by Alane Adams
Guilt punched Sam in the solar plexus, making it hard to breathe. The years of anger and resentment washed over him like a bucket of acid.
She stared at him like she could see right through him. “You think I don’t know the rage you feel? I watched you back in Pilot Rock; you seethed with it. You beat that poor Ronnie Polk into the ground, and you call me a monster?”
Sam flinched, but his feet carried him forward. He counted the stones. There were nine in total. He could do it. Somehow he would find the one that imprisoned his dad.
Sam ran his hands over the first stone. He felt nothing but cold granite.
“How will you know which one he’s in?” Endera asked. “You might discover there’s a witch waiting instead.”
“I’ll know,” Sam said, trying desperately to believe that. He moved on to the next one as Endera kept pace inside the circle. The rest of the witches waited, motionless.
“You never got to say goodbye to him, did you?” Endera said. “Never got to tell him how it felt to be abandoned.”
Sam tried to block out her words. He was so desperate to see his dad, he didn’t want to think about the other feelings he had. The negative feelings. He ran his hands over the second stone. Cold again. If his dad was inside, shouldn’t he feel something?
“I would be furious if my father left me and made my mother lie about it. How terribly unfair.” Endera’s words were like needles in Sam’s skin.
“Just shut up!” Sam shouted, trying to stay focused as he arrived at the third stone. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know everything about you. You hate him, don’t you?” Endera asserted. “You certainly have every right to.”
Her words brought Sam to a halt. He stood at the fourth rock. It was awful and true. Some part of Sam did hate his father, for all the reasons Endera had mentioned. But he still wanted to see him one last time. He put his hand on the tall stone and felt a thrum, a warmth, an electric current.
“I hope you can, Sam. Free him, that is. It will be a pleasure to kill Robert Barconian twice.”
Sam ran his hand over the fourth stone again, thrilling at the electric sensation. His dad was in there. He had found him.
He looked over at Endera. “When I release my father, we’re going to destroy you.” He closed his eyes and walked away, drawing in a deep breath and channeling his energy.
Sam focused on the Fury that Odin had infused his body with. He could feel it pumping through his veins. Could he do it? Could Odin’s magic really undo the spell that held his father in that stone? There was only one way to find out. Sam planted his feet and then ran forward at full speed . . .
“Fein kinter separas,” he shouted, and hit the rock.
Sam didn’t bounce back on his rear, like he had half expected to. Instead, the rock absorbed the impact.
Silence hung in the air. Every witch in the coven watched breathlessly.
For a moment, Sam thought he had failed. He took a step back, bracing for despair. Then the rock began to splinter. Cracks spread like black veins across the surface, slowly at first, then faster and faster, until, with a loud pop, the stone shattered into thousands of pieces, disintegrating into a squall of gray dust. As the air cleared, Sam saw a man curled up in a ball on the ground, wearing a tattered Orkadian uniform.
“Dad!” Flooded with joy, Sam dropped to his knees.
His father didn’t move at first, then lifted a hand groggily.
“Sam?” he whispered though dry lips. “Is it really you?” His blue eyes burned with intensity as they searched his son’s face. He hadn’t seen Sam since the boy was ten years old.
“Yeah, it’s me,” Sam said, brushing tears away.
Robert Barconian’s eyes clouded as he looked around and saw Endera with the rest of the witches. “Sam, what have you done?”
“I saved you,” he said, confused by his father’s tone. “Yes, Sam. But . . . freeing me may have doomed us all,” his father lamented. His face was gray with pain. Blood seeped through his clothing from a puncture wound in his side.
Before Sam could speak, a loud crack rang out, splintering the air as the tall stone next to them split down the center.
“It’s happening,” Robert murmured helplessly.
Sam looked up at Endera and was surprised to see her smiling. Then she tilted her head back, laughing triumphantly.
The stone finally shattered, and an old woman stepped out from the rubble.
The coven gasped at the sight, and a wave of witches began to kneel in reverence.
Then, in a chain reaction, each stone in the ring began to crack and shatter in succession. From the dust and debris, more female figures emerged.
Witches.
The last stone exploded with a boom that hurt Sam’s ears and sent rocky shrapnel flying through the air. An older witch, with a shock of gray hair, took a deep, fortifying breath and then let out a high-pitched shriek, which the assembled mass of witches echoed.
“What’s going on?” Sam asked his father.
“The Ring of Brogar was bound together by Odin’s magic. Breaking one stone broke them all.”
Sam looked around at the splintering rocks, and the truth hit him like a punch to the gut: Endera had planned this all along.
She hadn’t wanted the Horn of Gjall at all. The Horn had just been a distraction, a way to appease Hestera and lead Sam here, to this place. She had banked on the fact that he would find Odin and be armed with the power to break the red-sun curse. And after he did, Endera knew, he wouldn’t be able to resist rescuing his father.
Sam glared at Endera and the coven of witches, cackling and exhorting in raucous celebration as they welcomed back their malignant elders. She had played him. But the game wasn’t over.
Robert coughed, drawing Sam’s attention. “I’m sorry I left, Sam,” he whispered. “Please forgive me.”
Sam hesitated. He was full of so many conflicting emotions—anger, compassion, despair, and hope—that he couldn’t find words to respond. All that sputtered from his mouth was, “It’s okay.” And suddenly, despite his more than two years harboring hate, it was okay. “But why didn’t you say goodbye?”
Robert grabbed Sam’s head, bringing him down close to whisper in his ear. “Because I never could have left.” He released Sam and studied him closely. “Look at you, all grown up. . . . How old are you now?”
“Twelve. I’m taller, too.”
His father smiled, and his eyes shimmered with pride, even as the life was fading fast from him. “You are the best of Abigail and me.” A grimace of pain crossed his face. “You have a hard road ahead, son. I wish . . .” He grimaced in pain, then continued, “I wish it were not so, but you must accept your path. Tell your mother . . . I love her.”
Sam felt his father’s fingers lose their strength and slip away. Then he slumped back to the dirt with a soft, mournful groan.
Sam waited for his father’s eyes to open again, but this time he was really gone.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Sam rocked back on his ankles, awash in grief. He had wasted so much time being angry. All the while, his dad had been trapped in a stone, trying to save his world. At that moment, Sam would have given anything to spend five more minutes with his father, just to tell him everything he had done in the years since he had been gone.
“Sam, buddy, time to move.” It was Howie. Burn marks crisscrossed his arms and face, but he helped Sam to his feet. “They’re busy having a reunion.” Howie gestured at the witches, still in the midst of their repellent homecoming. “Let’s go.”
Swiping his tears away with the back of his hand, Sam put his arm around Howie to help his friend, and they began to run. But a blast of witchfire at their feet knocked them both to the ground.
“Leaving so soon?” Endera challenged.
Sam spat out a mouthful of dirt and pushed himself back to his feet. “Get out of here, Howie. This isn’t your fight.”
But Howie hauled himself up and
stood next to him. “The heck it’s not. I’ve been their prisoner for weeks now.” Howie squeezed his hands into scrawny fists at his side.
“So it’s you and me against an army of witches. I’m liking the odds; how about you?”
“Just like when Ronnie Polk and his thugs tried to smash a grape jelly sandwich in my face. All I needed was my buddy at my side.”
Sam nodded. The sides were set. He faced Endera and her horde of witches. “Go back to Balfour Island, where you belong!” he shouted.
“Or what?” Endera sauntered forward. “I have eight of the most powerful witches in history on my side. Who’s going to stop us from taking over Orkney?”
Sam looked at Howie, and his friend gave him a thumbs-up. He turned back to Endera. “Looks like we are.”
Endera began to back away, looking suddenly wary.
It was working. The other witches began to draw in closer, forming a tighter circle, giving Sam the crazy idea that they really did fear him. Then he heard a shout, and the onrushing rumble of stamping feet.
“The Ninth Realm will never fall into your wicked hands!”
The voice was Rego’s.
I must be dreaming, Sam thought. Rego was supposed to be on the other side of Garamond.
“The Eifalians will not allow the Ninth Realm to fall,” Gael echoed.
“The Falcory will not allow the Ninth Realm to fall,” Beo grunted.
Sam and Howie watched in shocked relief as Captain Teren stepped up, sword drawn. “The Orkadian army stands ready to defend the Ninth Realm.” He looked sideways at Sam, and Sam could swear Teren winked at him.
Behind Sam now stood an army. A legion of Ninth Realmers on horses, on foot: Falcory, Eifalian, Orkadian, as far as he could see. Men and women stood ready to do battle.
And there, pushing to the front of the horde, were Keely, looking pale but alive, next to Leo, and Mavery, standing with Rego, looking fired up enough to tear the witches apart.
Keely looked smug. “You’re not the only one who can ride an Omera,” she told Sam.
A bolt of green lightning split the sky, and Sam’s gaze snapped back toward the witches.
“Let the fate of the Ninth Realm be decided!” Endera decreed.
Proud and defiant roars rose up from each side.
I’ve started a war, Sam thought.
Rego led the charge with a cry, followed by his one-armed brother, Amicus, brandishing his sword, leading a battalion of Orkadian soldiers.
“Let me at them,” Mavery growled, marching forward, but Sam scooped her up over his shoulder and dumped her wriggling body behind a tree.
“Stay here,” he warned the little witch.
“But I wanna fight,” she said, her eyes determined.
Sam knelt down and took her by the shoulders. “I can’t help win this if I’m worried about you, understand?”
She nodded reluctantly, leaning back against the trunk, arms folded in protest.
Sam left her and ran back to the fighting line, where he took a stand next to Leo. Leo held his bow and calmly launched arrows at the witches. Keely stood next to him, a bow in hand as well. She wasn’t as smooth as Leo, and her arrows wobbled when they flew.
“Keely?”
“Leo’s been teaching me,” she said proudly.
“Where’s Howie?”
She jerked her head to the right.
Sam searched and found him. Howie was in the thick of things, trying awkwardly to swing a sword. Sam moved toward him when he spied Endera making her way across the battlefield, blazing fire at soldiers that stood in her way. At her side, a Shun Kara loped.
She’s going after Howie, Sam realized.
Sam raced toward his friend, but he was still fifteen feet away when Endera gave the signal, and the Shun Kara leaped straight at Howie, taking him down in a tumble of claws and fur. Howie made feeble attempts to defend himself, but the fight would be over in seconds. Not now, Sam thought. Howie doesn’t get to die while I stand by.
In that moment, Sam knew what he had to do. The word flew to his lips. “Gungnir!” he shouted. Instantly, he felt a burning sensation in his hand, and then he was holding the mighty spear. He cocked his arm back and threw it with all his might straight at the Shun Kara. The spear flew through the air, steady and straight, hitting the wolf in the shoulder. The animal yelped as the impact carried it ten feet away and then impaled it in the ground. The mighty spear shimmered in the light and then disappeared.
Sam turned to check on Howie, but a sharp pain in his side knocked him back.
Endera stood gloating, ready to send another blast of witch-fire Sam’s way. And that’s when it happened. When the last semblance of denial about who Sam really was snapped. A curtain of rage came down over his eyes, blocking out all thought and reason. A frenzy of hate and a towering need to destroy her filled every cell in his body. She had done this. Hurt Howie. Tried to destroy Orkney. Killed his father.
Sam slowly stood and turned to face her. He felt flushed with cold and heat at the same time, like he had ice running through his veins to keep him from exploding. As Endera sent another blast his way, he stopped it and then let out a scream of rage, the cords in his throat bulging as he vented his fury. He raised his hands. Witchfire burst from his palms. He thrust them at her, sending twin bolts of searing energy at her.
“You lured me here, just like my father!” Sam screamed. “But now you’re going to feel what pain is.”
Sam blasted her over and over again, putting everything he had into destroying the witch who had made his existence a living hell. Endera screamed, her body contorting in pain, smoke rising off her. She fell back, twisting and tumbling to the ground, but he kept on, advancing on her and showing her no mercy as he recalled every evil deed she had done. He kept firing at Endera’s writhing body until he felt a firm hand on his shoulder. It was Gael. The Eifalian looked at him with empathy.
“Don’t be like her, Sam.”
But in that moment, Sam wanted to be like her, wanted to be the one who had the power to inflict pain on others. He shrugged Gael off, but the curtain had lifted. After another few seconds of watching Endera writhe, he dropped his arm, feeling the rage drain out of him.
On the battlefield, Sam watched three men go down in a blaze of green fire as the witches lashed out at the Orkadian forces. Gael’s band of Eifalians used their magic to defend the soldiers, steadily deflecting the deadly bolts and sending them back at the witches, but men were falling into smoldering heaps. Beo’s Falcory had deadly aim with their bows; helped along by Keely and Leo, they dropped witches as fast as they could notch an arrow, but it was a neck-and-neck battle, with the fate of Orkney hanging in the balance.
Sam’s eyes were drawn into the center of the ring, where one witch stood apart from the rest. She had waist-long gray hair and sharp, penetrating eyes that shot blazes of emerald fire.
Catriona.
The mother of all witches.
Daughter of Rubicus.
His great-great-grandmother.
For Sam, it was hate at first sight.
The matriarchal witch was muttering words and running her hands through the air. Sam could feel the pulsing current from where he stood. She had enormous power. Power she was drawing on to launch an unholy attack. As energy coalesced around Catriona like an electric tornado, the hair all over Sam’s body stood on end. Endera and her cronies didn’t come close to this kind of potency.
The Orkadians don’t stand a chance, Sam realized.
Sam began to run, knocking witches to the side as if they were bowling pins. A Shun Kara jumped at him, and he punched it in the jaw, sending the creature flying. He still had the Fury of Odin, and, combined with his own witch magic, it made him feel invincible. He made it twenty feet away from Catriona before she sensed him and turned.
The ancient witch blazed a trail of fire in the dust, right up to his feet, where it stopped as he raised his hand and held her at bay.
“Stop!” he shouted. “St
op the fighting!”
The battle slowed to a halt as Catriona eyed him up and down.
“Who are you?”
“Samuel Barconian, Son of Odin, Son of Rubicus.”
Her eyes filled with fury and disgust. “There has never been a Son of Rubicus.” She looked around at the other witches and shot her hand into the sky, letting loose a deafening clap of thunder. It was so loud the hundreds of shields on the battlefield rattled.
Sam’s eardrums rang so strongly he thought he would faint.
Sam regrouped and unleashed a ball of witchfire, directing it at the old witch’s head.
Catriona easily batted it away and spun back at him. “You have dark magic. How is that so?”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”
She tilted her head back and laughed. “I know you are puny and weak.” She sent a blazing blast of witchfire at Sam, but he held his hand up, absorbing it in his palm, and then thrust it back at her. It singed the bottom of her skirt, making her yelp.
“I’m stronger than you think,” he boasted. It was time to put his plan into action. He put his fingers to his lips and let out a shrill whistle. He did it again, more loudly. Then again.
From the hillsides, Sam heard the beat of wings as the sky filled with black shapes. Omeras swooped down, more than fifty of them, and took up a stand around the circle of pulverized stones.
“You think these creatures will protect you? I created them.” Catriona stalked forward triumphantly, shouting at the closest Omera, “Catriona temerus, morbidio, morbidio Barconian.” The Omera didn’t move, didn’t flinch—just continued to stand, poised, with its tail raised.
Catriona spun back to Sam, launching a wave of fire in his direction. “What have you done to my beautiful pets?”
Sam raised his hand and pushed back the fire with an invisible wall of magic. “I’ve made them my own.”
Fury turned her face a putrid shade of purple. “Destroy them!” Catriona commanded. “Destroy them all. Leave nothing alive.”
Every witch on the battlefield turned her magic toward Sam. But the Omeras launched themselves at the witches, diving with spiked tails and slashing claws. Sam grabbed the pouch from his neck, swinging it over his head, creating a wave of energy that blew back the witchfire and shielded his friends.
