The One and Only Crystal Druid (The Guild Codex: Unveiled Book 1)
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The One and Only Crystal Druid
The Guild Codex: Unveiled / One
Annette Marie
The One and Only Crystal Druid
The Guild Codex: Unveiled / Book 1
Copyright © 2021 by Annette Marie
www.annettemarie.ca
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations for review purposes.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, places, or events is purely coincidental.
Dark Owl Fantasy Inc.
PO Box 88106, Rabbit Hill Post Office
Edmonton, AB, Canada T6R 0M5
www.darkowlfantasy.com
Cover Copyright © 2020 by Annette Marie
Editing by Elizabeth Darkley
arrowheadediting.wordpress.com
ISBN: 978-1-988153-58-2 (ebook)
ASIN: B08K2YBGVL
Version 2021.09.09
Contents
Books by Annette Marie
The Guild Codex
The One and Only Crystal Druid
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
The Long-Forgotten Winter King
The Guild Codex: Spellbound
The Guild Codex: Demonized
The Guild Codex: Warped
Steel & Stone Series
Spell Weaver Trilogy
Blackfire Series
Red Winter Trilogy
About the Author
Thanks
Books by Annette Marie
The Guild Codex
The Guild Codex: Spellbound
Three Mages and a Margarita
Dark Arts and a Daiquiri
Two Witches and a Whiskey
Demon Magic and a Martini
The Alchemist and an Amaretto
Druid Vices and a Vodka
Lost Talismans and a Tequila
Damned Souls and a Sangria
The Guild Codex: Demonized
Taming Demons for Beginners
Slaying Monsters for the Feeble
Hunting Fiends for the Ill-Equipped
Delivering Evil for Experts
The Guild Codex: Warped
with Rob Jacobsen
Warping Minds & Other Misdemeanors
Hellbound Guilds & Other Misdirections
Rogue Ghosts & Other Miscreants
The Guild Codex: Unveiled
The One and Only Crystal Druid
The Long-Forgotten Winter King
Steel & Stone Universe
Steel & Stone Series
Chase the Dark
Bind the Soul
Yield the Night
Feed the Flames
Reap the Shadows
Unleash the Storm
Steel & Stone
Spell Weaver Trilogy
The Night Realm
The Shadow Weave
The Blood Curse
Other Works
Red Winter Trilogy
Red Winter
Dark Tempest
Immortal Fire
The Guild Codex
Classes of Magic
Spiritalis
Psychica
Arcana
Demonica
Elementaria
Mythic
A person with magical ability
MPD / MagiPol
The organization that regulates mythics and their activities
Rogue
A mythic living in violation of MPD laws
The One and Only Crystal Druid
Chapter One
As cold rain pattered on my head, I studied the boy.
“Boy” wasn’t the right word for someone who emanated such a menacing, skin-prickling intensity. For someone with a presence that couldn’t be ignored, the air around him suffused with an indefinable threat. He was a nameless enigma unlike anyone I’d ever seen before.
But with several more years before “man” could describe him, “boy” was the best label I had.
Broken glass crunched under my boots as I ventured into the narrow gap between buildings, darkness swallowing the orange glow of nearby streetlights. Gang tags and graffiti marked the bricks on either side of me as I cautiously approached.
The boy leaned against the wall in a recessed doorway, a dim security light casting his face into shadow. I couldn’t make out his eyes, but I could feel his gaze.
I stopped in front of his alcove, frigid droplets dripping off my chin. A shiver ran down my spine all the way to my toes as a soft stillness enveloped me—an ominous moment of warning I couldn’t interpret.
I should have stayed out in the rain.
Stepping into the doorway, I pressed my back against the wall opposite him and swiped my sopping bangs off my forehead. The boy didn’t speak, merely observed my presence like I was an unexpected piece of furniture in a familiar room.
We sized each other up. He wore a leather jacket, its hood deep. Sturdy pants. Heavy boots similar to mine. His broad shoulders suggested that, even at six feet tall, he hadn’t reached his full height. Stark shadows clung to his face, aging him, but his jaw hadn’t hardened yet.
Around my age, I decided. Fifteen or sixteen.
His gaze roved over me, then he lifted his hand toward his mouth, something small pinched between his fingers. A red spot glowed as he drew on a blunt. His shoulders relaxed as he exhaled hazy smoke.
I wrinkled my nose, then hesitated. A cautious, confused sniff as I tried to identify the unfamiliar scent. It had a medicinal tang I hadn’t expected.
Silently, he offered the blunt.
I reassessed his features. The dark ring under his lower eyelid: a fading black eye. The shadow on his right cheek: a half-healed bruise. The mark on the back of his hand: an angry red burn. The split in his lower lip … almost identical to the throbbing split in mine.
Without deciding to, I reached out. My fingers brushed his as I took the roll of brown paper. I put it between my lips—where his lips had been moments before—and inhaled its citrus-scented smoke, relieved when I didn’t burst into a coughing fit.
As the rain gradually lessened and its noisy patter diminished, we passed the blunt back and forth, saying nothing. What was there to say? We weren’t here because we wanted to be. If we could’ve been somewhere else, we’d already be gone.
In the new quiet, other sounds reached my ears: the low rumble of voices leaking from the building. A deep male tone called out, accompanied by a burst of masculine laughter. A higher-pitched female voice answered, sharp with cutting amusement, and more laughter followed.
The boy’s gaze drifted to the door. I wondered which voice went with the fist that ha
d bruised his face and split his lip.
I wondered what my face looked like to him.
And I wondered why it mattered.
I passed the stub of his blunt back to him. Another roar of laughter from the other side of the door scraped my ears.
“Do you ever think about just killing them?”
The question was out of my mouth before I knew I was speaking. The boy’s gaze turned to mine. No confusion. No shock. He knew exactly what I meant.
He drew on the blunt, and a swirl of smoke accompanied his reply. “All the time.”
His low voice had a raspy edge that I liked. A slight accent tinged it, but I couldn’t pin it down from a few words.
An odd, shivery lightness swept up my torso. “Have you ever tried?”
“No.” Eyes locked on mine, he dropped the stub and ground it into the pavement. “Not yet.”
Chapter Two
The message on my phone glowed cheerily.
The Rose Moon is tomorrow. Ritual starts at noon. Don’t be late!
I reread it, knowing better than to interpret its tone as cheery. Laney was never cheery with me. “Contemptuous,” often. “Suspicious,” regularly. “Outright hostile,” at least once a month. But cheerful? Never.
To be honest, I was more comfortable with contempt than cheer.
Leaning back in my chair, I dropped my phone on the counter beside the microscope. The snow-white cat lounging on the microscope’s other side cracked one blue eye open, peered at me, then closed it again. I pinched the bridge of my nose until it hurt, letting the pain clear the fog from my head.
The Rose Moon. No one else considered the pinkish moon of early summer to be bad luck, but it had haunted me my entire life. I’d been born on a Rose Moon, and my mother had even named me after it—Saber Rose—ensuring it would haunt me forever.
A hint of leafy, citrus smoke teased my nose, leaking from my broken memories of a long-ago Rose Moon. I squinted, my eyes losing focus as I chased the dim flashes of a dark alley, cold rain, and a faceless figure in a hooded jacket. As my fractured recollection disintegrated into blank nothingness, a suffocating wave of bitter, raging despair rose in its place, clogging my throat until I could scarcely breathe.
My mind might be incapable of recalling that time of my life, but my heart knew what had broken me.
Most days, I was glad I couldn’t remember.
Pushing all thoughts of the past away, I positioned my face in front of the microscope’s eyepiece and turned the fine focus knob.
“Saber!”
The door beside me flew open and I almost put the microscope through my eye socket.
“What?” I snarled.
Kaitlynn hung in the doorway, her green scrubs stained with something wet and her mouth slack at my aggressive response.
“Sorry.” My voice rose half an octave as I smiled. “You startled me. What’s up?”
Blinking, she recovered her wits. “Oh, actually, I’m just—Dr. Lloyd’s last appointment peed everywhere and cleanup took forever, and I have a thing planned tonight. I haven’t had time to feed the cats, but I don’t want to be late, so I was hoping … if possible …?”
She trailed off, waiting for me to volunteer. The white cat beside me stared unblinkingly at her, but she didn’t react to the animal in the lab room—nor did she comment on his unearthly eyes, pale blue and crystalline with no visible pupils. She didn’t see him at all.
“Sure, I’d be happy to help out!” I replied brightly.
The cat flicked his tail in annoyance.
Beaming, Kaitlynn gushed, “Thanks. I owe you one. Coffee tomorrow?”
“I’m off tomorrow.”
“Oh, then for your next shift?”
“Sounds good!”
She bounced out, swinging the door shut, and my smile dropped.
Utterly authentic. A breathtaking performance.
I shot the cat an irritated look before returning to the microscope. I examined the skin scraping under the lens, identifying the cigar-shaped bodies of demodex mites, and made a note on the requisition beside me. I had two more samples to check—a urinalysis and a white blood cell count—but pushed away from the table. I’d feed the animals first, then finish my lab work.
The snow-white feline sprawled on the counter watched me leave with ten times the judgmental disdain of any mortal cat.
Cutting through the large treatment room, I skirted an exam table, the pervasive odor of disinfectant stinging my sinuses. The steady yowling of a homesick cat leaked through the door ahead.
“Kaitlynn, let’s go!”
With thudding steps, Kaitlynn flew out from the hall to the staff room and shot past without noticing me. She disappeared behind the drug cabinet that blocked my view of the back exit.
“I’m here,” she panted. “Just give me a second to tie my shoes.”
Her impatient companion huffed. “Did you feed the cats?”
“No, I asked Saber to do it.”
“Saber?” The disgruntled repetition of my name came from a third voice. “Ugh.”
“What’s ‘ugh’?” Kaitlynn asked.
“Why would you ask her?” Though she’d lowered her voice, I still recognized the high-pitched tones of Nicolette, another vet tech. “Don’t you get a weird vibe from her?”
“What do you mean? She’s super nice.”
“Yeah,” the third woman chimed in. “She’s really nice! Cut her some slack, Nicolette.”
The back door thumped shut. I stood in front of the cat room, my reflection in the door’s small window gazing back at me. My straight black hair hung to my elbows, thick bangs cut in a severe line at my eyebrows. A tan warmed my fair skin enough that I didn’t look like a corpse, and a faint dusting of freckles covered my nose. My cheekbones stood out sharply, my lips turned down slightly at the corners. Classic resting bitchface.
My blue-gray eyes stared, intense and eerily piercing even to me. A soldier’s thousand-yard stare.
I opened the door. Feline chatter erupted at my arrival, and I reviewed the feeding instructions for the first cat, a long-haired Himalayan.
People like it when others do things for them. They don’t respect you for it, but they like you, and that was what I needed. I was nice. The nice girl. Nothing more, nothing less.
I’d learned how to be the nice girl while studying to become a vet tech, and I’d perfected it in my four years working at this clinic. The hard lesson that being liked was more important than being honest, genuine, or respected had come much earlier in my life.
Being liked was a survival technique, which was why I would keep doing favors for my coworkers, even when I’d rather tell them to shove it.
I couldn’t let anyone realize I wasn’t a nice girl at all.
The evening sun cast beautiful golden light over the narrow road as I drove my pickup truck east out of Coquitlam. I’d left the suburbs behind, and dense, mature trees leaned over the left side of the road, cutting off my view of the sprawling mountain slopes beyond them. On my right, farmland stretched toward the unseen banks of Pitt River.
Quiet tranquility stole over me. The summit to the north was part of a provincial park, and beyond it was the endless expanse of the Coast Mountains. The dense metropolis of Vancouver was less than an hour’s drive west, far enough that its hectic bustle didn’t disturb my home territory.
The road curved northeast, and as my truck rolled around the bend, a large sign beckoned me:
Hearts & Hooves Animal Rescue
I turned left onto the dirt driveway. My truck’s tires rumbled over a metal cattle guard, and I accelerated again, zooming past a long, fenced pasture carpeted in grass. A mixture of hoofed animals—horses, ponies, donkeys, goats, sheep, alpacas, and a handful of cows—lifted their heads to watch my vehicle pass, then returned to their lazy grazing.
Ahead, a dense stand of trees concealed the farmstead. As I drove past the screening foliage and through an open gate, a small house appeared on my left. All the
farm’s buildings— stable, machinery shed, storage, small-animal enclosures, greenhouse, garden, and more—faced the wide gravel yard. A mixed fruit orchard formed neat rows of trees beyond the greenhouse.
Parking in front of the house beside a rusting first-generation Ford Ranger with pale blue paint, I swung my door open and climbed out. As I turned to close the door, the white cat jumped out after me. He gave me an unreadable look with his ethereal blue eyes, then sauntered off with his tail in the air.
I shut the door, my gaze drifting toward the sunlit forests blanketing the mountain north of the farm, but a brusque greeting interrupted my half-formed thought about going for a hike.
“Saber!” Dominique appeared in the large open doorway of the sprawling stable and jogged across the gravel yard toward me. Several inches shorter and much curvier than my five-foot-nine frame, she didn’t look like someone who regularly lifted fifty-pound hay bales. Her tightly curled black locks were cut short, and her bold red glasses stood out against her golden umber skin.