When Silver Moons Rise (Lost Immortals Saga #2) (25 page)

Don’t be stupid. He’s not your brother.

Ditch the weak thoughts, man.

If Seth agrees to sail ahead of Father and me tomorrow, he will be the one to whisper the secret phrase to the Ferryman. Father will never even know Seth was around. I’m banking on his curiosity, the desire to know something about what the Light Keeper has for our Father, to come through on this one. Then Mother’s fears will never come to pass, because Father will be saved from whatever the Ferryman might do.

“Fine. I’ll help you. But I want something in return,” he says. Of course he does. He’s one of the fallen. I didn’t expect anything less.

“Name your price.” I keep my gaze locked on his.

He scoffs a laugh. Asa glances uneasily between the two of us. I already know I’m not going to enjoy hearing these terms. “A promise. I need for you to keep your word. Deal?”

This time, I’m the one who smirks. “Filling me in on a little more detail would be helpful here,” I answer.

“I need for you to keep Asa’s involvement in all of this a secret. Not one word of her being out here today, to no one. No matter how trivial you think the person to be. No matter how bad the situation might become.” He glances at Asa and smiles. “Even if our lovely sister tries to convince you to do otherwise.”

“That makes no sense. Is there a reason you’re asking me to promise something before I even have cause to do so?” I ask.

“Not at all. I have only my sister’s best interests at heart,” he says and pulls Asa closer to his body. I don’t believe him. I can almost bet this part of the agreement won’t work in my favor. Leave it to Seth to use my own meeting to make himself look better.

“Easy enough,” I say, even though heaviness forms in my chest. Something about Seth’s simple demand bothers me more than if he would’ve just asked me to do something crazy. He knows how Father feels about him returning to the palace. Why would any of us say anything? This must be some pitiful attempt on his part to make me look bad in front of Asa.

“You hesitate. I’m surprised, considering all you’ve risked to bring me here tonight,” Seth says. “It’s a simple thing really, to agree to protect
our
sister.”

“I’ll take the blame for whatever invisible problem exists in your head. You have my word.” I say the four words I’ll regret speaking for the rest of my life.

The next day, Father and I set sail toward Genlarka. The skies overhead beam a sunny welcome as we take off across the sea on Father’s royal vessel. I stall and give Seth plenty of time to sail ahead of us so he can speak with the Ferryman. Nothing bad happens as Father and I make our way across the sea. I’m beginning to think I’ve been too judgmental with Seth. Maybe I should try harder to see any good qualities in him the way Asa obviously does.

At the Ferryman’s crossing, a wooden pier that leads up to a small shack, the brown-robed man who never shows his face allows us to pass. Seth has kept his part of the bargain. I almost give my secret plan away when I make a happy move beside Father. We sail onward and reach the island shortly before nightfall.

Inside a temple on the island, we meet with the Light Keeper, a girl named Leezra Konkrin. She gives Father a box and asks him to guard the scroll inside it at all times. More conversation I’m not allowed to hear passes between the two.

Leezra is beautiful. The drop-dead-fall-in-love-right away kind, something I don’t really believe in. But hey, I am a guy. I can still appreciate beauty.

We set sail for home. Father keeps the conversation with Leezra a secret, but I can tell the meeting worries him. It’s in the way he stands and stares out across the sea during our two-day journey back home. His strong brow holds a frown. I wonder if the Light Keeper who also has the power of reading a king’s future has revealed something to make him keep to himself this way.

We reach the shores located about a quarter of a mile away from our palace. I smell the smoke in the air before I see the cause of it spiraling from in the direction of our home. A fire. The forest situated across from the shores seems fine; but up ahead, a large blaze rages around the area where our palace is situated.

A heated wind rushes around us. My gaze darts around, taking in everything at once. My breathing quickens, and I can’t help but to feel the lead in my chest warns me about what I’ll find back at the palace. Father and I race back home, running our horses into the ground. As soon as we round the bend in the road leading up to the house, I discover my fears are justified.

Flames race around the outside of the house. The servants and guards run all around us, gathering buckets of water and tending to the wounded. Some kind of fight or battle has taken place while we were gone.

Father and I dismount our horses and run toward the house, stopping at a point where we can fully take in the situation. Asa races over to where we stand. “Father, I can’t find Mother, anywhere. She’s not with the rest of the people who were taken from the house,” she says through gasping breaths.

“What do you mean, girl?” he says, grasping Asa’s shoulders, his face wild with fear.

“Mother’s still in there!” Asa screams. I step over to my sister and place my hands on her trembling shoulders.

Father’s face storms with a fierceness, a loss of control I have never seen him show to any of us. He stalks over to me, removes the box containing the scroll Leezra Konkrin gave him, and meets my gaze with his wild one as he places the box into my hands.

What does he know that he’s not telling me? I know the Light Keeper told him something.

The hesitation in his actions makes me think he expected to find this ambush when we returned. “Guard this box with your life, my son. If anything happens to me, then you will need to find a way to carry it through our doorways. Bardonia’s survival, our people’s future, depends on what’s inside it. Watch over your sister.” His voice breaks, and he squeezes his eyes shut as though he’s fighting some kind of inner struggle.

I don’t understand what’s going on. The confusion warring inside me feels almost as painful as the finality in Father’s words. He springs into action before I can find my voice. And when I do, the words come out as a mixture between a roar and a scream. “Father, no!” I start to run behind him. Asa grabs on to my shoulders, holding me back. A group of palace guards take off running behind him.

“No, Faris. Let the guards do their job.” An explosion from inside the house knocks us both on our backs. We shuffle to our feet, lean on each other, and watch our home burn to the ground. Mother’s garden, the trees in Asa’s forest, Father’s game room: all of it gone.

We stand and wait for what feels like hours as the guards work to put out the fire. Asa’s tears cover the entire left side of my shoulder and chest. The box Father gave me has left an indent in my right arm just before it went numb. I don’t cry. I don’t blink. Hell, I don’t even think I’m breathing.

Seth somehow made this happen. You know he did.

It doesn’t matter how he helped Father’s ship cross the Adoral Sea. This entire scene has Bernael and his fallen servants’ names written all over it.

Neither one of our parents come out of the palace. Mabry, Father’s newly appointed alchemist, approaches Asa and me. “Children, come with me,” he says, his voice stern and his face serious. Asa turns away first. She steals one glance back at what’s left of our home before she allows the lady who assists the alchemist to lead her away from the scene.

“Come, Prince Indrail. It is no longer safe for us to remain here,” he says, his voice soothing, but not convincing enough to make me leave. “The Tainted will return. I cannot allow Bernael to have you as well.”

I can’t tear my gaze away from the palace. Sharp pains shoot through my clenched left fist. Mabry takes my hand in his own and squeezes. The pressure causes me to glance away from our house. My hand is covered in blood where my fingernails have broken the skin. The trembling begins in my legs first and then moves to my gut before the fiery anger attacks my arms. It takes all of Mabry’s strength to pull me away from the scene, and every ounce of my willpower to control the creature inside me.

Later that week, a trial begins. Bardonia is in an uproar. The TriGate alchemists have taken over ruling the lands, since Zanas Indrail’s queen was never found and his son is unfit to rule. The Court leaders pin the cause of the fire on the Tainteds and the fact that the protection veil on the king’s palace was down. A witness has come forth and placed Seth at the scene of Mother’s ball the day before the king left for the Adoral Islands. Mabry tells me the girl’s name. Rabia. Of course the person who cursed all of Lord Indrail’s heirs would come forth as a witness and testify against them. This is what she wanted all along. She and Seth have obviously been working together the whole time.

I confess to everything: releasing the veil, bargaining with a Tainted, and endangering the lives of all my people. Father taught me well. He used to say a man should always stand up for two things in this life: his love and his honor. All of life’s issues basically fall somewhere under those two categories. The destruction of the royal family rests on my shoulders…and Seth’s, someone who I now hate with all I have in me. Someone who is responsible for his own father’s death.

I take all of the blame; just as I promised Seth I would do. On the day I’m to be sentenced, Asa begs me to let her confess to her part as well. “No. I need for you to find the doorway Father described. The one you’ll take this box through,” I explain. She has mastered the Silver Magic inside of her mind. Rabia hasn’t destroyed everything about us. Locating and creating alternate doorways comes easy for Asa. “The fate of our people now rests in your hands.”

“I can’t go to the human lands without you,” she whispers furiously.

“Then we’ll go away together,” I say, even though I know my assistance will only do her more harm than good.

I’m a disgrace, a shame to the Indrail name, now. My punishment will be a banishment of some type, I’m sure. Or even worse. I could be facing a quick death, a box lined with spikes that push through your body until you bleed to death.

Either way, I can’t let that happen just yet. If I have to live life as an exile, I might as well do it with honor in a place where I can still have a chance to fight for my people. We make plans to leave in the morning, before my trial, and to find our contact on the other side.

Everything goes well, at first. Asa finds the doorway. We make our way through to the human’s world. But fate’s crappy sense of humor never allows me to have one single moment of happiness. An ambush waits on the other side. Asa and I are separated. She’s pulled through a doorway created by dark magic, and I’m left to die as I hold on to Father’s box. And then a fledgling finds me lying in the bushes not too far from a safe house for demon slayers.

Several decades later, I finally meet the girl who was destined to receive that scroll. Chela Prizeon. My Jewel Face. She beat herself up the night she read the scroll for me; saying how I’d lost so much while trying to get it to her. Little did she know how dead on her statement really was.

I couldn’t tell her just how much I have lost. I’ll never tell her. I do know that our destinies are crossed. Her path leads to me, and my fight ends with her. I guess it was only natural to fall in love with the main reason you have to keep on living after experiencing so much heartache and pain.

I’m ripped back to the present time as sharp pains attack my gut. I bite down on my bottom lip, attempting to ground the pain. No luck. The thing inside me wants out. The bones in my shoulders snap first and then more cracks and breaks travel up my arm, painfully attacking one limb at a time. No matter how many times I make this change, nothing ever prepares me for the intensity of the pain when I turn on each night of December’s silver moon.

Images of Mother and Father flicker through my mind, they’re laughter stirring something inside me. They dance inside of a ballroom. My parents loved each other so much. Asa and I were happy to watch them, both vowing to treat our families this way some day. No, I didn’t say this to my sister; but even I had to admit the way Father treated Mother softened my views on love.

I scream through my teeth. Sweat beads pop out all over me. I pull harder against the chains, straining until my body trembles. The metal gives way even more.

I think of Father’s face just before he ran into the burning house to save Mother whom I never saw again. Many years later, I learned of how the queen was spotted wandering around the forests, a victim of some cruel memory loss curse that one of Bernael’s witches placed on her mind. A group of nuns who live on the Adoral Isle took her in. Exiled from Bardonia and broken in spirit, I couldn’t do a thing to rescue Mother.

The magic that fuels the Beast spell soars through my body, filling me with a new strength. I pull against the galena chains holding on to me.
You caused your Father’s death. You led him straight into a trap set up by Seth and his Tainted friends.
I gasp, cry out, and tremble. Not from fear. Instead, it comes from the fury inside me. Visions of my father’s face still haunt me, even after all this time. And then there is the knowledge that my mother spent the remainder of her years lost inside a prison created by her own mind. I can’t even do a damn thing about it.

Thunder booms through the area. Only the sound doesn’t come from a storm. The carrier of my darkness, the Beast inside me roars, his booming voice spilling forth from my lips. Fine black hairs sprout on my arms and legs. I no longer want to hold the animal inside me. Chela needs me. She’s in danger. Her heart beats the same as mine, and I belong to her. The fear she’s experiencing, the sadness ripping her soul apart clouds my mind. But there’s another presence.

Something has come in between our bond.
Curse it!
This thing doesn’t want me to reach her. Nothing can keep me from her, though. With these thoughts racing through my mind, I fully transform in a matter of seconds, breaking the bonds that have held on to me over the past three months.