Awakening: Book 1 of the Vanquisher Series [GxG]

11a

Narvari had thought that those magic guns–no, savaz–were the strangest thing about the vanquishers. But, no. She had just stepped out of a freaking portal. She gaped at the blue door until it disappeared in seconds.

Narvari looked around her curiously. Wow, the portal had actually sent her straight home. These people had gadgets that opened portals to any part of the world. Why did they call themselves an ancient order? Nothing about them was ancient at all.

She sighed. She was back home now. Back to normalcy. Hopefully, no one had seen her walk out of a portal. Well, they didn’t have neighbors so that was unlikely. Narvari had expected to see shattered windows. But there was no such thing. She narrowed her eyes. Now that she thought about it, the hedges were trimmed, the grass mowed, and the pavement cleaned.

She quickly ran inside the house. She gasped. Not one thing was out of place. Not one thing was broken. It was like nothing had happened and she had dreamed up the whole thing. There could only be one explanation for this. Someone had come in here to put everything in order.

From room to room, she went. Everything was intact. And those things that had broken the night of the attack had all been replaced. The furniture, the TV, the flower vase. Not one thing was displaced. Maybe the people of Sharmandi had come to clean up. It wasn’t strange that they would come to take care of Anana’s house.

Anana.

It dawned on her that she would never see the old woman again. She would never see Jimbaga again. Was it even a good idea to come back? This place only held bad memories for her. It took her a while to realize that she was in her own room. Lost in thought, standing before the TV, she couldn’t help but remember the last time she and Jimbaga were here playing video games.

She clenched her jaws, her eyes stinging with tears.

Not yet, Narvari. Not yet.

She shut her eyes, inhaling and exhaling slowly. She needed a clear head to think about how to find this Stein. A cold shower would do the trick. Now that she thought about it, she had probably not showered in a week after being in a coma all that while. Without wasting any time, she took off her clothes.

***

Narvari took a look at herself in the mirror. She felt a lot more refreshed, more kempt, but no less enraged.

Stein. She balled her fist. Who was this Stein the wraith lord had spoken of? There were two things she remembered.

First, the wraith lord referred to Stein as Master. That meant that the demon had attacked Sharmandi on Stein’s orders. Second, the demon said everything was about the four-tusk elephants. That meant that Stein was the one who had sent those mercenaries and poachers to raid Kirriba Plains.

If he had that much power it was no wonder he had made Dorbenese border patrol to give him access to Kirriba Plains. Narvari narrowed her eyes. Her instincts told her that Stein was the ‘dangerous man’ Tsalaga had warned her about. How much had Stein paid Tsalaga that the minister would try to convince her to betray her own people? That greedy bastard. They would all pay. All of them.

The deep-seated fury surfaced dangerously to the surface. She balled her fists so hard that the blood circulation within her fingers halted. She punched right through the concrete wall, leaving a deep dent, and yet her rage was not in the least bit pacified.