Heir of Vaashaa: The Lost Child of the Crown (The Lost Child of the Crown Series Book 2)

by Celine Simpson

  My father was a good king. One of the greatest if you were to ask me or anyone else for that matter. He was also a good father, but he was only half there, the other half was sitting on the edge of the afterlife yearning to join my mother and praying to the Gods for a glimpse of her. He never fully returned from his grief, but then again, does anyone really?

  Once we had all seated ourselves in the meeting room I met them all in the eyes, letting them know I would not take our mission lightly, the war or any of our plans. I made it clear that there was only one option, and that was to move forward. It served to also be an answer to their unspoken queries and concerns for my mental stability and dependency. I would have to earn some of their trust back, that was fair enough, but my end goal was always the same as theirs, to stop this war, or worst case, to win it. No one seemed to disagree, so then we began to make our plans to move forward, to win the war and get her back.

  The other Kingdoms had been informed of all that we knew up until the present date and in the weeks that followed since our scouting mission into Altrey there had been several developments. Where there had been a unit of Vyterran soldiers set to move through the city of Venta, they had all but disappeared.

  There were no sightings of them making their way back to Altrey, no tracks made through the ranges. We assumed they made camp within the forest that bordered The Shared River and the ranges just east of Venta. It offered them safety until they were given orders, it was the only conclusion.

  The city of Venta had been left in ruins, like Cander cared less what happened to the people that inhabited it. The folk – only but a few who remained and were already making their way to leave the city in haste – wouldn’t speak to our men, whether from fear or loyalty, it was unclear.

  The Shellandrian Royals reported that their posted guards made sightings of ships along the horizon, just off the Move coastline – information that was confirmed by our own scouts as well. They had no flags. There was no indication of who they belonged to, or who sent them. To assume it was Prince Cander would be logical, but his fleet of ships had eyes on them from the moment General Elias fell lifeless to the deck on our ship. So, we were left with little idea as to whom they belonged to. Montreese had gone dark on the side of information. They were, after all, almost as far from Vyterra as Lygot, but since their letter of reply to the one we had sent explaining the situation on our way back from the Tour of the Kingdoms, they had sent nothing. No word had even gotten to Shellandria; with knowledge that the two kingdoms were close in terms of marriage alliance it sent a prickle of unease through me.

  Our last response was a request to keep eyes on their borders and to monitor the unknown threat that had settled on the horizon off the northern coastlines of Move and Sef. We intern got a promise from Shellandria to form a guarded line along the coast between De and Sef with their own arsenal of ships, just until we could eliminate the unidentified ships as a threat or eliminate them as a whole. Stretching our resources that far would have us walking on thin ice, but with the Lygot armada at our own disposal already spread so widely across Vaashaa, we could not offer any more aid, and I could see no alternative. If Montreese had truly dropped off in all communication then we would have to navigate without them. The only hope was that we reconnected soon, but time could not be wasted on sending forces in to only be turned way. We could no longer assume they would have our backs if we needed aid.

  With Altrey surrounded, it would be suicidal to attack and believe we would come out victorious. We wouldn’t subject Venta and Move to an invasion, not even taking into consideration that pretty much all the inhabitants had fled and abandoned the cities. Where? We still did not know. It seemed it wouldn’t catch the attention of anyone given the condition the Vyterran troupes left their own cities in. The towns and villages scattered throughout the kingdom were of no use to us either, most of the residents were farmers or merchants that wouldn’t give us the upper hand in numbers or leverage.

  Upon our arrival back from the scouting mission, when Terra was taken, we had immediately reviewed the documents that we had put so much hope into and felt that for sure they would have certainly changed the tide of the war. Well, they were useless. Worthless. Tactics, plans and lists of names that would have pointed us in the direction of allies, resources and key spots to pinpoint for attack. Points of weakness. None of it held weight or value any longer.

  It was also too obvious. Imagine having all the information of your enemies every move all in one place. We would have to be fools to use it. The only upside to any of this is that we knew for sure that Cander knew none of our own plans or tactics. Not completely to a point where he could cut us off at the knees before we had time to rally our forces. If he had, why would he have gone to so much trouble to trick us into making moves he could counter? Elias had only given him enough information to where he could still fly under the radar, enough to let him know we were willing to change our plans based on the information we would acquire from that scouting mission. So, why not provide us with information, information that would have us walking right into his sharpened blade? Desperate, indeed we had been. Fools however, we were not.

  “Your Highness, if I may?” Tashka half raised her hand. I nodded towards her to continue. “We are focusing on the negatives of our situation. I am not implying that we should ignore them, but we should be utilising this situation to our advantage. If Princess Ainsley is crowned, there are ways, written ways, for Terra to gain her rightful spot. Though they haven’t been put into practice for sometime…”, Tashka made eyes to Jude, this must have been something they were looking into together. She looked back to me after finding some reassurance in Jude’s gaze. “They still hold, and Princess Ainsley would have no option but to participate or give up her place by default. As it is not a matter of different bloodlines, but successor, the rules are different. In saying that, having that knowledge, I think it would be unwise to have this play a large part in determining our path forward in this war, Your Highness.”

  I thought about this news. I had known about it to a degree, that there were ways around Ainsley’s coronation, but stopping it before it had begun seemed like the smartest option.

  “So, what do you suggest is our best plan of attack?” King Rolland had put forth the question on the tip of my tongue. My father had a knack of listening from behind the front lines of a meeting. He once said to me that it was the most efficient way to see every side of a conversation. When you were in too deep, you could become blinded by the emotion that comes with the spoken word, but to view it as an outsider, it gave you every advantage of coming to the right conclusion.

  Tashka unrolled a parchment onto the table, holding down the edges with the objects scatted within her reach; a water jug, an ink pot, other stationary items, before going on.

  “We have been looking at Prince Cander’s lack of attention to Venta and Move as a negative, for if we were to take his cities as our own, to use as something to bargain with, we would come up empty because he doesn’t care. This much is clear to us.” I must have looked confused because Tashka became flustered holding up her hands as she shuffled around for more paper work. “That’s just it, he doesn’t care. We know for certain that there are no eyes on those cities. Cander is so concerned with Altrey being breached he has blinded himself. Once our ships leave the coastline of Altrey they will become undetectable by his magic, he will think we have surrendered.” Tashka had out a map of Vyterra and followed with the end of her quill the coast around to the east. “But we will make our way north, to the Move coastline, where we will be all but invited onto the land. From there, we have our forces on land and we can come at the city from all angles; land and sea. Once we have him surrounded, we will have the upper hand.”

  Tashka and Jude must have been at this for days, if not since we returned from the mission. They had detailed plans of tracked paths, of the entry points that would be most advantageous. I looked at my father, conflicted because to leave our post w
ould mean to leave Terra, and I couldn’t make that call.

  He held my gaze, and I saw in it the decision he had made, and would make one thousand times over. I found, for a moment, reassurance in his clarity, in his decision. To be able to make a call, any call with such confidence. To be able to back yourself without the unwanted bitter tinge of emotion that unfortunately tended to sway the end result of a hard call towards the direction of selfishness. Selfishness. When had it taken over my heart so completely?

  Was this not the comfort I yearned for in the months leading up to the visit to Vyterra on the Tour? What I needed when Queen Phillipa had been murdered, when the wind woke me in the night, urging me to go faster, to act quicker? I wanted to hate him. I wanted to hate his words, hate my kingdom but he was right. I would not disregard Terra’s decision to save us, I would use it, use the time it gave us.

  I nodded, just one sharp incline of my head, that’s all I could give them.

  Kind Rolland turned back to Tashka and Jude, “It is settled, we will raise our anchors. We leave a portion of the fleet here, to stand guard on the coast. We cannot leave them open. I will leave that to you both to organise. We lift anchor as soon as possible. We will alert Shellandria of our decision with a meeting point for us to join our forces outside of Altrey. We will give them a time frame of our arrival but only when they hear from us once we have arrive at Move should they begin their descent.”

  He got up, we did not look at each other again until he got to the door, where he turned to me, not like a King would look at a Prince, but as a father would look at his son. I found strength in that moment, strength for my Kingdom, and for Terraleise.

  Three

  You would think – hope – that the pain would drift into a dull ache, a numbness maybe, or reach a point where you would lose consciousness.

  It does not.

  My skin was on fire, every inch of my body burned, my bones groaned like I could feel them splintering. Shards detaching from the host and lodging themselves in the tissue around it. My blood was boiling, I knew it. I could feel the pressure building under my skin, burning away from the inside out. My vision darkened as the tremors took over, my teeth chattered so fast I drew blood from my tongue. I couldn’t scream anymore, I couldn’t even remember how to breathe.

  Then it stopped. That was another form of torture in and of itself. Every time it stopped I waited for it to begin again. I waited and waited. Sometimes it did. Sometimes it didn’t.

  Footsteps clicked on the wet floor of whatever room I had been dragged into sounded as if they were leaving. My mouth coated in a copper tang that made me want to spew, or spew again. I was already covered in a sickness that I could only assume was my own. The door clanged open and then closed, then there was nothing. No sound, not even the dripping I had come to rely on so heavily.

  Even as the pain subsided, my body still convulsed. Trying to remember how to be without being torn to shreds. I wondered then, how I could be taken apart and still be alive.

  The room I was in couldn’t have been big, to enter and exit only sounded like it required a handful of footsteps. The stone beneath my body was cold but I used it as an anchor to consciousness. Something to assure myself that I had made it through again, that I had not broken.

  I lay there for what must have been hours before the help came to bring me back to my cell. I could only assume they were the help because I didn’t know who else would have bothered to come down into the cold darkness where there was nothing but pain, and clean up the mess that was left.

  My limbs were useless. I only thought of it as a silver lining, that it would be a burden to take me to the palace to watch them – my family – have dinner. I prayed they would forget me tonight.

  Was it night? I could only guess.

  It was always dark.

  In the times where I had been brought to almost insanity by the pain inflicted, where hallucinations had begun to appear I knew I had called out for Silas, thinking it was him who had travelled down here to save me, to take me away and be done with this. But even when the fog had cleared from my mind, I did not regret the decision to give myself up in their place. I would not regret the decision to forgo one life in the place of four. It was only that they made the time worth it, that they used it to do whatever they could to beat the monster that prowled around the spotless hallways of a palace that he had no claim to. Who slept in silk sheets and ate quality food that he had no right to. He was demon made flesh, the worst sort of evil and I wouldn’t forget the side I was on. I would chant it over and over in my mind, as my bones broke apart and my teeth ground to dust.

  My anger abruptly faded as I was set down gently in my cell. They always set me down so gently but it never made it any easier. The hay beneath me was like a thousand tiny daggers against my skin. I felt as though it could be ripped right off the muscle by nothing but a brush of fabric. Still, I would have wanted to thank them if I could remember how to speak, but my mind was foggy, like my thoughts were clouded with murky water. I fell asleep to the sound of my wet breathing with my body feeling raw; exhaustion overpowering my will to remain alert. I didn’t want to wake up somewhere else again.

  I tried to summon my magic frequently when I had first been thrown into my cell, but since then I had refused. There were only so many times I could bear to have my calls go unanswered. As my mind started to drift away I tried once more, I didn’t call or command it as I normally would, but I begged this time. I begged the earth, shouted to my vines, I willed my gift to come, but it was met with only silence.

  I could no longer feel the earth, where I had once been aware of its presence, its force and current like a steadiness that encompassed my every step in life. I could see it now, even before the magic showed itself on my eighteenth birthday. Where once I could have noted the trees and their roots, feel the wind through the canopies that stretched towards the sun, feel it all so clearly like it was a breeze through my own hair. Now, there was nothing.

  The absence of that part of me, the essence of me left a roaring silence in my mind that sometimes felt harder to bear than the damage inflicted upon my body. It left my soul cold and my heart dark.

  My mind became grateful for the pull of sleep after realising yet again that my calls weren’t heard. Not the ones from my mouth and not my silent pleas to the earth.

  I had not only lost him, but I seemed to have lost a part of me, and I didn’t know which was worse.

  “Terraleise.”

  My eyes fluttered open, but there was a light and my head ached with the effort my eyes were making trying to adjust to its foreign presence.

  A light.

  If I could have jolted upright I would have. I hated that the first feeling that coursed through my body was fear and the undeniable urge to cower. Fighting my own racing heart, the haze cleared giving way to the very last person I thought would be speaking to me from the other side of the bars.

  I had never seen Ainsley’s eyes before, they were always hazed over with a blackness that encompassed her whole iris, like she was merely a shadow on the earth moving around at the will of someone else, never really present. They were truly the most iridescent blue I’d ever seen. I could imagine them still glowing even if the dull lantern she carried blew out. Her dark brown hair flowed in long waves. It was unbound and fell all the way down her back and it was the only thing that reminded me of myself, of my mother. Though we were related, we were nothing alike. At least to the extent of my knowledge of her which was who she looked like and her affinity. Though she took after her father in that regard, mastering the affinity magic of water, she looked like no one I had ever met, which meant she must have been the spitting image of her mother – whoever that was. She was in her night gown, feet bare and dirty from the floor and her chest heaving with breathlessness.

  “Ainsley?” My voice came as a croak, having expelled all of my natural tone earlier, I was surprised any sound came out at all.

  “Terraleise I don’t
have much time.” She looked behind her quickly, like she expected to be caught and taken back, as if she were a scared child and not at all a woman who was about to be sworn in as Queen of Vyterra.

  Her eyes carried a clarity I’d never seen before, I was so taken by them that only the clinking of the keys being thrown through the bars moved my attention.

  “You won’t have long after I leave here, you must make your way out of the servant’s entrance, to the other side of the palace. There are soldiers there who are about to depart to Venta, it is your only hope Terraleise, I swear it on your Mother. On your Prince. You must go. Now.”

  Ainsley dropped her thin robe from her shoulders before scurrying up the stairs that reached the only exit point of the dungeons that I was aware of. When my meager meal once a day was brought to me it was the only point I had ever seen a guard come from and leave by. I admit that the shock of what had just happened took my reaction time from me, I wasn’t sure if it was real. Perhaps another dream that would turn into a nightmare, another hallucination. To have left and escaped only to reach for Silas and find his face replaced with another. It may truly be the only thing that would break me.