The Prince Warriors and the Unseen Invasion

by Priscilla Shirer

  He reached under the bed and pulled it out, dusting off the cover. It was the book about the Prince Warriors, just like the one Manuel had. Evan’s grandfather had given it to him years before, when he was too young to even read it. But he loved looking at the pictures of the mighty warriors riding horses and killing dragons. On the cover was the weird symbol he had come to learn was the Crest of Ahoratos. He ran his finger over the symbol. How strange was it that he had actually been to the place that this book told about. Weirder than weird.

  He opened the book to the chapter about the shield. There was a picture of a Prince Warrior holding up a tall, curved shield emblazoned with the Crest of Ahoratos. It looked pretty much like the shield he had first seen in the Hall of Armor in the Cave. Evan looked closer, noticing something small and red embedded in the round metal boss at the center of the shield. It looked like a gem at first, maybe a ruby. But as he stared at it, he realized it also looked a lot like his seed.

  He opened the drawer and took out the seed, placing it next to the picture of the shield in the book. It did look very similar. . . .

  He shook his head, pushing the thought away. No, that was silly. No shield would be decorated with a seed. It had to be a fancy jewel of some sort. Something really valuable.

  He put the seed back in the drawer. Then he closed the book and shoved it back under his bed. He lay back down and pulled the covers up to his chin, keeping the flashlight in one hand just to be on the safe side. He closed his eyes and tried to sleep again. But Ruwach’s warning wouldn’t go away.

  “Danger is coming. . . .”

  Evan sat up in bed, shaking. An Ent was in his room. He fumbled under the blanket for his flashlight and with shaking hands turned it on, aiming the beam at the chair. He hoped that would scare the Ent away.

  But it wasn’t an Ent. It was his jacket and baseball cap, which he’d thrown on the chair when he was getting ready for bed.

  Evan lay back down, his heart hammering so hard in his chest he could feel it in his ears. He tried to calm himself down.

  Only a jacket. Not an Ent . . .

  He saw a long, dark shadow move on the ceiling. He pulled the covers over his head. After a while he peeked out. Only a shadow. Or was it? How was he to know which shadows were just ordinary shadows and which were—the enemy?

  Evan lay in the dark, thinking about the trouble this little seed was creating. He couldn’t see how it could ever help him. It might even be a kind of homing device, showing the enemy exactly where he was.

  He had to get rid of it, or he’d never get any sleep ever again.

  He opened the drawer and picked up the seed. He got up, threw a hoodie over his head, and padded downstairs as quietly as he could. He went to the kitchen and opened the back door slowly enough that the squeaks in the hinges wouldn’t wake his mom. She had eagle ears to match her eagle eyes.

  The night air was very cool, and Evan shivered as he stepped out onto the back porch. Moonlight flickered on the pond and dappled the leaves of the trees. Regular trees, he saw. Not twisted black trunks, like the first time he’d been called to Ahoratos. He glanced back at the house to make sure it was still there—the windows, the doors, the chimney. It was. He breathed a sigh of relief. He tiptoed down the steps to the grass and made his way to the huge rotted stump by the pond. This stump used to be a great old oak tree that had been split in two by lightning on the same night he and Xavier had gone to Ahoratos for the first time. He missed that old tree. It was great for climbing, plus it had a tire swing, which Evan had swung on for hours when his family first moved to this house in the country. His dad had attached the tire to a different tree, but it wasn’t quite the same.

  Evan turned toward the pond and stepped gingerly onto the dock, listening to the sounds of the night—crickets, soft breezes, the water lapping the shore and knocking the old rowboat this way and that. He looked out onto the dark water as it rippled gently, each ripple glinting in the moonlight. He gripped the seed tightly, shut his eyes, and threw it as far as he could into the pond. He heard a tiny “kerplunk” and opened his eyes, relieved it was gone. He felt safer now.

  “Take care of your seed.”

  Ruwach’s words suddenly rolled in his head, as if the little guide were speaking directly to him from some unseen place.

  Well, I did take care of it, Evan thought to himself. I did the only sensible thing.

  He hurried to the house without looking back, hoping that now he’d finally be able to get some sleep.

  * * *

  Xavier was awake as well, sitting on the edge of his bed. He’d heard his brother leave his room but just assumed he was going to the bathroom. Xavier held his seed and gazed around the room. He had to figure out a safe place to keep it. It was so small—he was afraid he would lose it if he just left it on his desk or under his pillow. He figured Ruwach was trying to test them, to see how obedient they could be. Xavier always tried to be obedient.

  He picked up a dirty shirt from the floor and wrapped the seed in it. Then he got up and pushed it onto the top shelf of his closet, behind some shoe boxes. No one would see it there, not even his mom. And it would be safe. A burglar would never bother looking at an old, dirty shirt. He yawned, suddenly sleepy. Going back to bed, he lay down on his side so he could keep an eye on the closet until he fell asleep.

  * * *

  Levi was almost asleep when he remembered the seed. Where had he put it? He sat up, suddenly panic-stricken that he’d already lost it.

  He was pretty sure he knew what Ruwach was up to. He was just making sure the kids could be responsible with this small, insignificant seed before he let them have the real shields. They were just kids, after all, and kids had a tendency to lose things. The other pieces of armor—the breastplate, the boots, and the belt—had to be worn, so they were a lot harder to lose. But the shield would be different. When they finally did get it, they’d pick it up to use it and put it down when they weren’t using it. They would have to prove that they could handle such a responsibility before they were entrusted with anything so valuable as a shield from Ahoratos.

  Levi did have a habit of losing things. It wasn’t on purpose; it was just that he would get busy and forget. He’d lost his phone once and had to work at the rec center for a month cleaning floors before his dad got him another one. That had really made him think twice before setting his phone down just any old place. Then there was that business with misplacing his boots during his first trip to Ahoratos, something he didn’t even want to think about. But that tiny seed was so much smaller than either his boots or a phone, so much easier to lose.

  Levi jumped out of bed and rooted through his backpack, checking all the different zippered pockets until he finally found the seed, nestled in the very bottom. He pulled it out and wiped off the pencil shavings that were stuck to it. There was some other stuff in the bottom of his backpack that he’d forgotten about: a smooshed Snickers bar, a broken pencil, and a bunch of pennies. Sometime he really needed to clean that backpack out.

  He found a pencil case and unzipped it, dumping out all the stubby pencils and gum wrappers. Then he stuck the seed into the case and zipped it closed. As long as he kept it there, he didn’t have to worry about losing it. Satisfied, he went back to bed.

  * * *

  Brianna pulled a plastic bin from under her bed. It contained lots of ribbons and sequins and gemstones, the things she used to make her own headbands. She found a little container of stick-on jewels, then slipped the bin back under her bed.

  She heard one of her sisters mumble. She froze . . . but then relaxed. Crystal talked in her sleep all the time. Mostly she sang bits and pieces of random songs she liked to listen to.

  “Can’t . . . stop . . . dreaming about you . . .” Crystal was actually singing now. Brianna stifled a giggle, waiting until Crystal finished her song and was quiet again. Nikki, her middle sister, was snoring loudly. H
er oldest sister, Winter, always slept with her headphones on so she wouldn’t be able to hear the snoring or the sleep talking.

  Brianna took a small empty jewelry box from her dresser drawer and set about sticking on the multicolored fake jewels. She used small red ones to form a heart shape on the lid, then added silver ones around the outside for extra sparkle. On the sides she used alternating silver, red, and gold gems, sticking them on with little dabs of tacky glue. Soon the entire box was completely bedazzled. When she was done, she lifted the box up to the window so she could see the jewels glimmer in the moonlight. There, that was much prettier. She put the seed into the box and closed the lid. Then she got back into bed, slipping the box under her pillow, and went to sleep.

  * * *

  Manuel set the little red seed under the microscope. He adjusted the knobs, peering in the viewfinder until it came into focus. He couldn’t see how it was different from his mother’s seed at all. It looked exactly the same.

  He took it out from under the scope and set it on his desk. He picked up a utility knife and tried to cut the seed in half. He thought if he could look inside. . . . He hadn’t wanted to damage his mother’s seed, in case his father should notice. But this one was Manuel’s, so he could do whatever he wanted, right? He held the seed steady and pushed the tip of the knife into its shiny red surface. The seed’s outer shell was so hard the knife just slid off the side, leaving a faint scratch mark. Manuel tried again and again, to no avail. More scratches.

  “¿Manuel, qué pasa?” His father’s voice echoed up from his study downstairs. Manuel’s dad stayed up late most nights, in his study with the door closed. But he insisted Manuel be in bed with lights out at a “decent hour.” That had been his mother’s term. Times like this he missed his mother most—when he was staying up too late and she would come into his room, take the book or the paper or the lab experiment out of his hands, and make him go to bed. She knew he’d stay up all night, especially if there was something he needed to figure out. He wished she were here now, so he could ask her about the seed.

  “Nada, papá!” Manuel called down. “Un minuto más!” He hooked the seed up to the electrodes as he had done for his mother’s seed. This one was newer; maybe it still had some detectable electromagnetic activity. He tested it several times. Nothing happened. He finally gave up.

  The lights in his room flickered off and then on again. Strange, he thought. That had happened the last time he was experimenting on the seed. But then again, he was always experimenting when he was in his room. And they lived on a country road with exposed electric wires, which were constantly getting blown around in the wind.

  Manuel unhooked the seed and picked it up. Useless, he thought again. Completely useless.

  This thing could never protect him from the enemy. He’d seen the work of that enemy up close. He’d been pretty scared the last time.

  How could a seed be a shield anyway? That was just it. It couldn’t. What if it was just supposed to plant an idea in his brain—an idea! Seed . . . plant! That was it! Ruwach gave them useless seeds in order to plant ideas in their minds about how they could create a real shield—one that would really protect them.

  Manuel knew just what he was going to do. He would build his own shield! One that would be able to stop arrows and sword blows and maybe even bullets.

  “¡Manuel, a acostarse!” Manuel’s father shouted, more aggravated. “Get to bed now!”

  “Okay, papá!” Manuel called back. He jumped up and went to the bathroom, setting the seed down on the counter so he could brush his teeth. When he was done he looked at the seed and shook his head. “Guess I don’t need you anymore.”

  He turned toward the toilet and tossed it in.

  And then, he flushed.

  Chapter 10

  An Old Friend

  The last bell rang, and Levi picked up his coat and skateboard from his locker then went to catch the bus to the Cedar Creek Recreational Center. Every day seemed longer than the last. He didn’t mind school that much, he just wished it wouldn’t take so long.

  He was excited about going to the Rec today because Xavier had asked him to show him some new skating tricks. It took a lot for Xavier to give up a day of basketball to skateboard with him.

  When he jumped onto the bus, he saw Brianna in the seat in front of Xavier, facing backward on her knees to talk to him.

  “Hey,” Levi said, sitting down beside her. She turned around in the seat and smiled at him.

  “Hi, Levi!”

  “Hey,” Xavier said with his customary head nod. Levi nodded back.

  “Ready to skate?” Levi said.

  “Sure,” said Xavier. “I don’t have a board though.”

  “No worries. We have plenty at the Rec. We’ll do some noseslides today,” Levi said. “Start with some simple stuff.”

  “Uh—okay,” said Xavier. “Just go easy on me.”

  Brianna nudged Levi and opened her backpack to show him her seed in its bedazzled case.

  “What do you think?”

  Levi shook his head, laughing. “Figures.”

  “You got yours?” She leaned in closer, expecting him to open up his backpack too.

  But he didn’t offer.

  “Yeah, I got it. Somewhere.” He’d totally forgotten about the seed until that moment. But he hadn’t taken it out of the backpack, so he was sure it was still in there. It had been six days since they’d gone to Ahoratos, and not a word had come from Ruwach. Levi had started to wonder if keeping the seed was even worth it at all.

  “What about you?” Brianna asked Xavier.

  “It’s at home,” Xavier said.

  Brianna’s voice became a hoarse whisper. “Ruwach told us to keep it with us all the time!” she said.

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t want it to get lost. I figured it would be safer at home.”

  Brianna made a “tsk tsk” noise with her tongue. “You’re gonna get in tro-uble. . . .” she said, dragging out the last word so it sounded like two.

  “No, I’m not,” Xavier said. “Besides, it’s just a little seed. It doesn’t do anything.”

  “Ruwach said it was a shield,” Levi said. “What do you think he meant by that?”

  “No idea,” said Xavier.

  “I wish we’d gotten real shields,” Levi said. “Or at least gotten whatever is in our locked rooms.”

  “What do you suppose is in there anyway?” Brianna asked.

  “More weapons, maybe,” said Levi. “Or jet packs. Or invisibility cloaks. Or turbocharged skateboards!”

  “Exploding pens,” said Xavier, laughing.

  “A rocket-propelled bicycle!” said Brianna.

  For the rest of the bus ride, they continued thinking up extravagant ideas of what could be hidden in their locked rooms.

  * * *

  Evan was standing in front of the rec center when the bus pulled up to the curb. “Where’s Manuel?” he asked as his friends piled off.

  “Don’t know. Probably went home,” Levi said. “He said he had a big project he was working on. He’s being all secretive about it.” He shook his head. “Manuel’s really upset about the whole seed thing.”

  “Don’t you think it’s weird that his mom had the exact same seed?” Brianna said.

  “Manuel told me the seed comes from South America, where his mom was from,” Evan said. “So that’s probably where she got it. Maybe people there collect them, for some reason.”

  “But why would Ruwach give us the same seed?” asked Brianna.

  “Who knows what Ruwach is up to half the time,” said Evan with a big sigh. “That guy is so confusing.”

  “You’re just easily confused,” Xavier said, punching his little brother on the shoulder playfully. “It makes perfect sense to me. This is a test.”

  “That’s what I think too,” Levi sa
id. “He gave us the seeds to see if we’d be responsible with them or lose them.”

  “Yeah, and to see if we will really trust him,” Xavier added. “Remember all the crazy instructions we got the last time? Like walking into the sandstorm?”

  “And going into the Fortress of Chaós,” said Brianna.

  “You’d think just one time we could get an instruction that made sense,” Evan said, throwing up his hands. He was thinking of how he’d tossed his seed in the pond. He wondered if he should have done that. He certainly hadn’t followed Ruwach’s—or The Book’s—instructions.

  Mr. J. Ar came out to greet the kids, giving each one a high-five and asking how their day had gone.

  “We’re going to skate today,” Levi told his dad, indicating Xavier.

  “Oh, really?” said Mr. J. Ar, glancing at Xavier, who shrugged. “Fine by me. But I’ve got a game starting in five minutes, so I’d better get going.”

  The kids followed Mr. J. Ar into the building. Levi stopped when he saw an old, rusty pickup truck pulling into the parking lot. It had the words “Creekside Landscaping” in white lettering on the driver’s door. A young man got out, tall and lanky with sandy hair. He reached around to the bed of the truck and pulled out a chainsaw and some other tools.

  Levi stared at the man a long time.

  He looked familiar.

  “Levi, what’s up, man?” Xavier called from the doorway. “You coming?”

  “Hold up,” Levi said. He started walking toward the man, who was headed toward a large broken limb hanging from a nearby tree.

  “Hey!” Levi shouted, breaking into a trot. The man was walking away from him and didn’t hear. It has to be him, Levi thought. He’d know that guy anywhere. “Guys, look! It’s him!” he called back to his friends as he ran.

  Brianna looked closely at the man Levi was headed toward and then broke into a wide smile. “It is!” she said. “Come on, you guys!”