FURY CALLING
-A Fury Unbound Novel-
-Book 4-
YASMINE GALENORN
A Nightqueen Enterprises LLC Publication
Published by Yasmine Galenorn
PO Box 2037, Kirkland WA 98083-2037
FURY CALLING
A Fury Unbound Novel
Copyright © 2017 by Yasmine Galenorn
First Electronic Printing: 2017 Nightqueen Enterprises LLC
First Print Edition: 2017 Nightqueen Enterprises
Cover Art & Design: Ravven
Editor: Elizabeth Flynn
Map Design: Yasmine Galenorn
Map Layout: Samwise Galenorn
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED No part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any format, be it print or electronic or audio, without permission. Please prevent piracy by purchasing only authorized versions of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, or places is entirely coincidental and not to be construed as representative or an endorsement of any living/ existing group, person, place, or business.
A Nightqueen Enterprises LLC Publication
Published in the United States of America
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Welcome to Fury Calling
Map
The Beginning
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Playlist
Biography
Acknowledgments
And so we reach the end of the first story arc in Fury’s world. I can’t give you a specific date for the second arc, but I definitely plan to revisit Fury and her friends at some time. Meanwhile, I’m drawing this story arc to what I feel will be a comfortable close, leaving room for the world to grow in the future.
Thanks to my usual crew: Samwise, my husband, Andria and Jennifer—without their help, I’d be swamped—to the women who have helped me find my way in indie, you’re all great, and to Fury herself—who started long ago as a glimmer of an idea, and who wasn’t allowed out of her cage till I escaped from mine.
Also, my love to my furbles, who keep me happy. And most reverent devotion to Mielikki, Tapio, Ukko, Rauni, and Brighid, my spiritual guardians and guides.
If you wish to reach me, you can find me through my website at Galenorn.com and be sure to sign up for my newsletter to keep updated on all my latest releases!
Brightest Blessings,
~The Painted Panther~
~Yasmine Galenorn~
Welcome to Fury Calling
My name is Kaeleen Donovan. I’m a Theosian—a minor goddess. They call me Fury.
By day, I run the Crossroads Cleaning Company, and I also read fortunes and cast hexes at Dream Wardens, a magical consulting shop. But by night, I'm oath-bound to Hecate, goddess of the Crossroads. Hecate charged me from birth with the task of hunting down Abominations who come in off the World Tree and sending them back to Pandoriam.
We’ve settled into the Wild Wood and have begun to rebuild our home, taking what we can from the past to work toward the future. When I have a vision in which Gaia shows me how to stop the Order of the Black Mist, I realize that we must return to the fallen city of Seattle for one last stand at the World Tree. But there’s a spy in our midst, determined to stop us.
As destiny brings me face-to-face with my future, I have to make a decision—either I save the world from chaos and sacrifice a dear friend to the enemy, or I let Lyon win and plunge the world into a hellish nightmare from which there’s no awakening.
Map of the Seattle Area
Post-World Shift, Post Tsunami
The Beginning
THE END OF civilization as we knew it arrived not with a whimper, but with a massive storm. When Gaia—the great mother and spirit of the Earth—finally woke from her slumber to discover the human race destroying the planet through a series of magical Weather Wars, she pitched a fit. The magical storm she unleashed change such as never before had been seen. The resulting gale ripped the doors on the World Tree wide open, including the doors to Pandoriam—where the Aboms—chaotic demons of shadow and darkness—live, and the doors to Elysium, where the Devani—ruthless agents of light—exist.
In that one cataclysmic moment, now known as the World Shift, life changed forever as creatures from our wildest dreams—and nightmares—began to pour through the open doors.
The old gods returned and set up shop. The Fae and the Weres came out from the shadows and took up their place among the humans. The Theosians began to appear. Technology integrated with magic, and now everything is all jumbled together. Nothing in the old order remained untouched. The world might appear to be similar to the way it was, but trust me—under that thin veneer of illusion, nothing has remained the same.
Chapter 1
My name is Kaeleen Donovan. They call me Fury. I walk in a pillar of flame, a circle of fire. As we rebuild after the fall of Seattle, the Wild Wood has become our sanctuary and home. And yet, the Order of the Black Mist is coming close to plunging the world into chaos. I have a vision that promises a chance to prevent this from happening…but is my sight illusion? Do we risk everything on a hope born in a smoke and flame?
“STEADY—HOLD IT steady. Don’t let go just yet.” Hecate’s voice rang through the cloud of smoke and sparks surrounding me.
I couldn’t see farther than my hand. My shoulder hurt. I had been holding my arm straight out in front of me for an hour, balancing the ball of flame on my fingertips, forcing myself to stand straight and not waver. That I was sitting on a boulder helped—at least my lower back and legs weren’t aching. But I didn’t dare waver more than an inch either way. If I lost control of this little ball of flame, it would rapidly grow into a flurry of sparks and shower hell all over the surrounding area. We had had a lot of rain lately, but the foliage was thick, and it would be easy to set off some of the wild patches of long grass and weeds that rose knee high in the clearing.
“How much longer?” I exhaled slowly, trying to steady my focus.
“Just because you asked, another half hour.” Hecate laughed.
I stuck my tongue out in her direction, but said nothing. As I settled back against the boulder, I narrowed my attention. As my breathing grew deeper, I sank into deep trance.
The flame existed as an extension of myself. I was plugged into the elemental plane of fire and I was channeling the ball of fire directly from the source. It was different than drawing off my own power. Sourcing energy directly from the elemental planes made the magic flow easier and didn’t drain my own energy. But the learning curve was steep, and it had been a challenge to narrow my focus as deeply as needed. At the beginning, I had struggled, but after I finally discovered the key—to coax the energy instead of forcing it—I had made a breakthrough. Within the span of six months I had gone from barely being able to tap into the primal energy to now, where I could hold the channel open for over an hour.
As I immersed myself in the flame, a faint laughter caught my attention. I followed the source, allowing my mind to wander through the billowing clouds of smoke and flame. The laughter beckoned seductively from a glowing cloud of golden light that appeared beside me. I reached out to touch the flame, wondering what
it was.
“Fury! Fury? Let go, now!” Hecate’s voice broke through my thoughts. “Don’t touch that light. Back off now.”
Reluctant—the golden light seemed so playful I wanted to stay—I obeyed. With a slow breath, I withdrew the flame, rolled it back out of my hand, and sent it home, managing to keep control of it. As the flame vanished, so did the smoke and sparks that had surrounded me, and I cautiously stretched, shaking my arm to clear the pins and needles out of it.
“What’s wrong? Why did you have me stop?”
“You were on the edge of touching a fire elemental. They’re dangerous and you won’t have the ability to contain one for a very long time. If it decided to jump you, it would be free to raise havoc here. They’re always hungry and of all the elementals, the most likely to take over the one who summons them.”
I swallowed hard. “That doesn’t sound like a good thing.”
“It’s not. I didn’t think you’d encounter one on the outer edges of the plane, so I didn’t even think to warn you. But you listened, and you acted as you should—easing the fire back. I’m proud of you. You’re making quick progress.” Hecate sat on a rock opposite me. She was watching me closely. “Any aftereffects? How are you feeling?”
I ran down the checklist we had established. My body was still quivering from running the fire through me at such an extreme rate. My mind felt singed around the edges, but my heart was singing. The flames had charred me around the edges, burning the outer layer away, and while what it left exposed felt a little raw, it also felt clean, as if scrubbed clean by the universe itself.
“Good. A little shaky and my shoulder aches, but overall, I’m feeling good. At least this time I didn’t lose control of it and we don’t have any fires to put out.” I kicked the ground toward the bushes nearby.
She laughed. “True, but just in case…” She whistled long and low, and a moment later a huge burly man with a wild beard came traipsing out from between a waist-high fern and a huckleberry bush. He was carrying a hammer that rivaled any weapon I’d ever seen.
“You rang?” Thor was massive, bigger than any man I’d ever met. He was nearly seven feet tall, and muscled in a thick, burly way. His hair was a shock of gold that flowed down his back, and his beard, a coppery color. He was gorgeous, in a gigantic sort of way.
“I think a light shower would be in order to make certain no sparks went astray. Fury kept control this time, but you never know.” Hecate winked at me.
Thor let out a chuckle. “Oh, that’s for certain. One shower, coming up.” He closed his eyes, then hit the ground with his hammer. A sudden swirl of clouds began driving over our area, thick and heavy. The god of thunder and agriculture waited for a few seconds, then struck the ground again. This time, the reverberation sounded in a crack of thunder as the clouds opened up and the downpour began, the fat droplets soaking everything, including us.
I blinked, trying to see through the rain as it sluiced down my face from the sudden deluge. “Well, that should take care of any fires I may have accidentally kindled.”
“Yes, and we should get back to the village. Lord Tam was asking for you, Fury. It seems news has come in off the grapevine and Verdanya has sent an envoy to discuss something happening in the south.” The massive god motioned toward the trail leading into the wood.
As I gathered my things, the summer rain beat a steady tattoo against the firs and cedars. Without another word, the three of us headed back to UnderBarrow as the birds took up the refrain announcing the arrival of the surprise rainstorm.
UNDERBARROW WAS NOW more than just the Barrow of the Bonny Fae. UnderBarrow was a city proper. Or rather, the cornerstone of a village—Willow Wood, Tam had named it, for all of the weeping willows around the area.
Six months before, when Seattle fell to the zombies and the Order of the Black Mist, and then to the tsunami, which pretty much put a slam dunk on a trio of disasters, Tam had shifted the Barrow. He moved it adjacent to Reflection Lake north, in the Wild Wood. We were now located north of Wyfair, the village of the Frostlings, and we were in the process of establishing a strong foothold in the deep woods.
Over the past few months, a number of the Elder Gods had joined us. At first it had been just Hecate, Freya, Thor, Sif, and Athena. But then, more had arrived, and now the Finns, the Celts, the Norse, and the Greek pantheons were building new compounds nearby. The Peninsula of the Gods in Seattle sat abandoned, and though the gods didn’t speak of it much, a pallor of sadness hung over the subject. Willow Wood had also attracted a number of Theosians who made their way through the Wild Wood, petitioning to join the village.
While only the Bonny Fae—and a few others, like me—actually lived in UnderBarrow, Tam opened the village to anyone who promised to comply with the rules. And so, for six months we had grown. Now, we were getting used to the rural life, and to the vastly different situation into which our world had been thrown.
HECATE AND THOR peeled off at the main hall of the gods—which they had named Gudarheim—and I followed the trail back into the village proper, then dashed toward UnderBarrow. I was soaked to the skin by the time the guards saw me coming. They bowed as I passed, opening the door for me without a word. They knew who I was—the lover and consort of Lord Tam, Prince of UnderBarrow.
I paused just inside, where one of the serving girls passing by handed me a towel from her laundry basket without a word. She asked no questions, just offered me a deep curtsey.
“Thank you,” I said, wiping my face off and draping the towel around my shoulders. Whatever heat I had been running from keying into the elemental plane of fire was gone. The summer rains were cool, and while it was a balmy sixty-seven degrees out, the rain brought a chill to the woodland.
Heading toward my room, I realized I was starving. It felt like I hadn’t eaten in days. Ever since Hecate had increased my training and started putting me through trials so advanced that I had never dreamed I’d be able to master them, my need for food had gone up. Magic burned calories, as did heat, and my appetite had shot up.
I was finally getting used to the labyrinth of the Barrow. The passages wound in a seemingly chaotic manner, but I soon realized that they were much like a web, with a central hub—the great hall—from which all passages snaked out. The passages wove and interwove, but I had finally convinced Tam to start labeling them like the Mudarani had in their underground chambers. The cat people who lived out on the Tremble had numbered each juncture of their subterranean lair, making it easier to identify place points. While the Bonny Fae had an innate sense of direction, any visitors to UnderBarrow easily got lost. Tam had humored my request.
I finally came to the juncture that led to my room—number F451—and gratefully darted into the chamber, ringing the bell pull for Patrice. It had taken me awhile to get used to having a personal maid, but I was grateful for her help, and she seemed to enjoy her work. I tried to make her duties easy, but she assured me that everything was fine and that she liked working with me.
I peeled off my wet clothes and gingerly dropped them into the laundry hamper as she entered the room, curtseying when she saw me.
“Please draw me a hot bath. Thor’s rain showers tend to be icy cold.”
“Perhaps it’s because he comes from the north,” she said with a grin as she fiddled with the controls on the bathtub that stood behind a screen to the side. I still had no clue of how the Fae magic managed to produce hot and cold running water, but I didn’t question it. I just enjoyed the results.
“Maybe he just likes cold showers?” I chose a bath wash—pumpkin cinnamon—and poured the last of it into the tub, sad to see it go. We’d have to send another raiding party into Seattle for supplies soon, and I made a note to ask them to plunder one of the devastated boutiques for bath wash, soaps, shampoos, and whatever else they could find. That was one downside to living in the Wild Wood. The things I had liked about civilization were no longer easily available, and pretty soon, I’d have
to wean myself off a number of them as the supplies in the fallen city ran low or expired.
Patrice rummaged through my closet as I lowered myself into the steaming tub, sighing as the water permeated the aches and pains that ran though my muscles. Not only was I undergoing intense magical training, but my already rigorous workout schedule had been increased to five days a week, two hours each time. I rested my neck on the bath pillow and closed my eyes.
“What do you want to wear, milady?” Patrice popped her head out of the closet. “Something comfortable yet pretty, I would think?”
Formality was the way of the Bonny Fae, and while it still made me somewhat uncomfortable, I had forced myself to get used to it. As long as I was dating the Lord of UnderBarrow, I would play by the rules.
“I’m done with training for the day, so the green skirt and tank top. And my flats. I don’t expect to be doing much running around the rest of the afternoon.”
I slid under the water, dousing my hair. As I came up, I began lathering it up with the bath wash. I was about to duck and rinse when Patrice appeared at my side with a jug of water. Smiling at her—I knew the drill—I leaned forward and closed my eyes, holding my breath as the water cascaded through my hair, washing away the suds into the tub. She brought a second jug, and my hair was cleared of soap.
“Do you want to soak for a while, milady?”
“Yes, if I have time.” I nodded. “How long till dinner?”
“Three hours.”
My stomach rumbled. “All right. Would you bring me some bread and cheese? Also some berries and a cup of coffee? I’m starved, but I don’t feel like getting out of the water just yet.”
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