Amasai Read online

  Amasai

  AMASAI RISING BOOK 2

  Stevie Rae Causey

  AMASAI : AMASAI RISING BOOK 2

  Copyright © 2018 by Stevie Rae Causey

  All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations em- bodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For information contact :

  http://www.stevieraecausey.com

  Edited by Markie Rustad

  Book and Cover design by Crystal Malta

  First Edition: October 2017

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  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Absolution: Amasai Rising Book 3

  About the Author

  More works by Stevie Rae Causey:

  Prologue

  The dragon’s tail twitched impatiently. The way it furled and unfurled reminded Cain of a cat just before it pounced. Gazing into the reflection of the beast’s looking glass, he saw the girl challenge his son before storming down the hallway.

  “Your plan has failed. You have doomed your kin for naught.”

  “It hasn’t failed. She refuses to be their pawn. That is something. She will come, I know it.”

  Fiora snorted, “You’d bet your life on that, would you?”

  “Don’t tell me that you’re still bitter about it.”

  “Stealing from a dragon is grounds for execution. You are lucky I was not hungry.”

  He knew better than to say any more. Though Fiora was considered tame compared to others of her kind, her patience had its limits. Taking the Amasai from her had been risky enough. Rubbing it in her face was like playing with the wrong end of a sword.

  “Anhedonia will draw her to the Dark Lands,” He assured her. “You know as well as anyone the way its whispers shape a wearer’s will.”

  “Only those too weak to resist,” smoke puffed out her nostrils in warning.

  He ignored the subtle insult, “She is of the age to be easily swayed. She will come.”

  The image in the glass shimmered and changed. Azlana stood at the cave mouth with the Deyanian. She looked over her shoulder only once before stepping through the entryway into the night.

  “And when she does, we will be waiting.”

  Chapter One

  Three days. I had survived for three days in the forest on my own. Or at least, mostly on my own. The Deyanian provided heat and at times, transportation; but didn’t contribute much in the way of shelter, food or conversation. So, I supposed, I could consider myself to be on my own.

  In my haste to escape, I had not considered where I was running to—only what I was running away from. At first, I thought of going home, if I even had a home to go back to. That idea was quickly discarded as the memory of the Elite marching through the city filled my mind. There was nothing left there for me, save perhaps a swift death. No, it was better to leave such things in the past. Start anew, whatever that might mean. I tried to swallow the lump that rose in my throat at the thought of a life without Mother.

  “What good was she, really?” The voice sneered at the tears that stung the corners of my eyes. “You’re better off. Safer. No one else can use you out here.”

  But where was here, exactly?

  The forest was far-reaching, dense, and ancient. Its canopy was marked by sequoia, larch, and yew, and had ample openings to let dancing beams of light through. Ferns reigned the stony grounds below. So different, this part of the world, from the forests that marked the edge of Ludlum’s kingdom. What had once seemed dark and ominous to me was now teeming with life.

  A mixture of sounds belonging mostly to prowling animals, echoed in the air, reminding me of how foolish it was to venture into the woods unprepared. Aside from food and water I had packed only a flint, the whittling knife I’d brought from home the night we had fled, and the pillow Luka had made me. I had made the mistake of letting my emotions rule over reason, and I was paying a hard price for it.

  Not that I felt that leaving itself had been a mistake. At least, not during the daylight hours. Not if I kept moving. Night time was a different scene altogether. Curled up between the fire and the Deyanian when the sun had gone, and hunger pains became indistinguishable from homesickness, I had wondered more than once if I had made the wrong decision.

  Perhaps I could have been more prepared, had I not left with such a hot head. “Stupid girl,” The Darkness argued, “The only way to protect them is to stay away”

  Or was it my own voice? I had begun to find that it was getting harder to distinguish between the two as time went on. The Darkness’ thoughts melded with my own to the point that I would not even bother to argue with it, most of the time.

  The first night had been easy enough, with a full stomach and a fire; but by the third when my rations were sparse, and the weather turned I began to second-guess myself. Who was I to reject the decisions of my elders?

  “Who are they to use you as their pawn? Their future Queen, indeed. You’re nothing but a tool to them. A means to get what they most desire. Expendable. Disposable.” The voice of the Darkness propelled me forward.

  It was right. After all, if I was so important to them, why had they not come after me? I had hidden my tracks to the best of my ability, but surely the Priestess had other methods of tracking. So why had they not come for me?

  “They think you are weak. That you will come crawling back.”

  Humph. I would show them! I’d learned enough to make it this far, hadn’t I? I just needed to find a way to hunt, and some shelter, and all would be well again. I could do that. Father had taught me well.

  Father. Where was he now? Mother and I had heard naught from him since before we fled to the safe hold. The only news we’d had was from grandfather, who had seen him after the Elite ambushed the Alliance. He was alive or at least he had been at the time. So why did he not meet us? Was it possible that it was he who tipped off Ludlum’s soldiers? Could Gareth be the traitor Eoma had talked about?

  The Deyanian leaned into me, nuzzling my arm reassuringly. She always seemed to sense what I was feeling. At times, I wondered if she could read my thoughts as well.

  “If that were the case she would know better than to befriend you. What Mystic would risk its life to become your travel companion if they knew what was inside your mind?” The voice of the Darkness had become more persistent in the recent hours. The more I thought about turning back the more it crept in, reminding me of the danger I presented not only to myself, but to those around me.

  And so, we pressed on. I spent much of the journey on foot, though there were times when the Deyanian insisted that I ride, not that she could say as much, exactly, but the more time that we spent together, the more it seemed like she was trying to communicate with me.

  It made sense, of course. If she was descended from unicorns, who were self-aware, on
e would assume that she would share the same level of consciousness. Eoma had communicated with the unicorns, the first night that we had met. My cousin Cazlyn had whispered to the beasts as well. Could it be that my heritage would give me the same ability? I gazed into the animal’s eyes, hoping for a straight answer, but received nothing more than the lingering feeling that I was on the right track.

  ***

  On the fifth day we reached a river running down from the mountains. “This is a good spot for a rest,” I said to the Deyanian, who snorted her approval, and began to graze on the foliage lining the riverbank. I envied her ability to sustain herself on what the forest provided. My stomach rumbled, reminding me that my own rations had run out the night before. I needed to find a way to hunt.

  I knelt beside the river, careful not to submerge my water skin completely as it filled. Though late morning temperature was rising, the water was frigid as it ran over my fingers. I guessed the river’s source must flow from the ice caps, high up in the mountains. Cold water was good—it had less chance of breeding disease. Warm, stagnant waters were dangerous. I did not know whether we would happen upon clean water like this again and wished that I had thought to bring more than one flask.

  Sunlight danced over the running water, and for a second, I felt my mind wander to a place somewhere between sleep and waking. This place was familiar, somehow.

  The sound of rushing water. The flash of light bouncing off blue scales. The murmur of a crowd surrounding me.

  “Does she even understand, Priestess, what you have committed her to? You speak of acting with full knowledge, but she doesn’t know yet, does she?”

  It wasn’t the voice of the Darkness this time, but a flash of something else. Like a memory, but less tangible. Like trying to find the right word for something that just barely escapes you but is on the tip of your tongue at the same time. I struggled to hold on to it, but it slipped away as quickly as it had come. The memory was not mine to hold on to. Not yet, anyway.

  It hadn’t taken me long, once I’d left the safe hold, to realize that some of what was occurring in my mind was inherited memory, a gift passed on to me from my natural father. At times, it was hard to tell what thoughts came from my ancestors, and which were my own. The voice of the Darkness often twisted them.

  The voice had not come from my ancestors, of that I was almost certain, though I had not yet worked out its origin. Perhaps it was the result of my human side, fighting against the effects of my Mystic genes. Maybe the blending of memory from the two species at war put them at war with one another, even inside the confines of my mind.

  Maybe it was putting me at war with myself.

  I reckoned, either way, that it made me even more of a danger to all of them.

  ***

  On the eighth day, I could stand it no longer. I had to find food. I’d resorted to riding more than walking at this point, and I didn’t even feel guilty about it anymore. After all, the Deyanian wasn’t the one who was starving.

  We’d crossed the river, rather than following it up or downstream. The vision I’d had when I touched it had put me off that idea quickly. I was determined to avoid anything that felt even remotely familiar. I figured, if I ran toward the unknown, I had less of a chance of being found.

  Unfortunately, it also meant less chance of survival. These woods were nothing like where I had hunted before, and the plant life was equally unfamiliar. Even if some of it had been edible, the chance of it being lethal was not one I was willing to take, yet.

  Even so, I was so hungry that some of it had begun to look appealing. From the mushrooms that grew on the side of the nurse logs, to the purple berries that adorned the surrounding shrubbery. On one occasion a squirrel crossed our path, and I thought to myself I’d even eat that, had I any way of catching it.

  And then, as if by magic, I saw it! In a clearing up ahead was a massive, lone tree. Its lower half was made of vines that extended outward, and then into the ground, almost as if they were extra roots. The high branches grew out and up toward the sun. Wispy strands of goat moss adorned its upper half. The resulting image was quite eerie. But, dangling from the top of its uppermost branches, there it was: food! A large basket of fruits and smoked meats hung, completely unattended.

  I didn’t even care that it was impossible. I dismounted and dashed into the clearing eagerly. The Deyanian whinnied behind me, obviously objecting to my lack of caution. Still she trotted along, following my lead.

  I paused only long enough to plan the quickest way to the top before scrambling up the lowest branches. It was almost as if they had grown that way to encourage climbers. I had always been good at scaling trees, but even this was way too easy.

  I was halfway up before the rumbling started. At first, I thought it was the earth shaking. I’d felt that once before, when I was very small. Mother had called to me to hide beneath the table with her, lest the pottery on the shelves fall onto our heads. But that was nothing like this. Rather than shaking from side to side, it felt as if the branches beneath me were twisting. I clung tightly to the tree’s trunk, grasping the spaces in its rough bark with my bare toes, and looked down.

  The lowest branches of the tree had pulled themselves out of the ground and flailed like the tentacles of a great sea-beast from fairytales that grandfather used to tell me, snapping like a whip at the Deyanian, who neighed and backed away.

  The wood creaked and gave way as the branch beneath me shifted. A vine shot up from beneath it and wrapped itself around my ankle, lifting me up into the air.

  I looked at where the basket had been. It was nowhere to be seen. In its place was a great cavernous hole, easily twice the size as the one where I’d found a family of squirrels living last fall. The hole expanded to reveal a set of petrified, jagged teeth.

  The tree was sentient! More than that, it was hungry. And it looked like I was its next meal.

  Chapter Two

  I closed my eyes, bracing myself against an inevitable end, but it never came. Instead, I heard a sound that reminded me of the cry of a hawk. The tree creature froze, and slowly I was lowered to the ground.

  It took me a moment to regain my bearings. The earth swam as I sat up, and I clenched my eyes shut, feeling as if I might vomit, had I anything in my stomach to empty. When my vision steadied I couldn’t believe my eyes. A woman stood, clad in a skirt of moss which wrapped its way up and around her torso, covering only the essentials. Her white hair cascaded wildly down her shoulders. She approached the tree-beast with a finger raised, chittering in a language that I did not understand. Her green skin glowed with anger.

  This was no ordinary woman. This was a nymph, and an angry one at that! In fact, it almost seemed as if she was chastising the tree-creature for almost eating me! I looked to the Deyanian for confirmation. She nodded and then tilted her head curiously. This was not normal behavior for a nymph.

  Not just any nymph, I thought to myself. She glanced in my direction and for a moment as I gazed into her ruby eyes; she felt almost familiar.

  “Sapphire?” What were the chances that I would run into her here?

  Sapphire, mother to Nykolas, my mother’s half-brother. She and grandfather had met sometime after the death of my grandmother. Mother hadn’t wanted me to know the whole story, but I had worked out the important parts, with a little help from granddad. She wasn’t like others of her kind. Naïve and a tad out of touch, Nymphs were more a danger to themselves than anyone else; but not Sapphire. Grandfather described her as sly, independent, genuinely affectionate when he’d known her.

  Still, nymphs are not known for their maternal instincts. One day she showed up with Nykolas in tow and almost no explanation. Neither of them had seen her since. So, what was she doing here?

  “Perhaps she is a spy,” The Darkness suggested. But that didn’t make sense. Nymphs, even a smart one, would have very little interest in the politics of other species. Besides, if she had cared so little for her ow
n offspring, why would she involve herself in my own fate?

  The nymph finished her quarrel with the tree and, as if on cue, turned her attention to me.

  “Just what do you think you were doing?” Her eyes narrowed as she approached me. “You could have ruined everything!”

  “I’m sorry?” I sputtered.

  “Mendarbore is on a strict diet. Quadrupeds only,” She eyed the Deyanian. “That one would have been fine, but you?” She looked me up and down, her lip curling in disgust.

  “I didn’t mean to!” I shot back, “You think I wanted to be eaten by a…whatever that thing is?”

  “Then you shouldn’t have been climbing Mendarbore,” She said as if the answer was obvious. “She is not a toy.”

  “She??” I looked at the massive conifer.

  “Yes, she.” The look on the nymph’s face told me it was better not to press the issue.

  “Well, I wasn’t climbing her for fun, anyway. I was hungry.”

  “Mendarbore is not for eating,” Sapphire wagged her finger at me, appalled. I wondered how it was, if she had no maternal instinct, that she was so good at such a maneuver.

  “I wasn’t going to eat her!” I threw my arms up in the air in frustration. This was going nowhere. “Look, I—we’ve been traveling a long time. I saw a basket of meats hanging from a branch, and I went to fetch it. I really meant no harm.”

  A melodic sound caught my attention, like a crystal harp in the rain. I realized it was the nymph laughing.

  “What is so funny?”

  “Humans!” the laughter continued. “That is her hunting trick. She shows her prey what they most desire. That is what lures them close enough to eat.

  “Why is that funny?”

  “Mendarbore is still just a baby. Her trick should only work on feeble-minded things.”

  If eyes could shoot daggers, she’d have been felled right there. A sharp tongue would have to do instead, “You mean, like nymphs?”