Dragonlands, Books 1 - 3: Hidden, Hunted, and Retribution

by Megg Jensen

  HIDDEN

  Megg Jensen

  For Luke, sorry I accidentally smacked you in the face with my braid. It certainly inspired quite a story!

  Cover art by Michael Gauss

  http://gaussianeffect.blogspot.com/

  Cover design by Steven Novak Illustration

  http://www.novakillustration.com

  Copyright © 2013 by 80 Pages, Inc

  Published by 80 Pages, Inc

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used factitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form by or any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.

  1st Edition: December 2013

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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  Prologue

  Sophia woke to the sharp piercing cry of an infant. She pulled the rough blanket over her ears, hiding from the noise. Its screams cut through the otherwise silent air.

  “Is someone going to take care of that baby?” Sophia asked from under the covers. She peeked out. Her parents weren’t in their bed. It didn’t even look like it had been slept in.

  Sophia inched the covers down and sat up. “Momma?” She hadn’t used that word since she was a little girl. At thirteen, she was nearly a grownup. The only answer came from the crying baby.

  She tossed off her covers, slipped into her shoes, and laid a housecoat over her shoulders. She pulled the door open, stepping out into the damp morning chill. A heavy cloud of fog hung in the air, thinner in spots than others, but Sophia couldn’t see to the edge of the village to her left. She hadn’t ever seen a fog that dense.

  The people of Hutton’s Bridge were strangely quiet. By this time of morning, adults were always up and about their jobs. Some preparing for a long day of blacksmithing or hawking their wares to the travellers who came from far and wide to buy their honey. Hutton’s Bridge had the reputation for the sweetest honey, and it was rumored their honey had healed many an affliction. Even the royal family in The Sands claimed it saved the king during a particularly bad bout of stomach distress.

  Yet this morning, no one was about. Sophia’s slow gait picked up. Something prodded inside, whispering that none of this was right. She pinched her arm, to reassure herself she wasn’t trapped within a dream.

  The crying grew louder. It had to be the Connell baby, born just a month ago. Her mother was always so attentive, but today it seemed all of the adults were busy with something else. Maybe they were in the meeting hall?

  Sophia knocked on the door to the Connell cottage, sure now that the crying definitely was their baby girl, Kimma. The door swung open silently and Sophia crept into the dark cottage. She glanced to the bed the Connells shared, but just like her cottage, the sheets were unwrinkled. Not slept in.

  The baby squirmed in its blanket; the swaddling had come loose. Sophia hurried over to the infant, lying on the floor. Who left their babies on the floor? Her hands cupped under the baby’s armpits, the tips of her fingertips holding the bobbling head steady.

  “Shh,” she cooed in Kimma’s tiny ear. “It’s okay.” Sophia rocked back and forth on her heels, hoping to calm the baby and herself. With each passing moment, fear and panic rose inside her like bile after eating a bad mushroom.

  Sophia crept out of the cottage, holding Kimma tightly to her chest. “Where is everyone?”

  Kimma cooed in response, her crying over now that she was being held.

  Slowly, doors to cottages opened all down the street. A head here, a pair of eyes there. Small hands grasping the wooden frames. Tiny slippered feet shuffling out of doorways.

  Not one adult in sight.

  Another door opened wide. Sophia smiled in spite of the situation. It was Tomas, the boy she’d recently developed a crush on. “Where are your parents?” he asked Sophia pointedly.

  “I don’t know. I heard Kimma crying and went to find her. Her parents aren’t here either. It looks like none of the beds have been slept in.” She stroked Kimma’s little tuft of black hair.

  “It’s the same in my cottage. Where are they?” Tomas turned around, yelling over his shoulder, “Michael, Scott, come out here and run through the village. See if you can figure out where they are.” He turned back to Sophia. “Take Kimma back to your cottage and wait, just in case there’s something sinister going on here. I don’t want you getting hurt.”

  Sophia nodded, fear streaking through her blood like ice on a cold winter’s night. She tried not to bounce too much, she’d heard a baby could die if shaken too hard, as she ran back to her cottage. Closing the door behind her, she finally took a deep breath.

  “It’s going to be okay,” she said to Kimma, even though she knew she was really talking to herself.

  Sophia waited.

  Outside her cottage, children cried, calling for their mothers. Some begging for their fathers. Their calls went unanswered.

  Finally a knock came on her door. “Sophia?”

  “Come in, Tomas.”

  The door swung open and closed behind him just as fast. His chest rose and fell, his breathing erratic.

  “What is it? Did you find them?”

  Tomas shook his head.

  It was then she noticed what was in his trembling hands. Flesh. Blood.

  A hand.

  She held the baby tighter and backed away from Tomas. “What is that?”

  “Joseph’s hand. He ran into the fog and a moment later, this flew back through.” Tears streamed down Tomas’ cheeks, over his blubbering lips, and onto his nightshirt.

  Sophia had never seen him cry. He had always been the bravest boy she knew.

  “And the adults?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “They’re all gone. We’re alone.”

  Chapter One

  Death lurked in the air that afternoon. Tressa sat by Granna’s bedside, clasping hands with the woman who, at ninety-three, had outlived her entire generation.

  “You are leaving tomorrow, yes?” Granna’s liver-spotted hands shook. The rough-hewn walls seemed to close in. Tressa knew Granna didn’t have much time left. She wanted to squeeze out every moment she could with her. Nineteen years wasn’t enough time.

  The smell of tonic and medicine hung in the dark room. When the curtains were drawn, Granna’s eyes watered. Adam, the village healer, said sunlight would help Granna recover, but Tressa knew the truth. Granna would leave her soon, leave the village, taking the only first-hand knowledge of the outside world with her. It was a place no one in Hutton’s Bridge had seen since Granna was just a child, not since the impenetrable fog had descended at the borders of their village. They weren’t even sure anymore if it was real or part of Granna’s imagination.

  “Yes, Granna. You chose me, remember?” Tressa stroked Granna’s hair with her free hand. The silver strands were still long, and luxurious like a newly spun piece of cloth. “Me, Geoff, and Connor.”

  Granna nodded. “Yes, yes, I remember now.” A gasp pr
eceded each breath, struggling against the inevitable finality of life. “I am the only one you will leave behind. It is easier that way.”

  Tressa’s eyes dropped to the floor strewn with straw, the hem of her long, cotton dress sweeping it every time she moved. After three years of coupling, she had not one baby to show for it. Not even a failed pregnancy. Tressa had felt the cold whiff of death breathing down her neck every time she didn’t conceive, knowing she was likely to be chosen over any woman who had children.

  “Tressa, it is your destiny to leave the village.”

  She held back a sigh. Granna was about to die. Why would she want her only great grandchild, the only family she had left, to follow her in death? No one who ever entered the fog returned to the village. It was as much of a death sentence as Granna’s failing health.

  Tressa’s palms began sweating. A tremble skipped up her arms to her chest where her heart pounded out an irregular, nervous beat.

  Granna took another deep breath. Without looking at Tressa, she said, “The fog. You must leave.”

  Tressa managed to force out a small laugh. Granna’s grave expression didn’t fool. “Granna, don’t you want me to live a long life, like you have?”

  Granna shook her head. “Beyond the fog there is a life for you. I have seen it.”

  No one had the gift of sight in her village. Granna claimed once there was magic before the fog descended. It was one element of her stories that made the outside world seem so desirable. Tressa would give anything for a magical potion to save her great grandmother. Instead, they could only rely on Adam’s knowledge of healing.

  “But I was supposed to live to watch you leave. I saw it. I believed it would happen.” She took another breath, shallower this time. “I don’t know if I can hold on until tomorrow.” Granna’s eyes flashed with anger. She held out one frail hand. An owl flew through the window, landing on Granna’s fingers.

  “That’s my Nerak.”

  The little owl hooted in response.

  “You take care of Tressa, Nerak. Help her to see the truth.”

  The owl’s head bobbed, then it flew out the window and sat in the tree. The fog’s undulating fingers caressed the owl’s ruffled wings. Granna’s cottage stood on the town’s border, next to the curtain of fog.

  Granna always said the downy owl had magic. Tressa had never seen it do anything different from the other trained birds in the village. Tressa leaned down, kissing Granna on the forehead. Granna was cold, too cold. Her skin paled into a gray pallor. Her blue eyes lost focus, gazing somewhere over Tressa’s shoulder.

  “I love you, Granna,” Tressa said.

  “I love you too, my sweet Tressa.” Her voice rattled. Granna’s eyelids fluttered, then closed with a finality only accompanied by death. One last breath expelled.

  Tressa laid Granna’s hand on her stomach. Taking a step back, she ventured one last glance at the woman who had loved her every moment of her life. Tressa’s mother died in childbirth and her father had left through the fog. Like all of the others, three a year for the last sixty-seven years, none of them returned. Two hundred and one souls lost to the unforgiving fog, looking for a way out of the misty prison that had held Hutton’s Bridge for eighty years.

  Tressa was next.

  Chapter Two

  Tressa stepped out into the dappled light of mid-morning, closing the door behind her. A crowd had gathered outside the modest cottage, waiting for word. The wisps of fog kissed her cheeks, not letting Tressa forget it was her turn to disappear into it the next day.

  “She’s gone.” Tressa pushed through the crowd, ignoring their keening. Granna’s death meant the end of an era. Without her first-hand stories of the day the fog fell, Hutton’s Bridge would never be the same. Without Granna, there was no solid proof. There were only legends and fears and the possibility that nothing was left outside the fog.

  It was as if Granna’s death would leave them all orphans in a world that had forgotten them, had trapped them inside a barrier they couldn’t obliterate. Granna was their anchor, but the rope holding them to her had just been severed.

  For Tressa it meant so much more. Granna was the only family she had left.

  A hand caught Tressa’s arm. She looked up into Bastian Mercer’s emerald eyes. A shock of bright red hair stood straight up, sweat drenched his shirt. She shrugged off his hand, and continued through the crowd. She knew what was coming next and wouldn’t waste even a moment on grief when Granna’s entire legacy was about to be destroyed.

  She pushed open the thick wooden door to the cottage of the man she hated most. Unlike the door to her home, this one was smooth and oiled, not a sliver in sight. It wasn’t just well kept, it was an overt sign to everyone in the village that the occupants were better than everyone else.

  “She’s gone,” Tressa announced as she strode into the cottage.

  A man sat at a polished stone table. He wiped his hands over his plate, then delicately licked the tip of each fingertip while glancing up at her. Tressa’s stomach turned. Every gesture he made came off as lascivious. He had offered to couple with her more than once, assuring her that he could get her belly to swell with his seed. Tressa had successfully avoided him, with the help of Granna. For an old woman, she had been formidable. Her small stature belayed her inner strength.

  “Then I will call a council meeting.” Udor stood, pushing his chair away from the table with his ample arse. “Now that Sophia’s gone, we can start to make better decisions about the future of our village. No more weeping about the past. No more attempts at escape. It’s time we move away from silly tales and make a future for ourselves here.”

  Tressa held back a sigh. The last thing she wanted was to be sent out into the fog, never to return. But Granna hadn’t even been dead for an hour. Surely a meeting could wait until people were given the chance to mourn her. She’d only given Udor the courtesy of a personal notification because he would be the next leader, not because she wanted to escape the fog.

  “Dear Tressa.” He ambled over to her, his arms outstretched. She stood still, stiffly, not accepting or rejecting the hug he bestowed upon her. She forced herself to remain neutral. “Why did you come to me so quickly, if not to start the process of changing our laws? You don’t want to leave. I can make that requirement go away. You can stay here, live a long life with a boy you fancy.” He leaned over, his lips tickling the edge of her ear. “Or with me. You cannot be my first wife, but you could be my second. No one else will have you now. Nineteen and no children? You’re too old for one of the eligible young men. Forgo the surname of Webb and take River. Just say the word, and I, and my name, are yours.”

  Tressa recoiled, heaving out of his embrace. She didn’t want him, never had, but he knew, as well as everyone else in the village, that she didn’t want to put one toe into the fog. No one did.

  Yet no one ever stood up to Granna’s rule.

  She was a gentle woman, but crossing her was a mistake. Anyone who did paid for it with their lives. Maybe not their own, but their child, being sent into the fog. Granna was ruthless in her decisions, never second-guessing herself, never allowing anyone to question her. After all, she was the only one left, the only one who remembered the day the village was trapped behind the misty wall.

  “I only thought you should hear it from me,” Tressa said. She couldn’t look him in the face. Instead, she stared at her leather slippers. The long toe with the curl at the end of his shoe nearly touched the tip of hers. She shuffled backward, putting more distance between them. “Granna’s death will mean many things to many people. As the new leader of our village, I came to you first.”

  Udor had long ago declared himself Granna’s successor. Though Granna had never openly agreed to it, she privately told Tressa that no one else had the influence to lead their people into a new future. It was Udor, or it was no one, no matter how disgusting.

  Maybe that’s why Granna had been so insistent on Tressa leaving during her nineteenth year. She
never wanted Udor to touch her great granddaughter.

  Udor stroked the length of Tressa’s long raven hair. “I am ruler now, aren’t I? And you were supposed to leave tomorrow. You don’t have to go. Say the word and I will make sure you never have to worry about leaving the safety of our village again.”

  Tressa backed away, fumbling for the door. “I must attend to Granna’s body now. Make sure everything is done properly.”

  “Of course, of course. I will call a council meeting before sunset to determine the new course of our village.” His caterpillar eyebrows came together and his eyes narrowed. “Our fates have all changed this day.”

  Tressa nodded, then let herself out. She slammed the door behind her. Leaning up against it, her chest rose and fell at a rapid pace. She dropped her head, rested her face in her hands, and let the tears fall unbidden.

  “Are you okay,” a tender voice asked.

  Tressa looked up, her hair covering her soaked cheeks. “Bastian.” She took in a deep, shuddering breath, attempting to calm herself. He’d already reached out to her once, and she’d shrugged him away. He shouldn’t be following her. Not today. Not ever. “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not fine. Granna just died…”

  “Don’t call her that.” Tressa shot an irritated look at Bastian. “She wasn’t your family. She was mine. Like everyone else in this rat-infested village, you can refer to her as Sophia.”

  “Tressa, don’t do this. Not now.” He reached out, but fell short of actually touching her arm.

  She glanced at his fingers. Dirt was embedded under the nails of his strong hand. She knew without looking how muscular his arms were. Following the contours of his limbs would only remind her of what she could never have again. She hadn’t just coupled with Bastian. She had loved him deeply since she was just a little girl. As children, he’d brought her daises from the meadow, promising her that someday they’d be married. All he had to do was get her with child.