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The Seven Kingdoms
Copyright © 2015 by Samantha Lucas
Cover design by Samantha Lucas
All cover art and logo copyright © 2014
Edited by Amy Warren Stoll
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
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Book Dedication:
I’ve never had a book come out that I’ve been more excited about, or proud of. I know you will all love this story. I know the magic will capture your imagination, while the romance captures your heart. We have nine more books to go after this, so this is a commitment to a journey we’re taking together, and I want to thank you all for having faith in me and letting this wonderful story into your life.
I would never have gotten to this point without the love and support day in and out of both my kids. Nearly four years ago I had to completely reset my life, and they both have been with me each step of the way. If not for them, I think going back to fiction would have stayed in the dream category indefinitely. This is entirely backwards, but they’re the ones that have taught me that it’s okay to make the things I want a priority. And so I did.
Going back to writing full time was a scary proposition, one I wouldn’t have made without my kids pushing me, but once I made the leap, it was my best friend Kevin who helped keep my head on straight. His humor and support picked me up at the hardest moments and helped me get to the finish line of this first book… now he better be there for the next nine!
Lastly, I have to thank my friend and editor, Amy, without whom this book simply would not have been possible. This idea had to be indie, but to go indie all by yourself is just impossible. Amy’s editing of this book was the gift of a lifetime to me and I do hope just the beginning of the adventure. Amy, from sitting out at Disney with me, listening to me brainstorm, to your skilled editing, I honestly could not have done this without you. You took my raw ideas and helped me pull a fantastic story from them. Your comments and suggestions were so spot on and helped make this book strong, compelling, and wonderful. I thank you so much.
Writing a book always gives you a lot to think about, to take stock of, and writing this one really helped me remember just how very blessed I am and how very much I love writing. Now here’s to the next nine, may each one be better than the last! - Samantha
The Seven Kingdoms
A Tales of Elethiya Serial
The Failsafe Prophecies ~ Season 1 Episode 1
Samantha Lucas
Copyright © 2015
Chapter One
In the space between unconscious and awake there is only silence.
Rigo’s heartbeat echoed in that silence. He heard the breath enter his lungs and leave. Soon there was a strange distorted ricochet before the sound of children laughing entered the vortex and before his vision returned to him.
In the time it took for him to take a breath, all his senses were back on line, the heavy scent of the flowers, the sounds of running water and laughter. He was in a garden, pink trees everywhere, a small lake and a concrete path circling it. There were couples walking around the lake hand in hand, some on cell phones, kids playing, a man sitting on a bench working with a tablet. He recalled the sound of children laughing that he’d heard just before re-entering time and space.
He didn’t have time to sort out the disorientation before a loud crack split the air. In that break he saw the first roahn-ami appear, and knew why he’d been called to the area.
A human shaped figure, so black in color it would suck out the light of whatever was near it. Its ears were pointed like a cat. Its eyes, they weren’t eyes. They were two egg shaped pockets of white light that allowed it to find its target. They had wings and could fly, but most often, now for instance, their wings were tucked into sleeves in their backs, completely out of view. They could still levitate above most humans, hanging in the air above them like death.
The sweet scent that always accompanied them rivaled the florals. Rigo had come to hate that scent to the point it sickened him. The roahn-ami had only one purpose, to steal the souls of anything it could, and drag those souls to the darkness.
He scanned the area and found the roahn-ami’s target at the same time the demon locked on.
He had no idea what she’d done to elicit such a powerful enemy, but it was his job to make certain the roahn-ami did not succeed. She wore jeans and a yellow tee and had her long blonde hair pulled back in a band at the base of her neck. She was bent over a pale purple rose and completely oblivious to her pending danger.
He began to run, only taking a few steps before the lion buried deep within him came roaring to the surface. Two human feet hitting the pavement turned into four paws. He felt the power surge, the wind rushing through his long black mane. Everything he was became fiercely primal as he charged towards the beast and its intended prey.
He arrived at her the same time as the roahn-ami. She stood now, staring into nothingness. She didn’t notice his presence running towards her, nor the shape behind her. That told him all he needed to know.
She was already in the darkness.
Trapped between two worlds, the battle for her soul would be won or lost by a demon and a shifter.
The roahn-ami were incredibly agile, feminine in their movements, and able to achieve speeds the eye could not follow. This one used its power to pull the girl’s soul from her body. Standing behind her, its hands directed the energy through her body, out her back, and into one of the containers it wore on its belt, the only article of clothing worn by the roahn-ami.
Rigo pushed harder to reach the girl.
Only a few more leaps of his muscles
and he’d reach her, but she was already falling limp. He roared as he pushed himself to his breaking point to reach her, but the soul was nearly completely gone. He felt the shiver of energy pass through him, the shift in energy on the planet that happened anytime a soul left or arrived.
Hayden slipped through the vortex and tried to force herself awake faster than was happening naturally. She sensed the danger deep within herself and knew she needed to be awake and aware fast.
Her first view was of a park-like space. Then she smelled the roahn-ami and saw Rigo’s transformation as he charged at a woman on the far end of the lake from where she stood. She watched as his human arms and legs became powerful cat-like limbs, as his long blond hair became a long black mane. He was beautiful in either form, and formidable. But as his lion, he emitted power and magic his human-like form would never have.
She had maybe three seconds to make a decision and to follow suit. She viewed the scene, saw terrified families and a group of teens, all with their camera phones catching the action. She prayed the containment crew was already on their way. When she saw the second target, a young woman with long black hair, wearing a traditional Asian-styled gown, Hayden began to run, quickly morphing into her sleek puma, the pads of her feet hitting the concrete, grabbing, and propelling her forward at a great speed. It dulled her claws, but only marginally. She roared a warning to the beast as she bore down on it.
She prayed Rigo was safe and her decision to save the other girl didn’t harm her friend and ally. Theirs was a sacred duty, and it wasn’t to one another. There was only one reason she would have been summoned here. These women had to be from the Marrow, and all she knew for sure, was she had to save this one.
Rigo lunged at the creature. His claws, tipped with magic for just this purpose, ripped into the vaporish flesh of the dark entity, tearing at it. Most would think the deep red that appeared against the black was blood, but these creatures didn’t bleed. They oozed toxins, a last defense against anything that may attack it. A human who came in contact with the substance would be dead in thirty seconds. There would be no way to save them.
He slashed again as the creature wrapped its arm around the limp woman’s waist, but he only managed to tear the soft cotton fabric of the woman’s simple shirt. She was stunningly beautiful. Her blonde hair was so pale it was nearly white and blended with her skin seamlessly. Her pale pink lips were parted softly as she hung limp in the beast’s arms.
This was the kind of beauty that seemed supernatural. He wondered for a fragment if she were an angel, but he knew better. Angels didn’t have souls for the roahn-ami to take.
He roared, lunging one last time, making contact again, this time with a tendon and ankle as the demon and the girl vanished into foul smelling vapor.
He drew a deep breath and roared in agony for failing her.
As he turned, he saw Hayden shift into her puma, chasing yet another of the dark winged ones across the lake.
He shook off the failure as the realization dawned that another woman was in danger. He moved through the gardens, across the lawn and the paved walkway with grace and power, quickly catching up to Hayden’s puma. As they both reached the creature, it was as if time slowed. A distortion of some sort surrounded them. It was like being in a dream and not being able to control your movements. He tried to lunge for the creature, but it was as if something held on to his ankle and yanked him back to the ground.
He could see the woman’s soul being stretched out of her body, sucked into the roahn-ami’s canister.
Hayden seemed as though she were encased in glass. She roared in pain and frustration as the soul slipped further away.
This was hell unlike he’d ever known it. To have all the power of the lion, all the magic endowed him, and not be able to do a damn thing.
He’d never known a roahn-ami to cast magic, so what was this?
As he moved slowly through the time distortion, he watched the girl, clearly caught in the same anomaly. The time distortion seemed to affect the roahn-ami’s technique, because unlike the victims he’d witnessed before, this girl wasn’t in a trance. She turned, drew a sword from the folds of her skirt, and slashed the roahn-ami’s hand that was pulling her soul. The hand fell to the ground and the soul snapped back to its owner. When it did, the time distortion melted and they were able to move again.
In the next second, Hayden pounced on the creature. Rigo took a risk and shifted back into human form, grabbing for the skull-shaped metal canisters hanging from a belt around its waist. He wrapped his hand around the leather straps and pulled hard, wresting them away just as the monster vaporized beneath the claws of his friend.
With his other arm, he grabbed for the girl who was in mid-collapse from the ordeal. As she fell into his arm, she dropped a jewel encrusted blade to the ground. He caught her just in time to soften the fall as her unconscious body fell into the grass beside the blade.
He grabbed for his cell and punched in three numbers.
“I need containment and restoration in Tanzania. Immediately.”
Though he knew the watchers would have already alerted the containment crew, he was feeling helpless and defeated from the loss of the first woman. Somehow, shouting out orders at a faceless voice over his cell phone made him feel better.
Hayden transformed back to her Latina form and knelt beside him.
“Did you call it in?”
“Yeah, but I’m sure the watchers got to it before I did.” He turned to look at her. The scene in the background was already shifting from screaming and running, to calm and oblivious once more.
“What the hell was this? I’ve never known the roahn-ami to attack humans that weren’t extraordinarily inebriated.” She tucked long black strands of hair behind her ear before gently reaching out for the woman lying in Rigo’s arms.
“She’s not human, Rigo.” She lightly brushed back the hair from the face of the woman he was holding. She was very young with porcelain skin, almond eyes and perfectly shaped lips. “This is Fa Zhen, one of the Royal Seven.” Her tone held the appropriate awe.
He looked down at the dainty woman. In the moments he’d been able to observe her, she had appeared delicate and demure… until she pulled out the sword.
“How can you be sure?”
She laughed and moved a tiny bit closer.
“Because I’m serahn. It’s the responsibility of my people to protect the royals, the same as it’s your people’s responsibility to protect the sacred seven. I’d know her anywhere.” She inhaled deeply. “I can smell her.”
“That’s your cat senses still online.” He tried to play it down because he knew, if this were true, if the roahn-ami had come after the royals, war was on the horizon,
“So what?” She answered defensively. “This is Fa Zhen. I don’t know who the other woman was, but if the roahn-ami are after the royal seven…”
“All hell is about to break lose.” His mind reeled with what this could possibly mean, for himself, for his people, for the human realm.
“Well, yeah, that, but someone had to have sent those creatures, Rigo. They don’t act on their own and the only ones who’d care about the seven…”
“Is someone from the Dark Marrow.” He spoke over her as his mind kept even pace with hers.
“Meaning there’s a breach in the wall?” For the first time she seemed confused.
He thought about that for a long moment. The wall between realms was his brother’s charge. He’d admit Wraithe hadn’t been himself for the past fifty years or so, but he couldn’t imagine something like a breach in the wall had gotten past him.
“Not necessarily. The roahn-ami can transcend realms, they move through the gates same as any other creature. They could be taking orders from anyone. And even if they are taking orders from someone in the Dark Marrow, that doesn’t mean the border between realms has been breached.”
There had to be some other answer than that. He looked up and saw the containment team had arrived
and was briskly at work wiping memories and removing any paranormal trace left in the area.
“We need to get her back to Elethiya. Then we need to call a meeting of my people and yours.” Rigo slipped into taking charge. They needed answers and they wouldn’t be getting them lolling about in the grass.
“What about the other woman they took, and…” She looked down at the soul skulls lying beside his knees. “What about those?”
She shuddered slightly.
“I’ll take them with me. I think I know someone who may be able to free any wronged souls inside.” He hoped.
“They won’t have bodies!” She lunged backwards away from him.
“What do you want me to do, give the souls to the demons?” That was the only other choice he was aware of, and while some of the demons may have done right by whoever was in those jars, he didn’t trust them enough to chance it.
She chewed on her lip, looking unnerved.
“No. I guess not.”
“Rodrigo, we have ninety percent containment. Do you need transport?”
Rigo looked up to see a woman dressed in black leather, whose long black hair was slicked back into a tight, high ponytail. She seemed calm and professional and she used his given name, which almost no one did. He didn’t have any recollection of her. But with how the containment crew worked, that was to be expected. It was most likely that he’d met her on dozens of occasions and there was simply no memory of it.
He grabbed the leather straps of the skulls and scooped Zhen off the ground into his arms. Hayden stood beside him. There was only one thing they could do at this point, one place to go.
The Failsafe Prophecies Page 1
