Shadow King, The Darkling Chronicles #5

By Tricia Zoeller

A family tragedy at the age of twelve thrusts Serena into the world of shadowcasting. She relishes the dragon lords’ protection and training but loves her new job and human charge even more.

Because of her great-great-grandfather’s alliance with a vicious nymph queen, Serena finds other Montenaians refuse to trust or accept her. It doesn’t help that she has the same birthmark and orange spark in her eyes as the relative who brought shame to the Brisson name.

Stepping through the portal to Paris allows Serena to escape her family’s reputation as well as her mother’s harsh traditions. Every day Serena pushes to be “worthy of the dragon,” regardless of her brother warning her the path leads to horrible loss.

For years, the lore of dragon and astrei has molded the practices and beliefs of Montenaians. No one has felt this more than the phantom, Serena. This Drifter’s history is the key to Shadowland’s fate. Can she protect them from a dangerous future and still find her way home?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tricia Zoeller
• Release date: Sep 16, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370617203

Tricia Zoeller

Tricia lives in Marietta, Georgia with her husband, Lou, her little yappy dog, Lola Belle, and her big orange mutant cat, George. Her two stepsons, Joseph and Robert, make stopovers as well, making sure to keep life an adventure.Tricia earned a B.A. in Journalism and Anthropology from Indiana University in Bloomington. After moving to Atlanta in 1992, she obtained her Masters of Education in Communication Disorders from Georgia State University and spent a decade working as a Speech-Language Pathologist, most recently in the pediatric field treating children on the Autism Spectrum.Writing has always been a part of her life–like breathing and chocolate. To reach Tricia or get the latest stories, please visit: www.triciazoeller.com or find her on Goodreads http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17670526-first-born

Book preview

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

MAP OF MONTENAI

PART I

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

PART II

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

GLOSSARY OF MONTENAI TERMS & CHARACTERS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

For Lou, dragons really do exist!

A heartfelt thank you to these amazing people: editor, Nancy S. Thompson; cover artist, Robin Harper of Wicked by Design; cartographer, Jared Blando of TheRedEpic.com; and formatter, Angela McLaurin with Fictional Formats. Thank you for your patience and dedication.

My deepest gratitude to my superheroes (beta readers): Martina, Karen, Annalee, and Stacy.

Thanks for the support and inspiration: Alison and Michele.

Merci, Pascale for helping me with my French homework. Any errors are fully my responsibility.

To the readers—thanks for taking a chance and stepping through the portal!

MOTHER STIRRED THE oatmeal in the pot with violent strokes, as if it had offended her. The lumpy oatmeal fell into the wooden bowls with a plop as she ladled my brother and me each a serving. As usual, she added two berries to each of our portions. They gave the paste-like oatmeal a sweet taste and made it almost bearable.

Eat up, my little king and queen, if you are to grow as strong as a dragon.

I wanna be bigger than a dragon, Mother. More berries, please, Josef said.

She snatched my little brother’s pudgy fist and shook him, rattling the table, bowl, and spoon. His head full of tight black curls bounced from side to side.

Never eat more than two berries, Josef. Ever. Or you’ll be one of the drifters.

A chill swept over me as she threatened my eight-year-old brother with such a terrible fate.

Do you want to be a miserable phantom like Salos? she asked, her face contorted in a fierce scowl.

Josef cast his eyes down.

Great-great-uncle Salos had haunted our cabin in the Hinterlands before we moved to the east side of the river so Mother could begin work at Toren Hospital. His soul stayed behind, linked to the cabin where his human charge had died. The poor human had been hauled to this plane by the late queen of the nymphs. Queen Hanleith had named him Adam and had tried to keep him alive in our world in order to strengthen her own vitality.

Salos had attempted to rescue Adam, a human man he’d shadowcasted for since the age of four. But Queen Hanleith found them hiding in the wilds of the Hinterlands. I suspected the violent death Salos suffered at her hand had something to do with his soul lingering here in Montenai rather than crossing over to Laith.

My mother’s sharp, brown eyes fixed on me. Serena. Are you listening to me or daydreaming again? Do you think this is a joke?

I swallowed as I looked down at the dark purple berries in my lumpy breakfast. No, Mother.

It was times like these I thought of my father to the point my chest hurt and I lost my breath. I missed his gentleness and affection. Papa died nine months ago. Despite my mother’s constant care, his case of Shadow Fever had grown worse. Even with healer in her blood, Mother’s efforts hadn’t helped. The Silton Rash had spread over Papa’s face, and his fever spiked. Stubborn to the end, he wouldn’t allow us to seek the help of the dragon lords or bring him to Toren Hospital in Shadowland. One night, he went to sleep and never woke up.

Mother’s strong hand gripped my chin as if she could squeeze the memory right out of me. Her grasp forced my eyes up. Stop blinking like that. It makes you look dumb as a cow.

Her main goal in life was to make us as strong as the dragon. Papa used to say her superstitions were silly. I never thought of her as silly. Scary, yes. She got her ways from our great-great-grandfather, who had worked with Queen Hanleith in Kirka Village. We didn’t know much about him, except my mother’s surname, Brisson, got us strange glances.

We had managed through the harsh winter after Papa’s death, but eventually Mother swallowed her pride and presented herself to the three dragon lords of Shadowland in order to provide a better way of life for us. We now rented a small home from them in South Village, where the majority of nonshadowcasters lived.

She released my chin, but leaned toward me. I smelled the sweetness of the berries mixed with bitter and citrusy aromas from the herbs she used in her work. Mother was a healer, as was her mother, grandfather, and great-grandfather before her, at least until his encounter with the big, red dragon, Akton, from the World of Fallon, Land of the Stars.

The dragon had crashed through a portal in Montenai’s sky during one of the worst winter storms in our history. The fairy-like creature on his back was said to be a goddess in the world of Fallon. Adah, now called the Mother of Montenai, had died as a result of battle wounds suffered from the war in their land.

Do you know why we eat the berries? Mother asked, as she did almost every day of our lives.

So Adah will find favor with us, I replied. The fairy creature was dead and now shone down from Laith as a bright blue star in the sky.

Yes. Her forehead wrinkled. And the dragon will accept you. Malan wasn’t fit for the task. She turned her head and spit on the floor of the small cottage.

The red dragon had eaten my great-great-grandfather, Malan. He’d been a strong darkling, but it’s kind of hard to come back from that. The community lost their Shadow Healer. Queen Hanleith’s dark side worsened with the loss of Malan’s talents and advisement. She made darklings’ lives miserable.

The red dragon died a fiery death, or so the story goes. He’s the red star shining down in Montenai’s sky. Mother says he’s a drifter. I don’t know how a dragon can be a drifter or why she believes this. She feels he haunts our family because Malan was not fit for the task. She blames him for Papa’s death. She blames him for everything.

The warm oatmeal felt as if it were expanding in my stomach. I pushed back from the table to bring my bowl to the sink. Mother caught me by my upper arm and held me to her.

So tall, like your father, she said. She hated that I now looked down on her. What did I tell you about today?

Today was my brother’s first day of school as a nonshadowcaster. I wasn’t dressed for school. Instead, I had an appointment with the Shadowland Council—the three dragon lords. It felt like angry sprites had set up house in my stomach.

Why must the lords meet me? I was no different from my brother. I wanted to attend school, too. Even though I was twelve, I could catch up with the other darklings’ schoolwork. Papa had seen to my instruction. I had no formal training, but I’d read every book in our cabin.

Mother huffed with impatience, waiting for my answer.

Not to look any of them in the eye. Not to startle or do anything to show my magic. Although her grip tightened on my arm, I refused to flinch or show any sign of discomfort.

Fix your hair. You look like a wild thing with it down like that. Where are the combs I gave you?

But—

We live in Shadowland now. We must adopt their customs.

Without another word, I rinsed my bowl and retreated to the bedroom I shared with Josef. Watching in the mirror, I carefully pulled the hair back from my face, fashioning the red rhinestone clips in a ring on my head in the darkling way. Mother had given me a black and gray dress to wear for the occasion. A red scarf brightened up the outfit. I didn’t want to look like I was going to a funeral.

Sliding my hand into my pocket, I checked one more thing—a black leather leg scabbard that held the knife Papa had given me. I’d cut another slit in the pocket, allowing me hidden access to the weapon. My fingers traced the five rays of the swirly sun engraved on the handle. It matched the mark on my right shoulder. My mother didn’t have a swirly-sun birthmark; neither did my brother. The knife had been Great-great-grandfather’s. The piece didn’t look like a traditional throwing knife or dagger, but was its own unique instrument.

Papa hadn’t taught me how to use it, only told me not to tell Mother. Then he died, and I was left to wonder about the strange gift. Great-great-uncle Salos knew about it. In his drifter form, he still spoke with me. The winter my father died, Uncle had told me how to oil it. He’d suggested I store it separate from the leather sheath, so the humidity and tannins in the leather wouldn’t damage the metal. He also instructed how to throw it using a no-spin technique. It seemed a strange skill to teach a twelve-year-old.

Since Papa’s death, I didn’t go anywhere without it. It was my lucky charm. Other fledglings carried around little, glowing stars in their pockets because their parents had told them Adah was with them. I had a weapon. We obviously had different upbringings.

When I walked back into the kitchen, Mother and Josef were gone. Thanks for waiting, I said to the air.

She’d taken Josef to school before starting her hospital shift. She was sending me a message by leaving me alone with the dragon lords—she trusted me to behave whether she was with me or not. I swallowed a dry lump in my throat.

Outside the cottage, I walked a path strewn with pine needles until I reached the wooden boardwalk of South Village along the river. This wasn’t the most direct route to the Wishing Tree, but I had plenty of time, and I wanted to calm my nerves. Fog rolled over the ripples of the river. Across the water, just the tops of the kirka’s glass-domed homes were visible above the bank of mist that hunkered down in their fields.

Colored leaves blew across the boardwalk. I made my way behind the string of stores and passed by a wide, grassy area where the lords were creating a park. When I looked up, the Wishing Tree blocked out the sky. A door attendant wearing the brothers’ crest on his coat opened the double doors for me to enter the huge sequoia.

As my eyes adjusted to the dimmed lighting inside the tree’s front hall, I detected movement at a bank of curving stairs. A woman with skin as dark as my mother’s, but eyes the gray color of the fog, walked toward me.

Child, have you no coat?

It was Lady Pia herself. My mouth opened and closed, but I couldn’t think what to say to the stately female. Flustered, I curtsied. No, my lady. I am of strong ilk. Only the weak feel the cold.

My mother had told me to never look in the dragon lords’ eyes, but she made no mention of anyone else I might encounter inside the tree. Pia’s husband, Drakos, had died just four years previous. It was said he tried to enter the human plane via the portal in the northernmost stretch of the Sequoia Forest. The very portal all shadowcasting darklings used daily to come and go from earth.

She raised an eyebrow before coming closer. As she examined my face, I noted the combs in her hair and felt relieved I’d listened to my mother and fashioned my hair in the same manner.

She smelled of sweet pea mingled with something spicy or musky. I knew immediately it was her proximity to the dragon lords and the woody scent of sequoia. Lady Pia was in her seventies. Her brown skin had only the tiniest wrinkles around her mouth and eyes. Her dark, curly hair held only a few gray streaks.

With her arm in mine, she steered us toward a dark, cobblestone tunnel. Don’t be nervous; they meet all new shadowcasters in the Rotunda. She winked.

Shadowcaster? Oh, I’m not—

Of course you are, dear. I can feel the power coming off you. It’s impressive in one untrained.

I thought the air would grow colder as we went down the dark tunnel, but it didn’t. It grew warmer. So warm, my head swam. I heard the voices, first. Deep, loud, and forceful. A waiting area, decorated in rich reds, blues, and golds, led to the Rotunda, which shone bright and mysterious through a set of glass double-doors.

Lady Pia sat me down on a long, upholstered bench facing a tremendous painting of the astrei, Adah. I stared at the painting for a moment, but my attention kept going back to Lady Pia. Her deep study of me made me nervous.

The Brisson is strong in you, she said in a solemn voice.

I looked at my hands in my lap. I suppose hiding in the Hinterlands had felt a safe place for my mother and father, out of the scrutiny of both nymph and darkling. Now we were completely exposed, and my mother had put us right under the watchful eye of the most powerful creatures in Montenai. While older and only a nonshadowcasting darkling, Lady Pia scared me just as much as her young, power-hungry sons.

Her cool hand found my chin and pulled my eyes to hers. The gesture was similar to my mother’s, but her touch felt worlds different. You will need to be careful. That amber glow in your eyes, I’ve seen it before. Frown lines creased her forehead. She grasped an edge of my scarf, running the fabric between her thumb and forefinger. I see you’re wearing your family color. It’s very becoming on you.

The French doors burst open, and Lord Akton came into the vestibule. At seven-feet tall, he towered over his mother and me. Although I stood in his presence out of respect, I forgot to cast my eyes downward. I looked him square in his one golden eye. His right eye was missing due to a punishment by his father.

Mother?

I walked the young Brisson fledgling down here.

He nodded once, and she turned, leaving me on my own with the palest darkling I’d ever seen. Unlike his brothers, Lord Atkon had light skin and red hair. I wondered if the difference had brought the wrath of his father down on him.

I knew the feel of magic; I lived with my mother. Hers would brush up against me, almost as if nudging me. His had no boundaries. The heaviness of it caused my eyes to grow weary. My lids wanted to close. Instinct caused me to cast back.

His eyebrow rose, sending the red scales to wave along his forehead. You’ll have to learn not to cast dark shadows every time you feel threatened.

My mouth dropped open, but I truly didn’t know what to say or do. A little voice inside my head told me to look away, but I just couldn’t. I didn’t want to miss anything. He folded his arms across his chest.

What did your mother tell you about today?

Just that you wanted to meet me before I started school.

Don’t lie.

My stomach twisted.

She told you to suppress your magic, didn’t she? He stepped so close to me I could see the individual stitching that comprised his finely-tailored green shirt.

I pressed my lips together and prayed I didn’t cast any more power from myself. I’d never had much control, which had always made my mother angry. My eyes studied the cobblestone floor.

His large hand found my back, but he pulled it away as if I’d shocked him. I took a step back. The bench hit the back of my knees, and my arms flailed as I fell onto the seat.

I’m sorry. I blinked like crazy, a nervous habit of mine.

The oldest dragon lord laughed. Don’t apologize for falling.

Shocked, I looked up and giggled with him.

WHEN WE ENTERED the Rotunda to meet Lord Akton’s brothers, I caught myself hiding behind him, letting him be my shield.

He turned abruptly, and pointed to his side, indicating for me to step into the light of the grand room. The round ceiling soared high above, a seemingly infinite fixture, as tall as the tree.

Someone cleared his throat. I looked first at Lord Bulosk, the youngest lord, then to Lord Leasith, the middle lord. While the lords had been around for decades, they looked like twenty-year-old darklings. The dragon within gave them an immortal quality.

Lord Bulosk was as dark as me in skin and hair, except for his green eyes and the small patch of blue scales trickling from his hairline down the side of his face. Leasith was the shortest but most muscular lord. He didn’t smile. His light blue eyes and close-cropped hair gave him a stern quality.

While his facial expression gave nothing away, Lord Bulosk’s face was quite the opposite. He looked ruffled by my presence. What is she?

I’d heard his voice in my head. It caused me to sway. I swallowed several times and tried to blink away the shock of it.

She’s a descendant of the Shadow Healer, Lord Akton said. And you may as well speak out-loud. Apparently, she can hear you.

Bring her closer, said a deeper voice.

Panicked, I looked to Lord Leasith, but I knew he hadn’t spoken.

My skin prickled from an overwhelming heat. The Torensphere, an unhatched dragon egg from Fallon, had spoken to me. The room felt as if it were turning. The tiny round windows in the trunk of the sequoia tree began to dance and blur. I felt the lords’ alarm. I couldn’t help myself. When scared, I go somewhere safe. The forceful magic of the essence choked me.

Grab her, Lord Akton said.

My body became weightless, so light, as if to disintegrate. A blur of colors accompanied a floating sensation. The air changed, and I knew I’d left the tree. In a blink of an eye, a heaviness returned, starting at my feet and surging to my head. Looking down two hundred feet, I saw the bright blue Aglatian Sea crashing into the cliffs on which I stood.

Oh no. I bent over at the waist, attempting to regain my breath. I did it again—teleported. I stood on the tremendous sea cliffs located south of the Faunlier Mountains. Mother would be furious with me. Normally, the roar of the waves calmed me. Today, it caused the fear inside me to bubble over.

Darklings didn’t teleport on their own. They used the portal built long ago inside a sequoia tree. Only the dragon lords teleported, disappearing into thin air and reappearing in a desired location.

Unsteady on my feet, I stepped away from the drop. Would the dragon lords pursue me? Could they find me?

The wind howled as it whipped my hair into my eyes. I’d need to go back. The longer I waited, the worse it would be, the angrier they would be, the more severe the punishment…if they were anything like my mother.

Thinking of the riverbank by South Village, I closed my eyes and teleported back to Shadowland. I scanned the trees along the bank, looking for low-hanging limbs. With trembling hands, I twisted a skinny branch round and round until it detached from the tree.

After I stripped it of leaves and acorns, I walked straight to the Wishing Tree, ignoring the glances of darklings on the boardwalk. The fog had lifted, but the day remained overcast. I felt so tired, as if I’d lost time.

The door attendant opened the double doors for me without question. As soon as I entered the grand space, voices flooded my head. I attempted to ignore them. I didn’t hear the large dragon lord approach, but when I looked up, he was before me. I didn’t know where Lords Bulosk or Leasith had gone, or Lady Pia. She’d acted so kind to me. I didn’t want her to think I was a horrible darkling who disobeyed.

Lord Akton waved his hand to a room on