The Rogue Trilogy

by Elizabeth Carlton

  Jaycent stomped his way through the grass, its blades grasping and pulling at his trousers like a miniature army fighting against his escape.

  “You are a runner,” Filly’s haunting words played over in his head. “Always fleeing from who you are, and who you are meant to be…”

  Tears stung Jaycent’s eyes, their warm droplets creasing his cheeks and breaking against the stubble on his face. The dreamer had scoured his mind for memories long buried and revived them as visions. The death of his parents and their weak voices barely permeating the thick oak door had nearly torn his heart from his breast.

  He had carried the guilt for so long. Avoiding his parents when they breathed their last haunted him worse than Shadow’s dreams. His advisors had assured him he had done the right thing. Nevaharday couldn’t risk their only heir. However, their words did nothing to stave the regret that lived inside the prince.

  “Those who call you Jaycent expect a grand prince, but this image is a façade. You’ve known it all this time,” the dreamer used flashbacks of the countless reprimands in Rayhan’s office and the disenchanted looks that had been cast his way in the years after his parents’ deaths.

  Jaycent couldn’t deny her claims. He couldn’t explain away the images she’d thrust into recall: his drunken habits; stolen night rendezvous; countless actions that threatened to taint the Connor name.

  There had always been something inside of Jaycent that led him to fight against the structures of royalty and kingship. Resigned, he plopped to the ground and swiped a thick cotton sleeve over his eyes. Bowing his head between his knees, he struggled to catch his breath against the torrent of emotions that came with facing the truth. Every regret, every mistake, had been brought to the surface for him to see.

  How it hurt to acknowledge his shortcomings!

  “You have to let it go,” Filly had said. “The destruction you’ve begun inside your soul is the result of your own unwillingness to forgive yourself and accept who you truly are. You are a lone stallion among your people, born of greatness for a great purpose.

  “Shadow knows this. He knows you have the ability to be as strong or greater than your ancestor. But you must make peace with the past and leave it behind, or else he will use it to kill you.”

  “Let it go,” she had said over and over again as the memories flooded through his mind. But how does one sweep years of guilt off their shoulders?

  Jaycent let his back fall to the ground and closed his eyes, feeling the hardness of the earth. The warmth of the sun’s rays seeped into his skin. Forgiveness would not come without change. If he were to shed his transgressions, he’d have to start anew. He would have to take responsibility.

  Jaycent couldn’t change the role he’d been born into, but he could decide how he chose to play it out. Perhaps that’s what Nevaharday needed now: a leader who saw through a fresh perspective that could bring their kin together.

  Jaycent took a deep breath and opened his eyes. A hawk descended from the sky, its great white wings, tipped with black, beating hard against the air until it landed softly against a broken column. Around him birds spoke to one another, their music accentuating the environment’s serenity.

  Near his head a patch of tiny purple flowers carpeted the ground. Filly had been right. He could not let the past rule him. Just like Bresan T’ahnya did not let the remnants of the old city steal its beauty.

  The crunch of grass met his ears, and Jaycent sat up to see who was near. He smiled when he caught sight of golden brown hair and relaxed, his arms hooked around his knees.

  “Have a care not to step on me when you pass,” he called to her. Levee’s ears tweaked at the sound of his warm voice. She took a few more steps to the left and found the rahee concealed in the grass.

  She settled next to him on the ground. Little lavender petals poked up all around her as she stared up at the same hawk he’d been watching. “Have you found what you came out here for?”

  Jaycent rubbed the fuzz beneath his chin, his gaze distant. “I think so.”

  “What is it?”

  “When the Bresan T’ahnya fell, the re’shahna did not rebuild it the way it was originally done. They reverted back to the root of their being and created a new thing, as beautiful as it is different.”

  Levee stared at him for several moments. “Jaycent Connor speaking with the tongue of a gypsy?” she teased. “What did that strange dreamer do to you?”

  The prince’s lips spread in a wry grin. He wiped the strange mark Filly had placed on his head at the beginning of their session. “She brought a dead soul out of the ashes.”

  JAYCENT’S CHOICE

  Weeks rolled by, but Jaycent had no time to count them. When he wasn’t enduring Filly’s rigorous sessions, the rahee shadowed Tobi, integrating himself into the lifestyle of a re’shahna warrior.

  Like a young colt budding into a stallion, Jaycent developed in both body and spirit. His muscles grew taut under the duress of the mountain’s steep slopes while his mind built a new and disciplined wall that stood unyielding against outside intrusion. Piece by piece, Jaycent molded himself until his loyalty to his people was all that remained of his royal persona.

  Fall merged into winter, and too soon the first flakes of snow began to fall, forming powdery white blankets over everything green. The herds that shared the large valley with the re’shahna grew heavier coats, and Tobi taught Jaycent how to make his own winter garb using pelts acquired from their hunts together.

  What started out as a strange and foreign culture became the norm for him and Levee. His extensive training under Rayhan melded with the instincts of the re’shahna. The forgotten city grew on him until it felt like home; a realization that both satisfied and worried the changing prince.

  His confidence and strength were growing, but his fear for Nevaharday’s welfare never diminished. Its safety still permeated his thoughts and drove his determination to become a capable adversary against the mysterious and corrupted re’shahna named Shadow.

  No matter how appealing Bresan T’ahnya and its way of life was, he would not abandon the kingdom he inherited. Not when they needed him.

  Jaycent decided to voice his concerns at camp one night, a few miles outside of Bresan T’ahnya’s walls. The pair huddled around a burning campfire nestled beneath an outcrop they had staked as their own for the night. With Levee on watch it was only the two of them, and the prince glanced at the re’shahna gnawing casually on a piece of deer jerky.

  “Tobi.” The re’shahna’s ears pricked in response, and he offered his full attention. “When will we be returning to Nevaharday?”

  “When you are ready,” came the re’shahna’s reply.

  The prince swatted his long ponytail behind his shoulder and grumbled. Tobi’s answers were often vague. Resting his back against the curving rock, Jaycent pulled his thick brown cloak tighter across his arms and chest. “I have passed all of Filly’s tests,” he reasoned. “I can control my visions and guard my mind against every one of her intrusions. What is left for me to learn?”

  “If you left tonight to face Shadow, could you defeat him?”

  Jaycent’s ears drooped, and his eyes veered away from Tobi to the meditative wave of the fire. If the prince returned now, the night mares alone could finish him off. “No.”

  “Then you are not ready,” Tobi returned to his chewing.

  “So then what do I do?” the prince argued. “The longer I stay away from my city, the greater their peril grows. Do you expect me to wait here until Shadow has torn down Nevaharday’s gates?”

  Tobi paused, his fingers fiddling with the dried meat. “You must wait however long it takes.”

  Jaycent gave into a sharp exhale. “I need more than that, Tobi.” His dreams had not been kind to him these past few weeks. At night he saw licks of flame cast over Nevaharday’s walls, warning him of dark days to come. “I cannot simply hide up here in the mountains while my people face this foe alone.”

  A sternness c
louded Tobi’s eyes in a way Jaycent had never seen before. “If you return now to face the illusionist, you will die, and all will be forfeit.”

  “If Nevaharday falls, then it is already forfeit,” the prince flung his hood over his face and forced his half-frozen limbs back on two feet.

  Tobi shook his head. “I fear you weigh this dilemma on too small of a scale, Connor Prince.”

  “And I fear you view it from so high upon your mountain that you do not consider the lives at stake!”

  “You must look beyond Nevaharday, my friend. What will become of this region if you rushed into the fray before you are ready?” The re’shahna flicked his head toward Jaycent’s pack. “Look in the book I gave you the day you stepped foot upon our soil. Your answers reside in there.”

  “Answers to what?” Jaycent asked.

  “Inside Connor’s journal is a riddle meant for one descendant of his to decipher. I believe you are the one it was meant for, Connor Prince.”

  Jaycent recalled the entry inside of Connor’s journal where cryptic lines had been scrawled across its yellowing pages. “I read it until I had it memorized, and then a thousand times after, but it still does not make sense.”

  “Repeat them,” Tobiano instructed.

  “Through starlit skies a cold steel cadence thunders through the night.

  Its resounding echoes one must follow for Evil’s bane to meet its demise.

  Through golden gates a mystic place where the halls of the dead await.

  Inside its doors hides equine lore and a blade that will seal his fate.”

  Jaycent sighed. “I have never heard a cold steel cadence, and where would I find a ‘hall of the dead’? It cannot be anywhere within Bresan T’ahnya. Other than the royal catacombs in Nevaharday, our people have always buried their dead, and this riddle was written long before my city was built.”

  “When dreamers have visions they feel must be guarded, they document them in riddles so that only those who were meant to know them will decipher their meaning,” Tobi explained. “Have patience. If those words are meant for you, as I suspect they are, then you will understand them as the events he foresaw begin to take place.”

  Jaycent frowned. “Aye, but when will that be?” The prince’s whole existence seemed to revolve around a search for answers across steep hills of uncertainty. The game grew old, but he couldn’t ignore it. As much as it pained him to wait, his people’s fate depended on his patience.

  Unable to change the unfortunate circumstance, Jaycent steered his attention elsewhere. Digging through his pack, he removed an empty mug and poured a warm cup of tea from a pot hung over the fire. Then he went to join Levee on the lookout knoll above their camp. Tucked in a thick gray cloak of her own, wanderers would think her nothing more than another rock on a stone scattered mountain.

  “Ho there,” Jaycent called softly. He noted a jerk in the fabric of her hood as one ear cocked back toward the sound of his voice. She smiled at the prince when he took a seat beside her and slipped the warm mug into her hands.

  “Thank you,” Levee drew the warm drink close to her lips and let its heat stave winter’s bite.

  Jaycent smiled, his cloak hiding all but the white of his teeth and the tail of his long, long hair. “I thought you might need something warm.”

  She scooted toward the prince so she could lean her back against his knees, and he rubbed her arms to warm them. “I heard you arguing with Tobi,” she said. “Is everything okay?”

  The prince pulled her closer so they could share body heat. “It is getting harder and harder to wait,” he confessed. “I fear for Nevaharday, my people… my family.”

  “You mean Rayhan?”

  Jaycent sighed into her hair. “He is the closest thing I have to a brother. I treated him poorly these last few years. I see that more now. He always wanted to help me, and I rebuffed his every try.”

  Levee pulled one hand away from the steaming mug to squeeze his palm. “I’m sure he forgave you of that even before we came here.”

  Jaycent chuckled at her optimism. “Perhaps.”

  “If not before, then certainly by now,” she assured him. “No matter what happens between you two, family will always be family. He probably thinks of you just as often as you think of him.”

  Jaycent kissed the top of her head, grateful for her words. Then he leaned back against his hands and watched the gypsy sip the warm tea, her eyes intent upon the hilly, broken landscape stretched out in front of them.

  Levee felt his stare, and her next shiver had nothing to do with the weather. “What is it?”

  The prince’s breath rose up in puffs from beneath the low edge of his hood. He let the question slip before he had the chance to bite it back. “Do you ever think of him?”

  The gypsy furrowed her brow. “Do I ever think of who, Jayce?”

  “Milo,” came his reply. “Do you ever think of the Sarrokian you left behind?”

  “Of course…” Levee replied. The way he worded that question, calling Milo the one she’d “left behind”, took her aback. “How could I not? He and his mother have been my family for years.”

  “That is not what I meant,” Jaycent corrected. His voice was tight.

  Levee set the mug down beside her, intent on unveiling what the prince was holding back. “What do you mean then?”

  “Do you miss him?”

  “I just said—”

  Jaycent cut in. “Is he the one you saw yourself waking up to twenty years from now?” The words were tumbling out of his mouth, sudden and rolling like rocks in a mountain slide. “Did it make your heart ache when he was gone and beat like galloping horses when he was near? Did his presence lasso you without warning? Did it proclaim itself as home?” He turned her toward him, his face still masked by the curtain of fabric and the deep shadows of night. “Tell me, Melah, does your soul belong with him?”

  Levee let his words—so bold, so sudden—sink in. She reached out and gently pulled the hood from his face until it draped behind his shoulders. Cheeks clothed in dark brown stubble framed his face, bringing contrast to his winter-blue irises. Never had she seen a more honest and readable expression upon the prince of Nevaharday.

  Levee’s palm fell upon his breast, feeling the steady beat of his heart. “I do miss him,” she whispered. Beneath her hand she felt his body tense, and his heart pattered faster. “And I have pictured my life with him before, though always with a sense of hesitance. With Milo I knew I’d be content, but he was never the one you so passionately describe.”

  Jaycent arms were the only thing propping him up against the torrent of warmth and adrenaline awakened by her touch. “Then there is another,” he whispered.

  “Aye,” she leaned forward, her cheek brushing against his as her lips drew near his upraised ear. “There is one.” Levee brushed her lips against his cheek, and Jaycent, who had known many lovers, had never felt more moved by a kiss than that one.

  The smell of her hair, the cool touch of her breath against his ear, nearly lost him to the eager sway of instincts. He thrust his hands off the ground and wrapped them around her slender frame, closing the gap between them. Levee melted into his kiss, her watch forgotten.

  She had daydreamed of this moment several times, wondering if she would feel torn between her intense magnetism toward Jaycent versus the comfort of Milo. But there was no uncertainty in her heart; no indecision as she curled against the prince’s chest, his strong arms cradling her with true compassion.

  His kisses are nothing like an elf, she thought to herself when she recalled Milo’s remark from months ago. The couple knocked the mug over as they rolled back, locked in a heated embrace that stole the impact from the snow’s wet bite. It no longer mattered as they lost themselves to the moment, their souls colliding with yearning.

  The parts of Levee Jaycent loved were the pieces Milo had always tried to tame, like the spirit of adventure that complemented the life they’d found on the edge of a mountain too grand for na
mes. Where she was once scolded her for her boldness, Jaycent praised her for being brave.

  The prince believed even before their lips met that if there were soulmates, she was his. They hadn’t known each other long, but there was an innate spark between them. Their spiritual connection ran far deeper than any mere friendship or fling he had ever known. He nuzzled his cheek against hers, his warm breath against her neck making her shiver.

  How he loved it when she did!

  “I care about you, Levee Tensley,” he confessed. “More than I should.”

  A coy smile spread across the gypsy’s lips. “So it seems.”

  “Will you forgive me?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Will you love me?” he whispered.

  “Only if you love me first,” she challenged.

  Jaycent grin curved against her lips. “I already do.”

  Overhead, the moon hung full and bright, chasing away the darkness that had shrouded their journey. Their troubles would be there to greet them in the morning, but for now this moment belonged to them. They joined in union under an audience of stars, and Jaycent didn’t give a damn what his advisors would think.

  His heart said he loved Levee, and that was all the council he needed.

  A GYPSY’S PROMISE

  The sky was dark over Nevaharday. The storm that had loomed for a day and a half over the mountains now settled over the city where it railed sheets of ice across every open surface. The wind howled furiously, smothering the voices of shouting guards as they fought to fortify the walls against nature’s torrent.

  Outside villages had been evacuated, and refugees huddled under flimsy tents inside the city gates. The beat of nails and hammers could be heard from the covered stables as carpenters worked doggedly to build more solid shelters, but the weather had slowed most of their progress.

  Citizens stepped up and offered their houses to family and strangers alike, their hearts softened by a common cause. Still, there wasn’t enough room and many had no choice but to stand miserably beneath the sleet.