The Girl Who Fell Into Myth Read online

  The Girl Who Fell Into Myth

  * * *

  Yevliesza, a 21st century woman, travels through a secret portal, flies on the back of a dragon, and encounters a storm that splits open the sky—before arriving severely damaged at the royal castle of Numinat.

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  In this kingdom of deep powers, she is devoid of magic. Determined to claim her place, she must counter dangerous court intrigues and a sorceress who intends to see this foreigner cast from the great Tower.

  * * *

  Yevliesza may find protection with a powerful lord if her heart can bear the penalty of his conditions. In the end, however, she must find her birthright power if she is to survive. But what she discovers is an alarming magic that, once revealed, may make her a permanent outcast.

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  Copyright 2023 by Kay Kenyon

  All rights reserved.

  Contents

  Epigraph

  I. The Dark Emissary

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  II. The Bridge Of The Moon

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  III. The Embrace Of The Malwitch

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  IV. The Hand Of Power

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Kay Kenyon

  Reviews for Kenyon Writing

  About the Author

  The Nine Powers

  * * *

  Foreknowing

  Manifesting

  Creatures

  Warding

  Healing

  Verdure

  Aligns

  Elements

  Primal Roots

  Part I

  The Dark Emissary

  Chapter One

  Liesa flew. With the highway forty miles in a straight line to the horizon, her 1981 Celica Supra with its inline six and rear spoiler could hit one hundred mph in no time. It was like flying.

  With the sunroof open, her hair lashed at her face and the desert air met her like a blast wall. She and her father might have been stationed anywhere in the world, but they got Barlow County, Oklahoma, bisected by one of the most important aligns in North America. If they’d ended up in St. Louis or Tampa, there wouldn’t be any forty-mile straightaways, so Oklahoma felt like a little bit of heaven.

  The thing about Barlow County was that you could see the weather coming for hours. The winds blew west to east, and sometimes distant clouds humped up in dark towers, trailing skirts of rain, pushing outlier gusts ahead of them like warning shots. Looking out her driver-side window, Liesa caught sight of a big system moving so slow, she knew she could outrace it and be home with store-bought rolls and coffee before it hit the consulate.

  Consulate. What her father called their house, beat up as it was, and with the sand that seemed to blow through the atoms of the walls.

  Slowing to a mannerly twenty-five miles per hour, Liesa cruised into the village where they got their supplies and parked in front of Rolly’s Stop ’n Shop. Just outside, one of the locals was smoking and gave her lovingly cared-for Celica a respectful glance. He nodded at her as she went in, with a terse but neighborly acknowledgment. One of the open-minded ones. They’d had plenty of time to learn to say Numinasi. It had been twenty years since the Accord. But most fell back on the more familiar word, the one that was easier to say. Maybe not trying to be mean. But still, they’d mutter behind her back: witch.

  “Liesa,” Rolly said from behind the counter when she walked in, giving her a smile. He tapped a box containing the groceries she’d texted to him that morning. She looked around the store, spotting a few of the locals pretending to shop but watching her.

  “Shane ain’t here,” Rolly said, real casual, but knowingly. “Out to the ditch. Workin’ on the irrigation pump.”

  Liesa wouldn’t have minded seeing Rolly’s son. Behind the usual grime on Shane’s face, he had the kind of features that leaned toward handsome, especially his mouth and eyes. The grimier he looked, the more he stirred her. Matching his Barlow look, she’d taken to wearing ripped jeans and a faded t-shirt when she came to town. As though she could ever be Barlow’s own.

  “Storm’s comin’,” Rolly said, glancing west, the wall with the chips and soda.

  “Looks like.”

  “You’d best get back. Put up the shutters. Shane’d help you, but.”

  “We got it, though. Can you throw in some gummy bears?” She pulled out her father’s credit card while Rolly tucked in the candy.

  “How’s Ansyl?” Rolly always asked after him. It had been years since her father came into town, and Rolly knew he was poorly. Knew her mother was dead, too, so there was lots of the poor orphan treatment, a little too kind, especially from Rolly. The town knew her father was someone important, but they couldn’t figure why he’d be living out past L-Road eight miles from nowhere. Answer: Because the aligns. Barlow County had one running smack up the middle, not respecting county lines or riverbeds or highways. Most folk didn’t believe in the aligns—you couldn’t even see them, they reasoned. But the Numinasi knew that all the worlds have deep paths, even worlds without much in the way of powers, without more than a bit of magic. Sometimes mundane people created great cities on the aligns. Cities like St. Louis. They assumed they’d chosen the place because of being on a river, and they sensed—a hunch, they would call it—that it would be a good place.

  “Is your dad feeling better?”

  “Yeah, he’s been grand lately. Working in his garden.”

  Except he wasn’t, not these days. A few years back when her father had begun complaining that nothing would grow, when he began misplacing tools, flooding the rows with water or not watering at all. When it was dangerous for him to be around a stove, much less drive.

  Rolly carried the groceries to the car.

  Three young guys stood around the Celica, one of them caressing it like it was a girlfriend. They backed off when Rolly eyed them, taking positions leaning on a windowsill or the drinks machine, one of them saying to her, “Sweet rig.”

  Witch or no witch, she could of had that boy with only a jut of her chin. Jump in, why don’t you? Little spin?

  A distant rattle of thunder, like an eighteen-wheeler roaring by. Clouds charged across the sky, on the move and spoiling to get in on the action. Tornado action.

  Smiling at the boys, she swung into the car seat—all low to the ground where the Celica liked to keep its driver—and cranked the ignition. It fired up real sweet, and she could tell by the expressions on those boys’ faces that they knew real beauty when they saw it. Those classic lines, maybe from a bygone era, but never beaten.

  Giving them a nod, she flipped up the headlights, letting the Celica strut for them. They grinned at that, knowing she was showing off and liking it.

  She pulled into the street. The day had taken on an orangey tint, how the sky sometimes went when dust got kicked up. But in the direction of home, it was still all blue and hot.

  The Celica knew the way.

  “It’s me,” Liesa called out, kicking open the back screen door, balancing the box of groceries on her hip.

  The kitchen was dead quiet, like she’d let in the muffled air from the flats where the storm was getting into position. From the kitchen window, a little flick of sheet lighting over the distant hills. No wind yet, but the crickets had gone to ground. Even the ag ditch down the road had been silent, running swiftly, like a video with the sound muted.

  From the office down the hall her father’s chair squeaked as he shifted his weight. He would be at his desk where he used to have real work, with the missions sharing diplomatic concerns and plans. Over the years there’d been less and less of that. Fewer missives from St. Louis. And then none. The exchanges had mostly been about the Nanotech Accords, where a bunch of countries agreed on curbs and things to protect the hidden realms from microscopic machines. Because no one knew how easily nanotech might penetrate the Mythos.

  You didn’t want to mess with the Numinasi. There was no telling what their powers really were, so an accord came together and everyone was happily co-existing. Even if they tended to hate each other.

  Therefore the consulate in Barlow County. But why hadn’t anyone stayed in touch with her father? A few times her father allowed as how the Numinasi center in St. Louis had been quiet lately. And then he started saying that it was time to report in person, and she’d go too, they’d make a trip of it. Liesa was dying to go, but knew that with the way her father was drifting it would never happen.

  She found him at his desk, surrounded by disordered pile
s of paper, some of which were just flyers and ads. “Liesa,” he said, looking up and patting his thick hair as though looking for something.

  “Groceries are put away. We’ll have meatloaf tonight.”

  Thunder gargled in the near distance.

  “Your mother will like that.” His gaze slid away from her. “Now where’s my pencil?” he said, worried.

  “Behind your ear.”

  He found it and pulled a yellow pad of paper closer. “Notes will be expected.”

  “I can bring you a nice cup of tea. And I have gummy bears.”

  Her father shook his head and pulled down his waistcoat over his flannel trousers, the ones that hung flabby on his dwindling frame. “No time. I’m in a hurry . . . so much to do.”

  “We could have a cup of tea and plan the day,” she suggested, seeing that he was starting to get wound up.

  “But the visitor,” he said, glancing toward the front of the house. “He’ll expect a report.”

  Liesa couldn’t help but look toward the parlor, wondering for a second if maybe Shane had come after all.

  Noting her glance, he said, “No, not in the house! In the yard . . .”

  “Who is it, then?”

  “Who?” He frowned in concentration. Then in Numinasi, he said, “He gave his name, one of the old names.”

  She and her father spoke in Numinasi as well as English, and lately it had more often been in the home language, which seemed to comfort him.

  “Shall I go and see?” If no one was there, Liesa would just say they must have left. Then they could have tea.

  “No!” he shouted. “Go upstairs, it’s got to be handled . . . handled . . .” He looked up, his eyes wide. “Did he see you?”

  “I came in the back door.” She was starting to feel alarmed, herself.

  “Well, something must be done,” he said. “Clearly.”

  “I can talk to him. See what he wants?” She rose from her chair. “I’ll be right back.”

  Her father got up too, holding the notepad full of jottings, some underlined for emphasis. She looked at her father standing there. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong.

  She made her way to the front screen door. Beyond it, the dust blew in curtains, coloring the sky like a bruise. A lone figure was out there, a stone’s throw from the house, partially obscured by the old flatbed truck they didn’t use anymore. So far the figure was nothing but a black silhouette, hair lifting in the wind as though alive.

  Stepping down from the porch, she approached but stopped a few feet away from the stranger. He wore a quilted coat with silver clasps and grommets, and boots with leather thongs wrapping them tight to his calves. He was tall and clean-shaven, with jet-black hair. She was close enough to detect that marker of the Numinasi people: a faint violet cast to his dark eyes.

  “Your name,” the man said softly, in the Numinasi language.

  Her voice stuck in her throat. She knew what he was, what he must be, but it seemed like a dream, a bad one. She should have gone upstairs, should have taken warning, but it was too late now. He had seen her.

  “What is your name,” he repeated.

  “Liesa.”

  “We know nothing of a . . . Lee-za.”

  He waited for her to explain herself. To say how an envoy from Numinat could be living with a girl whom he no doubt already guessed had to be a daughter.

  “My father and I live here. My mother is dead.”

  The stranger studied her face. He could not fail to notice the Numinasi violet-black of her eyes.

  “I have come to take your father home.”

  “He can’t come with you,” she said, wishing the storm would come down and swallow them all.

  “He is ordered home.”

  She began to be afraid. This man seemed determined to take her father. Her thoughts skittered to find a plan to stop this, to get away. They had to get to the Celica. A Numinasi would not approach a machine, not one that was turned on. They would run to Oklahoma City, or Denver, or . . .

  Seeing her father come out onto the porch, the stranger strode toward him. Liesa rushed to her father’s side.

  The man came to the foot of the porch. His next words were laden with accusation. “You did not say a child had been born.”

  “I wrote, I explained it . . . Or Natia, she did. It was all written down, somewhere.”

  “No one has ever heard of a child.”

  “Well,” her father said peevishly, “here she is in any case!”

  The man turned to her. “You must come also.”

  She looked in alarm at her father.

  “Liesa,” he said from the porch. “I should have sent you back. Long ago.”

  The stranger narrowed his eyes in what seemed incredulity. “Why . . . why did you not?”

  Her father stood, his arms hanging helplessly down at his sides as though there was nothing left to say or do or fix. A fist of wind lifted the dust on the porch and snatched it away. The three of them stood unmoving until her father finally answered.

  “I forgot.”

  Chapter Two

  The stranger gave Liesa one hour to prepare. Thoughts of escape rattled through her mind, but the man wore a short sword at his belt and she had no doubt he was willing to use it. He demanded that she impress upon her father the importance of obedience. Otherwise, he said, it would be noted. She was to change her clothes. He was explicit: she should wear something decent and dark. Also strong boots. She hoped tennies would do.

  Her distraught father was stacking papers and looking in boxes trying to set things in order. She helped him, all the while whispering that they should call for help. She spent precious minutes trying to get her father to concentrate, to acknowledge that the man waiting for them in the yard could not command them. Finally she said she would call the local sheriff, even Rolly—but at that her father became alarmed and made her swear not to oppose the princip’s courier, as he called the stranger.

  “But why just let him take us? We’re happy where we are!”

  Her father swallowed. Taking her hand, he said, “It’s where we come from. It’s the only place you can be happy. Your own country, you see?”

  “But—”

  He squeezed her hand, searching her face for understanding. “And if we don’t return—if you don’t—it will be a great . . . disgrace.”

  “Why didn’t you send me back? You said you forgot. But early on? When you remembered better?”

  He slid his gaze away. “I don’t know. There must have been a reason.”

  Liesa shook her head in frustration. “Why do they want us so much now, when they never did before?”

  “The ways,” he muttered. “Numinasi ways.” He brightened then, as he sometimes did when the fog parted for him. “Your power. You need to receive your power.” His eyes pleaded as he said, “Tell me that you’ll go, promise me . . .”

  Numinasi had mystic powers. All peoples of the Mythos did.

  With only minutes to decide, she looked at the expression on his face and couldn’t say no.

  Her father asked the courier for time to put his affairs in order—whatever those affairs were—and the man agreed, saying that in two days’ time they would send someone to guide him home. But it was best that Liesa go immediately. When she balked, her father pinned her with a frantic gaze, shaking his head. Was he in his right mind to be sending her off? She couldn’t know, but his newfound conviction swayed her.