Ruby Morgan Box Set: Books 6-10

by LJ Rivers

  I slid my boot through the dry grass, listening to it crunch as I put my foot down. “Maybe it can be like that again.”

  “I believe it will be.” He let go of my arm and stepped to the centre of the grove. “But before we can have any hope of restoring the sun’s light, you have to defeat your father. To do that, you must finally embrace every part of who you are. You must merge with the shadows.”

  My throat constricted, and I suddenly regretted not having brought my water skin. “My last attempt didn’t exactly go swimmingly. I don’t know if I can do this.”

  “You must.” He put his staff down in front of him, resting his hands on the pommel. “Do not fear the darkness, Ruby, for it is a part of you. Without light, there can be no darkness, which is why I believe there is still light in this world. By embracing your nature, you, and you alone, will be the key to restore it. One way or the other.”

  I stepped closer. “You’re placing a lot of faith in me.”

  He huffed. “I am a Merlin like you, but you, my dear, are so much more. Both light and darkness reside within you, and if you can find the balance, you will prevail. Now, when you hear the shadows’ call, what do you do?”

  “Run?” I snorted. “Sorry. I embrace it?”

  He sighed. “You pull them to you. Allow the tendrils of darkness to enter your magical core, then take hold. Never allow the absence of light free rein or it will consume everything.”

  “Comforting.”

  He smiled. “All you need do is touch the light while you welcome the dark. Both must be in balance for you to fully take charge. If you feel like you’re suffocating—as if your magical core is being overwhelmed—then cling to the light inside you to expel the shadows. Force it back out. But Ruby, if the two can harmonize, let them.”

  “So, what exactly will I be able to do if this works? I mean, I can already shadowwalk.”

  “Certainly, but that is only walking within them. What you must do now is to allow them to walk within you. You will no longer require a full shadow to step into. Instead, you can become like the shadows themselves.” He tapped his fingers on the pommel. “Ready?”

  I yawned. “I guess.”

  “Then step into my shadow. Once there, you will know what to do.”

  Shaking my arms, I closed the distance between us. As I stared at Pullhelli’s silhouette painted on the grass, shaped by the dim morning glow, I inhaled and moved forward.

  The world shifted. It was always dark in Gwyn Fanon, but it wasn’t nearly as gloomy as it was on the other side of this misty veil. The faint outline of Pullhelli was still visible beyond the misty screen, but as soon as I had gone through, the whispers came. There were no words, but more of a constant humming, as if my name was being called out by a thousand distant voices that blended with one another, echoing in my mind. Closing my eyes, I spread my arms wide and held my ground. The inky tendrils snaked around me, latching onto my body as if testing my resolve. Chills rolled over my skin, but I did not resist. However much I wanted to flee, I had to trust Pullhelli knew what he was doing. If this was my only shot at defeating my father, I had to at least give it my all.

  A cold sensation of air swept over my face and into my mouth. I shivered when the frost settled in my bones. Reaching for the very core of my essence, to where my magic resided, I found my healing light. A river of warmth flowed through my veins, accepting the oncoming winter storm. The two brushed against each other. Holding the healing light within me, I grabbed the shadows, and the powers melted into one. They stirred and flowed together, somehow boosting my energy and wiping away the last remnants of tiredness. I felt revitalised. Energy pulsed in my veins, and the whispers stopped.

  I opened my eyes.

  I could no longer see the grove or Pullhelli. Instead, it was as if I was walking on clouds. The sun was on my face, and the night was at my feet. I recalled the feeling of standing in the nothingness in the Realm of Shadows, because that was the floor beneath me now—an endless abyss of nothingness. I glanced down at my hands. My skin rippled with shifting shades of black and white, as if it was a canvas painted with a starry night. Tiny particles drifted up and down from my skin, almost as if I was made of air alone.

  Raising my head, my gaze settled on a figure ahead of me. A man.

  I floated closer, carried by the wind that wasn’t there.

  “Hello?” My voice sounded weirdly hollow and sharp at the same time.

  The figure turned and his eyes found mine. Those silver-blue eyes I remembered from the first time we had met on White Willow Campus.

  “Princess?” my father asked. “What are you doing here?”

  My eyes widened, and I hardened my mental grip on the swirling powers within me. “Father?”

  “You’re not supposed to be here.”

  I shook my head. “Nor are you. How?”

  He turned fully, and like me, he floated through the air. Only it was more as if he was projecting, like a flickering image from an old black and white film. As he came closer, the darkness below grew, building a wall of nothingness behind him, which partly shielded the sun from the bright sky.

  “That’s close enough,” I said, desperately clinging to the tendrils of light inside.

  “If you are here, it can only mean one thing.” He smiled warmly, the way he used to when I had loved him. “You did not go back to Earth.”

  I crossed my arms. “I will not abandon my people.”

  “Our people, Princess. They could be our people.”

  “No, they can’t, and as long as you reign, there is no hope for them.”

  He slanted his head, a puff of misty clouds undulating around his feet. “My intention is not to cause harm, Princess. It is my birthright to rule, and I intend to see the Magicals once again rise from the ashes. Like the Phoenix itself. To once more see the dawn of a new day.”

  “But you will fail, and Gwyn Fanon will be no more. I have seen it.”

  He shook his head. “Do not play games with me.” A single tear brimmed at the corner of his eye. “Why won’t you rule by my side? I miss you.”

  “I miss the man you were, not this thing you have become. You already know my answer.” I dared to move closer. “Please, Father. Step away from the Avalonian throne, and perhaps we can work on finding some way to reconcile.”

  His features hardened. “I will not relinquish my birthright.”

  My shoulders slumped. “It seems we are yet again at an impasse. If you do not walk away freely, I’ll have no choice but to stop you.”

  He chuckled. “With no army? Don’t tell me you want the throne for yourself? I never thought you actually wanted to rule.”

  “I don’t care about the seat of power. I never did.”

  “So why do we quarrel?”

  “I care about my people, which means I have no choice.” I reached out and took his hand. Our fingers brushed through each other, while starbursts and tenebrous particles swirled in the space between them.

  My father bowed his head and stepped back. “I love you, my child, but since you insist on this path, I suppose there is no other way.”

  “There isn’t.”

  “I wish it was not so, but this is the path you have chosen.” He started to fade, as if every inch of him dissolved into tiny black gemstones. His voice reached me as the remnants of him melted into the void. “The next time I see you, it will be on the battlefield.”

  I exited the shadows and entered the grove. I had cried enough tears for the man who had given me life, and I would not shed another. Instead, I felt more alive than I had in a long time. While I was no longer inside the darkness, a part of it lingered in my core. And I welcomed it.

  “Well?” Pullhelli asked expectantly.

  I smiled. With a wink, I merged within darkness and light, moving swiftly from one spot to another around the grove as if flying in and out of pockets of air, before recentring myself in front of the old Sorcerer.

  He chuckled warmly in the same kind of tone
my father had. “I believe you are ready.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Evonny slipped out from her position at the front of her pack and shifted back to human. Her midnight-black skin was decorated with white, intricate patterns of weaving flowers and plants, interspersed with symbols with a more aggressive feel to them, such as the crossed daggers on her upper left arm and the flames that curved over her right shoulder and down the front. On her neck, a pair of wolf’s eyes stared intently at me. They were eerily lifelike, and whoever had drawn them on her skin had made a perfect rendition of her mate Naheena’s eyes. In the ten seconds it took the Shifter to walk from her pack to the path, she had fetched her garments from her tiny satchel and was already fully clothed when she joined me.

  Ahead, Pullhelli and Rowan were already at the top of the hill, and soon Brendan and Charlie caught up with them. Erica and Jack were somewhere inside the three-hundred strong wolf pack which, for the journey from Gwyntali to the neighbouring territory of Awarnach, was under Evonny’s command. To my left ran two hundred and fifty foxes, led by Fernan. Even the smallest of them was at least twice the size of any fox I had ever seen on Earth.

  Rowan’s gang of Dodgers picked up the rear of our caravan. Every now and then, one or two of them would make a magical jump in reality, appearing out of thin air in between a couple of foxes or wolves. The animals would bark and yip and maybe snap their jaws at the intruders, only to take a big bite of air as the Dodgers jumped back to their friends. They were a loud bunch of street-savvy Magicals, and I thought their rowdy behaviour would have been a perfect fit in The Forge. They were certainly nothing like the other members of my growing army.

  But they seemed loyal. Not so much to me, but to my brother. He was their brother, too.

  And I liked them.

  In addition to the five hundred and fifty that had joined me and my friends since we left Gwyntali a little less than two days ago, almost six hundred wolves had travelled with their leader, Zuwar Gwyll, down to Gwyn Tala Port. Naheena and the remaining two dozen wolves from her pack were also with Zuwar.

  So, I had an army. Or at least the start of one.

  And then there were the eagle Shifters.

  “I will speak with Taryn,” their leader, Aderyn, had said in Gwyntali.

  As a human, he had looked nothing like my Master of War. Aderyn lacked at least two feet on Taryn, and I remembered thinking they would be the spitting image of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito in Twins.

  “I beg your forgiveness, Highness,” he’d continued, “but I have an issue with risking my people without knowing you.”

  “You don’t have to apologise, Aderyn,” I replied. “I will be the first to admit—”

  He held up his hand. “However, you have appointed Commander Taryn as your Master of War. Having known him since we were playing in the streets of Wenhaven, I have learned to trust him more than any other man in the realm. I will find him and speak with him. His eyes will tell me what I need to know.”

  Before I could say anything—not that there was much to say—he had shifted into an eagle. Gone was the short, chubby man, replaced by the most impressive eagle imaginable. I suspected his wingspan even outmeasured Taryn’s. I could only hope he and his hundred-odd group—convocation, luv, my father’s voice reminded me—of eagles would catch up with Taryn, so my Master of War could include them in my army.

  “There it is,” Pullhelli said, pulling me from my thoughts. He stood at a fork in the path on the edge of the hill and pointed at an amber dome of light about three or four miles ahead. “Pentrefan Cyll, the Hamlet of hazels.”

  “You think they will welcome us?” Charlie asked.

  “They are a hospitable people, but we might benefit from keeping our four-legged friends out of sight until we have introduced ourselves to the Goblin leaders.”

  “And how do we know these leaders are there?” I asked.

  “Perhaps the easiest task you will face in quite a while, My Queen,” the old Sorcerer replied, “seeing as they all live in Pentrefan Cyll. I’ll show you.” My great-uncle extended his staff and proceeded to draw a triangle in the dirt. From the centre, he drew three lines, all protruding outwards through each of the vertices. Next to each of the three sides of the triangle, he made a small circle.

  “These are the cottages of the three leaders,” he said. “And, as you might have guessed, they are much bigger in reality. Still, the Goblins are not wealth-seeking people, and even their leaders live in relatively common dwellings.”

  “Really? They are neighbours?” I asked.

  “They are indeed. Just because they control their own territories doesn’t mean they are enemies. Co-existence is the key to the Goblin way of life.”

  Rocking on my heels, I pondered it for a while. Goblins really were remarkable, and we could all learn a thing or two from them. “My father should take a page from their playbook.”

  “As should most, my dear. As should most.”

  “So, let me see if I remember their names.” I pointed at one of the circles with the tip of my boot. “If this is north, then that means Gethin the Wise lives here, which makes this,” I moved to the next one, “Blodwen’s home, keeper of the south-west. Last, there was the one whose name reminded me of a play.” Lingering by the third corner, I tried to remember which name Pullhelli had said when he told me about the Goblin leaders as we dined by the bonfire the night before.

  “That’s right,” Pullhelli said. “One that is not yet written, as I recall.”

  I snapped my fingers “Trys-Tain! Like Tristan and Isolde. Except Trys-Tain is a woman.”

  “And while Gethin the Wise certainly deserves his moniker, I would argue that his neighbour in the south-east is even wiser. Her way with herbs and ancient Goblin magic is unsurpassed.”

  “We will wait down there,” Evonny said, “by that bend in the Afon Helwyr river.”

  I gave a quick nod. “Good. In fact, I think only Lord Pullhelli and I will go into the city.”

  Rowan stepped forward. “Not unprotected. Let me and Cynthia go too. We can stay at a distance and cover you with our bows.”

  “I have to agree with your brother, Ruby,” Brendan said. “We don’t know who’s—”

  I held my hand up. “Thank you, both of you, but I don’t want to intimidate them. Besides, I wouldn’t exactly call us unprotected, our great-uncle and I.”

  My brother and my boyfriend opened their mouths, ready to protest.

  “I have decided,” I commanded. “Stay with the wolves and wait for my signal before you enter the city.”

  “As you wish,” Rowan muttered.

  I waved at the leader of the foxes, who lay in the grass a few yards from the path. “I suspect you heard us, Fernan. You think you and your foxes can stay with the wolves by the river?”

  The fox rose and shook himself. His pointy snout retracted, and his ears slid from the top of his furry head down to the sides as he morphed back to human. “I don’t see why not, Your Majesty.”

  “Oh, I thought … I mean, good. Then it’s settled.”

  “That is,” he continued in a playful voice, “if they can keep up.”

  He shifted back to a fox, and although I had grown to hate one particular fox during the past few months, I couldn’t help but be impressed at the sight of Fernan. He almost matched Jen’s wolf, though he was more the size of an average husky, while she resembled an abnormally large, majestic Alaskan Malamute. His fur seemed to absorb and amplify any trace of residual light around him, and the sunglow-coloured fur moved like waves on his back.

  Evonny scoffed. “Men.” She nudged Rowan as she walked past him. “Come, Sorcerer. Your queen has spoken.”

  He raised his eyebrows at me, as if to ask me one last time to reconsider, but I just smiled at him. “I’ll be fine, Rowan. Go ahead.”

  Jen, Charlie, Brendan, and Cynthia followed my brother as he sauntered after Naheena down the left fork of the path, while Pullhelli and I took the right.


  As the path curved down the hillside, we ended up out of sight from the others after only a couple of minutes. If I was right in my estimate, the remaining hike to the Goblin city would take us about an hour and a half.

  “We might save some time if we go in the shadows,” my great-uncle said, echoing my thoughts.

  The last time I went into the darkness, I had met my father. While I didn’t suspect he would be there now, and certainly not if we used the fringes of the shadows to move in, I didn’t feel the need to risk it.

  “If it’s all right with you, I think we’ll just stay in the open air. I like the smells up here.” It wasn’t completely untrue, as the air was filled with all kinds of herbal scents. “This really is Goblin territory.”

  “So it is.” Something in his voice told me he knew I was telling only half the truth.

  “Who goes there?” a Goblin called out. He stood on a platform looking down on Pullhelli and me.

  We had stopped some fifty yards from the massive gate, which reminded me of the one outside the Dewmas mines. It was made from logs at least fifteen inches in diameter and twenty feet high, with spikes on the top. The wall was equally impenetrable, stretching left and right into the darkness.

  “I am Ruby of Morgana, Queen of Avalon.” I didn’t bother with the entire CV version of my titles. I wasn’t even sure I would be able to recite them all. “I wish to speak with your leaders.”

  “Prove you are who you claim, then.”

  “What would convince you, friend?” I asked.

  “The true queen of Avalon would know what sets her apart from everyone else in the realm.”

  “Show him what you can do,” Pullhelli whispered from the corner of his mouth.

  “I don’t like showing off,” I said.

  “I don’t want to call my queen a liar,” he whispered. “But I don’t mind calling my nephew’s daughter one.”

  I smiled. He wasn’t wrong. I had always loved my magical powers, but lately I had mostly used them to fight or protect myself or others. Now, I was happy to play with them in a more controlled setting.