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This is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some well-known historical and public figures, are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical or public figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2012 by Mark Frost
Jacket design by Hilts
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to WB Music Corp. for permission to include lyrics from THE TEDDY BEAR’S PICNIC written by Jimmy Kennedy, music by John W. Bratton, copyright © 1947 (renewed) by WB Music Corp. and EMI Music Publishing Ltd. All rights administered by WB Music Corp. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of WB Music Corp.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Frost, Mark
The Paladin prophecy / Mark Frost. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: A fifteen-year-old boy who has spent his entire life trying to avoid attention finds himself in the middle of a millennia-old struggle between titanic forces when he is simultaneously recruited by an exclusive prep school and followed by sinister agents.
eISBN: 978-0-375-98001-5
[1. Preparatory schools—Fiction. 2. High schools—Fiction.
3. Schools—Fiction. 4. Good and evil—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.F92164Pal 2012 [Fic]—dc23 2011031171
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
v3.1
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FOR THE LOST AND LONELY ONES …
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Just Another Tuesday
Dr. Robbins
The Test
No Place Like Home
Prowler
Dad’s Home
Leaving Shangri-la
Dave
Sabotage
Dan Mcbride
Stone House
Brooke Springer
Lyle Ogilvy
Pod G4-3
Ajay Janikowski
Nick and Elise
The Dead Kid
Student-Citizens
The Medical Center
Professor Sangren
The Field House
Suicide Hill
A Misunderstanding
Wayfarer
The Other Locker Room
Déjà Vu
Puzzles
The Tutorial
Rulan Geist
The Weight Room
Coach Jericho
Flash
The Hookup
A Tiny Pianist
Ronnie
The Medical Center
Tested
Battlefield Conditions
Instant Message
The Paladins
The Statue and The Bear
The Boathouse
The Caves
Mom and Dad
The Accident
It’s About Us
Decision
To be Continued In: The Paladin Prophecy Book 2: Alliance
Dad’s List of Rules to Live By
Acknowledgments
About the Author
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Every crime is punished,
Every virtue rewarded,
Every wrong redressed,
In silence and certainty.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
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I couldn’t see his face.
He was running along a mountain trail. Running desperately. Pursued by black grasping shadows that were little more than holes in the air, but there was no mistaking their intention. The boy was in unspeakable danger and he needed my help.
I opened my eyes.
Curtains fluttered at the dark window. Freezing air whispered through a crack in the frame, but I was drenched in sweat, my heart pounding.
Just a dream? No. I had no idea who this boy was. He appeared to be about my age. But I knew this much with iron certainty:
He was real, and he was headed my way.
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JUST ANOTHER TUESDAY
The Importance of an Orderly Mind
Will West began each day with that thought even before he opened his eyes. When he did open them, the same words greeted him on a banner across his bedroom walclass="underline"
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#1: THE IMPORTANCE OF AN ORDERLY MIND.
In capital letters a foot high. Rule #1 on Dad’s List of Rules to Live By. That’s how crucial his father considered this piece of advice. Remembering it was one thing. Following Rule #1, with a mind as hot-wired as Will’s, wasn’t nearly as easy. But wasn’t that why Dad had put it on top of his list, and on Will’s wall, in the first place?
Will rolled out of bed and stretched. Flicked on his iPhone: 7:01. He punched up the calendar and scanned his schedule. Tuesday, November 7:
• Morning roadwork with the cross-country team
• Day forty-seven of sophomore year
• Afternoon roadwork with the cross-country team
Nice. Two runs sandwiching seven hours of Novocain for the brain. Will took a greedy breath and scratched his fingers vigorously through his unruly bed head. Tuesday, November 7, shaped up as a vanilla, cookie-cutter day. Not one major stress clouding the horizon.
So why do I feel like I’m about to face a firing squad?
He triple-racked his brain but couldn’t find a reason. As he threw on his sweats, the room lit up with a bright, cheerful sunrise. Southern California’s most tangible asset: the best weather in the world. Will opened the curtains and looked out at the Topa Topa Mountains rising beyond the backyard.
Wow. The mountains were cloaked with snow from the early winter storm that had blown through the night before. Backlit by the early-morning sun, they were sharper and cleaner than high-def. He heard familiar birdsong and saw the little white-breasted blackbird touch down on a branch outside his window. Tilting its head, curious and fearless, it peered in at him as it had every morning for the last few days. Even the birds were feeling it.
So I’m fine. It’s all good.
But if that was how he really felt, then what had stirred up this queasy cocktail of impending doom? The hangover from a forgotten nightmare?
An unruly thought elbowed its way into his mind: This storm brought more than snow.
What? No idea what that meant—wait, had he dreamt about snow? Something about running? The silvery dream fragment faded before Will could grab it.
Whatever. Enough of this noise. Time to stonewall this funk-u-phoria. Will drove through the rest of his morning routine and skipped downstairs.
Mom was in the kitchen working on her second coffee. With reading glasses on a lanyard around her thick black hair, she was tapping her phone, organizing her day.