Arrival of the Rifted (The Rifted Series Book 1)

by C. C. York

  Tenida tugged the Magaran back and said, "Uci, we have to get out of here!"

  To Alik, Tenida said, "Get your people out of the woods. I will come back for both of you."

  Agnian was at Alik's side in an instant, scooping Elaine into his arms. Alik stuttered her questions to Tenida as she stood up. "Wait---wait, what? Who are you?"

  Tenida ignored her and pulled the stone altar with an Airwerk into the air, her face straining at its weight. She shoved the monolith between them and the gate, tipping the massive altar on its side against the space between the trees.

  The Magaran leader, Uci, spread her wings wide and grabbed Reed by the shoulders as her scout joined her. The Magarans shot into the air, dragging Reed with them through the trees before Alik could process an objection. Tenida put her arms around the neck of the remaining Magaran scout.

  To Alik, she said, "Run! There is no time; they will break free! Get out of the woods!"

  The winged Magaran cradled Tenida against his chest, and they too were gone before Alik could respond. Ty grabbed Alik's arm, pulling her away from the altar behind the fleeing girls.

  "Move faster!" Mara shouted as she led the surviving girls back into the Batiwood and the path they took in from the valley.

  Shauna waited for Alik where the altar once stood at the edge of the clearing, "Let's get--" she stopped speaking, mouth gaped open.

  Alik's blood chilled as her best friend's eyes left hers for something over her shoulder. Thumps, like pulpy fruit hitting stone, came from behind the wedged altar.

  Time slowed and spun, and Alik barely registered running with Ty and Shauna to escape the woods. She did not dare to turn around as they raced from the inhumane screams and heavy footsteps of writhing bodies running after them.

  Too close. Too close!

  Bone white Yurutecs appeared alongside her group and tried to cut them off the path leading out of the woods, their guttural calls screaming out all around them. Mara shouted orders from somewhere up ahead and shot Airwerks against the Yurutecs herding their fleeing group. Tears streamed from Alik as she willed her body to run faster, chest burning, and she prayed to each Goddess to get them out of the woods. The valley clearing was a pinprick in the distance, but the screams a hot breath on her neck.

  The chanting filled her mind again, though discernable now. We are coming. We are coming. Elaine covered her ears in Agnian’s arms ahead of Alik, as if she too could hear their mantra.

  Their ragtag group broke through the edge of the Batiwood like birds thrust in the air. Warm pink smudged the bottom of the inky black sky as the sun rose. Yet, the relief washing over Alik came from the wave of armed Hordesmen and Duawielders barreling towards them across the valley, Queen Firtina at the lead.

  Alik fell to her knees with the others. Wind battered her, and hundreds of Aygir hoofbeats drowned out all sounds as the Horde ran past to face what followed from the woods. Firtina's voice rang out above the rumbling, a clear, brutal war cry crushing past the thundering in her head. Alik's ears popped at the boom of power Firtina Iktidar thrust at the Batiwood.

  She turned, fearing what would emerge. Sunlight glittered off her mother's gold and jade armor as her arms thrust in the air, aimed at the Batiwood. Firtina’s arms shook with her Groundwerk as she hefted a wall of soil the size of ten Tiers stacked on top of each other and twenty Tiers wide. She dropped the massive wall between herself and the demons chasing them, and Alik waited for the limbs and teeth to crest the top. But the wall stood firm, the demons trapped behind it.

  Firtina gritted her teeth, arms splayed open and still shaking. A crack etched across the ground. The land split apart, and Alik felt the shake in the ground reverberate up into her spine as the Horde backed away from the growing divide. Queen Firtina rose in the air, bellowing her rage, as she split the land apart into two. A deep ravine now separated Efendi from the wall holding back the demons of the Batiwood.

  "To the Perimeter!" Firtina commanded as she dropped to the ground, her voice carrying across an Airwerk to all those that followed her. She heaved herself up onto her massive black Aygir and rode hard for Efendi's gates, bypassing Alik without a glance.

  The Horde scooped up Alik and the others, and they ran the beasts without pause the entire way home. Alik did not dare look behind her until the Tiers of Efendi came into view. As she entered the gates of her kingdom, a thousand Duawielders stood at the ready along the edges of the Tiers, waiting for their Queen’s commands.

  Reed

  Reed flitted in and out of consciousness but came to at the smell of the salt-tinged air. Uci and another Magaran held each of his arms as they flew over a glittering sea streaked red with the rising sun. The Magarans dropped him and the woman, Tenida, with a thud onto a ship's deck far at sea. She spoke rapidly to the Magarans before they flew off in the direction of the mountains.

  Tenida stalked away to the captain's quarters without a glance at Reed, who now sprawled out on his back on weathered wood planks warmed from the sun. I have never been farther from Maddy than I am right now.

  Bone-tired, confused, and alone, he thought back to the shock on Monti's face when he pushed her through the Rift to his old yellow house in Texas. There will be hell to pay for that call, but if I’m the Edicisi everyone claims to need, I need anyone I care about as far away from me and this curse as possible.

  The ship's crew shuffled around him, and he finally rolled to a stand, wincing at the aches and cuts ripping across his body. He walked to the captain's quarters to find Tenida standing in leather pants with daggers strapped in neat rows across her chest.

  She looked at him with disgust as he asked, "Where are we going?"

  "To a place where you can learn how to use your gift. To a place where we can prepare our next move in battle since you wasted our chance to end this war."

  "And where would that be?"

  She tossed a knife to a map pinned on the table between them. "To the sand palaces of Bakilar."

  Alik

  Alik never once used her Dua to scan her mother. It felt too intimate, too invasive, and she was afraid of what she'd see most of the time. But she did the night they returned to Efendi.

  Firtina sat in her study's chair, face unmoving, as Alik, Ty, Damari, Mara, and even Shauna gave their accounts of what led to the demons in the Batiwood. Wary still of the terrifying woman across from her, Alik did not mention The Reader. Yet she felt that Firtina heard the half-truths in her story.

  Elaine leaned against Damari's side, barely able to keep her eyes open. Occasionally, Firtina watched Alik while the others spoke, and Alik's belly filled with sick dread each time they locked eyes.

  Taavi remained silent in the corner of her study for the hour it took to explain what happened, eyes volleying between Alik and the Queen as the story progressed. Her friends described in vivid detail the horror Hayalet became, his insistence that he was Firtina's soulmate, and how he disappeared. They backtracked and told her of Hvard's involvement, though no one knew where he went in the chaos and how his men kidnapped the girls with cloaks under Hayalet’s orders. They told her of the Magarans, Tenida's involvement, and how the Magarans and Tenida took the Edicisi with them. Alik still had a hard time reconciling the young, terrified man with the Edicisi’s reputation as the most powerful Duawielder.

  Firtina would eat him alive, Alik thought.

  The Queen paced behind her polished desk. "Did the Magarans or Tenida mention a third person required to close the gate? They told you they needed the Edicisi and the Rifter, but was there anyone else they named?"

  Alik stiffened, and Shauna straightened in the corner of her eye. Mara spoke the lie before anyone, "No, my Pillar. None that we heard."

  Firtina clenched her teeth, her angular jawline pulsing as she said, “Everyone but you three out.”

  Shauna, Ty, and Mara stood to leave when she continued, “Leave the Rifter with the guardswoman and tell her to take her in my quarters. I have que
stions for her.”

  Alik’s stomach dropped at the implication, but before she could object, Damari asked the question everyone soon will be discussing outside these walls.

  "Who was Hayalet? What are those demons?"

  Firtina watched him with unblinking eyes, allowing Alik to scan her without notice. Swirls of blue despair and icy silver rage pulsed even as her mother lied, "I have no idea."

  Chills doused Alik at the lie, and she did not meet her mother’s eyes as she asked, “What do we do now, my Pillar?”

  “We?” Firtina asked, one perfect eyebrow cocked up.

  Alik felt lightheaded. She longed for the comforts of her home after the nightmare in the Batiwood. To feel safe inside the Tier walls and to deal with the aftermath with Shauna. Is she still banning me? I expected to be punished. To be watched, perhaps. Not this.

  Taavi walked behind Alik, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Surely you do not mean to exile Alik still? She tracked the Rifter you required. She led us all to the—the thing that stole our Daughters.”

  “And for that, I am not forcing your hand in marriage or shipping off your bastard brother to Bakilar. You’re welcome.”

  Taavi stopped mid-word at Firtina’s stare. She continued as if Alik was not in the room in between them. “She did not fight back. I saved her. I saved all of you. My mother would have killed me had I run from those demons as she did. No. I have no need for a useless Duawielder as my heir. And I have even less for one that is both insolent and disobedient. Alik, pack your things for Dvari. Perhaps the prince there will find some use for you even without my mother’s name.”

  ***

  “Alik, wait,” Taavi said as the doors to her mother’s study shut behind them.

  She did not want to face her brothers’ concern just yet. “Taavi, Damari, you’ll need to smuggle Elaine out. Send word to me in Dvari as soon as you safely can. And do not believe anything she says. Firtina knew Hayalet, and I know she helped him. I just can’t prove why or how just yet.”

  “I’ll work on it,” Damari promised.

  “No,” Alik said. “She will watch you even more than before. Just get Elaine out. And I want you and Taavi out of Efendi at the first hint that Firtina and the Dua Ordu cannot kill the demons. I don’t care what your responsibilities are; your first is to stay alive.”

  They hugged her, and she lingered in their familiar arms until she noticed Agnian waiting in the hallway behind them. I can’t wait any longer and be escorted out by my mother’s guards, on my mother’s ship, like a prisoner.

  She turned to him, “Does your offer still stand, Agnian?” Alik forced herself to look him in the eye, willing out any shame that blackened the edges of her mind. “To come with you to Dvari?”

  He opened his mouth, shut it, and tried again. “I---”

  Alik stamped the hint of tears down to nothing. She moved around him, heading to her quarters to pack. “Nevermind, I’ll find passage elsewhere.”

  “No, Alik,” Agnian said, tugging on her hand to stop. “Of course you will come with me, but we must sail immediately.”

  “That’s not a problem,” Alik said, relieved.

  “There’s something you have to know, though,” he continued, glancing between her brothers on either side of Alik.

  A door opened behind him, interrupting whatever he tried to say. Shauna strode out, carrying a stuffed bag across her back.

  “What are you doing?” Alik asked.

  “Coming with you. Obviously.”

  Alik covered her mouth, preparing for an ugly cry. The fear of moving to Dvari as a disgraced exile felt a little less heavy as she took in her friend’s bags and confident face. We’ll figure this out together.

  Alike asked, “How did you know I was exiled?”

  “Mara told me. And knowing what a bitch your mother is, I assumed the decree still stood.”

  “Besides,” Shauna smiled, taking Alik’s hand. “I think an island a couple of weeks away by sea sounds like the perfect distance from the Batiwood right about now, don’t you think?”

  Alik squeezed her hand, smiling for the first time since she found Shauna. “I don’t know. Agnian, you aren’t hiding any monsters in Dvari, are you?”

  His weak smile faltered her own.

  Elaine

  Elaine shuffled into the Queen's private quarters after food and a bath under the watchful eyes of the guardswoman. Queen Firtina was regal and terrifying, sauntering hips and cruel lips, but she smiled at Elaine as she led her to a small room splintered off from her own.

  "This is where you will stay from now on. There will be others that will begin to look for you, but you are always safe with me.”

  Safe. Elaine shuddered at thoughts of the monstrosity she fought in the woods, of the gleam in the Queen’s eyes, and at Kara’s retreating form in the Silos. She didn’t trust Mara’s whisper that she’d get her out when Mara handed her over to the Queen’s guardswoman. Like a mutt passed on to be someone else’s problem. Nothing about this world is safe, and no one is going to help me other than me.

  The Queen flicked open the door with an Airwerk as she said, “I underestimated your role, but I believe you are bound for a higher purpose. Rest. When your powers return, we'll begin your training."

  The tick of a lock clicking into place echoed around the small room at the Queen’s exit.

  Elaine thought back to Kara walking away from her in the Silos, her pleas hitting deaf ears. She imagined a family waiting for her across the sea in a place called Bakilar. She closed her eyes, determined to find her way to people that would love her.

  Elaine was sure of few things in her life, but she knew what it felt like to be prey. To be weak. And she was tired of it.

  As she closed her eyes, she told herself, even the smallest creatures can become predators.

  Monti

  The beep was faint yet persistent. The familiar pulse towed Monti up from her subconscious. She glimpsed a white room lined with plastic wrap, the breathing tubes clunky in her nostrils. Two men in dark suits waited to her right, one stabbing keys on a laptop that straddled his legs and the other watching her.

  The latter stood at her flickering eyes and gave her a millisecond to register where she was. "Agent Banks, glad to see you awake."

  Monti pushed back the feel of Reed's desperate lips against hers, his plea, focusing instead on the task at hand.

  She asked, "How long was I over there this time?"

  Acknowledgements

  To my readers, thank you so much for picking up this book. I would be eternally grateful if you would write an Amazon or Goodreads review to help me spread the word about this world and its characters. I can’t wait to finish this trilogy, so for chapter sneak peaks, please check out my website and subscribe to the newsletter. www.ccyorkbooks.com

  I’ve never been punched in the face, but I imagine that it might be more pleasurable than self-publishing your first book. Writing is the easy part. The rest takes a village, and my village was a mix of staunch ready-to-fight-for you friends, relatives, and kind-hearted strangers that made this possible.

  To my first reader/editor/copywriter/critique partner, AKA the Alpha Reader, Amy Carden…thank you so much for diving headfirst into this story with me. Your feedback, suggestions, and line edits helped make this into a much stronger story from the get-go, but it was your enthusiasm that made me confident enough to move this to the next step.

  To my Beta readers Lindsey Epperly, Katie Milliner, Katie Reid, Ashley Perry, Jamie Harris, Katie Rice, Micah Schutte, thank you so much for your feedback, questions, suggestions, and support. I was blind going into the beta round, floored by the responsiveness, and incredibly grateful for the time you gave these characters. Agnian thanks you as well for keeping him a much more integral part of the book.

  To my Reedsy dream team, Arley Concaildi, Lena Yang, and Lorna Reid, thank you for taking painfully naïve questions, for helping me make this book p
rofessional and whipass, and for your advice on the Indie publishing side of this business.

  To H.K Jacobs, thank you for the inspiration and for forging the path forward for us both. If anyone could be a pediatric emergency physician during a pandemic, a mother to two under 7, and get a binge-worthy romance read written and published in under 6 months, it was you. Thank you for the advice, the support, and for the distractingly fabulous read. Can’t wait for more Alex Wilde!

  To my parents, Lynn Stotz and Dan Stotz, thank you so much for all your support, for the last-minute babysitting so I could sneak off to anywhere without toddlers, and for your unwavering love.

  Emmy, the very first time I felt like an author was maybe midway through my second draft of this book. You apparently announced to your Pre-K class that I was an author, and from then on I realized I could never move backwards in this journey. Batey, you kept me on an early 5am clock to get this written, and I’m appreciative for the forced time restraints because it kept me focused. You two are the most important people in our cadre of 4, and I am so proud to be a part of your lives. I love you both.

  Danny, you were the only one who knew I was kicking this story around for years. I would have bagged this a long time ago had you not kept asking how it was going. I wouldn’t have been able to dedicate the time to write this had it not been for your unwavering support. I wouldn’t have enjoyed the end of the day had I not heard you coming in the door. I love you. You make this life worth more than a hundred lives.

  ***

  To the writers knee deep in writing, publishing, or still simply imagining your story…do it.

  This journey is different for everyone, but it’s certainly one that requires a healthy dose of advice from strangers that have been where you are now. I wrote this book in a bit of a vacuum, assuming as soon as I finished the last “last” draft, I would be ready to give it to a top 5 publishing house and await the applause. It was a bit of a wake-up call to say the least, but thank God for the internet.