The Fallen Prince.

Shea Berkley.

To Mama and Papa.

You always wondered what I was thinking, lying on the gra.s.s staring up at the sky.

Now you know.

Seeing.

What is real? Is it only those things the eyes can see, or is it more?

The wind whispers all around us, invisible but real.

Emotions, gravity, oxygen, G.o.d-these are intangibles, unseen, but felt. Real because we believe in the daily evidence of their existence that surrounds us. But what if what you believe is so unorthodox you find yourself pulling away from the evidence?

What do you do when an ancient power rumbles within you...and you deny its release?

Awake.

Cool air whispers against my bedroom window, seeping through the thin stretch of cheap gla.s.s to chill my skin. It's been nearly a month since I was raised from the dead. I'm no zombie, but I don't feel...right. I see the expanse of lawn and the back fence outside. I hear the wind slip through the woods beyond, and the gentle baaing of sheep. When Mom dropped me off at my grandparents' sheep ranch in the fastest kiss-off of all time, I felt unloved. Abandoned.

How has this place of misty woods and magic become home in such a short time? It's a feeling I've always feared. Usually when that comfy feeling sneaks in, it gets ripped away. But Mom's not here to order a pack-and-go. I've got a whole other set of messed-up crazies to deal with. To look at it, you wouldn't know, but this place is the gateway to another place, one that uses magic like we use McDonald's for a quick hunger fix.

I get it. I used to lean on Kera, the girl from my dreams, an imaginary friend I created when I was young to help ease my loneliness. Not until I set foot in Oregon did I find out she was more than what my imagination could create. She was perfect and solid...and real. The girl from my dreams, the girl I've loved since I was in kindergarten, actually exists, and she wants me as much as I want her.

I stretch my hand out in front of me, seeing its reflection in the thin gla.s.s, and my vision blurs before I refocus and flex my fingers into a fist. All I want right now is sleep, but every time I blink, I get a flashing glimpse of what's awaiting me in my dreams. It's nothing good.

I'm haunted by a man, tattered and dirty, surrounded by hateful little glowing creatures called pux. There isn't a "Hey, dude, can you spare me a fiver" quality about him. He always looks ready to skin me, fillet me, and spread me out for his little friends to eat. Freddy Krueger with all his visual scariness can't touch the intensity of that man's gaze.

There's a realness to my dreams I can't shake.

He knows my name is Dylan. Knows exactly who and what I am.

I've dealt with those who've wanted me and everyone I cared about dead, and now they're the ones six feet under. After that, you'd think I wouldn't be scared of anything. Apparently there are different levels of fear, 'cause I'm scared-scared of a man from a dream who stands in front of a collection of dead sticks and stares at me.

Laughs at me. Threatens me.

With my life history of being the wrong guy, in the wrong place, at the wrong time, you'd think a little mocking and a nasty threat wouldn't faze me. But it does.

I stagger away from my bedroom window. I'm not sure I can continue without sleep for much longer.

The backs of my knees. .h.i.t the side of the mattress, and I slump to the bed. I stare out the window, my mind grasping for a reason to stay awake.

Grandpa says the iron we stationed near the barrier to the firsts' realm is working-iron poisons them, weakens those with first blood-but how would he know? I know first magic is powerful-I've experienced it in all its beauty and ugliness. It can keep a first's true self hidden. Make them invisible. They could be close, and we'd not even know it.

My spine feels like b.u.t.ter under hot syrup, and without me realizing it, I'm flat on my back, my legs dangling over the edge of the bed, arms dead at my sides. The dips and swirls of the ceiling blur, and my eyelids droop. I curl my fingers against the sheets, fighting the inevitable.

And then it happens. My body yields, and I'm quickly swept along a tunnel of darkness. When my sleep-induced journey spits me out, my subconscious is beyond the wall that separates the human realm from the first realm. The dream takes me deep within the first forest to the place where singed wood and burned shrubs lie. It's where that man brought me in a similar dream, but more importantly, it's the place I destroyed to save my friends. I see my handprint nestled against a blackened tree trunk. See scores of dead firsts, the spirits of the pux burned to a crisp. When they notice me, they scatter, fearful of what else I'm capable of doing.

I don't want to be here. My mind commands me to leave, but my feet won't let me go. I slowly spin around and move deeper into the burned circle to a lump of damaged, twisted tree roots.

Jason.

A movie-buff wrestler who loved to play video games and stupid pranks. Typical all-American guy. He wasn't prepared for Teag. None of us were.

I have few friends. Jason's one of two who know who I really am. What I am. He accepted me...and this is how I repaid him.

Right here. This is where he died. This is where I buried him to keep his body safe from the pux. I kneel and place my hand against the roots. The pain at causing Jason's death eats at me, its predatory jaws tearing through my soul like a raging bear. I close my eyes against the hurt. I never should've brought him into this realm. This wasn't his fight.

Why has this dream brought me to this place? Is it to torture me? Am I to ask forgiveness? What's the point? No matter what Kera says, I don't deserve mercy. I don't deserve forgiveness for what I've done.

With my head bowed and my knees digging into the damaged soil, a flash of heat burns against my palm. The roots flare, glowing bright. A sudden crack rips across the intertwined clump. I fall back just as Jason explodes from his grave with a loud growl. His chest heaves and his gaze is filled with a wildness I've never seen before.

I blink at him like a child seeing a circus performer leap through fire unscathed. He's alive?

"Jason?" My voice is low. Unsure.

He doesn't acknowledge me, only stands there, his ma.s.sive, wrestler-honed body trembling.

I brave his crazed expression and take a step closer. My hand gives an odd tremble before I place it on his shoulder. He feels solid. More than alive. He's thrumming with energy. I give the bulk of muscle a light squeeze. His attention is instantly on me.

"Dude," I rasp. "I didn't forget. I swear I'm coming back for you."

He leans forward, his face inches from mine. "Then do it." His voice rumbles from deep within his chest. "Time's running out."

I suddenly spin away into a dark void, and when next I take a breath, I'm in my room, awake. The ragged sound of my breathing is the only thing I hear. Sweat clings to my skin, and I pop upright. Oh my G.o.d. Jason is alive? I buried my friend alive!

I rub at my eyes, struggling with the horror of what I've done. But it can't be true. I saw him die. I know without a doubt he's dead. Something is definitely not right...

But what if he is alive, waiting for me to dig him out of the ground? Who could survive being buried alive for what...two weeks?

No one could survive. When I buried him, he was blue-lipped, no heartbeat, no-question-about-it dead. I tried to heal him, but I couldn't. Healing is Kera's gift, not mine.

Within the stillness of the room, my voice grates out the only plausible truth. "It was just a dream. A dream." But it sounds hollow, filled with doubt. Dreams are like that. They can mess with your mind until you think that what you know is true, isn't.

I scrub my hands through my hair and glance out the window to see the darkness race away from the dawn. I tell myself again, "It was just a dream."

This time it rings true. Jason is gone. No matter how much I wish it undone, he's dead. And it was all my fault. I have to keep my promise. I have to go back to Teag, to that place of magic and pain and death, and bring Jason home. If I don't, Jason will haunt me until I do.

Part One.

Be aware.

The rumbling of lies can sound like truth.

Disappearing.

Dinner is over, and I slouch onto the porch swing. I should be one damaged piece of flesh. Thanks to Kera and the healing power she stole from Navar, there are only a few, faint visible scars on my skin, scars that could've appeared from a skateboarding accident or a rough game of football. No one would know I've been skewered and sliced by an angry mob of mythological creatures. That I have to go back, that I have to tell Kera I have to go back...

Outwardly, I'm normal, but something's changed within me. I keep chasing after what's different, but it stays one heartbeat ahead. If I think too long about it, my head aches.

Maybe the odd feeling is the reawakening of life. Of being out of the ICU at Mercy Hospital and back home. Back where everyone stares at me.

Today's newspaper lies abandoned on the porch swing next to me. I see the headline dashed across the front page: One dead. One missing. Where is Jason Delgato? The article asks if the two events that happened in less than a week are related. The reporter even suggests Jason had something to do with Pop's death, and that's why he ran. Guilt rips through me. I know what really happened, and Jason's family needs to know. Soon.

I angrily kick out, dragging my sneakers across the porch floor as I swing back. The night air cools my skin. I feel hotter than usual, like I've buried something that wants to come out. I'm so not me right now. I don't know what to think or how to feel. I'm lost-something I've never been before. Ignored, yes. Unloved, absolutely. But lost? Never.

The heat crawls from the pit of my stomach along my ribs and down my right bicep. I hold out my arm and rub at it. The sensation of heat continues to p.r.i.c.kle down into my palm.

A flame bursts to life.

The swing stutters to a stop. What the...?

The reddish-orange flame spits and bites and curls into itself. I snap my fist closed, snuffing it out.

My chest rises and falls, an erratic movement that squeezes air out more than lets it in. I can't look away from my hand, like it's suddenly not my own, like some mad scientist has interchanged my hand for some high-tech flaming one.

I'm not normal. I never have been, but this is crazy strange.

I get hold of myself and slow my breathing. The center of my palm itches. Is it burned? Scarred? Is the fire just waiting for oxygen to snap back to life? I crack my fingers open and peer beneath. Nothing. My fist tightens in panic. Did I imagine it?

No way. I'm not delusional. That's Mom's specialty. She's the one who acts like she's in some drama-laced, badly acted indie film about life on the edge. Breakdowns are her specialty. The more I think about her, and what she's done, the more the heat builds in my belly.

I unfold my fist and the fire reappears. I can feel the air heat around it.

"It can't be real," I say even as I watch the flame flicker and roil, expecting to feel the burn of pain. Nothing.

I died once...sort of. More like, was given a time-out for being an idiot. I've been given another chance, and it seems like I'm going down the same crazy road I did last time.

If this is real, I can control it. Bend it. Shape it.

I tell the flame to crawl along my finger to the tip. It does. I stare at the dancing light. Wow, pretty freakin' awesome.

I roll it along each joint like a coin trick at a magic show. I bounce it back and forth between my palms. Sparks fly and flutter to the porch, where a few singe the wood. I call it back to my finger and burn my name into the armrest of the swing. The heat is so strong, I accidently burn through the wood. The hole smolders around the edges, the perfect beginning to a porch fire.

I stare at my hand. Glowing while I used my magic was bad enough, but being lit on fire is a whole new level of weird. I shake my hand, but instead of putting out the fire, a fireball spits toward the yard where the impact creates a basketball-sized hole. Another fireball hits the railing. Flames sputter and grow along the wood. I jump up and snuff out the flames with my bare hands. Smoke curls and slowly disappears. Grandpa's gonna be p.i.s.sed when he sees that.

A flicker reappears in my palm. I sag back onto the swing and glare at my hand. Like I don't have enough problems. Why this? Why now?

The screen door bangs shut and I freeze. Kera stands outside the door, her long legs sprouting out of a pair of cut-off jean shorts, her shirt a flowing wisp of fabric that skims her hip bones. Her eyes lock on my hand and the flame dancing there. Hesitantly, she steps closer until she's within reach. I can see the fire's reflection in her horrified eyes.

"It doesn't burn," I say.

She doesn't say anything, only grasps my hand and rolls my fingers closed. The flame quietly dies.

"It's weird, I know, but that doesn't mean something's wrong."

"No, Dylan. Something is wrong." A strange look enters her eyes, like she no longer knows who I am.

I've never known Kera to be afraid. Her strength is what gave me hope when I couldn't go on. She was the only one who cared for me back then, and right now I need her to see me, not dwell on the weird s.h.i.t that's going on. "It's okay. It's just a little fire."

"You can pretend all you want, but something is not right about us."

I stand and take her stiff body into my arms. She left her realm, her family and friends, her entire world and everything that's ever made sense to her, to be with me. It's something I never thought she'd do. I've got to stop thinking of me and be there for her.

"There's nothing wrong with us," I say. "We're good. It's just the power. Neither of us is used to it yet."

She struggles free and backs away. "That isn't it. In Teag, there is a sickness that can cause a first's power to surge. It lies dormant for years, but under the right circ.u.mstances, it flares to life. My father and everyone else would lock themselves away when it did. They live in fear of it because the surge is primeval. In some, it causes pain. In others, they cause pain to those around them."

"This," I say, nodding to my hand, "it doesn't hurt. I'm not in pain, Kera, and I'm not going to hurt you or anyone else."

"Everyone says that. There are stories. Bad stories..."

"What has that got to do with us? We took this magic. It wasn't brought on by someone sneezing in our faces. We just need to get used to what we have. Instead of ignoring it, sooner or later you're going to have to accept what's been given to you."

"You're right." She rubs her forehead. "I'm not communicating this well. You say it's a blessing. I'm not so sure. There's something more going on inside us, like an infection, but we're not sick; we're changed. Really changed. I've wanted to be like everyone else for so long, and here it is finally inside me...but I hesitate in using it. We took it. It's not ours. It's stolen magic, and stolen magic-"

She suddenly stops and focuses on my hand. Her look of horror morphs into one of fear, and it's directed straight at me. She turns and heads for the woods, a ghost of a shadow in the fading light.

"Kera," I yell, but she doesn't stop. "d.a.m.n it, Kera! Stop!"