Valhalla Nights by Bethany Borden (best books for 7th graders TXT) 📕

It felt like I had only been sleeping for minutes.
Aeron grabbed my leg and pulled me from the bed. I crashed onto the floor before I could catch myself. My head felt like it would explode from the inside out. My stomach rolled and I was sure that I would was going to be sick. Any empathy that I might have felt for Aeron last night evaporated about the time I hit the floor.
“Aw! What the hell was that for?” I glared at him wishing I could send him to the deepest pit of hell.
“I said get up. That was a warning. Next time I won’t be so nice.”
“Well, thanks for your outstanding generosity.” I grumbled sarcastically.
When I tried to stand, Aeron grabbed my arm to steady me. Then he threw my cloths that were lying on the floor at me. “Get dressed.” He ordered.
I put my cloths on as ordered, though I didn’t do so without complaint. I then followed him out of my room and into the hall where he continued to march us through the castle. I had asked him several times what this was about but had received no answer. I felt he was over reacting. Last night should not have pissed him off this badly. But then, Aeron was known for his over reactions.
Each step I took made my head pound harder. We hadn’t gone far when I started feeling dizzy. I desperately wanted to stop, just for a second, just until my vision cleared up but I knew better than to ask. It took me several minutes to figure out that something unusual was happening within the castle. We passed none of the usual servants seen in the morning. Granted, they had their own halls and passages to avoid being seen, but even with them they were not completely invisible. The halls were completely empty of servants, but there were twice as many guards hurrying about than normal. The halls were cluttered with guards running in all directions, shouting orders.
“What’s happening? Why are there guards everywhere?” Once again I got no response. Aeron lead me into my father’s office and closed the doors behind us. In the office were our mother and father as well as some of my father’s best guard members. I noticed Annabelle’s father among them and my heart began pounding harder. I was immediately suspicious. Could they really be this angry over last night?
My father rose from his chair, staring at me as though I had committed the worst crime conceivably possible. That’s when I knew this was not about last night. Not in a million years would what we had done cause this kind of a reaction especially from him.
“Liam has left. We know he wouldn’t do so without telling you were he was going. You will tell us where he went, or you will suffer the consequences of covering for him.” My father had never used such a severe tone with me. The look in his eyes was frightening. Between the shock of it and my slightly drunk hangover, it took me several seconds to even understand what he had said.
“What? What are you talking about?” Liam left? Left where? What my father was saying didn’t make any sense. Liam wouldn’t go anywhere; he enjoyed tormenting Aeron too much to leave.
“Adrianna, this is not a joke or a game. Liam, as the Prince, can hardly go wandering the Providence alone and unprotected. He could be in serious danger.” It’s funny how mothers have a way of delivering a terrifying message without lifting their voice or actually implying a threat. Her sentence, though spoken nicer and in a much quieter voice, was just as terrifying as my father’s threats, maybe more so.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. The last time I saw Liam he was going to bed. He never said anything about leaving and he wouldn’t leave without telling me. Something is not right. If he’s gone, it wasn’t at his own will.” I knew Liam; he would never leave without telling me. That was without any doubt. The thought of him being gone, was beginning to panic me. I started feeling shaky and my breathing began coming rapidly. How would someone get into the castle and take my brother without being seen? I guess it wouldn’t be impossible if they knew their way around, Lee and I had just done it last night. But why would anyone do it. My father was loved very much by his people and he had few enemies. Kings of the other providences were either friends or feared my father far too much to do anything like this.
“He left a note, Adrianna. He wasn’t taken, he left.” Aeron didn’t seem as angry as he had earlier- I think he could see that I was seconds from hyperventilating- But he still looked at me as though I was a criminal.
“He left a note?” I paused, Trying to make sense of this new information...trying to make sense of everything really. “Can I see it?” I asked my father. I knew that this would not seem real to me until I saw the note myself. I needed to see that it was Liam that had wrote that note. I needed to see that he really had left without saying a word to me. I needed an explanation. But I got none. The note was indeed written in Liam’s handwriting, but it explained nothing. The note was vague saying only that he was bored and was leaving to find new adventures on his own.
I was crushed. How could he leave and not tell me? He wouldn’t. My mind still wouldn’t give up. I knew in my heart that Lee wouldn’t leave yet I was holding a note clearly written by him saying otherwise. I was confused and in a hung-over haze and didn’t know what to do or think or say.
“Take her back to her room Aeron. She doesn’t know anything.” My mother said, seeing the tears forming in my eyes.
“Oh, and Adrianna? Don’t think that just because Liam has run off that you’re getting out of what happened last night. We will discuss your punishment later.” My father added before Aeron walked me out.
Aeron didn’t speak to me during the walk back to my room. He left me to my tears and thoughts. I was grateful for that. I didn’t feel like talking, mostly because I had no idea what to say.
I was about to close the door to my room when Aeron laid a hand on the door, blocking it.
“We will find him, Ade.” Ade is my nickname that Lee usually used. But Aeron hadn’t called me Ade since we were kids. “I promise we will.” He closed the door before I could respond. It was the first time in years Aeron had shown me any level of compassion and it was probably the last time for many years to come.
I decided to lie down on my bed hoping that sleep would erase the effects of the alcohol. Surely, when I was thinking more clearly this would make sense. There had to be an explanation for Lee’s leaving, something that I was missing.


Chapter Two

I was wrong. No explanation came to me at all that day, or in the days following. My father had sent Aeron and most of the entire guard out into the providence to search for Liam but after a week there was still no sign of him.
I talked to Annabelle and she swore that she had no idea either. She seemed as hurt as I was that he would leave without saying anything to her either.
My punishment for stealing alcohol, sneaking out, and getting drunk was that I wasn’t allowed to leave the castle grounds until further notice. They did however warn me to leave the search for Liam up to them and the Royal Guard. They seemed almost overly determined to keep me out of it claiming they had enough to deal with without me getting myself in MORE trouble. They informed me my punishment for disobeying would be an exile to my Aunt’s house, three Provinces over, for the entire summer.
As the week came to a close, I knew I had to figure this out on my own. I had to do it without my father or Aeron finding out. With Aeron gone on the search for Liam and my father busy as usual, I figured now would be a good time to get started.
The guard had been through Lee’s room, searching for clues as to where he might have gone and found nothing. But they didn’t know Lee like I did. I checked his normal hiding places, hoping he had left me something, anything that would help me find him. But there was nothing. Sitting on his bed, I looked around the room. If I was Lee, and I was going to leave something behind for me, where would I put it? No place in particular stood out, so I began searching randomly. I searched every inch of his room, after two hours I was beginning to feel hopeless. I wasn’t finding anything because there wasn’t anything to find.
Everyone was worried about Lee. But the longer he was gone, the angrier I became. I felt betrayed in a way. Lee was the one person I could always count on no matter what. He had never disappointed me or let me down. I had always been there for him too, even when I knew I shouldn’t, even when I didn’t agree with whatever it was he was up to. It hurt me that he would leave without telling me why. But as I sat in his room, I felt things he had never made me feel before. Disappointment. Aggravation. Confusion. All of these feeling were making me more determined to find him. I needed to confront him, at the very least.
I couldn’t bear to be in his room any longer. Leaving everything the way I found it, I set out to come up with a new plan for finding him. I knew that I couldn’t do it alone. Asking Annabelle for help was out of the question, her father was too involved in the situation. That only left one person I would trust to help me.
As I set out to find Keane, I prayed that he would help me and worried about what I would do if he refused. Finding Lee on my own would be difficult, especially now that I was on lockdown.
I found Keane patrolling the castle. Luckily he was alone. With the search for Liam going on, Guards at the castle are short until more came in from the country. Normally Keane would have been patrolling with a partner.
“Hey, Keane!” I pumped up the enthusiasm in an attempt to keep him from being immediately suspicious of me.
“Hey Ade.” The enthusiasm may have been too much because it seemed to have the opposite of the desire effect. “How are you?” He asked cautiously.
I really didn’t know Keane that well. He and Lee had been friends for a long time but they usually did things alone. I think Lee liked using Keane as way to get away from us girls -Annabelle and I- when he could.
“I’m doing okay, considering. There was actually something I wanted to talk to you about.” I figured I might as well get to the point. I bit my lip in anticipation…from what I knew of him, Keane was smart enough to figure out what I wanted.
“I don’t know Ade. I could get fired, or worse. We were all informed that if we saw you interfering we needed to