Enchanted Revenge (21 page)

Alec walked in then, sat down on his bed, and started sharpening his blade. It was something he did often enough that the swish of the blade against the sharpening stone was a comforting sound.

I still hadn’t told him about the journal, that I had opened it and was reading it. Mostly because I kind of liked having it a secret, something between me and my mother, though I still was trying to figure out how she fit into it. I kept waiting to read something about her in it. Maybe they were best friends or something. Maybe my mother had helped them escape, or was present when the queen was captured. Maybe my mother was some kind of record keeper, who wrote down things for the queen so there would be some kind of recording of her life.

I wasn’t even half way through the book though. It seemed like the pages would go on forever. When you looked at it, it was the size of a normal novel, maybe 200 to 300 pages. But I felt like I’d already read 500 pages, and there were still 1000 more left. It was like, every time I finished one page, another one appeared at the end. Like a never ending rolodex.

The other reason was because I was almost scared that he would be upset that I didn’t ask him for help, and instead went to Lynn. Not to mention that I told her about me being from the Mortal Realm. And now I had been keeping this secret for over two weeks.

But I was done with keeping this secret.

“Hey,” I said, just to get his attention.  “Umm. I’ve been keeping a secret from you.”

That definitely got his attention. He looked up at me, kind of quirked his head, and raised an eyebrow. “Oh?” The smirk he wore made me think he didn’t believe I could actually keep a secret from him. I made a mental note to remind him that arrogance was not a flattering characteristic.

“Yeah. Do you remember that book we brought with us, the one you took from my mom and put in the abscondita?”

“Yes.”

“Well, um, I happened to have it out that first day we got here. And Lynn saw it.”

He stood up, about ready to run out the door. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner? Who knows where it could be by now? I could’ve gotten it back for you that first day.”

“Wait. What?” I said, trying to figure out how he jumped to that conclusion. Maybe he didn’t trust Lynn as much as I thought he did. “I still have it. She didn’t take it or anything. But she did know what it was. She umm…” I paused not sure exactly how to say it. “Well, she helped me open it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. She touched my hand and the book, while I was holding it. And it opened. But I haven’t closed it since then, because I’m afraid I won’t be able to open it back up until my birthday,” I admitted sheepishly.

“Have you been reading it?” His curiosity and excitement were so strong he didn’t appear to be angry with me at all.

“Yeah! It’s fascinating!”

“Well, who wrote it?”

“Get this; it’s the missing queen’s journal!”

“No…” He almost breathed the word. “Really?” Disbelief clung to his words.

“Yes! I’ve been reading it every night. It starts when she’s not quite 300, and then she meets the king when he’s still only a prince. And she writes about what it’s like to live in the palace, and all kinds of drama and stuff. And about not wanting kids. But so far, nothing about my mom.”

I paused to catch my breath. “It’s intriguing. I mean, I’ve read about a centuries’ worth already, and it’s so crazy how much knowledge and information is packed into this one document.”

“Does it say anything about where they are? How we could find them?”

“No, I’m not that far yet. I mean, I tried to skip to the end once, but it was blank. It’s like you have to read it straight through.”

“Right. That’s normally how they work, since it’s the written word, skipping around can confuse things, and you should understand all the events that took place before you read something.” He took a deep breath, as if thinking about everything I said. “Can I see it?”

“Yeah!” I ran to my bed with a smile on my face, pulled it from under my pillow before jumping onto his bed and sitting right next to him. I placed it on his lap, my fingers grazing his knee before I wrapped them together behind me.

“I don’t know if you’ll be able to read it. When Lynn looked at it, she said it looked blank,” I warned, so that he wouldn’t be too disappointed when it was empty.

“That’s because it was your mother’s, and she trusted you. So you can see it. The only fae who can read an ephemeris are the author, and those the author trusts.”

Then he opened it and flipped through the pages. “It’s not blank to me.” He caressed the pages, recognizing the significance of something so exceptional.

“You can? So does that mean we shouldn’t trust Lynn?” Trying to understand the complexities of this realm were both annoying and exhausting.

“Well, I would think that since your mother is gone, you are now the owner of this ephemeris. You trust me, so I can see it. When Lynn saw it, you had only known her for less than a day, so you didn’t trust her.” Then he paused as he read an entry. “I would guess that if she saw it now, she would probably be able to see it. Especially after that last raid we went on.”

That last raid kicked my butt. We had gotten so close to the Mortem, finally seeing glimpses of two of them before they got away. If Lynn hadn’t been there, I would’ve lost my life.

“But, you need to understand something very important. Please don’t freak out,” he said. His eyes had turned a deep green, his eyebrows drawn, and his lips in a thin line. This was his serious face. And seriously, how could I not freak out after an intro like that?

He looked down at the book, read a page, turned to another page and read that one too. Then he nodded slightly and looked up at me very slowly.

“This is the ephemeris of Norleen Volante.”

“Right, I already told you that.”

“You need to understand that, the only way you could open it, is if she trusted you. It doesn’t matter that it was in your mother’s possession. Only those whom the
author
trusts can open an ephemeris. So that would have to mean that either you know the missing queen, and just don’t realize it, or more likely, Norleen Volante is actually your mother, Leena.”

In that moment, it felt like the whole world tipped off its axis. Except, I didn’t even know if The Empyrean was even on an axis, or if it was even spinning at all, which only made my head spin even more.

It felt like all of the walls were closing in on me. The fact that there was no breeze, there was no sun, no wind, no warmth, no air- it made me dizzy!

No air.

Dizzy.

I had been here for two weeks, living in this windless place, and everything that I had just read and everything Alec said, it all made sense. It’s like I thought I knew, in the very back of my head, that what he was saying was true, but I hadn’t wanted to believe it.

It explained why I felt such a connection to this book. Why I was so enthralled by it that I could barely put it down. Why I had to force myself to put it down. Why I felt this urgency, that there was something I was missing, something I needed to find. This tickle in the back of my mind that I just couldn’t figure out.

And I felt like it was so dark.

So dark.

When I opened my eyes again, I was lying in bed, the ephemeris still open, face down on my sheets. I guess that’s what it felt like to faint. It was your whole world closing in on you.

I noticed a small piece of paper on my table, reached over and opened it.

I thought about waking you up, but I figured you needed the rest. Not just your body, but your mind as well. Feel free to wake me. We can talk. I’m here for you.

Yours, Alec.

I looked at the clock, it was after one in the morning already and Alec was asleep in his bed, looking more peaceful in sleep than I had ever seen him before. I could see his chest rise and fall, his hands curled together in the blankets under his chin. And I kinda wanted to just crawl into bed with him, ask him to hold me, ask him to kiss me. But I wouldn’t wake him. I needed to figure everything out in my own head before I could deal with anyone else.

I got up, went to the bathroom, and lit a candle just to watch it flicker and burn. The warmth and light provided me comfort and allowed me to zone out, to be mesmerized by its dance.

I went back through my memories of all the passages I had read, trying to remember the things that would link this queen to being my mother. The things she had written down, that I could remember my mom saying to me. It all fit together, and I felt like an idiot for not seeing it sooner.

My mother’s real name was Norleen, my father’s real name was Coenraad and they were the rightful King and Queen of The Empyrean that had gone missing centuries ago. That’s right; my parents were freakin hundreds and hundreds of years old when they died.

Where did I go with this knowledge? What was I supposed to do with it? I felt like there was too much to grasp. Too much information. So many things that I just had to believe on a dime. Yeah I was seeing it, but seeing wasn’t always believing.

What if I just woke up, and all of this was just a crazy ass dream? I always had crazy dreams before.  But now, looking back, all of the crazy dreams I had growing up were all of this place, of Ardennes and Muircadia, and a stone castle floating in the sky. Everything that I had dreamed was here, it had to be real, all of this.

How was I supposed to go on knowing all of these new things? How did you come to terms with the fact that everything you had known your whole life, for the last seventeen years, was not real. And that everything that is real you never knew.

I just couldn’t think about it. I couldn’t think about any of it. I had two goals. Get magic-kill the Mortem. I had less than 24 hours left until my birthday. Which meant that I had 24 hours to prepare. I still didn’t know where they were, but every day we got closer to finding them.

During the raid the night before, I had seen two of them. A guard had thrown me down, and I was almost pushed through the film dome that covered the city. I probably would’ve died if I had been submerged in that water, if Lynn hadn’t caught me.

But not again. Next time I would be ready. Next time I was face to face with those murderers, I would get to them. I would kill them.

I sat in the bathroom thinking I should go back to bed. I knew that I should, especially with everything going on. I knew I needed rest. I didn’t know what it would be like when my birthday came, how it would feel, or what it would do to my body, but I just was
so
not tired.

I felt like I was on overdrive, like my body was just ready, so very ready to go. I was the freaking energizer bunny.

So, I changed my clothes, put on some tennis shoes, and decided the only way I could get this extra adrenaline out of my system was to go for a run. During my training sessions with Alec, he was constantly telling me I needed to work on my endurance, and I couldn’t think of a better way to work on it than to go for a long, much needed run.

It’s not like I could get lost in the smallest city I had ever been in. Not to mention, I was in a dome, surrounded by sickness-inducing water, and if I left it the city, I would probably die. So, I figured if I went around the city, I would be fine. What’s the worst that could happen?

It took me two hours from when I left the base, to go all the way around the city and get back. I decided going around once more would help.

I tuned everything out as I ran, just pushing, just trying to get all the energy out of my system. With every pound of my feet against the ground, I was pushing my anger, my frustration, my sadness, my pain away. Away.

I was so lost in my own thoughts and my own feelings that when I heard a woman’s scream I almost jumped out of my skin. It didn’t sound far away, and I didn’t really know where I was, but it went against everything I believed to leave a helpless person alone. I knew I shouldn’t get involved, but it felt wrong to even think about it, especially when I knew it wasn’t taxing time, they didn’t ever do that at four in the morning.

The direction the sound came from was between two tall buildings. Yeah, they always say it’s a stupid girl that goes down an alley in the middle of the night alone, but what else could I do? And, I was prepared anyways. I had my dagger in my belt, something Alec had drilled into me to keep on my body at all time, at least until I was strong enough to carry my father’s sword.

My training sessions with Alec had only been getting better, faster, stronger. I was stronger.

So I tiptoed through the alley which lead to a little opening behind a series of buildings. It was mostly empty, there were only trash bins standing outside a door from each building. I crouched down behind the closest bin to see what was going on.

It looked like there were two Sprites, one male, one female, and they were arguing. But I couldn’t hear what was being said.

When the man hit her, and I could hear it all the way to where I hid, I knew it was time for me to step up. She was hung over, limp and terrified beside him. It was obvious she needed help. I figured that in a fight between this random guy and myself, I could win.

“Hey, leave her alone!” I shouted, trying to make my voice as strong and scary as possible, coming from a tiny, pale Sylph.

The guy turned to me, angry that someone dared interrupt him. But then his mouth dropped open, as his eyes widened.

“You…?” the guy whispered in disbelief, as if he knew who I was.

“Run! Get out of here! Get away as fast as you can!” the girl screeched at me. When she turned to look at me, I noticed her face was all blotchy and bruised, and she had blood streaming from her lips and nose.

Crap! This dude was serious. What did I just get myself into?

Just like that, the man took out a dagger and shoved it deep into her throat. She didn’t even have a chance to flinch away. The pulsing river of crimson stained her shirt and puddled down to her feet before her body slumped to the floor.

I couldn’t help the scream that escaped me, burning my throat on the way out.

As soon as she was on the floor, he ran for me. So I turned and ran away. If he was willing to straight up kill this girl, there was no way I could win in a hand to hand fight against him. So, yeah…I ran.

I ran a few blocks before ducking behind another trash bin. I didn’t want him to hear my footsteps, and I knew that if I kept running, he would eventually catch me.

I tried to steady my heart beat. To calm my breathing. To not move. To stay as quiet as possible. Calm…

All I could think was,
I ran
. I freaking
ran away
. I was a chicken. After all the training I had done, and everything that I had been through, he killed someone and I just ran away from him.

I could hear him coming closer. Pound. Pound. Pound. His footsteps matched the thudding of my frightened heart.

I knew he wouldn’t be able to see me. I was hidden deep within the shadows.

Just as he started to reach me, I made my decision. I wouldn’t run. I wasn’t a coward, a weakling, a runaway.

I would do something!