Shrouded Sky (The Veils of Lore Book 1) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title

  Copyright

  Quote

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  Glossary of Terms & Pronunciations

  A Note from the Author

  Shrouded Sky

  BOOK ONE OF THE VEILS OF LORE

  TRACY A. AKERS

  Shrouded Sky

  Copyright © 2016 Tracy A. Akers

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author, except for brief quotes used in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organization, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Ruadora Publishing

  Cover design by SelfPubBookCovers.com/woofie_2015

  All rights reserved.

  Books break the shackles of time, proof that humans can work magic. ~ Carl Sagan

  CHAPTER 1

  Chandra held tight to the rail, staring out at the sea as another gust of wind whipped her hair. The sailboat beneath her rose and fell then rose again, its rusty prow challenging an otherwise calm blue sky. Chandra closed her eyes, tensing for the inevitable drop. She’d always hated rides that left her insides up there, somewhere, while the rest of her plunged in the opposite direction. She preferred those that drifted along, like It’s a Small World or Pirates of the Caribbean. But after what she’d recently experienced, she never wanted to see a pirate again. Even one that looked like Johnny Depp.

  They’d set sail from Tampa on The Seeker, setting a course her father hoped would tame her teenage rebelliousness—and add some coin to his nearly empty pockets. Ike was a treasure hunter by trade, though some might call him a pirate, but his plunder was never from the living, only from the dead. Shipwrecks were his passion, they had been since he was a boy, but after discovering a mysterious artifact several months back, he’d begun to turn his explorations less beneath the seas and more atop them.

  He’d found the relic on an uncharted island, one of only a thousand or so in the balmy waters of the Devil’s Triangle. Unfortunately, he hadn’t bothered to mark its location. No, Ikenbach Mellencamp was not one to write things down. He preferred to keep the coordinates of his discoveries tucked within the confines of his own thick skull. “Too many damned thieves out there,” he’d grumble. How right he was.

  Pirates were no myth. Nor were they figments of Hollywood’s imagination. They were an unwelcome reality for trade vessels and unsuspecting vacationers, and now for a treasure hunter and his seventeen-year-old daughter. Fortunately for Chandra and Ike, the pirates had come for only one thing, Ike’s latest find, and had departed the boat almost as quickly as they had boarded it.

  At first glance The Seeker would seem an unlikely target for pirates. Its crud-covered hull hadn’t been painted in years, and its sails were tired and dull compared to the brightly painted canvases found on some of the newer rigs. But scoundrels in the business of pirating knew looks could be deceiving. Not all treasure hunters had fancy vessels and high tech equipment. Some were just crusty men in worn out boats, dependent on their seagoing experiences and the unquenchable thirst for the artifact that would one day lead them to their fortunes.

  Chandra’s father was the crusty sort and he’d made many interesting discoveries over the years, but his latest find had been somehow different from the rest. It was a sword, eroded by centuries of grime yet still beautiful in its design. The blade was very nearly gone, its once polished metal eaten away, but the hilt, covered in gold and molded into the shape of a lion, was fully intact. It would have fetched a pretty penny, at least enough to get the boat fixed, but Ike, as Chandra called him when she was especially mad at him, had expressed no interest in selling the thing. He was convinced it would lead him to one of the greatest discoveries known to man, though he knew better than to utter its name in her presence.

  It had been that name—that place—that had caused the split between Chandra’s parents fourteen years prior. Chandra had little memory of it. Her mother, Helen, rarely spoke of it, and Ike was never around to dispute it anyway. But still her mother would grab the TV remote and switch the channel whenever anything hinting of that place came on. “Fool man and more fools like him,” she would mutter. “The only ones making money off that lie are the sci-fi channels.”

  Well, and now the pirates.

  But while Chandra’s parents had failed in their marriage, her father steadfastly refused to fail in his quest: the one that would lead him to that place. Even with the one physical link to it now in the hands of pirates, Ike still had grandiose ideas.

  The only grandiose idea Chandra had was how to jump ship at the nearest port.

  “Seen any sign of land yet?” Ike asked. He stepped to the rail and scanned the horizon.

  “No,” Chandra said in a none-too-friendly tone. She knew her father was trying to make small talk, but she wasn’t in the mood.

  A gust of wind snapped the sails, sending a drum roll of canvas. Ike squinted toward the mast. “Looks like the wind’s picking up,” he said.

  Chandra didn’t reply.

  “Well, at least they didn’t hurt you,” he said. He placed an awkward arm around her shoulder.

  Chandra shrugged him away. “But they could have! Then my smoking a little pot wouldn’t have seemed so bad, now would it?”

  Ike sighed.

  “So why didn’t they hurt us?” Chandra said. “It doesn’t make sense. They had plenty of opportunity, and no one would’ve ever known. They could have slit our throats and used us for shark bait and taken the boat and—”

  “They didn’t hurt us because they were Laird’s men,” Ike said, his tone indicating disgust that went well beyond armed robbery.

  Chandra mentally replayed the event, recalling how the pirates were not the sort one would expect to see. These had arrived by high dollar speedboat, and they’d been armed with assault rifles that looked more Starfleet than civilian. But that wasn’t the only thing that set them apart from the usual pirates of the Caribbean. They’d been dressed in crisp khakis rather than sweat stained attire, and their accents identified them as more Highlander than islander.

  “You mean you know them?” Chandra asked.

  Ike nodded. “Seen them around. Those men had their orders. That’s why they only took the hilt.”

  “Well who’s this Laird person?” she asked. “And why did he only want that?”

  “He calls himself an archeologist. Truth is, he’s more mercenary than preservationist. He hunts down only the rarest of treasures and sells them to the highest bidder. Doe
sn’t much care what they do with them either. He’s been looking for that hilt for as long as I can remember. It was just a matter of time before he realized I’d found it.”

  “And you’re telling me this now?”

  The boat took another plunge, nearly knocking Chandra off her feet. Ike grabbed her by an elbow. “You’d best get below,” he said. “Looks like a storm’s brewing and—”

  “Don’t hand me that!” Chandra said, wresting her arm away. “There’s not a cloud in the sky.” She regained her hold on the rail. “Why is it every time I try to discuss something important, you wiggle out of it? You don’t talk to me!”

  “I don’t know how to talk to you,” Ike said, exasperated. “I missed most of your childhood . . . now you’re a young woman and—”

  “That’s right, I am a young woman. So why do you and Mom treat me like a child?”

  “Because you’re our child. Do you think we like seeing what you’ve become?”

  “What I’ve become?” Chandra felt as if she’d been slapped.

  “That’s not what I meant,” he said.

  “So what did you mean? And while we’re on the subject, why did you stay away all those years? And now Mom’s abandoned me, too!”

  “Your mother hasn’t—”

  Ike’s gaze shot past her, and Chandra turned her head in the same direction. A thick bank of mist had formed in the distance, nothing unusual. Certainly nothing to be concerned about.

  “Get below,” Ike said.

  “No,” Chandra said, standing her ground. “Not until you talk to me.”

  Ike’s eyes snapped to hers. “I said get below.”

  “Fine! Have it your way—as usual.” She spun toward the cabin and clomped down the steps, slamming the hatch behind her. “I can’t wait to get off this stupid boat!”

  Chandra marched toward her berth, kicking aside the mounting laundry that was piled alongside it. How long had it been since they’d visited a decent port? She couldn’t even remember. She scowled at the musty clothes, plotting to toss them onto Ike’s bed, but then she wondered if there was something on the floor fresher than what she had on. She pulled a black T-shirt from the pile and held it up for inspection. It was a gift from her boyfriend Marc, purchased at the first metal concert he’d taken her to. She sighed. Out of all she’d been forced to leave behind, it was Marc she missed the most.

  Marc was the kind of guy that could turn any girl’s head. But it wasn’t just his beautiful face, cool body piercings, or perfectly shaped backside that had eyes swiveling in his direction. It was the way he carried himself, the way his smile said “take me,” and of course the sexy tattoos that covered his arms from biceps to wrists. It was the inspiration of the much older Marc, and the longing for those arms and more, that had prompted Chandra’s junior year switch from making the honor roll to making out with Marc. Four months and several hair dye experiments later, she finally had the guy of her dreams. Until now, that is.

  Before landing in prison boat-camp, Chandra had crossed the line one too many times with her mother. Helen, who’d inherited her own mother’s Cherokee temper, had finally decided a stint in hell would do her daughter good. As if the smelly, cramped sleeping arrangements, bad food, and constantly rocking boat weren’t enough to keep Chandra in that hell, she hadn’t been allowed to bring her iPod, cell phone, or any other recreational device either. “Penance,” Helen had said as she deposited her daughter onto The Seeker and into Ike’s care.

  “Penance my ass,” Chandra muttered. “You’d think I murdered someone.”

  True, she’d been caught smoking pot with Marc. Yes, she had gotten a tattoo without her mother’s consent. But it wasn’t like she’d skipped school or lost her virginity, though that had definitely crossed her mind with Marc. Now here she was, banished to her father’s boat, forced to hop from boring island to boring island, and wondering if she’d ever see him again.

  She hugged the T-shirt to her chest, dreaming of Marc’s wonderful scent, but as she did, her nose was hit with the foul smell of mildew instead. Chandra scowled and tossed the shirt aside, then leaned over to dig through the pile. Surely there was something to wear other than the dorky tank top and shorts she’d had on for the past three days. She straightened her back, realizing it was no use. Even her jeans, recently turned into ridiculous cut offs, were caked with fish scales and worse. She plopped onto her bed and fell back against the pillow, staring at the warped paneling above her head. “If we don’t get to a port soon, I’m going to wash something out by hand whether he likes it or not,” she muttered. But she knew it was an idle threat.

  Living green on a boat had been a rude awakening. Back home she would leave the water running while brushing her teeth. She’d even linger in the shower until all the hot water ran out. Here, however, things were different. She was allowed to brush her teeth with the water from only a single Dixie cup, and baths consisted of little more than a damp sponge. But she had to admit, prison life wasn’t all bad. She had managed to lose a few pounds and had even developed a tan, something she had not previously considered desirable.

  Prior to incarceration she’d been as pale as a vampire, a look that fit her black-on-black wardrobe just fine. For that reason, and because she thought her legs were too fat anyway, she’d rarely worn shorts, even during the hottest of Florida months. Her arms, pencil thin in comparison to her legs, had also usually been hidden beneath layers of dark cotton. But after spending two months at sea under a blazing sun and unbearable humidity, she’d been forced to adjust her way of thinking. Her once anemic limbs were now tan and muscular, and the purple that tipped her short black hair had faded to lavender. She no longer wore eyeliner, saltwater instantly slid it down her cheeks, and her nails were no longer painted, a waste of time in fish scale hell. But there was one fashion accessory she refused to surrender, at least not entirely, and that was her boots.

  She’d brought the boots with her, had actually worn them the day she first boarded the boat. But black, thick-soled footwear was not a smart choice on a rocking deck, so she had abandoned them in favor of a pair of Top Siders purchased by her father soon after. Her boots now sat like a trophy atop the built-in bureau against the far wall and were usually the first things her eyes gravitated to when she entered the room.

  She rose and stepped toward the dresser, then grabbed the boots and returned to her bed. After drawing them onto her feet, she extended her legs, admiring them with synchronized twists of her ankles. They didn’t go with the shorts she was wearing or the barely pink tank top with the tiny embroidered flamingo her father had bought her. But she didn’t care. The boots made her feel like herself, though she was no longer sure who that self was.

  Chandra replayed her father’s words. What had he meant? she wondered. She knew her parents didn’t care for her choice in clothing. Her mom would prefer she dress out of an L. L. Bean catalog, while Ike would love nothing more than to see her trussed up like a tropical bird. Was it her choice in bands? No, that couldn’t be it. They didn’t know enough about Gwar to disapprove of them, though they probably would if they took the time to listen. Was it the tattoo? True, she’d gotten it without permission. But it was so tiny! She shook her head. That couldn’t be it. Ike had plenty of tattoos, his arms were practically covered with them, and they were certainly bigger than the leaping lion she’d had inked to her left shoulder. Had to be the pot. “Yeah, like they never smoked it,” she mumbled.

  Her thoughts drifted back to Marc and for a moment her troubles seemed to fade. She closed her eyes, imagining his beautiful face, but a sudden rock of the boat jarred her to her senses. She sighed and grabbed a dog-eared paperback that was wedged between the mattress and the wall, then yanked the chain of the single-bulb light screwed to the paneling above her head. She leaned back and opened the book, grateful she’d been allowed to bring a few, and flipped through the pages. The story was full of fantasy and romance, nothing like the miserable existence she was currently trapped in. Sh
e’d read the book so many times she’d practically lost count, but it never failed to take her to a place she wanted to be, with characters she wanted to know. There were no hot vampires in the story, something she usually gravitated to, and it took place in a world void of technology. But still she loved it. It was an ancient world with its own share of problems and some handsome, though wounded, heroes she wanted to both slap and make love to at the same time.

  She arranged the pillow behind her head and scanned the pages for her favorite scene, the romantic one she’d read numerous times since she first discovered it in middle school. It wasn’t sexually graphic—she’d certainly read more descriptive scenes since then—but still, it had given her her first taste of literary romance, so it held a special place in her heart. The prince in the scene also held a special place. He was red-haired and violet-eyed, and though she had never gravitated to red hair, she’d fantasized about those eyes ever since. As she grew older she’d come to realize there was no such thing as boys with violet eyes. They were just a figment of a writer’s imagination.

  Suddenly the boat jerked, knocking out the light and sending Chandra rolling to the floor. “What the hell?” she grumbled, rubbing her elbow. She clambered to her feet and made her way up the steps, clutching the handrails as the boat heaved back and forth.

  Chandra threw open the hatch and poked her head out, prepared to aim a complaint at her father, but as she did she noticed the sky had turned an unsettling shade of green. “Ike!” she hollered through a moan of wind. There was no response. She took another step up and twisted around, scanning the deck behind her, but all she saw were strobe-lit waves on an endless sea, and a sky darkening with spiraling clouds.

  Chandra climbed onto the deck and staggered toward the bow. The boat took an unexpected lilt and sent her flying. She grabbed the shroud line and dragged herself toward the mast. “Dad!” she screamed, wrapping her arms around it.

  A flash of lightening illuminated the sky, followed by an explosion of thunder and a sudden deluge of rain. Chandra tightened her hold as the boat rolled onto its side then righted as if in slow motion. She blinked, trying to focus through the rain, and realized to her horror a massive wall of water was barreling straight for them. She held on tight, but as the wave hit, her arms were ripped from the mast, sending her thrashing down the deck.