Ruby Morgan Box Set: Books 6-10

by LJ Rivers

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “W—what?” I said, trying—and failing miserably—to act cool.

  “Granted, you’ll have to work on your superhero landing, but that was totally a Black Widow move.”

  “Princess!” Anwinar shouted, galloping towards us.

  “It’s all right. Charlie is not a threat.”

  He didn’t stop until he slid to a halt two yards in front of Charlie. “Lady Carolina,” he said curtly.

  “I’m sorry, Valet Anwinar,” Charlie replied. “I should have known better.”

  I nodded at the centaur. “All is fine. Leave us alone, please.” I hadn’t planned on sounding quite as commanding as I did.

  Anwinar squinted at Charlie, then inclined his head at me. “As Your Highness commands.” He trotted back to where he had stood earlier, but stopped after only fifteen pances.

  I retracted the force field, feeling the warmth under my skin as it found its way back to my magical core. I pointed at the metal rod in Charlie’s left hand. “What’s that? Is that where the blue sparks came from?”

  Charlie pushed her glasses up her nose and came closer. “Yeah, sorry if I spooked you. I’m sort of working on something.”

  “Yes?”

  She lifted her gloved hand, showing me the three-foot-long rod. A copper-like thread was spun around the topmost ten inches or so. Beneath it, one of the black snakes I knew far too well had curled itself around the metal. Its eyes shone like two tiny blue diamonds.

  “Watch this.” Charlie gave the rod a little shake. The snake reacted immediately, blue sparks crackling all over, at least ten times more than I had ever seen one of the little buggers produce before.

  I stepped back to avoid the magic-numbing electricity. “Woah. Keep that thing away from me. What have you done to it? It’s like… supercharged or something.”

  She grinned. “Nope. Just a regular mydredd releasing a single spark of unhekal. The copper coil amplifies the strength of it. I haven’t figured out how to control it yet, but we’ll get there.”

  “So, you could have hit me with that spark?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “What’s it for?”

  “Not quite sure what to do with it yet, but I’m trying to harness the energy from the snakes, so I can—”

  “There you are, Lady Carolina,” a man said behind her. His sandals slid across the grass as he jogged towards us. He wore a dark blue cloak. Around the waist, a white rope held it together, making it look almost like a morning robe. As he stopped a few feet from Charlie, he bent over and gasped for air. “I—I am getting too old for such running.”

  “I’m sorry, Lorekeeper Virgil,” Charlie said. “I was eager to show Ru—Princess Ruby—our progress.”

  The white-haired man straightened his back. “Your Highness, please forgive my old eyes for not recognising you.”

  I waved him off. “Think nothing of it, sire. It has only been a few weeks since the queen paraded me through the streets of Avalen. I don’t expect many Avalonians know who I am, let alone what I look like.”

  Virgil’s ash-grey eyes narrowed, but only as a result of his smile spreading like wildfire across his wrinkled face. “My Princess, I can assure you your people know who you are. Your beauty has been drawn and painted by Her Majesty’s best artists, and parchments with your likeness have reached the furthermost outposts of the queendom.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Well, not parchments, of course. I must admit I have yet to get accustomed to using vellum after the queen banned the use of trees for such purposes. The ink just doesn’t sink into the animal skins fast enough. Smears everywhere.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “My likeness? I haven’t posed for any painters or artists.”

  “And why would you? The royal artists need only glance at a face for a second or two to have it committed to memory. I should know, as I used to be quite the painter myself in my younger years. But then I discovered the ancient scrolls.”

  “You should see the library, Ruby,” Charlie added eagerly. “It’s ridiculously huge, with books and scrolls dating thousands of years back. Scrivener Petar, the royal librarian, says it would take five hundred scriveners five hundred years to read the books and scrolls on the first level alone!”

  Virgil cleared his throat. “My learned colleague has a tendency to exaggerate, Lady Carolina. But in this, I believe he is fairly accurate.”

  I had heard Charlie talk about the library before, but only in passing. Seeing her like this, she reminded me of another Charlie as he was about to enter Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.

  “You should come and take a look for yourself,” she said. “Maybe after supper? I assume you’re dining with the queen, as usual?”

  “Not tonight, in fact. She’s given me the night off, in a manner of speaking. The meeting with all the reeves and nobles will take all day tomorrow, and maybe the next, so she said I should relax with my friends.”

  For the last week or so, I had hardly seen any of them, as I had been by Morgana’s side almost every waking moment. Who would have thought little Ruby of Chester would end up representing the royal Morgana family? Not that I was planning to end up in Avalon, though.

  “I’d love to see the library,” I said. “But only after all six of us have had supper together.”

  “Deal.”

  “Lady Carolina? I think we should carry on with the experiments. The other erudites are waiting,” the lore keeper said.

  “What are you up to?” I asked.

  “Oh, this and that,” Charlie replied, giving me a mischievous smile. “I’m trying to apply some knowledge from our world to the magic of this one. Who knows, it might come in handy.”

  She took the old lorekeeper’s arm and strolled back to whatever they were working on. As they rounded the corner, they were already deeply immersed in topics I could only assume were way above my ability to comprehend.

  Chapter Four

  Kit yawned and stretched his front legs, inch-long claws protruding through the pink pads on his paws before he retracted them again. The magic of Avalon had changed him, and he was at least three or four times as big as when I found him last August. Or had he found me? Now that I knew about the guardlings, and how they could connect to the essence of a Fae, I wondered if he had been looking for Mum all the time, and saw the opportunity when I came along. Also, when I thought about it, the magic had probably not changed him, as much as helped him reveal his true nature sooner than he would back on Earth. He rolled over, looking every bit as unimpressed as only a cat could, and purred himself back to his dreams next to the tall bookshelf.

  “And this,” Charlie continued, “was written by Merlin’s father, King Ambrosius.” She unwrapped the black silk ribbon and rolled the parchment scroll gently open on the table.

  I leaned forward, studying the ornate writings. “He wrote it himself?”

  “Most of it, yes. Lorekeeper Oren says the old king was an avid reader and studied the art of writing from a very young age.” Charlie adjusted her glasses and pointed to a passage on the worn page. “Now here’s a word we know all too well.”

  The hairs on my neck rose as I read. “Porth. A portal?”

  Charlie nodded eagerly. “It’s totes amazeballs, Ru. He created the portal Merlin went through to get to Earth.”

  “Where he met King Arthur.” The words came from my mouth, but I couldn’t believe I was speaking them. “It was Merlin who taught Morgana to create the portal. I never knew he had learned it from his father.”

  “That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Look around, Princess.”

  As if I hadn’t looked—no, gawked—at the royal library ever since we entered half an hour ago. It was every bit as amazing as Charlie had said, and then some. Considering the fact that reading and writing were skills reserved for a select few of every generation, the number of scrolls and books was simply astonishing. The complex was connected to the queen’s castle by a stone bridge and was com
prised of a five-storey building two hundred feet wide and twice as long. Each floor was at least twenty-five feet from the shiny tiles to the criss-crossing heavy beams in the ceiling. The top floor was reserved for the royal librarian and a handful of scriveners and lorekeepers that helped him take care of the treasures these writings were.

  “Ambrosius applied an ancient kind of magic to open a portal to Earth, Ruby. The Dewinians and Avalonians visited our world before Merlin, too. You won’t believe it when I tell you what I’ve learned. I didn’t at first myself, to be honest.”

  “Tell me what?”

  Charlie rolled the scroll in on itself and tied the silk ribbon carefully, before she walked over to the shelf she had taken it from. She replaced the priceless artefact, then moved further down the narrow pathway between the fifteen-feet-tall shelves. At the far end, she climbed a ladder and retrieved a leather-bound book. It looked rather like the one I had kept for William the Phoenix. There wasn’t a speck of dust on it as Charlie placed it on the table. In fact, the entire library was spotless, and I suspected some sort of magic was part of the custodian’s cleaning routine.

  “These guys aren’t especially concerned with dates and years, which is a bit of a pain for a historian like me. This book, however—” she tapped the chestnut-coloured cover, “—contains some … shall we say, highlights that make it possible to date the events.”

  “OK?” She had tickled my interest.

  “A little over two hundred years ago, the first portal was created. A Sorcerer living by the foot of Gwyn Brig, the tallest mountain in Mynydd Dewin, showed the then queen, Agrona, his magical discovery. I haven’t figured out all the details, but it had something to do with some extra powerful magical source. Anyway, the queen ordered the Sorcerer, Kellewyn, to take a group of Dewinians with him to explore the world on the other side.”

  “I will leave for a while, Lady Carolina,” said a voice from the other end of the room.

  Charlie waved at the hunched man. “Very well, Scrivener Petar. Give my best to Virgil. Tell him I’ll explore our mydredd contraption more this afternoon.”

  “He will like that.”

  The man left, closing the door behind him.

  “I love how you seem to have found a place among the erudites. Morgana mentioned it a few days ago, too. She hears great things about you, Char.”

  My brilliant angel moved her shoulder half an inch upwards. “I only wish I could teach them more of what we know from the twenty-first century. My phone’s battery has been dead for a long time, but if I can control the electricity from the mydredds, I might be able to give it a jolt.”

  “What good would that do? I don’t think Vodafone reaches us here.”

  She let out a puff of air through her nose. “Smarty-pants. No, I just want to put the buds back in Lorekeeper Virgil’s ears so he can listen some more to the audiobook of The Hobbit. When I played it for him after we first got here, he was looking frantically around to locate the voice.”

  “It must have been like magic to him. But surely you can’t collect electricity like that? Won’t it burn the connectors or battery or something?”

  “Yeah, most likely. But I won’t give up until I’ve tried. The mydredd’s shock isn’t that strong, actually. I’ve felt it many times and reckon it’s about the same as a twenty-volt battery. It’s all about resistance, I think.”

  “I clearly didn’t pay enough attention in physics at Blacon High,” I said.

  “Not my strongest subject either. Anyway, my point is to harness the Sparks of Un—I mean the Sparks of—” She furrowed her brows. “What the fudge?”

  Her words had changed in the middle of the sentence, and she was no longer speaking English. She had switched to Avalonian, which usually happened only when Avalonians were within earshot.

  Or Dewinians.

  “Don’t move,” I whispered. “I think he might be here.”

  Kit lifted his head, then sprang to his feet.

  Charlie tapped her fingers on the table. “Who?”

  “Sh.” I closed my eyes, trying to feel his presence. “Auberon,” I mouthed.

  She gasped, but didn’t speak.

  There it was. The tingling sensation underneath my skin. Someone—my father—was lurking in the shadows.

  I opened my eyes. “Show yourself.”

  In the corner of my eye, I caught the blackness. It drifted slowly parallel to the wall behind the bookshelves. Was he trying to get away? I could move into the shadows myself and try to get him to talk. Maybe that was what he wanted?

  The voiceless song of the shadows reached my core. All I had to do was think about it, and they were ready to pull me in. I stood and tiptoed between the shelves in the direction of the dark blob inside which my father was hiding. Its tendrils reached for me, and I let them come close. As I entered their embrace, I briefly registered Kit’s meow somewhere behind me. Looking around, I wondered if I could use my magic inside. I had been able to in the Realm of Shadows, but that was a very different place.

  The darkness enveloped me, and I welcomed it.

  “I’m here,” I said. “What do you want?”

  There was no reply. I shifted my gaze, but all I could see was the blurred image of Queen Morgana’s Royal Library. Charlie was still sitting at the table, staring in my direction. I knew she couldn’t see me, but she would have noticed the spot where I entered the shadows.

  “Auberon?”

  Still no reply. It wasn’t like I was inside a giant ball of blackness where he could be several yards away. The diameter of the blob had been only twelve feet, so it made no sense that I couldn’t see him.

  “Father?” I tried.

  Crap!

  He had tricked me. I turned and looked back at Charlie, and my worst fear was confirmed. A black-clad man stepped out of a similar cloud of darkness right beside her.

  “Charlie! Run!”

  I stepped towards her, expecting to jump out of the shadow and run over to stop whatever my father was planning to do. Instead, I tripped and fell on my face. Instinctively, I stopped the fall with a force field. An icy hand wrapped around my ankle and tugged on it.

  The shadows were trying to drag me into the darkness.

  “Charlie!” I shouted again.

  The man leaned down and reached into her backpack on the floor.

  I kicked hard, but my foot caught nothing but air. Summoning my fire power, a fleeting thought passed through my head. Ancient scrolls and fire were a dangerous combination. Still, I had no choice.

  So far, I had only ever used my hands to manipulate the flames, but this time, I let the heat flow down to my ankle. Kit stood by my head, hissing at the enemy, his paws slapping through the air. With a sizzling sound, my fire burned through the fabric of my trousers. I pushed a ring of fire around my leg, expanding it to three inches off the skin. I didn’t dare risk setting the entire library ablaze.

  The shadow hand released its grip and retreated. Several more tendrils reached for me. I retracted the fire and rolled over on my back. As I pulled my legs over my head, I extended them quickly in a kip-up that would have made Dad super proud. The instant I touched the ground, I jumped forward to escape the darkness. I was already running and reached Charlie a few seconds later.

  She was alone.

  “Where did he go?”

  “Uhm, I think … listen, Ru. It’s not what you—”

  Then I spotted him. He was heading for the shadows.

  “Oh no, you don’t!”

  Like a cowboy lassoing a bull, I threw a force field after him and caught him just as he was about to step into the darkness again. I yanked at it, and the translucent sphere floated back to me.

  The prisoner inside it turned as the field approached, and I took a deep breath, ready to give my father a massive scolding, king or no king.

  “Don’t hurt him, Ru!” Charlie begged.

  What was she on about?

  When the black-clad man finally faced me, I understood e
ven less.

  “Rowan of Nidra?”

  The winner of the golden arrow in the archery competition bowed, holding my gaze all the while. “Your Highness. I was not planning on meeting you again in this manner. Guess the lion is in the—what was it again, Carolina?”

  “Cat. The cat’s out of the bag.”

  “Precisely.” He smirked. “I beg your forgiveness, Princess.”

  He held a piece of bread in his hand. I recognised it. Charlie had taught the kitchen master how to incorporate ham and vegetables into the bread, making what I suspected was the world’s first subway sandwiches. Or this world’s, at least.

  Charlie stepped in front of the force field, her cheeks flushed pink while Kit circled the orb, clawing at it. “It’s fine, Ruby. He—I—”

  “We know each other,” Rowan interjected. “Lady Carolina and I, that is.”

  I tilted my head at him, then at Charlie. “Care to explain?” I kept the force field in place.

  “We’re friends,” Charlie whispered.

  “Friends?”

  “Close friends.”

  My heart was still pounding, but no longer because I was expecting to confront my father. Charlie’s eyes were beaming. As were Rowan’s.

  “Go on,” I said, biting my tongue to stop myself from grinning. I would milk this for as long as I could. “As far as I know, Rowan of Nidra is not an approved visitor in Avalon, now that the archery games are done.” I had no idea if this was true, but I hadn’t seen his name on any of the lists of known—and thus approved—Sorcerers.

  “Ruby, please,” Charlie said, her voice breaking.