“My father would never have helped you with that plan!” Van screamed, certain of Solana’s insanity.
Solana’s eyes grew distant. “Screw it.” She lowered her head and stretched out her arms, palms down, and began chanting.
Van recognized the Language of the Ancients, but Solana mumbled too fast for Van to catch any of the words.
The dirt on the cavern’s floor began to swirl and rise.
Van smelled sulfur.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Day 25: Early morning, Living World
“Now, you will meet the same fate as your father,” Solana said.
Lumps rose from the ground, taking the form of overlarge humanoid mud creatures. They looked like the monsters from the picture book Van had seen in her father’s study.
She sprinted back toward the tunnel opening.
An earth demon rose in her path.
It swatted Van with its club-like arm, knocking the breath from her lungs. She plummeted to the ground; Zachery skidded away.
The demon lifted its behemoth foot to crush Van.
She rolled and kicked with her foot, knocking the demon’s leg out from under it.
It crashed down and shattered.
From the pieces grew more demons.
Van darted and dodged the creatures, chanting the words she had used to defeat the serpent. They had no effect.
“If you use the Coin to kill my demons, it will harm me. The demons and I are magically bound together,” Solana taunted. “This act will make you unworthy—you’ll attach to the dark part of your Self and become corrupted like your ancestor Amaryl.”
Van assumed Solana was lying, but the dire situation required the immediate use of her Koga-clava skill, not the Coin. She kept the mud-demons at bay, but each time she took one out, its pieces multiplied into more demons. More and more sprouted everywhere. Van’s injuries worked against her, and she felt weakened from being away from Paley’s Gemstone. She doubted how much longer she would last.
Then fire shot from the creatures’ mouths. They aimed their blowtorch breath at Van.
“What the—?” she muttered, exasperated.
Solana cackled, enjoying the show.
Van took cover by wedging herself behind a group of boulders and quickly collected her thoughts. The Creator provides everything we need. What do I have? Again, the Coin. Yet Van couldn’t risk using the Coin against Solana. That would count as using the Coin’s power against another person. But how could she use it to fight Solana’s demons?
Think! she demanded of herself.
“I needed you alive long enough to retrieve the Coin,” called Solana. “Now you truly are useless.”
The horde of mud creatures bashed themselves against the boulders, as others blew their fiery breath.
Van couldn’t hide much longer. The demons’ fire had caused the stones to retain heat, cooking her alive.
She unwrapped the Coin, hoping that Amaryl wouldn’t pick this moment to send her another memory engram. It was a bad idea to black out during an attack by an evil sorceress and her demons. Van took the risk and held the uncovered Coin in her palm, using it to find the best path out of this mess. It pointed back to Van. Great, she thought, gripping the Coin in frustration. She silently asked for Amaryl’s help. Nothing happened.
“You sound scared,” Van shouted, lying. She opened her hand. The Coin disappeared into her palm. What? That was no help! Thanks a lot, Amaryl.
Van struggled to recall her advice. What had Jacynthia and Lady Loka said? Evil has no power? Solana had generated the demons by connecting her dark magic to the power of the earth. Elmot had said that the opposing element to earth is water. The cenote!
Van raised her eyes to the massive collection of water above her. It loomed too high for her to reach.
“Not as scared as your mother on the night she was tortured to death,” Solana jeered. “People told me she sobbed and begged for her life.”
Solana kept trying to disrupt Van’s ancestral connection, hoping Van wouldn’t tap into the power of the Coin. It made Van more determined to succeed.
Van turned inward, attaching to her Light, accepting her right to exist as the Anchoress. She immediately sensed the loving presence of her mother and then others. She connected to a spiritual pulse cascading back through her entire ancestral line of Anchoresses, allowing her to harness their collective power.
Van felt the blood magic in her veins come to life. Her right palm raised almost on its own and aimed at the cenote of water high above her.
She felt a vibration in her palm, as the Coin illuminated and a ray of light shot through her skin, hitting the cenote.
It exploded.
A tidal wave came crashing down, flooding the cavern.
Van crouched, putting her hands over her head. She expected to drown, but no water touched her. She opened her eyes and found herself surrounded by the invisible bubble again, this time protecting her from the rush of water.
The tidal wave passed.
The Coin’s Light had ritualized the water. The demons had disintegrated back into the earth. Solana was nowhere in sight.
Suddenly, Van felt a thud, as Solana hurled herself at Van from behind.
Soaking wet, Solana had stripped off her jacket and gloves to get rid of the water weight.
They rolled on the ground, grappling.
Solana pinned Van and wrapped her hands around Van’s neck. “Give. Me. The. Coin,” Solana said, pounding Van’s head against the ground with each word.
Van managed to bend her knee and use it as a wedge to push Solana, breaking them apart.
They stood up, both breathing heavily.
“You can’t use the Coin against me,” Solana said, “and without its power, you’ll never win.”
Solana was right. Van could never win against her without using the Coin. Van felt too drained from the Twin Gemstones, too injured from her battles, and too exhausted from her journey. She imagined Paley dying from her injuries, Brux being tortured and killed, and the Balish taking over Providence Island—all because Van couldn’t do her duties as Anchoress.
Her only choice was to use the Coin. But how?
Despite Van’s attachment to the good part of her Self, which had made her worthy enough to retrieve the Coin, she still felt her soul being pulled in two different directions, one toward the Light, the other toward Darkness. Did she more resemble her angelic mother or her anarchist father? Her mother would have found a way to create a binding peace pact with Solana, in exchange for the Coin. Her father would have used the Coin to demolish his enemy.
“You are proving to be a worthy foe. I’ll give you that,” Solana said, with a change of attitude.
When Van destroyed Solana’s demons, it must have made her think twice about Van’s abilities.
“Your father would want you to follow in his footsteps,” Solana continued. “I can give you everything that would have been his—fame, power, land, money, protection. I’ll preserve Providence Island and Salus Valde and give you all the glory. I’ll give you your throne.”
Solana paused, scrutinizing Van.
“I’ll make sure Brux and Paley get home safely. Without medical care, Paley will die in a few hours. You’ll be a hero,” Solana coaxed. “If you keep the Coin, what? You’ll have to give it to Uxa, and she’ll take all the credit, all the power, all the glory. You’ll be left with nothing.”
Van impassively watched Solana, taking in everything the Balish princess said.
“We’ll rule as sisters. Twin princesses.” Solana’s smile came from a place of confidence. “You’ll have family, my family. You’ll inherit the position your father wanted to occupy. And you’ll be safe, which is what your mother wanted.” Solana, in a winner’s relief, couldn’t stop talking. “My mother would never have killed your mother if she had known your family carried the Anchoress bloodline. I’m glad you survived. We’re going to make a powerful team.”
With great clarity, Van un
derstood what she had to do. She called the Coin from her palm. Its gold radiated like the brightest star in the galaxy.
“Here.” Van flip-tossed the Coin to Solana.
Solana caught the Coin in her bare hand. A huge grin spread across her face.
Then her grin faltered. Her mouth opened into a scream, just before she exploded into a thousand screeching shadows in the shape of black crows.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Day 25: Afternoon, Living World
There was nothing left of Solana.
Except the shreds of her black uniform, scattered across the ground.
Gleaming in the spot where Solana had stood was the Coin. Next to it lay the bloody patch.
The wet ground squished, as Van walked over to the Coin. She scooped it up and stuffed it into her pants pocket.
She turned to leave, then hesitated. Why had Solana kept her father’s patch? Was it a valued memento? Had Solana and her father been . . . lovers?
Van went back and hovered over the patch. Ildiss, the gnomes’ Seer, had told Van her powers would remain compromised until she connected to her ancestral line. The bartender Zane had told Van that her ancestral line would remain broken unless she reconciled her feelings about her mother, which she had done. But she hadn’t reconciled her feelings about her father.
By touching the patch, Van would learn the truth. She knew plenty about her father already. Did she want to know more? She sighed. The patch remained there for a reason. How much worse could it get?
She stood alone in the in the cavern. Now was the time. She bent down and placed the tips of her fingers on the patch. Her vision blurred and then faded . . .
“The trail leads this way,” Michael said. He wore the black uniform of a Balish soldier. It was dark outside, nighttime. Thick scent of pine came from the trees surrounding them. “The thief is headed north, toward the Tipereth border.”
Attempting to prove his worth as the heir to the Balish throne, Prince Devon had quickly gathered a squadron to chase after the thief who had just stolen Manik’s text. As a newly appointed palace guard, Michael felt lucky the prince trusted his tracking abilities and allowed him to lead the royal squadron.
The prince had no idea Michael wasn’t a Balish soldier or that he had lied about aspiring to become a tracker in the Balish military or that Michael already knew how to track, being a Grigori. Michael, a Lodian spy, tracked no one. He was the thief they searched for.
As Michael had fled Balefire, Prince Devon had drafted him into the search party. The palace guards operated on a skeleton crew, due to the Balish celebration of Kupalle taking place. Being low on the seniority list, Michael had been assigned to work. Prince Devon, in a rush, had grabbed any nearby soldiers.
Michael didn’t feel surprised that the prince mistook him for a legitimate palace guard. He had worked undercover in Balefire for the last few months. This beginner position in the Balish military required guarding the Balish palace’s valuables, such as the ones in the Hall of Records, the place that stored ancient documents—a perfect position for Michael to search for information pertaining to Goustav and the Dark War.
“The thief is headed toward the Old Mound,” Prince Devon said, surprised.
“I am not familiar with that place, my prince,” Michael lied. He had intentionally led the squadron in the direction of the ancient temple. He had requested to be the squadron’s tracker, so he could slip away and escape back to Providence Island through the temple’s secret portal.
“Didn’t pay attention in history, Rogziel?” The prince grinned. “It’s a deserted temple dating back to the Dark War. No Bale would ever venture there. It’s rumored to be haunted.”
Yet Michael did know the history of the temple. Aelia had died there.
Van felt a pain in her chest, as Michael’s heart crumpled, remembering that night.
He had crossed the boundary, searching for a way to counter the Anchoress curse—a curse that doomed the Anchoress to die giving birth. His months of research led him to the Temple of the Cross, known by the Balish as the Old Mound. The Elementals had built it in Amaryl’s honor, as her resting place. They had used her blood to construct it on the exact spot she had died—a place Michael thought might have clues to the counter-curse hidden in the cryptic ancient writing on the temple’s walls. Aelia would soon give birth. He had searched for a counter-curse ever since he had learned of his wife’s pregnancy. Time had run out. He had to act.
That night, Aelia discovered him gone and went searching for him, to protect him, to tell him the curse was ridiculous and to come home. But as Aelia entered the temple, Queen Brigid caught her.
The queen had gone there to search for her husband’s mistress, Iphigenia.
Iphigenia, the palace healer at Balefire, had been having an affair with King Nequus. Their favorite meeting place was the Old Mound. King Nequus had made sure the Balish people thought this temple was haunted, so no one would go there and catch him in the act of being unfaithful.
Queen Brigid had found out about her husband’s upcoming rendezvous with his mistress that night, but the king’s spies told him that his wife would be waiting at the temple, to catch him in the act. He didn’t go but had been too cowardly to warn Iphigenia.
Aelia had arrived at the temple before Iphigenia, searching for Michael, who had already left—back to the Hall of Records. The queen mistook Aelia for King Nequus’s lover, became infuriated over her pregnancy, and tortured her.
Michael had heard his wife’s screams and rushed back to the temple. He fought off the queen and her men, just before Iphigenia arrived.
Michael ran his fingers along the scars on his jaw and neck—a small price to pay for rescuing Aelia from the queen’s torture.
If it weren’t for Genie, Van would have died that night. But Aelia couldn’t be saved. Genie said it was too much for Aelia to survive both the injuries from Queen Brigid’s torture and childbirth. Michael knew it didn’t matter how the Anchoress heir died in childbirth; it only mattered that she died. The curse had returned.
The image blurred for a second, then became clear again . . .
Van’s father knelt sobbing at the foot of a weepy, purple-pink-leafed tree.
His grief was so intense, Van could barely breathe.
It was too painful for him to keep Aelia’s belongings after her death, so Uxa had arranged for him to travel outside the boundary line, under the guise of collecting needed ingredients for the Lodians’ potent medicines. He buried his deceased wife’s possessions under one of the Trista trees. People believed that this brought healing to those suffering from grief.
Van saw an image of herself as a baby flash in Michael’s mind—the overwhelming guilt he felt over not being able to protect Van’s mother had destroyed him.
He could not go back in time and save Aelia, but he would do whatever it took to protect his helpless baby. Life was for those who could be saved. And it was his fault that Van needed protecting—his Balish blood had caused Van to be born disadvantaged. It reactivated the Anchoress curse that had lain dormant for centuries and probably made her unable to access her ancestral blood magic.
Michael would never forgive his selfishness. He had known Aelia was the Anchoress-in-Waiting when they married but didn’t know about the Anchoress curse until Aelia became pregnant, and it was too late.
He never should have married Aelia. His heart welled, thinking of his beloved wife. She had never believed in the curse or cared about the rules for Anchoress-Protector relationships, claiming that her powers were dormant, so it didn’t matter. The HG and the Elders called her immature, irresponsible. Aelia didn’t listen. She paid with her life.
Michael’s stomach churned every time he looked at Van. His daughter was a constant reminder of his failure to protect Aelia. His daughter was all he had left. He would do anything to redeem himself, to protect her.
This included using his current mission of combing through Balefire’s archives to also search for a
counter-curse so Van wouldn’t meet the same fate as her mother—dying during childbirth.
The vision abruptly returned to Michael in the woods with Prince Devon and his squadron . . .
Michael sensed someone on the path ahead and stopped.
Prince Devon, also aware, held out his arms, silently halting his men. They held their torches high, but the denseness of the forest dimmed the light.
Michael felt a vibration under his feet.
Prince Devon yelled into the darkness. “In the name of the Royal Balish Militia, I command you to show yourself!”
The wind swirled, rustling the tree branches, picking up leaves and dirt from the ground. Michael felt vulnerable without his Grigori killing tools. He squinted, desperate to see something, anything, through the darkness.
He smelled sulfur.
The earth rumbled, as the mud took form and rose.
“Take cover,” Michael commanded.
None of the soldiers listened.
The wind picked up. Their torches flickered and extinguished. The night’s blackness enveloped them.
“Show yourself, thief!” Prince Devon demanded. He had barely finished the last word when mud demons attacked their squadron.
Michael had fought the demons as best he could, then, alone, he stumbled through the woods, mortally injured. He had to hold on. It was imperative that he make it back to the portal—back to Mt. Hope Manor before he died.
The partly hidden archway appeared through the trees. Michael staggered into the Temple of the Cross. He dragged himself along the cave-like entrance and into the main room of the underground temple.
Wiglaf had waited there, and, on noticing the condition of his charge, bounced up and down in great distress.
“Hey, little friend. Slight change of plans,” Michael said, panting. He placed his palm on the outer edge of the circular design on the back wall. Blood dripped from his hand, staining the etched stone.
The portal spun to life.
“C’mon.” He stepped into the swirling black disc.
Shock of Fate: A Young Adult Fantasy Adventure (Anchoress Series Book 1) Page 40