Jaden (St. Sebastians Quartet #1)
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Authors: Heather Elizabeth King
JADEN
St. Sebastians Quartet
Book 1
HEATHER
ELIZABETH
KING
Jaden - St. Sebastians Quartet - Book One
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Jaden - St. Sebastians Quartet - Book One
Copyright 2016 © Heather Elizabeth King
Cover design by Taria Reed
Line Edits by Maggie Bradbury
Content Edits by Stephanie Martin
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review.
Trademarked names appear throughout this book. Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked name, names are used in an editorial fashion, with no intention of infringement of the respective owner's trademark.
The information in this book is distributed on an "as is" basis, without warranty. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this work, neither the author nor the publisher shall have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the information contained in this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
JADEN
St. Sebastians Quartet - Book 1
Chimera: Year 2139
Maliki Bakari Adelaja, ruler of Chimera, descended the palace stairs at a run. His long, pale purple robes fluttered in his wake. The narrow heels on his jeweled slippers thudded noisily on the marble stairs as he ran, but he didn't hear the noise. The palace was too alive with activity for him to hear anything, save the cries of those around him. His home, his sanctuary, had been defiled—was being defiled—and there was nothing he could do to prevent it.
"Maliki! Maliki!" The cry rose around him, as bitter as any jeering he could imagine. The fact that they weren't mocking him, were in fact desperate for aid, made the plaintiff sound of their voices all the more difficult to ignore. All looked to him for salvation, as was their right. He was the Maliki, ruler of the lands. It was his duty to protect his people.
In this day, at this very hour, he had failed in his duty. The continuation of Chimera, the lives of its people were out of his hands. All he could do was go to the sorceress Zuri and put his hope in her spells and incantations.
It was not in his nature to put his trust in another, and the fact that he must do so now filled him with a fury, the likes of which he'd never known. But Zuri was the last hope. Her spells were all that stood between hope and complete annihilation.
The Maliki made his way across the grand hall. Marble statues mocked him from their positions of honor on the pedestals positioned throughout the room. These were the treasures he'd collected on his travels throughout the kingdom over the years, and what good did they serve him now? Would they save his life? Would they add one hour to his kingdom? The wealth passed down to him from his forbears was as useful as mud scraped from the bottom of a slipper. It was nothing.
Shutting himself off from his lavish surroundings, pushing his way past grasping attendants, palace dignitaries, and servants, he made his way toward the Portrait Hall. He shut his ears to his people's demands for aid, ignored their tearful howls for mercy. The Maliki knew Chimera's enemy. Mercy was not a trait he nurtured.
"Impotent ruler!" Someone screamed as he left the hall.
"Curse you, Maliki Adelaja! I curse you!" cried another.
That his heart didn't shatter at those words, that he continued to breathe, to move, to think, was as much a blessing as it was a blight. But he had to move, had to get to the sorceress.
The Portrait Hall stretched before him, huge and vacant. The faces of his ancestors looked upon his somber countenance, seemed to see him for the failure he was. His beloved was dead, the kingdom was in a shambles, and his people had lost all hope. The dark paneled walls and low lighting of the room made the faces of his family seem all the more solemn, as though even in death, they knew of his shameful defeat.
"Baba!" he cried out to his deceased father, "Help me. Baba, help me." But there was no help for the Maliki, at least not from that quarter. His only hope, the kingdom's only hope, was with Zuri.
The ground beneath him shook so suddenly that he lost his footing. It shimmied to the left, then bucked violently. He was forced to halt and brace himself against a column. Even as he stood, hands clasping the cold stone support, another tremor vibrated through the palace. The second tremor was strong enough to make a few of the portraits lining the walls tumble to the ground. He dug his nails into the unyielding surface beneath his splayed hands and pressed his cheek to the stone, eyes closed against the destruction he could hear happening around him. When at last the floor settled, and he'd been given a temporary respite from the steadily approaching storm, he opened his eyes.
Gone from sight was the image of the first Maliki of Chimera, smashed was the wooden frame surrounding the image of his great-grand father, the twenty-first king of Chimera. Numerous other pictures had shattered against the floor. The sight chilled him. His ancestors, his forebears...
"It doesn't matter." He pushed off from the column and forced himself forward. At first, his legs shook so terribly he feared he'd collapse to the floor and show himself to be the impotent ruler his subjects now thought him. But the second step was easier. The third, easier still. By the time he reached Zuri's sacred rooms he was moving at a full run.
"He's near. We must hurry." Zuri moved throughout her bright chamber with a speed that belied her petite frame. Her hair whirled about her like a raven storm. At one moment, she was weaving intricate knots into a small, rectangular object—the enchanted book; the next, she was scribbling words into its heavy parchment pages. Her tiny fingers moved faster than his eyes could see.
"How much time do we have?"
Zuri spun to face him. The white hot sunlight of Chimera's great star set her aglow in iridescent light. Even now, in the face of complete devastation, he was caught off guard by her beauty. Her brown eyes were wide with fear, her full breasts heaved as her breathing became more rapid, but she was a vision. A perfectly beautiful vision.
"The outer rim of your kingdom has been imprisoned in the ganda. The deep freeze lies over the forests and the rivers and lakes are nothing more than solid blocks of ice."
All thoughts of beauty evaporated from his mind. "But the people, the animals."
"Were all captured in the ganda. Even now it approaches the palace." She motioned toward one of the tall windows on the west wall of her chamber. "Time is short, Bakari. We must hurry."
The Maliki spared a look toward the windows. At first glance, all seemed as it should. The heavens were painted pale blue, there was a light wind in the air that shifted the trees surrounding the palace, and birds flew in wide arcs around the west turret. But when he looked beyond the trees, toward the valley below the palace grounds and out to the lands that made up the villages of Chimera, what he saw turned his blood cold. Everything had been swallowed up in the ganda; coated in a thick, white covering of ice. Homes, fields, waterways, and people. All he could see for miles was covered in ice.
What was worse, the ganda was coming toward the palace, traveling faster than he would have thought possible. "Damn his black heart!"
"We've no time for that, Bakari. Have you placed the objects where I told you? Have you hidden the amulet, the sword, the music, and the challis?"
He couldn't take his eyes from the window, from the destruction of his kingdom.
"Bakari! The lives of your subjects and of your daughters rest in your hands. Did you place the sacred objects where I told you?"
The mention of his daughters brought him out of a paralysis that might have held him captive until it was too late. He turned from the window and faced the sorceress. "Yes. But are you sure this will work? What if—"
"What other choice do we have? This is our only hope. Even if we're unable to return, what we do today will assure your daughters survival."
"But what kind of life can we expect them to have? The place you propose to take them is primitive, thousands of years behind Chimera. How will any of you survive?"
She turned abruptly and rushed from the room. "Would you rather they spent eternity sheathed in ice, immortal and unable to die?"
He swallowed. Zuri was right. This was the only way. They'd been through this before.
Though he hated what he was doing, though every particle of his being warred against this, he followed Zuri to the small antechamber that housed her altar.
He found her crouching on her knees, looking more beautiful and more doomed than his heart could bear.
The moment he entered the room, the tiny children gathered around her began to babble in excited voices.
"Baba! Baba!" They cried. Those that could, would have run to meet him had Zuri not schooled them of the import to remain still and respectful whenever they were before the altar. Nevertheless, he could see the desire to disobey the sorceress in their jetty eyes.
Adia, his oldest, was only five, but of the four she understood most that she and her sisters were traveling away from the palace. She looked at him now, eyes wide and full of wonder. "Zuri says we go today, Baba. On a great adventure."
Huddled beside Adia, Winda giggled. Winda was three, but already he could see she'd been born with a dreamer's heart. She had a love of music, just as her mother had. It pained him to know he'd never see her take up the lyre or raise her voice in song.
Wrapped in a heavy blanket, Kesi, his baby girl, blinked up at him. She was sucking contentedly on a rubber teat. She looked so small, so helpless. How could he send her away from him?
The ground shuddered, as if to remind him that he had no choice. He couldn't keep her. He couldn't keep any of them.
Standing closest to Zuri, thumb tucked securely into her mouth, Sauda stared at him with somber eyes. Though he knew it was impossible, those large, round eyes seemed to be accusing him.
It was Sauda he worried most about. Sauda, the serious daughter who, at the age of two, rarely laughed or smiled. If he didn't know better, he'd think she'd been born with knowledge of the curse that would doom her home.
"Come too, Baba!" Winda pleaded in the high, musical lilt that was her voice.
The Maliki crossed to the girls, crouched beside them, and spoke quickly. "I can't come. You remember why, don't you?"
Adia nodded. "Because your job is taking care of the people."
He smiled, nodded his agreement. "That's right. Only my four daughters are going on this adventure with Zuri. And your guardians..." He looked around the room, but didn't see them. He focused on Adia, let her see by his direct gaze that what he was about to say was of grave importance. "While you're away from me, Adia, who is in charge?"
Adia swallowed. "Zuri."
"That's right. And you're going to help her take care of your sisters until you return home. Still think you're up to the job?"
