CHAPTER ELEVEN

 

They plunged into the crisp, angry ocean with a loud splash and sank several feet under the dark water. Gripping Finley’s wrist, Gabriel kicked his legs hard, springing them both to the top with a huge splash.

Panic filled Finley’s brown eyes as they resurfaced.

“It’s okay, Finley,” Gabriel said, treading water and trying to keep their heads above the waves. He shifted the monkey to his back as the cold seawater lapped around his shoulders. The salty water sprayed up, stinging his lips and eyes. “Hang on to my neck,” he said before coughing out a mouthful of water. “I can move faster if I have both of my arms.”

A few seconds later, Brent’s and Piper’s heads popped up several feet apart. Gabriel reminded himself of the years of swimming lessons they’d all taken together. Piper was only two badges short of lifeguard status. They had to be able to make it. But as he looked to the boat bobbing and tilting in the turbulent surf about thirty feet away, he wasn’t so sure. If the ocean hadn’t been so choppy, he wouldn’t have been worried, but thirty feet in a crazy current was a whole different story.

“Hurry to the boat!” Gabriel shouted.

Brent did the back crawl and Piper’s arms pounded into the water like an Olympic pro. Gabriel flung his arms one after the other in the front crawl, his arms and legs whipping through the water as Finley squealed on his back, nearly choking him with his death grip.

Gabriel flew through the water as swift as a shark. He moved so fast that he had to stop short so he didn’t knock into the side of the ship. “Whoa,” he said, looking up at the vessel. The sailboat had to be about sixty feet long. On the port side, against the white hull, its name was painted in a rainbow of colors to match the massive flapping sails: Lord of the Rock.

Gabriel grabbed the metal ladder attached to the back end of the boat. “Hop off, Finley.”

Before he had the words out, Finley had scampered up the ladder and jumped onto the deck with a high-pitched squeal. “Me no like water!”

“I know, Fin. But don’t worry. We’re okay now.” Gabriel whipped around searching for Brent and Piper. At first he didn’t see them, but then, through the rolling green waves, he spotted them. Piper approached the ladder first. Gabriel reached his hand out. “You okay?”

She yanked herself onto the first step, brushing his hand away. “I’m good.”

Gabriel searched the ocean for Brent again. Just before he was about to dive back in to look for him, Gabriel spotted his friend. Brent had turned his hands into paddles, his feet into flippers, and was flying through the waves. When he reached the stairs, he wished his limbs back, then grabbed the railing, gasping for air as he pulled himself up.

Knowing his friend had to be weak from the body-shift and difficult swim, Gabriel waited until Brent was on board before scaling the steps that led to the back of the boat. A couple of feet on deck, glass doors led inside. Brent slid the entrance open. Finley hopped past them and jumped up onto the captain’s seat.

Gabriel shivered, goose bumps popping up over his skin from the cool air as they stepped in. A small table with seating flanked the left side of the boat. Up two small stairs, a steering wheel with the captain’s chair sat behind the wraparound glass where Finley peered out at the bobbing ocean.

Beside the wheel, an open door led down four more steps. The boat creaked and moaned, rocking left to right. They ducked their heads under the doorframe, then crept down the stairs, pressing their hands against the wall for balance.

At the bottom of the stairs, Piper ran to the cabin and closed the door behind her. Brent dropped to his knees in front of the small fridge beneath the counter, and Gabriel slumped on a leather sofa wrapping the right-hand side. He peeled off his jacket, shirt, shoes and socks, grabbing the navy blue nautical-style blanket that hung over the back of the sofa. He wrapped it around his shoulders and leaned back. Finley hopped up beside him and wrapped his furry arms around his knees in silence.

After a couple of minutes, Brent tossed Gabriel a sausage, then tore into a roast beef sandwich. “You hungry, Piper?” he called out, between mouthfuls.

She looked out from behind the bedroom door. “Yeah, starving actually. Hey, I hung my clothes up to dry,” she said while tucking a pale-yellow towel around her. “You guys should do the same so you don’t get sick. And by the way.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “I call dibs on that bed.”

Brent shook his blond hair like an overgrown yellow Labrador, sending water flicking across the room. Then he took a huge bite of his sandwich, moaning in pleasure.

“Control the animal, will you?” Piper joked to Gabriel.

Brent tossed an apple at her head and she ducked. The fruit flew past her head, hit the wall, and dropped to the floor with a thud. Piper picked up the apple, rubbed it against her towel with a smirk, and took a bite.

Gabriel bundled up into his blanket, shutting out the mad house that had commandeered the boat, otherwise known as his best friends. The sailboat was cool and everything, and maybe Gabriel should have been happier—seriously, they’d gotten sick powers, survived the locusts, made it away from the fire, dove off a cliff and survived, and found an awesome boat with cool stuff—but the fact that Finley was so quiet worried him.

But it wasn’t just the monkey.

Both Gunner and Finley had looked scared at the thought of going to Ericville by way of Crimson Lake, and not knowing where Empress Malina and Princess Evangeline were—or more importantly, what the Solarians were doing to them—made Gabriel’s stomach churn. Not to mention, he wasn’t sure how they were gonna get the boat to shore. None of them knew how to maneuver a freaking sailboat. And the Lord of the Rock was no small vessel. Gabriel groaned. He felt like they were two-year-olds being sent to a pie-eating contest or something, not heroes who had once saved Valta.

Gabriel zoned out Brent’s and Piper’s voices and stared out the porthole. The white caps rolled and heaved, and a spray of water belted down over Valta. He heaved a sigh of relief that the rain had started. He hoped the heavy showers would douse the fire and Gunner would be okay.

He ran his hand under the blanket to his neck, grasping the emblem the empress had given him. She’d said he could use it for a one-time contact with her. The time hadn’t been right to use it when he was in Willow Creek, and he wasn’t sure it would even work in Valta, or even how it worked. All he knew was that he needed to talk to her. However, the empress had said Gabriel would know how to do it when the time was right. Well, he didn’t know. He hated riddles. Math and calculating were not his friends. But he was going to try anyway.

Closing his eyes, Gabriel ran his fingers around the circular rim of the emblem. He traced the stones that represented Andimian’s eyes. His breathing slowed. Rain pinged against the fiberglass boat. And the swaying of the ship rocked him into a deep sleep.

Then a vivid dream burst into his mind—one that would haunt Gabriel forever.

 

***

 

He stood at the top of a blistering hot mountain covered with red soil. Its gritty texture scratched the soles of his bare feet. Ripples of translucent, shimmery waves snaked above the dirt. He shielded his eyes from the bright sun and looked up, scanning left to right and behind him. Three glowing orbs perched in the sky, bursting down in overwhelming rays of heat.

Gabriel shook his head.

Three suns?

That couldn’t be right.

Sweat trickled down his spine and slicked his upper lip. He dragged in a slow, searing breath, the smell of rust and iron filling his nose as he tried to make sense of the circular shapes. It was so unbelievably hot, he could barely think. Maybe there were three suns.

A rhythmical clanking sound drew his attention to a cavern far beneath him. At least one hundred people, chained to each other by the ankles, were slinging pitchforks over their shoulders. Red dust puffed up around them and shards of rock shattered, flying into the air each time the pitchforks landed against the ground.

Even from that distance, Gabriel could see the people’s burnt, bare backs glaring under the bright sun.

Gabriel lifted his gaze to the mountaintop in the distance. A large tower shot into the sky like a missile. Its surface shimmered unnaturally, making the building appear to be crackling and sizzling like it was covered in a current … as if it was ... electrified.

What is this place?

Gabriel’s gaze landed on a window encircling the rocket-shaped structure about three quarters of the way up. Crackling tendrils of light bounced eerily from the glass.

As he peered inside, he gasped and stumbled back a step. How could he see that far away?

It didn’t seem possible, but he could. He could see and hear straight through the window—and on the other side stood Empress Malina and Princess Evangeline!

Two tall, creepy dudes stood behind them. Except they weren’t really dudes, they were some kind of lizard-like creatures with thick metal shields covering their faces. Red, scaly skin clung tightly to their lean muscles.

“Move it!” one of them yelled, glaring at the empress with one yellow and one blue eye shining out from the slats in his face shield. Long, scaly fingers as red as cherries gripped Empress Malina’s arm. The lizard dude dragged her toward the window that overlooked the canyon below.

“Do you see what your son—the prince,” the creature spat, “is going to make you do?”

He shoved the empress a final step toward the glass and pointed at the people slaving under the hot sun below. Another guard, whose brown eyes were equally sunken, pushed Princess Evangeline beside her mother. The princess squealed, looking like she was ready to cry.

Gabriel winced. A very pale Empress Malina shrugged free from the creature, then tucked Princess Evangeline under her arm.

“If they don’t return Duke Malgor soon,” he said, “you and your daughter will work the grounds until your dying breath. In addition to finding another water source, we will find the immunities somewhere.” He choked back another cough.

“Dacho,” the empress said, and Gabriel’s eyes widened.

Dacho!

It was actually the dude who had kidnapped the empress and princess—the leader of the Solarians, the one who knifed Andimian, and the writer of the threatening note to Prince Oliver. What was he talking about … water source and immunities? Gabriel had heard the word immunities before. His mom had said that was what the flu shot the doctor gave him every fall was for. She had said the shot—or as his mom called it, the immunization—would give him immunities to fight a bad virus or whatever. But still, none of it made any sense. Were the Solarians looking for that in the soil? Or were they digging for water?

“Duke Malgor cannot help—”

Dacho laughed, cutting off the empress’s words, but it didn’t sound like he found anything funny. “It’s not your business what Malgor can or can’t do. You better pray to your god that your son is wiser than you, or else you and your daughter will never see Valta again.”

Empress Malina flattened her palms against the glass and peered across the dry, red earth.

Except, she didn’t look down into the cavern.

Her gaze travelled across the canyon and zeroed in on Gabriel standing on the cliff on the opposite side. Gabriel’s heart jumped.

“But, my dear Dacho,” she said in a soft-spoken voice while keeping her focus on Gabriel. “What if they never release Duke Malgor, but instead blow up your entire planet?”

“Mother?” Princess Evangeline squeaked, tilting her head back to stare at her mother’s face.

Empress Malina nodded toward Gabriel, not losing focus on him. “I am sure between our wizard and our human scientist they could devise a plan to make such an event occur.”

What in the heck is she talking about?

“Human,” Dacho sneered. “There will be no end to my wrath if my conditions aren’t met.”

Wizard, Gabriel thought, replaying Empress Malina’s words. Valta’s wizard was Leejor. And the human scientist she’d mentioned had to be Eric.

Wait. Does Empress Malina seriously want us to blow up Solaria? That would mean killing the empress and princess, too.

“No,” Gabriel mumbled, shaking his head. “I won’t do that.”

Empress Malina wrapped a pale hand around the back of her neck, closed her eyes, and stretched, looking frailer than he’d ever seen her. Then her stare returned to Gabriel. In a firm voice she said, “Yes, you must, my darling. You are brave and wise.”

“Who are you talking to?” Dacho snapped, yanking the empress away from the window and glaring outside. “I know your kind can do magic.”

Gabriel’s heart pounded. There was nowhere to hide—just a huge red desert area surrounding him.

With a growl, Dacho yanked off his face shield and stared outside as it clattered to the floor.

“Ah!” Gabriel yelled, dropping to his knees to keep low. But he couldn’t pull his gaze away from the monster that was Dacho. The creature’s black, slitted pupils sank into one golden and one blue iris that shrunk as the bright sun filled his eyes. He whipped his head left to right, searching for whoever the empress had been talking to. Dark circles engulfed his eyes, making the colored parts seem even more magnified. Gabriel screwed up his face as he lowered his gaze to where Dacho’s nose should’ve been, to the beige, coiled, worm-like things that bunched together on his face.

“Sir!” the other Solarian called, his voice sounding like a warning as he picked up the face shield and held it out to Dacho.

Dacho snapped his hand palm up to silence him, fisting his other hand against his thin lips to mute a cough.

“I wasn’t speaking to anyone,” the empress assured him. “I was only thinking aloud.”

But Dacho ignored her and kept his focus outside, searching. And the more Gabriel watched him, the more it made a shiver crawl down his spine.

Red, scaly lizard-like skin covered Dacho’s bulging head. Yeah, the freak definitely didn’t have a nose—at least not a human looking nose. And the worm-like things? Worse, the long worm-like tentacles began uncurling and stretching the angrier Dacho seemed to get. He stared, realizing with horror that the tentacles weren’t worms … they were sorta like small snakes!

Wake up, wake up, wake up, Gabriel screamed in his head.

Dacho’s gaze glided past Gabriel, then snapped back on him like an elastic band, his beady glare causing Gabriel’s breath to seize in his chest.

Dacho pounded on the glass, tipping his head back with an angry roar. As he did, the skinny snakes uncoiled and shot out ramrod straight. Their hissing and squeals mixed in with Dacho’s own loud voice.

“Ahhh!” Gabriel yelled—and bolted upright, back on the Lord of the Rock.

He twisted around, gasping for breath. “It was just a dream,” he told himself, patting his sweaty chest and trying to calm his out of control heartbeat. Gabriel stepped over the nautical blanket he must have tossed off during the nightmare. Covered in sweat and dying of thirst, he downed a glass of water before heading out on deck for fresh air.

Inhaling a mouthful, he stared out over the calm water, wondering how long he’d been asleep and when the storm had passed. He was just about to plunk down and let his legs dangle over the side of the ship when he noticed red footprints on the white hull of the deck.

Gabriel snapped his head around looking for an intruder. Then with a sickening awareness, he placed one foot on top of the footprint.

An identical match.

He lifted his leg, twisted his foot up, and wiped the bottom of it with his finger.

Red soil.