Shifted (The Undari Trilogy Book 1)

by Sarah Reeves

  She stood and began pacing her cell. There still wasn’t much to see beyond the barred door, but Alex still went up to them and peered out into the hallway. For a brief moment, she thought about trying to break out, but quickly dismissed the idea. That would only prove her guilt in the eyes of the court. Plus she would almost definitely get killed in the process. She was nowhere near strong enough to take down one guard, let alone several, even with her unique power.

  Still, it could be days before someone let her out, and Alex didn’t have that kind of time. She needed to begin the search for a way to go and rescue Adrien. Of course, the first thing would be to figure out how to get there…

  Kieran. Of course! Alex started pacing again, thinking. Kieran was her Companion, and Vera had said that in some cases, telepathy worked between Companions even without having to Shift. But did she say anything about if there was a limit on distance or not? Alex shook her head. She had to try.

  Kieran? Alex thought harder than she ever had in her life. And that was saying something. She reached out with everything she had, cursing the fact that there was no indication of whether or not she was succeeding. Kieran, can you hear me?

  Nothing.

  Alex tried again and again, until she had a headache. She couldn’t get through, or maybe she could and he was ignoring her. She didn’t know what to think, and for the first time since watching Adrien disappear, the first tendrils of panic began to wind their way through her mind. With a violent curse, she sat on the floor with her back to the wall and rested her head on her knees. Frustrated tears pricked at the back of her eyes, and she squeezed them shut to make it go away. The last time she had felt this kind of helplessness was when the Unseen was about to kill Adrien. Remembering that, and Teagan, had Alex springing up again and pressing her fingers to her eyes.

  “I have to get out of here,” she said. She was getting desperate, and angry that she wasn’t able to do more. Maintaining innocence was the last thing on her mind anymore. It didn’t matter anyway, because she had to go to the Realm of Nightmares to find Adrien.

  Alex summoned her power, combining fire and darkness until it was a seething sphere in her hands. She went up to the bars, intending to blast them away, but a voice made her draw up short.

  “You realize that getting out like that is probably the worst way to do it? Melting the bars would be way faster. Not to mention quieter.” The voice was unquestionably recognizable, and Alex lifted her flame higher to illuminate the area beyond her cell.

  “You’re here,” she said, watching Kieran step up to the bars.

  “I’m here.” He reached through the bars and rubbed her arm. “Are you okay?”

  “Not really.” Alex tried to laugh but it came out broken. “I’m trapped in here, and Adrien is trapped in the Realm of Nightmares.”

  “They sent her there?” Kieran’s hand tightened around her arm. “Why? They were just supposed to determine if she was a risk!”

  “You knew about this?”

  “Yeah, when she was identified, they sent the report up to us. It said they were only going to interview the both of you, and determine if either of you were a host for the Unseen, or a risk to us. That’s all I was told, so I thought it would be okay. Then I heard that you’d been arrested, and I came here to talk to you.” He ran a hand through his hair, making it stick up. “What happened in there?”

  The events of the day before crowded Alex’s mind as she tried to sort through them. “They didn’t even let her speak. They barely let me say anything to defend her, either. The leader wanted her gone, Kieran, he wanted to send her there. They were all so hateful of her. It was obvious that she wasn’t possessed.”

  “What I want to know is who turned her in. The report just said it was an anonymous tip. You both were laying pretty low, the only people that knew who she was besides you were me and Ronan.”

  “And Vera,” added Alex. “Ronan stood up for me and Adrien, and you weren’t even there…. The only thing that was weird about Vera was how she reacted when she met my mom.”

  “How did she react?” Kieran’s voice held a slight edge now.

  “She was terrified…. Oh no. Vera turned her in. Vera went to the guards. Why? Why would she do that, we were friends! She didn’t turn me in!”

  “We’ll find out when we go and talk to her. We don’t even know for sure if it was her yet. Wait here, I’m going to go and make them release you.” He left, leaving Alex with a handful of fire and a heartful of devastation. Kieran had said that Vera might not have turned Adrien in, but she was the only logical option. She hadn’t known Vera for long at all but the betrayal still cut at her. Was Vera not the kind of person she acted like she was? She seemed so genuine in the short time they had spoken. Alex had wanted to protect her. That was a mistake, she thought bitterly. Anger flared in her. She wanted to hurt her, now. That was her mother that was now slowly going mad in exile.

  Alex threw the fire in her hand at the wall, where it dispersed. Her hands shook, and her heart pounded in her ears. She lay down on her bed and waited for Kieran to return.

  Hours passed, and Alex slowly went crazy. At some point, a guard opened her cell door and deposited a tray of food. She wasn’t hungry, so impatient was she to get out of her cell, but she still ate, knowing that keeping her energy up was important. She worked out a little on her cell floor, and practiced some with her power. Then Alex laid back down on her cot and stared at the ceiling until the stone blurred.

  Finally, she heard footsteps again. She bolted upright and dashed to the front of her cell. A guard stood there, unlocking her cell door. He didn’t say a word to the girl inside, only glared at her as he opened the door. Alex returned the look and stalked past, then spotted Kieran waiting for her. She quickened her pace, but stopped short when she saw who he had with him. Vera stared back at Alex, meeting instant loathing with wide eyed fear.

  “We can talk when we get outside,” said Kieran before Alex could say a word. “Then you can say whatever you want.” He took Vera’s arm and towed her along with him. Alex followed behind, rage seething within while they ascended the steps onto the first floor, then out through the wall of flame that was the front door of the castle. Night was again falling outside, and it struck Alex that she had been in jail for nearly twenty four hours. As soon as they were a small distance away, Alex seized Vera’s arm, stopping their progress when she whirled the other girl around.

  Alex stepped forward until she was inches away from Vera. Such was her anger that she saw the faint glow of her eyes illuminated on Vera’s face. “You,” she hissed. “You need to start talking now, before I do something that will send me after my mother.”

  Vera, quite the opposite of Alex, was terrified. Her lips were trembling when she opened her mouth to speak. “Your mother was possessed, and she killed hundreds of people. I saw her, and I panicked! I read all about what happened to her, what she did. I turned her in. They didn’t tell me what they were going to do though! I just thought they were going to question her, if I had known where they were going to send her, I wouldn’t have said anything! And then they arrested you, and I felt so guilty, but I didn’t know what to do at that point. I saw her go into the Realm, and-” She stopped with a gasp when Alex fisted a hand in her shirt, hauling her up on her toes. In the back of the young dragon’s mind, she knew she was getting close to losing control, but her fury swamped any warning bells she may have heard.

  “You were there? You saw what was happening, and you did nothing to stop it? They said from the beginning that they were going to exile her, and you just sat there while they sent her to the Realm?” Alex felt Kieran’s hands on her arms, trying to pull her back, but she didn’t care. What made her pause was the despair in Vera’s eyes, and the fear. Abruptly, Alex released the smaller girl and stepped back. “You disgust me,” she said quietly. “You’re so afraid of confrontation that you didn’t come to me to talk about my mother. You took the coward’s way out instead, and turned her in. I
won’t forgive you for that. Stay away from me.” Stuffing her shaking hands in her pockets, Alex turned and walked away, leaving Vera frozen behind her.

  Alex walked for a good five minutes at a rapid pace, letting her fury propel her forward. She wasn’t aware that Kieran had followed her, until he had gotten close enough for her to sense him. She stopped, and turned slowly to face him. He paused about ten feet away from her, holding up his hands in a placating gesture.

  “I come in peace,” he said. “Please don’t try to kill me.”

  “I wasn’t going to hurt her,” replied Alex. She took her hands out of her pockets and folded her arms. “I wanted to, but I wasn’t going to.”

  “I’m glad you have more restraint than I do.” Kieran came closer, until he could speak without raising his voice. “If it were me, I would have done something violent. As it is, I was halfway to doing something violent anyway, when I found her.”

  “How did you find her, anyway?” Alex wanted to know.

  “I looked. She usually is in the library, from what her teacher told me, so I started there. She wasn’t there, so I found her room next. That’s when I found her, and brought her to the Cells.” He watched Alex with concern. “Are you going to be okay?”

  “Once I figure out how to get Adrien out, I will be.”

  “There is no way to get her out,” said Kieran. “The only one that can open a portal to the Realm of Nightmares is the leader of the Court, and he’s not going to do that. None of the Courts will. There’s no other way into that Realm.”

  “The Unseen got out!” Alex threw up her hands. “The Unseen wasn’t part of any Court, was he? No! But he managed to escape and kill my siblings and my father! So how are you going to stand there and tell me that it’s not possible to get into that Realm, or get my mother out of it?”

  “Are you going to turn into an all powerful maniac?” Kieran’s voice rose with Alex’s. “Are you going to murder people to get it done, too? Because that’s what he did, and guess what? That’s what got your mom exiled in the first place!”

  “I don’t know what else to do!” Alex’s voice edged toward a scream, and she put her hands over her mouth. She felt like she was going to explode, or make something else explode.

  Gently, hands covered hers, lifting them off her face and down to her sides. Kieran let go of her long enough to slide his arms around her and pull her in tightly. Alex froze for a moment, then buried her face against his shoulder, letting the shaking of her body run it’s course.

  “I’m sorry,” said Kieran. “I know how stressful this is for you, and what it means for your mom to be gone. I just don’t see how we’re going to get her back, that’s all. There’s nothing that you or I can do about it, unless there’s some hidden way into the Realm that we don’t know about. I don’t think there is, though.”

  “I know. I just don’t want to accept that she’s gone. Or think about what she’s going through right now. There’s so much that she’s lived through in the past seventeen years, and I know that it’s being used to torture her. There’s no way it’s not. And she saved me once, more than once, and I don’t have a way to save her. I don’t know what to do.” Her voice cracked, and she clutched the back of Kieran’s shirt. “I don’t know what to do,” she repeated.

  “We’ll think of something. Just because we don’t know what to do now doesn’t mean we can’t figure it out. We can research, try things out, go from there. This isn’t completely hopeless. Not yet, at least. At a certain point though, you’re going to have to face the fact that she could be gone. Okay?”

  Alex nodded, and eased herself back. Kieran’s arms stayed around her, and he held her gaze. “I’ll be okay,” she said in answer to his silent question. “I promise.”

  “Good,” he said. “You better be. I need my Companion at her best.” He let her rest her head against his chest for a few more moments, then gently eased her back.

  “Let’s go,” she said, turning away and rubbing the back of her neck. “We need to get to the library.” They walked for a small distance until Alex remembered where they were. “Hold on. You don’t know how to teleport, do you?”

  “I do not,” Kieran said, looking embarrassed. “We covered that in class, the theory anyway, but I wasn’t paying attention. We may just have to fly back to the library.”

  “That’s fine.” Alex Shifted enough for her wings to manifest, and took off. Kieran was beside her moments later, and they flew together toward the Arena. Alex still couldn’t stop that pull towards him that she’d felt the first time she had seen his Form, and she flew close by his side. If he noticed, he gave no indication.

  Where do you suggest we start looking once we get there? Alex thought. Telepathy was the best way to communicate against the wind rushing past her ears.

  I was thinking we start by looking into portal theory, and also find out where the Realm of Nightmares even came from. I know it was created by the other Realms’ leaders in order to cage the Unseen, but the more we know about the kind of power behind it, the better. Obviously it didn’t just come from combining all the powers together. That kind of realm had to have something else fueling it. They were getting close, so they landed. Alex didn’t get rid of her wings, only folded them against her back and walked with Kieran towards the giant structure.

  “By the way,” Alex said. “You left Vera where she was, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah, I did. She knows how to get back on her own, and I certainly wasn’t going to bring her with us.” Kieran’s smile flashed. “I didn’t think it was a particularly good idea for me to bring her with us, anyway. You definitely would have hurt her if I had. She probably knew that, too.”

  Alex didn’t say anything. She was still furious over what Vera had done, and what it had caused. The fact that Adrien had been exiled was probably not her fault, but it was her fault that Adrien had been arrested, which led to where she was. She sure as hell didn’t want to see her any time soon.

  They entered the Arena and headed to the Library. It was completely dark now, and there was no movement to indicate that there was anyone around in the training area. Alex didn’t feel the awe that came with walking into the Arena anymore, nor did she feel that rush when they entered the Library. All she was focused on was the research they were going to do.

  Mechanically, she followed Kieran through the maze of shelves, taking whatever books he handed to her without comment. He led her to a nearby table, and they sat. Alex opened the one on top of the stack, and began to read. Nearly an hour later and more than half of the stack of books, she was still reading, and had found nothing. Kieran seemed to be having similar luck. Finally, when the words began to swim on the page, Alex caught sight of a couple words that had her gaze sharpening. She started reading avidly.

  Portal magic is the most complex magic within the reach of the Undari race, the passage said. The ability to create a dimensional door was developed and refined by the founders of the Realms, and the process has only been replicated one time. The creation of the Realm of Nightmares was necessary, and only achievable by the elders of the time. Since then, those elders have passed away. Creating a portal beyond the use of the Courts is impossible without dark magic, and severely forbidden, for the same reason that necromancy and other dark magic is forbidden; for the safety of the Undari society. It is the only offense that is punishable by death under Undari Law. The same holds true across all Realms. Travelling to the Realm of Nightmares unless convicted of a crime is also strictly forbidden by Law.

  “Great,” Alex muttered. She looked up at Kieran, who closed his book with a snap and a frustrated sigh.

  “I got nothing,” he said. “What about you?”

  “Only that they can legally kill both of us if we make a portal, and even then there’s no way we’re powerful enough. Only the elders and the founders of the Realms were capable, and all the elders that did it are dead now.” She folded her arms on the table and rested her chin. “It’s impossible.” Kieran
rested his hand on her shoulder in sympathy as the reality of the situation began to set in. They wouldn’t be able to save Adrien. The knowledge tore into her, but she didn’t cry. She wanted to cry, it would be easier if she could. But she didn’t. Kieran’s touch was a small comfort.

  Raising her head, she looked at Kieran with burning eyes. “There’s no way to get her back.” She forced the words out of her mouth, and they tasted bitter. But the truth of it settled her just a bit, and she was able to sit up.

  “You’re right,” answered Kieran carefully. “We don’t have a way to save her. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” said Alex. She rose, numb, and started to put the books back on the shelves. “It’s not your fault that she’s in that Realm, nor is it your fault that we can’t open a portal to get to her. We’re just not powerful enough.”

  Kieran rose next to her, and they finished putting the books away in silence.

  “I think I need to go to bed,” said Alex when they were done. “I won’t be much use to anyone tomorrow, in class.”

  “You can always come and train with me and my mentor,” said Kieran. “Your social status allows you to have a private mentor, and since you and I are Companions now, we’re going to have to train together eventually anyway.” When Alex hesitated, Kieran smiled. “I promise we won’t go hard on you. I know your situation, and that you don’t know a whole lot about the Undari race or the training level that I’m on. I will say that my mentor is a hard ass, and he will get you up to speed whether you want to or not.”

  “Oh, I want to,” said Alex. “I want to get as powerful as I can, because the next time I see the Unseen, I’m going to kill him.”

  “That’s my Companion.” Kieran punched Alex lightly on the shoulder. “You’re going to have to demonstrate to my mentor your other powers though. He’s not going to believe you’re unique until he has definitive proof.”