Traveler (6 page)

                Baneor and Dorain had been quietly talking when the prince ran into their chambers, carrying their only daughter in his arms.  Startled, Dorain took the crying child from him, murmuring soothingly to Bri who was reaching for Rahim. “Nooo...my dragon...” She whimpered softly, tears falling down her chubby cheeks.  Gesturing for his wife to take the child into their bedroom, Baneor turned his attention to the prince, frowning slightly.  “My prince, where are you going to go?  You’re hurt and you need protection.”

                Rahim shook his head vehemently, blood from his wound flying off his face, his eyes latched on the door Bri had gone through.  “It’s best if you don’t know,” he insisted softly.  “I need to disappear entirely...you need to keep her safe.  The Dragon is no longer safe, here...it needs to look like I have died, Baneor.  Do you understand me?”

                “Of course, my prince...but if you should have need of me, my lands are always open to you.  Just because your parents are gone, that changes nothing between our families.”  The man replied solemnly, handing the boy a pouch of gold coins.  “Go...there are several ships in the harbor.  You should be able to get away on one of those.”

                “Keep yourself alive, Baneor,” Rahim said solemnly, putting the pouch into his pocket, another tear running down his face. “And keep her safe, please...if you never see me again, just make sure she’s happy.  Please....And thank you.  So much.  Try to get her to forget about me...”  

                He sighed softly.  “I will do what I can...but do not expect her to forget so easily...I can hear her calling for you from here.  Try to send me some message to let me know you’re safe...now, go child...go before they come here...”

                Rahim nodded and ran from the rooms, the pouch of coins clutched in his pocket.  He was still numb.  His parents gone...murdered.  His hands began to tremble before he could stop them.  There would be time to grieve when he was safely away.  A frown crossed his features as he felt something stuck in his belt.  Pulling it out, Rahim smiled a little.  It was Bird’s little rabbit.  Somehow it had gotten caught in his clothing when they ran. He clutched it close to his heart, making a beeline out of the palace, using the secret tunnels he knew so well to escape.  The docks weren’t far.  There would be a ship.  He knew it.

***

Aislin heard someone coming into the locker room.  God, she’d been reading too long.  Panicking, Aislin shoved the book back into her bag, wiping hurried tears from her eyes at what had happened within the novel.  She’d have to read it later.  She needed to know more about what happened to the young prince.  The poor boy, all alone...and having to leave behind his little Bird.  She almost couldn’t concentrate as she walked onto the pool deck.

Luckily for Aislin, the people on the swim team were more pleasant than the girls she had class with.  All the women on the team were ones that Aislin had swam with since she was in seventh grade, and they had become very close.  Even with their closeness, though, Aislin could feel the strange looks that they gave her, the looks that said she wasn’t all there, not all normal.  It hurt to realize, but she had accepted that.  

The pool, when Aislin stepped onto the deck wrapped in her purple bath towel, hadn’t changed.  The tile was well-worn with the traffic of many feet, and the smell of chlorine and water was a welcoming combination.  It was a pool that was 25 yards long, standard for high school racing, with six lanes, and a diving board in between lanes 3 and 4.  Here, Aislin felt comfortable.  She felt natural in her own skin, here, and the way the water surrounded her when she dove in made her forget everything else but the water around her.  

As the girls talked to each other, socializing and laughing, Aislin merely put her hair up into a swim cap and stood on top of one of the diving blocks, waiting for the signal to go.  Her coach’s bark was all the direction she needed before her muscles bunched and she launched into the water.  The water felt cold as she hit it, and the pool seemed much deeper than she remembered.  She swam under the water for as long as she could and she looked up, expecting to see the lanes ahead of her, but all she saw was...churning waves?  Her eyes widened and then abruptly stung underwater, as if they were being assaulted by saltwater.  But that couldn’t be.  She was in a high school pool, not the ocean.  But it felt so much like the ocean.  A shadow passed above her, a large shadow, and Aislin panicked, swimming towards the surface.  

Breath gasped from her chest as her head broke the surface, looking around her in a panic.  The rest of the team stood on the deck, looking at her curiously.  What was she freaking out about?  
Get it together, Aislin
, she scolded herself.  
You’re being melodramatic.
 The experience, though, shook her up enough that she didn’t really want to swim any more today.  Salt water...where had that come from?  She was hallucinating, she had to be.  That was the explanation.  God, but it had to be.  Unfortunately, she needed to just go on as normal.  

The rest of the practice went by fast, thankfully, but Aislin was still shaken up by what had happened when she first dove into the water.  After two hours of laps up the pool and down, she was more than ready to just go home...and forget.  She got out of the pool, and licked her lips to get some of the water off, pausing at another oddity.  It tasted...salty on her lips, like seawater.  She shook her head and rinsed herself off in the showers, trying to make sense of it all.  She had to be hallucinating.  That was the explanation.  That’s all.  It had been a stressful day, that was it.  

Unfortunately for Aislin, she was one of the few seniors who didn’t have a car, so she was forced to ride the bus home.  The long ride, though, allowed her to look through the book some more, leafing through the pages under the red light from the exit sign.  She wanted to read more about Dragon and the Bird, seeing if they got back together or where they went from here.  She couldn’t wait to start reading it when she got home.  She drifted off, though, as the bus moved, not waking up until it pulled up in front of her home.

As the last book was shelved, Alexander found himself pondering over the strange first day he had had.  While he had been incensed by the deliberate destruction of one of his library’s precious books, he had been equally amused by the stupidity of teenage girls, especially ones trying to get out of trouble.  Honestly, making an attempt to threaten him...the brat was ages too young to play that game with someone like him.  He still couldn’t explain how the other girl had managed to find that book, considering that he had taken care to lock in within the safe in his office.  Unless she was a very talented safe cracker, there was no way she had gotten in there.  He was the only one who had the combination, and that was the way it was going to stay.

Shaking his head, the man went back into his office, struck by the sudden urge to make certain the book was safe and hidden where he’d put it after the girl had tried to check it out. Flipping the light switch on, he quickly took note that not a thing had been disturbed in his office, not that he would have suspected otherwise.  Shifting slightly, his back was to the hidden camera as he opened the safe, his blue eyes widened in shock to find it empty.  Where in the bloody hell had the book gone?!

Aislin stepped into the house, only sparing a cursory glance for  her stepfather as she ran up the stairs to her room.  She wanted to read...and not stop reading until she had to go to school.  She lay back on her bed, tossing the sports bag on the floor haphazardly, and flopped onto her back.  Now...she had time to read the book.  She held the binding tightly in her hands and opened it a page close to where she thought she had left off.  
The waves slammed against the hull of the Maiden’s Voyage, as the ship was tossed in the arms of the sea.  The storm had come up out of nowhere, and it took even its seasoned crew by surprise.
  This must be a little after where Dragon had left...Aislin tried to stay awake, but she felt herself drifting off, sleep overtaking her.  Snow began to fall outside her window, falling lazily.  It would be gone by the time that she awoke, but for now...it coated the ground with powder.

The next morning dawned with a little chill in the air, not unheard of in Phoenix, but still a little odd for this time of year.  What was the largest oddity,  though, were the reports of snowfall last night across half of Phoenix.  Of course, no evidence remained of that snowfall, but the whispers still were heard.  As the alarm went off, Aislin groaned softly, the book sliding gently off her chest and onto the covers beside her.  Her stepfather’s knock on the door woke her up fully.  “I’m coming!” Aislin called.  

“10 minutes,” her stepfather growled in answer.  Aislin rolled her eyes and got out of bed.  She dressed in a pair of dark blue jeans, black knee high boots, and a light blue top.  The book she placed very firmly into her bag, not willing to leave it behind.  She would need it to get through the day.  

Her stepfather glanced at her as they drove to school.  “Are you having a good year?”

Aislin looked at him in surprise.  “You actually care?”

He rolled his eyes.  “I might be an ass, but I’m still the only thing you’ve got,” he answered her.  “Besides...you’ll be out of the house in a year, and I’ll never have to see you again.  So I should make this year a good one.”  

She blinked and then turned away.  He was such an ass.  Once he pulled up in front of the school, Aislin was only too happy to get out of the car, her first two periods free still.  So, as was her habit, the first place she went to was the library, curling up in one of the chairs there, what she had considered her chair, and opened up the other book she had borrowed from the library.  She didn’t want to pull out the book she wasn’t supposed to have, not wanting the librarian to get mad.  

It had been a restless night, spent worrying over the disappearance of a certain book.  Alexander wasn’t certain what to do, other than to find it and lock it away again.  The knowledge within was simply too powerful and yet easy to misuse for it to be allowed out into the world.  Just look what had happened the last time someone had read from the book...  He shook his head, pushing thoughts of the infidel from his mind.  Now was not the time to think of Silvertongue and the damage he had wrought on his beloved home.

He had been in the library for hours before the school day began, meticulously scouring the library shelves for any sign of the book when he caught sight of the red-haired girl from the day before.  That girl had found the book before...perhaps she had found it again.  His footsteps made no sound as he came from behind the shelves to tower over the girl.  Even as anxious as he was, he allowed none of it to show as he politely addressed her. “Excuse me, child...may I have a word with you please?”  

Aislin was engrossed in the pages of her books, her feet over the edge of the chair.  She let out a yelp, scrambling to keep it in her possession as the librarian came up behind her.  “Mr...Bookman, wasn’t it?  You scared me...I’m sorry. Of course you can have a word,” she said breathlessly, looking up at him, her red hair curling around her shoulders.  “Is everything okay?”

It was almost adorable the way she reacted to his presence, but the situation was serious and he couldn’t allow himself to laugh.  Crouching down slightly beside her chair, he looked her directly in the eyes.  “The book you found yesterday...the one I said was not ready to be allowed into circulation yet.  It’s missing.  Do you have any idea of where it is?”

Aislin couldn’t have torn her gaze away if she tried.  His eyes were...very blue.  And catching.  And ones she would have sighed over in the movies if she were in a different frame of mind.  She was beginning to see why the girls in the high school fawned over him.  She smiled a little bit as he crouched next to her.  “I do, actually,” she admitted.  “Just when I was ready to go to swim practice I felt that my bag was heavier.  And then, when I went to go see what it was...your book was inside it.”  She looked at him almost sheepishly.  “You’re looking for it?”

The girl obviously was not lying when she answered his question, though perhaps another would think so.  The man frowned slightly before giving her a concerned look.  “Yes, I am.  I was not lying when I said that book was not ready for the library yet.  It needs to be returned to me immediately.”

Aislin nodded.  “I understand.  Here...I brought it back to you.”  She reached into her bag, and fished around in it.  A frown crossed her face.  It...wasn’t there.  “I don’t understand...” she murmured, a distressed look crossing her features briefly.

Seeing the look on the girl’s face made Alexander frown again.  “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“It...it was just here,” she said, beginning to get a little frantic.  “In my bag...and now it’s gone!”

“That is strange.”  Still frowning, he was quiet for a moment, pondering the implications of the book appearing and disappearing like this.  Obviously the book wanted to remain with this child for some reason.  Glancing back to the girl, he gave her a serious look. “Look, for whatever reason, the book is not here now.  The next time you come here, I need you to return the book immediately.  This is very serious.  I want you to promise me that you won’t read it.  Not even a word, do you understand?”

She blushed and couldn’t look at him.  How could she tell him that she had already begun to read the book?  She turned away and studied the shelf in front of her.  Maybe no answer would be enough for him.  God...what would happen to her now that she had read the book?  She had honestly tried to return it....but it didn’t want to return.  What was she to do now?

Alexander bit back a sigh and closed his eyes for a moment, pinching the bridge of his nose.  Why would she choose this very moment to suddenly go mute?  Opening his eyes, he gave her a stern look.  “I do believe there was a question mark at the end of that,  Miss Oriole.”