Wish and Mercy Read online

  Nightwalker Book One

  Wish & Mercy

  AJ Gala

  BuddyCo Publishing

  SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA

  Copyright © 2019 by AJ Gala

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

  BuddyCo Publishing

  3458 Ardendale Lane #A

  Sacramento, CA 95825

  www.aj-gala.com

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Book Layout © 2017 BookDesignTemplates.com

  Edited by Amanda Edens

  www.amandaedens.com

  Cover art by Kinda Nifty

  www.kindanifty.co

  Nightwalker: Wish & Mercy/ AJ Gala. -- 1st ed.

  ISBN 978-0-578-46598-2

  This book is dedicated to my amazing support team: To Bethany, for all our ‘Productivity Days’. To Kaley, for every time I’ve talked her ear off. To the Nightwalker Bookclub, for all the incredible feedback. To my husband Jason, for not going completely crazy! To my friends, family, and co-workers for the time, money, and interest they’ve given me. To Amanda, my amazing editor for her investment and encouragement.

  To my parents for always nurturing my creativity and supporting all of my projects.

  And to myself.

  We did it, brain.

  1: Hanging by a Thread

  The darkness of the forest pressed against her, bringing a wondrous chill from every angle. There was no better comfort than the damp earth beneath her and the susurration of the wind in the branches. She knew exactly where she was.

  Home.

  Crickets sang to her as twigs snapped painlessly under her bare feet. The autumn moon was full and bright like a watchful eye and lit up the red colors of the forest. She was still in her town of Suradia, surrounded by the oaks and rowans and elders, but this was a part of the Bogwood that she’d never seen.

  She wandered without thought, pulled by her gut every which way through the maze, losing herself deeper amongst the trees. She had never seen such darkness, the branches so thick and twisted into each other that she could barely find the moon above. Her heart raced at the exhilarating possibility of being truly lost, consumed by the woods, never to return again.

  But then the trees parted, and she saw a clearing. She found the moon obscured by feathery clouds—had they been there before? She dismissed the thought at once when she noticed others in the distance and stayed behind the tree line, watching in silence.

  She watched two figures that were intense, quiet, and none the wiser to her presence. They were both tall, and one of them looked like nothing more than a silhouette of a ragged black cloak in the darkness of night, the torn edges drifting eerily in the breeze. The other was a woman not of this Realm. Her luminous green eyes glowed from afar, and a pair of insect wings were at rest on her bare back. Thin, wispy clothing hung off her dark-skinned body. A faerie.

  The longer she stared at them, the more thunderously her heart drummed. The woman gazed at the other one expectantly before conjuring a glowing orb in her hand, and after a long bout of silence, the cloaked figure spoke.

  “I can’t do it.”

  “You must.” The faerie inspected the energy as it grew in her palm.

  “No. I won’t!” He bared his teeth when he yelled, showing two elongated incisors. The faerie reached out and gripped his neck with her long nails.

  “Yes. You will.”

  ***

  Tizzy woke with a start. The midnight forest was gone. Sun beamed into her room through wooly yellow curtains. With a grunt, she rolled onto her back and shielded her eyes, then brushed a mess of curly black hair out of her face. So much for the clouds she had seen. How late had she slept in? She sat up and hung her legs over the edge of the bed, cold with sweat and confusion.

  “What was that?” Her forehead throbbed, and she rubbed at the pain. “I can’t remember the last time I dreamt. And never like that.”

  The pain in her head sharpened, but it—unlike the dream—was nothing new. At least she could rely on a good headache to bring routine to her life.

  She got to her feet and jumped at the chill on the ground. Stormy, the good mutt that he was, had snuck in and run off with her rug again, leaving behind his chewing rope as an even trade this time. Tizzy fought back a sigh and stretched the sleep from her bones, checking her room for footprints and her boots for mud. Of any evidence of the forest she’d dreamt of. But everything was clear—it had only been a dream.

  She pried open the little doors to her wardrobe, deciding if it was the prospect of the dream that was annoying her or if it was just her headache.

  “Does it even matter?” she mused, looking over her clothing options. She wasn’t sure what would be on the agenda today, but she refused to engage in anything formal and reached for a sensible purple brocade vest to wear with a warm tunic and leather leggings. Just the thought of meeting her siblings downstairs made her head hurt even more.

  She dressed and tried to smooth out the sleep in her hair before tying it up in a ponytail. The finishing touch to her ensemble was her Hallenar pendant, a stamped bronze coin on a leather cord. Each of the eight Hallenar children had one, and each bore the symbol of a different bird, chosen for them as infants by their father with his oracle talents. Tizzy’s pendant was stamped with a falcon. There were definitely days where she felt like a bird of prey.

  She sat at her desk, ignoring the reflection in the mirror. A leather-bound book waited for her, full of pages covered in her jagged handwriting. She stared down at her pencil, at the iridescent black feathers tied to the end, and her stomach filled with dread.

  ‘Rustaumn 27, 1144

  No one in Suradia has a cure for my headaches. Not even the priestesses of the Hesperan Hospices, which is a letdown, to put it lightly. Why can’t they fix this? And if that’s a bust, what other options do I have? I guess I’ll have to find a way to search elsewhere on the Mirivin Mainland.

  If only I could get away.

  -T’

  It was time. She went downstairs, and the fires and sconces flickered brightly as she walked past them. Her chore had already been completed. She wondered if her late start had forced the task into her little brother’s hands and didn’t imagine it had gone well. She braced herself—it might be a rough morning.

  She walked the halls of the needlessly large House Hallenar, critiquing the old masonry in her mind as she did every morning. There was a crack in that corner and a stone fallen from the ancient mortar down that hall, and she didn’t even know the faces in half the paintings. She passed the Hallenar banners, pristine in comparison, as they boasted a black eagle against scarlet.

  They looked proud, Tizzy thought, to be hanging there in front of no one. After a slow start, she spotted the two people she was searching for. They were already deep in a meeting near the manor’s entrance.

  Her youngest sister Allanis the Hummingbird—the queen—and her baby brother Athen the Cardinal were the youngest out of eight siblings. When Tizzy approached, rubbing the back of her neck and staring at the ground, she was relieved to hear a pleasant conversation.

  “So.” She cleared her throat. “What are we doing today?”

  “Tizzy! Good morning!” Allanis beamed, strumming her fingers together.

  Today the queen didn’t plan on meeting with many people. Atop Allanis’s head of fluffy dark blonde curls was what she called her ‘off duty’ crown, though it was only a string of pearls that anyone
else would’ve had the good sense to wear around their neck. Tizzy thought of a snappy remark but decided her sister’s effervescence was a good sign and kept it bottled. There was no reason to stir the pot yet.

  She glanced up at Athen looming beside her, but he didn’t look her in the face. Nothing out of the ordinary. Typically, he radiated a youthful glow, his rust-brown eyes excited and observant, but any time she entered the scene, he shrank away. Today was no different.

  “Hey,” he greeted her.

  She tried not to roll her eyes at the distance in his voice. “Hey.”

  Allanis shook her hands in the air, rustling all the silver bangles on her wrists. “Alright! Here’s the news. I’m having the family get-together soon!”

  “Details, Allanis. When is soon?” Tizzy arched her brow, waiting for an answer. Athen wouldn’t look at either of them, and cutesy guilt smothered Allanis’s smile.

  “Tomorrow!”

  “What? That short of notice?” She rolled her head back and huffed. “Great, so it’ll be us and Adeska’s creepy family again.”

  “Not this time! I sent out invites months ago!”

  “So you’re saying Athen and I are the last to know about this?” Tizzy was glowering.

  “Of course not.” Allanis waved the thought away nonchalantly. “He’s the one who sent the invites. He knows!”

  No wonder he wouldn’t look her in the eye. As she turned her fury on him, Allanis’s bubbly expression dissipated.

  “You know…” She started to chew on her lip. “I haven’t heard from Lazarus, Rhett, or Rori yet. I wonder if their replies got lost.”

  Tizzy’s agitation grew. Their replies were the whole reason for planning in advance. Without the three of them, the next day’s party would be no different from the sorry affair it had been last year. But as she was mulling over Allanis’s words, she felt a spark.

  “Wait! You mean—” she stopped and swallowed hard, “you mean you heard from—”

  “No.” Allanis looked away. “No, Tizzy. I’m sorry, I should have been—I should have said—” She sighed. “You know we never hear from him.”

  “I know.” She let the spark die. “I just thought this year might be different.”

  Allanis clapped a hand on her shoulder. “I have every intention of making it that way, sister. Trust me.” There was something so sure and confident in her storm blue eyes that when she squeezed her shoulder, Tizzy could almost believe her.

  She looked up at Athen, who stood tall and awkward, and finally he made eye contact.

  “Fine,” she grumbled. “Fine, let’s find these damn letters. Meet me at the door in twenty minutes, Athen.” She didn’t wait for a reply before heading back to her room. Allanis watched her, rubbing her chin.

  “Are you okay here if I go searching with her?” he asked, mussing his short auburn hair.

  “Oh sure, I’ll be fine. Lora and I are just going to go over the finances for this month. The party is going to be the biggest we’ve had yet, but I don’t think it’s making a dent in the Byland funds. That’s good,” she said, putting her hands on her hips, “because there’s a lot of planning and budgeting to do myself for this winter since the last advisor from King Byland’s Council is dead.”

  “Should we appoint more?”

  “Like who, Athen?” Allanis watched as Tizzy disappeared behind a corner. “We don’t know anyone. Every connection we had died when King Byland did. Don’t worry though!” She patted him on his back. “You’re doing a great job as my Right Hand! At seventeen, you’re just a fountain of wisdom!”

  He could sense his sister’s sarcasm and would have chuckled, but with Tizzy out of sight, his tone changed. “Does she seem worse than usual to you?”

  “Yeah. Look, I know we’re not real close with her, but try to listen if she opens up, okay?”

  “She acts so weird this time of year.”

  “I think you’d better get your things and catch up with her. Good luck!”

  He waved and left down the empty halls to retrieve his cloak and sword. When he was ready, he found Tizzy on her way to the entrance. It took all his courage to engage her.

  “Where are we going?”

  Her dry stare was piercing. “The roost. Where letters go.”

  “I’ve already checked there. All week, in fact.”

  “Then where else do you suppose we look?”

  He was ready for this question. He had thought about it all morning, trying to prepare for her every possible word. “Maybe they got lost in the Bogwood?”

  She threw her head back and groaned. “The Bogwood? Athen, are you sure? This is going to be a long day.”

  They cut through the humble town of Suradia with precision, starting from House Hallenar at the north and ending at the Eastern Gate into the Bogwood. Four guards stood in their dingy, mismatched armor over black and red tabards, letting people in and out with only a casual glance. When they caught sight of Tizzy and Athen, they grinned amongst each other.

  “Well, if it isn’t the royal family!”

  Tizzy let out a full breath before responding. “If it isn’t the ever-vigilant keepers of the Eastern Gate.”

  One of them stared at her stony expression and raised an eyebrow. “Boy, that would have sounded impressive coming from someone else.”

  She glared back. “We have business outside the gate. Please open it.”

  A guard elbowed one of the others and smirked. “Sure thing. Hey, Lady Tizzy, remind us again—how long has it been since King Byland passed away?”

  His partner’s grin was not friendly. “Yeah, how’s the Queen faring? Oh, and didn’t Master Elengin die of pneumonia recently? Gods, that’s gotta be—”

  When the gate had opened just enough for Tizzy and Athen to squeeze through, she grabbed his hand and brushed past them.

  “Have a good day. Don’t let any murderers in.”

  Her signature cold formality was the end of it. Any other parting words they may have had for her never reached them. Athen sighed.

  “They were only trying to be polite,” he said. She glanced at him over her shoulder, shook her head, and looked back to the road.

  “No. They were trying to be nosy. ‘How long has it been since King Byland passed away?’” She mimicked the question in a bumbling voice. “No one asks that, Athen. They know damn well how long. Thirteen years is not long enough to just forget. They want to see us respond so they can gauge how we’re handling things without him.”

  “So?”

  “It’s none of their business how we’re handling things without him! ‘How is the queen faring? I heard Master Elengin died of pneumonia recently!’” She mimicked the other question in a shrill voice. “Good for you! I’m glad you have ears! See, Athen? It’s a stupid, nosy question, and we don’t need to answer stupid, nosy questions.”

  “Allanis said she doesn’t plan on appointing any new advisors.”

  Tizzy shook her head again—at this rate, she thought she might shake it right off her shoulders by the end of the day. “I wish she would change her mind. She’s only twenty; she doesn’t know anything about anything. I could help find someone trustworthy, and it would take so much pressure off me to have a new council. And Lora! Poor Lora. I know she stuck herself to Allanis’s side by choice, but still.”

  She found a proper place to step off the road and began the search for her siblings’ letters. “Everyone likes to forget Allanis was six when King Byland married her and named her his successor. Lazarus should have stuck around to be her advisor, or at least he could have appointed someone he trusted, besides Lora. He knew Frankel Byland was too old to make it much longer than a year. We all did.”

  “You sound more bitter about it than the rest of us!” Athen laughed.

  “Of course I’m bitter!” She could feel herself shaking. “All of our brothers and sisters got to leave and do what they wanted with their lives. But I’m stuck here because I’m the only one left to make sure you two are okay!”
>
  An emotion hit Athen, but he wasn’t sure which one it was. He was sure he was supposed to be offended, but there was also a feeling of pity and a tiny bit of astonishment that she was around because she cared. It was a brutal internal fight that left him silent. Tizzy realized too late that she had spoken a bit raw for her baby brother and changed the subject as a breeze swept through the trees.

  “Gods, aren’t you cold? This place is freezing.”

  “Not cold,” he said. “But I’m a little scared. It’s the Bogwood. You’re not afraid of this place?”

  She looked at him over her shoulder again and gave him a playful smirk. “No.”

  The next second, a sickening, unearthly screech made them both jump. Tizzy wasted no time searching for the source and darted between the trees, over a clutch of moss-covered boulders, and beneath a wisteria-choked branch reaching across the canopy. It had to be close.

  “Over there!” She beckoned and Athen followed.

  A man had fallen in the distance, one Tizzy didn’t recognize from town. A fully-grown imp hovered above him, beating its leathery wings and sending leaves and feathers flurrying into the air. It was the size of a vicious guard dog, with glistening black teeth as long as Tizzy’s fingers.

  She identified the man as an accomplished mage right away by his green and silver Academy robes. He was trying to fend the creature off from the ground, but his staff was just out of reach.

  Tizzy gripped the hilt of her sword, still in its scabbard. It was now or never.

  “Stay back unless it gets ugly.”

  “Wait, what—”

  She unsheathed Wish, her black longsword, and raced forward. Neither the imp nor the man had noticed her coming until she hacked the imp through its middle, sending it into the ground with a splash of violet ichor. It twitched and died in front of her as she caught her breath. The ichor, thick like syrup, dripped down the black blade.

  “You okay?” she asked, helping the man to his feet.

  He was middle aged and average in just about every regard, with tan skin and graying dark blond hair in a ponytail. Green eyes perused the siblings from behind thin bangs.