The Water Keeper Novels & Stories

The storage room was dark. In front of a pool of dried blood sat two pieces of bread and a water bottle. The little girl lying in the center had no life left in her. Her eyes were wide open. Her expression was frozen in utter despair. "Sienna..." Mom's voice trembled, echoing through the empty space and landing heavy on everyone's hearts. She collapsed to the floor and crawled forward on her hands and knees. "Sienna, Sienna! Wake up, baby! Don't scare me like this!"

“Then what, she just stands here while the house gets torn open?” Aira’s breath shook. Through the bond, she could still feel Mira upstairs. Pain. Fear. And underneath it something worse. Someone else. A cold presence moving through the pack house like a shadow with intent. Not Mara. Something older. The watcher in the water whispered, almost too quietly to hear. “The keeper has a hand inside the house.” Darian went pale. “No.” Aira turned sharply. “What is a keeper?” Nobody answered at first. Then the watcher said, “A mouth for the second door.”

"Get out of the water, now!" Ivory shouted at them, they immediately looked at her and obeyed what she said. Even soaking wet they tried to make them feel the whole place. "What did you see?" Jake asked her, instead of answering him she came a little closer to the water and touched it, the already cold water earlier was gradually heating up as if it was already caustic. "I think the guardian of this place is here," they finally heard the answer they had been waiting for.

On the day of my marking ceremony, my twin sister suddenly returned to the pack. To pick her up, my parents, my brother, and even my mate all abandoned me. While Vivian proudly showed off a photo of herself surrounded by everyone on the pack forum, I tried to reach them through our mind link. That was when I discovered that they had already blocked me. My mate, Damian, was the only one who called me. He only said one thing. "Stop making a scene. The marking ceremony can be held another time, but Vivian rarely gets the chance to come home." As the whole pack jeered at me, I calmly canceled the marking ceremony. After returning home alone, I wrote a new number in my diary. [100.] That

​A sudden, freezing draft swept through the hall. ​Elian's face drained of what little color remained. "The Keeper..." ​The giant hauled itself fully onto the platform and stood. ​The movement was horribly ordinary. No deafening roar. No posturing. It simply drew itself up to its full height, dwarfing every carved pillar in the sanctuary. ​Across the ruined floor, the Warden bowed its head. "You endured." ​The Keeper regarded the stone guardian for a long, heavy second. "I obeyed."

"They continue growing as long as the story continues to inspire someone." Hope looked up into the tree's endless branches. High above, new leaves were unfolding. Tiny leaves. Brand new. Our story was still growing. "My name," the woman said with a graceful bow, "is Vera." "I am the Gardener of Stories." Void folded his arms. "I had a feeling we'd meet another Keeper." Vera laughed warmly. "Oh, no." She shook her head. "Keepers protect light." "I protect what the light becomes." She gently touched one fresh leaf.

"Something that agrees holds because it wants to hold. That's more stable, not less." The young keeper at the end of the table said, quietly: "She's right. About the water entity. I don't hold it by force. It has to agree to stay in its banks every year. It does, because I've built a relationship with it. If it didn't agree, I couldn't hold it." He looked at Cassine. "The covenant she's describing is — it's more sophisticated than what I do, but it's the same principle. And what I do works."

Eighty-nine. At ninety, the air changed. The stone became older, the light greyish and uncertain, as though it were filtering through something other than windows. At ninety-one, the step stopped, and the Keeper was already there, standing in her grey, with her hands folded and her river-ice eyes waiting. "You came together," she observed. "Yes," said Aurora. "Is that permitted?" "It is permitted, and it is noted." The Keeper's gaze moved between us. "But I will need to know which of you is here to witness, and which of you is here to ask."

She wanted to speak to me and tell me the answers I could not obtain with The Coterie or Hezekiah. Suddenly, the water began to ripple. And when Mikael and I looked up, we saw him - the Gatekeeper, standing taut in his large wooden canoe and paddling slowly towards us through the water, moving smoothly around the trees in the bayou. There was one lantern hanging off of the canoe's curved bow, but it only weakly illuminated the path before him. Mikael sucked in a sharp breath and stared in shock as the Gatekeeper came closer towards us. This time, he did not have the head of a bloodied deer sealing his identity. Instead, an alligator's head sat on top of his own head, its snout extending outw

“He’s right. But I remember you. I remember your first scar, your first heartbreak, your first lie.” Adanna’s eyes filled with tears. “Then remember this I’m not here to worship ghosts. I’m here to burn down the cage that holds you.” The hologram’s expression flickered sadness, pride, and something darker. “Then you’ll have to face the Keeper.” Victor stiffened. “Who’s the Keeper?” The light dimmed. The hologram’s voice shifted, metallic and cold. “The one who guards the truth.” And then, the power surged alarms blaring as the Vault came alive, walls shifting, data streams collapsing like waves of light.