Looming war threatens everything Fate holds dear
Fate’s reunion with Finn has given her the courage she needs to confront the dark forces poised to claim the immense power stored within the Keep. But a deadly game of deceit is playing out behind the scenes, birthing what may be an even greater threat. As war bears down on Fate and those she loves, her only hope is to break her blood oath as Keep Guardian in order to lure the final battle to unexpected realms, where surprising allies are gathering forces.
To get there, Fate must fight. She will fight for her childhood friend, whose formidable warrior skills are under the control of an ancient evil. She will fight for her father and dear friends, each of whom are prepared to die for her. And she will fight for the future she dreams of having with Finn.
Will Fate succeed in keeping her world from shattering, or is she headed for sheer destruction?
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Chapter 1 – Fate’s War
Doomsday
Fate pulled back the arrow, straining the bow, directing the sum of all her failures through the muscles of her arms and down the steel shaft. She held the full draw until her bow arm trembled. Inhaling deeply, she relaxed her shoulder and released the arrow.
The shot cut the air, slicing through the holographic Chimera’s leathery wing.
“Damn,” she muttered. Another soft shot. Thirty arrows in, and she still hadn’t hit the creature’s vulnerable underbelly. She couldn’t seem to relax her fingers on the release and kept dropping her shoulder too much.
She could easily make herself feel better about her rusty archery skills by choosing an easier target, but this was one mark she needed to conquer. When she’d faced the real Chimera a few weeks earlier, she’d had to be rescued by her best friend who’d had far less experience with monsters than Fate had.
Fate’s heart grew heavy, as it always did, at the thought of Jessie and what she must be suffering as a prisoner of the power-hungry sorceress, Kaliena. Was she being tortured? Or was she still the unfeeling automaton Kaliena had turned her into? The last time she’d seen Jessie, there’d been nothing left of her childhood friend. Kaliena had taken control of the Dragon Eye Jessie had been wearing. She was still bothered by the memory of Jessie’s vacant stare as she stood by and watched Kaliena unleash a fiery storm onto Fate that had nearly killed her.
Was Jessie even alive? She hated to think it, but it probably didn’t matter if she was. Either way, her best friend was gone.
Breathing hard against the tightness in her chest, Fate nocked another arrow and let it fly. The dying roar of the holographic Chimera as it thrashed at the arrow stuck in its belly gave her little satisfaction.
Working herself into the ground to sharpen her combat skills would only get her so far. So far all she had to show for it was increased fatigue and aching muscles. Dropping the bow at her side, Fate sighed tiredly as she tilted her head to stare at the electric daylight shining from the training arena’s arched ceiling. She was up against too much. Kaliena’s reach was growing. She’d taken over three-quarters of the Keep already. It wouldn’t be long before she controlled every inch of the arcane storehouse of magical objects.
The dread Fate woke with intensified each morning, wondering if that would be the day Kaliena mounted her attack upon them. She knew deep down inside she would lose if it happened now. The only way she could protect herself and loved ones was if she possessed powers equal to Kaliena’s.
The shadow of her failures inevitably darkened Fate’s thoughts to desperate levels. They haunted her daily. If she hadn’t lost the extraordinary powers she’d gained from a war goddess during her time in the Book of Fables–as well as the courage those powers had given her–she would’ve saved herself from that Chimera. Had she been swift as thought, she could’ve saved Lincoln from being devoured by a dragon. If she’d been stronger, she could’ve kept Jessie from falling under Kaliena’s control.
Everything would be different…better, if Fate hadn’t been reduced to her normal human frailty. She clenched the bow with all her strength. She didn’t know how she would do it, or when, but she was determined to get a major upgrade in the very near future.
“Nice shot, love.”
Startled by Finn’s voice, Fate glanced over her shoulder. He crossed the expanse of the training court in long easy strides. His cotton shirt breezed loosely against his tapered waist as her gaze trailed over him. His hair had grown while they’d been apart. The burnished gold of his wavy hair now grazed his broad shoulders. Her heart raced as the sight of him chased back the darkness like nothing else could. Dropping the bow, she shrugged off the quiver with a clatter of arrows falling over the stone floor and went to him.
Finn smiled, his eyes glittering like emeralds as he took her in his arms. She sank against him, breathing in the woodsy scent of sandalwood soap lingering on his skin and tightened her hold on him. She didn’t think she’d ever get used to the thrill his presence incited after suffering his absence for so long. Their relationship had been riddled with hardships from the moment they’d first met, and even though Finn assured her they would always be together, she couldn’t shake the feeling he would be taken from her at any moment.
He nuzzled his face against her neck. Waves of excitement rippled along the length of her spine. “You missed breakfast with everyone.” His voice grew husky with desire. “I missed you. How long have you been down here?” The heat of his breath on her skin made her knees go weak. Dizzy with longing, she swayed backwards. He held her closer to keep her from falling. “If you’re feeling light-headed, you should eat,” he warned.
Fate leaned her head back and looked at him with a drowsy smile. “I’m only hungry for one thing.”
Finn tried to hide his amusement behind a scolding look. The effort was entirely ineffective. “Stop trying to coax the devil out of me.” His eyes gleamed an even brighter green as his gaze traveled over her face. The Elder race runes inked on his skin had blessed him with power over the elements, as well as superhuman strength and speed, which he used only when needed. But there was another side effect that was always evident. The runes had turned his irises into mood rings. The more excited he was, the more luminous his eyes became. Something she loved seeing. “You’re making it impossible for me to keep my promise to your father.”
The mention of her father was every bit as unwelcome as having a pail of cold water splashed in her face. “You never should’ve made that promise in the first place. It’s not up to either of you to protect my virtue. The decision as to when I give my virginity away is up to me.” She broke free of Finn’s embrace and bent to pick up the mess of arrows she’d left on the floor. “I can’t believe you two. You’re both being completely…antediluvian.”
“Which means?”
“Outrageously old-fashioned.”
Finn shifted his weight from one foot to the other. She could see him trying to form the words of a strong defense.
“Oh, don’t bother. I can’t bear to hear the whole spiel on earning his respect all over again.” Having gathered up the bow and arrows, Fate stormed across the court to put them away.
Finn jogged to catch up with her. “Don’t be mad, fireball.”
Fate stopped and glared at him. He shut his eyes and raked his hand through his thick locks. She crumbled inside knowing her anger hurt him. Finn was simply caught in the middle and doing what he thought was best for everyone concerned. She really needed to stop taking her anger out on him. It wasn’t his fault her father had so thoroughly convinced him she was still a fragile little girl in need of protection.
Frustration boiled in her chest. It was time she and her father had a talk. Ever since Eustace had extracted his ridiculous promise of honor and respect from Finn, she had directed no more than a few curt words at him in the last few weeks.
Dropping her scowl, she stood on tiptoe and gave Finn a light peck on the cheek. “Sorry for being such a bear.”
Before she could take another step, he pulled her close. His heart thudded hard beneath the palm of her hand. “Whoa, lass. You can’t leave me with a granny kiss.”
Fate laughed, a harsh sound that betrayed her irritation. “Hey, I’m not the one who made this bed. You did, so you’re just going to have to lie in it.” She headed for the exit before glancing back to flash him a bitter smile. “Alone.”
Fate entered the library, her gaze sweeping over the six story high ceiling and full surround of terraces filled with collections of scrolls, tablets, grimoires and vast store of texts. She spotted Sithias on the top level. The unusually large ivory-colored snake slithered by the shelves, his head bobbing up and down as he read the spines of each book. She could tell he was excited with whatever he was reading by the way his golden-brown wings fluttered and twitched. With the ghost of a smile forming on her lips, she wondered if Sithias was finally narrowing in on the solution she’d asked him to find for her.
Resisting the urge to call out to him, she dropped her gaze to the main floor, which was the size of an Olympic-sized skating rink, interrupted only by islands of huge tables and chairs. Her smile faded when she saw Eustace sitting at one of the tables near the far end of the library. He hadn’t noticed her presence. He was engrossed in reading and the stacks of leatherbound books on the table blocked his line of vision.
Finn stole silently in beside her. The walk between the training court and library had been tense and quiet between them. “How about we head to the galley so you can get something to eat before we spend the rest of our day in here researching how we’re going to defeat Kaliena. If you take care of the basics, you can handle any–”
Fate silenced him with a look. “Who’s being the granny now?”
At the sound of voices, Eustace rose from his seat. He was a tall man, and always meticulously groomed, but from this distance he looked smaller somehow and unkempt in the way his silver-dusted hair hung over his glasses. Fate caught the hopefulness in his eyes as he stared at her.
Two parts of her battled with one another. The little girl who wanted to run into her father’s arms and have everything be what it used to be–unconditional love and acceptance–but the woman she was becoming could not forgive the boundary he’d crossed.
She tore her gaze away, but not before she saw the light go out of Eustace’s eyes. Her throat constricted and she lost the courage to speak her mind to him altogether. The subject matter was simply too uncomfortable. She’d thought she was ready to confront him, but in truth, she wasn’t.
She looked at Finn. “Can you see if Eustace needs any help with his research? I’m going to see what Sithias has found.”
“Fate, you can’t keep freezing him out. He’s your father.”
She closed her eyes to Finn’s pleading gaze. “Stop pushing me. I need more time.”
The corners of Finn’s mouth turned downward before he nodded and walked away. Fate willed herself to keep from stopping him. Any amount of sadness she caused him cut like a knife, but on the same note, she needed him to understand the effect his promise to Eustace was having on them.
Forcing down the pain of hurting the two people she loved most in the world, Fate scaled the terraces to the top level. She used to complain over the fact that the library had been designed without stairs or ladders. The architects of the Keep had provided two librarian automatons–robots designed to climb the walls and retrieve all requests. But Fate had developed excellent wall climbing skills ever since she’d been forced to spend an exorbitant amount of time in the library. Most of all, she enjoyed increasing her speed to beat her last climb.
She jumped over the balcony rail, startling Sithias when her boots hit the floor behind him. “Sweet! Thirty seconds faster than the last time.”
“How wonderful for you, though not for my rampaging heart.” Sithias waved his tail in front of his face while trying to steady his breathing. “You really must stop sneaking up on me, misss.”
Fate shook her head and smiled. While Sithias had somehow managed to lose most of the hiss in his speech since they’d last been together, he hadn’t stopped exaggerating his so-called fragility. He liked to think of himself as a lover, not a fighter, but he was much tougher than he always let on. “You can take it.” She looked at the two stacks of books sitting next to him. “Anything in there for me?”
Sithias grinned wide, baring his fangs as his amber eyes twinkled with inspiration. “Ah yesss, I believe there is.” He pointed at the first stack with his tail. “After much laborious cross-checking, between what’s stored here in the Keep, against all historical texts documenting war goddesses, I’ve narrowed your options down to two deities.”
Fate leaned against the railing. “I’m listening.”
Sithias lifted a book from one stack and opened it to an etching of a dark-haired woman whose hooded cloak swirled into a murder of crows. “This is the Morrígan, once revered as the goddess of battle and later known as the phantom queen. She is listed among the Tuatha Dé Danann as the granddaughter of King Nuada. You’ll be interested to know, the Morrígan was instrumental in defeating the Fomorians.”
Fate stiffened at the thought of the Fomorians. She’d experienced the repulsive, reality warping creatures first hand. The memory, though blurred and distorted, was unpleasant to say the least. “The phantom queen’s got my vote so far. What are her powers? Did she blast the Fomorians away with some sort of reality rejection mojo?”
“Well, I don’t think so. I do know she’s associated with fate in the way she foretold doom and death in battle by taking the shape of a crow and flying over the battlefield…” Sithias turned the page and skimmed the text.
Fate fidgetted while she waited. “If there’s one thing I can relate to, it’s the fate thing. Having the name’s been more of a curse than anything else. Did I ever tell you about the time a meteor landed on the car my dad gave me for my birthday? I never even got to drive it.” She waited for his reaction but he was too intent on reading.
“Ah, I found it.” Sithias looked up from the book. “It appears the Morrígan used her femininely wiles to great advantage to win the war against the Fomorians.”
Fate wrinkled her nose. “Really? That’s it? She batted her eyelashes at the right person? Not impressed.”
“Well, she did a little more than that, misss.”
When she realized what he was alluding to, heat rushed to her face. “Oh, she…”
“Kept a tryst with the powerful druid, Dagda.”
Fate’s thoughts rushed to Finn. Her longing to share more than a kiss with him flowed through her veins like quicksilver. She gulped dryly. “What’s the other option?”
“You don’t like the Morrígan?”
“Not if I have to tryst with some stranger to get the results I want.”
“Don’t underestimate the power of female sexuality, misss. Many a war has been lost and won because of a woman who was able to harness that wild force of nature.”
“Nope. Next.”
Closing the book, Sithias set it down and took a tome from the other stack. “All right then, you might like this goddess better, though I haven’t completed my research.” He showed her an illustration of a fierce looking woman holding a spear and shield. She wore a breastplate over a long dress. Thick golden locks flowed to her waist from beneath a winged helmet.
Fate liked the balance of strength and feminity she was seeing in the portrait. “Tell me more.”
“This is, Freya, the Norse goddess of war and death, and leader of the Valkyries.”
Fate leaned forward with interest. “I’ve heard of the Valkyries–expert battle maidens with kickass supernatural abilities.”
Sithias nodded. “Yes, and like the Morrígan, they too determine the fates of soldiers in war, as well as escort their spirits to the afterlife. While Freya possesses these same abilities, as well as the usual superhuman strength, speed and invulnerability, she is sssupremely powerful in warfare and makes the Valkryies seem like playful puppies on the battlefield.”
“Now that’s what I’m looking for. How do I get me some of that?”
“One of the vaults is holding Freya’s armament, one of which is the legendary Brisingamen–a magical necklace made of gold filigree, ambers and rubies.”
“Hmm, sounds like it’ll match my eyes.”
“Uh, before you get excited about the necklace, you should know it was crafted by four dwarves.” Sithias squirmed with discomfort.
“So? What’s wrong with that?”
“Freya trysted with them in exchange for the necklace. She was famous for trysting rather freely.”
“Ew! Is that all those goddesses did back then?” Fate chewed on her bottom lip. The Morrigan was sounding better by the minute. At least she was sacrificing herself for the benefit of others, while Freya sounded like a party girl. Albeit, a powerful one. “What does the necklace do?” she asked with reluctance.
Sithias glanced down at the book. “It says here the Brisingamen gave her the power to create treasures. When her tears fell on the earth, they turned to gold, and when she wept at sea, they turned to amber.” He lifted his gaze. “Apparently she cried a lot, especially when she was searching for her missing husband.”
Fate understood that kind of sadness. The memories of her desperation to get back to Finn and free him from the Book of Fables were still fresh. She let out a heavy sigh. “I don’t know. The necklace sounds lame. What else is in the vault?”
Sithias closed the book he was holding and referenced a new volume, which looked like a log of records. “Well, there’s her sword and shield, but you’d need superhuman strength to weild them since all goddesses were giantesses…” He scanned further down the list. “Ah, there are three other items. One is a crown, a guantlet and a girdle.”
“A girdle? Sounds uncomfortable. Who wears a girdle anymore? What does the gauntlet do?”
“It grants the wearer the strength to weild weapons of colossal size.”
“I suppose that solves the problem of being able to use her sword and shield, but I don’t exactly see myself herking around a shield the size of a dining room table and a sword that’s taller than me. What about the crown?”
“Hmmm,” Sithias mused as he read the description. “The crown appears to amplify the magical powers of the wearer.”
“Which is useless to me, since I’m magicless.” Fate huffed. “I guess we’re back to the girdle.”
Sithias nodded as he searched for the item’s attributes. “Oh my, I think you’re going to like this. The girdle imbues the wearer with Amazonian powers.”
“Ooh, me likey. Wonder Woman’s an Amazon and she never has to give herself away to get business done.”
Sithias shook his head at the page. “Thisss doesn’t make any sense. Why would a Norse goddess have a girdle of Hellenic orgins?”
Fate shrugged. “The lady got around. She probably laid it down to get her hands on that one too.”
“Possibly.” A shadow of concrn crossed Sithias’s face.
Fate frowned. “What?”
“You’re being rather blasé about assuming the powers a goddess once wielded. Are you certain you want to risk being changed into something else entirely? Remember Bremusa’s plight from the Book of Fables’ story of The Lightning Sword? The gods and goddesses of old were famous for leaving behind fragments of their power in which to slip back to this world for a chance to unleash their might.”
How could Fate forget? She’d lived through that fable. But what Sithias was overlooking was how Fate had been embued with a war goddess’s powers, which was why she’d survived that particular story.
Sithias set the book down. “Pleassse, give it more thought before you go through with this.”
The metallic clicking of a librarian robot sounded from below. Fate leaned over the railing to see Gerdie riding piggyback on one of the robots as it traversed the wall of shelves with its six arms, moving as easily as a spider. Catching sight of Fate, Gerdie waved before directing the robot to climb over to her.
The wispy, twelve-foot librarian made of blinking gold lights, brass coils and plastic face, stepped over the railing and placed the little girl gently on the floor. Gerdie’s frizzy, fawn-colored hair fluttered around her impish features with the delicacy of a dried dandelion. Her brown eyes moved from Fate to Sithias, and to the stacks of books sitting next to them. “Whatcha doin’?”
Fate shrugged. “The usual. Searching for something to kick Kaliena’s royal blue butt with.”
Gerdie might look like a six-year-old, but she was forty-five pounds of pure stubborness–a trait born from untold centuries evading the clutches of a child-eating monster. The wise old soul stared back, looking unconvinced. “Mmhmm. If that were true, you’d be down there with Eustace. He’s collected all the books we need.”
Sithias squirmed under Gerdie’s stare. “We’re exploring other avenues of thought.”
Gerdie bent to read the spine of one of the books. “What does Lebor Gabála Érenn have to do with the Sanskrit Vedic texts we’ve been siftin’ through everyday for the last month? Celtic myths won’t give us the answers we need.” She glanced at the book Fate was holding. “The same goes for Norse legends.”
Sithias huffed. “Why did I ever teach you to read?”
“Too late to take it back now.”
“I’ve created a monssster,” he tsk, tsked.
Gerdie crossed her small arms and looked at Fate. “Spit it out. What’re you up to?”
Fate gulped. Just as she hadn’t told Finn of her intentions to power up, she couldn’t tell Gerdie either. Especially Gerdie. Her great-aunt had witnessed how power had corrupted her older sister, Brune, when she’d become obsessed with the Orb of Aeternitis. Gerdie’s grandmother had died because of Brune’s use of the magical object, and Brune’s obsession was the reason Gerdie had been suspended in time and trapped inside the Book of Fables.
But what choice did Fate have? Gerdie wouldn’t let this go. She could only hope she didn’t tell the others. Fate looked at Gerdie. “Well, we were–”
“What’re those books you’re lookin’ at?” Gerdie stooped and read the spines. “Celtic and Norse myths? What’s that got to do with the Sanskrit Vedic texts we’ve been siftin’ through everyday for the last month?”
Fate and Sithias exchanged a baffled look. Then she remembered Gerdie had been researching forgetting spells. “Gerdie, have you been trying out forgetting spells again?”
Gerdie’s expression went blank. “I think so…”
An alarm blared throughout the expanse of the library, making all three of them jump.
Sithias looked at them round-eyed with fear. “Oh dear. Do you think this is the day?”
Fate’s heart hammered as she threw her leg over the railing. “I don’t know.”
Gerdie climbed onto the back of the robot. “Fate…”
The tone in her voice stopped Fate and held her in place. “Yeah, Gerdie?”
Gerdie stared then shook her head. “I…I forgot what I was gonna say.”
Fate nodded. “It’s okay. You’ll remember if it’s important.” But she hoped the forgetting spell wouldn’t fade too terribly soon. She couldn’t let anything get in the way of taking action on what she’d learned from Sithias. Not with the alarms ringing out what may be the doomsday she’d been dreading all along.
This concludes Chapter 1 of Fate’s War.
CLICK HERE to read Chapter 2.
