Journey of Awakening Read online

  Journey of Awakening

  By Shawna Thomas

  Book one of the Triune Stones

  After her grandfather’s death, Sara inherits an ancient pendant and a near-impossible quest—master the mysterious pendant’s source of magic. Driven to do so, she must find the other two stones of power, long considered lost, while preventing an unknown enemy from finding her first.

  Unprepared and alone, she travels to where the keepers of the stones, the Siobani, were last seen. Along the way she meets Tobar, leader of the nomadic Heleini tribe. As Sara wrestles with feelings for this intriguing man, she is also invigorated with her grandfather’s passion to find the ancient Siobani race.

  After a rival tribe kidnaps Tobar’s son and heir, Sara must harness the stone’s healing magic to unite the tribes and save the boy. But as the dark power stalking her gains ground, will she continue on her quest to reach the Siobani or risk everything to save the warring tribes from eliminating each other?

  99,000 words

  Dear Reader,

  This February, we decided that we would do something a little different for the month that usually celebrates Valentine’s Day. Not everything always needs to be hearts and roses—sometimes it can be swords, mayhem and spaceships as well—so we’re using this month to not only debut new science fiction and fantasy authors and series, but also to reintroduce some returning authors in these genres. And, of course, since we’re a publisher of variety, we have even more genres on offer this month.

  Debut author Steve Vera brings us Drynn, book one in his Last of the Shardyn urban fantasy trilogy. The heroes of two worlds reluctantly join forces to fight the Lord of the Underworld. Joining Steve in the urban fantasy category is David Bridger, returning with his sequel to Quarter Square. Golden Triangle is the story of a golden man, werewolf bikers and two nemeses.

  How Beauty Saved the Beast is the second book in Jax Garren’s continuing science fiction romance trilogy, and the sexual tension is ramping up! A burlesque dancer and a scarred soldier defend a colony of anarchists as friends and fellow agents, but when a new weapon threatens to rip them apart, sparks fly as the dancer must take the lead in a fight for the soldier’s life. Don’t miss the trilogy’s con­clusion in May.

  Returning authors Stacy Gail, Inez Kelley, Shona Husk and Christopher Beats all deliver their respective book twos this month, all in four different genres. Don’t miss paranormal romance Savage Angel, fantasy romance Time Dancer, Western fantasy romance Dark Secrets and steam­punk mystery Vacant Graves.

  Also in February, author Shawna Thomas launches her newest fantasy series with Journey of Awakening. Trained from birth for one purpose, Sara must reunite three ancient stones to restore balance to the land, but one of the stone keepers has other plans.

  Longing for a heroine who’s not your typical heroine? Have an interest in a unique fairy tale retelling? Tia Nevitt delivers both in her latest Accidental Enchantments offering, The Magic Mirror and the Seventh Dwarf, a Snow White retelling where the seventh dwarf is a young woman who walks into adventure with a runaway princess, a prince cursed by a magic mirror, and a romance of her own.

  Last, but definitely not least, are our February offerings for those of you who want to read outside of science fiction, fantasy and paranormal. Mystery author Monique Domovitch joins Carina Press with Getting Skinny, the first in her Chef Landry Mystery series. Charlie Cochrane delivers another heart-wrenching tale of love in male/male historical Promises Made Under Fire. And cool Southern belle Althea Grant’s subdued life as an art gallery owner burns out of control when a seductive bad-boy metal sculptor pushes her to explore her deepest, most thrilling desires in Platinum, Jeffe Kennedy’s newest BDSM erotic romance book.

  We’re pleased to introduce debut author Darcy Daniel with her contemporary romance Playing the Part. Famous actress Anthea Cane meets her match when she encounters an enigmatic blind farmer…but has she also met the man of her dreams?

  And despite my claim that not everything has to be hearts and roses, I’m still a die-hard romantic, so I hope all of you discover an amazing happily ever after this Valentine’s Day, whether between the pages of a Carina Press book or channel surfing on the couch next to you.

  We love to hear from readers, and you can email us your thoughts, comments and questions to [email protected]. You can also interact with Carina Press staff and authors on our blog, Twitter stream and Facebook fan page.

  Happy reading!

  ~Angela James

  Executive Editor, Carina Press

  www.carinapress.com

  www.twitter.com/carinapress

  www.facebook.com/carinapress

  Dedication

  This book is for Jessica. From the beginning you encouraged, supported and believed in the dream, in me and in Sara’s story. It means more than words can say. I will always love you.

  Acknowledgements

  This book has had many incarnations and with it a score of readers that span quite a few years. From Sarah and Jessica, who read my earliest fumbling attempts at prose, to Heather and Crystal, who got a slightly more polished version. I am indebted to you all!

  Crystal, what would I do without your superhuman webmistress skills? You are the awesome.

  Thank you to everyone at Carina, especially Angela, Rhonda and Carly, for believing in me and putting up with a sleep-deprived new mommy. Special thanks to Alison for making this journey as stress free as possible and for having my back.

  To my children. This book is proof positive that it pays to follow your dreams. Never stop believing! Eryn, thank you for watching the baby so I can “just finish this scene.” Ben, Kati, Claire and Elijah, thank you for not complaining about pizza for dinner...again. And Emily, my baby who doesn’t sleep—see, we can edit with one hand and watch Baby Einstein on the computer at the same time.

  Finally to my wonderful husband. I couldn’t have done any of it without your unfailing love and support. Your belief in me kept me going when I thought surging ahead was impossible. Thank you just isn’t enough. MaY Siempre.

  Contents

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Part Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Part Three

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Part Four

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Ch
apter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Part Five

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Part One

  Beginnings

  The salt spray mixed with her tears until it was as if the ocean cried with her.

  Chapter One

  There was no going back now.

  Sara paused to let the cold waves dampen her leggings, smiling at the small pebbles visible through the crystal waters. Finally. She suppressed the urge to run through the cold water, jump into the boat and shout her joy to the heavens. After so many years of waiting, they were returning to mainland Anatar.

  A cough sounded to her right. She glanced up toward the boat and squared her shoulders. Jith looked at her with something like pity. “Ye might miss this wee island, lass. The mainland isn’t some kind o’ paradise.” He stared out over the shore. “Some’d say you found that here.”

  She followed Jith’s gaze. The golden sand rose away from the water’s touch, forming a hill that protected their little house and its gardens from the worst of the ocean’s fury. A shadow of melancholy tempered her excitement. She would miss the island. It was the only home she could remember. But she knew every tree, had followed or made every path through the dense interior forests. Each waterway, every animal’s den had long since been mapped. She was a warrior of Shi’ia, trained by one of the greatest commanders of all time, Willam of Ardal, and now she was full-grown. An adult by anyone’s standards. An island hideaway was not the place for her. She was ready. Ready for change, ready to use the skills her grandfather had taught her, ready to begin her life. She placed a hand on her chest and traced the hard contours of her pendant. Ready to discover the world outside their little island.

  She waded through the cold waves until she reached the bobbing craft. The gray ocean waters sucked and plopped as the waves lapped the skimmer, urging it to come and play. It was a beautiful craft of bleached timbers, fifteen hands wide and fifty long. The tall, slender mast stood off-center to the prow and held a spar longer than the skimmer itself.

  One hand on an anchor rope and the other on the skimmer’s transom, she vaulted out of the water. Her feet hit the deck with a hollow thud. Jith turned to offer her an approving nod, but the old waverider’s gaze didn’t meet hers before he resumed securing baskets to the skimmer with a stout rope. She turned back toward a dune sheltering the small house from the ocean winds and spied Haboth, Jith’s son, cresting the rise with the last load. Her grandfather had stayed behind to close up and waved off her offer to help. Sara hadn’t insisted. He wanted time alone to say goodbye to the house, the garden, their life on the island.

  Absently, she toyed with the thick silver chain around her neck. The weight of a large blue stone nestled between her breasts. She resisted the urge to pull out the stone to stare at it, something she’d been doing since her grandfather placed it around her neck only a few days before, and instead stroked the smooth gunwale. The warmth of the wood soaked into her chilled hands.

  Once a moon, Jith and Haboth brought supplies to the tiny island where she and her grandfather lived. What little they knew about the stone was garnered from the tale her father had left them and the ancient books Jith managed to find, but those books were few and far between. She knew her grandfather only wanted to keep her safe, but he’d deemed her ready to receive the stone, and now that she had, it only made sense they’d leave for the mainland sooner rather than later. There was nothing more they could accomplish on the remote island.

  The boat rocked as Jith secured their possessions. Before she was old enough to help with the task, her grandfather placed her in the skimmer while the men unloaded the supplies. She still remembered staring at the blue sky as the ocean lulled her to sleep.

  When the waveriders unfurled the sail for the trip back to the mainland, the triangular cloth soared into the sky, leaving her with a sense of loss and longing. She’d often climbed the island cliffs so she could follow it almost all the way to Anatar. She wouldn’t watch it today; today it would carry her away from the only life she’d ever known and to what she knew would be a glorious adventure.

  She suppressed the urge to giggle and looked toward shore where Haboth had just reached the water’s edge, her grandfather trailing in his wake. The wind caught Willam’s hair and blew it behind him like a silver curtain. Never before had her energetic grandfather looked so old and weary. If only he wasn’t so stubborn.

  He was no longer a young man. His steps had slowed and she’d caught him staring into nothing more often than she’d like. Maybe he’s not ready for an adventure. She dismissed the thought as ridiculous. He could still best her in a fair match.

  After helping Willam into the boat, Haboth vaulted into the craft. The waveriders’ bare feet traveled the gunwales with unerring precision, preparing the skimmer for the open water between the island and Anatar. As Haboth handed the last baskets to his father, Sara stared at the gray clouds blanketing the sky then to the darker clouds along the horizon, then to her grandfather’s pale face. A few birds glided in the wind that buffeted the small craft. “Should we wait out the storm?” she asked. Please say no.

  “Storm? Lass, this isn’t a storm, it’s a brisk breeze.” Jith laughed but as he looked to the skies, the dark creases around his blue eyes deepened. “There will be one before nightfall, though. We better get a move on.”

  By the time the last basket had been secured, the skimmer rolled with the agitated movement of the sea. Sara settled on a bench between the gunwales. She caught Haboth grinning at her. He winked before returning to his task. If he thought she was traveling all the way to Anatar to settle down in some dank cottage as a waverider’s wife, he was crazier than the abeian birds that built their nests on any structure, no matter how unstable. The pair didn’t know why grandfather had decided to leave the island. She figured they assumed it had something to do with Willam’s age. She did know Haboth thought her grandfather was just an eccentric old man who lived in the past. He’d told her as much. Right before she hit him. She smiled at the memory.

  Jith patted her shoulder then motioned to Haboth, who began to haul up the anchor stones. When they finished, father and son settled on the bench amidships and manned the oars to maneuver their craft a distance from the shore before unfurling the giant sail.

  She fingered the necklace her grandfather had given her, starting at the buzz that ran along her fingertips as she touched the pendant through the tunic. How does it do that? She didn’t know much about the stone, what it was capable of or if it could do anything other than make her fingers tingle, but she and her grandfather would find out.

  Haboth reached to a thong securing the sail and when the cloth was free, he hauled a line with quick, efficient movements. With a snap, the sail unfurled and the skimmer surged ahead. Sara clutched the gunwale and turned to watch the island recede, growing smaller with every passing heartbeat. It seemed s
o tiny to have been her entire world for so long. Soon, the rolling gray waters would hide it completely. Sara tried to swallow the lump in her throat and failed. Great. Now I’m getting all sentimental. She stared up toward the sail, stark white against the gray sky. It dwarfed the skimmer as it carried them closer and closer to Anatar and their future. She gazed at the water to watch the sail’s image ripple in the dark waters beside them.

  “You look a little green, lass.” Haboth smiled. “It’s too bad the ocean didn’t see fit to give you a gentler first ride.”

  Sara returned the smile. Lass? She was a full summer older than Haboth. A fact he frequently forgot. She shook her head. She wouldn’t be drawn into a debate so easily. She closed her eyes and the voices around her faded to a gentle hum. Lulled by the hiss of the water against the skimmer’s sides and the creak of ropes hugging their swollen sail, Sara reached under her tunic for the necklace again.

  The pendant had been kept in an old box in Willam’s room, taken out only once a year on her birthday when he’d tell the story of how her father found it and that one day it would be hers. Her father claimed it was Ilydearta, a stone out of a myth, but very real. The stone needed to be returned to its makers, and it was his infant daughter who would accomplish the task. This was their responsibly and calling and why they’d lived on the island since she was a baby. Sara touched it again, wondering at the slight buzz beneath her fingers. The necklace was the center of her life, around which everything revolved. Since she could remember, she’d been working toward the day she was ready to wear it. And now it was hers.

  Who were these makers that they could impart a stone with such energy? How did they lose it? So many questions clouded her mind, many of which she’d asked her grandfather only to find her wise grandfather had no answers. He’d spent the last eighteen years preparing her for the task by teaching her everything he knew about herbs and how to hold, and wield, a sword. She took a deep breath. She was more than ready for answers.