Forgotten Embers

by Shauna E. Black

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Forgotten Embers (Soul in Ashes, #1)

  Scorched: a Soul in Ashes prequel

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  Allure of the Goddess

  Forgotten Embers: Soul in Ashes Book 1

  Text copyright, original edition © 2015 Shauna E. Black

  Text copyright, revised edition © 2018 Shauna E. Black

  Cover images by zeferli@gmail.com and faestock, licensed by depositphotos.com and Hummingbird Web Solutions licensed by greedeals.com

  Published by Vivienza

  ISBN 978-1-940855-03-5

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the express written permission of Vivienza

  Forgotten Embers / Shauna E. Black

  Summary: Alswyn has lived in a cloistered sanctuary for a year, building a new life for herself in the land of her exile. But when King Ghalad's intended bride falls prey to the evil magic of ash sorcery, Alswyn must use knowledge from her dark past to undo the magic before the countryside is plunged back into war.

  This is a work of fiction. Settings and events are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance characters may have to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  To Mrs. Davis

  For encouraging a twelve year old overachiever to be a writer

  Get The Juicy Details

  Scorched: a Soul in Ashes prequel

  When her betrothed leads her down the dark path of forbidden magic, Alswyn must decide where her loyalties lie. Will she serve the goddess of destruction, or save her people from a fate worse than death?

  Get this novella FREE when you sign up for Shauna E. Black’s eClub! http://smarturl.it/scorchedeclub

  ONE

  If Koen thought I was staying in the Eagle Castle a moment longer than necessary, he was stark raving mad. I had reminded him so on the way here, several times, in no uncertain terms.

  “I need your assistance with the bandaging,” Koen said as he came up behind me.

  I ignored him and wiped the blade of the chopping knife clean, using a rag soaked in lavender oil for disinfectant. The smell battled with the scent of cooking food and turned my stomach.

  Koen lowered his voice, hissing his words under his breath. “I know you don’t want to be here, Alswyn, but you shouldn’t take it out on the boy.”

  “I apologized, didn’t I?” I hissed right back. “You didn’t have to send me off to clean up the mess like some orphling just dropped on the Sanctuary steps.”

  Koen’s jaw bunched in his round face as he ground his teeth. “Young lady, you need to improve your bedside manner if you’re ever going to pass the test for journeymaster.”

  “Don’t talk to me like I’m a child, Koen.” I mopped up the blood on the cutting board, but the stain was permanent. The board would have to be replaced. “You’ve only been journeymaster a few months yourself, and when I turn eighteen at the end of the summer, I’ll pass my exams and deliver a well-deserved kick to your rotund behind.”

  “You’ll never pass those exams if you don’t learn to control your temper.”

  I scrubbed harder than necessary at the remaining stains. “I didn’t do it on purpose! Sometimes the needle catches, that’s all. Besides, the boy’s a milksop. He needs to learn to take it like a man.”

  “Stop expecting everybody to be a battle-hardened psychopath like you.”

  “Fine.” I shoved the bloody rag at him, along with a harsh glare. “You want to finish this by yourself, be my guest.”

  He took a deep breath and let it out in an exasperated huff that inflated the already full cheeks in his round face. He looked like a frustrated cherub. “Don’t be like that, Alswyn. I brought you along because you’re the best in the Sanctuary at sewing up cuts.”

  I snorted. “You brought me because everybody else is busy tending to the victims of that cave-in at the canal digging site.”

  “That, too.” He flashed me one of his innocent smiles, the one that somehow managed to dissolve my anger every time. I felt my emotions break apart like smoke before a stiff breeze.

  I rolled my eyes. “Can we just be done here and go home before we run afoul of a T’yathan?”

  “We’re in the kitchens, Alswyn. Nobility doesn’t hang out here too often.”

  “You don’t know much about T’yathan nobility.”

  Koen stuffed the blood-stained rag into a leather pouch at his waist for later cleaning. “If you’re so anxious to leave, then come help me bandage the wound.”

  I took a deep breath and nodded. I turned around with him, facing the rest of the room.

  The kitchen of the Eagle Castle was like a vast cavern, made of sandstone bricks scorched on one side by years of smoke from the fire alcoves along that wall. Right now, the place was like a kicked anthill as the castle’s kitchen staff prepared the evening meal. Three long tables were covered in mixing bowls, chopping blocks, and ingredients. Some people cut meat or shelled sunflower seeds, others mixed vegetables to pour into shallow clay dishes and top with cornmeal batter.

  At a table with a wash basin, a burly woman in an apron scolded a straggly man with a ruddy complexion and puffs of grey hair like balls of dirty cotton above his ears. He hunched his shoulders against her tirade, but I recognized the fire burning in his eyes. We would be in for it next.

  Koen cut through the chaos, making for the center of the room. His blue robe swished around his ankles. I followed as best I could, though my steps were halting. My right leg was missing just below the knee where a wooden support was strapped to the stump. I leaned into an ornate oak crutch on that side. My father made it for me two years ago in a land far north of this one, just before I was banished from my homeland. I hadn’t seen him since.

  As I wound my way through their work stations, the kitchen staff glanced up with narrow eyes and angry expressions, like bees disturbed by a hand groping in their hive for honey. It wasn’t just my barbaric red hair I wore woven in a long braid down my back, or the light and freckled color of my skin. Koen got his share of glares, too, for all he looked like one of the Quahtl with bronze skin and black hair like a mop on top of his head. These days, healers were viewed with suspicion.

  This land was in the grip of a drought. Many blamed Elara for it, the goddess of peace and patron to healers. She had refused to take sides in the Triple War of the goddesses, and her elder sister Ragnell had supposedly sent the drought in punishment. It made healers decidedly unwelcome in Eagle Canyon, even though they were necessary whenever someone fell ill.

  Koen reached a bricked stairwell in the center of the room that wound its way up to the storehouses above and squatted beside a boy sitting on the floor. The boy’s head was tilted back against the brick, eyes closed. His pallor was grey and pinched. Koen said it was an effect of the shock his injury had given him. Milksop. The cut was barely more than a scratch.

  But Koen’s bedside manner was a far sight better than mine. “Feeling any better, Len?” he asked the boy.

  Len meant brave lion in the Quahtl language. Now, that was a misnomer.

  Len opened his eyes, the brown irises nearly swallowed in dilated centers. Instead of looking at Koen, he looked down at the hand in his lap. The palm lay face-up, the stitches over his cut dark smudges against the tan skin. His expression tightened, like he was fighting nausea. If it splashed on my green apprentice robes, I vowed I’d make
Koen clean them.

  Len’s voice was barely audible over the hubbub. “A little.”

  Koen nodded encouragingly. “That’s good. We’re going to wrap the hand in a bandage to keep it clean.”

  Koen rummaged through the many pockets of the leather medicine kit spread out on the flagstone floor, pulling out a roll of cloth. He handed me a ball of brown string. Using my crutch for support, I struggled into a squat as Koen spread paste over the wound to keep infection at bay.

  “It weren’t my fault,” Len stammered. His voice was thin and reedy. “I was startled by a blast from the furnace there. I thought I saw a demon’s face in it.”

  My stomach tightened into a knot. I turned to glance back at the rows of fires that kept the room unnaturally warm.

  Koen hesitated. “A demon? Come now, Len. An ash sorcerer would never dare show his face in the Quahtl kingdom!” He sneered as he wound the cloth around the boy’s hand. “The Eagle King would run him through before he could conjure more than a puff of smoke.”

  My mouth felt dry. It took me three attempts to tie the string that held the bandage in place. Like most followers of Elara, Koen’s hatred for the goddess Dera and her dark magic was strong. Dera was the sister goddess of Elara and Ragnell, but her worship was outlawed, her ash magic feared. As harbingers of peace, Elara’s followers were particularly severe in preaching against Dera. It was one reason I’d never told Koen all the details of my past.

  “Now,” Koen said as he tucked away the bandaging. “I want you to keep that hand dry for at least two days. No more chopping vegetables for you, understand?”

  Len nodded, then cringed as a shadow fell over us.

  I looked up to see the man with the cottony hair.

  “Are you healers done here?” he growled. The menace in his tone was hampered by a halting quiver to his voice that revealed too many years spent yelling at underlings.

  Koen began folding up the medicine kit into a satchel. “Yes, sir, I believe we are.”

  The man stepped up beside Len and grabbed his ear, pulling the boy’s head up at an awkward angle. “Clumsy oaf! You ruined a full cup of turnips, not to mention our best cutting board.”

  I glared at the man and shifted, getting a better grip on my crutch.

  Koen hastily cleared his throat. “In order to give the wound time to heal, Len should keep it dry and refrain from using that hand for about a week.”

  The man let go of Len. His eyes narrowed. The brows plunged down like a storm cloud dropping rain. “What am I supposed to do with a useless kitchen boy?”

  I pushed myself up with my crutch. The top of the man’s head barely came to my nose. “Perhaps you can give him your job,” I said. “Then he wouldn’t have to do anything strenuous.”

  The man blew out his cheeks and fumbled at his waist as though looking for a weapon.

  In a rush, Koen stood and grabbed my arm. “We really must be going now.” His words stumbled together as he began pulling me toward the exit. “Send a runner to the Sanctuary if the wound begins to fester.” Everyone paused in their work to stare at us. I nearly tripped three times as Koen pulled me faster than I could walk. “Otherwise, we’ll return in a few days.” We were almost to the door now. Koen made a hasty sketch in the air with his free hand. “Elara’s blessings on you all.” We ducked out.

  The kitchen began to hum again as the workers returned to their tasks. Over the din, I could hear that odious man yelling at Len, something about being demoted to maintaining the kitchen fires.

  “You should have let me punch him,” I growled when we were out in the corridor and Koen finally let go of my arm.

  “How many times must I remind you? We don’t punch patients!” He turned to the left for the nearest outer door.

  “That man wasn’t a patient!” I struggled to keep up with Koen as he wove through the knots of people and servants dressed in the crisp red and gold of the Eagle Throne. “He was a rude, arrogant, son of a goat who—”

  “—who ensures the leftovers from the kitchen are sent to the poorhouses every night.”

  “Well, he should be more charitable to those right under that bulbous nose of his.”

  Koen stopped suddenly and spun around to face me, nearly colliding with another man who scurried out of the way. There was a smile tickling the corners of his mouth. “I thought you didn’t like Len?”

  “Just because the boy’s soft doesn’t mean I want him being mistreated!”

  “I knew it!” He wagged a finger in my face. I slapped it away. “You do care about people, Alswyn. Come on, admit it!”

  I crossed my arms as best I could while balancing a crutch. “What? Do you want me to weave a daisy chain with you now and dance the maypole?”

  “I’m not that optimistic!” He threw an arm around my shoulders and squeezed. “Just let a little more of that compassion through.”

  I jabbed him in the ribs with a playful smile, and he jerked away. “What’s wrong, Koen? Too much compassion stabbing through?”

  “Journeymaster!” A voice called from some distance behind us in the hall. We both automatically turned back.

  From deeper in the castle, a man scurried toward us, winding through the crowd. He was tall for a Quahtl, the race that ruled Eagle Canyon. His uniform seemed more elegant than most servant’s and glittered with gold thread. He must have been the king’s steward. Koen waited patiently for him to reach us.

  “Journeymaster,” the steward panted as he approached. “Thank the skies I caught you! You must come immediately! Lady Serrin has fallen on the courtyard steps and is severely injured!”

  TWO

  “How severe?” Koen asked.

  The steward wrung his hands. “The lady is in a lot of pain, and can’t seem to move her arm.”

  Koen gave me a slow, sidelong look.

  “No!” I hissed under my breath. “She’s not on death’s door, so I’m leaving. She’s not to know I’m here!”

  He grabbed my arm and held me in place. His chocolate eyes were the biggest I’d ever seen them. “Please? I’ll need assistance, especially if it’s a break. Everyone else is—”

  “I know!”

  He studied me. “Maybe she’ll faint, so she can’t tell her Uncle she saw you.”

  I snorted. “Or maybe I just won’t go near her in the first place.”

  “Alswyn,” his voice dropped, became severe as a lecturing master’s. “As a student of Elara, you have an obligation.”

  “I haven’t taken Elara’s vows.”

  The steward was dancing with impatience. Koen glanced at him before returning his eyes to me.

  “Please, Alswyn. You must feel some sense of duty to help one of your own kin.” I refused to look at him. “If you won’t do it for Lady Serrin, then do it for me. I need you.”

  “Journeymaster?” The steward stammered. “We should go now.”

  I huffed out a breath. “I suppose I could always slip her a lotus so she’ll forget I was there.”

  Koen shook my arm before he let go. “Don’t you dare!”

  The steward seemed vastly relieved to lead us at last back into the bowels of the castle.

  “She’s not my kin,” I said to Koen as I hobbled beside him.

  “What?”

  “The Lady Serrin. Her family usurped mine eons ago. Besides, I’m disowned, banished, and disgraced from T’yatha. She won’t want to have anything to do with me.”

  Now that he’d convinced me to stay, the confidence was back in Koen’s stride. “If you patch her up nicely, she might put in a good word for you with her uncle.”

  “Can we please stop talking about the king who banished me?”

  My stomach was churning, bile rising in my throat as we drew closer and closer to facing a member of the T’yathan delegation. The grip of my crutch was slick with sweat, and my hand trembled. Now who was the milksop?

  The steward led us past a massive dining hall being set for the evening meal and down a connecting corridor unti
l we reached tall double doors. He pushed through them and out onto a balcony.

  It was early evening, the sun setting to the right behind the turrets of the castle and the mesas on the plateau beyond. Eagle Canyon lay spread out beyond the guarded walls of the castle in curved streets, rows of houses, and circular patches of farmland. The green of spring had faded to a pale yellow. To the east, where the river Atoya skirted the canyon, vertical gouges in the land were left by the king’s ambitious project to build an irrigation canal. It was supposed to be finished by the time the king married in early fall, but the recent cave-in would cause more delays.

  Immediately below the balcony, the castle courtyard was shadowed, thanks to walls that wreathed it almost to the level of the balcony where we stood. Stone steps led down to the courtyard floor below. It was deserted except for a knot of people clustered around the foot of the stairs.

  Stairs. They were such a nuisance to navigate with a crutch and a wooden leg. Unfortunately, the Eagle Castle was full of them.

  Pushing down the fear bubbling in my stomach, I let Koen help me down the steps as we followed the steward.

  “I brought them, your Highness,” he called. The crowd showed no signs of parting, and the steward had to stop on the final step.

  “Zolin,” a deep voice said from their midst, “would you dispel the crowd?”

  The man who had guided us here raised his voice sternly. “You heard the king! Go back to your duties. The Lady will be well cared for by Elara’s followers.”

  I hesitated on the final steps. The Quahtl king, himself, was here?

  At the name of Elara, people turned to give us suspicious glares. When they saw me, the suspicion turned to open hostility.

  “Another barbarian?” I heard one voice whisper.

  “They’re taking over the kingdom!” said another.

  People reluctantly moved away, anger pulsing off them in waves. If the Quahtl king wasn’t careful, he’d soon have a rebellion on his hands. It would be his own fault for contracting to marry a T’yathan, the sworn enemy of his people.