Realm Keepers 01 - Realm Keepers

be necessary,” said Greystone. Cara only grunted.
    I cast another nervous eye at the black throngs running across the grass toward us. I forced my eyes to my stone and tried to concentrate, but I kept glancing over at them.
    “Focus,” Greystone said gently, now standing right beside me. “Remember: if you can all do this, we’re safe.”
    Cara and her soldiers were standing behind us, their weapons and armor clearly useless against the vast number of the creatures coming right at us. “Form a line in front of the pillars,” she commanded, and her men began to move forward.
    “Don’t!” said Greystone. “If you do, you’ll be trapped on the other side when the wall comes up. And if the wall doesn’t come up, the Rune Holders are dead regardless. Stay where you are.”
    Cara gave an impatient growl, seemingly itching for a fight, though she clearly couldn’t win.
    Greystone looked at me once more. “Come, child!” he said, drawing my attention back to the pillar. “Concentrate!”
    “I can’t do it!” said Calvin beside me.
    “Me neither, man. This is bogus,” Miles said. His arms were straining like he was trying to push something out of himself.
    Greystone went to Calvin first. Calvin’s face was growing red, and I could see veins popping on his scrawny little neck. Greystone stood beside him. I could hear little groans escaping from Calvin as he tried to do…whatever it was he was going to do.
    “Don’t forget to breathe,” Greystone said impishly, and he thwacked Calvin across the stomach with his staff. Calvin’s breath rushed out in a whoosh , and a miniature tornado sprang into life, rushing forward to surround his pillar. The wind whistled and tore at the stone, staying in place, a cylinder of whirling air.
    “I sneezed a tornado!” Calvin said excitedly. “Did you see that, Sarah?”
    I tried to smile at him, but I think all I managed was a strained grimace. The creatures were getting closer by the second, and I had no idea what my power was. Was I supposed to breathe? No, air was Calvin’s thing. Mine was…what? I didn’t know, and apparently Greystone didn’t either.
    Or maybe he did. “Remember the battle,” he said, his eyes on mine.
    The battle?
    I remembered fleeing from the creatures, dashing across the battlefield as we fled for our lives. Blade had punched one of the Shadows, setting it on fire, as we now knew, that was his element. But I hadn’t…
    Or had I?
    I remembered standing at the portal, looking back at Cara as she and her men fought hopelessly against the Shadows. I remember screaming and pounding my fists against my thighs, and the massive rise that had sprung from the earth out of nowhere. “I didn’t do that,” Greystone had said.
    I remembered waking up in the circle of the Stones, the way the ground had felt against my back and under my fingers. Warm, inviting, like an old friend.
    Was it possible?
    No way .
    Greystone saw the look on my face. “That’s it,” he said. “Remember how you felt.”
    I remembered the battle again. I was scared for my life. I was worried about the others. But most of all, I was angry . Angry that Cara was staying behind, fighting and dying when there was no need. Angry that she wouldn’t listen to me and run, stay alive to fight another day.
    I looked up at the Shadows again. They were only a few hundred yards away now, and they showed no signs of slowing down. They would kill us, I was certain. But I couldn’t allow that. I didn’t know half of what I should have known about Midrealm. I didn’t know why I was now a Rune Holder. But I wasn’t going to go down like this, in another universe I hadn’t even known existed until a few hours ago. I had a life. I had a school, a hometown, and a family. I was going to make it back to them, somehow. And these Shadows wanted to take that away?
    I felt my blood rising, and I stomped my foot on the ground. With a crack , two great jets of stone shot from the ground, slamming into either side of my pillar and crushing it into dust between them, replacing the old grey rock of the pillar with fresh, brown, bone-of-the-earth stone.
    My anger died, and I’m sure my face took on the same look of disbelief and excitement that I’d seen on Blade’s when he spat out the fire. “Whoah!” I screamed, for a moment forgetting the Shadows ahead. “I did it!”
    “Well done!” Greystone said proudly.
    There was a sharp crackling noise, and my eyes shot to Raven. Her eyes