"Young prince!" came a harsh cry, and his nanny
was scooping him up. "Your mother has been worried sick about you. Come
with me at once."
"Are we going to the tunnels, Mynee?" he asked
her, clinging to her shirt. Mynee was one of the hybrids, looking mostly human
with a few features that showed that she had some blood of the more beastly of
their kind in her. She had been with him since he was born, though, so he was
used to the horns that curved out of her head and back into her hair.
"No," she said sharply. "And shush now. Say
no more until we get you to your mother."
Asher fell silent, looking around with wide eyes. They
passed the place where he had liked to sit and watch the meteor showers with
his mother, now a crumbling ruin. The sound of the fighting was fainter as they
moved deeper into the compound, but there were signs all around that things
weren't right.
It hurt to see, and he was afraid.
As soon as they were through the door to the rooms where his
family lived, his mother was pulling him from Mynee's arms and squeezing her to
him.
"Where were you,
kithroi
?" She asked
tearfully. "I was so worried they had killed you or worse. Do not run off
like that!"
"I'm sorry, Mother," Asher said, burying his face
in his mother's hair. She was a full blooded member of the upper class. Her
features completely human, smooth and beautiful. Her hair was a fiery red, and
Asher loved how it smelled like jasmine and something spicy. "The guards
are looking for Uncle," he murmured to her.
"I know,
kithroi
. They want to take him to
safety."
"But not to the tunnels?"
Over his head, his mother and Mynee exchanged a look.
"No, my son. Not to the tunnels. There is no guarantee that the tunnels
will stay safe, and they do not want to risk him being captured or killed. The
king is the savior of our people and we are to protect him at any cost."
"Because he's the most important," Asher said,
remembering how people seemed to worship his uncle.
His mother nodded. "To some, yes. The king is my
brother, but he's not the most important to me.
You
are,
kithroi,
my
beloved. If anything were to happen to you, I don't know how I would
survive."
"We don't have much time, Your Highness," Mynee
said. "They will be coming."
"Of course. Asher, I need you to listen to me. Can you
do that for Mother?" She pulled back her hair so he could see her face.
Never before had he seen her look so serious, no trace of laughter or happiness
in her golden eyes.
"Yes," he whispered, suddenly even more afraid
than he had been before.
"Good boy. They are sending your Uncle to Earth. It is
one of the only places in the galaxy where the Shaddoc have not spread. It will
be safe for him there. For him, and for you."
"For me?"
"Yes. You are the heir to throne since your Uncle has
no children, Asher. You must survive if our people are to continue. Within you
is the potential to keep us from falling like so many others have before. We
need you, my son."
He swallowed hard. He was very small, but he knew the value
of duty. "But you're coming, too, aren't you, Mother?"
She shook her head, hiding her face with her hair for a
moment. "No,
kithroi.
I must stay here and help the people."
A sob bubbled up in him at the thought of going anywhere
without his mother. "Mother, you can't! You have to come! You said... You
said..." If it wasn't safe, how could she stay here? How could she not go
where he went?
She pulled him close once again, pressing kiss after kiss to
his head. "My boy. My precious baby boy. I can't go with you. The people
can't be abandoned completely. One of the duties of royalty is to see to the
people. Do you remember me telling you that?"
Asher nodded. He remembered his lessons well. "A king
is not a king without his people," he recited tearfully.
"Good boy, yes. And someone must stay with them. It
will be my duty and my honor. And you will live, my son. You will go to safety
and grow strong. You are proud, good and smart. You will come back to take your
place. Promise me."
"Your Highness!" Mynee broke in. "They
approach!"
"Promise me," his mother repeated urgently.
"I promise. I promise," Asher sobbed, clinging to
her. "Mommy, I want you to come!" That was a sure sign of the boy's
distress. He usually had no problem using the more formal 'mother' when he
spoke to her, but now he was just a little boy, not a prince. Just a little boy
who wanted to stay with the person he loved most.
His mother was crying now, too, but she let Mynee take Asher
from her. She let the guards who came in take her son from Mynee and watched as
they walked away, as her son waved his arms and cried, though he fell silent
when one of the guards shushed him.
Mynee stood with her for long seconds, even after the guard
had disappeared around the corner with the prince.
"Your Highness," she said softly. "To the
tunnels?"
Helene, sister to the king of the Nalyi clan nodded and drew
herself up. She pushed her fiery hair back out of her face and wiped her eyes.
"To the tunnels."
In an apartment in North Carolina, some twenty years later,
a man who was once a boy and a prince opened his eyes to the darkness of his
bedroom ceiling. He turned his head and looked out the window at the pitch
blackness. There was no moon that night, and so the trail of amber light that
disappeared up into the clouds was easy to spot since he knew what to look for.
How many times was that now? A hundred? A thousand?
The Shaddoc were clever, using humans in the way they did,
and though it had made Asher angry from the moment he'd learned of it, he
hadn't been permitted to interfere.
"There are too many of them," his uncle had said.
"Too many Shaddoc or too many humans?"
"Both. And more when you add them all together. I know
that you wish to help them, and I applaud you for the desire, but it's not time
yet."
"When will it
be
time?"
Ever since he'd left his mother's arms, he remembered her
words and his promise to her. He had to go back. He had to find his people.
Especially since he had no idea where his uncle was anymore.
A missing king and a prince with no power. The Nalyi
deserved better, but he supposed they were all that they had.
Asher got out of bed and leaned out the window, dragging in
deep breaths of the warm summer air. Fall would be upon them, soon enough.
Already he could feel the winds of change in the air.
His uncle's note was pinned to the wall next to the window,
and Asher's eyes traveled over to it. It was too dark to read, but he knew all
the words by heart now anyway. It had been four years, and he'd read them
obsessively since then.
Find her. And then find me.
We will go home when the time is right.
A breeze kicked up through the trees, sending just a hint of
the chilly autumn to come through his window. The note fluttered and then went
still, and Asher ran fingers through the fire of his hair.
The time was now.
Chapter 1: Chosen
Amelia opened her eyes, staring at the familiar ceiling. She
was in her computer room this time, where she worked and took care of paying
bills and all that, instead of her bedroom, and she didn't even have to wonder
to know how it had happened.
Not again.
For as long as she could remember, she had been waking up in
strange places, with no recollection of how she'd gotten there.
The floor of her computer room was hardly the strangest
place, at least, she thought to herself as she sat up with a groan.
Her back was stiff from lying on the hardwood floor for who
knew how long, and her head ached. But at least that part was normal, too.
Well. Normal for whatever was happening to her. She always woke up with a
pounding headache and a chunk of time missing, and she still didn't know why.
With a sigh, she pushed herself up on wobbly legs and tried
to fill in the blanks of what she'd been doing before she just... turned up
somewhere else.
She'd been in the living room, she was fairly certain.
Watching TV? No, she'd been on her laptop, that was it. Looking at dresses to
wear to her cousin's wedding in two weeks. The details started trickling in
slowly as she held a hand to her head and made her way into the kitchen to hunt
down some painkillers.
She'd found a nice dress and had been comparing it to
another one and contemplating getting the less expensive one. But... but what?
Amelia filled a glass of water at the sink, frowning hard at
the counter top.
But she had realized that her purse was still in the car
when she needed to get her credit card, that was it. So she'd gotten up and
gone to the front door and then...
And then....
No matter how much she tried to focus on what had happened
next, it was just a stretch of blackness. She remembered putting her hand on
the doorknob and then nothing else up until the point where she had woken up on
the floor.
Several hours had passed at least because she remembered
that it'd been just after dinner when she'd settled on the couch with her
laptop and it was well after nine in the morning now.
So that was a huge chunk of time that was just... gone.
With jerky motions, she downed three painkillers and
followed them with most of the glass of water, slamming the glass down on the
counter when she was done.
It was so
frustrating.
This had been happening to her
since she was a little girl.
She'd be doing something, playing with her toys or sitting
alone in her room, one minute, and then the next she was waking up somewhere
else. It only happened when she was alone, and for the longest time no one had
believed her. Her parents weren't inclined to think that there was anything
that could be wrong with their pretty, perfect daughter, and they advised
getting more sleep and spending less time playing video games or running with
the neighborhood kids.
But the condition had continued into middle school and high
school, although it only ever happened when she was at home.
Even after she'd moved halfway across the country as an
adult, the problem persisted, and Amelia was finally tired enough of it that
she was considering going to see a doctor.
It was an idea that had been thrown out there by the only
teacher Amelia had ever told about this. Ms. Archer had been her favorite
teacher in middle school, and she'd confided in her one day that she was
worried something was wrong with her.
"You should go speak with a professional, Mia,"
the woman had said, concern in her voice. "What you're describing isn't
normal. I think it would be different if you were already asleep and started
sleepwalking to other places, but it sounds like you're always awake when this
happens."
Hearing someone validate what she was saying was amazing,
and honestly, that had been enough for eleven year old Amelia.
Unfortunately, Ms. Archer had been very concerned and had
ended up calling Amelia's parents to recommend a doctor she knew.
Her parents were furious with her when they found out that
she had been spreading "that old story" to the school. Amelia didn't
think she would ever forget the way her father had grabbed her arm and shook
her, yelling in her face that she wasn't to go around trying to make teachers
think she was crazy. That wasn't watch Hatchers
did.
There was no mental
illness in the Hatcher family, and what did Amelia think she was doing?
Amelia had ended up in tears, assuring her parents that she was
sorry, that she would never do it again, and that she wasn't crazy.
"Tomorrow you are to go and tell this woman that you
made all of this up for attention," her mother had said, cold anger
radiating in her eyes. "And make sure she hasn't told any one else. Do you
know what something like this could do to your father's reputation?"
She'd cried herself to sleep that night, and the next
morning, she'd made her way to Ms. Archer's classroom to tell her in a muted
voice that she'd made it all up.
Even to this day, she could remember the way the teacher had
looked at her, that mix of surprise and disappointment on her face as she
assured her there was no harm done and sent her off to her first class of the
day.
From that moment on, Amelia hadn't mentioned it to any one
else, other than her best friend who already knew. What was worse, was that
there was now a little seed of worry planted in her that maybe she
was
crazy.
Maybe there hadn't been any mental illness in the Hatcher family until she came
along.
It hadn't been easy, growing up with a senator for a father.
Having to watch her step all the time and never getting to be a normal child
had been hard, but having to keep all of this a secret when she'd been scared
had been the worst part.
Amelia wasn't scared anymore. Now she was just angry and
frustrated.
Frustrated enough that the first thing she did after a hot
shower was fire up her laptop and start looking for doctors in the area.
She noticed that she had missed a Skype message, and when
she clicked on the icon, she saw that there were a bunch from her best friend
that she'd probably been passed out for.
Hey sorry,
she typed when she saw that Cassie was
still online.
I was knocked out when you sent these.
A moment or two passed and then Cassie replied.
CC
:
went to bed early last night?
Amyface
:
Not exactly.
CC
:
oh. are you okay?
Cassie Carpenter was the only person who Amelia still talked
to about what happened to her. The two of them had been best friends since
before they could even read properly, and even though Cassie lived on the other
side of the country now, they still talked on the phone and online as often as
they could.