Night of the Storm: An Epic Fantasy Novel (The Eura Chronicles Book 2) (25 page)

THE REUNION BETWEEN SISTERS
was better than anything Lilae could have imagined. She’d wanted nothing she more in the world than to have her family back, and somehow that wish had been granted. Even if it was only her sisters, and not her father or her stepmother, she was grateful.

Lilae never thought she’d would see Risa and Jaiza again. Yet, there they were, seated at a long table eating and drinking with her new friends.

She was surprised that she even had the desire to drink again, after being poisoned. However, she and the others trusted Vaugner’s supply, and it was the best cause for a celebration that Lilae could think of.

Lilae couldn’t stop smiling. The tears of joy had finally ceased, but her heart swelled with such emotion that she was sure they’d return at any moment.

Goblin servants tended to them and made sure their glasses were always full with water or wine. Risa and Jaiza both fawned over Lilae, playing with her hair and reminiscing. They couldn’t stop hugging. It was as if they were afraid to let go, lest they be ripped apart again.

“We missed you so much, Lilae,” Risa said in between sips of wine. “I know I keep saying it, but I am still in awe that we are actually together again. Jaiza and I dreamed about this day.”

“I didn’t even know it was possible,” Lilae said. “But yes, I dreamed of it as well. For a while, dreams were the only place that I felt anything more than sorrow.”

She glanced at Liam, who sat beside her. He gave her knee a squeeze under the table.

Life couldn’t be more perfect then at that moment. Her sisters were there. The man she loved was there.

What could go wrong?

“When we were separated in Lowen’s Edge, we thought we’d never see you again. The soldiers took us and a few other women to their ships.”

Jaiza nodded, her eyes red from crying. “But I saw you leave on a different ship once we docked in Avia’Torena, and I knew we would find our way to one another somehow.”

Lilae eyes welled up again. Her heart was full of joy, but sadness filled her throat whenever she looked at Risa and Jaiza’s many scars. Like Lilae, their scars tattooed them now. All over their arms and legs were small cuts and welts.

Their arms were branded with a seal much like Lilae’s crescent seal that meant she belonged to Kavien. The twin’s brands were of two stars, the seal of the Duke of Avia’Torena.

Lilae didn’t ask, for she knew what they suffered. The harem girls had warned her about the Duke. He was cousin to Kavien, and she was his pet. The Duke had been denied Lilae’s company. Kavien had protected her in more ways than one.

There was one thing she did want to know.

“Tell me,” Lilae began. She rubbed the rim of her cup of wine with her fingertip and lowered her eyes. “I watched Pirin die that day,” she said before pausing. “But what of Anic?”

She looked up at the both of them, afraid of the answer, but desperate for the truth.

She could feel Liam’s eyes on her, practically reading her thoughts and anticipating her emotions. He took her hand into his, and she was grateful.

For too long she had obsessed over her guilt of letting the twins die; she had suffered from false information. Hope filled her that Anic might be out there somewhere, enslaved or forced into Kavien’s army, but alive.

Jaiza looked at Risa. Her shoulders slumped and she shook her head. Her eyes had the answer and Lilae didn’t want to hear more.

“Oh,” Lilae said. “Thank you.”

“To Anic,” Risa said, raising her glass. “A brave and kind young man.”

Everyone nodded and joined her.

“To Anic,” they said in unison, joined glasses, and took a drink.

Silence filled the room after everyone drank from their glasses.

Lilae looked at Ayoki, who like Liam drank water. Their eyes met again, and Lilae found herself drawn in by her eyes. She wished they could speak to one another. She was The Seer, and there was so much they could share about their powers.

“So,” Jaiza said, turning her attention to Delia, who sat at the opposite end of the table, across from Vaugner. “What is next, Delia?”

“How soon can we leave?” Delia asked Vaugner.

“Give me a few days to prepare everything. I want to give Ayoki something before you leave.”

“Good,” Delia said. “In a few days we are off to Auroria. There, we will prepare the Northern armies. Avia’Torena is ready for war; so we must also be ready.”

“Great,” Risa said, sighing. “It’s going to take forever to travel back to Auroria.”

“How far is it?” Liam asked, taking a bite from a sweet roll with white frosting.

Jaiza laughed as she and Risa shared a look. “It only took us eighteen years to travel from Auroria to Lowen’s Edge. Granted, we stopped in different villages and lived and worked for a while, I think that might cut our journey in half.”

“Great,” Lilae grumbled.

“Honestly, I’m not looking forward to it. But, it is our birth home,” Risa said.

“I can’t say that I remember much of it. Snow. Lots of snow,” Jaiza said. “So high that you’d get stuck inside your house some days because the snow would trap you.”

Lilae remembered nothing of her birthplace. Delia had taken her from her parents the night she was born, and never looked back. Still, she’d dreamt about it often, especially after she’d met her brother, the new King of Auroria.

Still, her mother awaited. Her real mother. The thought of meeting her turned Lilae’s stomach sour. She simply hoped the woman would measure up to how she imagined her to be.

Kind and loving. Not like her stepmother, Lhana.

“Yes,” Vaugner said, nodding his head as he tapped his fingertips on the wooden tabletop. “It is far indeed.
But…
” his eyes lifted, a mischievous glint within them. “It will take us minutes to arrive.”

Everyone turned to him.

“What?” Liam asked. “How is that possible?”

“Don’t question the man, Liam,” Rowe said, downing his second cup of ale. Wine wasn’t his drink of choice. “I’m sure the Elder has some tricks up his sleeves.”

Vaugner chuckled. “How right you are, Rowe.” He nodded at Delia. “But what you have in this very room are two Elders.”

“Not just any Elders,” Delia said, a small smile on her lips as her eyes locked with Vaugner’s from across the long table. The candles, placed in beautiful golden holders set on the table, cast an eerie glow on her pale face.

“We are both Gatekeepers,” she said, her smile widening.

“And what do Gatekeepers do?” Vaugner asked them, leaning back in his chair.

Lilae’s brows knitted in the center. “You take the dead to the Underworld.”

“Yes,” Vaugner said. “And how do we do that?”

“You open a Gate, right?” Mai asked, her dark eyes looking from Delia to Vaugner as she leaned over her half-eaten plate of grapes and cheese.

“Of a sort. There isn’t a physical gate. What Gatekeepers do is take the dead to the Underworld. We Gate them.”

“We can travel anywhere in the entire world of Ellowen, as long as there is another Gatekeeper to allow us to reach the next point.”

“Is that like what I did when we escaped the palace?” Lilae asked, remembering the rush of vanishing with Delia and Garion and reappearing at The Barrier.

“Similar,” Delia said, nodding. “What you did is part of your power, but it is limited. You can take yourself and one other, maybe two.”

“But Delia and I can Gate as many as we want, as long as we know the other is coming, or where they are going,” Vaugner said.

“Amazing,” Liam said, his eyes widening.

“See,” Rowe said. “I told you. Tricks.”

Vaugner’s chuckle lowered into an almost haunting laugh. “You have no idea just how
tricky
we can be,” he said, his eyes casting a flicker of a glow as he lifted his gaze to Delia’s.

DESPITE THE FOREST COVER,
it was a hot day, and Aria sweated inside her carriage. She fanned herself and shook the front of her dress to let air in.

Soon, she would be inside her Kingdom once again, and the work to ruin Sona would begin. Such thoughts turned her stomach as she remembered that she also had to save her people from the devastating plague that ravaged her home.

Yoska had flown ahead to make sure everything in the palace had kept up without her. She hoped that all was well. Yoska was loyal and had been for as long as she could remember.

She sighed deeply and glanced out the window at her right.

She sat up straight at what she saw. Elders waited outside the gates of Oren as Aria approached.

Their black forms sent chills along Aria’s arms. She rubbed the gooseflesh and stared at them as they started to take a different form.

Her heart raced as one of the Elders took on the form of a woman with long gray hair, a thin body, and big blue eyes that made Aria clamp her mouth with her shaking hand.

Mother?

It couldn’t be. Her mother had been dead for more than forty years. Did some of the dead become Elders?

Aria shot up from her seat and stuck her head out of the window. “Stop the carriage,” she shouted, her breath quickening as she watched the beautiful woman that had raised her walk to the front of the other Elders.

Once the carriage was stopped, Aria turned the door’s latch and pushed it open. The warm air hit her as she hopped down to the leaves below.

“Aria,” her mother, Annisa, said with a faint smile on her face.

“Mother?” Aria asked. “Is that really you?” It couldn’t be. How was this possible?

Annisa nodded. “Come to me. Let me look at you. It’s been so long.”

Baffled, Aria lost her words as she ran to her mother like a little girl having found their way home after being lost.

Tears stung her eyes as she choked on sobs. “It cannot be.”

The moment Aria was close enough to touch her mother, she fell into her outstretched arms.

“Dear Elahe,” she said, breathless as she breathed in her mother’s scent. She pulled away. It wasn’t the scent she remembered, but more like coal and wet dirt.

“Listen to me, Aria,” Annisa said, her eyes narrowing as she held Aria out at arm’s length. “I only came to tell you something—something that will soothe your troubled mind.”

Aria searched her eyes. They were different, filled with wisdom and knowledge that Aria could never comprehend. “How did you become an Elder?”

Shaking her head, Annisa stroked Aria’s hair. “That is unimportant. I came here to tell you that Liam is alive. The woman that tried to kill him did not succeed. He was blessed by the fairy Mother Tree.”

Aria’s jaw dropped. She quickly snapped her mouth closed as a surge of joy and relief filled her veins.

“That is the best news you could have ever delivered.”

“That is not all. He is in great danger, as are you. You must turn and leave this place, Aria. Right now.”

“You know that I cannot abandon my people. Would you have abandoned them if you were in my position?”

Annisa looked to the other Elders, who had taken on forms of various common folk.

“That’s enough,” one of the male Elders said.

Aria’s eyes widened. She knew his face. “Drefen?”

He nodded. “This one has never heeded sound advice. I was to be her son’s Elder, and she declined so she could train him herself.”

“You cannot disagree that I did a good job, can you?”

Drefen, tall and thin, with shoulder-length black hair shook his head. “I cannot, but you must listen to Annisa this time. Oren is doomed.”

Aria took her mother’s hand. “Come with me. Surely, you could lend some assistance. Together, we can help the people of Oren. It doesn’t have to end this way.”

“Your optimism is refreshing,” Drefen said. “But, The Charmer has other plans in store for this place, and for you above all.”

Aria began to reply when the Elders vanished.

She awoke up with a start, her heart pounding. Sweat beaded on her face, arms, and between her breasts as she caught her breath and sat up on the plush carriage seat. She hurried to look out the window.

The Elders were gone.

What was all of that?

A warning?

Perplexed, Aria sat back down, disappointed that the encounter with her mother hadn’t been real. She settled back against the seat’s back and sighed.

“Approaching Oren, Queen Aria,” the footman announced.

Aria sighed, fanning herself against the smothering heat. “Thank you. Proceed to the palace.”

Inside, Oren was a desolate place.
Once, the streets had been packed with commerce and interaction. As Queen Aria rode through the gates and down the main road that led from the forests to the palace, they surveyed the odd emptiness of it all.

Queen Aria stepped from her carriage before the main staircase of her palace.

Her eyes rose to the sky. The green aura still clung to her Kingdom, casting a hazy fog over the streets. Mist beaded on her face, like a spray from the sea that stood in the distance behind the palace.

Something was off. The guards watched her, and yet they did not bow.

“Aria! Wait,” Lord Franco called, as he hurried down the white stairs. “Your trip was taken at the worst possible time. I did warn you.”

Aria folded her hands before her and watched him reach the ground, his long blue robes dragging along the stone as he carried his staff along with him.

Lord Franco’s bushy white brows rose as he stood before Queen Aria. There was a fear within them that made Aria’s body tense. “What is it, Franco?”

He put his hand on her shoulder and led her back to the carriage. “You must leave, immediately,” he whispered, handing her a bronze box. “Lady Sona has taken the palace. Hurry, before her guards see you.”

Aria’s cheeks reddened. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Sona was smart. And quick…quicker than Aria had anticipated.

“Where is she?”

Franco nodded to the palace. “Inside.”

“No. This cannot be. She has Charmed my people.” She glanced at her palace, resisting being led back to her carriage. “Tell me what happened, Franco.”

“Charm or not, they have made her Queen and believe she can end the plague.” Franco tried to turn her around. “Come now, Aria. We can talk as soon as we are far from the city. She has a bounty on your head, and I refuse to watch you be beheaded.”

“Of course she can end the blasted plague,” Aria said. “She is responsible for it!”

“There is no way to prove such a thing,” Franco said, shaking his head. “There is only one option, and you
must
leave. Now.”

“No,” a voice called from the top of the stairs. “Stop her!”

Aria looked up to see Sona standing there in a flowing white corseted gown.

Wearing Aria’s gold circlet.

Aria seethed, her hands curling into fists. The time for being proper and cool had ended. She envisioned ripping Sona’s throat out.

Before she could react, the soldiers rushed to her. She gasped at their roughness as they yanked her from the carriage by her arms.

“I am your Queen,” she growled. “You pledged an oath to
me
. Not this blasted imposter.” She tried to wrench free from their tight grasp, her heart pounding when they didn’t budge. “Come to your senses, men. This is treason!”

Lord Franco was apprehended as well.

“Send them both to the dungeons for sentencing,” Sona said with a devious grin that turned Aria’s blood cold.