The Allyen (The Story of the First Archimage Book 1)

by Michaela Riley Karr

  Luke was the one to shrug and actually flash a rare grin. “Remember our conversation about giants on the way to Mineraltir?”

  My eyes probably grew as large as orbs. “Yes?”

  “The world calls us giants.” Luke said, glancing at James as if they thought it was hilarious. “We call ourselves Ranguvariians.”

  “Rang-goo-var-ee-ens?” I tried to say it, but gave up till later when I could practice. “But you guys don’t look like giants! You look normal size!”

  “Compared to Lina, everybody is a giant.” James whispered behind his hand to his brother, his other hand leveled out at a little under five feet above ground to show my height. They both laughed heartily.

  “But-…!” I exclaimed, hurt that no one was paying attention to me.

  Rachel moved past us to the unconscious Frederick. She withdrew another feather charm from her pocket, the one of a brilliant green that Frederick had worn while we were in the livery basement. She waved it over his body, and I saw his wounds close up before my very eyes. His expression ceased to be pain-filled and relaxed into sleep while Rachel put the feather around his neck to hide his presence.

  She turned around to me as she hefted the fully-grown man over her shoulder, far heavier than I ever imagined she was able to lift before. Her voice was light, not strained at all. “I would love to answer all your questions, Lina, but we’re not in a good place for that right now. Frederick isn’t going to die, but I still need to tend to the rest of his injuries. Rhydin’s magic is difficult for me to heal.”

  The shaggy-haired James came forward to take my hand, smiling innocently, while Luke put his hand on Sam’s shoulder. I reached up to feel my locket and its warmth to make sure it was still there after the fight and near fall. Their elegant, shard wings appeared once again, not trying to hide them anymore, and the familiar bright light flashed.

  Instantly, we were back at our pitiful campfire in the small, snowy, uninhabited woods of Lunaka. The cold had really settled in now, but I didn’t feel it as I remained intent on finding out more about this Ranguvariian business. Luke and James moved one of our makeshift tents closer to the fire for Rachel to tend to Frederick as much out of the cold and snow as possible. I followed them around like a little child, waiting until they had finished their work so I could ask the myriad of questions floating around in my head.

  Mira came flying out of her tent as soon as she awoke from our noise, reminding me of the hour. It was definitely a few hours past midnight. Her porcelain face was screwed up with worry for her brother as she scrambled to his side. She turned her violet eyes up to James as Rachel continued her healing process, her hands stretched out over Frederick’s ribcage while she hummed a strange tune. Mira’s voice was on the edge of frantic as she spoke, “What happened to him?”

  “King Adam tried to kill him and fake his suicide.” James said hesitantly, his eyes sad. “I apologize. It happened so quickly and subtly in the big crowd. We truly didn’t think Frederick was in danger, being the heir to the throne.”

  Mira nodded slowly, her eyes glancing back and forth until they looked up at the horizon. “I hope you know that we have an even bigger problem.” She pointed south.

  Granted, it was nighttime. But with both moons full tonight along with the shining stars, the sky was decently lit. However, there was no mistaking that the great curtain of Darkness had expanded. It not only covered the west, Mineraltir, and southwest, the Great Desert, but now it had conquered the entire south as well. My heart dove into my stomach.

  Auklia. Auklia was to the south of Lunaka. Auklia was where my brother was. North and east of us were only ocean along with the distant island of Caark, likely too far away. Lunaka was the only kingdom left.

  My voice shook, and my hands began to tremble. “Rachel, please tell me Evan got out of the country before the Darkness came…”

  Rachel hardly heard me, her eyes staring out in front of her as if she had been dealt a brutal blow. Luke placed a hand on her shoulder as it began to quake, stilling her instantly. She didn’t look to me but whispered something that I couldn’t hear, her words tinged with emotion.

  Luke faced me then, his face wiped clean of any sort of feeling. “We can’t get any sort of response from the Ranguvariians that are protecting Evan.”

  My eyes unwillingly closed as I desperately avoided being pulled to the depths of my anxiety. Evan wasn’t coming. He was gone. He couldn’t help me against Duunzer. I had to do this by myself now, and the thought was completely overwhelming. We hadn’t even found the arrowhead yet! I began to stutter, “Surely… Surely, he got out! I mean, we were able to get out of Mineraltir!”

  “Yes, because Xavier figured out it was coming and held it off for as long as he could! If he hadn’t, we would have been sleeping when the Darkness came. Just like Auklia.” Luke’s words became firmer, but his eyes were soft, turning more blue than normal.

  I turned to find Sam behind me and gripped his arm hard for support. He was my calm in the storm, and he stared deeply into my eyes, trying to anchor me to him. His voice was low but audible. “You won’t be alone, Lina. Don’t forget, I have magic, too.”

  I nodded dumbly, swallowing hard as I allowed the thin wave of consolation to wash over me.

  As Rachel returned to healing Frederick, Luke cleared his throat, motioning for us all to sit on our logs around the campfire. “Now. I am sure you have questions, Lina. Go ahead and shoot.”

  My head whirled as Sam sat with me, trying to remember what my questions were, and where I should even start.

  Sam took control at that moment, apparently being just as curious as me for once. “You said you’re called Ranguvariians, but we call you giants. How much of our little giant story is true?”

  James grinned, and Luke revealed a sly smile. “Very little unfortunately, aside from the fact that we live in the mountains. You humans really are quite clueless.”

  My eyes widened as I found my voice. “If you’re not humans, why do you look like them?”

  “An excellent question.” Luke remarked, seeming much happier than I’d ever seen him before. “We are part human. Our grandfather, the Clariion or leader of our people, married a human woman, a princess from the Mineraltin Royal family. Our mother looks about like we do, mostly human with some Ranguvariian qualities.”

  I peeked at Rachel for a split second, because I had always wondered where she had inherited her red hair. It certainly wasn’t a Lunakan trait. She had Mineraltin Royalty in her blood.

  Luke seemed to foresee our next question, so he picked up again. “We are able to perform the Ranguvariian flying spell, or have wings as you call them, as well as the strength and agility of a Ranguvariian. A full-blooded Ranguvariian can be around eight or nine feet tall with eyes that change color with their feelings and pointed ears. James, here, inherited the ears while Rachel received a rather disproportionate height. I was the lucky one who got the eyes.”

  I looked at Luke closely, realizing that I had already noticed his eyes. Always only for an instant, like on the way to Mineraltir when I’d thought they’d flashed to yellow when I nearly fell off the mountain. Normally, I thought of Luke as a very quiet and expressionless person. What if he did that to hide his eyes changing color with his feelings? I eagerly responded, “Is that why you’re always so dull?”

  Luke smiled happily, the first time I’d ever seen such a smile from him. His eyes turned a bright pink. “You are more observant than I thought.”

  I couldn’t help the grin that spread across my face as I turned to James. “And that’s why James always needs a haircut. His shaggy hair hides the ears?”

  James grinned and shoved as much hair as possible to the side, revealing an ear much larger than a human’s with jutting points. It was a wonder his hair could even hide them.

  I turned to Rachel now, unable to see how she was different. She had been listening to the conversation and grinned slightly as she rose, but her freckled expression was still filled w
ith worry. To any stranger, she probably looked fine, but I had known Rachel for nearly three years now. I knew when she was trying not to look worried to others, but it always failed on me.

  She motioned for me to stand before she knelt to the ground. For the first time, I noticed that this made her the same height as me. “Look at our waists,” she said quietly. “They’re in the same place even though I’m kneeling right now. I inherited the long legs of a Ranguvariian, so I always have to wear dresses with low waists to make me look normal. Tall for a woman, but normal proportions at least.”

  I gaped at her, slightly freaked out by the length of her legs at the moment, which ultimately reminded me of how short I was. Rachel rose from her kneeling position and returned to Frederick, obviously not very interested in talking at the moment. I turned back to Luke, who seemed content, but I wasn’t done. “I still have two more questions. Are these feathers you gave us taken from your wings? And, you once told me that you consider yourselves part of a group called the Alyen nou Clarii. Where does that fit in?”

  “What we told you about the Alyen nou Clarii is still true. It is still a group devoted to protecting the Allyen. In Ranguvariian, it means ‘the Allyen’s soldiers’. Our grandfather, Arii, founded it three hundred years ago when Nora became the first Allyen. Our father was one as well, but he was killed by Rhydin when he tried to kidnap you as a child.” Luke’s eyes dipped downward, turning a mix of orange and blue.

  My brow furrowed, and I shot him a confused glance. His words were tugging on my memory, but they led to nothing. They had told me before that Rhydin tried to kidnap me, but it was linked to the blacked-out memory in my mind. Rhydin erased it with magic, they’d told me back when I first learned I was an Allyen. The first thing I remembered afterward was waking up in the middle of the small wood on the way to Auklia and seeing Sam. I was nine and he was ten at the time.

  It used to bother me that I couldn’t remember, but once Rachel told me that the memory had been forcibly erased, I hadn’t thought about it really at all. In fact, I realized with a jolt, I had never even asked for the details. My words were hesitant. “I have no memory of that night. Would you tell me what happened?”

  Luke looked downward. “You were very young, walking home from your friend Cassandra’s house. Rhydin intercepted you, but you were so tired from playing and walking that you were pretty much delirious. He picked you up and headed to Auklia to get Evan. My father and his group were able to sneak up on Rhydin because he cannot sense Ranguvariians. The fight was pretty brutal from what I’ve been told since it’s hard for us to be around his magic. After some time around Rhydin, we lose quite a bit of our strength. My father was the last one standing, but even he was no match for Rhydin…”

  “How did Rhydin not get away with me?” I asked carefully.

  “He couldn’t sense us, but he could hear more Ranguvariians coming. So, he wiped your memory and left you there.” Luke said solemnly. “As for the feather charms, they do come from our flying spell wings. They have healing properties, which is what Rachel is doing right now to Frederick. They also give ordinary people the same presence hiding capability that Ranguvariians have. When you wear our feathers, you become like us and Rhydin can’t sense you.”

  I reached absentmindedly for my neck, feeling my locket, but I snapped to my senses when my fingers could not find the cool, smooth shard of feather. I looked down and nearly screamed, “My feather is gone!”

  Before my mind could even process this, something hard collided with my chest, and I flew backward off the log. My head smashed into the snow, and, when my eyes finally cleared, I saw Luke above me. His nose was inches from my face as he moved to grip me securely around my middle.

  Sam was on his feet in seconds, looking unsure as he stared at the two of us in the snow. He said slowly, “Is that really necessary?”

  James raised his finger. “Core contact with a Ranguvariian does the same thing as a feather. Remember when I had to sit with Frederick and Rachel with Lina down in the livery? That hides presences, too, just much less convenient.”

  Rachel came out of the tent followed by a rather weary Frederick. He had a few bruises still, but he looked far better than he had moments ago. His Royal voice was definitely unharmed. “Since we don’t know how long Lina has been without her feather, I believe it safe to say that Rhydin knows where she is. Duunzer’s coming is imminent.”

  I gasped as I tried to get air in through Luke’s tight hold, and the idea gripped me. “What do we do? We don’t have the arrowhead!”

  Frederick looked at me with his clear blue eyes, and they betrayed his fear. “All we can do now is head to the castle. It’s the only potentially safe place left and much easier to defend than out here in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps, we will have time to search Saarah’s house one last time on the way.”

  Everyone nodded, and it abruptly felt like time was sliding through our fingers. It took an hour to break camp and another to begin heading toward Soläna. We left our tents where they were. After all, we didn’t need them anymore. I tried to ignore the sense of finality this gave me.

  I tied the sash with my sword around my waist and filled my quiver as full as possible with arrows, all with Luke keeping core contact with me. There were only three Ranguvariians to the four of us humans, so we had to travel the old-fashioned way. Luke ended up carrying me most of the way since walking was pretty much impossible.

  By dawn, we reached town, which was quiet and barren. The sun was only barely beginning to rise over the eastern ocean, its rays illuminating Lunaka alone. Only mineworkers were daring to stray from their homes because the churning goliath in the heart of Lunaka stopped for nothing.

  Now that Auklia was taken, I was sure that the people would turn on King Adam. There was no way they’d believe it was a forest fire now. After all, Auklia was a marshland. Fire was generally unheard of there. Plus, what were the odds of all Nerahdis being consumed by fire? Not good, and it showed. Normally people would already be up and about, doing shopping or heading to work or taking children to school. Now, Soläna was merely a ghost town.

  The seven of us quickly made our way to Grandma’s house so we wouldn’t look out of place, but nothing could have prepared me for what we found. Instead of a quaint white house with blue shutters, we found nothing but the bare canyon wall, crumbling to pieces.

  My jaw dropped. The cobblestone road butted up to nothing but dirt. Even the flowers had been reduced to ashes. The yard was filled with the gray stuff, only the barest of outlines left to show where walls once stood. My mind could not fathom it. Her house was simply gone with only some ashes to tell its tale.

  Rachel spoke slowly, “There was nothing from that memory that hinted where it could be?”

  I sighed loudly and one of my hands ripped through my hair as I began to pace. This was totally unexpected. If I didn’t find this arrowhead, we were all going to die, and now the only place where it could be was burnt to the ground!

  As I continued pacing, the boys started shuffling through the ash and dirt, out of lack of anything else to do. Rachel took Luke’s place hugging my back. She watched me for a couple minutes before giving a huff and fingering her sash with one hand.

  In the memory, I had asked Grandma what the arrowhead was. While she hadn’t exactly told me, she did say she wanted to find a better place to hide it. A better place than her bedroom nightstand. Where could have been safer than that? We never found it in her house, and it was obvious that Rhydin hadn’t found it either since his Follower snapped the arrow shaft in half. Grandma must have used magic to conceal it somewhere, otherwise we would have found it months ago.

  Luke kicked something hard. I watched him duck down and inspect a little kettle, then untie his sash, ball it up into his hand, and his sword sprang forth from it. It was the same trick that Rachel taught me to do with my own sash only last night at the Winter Ball. When the kettle turned out to be nothing, I returned to my thoughts.

  Gr
andma wanted the arrowhead somewhere safe. Somewhere likely protected by magic. She wouldn’t have put it in just anything though. She would have put it in something important. The very last thing I had seen in the memory was Grandma pulling the arrowhead out of her bedside drawer and setting it on top of her journal.

  What would she think was important? That no one would accidentally throw away, like an old sash. She didn’t own anything of considerable value. We weren’t Royals after all. It couldn’t be important to just anyone either, otherwise it would have been stolen by a common thief. It could be important only… Only to me! Grandma was going to hand it down to Evan and I! So, she wouldn’t put it in anything a thief would find desirable, only her grandchildren!

  My knees sank to the ground so fast that Rachel nearly dropped me. She chastised me, “Hey! What are you doing?”

  But I didn’t hear her. I was busy unloading the pockets of my cloak. Several items lay before us as I finished, and they were all things that I had taken on the first trip to Grandma’s house. They were all heirlooms that I found important, even though none of the thieves had bothered to carry them off. My grandfather’s battered, tin watch. A small, simple painting of my grandparents on their wedding day. One of Grandma’s favorite hairpins, the only one that hadn’t been taken. Several other small mementos, and Grandma’s journal.

  I nearly stopped breathing as I reached for the little leather volume and flipped through the pages ecstatically. Grandma had specifically taken out her arrowhead and journal to place them together when she said she wanted to find a safer place for it. My fingers shook as I turned to Rachel. “You made my sword disappear into a piece of fabric! Could Grandma have put the arrowhead in this journal?”

  It took Rachel all of two seconds to realize what I meant. She scrambled away from me to stand, pulling me to my feet. “Try to bring it out! I doubt my magic will work!”