“It’s a Magenta thing,” Katie answered. “According to legend, anyway. Now what are we going to do about this guy?”
Nothing, the Darkness responded. You can do absolutely nothing. Say goodbye to Equestralan.
“No…” My voice seemed far away as the cloud of darkness enveloped me. My vision darkened, then my legs buckled and I fell to the ground, unconscious.
◆◆◆
“You’ve grown.”
My eyelids fluttered open. A damp cloth rested on top of my forehead. A young woman, probably between eighteen or nineteen, smiled down at me. She was beautiful, with flowing black hair that reached the middle of her back. Her dress was mint green, which complimented her smooth brown skin. Her chocolate brown eyes were deep and kind.
“Who are you?” I asked sleepily.
“My name is Lena Zelak,” she answered. “Are you feeling any better?”
I took the damp cloth from off my forehead and sat up. My body was stiff, but other than that, it was fine. “I think I’m okay now. What happened? How did I end up here?”
“You were brought here by Silva,” she explained. “Equestralan has been devoured by darkness. You two are the only survivors. Silva teleported you here just in time.” Lena took the damp cloth and set it next to a bowl of water, which sat on a small table next to my cot.
It took a moment to sink in, but when it did, my heart sank. “Katie and Adam…they were with me in Equestralan…” I trailed off when I saw Lena’s face. After a moment, I quietly asked, “They…they didn’t make it out…did they?”
Lena shook her head. “I’m sorry, Valida.”
I thought I was helping them by bringing them with me,” I rambled, tears streaming down my face. “They risked their lives with me and now…now they’re…”
Lena simply hugged me and let me ramble, only standing every once in a while to grab some tissues and only speaking when it wouldn’t interrupt me. It was only after two hours of this that I was able to regain control of myself and remember what I was doing. I needed to find the Legendary Keepers.
“So if Equestralan has been devoured by darkness, I’m not there anymore, right?” I asked.
She nodded. “Welcome to Treeterra.”
After a long silence, I asked, “How can the Darkness devour Dimensions?”
“You mean Umarek?” Lena shuddered. “He is a powerful being, at least as powerful as Rekala herself. He is extremely dangerous, unreasonable, and unpredictable. With power as dark as his, he can envelop entire Dimensions with darkness. No one ever escapes the Dark Dimensions once they are transformed.”
“Okay, that makes sense,” I said. “Lena, have you ever met the Legendary Keepers?”
She nodded, her expression wistful. “Yes, but it was years ago. I was about your age.”
“Do you know how I can contact them?” I questioned. “We ended up separated due to a Lulin Raid, and we need to regroup.”
A brown owl with rune-like designs on its wings examined me from its corner of the room. Its eyes began to glow blue.
“Uh, Lena?” I pointed to the owl. “Why are your owl’s eyes glowing?”
Lena smiled. “That’s Merlin. He is my companion and friend. Hang on.”
She whispered quietly with Merlin, who responded like every owl I’ve ever heard. Soon enough, Lena said, “You’re the Legendary Keeper of the Bronze Locket, aren’t you?”
“How did you know that?” I asked.
Lena pointed to Merlin. “He has a knack for reading people. Have you figured out what the Bronze Locket is used for?”
I shook my head and summoned the Bronze Locket. “I have no clue how to use this thing.”
With a smile, Lena said, “It’s a communication device. Concentrate on who you want to talk to, then open it.”
I closed my eyes and concentrated. Anyone, absolutely ANYONE in the Legendary Keepers, I thought. Then, I opened the Locket.
Inside, Felix was eating a bag of potato chips, sitting on a rock in Legendary Keeper Headquarters. In the background, Tom was talking.
“...find and rescue Valida,” he was saying. “I don’t know what the Lulins will do to her.”
“Hey guys,” I said.
Felix jumped. “What in Capserra?” he exclaimed.
I waved at the Locket. “Felix, I’m over here.”
His brow furrowed as he looked at me. “Since when were you a lamp?”
“I learned how to use the Bronze Locket, Potato Brain,” I told him with an eye roll. “Since when do Potato Brains eat potatoes? Isn’t that cannibalism?” I teased.
He shook his head. “Of course not! I am...sacrificing them for the greater good of my stomach!”
I laughed. “Nicely put, Potato Brain. You win this one.”
“That was eloquent,” William complimented, sitting down next to Felix. He stole one of his potato chips.
“Hey!” Felix protested.
“Now they’re being sacrificed for the greater good of my stomach!” William declared, eating the potato chip.
“More importantly,” Regina said forcefully, “where are you? I thought you were still in the Lulin dungeon!”
“Long story,” I told her. “I’m in Treeterra, wherever that is. Lena is helping me out.”
“Lena Zelak?” Felix grinned. “Hey, I know her! Tell her hi for me.”
“Hey, Lena,” I said. “Felix says hi.”
She laughed. “Hi, Felix. How is Kalun doing?”
Felix’s smile vanished. “Oh, um, he isn’t here. He got captured after you healed him. I don’t know what happened after that.”
Lena frowned. “Poor boy. I hope he doesn’t freeze again.”
“Do you guys want to come pick me up with one of your portals or something?” I asked. “I can open portals, but they never take me to where I want to be.”
“Sure,” Felix answered for the group. “I’ll be there in a second.”
I closed the Locket. A portal opened right next to me. Felix and William stepped out of it.
“Miss me, Miss Magenta?” Felix teased.
“I talked to you, like, two seconds ago!”
He shrugged. “Whatever you say. Ready to head back to headquarters?”
“Yeah, but I’m afraid I have some bad news,” I responded. “Darkness Guy ate Equestralan.”
“Who?” William asked. “Who in the Dimensions is Darkness Guy?”
Felix paid him no attention. “How does that work? I thought Darkness Guy was in your head! How can he eat Unicorn Land?”
“Equestralan,” William corrected.
“Same thing.”
“Focus!” I reminded them. “If Darkness Guy can eat entire Dimensions, transforming them into Dark Dimensions, who’s to say he won’t eat us?”
“I grow tired of repeating myself,” William said, “but who is Darkness Guy?”
“Umarek,” Lena answered for us.
“Oh, nice,” Felix commented. “Evil Fear Guy has a name. Wait a second! Darkness Guy is Umarek? Like, the Umarek?”
Lena nodded. “The elf of legend, yes.”
“Let’s leave before this gets any weirder,” Felix suggested.
I sighed. “I think that ship sailed a long time ago.”
William grabbed both of us by the arms and yanked us back through the portal.
Looking back, I wish I could have stayed in Treeterra forever.
Chapter 27
We were greeted by quite the scene when we stepped out of the portal. The rusted lamp was overturned and Regina had the Leather Book open. All the other Legendary Keepers had backed away from her and Selene. Selene looked like she was going to murder someone. With her personality, she probably was.
“It can’t be true!” Selene screamed at Regina. “The Book is wrong! It has to be!”
“Selene, calm down!” William ordered. “What happened?”
“Lythacan,” Regina choked out. “It’s...it’s gone. It was completely demolished.”
Tears stre
aming down her face, Selene said, “They were so kind. They helped me find all of you. They stayed out of the War. They were innocent. Now they’re...they’re all...”
She trailed off, unable to finish her sentence. William shook his head.
“No,” he said, “impossible. This couldn’t have happened.”
Without saying a word, Regina showed us the picture in the Leather Book. I gasped. The damage in Lythacan was startling similar to the damage I’d seen in pictures of the carnage from the two dropped atomic bombs in World War Two on Earth. Not a single building was still standing. Bodies littered the ground. Fires still burned off the wood from the fallen buildings.
I averted my eyes, fighting tears. “Who would do a horrible thing like thiss?”
“Attackers,” she said, a hard edge to her voice. She wiped away her tears. “I’m going to murder Mallum Frond!”
“The Attackers are too powerful for us,” William stated. “If they have this kind of power, we should just surrender.”
Fast as lightning, Regina dropped the Leather Book, drew her sword, and had it pointed at William’s throat.
“I knew we had a rat,” she growled. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
“What are you talking about?” Tom demanded. “What makes you think that William betrayed us?”
“Am I the only one who remembers that prophecy Selene gave during our escape from the dungeon?” Regina demanded, not taking her eyes off of William. “It spelled it out for us. Mistaken motives until wolves fall. Lythacan has been destroyed. The wolves have fallen. The traitor has been revealed.”
“That didn’t exactly answer my question, but whatever,” Tom said.
He was ignored.
“So you found me out,” William sneered uncharacteristically. “I’ve been passing on plans to the Attackers. Their cause is just; they just want to keep the Dimensions from descending into chaos.”
“Ignorant rat,” Regina snarled. “Do you know what they’ve done? The horrible crimes they’ve committed? The lives they’ve taken? Even before Lythacan?”
“Like what?” William challenged. “This is war, Regina. People get hurt—some die—during wartime.”
“They brutally murdered my friend,” Regina told him, her expression hard and unforgiving. “And they forced me to watch. William, I was—” She took a shaky breath. “—I was only ten years old. Coppercrusher was just trying to protect me.” She blinked back tears, fighting for control of her emotions. She lost. Her sword shook in her hand.
“You—you can cry?” Tom stared at Regina, openmouthed, as tears silently streamed down her face. She didn’t respond, but she managed to steady her sword.
“Tom!” I scolded. “Now is not the time!”
He nodded in acknowledgment of my reminder. “Right. Focus.”
“When we took you in, it was me who vouched for you,” Selene reminded William, pain evident in her eyes. “When you were injured and almost dead, Gabrielle was the one who treated you. When we realized you needed basic survival skills, it was Regina who taught you. William Johnson, how could you betray the only people who were willing to give you a chance?”
“You were foolish. You really shouldn’t be so trusting. The world is a dangerous place,” he sneered, as if the question didn’t bother him.
“I trusted you,” Selene told William, her voice shaking.
“That was your mistake, not mine,” he responded harshly.
“You’re right,” Selene said. “That was my mistake. Yours was much worse.”
“So what?” William said. Selene winced, as if she had been smacked in the face. “So what if I revealed some secrets? So what if I helped the Attackers find you?”
Selene motioned to Regina, who immediately stepped aside. Selene took her place, but didn’t have a weapon.
“You are the reason those innocent people in Lythacan are dead,” she spat.
Steven walked in, holding an armload of firewood, which he promptly dropped. “W-what is going on here?” he demanded, his usual quiet manner gone in the heat of the moment.
“William betrayed us,” I answered. “He’s one of Mallum’s spies.”
“Mallum?” William scoffed. “No one voluntarily works for that loser. He’s not the boss. No, I work for the boss.”
He reached for a button on his watch, but just before he did, Selene screamed, “MONSTER!” and lunged. He sidestepped, allowing Selene to hit the cave wall. The millisecond the button on his watch was pressed, he vanished.
“I trusted you,” Selene whispered from the ground, tears spilling from her eyes. She dejectedly banged her fist on the ground. “I trusted you.”
◆◆◆
Team morale was low that night. Regina was still shaken from remembering her friend’s murder. Selene hadn’t spoken since William vanished. No one—not even Felix—made any attempt at humor. There was no lifting our spirits. For the most part, we just sat in mournful silence. We barely touched our food at dinnertime.
Gabrielle was the first to speak after the betrayal. “We have to do something. We need a plan.”
“First, we need to…” Selene took a shaky breath to regain her composure. “...we need to visit Lythacan. There could be survivors.”
Regina summoned the Leather Book and scanned the page about Lythacan for anything about survivors. “Survivors, survivors, survivors…” she muttered. She stopped a little bit from the bottom of the page. “Here! Survivors!” Her face fell. “Only one: a ten-year-old girl by the name of Samantha Phillips.”
“We have to help her in any way we can,” Selene decided.
“Agreed,” I said. “To the portal?”
Selene nodded. Steven opened one and we stepped through.
Chapter 28
The damage on the other side of the portal was much worse when viewed in real life. The flaming buildings in the picture that I had seen in the Leather Book were now little more than ash and rubble. The bodies were those of wolves rather than humans. A full moon shone in the sky, the only source of light in the darkness of the destroyed Dimension.
Tom started giving instructions. “We need to find this Samantha Phillips. Robbins, Wilson, you search east. Smith, Parker, you—”
Regina stepped forward, the Leather Book open in her hands. “Actually, Tom, I have her location right here. No need to search the whole Dimension.”
Tom crossed his arms. “Fine. Where is she?”
The conversation was cut short as a throwing knife shot through the air, piercing Regina’s cloak sleeve just above her arm and tacking it to the tree behind her.
“You’ll never take me alive!” a fierce voice declared. A girl emerged from behind a pile of rubble. On her belt was a collection of throwing knives, one of which she twirled casually in her hand. Her shoulder-length chocolate brown hair was tangled, knotted, and frizzy. In her silvery gray eyes burned a wildfire of adrenaline. Above all, I knew who this was.
“You’re Samantha Phillips,” I breathed. “You’re the one survivor.”
“Wait!” Felix commanded, positioning himself between the knife-wielding survivor and us. “Everybody just WAIT!”
All of us froze, except Tom, who said, “Felix, what are you—”
Felix shushed him, then allowed a dramatic pause before turning his head toward Samantha and shouting, “What?”
After seeing our confusion, he elaborated.
“How in the Dimensions did she get so good with knives?” he questioned. “That kind of accuracy comes only after years of practice. She's only ten! How early did she start? Are all ten-year-old werewolf kids this good?”
“I'm not playing games,” Samantha informed us coldly. Her knife-twirling stopped and she gripped the knife firmly, ready to aim and throw at a moment's notice. “I have the highest rank in combat class. If you know what's good for you, you'll leave Lythacan.”
“That leads me to my next question,” Felix said. “Why do they have a combat class for ten-year-olds?”
“We're here to help,” Selene told Samantha. “You're obviously strong enough to hold up on your own, but—”
“I don't need your help.” She was back to the knife-twirling.
“I can see that,” Selene acknowledged.
“Why are you here?” Samantha demanded.
“Like I said before,” Selene responded. “We’re here to help.”
She looked us over, analyzing our body language and demeanor. “Sorry,” she said coldly. “I’m done accepting help.”
Finally, Tom asked the question on all of our minds. “How are you the only survivor?”
She threw another knife, this one tacking Tom to the same tree as Regina. The knife pinned him by the cloak as well. It didn't even nick his arm.
“That's none of your business,” she snarled. “Be careful; the next one could impale your heart.”
“W-we aren't your enemies!” Steven insisted shakily.
“I don't trust easily,” Samantha responded.
Selene got a determined look on her face and spoke with confidence. “We are the Legendary Keepers. King Bryan was our ally. I was personally acquainted with him.”
Samantha raised an eyebrow. “And how do you intend to prove that?”
Selene took a folded paper from a pocket in his cloak and handed it to her. “Does this help?”
She nodded but didn't lose her hardened expression. “That proves that you are acquainted with the late King Bryan. I don't entirely trust you, but I trusted him.”
“So… can you help us find it?” Selene asked hopefully. “The Brass Compass, as was mentioned in the paper?”
She nodded. “Yes, but if you betray me, I will kill you without hesitation. Understood?”
Selene nodded. “Let's go find the Brass Compass.”
◆◆◆
The next three hours were exhausting.
We searched the ruins of Lythacan for the Brass Compass, searching under every piece of rubble in our way, examining every demolished house with a careful eye, and speculating its whereabouts.
After three hours of this, Samantha finally said, “This is a very inefficient way of searching. Please tell me you have another idea.”
The Magenta (The Legendary Keepers Book 1) Page 12