L.O.S.T. Trilogy Box Set

by R. S. Collins

  “Bren. Come out here.”

  The tone. That voice. I knew that voice.

  As I sat up on my couch, something felt weird. This couch looked different. Brighter. Bigger and newer. And I wasn’t in a shed. I was back home in Arizona.

  “Bren! Hurry up, son. Don’t make me call you again.”

  Mom.

  My heart swelled. Mom! Everything I thought had happened was a dream. All a dream. I was home, and Mom was outside. I ran toward her as fast as I could.

  She was standing in her garden outside, and she looked up and smiled at me. She was so pretty with her blond hair and blue eyes, and wearing purple as usual. She held out her hand and her smile widened. “Come here, Brenden.” She gestured. “Come to me.”

  I slowed down. Stopped a few feet away. I couldn’t go to Mom. Something wasn’t right. No, something was definitely wrong. But this was my mom. What could possibly be wrong with going to her?

  I started to take another step forward when everything changed.

  No more Arizona. No more garden. I was in a chamber with a glowing floor and a strange, foul energy. Shadows crawled and hissed from the walls, everywhere around us.

  Yes, us. Us! I looked around, heart pounding.

  Jazz was with me. There was something wrong with her. She was hurt.

  I held up my sword and silver light flashed, chasing away the Shadows and illuminating a figure in a purple robe. My witch-light should have made the being cower, but it didn’t. This time the being was stronger, more powerful.

  This time?

  I’d been here before, only I’d been holding my sword in my left hand, when I still had all my fingers. Now I was holding it in my right hand, and it felt awkward and unwieldy.

  I held my sword up, trying to see who or what the being was—

  My mother.

  Only she had a cruel, cruel expression on her once pretty face, and her eyes looked so very old, as if she’d been alive for centuries.

  And then I knew what was wrong.

  Mom had been alive for centuries.

  Mom was Nire, the most feared and hated being in the witching world, a being with the most powerful old blood running through her veins. A being who killed anyone she deemed unworthy.

  A being who couldn’t be standing in a room with Jazz and me.

  I’d stranded Mom in a prehistoric Sanctuary and cut it loose from the Path, where she’d never be able to rejoin normal time or hurt anyone again.

  “You can’t be here,” I said. Light surged up my sword, getting brighter. “You can’t be real.”

  She laughed, an eerie laugh that chilled me through. “Brenden, Brenden. Did you think you would rid yourself of me so easily? Do you think I have no allies? Even now, they are working to free me.”

  I grew so cold that the silver light from my sword faded.

  Jazz slumped to her knees, cradling her arm and looking weak. So weak. No, Jazz was well. I’d already saved her from Talamadden, Death’s Haven. I knew I had.

  “But you cannot save her this time.” Nire laughed, a hollow sound that made me sick to my stomach. “You cannot save anything, anyone.”

  The truth made me want to yell.

  I’d have to fight her again. My mother. And this time, I’d have to kill her.

  No.

  No!

  But this evil being was not my true Mom. The mom who raised me, read to me, encouraged me to be one of the best baseball players on my team. The mom who had a laugh that used to make me feel so good.

  My throat closed and I choked on the lump that formed there.

  That mom was gone. Now there was only Nire.

  I raised my sword, prepared to do what I had to do, when the room swirled and I nearly dropped to my knees.

  Jazz was gone.

  The chamber was gone.

  This time I was in the 1965 Sanctuary. It was burning! Everything was burning. Huge bonfires blazed all around us. Beltane bonfires—only the whole world was on fire. I coughed, the smoke was so thick and it burned my eyes.

  Screams. So many screams. There were still souls trapped inside those walls, souls that hadn’t been vanquished yet by the Erlking like we’d thought. I heard his evil laughter and the sound of his daughters singing. Singing of death and rebirth of the greatest evil known to this world.

  I raised my sword to fight—and then I was in the Arthurian Sanctuary. My head spun so badly I could barely keep to my feet.

  Another village burning, close to a big hill with a tower on top. This time witches were running, screaming. Some witches and oldeFolke were fighting back—fighting Nire.

  Sparks flew from Nire’s fingertips, every bolt of purple light punching a hole through a witch or oldeFolke and turning the being into a Shadow.

  I smelled burned hair, burned flesh, the sickly sweet odor of death.

  This time I had to put an end to it. This time I couldn’t give her the opportunity to destroy so many lives again. I couldn’t think of her as my mother. She wasn’t. This was Nire, and she had to die.

  Again I raised my sword, and again I was transported.

  Only this time there was no chaos, only quiet. I was in a forest. It was so green, yet there were streaks of silver coming from beyond a group of trees. And streaks of red like blood.

  Children, crying. Todd’s voice, faint, yelling for me. Yelling for me like he was dying. I bolted through the trees, my sword held high and came to a sudden halt.

  Todd lay on the forest floor. One leg was twisted beneath him, his face was white, his eyes wide and unseeing, and the last of his silvery glow was fading away …

  “NO!” I sat arrow-straight on the couch, my palm to my forehead. My heart raced and my breathing came heavy. I felt sick to my gut and my body was slick with sweat. I swung my legs onto the floor so that I was sitting up and buried my face in my hands.

  “Just a nightmare,” I muttered, the sound muffled by my palms. I raised my head and stared at the darkened room. “It was just a nightmare.”

  But it hadn’t felt like a nightmare. It felt real. I could still hear my mother’s voice in my head.

  “Did you think you would rid yourself of me so easily? Do you think I have no allies? Even now…”

  I wanted to throw up. I’d already been through the hurt, the pain, the guilt, of fighting my own mother and isolating her in a Sanctuary so far in the past that she could never hurt anyone again.

  How could she come back?

  The Erlking. Somehow he was going to do it, unless I stopped him first.

  I pushed myself to my feet and paced the length of my small home. We knew the Erlking had been to L.O.S.T.—the kiss I didn’t give Sherise, the mess my father was in with Dame Corey—I’d already figured it had to be him. But was he here now?

  I couldn’t begin to sleep. I paused at my bookshelf and yanked out one of the books on olde witchcraft, spells that weren’t supposed to be used anymore. I set the ancient volume down on the table, settled myself in a chair, and cracked the book open. The parchment pages were brittle, the olde words hard to read, but I was determined to find a way to save my brother, and to find that way now.

  ***

  Chapter Eight

  I left the healer’s hut at sunrise three days later, feeling strong of body but sick of spirit. Forty-three witches unaccounted for in 1965 New York, presumably dead from the Erlking’s treachery. Nearly two hundred survivors, homeless and terrified. More orphans. More widows. More pain. One week until Beltane, and things were getting nothing but worse.

  Darkness had come back to the Path.

  Tears chilled my cheeks in the damp dawn air. All night long, children had cried in the forests of my nightmare, and briefly, Bren and I had battled a much stronger and more wicked Nire. The old Shadow wound on my arm throbbed fiercely, as if it had torn open anew, but I knew it hadn’t. The injuries from the Erlking had responded well to magical healing, and already they were barely visible.

  So, the only raw wound I was nursing wa
s my failure in the New York Sanctuary.

  How could I have walked into that trap so blithely, so unconcerned? Had my time in death’s haven addled my mind? How many more might have been saved if I had been more alert, more aware of the danger?

  Perhaps my time with Bren had curdled my wits.

  A sigh escaped me.

  That was harsh, though not totally without merit.

  Bren said he hadn’t kissed Sherise, but I had seen him do it, and Sherise had felt it! Still, could there be another explanation? My heart wanted to believe that so very, very much.

  Rising sunlight crystallized a sheen of dew, giving the grass and leaves a delicate appearance. The morning smelled fresh and damp, and I tried to pretend the endless moisture on my face came from nature and not my seemingly ever-present tears. To my right, trees gave way to the hills that separated oldeTowne from the more modern section of L.O.S.T. To my left lay the road that Bren once drove to go to the bathroom and met his destiny. Currently, we had firm magical barriers in place so that drivers from the non-witching world simply would not see the exit. One day, I hoped to relax those bindings so witches could travel more easily through the modern world of man, but that day seemed far away indeed. Bren and I—

  I stopped myself and shook my head.

  Should I even use that phrase?

  Bren and I.

  Us.

  Goddess, my mind felt cleaved in two.

  Bren had risked everything to rescue me from death, and he had done so again to save me from the Erlking’s attack. He had been so attentive and kind during the days I recovered.

  But he had kissed another girl. Right?

  I couldn’t believe that the Erlking had violated L.O.S.T. a second time. We had warded and re-warded our Sanctuary, all the Sanctuaries, but the shapeshifter had broken into 1965 New York. Could he have breached L.O.S.T. without my knowledge? Impersonated Bren and kissed the one girl guaranteed to drive me to madness with jealousy?

  Not that I would have enjoyed seeing Bren kiss any girl, but still, the odds seemed stacked against this fantastic explanation.

  But could the Erlking have caught us unaware? Had the monster found some inroad into the Sanctuary?

  My steps quickened. I probably needed to patrol, though the thought left me cold after my recent experience. I needed to find more ways to strengthen the wards. I needed to work with the Circle until we fully understood their power and purpose. Well, all of the Circle except Bren. That I couldn’t take right now. And there was Aaron to contend with, and my mother, and—

  “Your Majesty,” said a quiet, familiar voice near my right elbow.

  When I looked down, Acaw had appeared beside me. He strode along without comment, somehow keeping up despite the difference in our heights. His crow-brother sat on his shoulder in silence, looking straight ahead.

  “Please don’t tell me we have trouble already.” The note of pleading in my voice annoyed me, but I couldn’t help it.

  “No, my queen.” Acaw kept walking and looking straight ahead. “After some discussion, Rol and I determined that you need additional protection, and the training master is otherwise occupied with his new charge.”

  If I wasn’t much mistaken, the elfling had ground his teeth during the last sentence. I didn’t argue with him. Rol and Acaw had wisdom beyond my own in many things, my personal security included. Besides, I didn’t mind company.

  From over the rise ahead of us came the most beautiful singing, and I found myself sighing yet again. The sound of the Dana’Kell morning ritual soothed me and stabbed me all at once, so lovely, so full of longing. Only Acaw’s steady presence drove back a wave of loneliness.

  “It is possible,” the elfling said quietly. “You must know that.”

  “What’s possible?” I asked, distracted by the clear, ringing chants.

  “That the Erlking has been in L.O.S.T.,” Acaw responded evenly.

  I cut my eyes toward him, only to find him still looking neither right nor left, just simply walking onward.

  The urge to spell him hit and passed with equal speed. Just like the elfling to know the essence of what troubled me, and to bring it forward in such a casual fashion.

  “Acaw, we have warded and re-warded, and—”

  “And such precautions never stopped the Shadowmaster,” he finished, as if I had meant to say that very thing. “The Erlking is an ancient creature, more like Nire than any modern witch, even oldeFolke. We cannot know the range of his talents.”

  I stopped walking just before we rounded the foot of the hill blocking our view of the Dana’Kell’s partially constructed temple. Acaw stopped, too, and faced me with no trace of fear on his pointed features.

  “Are you trying to tell me you believe Bren? That he didn’t kiss Sherise despite the fact Sherise and I believe that he did?” I spelled the dew off a nearby tree. It rained down with a rush and whisper, barely missing both of us.

  Acaw’s crow-brother ruffled his feathers, but settled them quickly. The elfling seemed to consider my question, tugging his beard at the tip.

  Then he said, “Yes.”

  “Yes? As in, yes, you believe Bren?” Heat rose to my cheeks. For once, I understood Bren’s frustration with Acaw’s minimal communications.

  “Yes,” he said again.

  I clenched my jaw. “Explain a bit more.”

  Acaw shrugged. “I do not believe Bren’s father cavorted with a bevy of klatch witches. He is still alive, after all, despite your mother’s show of temper.” He gave his beard another tug. “I do not believe the king would betray you in such a fashion. And I do not believe both unlikely events would occur at the same moment, just at the proper instant to distract you all from the trouble in 1965 New York. In truth, I think you have your doubts, as well you should, after all that Bren has meant to you, and you to him.”

  I raised my fingers to spell a tree onto Acaw’s head, but hesitated mid-twitch. His cold, logical opinion felt like icy water on my heated rage. All that Bren had meant to me, and I to him. Yes. In that much, Acaw was clear. I owed Bren the benefit of the doubt, at least.

  With a snort of frustration, I lowered my arms. “Must you always be so infuriatingly right?”

  Acaw made no response at first. After a time, he looked toward the rise. “I assume you mean to work with the Circle?”

  “Yes,” I said, gratified that I, too, could offer one-word responses even though my mind was already straying to Bren again, to believing him and embracing his explanation about the mysterious kiss. To embracing him, period.

  “I suggested as much to Rol, and that Aaron should be present.” The distinct sound of grinding teeth once more met my ears. “I do not know that Rol heeded my suggestion.”

  Acaw and I found the Circle, including Aaron with Rol hovering close by, seated on a patch of turned earth at the edge of the Dana’Kell gardens. The priests had finished their morning ritual and scattered into daily chores. Some worked with hags at building the temple itself, while others worked with yet more hags to sow seeds and settle small plants into the waiting garden furrows.

  Quinn, the high priest, stood with a hag I recognized as the most powerful and respected of the hochkonigin. Her name was Dralz. I glanced at my training master. Sweat covered every inch of exposed muscle, and his eyes kept feverish track of young Aaron, equally as feverishly as several hags watched Sherise, Helden, and Kella.

  I noted that Sherise had a black eye, a bruise on her right shoulder, and a small cut over one cheek. Her sword lay nearby, beside Rol. Obviously, they had gotten an early start at sword practice and she hadn’t been to a healer yet.

  “Your Majesty,” allowed Dralz in a papery rasp as I approached.

  Quinn swept his crimson robes wide and offered me a bow. “Queen Jasmina. You honor us with your presence. I am most relieved to find you have recovered.”

  When he stood, his smile was enchanting. If my heart hadn’t already been taken …

  Acaw coughed, which returned me to
my senses. I glared at him, wondering if that had been his intention, but the elfling’s gaze rested on Rol. Acaw shook his head ever so slightly, and his crow-brother squawked.

  “He knows how to use his stone,” Dralz said. “He has integrated with due speed. Surprising for a boy, but pleasing.”

  “Yes. Males tend to be slower with group magic,” I agreed, despite the mild frowns of disapproval from Acaw and Quinn. “But where is Bren? He is a stone-bearer too.”

  Quinn sighed. “Yes, but he puts no stock in its importance as yet. He prefers to cross swords with whoever will spar with him and tend to his brother’s beasts.”

  Before I could answer, the hag pointed a gnarled finger toward a tiny sprout at the center of the Circle. It was so small I almost overlooked it. “Helden and Quinn have arranged a trial of sorts. If our suspicions are correct, the Circle will be able to bring it to maturity.”

  “Surely not.” My surprise couldn’t be muted. “You believe they can affect the natural order of growth?”

  The hag pushed back her hood far enough for me to see the glitter in her coal-black gaze. Her hag-spirit, previously hidden in the cloth, raised its snaky head and hissed as she replied, “I do believe it, though it was Quinn who raised the possibility.”

  “The cycle of growth is one of the most immutable forces in all of nature.” I turned my full attention to the high priest, resisting the charm of his grin and the allure of those ever-changing eyes. “Why set them to such an impossible task?”

  “The stones have some purpose,” he said, treating me to an even more attractive smile. “What would that be, if not to magnify the very essence of magic itself? With practice, witches can call a fully formed flower to a new location—but cause a flower to grow from seed? If the Circle can accomplish this, it would begin to answer questions about the extent of their powers.”

  I smiled back at him despite my best intentions. Indeed, if they succeeded, we would have more information, but still no inkling of why the stone-bearers were gathering here, now. And it just might help convince Bren that Circle work was important, too.