Free Island Shifters: Book 01 - An Oath of the Blood by Valerie Zambito Page A

of trees on the western side of the valley beside the river. Saddle sore, he swung down gingerly and rubbed his backside. He was not used to riding for so many hours at one stretch. Once they left Parsis behind early that morning, Dismore led a steady pace around Hawthorne Lake and past the scattering of farms and villages spread out south of the mountains. If all held well with the weather and the horses, the Commander estimated they would reach Galen’s Pass by nightfall the following day.
    Beck heard Dismore order Rogan to make a campfire, and his friend nodded eagerly, unaccustomed, Beck knew, to being requested to perform magic outside of an academic setting. After soliciting a few of the legionnaires to help gather wood, Rogan had a large fire blazing in moments. Tasks were assigned to all of the men, and it was not long before the food was cooked and consumed, the horses curried and picketed, and the exhausted legionnaires settled quietly into their bedrolls.
    Listening to the peaceful night sounds of the insects and the crackle of the fire, Beck put his hands behind his head and gazed up at the sky. His jumbled thoughts raced between Galen Starr and his pendant to Kiernan and her lack of farewell. Unlike Kiernan, he never felt their exile as a prison term, but just accepted it as his fate in life never to leave Pyraan. He was very happy and content with two loving parents, meaningful friendships and his magic. But, thinking about it objectively, what did Kiernan have? She lost her mother when she was young, was forced from her father due to her shifting ability, and now was losing her closest friends. He wished he had been more sympathetic to her feelings and made an attempt to get her accepted into the Northwatch Legion. How could he be so callous?
    Abruptly, the ground beneath him began to churn and the surrounding dirt shot up into the air and rained down on both Airron to the left of him and Rory to the right. Beck was stunned. The earth was now responding to his spontaneous emotions instead of a formal calling? Apparently, this newfound nexus was more intimate than he first thought.
    “What is it?” whispered Airron, sitting up and brushing his blanket clean. Rory also sat up and looked worriedly at Beck. The small fireshifter was his shadow since the trip began, always finding a way to be near him as much as possible.
    “Sorry,” he mumbled. “It was an accident.”
    Rory, satisfied with the answer, rolled back into his blanket to go back to sleep.
    Rogan sidled over next to Airron and Beck. “You sure you are all right, Beck?”
    “I’m fine,” he said coarsely, embarrassed that his anxiety had escaped his usual tight control. “I was just thinking again about Galen Starr and the story my father related last evening,” he said, which was the truth if not exactly all encompassing. Reaching into his tunic at the neck, he pulled out the pendant with the moving fist and held it out for his friends to see. “Just before we left today, my mother gave me this pendant and said it was a gift from Galen Starr. She told me that he left it with her on the day I was born with instructions to give it to me on my eighteenth name day.”
    Airron’s hand shot out and he grabbed the pendant for a closer look, startling him. After a quick scrutiny, Airron slowly put his hand to his own neck and pulled forth a silver pendant that looked exactly like his except for the fact that Airron’s depicted a man alternately changing between human and animal instead of a fist.
    “Demon’s hell!” swore Airron. “My parents gave this pendant to me last week on my eighteenth name day! They said nothing to me of Galen Starr, but you cannot deny that the two pendants are identical except for the images and that they represent our shifting abilities.”
    As puzzling as it was, Beck agreed with his Elven friend. “They are definitely very similar,” he said examining Airron’s pendant.
    “Speaking of Galen,” said Rogan,