Island Shifters: Book 01 - An Oath of the Blood

by Valerie Zambito

  The boy smiled. “I leave you now to your sleep. I look forward to your return when this is over.”

  The two cousins shook hands.

  And it was at that very moment—as Rogan was shaking the hand of the Prince of Dwarves in the early-morning hour with the sun making its climb toward the west—that the world was suddenly plunged into utter darkness.

  Kiernan looked in the mirror and almost did not recognize herself. Her long wavy blonde hair, pulled back into the severe braid preferred by the Gems, added years to her youthful features. Her cheeks had a hollow look from the constant combat training and her lack of appetite.

  Beck was coming.

  Bajan was coming.

  She had known for almost two days now and still had not come up with the words she would use to tell them that she was not leaving Elloree. This was her home now. She was fairly confident that Bajan would agree to stay and live with her among the coven, and she would make that offer to the Draca Cat. But, Beck? How was she going to explain to him how she was feeling? It was hard enough for her to comprehend the emotional journey she had been on for the past month let alone adequately describe it to him. She was not even concerned any longer about the women she saw Beck with that evening so long ago. This was not about him. It was about her.

  Bajan had been trying to reach her all morning, so she knew they were close.

  There was a knock on her door, and she jumped with a start. “Come in,” she said. It was Diamond.

  The beautiful sorceress wore a grim look. “A young man approaches. Yours?”

  She nodded.

  “Stay here. Sapphire and Citrine will deal with him.”

  “No, Diamond, I must talk to him. I need to make him understand that I am staying here with all of my sisters of my own free will.”

  Diamond’s eyes were as hard as her name. “Sapphire will make him understand.”

  Kiernan reached out to grab the woman’s arm. “I do not want him harmed, Diamond!”

  The witch raised a pale eyebrow. “Well, I guess that depends on how easy he takes no for an answer.”

  Beck did not attempt to disguise his approach to the sorceresses’ castle, suspecting that a direct tactic was best. That, and the fact that he did not have time for anything else. He needed to find Kiernan and get out of there as quickly as possible.

  As he drew closer with Bajan beside him, he observed several women standing on a wide staircase that led to the front entrance of a graceful and feminine castle with spires covered in a pink-hued tile and colorful pennants flapping in the breeze. The grounds were magnificent with freshly shorn green grasses and large oak trees lining a road peppered with colored stones. He did not see any guards or soldiers, just the women. And most of those, he noticed with more than a little concern, carried weapons. Surprisingly, all were formally attired with their hair in braids.

  A raven-haired woman stepped off the stairs and approached. “May I help you?” she asked, cold blue eyes glaring at him suspiciously.

  “I am looking for Kiernan Everard. She is…”

  “Not available,” the woman finished for him.

  Beck drew in a breath. “I came for Kiernan, and I am not leaving without her.”

  “Oh, but you are. The only option that remains before you is whether you would like to leave on your own two feet or be carried?”

  Beck stared at the woman for a moment and then made a decision. He put one leg out as if to depart, and then forcefully spun away from her and leapt into the air with super human ability, somersaulting over her head to land on the bottom step of the staircase in front of the other women. The raven-haired sorceress screamed out in fury behind him, and Bajan answered her with a mighty roar. The ferocity of his bellow caused all of the witches to hesitate in alarm, and that was all he needed to get past them and into the castle.

  “Kiernan! Kiernan, where are you?” he shouted, running into the foyer and sliding along a white marble floor and past a highly wrought fountain.

  Blue eyes blazing, the black-haired witch stalked in after him, her lips moving fast. Without warning, his arms flailed helplessly as his feet swept out from under him and he went down hard on the floor. Before he could recover, an invisible force lifted him into the air by his feet.

  He saw the fist coming toward his face while suspended in mid-air but was powerless to avoid it after the sorceress cast another spell that pinned his arms to his sides. She struck him in the mouth, and he spit blood onto the marble floor as the room filled with more and more women. One with fiery red hair approached and began striking him in a series of, Beck was certain, magically-assisted punches in both sides of his body. His breath left his lungs and he grunted when one of his ribs broke.

  The black haired sorceress grabbed his hair. “Let us try this again, shall we? Your own two feet or carried?” she demanded.

  He looked up at her defiantly. “I will not…leave…without Kiernan.”

  The women attacked then, and he never knew such pain in his life.

  Princess! Are you going to stand by and let them kill Beck? I am shut outside of the castle, but I can hear them beating him. Princess Kiernan Everard! What has happened to you? Help Beck!

  “Kiernan, are you all right?” asked Diamond, her voice filled with worry as she stepped back from her. “Highworld! What is wrong with your eyes?”

  Kiernan broke her connection with Bajan and blinked, her eyes green once more. “I have to go. They are killing him!” She ran to the door and yanked it open, stumbling through and then righting herself to sprint down the hall to the front foyer.

  “Kiernan!” yelled Diamond from behind her.

  She ignored her and kept running, leg muscles straining with the effort. She arrived just as six of the witches opened the front doors and threw Beck bodily down the stairs to land face down in the dirt outside.

  “Stop! What are you doing?” she screamed, pushing the women out of her way to run down the stairs to Beck, who let out a soft moan as she knelt beside him. She looked up at her new sisters sternly. “Leave us! I need to speak to him alone.”

  “Kiernan, are you sure…?” began Citrine.

  “Yes! Now, please leave. I will only be a few moments.”

  The sorceresses reluctantly withdrew, respecting her wish for privacy.

  “Beck, are you hurt badly?” she whispered urgently, slowly turning his body onto his back. His face was covered in dirt and blood from a split lip, but it was Beck. Her Beck. And, her body trembled as she resisted the urge to throw her arms around him.

  He groaned again. “I will be fine…I think. Thank you for the warm welcome,” he said softly.

  “Beck, I did not know that they would react like that. I think they are just trying to protect me.”

  He sat up, holding an arm around his ribs. “That redhead really packs a punch.”

  Kiernan gave him a sad smile. “She is a sorceress of magical combat.”

  Beck looked at her for the first time in over a month. He took in her dress and braided hair. “You look different.”

  She lowered her eyes. “I am different, and I do not know if I can help you understand,” she said, withdrawing from him.

  “Try me.”

  She looked into his eyes. “The last thing I would ever want to do is hurt you, Beck. You know that, don’t you?”

  He nodded.

  “But, this is my home now. I belong here with all of my sisters.”

  Beck looked at her incredulously. “Kiernan, you cannot be serious? We have to go! Right now! Adrian Ravener is killing people all over the island. Demons walk the earth! We have to stop him.” He reached out to turn her face to him. “It is our duty to stop him.”

  “No.” She stood up and removed the pendant from around her neck and held it out to him. “Take this. It is the pendant you will need in the upcoming battle, not me.”

  Beck took the pendant and got to his feet with a wince. “To hell with the battle. I need you, Kiernan! I love you!”


  She turned her back to him, unable to meet his eyes and whimpered. “It is for the best, Beck. You must go.”

  He spun her around, and a tear dropped from his eye. “You promised me, Kiernan! In your mother’s dressing room in Nysa, you promised me that we would be together always.”

  The reminder elicited her own tears that now streamed down her face unchecked. “Stop, Beck! Do not make this any harder than it has to be!”

  “Just answer me one question, Kiernan,” he croaked. “Do you still love me? At all?”

  She turned away again and fell to her knees. She could not look at him when she answered. “No. The answer is no, I do not love you anymore.”

  The ground rumbled underneath her and Beck let out an agonized scream. She turned and watched as he threw his hands out and uprooted a massive oak tree on the grounds in front of the castle and sent it sailing through the air. Face etched in pain, he went down to one knee and wrapped an arm around his ribs.

  “Beck…” she said softly.

  Lurching upright, he did not look back as he staggered back down the road.

  She put her hand in her mouth to keep from crying out. Out of nowhere, Bajan appeared in front of her. He did not say anything, but just stared at her. He did not have to. His blazing green eyes said it all.

  Bajan, I am so sorry.

  Why Princess?

  I have my reasons, Bajan. Stay with me.

  I cannot.

  Please, Bajan. We have many things to discuss. Stay with me!

  While you have strayed from your path, Princess, mine remains clear. I must help the Savitars. Good-bye.

  The Draca Cat turned and began walking after the faltering Beck.

  She cried out in her mind. Bajan!

  He did not respond.

  She stayed outside until both Beck and Bajan were out of sight. When she did not have any tears left to shed, she stood to go back into the castle and, as if in response to her mood, the world turned dark.

  Chapter 29

  QUEEN GRACE

  Kiernan numbly retraced her steps back to her chambers long after Beck and Bajan departed. None of her sisters could explain why the world had gone dark, and Diamond and her Divination Gems were determinedly absorbed in the task of trying to discover the source through the power of their stones.

  The rest of the sorceresses left her alone. They knew she would not welcome the intrusion.

  Now, she lay on her bed alone in a dark room, the tapers in the heavy bronze holder on her nightstand long since extinguished. Emotions warred in a heated battle inside her mind and body. She tossed and turned for hours before finally closing her eyes and falling into a fitful sleep, mentally exhausted. Her last conscious thought a prayer to the Highworld for guidance.

  When she opened her eyes again, a bright light hovered in the center of the room. It scared her so much that she sat up in bed and pulled the covers tight to her neck. For a moment, she thought Adrian Ravener was there to kill her.

  “Do not be frightened, my love,” said a voice from the light, warm and loving.

  She breathed a sigh of relief. She recognized the voice, and it was just a dream.

  “It is me, Keke,” said the voice, and Queen Grace Kenley Everard, walked out of the light toward her bed, the body silhouetted in an otherworldly glow.

  “Maman?” It was a child’s name for a mother, but all she knew.

  “Yes, darling, it is me.”

  “I love when you come to me in my dreams.”

  “I am always with you, my darling, every moment of every day. But, this is not a dream.”

  “I miss you so much.”

  “I miss you too, Keke.” Keke was her mother’s favorite name for her as a child. “I have come to remind you that you cannot give up the fight. You are Savitar,” she said gently.

  “You know of that?” Kiernan asked in surprise

  “Yes,” the radiant wraith moved closer, her face pained.

  Kiernan tilted her head in question. “Gemini said you wanted me to stay here, Maman.”

  Her mother nodded and wisps of vapor trailed around her head sinuously. “That was the foolish wish of a frightened mother for her daughter. I now know that you must be there with the Savitars if there is to be any hope for the Island of Massa.”

  “But, Maman…”

  Grace Everard swelled in size. “I will not have my daughter, the Princess of Men, hide her head while innocent people die!”

  The words caused the blood oath to stir in her body.

  “You must fight, Kiernan!”

  “Is that what you want?” she cried.

  “It is what must be!”

  “Then, I will do as you say, Maman,” she declared, all of the uncertainty shedding from her mind at last.

  Her mother’s image receded and returned to its former size.

  “Do you love him?” she asked softly. She did not have to say his name.

  “With every fiber of my being,” Kiernan responded honestly.

  “You hurt him badly.”

  Kiernan buried her head in her hands. “I know, Maman, I know.”

  “Fight for him, too.”

  She shook her head. “He is gone.”

  “No, he is camped off the road two leagues from the Illian. The darkness and his injuries have slowed his progress.”

  Hope coursed through her body and all she wanted to do was to run to him. It took all of her willpower to ask instead, “Do you know the cause of the darkness?”

  The wraith nodded. “Adrian Ravener has cast a spell over the world so his dark-dwelling Demon Army has the freedom to cause destruction day and night.”

  “This is not a dream, is it, Maman?”

  “No.”

  “But why have you appeared to me now at this time?”

  “Ask Bajan.”

  “Bajan?”

  “I must go. I love you very much, Keke, and so does your father. Remember that.” The glowing figure began to diminish until only a fading voice remained to cry out. “Tell Gemini that the cats are singing! She will know what it means.”

  “I will and I love you, too, Maman!” and the light was gone.

  Kiernan threw off her blankets and fumbled in the abrupt return to darkness for the tinderbox to light her candles. With trembling hands, she managed to get them lit and packed her belongings as quickly as she could. She took off the dress the Gems had given her and put on her blue gossamer dress with the arm veils and gold cuffs and sandals. Racing from the room, she ripped the braid out of her hair, tumbling it free.

  Rushing along the poorly lit corridor and passing the fountain, she took the stairs two at a time, coming to a frantic halt in front of Gemini’s chambers. She pounded on the door. “Gemini! Are you awake? It is me, Kiernan!”

  She heard shuffling from behind the door and waited impatiently.

  When Gemini opened the door, her gray hair was hanging loose for sleep and she was in her nightdress holding a candle out in front of her. “What is it, dear? It is the middle of the night!”

  “I am leaving,” she said without preamble.

  Gemini’s eyebrows knitted together. “Does this have anything to do with that boy?”

  She smiled. “It has everything to do with that boy. It also has to do with my mother.”

  When Gemini did not respond, Kiernan said, “She came to me in a dream. I do not have time to explain. Diamond will figure it out before long.” She pulled Gemini into a hug. “Thank you for everything. I know you were doing what you thought my mother wanted, but circumstances have changed. She told me to tell you that the cats are singing.”

  Gemini’s hand flew to her mouth. “How…how do you know that phrase?”

  “I have to go, Gemini. Can I take a horse from the stables?”

  The High Priestess looked dazed. “Yes, yes, of course.”

  Kiernan started to go and then stopped in her tracks. “Gemini! My sword!”

  The sorceress retreated into her room and returned with the
sword, thrusting it into her hands. “May the Highworld be with you, Kiernan.”

  “It already is!” she shouted and started to run.

  It was dangerous to be running her horse at such reckless speed in the dark, but she had little choice. She had to find Beck and was putting her faith in the moonlight and the horse’s instinct to guide her. She did not realize it before, but Earthshine was only a few days away. It was impossible now to complete the mission they had set out to accomplish over a month ago. If she had stayed true and not become so lost. Wait!…that was one of the predictions that Mage Starr warned them about. One of them would be lost.

  Well, she was lost no more.

  Drumming the horse with her heels, she sped ahead into the night, the rushing air cleansing the murky tangle of her thoughts. Only when the brackish smell of the Illian River drifted to her nose did she slow the horse to a trot and frantically scan both sides of the road for Beck’s campsite.

  “Beck!”

  Bajan!

  She continued to advance, cautiously now, along the road and stiffened when she glimpsed a soft glow from a small clearing in the trees. Heart racing, she dismounted quickly and ran through the coppice only to find the remnants of a discarded fire pit.

  I am too late! They are gone.

  Her legs threatened to collapse underneath her. What else could she do? Should she travel back to Iserport and then continue on to Sarphia? Beck now had her pendant, she reasoned, and the Savitars could carry on without her. She shook her head. No! Her mother said she had to be with them. Her only choice was to keep going no matter the circumstances.

  Decision made, she ran back to the horse. The only marker she had in the darkness was the Illian River, and she should be able to follow it easy enough to Iserport as long as the terrain permitted.

  She tried one more time. Bajan!

  Calm down, Princess, we are here. We have stopped at a small stream just through the wood ahead of you.

  “Ahh!!” she screamed and hastily tied the horse to the bough of a tree and started running.

  Prickly bushes and branches slapped at her face and arms as she dashed through the trees. She tripped over a log and her knee came down squarely on a rock, causing her to yelp in pain. She rose again, limping and bleeding, and finally crashed through the trees into a clearing.