met Tyson and Katie on their first day of high school and the three had been close friends ever since. Emily’s black hair had three blue streaks that shot through it. She dyed it regularly to keep its vibrancy. Her dark hair accented her skin tone, which had a tan to it.
“Enough talk about us,” Katie said excitedly. “I heard that you and Vince might have something going on!”
Emily sighed. “Been there, done that, and so over it now,” she replied. “The guy was a jerk. He didn’t want to know me, you know? He wanted to, you know, know me.”
“Which he probably did,” Tyson replied. “My name is Emily Orchard a
nd if you don’t want to know me up here,” he pointed to his head, “Then you don’t get to know me down here.”
“Shut up,” Emily said, attempting to hit Tyson in the arm but barely grazing his shirt. She laughed though, they all did.
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