Ninthborn (The Ninthborn Chronicle Book 1)

by J. E. Holmes

  

  by

  J.E. Holmes

  Copyright © 2021

  Copyright © 2021 by J.E. Holmes.

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover art copyright Syd Mills 2021.

  Published by Elyssia Books.

  First Edition, 2021

  ISBN-13: 978-1-954732-13-1

  For Anna, without whom

  Ediline would never have had

  a story all her own

  

  

  Part One

  — The Emissary —

  — Chapter 1 —

  “On the eighth darkened day, the Masters of Attenia delivered an oration to their people. ’We will persevere,’ they declared. ’We are eternal. You will be safe beneath our mantle.’ Before sunrise, all of Attenia was in ruins, its masters dead. Nevertheless, another day followed.”

  —The Chronicle of Tyrants, ed. xiv

  Ediline was cursed.

  As a kid, she’d thought about running away. Snuck through the manor to gather supplies while squinting back tears, holding onto an invisible hope that she could escape her curse. Twice she had left the city and sat in the border jungle, entrenched in sorrow and the Everquiet hum of the shade, and waited for something to happen. Of course, nothing would happen. No one would cry for her.

  Because Ediline’s real curse was being trapped in a family that despised her just for existing.

  The bridgecity Korv was blistering hot. From the border jungle and all the way across it Ediline rushed back home.

  At the center of the city sat the royal manor Sladt, a dense cluster of houses and other buildings added on and on over time and smashed together, linked by walkways, ramps, ladders, and snaking paths. It was all built on the oldest mangrove in all of Tithelk. And Ediline’s house sat low and precarious on the eastern tip above the river, an afterthought.

  She was almost there. Just a quick stop to change out of her muddy clothes, check on Marv, and then—

  “Daughter.” The thunderous voice stopped her cold.

  The deep tremor of the word shook through her arms and into her core. Against the harsh sunlight, she turned and gazed up at the massive silhouette at the top of the ramp behind her.

  King Maxen carried the same obvious gravity of a boulder, the clear latent ferocity of a storm cloud. His eyes were permanently stern, but now they narrowed at Ediline, and she shrank. He came down the ramp like a deluge crashing through a dam. Two of his elite guards followed him.

  “Father, I—”

  “Be silent.”

  His voice was incredibly deep, as if it echoed up from a great chasm, and it took little to imagine how thunderous, how commanding, how terrifying that voice could become.

  “I summoned you to the Hall,” he said. Every vibration elicited an inner flinch, which she did not allow to play on her features. Thank the Lords for her Inherent gift of Presence.

  She said nothing. Kept her eyes down. It wasn't easy.

  “You were absent from the manor. And now that my message has finally reached you, you have walked through my city looking like this. There is blood on your face.”

  She wanted to bite back. As if he come home from the jungle without walking through the city. Instead, she said, “It’s Straad’s, Father.” she said. “I wanted to clean up, to present my best—”

  “If I wanted an explanation, I would have asked for it. You should have been available to be called upon. Instead, you were bloodying my general in the border jungles. Know your place, girl.”

  “If you have a problem with Straad training me,” she said, “take it up with him.” She filled her lungs and raised her chin and met his hardened glare.

  He’d wanted an eighth child—her twin brother Ancil—and she was the damning consequence to that, and nothing more. The malice in the way he looked at her, the distaste for being in the presence of his ninthborn child, the disgust at knowing that her cursed existence had come from him—it was all proof that was how he thought of her. It was draining, even after seventeen years.

  When he bristled at her brashness, he seemed to swell even larger, wider and taller, enough to practically block the sun from her. “I will. General Straad has far better things to do than to pursue a lost cause such as yourself.”

  “He says I have potential.”

  “He is mistaken.” She held back from cringing, but she did shift her weight back. His mouth relaxed into a flat, smug smile. “Your punishment will come shortly for this. A ninth is not fit for war.”

  He turned his head, finally letting Ediline from his sight. She kept her head high.

  “See that she is presentable,” King Maxen said to his elite guards. “Bring her to the Hall when she is finished.” He turned and strode away up the ramp, the thunderhead rolling away.

  Ediline couldn’t get away from him fast enough. She dropped down the ladder’s distance to the walkway below. She stomped to her door, flung it open, and slammed it shut behind her. Inside here was her only refuge.

  Three rooms. A desk and a chair, a bed and bedside table, a bath, a wardrobe. The shaved slats of glowing oak in her ceiling let off a faint blue light.

  Under that light, she saw Marv poke his head out from the open doorway to her bedroom, his large dark eyes glinting with eagerness. He skittered his way across the floor to her and encircled her legs, rubbing up on her muddied boots with his plush gray fur and making demanding cooing noises. Ediline’s frustration ebbed. A smile came to the corner of her mouth. She scooped up Marv and kissed his soft head. “It’s nice to see you, too, Marv,” she whispered.

  There were thudding footfalls outside. Her father’s elite guard. Right. Of course they weren’t going to leave her alone.

  Just in case they came inside, she had to move Marv. If her father knew about him, he would take him from her—or worse—and that would just crush her. Cursing, she brought Marv to the bedroom and lowered his roundish form onto her bed.

  “Stay in, and stay quiet,” she told him. He watched her back up and shut the bedroom door.

  In the bathroom, she lifted the spigot and filled the bath. She peeled off her mud-wracked clothing and brushed the muck out of her hair, running it through the cool water again and again. She washed her face and rinsed the dry sweat off her body.

  If she hadn’t just had that encounter outside, she would have bathed with languor and forced whoever waited on her to wait a little longer. But today she washed, rinsed, and dried without enjoying a second of it. She stepped out of the bathroom, toweling her hair and relishing the air on her skin.

  Then she yelped.

  Her father’s elite guard was in her living room. Ediline covered herself with the small towel for her hair and scowled death at the guard, a short, gray-haired woman.

  “What in the desolation are you doing?” she snapped. “I am a princess, and this is my private—”

  The guard raised a hand and cut her short. “Dress.”

  Red heat filled Ediline’s face. “My father’s authority does not pass to you,” she said. It was absolutely the wrong thing to do, but she was already rolling downhill. “You cannot order me to do anything, especially not while you intrude into my house. Step. Outside. Now.”

  The guard cocked an eyebrow. “You are the most arrogant naked girl I’ve ever seen.”

  “I can be even more arrogant than this, believe me,” Ediline said. “Get out.”

  “Princess,” the guard said. “Your presence doesn’t offen
d me. Your language, your actions, and your nudity do not offend me. I have my orders. You must dress and dress well. Now.”

  Ediline exhaled, fuming. To dress now would be to follow this guard’s command, which agitated her. But, if she didn’t dress, she would risk angering her father further, which terrified her.

  “Are you going to just watch me?”

  The guard sighed and rolled her eyes. She turned fully around, standing at attention with her face to Ediline’s front door. “Is this better, Princess?”

  “You have far too much audacity. Do you talk back to my father like this?” Ediline dropped her towel and swung open her wardrobe. She began to dress in her finest.

  “Protecting His Dominance and following his instructions rarely requires speaking.”

  “Do you answer to my brother?”

  “Prince Cardiv?”

  “Yes, that one.”

  “No,” she said. “I was a city guard when the King’s brother still commanded us, and now I am an elite royal guard.”

  “You answer only to my Father, then.”

  Ediline put on long stockings and a flowing skirt, then a sleeveless blouse of fine linen, dyed rich violet. She tied a sash around her waist and let the tail of it drift behind her. The whole outfit breathed wonderfully in the thick heat. She looked over at the guard, with her heavy armored skirt and ironwood breastplate. It must have been stifling.

  “I’m dressed.”

  The guard turned back around and approached with something in hand. Ediline allowed her, just watching. She reached around Ediline’s shoulders and fastened the clasp of a thin silver necklace with a shining white pearl grasped by pale gold.

  Ediline gaped. “What—?”

  “I am following my orders,” the guard said. She raised her chin. “You look fine. Now, follow me, and follow your sister’s lead.”

  Ediline was left blinking in the middle of her dim living room. Follow her sister’s lead? That meant Betrys, the eldest, but that didn’t tell her anything. And Ediline had never been allowed to attend a meeting in the Hall—that they knew of—so, why now?

  There was one easy way to find out. Before following, she let Marv back out of her bedroom, checked his food and water, and made sure her front door was shut.

  Her father’s guard had already gone up the ramp and ladder, where she rejoined her partner. Ediline had no problem following. She’d grown up running along these ramps, jumping and climbing all over the elaborate manor.

  Ediline followed the pair of elite guards to Sladt’s main door past the gate. It was a massive door with a spiraling mosaic of a redeemer’s tree fashioned out of dozens of different woods. Some were dry and smooth, others sweet, and a few spicy. It felt connected to all of Lanen, like it was all before her, and she felt less miniscule.

  Inside, the air was musty. Thick and tense. Her father held dominion here. This smell, the stiffness to the air, and the silence, they were all his. Timber walls, high ceilings, woven tapestries, furniture of rare woods.

  She followed at a stride through the next set of great open doors.

  The Hall of Meeting had eight alcoves fanning into an octagon from a central point. The entrance to each alcove was a doorless archway, but the acoustics of the room kept all sound within each alcove. Eight private meetings could occur in one open chamber.

  Finely dressed herself, her sister Betrys stood in the third alcove with a young man in dark leathers, not of Tithelk fashion. He wore stiff-looking trousers and a sharply tailored shirt. His pale yellowish hair was cut short around his ears but otherwise swept roguishly across his brow.

  His eyes fell on Ediline assessing him, and she was caught, then, not knowing who he was or what type of greeting she should offer from a distance, so she smiled. And so did he.

  Betrys waved her to enter. “Ediline.”

  When most people said her name, it was either in a tone of impatience, disapproval, or simple irritation. But today, Betrys actually sounded relieved. And that was worrisome.

  ”Ediline,” she repeated, “thank you for coming so quickly. I had tried to keep you from your duties this morning, but I understand they were important.”

  Duties? Important? “Sister, I—”

  “I am being rude,” Betrys cut in. She shot Ediline a look, pleading and intimidating all at once. Play along and do not ruin this, the expression said. “Ediline, I have the pleasure of introducing you to Javras Teshtéshev, son of the coming emissary from Ronrónfa. Sesér Teshtéshev, this is my baby sister, Princess Ediline.” Betrys fake-smiled. It would likely have been convincing to anyone who wasn’t her sister. To Ediline, it was a warning, like the crack before the branch breaks.

  “Coming, yes,” Javras said, “but Tyrants only know how long he will be.” He had a rich voice. Ediline offered another smile. She didn’t need to fake interest. She was entranced by Javras—the freckles on his nose, the lush blonde hair that weightlessly defied the humidity, his lulling voice, and his dark blue eyes.

  At the word tyrants, Betrys flinched, but Javras’s choice of religion didn’t matter to Ediline.

  “Unlike Javras, his father is going by land,” Betrys said, “traversing the ruins of Attenia on his way here.”

  “A delight to meet you,” Ediline said. “You came by way of the Outward Sea, then?”

  “I did, with a few retainers.” His eyes met hers, and she barely contained the burst of anxious bubbles in her chest. She’d never felt anything like it before. “Your sister was just telling me that she is the eldest of your siblings, and that you have a twin brother as well.”

  Ancil, right. And just like that, all conversation would pivot his way. “Ah, of course—”

  “Ediline is older by just a few minutes,” Betrys cut in.

  Someone else might have stumbled or paused, gasped or gaped. Ediline did not double-take, she did not twitch or freeze or falter. She did not lift her eyes from holding Javras’s smoldering stare, but over his shoulder she saw Betrys nod.

  And it clicked in Ediline’s head. So that was it? She was to play Ancil’s role, to pretend to be the golden eighthborn who could do no wrong? To be relieved of the shackles of being the accursed ninthborn, even just for a moment, even if it was because they asked—the prospect was a tantalizing gem floating before her.

  “That’s right,” she said. A simple reversal of the facts. The lie came so smoothly, slithering bitter off her tongue.

  But she had to keep going. She held her chin high and adopted the cocky tilt and gaze downward she had seen Ancil deploy. All her nervousness was hidden inside.

  “Betrys is eldest,” she said, “with the same mother as our brothers Cardiv and Deffren, who followed. Then, with a new wife, came Corsen and Isbeil; yet another wife yielded Emlin and Trayiv, hardly distinguishable. Then—because my father struggles to remain belted—he fetched a fourth, young wife and had Ancil and myself.”

  Javras nodded along, as if keeping count as she went. “Only, you aren’t the youngest.”

  “Right,” she said. Her heart skipped. She was just so used to saying it like that. “Myself and Ancil just sounds weird. It isn’t proper grammar, is it?”

  “I see.”

  “But I avoided being the youngest only barely, like my sister said,” Ediline went on. She touched Javras’s shoulder and angled him away from Betrys having a silent fit. “If my brother had shoved his way through our mother’s vagina a little faster, he might have been the eighthborn—or, if we’d popped out at precisely the same moment, my parents would have had an awkward predicament.”

  Javras’s jaw dipped, he spluttered a moment, then regained his composure. She didn’t blame him. The word vagina was not typically said in front of strangers, especially esteemed visitors. But if she were the eighthborn, she could get away with it, and wouldn’t even be scolded or chased away.

  She was just beginning to try on this new persona, to see how it fit—so far, she liked it.

  “Ediline,” Betrys said. Some of tha
t impatience, that natural tone of scolding, came through, but Betrys paused and composed herself before speaking further. “Javras is our esteemed guest in this glorious era of peace, and we will prove to be gracious hosts. Now that you’ve been introduced, I will show him where he will be staying in our city. Then, I will turn him over to you.”

  Her. The Era of Peace Accord went against everything her father believed in and stood for, so naturally he ignored it and violated it in private, building up his army in secret. It was going to be her job to keep that secret? Her stomach turned. What an ideal task to assign young Ediline—sharp-tongue, quick-witted, and unimportant enough to have her every hour wasted.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I won’t have any trouble showing that we should be friends.” She felt her face flush at the unintentional implication of what she’d just said. “Tithelk and Ronrónfa have so much in common already, I’m sure.”

  “I hope so,” he said with a nod. “My father would like that to be the case.”

  Betrys slipped between them. “Sesér, would you mind waiting for me just by the entrance? I will have you escorted to the manor where you will stay for the duration of your visit.”

  “Of course, Princess,” he said to Betrys. Then he turned to Ediline, bowed, and offered to take her hand.

  For a moment that was entirely too long, she paused and nearly fumbled. No one had ever done this to her. What was she supposed to do? Surely she had seen it done before. Hoping it was right, she delicately placed her hand into his, which he took and lowered his head toward, imitating the placement of a kiss on the back of her hand. “Princess Ediline, I look forward to seeing you tomorrow morning.”

  A flutter ran through Ediline’s chest, and her face felt hot again. Lords.

  With that, he exited the alcove, leaving Ediline, a bit dizzy, alone with Betrys. She had eighty questions.

  “Watch your expression,” Betrys warned. “He could still be watching. Don’t look confused or alarmed.” She half-turned so that Javras wouldn’t be able to read her lips. “His father is Ashwin Teshtéshev.”