Warrior's Heart (Book 1 of The Warrior Chronicles)

Chapter 22

6 Asch Years Later...

"La-La? La-La?"

Leyla swatted at the finger prodding her arm. "Go away, Michael. I don't hear the suka birds."

"La-La! Wake up, please!"

The distress in Michael's voice registered. Her eyes flew open and she rolled to her feet, reaching for the sword she kept on the table beside the bed. Except there was no table. There was also no bed and her sword was hanging at her hip.

Michael was standing up beside her, his face pale as he stared over her shoulder at the four soldiers standing a few paces away. White uniforms, blue boots, thin swords drawn and pointing in their direction... Leyla's brain kicked into gear. They had managed the crossing.

They were back in Gaia, but where exactly? Leyla looked around quickly, noting the small water fountains, animal statues and bushes with blooming white flowers that had been used as a barrier of sorts; an enclosed garden?

"Stop looking so worried, these are your people, aren't they?" Leyla spoke in Asch, not taking her eyes off the soldiers. After six years and a few weeks, the portal had reappeared on the plateau of Crag 5, though its location was off by a few feet. It made sense, then, that they didn't reappear in the exact same place Leyla had jumped in, but judging by the soldiers uniforms, they had still crossed back to somewhere in the Land of Light.

"I'm not worried," Michael held his hands over his stomach, his pallor now a shade of green. "I'm trying not to vomit."

Leyla would have laughed at his miserable tone, if it weren't for the four armed men inching closer to them. She watched the way they held their weapons and estimated the number of moves it would take to disarm them. "Pull it together and tell them who you are little man, before I have to hurt these guys."

"You can't!" Michael brows rose in panic, then he took three deep breaths and switched to Light language: "Please call the Book Keeper, she is expecting us."

"Put your weapon down, Warrior!" The dark haired soldier spoke in her direction, ignoring Michael's request. Unlike the other men who wore plain white belts over their white uniforms, his buckle had a silver circle with a golden lotus inside. An officer?

"It doesn't seem like they want to cooperate. Do you recognise the garden we are in?" Leyla asked Michael.

"Not really." Starting to regain his colouring, Michael shook his head as if to clear it. "We are definitely inside the inner keep, but I've never been in this garden. It must belong to one of the council members." He ran a hand through his black curls, "La-La, you remember that we can't tell anyone anything until I've spoken to my mother?"

"Yes, yes." There it was again, Land of Light secrecy. In the past six years, Leyla had come to know Michael's personality like the back of her hand, but she was still clueless about the Kingdom he was born in. Of course Michael had mentioned people from time to time, and she had heard much about his mother, his father and his 'kind of' brother, Raphael. But Michael had been trained at an early age not to divulge his Kingdom's secret's no matter what the circumstances, so Leyla knew next to nothing about how the land was administered, its army or its technologies.

"Did you not hear me, Warrior?" Fed up with watching them converse in a strange language, the officer took a threatening step forward.

Following his angry gaze, Leyla looked down at the sword by her hip and sighed and switched to the Light language: "Even without my weapons, I can disarm you before you can take a swing at me." She lifted her hands away from her sides. "But there really is no need for this, Light Lander. I am no danger to you, so please, call the Book Keeper."