We should not be afraid.., p.1
Worldwalker: The Banneret Series (Book 1), page 1
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Epilogue
Thank You!
Acknowledgments
About the Author
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the sole product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locations is coincidental.
Worldwalker
Copyright © 2022 by Magnetra's Publishing LLC
Cover Art by Grace Huart
Cover Typography and Copyright Magnetra’s Design
Interior Design by AuthorTree
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the author.
Purchase only authorized editions. Thank you for respecting the author's work and not supporting or encouraging piracy. To obtain permission to excerpt portions of the text, please contact the author at magnetrasdesign@yahoo.com
Prologue
War rarely has a true victor. The ultimate widow-maker doesn’t care which side a person is on, and those leading the charge often see their citizens as mere pawns. Such was the case for the kingdom of Pieriun. All hope had been lost when, centuries ago, a mad king and his daughter came up with an even madder plan—one that would stop the attacks, eliminate their threats at home, and leave their kingdom at ease. There remained no magic or practitioners of it, only humans carrying on a simple style of life.
The best laid plans don’t always last forever, though. Time goes on and the natural order of things resets. For some, the war never ended; for others, it’s only beginning.
Chapter
One
“Did you hear that they found Jeb’s body last night?”
The voice of Adalyn’s best friend, Isabella, snapped her out of her daze. “Sorry, what?”
“Remember Jeb? He was new—mostly scrubbed pots and pans and unloaded deliveries.” Isabella stood on the opposite side of the wooden table in the king’s kitchen, her auburn curls dusted with flour. “They found him in an alley behind a pub. It seems he was on the bad end of a robbery gone wrong or something.”
“Really? I thought he had just run off or decided he wasn’t cut out for kitchen work. Poor Jeb.” Adalyn eyed the empty spot near the door of the king’s kitchen, wondering how Chef Staryn was taking the news. “Do you think it’s why Chef took today off? He never takes a day off. When his sister got married, he had her schedule the wedding between meals so he didn’t have to miss a day.”
“I don’t know. Are you all right?” Isabella asked. “You seem out of sorts.”
Adalyn nodded and started kneading the dough in front of her again. Truth be told, she was exhausted. She’d been having the strangest dreams lately and woke up feeling almost as tired as she had been the night before. Nothing had worked to stop the dreams. Her lids grew heavy, and she caught herself dozing once.
When it happened again, her hands slipped off the pillowy dough and caught the lip of the bowl. A ripping sensation jerked through her body, and she watched the bowl flip and land on her own frame, which was now laid out below her on the stone floor. She held her hands out in front of her face, and her mind reeled as she stared at Isabella through them. Her spirit was no longer attached to her body! Looking around the king’s kitchen, she watched her friends and other kitchen workers as they noticed her lying on the ground.
“Adalyn? Adalyn! Wake up!” Isabella cried out, scrambling around the table.
Something was pulling her spirit away from her body and leading her outside. With a last look at the crowd gathering around her motionless form, she followed it, preferring to go of her own free will rather than be dragged along. She didn’t know what exactly was happening, but she hated feeling as if she wasn’t in control.
Pushing herself through the city walls, she followed the pull past grassy meadows and into the forest surrounding the capital. Deeper and deeper she went, until the forest was so thick she could no longer see the bustling city behind her. Each tree she passed through sent a tingle through her. The pull became stronger the longer she took to get to her destination.
Finally, she stopped before a small clearing, the tug on her spirit easing. A group of individuals dressed in dark cloaks and masks gathered around a stone archway. They chanted in a language that sounded familiar, but she couldn’t place it.
While floating above the group, she circled around, trying to see if she could identify any specific details about the individuals or what they were doing, but their cloaks and masks made that difficult. A glow appeared out of the corner of her eye. The keystone on the archway lit up, and each sequential stone radiated in a pale blue, becoming brighter as more stones ignited.
A teal mist in the form of a human head emerged from the stones, peering around. Stepping out, the figure stretched and seemed to take in a deep breath. Adalyn quickly spotted several more arms, legs, and heads of varying blue and green hues peeking out from inside the arch. Within seconds, a crowd of spirits meandered around the clearing, investigating the still-chanting group, who were clearly unaware of their visitors. Elves, humans, and several races that Adalyn didn’t recognize gathered in groups of spirits. As they took in their surroundings, the same look of confusion befell all of their faces. Adalyn kept her distance from the spirits, the mystery of what she was experiencing making her wary.
Eventually, the chanters stopped, and one asked, “Did it work?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t notice anything different.”
“Yeah, I didn’t see any changes.”
“Of course, it worked. You think I would have had us come all the way out here to cast if it wasn’t going to? Magic doesn’t always have to be visible to work. The spells cast by the best sorcerers could rarely be seen by the human eye.”
“No need to get testy, Nightshade. We aren’t saying you don’t know your stuff. It’s just that, after so many years of working out the spell, that was a little anticlimactic.”
Nightshade huffed.
A spirit stopped moving and looked up, the first to notice Adalyn floating above them. “Who are you?” Other spirits joined the first in staring quizzically up at her.
Feeling the pull return, she seized it and moved as quickly as she could away from the clearing, hoping this meant she really wasn’t dead and could get back to her body. She had no idea if there were any consequences to being away from it for too long, and she had no desire to take that risk. The pull grew more urgent and swept her up, carrying her back to the kitchen and slamming her spirit back into her body.
Groaning, Adalyn turned her head and shifted to her side.
“Careful. Don’t move too quickly.” A doctor from the castle stopped her from sitting up and looked her over. “Are you hurt? How do you feel?”
Adalyn checked each part of her body with small movements, feeling for discomfort or any hindrance.
“I don’t know.” What had just happened? Was she ill? That would explain her strange dreaming, she supposed.
“Don’t move yet. I have a stretcher coming. I want to take you to the infirmary to look you over more thoroughly before we release you. I’m insisting you take at least the rest of the day off. Where’s Chef Staryn? I will tell that stubborn man myself.”
Isabella’s brows raised as she offered a reassuring touch of her hand. “It’s his day off. He won’t notice she’s gone anyway.”
The doctor nodded. “That’s that, then. Has this ever happened before? Do you pass out often?”
“No, I don’t…” Adalyn attempted as exhaustion and blackness crowded her mind and overtook her, “…think so.”
Adalyn woke up in the castle infirmary, confused, until she remembered the incident in the kitchen. Noting the dim light in the room, she realized the sun must have set some time ago. She shook her head and sat up as she thought about what had happened. It had to have been a dream. There’s no way it could have been real.
She kicked her legs over the side of the bed and sat up. Her head in her hands, she contemplated lying back down and getting more sleep only to notice something was still in the bed next to her. Turning to get a better view in the dark, she realized that it was her—or at least, her body. There was no mistaking it. No one else in the castle had skin so pale it could almost glow in the dark.
Her mind raced as she tried to grasp what this meant. How could her spirit be outside of her body? Maybe it hadn’t been a dream before. Adalyn glimpsed a faint glow out of the corner of her eye.
As the light floated toward her, she could almost make out a shape. The image seemed familiar, but she couldn’t place how.
A tall, beautiful man with long, silver hair and a dark aura approached her with the light and offered his hand. “Let me hel
She grabbed his hand and allowed him to pull her away. Then fear struck her heart as they moved too far too fast, and she tried to return to her body.
“Don’t worry, you will come back. It is not yet your time.”
That didn’t comfort her in any way, but after a few moments of struggling, she watched as the world took form in the night around them. He led her to a building made of a shimmering gray material with large cathedral windows and a deep black roof. They passed room after room quickly, so she only managed glimpses of the mysteries inside each one before being led away and past the next.
Rooms filled with mirrors showed reflections of objects which weren’t there. A music room had melodies playing but no one to play them. Room after room of peculiarities passed until they finally entered what looked like a library.
The most extravagant and peculiar library she had ever seen, with unbelievably tall walls lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, drew her in. Glowing spheres hung from the ceiling, casting a kaleidoscope of different shapes and colors, and an odd variety of the most elegant yet comfortable-looking chairs and tables she had ever seen sat in front of the windows.
Her mysterious guide spoke. “Herein lies the history of your people, and of my people. In your dreams, you have come here and seen this. You have seen me. You have explored these shelves, but you don’t remember fully, do you?”
Images flashed through Adalyn’s mind, and she blinked in an effort to clear them. “I thought they were dreams.”
“No, not dreams. Something even better.” Venlian gestured to the shelves around them, and an image—a memory?—of him doing so another time crossed Adalyn’s mind. “In these books are the histories of individuals, the stories of their lives.”
“Is there one for me? Could I see it?”
“All of your kind are among these books, but I am afraid peeking at your own would be unwise. It is not yet complete. It is dangerous to open the book of someone whose story is unfinished, and should only be done in extraordinary circumstances.”
“Unfinished? What do you mean?”
“It would be easier to show you than attempt to explain.”
He pulled down an old, tattered book and opened it. Inside were words and images as she expected, but they didn’t stay put on the page. Adalyn reached forward to touch the book and was startled to find that her hand moved through the page and occupied a space inside that the thickness of the book couldn’t possibly contain. Moving her hand, images and words swirled around, reminding her of a bowl of soup.
“I don’t understand.”
“This library is the result of a spell cast by a very powerful elf long ago. When a person is born, it creates a book which holds all of the possibilities that person's life can hold. If a book is searched while a person is still alive, parts of their story could be altered or even go missing. These books are connected to the individual’s fate. The one you are holding is of someone in the past. You can’t change a dead person’s past, but can change a living one’s future.”
Quickly pulling her hand out, she looked up at him. “Why did you bring me here?”
An almost sad, distant look haunted his eyes. “With the old ways appearing in your world again, it is time to return something that has been hidden here for centuries. Things have been broken, but not yet shattered, and everything is about to change.” He reached inside the book and pulled out a short sword inscribed with ancient lettering. Setting it down on the table, he reached back in and pulled out a key.
“This sword belonged to one of the Banneret. Keep it by your side and learn to use it. It will be one of the only defenses against the things awakening in your world. It has magical abilities that the human world has long thought destroyed and forgotten.” He held out the other object. “This key belonged to the old king. It opens a part of the castle that has been locked away for many years. Give it to your king. It is now time to reopen old secrets. It is the only way for things to be right again.”
Adalyn fumbled with the artifacts, surprised when Venlian put them in her hands. She wasn’t sure how she’d been able to pass right through walls but could now hold these items.
“Why are you giving these to me? Wouldn’t it be easier if you found and gave them to the Banneret or the king yourself?”
“The Banneret disappeared from your land long ago, and it is not time yet for me to see the king. This sword is not like others. Only you can use it to its fullest, just as only the king can use the key. The sword can only be used by those who have the same abilities as the one who forged it.”
“I don’t have any abilities, though.”
A smile cleared some of the darkness from his face. “Do you see any other humans here? You have a special aptitude for crossing worlds, an ability known by the Banneret as worldwalking. Which worlds you can cross into will depend on what your needs are at the time and where you want to go. In your dreams, you are not limited, and have been to many worlds and realms. That is why you feel as if you remember this place and remember me, but don’t know how. After you have been somewhere while awake, you can return at any time without guidance.”
“You’re right, I feel as if I’ve been here before. Wait, is that what happened yesterday? When I was pulled from my body to a stone archway?”
His brow raised as he quickly opened and closed his mouth. Shaking his head, he replied, “It’s why you haven’t been able to sleep as well. As your ability developed, you started to wander. It’s easiest for your spirit to slip from your body while you sleep. Tell me about this stone archway you saw.”
Adalyn did so, questioning only briefly her sudden trust in this man. Memories she had pushed away as strange dreams were returning to the front of her mind, and she told herself she’d process each of them when she had some quiet moments.
Venlian listened to her tale intently, only interrupting her occasionally to ask clarifying questions.
“You have given me much to think about,” he said when she’d finished. “Keep this sword near you, and it will help control your ability as you learn how to use it yourself. Long ago, there were better resources for your training, but much has been hidden from humans in your world for far too long.”
“Humans? You make it sound as though you’re not human.”
He tucked his hair behind his pointed ear. “That’s because I’m not.”
She should have guessed that he wasn’t human. She had never met anyone quite like him in the capital. “Weren’t all non-human people wiped out over five hundred years ago?”
“Not all of us, as your people were led to believe.” Venlian turned toward the door, and his eyes became distant again. “It appears that our time has been cut short. Remember what you’ve been told and what you need to do. If not, all will be lost.”
Adalyn felt a tug from afar and, with a nod, let her spirit be pulled back even faster than when she’d left. She groaned as her spirit slammed back into her body again.
Voices whispered with each other near the hearth as someone stoked the fire and hung a kettle over it. It was still dark out, and all she wanted was sleep. Something poked her as she rolled over away from the fire. She reached to move whatever it was and pulled up a sword with a key on a leather cord wrapped around the sheath. Her heart stuttered in her chest. It wasn’t just a dream. She stared at the items in the weak firelight, somehow finding comfort in them. Her lids grew heavy, and she let them close, hoping she could finally get some sleep.
Chapter
Two
“Good morning, everyone,” Chef Staryn boomed, which was followed by a chorus of much less enthusiastic greetings from his bleary-eyed helpers. “We are expecting the queen’s mother and sisters to arrive for a visit in four days. That means extra places to set as well as extra requests.”
