All is about to become a battleground for power - Reflection Pond (Reflection Pond #1) by Kacey Vanderkarr

"As much as I love reading, Its rare that a book grabs me as quickly as 'Reflection Pond'

From the beginning, I felt compelled to find out what terrible events had made Callie the way she is, what was the dark, terrible secret that she fights to repress and keep in the dark recesses of her mind [...]" - Goodreads

Description:

Sometimes you find home, sometimes it comes looking for you.

Callie knows a lot more about pain than she does about family. She’s never belonged, at least, not until she falls through a portal into her true home. The beautiful faerie city of Eirensae doesn’t come free. Callie must find her amulet and bind herself to the city, and most importantly, avoid the Fallen fae who seek her life. Seems like a small price to pay for the family she’s always wanted.

Then she meets cynical and gorgeous Rowan, who reads the darkness of her past in her eyes. He becomes Callie’s part-time protector and full-time pain in the ass. He has secrets of his own for Callie to unravel. What they don’t know is that the future of Eirensae lies with them, and the once peaceful city is about to become a battleground for power. 

The road to the City of War is dangerous.

With their home in ruins, Callie and Rowan are Eirensae’s last hope of stealing the cauldron back from Fraeburdh. They must travel into the human world where the Fallen hide. The banished fae wait for Callie, desperate to sacrifice her before she comes of age. 

If Callie and Rowan survive the journey, something worse looms in Fraeburdh. Rowan is destined for a dark family legacy too horrifying to accept, and his father is anxious to welcome him home. Once the truth is revealed, will Callie ever look at Rowan the same way? 

Trapped between feuding cities lost in a centuries-old war, Callie and Rowan will face their biggest rivals yet, and neither of them will make it out unscathed.

EXCERPT

TOUR SCHEDULE

Lights flickered through the window, illuminating Callie’s face. She lifted one eyelid and groaned. Her shoulder blades and tailbone ached as though she’d fallen asleep on a sharp rock. Why was she on the floor? A steady beat throbbed at the base of her skull, like someone taking an ax to her brain and chopping it into tiny pieces. She pressed a palm to her forehead in hope of drowning out the world. A rumble shook the floor, vibrating up through Callie’s body.

She forced both eyes open. A gilt ceiling rose over her. Lightning turned the gold into knives that stabbed at her eyeballs. Her clothes felt damp and sticky. Her mouth tasted like rotten fruit. She rolled onto her side, cringing the entire way.

…and blinked.

…and blinked.

A woman lay next to Callie, hair spilling across the floor in a dark, silken waterfall. Her eyes were open, a startling blue that reminded Callie of an endless sky, bright against the china pale of her iridescent skin. She looked like stone, so smooth, so cold. A single scarlet droplet dangled from the woman’s dry lips.

Wine, Callie thought, but the idea had no roots.

Where was she?

Callie couldn’t remember.

As she watched, the dark bit of liquid grew heavier and heavier, finally falling into a large puddle of—

Wine?

She was so still. So pale. So—

Dead.

Callie scrambled to her feet, her hands slipping and fumbling. Her mouth rounded, but no sound came out. The woman was wreathed in red. It splattered her face and trailed her neck. It spread beneath her like a blanket.

Help—someone—where was she? Callie lifted her hands in front of her face, horrified. Her arms were streaked with blood, an abstract painting of death.

“Help me,” she said. “Help me!” Her voice gained strength and she screamed. She ran for the closed door, her heels sliding in blood. She crashed into the frame, leaving bright, damning handprints. “Help me, help me, help me.”

She left smudges on the doorknob and on the golden walls of the never-ending hallway. She threw open doors to empty rooms, still screaming. “Help me!” Nobody, nobody. She yelled at the hallway, the doors, the windows.

Finally, footsteps. Callie ran toward them, the swirl of her dress flinging blood onto the floor. She crashed into a blond woman. She knew her…knew her…

“Sapphire!” Callie shrieked. “There’s a—and she’s—”

Sapphire’s hands were all over Callie. “Where is it? I don’t see any—”

A dark-haired boy emerged from a far doorway. “What’s all this screaming?” he growled, then he saw Callie and his face went pale. “Let me heal her,” he said, rushing to them and pushing Sapphire away.

“She’s not hurt,” Sapphire said.

“Then what—”

Callie grabbed a fistful of each of their shirts. Sapphire and Rowan. She knew them now. “She’s dead. She’s dead.”

Rowan’s expression went from worried to confused to horrified, and then he was running away from them, into the room where Callie had been. Sapphire went after him. Callie followed, her stomach twisting. She reached the doorway as Rowan said, “She’s gone.” He was knelt over the woman, hands pressed to her face.

Callie could see the wounds now, how they tore at her flesh, jagged slices in her arms, her legs, her neck. Callie’s gaze traveled over the pooled blood to Rowan. His lips were moving.

“What happened?” he said. “What happened?”

Sapphire was on her knees now, the woman’s head cradled in her lap. “Orchid,” she whispered, saying the name over and over again like a prayer.

Callie swallowed the bile at the back of her tongue. “I don’t know. I don’t—”

“What happened?”

She backed away, his words sliced through her skull. She tried to remember, but there was nothing.

Nothing.

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About the author:

Kacey Vanderkarr is a young adult author. She dabbles in fantasy, romance, and sci-fi, complete with faeries, alternate realities, and the occasional plasma gun. She’s known to be annoyingly optimistic and listen to music at the highest decibel. When she’s not writing, she coaches winterguard and works as a sonographer. Kacey lives in Michigan, with her husband, son, and crazy cats. Along with her novels, Reflection Pond and Antithesis, Kacey's short fiction can be found in Sucker Literary Vol 3, and the upcoming Spark Vol 7, Ember: A Journal of Luminous Things, and Out of the Green: Tales from Fairyland.

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