The Infinite Expanse (The Journals of Krymzyn Book 2) Read online

  Praise for BC Powell’s “KRYMZYN”

  “Thrilling and spellbinding, “Krymzyn” drew me in from the very first page.”

  Roxanne Kade, author of “The Bloody Crescent”

  “Unique? Original? Captivating? All of the above? Yes. This book is truly one of a kind!”

  Ethan Gregory, One Guy’s Guide to Goodreads

  “This book has gotten into my brain, and I don't want to let it go. It was truly beautiful!”

  Tiffany Williams, imabookshark.com

  “Very original plot, dark and intriguing . . . a gripping book.”

  Mamta Madhaven, poet

  “Krymzyn is a page turner . . . a strong start to a very promising series.”

  Lorena Sangui, Reader’s Favorite

  The Infinite Expanse

  by

  BC Powell

  book two

  The Journals of Krymzyn

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Copyright

  Publisher

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Maps of Krymzyn

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter 33

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Text copyright 2015 © BC Powell

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.

  First Edition

  ISBN 13: 978-0990500759

  ISBN 10: 0990500756

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2015903792

  Published by BC Powell

  bcpowellauthor.com

  Cover design and artwork by Ravven

  ravven.com

  for

  Amy

  Your love and encouragement

  keep me writing.

  Special Acknowledgments

  To Mickey Reed, for your wonderful editorial, input, and support. To Amanda Krause, for catching all those little mistakes I’m so fond of making. To Ron Guyatt for the spectacular maps. To Ravven, for another amazing cover. To Giselle at Xpresso Book Tours for your help getting the word out about these books. And a huge thank you to all the incredible book bloggers who are supporting this series.

  Prologue

  The man with blood-red eyes stares at a faraway meadow. Under motionless gray clouds laced with scarlet and orange, he stands alone on a crimson hill. Although their former luster is fading, streaks of green still radiate from his long black hair. Should unfriendly eyes fall upon him from a distance, he knows enough color remains for him to pass as a Watcher.

  After he’d heard the clang of a bell echo across the Barrens, the man entered the Delta through the hidden passage. Once inside the wall, he’d walked unnoticed to the outskirts of Sanctuary. He’d already seen who would be summoned for the Ritual, the face shown to him in a dream, but he wanted to witness the atrocity with his own eyes.

  The entrance through the river won’t be available much longer. When Darkness fell, those who served him had failed at their duty by allowing the Serquatine to escape. With fresh sap flowing through their veins, the beasts had been unable to control themselves in the midst of her deathly allure. She’ll return to destroy the passage, of that he’s certain, but it will take time.

  Even with her ability to manipulate water and the power of her fins, one hundred thousand miles against the current will be a journey of many morrows. She’ll then have to linger in the pools of her home, regaining her strength by consuming the nectar so precious to the Guardians. The man should have several Darknesses to make use of the entrance before she returns to destroy it, ample time for the passage to serve its purpose.

  The man turns away from a burst of light in the distant meadow. As the spectrum of color surrounding the Tree of Vision recedes, his eyes fall on the Teller. The man’s stomach churns when vibrant blue strands reveal in the Teller’s brown hair. The abomination stings his eyes. Blood from another plane has defiled the purity of Krymzyn.

  He continues to watch as the Teller, now a Traveler of Krymzyn, marches to the Disciples and kneels in front of them. Twice in the recent past, this same young man had disrupted the man’s plans. It was his own fault, the man realizes. He’d underestimated the Teller, but he won’t make that mistake again.

  When the Teller arrived during Darkness just as the Murkovin reached the Hunter, it was bad timing, nothing more. In order to maintain appearances, the man himself had to kill one of the creatures under his command. Had the Teller not arrived when he did—not interfered with the attack the man had so carefully plotted—the Hunter would have been slain. Instead, the Hunter and Teller both survived.

  A new opportunity arose when the Hunter and Teller made a journey to the Mount. The man quickly organized the raid after he saw the two leave the Delta. But from a hilltop in the Barrens, the man watched as the Teller rescued the Hunter from the rapids. It was unknown to the man that the Teller had come from a world where beings other than Serquatine could swim. He must be more thorough, he decides, more careful in his future plans.

  Travelers often cross the Barrens. Death will await the young man born of another world in the wasteland. But the newly ordained Traveler isn’t the problem anyway. The man’s eyes narrow as they focus on the real problem—the young woman with scarlet in her hair.

  The extraordinary young woman. The young woman who, from the time she could walk, displayed such amazing powers. The young woman who sees glimpses of the future, seems to possess the abilities of every purpose, and is so highly revered by all others in the grace of Krymzyn. The young woman who fills the man with rage.

  Change has come to Krymzyn. Change brought by the young woman with scarlet in her hair. It started with the first step she took. But Krymzyn should never change. Krymzyn must always remain a constant. The Tree of Vision has failed, and those in the grace of Krymzyn are allowing that failure to proliferate. Only the man with blood-red eyes seems to understand that fact.

  The people of the Delta aren’t aware that the man sees his own visions of the future. He’d been born with his own special talents, although he wisely hid them from others. Even the Tree of Vision can’t stop him from fulfilling his true purpose. His purpose was never to be a Watcher of Krymzyn. His purpose is a much greater one, a sacred one, and will return Krymzyn to a righteous path.

  With one hand, the man brushes coarse black strands away from the front of his face. His other hand tightens its grip on the shaft of his spear, unfurling taut ridges in the bulky muscles of his arm.

  Order will be restored. All those who have emb
raced this iniquity will soon understand how wrong they are. The people of the Delta may condemn my methods, but anything I do is justified by the failure of the Tree. A new balance will arise from the destruction I wreak upon the Delta.

  But to breathe life into my vision, to ensure the sanctity of Krymzyn, I know one fact is certain. The young woman with scarlet in her hair, the young woman who is responsible for such horrific change, the young woman I despise with every part of me—that young woman must die.

  Chapter 1

  Shrieking in agony, I slam my hands to the sides of my head. The veins in the back of my skull explode under my skin. Spikes of misery rip through my nerves while my vision blurs to the point of blindness. As spinning darkness consumes me, I collapse to the ground.

  Strong, slender arms catch my fall. The safety of their embrace is soothing and familiar. Hard metal presses against my lips and thick liquid drips onto my tongue, but I struggle to maintain awareness.

  “You need to drink,” Sash says calmly.

  At the sound of her voice, I know I’m in the arms of salvation. With my head clutched to her shoulder, I fight with my last remaining strength to force down one gulp. Moments later, the first tinge of relief spreads through my veins.

  “Drink more,” she implores.

  “I love you, Sash,” I moan.

  “I love you,” she whispers.

  I choke down the sap as she pours it into my mouth. When I gasp for a breath, she trickles the liquid over my head and massages it into my scalp. The excruciating pain is replaced by electric tingles.

  As my mind begins to clear, her face slowly comes into focus, concern glowing from her amber eyes. I glance around me to see that we’re on top of the Empty Hill. With my body stretched out across her lap, Sash is sitting in the crimson grass.

  “I don’t know what happened,” I say. “I didn’t do anything in my world to cause this.”

  “Whatever happened,” she replies, “your spectrum was badly damaged.”

  “My spectrum?” I ask.

  “The energy of your mind.”

  Her words trigger a memory from our visit to the Reflecting Pool. In those few seconds when Sash was shown to me as she actually exists, I saw an array of colors oscillating inside her head. I realize that by “spectrum” she’s referring to the Krymzyn equivalent of my brain.

  “You need more sap,” she says.

  After carefully helping me sit up, she holds a pitcher to my lips. I grip the steel container with my hands and take a few sips. She was obviously waiting for me with sap at the ready.

  “You’d already seen it?” I ask, looking into her eyes.

  “In a dream,” she answers. “I saw that your spectrum would be severely damaged when you arrived, so I was waiting for you. I assumed your injuries would be caused by whatever you had to do in your world to stay here.”

  Lowering my eyes to the grass, I try to remember every detail of what had happened on Earth. I’d saved my journals to a flash drive, sealed the drive in an envelope, and taped it to the wooden frame around the painting for my family. As the evening wore on, a headache had worsened, but it hadn’t ramped up to the level of pain that would usually alert me to the onset of a seizure.

  I’d been sitting at my desk, staring at my computer screen. My finger hadn’t been anywhere near the trigger. When I heard a sound from the other side of the room, I’d turned my head. After that . . . all I get is a blank. The seizure could have hit me out of nowhere and sent me to Krymzyn. If that’s the case, I might go back to Earth when it’s over. I can’t imagine the torturous hours of waiting again, wrestling with the overwhelming guilt of what I was planning to do.

  “I’m not sure I’m permanently here,” I say, returning my eyes to Sash.

  “I believe you are,” she softly replies.

  “Why?”

  “Two reasons.” She pauses while she scans me from head to toe. “First, your body looks different now than when you were here in the past.”

  “How is it different?”

  “The energy of your mind contains the imprints of your physical characteristics from your world. Those were re-created for you every time you came here. When I look at you now, your body is the same as those of us born in Krymzyn.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask, again picturing the image of Sash at the Reflecting Pool—a spectral body shaped of stardust and light.

  “I can see the particles of your mass moving inside your body,” she answers. “Everything except your blood and heart used to be solid and motionless. Your body is now like everyone else’s in Krymzyn, but the spectrum of your mind is the same as it’s always been.”

  While trying to imagine her description of me, I mindlessly rub my hand over my chin. I’m surprised I don’t feel whisker stubble since I didn’t bother shaving during my last day on Earth. But now, just like the other men’s faces in Krymzyn, my skin is smooth with no facial hair growing at all.

  “What color is my hair?” I ask.

  “It’s still brown, with the blue highlights of a Traveler,” she replies.

  “And my eyes?”

  “The same blue as always.”

  “But other than that, I look like everyone else in Krymzyn?”

  A hint of a smile softens her face. “You look like Chase, and that’s how I want you to look.”

  I can’t help but return her smile. “What’s the second reason?”

  Rolling to her knees in front of me, she sits on the heels of her feet. Waves of long jet-black hair streaked with luminescent scarlet fall over her shoulders. As she takes a deep breath, the smile leaves her face. “In my dream, I also saw you before you left your world. You were on the ground with your hands pressed to your head. I watched you . . .” She looks down at the ground.

  “You watched me what?”

  Her eyes refocus on mine, but they’re misty and the whites are tinted with red. “Your body was shaking and then . . . and then I knew you’d met death.”

  I hold her gaze for a few seconds, again trying to remember what happened to me on Earth. “Was there blood on my head or around my body?”

  “No,” she answers.

  “Any bodily damage?”

  “None that I could see. Your body stopped shaking and went limp, your breath left you, and your heart stopped beating.”

  “I don’t know what could have happened,” I say, shaking my head. “I didn’t do anything to cause my death.”

  “Maybe something was done for you,” she replies.

  “Maybe,” I murmur.

  Sash’s glimpses of the future have never been wrong. If she says she saw me die in my world, I can believe it happened. Like a wrecking ball slamming inside my brain, the truth hits me. If I’m dead on Earth, my family will soon find out. They’ll not only suffer the grief of my death, but they’ll also learn what I was planning to do. They’ll read my journals and find the gun in my apartment. I squeeze my eyes shut, grimacing at the surge of sadness and guilt.

  Sash lightly grips my arm in her hand. “Do you regret seeking a life in Krymzyn?”

  “No,” I answer, opening my eyes. “I know I belong here. But my family will go through a lot of pain because of me.”

  “I’m sorry, Chase. I know how important they are to you.”

  “They’ll have to deal with the shock of my death. But they’ll also figure out that I was planning to kill myself. They did so much for me my entire life, and now they’ll think I was giving up without even talking to them about it.”

  She raises a hand to my face and tenderly runs her fingers down my cheek. “Krymzyn wants you here, Chase. I don’t believe that Krymzyn would want you to feel pain from leaving your world. Somehow, just as my Vision of the Future was resolved in a way so that I understood why things happened the way they did, you’ll find your own peace of mind.”

  “I guess so,” I say, but there’s very little conviction behind my words. “It’s just hard for me to accept that I’ll be the cause of so much suff
ering for my family. I’ve been struggling with it every moment since the last time I was here.”

  After softly kissing my lips, she rests her cheek against mine and whispers in my ear, “If you need to talk, I’ll always listen. If you need nurturing, I’ll give it to you. When you need to be alone with your thoughts, I’ll wait. Whatever you need, I’ll try to provide it for you.”

  “Right now,” I say, leaning back to look into her eyes, “I just need to be with you.”

  “Right now, you need to finish healing. You were almost dead when you arrived. Do you feel strong enough to stand?”

  “Yeah,” I answer. “I think I’m okay.”

  I take one more drink from the pitcher before standing to my feet. When I stagger slightly from dizziness, Sash stabilizes me with her hands on my shoulders. Once I regain my balance, she picks her spear up from the grass and slips her arm around my waist. As she guides me down the side of the Empty Hill, I look up at the sky. It was night when I left Earth. In Krymzyn, as is almost always the case, bright shafts of orange and red shimmer through the edges of static gray clouds.

  “Even with the sap you drank,” she says as we walk, “you’ll need rest for your spectrum to finish healing.”

  “I’m exhausted anyway. I’ve hardly slept since my Ritual.”

  “You can sleep as long as you need to,” she replies.

  I turn my head to her. “Thank you for being ready for me, Sash. I hope a time comes when we don’t have to save each other’s lives and can just be happy.”

  “It will,” she says, tightening her grip on my waist. “We’ll make it.”

  While we walk the half mile to her habitat, I replay the sequence of events from my last hour on Earth over and over in my mind. Every time I reach the same point—looking in the direction of a random sound—I hit a void.

  “I keep going over it in my head,” I say as we angle out of the valley and into the shallow ravine that leads to her habitat door. “But I can’t remember what happened.”