Kara spent a lot of time alone, lately. Probably too much, but she liked the reprieve. When she hiked, she could finally clear her mind. She could forget. A bit of her fear and anger dissolved away with every breeze that rustled the canopy. She simply walked, and nature entertained her. The woods were her home away from home. They were safe. They didn’t pity her or offer tissues or send her to therapy.
She would feel alive again someday, even though the grief made that difficult. For now, she would just hike.
But in the darkest pit of her mind—the one she most ignored—she knew solitude wasn’t the answer. Kara’s hikes only helped her avoid the real problem: that, deep down, she blamed herself for her mother’s death. She had no idea what to do about that guilt.
A tear built up in Kara’s eye, but she used the heel of her palm to wipe it away. She cleared her throat and pushed herself to her feet.
No more thinking.
She glanced around to get her bearings, a ball already forming in her throat. She needed to distract herself, and focusing on happy things had just led to more terrible memories. She instead focused on trying to figure out where she was.
Now that she was sitting in the gazebo—or lichgate, whatever—she could see the view previously blocked by the low-hanging branches. The structure hugged the edge of a cliff and overlooked a valley surrounded on all sides by a mountain range. A river flowed into a broad lake about a half mile into the distance. This wasn’t Lone Pine Lake, since there wasn’t a waterfall nearby. She craned her neck and stood, leaning against the frame for a better view. It didn’t look like Bluebird Lake, or Mills Lake, either. The wind picked up and carried the stale musk of dried leaves and grass.
Where am I?
She pulled her compass from her bag and checked it before glancing up at a pack of clouds that partially hid the sun. The path hadn’t turned south, and she knew her fair share of the Montana trails by heart. This had to be a new valley, one she’d somehow never explored. Her mom would’ve loved this!
Kara sighed. Her hand reached to the locket around her neck, but she stopped. Hikes were for letting go, not remembering.
She stepped off the other side of the gazebo. Again, there was a kick in her gut and a flash of blue light. Her stomach tightened, and she leaned against a tree for support. Bark caught in her fingernails.
No more chicken salad!
A strong breeze scaled the cliff and ruffled her hair. It was more of a rocky hill than a cliff, really, and the mossy slope wasn’t all that steep. It leveled out about forty feet down after a curvy trail.
She pulled out her phone to check the time. Another minute ticked forward, but she had about an hour before her dad sent out any rescue parties. She grinned and looked back at her pack, but left it. This wouldn’t take long, and she didn’t want the extra weight.
Kara used the tree as leverage to hop onto the sturdy path below. Step by step, she inched down the trail. Occasionally, she needed to wedge her tennis shoe into a cranny to slide down to the next section, but other than that, she could take it slow and steady.
After only a few minutes, she reached the valley and squinted back up to where the gazebo’s roof peeked through the trees. Not bad. With her finger in the air, she traced the way she’d taken, starting at the lichgate and going over each step in her head. But when she examined the base of the hill, her finger hovered and came to a stop.
Built into the rock was a marble door shrouded with overhanging roots and dangling moss that clung to its frame like bangs. The gray stone was the exact color of the cliff rock, so she would have missed it if she hadn’t been looking closely.
She brushed her hand along the door’s smooth stone. It was simple, like the lichgate, and had a round stone knob. A small emblem carved into the rock at eye level looked like a four-leaf clover made of crescent moons.
Her fingers itched on the handle. The temptation to explore something ancient pulled her toward the door.
C’mon, Kara. Think this through. There’s a door in the mountain and you’re going to open it? You have no idea what’s behind—
The ground trembled with a sudden force that knocked her against the cliff. The wind stopped, dissolving with a hiss into the hot summer sky. She scanned the valley. Several somethings cracked in the ground under her feet.
A sinkhole broke into the turf about fifteen feet away, swallowing the grass and dirt. A man’s voice roared through the fissure and echoed across the lake. When his cry died on the still air, there was silence.
Kara remembered to breathe, and sudden relief washed through her chest as she did. She shifted her weight to leave and even made it a few feet up the path, but she paused as a chorus of men shouted through the hole in a language she didn’t understand. Smoke pitched from the small crater.
Thunder rumbled overhead. A dark cloud churned in the sky, and her heart fell into her stomach; there hadn’t even been a single fluffy cloud up there ten minutes ago. That didn’t make sense at all—how could the weather shift so suddenly?
She glanced to the door and then back up the trail, hesitating, but her decision was soon made for her.
A blinding bolt of moss-colored lightning flashed, striking something in the sinkhole. The hairs on her arms stood on end. Heat coursed through her calves, and she caught her breath. Her ears rang.
Wait. That lightning was definitely green.
The cliff trembled as a deafening boom shattered the air. A drizzle of rain began, but it quickly melted into heavy drops that pelted her skin and clung to her hair. Another rumble coursed along the far edge of the valley. Kara needed shelter, and the last place she would go in a lightning storm was up a hill.
She turned back and twisted the door’s handle, sighing with relief as it opened—unlocked—and swung inward. Still, as wet as it was outside and as much as she wanted a safe place to wait out the rain, she lingered on the threshold to examine the room.
Mud covered everything from the floor to the ceiling, and since there weren’t any supports to hold the roof, she couldn’t figure out how the ten-by-ten dirt shelter hadn’t caved in yet. The air within was heavy, moist with the rot of dead leaves, and her only guiding light streamed in from behind her. Roots dangled from the ceiling like stalactites reaching for the floor. The wind picked up, howling as it pelted rain against her back.
She tested the ground with her sneaker. The dirt floor supported her weight, so she tip-toed into the room and left the door open. Rain fell in lingering drops on the threshold before disappearing into the growing pools of mud. She stuck her hands in her pockets and watched the raging storm outside.
A flash of dark brown blurred past her.
She jumped. A tan flicker snaked along the roof, and clumps of soil fell in sheets. She glared at the ceiling, holding her breath as the settling dust rained onto her shoes.
It had almost looked like a root moving, but—no, that was crazy.
Another streak of motion raced down the opposite wall. It passed through a shaft of light, and Kara saw its pointed, wooden tip. Tiny veins sprouted from it like hairs, digging into the dirt so that it could travel.
It was a root moving.
She bolted for the door, but she never made it.
A second spiny vine shot up from the floor and wrapped around her leg. It pulled. She tripped, falling into the first root as it snaked along the far wall. Dirt poured over her head, blinding her. She coughed on bits of decaying bark. The root tugged again and yanked her onto her hands and knees. It dragged her toward the center of the room. She reached for the knife strapped to her free ankle, the one her mom had—
No. She couldn’t think of Mom. Not now.
A third root wrapped around her waist. Yet another grabbed her hand as she reached for the blade. The roots flipped her onto her back. With a bang, the door snapped shut. Her stomach churned. The floor disappeared. She fell, and the roots let go.
Kara tumbled through the darkness. Whenever she tried to scream, dirt filled her mouth
and nose. She eventually just held her breath, closed her eyes, and waited to be crushed in the landing.
Two roots broke her fall and bent with her, slowing her momentum but bruising her ribs in the process. Her hands slid off the grubs and mud as she grappled for something to stop her fall. Her cheeks flushed, and her stomach floated into her throat, heaving and twisting with her body.
She took a deep breath and thudded against something solid. She covered her head with her arms. Light poured around her as she held her position, waiting to fall deeper into whatever she’d gotten herself into this time. Her shoulder throbbed from the landing. Ringing hummed in her ear, but this was a new, silent place. She peeked through two fingers.
Dirt clung to her now-ripped jeans, and red smudges covered the exposed skin on her arms. Her shoes were caked in mud. Blood seeped through a rip in her sleeve, and a purple bruise had already begun to spread over her kneecap. She searched her arms and shins to feel for breaks, but nothing stung. That was good, but her phone had disappeared and her pack was still in the gazebo.
She leaned against the something solid that had broken her fall, which turned out to be a stone desk. Blood from her arm smudged the side where she landed, its red streak a vivid contrast to the desk’s white polish. A matching stone chair sat a foot or so from the desk, as if whoever had last sat in it had only just left.
Her hair was a mess of tangles and soil, and the streaks of mud on her cheeks smelled like a combination of carrots and crusty leaves. She brushed away as much of it as she could, rubbing the last of the dirt out of her eyes and wiping her face with the least-filthy bit of her shirt. The edges of her vision blurred, but the room slowly came into focus.
Stone shelves canvassed every wall from the floor to the twelve-foot ceiling. Every inch of every shelf was covered in books, each bound in colorful leather and labeled with gold symbols she couldn’t read. There were no doors in the walls of bookshelves, and the only light came from a pane of glass in the roof. Crimson sunlight leaked into what could only be a submerged library.
Kara eyed the skylight before pulling herself onto the desk and reaching for the window, but it was at least six feet away. Without any rope, she would never be able to escape through it.
She peeked over her shoulder, trying to figure out how she’d gotten into the room in the first place, but the only evidence of her fall was the pile of dirt where she’d been sitting. It was as if she’d appeared from thin air.
I’m trapped.
Kara sat on the desk and wiped the sweat from her palms onto her jeans. Her breaths became more and more shallow as adrenaline spiked in unison with her pulse. The ringing became a scream in her ear.
“Chill. Out,” she said rhythmically.
She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths to distract herself from the panic. Her chest rose and fell until the rush of her heartbeat faded from her head. When she could control her breathing again, she stared at the floor and debated her very limited options.
Something glittered from a gap in a desk drawer, so she hopped to the floor with a soft thud and knelt to get a good look. There was no handle on the drawer, but she was able to slip her fingers through the opening and drag it out of the desk. The rock groaned from the effort. As it finally slid open, a sunbeam skirted around her and cast her shadow onto the book hidden inside. It was wrapped in thin silver chains, but had no padlock.
The air in the small room stalled as it had before the storm: stagnant and suddenly heavy. The muscles between her shoulders tightened, and her neck tensed.
Hidden deeper within the drawer was a thick sheet of parchment paper. Kara set this aside, covered as it was in an illegible, spidery script. The book’s faded red leather was porous and soft, its title written in gold lettering that had long ago begun to chip so that now, only spotted lines comprised the runic letters.
The chains wrapped around the cover like metal vines, and instead of a padlock, they had all been fused together in the book’s center. In this mess of iron was a small silver pendant, hung from a short chain and set into the fused metal like a key in a lock. It was the same symbol that had appeared on the door: a crude four-leaf clover comprised of thin crescent moons. A brilliant diamond glittered from its center.
Her hands inched along the pages trapped beneath the odd lock and brushed the silver vines in the process. The metal burned her fingertips. She dropped the book, which thumped on the desk. Pain shot through her arm.
Someone whispered in her ear.
She whipped her head around and held her breath, but the library was empty and quiet once more. Her shoulders tensed, and her body told her to run, run! But there was nowhere to run to. The library had no door and only one inaccessible window.
Maybe she wasn’t supposed to open the book. The thought alone made her want to open it even more.
She sat in the chair, tore off a bit of her sleeve, wrapped it around her hand, and dug her thumbnail beneath the pendant. It shifted. The cold vines stung her thumb through the fabric, but she gritted her teeth and jiggled the pendant again. The necklace moved above her finger and finally popped. Something else clicked.
The sound of metal slithering over fabric made her freeze. The iron vines unwound themselves and fell from the book, and for the second time that day, she suppressed a scream as inanimate things moved. The metal twisted away, clattering to the floor.
The air thickened again, weighing on her neck. A shiver raced down her back. Her hips pressed into the chair, as if someone was pushing hard on her shoulders. Another whisper chorused in her ear. Even though her breath caught in her throat, she didn’t try to find the source. She doubted anything would be there if she looked.
She slid her thumb under the now-unlocked cover, pausing for only a second before she flipped it open.
A gale blew through the room from nowhere, ruffling pages and tearing books from their shelves. It ripped around her, whipping her hair so that her face and neck stung. The pendant’s diamond glowed blue.
The blood in her veins seemed to boil, scorching her from within. Pins and needles ravaged every inch of her body. Sweat dripped down her back and chilled in the gusting wind. The ripped shreds of her shirt stuck to her bruises. She opened her mouth, but the air was gone. She couldn’t scream.
All at once, everything settled. The library was silent, the pain in her body dissolved, and all she could hear was that incessant ringing.
“Holy—!” She couldn’t even finish her thought. She wiped her face, her mouth, her neck. Something scratched her skin.
The little clover pendant glittered in her hand. She stared at it, gaping. Something started clicking. It was a steady noise: flick, flick, flick.
She gasped.
The flick sound came from the book, which was—well, it was—its pages were turning. The room was motionless, the air heavy and still again, but the pages flipped on their own, one after the other. After a minute or two, they finally stopped when a page drifted slowly to rest on its brothers.
“Holy...” she whispered. She sat on the edge of the immobile stone chair and peered at the open book while keeping as far a distance from it as she could.
A drawing covered both pages. The loose sketch showed a cliff overlooking a lake, a river, and a valley, and on top of the cliff was a lush forest. She squinted at a familiar sloping path up the cliff face and saw, hidden in the overhanging branches of the trees, the lichgate’s roof. And there, at the base of the path, was the marble door. Beside it, a man draped in a blue cloak lounged against the rock.
He peered up at her from beneath his hood, his face draped in shadow. One of his hands pointed to something off the page. She looked to where he was pointing and found the little note she’d brushed aside earlier. It still lay on the desk, somehow unaffected by the gale which had ripped books off their shelves.
She flipped to the next page, but before she could read more than a few words, the page shook itself free of her grip and settled once more on the landscape an
d the man.
She grumbled and turned the page again, but it once more wrenched itself free and turned back to the drawing of the cloaked man who pointed to the letter. She huffed and moved the book so that he was pointing at a bookshelf.
His arm moved against the motion of the book so that he still pointed to the letter.
Kara gasped and grabbed the loose parchment from the desk, taking the hint and leaning as far back into the chair as she could.
The letter had been gibberish before, but she caught a word she knew as she scanned the page. Then another. And another. Her hand covered her mouth as she read, horrified.
From the moment you read these words, you will be hunted. If you wish to survive what will come, you must pay attention.
Because you have found this Grimoire, you will come to know my world: Ourea. It’s a beautiful place, but its creatures are unforgiving and brutal. Ourea is a hidden pocket of the earth and has always been locked away, accessible only through the lichgates. Since you found this book, you have already discovered one of these portals. You can never return to the life you knew once you step through a lichgate.
Thousands of magical and non-magical species live here, but three are notable above all others: drenowith, isen, and yakona. Be wary of them all.
Drenowith are known in human lore as muses; they change form freely and don’t age. Isen are mostly evil, as their kind harvest souls to remain immortal and can don their prey’s appearance at will. But I believe that my people, the yakona, are far worse. We as a race have mastered magic, but we are divided and live in secluded, warring kingdoms. They will be the death of me, though all I ever wanted was peace.
To learn more, ask your Grimoire. It will always answer if you ask the right question.
You must be cautious. When you opened this Grimoire, you became its next master, and you will be known as the Vagabond. Only you can read these pages, and the vast knowledge held here is a coveted thing. I trust to you its secrets, its stories, and its fearful power. A daunting world awaits you, but I hope you discover the beauty hidden in even the most vile of things.
Veiled Shadows (The Age of Alandria: Book Two) Page 27
