Shock of Fate: A Young Adult Fantasy Adventure (Anchoress Series Book 1)

by D. L. Armillei

  “If enough demons gain the strength to rise,” Brux said, “their presence will lower the vibration of our world. The veil between our world and yours will crack and eventually break, if they’re not defeated. The worlds will crash together, bringing chaos.”

  “Demons on our soil are a sign the Escalation of Dishora has begun,” Elmot said in a shaky voice.

  “The only other time in history demons reached our world was during the Great War—which caused the Great War to morph into the Dark War,” Trey said. “Demons are here now, without a war taking place to strengthen them. It’s unusual.”

  “Michael Cross brought them here,” Jorie said. “There’s nothing unusual about a traitor acting like a traitor.”

  Jorie’s comment crushed Van. No wonder her father’s soul was in jeopardy; he had taken an oath to protect both of their worlds from demons and instead brought them here. The father she knew would never do anything like that. She felt more determined than ever to find the Coin and fix this mess. She knew Manik’s text could help her locate it, but she couldn’t translate the passages on her own. She wished Paley’s special skill were reading ancient languages. Although, it was just as well Paley didn’t have this skill, because she couldn’t keep anything under her hat. Who else could Van trust?

  Night crept in, cloaking the landscape. The air grew cooler. Everyone huddled near the campfire. After they used the boundless bowl and ate dinner, Trey passed around a wineskin of steaming acorn-honey water. Van and Paley refused. After choking down the antivenom, neither of them had any desire to drink anything ever again. Trey assured the others that the water had many nutritional properties.

  “You sure?” Brux quipped. “Maybe we should ask Elmot.”

  Van knew he’d referred to the earlier incident when Trey, the team’s medic, couldn’t treat her and Paley’s sand crab bites, and Elmot, the navigation expert, was able to cure them.

  Trey laughed and punched Brux in the arm. Then, still grinning, he turned to face Van and Paley. “So, Providence Island, huh? You two must have some badass skills to be brought here. I mean, I know dozens more kids in Salus Valde who are better qualified for this mission.”

  “Thanks a lot,” Paley said, insulted.

  “Just my opinion,” Trey said. “No offense.”

  “I know what your skills are,” Van said to Trey. She turned to Brux and asked, “What are yours?” She hoped to draw attention away from herself and Paley, plus she was dying to know.

  “Language expert, mostly,” he answered indifferently, as he took the wineskin from Trey. “Translation skills. My specialty is the Language of the Ancients.” Brux sipped from the wineskin and reached around Van and Paley, extending the wineskin to Elmot.

  “Of course!” Trey cried. “I remember you said your father had taught you, but to be fluent! Excellent! It makes sense—you being pureblooded.”

  Jorie snatched the wineskin from Elmot’s outstretched hand. “I’m classified as pureblooded.” She squirted a sip into her mouth, then wiped her lips with the back of her hand. “So’s Elmot.” She passed the wineskin to Trey by smashing it into his chest. “I assume Van and Paley were chosen for this mission because they are, too. None of us can read the Language, though, I’ll bet.”

  “My father’s a professor of philology at the Royal Lodian University,” Brux said. “Teaching is in his nature.”

  “And he’s a consultant to the Lodian Consilium,” Jorie said matter-of-factly. She shrugged at the blank stares. “I saw him hanging around with Uxa during my internship.”

  “Oh, I would love to work as a professor at the Royal Lodian University,” Elmot spurted.

  Trey rolled his eyes.

  Jorie scowled. “You don’t want to be a warrior?”

  Elmot shook his head. “With Multi-Tracs, the Grigori don’t have much need for navigators in the field. I’d like to teach cartography and work behind the scenes, using my skills to help develop new, better Multi-Tracs.”

  “Why not teach toxicology?” Brux asked.

  “I have no interest in studying poisons,” Elmot said. “I love maps.”

  “How about you, Brux?” Paley asked, batting her eyelashes. “Do you want to be a Grigori?”

  “It’s important to my family that I become a warrior,” Brux said. “It’s my birthright.”

  “And you don’t want to?” Trey asked.

  Brux shrugged. “I’ll do whatever it takes to protect Daisy.”

  They chatted until, one by one, they grew tired.

  Elmot and Jorie pulled out their silky brown squares and tugged a string that “inflated” their sleeping bags. Then Paley did the same, and they nestled in and retired for the night. But Trey, a history buff, kept Brux talking.

  Every inch of Van’s body felt as if a boulder had rolled over it. She longed for sleep, but an idea kept poking at her, keeping her awake. Brux, a language expert? She needed to show him Manik’s text. But could she trust him? After a headache-provoking internal struggle, she decided yes. If the text would help Daisy, she felt sure he would keep it a secret.

  To Van’s annoyance, Trey monopolized Brux, debating the differences in translations of the Language of the Ancients.

  “—because the ancient word for worthy has been misinterpreted to mean royal,” Brux said heatedly.

  Trey snorted in disgust. “The Balish had something to do with that. I can’t wait to get into that secret room in the library tomorrow. I bet it’s packed with helpful information. I heard plural nouns are often mistaken for singular—”

  Snore! Van wished Trey would shut up and go away. But he hogged Brux’s attention far into the night, and Van’s heavy eyelids won. She inflated her sleeping bag, succumbed to its snuggly softness, and fell into a deep sleep.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Day 3: 5:14 a.m., Living World

  Van stirred, not fully awake. “What’s that horrible noise?” It sounded like a crowing rooster on steroids.

  “Ugh. It’s the crack of dawn.” Paley’s muffled whine came from inside her sleeping bag.

  “Now you know why buffalroo are so annoying,” Brux said, leaping out of his sleeping bag, wide awake and ready to go.

  “Some tribes believe if the buffalroo don’t crow, the sun won’t rise,” Jorie said, deflating her sleeping bag. “Just wait. After the alpha male starts, the rest of the herd joins in.”

  As if on cue, more buffalroo began crowing.

  “There we go,” Jorie said.

  Trey emerged from his sleeping bag, scratching his head and looking scruffy. “Now I know why some tribes kill them for food. It’s the only way to shut them up.”

  “Better not kill them!” Jorie shouted over the screeching. “They’re a protected species. Against Balish law. Anything related to sun worship, the Balish protect.”

  Elmot also rose. His clothes remained pressed and clean, as if he had a secret dry cleaner hidden away in his backpack. Van felt disheveled in comparison.

  “That explains why there’s so many,” Elmot yelled. “Buffalroo, not Balish.” He chortled.

  “I thought we were out of Balish territory,” Paley said in a grouchy voice.

  “The Balish rule extends throughout most of the Living World,” Trey said loud enough to be heard over the noise. “Salus Valde and Altithronia are two of the few exceptions.”

  Elmot showed Van and Paley how to deflate their sleeping bags. “Made with Balish-approved magic,” he said. “They can be bought in the markets of Hod, the shopping hub of the Living World. They allow for easy storage, so they’re great for travelers.” He folded his into a neat little square in the same precise manner that he folded his maps.

  Van figured his neat mannerisms probably accounted for how his clothes stayed so immaculate. She felt relieved that the buffalroo finally stopped crowing, but in addition to her aching body from yesterday’s walk and sand crab attack, her ears now rang. Her grumpy mood persisted, as she folded her sleeping bag.

  The group ate
a quick breakfast, geared up, and headed out for an all-day trek to Agerorsa.

  By late afternoon, the landscape had changed. The loose sand became compact, and rocky, tree-strewn flatlands replaced the giant slabs of granite.

  “We’re into northern Kezef, close to the border of Fomalhaut,” said Elmot. “No need to wear scarves and sunglasses anymore.”

  They picked up the main road leading into town, walking in the open as marketier’s scouts would do.

  About a quarter mile from Agerorsa, Trey abruptly halted, knelt down, and placed his palm on the dirt road. “You feel that?”

  They stopped and listened.

  “Take cover! Quickly!” Jorie roared.

  Van heard it—the pounding of horses’ hooves coming their way.

  They dove into the thick shrubbery that lined the road.

  Van gasped as a squadron of massive black horses stampeded past, headed toward Agerorsa and blowing up a cloud of dust. Their riders wore black balaclavas, black gloves, and black capes that flailed in the wind. A red-and-gold insignia embellished their chests.

  “Balish soldiers,” Brux spat, as he crouched between Van and Paley.

  After the riders had passed, the team re-gathered in the brush.

  “Not just Balish soldiers,” Trey said. “Royal Balish Soldiers.”

  Paley bit her cuticles. “I know you said we are in Balish-occupied territory, b-but you guys also said Balish soldiers aren’t supposed to be here.”

  Brux grimaced. “They’re not. The town’s too far north for the Balish to care about having a military presence.”

  “Royal squadrons are an elite branch of the Balish military,” Trey informed them. “They protect members of the royal family. They will do whatever their assigned royal wants them to do. We should skip Agerorsa. A royal presence here makes it too dangerous.”

  “But why are the Balish here?” Jorie ran her hand over her Mohawk.

  “I like Trey’s idea of skipping this town,” Van said. A royal squadron had passed them, which meant her father might be there. She got queasy at the thought; she wasn’t ready to face him. “I have a bad feeling.”

  “We came all the way here,” Jorie stated. “We’re going in. Keep a low profile, sneak into the library, get what you can, and then leave. I’ll find out what the Balish are doing here.”

  A half-hour later, they arrived in Agerorsa. Elmot told them it was heavily populated and wealthy, but the first thing Van noticed was the stench. Then, the dirt. Malnourished children, smudged in grime and dressed in shabby rags, ran unattended on a street ripe with decomposing garbage. Their parents weren’t doing any better. They sat listlessly on rotting crates outside their dilapidated shanties. Flies buzzed about, crawling on their skin. Their vacant eyes told of a fight against poverty lost generations ago, and they barely noticed as Van and the others passed.

  “Elmot,” Van said. “You are way off calling this town wealthy.”

  “We’re in the outskirts,” Elmot explained.

  A small boy with fringy black hair caked with dust ran over to Brux. He reached up and tugged Brux’s sleeve. “’Scuse me, mister.” The boy smiled pleasantly, displaying yellow chipped teeth.

  The boy’s hygiene horrified Van. She expected Brux to shoo away the diseased ragamuffin.

  Instead, Brux bent down to the boy’s level and smiled, “Hey, little guy. What can I do for you?”

  “Do you got any food?” asked the boy. He looked about six years old.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Van asked, terrified. “Is he sick?” She backed away from the boy. “Brux, be careful.”

  Jorie marched over.

  Van felt confident that Jorie would share her sentiment about protecting the group and send the boy packing.

  A scrappy woman scampered out from the wasteland. “Ares!” she cried, grabbing her son. She appeared frightened and, close up, much younger than Van had originally thought.

  “Please, don’t hurt him. He didn’t mean no harm.”

  “We’re not Balish,” Brux said, affronted. “Of course, we’re not going to hurt him!”

  “Give them the boundless bowl,” Jorie commanded. “Give it to them.”

  “B-but . . . , ” stammered Van in surprise. Our food! “They’re noncontributors! Why are we rewarding them?”

  “Everyone deserves to be treated with respect,” Jorie said, “no matter how much or how little they have.”

  “What’ll we eat?” Van asked, flabbergasted.

  “No worries, Van,” Elmot said. “I’ll make sure you always have something to eat.”

  “Will Uxa be mad at us for giving away her bowl?” Paley asked.

  “I think Uxa will be mad if we don’t give away her bowl,” Elmot said. He went behind Van and unzipped her backpack.

  Paley reached in and took out the bowl.

  Van felt glad they did. If it were left up to her, she didn’t think she could do it. She was too afraid of being hungry.

  “We are capable warriors,” Brux said, without judgment. “We can fend for ourselves. They can’t.”

  “Oh, thank you! Thank you!” the woman said tearfully; the boy gave another horrifying grin. “May your path be guided by the Light!” She hid the bowl in her worn shawl, then she and the boy scurried away before Jorie could change her mind.

  The deeper they walked into Agerorsa, the more deserted the dirt road became. No one else approached them, and there was no traffic. They reached a paved road, and the houses improved with each block, becoming well-maintained two-story wooden homes—all of them shuttered tight.

  “Where are all the people?” Paley asked. Her eyes darted over the houses and down the street.

  “The squadron must have drawn them into the town square,” Brux said.

  Following Elmot’s lead, they turned down a wide cobblestone road leading downtown and to the library. A noisy crowd mobbed the town square.

  “What’s going on?” Van whispered to Brux.

  Paley grabbed hold of Van’s backpack to keep them together, as they weaved their way through the crowd.

  Jorie told them to wait, while she went on ahead.

  Van caught a glimpse of massive sleek black horses. Brux was right; the Royal Balish Soldiers were there.

  Jorie returned within minutes. “They have a prisoner. He’s accused of consorting with demons.”

  Van’s stomach lurched. Was the prisoner her father?

  “On what grounds?” Trey asked angrily.

  “He’s one of the townsmen,” Jorie answered. “They say he was caught with Manik’s text. That he’s the one who lured Prince Devon into the woods to be killed by demons.”

  Van breathed in relief. The prisoner wasn’t her father, and she had Manik’s text. The townsman was innocent; he’d be set free. Regardless, she didn’t want to linger. If someone searched her backpack, she’d be the one on display in the town square.

  “So, word is out that demons have reached the Living World,” Brux said. “People will be more on edge now.”

  “Whose squadron is it?” Elmot asked, stretching and balancing on his toes, trying to see over the crowd. “Can you tell?”

  “The Corporal Princess,” said a heavy-set man standing in front of Elmot. He wore a loose-fitting jersey with a leather belt and brown legging pants.

  “Solana Moor,” Elmot murmured.

  Van gulped. If Van’s father was working with Solana, and her squadron had come to town, then it stood to reason that her father was here, too. Van cowered, hoping to become invisible.

  “Good for her!” said the man, straining his neck hoping to catch a glimpse of the prisoner. “Neighbor or not, I always knew he was a dirty bastard thief. If not for him, Prince Devon and Queen Brigid would still be alive.”

  “Get to the library,” Jorie commanded in a low voice. “I’ll stay and find out more about what’s going on.”

  The others disappeared into the throng. Paley started to trail behind them, when Van grabbed her arm and whisp
ered, “I want to do my own recon.”

  “I’m in,” Paley said, with a smile. “I want to see the town, get a feel for where my parents might’ve come from.”

  “Maybe we can find a beauty salon,” Van said, frowning at her chipped nail polish.

  They made their way to the edge of the crowd and strolled down the sidewalk, gazing at the impressive commerce buildings. Some were made of marble with stately pillars, others had A-frame roofs, bunched closely together. With all of the businesses closed, Van had to give up her hopes of getting a hair blowout and a manicure. Paley peered into the window of a closed clothing shop, while Van noticed that the townspeople liked to collect stones. Many piles of them lay along the side of the road.

  Van lagged behind, so that Paley wouldn’t hear when she asked people if they knew a man named Rogziel, the name from her bloody patch. Van had no luck, and not until she heard a horse snort and shuffle did she realize she had reached the front of the crowd.

  A row of Royal Balish Soldiers stood between the crowd and the man they held captive, tied to a post. Her heart wrenched at the sight of the man, who had been badly beaten. Her first instinct was to turn and run. But she had come on this mission to find out about her father, and curiosity raged inside her. This was the perfect opportunity to find out more.

  She gathered her courage and edged close enough to see the soldier’s insignia patches. They were similar to Rogziel’s patch, which had been torn from a Balish military uniform, but apparently not from a Royal Balish Soldier’s. Maybe the patch belonged to a palace guard who worked with her father?

  Van decided she would risk glimpsing her father, as long as she stayed hidden in the crowd without him spotting her. Only by setting eyes on him could Van gain absolute confirmation that her father and Solana had hatched some villainous plot to take over Salus Valde. Her thoughts broke off when the soldiers parted and one of their own stepped forward.

  Van braced, sure she would catch sight of her father. Startled, she instead saw a stunning, dark-haired girl emerge. Despite never having seen the girl before, Van immediately knew it was Princess Solana.

  The princess moved effortlessly, yet deliberately, like a predator. Her glossy black hair cascaded down her back. Her full, blood-red lips beautifully contrasted with her smooth, sun-kissed skin. Her leotard military uniform clung to her curvy body with laser precision, and she wore matching black, elbow-length gloves. Solana emanated both power and femininity. Van knew one glance from this girl reduced powerful men to crumbling piles of dust, which probably accounted for her father falling under the princess’s influence.