“Anaya, you forget that I’ve been working all day and night in here for you, for us, so we can have our way with the future of this island. My method is almost perfected now, and soon we can have everything we want.”
She remembered Idocra. “You, me, and our friends on Vinda, that is.”
“Our ‘friends’ on Vinda?!” she exclaimed. “They aren’t our friends. They’re our enemies. How can you associate with them?!”
Knowing the danger they were in, Selexi reached out in an attempt to calm her daughter. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. Idocra really is our friend. She’s here to help us.”
Anaya pulled away in disbelief.
Selexi desperately waved her hands around the room, trying to save the situation. “This is all for you. I built it for your future. You can’t turn away from me when we’re so close to having everything we’ve always wanted.”
Anaya was repulsed. “This is what you spent all your time on while I was sent off to play alone, neglected by you, and isolated from the other girls all these years? For this … this … monstrosity?”
Selexi’s anger rose. “Selfish girl. You have no idea what I gave up. Much more than you, I assure you.”
Idocra was growing weary of this interplay. “Selexi, you’d better contain her, or I’ll have to take the matter into my own hands. We can’t have her interfering.”
Selexi knew Idocra would kill her daughter without a thought. “Darling, please try to understand.”
But Anaya wouldn’t bend. “I know the truth now. Miranda is my sister. Right, Mother? Our father loved Athedra, but was forced to marry you. That’s why you wanted me to be Sultana, so you could have your revenge.”
Selexi couldn’t deny it. “Yes, Athedra has taken everything from me and now it’s her turn to be the loser. You can still be Sultana someday if you work with me now. Come with us to Vinda. We will build an army to overtake Miranda and this entire island. I will put you on the throne where you belong.”
“I want to be Sultana, but not that way.”
Idocra didn’t like what she was hearing. After her kind had Zarada, there would certainly be no Sultana, but she wasn’t going to bring that up now. Let Selexi build the army first. “Selexi, I have to kill her now. She knows too much.”
“That’s not necessary. I can convince her to come….”
Idocra didn’t hesitate. “It has to be done!” She shot a fireball from her eye, in Anaya’s direction, but the Young Warrior ducked.
The burning sphere crashed into the wall, sputtering down in charred ash. The fireballs continued to fly as Anaya rushed out of the room. One made contact with her back as she fled, another grazed the top of her head, and still another pelted her left leg.
With flames trailing from her skin and clothes, she raced through the darkness, toward the only person who could help her, but was the one least likely to do so.
The Awakening
Miranda entered the dining room to find a large party of people waiting for her. Musicians played quietly in the corner. When her presence was announced, everyone’s attention turned to her in expectation.
Applause and smiles welcomed her and everyone bowed as she passed. Dozens of sumptuous dishes were spread across the tables. Her mother smiled and waved from her place at the end of the enormous dining hall, and her sister and grandmother were seated next to her. The High High Council, Priestesses, and many others who helped run the island were present.
Grideon offered his arm and escorted her to her seat. As she took her place next to her husband, she marveled at how strong and steady he was. He sat beside her, taking her hand in his. She felt a rush of warmth flow through her heart and a smile passed over her lips. Yes, this is where I belong.
A parade of entertainers, acrobats, and magicians were signaled to enter. Miranda and Grideon enjoyed a brilliant performance as they dined on their wedding feast and accepted congratulatory remarks from the guests.
After the festivities, Miranda, feeling happier than she could ever remember, returned to her quarters, glowing with the warmth of the evening. Her attendant finished buttoning the regal pink silk pajama top she had put on over matching pants and she collapsed into her bed, immediately falling into a deep slumber.
During the night, she dreamt of blood and war. Grideon was dragged away by strange beings. Her mother fought for food. Scenes of starvation, storms and brutality riddled her vision. An army was beating down the door to the castle. A voice vowed to kill her, proclaiming vengeance as the pounding continued ceaselessly.
She bolted upright as the knocking on the door of her room overtook the pounding in her dream. There were voices arguing just outside. Someone wanted to see her, someone with a young girl’s voice, she couldn’t make out whose, but the guards were refusing to let her in. She ran to open the door, but it was locked from the outside.
“Open the door. Now!” she commanded.
The key turned and the door was freed. There stood Anaya, both arms held tight by the guards. She looked like a deranged ghost from another world; her hair was out of its braid, hanging wildly in all directions, her blackened clothes were riddled with gaping holes and exposed patches of skin were red and blistering. She smelled like burning flesh.
Anaya stared at Miranda with wide, panicked eyes and struggled to free herself from the guards’ hold. “You must come now, or my mother’s going to destroy us all!”
Miranda looked at her suspiciously. Was this a trick?
“Why should I believe you?” Miranda asked. “How do I know you’re not trying to trap me into doing something I will regret?” She addressed the guards. “Take her to the dungeon.”
The guards started to pull Anaya down the hall. She writhed in protest. “Look at me!” she called back. “Idocra did this. She is conspiring with my mother in her underground laboratory at this moment to take control of Zarada. We must stop them. I’ll show you everything! Just come with me and see for yourself!”
Miranda took a closer look at the raw burnt flesh on Anaya’s skin. She recognized this wound from her studies of Zaradian history. The Vindans left these marks with their fireballs. Idocra? Here on our island? Without our knowledge? Secret laboratory? Could it be?
Unity
Miranda and a band of guards followed Anaya down the secret underground hallways of the castle as she showed them where the passageway began, from inside the castle – a narrow wall of stones in Selexi’s old room that opened when triggered by a lever.
After a short distance, they stood at the top of a staircase, drenched in blackness. They lit their torches and stared down onto a wide corridor. Anaya rushed down the steps to the dirt path and broke into a run. “Hurry!” she called as she raced ahead.
Anaya was a fast runner. Miranda had to push herself to keep up. They wove this way and that, finally taking a sharp turn to the right, where they came to a large wooden door, splintered and decaying, but very thick. Anaya tried her special knock, hoping her mother would respond. Nothing. She tried pushing the door open, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Break it open!” Miranda ordered. The guards hacked away at the door with their axes. Miranda wanted to know more. “I had no idea this existed; the secret passage, and whatever is behind this door.”
“It’s my mother’s laboratory.”
“Does anyone else know about it?”
“No one except Idocra.”
“How long has she been coming down here?”
“When she was a child, she discovered a hole in the wall of her bedroom closet. She started chipping away at it, making it larger and larger. After a few weeks, she could fit through it. She explored and found the passageway. It led to this room.”
The door finally gave way and they went in, but Selexi and Idocra were gone. All that was left were disconnected wires, overturned vessels and a pile of ashes that had once been books.
The creatures in the cages were slumped and lifeless. Selexi had killed them. Anaya screamed at the sight
of their corpses. She crumpled to the floor, sobbing, “My own mother, against us all along….”
She looked despairingly at Miranda. “Why didn’t I see it before?” There was a small whimpering noise coming from the corner. Anaya looked around the cages to find Shosi, huddled and trembling. She took the mutant into her arms and cried with relief.
Miranda had to stop Selexi. “I need you to be strong now. I need your help,” she said to Anaya. “Where do you think your mother left the island from?”
Anaya was incredulous. “How can you even begin to trust me after how I’ve betrayed you? I was your enemy every step of the way.”
“But you see the truth now, don’t you? We are sisters, aren’t we? We’ll be a team. I will be Sultana, and you will be my advisor.”
Anaya’s face flashed with new purpose. No one has ever truly valued me before or needed me for my own worth. She was being seen for who she was for the first time in her life, a loyal Warrior of Zarada – what she’d always wanted to be deep down.
She saw herself in a new light and felt the latent desire to save her island take root within her. Realization overwhelmed her as words of truth came tumbling out. “They’re headed for Vinda, to build an army of mutant soldiers called keras. Then they’re going to come back and try to reclaim Zarada by force.”
Miranda commanded her guards to run back to the castle and assemble a search mission to comb the shore at all possible points of departure. She instructed them to try the east shore first, the side of the island closest to the Vindans.
Selexi’s Exile
A Vindan boat rocked silently at the deserted shoreline. Rising moons saturated the air with an orange haze. The sand was the sole witness to a yellow night crab creeping sideways into the shadows. The only sound was the water singing up an endless chorus to an endless verse of an infinite sky.
A rustling sound preceded the arrival of Selexi and Idocra, who came slinking out of the woods. Two of Idocra’s soldiers immediately darted up the sand to assist them with their cargo. Idocra directed them to work quickly and soon stacks of crates covered the deck. Some contained lab equipment, others books, and the rest held experimental research records.
Idocra went to the control room where the captain was, and they set the course and pulled up anchor, pushing away from the rust colored shore and cutting into the night. They raced toward Vinda, Idocra’s barren island in the north.
When they had become only a small spot of light on the horizon, the Zaradian guards came filing up the shoreline, hunting for traces of Selexi. When they reached the spot where the boat departed, they noticed footprints and other markings in the sand, then looked out to sea, but could neither see nor hear anything. They were too late.
Once a safe distance from Zarada, Selexi double checked that everything was in order. She had taken only one cage, occupied by her precious kera. She carried it to the bow, and cooed at the blank face inside.
She smiled mischievously. “My lovely.”
It stared ahead blankly. She had built it to have no emotions, so there would be no conflict when it came time for killing. She gazed upon the water and imagined her giant army. She could see them marching by the thousands across Zarada. Then she would have what she’d always truly desired – total control of the island.
She had never shared this unrelenting ambition with anyone, not even Anaya. She hid behind Anaya’s claim to the throne, but it was always her ultimate intention to have the crown sitting securely upon her own head.
There was still a chance she could use Anaya to make the transition – Anaya could be the official Sultana, while Selexi pulled strings from behind the scenes; yet Anaya was proving to be disloyal.
She had spent so many years trying to shelter her daughter from the influences of her peers and teachers, but it didn’t seem to have made any difference. Maybe she would come around when she got hungry enough. Then Selexi might let her prove she could be trusted again. But at this point, she couldn’t count on that.
Selexi spoke in a whispered hush to the mute kera. “I can see it now – the entire island teaming with hordes of you; smashing doors and windows, crushing skulls and splitting swords. The guards in the castle will be unable to fight you off!
“And finally, after the bloodshed is complete, the Vindans will be eliminated. Anaya will beg me to take her in. Athedra and Miranda will bow to ME! They will all bow to me!!” A poisonous grin played across Selexi’s face as she reveled in maniacal delusion, her cackle lingering long into the night.
About the Author
Michele Evans is an entertainer and award-winning speaker.
Her mission is to inspire girls to harness their inner strength and reach for their dreams.
She resides in Los Angeles.
To book a workshop or speaking engagement, contact michele’s publicist at [email protected].
www.IslandOfZarada.com
www.micheleevansauthor.com
The Larimar Quest (Island Of Zarada Book 1) Page 17
