Before the Raging Lion

by Everly Frost

  Before the Raging Lion

  Everly Frost

  Copyright © 2017 by Everly Frost

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead are purely coincidental.

  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

  Frost, Everly, author.

  Before the raging lion / Everly Frost.

  ISBN: 9780995407374 (ebook)

  Series: Frost, Everly. Mortality ; bk. 4.

  For young adults

  Subjects: Science fiction.

  Young adult fiction.

  Jacket design: Frankie Young, studio-neubau.com

  For information, contact www.everlyfrost.com

  everlyfrost@gmail.com

  This book is dedicated to my sisters and brothers.

  I am a freak,

  I am terminal,

  I am fragile as glass,

  I am a shroud cloaking the world,

  I am alone,

  I am a threat,

  I am a weapon.

  But I am not death.

  Ava Holland

  Contents

  Prologue

  I. Weapon

  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

  II. Death

  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

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also by Everly Frost

  Prologue

  PEOPLE USED TO SAY that there would never be another war.

  They said that the first world war proved that fighting was pointless, because there’s no weapon on earth that can destroy the human race.

  I used to believe that I was weak, that being mortal made me fragile and vulnerable. When my brother died, his death put me on a path that led me away from my home country, Evereach, into the icy mountains of Starsgard. But even there, fear followed me.

  That’s when I found out I wasn’t alone. There are others like me: five boys who accept me for who I am. One of them has a sister who is a prisoner in Seversand and her existence makes war between our countries possible.

  It’s her life against mine.

  A mortality war between nations is about to begin.

  People used to say there would never be a weapon that could destroy the world.

  They were wrong.

  Weapon

  Chapter One

  Josh, 5 years ago

  THERE’S A LION in the schoolyard and she smiles at me with brilliant, white teeth. It takes me two seconds to remember that lions don’t live in Evereach, but by then I’m too far gone.

  My voice slurs as everything around me turns to a haze.

  “What … is this stuff?”

  The vial of black liquid I just drank from shatters as I close my fist around it, inky sludge oozing over my fingers mixing with red liquid—my own blood. I’ve been knocked around enough times on the football field to know I’m a slow healer. The cuts I’ve given myself from the broken glass will take days to heal. I’m no Michael Bradley. That guy can die and get back up in the same breath. But me? I’m the slowest healer I’ve ever seen.

  And yet … I feel no pain as the shards dig into my palm. When I open my shaking hands, gaping at the dripping mess, the wounds have already healed.

  That’s not possible. Not for me.

  The rate of healing in my hands right now matches a fast healer, but somehow I don’t think a fast healer feels like this. It’s like the world has changed color, changed pace, changed … everything.

  I grab Kristy—the girl who’s morphing into a lion right before my eyes—and the smile slips off her face. My fingers press hard into her arms even though I don’t mean them to. When she shakes her head, the illusion of a mane grows stronger, her golden hair billowing like flames.

  Her voice mutes to a menacing growl—a contradiction to the emerging panic on her face. “Hey, take it easy, Josh.”

  I can’t. My breathing speeds up and I can’t slow it down. My arms are shaking. Rage burns in my lungs.

  My voice rises. “What did you give me?”

  “I told you! My parents hid it in the basement. They smuggled it out of their workplace. I thought it’d be fun to try it…”

  It isn’t the first time I’ve taken a risk like this—drunk something I shouldn’t have, popped a pill just for the fun of it. I’m the polar opposite of my sister, Ava. Where she hesitates, I dive in. I need danger like I need air.

  Right now my supplier of all things new and dangerous, Kristy, stares at me with eyes that are normally blue but have turned yellow like the creature she now resembles. Her scientist parents always have new stuff lying around, but whatever she brought me this time, it’s bad.

  I’m seeing stuff that’s not there. I’m feeling anger like I’ve never felt before.

  The remains of the vial lie at my feet, glittering. The sky above me turns rapidly from blue to red. The other kids in the schoolyard stop eating lunch and morph into snakes slithering across the ground, tangling into each other—all of them—forming a carpet of reptiles around my feet, except Kristy. Even her body has reshaped itself, growing fur and claws.

  And teeth. So many teeth.

  Her mouth is moving, but I don’t hear her voice anymore.

  Instead, there’s a growl deep down in my ears, an earthy threat inside my head.

  “I’m going to kill you,” says the lion.

  That’s when I snap.

  I don’t remember much after that. Just flashes. Kristy lying on the ground. The lion shape rising off her like some kind of ghost leaving her body behind. Broken glass, wood, and metal scattered around us. People shouting, running. Someone in a uniform tries to grab me but I punch them and they fly backward like they’re snagged on a giant fishing line.

  I might be screaming.

  I might be hurting.

  And then … a red haze falls over everything … a crimson river I have to push through. At the end of the river is a door made of clay.

  I don’t want to open it. I don’t want to go through. But the lion follows me. Always following me. Pushing me forward. Pushing me into places I don’t want to go.

  “I will kill you,” whispers the lion. “I will chew up your soul and swallow it down.”

  And I say, “I know you will. But not today.”

  Not today.

  Chapter Two

  Ava, now

  WE RACED TOWARD the edge of the cliff.

  Michael ran beside me, keeping pace. My five brothers were close behind. As I neared the edge, I imagined what it would be like to leap out from it, sail into the icy blue air, and land in the forest thousands of feet below. I’d never tried it and now I never would, because within minutes, Starsgard’s new solar grid would encase the count
ry from cliff to cliff and make entering and leaving Starsgard impossible.

  Michael’s smile was for me alone as I skidded to a stop at the sharp edge, power flowing through me as I spun to catch him, anchoring him to the spot. We teetered right at the edge while the wind crashed around us.

  He trusted me not to let him fall.

  We were so close to being free. So close to being safe forever.

  We were halfway home but had stopped to see the grid come down. Blaze and Pip had raced from our home in the northern tower to meet us and I welcomed their presence with open arms. All my brothers were with me to see Starsgard finally become free of Evereach’s threats.

  Just that morning, I’d said goodbye to Councilor Ruth in southern Starsgard and mourned Councilor Naomi’s death. She’d died protecting Snowboy from a barrage of mortality bullets. Sadness welled inside me at the loss of Naomi, a woman who had fought so hard for what she believed. But her memory would live on and that was the only thing that kept me standing.

  Now the sky was clear, the enemy gone. Evereach’s drones were destroyed, its machines burned to dust, and its people repelled. My brothers and I had fought and defeated them with Michael and the bears at our sides.

  Michael pulled me close and kissed me in a way he hadn’t before. I shivered beneath his touch, drawing closer, drinking in his presence.

  Snowboy laughed behind us, a twinkle in his eyes lighting up his smile. “Someone get between those two. Quick.”

  Quake obliged by making a wedge of himself, oozing his enormous body between Michael and me until we had no choice but to step apart. At the same time there was a puff of air at my back, my feet lifted off the ground, and Snowboy used his incredible speed to deposit me further along the cliff as fast as I could blink. He grinned as he set me down close to where Rift waited at the edge of our circle.

  “Well, you can try to keep us apart.” I smiled across the distance at Michael who smiled back. “But not for long.”

  My whole body needed to get back to him. We’d been torn apart for far too long. For months before the battle in Starsgard, Michael had believed that I’d died. For months, I’d had to hide from the world, my ‘death’ being the only way I could be safe. That was until Evereach attacked Starsgard, breaching their defenses for the first time in thousands of years. I couldn’t stand by and watch my friends die. Now, everyone knew I was alive.

  Which made it that much more important that the solar grid would be in place within moments, stopping anything from getting in. As the sun descended toward the distant horizon, the grid would be fully charged for the first time and ready to protect the land.

  But right then, it wasn’t only the grid and Michael that consumed my thoughts. I found myself alone with Rift at the cliff’s edge and there were things I needed to ask him, things that worried me.

  “What’s wrong, Ava?”

  For a moment, I’d forgotten that he could read my heartbeat. He’d heard it speed up.

  Like all of the mortals—including me—Rift had Seversandian heritage. Michael’s father had brought Rift, Blaze, and Quake back from Seversand when they were much younger, smuggling them out of their home country and behind Starsgard’s protected borders. Of all my brothers, Rift had the closest affinity to the midnight tree and the nectar it produced. He was the one who’d told me that the strange things I saw when I took nectar were not hallucinations, but visions of the future.

  But that was what worried me now…

  I exhaled, choosing my words. “During the battle—right at the end—I had a vision.”

  He tilted his head, questioning. “Of scorpions?”

  “No, that’s the thing. It was a new vision. Normally I see the scorpions that guard the tree, but this is something I’ve never seen before. I guess I wondered about the visions … do they always come true?”

  Rift glanced at Snowboy and I found myself looking at him also. Snowboy had told me that when he first took nectar he’d seen daggers rain down on Naomi and kill her. Today, ten years after he’d had that vision, it had come true. Naomi was dead and he’d seen it before it happened.

  The sadness in Snowboy’s eyes overwhelmed me. Naomi had looked after him for years before he came to the tower. She’d taken the role of his mother after his real parents abandoned him. But a rift had grown between them and now she was gone.

  I shuddered. I already knew the answer to my question: everything we saw came true.

  Rift captured my attention with his unwavering gaze. “What did you see, Ava?”

  Just then, a brilliant, golden light burst across the afternoon sky, turning it as bright as midday. As the initial intensity faded, the light concentrated into multiple pinpoints from which a grid began to grow, spreading quickly from one anchor point to another. The dome began to form above us. Rift’s hand found my arm, urging me back to our conversation.

  I swallowed and forced myself to speak. “I saw a lion. A fierce lion. It raced toward me—through me—and there was nothing I could do to stop it. It devoured my soul and I…”

  My voice became a whisper. “I died.”

  In my vision, I’d tasted sand in my mouth and my body had filled with the heat of a thousand suns as my life left me.

  My brothers were suddenly all looking at me with alarm—even Quake from further along the cliff. No matter how quietly I whispered, their powerful ears could hear it all.

  Blaze jolted in my direction, glowing brighter than the grid forming above us. Quake clenched his fists and Pip’s young face filled with dread. Before they could say anything, I hurried to speak again.

  “But lions only live in Seversand, right?” I forced a laugh. “The grid is almost fully formed and I’ll never leave Starsgard after this, so there’s no way I’ll ever go to Seversand. My vision has to mean something else.” I swallowed again. “Right?”

  Rift chewed his words and I could see he was choosing them carefully, as much for my sake as for everyone else. “It’s true that not all our visions are literal. Some are symbolic. Maybe you saw the death of the person you used to be. When you came to us, you were afraid, you doubted yourself. You’re not that person anymore. You know who you are. Maybe the lion was a symbol of your old life ending.”

  His voice faded away. We both knew it was a stretch. But for now, I had to cling to that interpretation because the alternative was far worse.

  Off to my right, Michael had become aware that the others were all staring at me. His own expression turned wary.

  “What’s going on?” he asked Quake, who was beside him, and I knew I had to get to Michael quickly. Even though I could hear his voice, he couldn’t hear mine, and the disquiet in his stance told me he knew something wasn’t okay.

  “Ava,” he whispered, trusting me to hear him across the distance between us. “What’s wrong?”

  His heartbeat called to me and I hurried from Rift, passing Snowboy and Pip on my way. Their hearts thudded loudly, agitated, and I wanted to tell them that everything would be okay. They had nothing to fear, but their hearts only thudded louder as I left them behind.

  I paused. The solar grid was still a hundred feet from reaching the edge of the cliff beside me. Michael waited for me at the other end of the clearing and my nearest brother was ten feet away on either side and yet … the heartbeat sounding in my ears was much closer than that.

  Which meant… We weren’t alone.

  Right then, a shadow reared up over me. The sight of it shot ice through my heart. An enemy beetle drone zoomed forward, a startling blur. At the same time, pain struck my leg, the projectile too low to have come from the drone.

  I glanced down to locate the object: a dart in my calf.

  The nectar I’d taken earlier responded to the threat, filling me with heat and strength. I wasn’t worried about ignoring the drone for a moment while I dealt with the dart. My movements were quick and sharp and I could destroy the drone just as fast.

  With a snarl of disgust, I wrenched the dart out of my leg.
It would take more than one tranquilizer to paralyze me. It had taken twenty to knock Snowboy to the ground during the battle. Except that, as I looked again, I realized that it wasn’t an ordinary tranquilizer after all. It had the same tube-like shape but the outer casing was clear and the liquid inside was a murky green color, similar to the color of the marsh plant. Most of the liquid was gone, already injected into my leg.

  My assessment of the dart and the drone took place within seconds, but my vision blurred just as fast. I blinked, trying to focus as sudden nausea washed over me. My legs buckled.

  “I…”

  As I dropped to my knees, the cliff’s edge rolled into view and Aaron Reid stared back at me. He clung to a rocky outcrop, the weapon he’d used to fire the dart still pointed at me. His lips twisted into a triumphant smile and his heartbeat—the one I’d heard—pounded in my ears.

  The weapon he’d just shot me with was too familiar. The day before, my former friend, Hannah, had attacked my home tower and tried to steal a branch from the tree. She’d carried the same gun and had told me that the weapon had been given to anyone who would recognize me. They’d been told to shoot on sight.

  She hadn’t told me what the weapon did…

  With a satisfied smile, Aaron let go of the edge and dropped from view, disappearing sooner than I could scream.