Emery Gallagher
The Silver Key
Book One of the Sapphire Dagger Quartet
Copyright © 2020 by Emery Gallagher
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Emery Gallagher asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
First edition
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For my Nana, who always thought I could do anything I wanted.
Contents
Prologue
1. The Invitation
2. Daggers and Quests
3. Shala
4. Traveling Companions
5. The Temple
6. Enemies and Friends
7. Mountain of Souls
Epilogue
About the Author
Prologue
In a dark room by a low fire, an old woman sat looking at the cards dealt facedown on the table before her, contemplating what they might show her tonight. Her face was marked by the lines of years and worry, but her pale blue eyes were still piercing, and her mind was still sharp. She had once aided the rise and fall of monarchs and kingdoms, eloquent politicians and cunning military men, but now she was long forgotten by the rest of the world. In her exile she was limited to watching from afar, forbidden to interfere in human affairs.
Still, she liked to take an interest in the events of the nations, and routinely she turned to this little stack of cards for some sign of a future hero. Any powers she had ever had to guess the future or read events from afar had long since faded, part of her endless punishment, but the cards contained magic of their own. Perhaps they still had something to say. She looked down at the three neat lines of cards in front of her, twelve in each row, then chose a card from the first row and turned it over. It bore a picture of a sapphire gemstone, deep blue in color. Always a favorite, but usually followed by disappointment. And the next card? A picture of a dark sky dotted with tiny stars presented itself— Darkness. Her interest piqued, she chose a card from the third row and with a steady hand flipped it over. Her eyes widened as she saw the word written on the other side—Courage.
Sapphire, darkness, and courage. Not in many, many years had the cards formed this combination, no matter how many times the laws of probability said they should. Perhaps she had finally been granted a portent. These three cards had represented only one person before, an unusual and talented woman named Jordana. Jordana had been the first, and whoever this was would be the first again.
But she needed more proof.
The woman stood, taking the three cards with her. She climbed the three flights of stairs quickly and emerged in the highest point of the house. She jerked back the curtains and stared upward at the sky. There was no moon. Only endless black. Below her she could see the small herd of wild horses that sometimes came into the clearing to graze. Tonight they were dashing back and forth, starting and tossing their heads in fright, their black coats almost blending into the darkness. A black cat sat calmly on the woodpile, completely unbothered by the turmoil around it. Further omens, surely.
She dashed down the stairs again and through a maze of hallways, the edge of her robe rustling and her single candle throwing flitting shadows on the walls. She stopped before a great iron door and, after lowering the bar, heaved it open. She knelt in front of a dusty chest and struggled with the corroded lock, having to give it several sharp raps with the candle-holder before it would open. From the chest she pulled a long object wrapped in soft leather. The sword hummed with the reverberating noise of metal that has been struck a blow and burned her fingers as she started to unwrap it. Quickly she returned it to the chest. The sword knew its owner was coming soon, and it was impatient.
She hurried to the small room she called her library and yanked the cloth covering from a full-length mirror, staring searchingly at the silvery glass. Lightning split the dark sky outside and streaked into the room, striking the mirror. For a moment, Jordana’s dark, shoulder-length curls, blue eyes, and mischievous smile stared back at her. Then the image rippled and changed to that of a younger girl with straight black hair, pale skin, and bright sapphire blue eyes. The girl wore a black cloak fastened at the throat with a fine silver clasp, and she was staring upward at the sky in fascination. The mirror went blank again, showing only the reflection of the room.
The white-haired woman knew who the girl would be. There could be no mistake. “It is time to bring the Order back,” she whispered.
* * *
Under the same moonless sky, on the thick, high wall that surrounded her home, stood the girl whose face had appeared in the mirror. She waited among the shadows like some creature native to the element until the watchman with his lantern and pike had passed, then silently crept down the length of the wall until she reached the round guard tower that stood at its corner. With practiced ease she climbed swiftly up the tower’s uneven and slightly crumbling walls where, by pushing her boots against the beveled stone trim around its edge, she could sit on the slanted roof and command a view of all below her, had anything below her been of interest.
Charlie of Windsong sat silent and still, staring up at the black sky in thoughtful reverie. Her dark cloak hid her in the shadow of the spire that topped the tower. The lanterns the guards carried were tiny glowing orbs of light floating back and forth in the darkness, and she knew they could not see her. Not a single window was lit in the castle behind her, and there was no sign of life in the village in the distance. It was a perfect night for entertaining wild ideas and dreaming about what might lay past the walls, beyond the darkness.
The bell that signaled the changing of the watch gave a single reverberating clang that echoed against the walls. Before the echo had died, a jagged streak of silver lightning, the longest she had ever seen, cut through the sky. Unnerved, the men on watch duty began to point and mutter uneasily to each other. The sky had shown no signs of a storm, and no thunder had accompanied the lightning. Charlie stared intently at the sky, hoping it would happen again. Unusual happenings were always more likely to fascinate than frighten her.
A shadowy figure rose from the nearest stairway, a lantern held aloft. Charlie slipped down from the roof, landing with the light-footedness of a cat, and walked toward her brother, reaching him after several of the watchmen.
Both William and the guards were startled to see her emerge from the shadows. In the dim light cast by the lanterns, she could see her older brother smile briefly at her. Her antics were always a constant, pleasant source of amusement for him, and he would never scold her for being out of bed.
“Did you see it?” she demanded, pushing back the hood of her cloak.
“Yes,” William replied, glancing again at the sky. “What was that?”
“Lightning!” Charlie said, looking in vain for another streak.
He rolled his eyes gently. “I know that, Charlie. But it couldn’t have been natural. Lightning doesn’t do that.”
“It’s a sign,” Charlie replied seriously, still staring up at the sky, wondering how she knew that.
1
The Invitation
“Wake up, Charlie,” a voice whispered softly above her head. “The boys are back.
”
Reluctantly, Charlie left behind her dream of silver streaks of lighting and opened her eyes to find her younger sister leaning over her bed. “What is it?” she asked sleepily.
“The boys are home,” Beth repeated, her cornflower blue eyes bright with excitement. “Come downstairs. They’ve brought us presents.”
“I’m coming,” Charlie sighed, kicking off the blankets. Having already forgotten her dream, she dressed quickly and followed her sister downstairs.
Charlie’s older brothers, William and Matthew of Windsong, were in the king’s service at the royal palace of Tandora in the capital, Will as a knight and Matt as a squire. They had left home to learn the noble art of being knights of the king when they were only boys, and though they had been her dearest playmates as children, time and divergent paths had distanced brothers and sister in a way that made Charlie sad for who they used to be. William was often home now as the lord of the castle, but his duties to the crown still took him away for extended periods. Matthew she only saw two or three times a year. But now both young men stood in the great hall of the castle, still dusty from riding, several of their men-at-arms around them. Lady Victorina was already there hugging her sons and holding little Kiara.
“Hi,” Charlie said breathlessly as she hugged William, not minding the dust that transferred from his clothes to hers. “Miss your favorite sister?” Of all her siblings, she was closest to him. They were the most alike, from their black hair and blue eyes to their stubborn personalities, though he had a gentleness of spirit that she lacked. The responsibility of being the head of the family had made him steadier and more thoughtful over the last few years.
“Very much,” he replied, squeezing her so hard she could barely breathe. “I’ve had no one to tease.”
“Very funny,” she muttered, moving on to hug Matthew amid the joyous ruckus of homecoming. She loved it when her brothers were home, but their returns and departures always brought a small twinge at the contrast between their freedom to come and go and her own restriction to the castle. They had had the same games and rules as children, but now the boys were dashing warriors, and she was a very pretty house cat.
After the boys had cleaned up (and Charlie had been sent to re-pin her haphazard hair), they gathered in the solar to open the slightly battered packages wrapped in colored paper they had brought back with them. Gifts brought home from afar were a rare treat in a house that seemed to have given up joy and ceased moving forward years ago, and for a moment the ever-lurking shadow of absence that abided in the castle with them was forgotten. Charlie enjoyed the laughter and chatter immensely while it lasted. Her daily life was deadly dull, and the tiniest escape or amusement was welcome.
Charlie’s perception of her home and her days there was perhaps unfair, for in truth her life was both easy and pleasant. She had a lovely, comfortable place to live that would have been the envy of any peasant and a shocking amount of freedom that would have astounded most other noble-born girls her own age.
Windsong, the castle and grounds that encompassed her entire world, was a quiet place at the edge of the Eastern Forest, more than two weeks’ ride from the capital and far removed from the politics and court intrigues. Acres of good grassland for grazing animals surrounded the castle outside the walls, finally melting into trees that were only just visible from the towers. The residents of the small village grew corn on the fertile soil and raised cattle on the pastures. The herd of graceful, powerful horses that grazed outside the walls were a possession of the noble family themselves, having once been raised by Lord Arathis, Charlie’s father. The castle was usually quiet, almost sad at times, but when the boys and their entourages of servants and men-at-arms were home, it fairly bustled; first in preparation for their arrival and then in the roughhousing way of many young men gathered in one place with no elders to damper their noise.
The inside of the castle was an organized maze of hallways and staircases created by multiple additions built around the original keep. The family and their many servants occupied the main body of the castle among kitchens, bedchambers, and sundry other rooms for various purposes. A large stable housed the horses behind the castle, and a garrison by the east wall accommodated the soldiers who guarded the fief. The grounds inside the courtyard were large and included paddocks for the horses that were not stabled and an expansive garden that had gone half-wild from lack of tending. The crumblings of age and slight neglect only accentuated its beauty and presence.
Charlie liked discovering the castle’s many secrets and enjoyed exploring the place she had lived all of her fifteen years. Many artifacts of past residents lingered forgotten in storerooms and strange nooks, and it seemed that no matter how long she did live there, she would never know each part of the castle too thoroughly. Just when she thought she had finished, there was another door that led to another room that had something interesting inside. And when the exploring got too tiring, there was always the well-stocked library to retreat to and explore a book instead. There was even exploring to do outside the walls, in the fields and forests that surrounded the castle. In truth, her exploring habit was as much a product of lack of else to do than it was of curiosity.
She had lived a rather sheltered life as the eldest daughter of a wealthy nobleman. All her needs were met; she had never known hardship of any kind. She was loved and cared for, though not always understood. She spent most of her days inside the castle walls themselves. Only a few times had she ever traveled to the palace or a neighboring fife. This isolation should have made Charlie docile and introverted, raised in an environment that encouraged good manners and inside hobbies. On the contrary, she fought to be able to go outside, sneaked if she had to to get out of the walls and into the woods. She rode her horse often and preferred to endure the scolding she received for coming home late rather than to come inside earlier than she had to. She was a busy girl by nature, and left alone she would find some way to amuse herself, regardless of the appropriateness of the activity.
It was this energetic and determined nature that had made her father indulge her so much as a child. She had been allowed to play with her brothers and to learn the same things they did: fencing, riding, and archery. Not only did she learn with the boys, she kept up with them until they left for their formal training at the palace. It was also these qualities that enabled Charlie to become an expert at hiding, deceiving, and evading. She had to sneak around her mother to practice most of these skills with her father gone, but though Lady Victorina had her suspicions about Charlie’s pastimes, she could never catch her and had started to turn a blind eye just to avoid the headache of arguing with her clever eldest daughter.
For the first thirteen years of her life, indulged as she was by her father, she had been brought up to be a lady of a fine house, a girl who would present well at court and make a good marriage one day. When her father did not come home from one of his trips while working for the crown, her mother’s interest in forcing her half-wild daughter into obedience had become second to her grief, and any ladylike training that had curbed Charlie’s wilder nature was almost ignored. Left to her own devices, Charlie did whatever entertained her best. Embroidery, dancing, and manners were no longer enforced, and riding, exploring, and fencing practice filled the emptiness of her days. She knew William would make her a marriage match when she asked him to, but she pictured that to be in the far future.
Lady Victorina was wise enough to realize that her eldest girl was a better forest flower than a greenhouse rose, but she didn’t have the strength to prune her into submission without her husband’s help. William, who was the head of the family with his father gone, might have been expected to back his mother’s instruction, but he invariably took Charlie’s side, failing to see that she should no longer be the little tomboy tagging along behind him. Lady Victorina accepted the veneer of gentility Charlie offered to preserve dignity and ignored whatever else she did as long as it was done where she did not have to see or hear about
it. She had two other well-behaved daughters who were not so willful, at least.
“Where have you been?” she would ask tiredly as Charlie blustered into the room half an hour late, wisps of hair clinging to her forehead and smudges of dirt on her dress hem.
“Walking in the garden,” Charlie would answer innocently, holding up a few roses she had snatched up on her way inside as proof.
Her mother’s response was to hand her a basket of mending, which usually ended up being done by Beth as Charlie went to see if she could interest William in a little sword practice.
* * *
Shortly after the boys’ return from the capital, a summer storm brought rain pounding down furiously outside Fife Windsong, the thunder drowning out all other sounds. Streaky, spidery lightning flashed until the sky was rarely dark, and the fierce wind made the heavy shutters pull at their latches and whistled eerily through the various cracks in the stonework. The gates had been drawn fast, and the guards retreated to covered posts, knowing they couldn’t see through the downpour anyway. Most of the castle’s inhabitants slumbered, or at least pretended to try through the cacophony of rain, wind, and thunder.
Charlie was not sleeping. She was in the castle tower, leaning against the narrow window and watching the storm in fascination. She had made her way through the cold passageways inside the castle and up the narrow stone stairway as soon as she was certain that the household had gone to bed and no one would notice she was gone. She was as adept at dodging the servants as she was the guardsmen. Charlie often came up to the tower when it stormed. She held a lingering hope that she would witness a powerful streak of lighting like she had on that clear night weeks ago, though she wasn’t sure why it mattered so much to her. But now she had watched long enough, and she wanted to return to her bed. It was chilly and damp up in the tower, with summer only newly arrived.
The Silver Key Page 1