Everblaze (Keeper of the Lost Cities Book 3)

by Shannon Messenger

  “Did your parents give you a hard time about going tonight?” she asked, needing to break the eerie silence.

  “A little,” Keefe admitted. “My dad has apparently decided that my connection to you could ruin the Sencen name—which is awesome, by the way. Now I get to hang with you and tick my dad off. Win and win!”

  He elbowed Sophie until she smiled.

  “What about your mom?” Sophie asked.

  “Eh, she said, and I quote, ‘Can’t you rescue the alicorn again? It’s been nice actually having a son I can brag about.’”

  He mimicked Lady Gisela’s voice perfectly, which made the words that much more awful.

  Sophie reached for his hand. “I’m sorry.”

  Keefe shrugged.

  Several seconds passed before he added, “My dad did make sure I wore a cape to keep warm. So I guess that counts as worrying about me. Maybe?”

  “Definitely,” Sophie agreed, with as much enthusiasm as she could muster.

  “Yeah. Though of course my mom told me I fastened it too loosely and insisted I repin it. Twice.”

  Now it looked tight enough to choke him, and his Sencen crest was digging into his chin.

  Sophie squeezed his hand harder.

  They walked the rest of the way in silence, their breaths turning to huffs as the ground became steeper and steeper. Cold sweat dripped down Sophie’s back as they crested the hill, but it was worth the climb when she spotted her Wanderling.

  Dangling from one of the thin, fragile branches was a small twinkling bottle strung with a silver satin ribbon.

  Sandor shoved Keefe and Sophie behind him as he sniffed the air, and then the fragile vial. Then he slowly untied the ribbon and offered it to Sophie. “It appears to be safe—but I would not advise opening it.”

  “I don’t think we need to,” she said, lifting the bottle to study it against the night sky.

  The blue glow was filled with tiny flecks of darkness and shimmer, all of which swirled like glitter in a snow globe. And when she traced her finger along the cold, damp glass, the memory finally triggered.

  “This is light from Lucilliant. It’s one of the unmapped stars.”

  “Okay,” Keefe said, leaning closer to the bottle. “That explains why it looks so freaky. Any idea what we do with it? Or is it just like . . . a fun souvenir we get to keep from tonight’s daring journey?”

  “Actually, I’m pretty sure the journey is just getting started.” She pulled back her sleeve and removed her charm bracelet, holding up the black swan charm. “Magsidian can also serve as a leaping crystal, and I’ve seen it work differently with different kinds of light. I’m betting they want us to use the glow from Lucilliant to leap to the real meeting place.”

  Keefe grinned. “Cute and smart. No wonder Dex gave you a ring.”

  “That’s—I . . .” Sophie hid behind her hair. “You ready?”

  “I should go first,” Sandor decided.

  “You can’t leap without one of us,” Sophie reminded him. “And even if you could, you might not be able to come back here. We don’t know how this is going to work.”

  “Then perhaps we shouldn’t go,” Sandor argued.

  “Aw, come on—where’s your sense of adventure?” Keefe asked.

  “It is overshadowed by my sense of responsibility. My job is to bring you home safe.”

  “There you go, caring about me again,” Keefe said with a grin. “But come on, you know we need to find out what the Black Swan is up to—that’s why we came here.”

  Sandor looked like he wanted to pick them both up and drag them back to Havenfield. But he released his death grip on Sophie’s hand, letting her press the charm against the glowing vial.

  The tiny swan crusted with a thin layer of frost as a beam of sparkling, swirling blue light refracted at her feet.

  “That. Is. Awesome!” Keefe said as he looped his arm through hers. “You ready, Gigantor?”

  A squeaky snort was Sandor’s only reply. But he curled one massive hand around Sophie’s arm, keeping his other on the hilt of his blade as Keefe pulled them into the icy light.

  The cold rush was a tempest.

  Tearing and shredding and turning turning turning.

  Sophie tried to scream or cry or call someone’s name, but she couldn’t think—couldn’t function. She was empty. She was nothing. She was—

  —slamming into the hot ground like a bug against a windshield, then tumbling tumbling tumbling until she collapsed in a heap.

  “Okay,” Keefe said, choking on the dry, dusty air. “I am definitely not a fan of that kind of leaping. Let’s call a normal beam of light for the way home, shall we?”

  “I don’t think we can.” Sophie pulled herself to her feet—coughing and hacking as she used the glow of Lucilliant to show him the stalagmite-covered ceiling. “We just leaped underground.”

  “So that’s why it felt like getting stepped on by an ogre.”

  “Actually, the ogre stomping would’ve been preferable,” Sandor told him.

  “I guess you would know,” Keefe agreed. “How hard was it not to go all goblin rage on King Dimitar when he punched you like that? I know you held back.”

  “It is not my place to attack the ogre king. Not yet. But that is a conversation for another day. Right now, I see two much more concerning issues.” He stood and waved his arm around the cave—which was much smaller than Sophie realized. Barely larger than her closet. “There are no tunnels and no stairs in or out of this place.

  “Yeah, and where’s the Black Swan?” Keefe cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Yo guys—what gives? Even my dad’s a better host than this!”

  A shower of dust, as his echo ricocheted off the ceiling, was the only reply.

  “Wait,” Sophie said, making her way over to a stalagmite that seemed slightly less dark than the others. She wasn’t sure if it was just a trick of the light. But as she ran her hands over the jagged point, her fingers felt the cool smoothness of glass. “It’s another bottle!”

  She tied the bottle of Lucilliant around her neck before picking up the round, bulbous vial filled with a glow so pale, it barely counted as starlight. But she could feel the energy pulsing through the glass, and knew the glow came from Candesia.

  “Another unmapped star,” Sophie whispered, holding it out to show the others. “I wonder if that means we’ll have three more leaps after this.”

  “Let’s hope not,” Sandor grumbled.

  “For once Gigantor and I agree.”

  Sophie knew how they were feeling. But the only way out of the cramped pocket of earth was to keep going.

  “On three,” she decided, pressing the charm against the glass.

  Another beam of light flashed from the swan’s beak, dull and smoky and hardly inviting.

  “One,” she called as Keefe and Sandor wrapped their arms around her. “Two.”

  She hesitated half a second longer. Then she pulled them forward on, “Three!”

  Light leaping had never felt so slow. Each second was a thousand years, and the gray emptiness seemed to drain their energy away. A blast of wind finally shoved them out of the gloom, and then they were crumpling onto a patch of soggy sand.

  If Keefe hadn’t said, “Okay, I don’t mean to freak anyone out, but I’m pretty sure that’s a kraken,” Sophie might never have gotten up again.

  Sandor dragged her to her feet, shoving her behind him as he raised his sword at the monstrous green beast. It looked like some strange combination of an octopus, an elephant, and a lion, and when it opened its six-fanged mouth and roared, Sophie couldn’t believe she’d come all that way just to be eaten by a sea monster.

  But when the kraken lunged for them, it smacked into some sort of invisible shield, flattening its trunklike, tentacled nose and knocking the slimy beast back. It tried
three more times to break the unseen barrier, then zipped away with another roar, vanishing into the dark water.

  “So . . . we’re under the ocean,” Sophie mumbled, knowing she was stating the obvious but needing to say it anyway. “I thought light couldn’t pass through the water, and that’s why we have to slide down a whirlpool to get to Atlantis.”

  “It’s not supposed to pass through rock, either,” Keefe reminded her. “The light from the unmapped stars must be different. Maybe that’s why they’re secret. And look. There’s another one.”

  They all stared at the curved bottle nestled into the sand, glowing with the rosy light of Marquiseire.

  “Okay, what do we think?” Keefe asked as Sophie used the charm to create a pink glittery beam. “Better or worse than the others?”

  “Worse,” Sandor decided, and Keefe had to agree.

  But Sophie chose “better” as she pulled them into the shimmering light, since sparkles made everything better—didn’t they?

  But she was wrong.

  So. Very. Wrong.

  Each glinting speck turned coarse as they traveled—grating and scraping, like they were leaping through a glitterbomb. She was starting to worry the pain would never end when the warmth fizzled and the ground rushed up at them, leaving them in a shivering heap on a misty hilltop, right by . . .

  . . . another bottle.

  “Phosforien,” Sophie mumbled as she tied it around her neck with the others.

  The swirly opalescent light was a sensory overload of color and motion, and the leap was a nonstop rollercoaster of spinning and dipping and swerving.

  Sophie was sure she would’ve hurled all over the neon colors if her stomach hadn’t been broken and scattered into a million pieces. And when they finally collapsed onto hard, frosty ground, it took several seconds before her eyes could focus on the stretch of empty tundra.

  A silvery bottle was buried in the hoarfrost.

  “Last one,” she said, her hands shaking as she carefully grabbed the bottle of quintessence. “And I have a feeling this is going to be the toughest one yet. Remember—this stuff can blow up cities.”

  “Wonderful,” Sandor grumbled.

  “Aren’t you glad you insisted on coming along?” Sophie asked him.

  “Yes, I am. I’m always happiest when I know I’m keeping you safe.”

  “Awwwwww, Gigantor’s so cute!” Keefe interrupted. “Who knew under all those muscles was a ball of marshmallowy sweetness?”

  Sandor growled at him—but Keefe just laughed.

  “Squeak all you want. It only makes you more precious.”

  “Okay, this is it,” Sophie said, reminding them why they were all there. “The Black Swan should be waiting for us at the end of this. We just need to survive one more leap.”

  “Uh, you had me all excited until you used the word ‘survive,’” Keefe told her as Sophie held her breath and pressed the charm against the last vial, casting a blindingly bright silver beam at their feet.

  Now that the moment was here, she wasn’t sure she was ready to face the Black Swan—and whatever terrifying plans came with them. But she clung to Sandor and Keefe, and they held on to her just as tightly.

  Slowly . . . bravely . . . they all stepped into the light.

  FIFTY

  THEY’RE . . . NOT HERE,” SOPHIE SAID, rolling the words around on her tongue, like that would somehow change their meaning. “Why aren’t they here?”

  The quintessence had carried them to an island—a tiny spit of sand and palms where Sophie would’ve expected to find a marooned pirate searching for the X that marked the spot. But there was no treasure. Just beach and trees and empty ocean, looking extra eerie in the dim moonlight.

  “Maybe we’re early,” Keefe said, plopping down in the soft sand as Sandor went to patrol the trees. “I bet they’ll be here any minute.”

  He motioned for Sophie to join him, but she was too tense to sit. She made her way to the shore, grabbing one of the smooth stones from the beach and hurling it into the water as hard as she could—followed by another and another. Each stone flew just a little shorter than the last.

  “You should be skipping them,” Keefe told her as he came up behind her.

  He placed a wide, flat rock in her palm and showed her how to flick her wrist. They practiced the motion one, two, three times. On the fourth they let it fly, and the rock skipped and skipped and skipped some more before they lost sight of it in the dark waves.

  “See how much more fun it is when you relax?” Keefe asked her.

  “How am I supposed to relax, Keefe? Look at this place—it’s a deserted island.”

  An extra creepy one. She couldn’t put her finger on what it was, but there was something off about it. Like all the color had been bleached out. Even the moonlight was a faded gray.

  Sophie turned to pace, dredging a rut in the sand. “Something’s wrong. I don’t think they’re coming.”

  “But why would they go to all the trouble of giving us these?” Keefe asked, pointing to the five glowing bottles dangling from her neck.

  “Who knows? Maybe they needed to get rid of them because they’re illegal and they knew I would get in less trouble.”

  “Uh, they could just open the bottles and release the light back into the sky. Plus, after the whole ogre king thing, you’re on pretty thin ice, y’know? I bet if you sneeze too loud, Bronte will call a Tribunal.”

  Sophie straightened. “Maybe that’s their plan.”

  “What is?”

  “Having me get caught with these, so I’ll be exiled. They want me to heal Prentice, right? And they know there’s no way the Council is going to approve that now. So if they can’t bring him to me, they’ll force me to go to him.”

  Keefe stared at the glowing bottles like he was seeing them in a whole new light. But then he shook his head. “I still don’t buy it. There are easier ways to get you exiled. Plus, why would they invite me? Remember, I didn’t just tag along this time.”

  He was right—inviting him didn’t make sense.

  Unless . . .

  “What if this whole thing was a distraction?” she asked. “A trick to get you, me, and Sandor away from something.” She grabbed Keefe’s arm. “What if they’re trying to get to Silveny?”

  “But Silveny’s not with us anymore. She’s at the Sanctuary.”

  “Still—we should get back. There’s no reason to stay here.”

  She pulled out her home crystal, holding it up to the pale moonlight. But it wouldn’t cast a beam. She tried several directions, and nothing changed.

  “Okay, that’s not cool,” Keefe mumbled when his home crystal did the same. “It’s like the light’s too weak, somehow.”

  Or something was filtering it. If the Black Swan could create a pocket of air under the ocean, surely they could put some sort of shield around an island. And the palm trees didn’t look tall enough for her to teleport from. . . .

  “This is a trap,” Sophie whispered, squinting through the darkness, trying to see what hid in the shadows. “They must’ve picked this place because they know we can’t leave.”

  “We can try those,” Keefe said, pointing to the glowing bottles dangling around her neck.

  “Won’t they just take us back to the places we’ve already been?” Sophie asked. “They were all pretty cramped places. I’d rather be out here.”

  “I guess.”

  Maybe it was the weird moonlight. But Keefe looked genuinely afraid.

  “Sandor!” Sophie shouted, wanting some extra muscle—and weapons—close by.

  Sandor must’ve been listening to their conversation, because he was already on his way, sword raised.

  “I detect no trace of life,” he told them, sniffing the air once more. “But we must find a way to get out of here.”

  “What if
we, like, combined the different lights or something?” Keefe suggested. “That might take us somewhere different, right?”

  “Would that work?” Sandor asked.

  “I don’t know,” Sophie admitted. “But if it did, where would it even take us?”

  Keefe shrugged. “It’s gotta be safer than waiting around here.”

  No one could argue with that, so Sophie untied all the bottles and placed them in a small circle in the sand. Their colorful glows turned white where they converged, and when Keefe nodded, she carefully placed the magsidian charm in the brightest spot in the center.

  A blinding flash shot out of the swan’s beak, turning everything to a blur.

  Sophie rubbed her eyes, trying to focus through the glare. But Keefe must’ve recovered first, because he grabbed her arm and whispered, “I think I see something.”

  “Where?” Sandor asked, and Keefe pointed toward the ocean.

  The light had faded, leaving nothing but shadows and more shadows.

  But when Keefe took the charm from Sophie and created another gleaming flash, she spotted what his sharp eyes had caught the first time.

  Three figures in dark hooded cloaks, coming toward them across the waves.

  FIFTY-ONE

  THEY’RE WALKING ON WATER,” SOPHIE whispered, staring at the white eyes sewn on the cloaked figures’ sleeves. “How are they doing that?”

  “Let’s worry about it later, okay?” Keefe asked, grabbing the glowing bottles and pulling a goblin throwing star out of a pocket on his sleeve. “Right now there’s three of them and three of us. I think we can take them.”

  “The only one ‘taking them’ will be me,” Sandor growled, throwing Sophie and Keefe over each of his shoulders and running them into the palm trees. He dropped them behind a wall of fernlike bushes and took the bottles of starlight. “Stay here—I mean it, Sophie. Do not move unless absolutely necessary.”

  “But—”

  “DO NOT ARGUE WITH ME!”

  Sophie cowered.

  “I’ll cover us,” Keefe promised as Sandor handed him one of his melders.

  “Good. And I”—Sandor gripped his other melder—“am going to catch these villains once and for all.”