Seed of Danger: Guardians of the Seeds, #3

By MA Olesen

Danger is closer than they think…

As Annora and Godfrey search behind doors the Eram didn't dare open, danger awaits.

 

The two friends are now encouraged by the Eram to pursue their curiosity and find trouble before it gets to their door. When they discover the seeds the Eram has been protecting are in danger, it's up to Annora to risk everything to save them.

 

With the existence of the Mahres at stake, what will the friends be willing to sacrifice?

• Language: English
• Publisher: MA Olesen
• Release date: Oct 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9788797294956

Book preview

CHAPTER I – GODFREY

THE OUTSKIRTS ALWAYS got brighter when they were hungry. A mist of pain and suffering rose from the destitute area, enticing the senses of the hungry Mahres, who were due a proper meal. It engulfed the Eram house, a constant stream of nourishment seeping through the air. It would have been simple for them to unravel the mist and follow each thread to its owner, before putting them to sleep and feeding. But no one of them wanted to indulge in what surrounded them.

The constant suffering in the outskirts fed the Mahres every day. They didn’t cause it, but they consumed it. Just as humans breathed the air, the Mahres breathed in the suffering. It seeped into them. They could survive like that forever, but it wasn’t enough. After a while, they felt an insatiable hunger. And as humans sometimes felt the need to take in a deep breath that overfills their lungs, Mahres needed to feed on intense misery—misery they both caused and fed on. That pain was like a frosty glass of water on a warm summer day.

But there was an unwritten rule among the Mahres that they should feed in the city. The people in the outskirts around the Eram were their friends, and the pain Mahres caused while feeding would be a blow they had little strength to handle. The Eram had seen them grow, have families, work hard to barely get by. They knew their struggles. The destitute in the outskirts were a part of the Eram in spirit, and the Mahres would never cause them any more pain than what already existed in their lives. 

Only very young Mahres sometimes tormented the locals. It was hard to stop young ones from being vicious. Human or Mahre, young age comes with a cruelty hard to rein in. They all came to regret their actions as they grew older. Many had even tried to end their lives because of the pain they had caused when they were too young to know any better.

How do you want to get in this time? Godfrey asked.

We should just walk straight through the door, Annora said with a mischievous smile.

Are you sure you’re ready for that?

I’ve been ready for a while, so don’t chicken out on me now! I never did it before because I knew Azai would tell the Parents. She rolled her eyes.

Godfrey nodded. Azai had never been able to keep a secret from the Parents.  It made him uneasy thinking about how they would react, knowing what else Annora had learned to control now.

But this time we’re leaving him at home, Annora said, so we might as well see what we can do.

This is going to be fun! Godfrey smiled back at her, encouraged by her confidence and excited to see how far she could push her power. She’d been experimenting and training ever since they came back to the Eram house. And with the Parents’ blessing, Annora’s skills seemed to have grown at a speed that was both fascinating and terrifying.

***

They walked to a small gate in the wall, both smiling at the guard. This part of the wall was one of the oldest, its tall rock face almost impenetrable. It made for a hard climb if anyone was ever stupid enough to attempt it. Luckily, a few kilometers away, the wall became just a tall chain-link fence that had convenient weak points they could jimmy themselves through. That was their usual preferred point of entry.

ID cards and purpose of visit, the guard demanded.

They both presented him with pieces of cardboard cut from an old box and said they were going to eat out. Godfrey held his breath, expecting the guard to throw the blank pieces of cardboard back in their faces and give them a good beating. That’s what he had imagined when Annora told him the plan.

But the guard seemed satisfied.  Hope you didn’t forget your money, he answered with a smirk.

Godfrey eased up, unknotting his tense shoulders, relieved that Annora’s plan had worked as intended. At any other time, the guard’s attitude would have made him furious, but right now he barely noticed it.

We have everything we need, Annora said with a charming smile. Of course, a Mahre didn’t need money to get the food they needed.

The guard looked at her and smiled back. His dopey grin disgusted Godfrey, but he could understand his interest in Annora. She was taller than most women from the destitute area outside the city, but just as slender as any of them. All the Mahres had a slender frame; pain kept them alive, but it didn’t nourish them as food did. On that account, they looked just like most of the other people in the outskirts, since the food they got wasn’t enough to nourish them either. But Annora had built up muscles on her slender frame through years of training, determined to be prepared to fight and protect herself if she ever needed to.

Her hair was like melted dark chocolate cascading over her shoulders, the strands seemingly at odds with one another. Her eyes were bottomless pits of darkness, absorbing all the light that hit them. They were the one feature that gave away the darkness hidden behind her every smile, the monster within. All Mahres had the same dark eyes, always against a background of pale skin. Her face carried the contrast well, and she used makeup to help with the illusion of normalcy. She’d told Godfrey she always colored her lips bright red to distract people from her eyes. Humans always found the eyes of the Mahres unnerving.

When she smiled, she looked like an angel that came to bring joy upon the world. Ethereal and beautiful. But the eyes gave away who she really was: a person who had known pain and suffering and was forever marked by it. The guard got to see the smiling angel, Godfrey thought to himself, strangely envious of the man. That version of Annora was a rare sight.

You can go through, the guard said eventually, waving them in.

They walked in grinning triumphantly, ignoring the now slightly confused look of the guard. It was nice for the destitute to be let into the city, but Godfrey knew it wasn’t really enough to fully explain the hugs smiles on their faces.

Do you have the address we talked about? Annora asked him, after they’d both breathed a sigh of relief that they had made it in.

Sure, and I have the article and pictures too. We’re a couple of hours away. They live just inside the inner circle.

Miserable family, the lot of them! Annora said. Of course, she—just like Godfrey— had no idea if they were a miserable family or not, but it was a fair assumption to make since you don’t get to the inner circle through moral behavior. Only the most corrupt and heartless made it that far in.

Let’s do this! Godfrey started morphing as he looked at the picture from the paper. His hair became shorter and darkened to a dirty blond, his eyes turned a beautiful pale blue, and his skin became tanned.

I have to say, honey, you look pretty hot tonight! Annora said. Maybe you can hold on to that look when we’re back in my room. She winked at him.

To do what? Stand there and look at each other? You don’t even have a bed! Godfrey snapped, feeling suddenly tense as he tried to get into character. Somehow, it didn’t feel right to have his looks admired when they were just borrowed. He was better looking than this guy any day. Plus, Annora’s room had only a stool