Contents
Title Page
Copyright
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CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
GUILLAME
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
GUILLAME
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
GUILLAME
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
GUILLAME
GUILLAME
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
GUILLAME
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
GUILLAME
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
GUILLAME
REMY
GUILLAME
CHAPTER NINETEEN
GUILLAME
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
REMY
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
GUILLAME
FIVE YEARS LATER...
Throne Shaker
The Clash and the Heat, Book Three
Val Saintcrowe
THRONE SHAKER
© copyright 2020 by Val Saintcrowe
http://vjchambers.com
Punk Rawk Books
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CHAPTER ONE
I stood at the window of a tower in Castle Ignis, my childhood home. For years, I had wondered if my homeland was still intact. When I’d been a ten years old, my mother had put me on a ship and kissed me goodbye, standing here amongst flames that ravaged everything that I could see. I had assumed the castle had burned down, that the entire land was destroyed.
The fire was living flame, a magical flame that burned everything in its path, that never went out, and that could not be quenched.
But when I arrived back in Islaigne, finally, over a decade later, the castle was intact and rebuilt.
“The castle was not built for defense,” Solene Ficarte said from behind me. She was the head of the army of Islaigne. I wasn’t looking at her, but I knew she wore white armor and that her helmet with its high red feathers sat on a table in the middle of the room. “Long ago, when this castle was constructed, Islaigne was quite isolated from the rest of the land. No one knew of our existence until the past hundred years or so. It wasn’t until then that men from across the sea made the journey to our kingdom. We were never worried about an attack before then, and even after, our ability with living flame made us feared.”
I continued to look out the window, down at the sea that spread out below the castle. Castle Ignis was built on the top of a high cliff, made of white stone, a tangle of gleaming towers. On one side, there was a path up from the docks to the castle and its surrounding village. On the other side, a steep rock face.
“We are not in an indefensible position,” came the voice of Bisset. Up until now, Bisset had been one of my most trusted members of my queensguard. But that was when I had lived in Dumonte, as King Remy’s wife. Now, head of the government of Islaigne, I had made Bisset a general, along with Solene. They were here for this meeting, along with Guillame Dubois, my lover and most trusted advisor, and my cousin Jalal, who—up until now—had been the king of Islaigne.
“No, we aren’t,” said Guillame. “If he were to come at us over land, from behind us, we’d be in trouble, but from the sea, he’ll have trouble getting through, that is, as long as we can obstruct that path up from the docks, which we should be able to do.” Guillame meant King Remy, my husband, who was coming to wage war against me because I would not cede Islaigne to him.
Well, that was what he had said when he sent his messengers to deliver his demands. I wasn’t convinced that his motivation for coming didn’t have something to do with my attempting to kill him and with leaving Dumonte with Guillame. Remy was possessive of me. He had wanted me to himself for a long time, because he wanted use of my magic.
Remy had the power of living flame. When we touched, I could intensify his magic, make it more powerful. He had always wanted the two of us to scour the known land, taking over every other kingdom with the threat of our terrible power. He didn’t like the idea that I’d left. He wanted me at his side so that he could fulfill his ambitions.
Also, I was fairly certain there was a personal motivation for his coming as well. He didn’t like being cast aside for Guillame. He wanted me for himself, and not just because of my magic. He wanted me back in his bed and back by his side.
Every way there was to want a woman, Remy wanted me.
I couldn’t deny there was a power in that. I couldn’t deny that parts of me enjoyed being wanted like that, that parts of me even wanted him back. It was… complicated.
But I’d made my choice, and I’d chosen Guillame, my childhood sweetheart, the man who’d been loyal to me through everything, even my marriage to another man. Guillame had killed for me and stolen for me and sacrificed everything for me. I loved him and he loved me.
Whatever I had with Remy, it wasn’t love.
Why I was thinking about this, I didn’t know. Remy was coming to fight me, to try to kill my people, possibly to kill me. And yet, I got funny fluttery feelings in my stomach at the thought of seeing him again, and I hated myself for that.
“How will we do that?” said Jalal. “Do we have time to build barricades, or do you simply want to put our soldiers on that path? You say this man will come with armed musqueteers, thousands of them, and you think our pitiful army, with its swords and arrows, will stop him?”
I turned away from the window. “I’ll do it. With living flame.”
“You say you don’t have control of living flame,” said Jalal. “You can only put it out.”
“I do have difficulty producing it within myself, that’s true,” I said. “But I can pull the magic into me, and then release it again. I’ll go to somewhere that the flame is burning, and I’ll draw it into myself and then light the entire path on fire. He won’t come in that way. Remy can make fires, but he can’t put them out. Only my power can quench the flame.”
“But he’s not wrong about the guns,” said Bisset. “We’ll be outclassed and outnumbered.”
I turned to Guillame. “You said we could get guns. Do you have an idea?”
“Yes,” said Guillame. “The musqueteers have a certain number of firearms and gunpowder stockpiled, but for something like this, for an attack, Remy will need more. We had already talked about it, about planning for his attacks of other countries. He’ll send for ships from Rzymn to come with more supplies. Pirates could easily intercept those ships and bring them here instead.”
“Your pirate friends?” I said, furrowing my brow. “This is the man that… that, um, you—”
“My good friend Atlas, yes,” said Guillame.
Good friend? As I understood it, they had been lovers. Guillame was attracted to both men and women, and he’d had some kind of dalliance with this Atlas, even going so far as to tell me that he was leaving me to go back to Atlas. But in the end, he’d chosen me. I didn’t know the details. I hadn’t asked. It wasn’t that I was jealous or anything. I seemed incapable of being jealous of Guillame with other men. I was only… intrigued by it, to be truthful. “How did you leave him? Are the two of you still on good terms?” I asked.
Guillame hesitated. “We’ll ne
ed to pay him,” he said finally. “Pay him well.”
“Of course,” I said. I turned to Jalal. “One thing I have not looked at since arriving is the treasury here in Islaigne. Do we have the capability to pay this man well?”
“We do,” said Jalal.
“Good, then,” I said.
“But how long will this take?” said Solene. “You are going to go and intercept ships from Rzymn. That’s nearly a two weeks’ journey by ship to reach that city. Dumonte is only a week’s journey away.”
“Well, I suspect I’ll be able to intercept the ships in Dumonte,” said Guillame. “But it may take longer if I have trouble locating Atlas. If he follows a typical schedule, his ships should be close. But I can’t be sure of that.”
“Even assuming the quickest routes, you’d be too late,” said Jalal.
“Well, perhaps not by much,” said Guillame. “We must expect that the ship that left us earlier today will have a week’s journey back to Dumonte. Then Remy will likely not be ready to leave right away, having expected news of our surrender. He will amass his army, and that will take time, maybe weeks. Then it’ll be another week until he arrives. We could have an entire month to prepare.”
Solene turned to me. “You know him best, having been his wife. Do you think this is likely?”
I thought about it. I thought about the way he had bided his time before striking against Cedric. He was forced into a fight with his brother prematurely, but he likely wouldn’t have put a plan into motion until he’d gotten everything in place. “Yes, I think he will wait until he has everything in order. He can be very fastidious in that way, and he likes to win. He won’t want to leave things to chance, so I don’t think he’ll be hasty.”
“We’ll still have no time to teach our people how to use the guns when they arrive,” said Solene. “I’ve never even held one.”
“They aren’t that difficult to use,” I said.
Guillame sighed. “It’s not ideal. But if we can hold Castle Ignis for long enough, we can wear him down. We’ll have the land behind us, all the supplies we need, but he’ll have to wait for things to come to him by ship from Dumonte.”
“You really think he’ll give up?” said Bisset, giving me a dark look.
I looked away, and I didn’t answer.
Guillame didn’t either.
That was the real trouble. Remy wasn’t likely to ever give up, not where I was concerned.
* * *
It was still dark outside, but Guillame was stirring next to me in bed.
I reached out for him, clutching his arm in the darkness. “What are you doing?”
“I need to be getting ready,” he said. “Can’t you see the dawn is coming?”
“No,” I said. “That’s not the dawn.”
“What is it, then?”
“It’s the moon,” I said. “Isn’t the moon very bright tonight?”
He settled back into the bed and kissed me long and slow. “You know that there was no moon last night, Fleur,” he murmured in a low voice.
I clutched him against me, running my fingers over his bare skin. “It can’t be morning already.”
He kissed me again. “It is.”
I rolled onto my back, pulling him with me. I wrapped my legs around his thighs. “Hmm. It seems I’ve trapped you. What are you going to do about that? You’ll have to stay.”
He grunted, pressing into me, his hips moving against me, and I could feel how our closeness was affecting him. His mouth met mine hungrily.
Hard, furious kisses.
When he pulled away, we were both out of breath. “Do you want those guns or not?”
I groaned, tightening my legs’ grip on him. “Not fair. You’re being rational about this. I don’t want you to go. I feel as though we’ve just finally gotten together. After all of that time, wanting each other, unable to do anything about it, years and years of wanting and waiting. And now, I have you. We have each other. And what have we had together? Not even a month?”
He sighed. “I know. I don’t want to go. Say the word. I’ll stay. We’ll beat him without guns. We’ll just stand on the top of the tower and kiss like this, and he’ll see us together and despair and leave, because he’ll see that he’ll never have you again, not like he wants.”
I chuckled softly, and I disentangled my limbs from Guillame’s. He’d mentioned Remy, and it had somehow shattered my mood.
“Hey,” said Guillame softly. He kissed me again.
The kiss was warm and sweet. It kindled fires in my belly, like a welcoming hearth on a cold day, and I felt my love for him surge in me. He pulled away and then kissed my chin and then my forehead.
“I’ll miss you,” I whispered.
“I probably should have left last night,” he said, gazing into my eyes. “I’m weak. I wanted one more night in your arms.”
“You couldn’t have left last night,” I said. “There’s no way a ship would have been ready.”
He gazed at me. “Fleur…”
I smiled at him. I wished we were kissing again.
“Sometimes, I wake up here with you, and I feel like this must be a dream. I never truly thought this would happen between us.”
“It’s happening.”
“And Remy’s finding some way to ruin it, even after you left him.” He shook his head. “It’s always Remy.”
“Don’t say that,” I said softly. “Let’s never bring him up when we’re naked together, please?”
“Right,” he breathed. “I’m sorry. He doesn’t exist.”
I pulled him close. “Nothing exists, nothing but you and me. For one moment, if we could just pretend that we don’t have to let go of each other?”
“One moment,” he agreed in an affected voice.
We held onto each other for much longer than a moment.
But then there was a knock on the door of my chambers, servants coming to rouse Guillame to board the ship.
We both got out of bed and dressed.
As the dawn spread across the sky, I embraced Guillame on the docks, kissed him again, told him to come back to me as soon as he could.
I watched him row out to the ship while the red and purple sky reflected on the waves of the sea.
I stood on the dock for too long, watching the ship as it sailed away.
* * *
Before we’d heard of Remy’s attack, I had been traveling around Islaigne and extinguishing places where the living flame had exploded.
The living flame was an affliction in Islaigne, a terrible scourge that struck randomly, destroying homes and killing people. A small fraction of those who were burned with living flame survived, but those who did were changed, mutated by the blaze. They were like Remy, with the ability to make flames. Remy himself had gotten his power when he’d been thrown into living flame.
If I hadn’t had a war to deal with, I would have been going and dousing all of the places where the flame was. I would be saving lives instead of preparing to kill Remy’s men.
After we saw Guillame off, we traveled across the country to a place where the flame was burning. It had destroyed a section of farmland and a herd of cattle several years ago, but this outbreak of flame hadn’t killed any people, and it had been mostly left alone.
We approached the area, a wide expanse of flat land where flames roared and rushed, never going out, burning and burning. I approached slowly, and I placed my hand into the flames.
I pulled the power into me, the same way that I sometimes did with Remy.
But this was different. This magic was so much stronger than Remy’s, so much more volatile, and when it filled my body, it grew even more powerful, magnified, just the way Remy’s magic was magnified.
My plan had been to pull the power into me and then travel back in the carriage and see if I could light a flame elsewhere. I would need to set the path aflame, after all.
But the minute the power rushed into me, I knew it wouldn’t be possible.
It was
so strong that I couldn’t keep it inside.
It had to come out.
I ignited from the tips of my hair to the ends of my fingers. I threw back my head, gasping, trying to pull the power back in, but it was impossible.
I had to douse it all out.
I used my abilities to do that, pulling up whatever it was that lived in my gut, the dark and wet sludge that extinguished the flame.
I put myself out, but the field of flames still raged.
Panting, I collapsed to the ground, exhausted. How was I going to do this? I needed to transport the flame, and I didn’t know how to do that.
From the carriage, Jalal called out to me.
I held up a hand, unable to speak. I needed to try again. People’s lives were on the line. I had to stop Remy from getting into my country.
Taking a deep breath, I approached the flame again.
I pulled it into my body.
As before, I felt it wanting to explode out of me, but I concentrated every thread of my being on keeping it inside, holding it down.
It was agony. The flame was burning the back of my eyeballs, it was scorching my throat. It was burning under my skin, boiling my blood. But I was keeping it in.
I staggered back toward the carriage, gritting my teeth. It was taking everything I had to keep that flame in. I could barely walk.
One step.
Two steps.
Suddenly, darkness swam up, and I lost my balance.
I swirled down into a roaring inferno and I knew no more.
CHAPTER TWO
“Your Majesty?” came a soft voice.
I blinked hard. My former maid, Marguerite, loomed large in my vision. She was hovering over me. I groaned. “What happened?”
“You passed out,” came Bisset’s voice. Bisset and Marguerite were a couple. Bisset peered over Marguerite’s shoulder. “You couldn’t hold that magic in, my queen. I think if you try that again, you’re going to kill yourself.”
“You need to be careful,” said Marguerite, looking at me with genuine concern.
I pushed myself up on the bed, leaning against the headboard. “I’m fine. Really. I need to try again.”
Throne Shaker (The Clash and the Heat Book 3) Page 1