Secret Keeper (My Myth Trilogy - Book 2): Young Adult Fantasy Novel

by Jane Alvey Harris

  “Guys. Please. Let me just sit down for two minutes,” I beg after an hour of punching and kicking, dodging and blocking their weaves. “It’s not like you need to master this all in one day. And I’m fighting all four of you…I need to catch my breath!”

  “Aw, don’t stop now, Ems! I’ve almost got it,” Twist pleads. “Just a couple more times, please?”

  We all bust up laughing, caught off guard at the absurdity of Twist begging.

  “You sound like a whiny five year-old,” Minali snorts.

  Seizing the momentary reprieve, I plop down on the beach next to my driftwood log and curl up in a little ball like a hedgehog. The sky has grown inky and chill while we’ve been practicing. The girls cluster around me.

  “We can definitely use distraction to attack both elves and maidens, but what about defense? Blocking will only work against maidens.” Chloe sits on her hands, practicing her fire-lighting skills with no finger wiggling as the moon gazes down on her distorted reflection in the ocean.

  “Chloe’s right,” Teagan says. “We have to See a weave to block it, and you’re the only one who can See what elves do with Keen, Emma, because the rest of us don’t have a Mind’s Eye. We could cut them off from their medallions, but that would only work if they’re babies, because it’s just their focal point when they’re first learning how to Channel.”

  “Does it say anything about blocking in The Art of Nonsense?” Minali asks.

  “Nope.” Chloe shakes her head seriously. “As far as I can tell there’s next to nothing about Keen or Channeling in the book at all, except for a really long and extremely boring section on the binding power of Runes.” She rolls her eyes. “The rest is all about physical combat, weapons, discipline, and dumb-old duty and obligation.”

  “I guess that means you’re the only one who could block an elf, Emma,” Teagan says. “You’re the only one with a Mind’s Eye.”

  “I don’t think so,” I respond slowly, scootching closer to the flames Chloe coaxes higher in the fire pit. I’ve been turning the same question over in my mind. “We just need to think outside the box. When I was in the Third Realm, Drake did something I think would work, and all of us can do it. He wasn’t trying to block me, though.”

  “What was he doing?” Teagan asks, moving my hair off my back and rubbing her magic hands on a spot on my neck I didn’t even know was sore.

  “It was when Xander came to get me,” I say slowly. “She was speeding toward me and suddenly just fell out of the sky…”

  Twist doesn’t blink. “How?”

  “He made a wall.” My voice is quiet, strained. I miss my friend so much it aches, but it can’t be anything close to her twin sister’s pain. I make myself hold Twist’s gaze steadily and continue. “I was just thinking: blocking doesn’t have to be about cutting off an elf or maiden from Keen or Blaze. A wall would work just as well…”

  “Show me,” Twist demands.

  I sit up. In the flickering firelight she throws a punch of Intention at my head from her second chakra. It travels within a foot of my face before smacking up against the solid wall of Blaze I’ve woven.

  She weaves another hit, sending it around the side of the wall this time, but I’m ahead of her, curving the wall to protect my sides.

  Twist vaults to her feet. “Get up,” she insists, excited. “I mean will you get up, please, Ems? I want to try something. It’ll only take a sec.”

  I groan in protest, my body begging to rest. But I stand, borrowing strength from Twist’s enthusiasm.

  “Hit me,” Twist says, before I have a chance to brush the sand from my bum.

  I launch a wicked undercut straight at her gut, but she’s ready. The weave unravels several feet short. I sling three more simultaneously, only to find myself in a tightly constructed trap of Intention.

  Wtf…? I stare at her stupidly. She’s caged me.

  Instead of making a 2D wall halfway between us, she’s dropped a 3D cube around me.

  “Lit.” Teagan grins.

  “Excellent work, Twist!” I praise.

  “We can use this offensively and defensively against elves.” Twist vibrates with enthusiasm. “Even if we can’t See what they’re doing, shielding ourselves and caging them will give us a huge advantage. If we shield ourselves and cage them, they’d have to punch through two barriers to get at us!”

  “Guys.” I speak before my idea is fully formulated. “What if we’ve been thinking about this all wrong?”

  “What do you mean?” Chloe asks.

  “We’re trying to think like an elf and then like a maiden, right? But what if elves and maidens don’t actually think all that differently? Listen. Caging would work just as well against maidens as it would against elves. It would actually be easier, because you could block any flow from any location without having to wait to See where it’s coming from. I think we should focus on ways that elves and maidens are the same. Yeah, we can study elves’ tactical maneuvers and formations. We can read about Runes and binding and flanking. We can expose ourselves to extreme temperatures, and practice discipline, and carve our own bow and arrows. All of that’s smart. But if we let our imaginations go crazy, I bet we can come up with some really amazing ways to use Intention as a team that will help us defeat anyone, elf or maiden.”

  They stare at me. I can almost hear the cogs in their minds turning.

  Twist is the first to speak. “One of us could hold a shield, one a cage, and the rest of us could attack with distraction…”

  “Unless there are too many of them,” Minali reasons. “One of us couldn’t cage the entire Honor Guard or First Rank.”

  “Don’t focus on limits,” I urge to Minali. “Think of ways around them.”

  “What do you mean?” Minali crinkles her brow.

  “Channel a wall as big as you can,” I say, envisioning it all.

  She concentrates, weaving a wall ten feet across and ten feet high out in front of her, no hands.

  “Impressive,” I say. “That looks pretty solid. Can you corner both ends? Just a couple feet.”

  She stretches either end back a couple feet. She now holds a ten-foot wall with the beginnings of a cage.

  “How long could you hold it?” I ask.

  “Probably quite awhile.”

  “But not if she were being attacked,” Chloe intervenes. “It would slow them down, but a maiden would figure out pretty quick she just needed to weave around the sides of the wall.”

  “Oh ye of little faith.” Shaking my head, I weave my own wall, anchoring it to Minali’s so my curved sides attach to hers seamlessly.

  “Holy SHIT.” Twist’s smile almost splits her face. “Now that’s a huge-ass cage.”

  “When I say we can think of ways to work as a team, I don’t necessarily mean each of us doing one specific job at the same time. I’m talking about formations, ladies.”

  “We are going to kick so much ass,” Teagan exclaims.

  “I almost want them to come looking for us,” Minali seconds.

  “Well, we’ve got a lot of work to do first,” I say with a sigh.

  “Command us, Lady Alvey,” Twist says, her eyes soulful on mine. There’s no mocking in her voice. “We are your Shield Maidens.”

  A warm thrill of purpose shivers through me. My Shield Maidens. It sounds good, like they really think I have something worthwhile to teach them. And maybe it’s silly, but I’m starting to agree.

  “It’s been a long day,” I say, stretching my arms over my head. My body aches everywhere. “We need sleep. But as you’re dozing off, I want you to come up with ideas for attacking and defending as a team. The crazier the plan, the better. Tomorrow, we’ll try them all.”

  We hug and say goodnight. A soft dusting of kisses on cheeks. We’re too tired to make much of a fuss. I climb into my sleeping bag. As I’m drifting between wake and sleep, I hear Minali whisper to Chloe: “The cage is a great idea, but do you know what would be even better? Molding Intention to their bodi
es. That way you aren’t giving them something to punch through…the weave would be like a glove, stitched to them…”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  In this dream my maidens and I are inseparable. Hovering outside my body a meter above the ground I watch us train through mild late summer days sheltered in our secret cove. We become wilder and more fluid moment by moment. There is no urgency, no hurry. There is no Time, actually. We simply revel in our power, discovering new abilities, inventing and embellishing upon our Shield Maiden protocol. Some nights we sleep on the sand under the stars, on others we slip below the peaceful surface of the sweet water stream, lulled to slumber by the current’s hypnotic song, only our noses and mouths breaching the liquid surface.

  We Channel while the sun is high overhead, handling Blaze until it’s an extension of our minds, a mental limb. Again and again we link in formations of attack and defense, joining and breaking apart so seamlessly it’s impossible to tell where one of us ends and the next begins.

  When we stumble, exhausted from hours of rigorous drills, we pause to surf and play like otters on top the ocean waves, floating with sea lions, diving with dolphins.

  Tonight, long after the sun has set and the Milky Way has sifted the silent sand to number and count her grains, we race on restless legs through the forest like wind in the trees. We investigate a pack of wolves keeping their dark predatory vigil, matching our pace effortlessly to theirs as they stalk, their sharp muzzles wary, their pointed ears alert.

  While my sisters scout, I meld my Mind’s Eye to the alpha female, roaming with her far and wide across the cliff’s knife-edge crags without leaving so much as a shadow. As one we rollick in the coastal breeze riffling through our shaggy fur.

  Nimble, we descend the bluff, confident there is no equal to our Keen vision or the dominant violence of our jaw. We do not doubt our pack’s unswerving loyalty. They will alert us of any coming evil.

  Head high, ears swiveling forward, we glide through a crevice in the cliff…

  …behind us a heavy glass door slams shut without warning.

  I yelp in surprise. Lunging up on my hind legs, the hackles of my wind-roughed scruff rise as a bailiff leads Dad into the courtroom. Jacob, Aidan, and Claire follow a short step behind.

  The whiskers around my muzzle bristle. A low snarl growls from my chest.

  This isn’t happening, I think. I’m an alpha, exploring the cliff in my wolf-dream…

  Except, I’m not.

  I’m washed and scrubbed. Furless. Wingless. Dressed in a simple church dress and long-sleeved gray wool cardigan with black ballerina flats on my feet. A sharp-faced woman in a business suit ushers me to my seat, taking the chair next to me.

  We sit before the judge behind the table labeled ‘Prosecution’, but every part of me is ready to defend myself, my Truth.

  Dad and his legal team congregate across a small aisle to the right. Dad winks at me. Claire, Aidan, and Jacob line up in a neat little row behind him. They wink at me, too.

  But it’s not them. Or rather, it’s them, but they’re under some kind of spell or something. Their eyes are vacant as plastic dolls’.

  Silver collars attached to chains encircle each of my siblings’ necks. A gleaming icy spike of Keen pierces the center metal link of their twined leashes, tethering them to the table next to Dad’s elegant hand. He’s woven a binding flow, tying it off with the rune, Isa: .

  I stare in astonishment. I didn’t know such a thing was possible: to set a flow and bind it so it holds without having to maintain it.

  Dad’s lead counsel turns to sneer at me over his shoulder. A wide bloodless gash rips across his gnarled-putrid face. Not the face of a human; the face of a crimbal. Every member of the defense team is a goblin monster.

  “Objection,” I cry, jumping to my feet. “This isn’t real. This is my subconscious communicating fear. This is only a nightmare!”

  “Lady Alvey will take her seat and not speak until spoken to, or she will find herself in contempt of court.” Behind her lofty podium the judge frowns at me, her deep voice charred and scratchy. The bronze name plaque below her reads: Judge Dybbuk.

  The defense team leers from under ridiculous powdered wigs, delighted by the humiliation I’m being dealt. They high-five each other, then take turns slapping a hearty congratulations on Dad’s back as he sits there with his perfect gelled hair and his collar unbuttoned at his throat. He smiles, earnest, his cornflower eyes alight with courage, like he’s been through so much and finally his day of justice has arrived.

  “Wake up, Emily,” I say out loud to myself. “You’re in charge of your own dreams.”

  The jurors pound the wooden railing as though to prove me wrong. They rip off their human disguises, revealing grotesque crimbal bodies beneath, gray and shriveled. “She thinks she’s dreaming,” they wheeze, coughing sickly green up phlegm in fits of diabolical laughter. “She thinks she’s in charge here!”

  “Lady Alvey,” Judge Dybbuk warns, her voice guttural and throaty, like she’s smoked a carton cigarettes. “Take. Your. SEAT.” A dirty, yellowed claw emerges from the sleeve of her robe to grip her gavel. “The court of the Third Realm will come to order!”

  My heart slams against my ribcage, black spots swim in front of my eyes. “Objection,” I yell again. “I destroyed the Third Realm. It no longer exists!”

  “Objection overruled.” Judge Dybbuk slams the gavel—an oversized mace—against the strike plate on her desk once…Twice…Three times. The sound of impact is weirdly amplified, ripping through my ears like metal twisting to scrap beneath a wrecking ball. I grab my head in agony.

  “This is not your Third Realm, Young Lady,” the judge sneers.

  What does she mean my Third Realm?

  “No,” I shout, over the ringing in my ears. “You aren’t real. This is a dream!” I clamp my eyes shut. “I will wake up on the beach in the First Realm in Three…two…one…”

  “Enough!” Dybbuk screams. Spittle foams from her mouth as she slaps both cankerous claws down flat on the podium. “Bailiff, bind her!”

  The bailiff lurches at me, clamping one hand around my neck while shackling my wrists together.

  “Due to the insubordination of the plaintiff, I find in favor of the defendant, Drake!” The judge’s cruel gavel strikes the polished wood block again and again, jarring the bones in my skull, compressing my jaw tighter and tighter until my teeth grind against each other and shards splinter off, shredding my gums to bloody ruins.

  Dad’s chair scrapes across the floor as he stands. He wrenches his rune Isa from the table with a jocular twist of his long tapered fingers and pockets it. Taking his black cape from where it lies draped over the back of his chair, he settles it around his shoulders. It falls perfectly around his onyx black wings with a revealing flourish of scarlet lining. He gathers the three iron leashes in his fist and gives a little tug, winking at me again. “Who wants ice cream?” he asks my shackled siblings.

  “Me!” Claire jumps up and down, the chain of her leash creaking as it swings back and forth with her movement. “I want banilla!” Her body and voice are animated, but her eyes are empty.

  “Boring old banilla?” Drake chuckles.

  The defense team rises, too, scraping gashes in the wooden table as they gather scraps of paper with their claws and stuff them in crudely stitched satchels. They exit through the heavy glass door in the plate glass wall stretching the length of the courtroom.

  As the door swings shuts behind them, Drake’s attorney sneers over his gnarled bony shoulder one last time, his goblin lips pulled up in a ghoulish cackle.

  The crimbal in the jury box dab mirth-filled tears from their eyes, but stop mid-dab when a vicious ringing pierces their ears.

  Where’s it coming from?

  I grab my head again. Doubling over, I squeeze tighter against my ears with my knees, but the ringing crescendos: louder, shriller. The fine bones in my hands, wrists, feet, and ankles begin to vibrate, attuning t
o the frequency. My joints are going to shatter…I know it. They hum like I’m gripping a jackhammer, oscillating faster and faster until my whole body throbs.

  I try to stand, but a loud crack propels me back. The cuffs around my wrists fracture to infinitesimal metal specks.

  Drake and his goblin legal team stop in their tracks, turning to face me. The plate glass between us shivers, groaning as a jagged fissure cleaves from floor to ceiling. The flat surface of the glass bulges impossibly, straining to obey the laws of physics. But there are no laws. Not here. The plate bursts, shrieking like it was stabbed, raining chunks of glass in the courtroom.

  The lead crimbal stumbles, goblin-feet tangling in the train of Drake’s red-black cape. The paralegal bunches in on himself, hiding behind his briefcase.

  “Get rid of her!” Dad snarls, smacking the briefcase to the ground.

  Crazed, the crimbal bare their teeth and rend their clothes, tearing off the sooty white powdered wigs from their heads. The twelve crimbal in the jury box draw short swords from scabbards around their waists and scrabble over the wooden half-wall as Drake turns on his heels, yanking my brothers and sister down the hallway toward the exit.

  Despair descends from the vaulted ceiling of the vast courtroom. I’m outnumbered twenty to one, and he’s getting away.

  “Maidens,” my voice trembles. “I need you.”

  Four iridescent-winged dragonflies dive through the choking gloom. Alighting on the prosecution’s table, they transform into full-sized Shield Maidens armed for battle.

  Twist, Minali, Chloe, and Teagan leap from the table. Shoulder to shoulder we hold form.

  The crimbal horde scuttle like roaches, rushing to huddle behind Judge Dybbuk. They’re sitting ducks, and they know it.

  “Help us, Master!” they shriek. But Drake is gone.

  The floorboards buckle, groaning apart to reveal asphalt beneath. A ripple climbs the walls, snapping beams like twigs. For one impossible moment the ceiling hangs unsupported—just long enough for Twist to weave a parabolic shield of Blaze over our heads—before it comes crashing to the ground.