by K A Riley
I shook my head and slammed my mouth shut, grinding my teeth. “I told you not to talk about my parents.”
“You were meant to be with them, you know,” she said, twisting her hand around to examine a set of bright crimson nails. “You were meant to die that night four years ago, along with them. It’s a pity you didn’t—then you wouldn’t have to deal with all of this. But to know now that they died because of you…they died because you were the target. I can only imagine how you must feel.”
Nausea swept through me as I stared, horrified, the grim recollection of that awful night churning through my mind like rapids in a river.
I was thirteen when my parents died.
Will was graduating from high school that afternoon, and I was meant to attend the ceremony with my parents, but I was recovering from a bout of food poisoning. My mother had offered to stay home with me, but I’d assured her I was all right and that they should go without me.
After the ceremony, Will had expressed an interest in hanging out with his friends, so, after calling to make sure I was all right, my parents drove to their favorite restaurant at an inn outside of town. It was situated off a twisting country road flanked by thick woods.
A witness, a bartender driving in the opposite direction on his way to work, told us how something—a large animal that looked like a wolf—had run out in front of my parents’ car. My father had swerved to avoid it, sending the car flying off the road. It had flipped three times as it careened down a steep embankment before colliding with a deep-rooted tree. According to the first-responders and the doctor who met with me and Will at the hospital, our parents had died instantly.
The wolf that had caused the accident…was it true? Could it have been one of these creatures?
I dropped to my knees, the same as I’d done four years ago in the hospital, sorrow overtaking me so that I couldn’t so much as straighten my spine.
“Give me the key,” the woman snarled.
“No,” I said, my head low. “I won’t.”
“Give it to me, and I’ll make the memory fade,” the woman said. “Give me the key, and I promise you, I’ll take your pain away, once and for all.”
The offer was tempting. Every day since my parents had passed away, I’d wanted something to heal me, to take away the hole that had formed inside me like a bottomless pit. But even if this woman was telling the truth—even if she could help me, would she extend the same kindness to Will? To my Nana? Would she take away their pain and grief?
No. Of course she wouldn’t.
I drew my head up and looked past her to Callum, who had stopped fighting whatever power was keeping him from me. The determined expression on his face had altered to one of pain. He was feeling what I was feeling. By some inexplicable twist, I knew he was suffering the loss I was reliving, like it was happening all over again—this time, to him.
I’d always despised the way people had looked at me since Will and I lost our parents, like I was a broken girl who could never be mended. I would have preferred they stare at me with malice and disdain, because at least I could hate them for it. Sympathy was cruel. It was a blanket I could never quite shrug off, but one I also could never quite accept. Being pitied made me feel weak, useless, like the world’s expectations of me had dwindled to nothing. But the way Callum was looking at me was more than mere sympathy or pity. It was a look of pure understanding with a shared sorrow that told me he knew loss as acutely as I did.
As I stared at him, though, Callum’s expression changed. His brows met, his lips curved down into a fierce grimace. “You know what you need to do,” he cried through the invisible barrier, his voice low and resonant. “They won’t stop at the key, Vega. They’re going to kill you whether you give it to them or not. If they have to, they’ll destroy the key along with you!”
I stared at my fist, which was clenching the key so tightly now that its sharp edges were digging into my flesh.
Callum was right. I knew what I needed to do.
I only hoped I could find a way to do it.
“The key,” the woman snarled again, taking a step forward.
I shook my head, and without a word, without entirely knowing why I was doing it, I waved a hand through the air. The wispy hologram of a door that had been hovering weakly turned massively solid, an imposing structure springing to life in the middle of the sidewalk. Determined, I jammed the dragon key into the glowing keyhole and twisted it until I heard a click.
I didn’t know what awaited me on the other side. But whatever it was, I had no choice but to face it.
Part II
The Otherwhere
Seeker’s World
Rolling green hills surrounded me on all sides. A warm breeze lapped at the long grass coating the gentle slopes in a series of slowly ebbing waves. The air in this place, whatever this place was, was more invigorating, more pure, than anything I’d ever inhaled in my life. I felt as though I’d walked into a young, unsullied world that had never so much as heard of internal combustion engines or pollution-emitting factories.
As I looked around, I could feel my lungs filtering out every chemical they’d ever taken in. I breathed deep, and a feeling of calm settled over me. The torment I’d felt a moment ago was gone—at least temporarily—only to be replaced with a quietly pulsing sense of euphoria, as if a potent drug had been injected directly into my veins. It wasn’t the worst feeling the world.
But it might have been the strangest.
“Where am I?” I asked out loud. On a whim I pulled my cell phone out of my bag and clicked the side button to light up the screen. Maybe there was a tower around here somewhere. If I could just get a signal, maybe my GPS could tell me where I was.
But when I looked down at the screen, I saw that the usual background photo of Will and me on our living room couch had disappeared. In its place was the image of a long silver sword against a white background. The usual date and time stamps were gone, and no bars showed to indicate whether I had any sort of connection to the outside world.
“Okay,” I said out loud, still fully aware that talking to myself was hardly the way to prove my sanity. “This is…different.”
Staring at the sword, I got overwhelmed with a sense of déjà vu. I was about to dismiss the feeling when it occurred to me: this wasn’t the first time I’d seen that image. It had been on the cover of the book Callum gave me on my birthday, the book I’d left behind when the woman in the park accosted me.
I tapped the picture with my index finger, and a title page appeared. My phone, it seemed, had morphed into an electronic version of Callum’s book. I dragged my finger across the screen, hoping and fully expecting to see at least a few familiar icons. But nothing. Everything on my phone was gone.
Everything but this book.
Seeker’s World
An Invitation to the
Academy for the Blood-Born.
I tapped on the title and flipped through the next series of icons until I came to a table of contents. The first chapter listed was called “The Academy.” I clicked the word and my screen brought me to a page that read:
The Academy is an ancient, fortified structure of white stone, set on the edge of a sprawling cliff, a wall of solid rock that drops down to the sea far below, where brutal waves crash against the shore.
On the other side, dense woods rise up to greet the base of the castle’s fortifications. There is no road in. Only the few who are invited may enter, and all those who choose to attend must find their way there by some means or other, as an ancient magic protects the Academy’s walls.
The invited are known as the Blood-Born.
If you are reading this, you are one of the invited.
Blood-born. Callum had mentioned that word. According to the screen, I was one of them. That should have freaked me out, but instead, it gave me a strange sense of calm, of purpose, like I had a real role in the world for once in my life.
Of course, this wasn’t exactly the world where I�
��d hoped to have a role.
Okay, Vega. Let’s take stock: You’re here. This is not a dream. No one’s slipped you any hallucinogenic mushrooms. That you know of. That leaves…what?
I spun around to look for any sign of the fortress-like structure the book mentioned. Maybe I was already being tested; maybe the Academy was standing right in front of me, hidden from view by some wild magic.
Or maybe I had to say a secret password to conjure it. Academy Appearus, or something.
“No,” I muttered. “That’s stupid. Then again, it’s also pretty stupid that I’m standing in the middle of nowhere talking to myself, isn’t it? Yes, Vega. It really is.”
I was at the highest point of a broad, flat-topped hill, the grass soft and welcoming under my feet. To one direction in the far distance I could barely make out smoke rising from the chimneys of a series of small, thatch-roofed houses in an idyllic village nestled between two sloping hills. It was the only sign of life for miles.
It took me a moment to realize the door I’d stepped through had vanished, and somehow the dragon key had found its way back onto my silver chain.
I was trapped in this place, at least for now—yet I didn’t feel frightened.
For once.
I contemplated hiking toward the distant village, but it felt like a bad idea, as if intruding on their lovely little town would disturb the balance of this perfect, quiet land. Still, I couldn’t help but think there must have been a reason the door I’d conjured had opened out into what seemed like the middle of nowhere. Or had I somehow messed up the summoning and leapt through the wrong door entirely?
My mind had been so addled by everything that had happened on Fairhaven’s High Street that it wouldn’t have surprised me to discover I’d screwed up royally and trapped myself in some sort of no man’s land. Count on me to have the power to conjure a door to nowhere while escaping giant mind-bending Waergs.
Oh, God. The Waergs.
My thoughts shifted suddenly to Callum. To how I’d left him alone with those awful, vindictive shape-shifting creatures, trapped as he was by some cruel magic. I had no idea what they planned to do to him, but I couldn’t imagine it would be good. He told me in the alley that a single Waerg wasn’t enough to take him down, but I couldn’t imagine him fighting four of them off, especially when one of them was some kind of psychotic mind-controller. I hated the thought that Callum might be hurt for my sake, or worse. He risked his life for the second time to help me…
And I ran away and left him behind.
“He’s okay,” I told myself. “He has to be.” Something told me he was stronger than he’d ever let on, that there was far more to him than a handsome face and a brilliant mind. Callum was somehow connected to this mysterious Academy, which meant he was probably stronger than I imagined.
I stared out toward the horizon, trying to convince myself not to worry, and to my surprise, it seemed to work. All the tension, fear, and anxiety in my body washed themselves away as if whisked off by a warm wind.
Maybe this place really was magical after all.
“Pretty, isn’t it?” asked a deep, rich voice that startled me out of my blissful trance.
I spun around to locate the voice’s source, which turned out to be a tall man with gray hair, chiseled cheekbones, a prominent nose, and a series of dignified wrinkles that looked like a road map of his entire life story. His posture reminded me a little of a vulture, the way his shoulders hunched slightly and how his chin jutted out over his chest. His long, unkempt eyebrows shaded gray-green eyes strengthened the comparison.
He was dressed in what looked like an odd hybrid of medieval and modern clothing: a pair of scuffed, brown leather combat boots, coupled with linen trousers and a loose-fitting tunic of white cotton. Over that, he wore a leather jacket that looked like something I might have found at a local men’s shop in Fairhaven. It would have been an odd ensemble on anyone, but it was particularly odd on someone who looked like he could be anywhere from his late-fifties to two-hundred years old. The stranger reminded me a little of Mr. Collins, the history teacher at our school who was so ancient and of such an indeterminate age that Liv had once gruesomely suggested we “saw him in half and count the rings.”
The only difference was that Mr. Collins was an absolute terror who freaked out at unsuspecting teenagers for sport. This man felt like the opposite. He felt familiar, somehow. Something about him—perhaps his hard, vaguely off-putting edge—appealed to me.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“You expected something else when you came through the dragon’s door?”
As he spoke, I realized maybe it was his voice that made me feel so comfortable. Like Callum’s, it was soothing and lilting. His accent contained hints of England, but something else, as well—something vaguely exotic I couldn’t quite place, as though it originated from a country I’d never heard of.
“I guess I did expect something else,” I replied. “The description in the book…” I stopped myself before I could finish. For all I knew, he was an enemy, here to gather secrets about the Academy. “Actually, I don’t know what I expected. For all I knew I’d be walking into a cave, only to get burned alive by a giant dragon.”
“Well, you’re in the right place, Vega Sloane,” the man said with a warm smile. “This is what’s known as the Otherwhere, though it has other names as well. The part you see before you is called Anara. My name is Merriwether, and I am the Headmaster at the Academy for the Blood-Born. I’m here to guide you, to show you what you will be competing to save when the Trials begin.”
“Right, the Trials,” I breathed. “Callum mentioned something about that.”
“Ah yes, Mr. Drake,” Merriwether said. “You’ve been wondering what’s become of him, haven’t you? Yes, I can see it in your eyes. You’re worried about what the Waergs in Fairhaven might have done to him.”
I nodded. “A little, yeah.”
“He’s very strong—a fact you’re probably already aware of. He broke free of the spell that kept him from you. He’ll be just fine.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m glad,” I said, stifling a smile. “I mean, I’d hate for someone to get hurt because of me.”
“Of course.” Merriwether shot me a knowing look before continuing. “I must apologize to you for how everything has occurred. The book Mr. Drake gave you was meant to be your invitation—”
“Yes,” I said, holding up my cell phone. “I figured that out just now.”
“But of course, things went a little sideways in your home town.”
“I was starting to think this was all just part of the regular process.”
“Not at all,” Merriwether said. “Most Candidates never have to contend with the threats you faced on your home turf. You should never have been targeted like that…but then, there’s a reason you were.”
“Oh? What reason is that? Was it something I said?”
Merriwether looked at me for a moment, ignoring my question. “The Trials are the reason everything since your seventeenth birthday has led you to this place. When you and I have finished our little tête-à-tête here in the Anara Hills, I will bring you to the Academy to begin your training. Unless, of course, you decide you don’t wish to attend after all.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” I asked. “What makes you think I wouldn’t want to attend?”
“Because you summoned the door out of fear, and you came through it as a means of escape,” he said. “It seems you weren’t exactly aching to attend an Academy about which you know virtually nothing—and I can’t exactly say I blame you.”
I started to object, but I stopped myself. He was right, but how did he know so much about what I’d been feeling? “I do want to attend,” I said sharply, recalling with a sudden clarity what the Waerg woman had told me about the night my parents had died. “I need to. I have to find those people and…”
“Find who, now?”
I looked up at Merriwether’s eyes only to
realize he already knew the answer to his own question. “They killed my parents,” I said slowly, my voice betraying me by threatening to break. Saying the words out loud brought the reality of the situation to the forefront of my mind: My parents’ deaths could have been avoided. I now had an enemy.
One I wanted to kill with my own hands.
“So you’re telling me you came here because you want revenge,” Merriwether said. “You want to do to them what they did to your family. You want to take lives as a means to even the playing field, is that it?” His voice was filled with pity, and a profound sense of shame began to infect me as I listened to his assessment.
“I just want answers,” I said.
“Ah. You want to know what it is that inspired the enemy to commit murder,” Merriwether said softly. “You want to know what sorts of creatures could do such a thing.”
I nodded.
“Well, if you come with me, you’ll find out soon enough. But I should warn you, the Academy has trained the Blood-Born for centuries, and we don’t deal in revenge. If your sole motivation in attending is to draw blood, you will find you have no place between the walls of our institution. Focus too much on those who have died, and you will find it impossible to focus on the living…and it’s the living who are important now.”
“But…” I began, slamming my mouth shut when I saw the look on the Headmaster’s face. He was right. Nothing I could say or do would bring my parents back or make the pain go away. “I do want to learn. I want to know why I was invited. I want to understand who—what—I am.”
“Good. That’s an important first step.”
“Tell me, then,” I said, pulling at the chain around my neck and holding Charlie’s gift out from under my shirt. “Why did I get this on my birthday? Is it something every Seeker gets when they turn seventeen?”
“Ah, the dragon key,” Merriwether said with a wistful smile. “Such a pretty thing. It wasn’t easy to get it to you, you know.”