Wyrmspire (Realm Keepers Book 2)

by Garrett Robinson

I stepped up behind him. I wanted to put a hand on his arm, but I was afraid of setting him off again.

  “Who was she, Barius?” I said.

  “The Keeper of Water,” he said. “Lady Reiko. My wife.”

  I blinked. “Your…wife? You married a Realm Keeper?”

  He turned back to me. “It is unusual, but not unheard of. Even the immortal can fall in love.”

  Horror coursed through me, and I put a hand over my mouth. I withdrew it immediately, thinking with annoyance that it was the exact sort of thing Sarah would do.

  “Weren’t you there when Terrence killed them?” I said, trying and failing to keep my voice level.

  Barius gave a single, slow nod.

  “Oh, Barius,” I said, turning away and fighting the burning in my eyes. “I’m…I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “You could not have,” said Barius. “We were sworn from the beginning not to tell you. Greystone hoped you would never know anything of the last Realm Keepers until Terrence was safely dead.”

  “Yeah, well, the old man just makes one great call after another,” I said sarcastically. I turned back to him. “Listen, I understand now. And I can’t imagine what it’s like, what you’re going through. But Barius, I’m not kidding. If you leave, how am I supposed to keep going? How do you expect me to be a Realm Keeper without knowing that a big, ugly, grumpy old man is making sure no one stabs me in the back.”

  His eye twitched. “Terrence must pay.”

  “He will,” I said, my voice filling with sudden fervor. “I promise you he will. But where are you going to do more good? Riding off into the middle of his army, or coming with us and helping us take him down?”

  Barius snorted. “You sound like the Watcher. If you order me to stay, then I am bound to serve you. I will not forsake my oaths.”

  I shook my head. “Uh-uh. No orders. Not from me. It’s your choice. I’m just asking…please don’t leave me alone.”

  He was silent a moment. Then, much to my amazement, I saw tears spring into his eyes.

  “You look so much like her,” he said, almost whispering.

  That took me aback. “Like who? Like Reiko?”

  Barius nodded. “She was much older, but your faces are so very much the same. You could have been her daughter.”

  I looked away, unsure of what to say. Then a thought struck me. “Wait, is that why Greystone assigned you to me? Because I looked like Reiko? So you’d want to protect me?”

  Barius slumped a little. He turned back to the pedestal and tied his horse back to it. “You are a Realm Keeper. I would have guarded you with my life either way. And the Watcher never told me his reasons.” He turned and looked me in the eye. “But if you are asking if I think so…yes. Yes, that is precisely what I think.”

  I turned and stared out of the nest into the open sky. “All this time, and I had no idea. I swear, if we live to see Greystone, I’m gonna kill him.”

  “You shouldn’t, you know,” said Barius gruffly. “It’s unkind to harm an old man.”

  I kept from laughing, but couldn’t stop a half-smile. “So does that mean you’re staying?”

  Barius sighed. “I suppose that it does. Don’t sound so surprised.”

  “Never doubted you for a second, grandpa.”

  I woke up in my room at home.

  We’d spent the rest of the day at Wyrmspire in Nightclaw’s nest. There wasn’t a whole lot of talking. The Council meeting hadn’t ended well, from what the others had told me. Now it looked like our whole quest hung on the edge of a knife—any more disturbance, no matter how slight, would spell our failure. Longtooth was the wild card. All we could do was hope that he’d been convinced by Blackscale’s words and our own display of good intent.

  I sat up and threw my blankets off my bare legs, which immediately rose up in goosebumps. My mom was keeping the house cold. That meant she was freaking out about our electric bill again—for no reason, since no matter how high it was my dad never had a problem paying it.

  I went through my shortened morning routine. I’d dropped a few features of my look. Most notable was the white makeup, but since I was so pale anyways, no one had seemed to notice yet. Or else they just didn’t care enough to mention anything or even look at me. Knowing people, it was probably the latter.

  I did my eyeliner and black lipstick, then did a quick little hairdo that dropped my pink highlights right down into the center of my face. I picked a plain outfit and shucked it on, then strapped my boots and headed for the kitchen.

  “Ester!” Emery’s happy cry greeted me the second my boots hit linoleum. I smiled at him and sat down next to his high chair. He had a bowl of Cheerios in front of him—not the normal, grain kind, but the honey nut kind. I’d told my mom over and over again that it wasn’t as healthy, but she kept ignoring me. Typical. Half of the cereal was still in the bowl, and it looked like the other half was spread out on the tabletop part of the high chair. I doubted that much of it had made its way into Emery’s mouth.

  “Good morning, buddy,” I said. “Did you sleep well?”

  “Yeah,” he said, thrusting his spoon into his bowl only to withdraw it a moment later. About a dozen Cheerios spilled off onto the table, but one made the long, perilous trip to his mouth. At least he was getting something, then.

  “Come on,” I said. “Let’s get a little more of that food in your belly.”

  I started choo-choo-training the food into his mouth a spoonful at a time. Once the game started, Emery settled right down and started eating his cereal. After the first couple of spoons, my mom appeared in the kitchen’s back door, dusting herself off.

  “Ester, you know you’re supposed to take out the trash,” she said.

  “You didn’t tell me it was full,” I said quickly. “Choo-choo!” Another spoonful disappeared in Emery’s mouth.

  “Would it kill you to check it every once in a while?” my mom said, reaching into the fridge and pulling out the half and half. She poured it into a cup, then hoisted the coffee pot and began to pour. A bit of milky brown coffee spilled over the side and splashed onto the tile countertop.

  “Would it kill you to watch what you’re doing?” I got up and grabbed a paper towel, using it to sop up the spill. My mom ignored it and went to sit at the table across from Emery. Emery seized his spoon again and launched another dozen Cheerios across the high chair’s tabletop. I swept in, scooped the spoon from his grasp, and began feeding him again.

  “Have they been making any progress at the hospital?” my mom asked. She took a long sip from her cup.

  “It’s not a hospital,” I said. “And I have no idea if they’re making progress or not. I just sleep there. I don’t know what kind of tests they run. I just hope they know what they’re doing.” I’d been the most adamant about refusing to go to Medicorp, so now that we were in the fake facility, I kept up a little pretense of not totally wanting to be there. It also let me give my mom a hard time, which I considered a bonus.

  “Will you sleep there tonight?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “No. Why would I?” We were just waiting on Longtooth’s decision tomorrow, so there was no reason to head back early. That meant that there was no reason to go to the “Medicorp” facility.

  My mom sighed. Almost like she was disappointed. Sometimes I half-thought that she’d pushed the Medicorp thing so hard just to get me out of the house. “I just wish they’d hurry up and figure out what’s wrong with you.”

  “Nothing’s wrong with me, mom,” I said, annoyed.

  “Oh, of course not, sweetie, it’s not your fault,” she said hastily. “But maybe if you’d just spend more time there—”

  “Ugh, whatever, mom,” I said, shoving my chair away from the table and snatching up my backpack. “If you want me out of the house so bad, just say so. I’ll go live with Dad—no problems here.” I darted in and gave Emery a final kiss on the forehead. “See you later, squirt.” I whirled and practically ran out the door w
hile my mom bleated angrily behind me.

  Why did she have to be so terrible? I didn’t have many illusions about being normal. Even before we went to Midrealm, I was the odd one out. And sometimes I wondered if I was doing it because it was what I really wanted to do, or if I was doing it just to tick off my mom.

  I guess it didn’t matter in the end. It was better than the alternative: looking and acting like everyone else.

  I had to run the last half-block to the bus stop because I saw it rolling along behind me. I was the last kid on the bus. I stomped up in my four-inch boots and began to scan the bus for an empty seat when I saw a familiar face.

  Ember gave me a wave and motioned me over.

  I sank into the seat beside her with relief. “I thought you’d catch the next one,” I said. “Aren’t you up kind of early?”

  Ember looked at her hands, clasped together in her lap. “Yeah. I leave the house earlier these days. My folks finished the split, and I don’t like being home so much any more. Not that it was a picnic before.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, staring at my own hands. “I didn’t know they’d finished that.”

  “Yeah. They pushed it through kind of fast. I think…I think they both wanted to move on.”

  I took one of her hands in my own, giving it a warm squeeze. “You okay?”

  She blinked twice and looked up to gaze out the bus window, avoiding my eyes. “He hasn’t said it yet, but I’m pretty sure my dad is seeing someone else.”

  “What?” I said, taken aback. I tried to remember the last time I’d talked to Ember. It couldn’t have been more than a week ago, and she didn’t tell me about the divorce then. “It’s only been a few days, and he’s already…you know…”

  She finally looked at me with a sad little smile. “Yeah, well. I don’t even know if it is new, if he wasn’t doing it before. Which, knowing my dad…”

  She trailed off and looked back at her hands—one free and clear, the other wrapped in mine. I lifted my left arm and put it around her shoulders. She lay her head on my left shoulder comfortably and gave a long, heavy sigh.

  “I’m really, really sorry, Ember,” I said. “Just don’t forget to talk to me if you need to talk.”

  “I know,” she said. “I just want to get away from it. I feel like all I do is go to school and go home again. Ivory’s all weird these days. She totally doesn’t want to hang out. And you…well, I know you’ve got that new place, where you sleep sometimes, and you can’t always…”

  I gave her a sideways hug with the arm around her shoulders. “No. Of course I can. Let’s go see a movie this weekend or something. Anything that will keep you out of the house for a few hours.”

  “I don’t even know what’s out.”

  Like an answer from above, I saw a billboard as we passed it by. It was all black, with the picture of a golden dog with red eyes. Foam dripped from its snarling mouth.

  “Ooh, Rabid comes out this weekend!” I said. “I’ve been waiting for that forever!”

  “Okay, listen,” Ember began, “just because you’re creepily obsessed with horror films—”

  I shoved her away and smirked. “Fine then. You pick a movie, and I pick Rabid. We watch both of them. That’ll keep us out of the house for hours.”

  “Sounds like a deal.” A smile finally flitted across her mouth, disappearing almost as soon as it had come. “Thanks, Rave.”

  “Of course,” I said, giving her hand a final squeeze before placing it gently back in her lap. “You know I care about you, right? You’re my best friend. Nobody could take that away.”

  The smile flitted back, flitted away.

  The rest of the bus ride passed in silence, and my thoughts drifted back to Midrealm. Then back to my mom. Then to Midrealm again.

  Then they took another turn entirely.

  “You know, I think I’m going to ditch school today,” I said.

  “You are?” said Ember, cocking an eyebrow.

  “Yeah. Got something else I’ve been meaning to do. I’ll be useless in school, anyway.”

  Recognition flashed in her eyes. “You’re going to visit him? Do you want me to come?”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t like seeing him with anyone else there. That’s why I want to go now. Everyone’ll be at work.”

  I waited until the bus pulled to a halt at the next stop, then got up out of my seat. I pushed my way to the front of the bus right before the door opened. The bus driver, a massive, warty troll of a woman whose name I could never remember, glowered up at me from her seat.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she growled.

  “I’m getting off,” I said. “I have somewhere else to be.”

  She blinked twice, like my words were in a foreign language. “You’re supposed to be going to school,” she said.

  “Well, I’m not,” I said. “Now are you going to open the door and let the other kids on, or are we going to sit here all day so no one can go to school at all?”

  Her hand hesitated on the lever that would open the door. She stared through the glass—a gaggle of kids waited outside, looking back at her in confusion.

  Finally her mouth twisted in a scowl, and she opened it. Before the kids could shove themselves in, I leaped down the steps and pushed my way through the crowd. I got a few odd looks, but I’d never been a stranger to that. A few seconds later, the rumble of the bus engine faded away down the street.

  I only had another block to walk to hit the regular bus stop, and five minutes later, the one I wanted showed up. I hopped aboard and took a ten-minute ride to Cranston’s version of downtown, which consisted of a smattering of buildings taller than five stories, plus a whole lot of smaller ones. Ten minutes after that, I’d found the hospital and signed in as a guest. All told, it had taken me less than an hour to get here. It made me wonder why I didn’t do it more often—but then, of course, I already knew the answer to that question.

  I took the elevator to the sixth floor and walked down the hall to the room. As I got closer, I realized with a shock how long ago it seemed since I’d been here last. It had only been a few months—but that meant it was before I became a Realm Keeper. It seemed like several lifetimes ago. Since then, I’d faced death more than once. I’d fought in a war. Was still fighting in one. I’d met wizards and elves and dragons. I’d fled for my life across the world and defended a city.

  I hadn’t been normal for a long time, but now I was something completely out of this world.

  My hand found the doorknob. I paused for a moment, then twisted it and pushed it open.

  There he was, lying on the hospital bed. The only sound in the room was the steady beep, beep, beep of a heart rate monitor. That was a sound I was all too familiar with these days. From the time we’d first come back from Midrealm to all the time we were spending in the fake facility with Anna and Briggs, it felt like I spent more time hooked up to machines than without them.

  Just like him.

  He had a giant plastic mask fixed to his face. A long, thick tube ran from the mask off the side of the bed and hooked up to the machine that helped him breath. He had a tube in both arms—one of the liquids pumping into him was clear, and the other one was a light brown color. I knew that more tubes ran under his hospital gown and into the bags hooked to the side of his bed, but I didn’t like to think about them.

  His eyes were closed. Of course. It was rare for them to open these days. When they did, the doctors said it was just a reflex. That he couldn’t really see anything. My mom denied it. She said they opened because he heard us. I knew she was wrong for two reasons: one, she knew as much about medicine as I knew about quantum physics; and two, she was my mother.

  I didn’t speak. Didn’t say “hi, grandpa,” like I always had to when I visited him with my family. I just sat with him. All of them thought that talking to him would help. I knew they were wrong. They liked to pretend he was still alive. Still there with them. He wasn’t. This body was a husk
now. There was nothing left, no spark, nothing moving, nothing thinking. They were keeping it alive for themselves, not for him. If by some strange chance he was still here, I couldn’t imagine a more tortuous existence.

  I hoped, for his sake, that he really was dead.

  It wouldn’t be long before my mom got a call from the school asking where I was. It wouldn’t be much longer after that before she started blowing up my phone. I’d probably just go to dad’s place tonight. It would be easier.

  I kicked my heels up on the end of the bed, gave grandpa a nod, and closed my eyes to rest.

  DOOM

  CALVIN

  DARREN SAT BESIDE ME IN Nightclaw’s nest as we munched through another meal and waited for the Council to reconvene. We hadn’t received any word about when it was going to happen. And it felt like most of what we had done on Wyrmspire since we got here was sit in Nightclaw’s nest and eat and wait.

  “Some delegates we turned out to be,” I muttered.

  “What was that, my Lord?” said Darren.

  “Nothing,” I said, shaking my head. “I just want to get up off my butt. Look around. Do something. I don’t know. I hate waiting. Inigo Montoya said that.”

  Darren looked at me for a long time, trying to work this around in his head. Finally he rubbed his eyes and said, “Of course, Lord Calvin.”

  “I think I want to go back to the temple,” I said thoughtfully.

  Darren tensed beside me. “Lord Calvin, please don’t do that.”

  “Oh, come on!” I said. “I didn’t even get to explore all of it. We came back down after only seeing two rooms.”

  “Lord Calvin, when you went up there, I was completely unable to protect you,” said Darren.

  “I didn’t need protection!” I said. “I was with Blackscale.”

  “What is that, little Keeper?” said Blackscale. He was resting on the warm stone just outside Nightclaw’s nest. He swiveled his head around on his long neck to look at me.

  I pushed myself up from the stone and went to speak with him. With a resigned sigh, Darren rose to come with me.