Page 12 of Sword Bearer (Return of the Dragons 1)

“There must be some link between us. Maybe we’re distant cousins, or born on the same day, or we ate the same food, or drank the same tea. No connections, no gateway, not even a little one like we had.”

“Are there bigger gateways?”

“Some of my people can create gateways as big as a house.”

“Your people?”

“I’m Kriek.”

“Kriek? The teleportation people? I thought they just existed in books.”

“I’m real, and I’ll prove it,” she said, pinching me on the arm.

“Okay,” I said. “I believe you.”

“You must be Kriek too, or I couldn’t have connected with you.” Kara stopped to look at me. “You really need to get that off your face. It looks silly.”

“I wasn’t expecting company.”

“Sorry,” she said.

“My face underneath this stuff doesn’t look much better, either.”

“Now I’m really sorry,” she said. “But you could try the charcoal soap. Let me see…”

Kara stared off into space. I had this feeling she was thinking about how to treat my skin.

“Look, forget about it,” I said.

She bit her lip. “We really need to get out of here,” she said. “But let me see your hands.”

I held out my fists, thinking she was still interested in my skin.

“Your palms, silly.”

Kara shook her head, examining them. “Your lines are very faint. Maybe your great grandfather. But you have our blood.”

“How can you tell?” I asked.

“Only our people have this line on their palms.”

She ran her fingers down lines on my left and right palms. A buzzing warmth in my hands stretched up all the way to my itchy face and down to the rest of my body.

It was almost like she had kissed me. Wow.

She nodded.

“You feel it now, don’t you?”

I nodded. Did I ever. “And Gerard, is he Kriek too?” I asked.

She shook her head violently. “It would take too long right now to explain what Gerard is. We need to get out of here. Think, boy, think.”

“I’m not a boy. And my name is Anders.”

“Think, then, Anders. We can’t get out the window. We Kriek don’t transform ourselves. You really can’t open the door? Is the lock magical?”

I nodded. “Magical and mechanical. The locks of this castle can’t be broken by spell or lockpick. I’ve heard that even professional lockbreakers have wasted whole days blasting away at these doors. When I was little they got a 4th level breaker from Siena when the Baron lost one of the keys. It took several days, and it cost us a fortune.”