Quest Maker

To my mom

T
here was magic on the night wind, and it wasn't the good kind. Caden knew from the acrid smell, from the way his skin itched. He stood on the mountainside, peering down, and listened to the tree branches creak and the leaves rustle.

In the valley, the city gleamed with scattered yellow streetlights. The rectangular buildings looked asleep. Above, the three-quarters moon was half-hidden by clouds.

Suddenly, the sour scent grew stronger. Caden felt goose bumps pucker down his arm. There was a thunderous crack and the sky shattered. Red tendrils streaked across it. Everything—the trees with their spring leaves, the buildings below, the sky above—was bathed in a sickly red glow. Magic born of hate and anger often burned red like those passions. He was witness to a spell, and it was
one backed by brutal emotions.

Caden felt the wind ruffle his short brown hair. He pulled his coat tighter. The wool was enchanted with warmth and protection. The royal Winterbird, the symbol of his people and family, was embroidered in silver and gold threads on the back. It reminded him of his family. It reminded him he was trapped in Asheville, North Carolina, and he needed to find his way home to the Greater Realm.

Then the red light disappeared. The smell diminished. The static in the air returned to an itch. Brynne, the young sorceress, stepped up beside him. Her silvery eyes reflected the moonlight, and her dark hair blew across her face. “That almost looked like lightning,” she said.

Caden disagreed. “It was red.”

“And it felt like sorcery,” she said. “Angry sorcery at that.”

On that, Caden agreed. Sorcery was one of the three magics. When cast with rage it tingled and scorched. Unlike ritual magic, which was attached to a place, and enchantment, which was attached to an item, sorcery was always attached to a person. The light show tonight was connected to someone, somehow.

“That red lightning—” Brynne said. It wasn't lightning, but Caden held his tongue. “It's like nothing I've seen in this land.” She talked quickly. “That magic felt like home. And spells can send things from the Greater Realm to here. A spell sent us, after all.”

Maybe so, but it was the reverse they needed. Caden pointed this out. “But we need magic that will send us there.”

They'd been stranded in Asheville from February to June. Caden hadn't seen his father, King Axel, or his older brothers: first-born Valon, second-born Maden, third-born Lucian, fourth-born Martin, fifth-born Landon, or seventh-born Jasan, in four months. It had been longer since he'd seen sixth-born Chadwin—but Chadwin he wouldn't see again. He'd been killed by a rigging dagger to his back ten months prior. Caden and his brothers were devastated. King Axel was devastated.

No doubt Caden's father and brothers now thought Caden dead as well. He mustn't continue to cause them pain. He must return home. A future Elite Paladin turned heartache into action.

Although Brynne wasn't a royal like he was, certainly her parents also missed her.

That was why this night, like many recent nights, they had snuck out of their foster home to search for a way back. Until now, the most interesting thing they'd seen in their searches was a low-flying helicopter. But tonight there was red-tinted and powerful magic. Such a spell was rare enough in the Greater Realm. It was not a sight either of them expected to see in the Ashevillian sky. What did the spell mean? Why were they seeing it now?

Caden felt his skin tingle. Brynne pulled her cell phone
from her pocket and aimed it up. The sour scent flared again, and a moment later, the red tendrils branched over the city once more. This time they were brighter. More intense. Brynne clicked a picture.

Once the red faded out, the night felt more normal. The air smelled of cedar and earth. Brynne turned to him with a dazzling smile and held up her dimly glowing phone. “Look, prince,” she said. “The red lightning seems to have touched ground.”

In the picture, the tendrils joined and furrowed down like fire channeling to the earth. The point of impact was just beyond downtown. In his free time, Caden had memorized the city layout. It was important for a future Elite Paladin to understand terrains. He guessed the spell made ground at Biltmore Village, near the large house there that the locals mistook for a castle.

“What type of spell was it?” he said.

Brynne wasn't listening, though. “If we can get to the point of impact, maybe we can use the residual magic to return.”

There were others from the Greater Realm trapped in Asheville. They were not, however, stranded like he and Brynne. They were villains, the vilest and most evil of people. They were those the Greater Realm Council had sentenced to banishment and certain death in the Land of Shadow. The spellcasters who executed the punishment were powerful, practiced. Certainly, they could break
open a sky a realm away.

Of course, Caden and Brynne had learned the Land of Shadow was a lot nicer than described. It was not a realm of eternal torment. Matter of point, it was Asheville, North Carolina. The locals called it the Land of Sky and had recently deemed it the happiest city in the region.

Somewhere along the line, the Greater Realm Council had gotten very confused.

Caden suspected that the red lightning meant another infamous villain had just been banished to the happy city. What other type of spell would connect the realms and be attached to someone? He turned to Brynne. She was the sorcery expert. “Brynne,” he said, “was it a banishment spell?”

She caught his gaze. “I think so. If it opened a portal here, maybe we can sneak through before it's completely closed.”

As far as Caden understood, the paths between worlds opened but one way—from the Greater Realm to Asheville. They didn't open the other way. That was their problem. That was why they were trapped, why the villains were trapped.

“You can latch on to a banishment spell?”

“Maybe.” Brynne was often offended when her knowledge of magic was questioned. Her eyes narrowed. “If we do it right, we could get back to the Greater Realm this very night. Do you not want to try? We must hurry. Before the
magic completely burns out.” She secured her phone and pulled back her hair. “Where'd your horse go?” she said. “We must hurry.”

Caden's horse, Sir Horace, had fallen across realms with Caden. Caden whistled for him now. “He was uninterested in the spell.”

“You mean he was spooked,” she said.

Sir Horace was a Galvanian snow stallion, the eighth-finest horse in the Greater Realm. He was housed by the local horse rescue, but at night, the winds called to him and the small mountains beckoned. He romanced mares around Asheville. Neither wooden stable nor meager fence could keep him captive.

“Sir Horace doesn't need to explain his noble self,” Caden said.

A moment later, Sir Horace stuck his majestic head around a cedar. His white-and-gray coat shimmered in the moonlight. Caden patted Sir Horace's mane and swung up to his back. If there was a chance they could return, Brynne was right—they must try. It was their duty to their families and their peoples.

Caden held his hand out to Brynne. A prince always was chivalrous even to difficult spellcasters like her. She glanced at Caden's hand, ignored it, and pulled herself up without his aid. Sir Horace turned back to look at them. Obviously, he wasn't happy with his second rider.

“Brynne is our ally,” Caden reminded him.

After a brief moment, long enough for Sir Horace to convey his displeasure, he returned his gaze to the front. Then they galloped down the mountain, a streak of white on the dark slope.

The night air rushed against Caden's face. He listened to the pounding of Sir Horace's hooves. Caden's heart beat faster and faster as they hurried down to the road and onto a bike path beside it. Could they really get home to Razzon this night? He dared to hope.

He turned back and spoke into the wind. “If someone was sent here,” Caden yelled, “he or she is dangerous and may still be at the point of impact.”

“The banishment spell is painful magic meant to punish.” Even over the wind's roar, she sounded quite happy about that. “For a time, anyone sent here will be in too much agony to do anything!”

Caden wasn't so sure. People of normal talent and constitution were rarely banished. Only those evil and exceptional were fated to the not-so-horrible Land of Shadow.

Soon they stood at the undersized gate of the Biltmore house. In Razzon, Caden's homeland, the walls of the Winter Castle touched the clouds. These were tiny by comparison.

Brynne reached over Caden's shoulder and pointed. “That way,” she said, and he could tell she was concentrating, trying to locate the exact place where the magic had
come to ground. “Past the gate and down the road.”

Caden directed Sir Horace to jump over the gate. They soared above it and sped down the curving path. As they approached the not-castle, all was quiet.

“To the left, down the hill.” Brynne jabbed Caden's back. “Hurry! The magic is fading!”

Caden directed Sir Horace to gallop at top speed. They flew through a bed of lilies, bright white with moonlight, and toward the manicured gardens and ornamental trees beside the Biltmore house. At first, there was nothing unusual. Caden slowed Sir Horace to a trot. Uphill, the house looked down as if it held contempt for their plight.

Brynne pinched his arm. This time, she whispered. “Beyond that hedge,” she said. “The ground there looks scorched.”

“Better to continue on foot,” Caden said.

He swung down from Sir Horace's back and reached up to help Brynne. She rolled her eyes. In a smooth, swift hop, she jumped down beside him.

Near the charred dirt, he felt a slight static in the air. There was a lingering sour smell, too. It was hard to discern over the scents of jasmine and roses. There wasn't time to worry about who might have been banished, no time to fear who could be hiding behind a hedge. The magic was fading.

Brynne darted to the point of impact, a broken stone bench. She placed her hand between the crumbling sides of
the seat and onto burned dirt, then closed her eyes. Caden saw no one else, but that didn't mean there wasn't a villain nearby.

He patrolled the perimeter of the charred dirt, and Sir Horace followed. On the edge were red roses, fragrant and newly bloomed. There were large hedges with purple rhododendron blossoms. Every few strides, manicured and flowering trees had been planted.

He reached out to touch the smooth bark of a small magnolia. Its white flowers reminded him of snow, of his home in Razzon in the Winterlands of the Greater Realm. Maybe, soon, the heavy snows would again fall around him.

A cardinal landed on a nearby branch. It was a bright red bird that looked a bit like the burn birds of the Greater Realm Autumnlands. Unlike the burn birds, however, cardinals were small, not poisonous, and didn't like to eat children.

Still, the cardinal was a bad sign. Animals tended to stay away from magic. There wasn't much time left. He glanced back at Brynne. Her brow was wet with sweat, her eyes squeezed shut. She mumbled to herself.

Caden stepped toward her and his boot hit a mound of dirt near the base of the magnolia tree. Some of the dirt was burned, some was not—like it had been packed after the spell.

Just because he and Brynne hadn't found a banished villain screaming in pain, that didn't mean there wasn't
someone dangerous near. Best Caden not forget that. He scanned the area. Three strides away, where the ground was spring soft and not scorched, he saw a boot print. Farther away, he saw another. The marks were angled oddly, like their maker had staggered, but placed far enough apart to show that he or she had been running. He looked back at the mound. Before the villain had run away, had he or she buried something at the base of the magnolia tree?

He knelt down and dug into the dirt. The earth was cool and damp.

Someone touched his shoulder.

Caden spun around. He looked up to find Brynne standing above him. He was about to chastise her for sneaking up on him, but he saw her shaking. She was pale. Caden grabbed her hand. When she used too much magic, she became weak.

“The magic is gone,” she said softly. She jerked away and wiped at her eyes. Sometimes, Caden forgot she was as homesick as he. “I almost latched on to it. Almost.”

She was one girl trying to ride the spell that seemed to be the work of the Greater Realm Council spellcasters. “Almost” was impressive. “We will find our way home, sorceress,” he said, and he tried to sound more confident than he felt. Then he motioned to the prints and the dirt mound. “Look at this.”

She took a shaky breath but looked. “Someone was here,” she said. “Someone banished?”

“It seems likely,” Caden said. “And that person hid something.” He returned to digging. His fingers touched something hard, something of jagged metal. It felt heavy. Careful, so not to cut himself, he pulled it from the ground.