SARAN WATCHED THE dust dance in the sunlight. It was all she had to do for two days since speaking with Madam Ophelia. She found it soothing to watch the tiny sparkling particles, their glimmer a slight reminder of the magic she’d been without for months. Her magic danced like gold sparks when it wasn’t invisible to the naked eye.
She missed it.
With her power, she could topple empires. She could’ve ended the war a long time ago. She could’ve rid the kingdom of her father, taken the throne, and turned back the awful tide of destitution and corruption that had ruined the land. Despite how much she hated and thought ill of her father, she truly was no better than him.
He selfishly spoiled the land, and she selfishly ignored it.
The realization weighed heavy on her heart. How many battles could have been prevented? How many lives saved, if she had only the courage and strength to accept a path she never wanted to tread? What good could have come from giving up the lust for freedom?
Madam Ophelia’s words struck deep in her soul and marred the polished brand of pride she’d woven like armor around her identity. Saran had run from her blood as long and as far as she could, and it only made matters worse instead of better. Maybe that was the lesson in all of this? Running from what you are does little good.
Saran felt ill prepared for being the leader of an entire kingdom, even if she’d spent her life hearing the title princess wrapped around her name. She’d never learned the art of tactful diplomacy so needed in successful rulers. If anything, she fearfully carried her father’s stubborn, unyielding ways. Saran was not graceful. She was not well-read, aside from spell books. She had never been tutored in anything but the basics of academics, war, and magic. Now that she thought about it, Yarin had only ever seen her as a means to get another man power. It explained why he’d never devoted much time to improving her life.
Saran lacked all the qualities to make a good queen, and perhaps that was why she’d run from it for so long. She carried the fear of being just as horrible as the man who spawned her. His blood, his derangement, flowed in her. It had all the potential to corrupt her into his image.
Though, there were qualities she possessed that her father did not. They offered the hope of salvation from becoming what she hated. Saran possessed goodness, courage, and love. She carried the light of her dead mother, Rebecca Vanguard, a woman she did not know, and all the qualities of her ancient house. She knew nothing of the Vanguard family, for they had been stripped from history within the walls in which her father raised her. He’d forbidden anyone to speak of them. But their blood flowed in her just as strongly as the D’mor line.
Saran focused on one sparkling particle in particular as it twisted in the air and caught just a bit more light than the others. She was the last tiny spark of the great Vanguard family that had ruled Adrid for thousands of years. Whatever she wanted, whatever she desired, she couldn’t run from that blood either.
The people of Adrid had loved the Vanguards, and while they hated Yarin D’mor, she was still the granddaughter of Dante Vanguard. If she could convince them that his blood was stronger than Yarin’s, maybe she could win them over.
Saran didn’t know if there was such a thing as life after death. She was raised in the religion of the Vel d’Ekaru, though she’d stopped attending services when she was old enough to speak her mind. Darshan believed in the Prophetess and the Core. He said that when the living died, their energy returned to the Core to be one with the life of the world. He claimed the dead could hear the living if they were spoken to and called by name. Saran had little faith in religion. She liked to believe in what she could see and touch, and perhaps there lay the source of her hatred for prophecy. Still, on this day more than any other, she needed all the help she could get from ghosts and all the guidance the Prophetess could offer.
Saran stood in the warm light of her small barred window, closed her eyes, and spoke the prayer that Rowe taught her long ago, when she eagerly sought the woman of light. “Prophetess guide me. Prophetess speak truth. Prophetess light my path. Prophetess …” Saran’s brow furrowed. She couldn’t force the words out of her mouth. She couldn’t recite such a silly prayer to a mystical entity who told riddles and made prophecies about her destiny but never once told them to her face. She clenched her fists, willing to give up. Instead she hardened her resolve to have the contortionist of destiny hear her words.
“Listen here,” she said to the air. “I don’t know what I am or what I was meant to be, and I don’t really care what you claim of me. I’ve never worshipped you. In fact, I hate you. I hate that you decided my life for me, told everyone around me about it, and then never bothered to show yourself. For all I know, you are a delusion that exists only in the minds of those who choose to believe in you. I don’t believe in you, but I have seen the power you have to sway others, and I need that power. I need those words that make men believers of fantasy, that turn villains into heroes, that set men on quests, and send them to die. So Prophetess guide me. Prophetess speak truth. Make them hear me. Make them see me for what I am, if I am worthy to be seen. Help me. Because if you don’t, you can go fuck yourself. If you do not help me now, I’ll never be what you want me to be. I’ll fight and run as long and as far as I can from you. Understand?”
Saran turned her eyes to the dirty stone floor, listening to the clank of metal and leather boots in the corridor outside her cell. “Grandfather, if it is true that you can hear me, then I ask for your nobility, your voice, and your courage. I never knew you, but there are those that did, and I ask that they see you in me.”
A jittering nervousness overtook Saran. The reality of her decision becoming more real the more she spoke to faceless figures.
“Finally I pray to whatever gods will have me that I live through this day. I pray that you protect Rowe and keep him from harm, and should harm befall him that you keep him alive.” The clash of metal keys in the cell door sent her heart racing. “I pray to see Keleir again, and if it turns out I can’t, do what I vowed. Save him from the beast. Keep my vow for me, when I cannot.”
The door to her cell opened, silencing her prayer. She stood with her back to the guard, staring at the swirling dust stirred by the rush of air from the swinging door.
“It is time,” Odan’s voice called to her.
Saran turned to find a healthier Ice Mage than the one she’d seen days before. He had color in his pale cheeks, as much color as a man so cold could possess, and the dark circles under his eyes had lessened. He wore the signature leather armor worn among Mages in the field.
“Time for what?” Saran asked him, arching a brow. Odan was loyal to Yarin; she knew this without doubt. He believed in the old bag of bones, even worshipped him, and followed him without question. A cold uneasiness took hold in Saran, pushing out the nervous jitters she’d felt before.
Odan stepped into the cell, resting his hand on the hilt of his sword. His cyan-colored eyes hardened, and he cast them down to the straw bed. Then he looked her over, taking in her battered appearance, the cuts and scrapes from her beating. He frowned at her and turned to leave the cell, never bothering to close the door.
Saran waited a minute longer before inching through the threshold. He stood in the hall with six armored guards and an executioner. Saran’s stomach dropped. She straightened her back and lifted her head high. It had been a stupid thing to ask Madam Ophelia to speak to those who might follow her on her behalf. If she’d spoken to the wrong one …
A guard stepped forward, holding in his arms a long, folded cloth. Another stepped out from behind him, holding a pile of roughly folded riding clothes and leather armor. The first guard uncovered the object he held, revealing just the hilt of her sword. No one attempted to justify the items offered. They looked at her with quiet, reverent eyes.
Odan stood at the back with a stern frown creasing his face.
The princess felt heat in her cheeks, felt fire in her blood. This wasn’t an execution, but a rescue.
With Odan?
“My oath to Madam Ophelia binds me to this,” Odan said, reading the confusion in her eyes. “As long as she lives I cannot bring you harm or help someone else harm you. Therefore, if I want to live, my only option is to assist. Trust me when I say this is just as painful as dying, only less immediate and final.”
Saran nodded slowly, even if his words did little to comfort her. She couldn’t trust Odan, no matter what the healer had done to him.
The princess took the clothing from the guard and stepped back into her cell, where she carefully donned it over a weary body. Once dressed, they helped buckle her into the leather armor. The belt, sheath, and sword were the last items to be added, pulled snug about her waist.
No one said a word, the silence becoming the calm before a storm. Saran could almost imagine herself still sleeping on the straw bed, dreaming of her heroic rise to power.
“Thank you,” she told the guards.
“My queen,” they replied, bowing their heads and backing away.
The title jolted Saran. She’d gone her entire life being referred to as princess. She never imagined hearing someone address her as queen. She didn’t feel like one. She felt exhausted, ragged, and beaten. The look in their eyes made her dig deep down inside for the smallest shred of strength.
“Tell me what you know,” she forced out, curling a hand over the hilt of her sword. She gripped it tight to keep from shaking.
“Yarin waits for you in the throne room,” the guard who brought her sword replied. Saran stiffened at the use of her father’s first name, lacking the title King before it. Only she, Keleir, and Rowe had ever trifled with stripping it away from him. Hearing the king’s given name from someone else unnerved her and made her feel more out of place than she already did.
“Darshan?”
“No sign of him.”
Saran nodded, knowing there could be many reasons for Darshan’s tardiness. She also acknowledged the strong chance that Darshan wouldn’t come at all, especially if Rowe reached him. He may have changed his plans altogether if he saw the slightest chance of failure. They would have to do this without him, if that were the case, even if it greatly increased their chances of failure.
“I know your faces,” the princess said. “But I regret I do not know your names.”
“I’m Raener,” the guard already speaking to her said and motioned to the others. “That’s Coban, Velmier, Brock, Fao, Krevin, and our resident executioner Desmav. You are acquainted with Lord Marki.”
“Very,” Saran muttered, turning distrusting eyes on the Ice Mage. She took a step closer to them, looking at each one and attempting to memorize their faces with their names. “I’m not sure how many will stand with me today, but you are my strength now. You are my eyes, my ears, and my voice. A ruler is nothing without her people or their pride. I cannot express to you what it means to me that you stand here now and support me.” Because I have no idea what I’m doing, she thought. “The truth is, Darshan very well might not come today. Lord Blackwell went to him wounded after trying to help me escape, so he might suspect that Yarin would know his plans by now.”
“The army did not leave for Salara,” Coban said.
Her heart fluttered. There were both good and bad aspects to that decision. Salara would be spared from collateral damage, but if Darshan continued to move on the city, he would face the full force of Yarin’s army.
She needed to convince a substantial number of incumbent forces to switch sides. Or could it be even easier? Could she topple Yarin and claim her blood right with the few men in her possession? Hadn’t her father achieved a similar feat to earn his crown? The idea brightened her eyes.
“Lord Marki.” Saran turned her attention to the Ice Mage, a cool smile dancing on her lips. “I think it is time for the king to address his daughter. Can I count on you to keep your oath to Madam Ophelia?”
Odan sneered.
“Executioner, we will not be needing your services today, though I welcome your help. I need all of you to assure me that no harm will come to my father. This isn’t sentimentality talking. In truth, I’d rather you slit his throat.”
Odan winced away, but the others grinned gleefully at the idea.
“Whatever harm befalls my father will also fall on me. You are all charged with ensuring that, no matter what happens today, Yarin isn’t hurt or killed. This is the greatest request I could ever ask of you, because it means guarding my life while protecting your enemy. Do you accept my request?”
All except Odan gave a stern nod. Odan’s lips pursed tight together, his narrow face twisting with indecision.
Saran slapped him on the shoulder. “Cheer up, Odan. Your king will not die this day, nor any other, until the time that nature chooses. Well, that or until the Bind is gone. As I am without magic, you need to be my proxy. Are there any other Mages that would join us?”
“Lord Brenden, the Lightning Mage,” Raener said. “I know of him for certain, but not of the others. He waits at the gate for Darshan.”
Saran nodded. “Mages respect power, and right now they think Yarin has it.” She took a few slow steps down the hall and turned back to them, mulling over the secrets bursting to spill forth from her lips. “What they don’t know is that he lost his magic years ago with his disease. Everything that he has accomplished with magic since has been through a proxy—me. If they see Yarin for what he is, they will not accept a weak and powerless ruler.”
It was a lie, to some degree. Yarin had not lost his magic. He just didn’t use it because it was killing him. Just as one day, she thought bitterly, it would kill her.
The men before her took her words like swords through their stomachs. Each one went ashen before coloring blazing red with rage. This whole time Yarin had been a powerless bag of wind that anyone could rid the world of, and none of them had known. It was her father’s one secret that she’d kept for him.
She’d never wanted Keleir or Rowe to know what fate waited for her at the end of the elemental gift of time. The lie she’d shared with them was the same that she told the men before her. If Keleir and Rowe ever knew the truth, they would not let her use her power ever again. But without it there was no one to keep the Oruke in check.
Desmav the executioner nodded off to Odan, whose stiff form leaned against the damp wall. “He accepted him.”
Saran turned her gaze on Odan, who seemed paler than before and a bit green. She gave him a sympathetic frown, watching the light of admiration fade from his eyes. “I imagine he didn’t know. Not many do. Those that realized it never lived long enough to tell anyone. I kept it secret because the repercussions of letting it out would have been … intolerable. People that I love would have died, and I would never have seen the light of day again, no matter how useful I was to him. My father’s legacy means more to him than anything.”
Saran placed her hand on Desmav’s shoulder. “Lord Marki has his reasons for being loyal to my father, who has often been like a father to Mage orphans raised in this castle. But whatever those reasons are or were, he is Bound to me in this task by blood. You cannot trust him, but you can trust the curse that controls him. Understood?”
The men nodded, and Odan shoved off the wall to head toward the dungeon exit.
Saran had spent very little time in the dungeon compared to most. Rising to the main floor still made her feel freer than she ever expected to feel in the walls of her home. For the longest time the castle had been a prison, a monolithic symbol of the life she desperately wanted to escape. She could have run away years ago, but something always held her inside them, something always brought her back.
All those years of leading armies beyond the city walls, she’d always followed them back. After every secret mission, she returned. After every outing, every Port to another world, to another city, to another future, she returned. Did that mean destiny proclaimed it or that deep down she knew the course of her life, even as she denied it?
In the hall outside the dungeon doors, two long lines of Adridian soldiers stood ready at attention. Odan stepped around her and passed through to wait at the front, looking back at her with the patience of an irritated toddler. He loved her father, but he loved his life more, and at least she could count on that to keep him in line. The seven men who had been with him just outside her cell door joined the line of defecting soldiers, waiting for her to command them … to be everything they’d ever wanted in a leader.
Saran felt that nervous quiver in her hand begin again, so she curled it around the hilt of her sword and clutched the other into a white-tight fist. The length of the line of men lifted her spirits as much as it toppled them, because while it was a fair number of people, it was not enough to take a kingdom. Hopefully it would be enough to take a throne.
Longing wrapped around her heart, and Saran craved the presence of Rowe and Keleir. She wanted to draw from their strength and reassurance. She could let her guard down with them. She could question herself and her choices, but she could do none of that in front of these men. She would trigger doubt where she needed fealty.
As Madam Ophelia said, she could not hide behind the strengths and failings of Rowe Blackwell and Keleir Ahriman anymore. Saran drew on her own strength, on the hatred for the man who killed her mother, the man who tortured her, and the man who tore down the wall that had protected Keleir from the Oruke inside. She stepped toward her bloodright, each clunk of boot against stone growing surer than the last. The six soldiers, Ice Mage, and executioner fell in behind her, and the militia flanked their sides.
The halls emptied on the way to the throne room, with maids and servants ducking into open doors and empty corridors. The few soldiers that were in the halls made no move to stop them and pressed their backs firmly to the walls to get out of their way.
It wasn’t until Saran reached the corridor to the throne room that any real opposition appeared. The Saharsiad stood at attention in two short lines just before the tall latched door. Their leader waited patiently behind them, his back pressed against the mahogany wood. He lifted his hand to the veil he wore across his face and dropped it, revealing a scarred visage and a pleased smile. Saran remembered him as the one who nearly crushed her face with his barbed glove.
His men wore deep hoods and veils about their faces, less Adridian and more Mavish in style. They had worked for Yarin since the night he stole the throne from her grandfather. Their expensive fee for protecting Yarin was nothing short of economic blight.
Saran stopped, and the procession behind her came to an abrupt, clanking halt.
“We heard whispers of revolt,” the leader of the Saharsiad said, his boots echoing off the vaulted ceiling as he stepped from the long ranks of his men to just outside the edge of their protection. “We should have killed you. I’m sure His Majesty will see the error now. I’m sure he won’t mind if you die here at my feet.”
Saran appraised him quietly but did not give to his goading. She knew nothing of being queen or courtly grace, but she knew how to intimidate. She offered him unnerving silence, like the ethereal presence of death, and drew her sword slowly, letting the scrape of metal ring through the air. The men behind her followed the sound with a chorus of their own, drawing their weapons and letting the shrill sound signal their allegiance.
The princess admired the clean, sharp blade in her hand. Someone had taken the kindness to introduce it to a whetstone, as she’d ignored it of late. Her gaze flicked from the pale glint of steel to the dark-garbed Mage murderer.
“Four,” she said, glancing to the floor and then back to the Saharsiad.
“Four what?” he asked, confusion creasing his tan brow.
“That is how many steps I’ll take before you die,” she replied, resting the tip of her sword on the metal toe of her boot. Saran concealed her self-hatred with a blank, unfeeling mask, walling away every part of her that hated killing. Now came what she dreaded, the part of this horrid life she’d managed to avoid with the help of her element. She couldn’t avoid it this time, not if she wanted to live. “You see, Saharsiad, unlike all those other disobedient Mages you’ve slaughtered over the years, I had no mentors to teach me my element. I learned it slowly and with difficulty, and what I could not do with magic on the battlefield, I made up with swords and fists. Four steps, that’s all I’ll give you.”
The leader of the Saharsiad sneered and drew the curved short swords at the small of his back. He charged her, and Saran took four strong steps forward, arching the long length of her blade up. But just as she did so, she twisted and ducked beneath his swings and brought her sword blindly behind her, taking off the Saharsiad’s head with a strong, sure blow. Indeed, someone had taken care to sharpen her blade.
Saran stood in the midst of the Mage killers now, and they swarmed like hornets. Blood splashed across her face, and metal clashed against metal as her men met them behind her, punching through the line. Screams echoed. Limbs and bodies fell to pile bloody on the dirty stone floor. It only took a moment. The Saharsiad were good fighters, but today they’d chosen a poor strategy.
They’d grown cocky in their years of employment and had allowed themselves to be backed up against the heavy doors, becoming nothing more than cattle herded into the corner for slaughter. She lost two men for every one of theirs. While she had soldiers, the Saharsiad were better trained. When Saran tore her eyes from the last of the dead, she found her force roughly cut in half.
Odan had kept out of the fray, as she’d expected him to, since his magic would not work against the Saharsiad gauntlets. Saran counted him among the men who could handle a sword about as well as polishing his own boots, which of course he never did himself.
Two of her men grabbed the heavy rings that sat center each door to the throne room and drew back, putting their feet and knees into it. The doors slowly groaned open, and the dim firelight of the dark room greeted her.
Yarin looked up from his conversation with the scribe and various nobility at his feet. The king appeared calm, but his nobles shifted uncomfortably. She had no doubt that they were frightened from the screaming cries of battle, but they were also too frightened of the king to flee. Some of them brandished tiny daggers at their waists. She knew them enough to not feel threatened. If they were brave enough to fight, Yarin would not have stayed king long.
Yarin found his daughter wrapped in armor and hatred, emerging from the darkness of the hall with a lengthy procession of his own men at her back.
“What is this?” the king muttered, looking over his men as they filed out from behind Saran and formed a half circle around the king, the scribe, and the nobles that stood with him. Odan took his place just behind Saran but did not dare lift his eyes to see his unhappy master.
The princess looked each noble in the eye before she motioned harshly with her hand for them to leave. They scurried out of the way and fled through the open door. Seconds later, horrified screams flowed back into the room as the weak-willed men found the carnage in the hall.
Saran tilted her head at her father before speaking. “What do you think is happening?”
Yarin’s mouth worked, his expression growing sour. He turned his eyes to the blood spilling in from the hall. “It seems I’ll be hanging a lot of people today.”
“No one’s gettin’ hanged today, my king.” Desmav the executioner chuckled from Saran’s right.
The King of Adrid drummed his fingers against the arm of his chair before he turned his glassy eyes to Odan with a sneer. “You? Of all people? You hate her.”
“Aye,” Odan muttered, barely lifting his eyes. “I do not want this, but I am Bound by a blood oath that healer witch Ophelia placed on me.”
“Where is the key to my Bind?” Saran asked, moving another inch forward.
Yarin shook his head angrily. “You’re not getting it. Not even when I’m dead. You’ll search this castle over and you’ll never, ever find it. It cannot be seen!”
Saran’s jaw set tight. “Then I’ll go through this life united as one with my powerless people. Now get out of that chair. You are no longer ruler of this land.”
The king shook, rage turning his face a horrible shade of red. He struck his chest hard, and Saran felt it in her own. She did not wince, not even when he struck himself again. Did he truly plan to beat himself to death to get back at her?
“Odan,” Saran whispered. “Detain our king for his own safety.”
Odan’s cyan eyes lit frost-blue, and a cool draft filtered through the air. Ice seized the king’s hands where they sat and wrapped like protective armor around his body. It was, for Odan, a very kind gesture.
Saran started her ascent to the throne when the ground shook beneath her feet. The old stone walls cracked, and dust wafted from the ceiling, followed by a deep tremor. A harsh crash tore stone from the walls and rained it down across the floor, and a huge boulder rolled behind Saran, clipping her booted heel as it passed. Her men scrambled out of its way, some diving to the floor to keep from being crushed.
The boulder rolled to a stop, sitting still and quiet before shattering. Dust and rubble exploded into the air. As the dust settled, a woman of average height, with chestnut hair and deep brown eyes, emerged. She wore earthy toned leather and canvas, with mud smeared like war paint across her cheeks. She lifted her hands, and the rubble at her feet levitated from the floor and swirled around her legs.
Behind the Earth Mage, three rebels in patchwork armor emerged from the blood-soaked hall. She only recognized the old, kindly faced man in the center, whose eyes swirled ocean blue.
“Darshan.”