Destiny's Kingdom: Legend of the Chosen
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Authors: Daniel Huber,Jennifer Selzer
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by Jennifer Selzer and Daniel Huber
Coming September 2012
To my parents, who gave me wings to fly.
~Jennifer Selzer
I’d like to thank my entire family. Without their love and support none of this would have been possible.
~Daniel Huber
Copyright © 2012
TwoFold Press
Jennifer Selzer & Daniel Huber
All rights reserved.
Cover designed by
Derek Murphy of Creativindie Covers
www.creativindie.com
This is a work of fiction. Any similarities to any person, living or dead is purely coincidental.
ISBN-13:978-0-9857172-1-6
ISBN-10: 0985717211
PROLOGUE
A
t moments like these when doubt threatened to overtake his resolve, all Jame needed to do was think of his son. In his mind’s eye, just the memory of how Tyler looked at him made Jame feel as if he could accomplish anything. Even something as effortless as reaching the top pantry cabinet for a forbidden sugar biscuit was an exalted ability in the eyes of a toddler.
With a giggle, Tyler would gaze up at Jame and see a hero, an invincible god. When he was very little, Jame would whisk Tyler up to the top shelf to retrieve his coveted prize. Once back on the ground, a crumb-laden smile would stretch over his face, wide eyed with admiration for his father, simply for having the ability to lift him so high. Now, years later, watching space tumble past, sprawling deep and endless, with only inches of metal and tempered glass between him and its depth, Jame felt fragile, nothing like what a god might feel.
Reaching out to the console Jame requested a destination update.
“2 minutes, 45 seconds until destination,” his ship replied in a cold, automated voice.
Only 30 seconds had elapsed since he last checked.
“Not fast enough,” Jame muttered.
As he continued to stare at the blur out the side window, Jame tapped his fingertips on the control board and sighed impatiently. The war appeared to be over but Jame knew it was not. All galactic factions had gathered for the signing of a peace treaty but none of them really knew what awaited them once they arrived. Nobody but Jame, and three others whose destiny it was to save them all.
The possession of the Centurion had happened over a month ago and that was the sign that Jame’s destiny had come to fruition. In the span of that month his life had totally changed. Always having been a man of carefully planned innovation, Jame had embraced his fate and gone into action. What else could he do? His family, his world, his very galaxy would soon come under the ultimate attack from an ancient predator. Never mind the decades-long war throughout the sectors, never mind the small, personal arguments and disagreements. The SanFear had arrived, had possessed the Centurion, had probably by now also possessed the King. Jame wasn’t sure yet. He would have to see them to know for certain and this far out in space he had no visual communication. For because of the role he had in this destiny, Jame was the only one who could actually see what was occurring.
He glanced to the seat next to him at the sphere that had caused his delay, but contained the magic that would help to defeat this ancient foe. The gathering of the magic had to be done at the core of the galaxy where magic was wild, strong and most abundant. The center of the galaxy housed the only access point to the dimensional portal into the pocket realm where the magic could be harvested. But the time dilation between that pocket dimension and Jame’s own reality was warped and it left him with less time than he’d planned to get back. Much less time. Only eight hours had passed for him since he’d been gone but when he had gotten back to the leylines more familiar to him he found that it had actually been two days. He keyed the destination updater again.
“Twenty seconds to destination.”
Anxiety twisted in Jame’s stomach. He took a deep breath. Leila was with Tyler; she would keep him safe. She too had risen to her destiny. Her own magical abilities had always been powerful, and now with the treasure trove of wild galactic magic at her disposal, Leila would be more than just powerful; she would be unstoppable. The radiance of the nexus point glowed in the distance then was upon him. His heart pounded in his chest. Then the leyline opened up.
Jame had readied himself for almost anything. Most of his worst-case scenarios involved different factions of the galaxy again at war with one another, but in all his worrying he still expected to see the familiar round celestial body silhouetted by the darkness of space behind it, the recognizable greens and blues peeking amid white clouds. No matter what the turmoil, in his thoughts, his home planet would endure.
As the nexus point thrust him into open space, he froze at the sight before him. Black clouds roiled from the planet, flanked by plumes of white vapor, which Jame instinctually recognized as the aftermath of what once were oceans. Orange flame licked violently over most of the planet’s surface and a steady stream of starships flew in all directions away from their home world. All this, but something worse that all those fleeing ships in their desperate chaos couldn’t see. The SanFear hovered, inky black, encompassing over half of the planet, the unseen cause of all the destruction below. From it, thousands of black streaks raced after those trying to escape, latched onto the ships’ hulls, ate away at them until within seconds, they were devoured. Jame’s paralyzed mind screamed only one thought:
“Tyler!”
Jame instantly dove to the communication board.
Keying it on, his terminal paused before reading out over 10,000 lines of communication. A moment ticked by and the number changed to over 200,000 and kept climbing. Realization numbed Jame for a heavy second. Everyone on the planet was calling for help.
His familiar celestial body was in its death throes, screaming out to the universe.
Ignoring the panic that leapt into his chest, Jame leaned closer into the communication board. Overlapping signals made the communication lines look like thousands of tiny threads, all different colors and patterns to most. But Jame knew what he was looking for, what he had to find. He focused, then relaxed his mind. Something deeper than reason, more intuitive and basic than logic took over. The strings started falling away. Line by line faded from his view until a single thread stood out to him, and he tapped into it, hailing the vessel from which the signal had come. He thanked the gods for this gift of telepathic sight they had given him as his son flashed on the screen.
“Tyler! You’re all right… where’s your mother?”
“Dad…” Tyler’s voice quivered. “Mom died.”
“What…h-how?”
“The SanFear spawned. Just like in your vision.”
Words came, despite the icy sickness that spread through his chest. “And Annick?”
“She’s here.”
Jame cleared his throat. “Annick? What is your position?”
The viewer changed its orientation as Annick began to speak.
“We’re just outside planetary orbit. Once the spawning occurred, everyone ran, those who could, took to space. We barely made it out. In the frenzy, everyone started to turn on each other.”
Jame glanced back to the wide range viewer to see all the ships in their chaotic confusion, some of them firing on each other, some firing impotently at the black streaks that were the spawn, the only element of the SanFear that they could see. The SanFear itself pulsed and spread languidly over the surface of the planet, already growing in size from the life force that it had consumed even just since Jame had first seen it a minute ago. It’s spawn streaked through space, destroying and devouring, then bringing that sustenance back to its host before streaking out for more.
“Jame, I’m sorry about your wife.” Jame looked away from the commotion around the planet and back to Annick. He noticed she was bleeding from her temple. “When the SanFear spawned, she tried to hold it at bay. But it was just too much for her.”
He glanced to the bundle in the seat next to him. If only he’d gotten back sooner.
“Jame,” Annick’s voice began to break. “I don’t know what to do.”
“You have to get to me,” he said. “I can’t come any closer. I’m sending you the route to take. Lock onto my coordinates and come this way at top speed. Jump into the nexus point and follow this course.” His hands flew over the keys as he fed them into her ship’s computer, which immediately changed course, heading away from the panicked madness.