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

by D. L. Armillei

  The bunfy hopped in with him.

  Michael lurched out of the private portal and into his study at Mt. Hope Manor. The trip took seconds, but Wiglaf, using his magical ability to travel, had arrived ahead of him and bounced back and forth on his hind legs, nervously rubbing his front paws together. The bunfy stopped fidgeting and chirruped wildly as soon as Michael stepped into the room.

  He gasped for breath. “Shhh. There is little time.”

  Wiglaf quieted, staring at his charge—his long ears straight and alert, ready for instruction.

  “Get . . . Genie . . . hurry.”

  The bunfy zoomed away.

  He struggled to remove a woman’s locket from around his neck and then clutched it in his hand. In his other hand, he held the ancient book he had stolen from Balefire: Manik’s text.

  Blood seeped from Michael’s wounds, darkening his already black uniform. Still, he managed to lumber to the burning fireplace. “Important . . . important . . . ,” he muttered.

  When he reached the fireplace, Michael mumbled deliriously to his bunfy, which he forgot was no longer there. “Let us hope . . . no Lodian . . . ever lays a hand on this.”

  Michael and Uxa both had known that given the rising demon problem in the Earth World, it was only a matter of time before demons found a way into their world. So, Uxa had taught him the Language of the Ancients, allowing him to read ancient documents while undercover in Balefire. He’d intended to memorize the map in Manik’s text and use it to retrieve the Coin in Van’s place, using Goustav’s heir. His daughter most likely wouldn’t survive such a journey.

  Then, as he read Manik’s text while on duty in Balefire, he discovered that Amaryl had had a baby with Goustav. Van was both the Anchoress heir and Goustav’s heir! He also read that the magical weapon Goustav had used during the Dark War wasn’t the Coin—it was Amaryl. He speculated that after becoming king, Goustav had changed the history books to enhance his legacy, and that Goustav didn’t believe he had fathered an heir. Michael didn’t want the tragedies that occurred in Goustav’s time to happen to his fifteen-year-old daughter.

  No one would use his daughter that way! Not over his dead body.

  A Class III demon had already killed his rookie, a girl who had reminded him of Van—young, unskilled, naive—and of what Van’s duties as the Anchoress-in-Waiting might require her to face. When the winged demon appeared, he knew the Escalation had begun—which sent him straight to Manik’s text.

  As proved tonight, demons had reached their world. Michael had been right—the first stage of Dishora had arrived. The Anchoress would be called forth to retrieve her Coin and fight demons. With Van being both heirs, Uxa would send her to get the Coin.

  He’d planned to safeguard Van on her journey, but with the map being so complex, he had to steal the text. This went terribly wrong. Now, dying, he would not be there to protect his daughter.

  Once someone had identified Van as the Anchoress heir, the Moors wouldn’t take a chance on the truth of Manik’s writing. As Goustav’s heir, too, Van would be a double threat to their rule, and they would send assassins to kill her. Darkness on all fronts would seek to destroy her. Van would never stand a chance.

  He could do only one last thing to help her. Without the text, Uxa would never know Van was Goustav’s only heir, and she would continue her search. The search would be futile, and she would eventually find another way to stop the Escalation and prevent Dishora. The Grigori are resourceful.

  He had to protect Van.

  Michael dropped the worn, hand-bound book into the fire, then lost consciousness.

  Van remained in complete blackness, when she heard a woman’s voice . . .

  “Michael? Michael? Can you hear me?”

  Genie’s blurred face came into focus, wracked with worry but still exquisite in its beauty.

  “What happened?” Genie cried. “Why are you dressed in a Balish Palace Guard uniform?”

  Van felt a groan gurgle from Michael’s throat, as he attempted to speak.

  “What is a portal doing in your study?” she shrieked hysterically.

  He had the portal set on a timer. Even if any of the soldiers in his squadron had survived the demon attack, none could get through without being attuned.

  His voice came, strained and low. “Give . . . this . . . to Van.” He grasped his wife’s hand. So soft, so delicate. In it, he placed the locket.

  Genie lifted the bloodied necklace to get a better look. “This gaudy thing? Why?”

  “It was her mother’s. Genie . . . promise you’ll give it to her.” Michael noticed that a strand of her silky white-blonde hair had fallen out of place.

  “Tell me what’s going on!”

  He struggled to sit up, but Genie held him down.

  “Keep still! You’re more injured than I thought. I need my healing kit.” She attempted to rise.

  “No!” Michael grasped her silk bathrobe and pulled her to him. The blood on his hand instantly seeped through the delicate material, staining the white lace and light yellow fabric a brilliant red. “It’s too late for me . . . I can’t be saved . . . can’t be found here . . .”

  “What are you talking about? Don’t be foolish! Let me go!”

  Michael let out a weak groan. “Must . . . get back . . . to the portal.”

  “How is this possible?” Genie asked, staring at the swirling disc.

  Michael struggled to get up.

  “No!” She pushed him back down. “You stay put. I’ll be right back.”

  She tried to stand, but Michael had her bathrobe clutched tightly. He used his dead weight to hold her down and, at the same time, was able to raise himself to a semi-upright position. “Erase all evidence I was here. Tell no one . . . no one . . . promise me, Genie. Forget you ever saw the portal . . . forget you ever saw me . . . promise!”

  Genie flinched, as his last word sprayed her face with spittle and blood. She gently nodded. She didn’t wipe her face.

  Satisfied, Michael released her bathrobe and sank back onto the blood-streaked floor.

  Genie seized her chance and dashed from the room.

  As soon as she was gone, Michael gathered his remaining strength and stood.

  He glanced at the fireplace one last time to make sure the text had kept burning. Then he lugged his body toward the wall that normally displayed an artistic stone carving but had now transformed into an activated, swirling portal. He had set the timer to last for only a few more seconds.

  He turned to face Wiglaf, silently watching the scene unfold from a corner.

  “I am truly sorry, little friend . . . but it’s the only way . . . please . . . watch over Van.”

  The bunfy nodded, accepting his new instructions—until he realized what the request meant, and then he shook his tiny head. His long ears drooped. His eyes brimmed with tears.

  The bunfy leaped onto Michael’s chest in a futile attempt to prevent Michael from reentering the portal. To do so without the attunement key, which Michael no longer had, meant certain death.

  Michael stepped backward into the portal.

  As he disappeared into the swirling blackness, his last fading sight was of the dislodged bunfy scrunched into a ball on the floor. A piece of bloody material torn from the chest of Michael’s uniform dangled from his tiny mouth.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  Day 25: Evening, Living World

  Van regained consciousness with her head in Brux’s lap. Her cheeks felt damp.

  “I wasn’t sure if it was a memory engram, or you got hit on the head,” Brux said tenderly.

  Van bawled, her eyes gushing tears.

  “Head injury, then?” With a feeble grin, Brux wiped away her tears.

  He told Van that he had dragged Paley into the cave above, in time to see her and Solana both plummet into this cavern. He had searched for Van through the interconnecting tunnels and found her here, unconscious. He didn’t think any of Solana’s soldiers had survived the landslide.

>   After Brux finished his update, Van began to process what she had just learned from her father’s memory engram. Most important, both of her parents had died over love for their family. Her mother, out of concern for her father’s safety, and her father, to protect Van. He had acted under Uxa’s orders until Van’s safety had become threatened. Then he had taken matters into his own hands by stealing Manik’s text, not thinking he would get killed. When he became mortally wounded, he did the best he could, given the circumstances.

  Her father knew he wouldn’t live to protect Van on her journey, so Manik’s text had to be destroyed. That way, Uxa would not learn that Van was both heirs. Michael thought Uxa would leave Van alone, deeming her too weak to retrieve the Coin, and would continue searching for one of Goustav’s heirs to do her bidding.

  Van gazed at the patch. It must have slipped from the binding in the text during her fight with Solana, and Solana hadn't noticed it. Van’s father had never worked with Solana. He’d never had an affair with the Balish princess or Uxa or anyone. He wasn’t money-grubbing or power-hungry. He wasn’t a traitor. He had chosen to cling to the Light.

  He was good.

  The words spilled out of Van’s mouth, as she told Brux what she had learned, starting with her father’s innocence.

  Brux said, “Amaryl sent you that vision of her in the garden with Goustav because she tried to tell you that you were the heir to both bloodlines.” He sighed.

  “When Amaryl showed me the vision of her cursing Goustav, she—she tried to tell me that she was the one who had cursed me,” Van said between sobs. “In a fit of rage, she couldn’t see that by cursing Goustav’s blood, she had cursed her own daughter and—and all the other Anchoresses from that point onward.”

  “Over the centuries, all the Anchoresses married pure-blooded Lodians, those with the highest percentage of Elemental blood, to weed out Goustav’s Balish blood,” Brux added. “So the curse became dormant. Then your father comes along with his Balish blood, not Goustav’s but still Balish, and this new infusion reactivated Amaryl’s curse. This must have enraged the Elementals.”

  “That’s for sure.” Van bobbed her head. She used the back of her wrist to wipe her tear-stained cheeks. “He had put his family in danger with his tainted blood—and then—then wasn’t able to protect Aelia,” she whimpered. “He could never f-forgive himself for it. That’s why—” She sniffled. “—Why he seemed so emotionally distant to me. He loved me.”

  Her father’s tainted blood had inadvertently led to Aelia’s death via the curse. He never blamed Van. He blamed himself. And everyday he had to live with that pain.

  Van instinctively ran her hand over the scar on her lower back. Her sobs subsided.

  “Are you hurt?” Brux asked, alarmed. “Let me see.”

  Before Van could push him away, he pulled up the back of her shirt.

  He caressed her scar. His fingers felt coarse.

  He lifted his eyes to hers. “That’s from Queen Brigid?”

  Van nodded. “It’s there to remind me I’m a survivor.”

  He moved his hand away from the scar and cupped the back of Van’s head. “You’re beautiful.” He leaned in and pressed his lips to hers in a soft, lingering kiss.

  Van felt as though the fireworks of Jaychund had gone off inside her. She smiled.

  Brux lightly ran a finger over her cheek. “We should get going.” He rose to his feet and held his hand to Van.

  She took it.

  “Brux.” She didn’t want to lose control and start blubbering again, so she said it quickly, “I’m sorry about Daisy being captured.”

  Brux’s eyes glazed for a second, and then he said, “I’m going to rescue her. You can count on it.”

  They headed back to the spot where Brux had Paley safely tucked away.

  Van felt saddened that her father hadn’t had faith in her. “My father stole Manik’s text to help me. Instead, that act sent me on this mission, unwittingly playing right into Solana’s and the master demon’s plans.”

  “Van—if it ever came down to it, your father knew you would be able to use your intuition to find the Coin,” Brux said consolingly. “He believed in you.”

  Van shrugged, unsure whether this was true. “How much do you think Uxa knew? She told me my father’s soul was in danger.” She felt certain both Uxa and Solana had used her ignorance about her father against her to advance their own agendas.

  “I’m not sure,” Brux said, frowning.

  “She must know about the portal in my father’s study,” Van said.

  “It’s a private portal,” Brux said, enthralled. “It must operate differently than the public portal. Maybe the attunement is done by using a special code or some kind of key.”

  “Um—” Van bit her lip, not sure how to tell him about her final confrontation with Solana.

  “Van. What is it?” Brux demanded.

  “When I stood face-to-face with Solana, I remembered Manik’s warning about people not using the Coin against each other. I tried to work out how to best defeat her.” She paused to get her emotions in check.

  “You were facing a ‘kill or be killed’ situation,” Brux said. “Solana knew from reading Manik’s text that you were also Goustav’s heir—which we didn’t know because that part had burned. It was another reason why the Balish discredited the text and locked it away.”

  “That’s what the traveling peddler, Len, meant when he told us something in Manik’s text gives the Lodians power,” Van said. “Not only is the Lodians’ Anchoress the heir to the Balish Kingdom, but the Coin gives her the power to take it—if she chooses to use it that way.” Van added the last bit as a warm-up to her final confession.

  “Once you retrieved the Coin, it would be proof that the Anchoress bloodline had survived the Dark War, and if that part of Manik’s text were true, then so were his other writings. By keeping the text, Solana could destroy it, while maintaining it had been lost during the demon attack on her brother.”

  Van remained quiet and let Brux finish his thoughts.

  “Solana’s grand plan included eliminating all threats to her throne, including the death of the Anchoress and Goustav’s heir—you.”

  “Manik warned us to use the Coin only against true evil.” Van swallowed and braced herself. Then she confessed as to how she had defeated Solana—by calling the Coin from her palm without surrendering her Light, knowing Solana would die when she touched the high vibration of the Coin with her bare hand.

  “Solana must have forgotten she had removed her gloves after getting wet,” Brux said.

  “I used the Coin incorrectly,” Van said, wondering if Brux had missed the point. “I attached to the dark part of my Self. Now, on top of the Anchoress curse, I’ll have to suffer the consequences of my actions.”

  Van had finally reconciled her feelings for her father, but it was too late. Her soul had already been damaged.

  Brux felt furious he hadn’t been there to protect her and wrapped a comforting arm around her.

  She gratefully leaned into him.

  “Solana was truly evil,” Brux said. “She murdered people and Wiglaf. She conspired with a demon to destroy the Coin of Creation. You prevented that. It’s what being a good Anchoress is all about.”

  Van remained subdued. She needed absolution more than she needed analysis.

  Brux understood. “I’m proud of you,” he said, giving her a squeeze and a smile.

  “Manik did advise the Anchoress not to surrender her Light,” Van said, trying to convince herself. “The only way out was to use the Coin.”

  Was Brux right? Did Solana count as true evil? Solana, though certainly evil, wasn’t a demon, so Van felt unsure.

  Van was sure about the deep shift that occurred inside herself the moment Solana revealed that Queen Brigid had killed Aelia. A fierce protective instinct for Van’s ancestral line had taken over.

  “The whole Moor family is rotten and dark,” Van said heatedly. Solana’s mother had
nearly ended the Anchoress bloodline. “Their family shouldn’t be allowed to rule the kingdom.”

  Solana’s desire for power led to her callous indifference toward family and death. She had murdered her twin brother and killed her own mother and Van’s father. And she had tried to kill Van.

  During their confrontation, Van had peered into Solana’s soul. She had glimpsed a dark thread and knew a piece of Solana’s soul had already been claimed by the master demon. Ildiss had told Van that conspiring with demons left a mark. This mark appeared not on the skin, but on the soul.

  Solana’s dark thread had wound so tightly around greed and a desire for power, no chance of redemption remained for her.

  This was when Van knew she had to use the Coin against Solana.

  Solana had chosen to cling to Darkness, and she had lost.

  Some people cannot be saved.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  Days 26, 27: Living World

  When Van and Brux found their way to Paley, she was conscious but not doing well. Although she could walk with help, her pulse fluttered weakly.

  Van’s ribs ached with every breath, and with each step, her sprained ankle howled in pain. Paley switched between using Van and Brux as her crutch until she was too exhausted. Then Brux draped her over his shoulder again. They had all suffered injuries, but Paley’s, being the most severe, slowed them down.

  They didn’t need the Coin to find their way to Araquiel, but Van used it anyway to locate the quickest route. They had only four days left before their time ran out. If they didn’t get the Coin back to Uxa at Lodestar before midnight of the next full moon, the Balish would repeal Manik’s law and invade Salus Valde, even without Solana.

  “Lodians will fight back,” Brux said, huffing from the strain of carrying Paley. “Just like during the Great War. If demons reach here while we’re at war, the negativity generated by the violence will allow them to stay and grow stronger.”

  Van gulped. “Then the Lodians and the Balish would have to side together to fight the demons. Just like they did during the Dark War?”

  Brux nodded glumly.