Flashback (Keeper of the Lost Cities Book 7)

by Shannon Messenger

  Before she could transmit to check, their force fields blinked away, leaving the clearing much darker as the ogres herded them into a clump.

  This is good, Fitz transmitted, nudging his way closer to Sophie while the Neverseen were busy searching Tarina for any weapons she might still be concealing. It’s going to be even darker once we’re away from the glow of the gates. So if we stay close, we might be able to teleport away before they notice what we’re doing.

  But we can’t abandon Sandor and the others, Sophie reminded him. Plus, I don’t think we can leave until we know what the Neverseen are really up to. We need to figure out a plan. Is it . . . is it okay if I hold your hand? Only because enhancing should make it easier for us to form a mental link with everyone. Not for . . . anything else.

  He reached for her, and she could feel the rough scabs crusting his wounded knuckles as their fingers tangled together. You don’t have to ask to do this.

  Sophie looked away, her eyes burning as much as her cheeks. I just . . . figured I should make sure, after . . .

  Fitz sighed. It’s a bad day, but . . . I meant what I said—I don’t blame you. You couldn’t have known about the null. And I wouldn’t have backed down on Alvar if I didn’t realize you were right.

  She risked a glance at him, surprised at how calm he looked.

  I know, he said, reminding her that he could hear what she was thinking. In a weird way, it’s like . . . things finally make sense. Alvar’s exactly who I thought he was. The Neverseen are trying to pull off some elaborate plan. So now it’s just time to do what we always do and focus on stopping them.

  Sophie nodded, knowing there was probably more they needed to say—but he was right about focusing. We need to figure out how to get our bodyguards back, she transmitted, and Fitz used the energy pouring from her fingertips to send the message to all their friends—who did an impressive job of not flinching as her voice filled their heads.

  Already on it, Biana told them—which made everyone realize Biana was missing. I’m fine, she promised. No one saw me sneak away, and I’m just bringing Sandor one of Dex’s gadgets so he can take out their force field. I’ll be back in a second.

  It was actually eighteen seconds before Biana made it safely back to their group—and Sophie was pretty sure each second shaved a year off her life.

  Why isn’t the force field flashing? Dex asked.

  Because they have to wait to use it until Ruy’s gone, Biana reminded him, otherwise Ruy will just trap them again. So I put it right next to the force field—close enough that if they dig, the shift in the soil should make it roll into the wall of energy. And I asked them to hang back for a few minutes once they’re free.

  Why? the rest of their friends wondered.

  Sophie understood, even before Biana said, Because I want to see what the Vacker legacy is—don’t you? And Sophie agreed.

  It had to be something huge if Alvar was willing to go through so much to expose it—and if his memories of it made him revert back to his old self so fully.

  “Now are we ready?” Umber asked as Gethen shoved Tarina back into Sophie’s group.

  “We are,” Vespera said, turning to Alvar, who nodded and led them away from the gates.

  Into the dark.

  Soon, the only light came from the eerie red moon, which was slowly shifting back to silver as the eclipse progressed.

  “So are you going to tell us where we’re going?” Keefe asked. “Or do you want us to guess? My money’s on Fitz’s room, since the amount of hair products in there is kind of a legacy.”

  “We’re not going to the house,” Gethen told him.

  “What about the lake?” Tarina asked.

  “No,” Vespera said, which ruled out Sophie’s theory that this had something to do with the destroyed troll hive.

  But it had to be about Luzia.

  She was the original owner of the property.

  And she was way too good at hiding things.

  Sophie kept her eyes on the shadows, squinting at the scenery, trying to recognize anything. I think they’re taking us to the override, she transmitted.

  That’s what I’m thinking too, Fitz said.

  What’s the override? Marella asked.

  It’s a way to shut down the fence around the property, Biana explained.

  Okay, Wylie thought slowly, if that’s their plan, why didn’t they just have Alvar do that instead of opening the gate?

  That was a very good question.

  And no one had an answer.

  So they concentrated on coming up with a survival plan.

  If this gets ugly, we’re going to need a way of taking the ogres out fast, Sophie told them. Linh—can you call the water in the lake?

  It’s pretty far away, Linh admitted. But I bet I could if you enhanced me.

  But a wave isn’t going to do much good if Ruy’s around, Biana warned them. He’ll just shield everyone.

  What about that light-shadow thing that made Ruy flee the last attack—do you know how to re-create that? Dex asked Tam and Wylie.

  I wasn’t there, Tam reminded him. So I can only guess what Umber did—and shadowflux is pretty unstable, so if I’m wrong, there’s no way to know what problems it might cause.

  Well . . . we’ll call that our backup plan, Fitz decided. Anyone got any other ideas?

  I can always start some fires, Marella thought quietly. But there’s a pretty good chance I’ll burn your house down.

  Another backup plan, Fitz told her. What else?

  I could try transmitting to Magnate Leto, Sophie suggested. See if he can send over any help. But . . . they might be dealing with their own mess, since I told him where we were going and he hasn’t sent anyone to check on us.

  Yeah, and we know my mom’s there, Keefe added. So . . . that’s not good.

  I’m sure it’s not, Fitz agreed.

  But worrying about that wasn’t going to help anything.

  I have a feeling the only way out of this is to fight, Sophie thought quietly. We wait for Sandor and the others to catch up, and then we use whatever weapons and training we have and hope we catch them by surprise.

  And if it gets too ugly, Fitz added, we hit them with waves and fire and whatever that shadow-light reaction is.

  There’s also my sloppy inflicting, Sophie noted, which might work on the ogres. They aren’t wearing headpieces—but I might take you guys out too, so . . .

  So we have a lot of messy plans that cause a lot of problems, Marella finished for her. But . . . I guess it’s better than nothing.

  And sadly, that was all the planning they had time for. The path was getting brighter as they drew closer to the glowing fence, and the next bend they rounded brought them back to the clearing with the override.

  “Have you figured it out yet?” Vespera asked, waving her arms at all the swirling metal statues.

  “You want us to turn off Everglen’s fence?” Sophie guessed.

  “No, I want you to see beyond what your eyes tell you,” Vespera corrected, tilting her face toward the moon. “Long ago, I realized the best place to hide things was in plain sight. And I shared my theories with someone I respected—someone who has since been using that knowledge to put a veil over everyone’s eyes for the last several millennia, while I’ve wasted away in Lumenaria for similar crimes. So now it’s time to shatter those illusions.”

  With a swish of her golden gown, Vespera reached for the mirrored orb in one of the tallest statues, lifted it from the coils of metal, and hurled it at the ground. And as the glass splintered into a million pieces, the world around them flickered away, revealing a hidden section of the clearing that stretched into the space that used to look like a wall of dark trees.

  Now there was a large grassy knoll bathed in the moonlight—and pressed into the side was a round silver door, like they’d found some sort of futuristic hobbit hole.

  Even Alvar looked shocked by the revelation.

  But no one was as stunned as Tarina
. “It can’t be,” she whispered, stumbling forward and running her hand across the smooth metal.

  “I assure you, it is,” Vespera told her.

  “What is it?” Biana asked.

  Tarina leaned closer, sniffing the earth around the curve of the door. “It’s . . . a hive.”

  Sophie frowned. “I thought your hives were connected to trees.”

  “They don’t have to be,” Tarina told her, still sniffing the ground. “All we actually need is a suitable space. But this . . . shouldn’t be here.”

  “No,” Vespera agreed. “It shouldn’t. And yet, here it is.”

  “So this is the old hive, then?” Fitz asked. “That’s why I couldn’t find it?”

  Tarina shook her head, and her voice cracked as she said, “No, this is something else.”

  “It is indeed.” The smile on Vespera’s lips glowed in the dim light, and it looked like there was actually some emotion behind it.

  But it was a cold, vindictive kind of glee that had Sophie pulling her cloak tighter around herself and checking to make sure the few weapons she’d held on to were easily within reach.

  “How did you know about this place?” Fitz asked, directing the question to Alvar, who was making a slow circle around the shadowy mound, still looking a little dazed—like maybe he’d only heard that something was hidden there but had never actually seen it.

  Vespera answered for him. “He learned from the same person who told me: Orem.”

  “But . . . Luzia said Orem didn’t know about the hives or her connection to the trolls,” Sophie argued.

  “Yes, Luzia says many things, does she not?” Vespera said quietly. “It gets very hard to determine when she is fooling you and when she is fooling herself. Perhaps she truly believes that she kept the secret from her son. Perhaps she is simply so used to her deceptions that they now feel as though they are fact. Either way, Orem asked me about his mother’s secret project long ago, thinking I surely must have been involved. And that was when I realized that Luzia had stolen ideas far beyond the illusions I had given her to play with and was now dealing with things she neither understood nor fully appreciated. But before I could confront her, I was arrested—and I have long suspected that she may have been the reason behind that. A desperate attempt at keeping all of this hidden. And so it has been, for all those long years. I have been disgraced—removed from history because I was willing to make the changes our world needs but does not yet wish to accept. And Luzia has been celebrated, her family name becoming the epitome of glory and excellence. But not any longer. It is high time for the world to see the reality. And to see that this hive—”

  “Is still active,” Tarina interrupted, holding up a clump of grass she’d torn from the ground. “It’s sealed from this side, as it would’ve been if it were abandoned. But someone on the other side—my side—must still be using it. I can feel the energy pulsing through the earth. But I’ve never heard of this place—and I’ve never seen a hive fused with metal. It’s so . . . unnatural.”

  Vespera raised one eyebrow. “Did you really believe your empresses would not have secrets of their own?”

  “Not like this. Our hives are celebrated. They would never be kept hidden.”

  “Oh, I believe you will find that there is much to keep hidden here,” Vespera said with another gleeful smile. “Unseal the entrance, Alvar.”

  “NO!” Tarina lunged to grab his arm—only to find herself dragged back by Cadfael.

  “You don’t give the orders, little troll,” he said as Tarina twisted and thrashed.

  “And you don’t understand,” she snarled back. “That is an active hive! And look at the sky.” She pointed to the moon, where the last of the red was slowly slipping away as the eclipse finished its cycle. Her eyes locked with Sophie’s, and Sophie tasted bile when Tarina added, “You don’t know what stirs in there.”

  “But that is exactly what the world needs to find out,” Vespera insisted, waving Alvar forward. He frowned at the silver door, searching for a latch.

  “I’m serious!” Tarina shouted. “If any newborns have hatched, you cannot unleash them.”

  Cadfael tightened his grip as she tried to break free again. “You’re really so scared of your own kin?”

  “Newborns have no kin,” Tarina told him. “No reason. Not even any self-preservation. Just insatiable hunger and unfathomable strength. They are my kind in our most primal, animalistic stage, and we keep them locked away until the worst of their bloodlust sates.”

  “These will not be normal newborns,” Vespera assured her. “Luzia and your empress have been experimenting—trying to infuse that power and strength into a being with more cunning reason.”

  Tarina shuddered. “If that is true, then . . . then that is all the more reason to keep them sealed away. If their experiments had been successful, I would’ve heard of their triumph.”

  “Well, then it’s time for the world to see their failings. Unseal the hive!” Vespera ordered again.

  Alvar pointed to the metal. “How? There’s no handle—no latch.”

  “Ugh, you really are worthless,” Umber said, shoving him aside and sending shadows skittering across the door, brushing away the light layer by layer and revealing a panel that must’ve been hidden by another of Luzia’s illusions.

  Sophie let out a relieved breath. “That will need Luzia’s DNA!”

  “Exactly,” Vespera said, holding up a vial that looked a lot like the one that Fitz had given Sophie for the override. “And Orem happily provided some.”

  “You have no idea how much you’re going to regret this,” Tarina warned as Vespera handed the vial to Alvar.

  “I assure you, I am beyond regret,” Vespera said. “Go ahead, Alvar. Show us your family’s legacy.”

  Alvar stepped toward the panel, and Sophie couldn’t help wondering if such enormous stakes had ever come down to a vial of spit. But then the panel was flashing green—the light almost glaring in the dark clearing—and there was a rushing sound, like an air lock unsealing. Rotten, sour fumes slammed against their senses, making them gag and cough as the door swung slowly open, and Sophie palmed one of her only throwing stars as they stared into the space beyond.

  The round, sunken room had several metal stairways leading down, lit by the orange glow from some sort of technical panel in the center. And the drippy walls were lined with twelve hexagonal cubbies, like a single strip of honeycomb. Most were covered in a thick, slimy white film that blocked any glimpse of what brewed in the amber-colored goo beyond. But not all of them.

  “Think those three were always empty?” Keefe said, voicing the question that Sophie hadn’t wanted to ask as she searched every shadow for signs of life.

  There weren’t many places to hide.

  And as the seconds dragged on, Sophie’s pulse slowly began to steady—until she caught a flicker of motion on the edge of her peripheral vision.

  “Did you see that?” she whispered, squinting at the darkest corner of the room.

  None of her friends nodded.

  But the motion flickered again—and this time everyone saw them.

  Three pairs of glowing orange eyes.

  “SEAL THE HIVE!” Tarina commanded—and this time Umber listened, grabbing the door and swinging it closed as fast as she could.

  But the newborns were faster, their massive bodies a blur of slimy muscle and ragged claws as they slammed against the door hard enough to rip it off its hinges, sending the huge circle of metal crashing down on top of Umber.

  Then the beasts were free, trampling into the clearing and raising their heads to sniff out their new surroundings as everyone scrambled back and reached for weapons. Moonlight glinted off their wet skin, giving them a slippery blue-gray tint, and Sophie caught a glimpse of hippo-size fanged teeth as one of the newborns charged one of Cadfael’s soldiers.

  The ogre’s sword clanged uselessly off the beast’s thick skin, and the two went tumbling out of the clearing, rolling farthe
r and farther, until all Sophie could see was the faint outline of their thrashing limbs in the darkness. The grunts and growls grew more feral—more brutal—until they cut off with an earsplitting screech and a horrific crunch. Slurping sounds followed, and Sophie turned away, not wanting to see the newborn as it began to feed.

  She focused on other sounds—a tangle of snarls and growls—and caught a glimpse of Tarina on the opposite edge of the clearing, wrestling one of the beasts with her bare hands.

  The third newborn was stalking back and forth around Umber, who was still buried under the heavy door. A glowing force field kept Umber safe, and the beast kept shocking itself again and again, trying to tear its way through the white energy. And Sophie couldn’t understand why it was so relentless, until she saw the red staining the ground.

  She couldn’t see enough of Umber’s body to tell how badly she was injured. But . . . Umber wasn’t moving. And she’d lost a lot of blood.

  If Gethen, Vespera, and Ruy cared about their fallen Shade, they didn’t show it as they stood under their own force field, which was positioned much closer to where Tarina and the newborn were waging their battle.

  And there was no sign of Alvar anywhere—but Sophie couldn’t blame him for hiding.

  “Stay back!” Tarina shouted when Sophie and her friends ran over to help her. She kicked at the newborn’s stocky legs, trying to knock it off-balance—but the newborn was much too strong. The beast twisted free, leaping for Sophie’s throat—and Tarina grabbed its feet and dragged it back to her. “I mean it,” she grunted, barely dodging its snapping teeth. “Light leap—teleport—whatever you need to do. Just get out of here and head somewhere safe!”

  Sophie was tempted. This fight was beyond anything they’d trained for. But . . .

  “What about you?” she asked as the newborn raked its claws across Tarina’s face.

  “I’m not leaving until this hive is sealed again,” Tarina gritted out, thick red lines streaming down her cheeks.

  “How do we do that?” Dex asked. “It doesn’t even have a door anymore.”