Stone of Hope: Book One of the Eternal Wing Series

By Daymon Jassal

Losing his dog, Bruno, Dawn is heartbroken and shattered on the inside. After the following events, he starts to have dreams and visions about a strange girl named Artemis. But what makes it even weirder is that Artemis turns out to be a real person, who transfers into Dawns school with only one message:
Back off from the hunt for the stones, or I will kill you.
And so the adventure unfolds as Dawns magical quest for the 5 hearts of the angel Midoria begin, and his battles with the powerful and devastating angel's vessel, Artemis, while facing powerful evil he cannot even comprehend, while being reunited with Bruno once more.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499044515

Book preview

STONE OF HOPE

BOOK ONE OF THE ETERNAL WING SERIES

DAYMON JASSAL

Copyright © 2014 by Daymon Jassal.

ISBN:                  Softcover                           978-1-4990-4452-2

                            eBook                                978-1-4990-4451-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 06/27/2014

Xlibris LLC

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

603567

CONTENTS

Prologue: Memories of the past

1: A Ghostly encounter

2: The Angels Vessel

3: The forces of light

4: The breath of fire

5: The forest of trials

6: Lost wings

7: The goddess’s knight

8: The Guardian Of Darkness

9: The Dark Lord

10: One reason

11: The Sovereign of Man

12: The thirst for Hope

13: Falling Light

14: The Light within Hope

15: Crimson Visions

16: Two Stones, One Bird

17: Power Within

18: Making Peace

19: Luna, the fallen knight

20: Past Scars

21: Magna, Guardian of lost souls

22: Lost Ones

23: Closing Wounds

24: The Dark Trilogy

25: Irena, arrows of twilight

26: Drake, Shifter of nightmares

27: Edward, Destructive blade of hell

28: Chaonil, Lord of Darkness

29: Blossomed Love

30: To love or not to love?

31: Call of fire

32: Birth of the B.A.D.G.

33: Finding the flames

34: The Gates of Fire

35: Embers of the past

36: Roads of flame

37: Ardens, Guardian of Hope

38: The Palace of flames

39: The battle of hope

40: The stone of hope

Epilogue: Darkness rising

Acknowledgements

Just like my dream, Artemis gave Luna a final glance of despair and fired, her arrow hitting the epicenter of the beasts chest.

The explosions made my ears ring,

the vibrations echoing throughout my body.

The light was extremely intense,

causing me to shut my eyes from the sensation.

Clearing, I glanced towards where Luna was trapped just moments ago,

all that remained was nothing.

Everything in the path of the attack was blasted into oblivion,

nothing standing in the void of destruction.

Well, at least that’s what I thought.

"Dedicated to Bruno, my sweet dog,

who gave me the strength and inspiration to write this book. I love you."

RIP 2007-2013

~Love the Jassal Family and everyone who loves you~

PROLOGUE

Memories of the past

Artemis clung to her bow, aiming it at her target. She could feel the energy surging within her. All she had to do was fire, it was simple. But she couldn’t. She knew she had to though, the world depended on it. She gathered her courage and aimed, and with a last glance at Luna; she looked her in the eye and fired, ending the darkness.

As she awoke from her nightmare, her face was streaked with tears. The memories haunting her, night after wretched night. It’s not real, she said. It’s not real.

But it was, all that happened years ago when she failed to gather the 5 hearts of the angels. She escaped with her life however, but what did it matter? Luna was gone. Luna the chosen one, Luna her friend. Artemis could have done something else. Surrender? No that wouldn’t work; she wouldn’t be the only one who would have to face the consequences. The entire world would have to.

Suddenly, a whisper of thought appeared in her mind and a face, handsome and young caught her attention.

The next guardian, it must be, Artemis said to herself.

And with that, she sprouted her wings, flew, and headed toward the next guardian.

1

A Ghostly encounter

I always hated Mondays. The start of a school week, the nervousness I would feel for no reason, it would build up inside me and make a chasm in my stomach start to form. But this was a different type of Monday. My dog Bruno had been ill for a while, we all knew it. But I never would have anticipated this. Lying on the floor, looking up at me with cold, glazed eyes. My Bruno was dead. Gone. And I could do nothing about it.

At first, I just stared. I didn’t know how to take this. Many relatives in my family had died, but I hardly even knew them. Sure, I’d feel I bit sad, but it wouldn’t really affect me the way this did. I didn’t know how to handle it. All I could see was the body of my dog, my friend, dead and lifeless. I looked at my other family members, crying and screaming and all I could do was stare. And stare. Then the tears came and I held my dog, rocking him back and forth as I said things to him that I knew he could hear, from heaven beside God.

The next hours had flown by quite fast. All I recall is waking up in a daze, hoping what happened was a dream. But I knew it wasn’t. I could never have him back. And a part of me hated god for it because I never did anything ever to deserve this.

I got to miss school for Bruno’s funeral, and I wasn’t looking forward to going back to school and all the snooty head idiots who they they’re all this and that. Seriously who gave them brains? Animals have a way better heart, brain soul, and I’m just going to stop now because I don’t want to bore you to death.

I walked through the door of English, my first class of the day. I was nervous, no nervous was just too subtle, I was terrified of what people would say, especially those idiots who call themselves people who sit at the back of the class and yap their mouths off until I want to slap them.

The first word was spoken by my teacher, saying:

Hey Dawn, hope you’re feeling better.

Obviously no one knew but I wish they did. I wish I could talk to someone, but I wasn’t that person. I could act like the strong and happy all the time type, but in reality, I was always the sensitive one who the news was hard to break to. But there’s one thing I never got though, what’s the point of staring at someone again? I’d love someone to explain it to me before I start giving people dirty looks.

I wanted a shoulder to cry on, but I knew I wouldn’t get it. I was as popular as a pet rock. Talked to once in a while and made fun of, a lot. I’ll plot revenge later, now I just need to get through this day.

The next word someone said to me was:

Where were you yesterday?

I didn’t really bother to say anything so I was just blunt.

MY DOG DIED.

And after that she was quiet. While I was wallowing in my eternal suffer, my teacher just babbled on with a few jokes then. At that point I never ever in my entire life wanted to hit someone so bad.

On to woodshop later, I pretty much babbled on for the next 1 and a half hours to the people I sit with and killed them with all my emotions. Since I was still in shock, that didn’t make it any better.

When I got home all I pretty much did was read and fill the emptiness with tears. All I thought about was Bruno. My sweet little golden retriever, almost six years old, died of hemangiosarcoma. You probably don’t know what that is right? It’s a type of spleen cancer that occurs in 62% of golden retrievers and is incurable and kills within 1-3 months.

And you know what the sad part is? I didn’t even know. My parents knew, but why tell me right? If I knew I would have spent even more time with Bruno than just the few hours I had after sports and homework. In a way I don’t blame my parents, but a part of me immensely hated them. For lying, for not answering my texts when they were at the vet for Bruno’s check-up. I should have researched more, maybe Bruno could have had a few more months or maybe years before he died and had a happier passing. Not alone.

The thought hit me so hard I started to feel dizzy. Alone. All alone. I didn’t want to go to baseball, I didn’t want anyone or anything, life sucked and I hated it.

Have you guys ever lost someone close to you, if so I wish I knew you, I wish I could talk to you. But instead I’m here, alone and I have no idea on what to do next. Can I even become a vet? Or will I even be able to look at another dog? It all seemed so completely wrong.

Hope was pretty much lost within me. I wasn’t even sure what to do next. How do you stop feeling sad even? When I’m depressed or emotionally down, I do the typical Dawn thing. I act happy and look like I am cheerful all the time. I know if I show emotions someone will take advantage of that.

And you know what that means? It goes from one person to the other. I didn’t want anything piece of garbage person who I hated to know about Bruno, let alone even speak his name.

I’d never allow it. Someone who brought such despair in my life doesn’t even deserve to know, they’re not worth it.

Usually, knowing my amazing luck, something in a book or on T.V. will pop and start talking about dogs or something, seriously, sometimes I want to punch that so called irony in the face. Well maybe god will be merciful and not put on something that I don’t really fancy looking at and maybe cheer up.

The next day didn’t really cheer up though. Let’s just say I had the biggest jerks for friends that you could have, well at least one of them. My best friend, (not gonna name him), was the biggest jerk faced egotistic butt for a friend that I could have. There were 2 ways he treated me:

1: He was nice to me and was a great friend to me.

And 2: he was a jerk face to me when he was with his other friends.

Eventually though, I was ditched soon after by him and we never really spoke again. I was kind of lonely, but glad I didn’t have to deal with him and his obnoxious friends. I was sort of happy at my own pace. I would go to class and talk with a few other people and I made some new friends, but under all that I was still depressed. The pain inside me wouldn’t go away. When I was alone, all I would think o was my sweet Bruno. I didn’t know how to balance out happiness with despair; I was a huge downer in confidence levels.

They wish for hope, but only receive curses, I heard that quote somewhere, but I realized that pretty much summed up my life. I can’t continue to fight, I’m weak and I can do is depend on others and make them wallow inside my own burdens until I die.

I wondered what my muse was, oh wait, I remember it was Bruno. I probably seem like I’m going insane now, don’t I?

I wonder if people talk to themselves a lot. I know I do. Is it natural? I don’t know what to make of anything. I feel like I’m stuck in the worst soap opera you’ve ever watched. You know those T.V. shows that older people watch, so likely your mother watches them, and well at least I know my mom does. I guess luck never really shined upon me as a child or even now. I’m not really amazing at anything and I can’t really do much except lead an ordinary life. I always thought that maybe just once I would be able to something amazing, something to make me a bit more liked and popular out of the other people around me. But I guess I wasn’t gifted with that talent or I guess I’d be ahead of kids my age.

Even though I’m one of the only dark-skinned kids in my school, I’ve never really stood out anywhere or anyplace. I try not to attract attention to myself, because I get uncomfortable when I am stared at. If I’m somewhere new or surrounded by people I don’t talk to anyone or act amazing. I’ve always hated the first day of baseball because I am surrounded by a bunch of strangers. And the fact that I’ve been playing the shortest time compared to all of them, that doesn’t really make my argument any stronger.

See this is the reason I favour animals over humans, (no offence anyone), it’s just that I don’t feel shy or scared when I am surrounded by animals, even if I don’t know them and I can be my true self around them. No bullying, no racism, nothing. All that I get is tender love and care. Some of you may think animals are useless and unneeded creatures. Well to be straight forward, I hate you too. If you knock on my door and say animals suck, well first you’ll get a kick right where it hurts the most,