Cradled

by Christina Bauer

  First Published by Monster House Books, LLC in 2018

  Monster House Books, LLC

  1660 Soliders Field Road Suite 200

  Brighton, MA 02135

  www.bauersbooks.com

  ISBN 9781945723315

  Copyright © 2018 by Monster House Books LLC

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  For The Teachers Of The Special Needs Program At Coutryside Elementary, Who Work Real Magick Every Day

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen: One Year Later

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Tap…tap…tap…

  Someone was wearing out their knuckles on my bedroom door. Yanking my covers over my head, I tried blocking out the sound. It didn’t work.

  Tap…tap…tap…

  I stifled a groan. Most days, I’d say this about my life: It’s good to be the queen. Sadly, today wasn’t one of those days. Last night, I’d asked the castle servants not to disturb me until dawn. Now I lay in bed, trying to rest, and yet?

  Tap…tap…tap…

  Whoever it was, they weren’t giving up.

  I opened my eyes a crack, finding myself alone in bed. My husband wasn’t here, but that was no surprise. Rowan knew I wanted to sleep in, so he’d slipped off a while ago. As for my bedchamber, the place looked as it always did. The red stone walls were lined with tapestries of animals being magickally brought to life by mages. My own spell books lay in neat piles on a nearby table.

  Peering through the chamber’s window holes, the outside world looked dark. Definitely not morning. There could only be one explanation; the staff must have missed my orders to sleep in.

  “Please return later,” I called. “At dawn.”

  A muffled voice echoed through the closed door. “It’s long past dawn. The sun came up more than twelve hours ago.”

  The speaker was Jicho, my little brother in law. “Are you toying with me?” Jicho loved his practical jokes.

  “Not at all. It’s nine o’clock at night. The Fete of the Family has already started. Rowan’s been there for hours.”

  Sitting up, I carefully scanned the view from my window. Sure enough, the moon peeped over the sill.

  Whoa.

  That was unexpected, not to mention concerning. Rowan’s people were Creation Casters, mages who gained magick from life. I’d been trained as a Necromancer, so my mage powers were drawn from the echoes of existence in bones. Together, we’d been ruling both classes of magick users for a year now, and I’d learned one thing early on.

  Creation Casters loved their festivals. A lot.

  Rowan and I tried to attend as many celebrations as passible, and Fete of the Family was one of the biggest. Not one that I wanted to miss. After pushing off my covers, I set my bare feet on the cold marble floor. “I’ll join you soon.”

  In this case, soon meant after I had a warm bath and some hot food. Caster parties lasted all night. No doubt, there was still plenty of time to join the fun.

  “No, you need to hurry.” Jicho lowered his voice to a hush. “I’ve had a vision.”

  My breath caught. Although he was only ten years old, Jicho was a powerful Seer who often had painfully accurate visions of the future. That said, he was also a mischievous imp. For instance, last week Jicho claimed he had a vision that the castle would implode if he had to do his lessons.

  Needless to say, Jicho still finished his lessons; the castle did not implode.

  I stood up, pulled on a cloak, and opened the door. Jicho stood in the outer hallway, all tanned skin, gangly limbs and knobby knees in his toga-style Seer robes. His head was shaved in the style for Seer mages. By contrast, I was tall and slender with pale skin and long dark hair.

  Jicho didn’t look up as I motioned him inside. Interesting. When it came to Jicho, lack of eye contact was a classic but common sign.

  The boy might be up something.

  “Why don’t you come in and explain about your vision?” I asked.

  “Uh, no.” Jicho kicked at the floor with his sandal. “I need to get back to the party.” He kept avoiding my line of sight. That settled it.

  The boy was definitely up to something.

  I folded my arms over my chest. “Tell me about this vision of yours first.”

  “It wasn’t exactly a vision.” Now Jicho stared at the vaulted ceiling as if the cobwebs were beyond fascinating.

  A chill crawled up my neck. Not exactly a vision? That could only mean one thing. I set my fists on my hips. “Have you been playing in gateways again?”

  Gateways were arches of stone that magickally connected our world to other realms. Rowan and I were unusual in that we could share our Creation Caster and Necromancer magick, combining it into hybrid power. By mixing our energies, we gave all our spells an extra boost. Hybrid magick meant that my husband and I had enough energy to open gateways. For a while, we were the only mages who could.

  Until Jicho.

  As the boy grew, Jicho was turning into a Seer who wielded unbelievable levels of magick. About a month ago, he figured out how to open gateways. Not good.

  Jicho shot me a gap-toothed smile. “Did I open a gateway? Depends on how you define gateways.”

  His big grin always made me melt a little. That said, I worked hard to keep my features stern. Playing around with gateways was serious stuff.

  “Don’t try to charm your way out of this one.” I wagged my finger at him. “Answer my question. This new vision of yours—did you get it from a gateway, yes or no?”

  “Yes, but only a little bit?” Jicho blinked his big green eyes at me while holding his thumb and forefinger an inch apart. He had long lashes, just like Rowan. It was getting harder not to visibly melt under his charm.

  Even so, I kept up my serious stare. “You know it’s forbidden to open random gateways.” I shook my head. “You could let in any kind of monster or disease. Even worse, you could get stuck in another world and then, how would we find you?”

  Jicho puffed out his lower lip. “But I only peep into the gateways; I don’t go inside them. Plus, gateways show me totally different futures than my visions do. It’s really important that I learn how to use them.”

  “No gateways, Jicho.”

  “Well, I already saw this vision in the gateway.” His voice lowered to a hush. “Something big is coming.”

  I lifted my brows. Something big? The last time Jicho used those words, he went on to predict a massive Tsunami along our southern coast. Thanks to his warning, we were able to evacuate the local population. Even so, it was an incredibly close call. If we hadn’t acted quickly to transport everyone inland, thousands would have died.

  I used Jicho’s own words back at him. “Define big.”

  “I’m not sure.” Jicho waved his hands around. “The vision is a little foggy. But I see warriors with strange helmets…And they’re definitely at the Fete of the Family.”

  My skin prickled over with gooseflesh. Unknown warriors? Rowan and I had heard no reports of insurrection, so that left only one power with enough resources to mount an army against us. The Royals. But that was unlikely; we’d recently signed a treaty with them. In exchange for us mages providing magickal services, the Royals promised to pr
otect us if we were ever attacked. The fact that the Royals were the only ones with enough resources to attack us wasn’t necessarily spelled out in the treaty, but we all knew why we were signing it.

  So who was left to assault us with a professional army? An image of a gateway appeared in my mind. If Jicho somehow left one of those archways open, anyone could pass through and cause trouble.

  Then there was the matter of my parents: two mages who’d spent eons opening and powering gateways, mostly by draining the magick inherent in their own children. Rowan and I had sent them into exile. We hadn’t heard anything from them since.

  Were they the ones returning with warriors to fight us? My stomach sank. It was certainly possible.

  “That does sound rather serious,” I said. “I’ll join the fete right away.”

  Jicho exhaled. “Good, I’ll let Rowan know.” As the boy raced off down the hallway, his words echoed through my mind.

  Warriors. Something big.

  A weight of worry settled onto my shoulders. I may not be a Seer, but my mage senses still said that whatever was coming, it would be far worse than a Tsunami. Taking in a deep breath, I steeled my shoulders. No matter what was about to strike, I had my husband and people to fight at my side. Together, we could face down any enemy.

  I hoped.

  Chapter Two

  As I stood in my white nightshift, my sleepy mind processed two key pieces of news. First, Jicho had peeked into a gateway, where he’d seen strange warriors at our Fete of the Family celebration. And second, despite the fact that I slept the entire day, I still wanted to do nothing but crawl back into bed.

  That wasn’t like me. Not one bit.

  Perhaps I was ill.

  I worried my lip with my teeth. There was no question that I needed to visit the fete as soon as possible. But what if I were so sick that I couldn’t cast properly? That wasn’t something I wanted to find out in front of a crowd, especially if that crowd turned out to be an invading army.

  Nodding once to myself, I made my decision. Before I left my bedchamber, I would cast a spell for a wellness skull. If there were anything to worry about, then a wellness skull would tell me the truth and quickly.

  Time to cast.

  Closing my eyes, I reached out with my mage senses. I spent years at the Zelle Cloister learning how to wield my Necromancer powers, so the process came easily. The first step in any Necromancer spell was always to find some bones.

  Simple enough.

  Rowan and I owned a number of castles across our realm. This particular one, called Jiwe La Moto, was surrounded by dense jungle. When most people thought of a rainforest, they pictured greenery. In reality however, jungles were filled with far more bones than leaves.

  Using my mage powers, I now scanned through the layers of skeletons under the grounds nearby. Images of bones and their past lives appeared in my mind. I saw bird skulls that were still filled with the lost echoes of joyful songs. Next I detected the skeletons of monkeys long gone. Even in death, their love for their jungle home—as well as each other—radiated out into the world. So beautiful. I tapped into that energy, pulling it into my body.

  As the magick streamed inside me, the bones in my left hand glowed blue. Power ricocheted around my chest as I spoke the incantation.

  Bones and time

  Still and chime

  I seek the wellness spell

  A monkey skull to tell

  A moment later, a sphere of shifting light congealed in the air before me. Within seconds, the orb solidified into the form of a monkey skull. The head hovered in the air, immobile. Within it, every tooth and bone gleamed with light and power. The skull shifted to face me straight on.

  “What do you seek, Grand Mistress?”

  Now I had many titles. Tsarina of the Necromancers and Genesis Regina of the Creation Casters were the two that were used most often. That said, my favorite was still Grand Mistress Necromancer. I’d spent five long years honing my skills to reach that level, and I never tired of hearing the title.

  “Please check me for any illness,” I said.

  “As you command.” Like most wellness skulls, this one had a refined way of speaking. These skulls came loaded with medical information and, as such, not a small amount of attitude.

  Little by little, the monkey skull opened its mouth. Instantly, dozens of orbs of multicolored light sped out from its jaws.

  I gasped. What a lovely spell.

  Once they were free, the bright spheres raced around me in overlapping corkscrew patterns. The movement reminded me of ribbons around a maypole. The lights pulsed with brightness before zooming back inside the skull’s mouth. The monkey’s head floated in the air before me for a long moment, its eye holes narrowing in thought.

  “You aren’t ill,” said the skull.

  My shoulders relaxed; I hadn’t even realized that I’d bunched up my muscles with worry. “Thank you.” As I spoke, I couldn’t help but smile. “You are dismissed.”

  “But there’s more to tell you,” it added.

  I tilted my head. “Oh?” Usually, wellness skulls only said if something was wrong and then disappeared. They never offered extra information.

  “Go on,” I said.

  When the skull spoke, every word seemed to move so slowly, it was as if the head were enchanted by a slowness spell. “You are pregnant, Grand Mistress.”

  On reflex, I pulled on my ear. “I must have heard you incorrectly. It sounded as if you said that I’m pregnant.”

  The skull glowed more brightly. “I did, Grand Mistress. You’re one month along in your pregnancy, to be precise.”

  I scrubbed my hands over my face. Rowan and I weren’t planning on having a family, ever. There had to me some mistake. “But I’d cast spells against this.”

  “They didn’t work,” said the skull simply. “Mortals like you are, at best, an imperfect form of life. I’d speculate that you made a mistake in your casting.”

  I shot the skull a dry look. “Thank you for that assessment.” Those are the words that came from my mouth, but what I was thinking was something along the lines of:

  No.

  Just no.

  The hovering skull lifted its chin. “I’ll take my leave now.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “You may go.”

  There was a burst of light as the wellness skull disappeared from the room. For a long moment, I could only stare at the spot where it had been suspended. I hugged my elbows.

  Pregnant. I was really pregnant. No wonder I had been feeling so tired.

  Lacing my fingers behind my neck, I tried to process this news. It wasn’t easy. There were good reasons why I’d cast spells to avoid pregnancy. Both Rowan and I had too many evil branches in our respective family trees. To begin with, there were my parents, who’d spent thousands of years draining their own children in order to power gateways to other realms…all so they could rule those different worlds. Then, there was my brother Viktor, who tried to kill every last mage in the land. His goal? To oust my parents from power so he could usurp their rule. Now Viktor was dead and my parents were in exile through a random gateway.

  Good riddance.

  Rowan’s family wasn’t much better, though. It’s true that my husband’s father was a kind man and strong warrior, but Rowan’s mother Zoriah? That woman gave a new and fouler definition to the word evil. Even though my parents ultimately saw their children as supernatural fuel, they still treated us with kindness and respect. That wasn’t true for Zoriah. She spent every waking moment attacking her offspring in some form or another. It was arguable that she turned Rowan’s older brother Shujaa into a homicidal maniac. Needless to say, many in the realm slept better now that both Shujaa and Zoriah were dead. I certainly did.

  I set my palms flat against my belly. Hopefully, our child would inherit the best of me and Rowan. In the meantime? I may have my answers about my health, but I still had questions about potential warriors invading our Fete of the Family. I needed to g
ive Rowan the news about my pregnancy, too. If I rushed, we’d have a chance to talk before Jicho’s vision came to pass.

  No time to lose.

  I quickly pulled on a set of Caster leathers: fitted pants and a matching jacket. They were light and comfortable. Not exactly formal regal dress, but Casters appreciated it when Rowan and I dressed as common folk every once in a while. Opening the door, I then stepped off into the outer hallway. It wouldn’t take me long to reach the celebration…and face whatever fate Jicho’s vision might bring.

  Chapter Three

  With quick steps, I made my way through the castle. Red stone surrounded me everywhere: walls, floors, even large vases were made of the stuff. It’s what made Jiwe La Moto my favorite of our castles. With so much stone, the place reminded me of my old Cloister, the Zelle, a compound that had been carved right out of a mountainside.

  I soon stepped out of the castle and onto the large open space behind it. Or, to be accurate, it was as open as things got this deep in the jungle. Tall palm trees dotted the clearing. Heavy ropes of vines looped between them. Humidity tinged the air. All that was to be expected. But the moment I walked outside, I noticed something rather odd.

  There was no music.

  No dancing.

  No joyful chatter from partygoers.

  By this time of night, a Caster celebration would resemble a happy and somewhat drunken mob scene. Instead, our people lurked under palm trees, gripping untouched mugs of ale.

  So strange.

  I scanned the clearing carefully. Why was everyone so somber? Had Jicho’s mystery warriors already arrived? By the thin beams of moonlight, I couldn’t make out any fighters in strange helms, but I did discover the reason for the lack of fun at this particular festival.

  Zoriah’s relatives had joined the party.

  Rowan’s mother Zoriah had not been a pleasant woman; her family followed suit. Zoriah’s relatives were all Seers, supposedly powerful, but with very little in the way of actual magick. Zoriah was the only one with strong Seer abilities. Still, lack of magickal skill didn’t stop Zoriah’s family from acting as if they were superior to everyone else.