“How’d I get here? I was falling and—”
“The Grand Tree saved you, right Tree Girl?” Charlie said.
Ash nodded. “It caught you in the palm of its hand on a blanket of leaves before it crashed.”
The Grand Tree. The orb. My friends. They’d all been there for me.
“Strong as oak you are too, like your grandfather,” Oak said with crinkled eyes sparkling like tarnished gold. “Now this old tree must say goodbye.”
“Where are you going?”
“Back to the Wild Child camp. The others are already there.” He jerked a thumb at Ash and they mounted a horse each. “I need to figure out a plan to find the children of the slaves and relocate them with their parents. First, I’ve got to get their parents out of the WC.”
“But Hekate’s spirit is gone and Queen Artemis has returned. She’ll let the WC slaves go, right?” I said.
“Yes, but let’s see how this bodes with Zeus,” Artemis said. “He has the might to stop anyone. If we could bond the realms together, we may have a chance. It’ll be a challenge. Not all rulers are so easy to deal with, like Ares of the Dred Realm. If Zeus discovers an Oracle lives, he’ll seek to crush him, like Hekate. Not to get his power—to end it. Now that Zeus has shut down all the Lightning Roads to Earth except to the Arrow Realm, and the WC is located here, his eye is on this realm. It’s what keeps him in wealth and slaves.”
Oak nodded. “He wants to keep things the way they are, with him as head ruler and his minions with ancient powers at his disposal. You’ll have to fear him coming for you now, Joshua.”
Ash steered her horse to me, the mystery girl who got us here, and looked down at me with a serious face. “Whenever you’re in trouble, Joshua, you don’t always have to be brave. Just scram and cram. Promise me?”
“I promise.”
“And don’t get stuck, you hear?”
“You either.”
“Family is all we’ve got. Blood or not. When it’s gone, it’s never really gone.” She put a hand to her heart. “Remember this.”
I pinched my lips, the lump in my throat too thick to form words. She shook her reins and trotted back to Oak’s side.
“Family,” Oak said gruffly, then cleared his throat. He and Ash melted away together in the woods.
I gripped the pendant in my hand. Somewhere out there I had a brother. It barely soothed the pain inside me.
“Time to go home, boys,” Leandro said and we each mounted a horse. It took several tries to lug my legs up and over. This world was killing me slowly. The myth’s reality sank in. I couldn’t stay and gain all the Oracle’s powers at once. Leandro helped me get on, the white streak in his hair blazed down as he bent to secure my shoe in the stirrups. The details in this fleeting moment would be forever seared in my memory, along with knowledge that he was a good man.
“I have no home. No one, no—” I choked up inside.
“You have me, mon ami,” Charlie said, nudging his horse into mine. “Come home with me. We’ll figure it out. My dad really isn’t all that bad.”
I stared at the ground my head spinning along with the pain coursing through me.
Stay. Go. Come back.
My life now bridged two worlds.
“Home is where you’re wanted,” Leandro said quietly to me, tapping the reins on his horse and sharing a look with Artemis.
“Wherever home is,” Apollo said.
Resolve set in and I nodded at my friend turned king. He’d appeared older since I got here days ago. The line of his jaw, how he carried himself, and the confident way he controlled his horse all told me the king had returned. He opened his mouth to say something when trumpets blared and sleet beat down on us. Charlie yanked the reins of his horse and nearly got tossed.
“Zeus and his Storm Masters! He must know the Oracle is here. He’s after you!” Leandro said. He thrust a hand to Artemis and Apollo. “Get to the castle. Be safe!”
“Not without you,” Artemis protested, her horse jigging side to side as hail the size of gumballs suddenly battered us.
“Our people need you to fight together. Find a way to change Nostos!”
Apollo put a hand on Artemis’s arm. “He’s right.” He had to shout to be heard over the pounding ice balls.
Artemis nodded and turned her horse around. “We’ll take the back way in!” Her horse lunged forward, eager to race, but she held it back. “Leandro, take great care.”
He bowed his head and flung his fingers at her. “Go, my queen. I’ll find you!”
She dug her heels in and galloped away, and with a final glance back, she rounded the trees and disappeared. Apollo gave me and Charlie a hardened smile. “Thank you.”
We came here for him and we’d done our job. He’d been rescued—for now.
“Bo Chez will always be with you.” Apollo put a hand on his heart. His king’s ring pinged with hail. “Light of Sol go with you, my friends!”
“Go with arrow fire, my king,” Leandro said, raising his bow in the air. Apollo nodded and sped off after his Olympian sister.
“To the Lightning Gate!” Leandro wasted no time. He reined his horse in and raced off with us close behind.
We were wanted—again.
Chapter Forty-Six
The trumpets blared again, fainter this time.
Hail pummeled us from Zeus’s Storm Masters, as we thundered toward the Lightning Gate. If Hekate terrified me, the idea of meeting Zeus terrified me more. My every limb ached with each jolt of the horse as my sickness worsened.
“I can stay,” I yelled to Leandro.
“You will die.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I see you suffering. Your body is shutting down.”
“I can fight it! Send Charlie home. Keep me here. Together we’ll fight Zeus!”
My purpose grew stronger in me even as the pain rocketed.
To save this world, my world.
To find my brother, his son.
“If you stay and activate all the lost Olympian powers at once, it’ll be too much for your mortal body. You will die.”
“I’ll survive. I’ll change this myth. I’m ready to be the Oracle.” The intense pain that speared my body told me otherwise as I wobbled on my horse. Death came for me now on this world. Time to get to Earth before it got me.
“No!” His voice sliced into me, then grew quiet. “We need you to survive. You can’t stay yet.”
“Joshua, I can’t go home without you!” Charlie looked sick at the thought as he leaned over his horse, his bangs flattened in black spikes down his forehead from the pelting hail.
We flew around a bush, and the massive Lightning Gate blasted up before us in a clearing. Its giant presence thrust through the crowded woods like a spaceship to take us home. Its bronze columns gleamed with power.
Leandro dragged me off his horse. The gate stood deserted. No need for guards with all the slaves sent home. Charlie stumbled behind me, and Leandro shoved us both under the portal.
“Get home! I’ll come for you another time.”
“Promise,” I said.
“By the gods, I promise.”
“Promise by you, not them.”
He squeezed my shoulder, his face streaked with sleet. “For the love of Olympus and all who have fallen, I swear I will find you again.” He said in a softer voice. “For the love of my son, your brother … I’ll find him for both of us.”
I looked into his eyes and believed him.
He pressed his gate key into the gate and jabbed in the Earth code from his scroll.
Rough voices slashed the air from the road leading to the gate. The ground trembled. Hooves pounded toward us. Wind swirled, shooting down branches at us. The sky darkened and thunder boomed. The hail magically stopped like a switch turned off, but tornadoes funneled toward us, ripping trees from the ground as Zeus’s Storm Masters closed in.
“Run, Leandro!”
A golden glow wrapped around me. Sparks
bit my fingers and toes, my whole body electrified. Charlie clutched my shirt in his hands.
Leandro’s face twisted in a grimace. “Arrow speed to you.”
He punched a fist to his chest and held it up.
He didn’t want me to go either.
But he did as I said. He ran.
Faster and faster we rushed down the Lightning Road, bolted to its white fire. Stars streamed like comets in the dark around us as the wind snatched at my clothes and hair. Charlie’s hand bit hard into me from fear of falling off, but the pain meant I wasn’t alone. We burst from the black and blazed into my kitchen, the pain in my body gone in an instant but the pain in my heart intense.
The tick-tick of the stove clock screamed in the sudden silence. How many Earth days had we been gone? The snow still blew outside in a white welcome. The life I had before was sucked from me in a flash. My knees buckled as I swayed. Charlie grabbed my arm to keep me standing, but my legs gave way, and I fell on the cold kitchen tile.
Bo Chez was dead.
His words came to me. You must do whatever necessary to complete your mission.
The lightning orb throbbed against my thigh. I pulled it out with a jittery hand. All Bo Chez had been and stood for stormed inside this electrified weapon he’d earned. He’d left that life behind to be thrust into it again by me. The orb glowed blue then faded.
Charlie knelt beside me and shook me with a mournful face. “Mon ami, we’re home.”
I let loose a pained laugh, staring at the black arrow that blazed across his arm and mine. No escape. But we had … yet home no longer claimed me in this old world I’d so easily forgotten. I understood now the word home had many meanings, and you don’t abandon one family by seeking another. Even when families are separated, they still have each other, no matter how far apart. I pressed the pendant to my heart. Its metal warmed in my hand.
Charlie tried to replace his brother with me.
Hekate tried to replace her brother with Leandro.
I could not replace Bo Chez—I could only bring him back. And find my lost brother and father while trying to save two worlds as the Oracle.
One day I might die trying.
The day would come very soon.
The battle on Nostos had begun. With me.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As always, my first reader and dear friend, Lisa Green, continues to shine her enthusiasm and light on Joshua’s adventures. Her insight drove me to breathe fiery life into this story and these characters. I am also grateful to have had an amazing editor throughout this series, Tara Creel. She has guided me in enriching these stories (along with the pesky grammar stuff!). And to my favorite person in the world who started it all, the real Joshua Cooper Galanti, whose adventurous imagination fuels my own and whose faith in my storytelling never wavers.
DONNA GALANTI
Donna Galanti is the author of the Joshua and The Lightning Road series (Month9Books). She attended an English school housed in a magical castle, where her wild imagination was held back only by her itchy uniform (bowler hat and tie included!). There she fell in love with the worlds of C.S. Lewis and Roald Dahl, and wrote her first fantasy about Dodo birds, wizards, and a flying ship. She’s lived in other exotic locations, including Hawaii where she served as a U.S. Navy photographer. She lives with her family and two crazy cats in an old farmhouse, and dreams of returning one day to a castle. She is a contributing editor to International Thriller Writers the Big Thrill magazine and blogs at Project Middle Grade Mayhem. Visit her at www.donnagalanti.com
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