Seeker’s World

by K A Riley

  Seeker’s World

  K. A. Riley

  Contents

  Introduction

  I. Fairhaven

  1. Birthday

  2. The Boy and the Book

  3. Coffee Talk

  4. The Gift

  5. The Woman

  6. Will

  7. Midsummer Fest

  8. Waerg

  9. Good-byes

  10. The Enemy

  II. The Otherwhere

  11. Seeker’s World

  12. The Library

  13. The Academy for the Blood-Born

  14. The Great Hall

  15. Gearing Up

  16. The Grove

  17. The Dorm

  18. Training Day

  19. Coaching

  20. Truth

  21. Summons

  22. The Tower

  23. The Pit

  24. Danger

  25. Through the Door

  Seeker’s Quest, Coming Soon!

  Also by K. A. Riley

  Introduction

  “You are a Seeker.

  Prove yourself worthy, and you may just save the world.”

  On her seventeenth birthday, Vega Sloane receives a strange and puzzling gift: a key in the shape of a dragon’s head, along with a note that claims she’s destined to save the world.

  When the handsome and mysterious Callum Drake enters her life, she finds herself inextricably drawn to him, and more questions begin to arise. Who is the boy beyond the exquisite façade and charming smile? Is he an ally, or the very enemy she needs to fight off?

  Vega soon discovers that she’s been invited to a magical Academy in a world beyond her own, a school where those known as the Blood-Born compete and train for perilous quests.

  The only problem?

  Everyone seems to want her dead.

  Part I

  Fairhaven

  Birthday

  The sound that jarred me awake on the morning of my seventeenth birthday was a familiar girl’s voice chirping, “Hey, Vega! Pick up your damned phone! Hey, Vega! Vegaaaa!”

  A smile spread over my lips as I rolled over and reached for my cell phone, which was sitting on top of the half-read pile of novels on the white night stand next to my bed.

  “Thanks again for recording the stellar personalized ring-tone, Liv,” I muttered as I clicked the reply button and pressed the phone to my ear. “You really know how to make a girl feel special.”

  “Happy Birthday, Vega!” she sang, deftly ignoring the mental arrows of sarcasm I was shooting her way. “May I remind you on this July twenty-sixth that you’re now officially one year closer to your demise?”

  “Yes, and thank you for that, too.”

  “You’re welcome. But for the record, if you’d had the two weeks I’ve just had, you’d be praying for death.”

  I let out a snicker. “Let me guess: You didn’t have the greatest time at the cottage with your parents.”

  Liv drew out a pathetic sigh, followed by a dramatic inhalation, which meant she was about to set off on a superhumanly fast verbal tirade. “Well, let’s see. It rained for ten days straight. There was no internet and no cable TV. We lived like freaking cavemen. I’m talking jigsaw puzzles and board games, and not the fun kind with dirty words. We’re talking full-on financial transactions and real estate deals. Not to mention that my dad cheats constantly. I pretty much tore out half my hair, and I’m now on the verge of a psychotic break. But hey, thanks so much for asking.”

  “I’m sorry for your ordeal,” I said. “It reminds me of the stories of glassy-eyed soldiers coming back from war. I don’t know how you survived.”

  “The worst part,” Liv added without missing a beat, “is that I’m about to go on a ten-day road trip with the parental units. They want to leave tomorrow. I’ve barely had time to recover from the cottage. You may as well just kill me now.”

  “I’d love to, but I hear they arrest people for stuff like that,” I said, hoping she’d change the subject. The truth was, it was hard to hear Liv complain about her parents. I lost mine four years ago in a car accident, and the only immediate family I had left was my older brother Will. It was hard not to envy anyone who still had the luxury of spending time with their family.

  “I’m sorry,” Liv said, apparently picking up on my tone. “I’m being an inconsiderate ass.”

  “It’s okay,” I replied.

  “No, it’s not. Besides, the reason I called wasn’t to moan about my life. I know it must suck to be alone today, so I’m hereby forcing you to hang out with me on this fine birthday morning. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

  “What?” I yelled, shooting up to a sitting position, “But I haven’t even showered yet!”

  “Fine. I don’t want to hang out with you if you’re rancid. Tell you what—it’s ten now. I’ll give you exactly half an hour, then we’re going on an adventure.”

  “An adventure? In Fairhaven that doesn’t mean much.”

  “You might be surprised,” Liv said in an uncharacteristically cryptic tone. “I may not have an actual birthday present for you, but I do have a cunning plan that involves both your future happiness and your present pleasure.”

  “Um, I really don’t like the sound of that,” I replied with a yawn and a stretch. I could practically feel the mischievous smile in Liv’s voice. This was her I’m going to meddle in your life in ways that make you cringe tone, one that had led to multiple disasters over the course of our teen years, normally involving some boy or another. If I was book-crazy, Liv was boy-crazy, and I’ve always been fairly sure she’d stack guys up on her nightstand and flip through them one at a time if she could.

  Still, I was curious enough to kick the sheets off my feet and yank myself out of bed.

  “Just…trust me,” she said. “Or don’t. Now go shower and make yourself presentable, Smellypants.”

  “Fine,” I said in surrender and with what I think may have been the first ever audible eye-roll. “See you in half an hour.”

  “Bye, Stinkyface!”

  “Bye, Bossybutt,” I chuckled as I hung up.

  Much as she could be overwhelming, I had to admit that I enjoyed having a take-charge best friend. While I fretted over every option and decision, Liv plowed through life like she was the offspring of a bulldozer and a wrecking ball.

  She was my polar opposite. She was outgoing, bouncy, and fun. I was on permanent alert, always analyzing the possibilities, second guessing myself, and constantly on the lookout for danger around every corner. Meanwhile, Liv was completely lacking in self-consciousness. She was the only reason I ever actually went to parties or socialized with anyone—not that I did either very often. She was fearless, gregarious, perky…everything I was not.

  Then again, I was everything she wasn’t. I was competitive. I was focused. I’d always excelled at school and consistently maintained the highest grades among my peers at Plymouth High. I was also the fastest female sprinter in my grade. Which was a dubious honor, given that it was probably inspired by my innate desire to flee from other human beings.

  My almost obsessive need to excel at school and track was something Liv had always found odd at best, repugnant at worst. Last year, over tea at the café across the street from our school, she asked me why I always tried so hard.

  “It’s not so much that I care about getting the best grades or winning or anything,” I told her with a shrug. “It’s just that I freaking hate losing.”

  Waving her hand in the air like she was scanning a newspaper headline, Liv said she could see my tombstone now: “Here lies Vega Sloane. Winning was more important to her than life, itself. And that’s why she’s dead.”

  The truth, of course, was that I knew if I didn’t excel at my classe
s, I’d fail to secure the scholarships I needed if I ever wanted to go to college. And without college, I’d probably end up living in a soggy, toxic cardboard box, licking discarded hamburger-wrappers in a desperate attempt to stave off starvation.

  My older brother Will and I had been living on our own since our parents died, and we’d survived on a meagre inheritance and his earnings ever since. Will, who was twenty-two now, had put off attending university during that time so he could pick up jobs here and there, always insisting I avoid part-time work while I was still in high school.

  “Focus on your studies while you can,” he always said. “You have plenty of time to work your butt off and be miserable later.”

  All the while, he’d kept us alive. He’d invested our small inheritance cleverly enough so we managed to keep our house and scrape by with the basic necessities. He sacrificed so much of his own life, all so I could lead a relatively normal teenage existence. I owed him everything, and, as I eased out of bed and slid my feet into my fuzzy-bunny slippers, I made a mental note to tell him so. Will had been in Europe for most of July, but he was supposed to get home later in the afternoon to celebrate my birthday with me. Even though he only planned on staying for the night, his homecoming was the best gift I could possibly imagine.

  Excited to see what the day would bring but slightly worried about what Liv had in store for me, I stretched my arms over my head as I walked by my open window, which overlooked the back yard and the thick canopy of trees making up the dense woods surrounding the dead-end street where I’d grown up, on the edge of our very small town.

  A cool breeze was flitting in through the thin curtains, bringing with it the scent of damp grass and leaves. Though it was still weeks away, autumn already hung in the air. So strange to think that soon I’d be starting my last September of high school. This would be my very last autumn in this quiet, uneventful town. By this time next year, I’d be heading off to college to study and meet new people…and probably coming up with excuses for why I couldn’t go out and party with them.

  After an all too quick shower, I raced back to my bedroom and threw on a pair of jeans, a gray t-shirt and hoodie. I yanked open my bedroom door and marched downstairs, pausing on the landing to tidy my long ringlets of curly, dark hair in the silver-framed mirror hanging on the forest green wall.

  I wasn’t generally a fan of mirrors, probably because I wasn’t generally a fan of my face. I’d never liked my combination of prominent cheekbones and my hybrid complexion of orange and mocha freckles thanks to my mother’s Kenyan roots and my father’s Irish skin, which was so pale my mother had always joked that just thinking about being in the sun turned him fire-engine red.

  The thick, dark eyebrows arching over my oddly-large hazel eyes and my slightly pouty lips tended to make strangers think I was perpetually annoyed, which was fine with me. I considered it a natural defense, like the scales of a brightly-colored lizard or the jagged thorns of a pufferfish. “Come close and you’ll regret it,” my features said. It was what Liv called Resting Screw-You Face, but I suspected that was only because she didn’t actually want to call me a bitch.

  When I was little, my mother told me a thousand times how each of my perceived imperfections was really a mark of beauty, but I’d never treated her comments with anything other than skepticism. “It’s your job to say stuff like that,” I told her when I was twelve. “It’s not like you’d say if I was hideous.”

  “Yes, but…” she’d replied. Then, when her argument had stopped dead in its tracks, she’d let the subject drop for a few months until she felt it was time to bring it up again.

  Now, of course, I missed her words of motherly reassurance. I missed everything about her. Her face, her scent, the way she laughed every time my father told one of his terrible jokes.

  I missed those terrible jokes, too.

  As I scrutinized my reflection, I felt all of a sudden like I was staring at someone I’d never met. Maybe it was the way the morning light was hitting me, but for some reason my face seemed to have thinned out since yesterday, as though I’d magically managed to shed the last remnants of my nebulous childhood puffiness. My eyes looked brighter than usual, the green in my irises kicking it up a notch from their usual dull shade, like someone had turned on a light inside me.

  Well, I supposed it made sense. The face staring back at me, I reminded myself, was now seventeen years old. Maybe it was the accelerating sprint toward adulthood that had altered me overnight. Or maybe it had been so long since I’d really bothered assessing myself that I’d forgotten what I really looked like.

  With a deep exhalation, I plodded the rest of the way down the stairs. When I reached the foyer, I was greeted by the sight of a large yellow envelope sitting on the floor by the mail slot. I reached down and grabbed it, flipping it over.

  The tidy handwriting read:

  Miss Vega Sloane

  12 Cardyn Lane

  Fairhaven, MA

  The return address indicated that the envelope had come from my father’s mother, who lived in Cornwall, England. She sent me birthday cards every year. Usually they featured cutesy pictures of sparkly unicorns or prancing teddy bears, and pithy quotes like, “You’re a magical squishy-wishy granddaughter!” or “Hugs to a very special girl who’s about to turn moody and grow hair in strange and surprising places!”

  Okay, so those weren’t the exact words. But the end result of those my-how-you’ve-grown cards was usually profound mortification on my part.

  So I was surprised when I tore the envelope open and pulled out this year’s offering only to find an eerily dark painting on the cover of the bleak card.

  The image was of a foreboding forest path. A series of spindly trees stretched out over it, their branches looming like deadly talons above the overgrown walkway. Far in the distance at the trail’s end was a mysterious source of light that looked even more terrifying than the trees themselves. I couldn’t help but wonder if Nana’s eyesight was failing and she’d accidentally bought me some kind of grim “Condolences for the death of your beloved parakeet” card.

  When I pulled it open, a silver chain slithered out and landed with a succession of delicate clinks in a coil on the kitchen counter.

  That’s odd, I thought. If she wanted to give me a necklace, why wouldn’t she wrap it or put it in a box or something?

  When I picked up the chain and held it under the sunlight beaming in through the large window above the sink, it seemed to take on a strange glow, as though its links were covered in tiny diamonds that picked up every subtlety of the sun’s rays.

  Puzzled, I set the chain down on the counter while I scanned the inside of the card.

  Instead of her usual “For a very lovely girl on her birthday,” Nana had written an enigmatic note in her tidy script.

  Happy Seventeenth Birthday, Vega.

  Today marks a turning point: the end of an old life and the beginning of a new one. There are challenges and danger ahead. Wear this silver chain at all times. It will never tangle or break. Perhaps it will save your life as it once saved mine.

  Love,

  Nana.

  My mother had always referred to my grandmother as an “eccentric character.” Will and I had always half-jokingly speculated that she was some sort of sorceress who made potions out of eye of newt, tail of squirrel, or liver of the neighbor’s pet goldfish. Her cottage in Cornwall was a veritable museum of strange and wonderful artifacts, ranging from unidentifiable animal skulls to medieval-looking weaponry to vials of substances I’d always imagined were magical balms and tonics, but which my mother had pointed out were probably just standard kitchen sauces and seasonings.

  Still, sending me a “life-saving” silver chain was a little out there, even for Nana.

  “Well,” I muttered, tucking the card back into the envelope and fastening the chain around my neck by its delicate clasp, “Today I learned that my grandmother has gone completely bat-crap crazy. Happy Birthday to me.”

>   The Boy and the Book

  I had just picked up the army surplus satchel that served as my purse when the doorbell rang. The second I yanked the front door open, Liv pounced, squeezing me so hard I was sure I’d pass out from the loss of circulation.

  “Hello, Birthday Girl!” she shouted when she’d pulled away, strands of jet-black hair bouncing as she hopped up and down. “Let’s go! I want to hit Perks for a mochaccino after my little surprise. All my parents had at the cottage was instant coffee that tasted like dirty puddle water funneled through an old sweat sock.”

  “Feeding a caffeine addiction when you’re already a hyperactive lunatic seems like a really bad idea, Liv. Maybe you should see if they sell chamomile tea. Or better still, horse tranquilizers. A mochaccino might send you flying over the edge into Loopy-Town.”

  “Pfft! Loopy-Town is underrated. Come on,” she said, grabbing my sleeve and pulling like a puppy desperate to play. “Let’s head out. It’s a perfect day.”

  I followed her outside, locking the door behind me before tucking my key into my bag and jogging toward the sidewalk to keep up with her quick pace.

  The street was lined with mature trees whose limbs drooped over the road, forming a large archway that Will and I had always described as our own private tunnel when we were kids. In our imaginations we’d turned Fairhaven into a veritable amusement park filled with interesting nooks and crannies. We knew which trees were best for climbing, which parts of the woods were best for finding berries, and which back yards had the best treehouses.