Chartile: Prophecy

Chartile

Book I: Prophecy

Cassandra Morgan

Copyright © 2016 by Cassandra Morgan

Cover Design by J. Coulumbe © 2016

All rights reserved. No part of this
publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any
form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other
electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written
permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations
embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses
permitted by copyright law.

This book is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places, and incidents are either products of the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living, dead or otherwise, events, or locales is
entirely coincidental.

Ordering Information:

www.authorcassandramorgan.com

www.amazon.com

First Printing: February 2015

White Whiskers Publications

ISBN: 978-0-692-40732-5

This book is dedicated to

Conor, Brenda,

Mr. William “Bill” Urban,

and Mr. Scott Carroll

Thank you for my childhood and for always
believing in me.

A special thank you to my dear husband, who
wouldn’t let me give up on writing no matter what.

This book is co-edited by
Little Ra, and occasionally the other furry paws of Snowflake,
Aila, Aster, Pharaoh and Pixie. But, mostly Ra liked to sit on the
keyboard and lick the screen.

Thanks, little
ones.

Table of Contents

Chapter One: The
Dream…………………………………………………………….1

Chapter Two:
Chartile…………………………………………………………………8

Chapter Three:
Piper…………………………………………………………….……23

Chapter Four:
Gran………………………………………..………………………….34

Chapter Five:
Dimitri………………………………………….……………………….51

Chapter Six: At Fortress
Kelsii………………………………………………..65

Chapter Seven: Of Law and
Limestone…………………………………76

Chapter Eight: Princess
Gemari……………………………………….……94

Chapter Nine: The
Pre-Banquet………………………………………..…109

Chapter Ten: The Black
Diamonds………………………………….……121

Chapter Eleven: The Meeting
of the Elders…………………..……131

Chapter Twelve: Foundations
Shaken……………………….………140

Chapter Thirteen:
Lessons…………………………………………………….150

Chapter Fourteen:
Secrets……………………………………………………..180

Chapter Fifteen: A Spy Among
Enemies…………………………….201

Chapter Sixteen: Change and
Stubbornness……………………221

Chapter Seventeen: The
Belirian Forest…………………….……...233

Chapter Eighteen: Into
Cannondole……………………………………255

Chapter Nineteen: Lord
Valine of Cannondole………………..270

Chapter Twenty:
Cadenceberries……………………………...…..…..288

Chapter Twenty-One:
Shadows of the Past…………………….307

Chapter Twenty-Two:
Sisters…………………………..…………………320

Chapter Twenty-Three:
Sacrifices………………………………………331

Chapter Twenty-Four:
Aftermath…………………………….…………351

Chapter Twenty-Five:
coronation……………………………..……….360

Chapter Twenty-Six: Jayson
of the Hill……………………………..380

Chapter Twenty Seven:
Home…………………………………….………..389

Chapter One

The Dream

Jayson Hill walked down a path he had
travelled a hundred times before. It was the path to the fort he
and his friends had built in the woods last summer. He knew he was
dreaming, but it was unlike any dream he had ever had before. The
summer sun was warmer and more real than any normal dream. The
trees of the wood surrounding him were slightly hazy, which seemed
to be the only normal thing about his dream.

Jayson spun around as a voice filled his
ears. It called his name over and over again. The voice seemed to
come from everywhere, but there was no one with him. Jayson began
running full out, headed for the creek and the little drawbridge he
and his friends had made to access their treehouse fort. With each
step he took, the voice grew louder and louder. The sun was
beginning to grow brighter, and still the voice called to him. He
could barely make out the trees anymore.

He stopped running. There was a flash of
white light, and Jayson woke with a start, lying flat on his back
in his bed as if he had dropped straight through the ceiling. The
pull chain on the fan above him swayed in time with his still rapid
breathing. He rubbed his eyes and took several deep breaths. The
haziness that had plagued his dream slowly subsided in the light of
another typical Swansdale, Ohio morning. It was day break, and the
sun had just peeked over the horizon, casting misty patterns of
pink, amber and gray tones across the sleepy little housing
community the fourteen-year old boy lived in. It had rained that
night, and the foliage seemed to be alive with thousands of
twinkling Christmas lights as the morning sun hit the tiny
droplets.

His Jack Russel Terrier, Jesse, quietly
snored beside him. Jayson scratched behind the dog’s ears as he
turned to face his alarm clock. 7:02 AM.

“
Crap!” Jayson flung his
blankets off the bed entirely, sending Jesse to the floor. The
little dog pranced around his feet excited as Jayson grabbed for
pants here and a shirt there. He wasn’t entirely sure whether his
socks matched, and his thick red hair was sticking up every which
way. He tried to flatten it as he raced down the hall to the living
room skidding to a stop long enough to slip on his
shoes.

“
Good morning,” said his
mother from the kitchen table. She did not sound pleased with her
son tearing through the house, and looked even less thrilled as she
raised an eyebrow at him.

“
Good morning! Love you!
Bye!” said Jayson slamming the front door on his untied shoe lace.
He opened the door again to free himself and smiled sheepishly at
his family who sat together eating at the kitchen table. His little
sister, Jessica, rolled her eyes at him and stuffed another
spoonful of Frosted Flakes in her mouth.

Jayson slammed the door closed behind him
and winced. He hadn’t meant to shut it so hard. He leapt down the
small set of porch steps in a single jump and took off for his
friend, Leo DeHaven’s house. He breezed past a jogger making her
way around the block and barked back at the neighbor’s dog as he
ran.

He approached Leo’s front door breathless
and clutching at a stitch in his side. After a moment, he raised
his hand to knock on the door. His knuckles nearly collided with
Leo’s pudgy face. Leo whipped back just in time, and his blonde
hair fell into his blue eyes.

“
Dude! You almost broke my
glasses!” Leo cried.

“
Sorry,” said Jayson with
a sheepish grin as he stepped past Leo and into the living room.
“And sorry I’m late.”

“
For you, Jayson,” Mr.
DeHaven called from the kitchen, “late is right on
time.”

Jayson shrugged and ambled into the kitchen.
He plunked himself in a chair beside their friend, Jack Mitchel.
Jack sat staring into a cup of hot chocolate and coffee, the bags
under his eyes more pronounced than usual. A copy of Shakespeare’s
Romeo and Juliet lay on the table beside him. No doubt it was his
natural knack for poetry that had Jessica swooning over him. His
perfect, wavy brown hair and towering height probably had something
to do with it too. Despite Jack’s slightly disheveled appearance
that morning, he greeted Jayson with a wide smile that lit up his
hazel eyes.

“
Egg sandwiches!” sang Mr.
DeHaven, and a steaming plate of sloppy egg sandwiches appeared on
the table in front of the boys.

“
Oh, you really didn’t
have to do that,” Jack mumbled. His smile faded, and he looked from
the plate of sandwiches to Mr. DeHaven with guilt.

The DeHavens had been rather well to do at
one time, but now their financial situation was growing
increasingly dismal, and so was the state of their rather bare
refrigerator.

“
Nonsense! You can’t be
gallivanting around those woods on an empty stomach! Eat.” Reagan
DeHaven demanded and turned back to the stove.

Quietly the three boys obliged.

“
I’m not sure I want to go
out there today,” said Leo quietly. Jayson and Jack stopped chewing
to stare at him. Jayson’s grip on his sandwich faltered, and a
piece of egg slipped from between the soggy bread and landed on his
pants. “I just — I had this weird dream, and it kind of freaked me
out.”

“
Wh-what happened?” Jack
asked. He set his own sandwich on his plate and swallowed
hard.

“
Yeah,” said Jayson. He
sat up a little straighter and took another bite of sandwich. “What
happened?”

Leo rubbed the back of his neck. “Well,
there was this weird voice that said my name. And a funky light
thing.”

“
A light?” Jayson asked,
his mouth now full of egg sandwich.

“
What did the voice say?”
Jack asked.

“
M-my name. That was
it.”

“
It could be someone
trying to send you a message,” said Mr. DeHaven over his shoulder.
He turned, his eyes wide with mystery and a small smile tugging at
the corners of his mouth.

“
A message?” Jayson
frowned. “Well, does that mean we should go to the fort or
not?”

They sat chewing their sandwiches in silence
for a long time. Eventually, each had turned to stare at Mr.
DeHaven’s back. When he turned from the stove, the man threw his
arms up in surrender.

“
Don’t look at me!” he
laughed. “This is your adventure.”

As one, Jayson, Jack and Leo scrambled out
of their chairs and headed for the door.

“
Sandwiches!” Mr. DeHaven
called after them. They ran back to the kitchen, grabbed their
half-eaten egg sandwiches and bolted out the door.

They trudged toward the wood behind their
subdivision in silence. They were anxious and nervous, and Mr.
DeHaven’s egg sandwiches sat heavy on their stomachs. When they
reached the path to their fort, they all hesitated. It was the same
path from Jayson’s dream, and he suspected it was the same for Leo
too. But there was no voice, and no bright light. It was the same
stretch of trees, game trails and dirt hills that had always been
there.

“
I guess it was just a
dream then,” Leo shrugged.

Jayson grabbed a rope slung over a tree limb
and lowered their make-shift drawbridge. They crossed the little
creek and sat on the dilapidated furniture inside the fort.

They had spent all of the previous summer
building the two-story tree house. Jack had supplied the old,
shabby furniture from a dump near his father’s work. They had
arranged an overstuffed arm chair and a futon beneath the large oak
tree. In the boughs of the tree was their storage area, complete
with a floor, ceiling, and tarps and shower curtains for walls.

Jayson climbed to the second level and
tossed down three sticks to his friends.

“
I call King!” he said,
shaking off the unease that had plague his walk to the
fort.

“
You’re always King,” Leo
protested. He caught the stick Jayson had thrown to him and rolled
his eyes.

“
Yeah, and you’re always
the wizard. You’re the only one with powers, so I don’t see you
complaining,” Jayson snapped back.

“
Well, I want to do
something different this time,” said Jack. “I’m always the knight.
I have to take all my orders from you, and I don’t even have any
powers to fight.”

“
But you get the damsel at
the end. Remember, pretty boy?” Jayson made a kissy face at Jack
and laughed.

“
What if we started a new
game,” suggested Leo, “Three wizard kings —”

“
No, I like this game.”
Jayson folded his arms before him.

“
Yeah, because you get to
boss us around. I don’t think I want to do this today, guys.” Jack
turned and headed for the drawbridge.

“
Come on, Jack!” called
Leo, “Don’t go!”

“
He’s just upset because
he heard his crush from, like, forever, started dating Tanner
Fulton, and he knows Claudia Benedict will never be his
girlfriend.” Jayson jumped from the second level. He landed with a
loud thud and nearly lost his balance.

“
I am not!” Jack
shouted.