Seeker’s World

by K A Riley

  “Mariah Sloane,” Merriwether said with a strange, distant smile. “This is, of course, your grandmother.”

  “Nana?” I asked, gawking at the painting. The young woman wore a dark green jacket and black pants and clutched a silver blade in her lap—a curved dagger of some sort. “My grandmother…was a Seeker?” I asked, baffled. And from the looks of it, she was a badass.

  “Yes. Fifty years ago,” Merriwether said. “Your grandmother faced many dangers and then some. She was the leader of the last cohort, and it was only because of her strength that we’ve managed to keep the Mistress at bay for so long.”

  I moved toward the portrait, marveling at how like my grandmother—and yet unlike her—the woman staring back at me was. Nana was small and, though she was energetic, she’d always given off an old-woman vibe that made it extremely difficult to contemplate her as some sort of fierce, bright-eyed, young warrior. Sure, she was a bundle of energy in her garden. And she could knit a sweater with her eyes closed. And no one made a better Shepherd’s Pie. But this…?

  “You really did have magical powers,” I said softly to the painting. “All that time, Will and I were right.” I spun back to look at Merriwether. “Did you know her?”

  “I did,” he said, his tone altering to something bittersweet.

  “Have you seen her since she was here?”

  He hesitated for a moment before replying, “Once, yes. A few years after she collected the Relics and turned them over to the powers that be. Your grandmother is a great woman. She sacrificed a good deal for both our worlds. She did everything she could to ensure that the Mistress—the Usurper Queen—would never come to her full strength.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. So strange to think of Nana as a young woman in her small Cornish hometown. A girl my age, confronted by the same strange series of events as I’d experienced. I wondered if she’d been as frightened as I’d been, or if somehow, she’d taken it all in stride. She was so confident, so knowledgeable.

  Suddenly, I wanted to see her again, to get to know the woman I’d always thought I knew so well. I wanted to ask her about the silver chain she’d given me and how it had saved her life back in the day.

  “So Nana—my grandmother—she competed in the Trials you’re talking about? She…won?”

  Merriwether nodded. “She did. Though I can’t say she expected to. It can be overwhelming to walk into a situation such as yours. Some crumble when they realize the full significance of their task. She came close to giving up before the Trials even began, but in the end, she succeeded. Back then, the Mistress was only beginning to come into her power, of course. She’d just recently sent the rightful heir away from the capital and had begun to amass her forces.”

  “So, you’re saying my Nana put a stop to that. She kept things from going too far.”

  “She brought us the Relics, yes. For a long time, we had all four in our possession. The only one that hasn’t faded completely is the Orb of Kilarin.”

  Merriwether guided me over to another glass case concealed in a far corner of the library’s top level. At first, it appeared to be empty. But as we approached, I could see that an object was floating inside it, flickering in and out of focus as I stared. It was a purplish orb, somewhat like a crystal ball, and hovering inside it was the image of a dark castle with tall, jagged towers. All told, the object looked like a grim snow globe bought from a gift shop in Hell.

  “Its power is fading,” Merriwether said, “and soon it, too, will vanish from this place. It has been under our protection for the last fifty years. The moment it disappears, the queen will send her minions to find it, just as she’s already sent them to find the other Relics. Just as she sent them to find you, to acquire your key.”

  “What if I…I mean, what if the chosen Seeker fails?”

  “Then the Otherwhere will fall. The portals will open permanently, and the queen’s agents will move through freely. Your world will be overtaken by those who move in shadow. Towns like Fairhaven will be overrun by Waergs and others, and the world will slowly burn.”

  “So, no big deal then,” I muttered.

  I stared at the orb, which flickered, disappeared, then seemed to flare to life again like a flame gasping for air. I stared at the strange structure lurking inside it, contemplating what would happen to an idyllic little town like Fairhaven if the creatures who’d haunted me since I’d turned seventeen took over. It was a tough and scary concept to get my head around, but when I thought about the strife and the suffering and the turmoil in the world—all of which I knew could easily one day make its way to Fairhaven—it didn’t seem so outlandish or so improbable anymore.

  For the first time, I knew without a doubt what I had to do.

  “I want to compete in the Trials,” I said, Will’s advice echoing in my head. “I’ll do my best—even if I’m not sure that’ll be good enough. I want to help if I possibly can.”

  “Come, then,” Merriwether said with a nod and an approving smile, leading me toward the nearest spiral staircase. “I believe it’s time to introduce you to the Academy.”

  The Academy for the Blood-Born

  When we reached a set of double doors at the base of the stairs, Merriwether stood to the side and gestured for me to proceed. But as I reached for the handle, both doors swung open without so much as the touch of my fingertips.

  “Welcome to the Academy for the Blood-Born,” Merriwether said in his rich, deep voice as a long hallway appeared before my eyes.

  “The door?” I asked, my mouth open. “Did I do that?”

  Merriwether answered me with a cryptic, “Hm.”

  Side by side, we walked into the hallway. Large, arched windows lined the walls on the right side, inviting beams of sunlight to splay out in big rectangles on the floor. I wasn’t much of a church-goer, but when I was little, I did like the way the millions of dust particles would dance in the light from the stained glass at the old church in Fairhaven. Oddly, there was none of that here. The air was as sterile as the glass was pristine. The light beamed in pure white.

  Up ahead of us, uniformed students walked the hallway’s length, stopping here and there to talk or to sit down on leather-upholstered benches to examine their books. Most of the kids were my age and were dressed in outfits that appeared to be a hybrid of school uniforms and some sort of medieval body armor. Red, navy blue, or fitted green leather waistcoats. Trousers that looked like Merriwether’s loose linen pants, and boots that reminded me of the ones in all those war movies I’d watched with Will over the years.

  The students’ haircuts, too, were a mystery. Some of the boys looked like they’d just stepped out of 2019, their hair tidily trimmed, while others had shaggy, unkempt manes that brought to mind movies about Arthurian times. The girls generally had long hair, tied back in one way or another. I could only assume this was for practical purposes—whatever sort of training they were undergoing at the Academy was probably physical, and I knew from years of experience with uncontrollable curls that there was nothing as distracting as locks of hair falling in your face while you were trying to focus on the task at hand.

  A few of the students had weapons sheathed around their waists, while others looked as though they themselves were weapons. A boy who must have been at least seven feet tall slouched over a much smaller girl with a sheathed dagger tucked into a leather belt at her side. The girl had silver eyes, her pupils vertical like a cat’s. The boy, meanwhile, had hands the size of frying pans, and looked like he could break through any one of the Academy’s walls with little more than one angry punch.

  “Who are they?” I asked Merriwether.

  “The Academy’s trainees. Soldiers in our army. The Academy has always been a training ground for the Gifted, even when we aren’t at war. Someone needs to keep the peace, after all. Of course, most of the students you see right now are here to train as part of the Elite.”

  “The Elite?”

  “The group who will accompany the chosen Seeker o
n his or her task. It’s a dangerous world, Vega. You’ve had a little taste of it already. But you should know we do everything here to ensure that the chosen Seeker survives to do their job.”

  “Survives? Isn’t that a little extreme?”

  Merriwether paused and grew stern, a deep crease forming between his eyes. He stopped me from walking forward with a firm hand on my shoulder. “This isn’t a game. And it’s not a fantasy or a dream. In your world, people talk in hyperbolic terms all the time. They say things like, ‘I nearly died of embarrassment’ when they trip in public or ‘I’m going to kill you’ when someone cuts them off in traffic. This isn’t that. People here die doing what they must. Seekers die.”

  “That’s reassuring,” I muttered.

  Merriwether shot me a look I couldn’t quite decipher—he was either amused or annoyed by my sarcasm…or a little of both.

  Any chance he had to figure me out was interrupted by the opening of a door at the far end of the hall. A familiar girl with skin the color of alabaster walked through, accompanied by a small orange tabby cat, who slinked along at her side with all the confidence of a Bengal tiger. The girl wore a dark blue leather waistcoat layered over a white tunic. I was beginning to realize the colors the students wore meant something—like they were some sort of classification system for the various groups.

  “Niala!” Merriwether called out, gesturing to her. “Come here. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

  The girl began walking toward us, her cat trotting at her heels like it had an invisible lead tied around its neck. As they approached, it transformed in front of my eyes into a large obsidian-black husky. Its keen eyes remained locked on mine with the same appraising expression I’d seen on the ferret at Midsummer Fest.

  “This lovely creature is Rourke, Niala’s Familiar,” Merriwether explained, gesturing to the dog but taking care not to touch him. “You’ve probably already figured out he’s a shape-shifter.” He said it as though he was simply explaining that the walls were made of stone. Like it wasn’t something utterly mind-blowing. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a little business to attend to. Niala will show you around the Academy before the Assembly.”

  Merriwether walked away, and Niala turned to me.

  “The Assembly is in the Great Hall,” she explained as she began to walk down the long corridor. The dog padded along next to her, and I found myself doing the same. “You’re the last Candidate to arrive,” she added. “Which means it’s time to start the Trials.”

  A knot of nervous excitement formed in my gut. “So soon?”

  “Well, there will be some training first. I’m sure the Headmaster told you that.”

  “Right. Yes. Sort of. He told me so many things. I’m not sure I can keep them straight, to be honest.”

  “Listen,” Niala said softly, looking at me out of the corner of her eyes. “I know this must be a lot to take in.”

  When I nodded but didn’t say anything, she gestured around at the ornate hall, buzzing with its strange assortment of oddly-clothed teenagers, and dropped her voice to a more serious register. “I won’t tell you not to worry or not to be afraid. Merriwether is a straight-shooter. I’m sure he told you what’s at stake here.”

  I nodded again, still unable to get words past the lump in my throat.

  “I’d offer you advice, but I don’t have any. Everyone’s experience here is different. Some can never get past the shock to the system of realizing they’re living between two realms. Others get overwhelmed by the enormity of the task ahead or by the intensity of the training it takes to accomplish it. I will tell you this much: Don’t forget why you’re here or who you’re doing this for. Don’t fight the pain or the fear you’re going to experience. Instead, use it to guide and motivate you.”

  Finally, I swallowed hard and managed to squeak out a single question: “What did Merriwether mean about…people dying?”

  Niala was quiet at first before telling me that Merriwether wasn’t exaggerating. “And he wasn’t trying to scare you,” she added. “It’s all part of the test.”

  “Test?”

  “Of whether your fear of death is stronger than your love of life.”

  “Did I pass?”

  Niala’s indifferent shrug didn’t inspire confidence, and I felt my heart race and my stomach drop.

  After that, we walked in silence for a minute, my eyes moving from the buzzing students to the architecture to the view of ocean and cliffs outside. Uncomfortable and desperate to break the mortuary-like silence, I asked, “What exactly is a Familiar?”

  “An animal companion who knows my mind.” Niala stopped in her tracks and looked out a large window toward the distant horizon. For such an intimidating presence, it slightly confused me to register how gentle and soft her voice was. I pulled my eyes to her face, only to see that she wore the same expression as the dog at her side. Focused, intelligent, unreadable.

  “I saw you in Fairhaven,” I said. “On Friday evening. Talking to Callum. Didn’t you have a ferret or something?”

  Niala laughed. “That was Rourke. He can shift into a variety of animals. A ferret. A wolf. He was a panther that night in the alley.”

  “Well, whatever he was, thank you both for taking that man—Waerg—whatever he was—away.”

  Niala held up her hand. “I’m sorry for what you went through. The Waergs seem to have a great interest in you, though I’m not entirely sure why.” She began walking again, leading me along the hallway toward a set of huge double-doors with Rourke loping along at her side. “They don’t stalk every Candidate.”

  The heavy wooden double-doors swung open on golden hinges the size of my forearm.

  “So how long am I…?”

  “Are you going to be here?”

  I nodded and blushed at the transparency of my anxiety.

  “It’s just…my brother will be trying to get in touch with me.”

  Niala let out another ringing laugh. There was something so easy about her when she smiled, so light, that I almost forgot how threatening she and her panther had looked in that alley. “No one will even know you’re gone.”

  “Great. I’m so unimportant to the world that I won’t be missed.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “Then what? Did they replace me with a clone?”

  Niala grinned. “No.”

  “A robot look-alike? An alien pod?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Then what? Will’s off at school, but he’s still overprotective enough to freak out if he doesn’t hear from me.”

  “During the Trials, time works a little differently. A day in the Otherwhere is next to nothing compared to where you come from.”

  I must have looked confused because Niala stopped walking and swung around to face me. “Look at it this way. It’d take you about twenty-four hours to walk a hundred miles. You could probably cover the same distance in a car in about one hour. If you were a soundwave, you could do it in five seconds. If you were a beam of light, you’d travel a hundred miles nearly instantly. The point is, time runs between the realms in a slightly off-center parallel. In your world, you’re you. Here, you’re the beam of light.”

  “So Will is still…?”

  “Where you left him.”

  “And Liv is still packing for her family trip?”

  “If that’s what she was doing when you came here, then, yes. The Trials are in a week, our time. After that, and if all goes well, depending on what happens, you’ll find yourself back in Fairhaven, almost like you never left.”

  “A week?” I all but shouted, glancing around self-consciously when I saw that a number of concerned faces had turned my way. I lowered my voice. “I’m supposed to learn everything there is about combat and being a Seeker and all that—in a week?”

  “Don’t worry. You’ll have lots of help. Tell me, what’s your gift?”

  “My gift?”

  “Your power. You know, what tricks can you pull out
of your sleeve?”

  “I…I can make doors appear,” I said sheepishly. “Which seems pretty useless, now that I think about it.”

  “Not useless,” Niala said. “It’s a good start. You’re a Summoner.”

  “Merriwether said something about that, but I’m not quite sure I understand what a Summoner is. I pictured myself leading rats out of Hamelin.”

  Niala let out another melodious laugh. She had a way of finding everything amusing without making me feel as though she was laughing at me, and I found myself appreciating her more with every passing second. Something about her was as reassuring and comforting as a security blanket. She and Rourke reminded me a little of Charlie and Rufus. Constant companions who marched to their own beat and exuded a strange, quiet confidence. Neither seemed concerned for a moment that they were different, that they didn’t necessarily fit smoothly into the world.

  Then again, at the Blood-Born Academy, it seemed like no one—and yet everyone—fit in.

  “A Summoner,” Niala said. “Well, now, let’s see. How do I describe it? Your kind has the ability to conjure things. I’ve seen Summoners who can call forth solid fortifications with their minds. Some can call up weapons. Not permanent ones, mind you—but they last long enough to use against their opponents and make life fairly miserable for them.”

  “That actually sounds kind of fun,” I said, picturing myself throwing a massive brick wall up in front of the next Waerg who came at me. The only problem was that I couldn’t begin to imagine myself successfully casting such a spell.

  Niala nodded. “I’ve even heard of Summoners who can call animals to their side to aid them in combat situations. Not like Rourke, though. I’m talking about wild animals. Hawks. Bears.”

  “What do they call someone with your gift?” I asked. “Having a Familiar, I mean.”

  I’m what they call a Tethered—it’s the name they give to people with Familiars, because of our attachment. If something happened to Rourke or to me, we would wither and die. He’s as much a part of me as my own heart.”