House of Darken (Secret Keepers #1)

He shook his head, that half-smile back on his face. “Don’t push your luck, little human. Now come on.”

I silently followed, blinking rapidly as the light blinded me. It seemed larger than I remembered – more intense – and as we got closer I noticed details I had missed last time. Understandable … I had been a little shocked and panicked yesterday. Seriously, had it only been a day? Time was doing very strange things at the moment.

Focusing again on the light, I saw it wasn’t actually a huge ball. It appeared to be made up of thousands of thick strings of illumination, all intertwined and meshing together. Strands randomly flicked off from the main group and I let out a gasping shriek when Lexen grabbed my hand and reached out to capture a strand.

“Hold on.”

His warning registered just as I opened my mouth and started screaming. Loud, gulping sounds of panic continued to tear up from my chest and out through my lips. My brain couldn’t quite compute what was happening. It was too far beyond my understanding of travel and physics. Somehow we were being yanked along a string of light, through darkness and light, fire and ice. Lexen’s hand firmly wrapped around mine was the only thing keeping me together.

The end of the string appeared in the distance. We hurtled toward it and I had to close my eyes because it felt a lot like this was the last moment of my life. At the speed we were travelling, there was no way to survive. We would either hurtle off into space, off into the darkness of this wormhole we traveled in, or we would splat against the end. Whatever was at the end.

So eyes closed it was.

I waited. And waited. Finally, when it was clear that I hadn’t squished into a wall, I slowly popped one eye open and looked around. We were no longer in the darkness. We now stood on a well-lit platform, a few feet from another ball of light.

Eyes so wide that I no doubt looked ridiculous, I took a moment to take it all in. Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.

We stood near the center of a huge circular metal platform. Well, it looked like metal – gold and shimmery – with lots of symbols carved across it. The symbols seemed vaguely familiar, but as I ran my gaze across the ones near me, I couldn’t quite place them. They definitely weren’t hieroglyphics or Mayan.

“This is the point where Earth and Overworld intercept,” Lexen explained, distracting me as he pulled me further away from the light. “Our worlds exist parallel to each other, in alternate universes. There are these scattered points where the energy of the two overlap. We use our network to create portals in those spots.”

“That’s why Astoria was the place you first emerged, not because of trade with the north.”

He grinned. “Yeah, trade with the north was not exactly a priority.”

“So … why did you come to Earth at all?”

A beam of light shot out from the ball then and Jero appeared, stepping out gracefully. I figured I wouldn’t get any more answers from Lexen now, but he surprised me when he said, “Daelighters have been crossing to Earth for thousands of years. That network I mentioned, it’s linked to the energy of multiple universes and worlds. Earth is one of the few we are totally compatible with.” He was staring out across the platform now. I didn’t know what he was looking at though, because I was too busy watching him.

“About a hundred and twenty years or so ago, our network started to fail. The energy was disappearing, and our world was on the brink of total annihilation. Without the network, we wouldn’t be able to power our land, or the beings living within it. There was a possibility we would all fade away.” Holy crap, we were getting to the serious part of the story. “It was someone from my house who noticed that every time he opened a transporter there was a surge in the power in the network …” At my blank look he explained. “The balls of light are called transporters.”

“So you formed the treaty,” I guessed.

He nodded. “Yes, we had no choice because we needed a permanent transporter, one much larger than the random ones we had been creating before. It was time for humans to know about us.” He waved an arm in front of him. “We decided to create this platform. It’s mixed with elements from the four houses, etched with our ancient language, and with a permanent transporter to Earth. Almost immediately our network resumed its full functions.”

Jero and Star were through now, and I knew I only had a few more moments alone with Lexen, so I quickly asked: “The treaty allows your network to be powered from Earth’s energy, or from something to do with Earth. But what do they get in return? I assume there has to be a return, if they decided to take you up on the treaty.”

He inclined his head. “You assume correctly. The leaders of America, at the time, were gifted a very special piece of Starslight stone. This is a sacred rock to us, very powerful. It’s a one-off, its size unrivaled by any other in our world. It turned out that Earth needed help at the time too. It was having some very serious weather occurrences. Earthquakes, tsunamis, tropical storms. This stone was buried near your equator, and it calmed the tectonic plate movements. Halted much of the dangerous weather.”

No freaking way. “Starslight, like the school?”

He nodded again. “Yes, exactly like the school, and it’s also where Star gets her name.”

Our conversation dried up as the other Darkens approached us. They were all through the transporter now. Jero swept me up in a hug. “How was the trip across, angel face? Any turbulence?”

I smacked him on the arm. “Put me down, you weirdo.”

It was at that point my reality registered with me. Like actually registered. Despite my Wizard of Oz thoughts before, I hadn’t quite comprehended the truth. Mostly because I was too busy focusing on Lexen. But I was not on Earth any longer. I was not on Earth…

As Jero set me on my feet, I spun around and sucked in a deep breath. The air was cool and crisp; my lungs seemed to expand more than I’d ever felt before; my head swam at the overload of oxygen. The platform they’d created for the transporter was high, almost like it was perched on a mountain, and stretched out below it, as far as I could see, was their world.

As I spun, more of Overworld came into focus. If I had to explain the layout, I’d call it segments, like gigantic slices of cake – three at least. A green, mountainous landscape was a segment to my right. It was the largest, taking up approximately twice as much space as the other two. It looked cold there, white topping many of the mountains.

The next segment was the smallest, but by no means was it actually small. The flat land was filled with billions of trees, spanning off into the distance, with almost no break at all in the forest. And the last was one continuous unbroken mass of water.

Marsil and Star stood on either side of me. “This is incredible,” I spluttered out. “But there are only three segments and four houses?”

A sneer from nearby drew all of our attention and I found myself staring at the Imperials, the same ones who had been in the hall that day. Jero had said they were from Laous’ side. “House of Imperial does not have to share their territory,” one of them said. “We have it all. We control you all.”

Say what? Where was their territory if they didn’t share?

Jero slung an arm around me, turning us away from them. No one bothered to reply and I could feel eyes burning into the back of my head.

“So where is their territory?” I whispered, unable to keep my curiosity any longer.

Jero leaned his head down. “Our transport should be here soon. We’ll talk more when we are back in our land.”