Kastori Tribulations (The Kastori Chronicles Book 3) Read online

  Contents

  Dedication

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  52

  53

  54

  55

  Epilogue

  Preview of “Kastori Restorations”

  Thank You

  Bibliography

  Copyright

  Dedication

  To my bosses during my internship at the News & Observer, for teaching me the value of slowing down and writing by hand.

  1

  “There’s no place for you to run to now, Erda,” Typhos said, treating the name as the foulest thing he’d ever said. “You can’t retreat to Monda. You can’t pity your way into my sympathy. You have no lying husband to throw yourself into. You have no son who will love you. You’re done.”

  His mother said nothing, instead looking at him… warmly? Coldly? Sadly? Even with his red magic, Typhos couldn’t quite decipher her. The sadness he had seen in her eyes had vanished for a complex look he could not place.

  It infuriated him.

  “Do you know what you’ve done to me the last few years?” Typhos said with creeping sadness. “Do you see what I have become because of you? Do you sense how many people have died because of the darkness your absence instilled inside of me? Do you see how much suffering I have experienced?”

  Erda said nothing, but this time, the expression on her face reverted to sadness.

  “Of course you don’t. You’ve always lived for yourself. You never loved me.”

  “Don’t say that,” Erda said. “Typhos…”

  Hearing his name from his mother sparked rage in him. He walked toward her, ready to hit her. At the last second, he instead brushed by her, his robes colliding with hers, as he grabbed the sword from the black statue. He held the long blade, with the sharpest edges he had ever felt and a black emerald in the hilt, and swung it with ease. He brought it to her, with only unbridled anger guiding him.

  “I’m sorry. I have always loved you and still do. But I know nothing I can say will matter.”

  Typhos paused, the sword close enough to strike her. Nothing you say will matter. Just like everything you said to me in my childhood.

  “You have that right. You ruined me! You left me to turn into this! And now, because of you, your council is dead. Ramadus is dead. Fargus is dead. Garron is dead. All at my hand. Your white magic council members would be wise to hide, because… because they’re going to be joining the others. Just like you are now!”

  To Typhos’ surprise, his mother never once stopped him. She seemed accepting—almost embracing—of her fate.

  “I knew this was coming,” Erda said without pleading. “As soon as I sensed that you had killed Ramadus, I knew that I had lost you. There is nothing that I can do to bring back the cheerful boy that I still love and know is in you somewhere. The man I look at now is not my son, but the body of my son inhabited by a dark spirit. I acknowledge that we, as a council, and I, as your mother, failed to help. I always thought you would turn into a great man. But I did not do my part.”

  Typhos bit his lip as he raised the sword but, without thinking about it, took two steps backward.

  “Typhos, understand, I have failed you in many ways. Many, many ways. But if I had not gone to Monda, I would have failed others in even worse ways. Someone had to suffer, and I believed you would best handle it.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?!” Typhos spat.

  “You know you’re not my only son. You know that if I had raised him here, away from his father and his home—”

  “Oh, I know, Erda, I most certainly know,” Typhos growled. “And I’m going to make a promise that I know I will keep. I will kill the other son. I don’t know when. But I will. I am your only son. Not the offspring of some human.”

  “You wouldn’t dare!” Erda cried, the most emotional she had gotten.

  “Watch me,” Typhos sneered. “And Monda’s going to face just as much death as the boy is.”

  Trick is finding that boy. I can’t sense humans like I can sense Kastori.

  But he’s got some Kastori blood in him.

  As long as it’s not repressed.

  You know killing him won’t really help.

  No. It will. It has to!

  “Why?!? Typhos, stop! Please! I am begging you! End the death, end the madness!”

  “End it?” Typhos said with a sinister laugh. “OK, fine. I’ll end it.”

  He retook his two steps forward and held the blade aloft.

  “Right after I kill you.”

  He swung his sword down.

  2

  Five Years Earlier

  Resting on a tree branch about thirty feet up, with a quick spell making him invisible to cursory sense magic, Typhos watched with glee at the scene below. An ursus, with its teeth bared and its steps silent, slowly approached Pagus, unsuspecting and distracted by particularly beautiful plants near the forest.

  All in line with what I expected. Just turn around, scream for your life, and run like the little coward that you are. Just… turn… around…

  Ugh, Pagus. Come on.

  How long can you stay there? It’s just plants, you’ve seen it a million times. C’mon, turn around…

  Typhos raised his hand, preparing to cast a powerful lightning spell to turn the young boy around and face his worst fear. He closed his eyes, concentrating on the techniques he had taught himself to produce magic faster. He felt the energy course through him and reach his right wrist.

  And right before the first spark jumped out, he stopped.

  It’ll be so much more fun if you can just wait. He’ll turn. He’s not going to watch forever.

  I think.

  “Come on,” Typhos mumbled, his voice rising to a higher level than he intended. Pagus, still crouched, froze. That’s it. Turn, turn, turn. Just don’t see me in doing it. You shouldn’t. Hope I didn’t speak too loudly.

  Come on Pagus. Turn!

  But Pagus never did turn, instead resuming his study. I swear he really knows.

  The ursus was now so close that if Pagus stretched his arms back, his hand would graze an incisor of the beast.

  That’s it. I’m done. Time to get it, Pagus.

  Typhos pushed the ursus forward with enough force that it caused Pagus to stumble. Pagus grumbled, turned around, screamed, and smacked the ursus in the face. Typhos laughed so hard he came to the verge of tears.

  “Really, again!” Pagus yelled, looking in all directions. “Good grief Typhos, OK, you got me, I was scared. I get it! It’s funny, haha, you know I’m afraid of an ursus creeping up behind me like most Kastori.”

  “Oh man, you should have seen your face an
d heard your screaming, it sounded like Reya,” Typhos said in between bouts of laughs and gasps. “Beware of Typhos, the great prankster!”

  With that, the fourteen-year old boy slowly descended from his perch, taking care to wait for the shaking to stop before he climbed down from one thin branch to the next. At the last branch, he leaped down about ten feet in front of his best friend. The boy with deep-red, floppy hair, and piercing blue eyes gave his eternal cocky smile—one that expressed both his need for attention and masked the lack of it at the place he wanted it the most. He rose from his crouch as he dusted himself off, and approached the black boy with brown eyes with a casual shrug.

  “You have the gift of gab, I have the gift of humor,” Typhos said as he patted his friend on the arm firmly.

  “No, you have the gift of terrifying magic like no other,” Pagus said, finally able to smile. “I’d be using it all day to charm the girls in our class. Reya, Hanna, all those ladies? Oh, man.”

  Typhos shook his head in disagreement. That’s just cheating. I got the confidence anyways.

  Well, for most of them.

  “My magic’s getting used to become chief when I’m older,” Typhos said, his voice boastful. “And when I’m chief, I’m gonna lead us to great heights and the Kastori will never face any problems again. No one will die, and we will spread across the universe. And, on top of that, I won’t have to charm girls, because girls will try and charm me.”

  “Yeah, sorry, but no girl is gonna charm a fifty-year old who is probably married by that point.”

  “Who said I would have to wait until fifty?”

  Pagus’ face went from appreciative to on guard.

  “Council tradition and how things are likely to go,” Pagus said cooly. “Slow down, man. Your mom’s pretty young, relatively to past chiefs. I don’t think she’s gonna pull what your dad did so you can become chief. She’s gonna be there a while. Besides, you gotta get on the council too.”

  Typhos sighed. Only so I could see my parents more often than I do now. I could leap the process if I wanted to.

  “Patience, brother, patience. And humility,” Pagus said. “Or just scare them all by putting ursuses in front of their tents.”

  “I think Fargus and my parents would literally see right through that.”

  “Then you’re screwed,” Pagus deadpanned, drawing a laugh from even the overly ambitious Typhos. “And you wouldn’t do it to my Dad.”

  “I mean, to scare him alone, sitting in there…”

  But Typhos stopped, seeing the humor evaporate quickly. Both boys remembered the loss of Pagus’ mother, and even Typhos shuddered at what had happened. Wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

  “C’mon, it’ll be dinner time soon,” Pagus said, quickly changing the subject. “Let’s go get food.”

  “No more pranks?”

  “I think I’ll take well-cooked precora from my Dad before I take a well-planned prank from you,” Pagus said with a wink and a hand on Typhos’ back.

  “But the ursus—” Typhos said, looking back.

  Pagus waved his hand dismissively, leaving the young boy in disbelief. Best food in the land!

  “You eat ursus every night, and guess what ursus becomes?”

  Typhos shrugged, not caring to indulge his buddy in a rhetorical questions.

  “Routine. And ursus should be far from routine. It should be luxury. Besides, I’ve seen your cooking.”

  Typhos’ eyes went wide as Pagus laughed, but Typhos had no retort, knowing the accuracy of Pagus’ subtle jab. Someday it won’t matter. My magic will be better than anyone’s cooking.

  The two boys continued their bantering about girls, food, and pranks for the next half hour as they walked from the outskirts of the forest, filled with tall trees, freshly blooming green leaves, and troves of wildlife, to the hill at the base of Mount Ardor. The hill provided a nice chance for exercise as it ascended at a constant slope for a few hundred feet before coming to the flat land that housed about six different tents. One of them belonged to the family of Typhos; the family of Pagus owned one; one was the property of a white magic council member, Lyos; and the other three belonged to Kastori who taught magic classes. Halfway up the hill, Typhos looked back at the pack of tents just at the base of Mount Ardor—the area which housed all the remaining council members except Fargus, who loved to live in isolation, and the remaining high-class Kastori—and wished his parents, for their role as chief and retired chief, had picked a similar place.

  At the top of the hill, the two boys exchanged a quick departing hug in front of Pagus’ tent.

  “Hope you’re as ready for our magic test in two days as you are your pranks.”

  “Please,” Typhos said with a snort. “I was born ready. And I don’t even mean that arrogantly! I’ve never failed a test. Besides, that’s not the real question.”

  Probably does sound arrogant. Oh well.

  “Oh?”

  “The real question is, what are we going to do the day after the test to celebrate?”

  “Well, I… Oh!”

  Typhos smiled knowingly as Pagus snapped his fingers.

  “Yes. Your fifteenth birthday. We have to go crazy, man. Celebrating school, and the most popular kid’s birthday? We can put on a show with the black magic that we showed we know! We gotta invite everyone. Well, OK, we don’t have to do everyone. Scalius is kind of—”

  “No, everyone,” Typhos said, putting his hand up to stop Pagus. I know how these things pay off down the line. “The worst thing we can do is invite everyone but a couple of people. Those people get upset, and then the more empathic people at the party will wonder why you didn’t invite everyone.”

  And by empathic, I just mean the girls.

  Pagus crossed his arms, laughed, and shook his head.

  “Spoken like a true future chief,” he said. “All right, here’s the deal, though, in return for making me deal with some of the nonsense there. You have to finally ask out Hanna.”

  Oh boy. Been putting that one off. Is a party really the right time, though? In front of everyone? There’s no way. There’s gotta be a better time.

  “And don’t give me any nonsense reason why you won’t, buddy. You’ve been talking about her for months now, and I might just ask her myself so you can hurry up and get her before I do.”

  “You wouldn’t,” Typhos said, his voice only half-joking.

  Pagus gave an equally serious expression back, then dropped it in laughter. Typhos, however, could only partially drop his.

  “I wouldn’t. But I do think we have to put some pressure on you to make this happen. Some sort of punishment, let’s say.”

  He turned around, looking at the great Mount Ardor. Typhos followed his gaze and got a queasy feeling.

  “You have to scale Mount Ardor by foot. No teleporting.”

  “What?! Is that even possible?!?”

  “I guess we’ll find out,” Pagus said to uproarious laughter.

  “Hey, you set a high bar. No, you set the highest bar possible! All for just one challenge? You gotta incrementally set the bar higher and higher.”

  It is motivating me, though. No way I’m climbing that mountain. I’d rather have Hanna slap me upon asking her out.

  “OK, I’ll do it, but you gotta do something in return if I do ask her out!”

  Pagus scrunched his eyes in confusion.

  “I’m sorry, does getting the most popular and most attractive girl our age not motivate you enough? You need more motivation to ask her out? Uh uh. Sorry bud, but for a girl that pretty, that’s good enough.”

  Hate to admit it, but so true. Her long black hair, perfectly straight and smooth… her fierce green eyes, the ones that could tell a story themselves… her confident demeanor. Her body. Can’t top that.

  “Fair enough. I’ll let you go, get some practice in. I can’t show you up too badly tomorrow.”

  “Do you even know who my father is,” Pagus said with a laugh. “Acquaint yourself. I’ll se
e you tomorrow.”

  Pagus ducked inside his tent after a broad smile and a nod, leaving Typhos by himself. He sheepishly smiled and turned back to his tent. The smile remained, but it had gone from an organic, natural grin to a forced, hopeful, probably fruitless grin for what awaited—or did not—inside.

  3

  Typhos trudged to his family’s golden tent, the largest on Anatolus. A headache formed in his head. His steps slowed down as he tried listening for any sign that tonight would differ from the rest of the nights. He eavesdropped for conversation between his parents, the sound of his father or mother walking around, the clang of his mother cooking something near the entrance—anything besides what he heard now, the sound of silence.

  Just be home for once when I get home. Do you need to work with the council for that long? How can there possibly be that much work? What’s more important to you anyways?

  Typhos reached the entrance and pressed his ear against the flap. He heard nothing. His sighed and slowly moved his hand to open the tent.

  Then he heard a fire starting inside his tent, a sign someone was cooking. He quickly threw open the flap to the entrance and saw his father, Adanus, on one knee, preparing dinner in the pot over the fire.

  “Dad!” Typhos said with great surprise. “You’re actually here!”

  Typhos went over and hugged his father tightly, choosing to ignore how frail and brittle his body had become. His father let out a pleasant, warm sound from his throat, belying his age. Typhos stepped back, sitting with his legs folded in front of his father, whom he wanted to talk to more than he got the chance to.

  “Typhos, how are you, son?” he said, his voice a bit scratchier than usual.

  “I’m great! Glad to see you here.”

  Love it. Why is he here early, though? Sun hasn’t even set.