Sacred: Eslura's Calling Page 6

  “They know something’s up, my little sea star. You’re not very good at hiding your emotions.”

  “I’m just a little distracted is all,” Lumikki replied. “A little tired.”

  “A little? You weren’t even listening to the townspeople today. And even worse, they noticed.” Trelluby furrowed her brows. “What is it, love? What’s on your mind? You know you can tell me anything, right?”

  Of course, Lumikki knew that. Trelluby, unlike any of the other Eslurians, had stood—or at least floated—by her side since the day the Book of Water chose her to take up the role of Sacred Ruler. The sea serpent had been with her through thick and thin.

  “It’s nothing,” Lumikki said. Surely, she was just overreacting. Remidigon probably just forgot…but that was so unlike him.

  “Hmm”—Trelluby pondered with a fin to her chin—“I’ll bet this has something to do with that Alpin Loomin figure?”

  “Trelluby!” Lumikki’s cheeks flushed hot. She looked around the room, half expecting Harp to be standing there, wide eyed and mouth gaping at the scandalous rumor. Lucky for her, he was not. Lumikki sighed and sunk down until her whiskers touched the water. “Trelluby, please, watch what you say.”

  “Oh, Lumi,” Trelluby sighed, “I just can’t seem to wrap my head around why you like him. He’s about the most foul-spirited little thing I’ve ever met!”

  “Well, you haven’t read his letters, then, have you?” The gopher had a way with words that went straight to her heart. She often found herself waiting by the window for any sign of a passing gully that might be carrying a letter from him.

  “So, it is Alpin?” Trelluby said. The serpent always seemed to know how to get Lumikki’s heart bouncing.

  “Of course not!” Lumikki had received a letter from him that morning. She had already read through it ten times, rehearsing her most perfect response. He was definitely not the problem. “But,” Lumikki said, “you do realize that if anyone were to overhear our conversation that I would be put out of a job, and Alpin would be sent to Morgaedion, right?” Trelluby had been there the day Lumikki placed her right paw on the Book of Water, swearing away all hopes and dreams of ever falling in love. Surely her closest friend knew of the laws put in place to keep the Rulers dedicated to their given roles.

  Lumikki frowned. Oh, how she wished she had known the toll that the oath would take on her longing heart.

  “Hush, hush, my sea star,” Trelluby said with a dismissive wave of her fin, accidentally blowing out all the remaining candles in the process. “Your little secret is safe with me.” She paused. “So, if it’s not Alpin, what is it?”

  “It’s really nothing, Trelluby. I just”—Lumikki paused—“I haven’t heard from Remi in a while, that’s all.”

  “Remi? That’s what you’re worried about?” Trelluby stifled a laugh with her fin. “Hon, I hate to break it to you, but you’ve got bigger things to worry about than your brother. Isn’t he at the prison?”

  Lumikki glanced over toward the small table, at the two cups sitting untouched, where she and her brother sat at every last day of the week. Just the two of them, alone, forgetting their responsibilities and catching up on life.

  “His tea went cold…” Lumikki frowned at the thought.

  “So?” Trelluby rolled her huge eyes. “Everyone’s tea goes cold eventually. What’s the big deal?”

  “I mean he never showed up, Trelluby. It’s not like Remi to miss out on tea…at least not without telling me he couldn’t make it, that is.”

  “Lumikki, listen.” Trelluby took a deep breath. “Remidigon is the last thing you need to be worried about. I’m sure he is more than fine. He probably just forgot, for gods’ sake! He has a lot of responsibility, too, you know. I wouldn’t be a prison guard for all the fish in the ocean.”

  “I don’t know, I just…” Lumikki paused and glanced toward the cups again. “I’ve got a pretty bad feeling.”

  “You’ve always got weird feelings, Lumi. I swear, that Book has turned you into one crazy wave of emotions.”

  Lumikki felt her head grow heavy and she put her paw to her forehead. “Oh, gods.” She clutched her stomach. “I don’t feel so well.” She felt lightheaded, and everything looked blurry.

  “Lumi?” Trelluby leaned her head farther into the room, but her voice sounded distant. Lumikki opened her mouth but could not form the words to speak her mind. She tried to stand but toppled over the edge of the tub and onto the floor.

  “Uh…Harp!” Trelluby shouted. “Harp!”

  The door swung open, thudded against the wall, and her Guard rushed in. She felt him shake her, but she couldn’t move. Her head wobbled back and forth as if her neck were made of string.

  “It’s gonna be okay, Lumi,” Trelluby said. “Yes, yes, Harp, hurry. Please do something!”

  Harp scurried out of the room for a moment and returned almost immediately. “Drink,” he said. Lumikki felt the lip of a vial thrust up against her lip. She opened her mouth and warm liquid ran down her throat. She felt nothing at first, then her stomach convulsed. She gagged and threw up on the rug next to the tub.

  “There, there,” Trelluby said as Lumikki continued to vomit. Her throat burned, and she wondered if she would ever stop puking, and what sort of medicine Harp had given her.

  “Urguh,” she groaned. “What was—”

  “Dringrys,” Harp said from beside her. He was bent cleaning the puddle of vomit. Lumikki almost vomited when he said it. The serum was extracted from fish guts and fed to gullys before flight. The bird-cat hybrids diet consisted heavily of the foul-tasting stuff and they relied on it for overnight flights as it made them lighter. Any other stomach would reject it immediately.

  “Sorry, Lumi,” Trelluby said, “it was the only way.”

  “You suggested this?” Lumikki shot Trelluby a glance. Her own friend, subjecting her to this cruel punishment. How awful.

  “Well, you didn’t give me much of a choice, did you?” Trelluby laughed.

  “What happened?” Lumikki said. She spat out another chunk that had stuck in her throat.

  “Might I suggest this?” Harp paused his cleaning, picked up the empty jar off of the floor, and handed it to Lumikki.

  “You don’t mean to say—”

  “Poison,” Trelluby said.

  “It is quite likely, given that the water was pure,” Harp said. “I drank some from the sink when we returned.”

  “Poison?” Lumikki stared at the empty jar, then dropped it on the floor. It shattered, and she put her paws over her mouth.

  “Please forgive me. I should have been more careful,” he said. “My naivety must have gotten the best of me.”

  “No.” Lumikki meant to apologize and thank her loyal Guard for cleaning up her various messes, but instead she stood, snatched her robe from its hook, and tied the belt in a bow at her waist. “It’s time for me to trust my instinct. I’ve got to go see Remidigon.” Something was wrong, and she could not ignore the signs any longer. First Remidigon missed their tea, and then someone poisoned her. She had to get to the bottom of it.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold your florahorses. You nearly died, my little sea star. How about you just rest a while, okay?”

  “No, Trelluby,” Lumikki said, her stomach still queasy. “I must act.”

  “You can’t just leave Ovallia on a hunch. Besides, you’ve got a whole kingdom to look after and—”

  “I’m a Sacred Ruler, Trelluby. I will do as I please.”

  The sea serpent gulped and gave Lumikki a forced smile. “Yes…you must.”

  Harp stared down at Lumikki with a raised brow. He knew better than to question his Ruler.

  “I’ll be back before anyone has the chance to notice I’ve left,” Lumikki told them.

  “You’ve got audiences tomorrow,” Trelluby said, looking to Harp for help, but finding none. “What about your people?”

  “You and Harp will take over for me. Tell them I’m sick.” Lumikki faced Trell
uby, whose scrunched-up face showed her displeasure. “Just write down what they say and pass it on to me when I get back. And try not to let the city burn down while I’m gone,” she said, forcing a smile. “I’d hate to come back and find this place in ruins.” She stepped onto the table in the corner and shimmied up onto the windowsill next to Trelluby’s head.

  “But, but”—Trelluby grappled for words—“don’t you think it’s a little bit compulsive? I mean, leaving on a whim because of a feeling?”

  “It’s not a feeling, Trelluby,” Lumikki said. “Have you forgotten? Someone tried to kill me. What if they had done the same to Remi? If I don’t go now, I’ll never be able to ease my mind.”

  “Oh, Lumi”—Trelluby shook her head in disapproval—“just be smart for me, okay? That prison isn’t somewhere I’d place high up on my ‘safe’ list. I’d expect those prisoners to have quite a bit of resentment toward a Ruler like you.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Lumikki said.

  “All right,” Trelluby said. “Would ya at least bring me back a souvenir? You know, somethin’ to look forward to after listening to all your people’s whining.”

  Lumikki nodded. She adjusted her paws on the ledge and looked down at the water. Then she took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and leapt out the window and into the air, soaring for a moment before tucking her chin and diving into the water. When she splashed into the cold water, her muscles tightened, and her heart slowed. Her nostrils and ears closed as she plummeted toward the bottom. Then, a stream of blue light emitted from her irises and lit up the water ahead of her.

  There was a brief moment of silence where everything around her seemed to freeze in place, then a tidal wave rose up from the depths of the ocean and carried her upwards.

  The rush of water thrust her back up through the surface and shot her into the air like a rocket. She glanced down and saw her giant friend still clinging to the side of the lighthouse and staring up at her.

  Lumikki waved and turned to face the open sea. She rode her wave into the distance, mind set on Morgaedion and her brother.

  8

  The Sacred Head

  Candles flicked to life in the foyer of the tiny house that was no longer tiny at all. Unlike its teeny facade, the inside of the home felt ten times larger than any Bea had ever been in and held more gold than a dragon’s treasure hoard.

  In the center of the foyer, stood a luxurious fountain with two golden gophers dancing on top of it. Streams of water shot out of their cupped paws and fell into a larger pool that was lined with gold and bronze tiles. Beyond the fountain, a grand marble staircase wound up to a mezzanine above with a gold-coffered ceiling. A crystal chandelier hung from it like a glistening disco ball high above her head. Bea imagined that all the gold in the room could buy out Fran and Joe’s farm ten, possibly twenty times over.

  The man, who had yet to discard his cloak, walked hurriedly from one arched window to the next, securing locks and closing the fringed curtains. He pulled a side table, legs screeching on the marble floor, across the room. The plump vase with frilly flowers that sat on top of it toppled onto the floor and shattered, sending shards of glass and murky water across the once spotless floor. Bea and Reagan stood in the foyer wanting no part in the destruction.

  “What in the—” a high-pitched voice called. Its accent reminded Bea of a Shakespeare film she’d been forced to watch at school, but at least she could sort of understand this one. She looked up and was quite certain the person with the accent, speaking from the top of the stairs, was…a gopher, a rather tired gopher who was still wiping the z’s out of his eyes and dressed in red silk pajamas. He’d stopped halfway down the winding staircase and seemed to be staring at them with a somewhat displeased expression on his buck-toothed face. His whiskers twitched, and he waggled his golden staff aggressively at the man in the cloak.

  “What in the name of Eslura are you doing in my home!” He rapped the staff on the stair rail and continued down to the ground floor. “And my vase!” He bent down and peered at the shattered glass. “My beautiful vase! You idiot, Alistair! You’ve broken my vase!” He turned toward the man, whose name was evidently Alistair, and wielded his staff like a sword, clutched in his little paws.

  Bea took a step back toward the door and nearly tripped over Reagan’s foot behind her. Angry gophers, especially those that wielded staffs and spoke in Shakespearean accents, were not to be messed with, or at least she assumed they were not.

  “Oh good, Alpin,” the old man said. “You’re awake. I need your help bolstering the door and the windows, if you don’t mind.”

  The gopher, Alpin, adjusted his monocle and glared at the lizard through it. “Alistair,” he said. “Have you lost your mind? What business do you have to be meddling around in my home? Especially at an hour like this!”

  The old man—Alistair—ignored the gopher as he pushed a large wooden armoire in front of the door, grunting as it scraped across the floor.

  Alpin tapped his staff on the floor impatiently. “Alistair! Would you take that god-awful cloak off and look at me? I’m talking to you! Don’t you know it’s rude to not look at someone when they’re talking to you?”

  Seemingly overheated from pushing the armoire, Alistair pulled off his cloak and threw it over the back of an ornately upholstered chair. He was, without any possible doubt, a man-sized lizard. He wore a pristine white lab coat, the pockets of which overflowed with pink and blue and yellow flowers, and a long, spiked tail covered with olive-green scales followed his every move. His reptilian face had sprouted a grey beard and puffy bags sagged beneath his eyes.

  “Pardon me,” the lizard said upon seeing Bea and Reagan’s gaping faces, “I suppose I have not introduced myself, have I?” He smiled a sharp, toothy smile.

  Reagan tugged Bea toward the door, whispering in her ear, “Uh…maybe we should leave now?”

  Bea didn’t know if she could trust the lizard man—a lizard man!—but she had to, or else she had to run. But to where? She didn’t even know where she was to begin with. She had no other choice than to trust him. Though he did appear to be friendly, and he did save them from the shadows.

  “Have no fear. I assure you that I mean you no harm.” He bowed slightly. “My name is Alistair Archibald, and I am the Sacred Ruler of the Book of Land.”

  Alpin hissed through his big teeth. “Yeah, yeah, Sacred Ruler, we get it. But who are these street urchins you’ve invited into my home? This is not an orphanage.”

  The remark angered Bea but she held her tongue.

  “These are no street urchins, Alpin,” Alistair said. “Though I must apologize, for I don’t recall asking your names.”

  Bea and Reagan introduced themselves despite Alpin’s glaring at them and sucking his teeth.

  “Just because they have names,” he said, “does not mean they aren’t peasants.”

  “Excellent,” Alistair said, ignoring the petulant gopher, “now that we’re all acquainted, I believe we should address our more pressing issue. A Shadow Reaper has found its way back into Eslura, and I don’t assume it has just come to say hello.”

  “A Reaper?” The gopher stopped staring at the Bea and Reagan and raised a brow at Alistair. “Twee! They’ve been gone for nearly fourteen years. What makes you—”

  “If you do not believe me”—Alistair paused to flick his tongue—“take a walk outside that door and look for yourself, but I would heavily advise against it.”

  The gopher twitched his little nose, which Bea thought for a moment was cute until she remembered that he wasn’t a particularly nice gopher. “Well, then,” he huffed, “I’ve gone mad. This whole bloody world has gone mad!”

  Bea thought she pretty much agreed with the gopher about that, but she had other questions. “What’s a Reaper?” she asked. She figured it was the swirling black smoke figure that had chased them through the woods, but she wanted to know why.

  “Any matters concerning the Reaper,” Alistair said, “should not be
discussed in open halls like these.” He narrowed his eyes and peered sidelong at Alpin.

  “Don’t look at me like that!” Alpin crossed his arms defiantly and glared up at the lizard. “Just because you decided to march into my home uninvited does not make this my issue.”

  “You are quite right, Alpin,” Alistair said with a nod. “This is not your issue—it is all of our issue. In fact, everyone in Eslura should be very concerned. Now, would you kindly take us to a more private room?”

  “Twee! Come on, then,” the gopher grumbled, his long claws clicking on the marble floor as he led them down a dark corridor to the last door on the right. He clicked the lock and the door creaked open.

  “Galabear!” the gopher shouted. He leapt back with a hand to his heart and stood there panting. A large, black, furry beast lay on the floor in the center of the room, its yellow eyes open just enough to peer at them. It had a hunched back and a long and pointy tail Bea thought could probably cut through metal with a mere flick. Its teeth stuck up from its underbite like glistening yellow daggers, and the two long ears that stood up on top of its head made it look like a rabbit that had just eaten a baby elephant.

  “What are you doing in here, girl?” Alpin asked.

  The beast groaned and rolled over with a loud thud.

  “Hey,” Alpin snapped, “don’t you turn away from me while I’m talking to you! We’ve got guests. Now, be a proper lady and move aside, would you?”

  The beast yawned and exhaled a stink like rotten fish and uncooked meat. Bea gagged and clamped her nose shut with her fingers. The beast grumbled again and stretched her long arms and legs, knocking over a table with some books and an unlit candle on it in the process.

  “Come on now, ya big loafer, move along. We haven’t got all day to be dealing with night hoppers like you.” Alpin, who was but pea-size in comparison to his pet, shooed the beast aside. It wobbled past Bea and she thought for a moment that she might like one of the large, fluffy beasts for herself. Perhaps with one of them by her side, the girls from school might finally leave her be.