Keeper of Reign Read online

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  Outside in the cool, breezy night a pair of eyes spied on the Blaze home. Through the open window he saw the candle flickering on the dining table but no boy. Whisperer glided from branch to branch, a swirl of darkness hiding a face with a beaked nose and twisted lips, and landed on the lowest branch on Jules’s tree.

  “If you can lure them out I can check out the place,” a muffled voice said.

  “Beta, you’d better pass this test.” Whisperer weaved himself in and out of the foliage around Beta, but Beta didn’t move or show signs of fear.

  “I’ll get it one way or another, but you must be patient.”

  The leaves on the oak rustled softly and a couple of late fall acorns already loosened by the season dropped as Beta swung from the tip of the branch to an adjacent tree.

  3 - THE SOUND OF TROUBLE

  NEXT MORNING, JULES couldn’t have thanked his lucky stars more when his mother agreed—after much arguing on his part—to allow him and his four siblings to play in the backyard.

  “Since you’re already going out, watch for more precious stones. I need those aquamarines so I can buy some trout from Mr. Saul.”

  Tippy jumped up and down and clapped her hands. “Fish!”

  The thought of flaky white fish melting in his mouth made Jules’s stomach rumble. He’d almost forgotten the texture of fresh trout, baked with butter and sprinkled with chopped cilantro. A whole fish would mean a feast for at least three days. This was one advantage of their size, since practically every other animal had not altered with the curse.

  “Daydreaming again?” His mother’s sharp voice rose.

  “The blue stones seemed pretty scarce there. But I can get embers and moonstones easy enough.”

  “Whatever you can get your hands on. But be back before supper. I’m making potato soup and hazel cream butter.” She nodded at him and he rushed toward the front door, his mind on the flash that ripped the sky.

  Was it a stray bomb from the war? Since his father had left for the war, he was expected to be man of the house. Take care of his four younger siblings.

  Bitha, his ten-year-old sister, yelled from behind. “Wait up, Jules.” She pushed her jet-black hair away from her pixie face.

  Their home under the oak was narrow but long, the kitchen situated at the back end, the dining room sandwiched in the middle and the living room to the front where the only entrance to the home stood. Supposedly his father’s ancestors who built the home considered this a necessary security feature.

  Jules turned and waved at Bitha as he stepped off the porch and shrugged into his cloak. It still smelled fresh from the pine soap Mother used and didn’t give her clues that he’d sweated in it trying to run away the night before. He heard his mother’s muffled voice from the kitchen and wanted to say good-bye but reconsidered. She might change her mind and keep them in again. Paranoia.

  Behind him Bitha said, “Don’t worry, Mom. Jules is with us.” She flicked her long black hair over her shoulders, and winked at Jules, her emerald eyes sparkling.

  Jules scowled and rushed down the path, pine needles crunching under his swift feet. Just then several acorns dropped, narrowly missing his head. “Whoa!” What’s with the acorns? Death by acorn will not look good in my obituary.

  He scanned the branches above. For a split second he considered warning his mother, but what if she stopped them from leaving? So he brushed aside the urge.

  His three sisters, Bitha, Tst Tst, which sounded like Sit Sit, (she’s otherwise, also known as “Miss Big Words!”) and Tippy, scrambled to keep up, but he just turned and gestured with his head for them to hurry, his dark blonde hair flopping on his forehead with each quick jerk.

  Jules had just rounded the corner where the marker spruce stood tall when another acorn dropped close to him and he hopped back. What the…? Was someone up there?

  “Wait up, Jules!” Ralston, his thirteen-year-old brother, hollered as he tucked a sheath of papers he’d meticulously hand bound into a sketch pad into his khaki green cloak.

  Jules couldn’t help but shake his head when Ralston finally caught up. Mr. Slow himself. “If you keep lugging your sketch pad everywhere, you’ll always be last.”

  “You have your stone collections, and I have my art.”

  “You can buy things with my gems. Grandpa said it’s a worthy pastime.” He nudged Ralston and rushed down the pebbled path pushing stray grass that had encroached onto the pathway with his arms.

  Jules looked at the patch of blue between the foliage above, seeking signs of a pending storm, but even though there were clouds sailing by he didn’t think it looked like rain. Was it possible the bright rip in the night sky was just lightning? Maybe it had burned a tree?

  He wasn’t sure what he was looking for exactly but he meant to get to the bottom of things. A burnt patch of grass or a toppled tree trunk might tell a story. Something. He noticed a piece of ametrine by his foot and slipped the quartz of purple and yellow into his pocket. He hoped Mr. Saul might accept it in exchange for fish, though he doubted it. The old man was enamored with aquamarines. Before he could search further, an ear splitting howl broke his concentration. “Tippy!” In trouble? Already?

  Weaving between the tall blades of grass swaying in the breeze, he ran toward the screaming. Behind him, Bitha’s panting came in short bursts, her steps quick and short.

  Thud, thud, thud.

  “What’s happening?” She flicked her jet-black hair out of her eyes and kept up with Jules.

  A few steps ahead Tippy stood stamping her feet. Through the crisscross of her leather strapped sandal Jules saw the side of Tippy’s foot had turned red.

  “You’re bleeding!” He squinted at a projecting object Tippy kept pointing at with her hurt toe. A colored pebble stuck out from the mossy ground.

  Bitha pushed her hair behind her ears, and pulled Tippy away. “Stop. You’re hurting yourself.”

  But the little girl kept digging at the reddish stone with her foot.

  Before Jules could assert himself, Tst Tst plopped herself next to Tippy.

  “What, perchance, are you doing?” Tst Tst’s bobbed hair looked darker than its usual brown, possibly because it was matted with sweat.

  “Perchance?” Jules tried not to roll his eyes but couldn’t help himself. Where was she learning these words? Miss Big Words! He shook his head in disbelief and knelt next to Tippy.

  With the palm of his hand, he rubbed off the caked dirt on the bit of the red stone sticking out. “It’s a common sardius, a crystal some call carnelian. I have enough in my collection, so you can have this one, Tippy.” He thought about his precious stones behind the hearth and hoped he’d hidden them well enough. His grandpa and he had spent hours picking those stones.

  Jules was about to stalk off when their pet dragonfly, Fiesty, whizzed by, pitching its head back and forth. “Watch out! Why’s Fiesty trying to bite us?”

  Tst Tst had found Fiesty when it was a wee of a nymph, and the children had nursed it till it was grown. Attempts to free Fiesty always failed for it simply came back, and so the children considered it a family member.

  As the dragonfly somersaulted and spun in the air, like a kite caught in a whirlwind, Bitha tilted her head, her pixie face in obvious confusion. “Has Fiesty gone mad?”

  When Fiesty came toward her she reached out at it, but it jerked violently and she toppled backward. It kept flying to a distance toward the forest and returning. Back and forth, like the needle of a metronome. Its wings buzzed a hundred beats a second. But, finally, as if giving up, the pet whizzed off into the woods.

  “He’s gone,” Tst Tst cried.

  “Let him be.” Jules frowned at the pet as it disappeared between the tall blades of grass. Things were getting more and more bizarre, and he couldn’t understand why the nape of his neck prickled.

  Better get them home. If he could persuade his mother to show him the Book he might find some sort of explanation. His mind
wondered about the acorns. Should he have warned her?

  “Are you hurt, Bitha?” He reached for his sister’s hand and glanced up.

  The sky held a bright glare, which meant the sun was setting, almost faster than he’d expected. “Mom wants us back before supper. And where’s—where’s Ralston?”

  “What’s wrong?” Breathless, Ralston poked his head from behind a tall dandelion, his brown eyes in a squint.

  “We have to leave, Rals,” Bitha said. She grasped Tippy’s elbow but the little girl twisted free and plopped herself next to her new found sardius.

  Tippy said, “I—want—my—gem!”

  Before Jules could give her a piece of his mind a shadow swept over them. The air felt still and the usual swishing of the blades of grass stopped. Something about the shadow seemed familiar, and it sent chills up his spine.

  “I vote,” Jules said, “we leave this crystal here. It’s too embedded.”

  The fine blonde hair on his arms stood on ends for reasons he couldn’t understand.

  He hated it when these feelings overcame him.

  “I’m—not—leaving—without—it.” Tippy wailed, again. “It’s not fair.”

  Ralston yanked Tippy by the arm. “Tippy, do you want to be grounded for life?”

  “I’ll give you one of mine,” Jules pleaded. “One of the rare ones Grandpa found.”

  But she glared at him and the corners of her mouth drooped dangerously.

  “Let’s just dig it out,” Bitha said.

  But that was easier said than done. To get the sardius out, the boys struggled long. A dark shadow flitted past them again. It was only a slight shift of the light upon the vast lawn but Jules’s senses told him to beware, and now his heart pounded wildly.

  Stuffing his pad into his cloak pocket, Ralston said, “Was that a passing cloud?” He shielded his eyes with one hand and peered in the direction of the dark forest some hundred feet ahead.

  A blood-curdling scream pierced through the cold evening air and all five children jerked and stared at each other. The scream appeared to have come from the dark forest. Was someone in trouble? Or was it just someone trying to scare them?

  “Wh-–at was that?” Bitha grabbed Tippy’s hand and tugged at her, but the little girl, her face indignant, squirmed and pulled away.

  “No–o!” A series of ear splitting protests came from Tippy and she shook her head vigorously. Her eyes, the rims red, locked with Jules. “I want the gem! It’s mine!”

  Arms on her hips, Tst Tst said, in a sinister whisper, “If we don’t leave now, Gehzurolle will kill us!”

  Tippy slumped her shoulders, let out a sob and opened her mouth as if wanting to protest but at the last minute she only stepped aside. “All wight!”

  “We’ll give the stone another try. Ralston, you wedge it with that stick and I’ll pull.” Jules glanced at the sky and thought he saw a dark blob in the blue far away. Must get away quickly. The meadow is too bare for a good hiding spot.

  Nausea swelled up from the pit of his stomach and a shiver crept up his back. The last time he had such a feeling was right before his grandpa left on that trip. “Rals, hurry! Pull!”

  How to get this useless stone out?

  4 - HUNTERS

  “RALS, YOU CARRY Tippy.” Jules tucked the sardius inside his green cloak, relieved it finally broke free from the mossy ground, but he couldn’t help the uneasy feeling.

  Somebody’s watching. But who? And why? Must bring them to safety. Jules glimpsed at his sisters. He tiptoed to peer over the tall grasses. Nothing but the dark blob far away. How was he to plan for his secret getaway to look for Grandpa like this?

  Horrifying pictures of Scorpents invaded his mind. He joggled his head a few times to dispel the images. But even as he quickened his steps something told him his troubles had just begun.

  What was that verse from the Book about fear Grandpa taught him? “Perfect love casts out all fear.” He repeated it several times under his breath hoping the feeling would disappear.

  But when he gazed at the sky again he spied something else: the blob had turned to four patches, as black as the night, contrasting against the blue background. He stopped and pointed, his eyes in narrow slits as he tried to understand the meaning of this latest mystery.

  The others halted, too, and stared at the objects until the four dark blobs came close enough.

  “A flock of birds with impressive wingspans.” Tst Tst pointed at the fowls.

  “Mrs. Lacework warned Mom,” Bitha said, “about the rise of savage birds.”

  “She claimed,” Tst Tst lowered her voice, nodding a few times, her hazel eyes wide. “They’re after Elfies.”

  As the birds came closer the sheen of the dark bluish feathers glistened in the sun.

  “They’re just ravens.” Jules tried to sound convincing. “Hunting for food.”

  “We,” Tst Tst said, and gulped, “could qualify as food.”

  Jules glared at her and gestured at his brother, some twenty steps behind. “Hurry, Rals.”

  The ravens circled directly above them now. When the black birds flapped their massive wings, gusts of wind billowed the children’s cloaks.

  Jules, standing ahead of everyone, noticed the dirty talons on one of the ravens opening, as if the bird had already decided on its prey. Then it hit him.

  “Ralston! Duck! Duck—” he yelled. He’s so slow!

  Still battling with Tippy’s weight in his arms, Ralston, brown hair disheveled, looked up and Wham! The talons dug into his shoulders and he dropped Tippy.

  Within seconds, Bitha and Tst Tst, screaming, dodged the onslaught of other talons swooping at them. The girls dived behind a large mushroom in a nick of time. At first, Jules just stared at the bird, eyes round, mouth open like an O.

  “Rroankk-rroankk.” Ralston’s captor seemed to signal to his accomplices. Within seconds, the murder of ravens thrashed their four feet span of wings and headed for the blue sky, with the very still Ralston as their ransom.

  “Ralston! Ralston!” the girls screeched at the top of their lungs, their arms waving in frantic motions above their heads.

  “We must get Ralston back,” Jules shouted to Bitha, wondering, the moment he said this, why he’d used the word “we” when he knew he’d have to try alone. He ran to a large boulder and clambered to the top.

  Tippy was nowhere to be seen but Bitha and Tst Tst shadowed him. For a fleeting second he worried about Tippy, but he had to save his brother before it was too late. Once on the rock, the children swung their hands above their heads and screamed at the ravens.

  Then Jules groped for Tippy’s sardius he’d concealed within his cloak and waved it above his head. He angled the stone this way and that in the direction of the ravens. The crystal caught the sun’s rays and shimmered bright and red.

  “Come back! Come back!” Jules and his sisters cried.

  Their voices may have dissipated in the wind, but the glint from the red stone burned bright and must have attracted the birds, since they did return. Their scraping rasps intensified as they descended toward the three children on the big rock.

  “Oh, no! They’re going to attack again.” Bitha jerked Jules’s arm back and forth.

  “What do we do?” Tst Tst shook her fists as if she was shivering.

  “Hide, girls! Hide!” Now what?

  They slid from their perch and lay prone on the ground, panting heavily. Tippy, who must have been hiding behind the boulder, slipped herself between Bitha and Tst Tst.

  Steadily, the deafening screams from the approaching flock heightened as the hunting party swooped toward the boulder again. Jules could hear their cries, but he also thought—although he couldn’t be sure—the wind whispered, “It’s the other boy, you stupid fowl.” He looked over his shoulder but saw no one except his sisters.

  “Let’s stick together,” Bitha pleaded, and she tugged at his cloak. Her eyes shone with tears, and she wiped the sweat upon her brows.

&nbs
p; More than anything Jules wanted to hide with them. He swallowed the sour taste rising up his throat a few times and placed his forefinger to his lips. With his free hand he motioned for the girls to stay put, and he crawled on scraped knees and elbows to another rock.

  Two ravens now roosted on the boulder. The birds’ beady eyes flitted from spot to spot on the ground, as if searching. A third hovered nearby, flapping its large wings vigorously.

  When Jules spotted Ralston his fist shot to his mouth involuntarily and he shuddered. He wanted to scream, but his voice snagged in his throat. The lifeless body of his brother lay in the grip of the fourth bird circling close to the mossy spot where Tippy had stubbed her toe. Jules racked his brain for a plan.

  Is Ralston alive? Can I save him?

  Slowly, he stood and dashed in and out of the sweeping blades of grass toward the mossy plot. Quiet at first, his lips pressed into a determined line, he made sure not to snap a twig as he threaded through the tall grasses. He ran so fast that the edge of a blade cut his forehead. As he neared the fowls he yelled at the fourth crow in hoarse madness.

  The bird’s yellow eyes flitted to him. It squawked and in three big flaps its beak honed in on him, talons still clenched onto Ralston.

  Staring the bird in the eye, Jules flung the red stone at the black bird’s beak but the stone struck its eye instead. Better than he’d expected.

  “Yes!” Jules shouted and beat his fist in the air in triumph.

  The raven dropped Ralston, almost on top of Jules, who swerved away just in time.

  The other three birds swooped to the mossy spot and made a ruckus, as if scolding the fourth. Jules braced himself for another attack but something else caught his eye.

  A cloud of dark mass was flying in their direction. The droning hum the dark mass made reverberated and filled the air.

  Jules clapped his ears shut. What was happening?

  He’d heard of mutated insects the Handovers had experimented with, but they were supposed to only inhabit Handover. Not here in Reign. Could they be invading now? After all, the Scorpents had started coming. But when one from the mass broke away he saw he’d been mistaken.

  Fiesty!

  As Fiesty flew over Jules’s head the mass became identifiable: a swarm of dragonflies. More than a hundred of them whizzed in and out, targeting the ravens’ eyes and nostrils. In obvious fury the afflicted ravens thrashed their massive wings at each other.

  Kneeling beside Ralston, Jules sucked in his breath, hardly daring to breathe. “Ralston,” he whispered at last.

  Getting no response, he shook Ralston vigorously. “Hey, wake up!”

  But still, his brother didn’t stir. He pounded on Ralston’s chest, hard.

  “Breathe, Ralston! Breathe!”

  5 - HURRY

  WHEN RALSTON’S ARMS twitched and his eyelids fluttered, Jules heaved a sigh of relief. “Ralston! Get up, up.” He prodded Ralston’s rib some more and tugged at his brother’s arm to get him to sit up, but failed.

  Whap! Whap! Whap! The beating wings were approaching.

  Jules’s heart skipped as the flapping of the ravens’ wings became threateningly loud. They only had so much time before the ravens broke free from the dragonflies and hunted them again.

  “Where’s my sardius?” Tippy materialized next to them in her demanding voice.

  Jules had a mind to smack her. Perhaps if they hadn’t dawdled trying to get that sardius out they could’ve avoided trouble. But tears welled in Tippy’s eyes and her mouth quivered. The crows were not visible but the flapping of their wings meant they were still hunting. He could try to carry Ralston but his brother was almost as heavy as he was.

  “I only have one,” Tippy said.

  Before he could answer, Bitha and Tst Tst slid down next to him, their faces wet with tears. “Ralston!” they said in unison.

  “You girls stay here with Rals.”

  And just like that he ran off in the direction of the flapping wings. If he didn’t retrieve the sardius Tippy might not leave, and if he carried her she might make a commotion a crow a mile away would hear. There were plenty of colored stones in the area. He might even stumble upon another one. When his eye caught a reddish glint lying beside a boulder he dashed to it and pocketed his find.

  “Here,” he said presenting it to Tippy, although his eyes were on the lifeless Ralston. But as he brought it across Ralston the stone dropped out of his hand and hit Ralston on the nose.

  “Ouch!” Ralston yelled. He bolted to a sitting position and rubbed his nose. He stared at Jules blankly. “Where am I?”

  Jules jerked Ralston to his feet and propped him up with one arm.

  For a moment Ralston stood, tottering.

  “We must get away.” Jules hoped the worry would rouse Ralston out of his stupor. He didn’t seem too hurt even though his eyes looked glazed.

  Bitha hugged the pale Ralston, then quickly touched his head, neck and shoulders. “Did you break any bones?”

  Jules said, “Can you run?”

  Ralston nodded, even though he still swayed like a blade of grass.

  “C’mon, Rals.” He gestured and then grabbed Tippy’s wrist and asked her, “Can you run fast?”

  She rolled her eyes at him, both hands clutching her precious sardius in front of her chest. But Jules caught sight of her bleeding foot and shook his head. “Hop on my back.”

  “All-wight.”

  As they scrambled home, the five siblings kept glancing at the sky, afraid the ravens might reappear, but by the time they neared the oak that held their home the flapping had ceased.

  “I hope Fiesty’s all right.” Tst Tst’s upper lip quivered as she spoke. “I don’t know what I’d do without him. The ravens could have eaten him.”

  “Have more faith in Fiesty.” But Jules didn’t sound confident. “If it weren’t for him we’d be dead meat. At least, Ralston would’ve been. I never knew Fiesty had friends.”

  “I never knew I could survive a bird attack.” Ralston looked at his bruised elbows and rubbed his knees. “I didn’t even tear my cloak. No broken bones, nothing. I can hardly believe it happened to me. I must have passed out. I think I’m allergic to heights, just like you, Jules.” This was more than anything Ralston had said in a single breath his entire life.

  Jules just glared at him.

  “What was that horrible scream?”

  “Maybe someone trying to scare us.”

  Ralston’s eyes widened. “What happened to the ravens?”

  Jules shrugged. “We’d better try to stay inside as much as possible.”

  Ralston said, “But what about food?”

  “I’ll sneak out. Or you can.” And he grinned at Ralston, finally relieved that no great harm was done.

  “Jules,” Bitha said in a worried tone, “what should we tell Mom?”

  “Just that it was a misfortune. Mrs. Lacework said some neighbors had seen bird aggressions. Maybe Mom will know why the ravens invaded our land.” He stared at the ground and felt his heart sink. He looked up at the branches and remembered the acorns and shuddered. What if his mother was in danger?

  “Hurry!” Then he said, “Ouch!” He rubbed his forehead. “Someone pelted a stone at me.”

  Bitha and Tst Tst stared at the welt that had already started to bulge. The leaves rustled overhead and a lithe figure wearing a black cape landed next to Jules. It was quite a feat for an Elfie as even the lowest branch was a few heads higher than the tall Jules.

  “Miranda!” Jules said. His eyes lit up.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to hit that hard.” The girl with hair of flaming gold who’d jumped down covered her mouth as if she was shocked and stepped closer to peer at Jules’s bruise. She brushed her golden strands away from her smooth, high forehead, her blue eyes locking with Jules’s green ones.

  Such riveting eyes the color of the heavens. Jules thought her flowing golden hair smelled of roses and honey and everything good. He noticed the ear clip she had o
n. “What’s with that thing on your ear?”

  “Like it?”

  Jules frowned. “Interesting. Hey, were you pelting acorns at me?”

  “Acorns? I meant to scare you. Not kill you.” She smiled up at Jules sweetly.

  “Could have fooled me.” Jules fingered the emerging welt above his brow and eased Tippy down.

  Miranda said, “You in a hurry?” She eyed Ralston and then Bitha, who was shaking her head slightly at Jules.

  “What are you doing out so late?” Jules said.

  “Maybe I was spying on my favorite friend?” She lifted an eyebrow at him.

  Jules reddened and stared at her. “Would your grandpa mind if you joined us? For supper, I mean.”

  “He won’t notice I was gone. But only if it’s my favorite—potato soup?”

  The boughs above them trembled and some oak leaves floated down like giant flakes. Jules scanned the foliage wondering if some ravens had rested on the branches. “Come on, it’s getting dark.”

  Miranda pulled at his cloak. “No need to be so edgy.”

  Jules said, “You’re in luck, hazelnut butter and potato soup.” Should he have warned Mom about the acorn incidents? But with Miranda beside him he pushed any worry away.