Free The Familiars: Secrets of the Crown by Adam Jay Epstein, Andrew Jacobson Page B

sucked in a breath that sounded like wind blowing through a canyon. The two-headed eagle stretched its wings, while the tortoise remained motionless.
    “For what purpose do you awaken the Odoodem?” asked a thunderously deep voice that spoke through the mouth of the bear.
    “We seek the Crown of the Snow Leopard,” said Aldwyn. “It is the only way we can summon the Shifting Fortress.”
    “There is no Crown here,” bellowed the totem bear. “And though we once protected that which could have guided you to it, you come too late.”
    “What do you mean, ‘too late’?” asked Skylar. “What is it you speak of and where is it now?”
    “We have defended this temple for over eight hundred years,” said the totem bear, “acting as the sole guardian of the Spheris – made from the same ore as the Crown and for ever magically linked to it. Whoever possesses it gets pulled to the Crown like iron drawn to a magnet. Together with the Song of the First Phylum, the Spheris is the only way the quest for the Crown can be accomplished.”
    “Song of the First Phylum?” asked Gilbert.
    “The nursery rhyme,” said Skylar.
    One of the eagle heads spoke up in a scratchy voice that sounded as if it had not been used in a very long time.
    “Three years ago, another made his way through the traps of the temple. A clever and resourceful one, for many had failed before him.”
    “After he dropped his blood into the bowl, we deemed him worthy,” added the second eagle head in a drowsy monotone.
    “And then he took the Spheris from my paw,” said the totem bear.
    Aldwyn looked at the bear’s raised paw and noticed the rounded indentation where the Spheris must once have sat.
    “So that’s it?” asked Aldwyn. “Isn’t there another one?”
    “No,” said the bear. “There is not.”
    Aldwyn couldn’t believe their journey had led them to this dead end. It seemed they had all risked their lives for nothing. What hope did they have of stopping Paksahara’s sinister plot now?
    “How could you just give it away?” asked Skylar. “All of Vastia is in danger. Finding the Crown is the only way to save the queendom.”
    “Tell us who you gave the Spheris to,” said Aldwyn. “We’ll track him down. We’ll do whatever it takes to find him.”
    Then the tortoise spoke up for the first time, in a whisper that made the animals lean in closer to hear him. “It was a cat. His was the blood of destiny.” With these hushed words, the tortoise turned its stone eyes to Aldwyn. “The same blood that runs through you.”
    “I don’t understand,” said Aldwyn.
    The tortoise gave Aldwyn a piercing stare. “The one who came here seeking the Crown was your father.”

 
    Your father. The tortoise’s words had been echoing over and over in Aldwyn’s head, drowning out any other thoughts. Aldwyn had never believed in fate, but what other explanation could there be for his father, a complete stranger to him, setting off on the same quest he was on now? The probabilities were impossibly unlikely, yet here he stood, just outside the Tree Temple, presumably not far from where his own father had stood three years earlier. But whether it was destiny or sheer coincidence mattered little. Aldwyn’s heart wanted answers to different questions. Who was this cat that he had never known, and why did he abandon him to the river Ebs?
    The Odoodem had pointed the familiars to a secret exit – a tunnel that led from the spheris’s antechamber directly back to the surface. The group walked a short distance from the dogwood tree before Skylar spoke up.
    “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked Aldwyn.
    Aldwyn didn’t know what there was to say, except for the obvious.
    “Why would my father have been looking for the Crown?”
    “Maybe he was searching for some stylish headwear,” said Gilbert. Then he saw Aldwyn’s look and added, “Sorry. Just trying to lighten the mood.”
    “Clearly he, too, was trying to summon the Shifting