Everealm: Book One of the Everealm Series

by J. D. Wright

  “Just don’t go anywhere without me. I will send a chambermaid in to assist you in getting dressed, then I’ll be waiting in the hallway to escort you to breakfast.” He turned on his heel and walked out, slamming the door behind him.

  “Just don’t go anywhere without me…” Bree mimicked, wrinkling her nose.

  ~*~

  Dagan was growing restless. Being in the castle was exhausting. People were everywhere, wanting to talk to him, wanting advice, or simply wanting to satisfy their own curiosity about the new wizard. He enjoyed his alone time, treasured it even. And though he hadn’t always been alone, keeping female companions mostly, he did like to practice his magic in quiet. He also preferred the outdoors, which is why he had created the portal as he had. There was a painting in Junacave that Dagan had seen when he lived there as a boy. Dagan loved the painting and the way the tranquility of the wooded scene had calmed him. He had copied the painting, from memory, to create the sanctuary in his portal. He wondered now if the painting was still in the castle somewhere.

  He had also been spending more time with his grandfather. In fact, it was his grandfather’s idea that Dagan sneak off into the woods to charge his power and practice his magic. Dagan could practice anywhere, but Elric had sensed the tension building in his grandson and suggested he spend some time outside of the castle and grounds. So Dagan planned to do just that. He already had a satchel ready and his wizard robes on. Now he just had to wait until nightfall, when everyone had gone to bed. It would be easier to sneak away unnoticed at night. He would go into the forest and spend some time alone, then be back in the castle before anyone realized he was gone.

  ~*~

  It had been several days since the harvest festival and Dagan still hadn’t talked to her. Not that it should matter, as Sidonie thought it was for the best anyway, but it did cause a small twinge of sadness in her heart. The moment that they had shared was intense, magical. But he carried on pretending like it hadn’t happened, as did she. He said he hadn’t done anything to cause the feeling. Could she possibly have caused something like that? The confusion left her with so many questions and no one to provide the answers.

  She had considered speaking with Elric about the situation, then decided against it. Dagan had made it perfectly clear that he didn’t want her to tell anyone about what happened. He even said so, that night. Not that she should care what he wanted, anyway. If he wasn't going to give her answers, perhaps she should find them elsewhere.

  She had gone back to her room after supper to ready herself for bed, changing into her silky soft nightgown. The queen had been very generous in sharing her wardrobe with Sidonie, which was marvelous. But Sidonie did worry about how she would feel once she left the castle and went back to the Sabras. Would wearing her old clothes still feel the same?

  She slipped on a pair of thin slippers with small flowers sewn into the tops of them. The stone castle floors were quite chilly at night and she was grateful for something to cover her feet. She hadn’t had slippers at her home with the Sabras, and would wake up with icy toes at night. Now they were nice and cozy and warm. She felt a pang of guilt now. Her sisters were still out there, in the forests. And here she was, living in a castle. What would they think of her if they could see her now? Would they think she had gone soft? This was Adelphie’s plan, however, to turn her sister into a lady. To help her find a husband. To help their bloodline continue. And as much as she hated feeling this guilt, she refused to disappoint her sister. If wearing big gowns and slippers is what Adelphie had wanted, then she would do it. And she might as well enjoy it.

  Sidonie was about to slip into bed when she remembered that Sarita had mentioned wanting her hair braided again tonight. She pulled on her robe, tied her long, smooth hair back with a bow, and headed for the door. There were a few other guests staying at the castle this week, in the guest wing, so Sidonie opened the door quietly and slipped out of her room and down the hallway. She wasn’t sure if Sarita had left the hall yet, so she decided to check there first.

  She made it to the bottom of the stairs and turned down the hallway and into the hall. The only people present were a few kitchen maids and servants, cleaning the tables and floor and polishing the silver. Sidonie frowned and turned around to go back upstairs when she noticed someone standing outside in the courtyard, wearing a dark cloak. Her heart skipped a beat. Was this another assassin? Another person trying to harm the queen? She quickly tiptoed over to hide behind the stone wall, peeking around slowly.

  Just then, the tall figure threw back his hood and revealed part of his face and hair, his white hair. Dagan. He had nearly scared the wits out of her. Sidonie straightened up and was about to call out to him when he quickly tossed his hood back over his head and stalked off, out of the courtyard. Is he leaving? Again?

  The idea that he would try to leave again after someone attempted to kill the queen attempted to kill her, appalled her. How dare he run away? She decided to follow him, which she immediately began to regret after he left the courtyard and started down a steep hill toward the forest. Her slippers were quiet, which was good, but they were also thin, which meant she could feel the rocks and sticks under her feet as she stepped. When she lived in the woods, she wore shoes with leather on the bottoms, making traveling over hard terrain a bit more bearable. With these slippers, though, she might as well be barefoot.

  When Dagan reached the edge of the forest, Sidonie paused to watch him. The forest was pitch black and there was no way anyone could see to walk in it. She hoped he was going to turn back, but instead he held out his palm and created a light, right there in his hand. The round orb of light, blue and bright, rose into the sky and hovered up above his head, lighting a large circle around him. Then he started into the woods. Sidonie decided to forego the slippers, stuffing them into a pocket on the front of her robe and followed him into the forest.

  Keeping up with Dagan had been difficult, especially to do so without making too much noise and giving her position away. Having hunted since she was old enough to throw a spear or shoot an arrow, she knew how to sneak through the trees and track animals. But doing so without light was challenging for even when the Sabras had hunted at night, they had still carried a few torches and worn shoes. She tried to stay close enough to Dagan so she could use his light to guide her. He was walking on a dirt path, too small for a carriage to travel, but wide enough for a horse. Sidonie tried to stay on the path the best she could, to avoid stepping on a twig or slicing her foot on a rock.

  Sweaty and frustrated, she almost gave up and began to turn around when suddenly the light stopped moving. Dagan had stopped. She hunched down and got a bit closer, peeking over a fallen tree trunk. Dagan was standing in a clearing in the trees, his light still hovering overhead. Sidonie watched as Dagan took off his cloak, revealing his wizard robes, long and silver, that almost matched the silver streaks in his hair. These robes were sleeveless, as most of his robes where, revealing his large, strong arms. When he began to remove his robes as well, Sidonie’s eyes got wider. He took off the robes, leaving only his trousers on. He was facing away from Sidonie so she couldn’t see his chest, but his back was toned, muscular, and there was a large tattoo, about the size of her fist, on his left shoulder blade of a fiery sun with a star in the middle. She had seen this symbol somewhere before, but she couldn’t place it. She squinted her eyes, trying to see it closer.

  He put his cloak and robes on the ground in front of him and held up his arms to each side. Suddenly his feet levitated off the ground, hovering several inches above the grass below. He wasn’t wearing any shoes at this point, which she hadn’t seen him take off, but she was fairly sure he had been wearing them. Sidonie watched as light shot out of Dagan’s palms and surrounded him, encasing him in a huge circle. He looked up to the sky and stayed there, floating in his big ball of light.

  Sidonie couldn’t believe her eyes. Having witnessed magic only once before, when Dagan had used it on the assassi
n, she was having a difficult time absorbing the fact that she was watching actual magic happen, again. Adelphie had been terrified of magic, which was partly why the Sabras sought out any magical creatures around their home and captured them, killing most of them. The other reason the Sabras disliked magic is because they simply didn’t trust it. It was dangerous. A great war had been fought some one hundred years ago, nearly destroying Everealm, all because of magic and its greedy casters.

  But this magic before her now seemed different than Adelphie had described for so many years. It felt very peaceful. The air around Dagan was buzzing with tiny waves of energy, causing Sidonie’s hair to stand up on her arms and neck. She was feeling blissful, her body-energizing. It felt a lot like when Dagan had healed her, making her body feel amazingly refreshed, only this time it was much stronger. In her mind, she compared the feeling to the night of the festival, after her second round of wine. But instead of losing her focus now, like she had at the festival, her mind was clear and open. It was purely magnificent.

  She started to become more aware of her surroundings. Of the breeze blowing through the trees, slipping in and around the leaves. Aware of the animals sleeping in their burrows, birds in their nests, and the spider that was now crawling up her arm. Spider?

  “Eeeek!” Sidonie yelped and jumped up, swatting maniacally at her arm and squealing like a child. Ew, ew, ew! Sidonie was afraid of few things in this realm, but spiders were one of them. Their tiny legs and ugly beaded eyes had always made her cringe.

  Dagan was startled by the sudden noise and lost his focus, causing him to pummel to the ground, landing on one knee to keep his balance. What the hell?

  He turned around to see Sidonie smacking herself on the arm and wailing.

  “Sid?”

  Sidonie froze, suddenly aware that she was caught. She glanced up slowly and smiled, trying to hide her embarrassment as her cheeks started to blush.

  “Ummm, hello.”

  She tried to read his face, which was showing both confusion and irritation, but she wasn’t sure which feeling was winning in his mind.

  “What are you doing here? Did you follow me?” He was wearing a scowl now. The irritation must have won.

  “Uh,” she blushed now, unable to hide it, then stiffened her back up and walked toward him into the clearing and into the light. The air was still buzzing with energy. It was the sight of him leaving again that had caused her to follow him in the first place. So maybe he should be answering to her.

  “Yes, I followed you. I saw you sneaking out of the castle, again, I may add. So what are you doing here?” she said, poking him in the chest with her finger, which tingled after she pulled away. She couldn’t help it. She had to touch him, to see if he was real. Seeing him standing there without a shirt on, his smooth toned chest just begging her to run her hand across it. It seemed too wonderful to be true.

  After he had admitted to her that he was trying to leave the first time, he couldn’t honestly blame her for assuming he would try it again. But he was annoyed that she had been able to sneak up on him without him knowing she was even there. He must not have been paying enough attention to his surroundings, which was a dangerous mistake.

  He sighed. “I needed to get away from the castle. I wasn’t leaving. I plan to be back by morning. No one was supposed to know I had left.” The scowl was on his face again.

  “That… thing, you were doing? What was it? Some kind of healing? Recharging you somehow?”

  The confusion came back to his face. “Yes. How did you know that?”

  “What do you mean? I could feel it. I must have been close enough to feel it, too. Like waves of energy.”

  His eyes widened and he tilted his head to the side, studying her.

  “Sid, it isn’t possible for a normal human to feel anything from a terra circle. It doesn’t affect them, can’t affect them, because they don’t have magic in their blood.”

  Sensing her confusion, he continued, “Terra circles pull energy from the land to recharge magic. When we use too much, we can recharge it. Refill it, like pouring water into a cup. But it takes time, days even, to recharge without a terra circle. So we cast a circle, using the sun or moon to pull energy from the land, healing our bodies and our magic.”

  “Oh. So that must be what I felt. The energy.” She laughed, “I thought I was getting drunk. It’s quite a rush.”

  He just stared at her, his face blank.

  “Sidonie, who are your parents?”

  She was taken aback by the question.

  “My mother’s name was Anassania. I don’t actually know who my father is. All I know is that my mother met my father on one of her travels. She never told me or my sister who my father was, and she died when I was ten years old, so… I guess I will never know.”

  “Anassania. Anassa. Anassa?” He was dumbfounded. There simply was no way that this could be true.

  “Her family nickname had been Anassa, yes. It means—“

  “Queen.”

  “Yes,” Sidonie said, slowly. “How did you know that?”

  “Oh, hell.”

  “What? What is it?” When he didn’t answer, she folded her arms, waiting.

  Dagan considered this new information for a moment. He wasn’t sure if he should tell her. Perhaps it wasn’t his place. He did, however, begin to wonder if what his grandfather had said about this fusion nonsense had been true all along. There was only one way to find out.

  He closed the space between them in two steps and before she could react, he reached out, grabbed her soft face in his hands and crushed his mouth to hers. She reacted immediately as if she had been waiting for it, plunging her hands into his hair and her tongue into his mouth. Feeling her react this way was exhilarating and he lost himself in her, bringing his arms down from her face to wrap them around her waist and pull her body closer. Heat erupted between them, setting his magical blood on fire and his senses ablaze. She smelled like the forest and she tasted like heaven. This wasn’t a feeling he had ever felt with another woman. Sure there had been heated moments, but this was like fire itself, coursing through him, lighting him up.

  Her robe had come loose and he could feel her entire body beneath the thin nightgown, her hard nipples rubbing against his bare chest. His blood tingled as it rushed through his body, stiffening him under his trousers that were now tightening, barely able to contain him. He ran his hands down her smooth back and over the small curves of her hips, squeezing her tight round bottom under the nightgown.

  Sidonie couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t think. This feeling was like nothing she had ever imagined. He broke the kiss and moved down to her neck, leaving a trail of hot tingling kisses all the way to her collarbone and back up to her chin as she gasped for air. Then he took her mouth again, harder this time, deeper, while she moaned, squeezing his shoulders, begging him to continue. Begging him not to stop. Never to stop.

  But it did stop. Very suddenly he broke away, cursing to himself. He turned away, running his hands over his face and through his hair, tormented by something. Sidonie was trying to balance herself, to keep from falling over. Her head was still spinning from the kiss. Her body, tingling from the energy between them. The air around them that had calmed after he stopped doing magic earlier was buzzing again. She could feel it, stronger than it had been before. And this time, the energy wasn’t just affecting Dagan. It was affecting her. Her blood was absorbing the energy. She was absorbing the magic.

  “Oh, hell. The bastard was right. He was right! Dammit!”

  Stunned by what had just happened, Sidonie tried to find words but was only able to mutter a faint, “What?”

  Dagan snapped back to reality at the sound of her voice, small and shaking. Looking over at her, she was glowing from the energy surrounding her. How could she not know that she had magic? That she had royal magic in her veins? How could he not have sensed it when they first met?

  But there was no denyi
ng it now. His grandfather had been right about the fusion. The magic running through his veins felt like hot metal, coursing throughout his body. This wasn’t lust or love. This was deeper, a connection of the magic, a connection of the soul. She was his magical soul mate. The only one. Even if they parted ways, never to see or touch each other again, she would always be the one. And she had absolutely no idea about any of it.

  He started to tell her, about her magic, about their connection, about everything. But voices nearby cut him off. Someone else was in the forest tonight. Sidonie looked around, trying to figure out where the voices were coming from. She looked at Dagan just in time to see him reach for her hand and snap his fingers, making the orb of light above them disappear. They were now in complete darkness, with just the light of the moon and stars above. He pulled her down so they were crouching on the ground, hopefully, hidden from view. Her hand in his was the only sense of security she had. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been in the forest without a weapon. Clearly, she hadn’t thought this through.

  Dagan had been smart to extinguish the light. Just mere moments later, the voices came close to the clearing. Under the veil of darkness, they were unseen. Now they just had to remain unheard. Dagan could feel that Sidonie was trembling, so he rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand, hoping to ease her anxiety.

  The first voice was female, “Well, I thought I saw a light over here. I guess I was mistaken.”

  “Starting to lose your head, are you? He will not be pleased.” This voice was male, thick and raspy.

  “No,” the female answered. “You just worry about your task at hand. I will take care of mine. Tell him that I am ready to begin, when he says the word.”

  “You know the consequences if you fail. I trust you won’t fail again.”

  “I wasn’t the one who failed to kill the queen. It was your man.”