Children of a Broken Sky (Redemption Chronicle Book 1) Read online

  Children of a Broken Sky

  The Redemption Chronicle, Volume I

  Adam J Nicolai

  Also By Adam J Nicolai

  Alex (Available Now)

  Rebecca (Available Now)

  Todd (Available Now)

  A Season of Rendings (Coming September 2016)

  Children of a Broken Sky

  The Redemption Chronicle, Volume I

  by Adam J Nicolai

  Published by Lone Road Publishing, LLC, for Amazon Kindle

  Copyright © 2013 Adam J Nicolai

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from Adam J Nicolai, except for brief, properly credited quotations.

  Original Artwork by Adam Paquette © 2013

  Cover Element Design by Kit Foster Design and Lone Road Publishing, LLC

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Also By Adam J Nicolai

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  i. Lyseira

  ii. Helix

  iii. Iggy

  Chapter 2

  i. Helix

  ii. Lyseira

  Chapter 3

  i. Lyseira

  ii. Helix

  Chapter 4

  i. Helix

  ii. Angbar

  iii. Helix

  iv. Syntal

  v. Helix

  Chapter 5

  i. Lyseira

  ii. Helix

  Chapter 6

  i. Seth

  Chapter 7

  i. Angbar

  ii. Lyseira

  Chapter 8

  i. Seth

  ii. Angbar

  iii. Seth

  Chapter 9

  i. Helix

  ii. Angbar

  iii. Iggy

  iv. Lyseira

  Chapter 10

  i. Iggy

  ii. Lyseira

  iii. Helix

  Chapter 11

  i. Helix

  Chapter 12

  i. Iggy

  ii. Angbar

  iii. Iggy

  iv. Helix

  v. Lyseira

  vi. Iggy

  Chapter 13

  i. Angbar

  ii. Iggy

  iii. Angbar

  iv. Lyseira

  v. Helix

  Chapter 14

  i. Iggy

  ii. Helix

  iii. Lyseira

  Chapter 15

  i. Iggy

  ii. Lyseira

  iii. Angbar

  iv. Lyseira

  v. Helix

  vi. Lyseira

  vii. Angbar

  viii. Lyseira

  ix. Angbar

  x. Helix

  Chapter 16

  i. Syntal

  Chapter 17

  i. Lyseira

  ii. Iggy

  Chapter 18

  i. Angbar

  ii. Iggy

  Chapter 19

  i. Syntal

  Chapter 20

  i. Syntal

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  For my wife, Joy, who always believed.

  I love you.

  It's hard to believe, now, how close we once were.

  I remember whole summers spent racing beneath a sprawling sky, winters spent slogging through the snow and sniping each other from crumbling white forts. I remember feeling like my skin color didn't matter—not here, not with these friends, even if Seth did always call me a nog—and that every grassy ridge, every glimmer from Pinewood Lake, was a mystery waiting to be explored.

  Do you remember it, too? You'd make fun of me, now and then, because I romanticized everything—but surely you remember it. A time when no transgression was unforgivable, a time before floods, and silent lightning, and death.

  Maybe you really don't remember. Maybe the road we've traveled has stretched so far that you can no longer see back to the beginning. But I know our history makes you who you are, for good or ill. I know the children we were—the ones that laughed and chased each other over the hills, the ones that couldn't imagine anything worse than a frown from our parents—are still here. They are still us.

  They always will be.

  - Fragment of a letter from famed historian Angbar Shed'dei, recovered from his quarters upon his death, unaddressed and unsent.

  Prologue

  The Storm

  "Lyseira." Seth's voice, swimming down to her from a hundred miles above. "Lyseira, wake up."

  She opened her eyes and saw him crouched next to her, dark hair mussed from sleep, a ragged, greying nightshirt hanging loose from his shoulders.

  "What?" she whined. She hadn't meant to whine, it had just come out that way.

  He glanced toward the front door. "Come on. You have to see this."

  "We can't go out on the Night," she murmured.

  "It's dawn. Come on."

  "Tired." Her eyes drifted closed, and he shook her.

  "Come on." When she tried to roll away, he ripped her blankets off and threw them in the corner. Freezing air doused her.

  "Hey!" She bolted upright, glaring daggers, but he was already opening the front door.

  Beyond she glimpsed an ocean of morning mist, shimmering with color.

  She chased him outside, where the mist eddied at her belly. She sank her hand into it, marveling at the lights flickering within. "What...?" she began, but Seth pointed upward, and then she saw.

  The heavens bristled with lightning. The bolts ricocheted off each other, carving up the sky; they split the clouds with quicksilver, and sent the remnants skittering. When any bolt ended another sprang out to replace it, bounding through the heavens like a jackrabbit. And the colors...!

  Every bolt was a blazing red or yellow, a sizzling green or blue; bolts of pure argent scalded the clouds, intersecting velvet paths of black. Some were indescribable, hues she couldn't even name. Every instant told a breathless tale of fury and light.

  Yet the air hung still. The mist was hushed. The lightning, for all its chaos, was silent as a corpse—as though it were screaming a message with its flashing colors that couldn't be heard by any ear on Earth.

  Laughter, undiluted and joyous, drifted through the calm. Across the road, she saw little Syntal: beaming skyward as she laughed, arms wide, eyes dancing with the sky's reflected ecstasy. She jutted from the mist at the hips, a creature born of its crackling power.

  Something about her made the wonder in Lyseira's chest lurch toward fear. She circled her heart to ward off evil spirits. "I'm getting Mom," she breathed, and Seth nodded, still riveted to the sky; but from behind, she heard her mother's voice.

  "I'm here." Mom put a hand on each of their shoulders. "Shhh, I'm here."

  Lyseira clutched at her and glanced up. Mom's face was grim, lined with awe but no fear. The sky might be breaking, but Mom wasn't scared, because—

  Because death holds no fear. We are God's people, and if the world is ending, Akir will shelter our souls.

  This insight flooded Lyseira like a steadying breath. In that moment her faith was not hypothetical; it wasn't rote memorization of scripture or learning the proper time to kneel.

  It was the bedrock on which her eternal soul stood, and it was unshakable.

  Chapter 1

  Nine Years Later

  i. Lyseira

  Lyseira Rulano stopped at the church's threshold, her eyes burning.

  Stop it. She swiped at them, savagel
y, and wiped the tears on her dress. You will not walk in there crying. You will not. He will do this for you because he believes in you. Maybe, she admitted, because he loves you.

  Not because he pities you.

  In the fields to the left, past the little row of houses that marked the village's northern border, fire lights danced. Strains of music beckoned to her, whispering of celebration. Her friends were at the festival, she knew, probably wondering where she was. To them, her success was a foregone conclusion.

  Of course Lyseira will become a priestess, they thought. She knows scripture better than anyone. With The Abbot going blind, she practically runs the church already. She even speaks on Dawnday.

  But they didn't understand that none of that mattered. Every initiate to the Church had to perform a miracle. She hadn't done it, and time was running out. Her friends brushed this off, as if it were a minor detail that would see to itself.

  They were wrong. It hadn't. Not after she'd spent years trying, not after sitting with The Abbot for hours of meditation, not after long, secret nights spent begging in prayer. She hadn't performed a miracle, and she had finally realized she never would.

  Her heart rimed over with shame, freezing her hand on the temple door. She could still try to pick up the pieces. Meet Keithe at the dance, like he'd asked, and see where their paths led them. Become a housemother, like her own mom had, and raise children. Perhaps one of them would be blessed, and work the miracle needed to earn their place in the Church.

  Her resolve hardened to steel. No. She had given everything to Akir. She had slaved for Him in this church, and done it with joy in her heart, since she was a girl of seven winters. If He refused to grant her this one thing, then she would go around Him.

  Performing a miracle was not the only way to join the Church. A few had been admitted through Bása non-Kasta: the holy sponsor. A priest, titled abbot or higher, could vouch for a person of extraordinary piety and honor, and secure them entry. It was rare—Lyseira had never heard of it happening in her lifetime—but it was possible, if The Abbot was willing to stake his own position on her merit.

  If he was willing to do it, he would've mentioned it himself. She'd had the thought a thousand times, but she was past heeding it. She opened the door, and slipped inside the old temple.

  "Hello?" It was dark; the candles that normally lit the rows had guttered out. In any other temple, the priests would keep the temple lit at all hours with miracles of light, but The Abbot was the only priest in Southlight, and the strain of such efforts had become too much for him. It was just another way Lyseira had failed him. By now, a real initiate would have been able to keep the holy lights illuminated herself.

  "Father?" She lit one of the candles by the door and took it with her into the chapel. Why wasn't he here? Had he gone to Festival? Someone would've had to help him. His night vision had gone first, and that was years ago. Besides, he hated dancing and singing. He wouldn't attend Festival even if he could.

  A quiet dread stole into her thoughts, and she hurried into the chapel. "Father?" Her voice echoed off the cold walls, chasing itself back to her. As she reached the altar, she saw him on the floor.

  "Father!" She ran to him and crouched. "Father Forthin!" When she shook his shoulder, her fingers brushed his bare neck.

  It was cold as stone.

  ~ ~

  Her mother told Lyseira she should give a formal sermon at the funeral. Lyseira refused. It was true that no one in the village would question her, but that wasn't the point. She wasn't a priestess, and to pretend otherwise was forbidden.

  Instead she listened as old Willis Mellerson said a few words, and Minda Fletchins led them in hymns. She watched as her own friends—Helix Smith and Iggy Ardenfell, both hulking brutes now compared to the twigs they'd been as children—took up shovels and threw in the dirt. It spattered across the casket, burying the only man she had ever looked to as a father; burying her dreams.

  ~ ~

  The Abbot's replacement came at the end of the month. The evening he arrived he went straight to the temple without a word to anyone, and Lyseira went up to meet him. She found him in the pews, his back turned to her, digging at a scuff in the wood with a thumbnail.

  "Father Annish?" she asked.

  He turned, his robes dragging against a pew. He must have seen forty or more winters, with a bulging paunch and a sallow face. One of his eyes trained on her but the other was slightly off, riveted to a stray strand of hair above her temple.

  "Yes?"

  She had never seen a lazy eye before. For one terrible instant she couldn't look away. Then she dropped her eyes, put her hand over her heart, and bowed her head, suddenly thankful Abbot Forthin had occasionally enforced the old formalities. "Lyseira Rulano, if it please you," she offered as she looked up. "I helped Abbot Forthin in his duties as Keeper for many years and wished to welcome you to Southlight." She couldn't figure out how to look at him. She forced herself to look at his good eye, and ignore the other.

  "How kind." He crossed to her and offered his hand, palm down. She kissed it; the flesh was clammy and yielding. "Thank you, child."

  She straightened to find him gazing at her chest. Her shirt had a modest neck, but perhaps as she had bent to kiss his hand she had embarrassed herself. A flush came to her cheeks. She fought the urge to adjust her collar. "I trust your journey was comfortable? The weather has been—"

  "Yes, yes, the weather." He flicked his eyes over her legs—the lazy one seemed to linger—before looking back to her face. He smiled. "I know you mean well. I've just never been one for niceties." The smile faded. "Did Abbot Forthin have an office?"

  The abrupt question tripped her. "I—yes. Yes, of course." She gestured to the door behind the altar, at the back of the chapel.

  "Ah. Very good. I trust he kept ledgers?"

  "Yes, all his books are there." She took a step toward the door, offering to lead him, and he set a hand on her arm.

  "I can see the door, child."

  She halted. This is not going well. "Sorry, Father. Of course."

  He flashed her a pained smile; his good eye flicked once more over her breasts. "No, no. I understand. Forthin was going blind, was he not?"

  "Yes, Father."

  "You were probably used to leading him around like a horse. If I continue your role here at the temple, you won't need to do that."

  If I continue your role... Lyseira swallowed the sudden lump of fear in her throat. She had come here with some vague idea that this new Keeper's arrival wouldn't change things much; that she could prove her worth to him easily and maybe even pick up where she had left off with The Abbot. In five idle words, he had shattered that idea.

  She felt the sudden urge to beg, and choked it to death as it clawed toward her tongue.

  "What did you say your name was?" He gazed about the chapel, his lips pursed in mild distaste.

  "Lyseira Rulano."

  His eyes came back to her. "You can't be a day more than seventeen winters."

  "Sixteen, Father."

  He nodded. "But you know your way around, I'm sure. I may have some need of you. Though it is too bad you're a girl. Aren't there any boys in town who have interest in serving Akir?"

  "I..." She knew female initiates were rare, but this question struck her like a slap. "I've served Abbot Forthin as well as any boy," she retorted, more harshly than she'd intended.

  "I've no doubt. But there is weakness in the female flesh that you can't control, and it manifests as you age. You're blooded, I'm sure, and your shape is a distraction. You've spent time with the scriptures? You should know this."

  She did, but Abbot Forthin had never raised the concern. Be careful, Lyseira, part of her mind cautioned, but as usual, her tongue outran it. "Abbot Forthin withstood my shape well enough. I'm sure you can do the same."

  "Abbot Forthin was blind," Annish threw back at once. "Apparently in more ways than one, if he tolerated that tongue."

  Enough. Stop. But the words bur
st from her mouth like a squirrel darting across a wagon rut, throwing caution to the wind. "He was going to sponsor me," she said. "Bása non-Kasta."

  She regretted the words instantly. They were presumptuous, arrogant—and worse, they were false. They hung in the air like something obscene.

  His lazy eye stared at them, incredulous. Then he began to laugh.

  Her wounded pride growled, but this time she kept it in check. What will Mom say, she wondered, when she hears how I've messed this up? She dropped her eyes, her cheeks burning beneath his mirth.

  "Oh, my dear," he managed at last. "Oh, child. That's what this is about? You have no idea who I am, do you?"

  The words drew her gaze back to him.

  "I've been a deacon for a month. They promoted me because I was the only one willing to suffer this dirt hole." He guffawed. "You didn't honestly think they'd send another abbot here, did you?

  "So, you can end the song and dance. You have nothing to prove to me. I couldn't sponsor you if I wanted to. I was an initiate until four weeks ago."

  His sallow grin faded.

  "I..." she stammered. "I didn't—"

  "No," he snapped. "Of course you didn't." He flung a hand toward the door. "Get out of here. I can show myself around."

  ii. Helix

  Helix Smith wiped the sheen of sweat from his forehead and slit another salmon's belly open. Not for the first time that evening, he rued listening to his mother.

  I could be at Pinewood Lake right now, with Minda. When they'd gone the last time, she had worn a pair of cut-off breeches that had left little of her legs to the imagination. Those legs had been branded in his mind for a week. And she had kissed his fingers, doing this thing with her lips that he honestly didn't remember much of, because where the memory should have been, there was nothing but a white-hot blaze.

  For the next time, she had mentioned skinny dipping. The thought of being naked in the water with her arrested his hands in mid-slice, as salmon guts seeped over his thumb.

  The kitchen door banged open and Willis Mellerson bustled in, an armload of wooden trays balanced against his ample gut. "How goes it, Master Smith?" he called, dumping the trays into the wash basin with a clatter.