Blest (23 page)

Gunner stood in his living room, staring at his feet. He could feel the eyes of the other demons on him. They were all looking for guidance. For words of comfort in the face of defeat. He sneered. He wouldn’t give it to them. The angels had killed his father. They had closed the Portal and left the demons to wander, leaderless, across the Field.

Even Claire had betrayed the Scale. The idea made him dizzy. His own sister. The only person he had trusted. Carlos had said to turn hurt into rage, though, and Gunner knew he could do that. He would find a new way to fight the angels, to get to Glisten. To get his revenge for Carlos’s death. He would lead the Scale.

The doorbell rang, echoing in the silent house. Gunner looked up, narrowing his eyes. The sound came again. He sprang up from his chair and marched across the kitchen, then wrenched open the door. The face he saw in front of him made him stagger back and immediately start looking for his knife.

“Wait,” Sydney said, holding up a palm to calm him down. “Hear me out.”

“Why should I?” he snapped. “Isn’t it enough that you killed my father and ruined our chances of ever being free?”

She studied him for a second, her blue eyes glowing. “Gunner, I want revenge, too.”

Gunner regarded her skeptically.

“My mom died alongside your dad. And none of that would have happened if Jim and Claire hadn’t decided to betray everyone. They got everyone killed and they don’t even care. I hate
them
more than I hate you.” Her fists clenched. “I hate them more than I hate any of the demons. What do you say we work together? At least to do this.”

Gunner paused, considering the words. Then a grin spread across his face and he opened the door wider, letting Sydney Lumen step inside. This time, when he smiled, he felt scales crackle across his face, like something escaping from deep within him.

I want to thank everyone who inspired me throughout the writing of this book. My mom, Lanie and Katie from Alloy Entertainment, and AUF made me really think deeply about the world and the relationships between the
characters. My little brothers, Aidan and John, helped me a lot when I was trying to write accurate high school characters. Even if there’s still not enough Snapchat.

My dad and Eileen, Dan, Taylor, Maya, Drew have all been supportive of my writing since I started ripping off
Goosebumps
in first grade and I can’t be more thankful for having such a wonderful group of unique, funny, loving people in my life.

Blaise Lucey is an award-winning author and digital marketer located in New York City. His short stories, which have been nominated for the Pushcart prize and Dzanc Books “Best of the Web” award have appeared in publications such as
The Claremont Review
and
Every Day Fiction
. His short story collection,
Technology & Culture Stink!
, was self-published in 2013.
Blest
is his first novel. In his spare time, he likes running and playing bass in his band, Job Creators. Follow him on Twitter
@blaiselucey00
or visit
www.blaiselucey.com
to learn more.

Looking for more great reads?

Haven (The War of Princes Book 1)

by A. R. Ivanovich

For hundreds of years, the peaceful country of Haven has remained isolated from the rest of the world. But for adventurous seventeen-year-old Katelyn Kestrel, Haven’s calm has always been a little, well, boring. She can’t help but wonder what lay outside Haven’s seemingly impassible borders, but no one will talk about the mysterious catastrophic event that separated Haven from the outside world. Katelyn has a strange knack for finding things, and when she miraculously finds a passage into the outside world, she thinks she’s solved a longstanding mystery. Instead, she discovers that some things should never be found . . .

The outside world is more treacherous than Katelyn ever imagined, full of monsters, magic, and two princes locked in a bloody, centuries-long battle. And what’s more: her talent of finding things is actually a powerful magical ability—one that the princes would kill to control. With the help of a hardened young soldier and a handsome lord, Katelyn must try to make her way back to Haven. But can she get there before the princes realize exactly what she is and where she’s from?

Turn the page for an excerpt of the first book

By Katelyn Kestrel

We all know what we have. From its busy cities to its rustic towns, Haven Valley is steeped in technological comforts. Steam trains cross the countryside, ferrying passengers in plush cars. Every horse-drawn carriage is fitted with easy-breaks, shock absorbers, and wheel propulsion to save the horses from overexertion. We have film theaters, cameras, stereos, and radio shows. Electricity powers our homes, and plumbing makes our lives clean and convenient.

But what have we lost? Seven hundred years ago, our ancestors tunneled through the mountains to find the thirty-five-thousand-square-mile valley we call home. Haven: a safe place where our collective future would forever be bright. Our distant history—before the founding of our earliest cities—is vague. Our forebears demolished the tunnels out of Haven Valley; we’ve remained forever locked within the guard of those impenetrable mountains. Fact becomes legend as we delve into the stories of our origins, and those legends grow dark. Foreboding tales are an excellent tool to keep children from misbehaving, but what about the forgotten truth? What secrets did our ancestors leave behind?

For all that we have, we limit ourselves. Two hundred years ago, a nationwide ban on flight technology and research was put into place under the pretense that, like experimental automobiles, aviation was too dangerous. The root of this law has a simpler explanation: No one leaves Haven. Ever. Our laws prevent citizens from endangering themselves by exploring the mountain boundary; the achievement of flight would be too great a hazard.

Seven hundred years after the founding, our cities are beautiful, our towns happy, our people content—but we could be more. Bound by self-imposed limitations, we are helpless to delve into the most fascinating questions of all: Where did we come from before we colonized Haven, and why can’t we go back?

I frowned at yesterday’s assignment, the crisp paper resting in my hand. We’d only been given half an hour to dissect the socioeconomic impact of our origins, and it turned out that my assessment was “compelling but unspecific.” What did my teacher expect me to come up with in thirty minutes—a groundbreaking literary masterpiece? I’d written about what interested me and had hoped it’d be enough.

Another note, below my uninspiring grade, read, “I’d like to see more conclusions. In restricting some of our technology and our ability to leave Haven Valley, what have we gained as a society?”

I sighed.

“What’s got you all bothered?” asked my friend Ruby Rush, peering over my shoulder. She was two inches taller than me, with vibrant, dyed-red hair that matched her name.

Class was out and we strolled along the stone path that led across the quad, following the current of freed students. Some of our classmates gathered in packs beneath the trees or around the bubbling fountain. The others fled the premises, heading for the trolleys and carriages at the main entrance. The cheery din of conversations and laughter was wasted on me. I refused to settle for a mediocre grade.

“Kat?” Ruby persisted, trailing after me.

I stopped beneath the shade of a nearby tree. “Sorry, Ru, I’m just so frustrated about this assignment. Why doesn’t anyone else want to know what happened to our ancestors? Or what’s outside all these mountains?” I gestured to the snowy summits that towered high above Rivermarch.

“This again?” Ruby pushed her thin-framed glasses up the bridge of her nose and looked at me with her almond-shaped silver eyes. “Please come back to the here and now where the rest of us live.”

“I need to find Block and talk to him about this,” I grumbled down at the paper.

“O-oh, good gravity,” Ruby stammered, losing her breath. “Look, Kat, it’s Sterling. Wait! Stop! Don’t look, stand right there so
I
can look at him.”

She pushed me into place, ogling him over my shoulder. There came a light strumming sound from somewhere behind me.

“He’s playing guitar by the fountain. I love it when he plays guitar.” Ruby smiled, flushing.

My lips pursed. “Ru, you’ve been stalking him for months. Why don’t you just cut to the chase—tell him he’s hotter than the sun and make out all over the place.”

She smacked me with her textbook. “Look at him,” Ruby said, sounding suddenly resigned. “He’s perfect. Everyone knows it. I’m sure he knows it, too.”

I glanced back at him. Sterling was undeniably gorgeous: tall, broad shouldered, with close-shorn sandy blond hair. He had the build of an arrogant jock, but a quiet demeanor and kind eyes. And then there was the guitar. I wasn’t
interested
in the guy, but he was impossible to ignore.

“You’re right,” I said, trying to make her feel better for being too shy to talk to him. “He’s probably an asshole. I bet he sits in his room and slaps kittens all day.”

“Kat!” she exclaimed, hitting me with the textbook again. I knew she was going for outrage, but her smile betrayed her.

An upside-down head with a mop of brown curls suddenly popped down from the tree above us with a garbled roar. Ruby screamed and dropped all her books and papers.

Kyle Kiteman, my other best friend, swung down from the branch, landing easily on his feet. He was shorter and skinnier than Sterling, with light olive skin, a ready sense of humor, and a lopsided grin to match. His silver eyes were bright with mischief.

“Hey, ladies!” Kyle greeted us cheerfully.

“Kyle!” Ruby yelled, infuriated. “I’m going to
kill
you!”

It was an empty threat. No one killed anyone in Haven Valley. But Sterling had looked over when Ruby screamed and now she was stuck, frozen like a frightened rabbit. She could have said something, waved, laughed at herself, anything, but she just stood there, painfully still.

I gestured for Kyle to pick up her books, then looped one of my arms through Ruby’s. “Hi, Sterling,” I called over, and waved to him with Ruby’s limp hand. She yanked her arm away, her cheeks burning red.

“That’s it!” she hissed at me. “
You’re
next.”

“You can kill me after I find Block,” I promised her.

“Sterling is a flesh-and-blood human, you know,” Kyle said.

“No, he isn’t! Sterling is
ethereal
,” Ruby whispered.

Kyle rolled his eyes, dumping Ruby’s things into her arms.

“You’re right,” I added. “He wasn’t born; he was constructed with silk, cotton candy, and the tears of baby angels.”

Kyle groaned. “I can’t handle this. I’m out of here.” Shoving his hands into his pockets, he strolled away backward. “You guys coming tonight? To the thing at the place with people and stuff?”

Ruby made a withering sound. “Yes,” I answered for both of us. It was Harvest Night, an annual festival at the fairgrounds. “Pick me up! I need a ride. Ruby needs one, too.”

“Yes, sir!” Kyle saluted me like I was the prime minister as he walked away. On his way, he struck up a conversation with Travis Tallman. I frowned. I didn’t have a problem with Travis, but he was one of my ex-boyfriend Calvin’s friends, and that made him undesirable by association.

I turned back to Ruby and patted her arm. “Just go over and say hi to him. It’ll be fine. I need to go find Block. I’ll see you tonight!”

Poorly graded assignment in hand, I headed for the north building, where I found Block sitting behind his desk, grading papers.

Professor Barry Block was a bespectacled man around fifty with short hair and a salt-and-pepper moustache and goatee. He was known for wearing brightly colored sweaters beneath his tweed suits. Today’s combination was a blinding variety of lime under ecru.

Glancing up, he beckoned me forward. “Ah. Come in, Miss Kestrel.”

The chalkboards behind Professor Block were covered in white, powdery summaries about the founding of Rivermarch. The writing was punctuated by streaking underlines and far too many exclamation points. Prone to broad gestures and quick flourishes of the hand, Professor Block had enthusiasm that was usually wasted on his students, and I think most days he knew he was fighting an against-all-odds battle for our attention.

“Extra credit papers go here,” Block said, tapping a pile on his cluttered desk.

“I don’t have an extra credit paper,” I told him, holding out my assignment. “I came to talk about this one.”

“Ah, yes,” he said, scanning the sheet and handing it back to me. “It’s refreshing to know that at least one of my students is interested in our history, but I was looking for your thoughts on how being enclosed within Haven underscored the importance of harmony in lasting economical and social balances.”

“I understand all that.” I sighed, tapping the paper against my palm. “But I really feel like we’re holding ourselves back. Professor, I want to know more. You’re a history teacher, you must be able to give me something.”

Legends that surrounded our ancestors’ arrival in Haven Valley were so heavily diluted by fiction that it was impossible to glean any fact. Most stories involved the danger of the hours after dusk, monsters wrought of iron, the living dead, and one tidy moral or another. I didn’t want bedtime stories, I wanted the truth.

“What would you like to know?” he asked, leaning back in his chair.

“Those documents on display at the natural history museum mention that we were fleeing some kind of cataclysm,” I said, lifting an arm out toward the mountains beyond the classroom walls. “All the stories agree on that much, but no source ever discusses exactly what happened.”

Professor Block’s graying eyebrows sailed over his glasses. “You’ve certainly done your research. Sadly, some things are lost to the ages. Those documents are six hundred and seventy-five years old. To my understanding, the rest of the book they came from has crumbled away completely.” He folded his hands on top of the papers. “The truth is, no one knows what happened. My old professor in Pinebrook once told me that another sheet made mention of a monarchy and an ocean, but any more information is long gone.”

Oceans.

Bodies of salt water larger than any lake in Haven. In the storybooks, they were always portrayed as mystical and dangerous and unimaginably vast. I’d have given anything to see one with my own eyes.

Block’s smile sent a series of wrinkles across his forehead. “It seems to me there might be a place for you as an archives apprentice at the University someday, Miss Kestrel.”

I shivered at the thought of being cooped up indoors for the rest of my life. “It’s been seven hundred years,” I argued. “The dangers we fled are probably gone. All we’d need to do is have a look beyond the mountains. See what’s out there. We’d just need to find a path through.”

“Improbable,” he replied, quickly shutting me down. “And highly illegal. You know that; your paper stated as much.”

“Improbable, but not impossible,” I persisted. “And if the way turned out to be safe, would the explorers
really
be sent to trial for their discovery?”

He nodded. “Certainly, and jailed in Pinebrook Prison.”

I gaped at him. “For
exploring
?”

“For breaking the law.” Block scrutinized me. “Don’t even think about it, Katelyn.”

I opened my mouth, ready to defend myself, but he’d caught me and we both knew it. I was guilty of wanderlust, and the outside world was a golden prize.

The professor took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “You’re curious. You’ve found yourself a real mystery, and I’m glad you have. I felt the same way when I was your age. But there is absolutely no way in or out of Haven Valley, and as interesting as we both might find the subject matter, we simply do not have the answers to those questions. Do yourself a favor. Don’t even think about poking around the hills or exploring the mountains. It’s a dangerous waste of your young life.”

Block ran a hand over his short beard, shaking his head. He glanced at me and there was a momentary spark behind his eyes. He looked away, shaking his head again, and began to organize the papers before him.

The professor was holding back. Something about what I’d said bothered him deeply, and I doubted it was only about Haven’s oldest law. “How do you know?”

He replaced his glasses atop his nose, and filed our assignments away in his shabby brown leather briefcase. “I know because I tried. I was arrested when I was nineteen years old. Spent one year in prison and my father didn’t speak to me for ten. Save yourself and your family from that kind of shame, and don’t go chasing ghosts. Apply your curiosities to things that will make life in Haven Valley better than it is. Forget the crumbled ruins of a broken yesterday.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but all words had fled me. If I chased this dream any further, it might irrevocably destroy my future. I clenched the paper in my hand.

Is it worth it?