Sacred: Eslura's Calling Read online

  From the bottom of her spine, a tail coiled out like a snake. Claws stretched outward from her fingertips. Horns thrust from her head, and fur stretched down her back, blustering in the wind. Purple scales rose from her skin, reflecting the sunlight as she steadied on a gust of wind. She soared upward, into the puffy grey clouds. The massive, floating city shrunk to the size of a pebble and disappeared below her as she beamed up toward the heavens.

  She flew until the sun fell behind the mountains and a blanket of stars wrapped the sky, stopping only when a flash of golden light nearly blinded her. She covered her eyes with her clawed forefoot and waited. When the light subsided, she felt a new weight in the atmosphere, a feeling she had felt once before many years ago, when the sky had also turned gold, when Eslura last claimed a Sacred Head.

  She weighed her options and changed her course, following the source of light toward Farenworth.

  6

  Shadows

  Bea flailed in the water, paddling and kicking. It was black as night and cold like the empty, loneliness of solitude. When she finally stopped thrashing, the buoyancy of the air in her lungs began to lift her. At last, her head broke through the surface, and she gasped for air, mouth gaping like a beached fish, choking and spitting. She went under again, and she kicked her legs to come back up. It was nighttime, but clear enough to see two moons hanging in the purple sky above her. Her vision was spinning. Certainly, it must have been. There was no such thing as two moons in the sky. She struggled to stay above the surface as she looked for land. After a moment, she spotted some tufts of grass in the moonlight not too far away.

  Dress soaked and freezing, Bea shivered as she made her way to the nearby shore. She clambered up on the grassy bank and lay on her back, staring up at the night sky. An army of shimmering stars flanked an unnaturally large golden moon and a much smaller purple moon. She rubbed her eyes, hoping one of the moons would go away, but when she opened them again, both moons stared down at her like she was totally nuts.

  Maybe she had passed out on that rock in the cave. Hit her head, perhaps? Her mother, that gold light, those moons, all some sort of bizarre fever dream.

  She sat up and looked around. In the sparkling light of the moons, she saw a sprawling lake surrounded by a vast and dense wood. At first, she hoped she wasn’t too far from Camp Tossbridge. After all, Reagan had come to try to rescue her, hadn’t she? Then she looked up again at those two moons. Why two? Just to make her think that she was crazy? She pinched the skin of her forearm to see if she was dreaming, but the pain was real. The lake was real. The forest was real. The two moons...

  A gust of chill wind howled through the woods near the lake and blew over Bea, raising goosebumps on her arms. She hugged herself for warmth, but her dress was soaking wet, and it did little good. She contemplated getting up and walking somewhere when she heard the crack of a stick nearby, then a rustle in the grass. She looked around, trying to keep her cool, and for a moment, she could have sworn she saw a pair of eyes blinking at her through the brush, but on a second glance, there was nothing but grass and woods and the lake.

  “Hello?” she called, half hoping no one would answer. The wind whipped up again, tousling her hair. She reached a hand up to fix her part but stopped halfway.

  “What?” She held her wrist out in front of her face and stared at it, arms trembling in the chill. Five interlocking golden rings were inscribed on her skin like a fancy tattoo. How the…? She felt her throat tightening, her heart speeding; she prepared to run but froze when she heard a loud splash in the lake and saw the water rippling in all directions.

  A head popped up gulping for air, arms flailing. Bea crawled backwards towards the brush, staring at the water, and stopping only when she backed into the trunk of a tree. She kept watch on the person as they made their way to the shore. From such a distance, Bea could not pick out the features of their face. She leaned forward and squinted but stopped when a stick snapped beneath her.

  The person turned at the sound and peered toward Bea. “Hello?” a familiar voice cried out. Reagan.

  Bea crawled forward out of hiding and called out. “Reagan?”

  “Bea?” Reagan responded. “Is that you?” She jogged over toward the brush and joined Bea at the edge of the forest, her bright-red hair plastered to her face, the crystal on her necklace glimmering in the moonlight. “Oh, thank goodness you’re okay!” She clutched Bea’s shoulders. “You are okay, right?”

  Reagan’s rings dug into Bea’s shoulders for a second, but she said, “Yeah, I’m all right. Just a little cold is all.” She held her right wrist to cover the mark. Stupid thing, why now? She clenched her chattering teeth. She couldn’t tell Reagan about the symbol. It was too…crazy. She would have to find a way to hide it before the sun came up—if there even was a sun wherever they were.

  Reagan released Bea’s shoulders and glanced around. She looked up at the moons and seemed to come to the same conclusion as Bea—something was terribly…wrong.

  “Weird dream?” Reagan smiled awkwardly.

  “I wish.”

  “Where the heck are we?” Reagan asked.

  “I don’t know,” Bea said. Everything before waking up in the lake felt like more of a dream than the strange, new world around them. All she could recall of the events was a blinding flash of gold light…and her mother.

  Reagan shrugged. “Well, we have to figure out where we are and how to get back to Tossbridge.”

  Tossbridge. Of all the things that Bea did remember, camp regrettably had to be one of them. Though she had no intention of going back there, Bea nodded. “Wait.” She glanced around.

  “What is it?” Reagan stared at her, then began looking around.

  “I don’t know,” Bea said. “Something just doesn’t feel right.” She felt cold suddenly, colder than she had in the Dildeckers’ attic on a deep winter night. She looked down. Black smoke cascaded across the ground and over their feet, covering them entirely. Thick clouds floated across the sky, engulfing the light of the moons and casting the two girls in an inky darkness. Fear crept over Bea as her vision was reduced to but an inch around her. All was complete silence save for Reagan and Bea’s tremulous breathing.

  A gust of wind split the clouds, and a sliver of light fell on the far side of the lake, illuminating a plume of smoke.

  Reagan crouched beside Bea and whispered, “What is that?”

  The question did not have a simple answer, Bea concluded. The cloud of smoke appeared to take the shape of a man, but its constant roiling made it seem ephemeral, perhaps not really there at all. “I don’t know, but it doesn’t look good.”

  “It’s moving,” Reagan said. The plume shifted and began to float around the lake toward them. “Come on, let’s get out of here!” She grabbed Bea’s hand and pulled her into the woods.

  They sprinted down a rough trail, but the smoke caught up with and rose up around them, wrapping around the trees and cloaking everything in darkness. They pressed forward with their hands out in front of them to feel for a clear path.

  “Reagan, where are you?” Bea called.

  “I’m right here,” she said. Bea felt her hand land on her shoulder but could not make her out through the blackness.

  “Do you hear that?” Bea heard hooves clomping on packed dirt from up ahead.

  Before Reagan could answer, the smoke dissipated slightly, and a cloaked figure on horseback swung around them and stopped at their side.

  “Take my hand,” the rider said, reaching a gloved hand out for Bea. It was an old man’s voice, but she could not see his face beneath his hood.

  Bea looked back toward the approaching, swirling smoke figure and realized she had no other choice but to accept his hand. Her fingers laced between his, and he hoisted her up onto the back of the horse. She realized it had no saddle and felt like she was sliding off its bony back. She grabbed the creature’s sides next to her knees and realized its hair felt exactly like the AstroTurf on the soccer field at
Mountbridge High.

  “You too!” He extended his hand toward Reagan, glancing over his shoulder at whatever it was that was gaining on them. Reagan nodded and he pulled her up. She squeezed behind Bea, pressing her against the back of the man’s cloak, which was lined with spikes. She shifted her hips back a few inches and wondered what kind of man wore spikes on his back. Maybe he was a biker? Bea thought. She had seen bikers with spikes on their clothes before.

  The man clicked his tongue and squeezed with his legs, launching the horse into a full gallop through the trees. The smoke and shadows trailed closely behind, weaving through the trees almost as if they weren’t there.

  “Lower your heads,” the man said with surprising calmness. Bea ducked and felt Reagan’s head rest against her back.

  The rider shouted, “Rise!” and Bea couldn’t help sneaking a peek. He turned his upper body and extended his hand back to Bea’s left. Green light erupted from his glove and shot down the path behind them toward the smoke. Bea watched the limbs of the trees on the sides of the path weave together across the path; roots came up from the ground in an explosion of dirt and leaves and wound themselves in the branches to completely block the way behind them. Bea wasn’t sure if she was glad that the smoke figure was blocked or terrified that she was riding on a galloping horse with some kind of sorcerer through the woods to an unknown destination.

  “Ya!” the man shouted to his horse. He turned forward and nudged the horse with his boot. It sped down the path far faster than the Dildeckers’ old Dodge Dart could ever dream to on the highway.

  “We are almost there,” the man said over his shoulder as if “there” was a place that Reagan and Bea should have known. The thick forest opened to a field, and the sky cleared of its black clouds, allowing the stars and the moons to peer down on them again. Bea leaned to her left to look ahead of them and saw a small village spread out in a meadow.

  Bea thought for a moment that her eyes were deceiving her. The houses looked tiny, and their mossy roofs blended in with the graceful roll of the grassy field. Had they simply passed by it, she might have missed the village entirely. As they got closer, the shattered windows, crooked, open doors, and overgrown vines led her to believe that the place had been abandoned for some time. The whole place was a creepy ghost town, though certainly not anywhere near Camp Tossbridge.

  They rode through the middle of the town up to a house that stood slightly taller than the rest. Unlike its neighboring structures, it seemed to be untouched by the overgrowth and its windows were intact. Its alabaster white front sparkled like gold in the light of the moons.

  “We don’t have much time,” the man said as they slowed to a stop. Bea still had not seen his face but wasn’t really sure she wanted to. He brought his horse to a halt beside the house. “The Shadow Reaper will follow our trail.” He dismounted and his hood caught in the wind, revealing his green face. Bea knew she was tired, but when he took off his glove to help her dismount, his hand was definitely green as grass; and, perhaps worse, it was covered with tiny scales.

  She hesitated to accept his gesture, but he had saved them from whatever shadow…thing was following them. She took it and slid to the ground.

  The horse, now illuminated by the light of the moons, was not much of a horse at all. Although its shape resembled those of the horses at Halo Creek Farm outside Mountbridge, its body was made entirely out of dark-green grass, and its ears were leaves. Its mane and tail were vines woven with pink and purple flowers, and its hooves had rough bark like the trunk of a tree.

  “Thank you, Kuma,” the man said, patting the beast’s back. It whinnied with pleasure and then knelt on the ground. Bea watched as the grass on its back merged with the grass on the ground and grew out to match its length, leaving no trace of its ever being a horse…or whatever it was.

  She blinked twice, unsure of what she had just witnessed. The horse, once standing tall before them, now sunk into the earth beneath their feet, gone.

  “Come, we must move,” the man said. He hurried toward the house, which, though bigger than the other houses, looked too small to fit all three of them at once. He rattled the handle on the little door, which was about up to his midsection, and it popped open to a darkened interior.

  “Please.” The man gestured toward the tiny doorway. Bea and Reagan shared a look of confusion. What could they do? Where else would they go? Surely not back to where the shadows were. “You must hurry,” the man said again. Bea looked at her wrist, the symbol, then sank to her knees on the grass and crawled through the door and into the darkness.

  7

  Tea Gone Cold

  “Harp,” Lumikki addressed her loyal Sacred Guard as the two of them walked down the cobbled street, “what do you make of the mark on that merchant’s wrist?” She lifted the jar in her hand. It contained a collection of pink and red flower petals and translucent green stones. Amidst the chaos of the afternoon’s audience, a traveling merchant, who claimed to reside in Blighburrow, the neighboring forest kingdom, had given her the colorful gift. He had promised its contents would relieve the nagging thoughts that had plagued her all day since what happened that morning with her twin brother, Remidigon, but Lumikki did not believe anything could soothe her dread.

  When the merchant had extended his hand to give her the jar, his sleeve had slid up, and she’d noticed a strange marking on his wrist, just above his hand. It was one she had never seen before—two intersecting vertical circles pierced through the middle by what looked to be a fork in a road. Though skin decorations and tattooing were not uncommon in Eslura, she had never seen this particular design before, and it rather vexed her.

  Harp shrugged. “I wouldn’t have thought anything of it till you asked. Perhaps a new gang has surfaced in Varaar?”

  “Hmm,” she hummed, peering at the flowers and stones in the jar. “Perhaps. My mind is a bit on edge today.” And rightfully so. The two had just parted the bustling town square, where Lumikki had spent a tirelessly long and boring afternoon addressing the petty concerns of the people of Ovallia, or at least she pretended to address them.

  On any other occasion, a full schedule outlined with obligations would have energized her. She loved spending time with her people. But today, she found herself distracted by a never-ending stream of horrible thoughts, led by an image of her brother.

  Lumikki could not shake the feeling of dread off her shoulders as she entered the lighthouse and ascended the steps to her bedroom.

  She nodded toward Harp, who returned the gesture and took up his position outside her door. She entered her room, closed the door, and blew out a sigh she had been building up all day.

  The herbal, fruity aroma of tea still lingered in her room. The scent brought her back to her childhood, to memories of nights spent sipping and conversing with her brother and her mother. Now she was the Sacred Ruler of Ovallia, and nothing could ever be so simple again.

  Two cups sat on the table in the corner of her room by the open window, untouched and certainly cold by now. Lumikki strode over to the table and lifted the stirring spoon from one of the cups, the cup that would have been her brother’s. She raised the spoon to her mouth and licked it clean.

  Normally, the taste would have filled her with joy, and it should not have bothered her that her brother had skipped out on their weekly tea date—it would have been nice to talk to him before she addressed the townspeople. But, no matter how hard she tried, Lumikki could not fight the feeling that something was wrong.

  Lumikki put the spoon back in the cup, pushed the thoughts of her brother away, and went to her tub to start a bath. There’s no remedy for a troubled mind quite like a warm tub.

  She drew the water and set out the small jar of petals and stones at the base of the tub. Lumikki then lit each of the candles around the tub one by one. Their sweet scents of lavender and rose filled the room, and their radiance flickered softly across the bath water.

  Once satisfied, she picked up the jar the merchan
t had given her, closed her eyes, and held it against her chest. She hoped that the merchant’s words were true but doubted him. Then she opened her eyes, twisted the lid off the jar, and poured its colorful contents into the pooling tub. The petals swirled on the top of the water and settled, tinting it with a light-pink hue, and the green stones sank to the bottom.

  Lumikki took off her robe—the ocean-themed silk she had received at her coronation—hung it on her towel hook, and slid her body into the tub, letting the warm water lap against her fur. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and listened to the waves crashing against her lighthouse castle walls through the open window.

  Lumikki had barely settled into the water when she heard a burbling at the window.

  “Luuuummmmmi!” the singsong voice called. Lumikki sat bolt upright, sloshing a wave of water over the lip of the tub and soaking the floor. Her friend Trelluby’s huge head poked through the window, so big that her pectoral fins pressed flat to the sides of her head as she pushed through.

  “Trelluby”—Lumikki clutched her chest—“you startled me.”

  The sea serpent relaxed her paddle-like fins on the sill, knocking several candles onto the floor. “Whoopsies. Sorry, Lumi.” Trelluby batted her eyelashes and pursed her lips.

  Lumikki splashed some water from the tub onto the little flames. By now, she knew what to expect whenever Trelluby appeared at her window: a fresh batch of the local gossip. “What is it?” she asked, easing herself back down into the water.

  “The people are talking,” Trelluby said.

  “They’re always talking,” Lumikki said. “What is it this time?” She didn’t really need to ask; she knew they were talking about her.