Pursuit of Shadows (The Keeper Chronicles Book 2)

  Pursuit of Shadows

  The Keeper Chronicles Book 2

  JA Andrews

  Pursuit of Shadows, The Keeper Chronicles Book 2

  Copyright © 2018 by JA Andrews

  Website: www.jaandrews.com

  All rights reserved. This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise- without prior written permission of the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. Characters, names, locations, events and incidents (in either a contemporary and/or historical setting) are products of the author's imagination and are being used in an imaginative manner as a part of this work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, settings, or persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Ebook ISBN: 978-0-9976144-8-0

  Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9976144-9-7

  Cover art © 2018 by Ebooklaunch.com

  Illustrations © 2018 by Wojtek Depczynski

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  The Flames

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  From the Author

  Afterword

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  The Flames

  The air in the normally drab village square shivered with magic.

  Will felt as though he’d stepped into a different world. More people than he’d ever seen were gathered together, the high-spirited crowd causing the weathered buildings around them to fade into the background. The nutty smell of roasted sorren seeds wafted out from the wayfarer’s wagon, and Will’s mother had bought him not one, but two sweet rolls.

  Vahe of the Flames stood far back on the stage, surrounded by dark walls and an arched roof, his voice low as he told of three children trapped deep in the lair of a mountain troll. His fingers toyed slowly with a handful of fire, flickering just above his palm, seemingly burning nothing but air. Will couldn’t pull his eyes away.

  The wayfarer’s black hair and pointed beard mixed with the shadows on the stage. His voice rolled out with dark menace as the trolls crept closer to the children. Will’s fist clamped into the sticky dough of his sweet roll, and he leaned closer to his mother. When his arm brushed hers, a jab of disapproval flashed into his chest, off-center and too muted to be his own. His mother watched Vahe with the same sternness she turned on Will whenever he played too roughly with baby Ilsa.

  Pulling his arm away from her, the feeling faded. He rubbed his skin as though he could erase the memory of it. It happened more and more often lately, these echoes of what other people were feeling when he touched them.

  Vahe continued, his voice still low and foreboding but the spell had been broken. Will remembered that the stage was a wagon. Not a normal wagon—a wayfarer’s wagon. Like a house with wheels. Except houses didn’t come in dazzling colors, or have fronts that could lay open like a ramp, leading down to the village dirt. Vibrant ribbons fluttered from the edges of the roof, quivering brightly in the evening breeze, but inside, Vahe’s dark orange flame lent a brooding feel to the shadows. It caught on unknown things, flashing back glints of burnished copper.

  The tale ended with a quick escape by the children and Will’s mother put her arm around his shoulder.

  “Let’s get home.” Her disapproval rushed into him again, filling the left side of his chest and leaving a mildly sour taste in his mouth.

  “But wayfarer’s never come here. And he might tell more stories.”

  “I’ve heard enough.” Her tone made it clear the decision had been made. “Tussy needs milking. And that man takes entirely too much pleasure in frightening children.”

  Milking a goat was a terrible reason to leave. If only Tussy would run away one of the times she broke out of her pen. With a sigh he felt down to his toes, Will followed her, weaving through the crowd of villagers in the dusty square, hoping Vahe would start a story his mother would be interested in hearing.

  Instead Vahe began to do tricks with the strange orange flame in his hand, making it appear and disappear, tossing it through the air, even dropping it onto a pile of dry grass without setting it aflame. He tossed it toward the crowd. It disappeared for a moment when it reached the sunlight, then Will caught a glimmer of it hovering over someone’s head. It slid over another, and another, people’s hands reaching up and passing through it unharmed. It came close and Will held his breath. When it shifted above Will, the top of his head tingled for a heartbeat. A jolt like lightning shot through him. Every bit of his skin stung like the prickles of a hundred tiny thorns, and the air around him shimmered with yellow light. The flame winked out and the sparkles disappeared

  “The fire likes you, boy!” Vahe cried.

  Will rubbed his hands across his arms, trying to brush away the last of the prickly feeling. The crowd oohed appreciatively, and Vahe started another trick. But Will’s mother waited at the edge of the crowd, her mouth pressed into that thin line and her brow creased with worry.

  The sun beat down on the dirt road leading out of the dingy village, and the whole way home through the low, winding hills, Will couldn’t shake the tingly feeling that crawled across his skin.

  At the edge of their yard the creak of the goat pen caught his attention. Tussy was shoving her little horns under the bar, pushing open the gate—again. The brand new shoots in the garden almost within her reach.

  Will ran forward, stretching his hand out as though he could reach across the entire yard. Too far away to reach her, he could do nothing but hurl fury at the stupid goat for interrupting the storytelling, and for endlessly escaping her pen.

  Except the fury did hurl out of his hand with a ripping pain and the gate slammed shut.

  Agony stabbed up his arms and he dropped to his knees, his own cry of pain drowning out Tussy’s insulted bleat. A new circle of winter-brown grass around him marred the summer yard, brittle and dry, like the old, worn out grass of fall.

  Shiny blisters swelled on his palms and he curled forward, gasping and choking on the pain. Worry and pity washed over him like cool water even before his mother’s arms wrapped around him.

  “A Keeper,” she whispered, loo
king from his hands to the withered grass. A fierce pride blazed up in Will and he sank against her, letting her emotions drown out his own fear and pain.

  Hours later, he lay in the cool quiet of the cottage and the roiling turmoil in his chest was thankfully all his own. His parents and Ilsa slept in their curtained alcove, the barrage of emotions from them finally quiet. Since he’d closed the gate that had changed. He could feel everything they felt. No one had to touch him now, they only needed to be close.

  He rubbed this thumb over the frayed edge of the cloth his mother had wrapped around his blistered hands, his mind spinning.

  Magic. He’d done magic. He’d somehow sucked life out of the grass and used it to shut the gate.

  The idea hung in the silent cottage both alien and obvious. Part of him was still shocked, but if he was honest, he knew something magical had been happening for months and months. Not with searing, hand-burning pain, but with mumbled, nudging hints. That empty, endless hollowness he’d felt when he shook hands with the butcher at his wife’s funeral. Or the day they cheered as Ilsa took her first, wobbling steps—when Will’s mother had grasped his shoulder, he thought his heart might burst into a million pieces.

  But he couldn’t really be a Keeper, could he?

  He’d closed a gate from across the yard, and everyone knew the sign of new Keeper magic was burned hands. He stretched his fingers until shots of pain lanced across his palms. If he’d done magic, would the Keepers have to take him? His heart quickened. He’d get to go to the hidden Stronghold. He’d see the queen in her palace. He’d never have to weed the garden or milk Tussy. He’d be rich. He could buy his father a mule, and Ilsa a real doll instead of that ugly rag she carried everywhere.

  Will pulled the thin blanket up to his chin, trying not to get too excited. He wasn’t the sort of boy who became a Keeper. He was the sort of boy who could never get the goat pen to stay closed.

  A foreign terror crashed into him, stronger and darker than anything he’d ever felt and he shrank down into his bed. He strained to hear any sound, but his father’s snoring continued, low and steady, and nothing else stirred in the cottage.

  He squeezed his eyes shut. Please don’t let me feel their dreams.

  The sensation swelled until he couldn’t stay still any longer. He rolled out of bed and tiptoed toward the curtain. The sensation grew stronger. His breath grew shallow and his heart thrummed in his ears as though he stood atop a cliff—or being chased by something monstrous.

  Will pulled the curtain back, desperate to wake them from such a nightmare.

  Bright moonlight poured in the window, landing on the bed where his parents lay sleeping. Ilsa and her rag doll curled between them and the wall in a tangle of dark curls. All three were still.

  But in the window above them perched a man with a black pointed beard.

  Vahe.

  Will froze, his hand clutching the curtain. Vahe’s gaze snapped up, and Will’s gut clenched, whether from his own fear or the wayfarer’s, it was impossible to tell. A silver knife appeared in the man’s hand, glinting in the moonlight. Slowly, the man raised a finger to his lips.

  Will’s breath caught in his throat. He needed to yell, scream, something. But his body refused to move.

  Vahe shifted his grip on the knife until it pointed down at Tell’s chest.

  “Come with me, boy,” he whispered, the words barely more than a rustle of wind.

  The muscles of Vahe’s arm rippled as he shifted the knife over the thin form of Will’s parents. Even if Will woke them, they were no match for this man.

  A fierce anger stirred in his gut, an anger all his own at this man for threatening them, for daring to come into their house. For being stronger than his parents.

  Will stepped forward and let the curtain fall behind him. He flexed his hands slightly. It had worked on the gate. He just needed to push Vahe out the window. Then he could lock the shutters and yell until the neighbors woke.

  The desire to push the wayfarer grew stronger and stronger until it filled him, shoving out Vahe’s storm of emotions. Every bit of Will wanted that wicked face, that silver knife, and that dreadful excitement out of his home. And out of himself. Will lifted one hand and pointed it toward the wayfarer. Pain shot across his palm as he focused all his fury at the man.

  Vahe’s eyes widened and he grabbed at the window, bracing himself. “Come,” he ordered between clenched teeth. “No one needs to get hurt.”

  Will pushed harder until his palm burned and the wayfarer threw all his weight against the force of it. Vahe’s black hair and beard blended into the night. Will could see only pale cheeks and glittering eyes.

  A stray thought wandered across Will’s mind, a memory of the withered grass this afternoon. Was the garden outside withering now, fueling whatever he was doing?

  He didn’t care.

  Slowly, a finger’s breadth at a time, Vahe slipped backwards.

  A small gasp yanked Will’s attention down. His mother lay on the bed in front of him, white as moonlight, gasping for breath, her fingers scrabbling against Will’s other hand where he clutched her arm. Will snatched his hand back, and the fire racing through him stopped. His fury turned to horror.

  It wasn’t from the garden. He’d been pulling all that power out of her body.

  Everything moved at once.

  His mother took a deep, shuddering breath.

  His father stirred.

  Released from Will’s fury, the wayfarer toppled forward, falling into the room, the knife slamming into Will’s father’s chest. His mother screamed and Ilsa woke, adding her small cries to the chaos. Terror and fury filled Will and he didn’t know if it was his or theirs. Pain and panic and desire rushed in, threatening to tear him apart.

  Vahe looked up from the knife, his face shocked. He reached toward Will again. “Come here, boy!” he hissed.

  Will backed away from Vahe’s anger, his mother’s terror, and his father’s too-still form.

  A shout and pounding on the cottage door behind Will made the wayfarer’s anger flare hotter. Vahe’s eyes bored into Will, his fury thrumming in Will’s chest.

  Will’s mother screamed for help. Vahe hurled a last glare at Will, then snatched up Ilsa. She cried, reaching out toward her mother, her dark curls pressed against Vahe’s neck.

  “Stop,” Will pleaded, taking a step closer.

  The door to the cottage splintered and flew open. Neighbors rushed into the small cottage, bringing in a frenzy of emotion.

  The wayfarer yanked his bloody knife from Will’s father’s chest with a snarl. Still clutching Ilsa, Vahe plunged out the window, his anger tearing out of Will, leaving him hollow of everything but his mother’s screams.

  Chapter One

  Will rode up the interminable slope at a trudging pace, running his fingers through his beard and wondering for the thousandth time why everything on the Sweep was so deceptive. The ceaseless grassland made it impossible to tell distances, and every rise turned out to be twice as long as it looked. On top of that, the seaside road had become mostly sand, and with each step his horse’s hooves sank in and backwards, making the climb feel like a continual progression of small defeats.

  Endless, faded, tiresome grass rolled down from the far reaches of the northern Sweep to dwindle here, choked out by the sandy beach. In Queensland, or any other wholesome place, the world would be bursting with the greenness and flowers and warmth of spring. But here the grass left over from last year was brown and brittle, the sea was grey, even the sky was barely blue. The emptiness of the Sweep slithered inside him, deepening its roots, tinging everything with hopelessness.

  Over the top of the hill, the tip of a jagged peak appeared, and an ache of homesickness squeezed his chest. It was long past time to go home. He’d accomplished nothing here. For his foreignness, he’d been ignored or scorned everywhere he’d gone. All he had to show for the past year were a lingering loneliness and two books crammed full of overheard Roven stories. Gran
ted the books he’d written held more information about the Roven Sweep than the entire Keeper’s library, but even that might not cancel out his failure to find the things he’d actually been looking for.

  When he finally crested the hill, the Scale Mountains spread out along the horizon like the barren, rocky spine of some ancient monster, guarding the eastern edge of the Sweep. From here the road would take him past the southern tip of the mountains in a day and he’d be in Gulfind. A respectable land with something besides grass. He’d see bushes and trees. He’d be within two easy days of Queensland where he’d have no reason to hide. If people found out he was a Keeper, they’d treat him like an honored guest, instead of calling for his execution.

  Something moved in the distance on the road ahead and a mild curiosity stirred his listlessness. He hadn’t seen another traveler all day. The Roven clans had already headed north to graze their herds on the well-watered plains near the Hoarfrost Mountains, and there was nothing but grass left here on the southern edge of the Sweep.

  A flicker of color caught his eye, and his hand tightened on the reins.

  A gaudy wagon with tall sides and a rounded roof stuttered its way over the next long hill. Its garish paint and gleefully clashing ribbons fluttered against the backdrop of the mountains before cresting the hill and disappearing.