Enshroud, Mosaic Chronicles Book Eight Read online

  Table of Contents

  Enshroud

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  About the Author

  Enshroud

  Mosaic Chronicles Book Eight

  Andrea Pearson

  Copyright © Andrea Pearson 2016

  Series by Andrea Pearson:

  Kilenya

  Kilenya Romances

  Kilenya Adventures

  Mosaic Chronicles

  Ranch City Academy

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction, and the views expressed herein are the sole responsibility of the author. Likewise, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are represented fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  http://www.andreapearsonbooks.com

  Dedication

  To Patty Buchmiller

  Patty – You’ve been with me since nearly the beginning. Your friendship, help, and support have been lifelines several times. Thank you, thank you!

  And to David Bibb

  I love how much you make me laugh. Your emails and comments seriously cheer me up. :-) (And I’m still not sure if you’re not just my dad, hiding as one of my readers, ha ha. You two really do need to meet. ;-) :-))

  Chapter One

  Nicole gasped, staring at the elderly man who’d just proclaimed that a talisman she’d spent months trying to get was a fake. “What? How is that possible?”

  Aldo’s shoulders dropped. “I’m sorry to have to tell you. It can’t be good to hear.”

  Coolidge grabbed the two halves of the talisman from Aldo’s hand. “No way. It worked for Nicole! How could it have worked if it wasn’t the real thing?”

  Aldo shrugged. “There’s a possibility that whoever made it granted it a portion of the original’s power.”

  Nicole looked at the rest of the group of people who’d searched with her for this talisman. They were completely discouraged. “Did we waste our time, then?” she asked.

  The Fat Lady cleared her throat. “Well, I hope not. I mean . . . you learned something, didn’t you?”

  Jacob glared at the stone floor of the castle. “Yeah, that I suck at my job.”

  No one said anything. Nicole knew she should probably reassure him, but after four days of being on a planet hotter than the hottest earth summers, she was too exhausted, drained, and disappointed to think clearly.

  “It wasn’t a wasted trip,” Dave said, his voice somewhat muffled. He was resting his head on his arms, which were crossed on the table in front of him. He looked up. “Those Aretes need to be rescued. If we hadn’t gone there, we wouldn’t have known about them.”

  Austin shook his head. “Dad, that doesn’t help us now, with finding Keitus.”

  “Yes, it does,” Elyse said. “It tells us Keitus is smart.”

  “Already knew that,” Jacob muttered only loud enough for those nearest him to hear.

  Nicole couldn’t blame him for being bitter. She felt the same.

  “And I agree with Dave,” Elyse said. “The Silver on that planet will be powerful—incredibly powerful—when he Restarts. If we rescue him, if we bring him to civilization and freedom and food . . . he’ll be on our side. We’re going to need a tight, focused, and strong team when we go up against Keitus to take him down once and for all. We don’t have the resources to pull together the same sort of group as last time, when the Great Ones came for a visit.”

  She glanced at Nicole. “I know we have access to your money, but everyone is exhausted. We lost a lot of lives. It’s taking a long time for people to recover from the devastation we experienced last year.”

  Nicole tilted her head. Had they already gone into the next year? Holy cow . . . They had. Judging by how much time they’d spent on the other planet, it was now the end of February or beginning of March. They’d missed her and Austin’s birthdays.

  The most important question that arose from the forgery still hadn’t been asked. She leaned forward. “So, what about Lizzie’s talisman? Is it also fake?”

  Lizzie pulled the small metal object from her pocket and turned it over and over in her hand. She glanced at Nicole, a slight smile on her lips. “Not exactly what you want to hear right now, but I’d love to know that I’m not a broken Arete.” She handed the talisman to Aldo. “What do you think?”

  Aldo stared at it, then took the destroyed talisman from Coolidge and compared the two. He cleared his throat, swallowed, and looked at everyone. “Also a fake.”

  This time, the room erupted in voices as everyone complained or asked questions. Nicole’s mind swirled with her own questions—most of which wouldn’t be answered unless she traveled back into the past and spoke to Onyev. Did the Makalo know about this? Where were the originals? How long had Keitus had them? Why hadn’t Shonlin showed this to her?

  King Dmitri got to his feet, hushing everyone. “What we need to know now is, where are the real ones?”

  Everyone turned and looked at Nicole. She shook her head, her cheeks warming under the frustrated, impatient expressions directed at her. “I don’t know—Onyev . . . Onyev didn’t . . . He . . .” She looked at Jacob. “Take me back to him. Now.” She couldn’t bear to be here anymore, with the judging, scrutinizing eyes on her. Needing answers was a welcome excuse to get away and not look—or feel—like a coward.

  Jacob nodded. They took each others’ hands, and after a brief warming of her palm, their surroundings disappeared.

  Nicole released a breath of air she hadn’t been aware she was holding. They’d appeared on the outskirts of Gratitude, the Makalo city Onyev led as Patriarch. Nicole dropped Jacob’s hand and rubbed her eyes, feeling exhaustion and despair roll over her again in waves. Her hands came back grimy.

  “What a mess we’re in,” she said, trying not to cry. “And I’m not just talking about our complete lack of cleanliness right now.”

  Jacob nodded.

  Neither said anything for a while. Nicole wanted to tackle the current problem, but she also wanted a moment to breathe first. As they stared at the city, Nicole sensed Jacob’s frustration—it matched hers. The two of them had made pretty big mistakes where the talismans were concerned.

  Jacob slumped onto a large rock near the Gratitude sign. “I know it’s bad to say this, but I’m grateful you asked to go right then. I majorly dropped the ball.”

  Nicole sat on another rock and shook her head. “It’s not your fault,” she said. “I’m sure Keitus was doing something to prevent you from Seeing.”

  “I’m positive he was, but here’s the thing—this isn’t the first time he’s done it. And I know everyone expects me to have figured it out ages ago.”

  “Could you have known?”

  He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “I don’t know. I wondered if something was wrong, but the scenes I was watching were seamless, perfect. Why would a dangerous man spend months researching the same topics over and over again, though? I just figured he was being extra careful—e
xtra cautious—after how badly we stopped him last time.”

  Nicole tucked a strand of greasy, grimy hair out of her face, belatedly noticing how empty the street was. “Where are all the Makalos?”

  Jacob looked up. “Good question.”

  Usually, the place was full of Makalos coming and going—Nicole had never seen it not busy.

  They got to their feet and started into the city. The marketplaces that usually bustled with energy were all shut down—closed, empty. Nicole and Jacob glanced at each other, and she could see her worry mirrored in his eyes.

  After walking for several minutes, they spotted a single Makalo, a woman tending to her bakery.

  “Excuse me,” Nicole said. “Where is everyone?”

  The Makalo smiled at Nicole. If Nicole’s dirtiness bothered her, she didn’t let on. “In the gathering place. Onyev is addressing us today. You’re welcome to join us, if you’d like.”

  Nicole shrugged, glancing at Jacob. They weren’t going back to the present time without answers, and without information, they were running blind regardless. “I think we’d enjoy that. But do you have fresh water we can use to clean up? We’ve just finished a long journey.”

  “Of course.” The woman beckoned them to follow her behind the shop. She put her left hand on a tree trunk and murmured to herself. A rush of water spurted up from the ground around them, drenching them. Nicole gasped—that hadn’t been what she’d expected, and despite the warm spring air, she shivered.

  The woman wasn’t finished, though. Clumps of moss sprang from the trees toward her. Nicole shrieked and raised her hands in a defense position. The Makalo chuckled, and Nicole recognized how silly she was being. She could stop the moss at any point if she really needed to. She relaxed and let the moss scrub the dirt away as more water splashed over her. Soon, all traces of dirt and mud had been rinsed away and the two humans stood in front of the Makalo, shivering and soaking wet.

  The Makalo woman muttered once more, and massive branches bent over and started fanning them with equally massive leaves. The resulting windstorm kicked up a lot of dust, and realizing that the Makalo couldn’t control dead things, Nicole commanded her magic to keep the dirt out of the wind.

  Soon, she and Jacob were clean, warm, and dry. Nicole’s hair still needed a good shampooing, but this was much better than what it had been before.

  “Follow me,” the woman said.

  Nicole pulled her hair back into a ponytail and followed the brisk pace set by the Makalo. She glanced at Jacob and grinned. “Everyone feels better after a good scrubbing,” she whispered.

  Jacob half smiled. “I still don’t feel fantastic, but that’s just me.”

  “I know. We should have time to get things figured out, though.”

  It would take both of them, since she was supposed to know everything about magical items and he was supposed to know everything about Keitus.

  The woman took them deep into the forest where not only huge trees grew, but also younger ones. Nicole expected an old-forest smell, but instead, the air was crisp and clear here. She wondered why, especially when she saw that there was plenty of old wood with the new stuff.

  After they’d walked through it for about ten minutes, the forest really thickened, and then thinned out completely. A massive stone auditorium opened up in front of Nicole and Jacob. The sides and floor of it were full of Makalos. She could barely make out Onyev at the other end in a two-story tower talking to his people. Even though he was at least a mile away, she could hear him speaking plainly. How were his words reaching her so well?

  Nicole turned to thank the woman, who waved her off. “It’s not a problem.” She glanced at the two of them. “If you’re okay now, I need to get back. I’ve been charged with watching the street for visitors like yourselves.”

  Nicole and Jacob thanked her again, then settled onto the grass at the top of the auditorium to wait for the meeting to end.

  From what Nicole could tell, Onyev was giving his people an update on their situation—the progress of new construction projects, a few local tribes of what Nicole thought he’d said were Wurbies, and a quest to help a few Minyas return to their homes. She tried to pay attention, but she was really struggling, and she could tell that Jacob was as well. Where had they gone wrong? Why hadn’t Onyev warned them? Did he know it was going to happen? The Makalo had been amazingly perceptive so far.

  After fifteen minutes, Onyev brought the meeting to a close.

  Nicole glanced at Jacob as Makalos streamed past them. “I want to get a Minya,” she said.

  Jacob blew out his breath. “It’s hard. I’ve never met anyone who was able to convince one to stick around. Minyas choose their owners.”

  “I’ve heard that. How do I find one? I think my chances of convincing one to stay with me would be a lot higher if I actually knew one.”

  He shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. But I could ask my girlfriend if you could borrow hers.”

  “I’d appreciate that. Thanks.”

  By this point, enough Makalos had left that Nicole would be able to approach the patriarch without much problem.

  “I’ll just talk to him now instead of back at his place, if that’s okay,” she said.

  “All right. I’ll hang out here. Gotta figure out what happened with Keitus.”

  Nicole started down the side of the deep bowl, stepping past adult Makalo and their families. Eventually, she reached Onyev’s party in the middle. The elderly Makalo saw her immediately.

  “Bad news?” he said when he was closer. “I can tell it is.” He glanced around and motioned for her to sit on a cleared section of grass while the others in his party dispersed. “Tell me what happened,” he said, sitting down beside her.

  Nicole started from the beginning, filling him in on her first trip to the other world when she’d found the talisman in the Agarch compound, then ending with her return trip and how hard it had been to get out alive.

  “And we just found out the talismans we’ve spent months getting are fakes. They’re forgeries! How is that even possible? The glowing lights in Shonlin gave me the locations of the talismans. Why did they lead me to fake ones?”

  Onyev stretched out on the grass, one hand behind him for support, and stared up at the bright sky above. “If I’d known there were fakes, I would have told you to ask for the real ones when you entered the forest. What concerns me is how close you might have come to overwhelming yourself. I created four talismans, and from what you’re saying, there are at least two fakes. Concentrating on six magical items isn’t a stretch for an experienced guardian of Shonlin, but for someone new like you, it can be very dangerous.”

  He glanced at her, indecision on his face. He shook his head slowly. “Things are going to be interesting and difficult for you from here on out, if what I suspect is accurate.”

  Nicole snorted. “It hasn’t exactly been a walk in the park so far. But what do you mean?”

  “I can’t tell you—it’ll destroy you if you knew. It will open your mind up too much to the influences of Shonlin. Never forget, Nicole, that going into that forest not knowing exactly what you seek can lead to a premature death.”

  Nicole nodded. There was no way she’d forget that—it freaked her out. “Should I be nervous?”

  “You have loyal friends, and you are a smart young woman. Trust your instincts and trust your heart. You will not be led astray.”

  Even though she didn’t think that should have comforted her, oddly enough, it did. She’d trusted her gut before and had been fine, even when things hadn’t gone as planned. Hopefully, that luck wasn’t about to change.

  Onyev’s eyebrows drew together and he bit his lip, studying Nicole for several moments before saying, “Return to Shonlin now. Seek the real talismans. Don’t even think about forgeries—if there are more of them out there, you don’t want to know.”

  Nicole sensed he wished to tell her more, but was holding back. “Anything else?”

  He ga
zed at the sky again, then rubbed his face and looked at her. “No. I’ve enjoyed getting to know you—you are remarkable. Never forget that.”

  Why was he talking like this? “Thank you. I really appreciate hearing that.”

  Onyev sighed and got to his feet. “Come back as quickly as you can, if possible.”

  Odd. He’d never requested something like that before. “Any reason why?”

  “Nothing I’m ready to tell you at this moment.”

  Pushing him wouldn’t get her more information, so Nicole also got to her feet and returned to Jacob while Onyev talked to a few Makalos who had been waiting patiently.

  Jacob was watching Onyev with a sad expression on his face. “It’s been two years since I last saw him,” he said. “I’d love to chat with him right now.”

  Nicole understood why he couldn’t. The Makalo wouldn’t be meeting Jacob in the past—Onyev’s present—for another year at least, probably closer to two.

  “He said to go to Shonlin immediately,” Nicole said. “I have to find the real talismans and ignore the fakes.”

  “Good idea,” Jacob said. He took her hand, and warmed her skin.

  The Makalo forest disappeared and was replaced by the interior of the Edana library. Nicole blinked, willing her eyes to adjust to the sudden darkness of the first floor. She tilted her head, an idea taking shape in her mind. “Hey, would it be possible for you to take me to the past and have us return to the library in the present time whenever I need to come?”

  Jacob thought that over for a moment. “I suppose it would be . . . It would definitely save us a lot of footwork. But I wouldn’t be able to repeat the trip in reverse unless we wait for a while in between trips. My ability to jump between different times doesn’t renew quickly enough anymore, now that I’m not doing it as often as I used to.”

  “Makes sense,” Nicole said. “Okay, I’ll be back in a while.”

  “Should I wait down here?”