Souls of Aredyrah 2 - The Search for the Unnamed One
Read Souls of Aredyrah 2 - The Search for the Unnamed One Online
Authors: Tracy A. Akers
Tags: #teen, #sword sorcery, #young adult, #epic, #cousins, #slavery, #labeling, #superstition, #coming of age, #fantasy, #royalty, #romance, #quest, #adventure, #social conflict, #mysticism, #prejudice, #prophecy, #mythology, #twins
Series
by
Gold Medal Winner
The Florida Book Awards 2007
Young Adult Literature
The Search for the Unnamed One
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2007, 2010, 2011 Tracy A.
Akers
All rights reserved under United States,
International and
Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
Smashwords Edition
License Notes
No part of this book may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any
information storage or retrieval system -except for brief quotes
used in reviews- without the written permission of the author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual
events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.
Ruadora Publishing
P.O. Box 3212
Zephyrhills, FL 33539
Front Cover and Interior Art: Annah
Hutchings; copyright © Tracy A. Akers
by
William F. Nolan
T
he heartening thing
about writing in any genre is that there is always room for new
talent. The door to creativity is never closed. If an individual,
man or woman, has a talent for putting words on paper, and works
hard at his or her craft, readers will respond favorably. This is
true of all genres, from romance to westerns, from sports to
sci-fi, from hard-boiled to high fantasy.
Tracy Akers writes high fantasy. She is a new
voice to be heard, a new talent to discover and savor. With the
first two books in her “Souls of Aredyrah” series, she has firmly
established her place in the popular genre of high fantasy. If you
enjoy reading about mystical realms, magic potions, and handsome
princes, of legendary gods and wicked kings, of conflict and
sacrifice, then Tracy Akers is for you.
She delivers fully-realized characters and
genuine emotion. In the volume you hold in your hands, book two of
her ongoing series, the stakes are high for Reiv, her teenaged
protagonist. He achieves vivid life in these pages, and the reader
shares his defeats and his ultimate triumphs.
Here is high fantasy written with vigor and
imagination, providing readers with new worlds to experience, new
challenges, new romance. Here is a zest for life!
There are several characters who figure in
the action of this new novel, and each is presented in deeply
humanistic terms. The reader gets to know each of them in the
course of a stirring narrative, and each has a pivotal role to play
in the special world created by Tracy Akers.
Yes, indeed, there is always room for a
dedicated new writer in the vast landscape of popular
literature—and Tracy Akers now stands alongside so many others who
continue to give readers the thrills that only proven talent can
provide.
High Fantasy. High Talent. Welcome to
Aredyrah.
William F. Nolan
Author of the
Logan’s Run
series
Book Two of the Souls of
Aredyrah Series
by
Table of Contents
Introduction by William F. Nolan
Chapter 17. Birth of the Clans
Chapter 18. Coronation of Evil
Preview of Book Three: The
Taking of the Dawn
T
he air in the
catacombs was thick and damp and filled with the odor of human
waste and lingering decay. Whyn pulled the stench through his
nostrils and into his lungs, his belly tightening with a desire
that tingled to his toes. It was not the same desire he felt for
Cinnia, his wife, nor for any woman who had ever pleased him. This
was different, and yet the effect it had on him was as powerful as
an aphrodisiac.
Whyn stared at the slender back of the
Priestess who walked but steps ahead of him. She possessed a beauty
unlike any woman he had ever seen, and an ugliness he found equally
attractive. She seemed to float on air, her long white hair swaying
at her back, the hem of her pastel gown trailing behind her. As
Whyn gazed at her, he realized the ache in his belly was for her,
but it was not like that of a man for a woman. It was more like
that of a soul craving sustenance. Until recently, he had only
thought of the Priestess as an authority figure; even now he feared
her more than longed for her. But for some reason the need to drink
her in was overwhelming. It was as though she were a separate part
of himself, and he had only to fill himself with her to find
completion.
He glanced past her toward the light in the
corridor ahead. A grizzled old man shuffled several paces in front
of them through the twisting darkness. The lantern in the man’s
hand swayed, its golden orb casting eerie shadows upon the walls.
One by one grimy doors came into view. Wide eyes watched through
tiny, barred windows, only to melt into blackness as the lantern
passed.
A hand clawed toward the light, the pale face
behind it momentarily revealed. “Mercy, good Prince,” a woman’s
voice rasped.
Whyn kept his eyes forward, daring not to
look at the woman, nor to acknowledge her plea. She was only a
Jecta, and no doubt an insurgent bent on the destruction of
Tearia.
“Does this place pain your heart, my young
Prince?” the Priestess asked, pausing to face him.
“No, Priestess,” Whyn replied. “It lifts my
spirits.”
The Priestess smiled, her porcelain skin and
gold-painted features reflecting her satisfaction through the
darkness.
She flashed her eyes toward the old man.
“You,” she ordered. “Leave us.”
The man turned and nodded, then bowed his way
back down the corridor from which they had come, taking the lantern
with him.
Whyn and the Priestess stood in the dimness.
The only light to guide them now was an occasional torch bracketed
to the wall. Wynn struggled to focus on his surroundings, listening
to the sound of his own rapid breathing and the melancholy drip of
water somewhere in the distance.
The Priestess brushed past him. Clutching a
shoulder bag close to her body, she ducked into a passage that
branched from the main artery. She motioned Whyn in and led him in
the direction of what looked like a distant orifice, its circular
glow like that of a red eclipse on a starless night. As Whyn
followed at her back, it seemed to him that the Priestess was a
beautiful phantom lit from within, leading him to a mysterious
world to which he would soon be privy.
Moans and hushed whispers wafted from the
endless line of cells that they passed. How many people were
imprisoned in this place? Whyn wondered. Hundreds, it seemed. But
he knew there would soon be thousands…or perhaps there would be
none. After the Purge, there would no longer be any need to keep
prisoners, no longer any need to waste the food and manpower on
them. Now with Whyn’s father, the King of Tearia, dead, there was
nothing to stop the Priestess from her magnificent plan.
The air became steamy, the stench more
pungent. The orifice loomed larger now, but still seemed very
distant. No longer did it look like the glow of a moon, but more
like the mouth of a great furnace, its door rimmed by the flames
that burned behind it. Sweat dripped down Whyn’s neck and slid over
his chest, leaving the thin, gold-colored material of his tunic
plastered against his skin. A chill raced through him. Strange how
he could feel both hot and cold at the same time. It was as though
his flesh had been set afire while at the same time his insides had
been turned to ice.
“Here is where we will find answers to the
Prophecy,” the Priestess said, halting before a door much like any
other.
Whyn stopped, his eyes gazing toward the red
circle of light at the far end of the corridor. He felt an
overwhelming urge to continue toward it, as though it was somehow
beckoning him.
“You will not be going to that place today,”
the Priestess said, recognizing the longing in his eyes.
Whyn nodded and turned his attention to the
door before them. A flicker of candlelight could be seen beyond the
barred window, a luxury none of the other prisoners were
allowed.
“Who is kept in this place?” he asked.
“The last of the Memory Keepers,” the
Priestess said. She lifted a key from a peg on the wall, rattled it
in the lock, then pushed the door open and entered the cell.
Whyn followed and surveyed his surroundings.
The room was glittered with candles, revealing tomes and parchments
stacked against walls and littering the small wooden table at the
room’s center. In the far corner rested a pallet of straw covered
by a tattered blanket. An old woman lay upon it, her bony frame
pulled into the fetal position.
“Tenzy, raise yourself,” the Priestess
commanded. “I do not give you light to sleep by.”
The old woman stirred and blinked herself
awake, then raised her frail body from the floor. Pulling her ratty
shawl around her shoulders, she eyed Whyn with interest. For a
moment it seemed as though she recognized him, but there was no way
she could have. He had never been to this dismal place, and she had
surely never been within the sunlit walls of Tearia.
“The light,” Tenzy whispered, staring hard at
Whyn.
“Yes, fool woman,” the Priestess hissed. “I
give you light to find answers within these parchments, not to
sleep by.”
The woman’s eyes darted toward the Priestess,
then back at Whyn. Her face grew grim. “My error, Priestess. No
light here,” she said.
“That can be arranged,” the Priestess said.
“Let me catch you sleeping one more time when you should be working
and you will find yourself in the darkness like the rest.”