Christopher Golden - The Lost Ones: Book 3 of the Veil

ALSO BY CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN

THE BORDERKIND: BOOK TWO OF THE VEIL

THE MYTH HUNTERS: BOOK ONE OF THE VEIL

WILDWOOD ROAD

THE BOYS ARE BACK IN TOWN

THE FERRYMAN

STRAIGHT ON TIL MORNING

STRANGEWOOD

THE SHADOW SAGA

OF SAINTS AND SHADOWS

ANGEL SOULS AND DEVIL HEARTS

OF MASQUES AND MARTYRS

THE GATHERING DARK

WITH MIKE MIGNOLA:

BALTIMORE, OR, THE STEADFAST TIN SOLDIER AND THE VAMPIRE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN is the award-winning, bestselling author of such novels as The Myth Hunters, Wildwood Road, The Boys are Back in Town, The Ferryman, Strangewood, Of Saints and Shadows, and the Body of Evidence series of teen thrillers. Working with actress/writer/director Amber Benson, he cocreated and cowrote Ghosts of Albion, an animated supernatural drama for BBC online, from which they created the book series of the same name (www.ghostsofalbion.net).

With Thomas E. Sniegoski, he is the coauthor of the dark fantasy series The Menagerie as well as the young-readers fantasy series Outcast and the comic book miniseries Talent, both of which were recently acquired by Universal Pictures.

Golden was born and raised in Massachusetts, where he still lives with his family. He graduated from Tufts University. He has recently completed a lavishly illustrated gothic novel entitled Baltimore, Or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire, a collaboration with Hellboy creator Mike Mignola. There are more than eight million copies of his books in print. Please visit him at www.christophergolden.com.

EPILOGUE

I n late October, with the trees afire with the red and orange of autumn foliage, Damia Beck sat atop a gentle grassy hill with her legs drawn up to her chest, chin resting on top of her knees. She gazed out across the valley below. Fishermen who had been up before the sun stood on the shore of the lake, casting their lines with an easy grace. A shepherd guided his flock in a silent parade up a distant hill. Morning light silhouetted the battlements of the Castle of Otranto on the horizon.

Damia loved it here. Her world had been integrated into the ordinary, little fragments of legend and wonder scattered all over the human realm, missing pieces of history returned to their rightful places. None of the roads she had known her entire life led to familiar places anymore. Euphrasia had been broken up, pieces of it merged into the human world in North America, Europe, and Asia. The capital city of Perinthia no longer existed. King Hunyadis palace still stood, but in a forbidding old mining town in the north of England.

Hunyadi had always loved Otranto more. She and the king had that in common. Its appearance in the mountains not far from Innsbruck, in Austria, had been met with fascination by the localsa far better reception than the legendary had received in some places.

She did not blame the Bascombes. Oliver had not brought the destruction of the Veil with any purpose, no matter what so many of the Lost Ones wished to think. He had unraveled its magic for the sake of love. No matter her misgivings, no matter how difficult this new world had proved, Damia understood that. She wished him well.

But she hated him a little, too.

Damia took a long breath and squeezed her legs more tightly to her chest. The irony cut deeply. The Lost Onesboth those whod crossed over themselves and those whose ancestors had first gone through the Veilhad yearned to return to the ordinary worldto go home. But no matter what the legendary had called them across the Veil, Damia had never felt lost there, amongst the magical creatures and mystical places. Here, amongst ordinary people, she truly felt lost for the first time. More than anything, she wished she could go home.

But there would be no returning, now. Home, as shed known it, no longer existed.

I wish you were with me, she said softly. Only the rustle of the leaves in the trees responded. I might have learned to see this world through your eyes. At your side, it could have been a grand adventure.

A pair of tiny birds darted from the nearest tree. Several golden leaves fell, drifting to the ground like feathers.

Damia smiled as she watched them wing their way across the sky, turning toward the lake and then the castle in the distance. Reluctantly, she glanced at the small mound of earth to her left, beneath the tree. A stone marker had been planted at the head of the mound to identify the tiny grave where the blue bird had been buried. She had briefly considered having his name engraved upon the stone, along with some declaration of her love. Awful enough that she had buried Blue Jay here, instead of in the land where his legend had originated, but she needed him close by her.

The stone had been etched with a single word. Four letters that comprised her wish for his spirit, for the wings of his soul, as well as a constant reminder to live by his example.

Soar.

Damia stood, shook fallen leaves from her cloak, and looked out at the lake and the castle once more. A soft smile touched her lips. She glanced at the small grave.

I know what youd say. Time to make my own adventures.

She stared again at the four letters etched into the marker and nodded. Then she turned and started away.

On the other side of the hill, a complement of twenty members of the Kings Guard awaited her on horseback. Hunyadi himself spurred away from the others. He held the reins of her horseits saddle as black as her own battle dressand he brought the beast to her. Damia recognized the honor. That the king should keep hold of her horse while she spent a few minutes on farewells, instead of delegating the job to some page, was a gesture of extraordinary respect and fondness.

Im grateful, Your Majesty.

As am I, Commander, for so many things, the king replied. We must ride, now, though. The journey to Vienna is long.

Damia gripped the pommel, put one foot in the stirrup and threw her other leg over. In the saddle, holding the reins, she felt her mind clearing. There was work to be done. The United Nations was holding a special session in Vienna to meet with representatives from Euphrasia, just as they had already met with the new king of Yucatazcasome cousin of Mahacuhtasin Rio de Janeiro. Hunyadi had made Commander Beck the Euphrasian ambassador to the UN. It meant everything to her. Many of her people were attempting to return to the nations of their births, or of their ancestors origins. But Damia would always be Euphrasian.

Lets be off, then, she said.

Damia snapped the reins and the horse began to trot. His Majesty rode at her side and the Kings Guard fell in behind them.

As she rode, she caught sight of a pair of birdsperhaps the two she had seen moments agotaking flight from the Castle of Otranto. They darted across the surface of the lake, flying low, chasing one another, moving as though dancing together on the air.

She watched until they soared up and over a distant hill, out of sight.

On a blustery afternoon in mid-November, the trees mostly stripped of leaves and scraping skeletal branches at the low-slung gray sky, Sara Halliwell drove along a winding road to the north of Kitteridge, Maine. The Old Post Road seemed to go nowhere, the sort of route that would make those unfamiliar with it wonder with alarming frequency whether or not they had taken a wrong turn and gotten lost. In truth, the Old Post Road did lead somewhere, but the towns to the northwest existed in a locale that could only be considered the middle of nowhere.

Sara had spent the late spring and early summer in Maine with her father, helping him to adjust to what hed become, and the way the world had changed for all of them. There had been so many questions, government inquiries, and requests for help from friends and allies who were having an even more difficult time coming to terms with this new world.