by JA Andrews
Table of Contents
Title Page
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
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Read the story of Tomkin and the Dragon
A Threat of Shadows
Book One of The Keeper Chronicles
By JA Andrews
Copyright © 2016 JA Andrews
For my husband.
This story has always been for you.
Chapter 1
The deeper Alaric rode into the woods, the more something felt… off. This forest had always fit like a well-worn cloak. But tonight, the way the forest wrapped around felt familiar, but not quite comfortable, as though it remembered wrapping around a slightly different shape.
“This path used to be easier to follow,” Alaric said to his horse, Beast, as they paused between patches of summer moonlight. Alaric peered ahead, looking for the trail leading to the Stronghold. He found it running like a scratch through the low brush to the right. “If the Keepers weren’t too meek to hold grudges, I’d think the old men were hiding it from me.”
All the usual smells of pine and moss and dirt wove through the air, the usual sounds of little animals going about their lives, but Alaric kept catching a hint of something different. Something more complicated than he wanted to deal with.
Around the next turn, the trail ran straight into a wide tree trunk. Alaric leaned as far to the side as he could, but he couldn’t see around it. “I could be wrong about the Keepers holding grudges.”
Well, if they didn’t want him at the Stronghold, that was too bad. He didn’t need a warm welcome. He just needed to find one book with one antidote. With a little luck, the book would be easy to find and he could leave quickly. With a lot of luck, he’d get in and out without having to answer anyone’s questions about what he’d been doing for the past year.
Beast circled the tree and found the path again, snaking out the other side. As his hooves thudded down on it, a howl echoed through the woods.
The horse froze, and Alaric grabbed the pouch hanging around his neck, protecting it against his chest. He closed his eyes, casting out past the nearest trees and through the woods, searching for the blazing energy of the wolf. He sensed nothing beyond the tranquil glow of the trees and the dashing flashes of frightened rabbits.
“That’s new.” Alaric opened his eyes and peered into the darkness.
A louder howl broke through the night. Beast shuddered.
“It’s all right.” Alaric patted Beast’s neck as he cast farther out. The life energy of an animal as large as a wolf would be like a bonfire among the trees, but there was nothing near them. “It’s not wolves. Just disembodied howls.” He kept his voice soothing, hoping to calm the animal.
“That didn’t sound as reassuring as I meant it to. But a real wolf pack wouldn’t keep howling as they got closer. If we were being tracked by wolves, we wouldn’t know it.”
Beast’s ears flicked back and forth, alert for another howl.
“Okay, that wasn’t reassuring, either.” Alaric nudged him forward. “C’mon we’re almost to the Wall.”
A third howl tore out of the darkness right beside them.
Beast reared back, whinnying in terror. Alaric grabbed for the saddle and swore. He pressed his hand to Beast’s neck.
“Paxa,” he said, focusing energy through his hand and into Beast. A shock of pain raced across Alaric’s palm where it touched the horse, as the energy rushed through.
Mid-snort, Beast settled and stood still.
Alaric shook out his hand and looked thoughtfully into the woods. This wasn’t about a grudge, or at least the howls weren’t directed at him. Any Keeper would know there were no wolves. Even one as inadequate as he would know there was no energy, no vitalle, behind the sounds. So what was the purpose of it? The path had never been like this before.
With Beast calm, Alaric set him back into a steady walk. Two more howls rang out from the woods, but Beast ambled along, unruffled. Alaric rubbed his still-tingling palm.
Beast paused again as the trail ran into another wide tree.
Alaric growled in frustration. The path to the Keepers’ Stronghold shouldn’t be this troublesome for a Keeper.
Unless it no longer recognized him as one. That was a sobering thought.
As they skirted around the tree, a white face thrust itself out of the trunk. Alaric jerked away as the hazy form of a man leaned out toward him. When the figure didn’t move, Alaric reined in Beast and forced himself to study it. It held no life energy, it was just an illusion—like the wolves.
The figure was a young man. He had faded yellow hair and milky white skin. Once the initial shock wore off, the man was not particularly frightening.
“What are you supposed be? A friendly ghost?” Alaric asked.
It hung silent on the tree. Alaric leaned forward and backward, but the ghost remained still, staring off into the woods.
“The howls were more frightening than you.” Alaric set Beast to walking again.
“You are lost,” the ghost whispered as he passed.
Alaric gave a short laugh. “I’ve been lost many times in my life, but this isn’t one of them. And if it’s your job to scare people off, you should consider saying something more chilling and less…depressing.”
Beast kept walking, and Alaric turned to watch the ghost fade into the darkness behind them.
A rasp pulled his attention forward. Another white form slid out of the tree they were approaching. This one was a young woman. She was rather pretty, for a ghost.
“Hello.” Alaric gave her a polite nod.
“You have failed,” she whispered. “You have failed everyone.”
Alaric scowled. The words rang uncomfortably true.
Alaric stopped Beast in front of the ghost. Behind the woman’s face, Alaric saw thin, silver runes carved on the bark. He couldn’t read them through the ghost, but he didn’t need to. Narrowing his focus, he cast out ahead of them along the trail, brushing against the trunks with his senses. Now that he knew what he was looking for, he felt the subtle humming runes dotting the trees ahead.
Alaric sat back in the saddle. This wasn’t what he expected from the Keepers. The old men protected their privacy like paranoid hermits,
but they’d never tried to scare people away before. Of course, these ghosts weren’t frightening. If the Keepers were going to make ghosts, these are the kind they would make.
Years ago, during his “Defeat by Demoralization” lesson, Keeper Gerone had declared, “Control the emotions, control the man!” Gerone was probably responsible for the depressing ghosts.
The ghost runes were on almost every tree now, faces appearing every few steps.
“Your powers are worthless,” the next whispered and Alaric flinched.
“It’s your fault,” another rasped. “All your fault.”
Alaric clenched his jaw and stared ahead as the whispers surrounded him.
When he passed close to one large tree, a ghost thrust out close to him. Alaric turned toward it and saw his own face looking back at him. A pale, wasted version of himself. His black hair was faded to a lifeless grey, and his skin, far from being tanned from traveling, was bleached a wrinkly bone white. Only his eyes had stayed dark, sinking from a healthy brown to deep, black pits.
Alaric stared, repulsed, at the withered apparition of himself—it was decades older than his forty years. The ghost looked tired, a deep crease furrowed between its brows. Alaric reached up and rubbed his own forehead.
The ghost leaned closer.
“She’s dead,” it whispered.
Guilt stabbed into him, deep and familiar. He shuddered, grabbing the pouch at his neck, his mind flooded with the image of Evangeline’s sunken face.
Alaric slammed his palm against the rune on the trunk.
“Uro!” Pain raced through his hand again. He poured energy into the tree, willing it to burn. The bark smoked as he seared the rune off.
Out of the corner of his eye, pulses of white light appeared along the path ahead of them. He glanced at them, but the distraction had consequences, and the pain flared, arcing up each finger. He gasped and narrowed his focus back to the energy flowing through his palm. The pain receded slightly. The ghost stared a moment longer, then faded away. Alaric dropped his arm, leaving a hand-shaped scorch mark on the trunk where the rune had been.
“She’s dead.”
Alaric’s head snapped forward.
The trees ahead of him were full of ghosts, each a washed-out version of himself.
“Dead… She’s dead… Dead.” The words filled the air.
Alaric clutched the pouch at his neck until he felt the rough stone inside.
A ghost reached toward him. “She’s dead…” Its voice rattled in a long sigh.
Alaric spurred Beast into a gallop, trusting the horse to follow the trail. The whispers clung to them as they ran. Alaric shrank down, hunching his shoulders, wresting his mind away from the memory of his wife’s tired eyes, her pale skin.
The trees ended, and they raced out into a silent swath of grass, running up to the base of an immense cliff. Alaric pulled Beast to a stop, both of them breathing hard. Gripping the saddle, Alaric looked back into the trees. The forest was dark and quiet.
“I take it back,” he said, catching his breath, “the ghosts were worse than the wolves.” He sat in the saddle, pushing back the dread that was enveloping him. She wasn’t dead. The ghosts were just illusions. He’d get the antidote tonight. She’d be fine.
When his heart finally slowed, he gave Beast an exhausted pat on the neck.
“This path used to be a lot easier to follow.”
Chapter 2
Alaric turned away from the forest. Before him stood a short section of stone wall twice his height. The unusual thing about the Wall was that, instead of enclosing anything, it sat flush against the base of the Marsham Cliffs.
Ignoring the looming presence of the forest behind him, Alaric cast out toward the Wall until he sensed the stone with the vibrating runes. His left hand ached from the last two spells, but there was no point in having both hands sore. This time, he gathered some vitalle from the grass around him. With a grim smile, he pulled some from the nearest ghost-trees as well and lifted his hand toward the Wall.
“Aperi.” Pain burst through his hand like fire. He let out a groan as the stones shifted. An arch opened, revealing a dark tunnel boring deep into the cliff.
Alaric walked Beast inside and turned to look back at the trees. He caught sight of a milky white face, and his stomach clenched.
Alaric thrust his hand toward the entrance. “Cluda.”
This time, the shock raced all the way up to his elbow. Alaric gasped and clutched his arm to his chest as the opening of the tunnel sealed itself off, leaving them in blackness. He clenched his jaw until the pain faded. He should have used the other hand for that last one.
Alaric started Beast toward the bright moonlight at the far end of the tunnel, wishing he could use the paxa spell to calm himself.
In the calmness of the tunnel, the memory of Evangeline’s hollowed face flooded his mind again, followed by the familiar anguish.
He pushed that image away and drew out the memory of the night they had walked together along the edge of the Greenwood. She had peered into the woods hoping to catch a glimpse of an elf. He had explained that no one caught sight of an elf by chance, but she had ignored him, jumping at every flash of a bird or a squirrel.
He held that idea for a long moment. The way she had looked. The way she had been. The way she would be again.
He tucked the memory away and refocused on tonight. All he needed was to slip into the library and find one book. It should be easy.
Of course, the path should have been easy, too. The wolves and ghosts made no sense. Alaric had lived at the Stronghold for two decades and had traveled that path countless times. It had never given him trouble. It had never needed to. The Wall was more than enough defense for the Stronghold.
To anyone but a Keeper, the Wall would appear to be just an odd bit of wall sitting right against a cliff face. None but a Keeper knew how to open the tunnel, and the tunnel was the only entrance to the valley holding the Keepers’ Stronghold.
The obvious question was whether the Keepers had changed the path in the year since Alaric had stormed out, or whether Alaric had changed, and this was how the path had always treated strangers.
Beast nickered as the tunnel spilled out into a grassy field in a narrow valley. Ahead of them a tower rose, its white stones shining in the moonlight. The smells of the day lingered in the valley, bread and smoke and drying herbs, but this late at night, everything was quiet.
A glitter of light from the very top of the tower beckoned him. The Wellstone.
It tempted him to go up, to dive into the pool of Keeper memories that it held. It was the other option besides the book, the quicker option. He needed knowledge from Kordan, and Kordan had been a Keeper. He would have stored his memories in the Wellstone, just like every other Keeper for the last two hundred years. Certainly, the information Alaric needed would be there.
But the price to use the Wellstone was too high. Evangeline was safe for now. The reference Alaric had found about Kordan had mentioned a book, so he was here for a book. Please let the antidote be in the book.
Alaric crossed the grass to the wooden front doors of the tower, bleached to grey in the moonlight and flung wide open as always. Alaric stepped through them into the heavy stillness of the entry hall. He ignored the lanterns sitting on the shelf next to the door, reluctant to disturb the darkness. Hopefully, he could find the book and leave without having to explain himself, or his long absence, to anyone.
On his left, the wall was dark with cloaks. Reaching out, he brushed his hand along the soft fabric. True Keepers’ robes, managing to be both substantial and light, might be the thing he missed the most.
Before he left, he would take one. He’d leave this thin, worn cloak behind, the one that wasn’t quite black and wasn’t quite right, and take a real Keeper’s robe with him.
He walked out the end of the hall, through the open center of the tower to the entrance of the library.
He paused near the door, hanging back
in the shadows. The library was lit by glowing golden orbs tucked into nooks between the bookshelves. He could hear the scratching of a pen as a Keeper wrote somewhere deep in the library, but there was no one to be seen. He stepped up to the wooden railing in front of him and looked out into an immense circular room. Four stories below him lay a tiled floor with patterns swirling like eddies in a stream. Three stories above him, a glass ceiling showed the starry sky. A narrow walkway stretched around the room alongside age-darkened bookshelves.
If the Keepers could be relied on for anything, it was to record things. And then cross-reference that knowledge. Repeatedly. Alaric wasn’t sure where Kordan’s book would be shelved, but all of his works should be recorded in the Keeper’s Registry.
Alaric walked to the winding ramp spiraling along the inside of the railing, connecting each floor to the next, grateful for the thick rugs that muffled his steps. He climbed up two floors, still seeing no one, and made his way to the thick black tome that recorded the life’s work of each Keeper.
A puff of air breezed past him as he opened the Registry, as though the book was crammed with more knowledge than it could hold. It had always felt strange to hold this book, knowing that one day, there would be an entry in it under his own name.
Alaric flipped to the index. No listing for Kordan. He tried alternate spellings, but found nothing. He growled in frustration.
