The Keeper Chronicles: The Complete Trilogy

by JA Andrews

  “No one finds dwarf tunnels,” Patlon said.

  “Who would want to?” Rass’s voice came muffled from her arms.

  Douglon walked over and sat next to her. “It’s not that bad.” He pulled a tiny, bright red gem out of a pocket and set it on the table in front of her. “Under here there are all sorts of treasures.”

  Rass picked up the stone and examined it, turning it, letting it glimmer in the light of the moss.

  Will settled Talen on a long wooden peg at the end of the shelves. “How’d you find me?” he asked Alaric.

  “That’s also thanks to us,” Patlon answered.

  “The dwarves had been monitoring the movements of frost goblins this spring,” Alaric answered, “because they’d been more active than normal. Then about a week ago they saw the goblins attack a clan.”

  “The Morrow,” Will agreed.

  “And it seemed the frost goblins were magically forced back, chased into their warrens by something the dwarves couldn’t see.” Alaric dropped his gaze to Will’s wrapped hand. “When their reports came back, we were in Duncave clearing up some”—he shot an annoyed look at Douglon—“misunderstandings, and the report made me worried there was some unusually strong stonesteep traveling with the Morrow. King Horgoth agreed to have the dwarves watch the clan, and imagine our surprise when they overheard two Roven rangers talking about a Keeper.” Alaric paused and looked at Will expectantly.

  “I was…” Will glanced at Sora who was watching him with an expressionless face. “Invited to join the Morrow on their migration north after Killien learned I was a storyteller.”

  “From Gulfind,” Hal pointed out. “We wouldn’t have invited a liar from Queensland.”

  “There may have been some subterfuge,” Will admitted.

  Alaric grinned. “You infiltrated a Roven clan?”

  “Yes,” Hal answered.

  “That sounds more planned than it was,” Will said.

  “The dwarves followed the Morrow north,” Alaric continued, “and saw you imprisoned in a small rift. We were working on how to get you out when the Sweep caught fire and one of the scouts saw you escape. It took us a full day to find you, but the dwarves have entrances to their tunnels all over the Hoarfrost. Once we figured out where you were, it was pretty easy to get to you.” Alaric paused, then leaned closer. “What did you do? To drive off the frost goblins?”

  Will felt a smile growing. “I took the heat from the fires and the heatstones.” At the questioning quirk in Alaric’s brow, he said, “I have to tell you about heatstones. Anyway, I took the heat and pushed it toward the goblins.”

  Alaric’s eyebrows rose. “With a fire net? That wouldn’t hold enough heat.”

  Will’s smile turned into a grin. “With a fire wall.”

  Alaric’s head tilted to the side and his eyes flickered unseeing around the room as he thought through it.

  “A clay wall, like an oven.”

  Alaric stared at him. “That’s brilliant. Show me.”

  Will held up his bandaged hands. “Maybe someday. Last time it hurt. A lot.”

  “Where’s that gem you picked up?” Patlon asked Will.

  Will pulled the blue necklace that Hal had put on him out of his pack. “It’s a compulsion stone holding a spell that will exhaust you if you touch it.”

  Patlon pulled back the hand he’d been reaching.

  Alaric peered at the stone. “Do the Morrow use a lot of magic?”

  “No, but Killien is actively trying to change that. He has a book that talks about burning stones like this. It’s based on the magic Mallon used.”

  “Mallon the Rivor?” Alaric exchanged glances with Douglon.

  Will nodded. “The thing he seems to be studying the most from that book is how to transfer thoughts and emotions into others. They’re called compulsion stones, but I don’t think he’s figured out how to use it.”

  “He definitely knows how to transfer thoughts,” Sora said.

  “Really? Lukas's notes said it wasn’t sophisticated enough to work on humans, and he seemed to lose interest. Seems like it was meant to control beasts.”

  Sora nodded. “Like frost goblins.”

  Will tucked the blue stone back in his pack. “If Killien could control frost goblins, why didn’t he drive them away from the clan?”

  Sora let out a derisive snort. “He’s the reason they attacked.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “What are you talking about?” Hal demanded.

  “On the trip north,” Sora said, “Killien ordered me to bring him a goblin. Two days before the attack, I was able to capture one alive.” Her mouth tightened with distaste. “He put a blue stone around the creature’s neck.” She stopped and stared unseeing at the bowl of glimmer moss on the table. “The goblin went mad. It was bound, but it thrashed around, trying to move toward the clan.

  “It had almost torn its own hand off when Killien gave the order to kill it. When I touched it, I had this idea of a box of gold nearby, and suddenly I wanted it. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted something as much as that.”

  Her hand gripped the hilt of her knife. “I pulled the stone off its neck and threw it to the ground, and the idea disappeared. But the creature didn’t calm. If anything, it fought harder.” She dropped her hand from the knife. “In the end, there was nothing to do but kill it.”

  “Killien gave a goblin the idea that there was metal nearby?” Will asked. “That’s insane.”

  “It was more than an idea of metal,” Sora said. “It was a desire for it.”

  Will nodded. “That makes sense. He’s not trying to transfer a thought, he’s transferring emotions. Lukas discovered that emotions were easy to share.”

  Hal shook his head violently. “That doesn’t mean that Killien brought the army of frost goblins.”

  They had poured out of the ground like a single creature, like a hive of drones. Swarming toward the metal.

  “He did. They’re all connected,” Will said. “Like one creature, or like a thousand spiders sharing a web. What one senses, they all sense. Killien didn’t just give one goblin the desire for metal near the clan, he gave it to every goblin it was connected to.”

  “And they all came,” Sora finished.

  Hal fixed her with a look too complicated to describe, still shaking his head. “Killien caused the attack?” He sounded half angry, half appalled.

  “At least now I know what Killien did that made you so mad at him.” Will almost asked her why she hadn’t told him, but the question felt like it presumed more secret-sharing than they’d been in the habit of. At least before today.

  She nodded. “And after all of that, he has rangers trying to capture more.”

  “Why?” Hal demanded.

  “Because he’s obsessed with gaining power for the Morrow Clan,” Sora said. “And he is increasingly violent about it.”

  Hal looked like he wanted to object, but there was something in his expression that agreed with her. “I’ve never seen him like this.” He sank down on the bench. His next words came out slowly. “He told me nothing…about any of this.”

  “I’d like to see that book about Mallon’s magic,” Alaric mused.

  “I have something better.” Will pulled The Gleaning of Souls out of his pack and the book fell to the table with a thud. “Or maybe worse.”

  Alaric leaned over and drew in a breath. “Kachig the Bloodless.”

  “You know the name? I hadn’t heard it until I came to the Sweep.”

  A flicker of something dark crossed Alaric’s face. “The blood doctors in Napon speak highly of him.”

  Will glanced up at him. “You’ve spoken to blood doctors? In Napon?”

  Alaric’s eyes were dark and angry. “I don’t recommend it.” He sat next to Will on the bench and reached out toward the medallion on the cover. His finger paused above it. “I’ve seen something like this before.”

  “That thing is dark.” Will pulled his eye away from it. “It
describes how to make something called absorption stones.”

  Alaric nodded and opened the book. He ran his fingers over the stacked runes, tracing the lines. “They’ve put runes inside each other.”

  Will watched Alaric’s finger slide over the page, heard him muttering the words. Laughter started to bubble up inside him, foreign and shocking. Like something that hadn’t happened in years. It burst out and Alaric looked up in surprise.

  “You’re just”—Will gestured to the page—“reading it. Like it’s nothing.”

  Alaric smiled and pointed at one complicated one. “This is fascinating. They stacked four of them here. Fire, escape, capture, and…” He tilted his head to the side and leaned closer. “Broken.”

  Will leaned forward. “I thought it was empty.”

  Alaric shook his head. “This line draws it into the past, referring to a cause. The end result would be empty but the rune itself is talking about the brokenness that emptied it.”

  Sora let out a laugh too, a rippling, free sound that filled the room. “I thought you were being mopey. But you really are bad at this.”

  “I’m bad at everything that goes into being a Keeper.”

  Alaric glanced up at him in surprise, his finger set on one of the runes. “You don’t believe that. Do you?”

  “Name one thing I’m good at.”

  “People,” Alaric answered, as though it was too obvious to be worth saying.

  Sora sat down across the table from them, her eyes shifting between Will and Alaric, utterly amused by the conversation. Will shot her a glare before answering.

  “People. That’s your answer? I’m a Keeper who’s fairly useless at magic and terrible at reading.” He stabbed his finger at the book. “It took me over a day just to figure out those runes were stacked. And I’m not even going to let you see my attempts at translating them.”

  Alaric looked at Will as though he were speaking a different language.

  “Could anyone but Alaric read them this quickly?” Evangeline asked.

  “Probably not,” Will answered. “Your husband is irritatingly good at everything. And he’s freakish about runes.”

  Her eyebrow rose.

  “No offense,” he added.

  Evangeline laughed. “That’s my point. Alaric’s obsessed with runes. He has notebooks color coded based on region of origin, but organized by meaning. And there are three extra notebooks cross referencing it all.”

  Alaric shrugged. “Runes are like puzzles. Like there’s some enormous game going on and everyone uses the same pieces, but not always the same rules.” He turned to Will earnestly. “They’re like a story.”

  Will groaned. “No. They’re not. They’re nothing like a story. I want to think it’s weird that you’re this studious, but really, it proves that you are just better at all things Keeper.”

  “Except people.”

  “You’re good at using grass,” Rass piped up from where she sat, munching on a piece of hard bread Douglon had found her.

  Will shot Rass an irritated look and received a cheerful grin in return.

  “People?” Will demanded of Alaric. “What does that mean? The Shield sends you to court because you’re the one who’s good at talking crazy noblemen down from weird schemes, at giving the queen rational, useful council. That all involves people.”

  Alaric let out an annoyed breath and cast around the room. He jabbed a finger at Hal. “Why is he mad?”

  Hal, still stood near the bedrolls, his arms still tied behind his back. The giant man’s eyes were smoldering with anger, and Will could see his jaw clenched even through the bushy beard.

  “He’s mad,” Will began, pulling out the most obvious reason, “because he just found out that the man he’s been friends with his entire life endangered everyone they both love in the pursuit of power.”

  Hal’s gaze snapped over to Will’s face.

  “And he’s angry because he would have done anything for that man, and now he doesn’t know if that’s been a mistake. He’s mad because all this time he thought Killien was being honest, and now doesn’t know how much he’s been hiding.”

  Hal glared at Will and turned away.

  “And he’s still mad at me,” Will continued, quieter, “because he thought we had a friendship before all this fell apart. So that’s two friendships he’s afraid have never been real to anyone but him. If I were him,” he finished, “I’d be mad too.”

  The cave was silent for a long moment.

  “See?” Alaric turned back to the book. “I would have said he’s mad because no one’s bothered to untie him yet.” He ran his finger down the page again. “You effortlessly understand people in a way I never have. In a way maybe no Keeper ever has.”

  Will scowled at the side of Alaric’s head. “I have an advantage in reading people.”

  “Were you using it?”

  “No.”

  “Then you had no advantage. The Shield has said more than once that having you be the Keeper the world meets might be the best thing that’s happened to us in a hundred years.” Alaric leaned closer to one of the runes, squinting at it. “Understanding people is considerably more complex than understanding runes.”

  Hal glared into the corner of the room. Will nodded to Sora’s unspoken question, and she cut Hal’s ropes.

  “I know Killien thinks I’m his enemy,” Will told Hal, “but I’m not. I used to think that he and I might work together toward some kind of peace, but lately…”

  Hal rubbed at his wrists and nodded. “He’s changed,” he admitted.

  “You’re not our prisoner.” Will motioned toward the entrance the dragon had attacked. “I don’t think the way we came in still exists, but at the next exit we find, you’re free to leave.”

  For the first time since finding them, the anger faded off Hal’s face, and he looked Will in the eye. “Thank you.”

  “There’s an exit an hour east of here,” Douglon said. “The rest of us can continue back over to the Scales. A day and a half from now you can be on your way down the other side of Kollman Pass into Queensland.”

  “We can take supplies from here.” Patlon went over to the shelves and started rummaging. “Torgon keeps up the western storerooms and he can be counted on to keep things stocked. We’ll have plenty of supplies.”

  “I can’t leave the Sweep,” Will said.

  Everyone turned toward him.

  “Killien has Ilsa.”

  There was a breath before Alaric’s eyes widened. “Your Ilsa?”

  Will nodded. “And there’s more. When she was taken, the wayfarers were actually trying to get me.”

  Alaric’s expression clouded. “Why?”

  “Because I was going to be a Keeper. The Morrow Clan has been sending wayfarers into Queensland for over thirty years, searching for children who have the ability to do magic, and bringing them back to the Morrow to be the Torch’s personal slaves. They tried to get me, but when I wouldn’t go, they took Ilsa.

  “And they’ve found others. Killien has two slaves, Lukas and Sini, who are both from Queensland and can both do magic.” He turned to Hal. “And Rett too? That would explain why Killien has him.”

  Hal hesitated, then nodded.

  “Three?” Alaric sank down onto the bench. “They found three Keepers before we did?”

  “I don’t care if he did it for the good of his clan,” Will said to Hal. “Killien abducts children and keeps them as his own personal slaves because they have powers he wants. Three children, Hal.”

  The giant man looked down for a long moment. Then his gaze flickered up toward Will’s face, troubled. When he spoke, it was almost too quiet to hear.

  “There used to be four.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  The room fell into silence as every head turned toward Hal.

  Will took a step toward him. “What do you mean, ‘used to be’?”

  Hal met his gaze for a breath before looking down at the floor. “It was before K
illien was Torch.”

  Will opened up toward Hal. An old, worn out mix of sadness and anger rolled into his chest.

  “Killien’s father, Tevien, was the one who started trying to bring people with powers to the Morrow. He knew Mallon was from Queensland, and he turned out to be more powerful than any of our stonesteeps.”

  Alaric watched Hal with narrowed, searching eyes. “Mallon was from Queensland?”

  Will nodded.

  “Tevien learned about Keepers,” Hal continued. “Thinking they would bring the Morrow power, Tevien spent a fortune on stones able to recognize people with powers, and sent them to Queensland with some wayfarers.

  “The first time they brought anyone back, it was twins.”

  Alaric shot a questioning glance at Will. There had been three sets of twins in the history of the Keepers. The latest pair, Matton and Steffan, were nearly a hundred years old and so identical that Will had given up trying to tell them apart years ago. Since they were never away from each other, there really was no need.

  “Rett was big, even for a twelve year old. His sister Raina was average sized, but it was hard to remember that because she looked so small next to her brother.” Hal fixed his eyes on the floor, his voice low. “The twins were the same age as Killien and I, and we spent a lot of time with them. Raina was quick and funny and brave. And Rett was stronger than me, by a lot. The two of them were inseparable. Raina told me once that she could almost hear Rett’s thoughts, that she could catch a shadow of them.” He let out a small laugh. “They were constantly trying to read each other’s minds. Killien was half in love with her, although he hid it well from his father.”

  Hal shifted his shoulders. “Tevien became obsessed with training Rett and Raina into a pair who would be more powerful than any stonesteep. He wanted them to try something from a book years beyond their training. It involved both of them putting a bit of themselves into a stone, and storing it there. Rett thought it would never work, but Raina wanted to try.”

  He blew out a long breath. “I think she thought that if parts of each of them were really connected, they’d finally be able to speak into each other’s minds.” He pressed his eyes closed for a moment, and when he opened them, they were flat. “Raina went first. The stone glowed this eerie green and when she touched it—” His voice caught.