The Lost Prince of Cadira (Shadowland Saga Book 1)

by Stephanie Anne

  A breath of silence passed between them. The leaves rustled on a soft, quiet breeze, and there was little activity from the forest folk who dwelled within the canopy. Even the old mill seemed quiet. Forsaken.

  “Fine,” he finally said, and Eliza released a shuddering breath.

  She forced down a shiver and strode to the rotting door before knocking. It opened on silent hinges, but there was no one there, no other indication for her to enter besides a shift in the air, indicating magic.

  Eliza walked in, Thorne one step behind her. His grunt made her look back. She shook her head. Typical. He slammed a hand against the force of ancient, binding magic blocked him from following her. A look of desperation crossed his dark eyes.

  “Blood Magic,” Eliza breathed in awe—and fear—as she turned back to face him on the other side. “It’s keeping you out and won’t let me leave.” She slammed her hand against the shimmering boundary to prove it. “Now I don’t have much of a choice.”

  Blood Witches, the only beings able to harness Blood Magic, were dangerous, and their spells—out in the open—were rare. Any who tried to practice the forbidden art were cursed by the Witches themselves. Eliza couldn’t begin to imagine why Amitel would be going to such lengths. To protect himself perhaps?

  Thorne watched her from the other side of the barrier, his hands raised as if to reach for her. “This could be a trap.” She could tell he was blaming himself for letting her enter first, but he couldn’t have known about this kind of magic. Not many did. He certainly would not have known about Amitel having the ability to use it.

  Desperation flashed in his eyes, and the smell of smoke filled her senses. Stupid dream. But she shook her head. She knew that at some point she’d have to do the work on her own.

  She swallowed thickly, stomach churning. Squaring her shoulders, Eliza looked back into the dusty darkness of the mill. “I’ll be fine,” she said. “Just wait here.” Before he could reply, Eliza walked into the mill.

  Crumbling in most places, the mill looked as if it could collapse at any moment. Dust rose as she stepped around pockets of decayed wood. She stopped when she felt the familiar tingle of another spell, a ring of magic masked by shadows.

  “I’m not stupid,” she stated, turning in a full circle, “I can tell that you’re here. Might as well show yourself.”

  Eliza heard him laugh before she saw him. Covered in a large, oversized cloak, Amitel stood over six feet, his head lowered so that he wouldn’t hit a low-lying beam. By his voice, Eliza could tell he was young—younger than she expected. He had definitely mastered immortality young.

  “Oh, I didn’t think you were stupid,” he purred, finally revealing his face. Young, unblemished and smooth, his face hid years of torment and secrets, but she only wanted the memories of the prince.

  “Gullible maybe?” she asked, gesturing to the door. “Or uneducated?”

  The Warlock only grinned. “Neither.”

  Eliza clamped her mouth shut, following his every move with her eyes; he watched her like a beast stalking its prey, circling her, his hands still at his sides, though Eliza could sense the tingling of magic between his fingers. Golden hair fell over his forehead, and his eyes—molten gold, flecked with red, and darker than the ravens—watched her unblinkingly.

  “I’m only here to talk,” Eliza said, standing still outside the ring of magic. He merely cocked his head. “I just need answers, then Commander Thorne and I will be on our way.”

  Amitel smiled, revealing dimples, his golden eyes brightening. “Is that so?” But there was a darkness in his stare, ancient and foreboding, despite his youthful appearance. It sent a chill down her spine, made her own magic rise in response.

  “I’m here on behalf of the king.”

  The Warlock paused, lips turned down in a frown. “Is that so?” he repeated, though he didn’t sound as if he were mocking her.

  He drew closer so they were almost touching and Eliza sucked in a breath, steeling herself. “I’m here to help find the prince, and you have information—whether you realise it or not—that I need.” She paused to gauge his reaction, but his face was impassive, a single brow raised. “Don’t play games with me, Amitel. I don’t have the patience.”

  His smile reappeared, though this time smaller, calculated. It did not reach his eyes. “And how do you know the prince is still alive?”

  “Know?” Eliza asked, spreading her hands. “Don’t you think he is, since you were the first to start searching, and the last? Don’t you still have a shred of hope?”

  The Warlock stopped prowling and shoved his hands into his pockets. Casual, like they were talking about the weather. “My hope began disappearing,” he said, narrowing his eyes, “the day the shadows and darkness began seeping into this realm. My hope disappeared when our land was given the name ‘Shadowland’, and the name Cadira was nearly forgotten.”

  Eliza swallowed, thinking back to the conversation she’d had with Thorne in the pixie circle. “Help me make it stop. Help me fix it.”

  There was a pause; Eliza wondered if the Warlock would instead kill her rather than help. But quietly, he said, “How will you do that?”

  She closed her eyes for a moment and sucked in a breath, releasing it slowly. How could she explain herself to him, to a Warlock hundreds of years older than her, with twice the amount of power? How could she assume that she could do more than him, who had mastered Blood Magic without dying, had been the first to search for the prince and found nothing? How could Eliza believe she was any better?

  “Hope,” she said, meeting his stare. “It’s not much, and I don’t have much of it myself, but the king believes that by using me, hope will come back to the land. I have a different motivation and different skill set. I have knowledge from another realm that will help me. I have Commander Thorne to guide me, and I hope, I will have you there to help me too.”

  Heart pounding in her chest, Eliza stepped towards Amitel and held out her hand. “Help me save this realm, so we can bring hope back to the people.”

  Her breath caught in her throat as Amitel reached out his hand and grasped hers. A tingle shot through her palm, and her magic seemed to sing in recognition to his. “We have a deal, little witch,” he said, smirking. “I help you, and you help me.”

  Eliza smiled, and her heart did a little somersault in her chest. “Let’s get to work. I need to know everything about that night.”

  The Warlock took a seat, elbows resting on his knees. “I was there first. The guards were all dead, the queen was lifeless outside her bed chambers. I found the king rocking back and forth with the princess in his arms.”

  A chill danced down Eliza’s spine. “And the prince?”

  “No sign of him.” Amitel didn’t look at her, the shadow of memory dancing in his golden eyes. “I could barely catch a trace on the assassins. It was hard,” Amitel said, leaning back in his chair. “But there was just a small trace, enough for me to bind it in a location spell.”

  Eliza nodded, eyes focused on him. “And then?”

  His lips tilted upwards, as if he enjoyed the attention. Eliza tried not to roll her eyes. “Well, I cast the spell, and I began looking. It was a goose chase; I searched the forest, sent out copies of myself to look farther. Sometimes, the trace would disappear, and I’d have to start again. I had to go through the labyrinth several times, to no avail—I only found more and more bodies, the death count growing.”

  Eliza made note of what she could, about the forest and lands surrounding the manor. But Amitel never once mentioned the underground maze, and Eliza decided to leave it out.

  It’s a dumb question anyway, she thought. He’ll just laugh about it.

  The immortal Warlock continued; brows furrowed. “We traced the assassins all the way down to the southern border, and that’s where we lost them. Of course, we lost them in the North and West too.”

  Something didn’t quite sit well with her as she mulled over the information she had been given. Wa
s there a chance the assassins worked for a southern or western kingdom? That the prince was a prisoner of war, rather than this just being a calculated attack? From what Eliza knew, Cadira had no prominent enemies; there were feuds, and the occasional mishap, but there was a lasting peace between the surrounding kingdoms, ever since the Great War fought between man and beast. And the Courts of Light, sitting at the southern border of Cadira, were a peaceful nation.

  But Eliza didn’t voice those thoughts to the Warlock, either. He studied her with those golden eyes, as if waiting for her to say something—anything—about the information provided. She thought about the possibility of the tunnels, of how that might affect a location spell; underground, hidden, and most likely spelled to be undetectable, Eliza made a mental note of checking a location spell, too.

  Thank you, Criminal Minds, for your help.

  “Thank you for giving me this information,” Eliza stated, rising from her seat. He followed, offering her his hand.

  “If you need anything else,” he said, that same, arrogant smirk appearing on his face, “send me a summons.”

  Nodding, Eliza took his hand and shook it.

  “Wait,” she said, heart fumbling in her chest. Hand still clasped in hers, Amitel quirked brow. “Do you know anything about my heritage?”

  The other brow shot up in surprise. “An interesting question. You don’t know anything about yourself?”

  Eliza shook her head. “I left this world when I was five; I have no early memories of my life here. I only know that I was hunted down by the same force that stole the prince.”

  The Warlock eyed her warily, all surprise gone. “I’ll look into it for you,” he said, the uncertainty disappearing only to be replaced by what Eliza would have called a ‘smarmy smirk’ had it been on anyone else’s face than his. “For a price, of course.”

  She felt the magic around them dissipate, the boundary that trapped Eliza within the mill retracting, allowing her to leave—and Thorne to enter. She heard him stir beyond the door, heard it open; she turned around to see the commander, but when she looked back to Amitel, the Warlock was gone.

  “Are you alright?” Thorne asked, rushing into the empty, murky mill.

  She nodded mutely. Why did he have to disappear? She would have thought he’d be somewhat happy to see Thorne, but as soon as the boundary let up, he was gone.

  “Eliza?”

  There had to be something she was missing. She’d assumed the boundary was because Amitel himself used Blood Magic, but he hadn’t seemed to notice the boundary itself until it was gone, unless he’d never noticed it…

  She shook her head. Was there another player setting up their side of the game? She knew it was never going to be easy, but…

  If there was someone else out there, then Eliza wasn’t sure what she was going to do.

  12

  SPRING MANORS

  They left Harrenhal as soon as their meeting with Amitel ended. Eliza hadn’t been able to take the proximity of being so close to the Winter Palace—to the massacre and death that filled the air.

  She couldn’t shake the darkness, either. It moved through the veins that kept Cadira alive. It spread its fingers like endless vines; wherever she looked, it was there, suffocating the natural magic that filled the land.

  But she couldn’t help but wonder if the darkness followed her. Maybe necromancy really is evil.

  A shudder worked its way down her spine. Stiffness ate at her bones and muscles; since leaving Harrenhal, they only rested a couple of hours at a time. When they did, Thorne would disappear to hunt, returning to Eliza with fish or rabbit, easy kills that would fill them until they made it to the abandoned spring home of the king.

  Eliza knew they were close when she noticed how the king’s road became overgrown; where there were once cart marks in the road, weeds now spread into the forest on either side of them. Fences made of carved wood, now broken and half consumed by forestry and vines, lined the road. It had taken them three days, but they were finally getting close.

  Eliza stopped her mare. She sucked in a breath and closed her eyes, reaching out her magic. She sensed the trace of the assassins, of Amitel and her grandfather and every other magical being that had been at the manor. She grasped at the strings of their magic, and let it pull her towards the manor. Her magic explored the dead landscape, but it found no living being. “We’re alone,” she said.

  They continued at a slow walk towards the manor; Thorne had a look of dread and grief, obscuring the handsomeness of his storm-blue eyes. When he met Eliza’s stare, he frowned, lips pursing. Eliza shared his sense of dread, though hers was mixed with apprehension and… excitement. Dread, because she feared she might find nothing, might have wasted so many days without any leads and apprehension because she knew she was close. The sense of excitement came from hoping she might find more than anyone expected.

  The manor came into view, and Eliza felt her heart stop in her chest; hundreds of spirits milled around the decrepit estate, disappearing in and out of the ruins, sometimes stopping to stare at another spirit before moving on. Eliza noticed how they didn’t cut through the maze, but rather how they manoeuvred it the same way the living did.

  “There was so much death here,” Eliza noted aloud, halting her mare again.

  Ahead, Thorne stopped and looked back to her. “After the assassins killed almost every guard here, and the king completely abandoned it…” He nodded towards the ruined building, that once would have been as grand as the Winter Palace. “There was a fire that killed whoever was inside the manor.”

  Eliza shuddered. “That’s… horrible. But the maze stayed intact?”

  “Yes.” Thorne looked over to the still green hedges, at the white flowers that bloomed on the outside. “An old magic, one that came before the king, protects it from being destroyed.”

  They guided their horses up to the maze entrance, stopping to dismount. Eliza wound her reins around her sore hands, careful to keep them from shaking too much. Only briefly did Thorne spare her a glance, face blank. A terrible sense of undeniable fear shuddered through her. Maybe we shouldn’t be here, she thought, stiffening.

  Although long and tedious, the maze wasn’t hard to navigate—at least, not for Thorne. He guided her through the thick hedges without fail, his movements quick and thorough, leaving no chance for Eliza to question him on their direction. It was almost like he’d made the trip before, she mused. When they made it to a large, white-marble fountain, she stopped to look up at the figure spouting water.

  “Who are they?” Eliza asked, facing the statue. It depicted two people: a man with pointed ears, wearing armour with thorns etched into the breastplate, and a woman holding a dagger to her chest.

  Eliza went cold, a shiver dancing down her spine. She knew who they were.

  “That is the Goddess Azula and her lover.” Thorne started to turn away, but Eliza stopped him.

  “I thought she was married to a mortal king,” she said, staring at the Fae man, who resembled the Knight who had been following her in New Orleans. She could not fault the coincidence, or the resemblance of the two.

  Thorne shrugged. “There are different variations. In this depiction, she’s a Goddess. She picked a Fae as her lover because he, like her, is immortal, and they can be together forever.”

  “Romantic,” Eliza muttered, pulling on the reins of her horse. “Why is it here?”

  The commander was hesitant in his reply, his eyes flashing to hers. “Some say this is where they gave up their first-born child nearly two-thousand years ago.”

  Eliza’s brows rose, and she couldn’t help but blink; in all the books, all the stories she’d heard, she never knew that the Goddess had a child. Never knew that there could be a possibility, and from the way Thorne had said it, there was more to the story than just that.

  “I’ve never heard anything about this.” She clenched her jaw and eyed the pair. “I’ve never heard of this lover, never heard of any of her childr
en. Hell, I barely know anything about this Goddess, and here she is, everywhere I look!”

  It took a moment for the commander to respond, but when he did, his eyes were narrowed, like he wasn’t quite seeing her properly. “There are different stories based on different areas. Don’t worry about it too much.” He made a move to leave, but Eliza hesitated.

  Something about the space screamed power; whether it was the white-marble fountain that continued to spout water like it was still connected to a source, or the fact that, despite the considerable death that surrounded them, none of it breached the sanctuary of the maze.

  “Thorne.” The commander turned back to her; eyes now wary. “Let’s try here, first.”

  “Why?”

  She bit her lip. “This place is teeming with magic. The power here, at the maze’s centre… I can use it to connect with the maze and maybe find something.” His brows furrowed, and she sighed, handing off her reins. With a flick of her hair, she pulled it back into a bun. “The maze itself is like… a living thing; it might very well be hiding the entrance to the tunnels.”

  “Why are you so determined to find these tunnels?” he asked. Why aren’t you? She wanted to argue but didn’t.

  Instead, she sucked in a deep breath and sat amongst the emerald-green grass of the maze, crossing her legs, lifting her chin so that she could peer up into the faces of the Fae male and the legendary Goddess who looked down upon her with marble-white eyes.

  Connect to the maze. Eliza searched for the maze’s unique, ancient magic, grasping for tendrils that reached for her before snapping away. Furrowing her brow, Eliza tried again, reaching further into the forgotten magic, and held on to the tiniest flare of power she could find.

  Tethering herself to the maze’s magic was easy, but getting it to accept her magic, to accept her as an equal and not a threat, became hard; although the maze was stagnant, never changing and protected, it was a living entity, full of secrets and lies, crevices and alcoves that hid things it didn’t want found. Tethered to its magic, to its essence, Eliza could feel the maze move and reshape, changing one corridor into a dead end while opening another wall into a hall.