Chasing Shadows (Saving Galerance, Book 1) Read online

  Saving Galerance

  Trilogy

  -

  Book One

  Chasing Shadows

  By: Natalie Reid

  Table of Contents

  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

  Sneak Peak of Book Two

  Chapter 1

  The stone war room in the Galerance capital building had changed much since its latest ruler had come into power. There used to be colored banners hung on the walls, displaying the flags of each of the four major Galerance villages. Now there was only one flag. A great somber beast of a flag, with a black background and four red diamonds forming a circle, bearing a single word inside: PAX.

  Peace.

  The end to all wars.

  The end to all suffering.

  The Amias Pax had been enforced for nearly thirty years now, and in that time the Kingdom of Galerance hadn’t seen so much as a hint of war or uprising.

  Guardian Amias looked down at the large wooden table in the old war room and ran a hand across the map of his kingdom. A circle of Pax officials stood around him, waiting in respectful stoicism for him to speak. Outside he could hear the muffled clink of the castle servants’ boots as they tapped across the stone floor like skittering mice, hurrying to get away from this room as they went about their daily chores.

  Amias sighed and looked at a number of red dots that littered the map. “Exactly how many have there been, Auberon?” he asked, looking up at the man that he had placed in charge of the western village of Breccan.

  Auberon cleared his throat. “It’s hard to say, sir.”

  “Is it?” he asked, raising his eyebrows in surprise. “I’d imagine it would be fairly easy to count the number of large flaming baskets left on the side of your main road!”

  There was snickering throughout the room, and Guardian Amias shot a stern look to the man on his right. “I’d wipe that smile off your face, Garon. Fairbrooks has had nearly as many of these Harbinger attacks as Breccan.”

  “With all due respect sir,” Garon said, placing his palm on the table. “They’re just a bunch of kids swinging through the trees. They’ve named themselves after a bird for crying out loud! Because they think it sounds cool! The-the harbingers of war!” Garon said, waving his hand in front of his face in a dramatic sweep. “The crows of ill omen! The, I don’t know, bats of death! Give me a break! All they’ve managed to do is nick a few supplies. Pocket change and turnips. No one’s even paying attention to them.”

  Garon leaned in closer to Amias, saying in a low voice, “They’re too busy singing your praises when they wake up every morning to find a basket of food at their doorsteps.” Then, addressing the men around him, he knocked his knuckle against the wood and continued. “The people are smart. They know they’ll never get it any better than this. These Harbingers are just bored teenagers that have nothing better to do than to mess around with authority.”

  Guardian Amias rubbed a tired hand across his forehead. “I don’t care why they do it. What I want to know is how. How are these kids, as you call them, able to take a cartful of goods out of a moving carriage, and leave it burning on the road behind them without the guards being any the wiser?! Because I’ll tell you, Garon, if this is the work of kids, then I’d hate to see what the adults will do when provoked.”

  “What do you want us to do about it, sir?” Auberon asked, clasping his hands behind his back.

  “I want you to find them!” he exclaimed simply. “Cart every last one of them off to the dungeons of Arkadiak. I don’t care how young they are. Get your boys to take one second away from leaching and get this done. It’s your jobs to enforce the Pax. I’m not going to see it ruined by a bunch of bored kids!”

  With a wave of his hand, Guardian Amias dismissed his advisors, watching them leave one by one in a somber line. Then, as the last of them were going, he raised a graceful hand in the air, saying, “Auberon. Would you come back in here please?”

  The men around the Breccan official shot him looks of curiosity and even sympathy, quickly parting to let him back into the war room.

  “Shut the door behind you,” Amias ordered.

  When the loud thud of the massive wooden door shuddered through the room, Amias turned to his official and smiled. “Sorry about yelling at you back there,” he offered.

  “There’s no need to apologize, sir,” Auberon said.

  “I suppose you think it’s strange of me to keep the others in the dark on this.”

  Auberon responded with a shake of his head. “You’ve only told the people you need to in order to preserve its secrecy. I don’t see anything strange in that.”

  Amias smiled as he looked down at the map, directing all of his attention to the village of Breccan. “Very good, Auberon,” he commended him. “That’s exactly why I chose you for this. You know how to get things done exactly how I want them.”

  “Does this mean that it’s time, sir?” he asked.

  Amias spread his palm across the map, looking at the portion of Valor Wood that laid to the east of Breccan. “Yes,” he said with a satisfied nod. “I think now would be the right time. Send word to Brin on your way back.”

  “Sir,” he replied, nodding once more.

  He turned to leave, but Amias kept him back.

  “Oh, Auberon?”

  “Sir?” he asked, dutifully turning to face his master.

  Amias extended his hand and waited for him to take it. “It has been an honor to have you in my service.”

  “It has been an honor to serve, sir.”

  With a final dismissal, the man named Auberon marched out of the room, giving a brief glance to the great red and black flag of the Pax hanging above his head, before the heavy wooden door closed behind him, leaving the Guardian of Galerance alone to his thoughts.

  Chapter 2

  Norabel was not yet a woman. Or so her reflection reminded her every day. The months and the seasons that had gone by all told her that she was twenty-one years of age, far past the time that any girl in the Kingdom of Galerance would be considered a mature young-lady. Yet Norabel still felt like a child.

  Living in a village as largely populated as Breccan, some people actually mistook her for a child. It wasn’t that she was lazy, for she supported herself and worked hard every day as a potter, making every bowl that should ever pass through the hands of a Breccan villager. And it wasn’t that she did not know suffering or loss, for her home had been burned down when she was only eight years old, and her grandfather had perished in the fire.

  It was the paleness, Norabel reasoned. Her blonde hair was so devoid of color that it nearly looked white, and even her blue eyes were paled by a sort of silvery quality. Her mother had called it elegant, and her father had called it special. The way her eyes were always wide in wonder like a child’s, and the way her hair, which was braided around her head, looked like a crown of snow.

  However, the village doctor called it by a different name. Jotham’s Disease. It meant, if Norabel strained herself too hard, her lungs would constrict, and there was the very real possibility that she could suffocate to death. With each new attack, the chances of death grew greater and
greater.

  The condition, her grandfather had told her when he was still alive, was named after a hero from long ago. Jotham was a brave soldier that had died on the battlefield from one of these attacks. A hero in a time of war. It had made Norabel proud when she heard his story and knew she carried some of his same burdens. Yet, as she grew up, she realized that the world had no more place for heroes such as this. The Amias Pax would not allow it.

  It was on a warm afternoon in the beginning of summer when she felt the effects of the Amias Pax once more in her life, interrupting her normally peaceful work day.

  Norabel worked in the western commons of Breccan, in a small building called the Potter’s Work House. It was divided into three sections: one for making plates, one for making more advanced, specialized pieces of pottery, and lastly, one for making bowls. It was in this last section where she worked. It was separated from the other two by a thin wooden wall, and had a large window in front of her work station so that she could look out at the dusty village road as she worked.

  Since it was the beginning of summer, and the temperature in her workhouse was filled with a sleepy kind of warmth, she opened up the wooden shutters of her window all the way to let in what little breeze the outside street could offer. She was just about to throw a ball of clay on her potter’s wheel and begin making her seventeenth bowl of the day, when the sound of hurried footsteps made her stop. A moment later her neighbor, an eight-year-old girl named Iris, appeared at her window, looking very flustered and out of breath.

  “Iris, what’s wrong?” Norabel asked, setting the ball of clay down and rushing over to the window. “Did you run all the way here?”

  Iris nodded her head as she took in deep swallows of air. Then she raised her arm and pointed west, in the direction of both their homes.

  “Pax,” she choked out in a frightened squeak. She couldn’t seem to get any more words out, and merely jabbed her finger several more times in the same direction, saying, “Pax!”

  “Pax officials were at your house?” Norabel asked, concern growing on her face.

  “I snuck out the back,” she said, gripping onto the window seal with both hands. “But I didn’t think to grab it. Now I know they’ll find it!”

  Norabel reached out the window and held her hands to try and calm her down. “Find what, Iris?”

  The young girl shook her head and clamped her lips together in a tight line, as if trying to hold off an attack of tears. Then, taking in a loud sniff, she announced, “The Albatross Seed!”

  Norabel’s face stilled. She had been the one to give Iris the Albatross Seed. Even when Guardian Amias had outlawed them thirteen years ago, along with any other mention of the Albatross Myth. But now, if the Pax officials found one in her house…she couldn’t let her and her family take the blame for something that was her doing.

  Wiping her clay-caked hands on her work apron, she took one quick peek behind her to make sure that the other potters weren’t coming in to check on her, before hoisting herself out of the large window and onto the street.

  “W-what are you doing?” Iris asked, rubbing her palm into her eye.

  “Come on,” she said, taking her hand. “I’ll make sure you don’t get into any trouble.”

  As the two of them rushed through the dirt roads of Breccan, hardly anyone was around to see them. It was during a work hour, meaning that everyone except the very young, the very old, and Pax officials should not be out on the streets at this time. While it was not illegal, you were liable to get into trouble with the Pax if you did not have a good enough excuse as to why you left your work station.

  One of the measures in force throughout the village to monitor “Commoner Activity” was a Pax checkpoint stationed at strategic, normally busy roads. They were usually located in between a residential district of the village and a Commons Sector, or work district. Some people, depending on where they worked, had to go through several of these checkpoints on their way home.

  The way they operated was fairly simple. The road was blocked off by a short wooden fence, short enough for even a child to jump over, yet the penalty for doing so was immediate imprisonment. In order to get to the other side, you had to pass through a narrow station which was monitored by a Pax official. Here he would look up your name on a ledger which contained the name of every person living in the village and put a checkmark next to it. He would also note the general time, keeping track of every time you passed in and out. The ledgers were checked every night, and if you were found passing in and out too many times, a red flag was placed on your name.

  Luckily, Norabel didn’t live too far away from where she worked, and only needed to pass through one checkpoint in order to get home. The Pax official manning this station was a young man named Hunter. Though many of the officials Norabel met were gruff, unfeeling men, Hunter was anything but. He would smile pleasantly at her every time she passed through and ask about her day, making some agreeable remark or other about the weather or the time of day.

  As Iris and Norabel came to his gate, he nodded to them as if he had been expecting them, and then looked to Iris, commenting, “So I see you found her then.”

  “I’m so sorry Hunter,” Norabel cut in. “I know we shouldn’t be out right now.”

  “It’s alright,” he reassured her, throwing her a smile that rested easily on his face. “It’ll be our secret.”

  She stared up at him in silent gratitude, watching as the sunlight caught in his chestnut brown hair. It was hard to believe that a Pax official could be so nice. Her friend Mason would say he was just trying to trick her, lull her into a false sense of security. But as his green eyes stared back at her in friendly innocence, she just couldn’t believe him of trickery.

  “Thank you,” she told him. She clasped onto both of Hunter’s hands, which were resting on top of the closed ledger. “Thank you,” she repeated, trying to sound as sincere as possible.

  When she let go, she found with a shock that she had left a residue of brownish-orange clay on his palms.

  “Oh! I’m so sorry!” she exclaimed, putting her hands up to her mouth in embarrassment, the troubles awaiting her back at home momentarily forgotten.

  “Please,” he said, smiling easily once more. “Don’t worry about it.”

  By now, Iris was through the gate and was tugging on her hand for them to get going. Norabel had started to hurry forward with her, when Hunter called her back.

  “Norabel, wait!” She turned around, and he pointed to his mouth, saying, “You’ve got, um…”

  Her cheeks reddened when she realized what she had done. She had gotten clay on her face when she put her hands up to her mouth. She quickly wiped at her lips with the back of her dress sleeve, trying not to feel embarrassed. Then, throwing him a parting wave, she ran off down the road.

  The western-most part of Breccan was situated right up next to a towering rock mountain. She could hardly see to the top of its gray scraggly peaks when looking out her bedroom window, and the base of it was just a stone’s throw away. This late in the afternoon, the sun was already hidden behind the rocks, casting their neighborhood in cool shadows.

  When they rounded the road down to their neighborhood, leaving a small trail of dust behind them, they could see a horse-drawn Pax cart standing in front of Iris’s house. The cart was about six feet in each direction, with a large woven basket inside. It was in this basket that Pax officials carried everything they took from household raids, transporting them to the capital city of Cashel.

  In front of the cart were two black horses, their saddles reserved for Pax officials only. If anyone without the armband of the Pax was caught riding a horse, they would be immediately captured, tied to the horse by a long rope line, and then dragged about in the middle of the village square for everyone to watch, before being carted off to the dungeons of Arkadiak.

  The Pax cart was a sight that no villager wanted to see in front of their house. It was the heart and soul of the Amias Pax; the pound
extracted to pay for its raging appetite. And today, it was calling upon their neighborhood.

  As they passed by the cart, Norabel turned to Iris and told her to stay outside before she started up towards the house. She had only taken a few steps before the front door opened, and a Pax official stepped out. He was a tall, commanding man that almost needed to duck his head when coming out of the doorway. He bore the metal armband with the red and black Pax insignia on it, and was holding something small and circular between the fingers of his gloved hand.

  When Iris saw this, she yelled out, “No!” and ran forward to try and reclaim her possession. Norabel stopped her before she could reach the man, and held the squirming girl in her grasp.

  “I take it this is yours, young lady?” the man asked gravely, stepping towards them in slow, stern movements. “You know it is illegal to have one of these in your possession.”

  Iris strained her arm forward, bravely yelling, “Give it back!”

  Norabel hushed her, trying to get her to stop, and then looked up at the man, saying, “It’s…”

  She was about to take credit for The Albatross Seed, when Iris’s mother, Vera, appeared in the doorway, saying, “I told you, It’s mine. My daughter has nothing to do with this.”

  The Pax official looked back to her in doubt, and then eyed Iris once more.

  “Well, girl,” he said, placing a hand on the sword at his waist. “Is your mother telling the truth?”

  Norabel’s hands tightened on her shoulders, and Iris stared at where her mother stood in the doorway. She opened a quivering mouth, about to speak, but then quickly clamped it shut and nodded her head to the ground.

  “If you have everything you need, then I’d like to get back to work,” Vera stated calmly.

  From behind her, another official came out of the house, carrying an armful of jarred foods, colored fabrics, and a few coin pouches. This official was younger than the first. He had wavy dark hair, and though his brooding face might have been considered handsome, the smirk on his lips somehow turned it sour. As he walked towards them, his gait seemed to suggest that he wanted everyone to respect his position, when it was clear that he did nothing much to earn that respect.