Join Sovvan on three epic fantasy adventures in the omnibus, His Angelic Keeper Books 1-3.

In His Angelic Keeper, Sovvan fights to recover her memories and save her twin brother from eternal damnation in a strange afterlife full of memory-eating elephants.

In His Angelic Keeper Hidden, Sovvan faces a difficult choice: stop her ex-guardian angel from destroying the repository of all memory, or save her family from a monstrous threat. With time running out, Sovvan must use her wit and courage to make the right decision.

Reading Order:

Snacked on by a Memory-Eating Mist

(Chapter 1 of His Angelic Keeper Books 1-3)

[Parts of this tale takes place during Curse Breaker: Enchanted]

Where am I? Everything was gray and blurry. She blinked to clear her eyes, but the grayness refused to go away. Where was I before I arrived here?

When she tried to remember, she found nothing. Something had scoured her mind clean of everything except that one conviction. I was somewhere else in the middle of doing something important before I ended up here. That wrenching feeling of displacement was so visceral, she couldn’t deny it. But it gave her some mental ground to build on. So she clung to that scrap of information and searched for more.

This fog can’t have completely erased my mind if I have even a vague sense of what I was doing before I woke up here. She smiled, already feeling a little more in control of things. First things first, she must find who or what stole her memories, and if that person, place, or thing could still take them.

Her grin faltered as that gray nothingness wrapped its colloidal tentacles around her, and her newly formed plan disintegrated. Oh, no, you don’t. She tried to hold on to the fragments of her plan, but they slipped away, word by word, dissolving into that grayness until she was a listless husk twisting in that all-encompassing fog again.

***

An unknown amount of time later, whispers vibrated her foggy prison as she came back to herself. Was it a cocoon? If it was, then it wasn’t made from anything she could touch or feel. How strange. I should be freaked out by this, but I’m not. Why aren’t I?

She just felt empty, as if the fog had sucked the ability to feel anything right out of her. At least she could still think. This place is trying to make me apathetic, so I’ll be a good prisoner and wallow away the years in my bland cell. Yeah, that’s not happening.

She tried to remember something as the fog rolled in endless waves through her mind, wiping away each attempt to remember anything at all. But she refused to give up. Someone didn’t want her to remember. I must know something important. How can I figure out what without tipping off the gray thing encasing me?

Now that was a muddle. Could it sense her thoughts? Probably. How else could it know she’d recalled something? But she didn’t know that for certain. The fog could’ve wiped my mind a thousand times since I arrived here. I have only a vague sense of purpose to go on. And that too might be wrong.

She drifted then, floating in the gray sea of forgetfulness until whispers disturbed the quiet again. They grew louder and less intelligible as the grayness under her rippled like disturbed water. Was there water under there?

As the word ‘water’ repeated in her head, a memory stirred. But the gray fog vacuumed it up before it could rise to the level of conscious thought. The water here was important. Her nemesis couldn’t erase that fact. The word had left an indelible mark on her psyche—or a well-trod path from countless memories she couldn’t yet retrieve. She suppressed a smile and blanked her mind before the fog sensed the change in her and closed in to kill it.

I remember nothing. I am nothing. She let that grayness pass over her, and its foggy tentacles stayed out of her mind. The fog flowed sluggishly by as if it had eaten too much and was considering whether it had room for more. Or was that just wishful thinking?

My memories couldn’t have filled it up. The fog was vast. Unless she was inside the belly of a beast, but that seemed too strange a scenario to contemplate.

All the truly enormous magical beasts were long extinct. Her gut confirmed that, and she didn’t need her memories to back up that certainty. No, she wasn’t inside anything except a bizarre prison, and prisons had walls to scale and locked doors she could pick. If she could find her way past this gray menace.

Did the fog seem vast because it was all she saw? How far away was that horizon? This misty plane seemed to stretch on forever in all directions without end or relief. But nothing was that large. The fog could be an exotic creature, or one could be generating it like a defense mechanism. Given its memory-stealing properties, that made sense.

It might even fear me. She laughed at the idea of anything fearing her. Still, the idea had some merit. Everyone feared something. Maybe I’m more fearsome than I feel.

That voice called again in no language she could understand, but the ground didn’t react this time. Even when the call grew fainter, her gut still urged her to hide, and that didn’t make any sense at all.

If someone’s sharing this bizarre experience, I should find them and compare notes. Maybe they’d know how they got here, or better yet, how to escape.

But her gut refused to unclench. It held her down under the fog and kept her quiet. Not everyone here might be friendly. She’d forgotten too much. How can I tell who’s a friend and who’s the foe who tossed me in here?

The voice continued to call while its owner moved further away. She still couldn’t tell what this person was shouting, or if the voice was the same one as before. It might not be. There could be a whole enclave hidden in this gray stuff, and that memory-stealing fog might protect their home.

Would they help me if I made myself known to them? Probably not, you don’t shroud your home in forgetfulness unless you want to discourage visitors. Alright, new plan—avoid those searchers. That should be easy enough, but following them in this fog might not be.

Avoiding Searchers

(Chapter 2 of His Angelic Keeper Books 1-3)

Just having a goal focused her, and she stopped drifting through the fog. There still wasn’t a physical ground to stand on, not since the first voice had called out, and it had fallen curiously silent some time ago. But she had a firm mental ground and from there, she could claw her way back to herself and get some much-needed answers, or so she thought.

Another voice called into the gray nothingness, confirming the other hadn’t been a hallucination. It had a deeper timbre than the first. But like that original hail, it sent shivers through the fog. Was the voice changing the fog? Was this place mutable? Could she reshape it into something less drab and more scenic? I must test that theory after I dodge this searcher somehow.

His voice grew louder, disturbing the fog, but its turbulence didn’t reveal anything. That fog still enveloped her, hiding what lay under it, and anything else moving through it. He called out again, but his words were still unintelligible.

Damn, he could be calling out directions to the nearest exit, but I can’t make it out. Or he could be calling my name. She froze, lost in the fog, and to herself as one question beat in her brain: who am I?

No name came to mind, but now wasn’t the time to worry about names or identities. You’ve got a searcher to avoid. Worry about that. Before she could wonder where that searcher was, a second voice joined the first. That couldn’t be good, but she still couldn’t see anything except the fog.

Two searchers meant there was something to find and a dwindling time limit to find it. This place must have more than fog if there were two—now three—people scouring it for something or someone. They might be searching for me. She froze as three voices stirred the fog, and it churned like white water over rocks.

Before she could trace them, those voices faded into silence again. There must be more to this gray place. Those searchers had to come from somewhere. I just need to find their lair. She tried to kick her feet, but nothing happened, nor could she even feel her extremities. But they had to be there, right?

“Don’t panic. Just take it one step at a time, and you’ll get there,” he whispered, but he was an echo of a memory.

With his voice came a hint of green, more sensed than seen because all was gray from the clouded sky above to the fog shrouding everything below. Or it was until a green light kindled. Its glow spread through the fog, bouncing from droplet to suspended droplet, refracting that tiny light. Its glow reminded her of a boy she’d known. In his eyes, that same green spark had danced and delight lit her up. She’d remembered something, and she wanted to shout: show me some magic!

But she pressed her lips together, sealing them. If she called out, she’d give those searches a fix on her, and she didn’t want to give away her location just yet. Their voices were moving away from that green glow. Maybe they couldn’t see it. It might glow just for her.

Show me some magic. The thought kept repeating in her mind until a small hand shot out of the fog. A child’s hand reached for her. But she couldn’t endanger the owner of that hand, not when she didn’t know where those searchers were or what they wanted. She patted his hand but didn’t take it. Thank you, but I got into this mess, and I’ll get out of it.

A green glow curled around his fading hand and the nameless boy’s offer of help. She tensed, ready to battle the fog for this tiny bit she’d recaptured of her past. But the grayness didn’t swamp her or try to take that scrap of memory away, and she held it close to her heart, cherishing it. How many more pieces would it take to make her whole again? Too many, so she regarded the fog swirling around her, expecting at any moment it would swamp her. But it didn’t.

Maybe it had eaten too many of her memories during her stay here and had no room for more. I hope you choke on my memories. She’d have shaken her fist at it if she’d had one, but she was a bodiless ghost without form. All she had left were her thoughts, and she guarded those.

The sudden silence startled her. What had happened to those searchers? No echoes disturbed the fog now. It lay as still as a sleeping child with a full belly. Had the fog feasted on the searchers’ memories too? If it had, then they might have forgotten who they were searching for. Could she use that to her advantage? Probably, but how could she confirm that was what had happened?

She regarded the fog. It was eye level now. Are you too full to eat anymore? That last thought she directed at her foggy prison, and it drew back as if insulted, creating a space around her head. I will beat you. I think I did once before. That’s what you don’t want me to remember—how I bested you, so I can’t do it again. But I will remember, just you wait and see.

The more threats she hurled at it, the more the fog backed away, revealing the tops of her bony shoulders. A gray dress covered them. Oh good, I’m not naked. Relief swamped her.

Nudity would have ratcheted this situation up to another level of weird; one she didn’t feel equal to just now. But she seemed to be sensibly clothed, so she raised her hand to rub her temples, but no fingers touched her face. She tried again, but nothing happened—not good. Either my eyes aren’t working properly, or my hand disappeared.

She bit back a scream at that horrid revelation. If she was stuck as an apparition for all time, could she at least be an intact specter?

Get His Angelic Keeper Books 1-3 to find out what happens next.