Mageborn: An absolutely gripping fantasy novel (The Hollow King Book 1)

by Jessica Thorne

  ‘Full honours. Of the highest order. Understand?’

  Merlyn nodded and bowed his head, stepping back to allow Bastien to leave the room.

  The messenger was waiting, somewhat impatiently, another pompous idiot who didn’t realise the precarious nature of his newly exalted position. He’d learn. They all did.

  He bowed in an overly exaggerated way. ‘Your highness, if you would follow me? The king commands your presence.’

  Follow him? Through the palace that had been his home all his life? Besides, he didn’t like the tone.

  ‘I think I know the way,’ Bastien replied coolly and left him standing there.

  The throne room should have been packed with dignitaries, visiting emissaries and those poor souls begging the king’s favour. It was the middle of the week after all, and not even the hour of Vespers. But when Bastien entered, it was empty. The only sound was his echoing footsteps. He could almost hear his own heartbeat in the deep and heavy silence.

  Crimson and gold curtains hung on either side of the windows, framing the raised dais where the thrones stood waiting. They were empty, which made him pause. It didn’t take a genius to realise how wrong this was. He’d been summoned to an empty throne room, on a day and at a time when it should never have been empty.

  A shiver darted down his spine as his instincts made him tense up.

  They probably saved his life. Again.

  The crossbow bolt passed right in front of his face, so close he could feel the wind it kicked up in its wake. It slammed into a portrait of his great-great-great-something-or-other, King Darien the Fair. From what Bastien could see it improved the picture, but he had other things on his mind.

  ‘You missed,’ he said, as calmly as possible. ‘And it takes time to reload one of those. Does that mean it’s my turn now?’

  The stench of fear reached him, locating the assassin for him perfectly, and he smiled. There were four ways out of the throne room, only two publically known, one the servants were aware of and one only those of royal blood were allowed to know. The assassin was holed up by the servants’ door, but he clearly didn’t know it was there. He was fumbling frantically with the next bolt, trying to get it into place.

  Worst assassin he had encountered in months.

  Bastien stalked towards him. This was the second attack on him today, and he had been more concerned about the woman defending her mageborn friend than this amateur.

  ‘So, who sent you?’

  There was an audible click, an inhalation of relief and the slight rattle as the crossbow came up again. But too late.

  Bastien grabbed the contraption and tore it free of the boy’s grasp before he could fire. And that was when he realised what he was facing. Not a soldier, like the Academy officer, honed and ready to fight and kill. Nothing like Officer Grace Marchant. This was a boy, barely more than a child. And he was terrified.

  Large, long-lashed grey eyes looked up at him from a gaunt face. His blond, dirty hair was stubble short and the clothes were plain, homespun and simple, the type they sold in the markets in the lower city. Half-Brindish from the look of him, pale and skinny. No palace brat this, not even a servant. He looked like he came from the streets. Maybe thirteen years old, maybe younger. But how in the world had he got in here and who had armed him?

  The boy sobbed out a noise that was half a prayer, half despair as Bastien grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. Quotidian, not even sensitive enough to warrant a trip to the Academy for testing. There was no way he could have found his way in here by luck or by accident.

  The boy raised his hands, shielding himself. As Bastien glimpsed his palms, burned and scarred, he found his feet rooted to the spot. The air shook, turning damp and chill.

  ‘Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me.’ The grey-eyed boy chanted the words over and over again. Bastien tried to push forward but something held him. A wave of power came through the air itself, through the floor beneath him and the stones around them, as if something was being sucked from them.

  ‘What is this?’ Bastien hissed.

  ‘I have to. You don’t understand. They said this was the way, the better way to do it, and I didn’t believe them but…’

  Water coalesced from the air, glistening on his skin, forming droplets. The tears from the boy’s eyes flowed like streams and suddenly it all rose towards Bastien in a wave.

  A Tide. The boy was a Tide.

  Except… he couldn’t be. He didn’t feel mageborn. Bastien had seen none of the indications. Not until now. It was almost as if he’d just come into this power, as if he’d been completely quotidian one moment, and the next…

  Bastien held up a hand before the water reached him, halting it with his will alone. As the magic in him boiled up, he saw the boy more clearly, just a boy, a child, hollow-cheeked and bloodless with terror. Hanging over him was a sheen of something else, a line invisible to the naked eye, filling him with someone else’s power. It coalesced around his chest, where something hung, tucked beneath his drab clothes. It wasn’t even that strong. Just… unexpected.

  Bastien knew the work. It was his own. He remembered explaining it to Simona, who had looked at him like he was insane, both before and after she understood. Take a jar, an ordinary jar…

  The marshal had not minced words with her verdict of the idea. Neither had the king. Bastien hadn’t listened. And now…

  ‘How is this possible?’ the Lord of Thorns asked. ‘Who sent you?’

  He flicked his hand towards the tether. It held for a moment and, with a pop like a soap bubble, it snapped. The boy cried out and the vine of magic unravelled, all traces of it fragmenting and melting away. He clutched at his chest, pulling out a chain with a broken pendant of some kind on it. The magic he was so afraid to use was gone.

  He sobbed in horror. ‘They’ll kill me. Please…’

  Bastien loomed over him, a dark shadow of menace.

  ‘Someone will, especially if you don’t talk. And they’d have to reach you first. I’m already here.’

  He couldn’t make his voice kind or warm. It wasn’t in him. He was well aware of the reputation he had among the poor of the city, and among most of the nobility as well. He just didn’t care. Why should he? His spells had been used against him. His work had been… twisted.

  ‘They said… They said I could help. It’s my duty. The… the king is sick… dying… the queen is barren… and you… you…’

  ‘And I am the heir presumptive.’ Of course. It all made sense. Grab some pathetic, desperate boy from the street, fill his head full of duty and patriotism. It wasn’t so different from what the Academy did every day. Bind him up with someone else’s magic. Plant him in the right place at the right time and let things take their course. But who would do that? Who? ‘Go on, say it.’

  ‘You cannot take the throne. We can’t have another Hollow King. They… they said you cannot…’

  He’d heard all this before. It was hardly new. Everyone said it. Just not in his hearing. ‘I’m sure they did. I’m an abomination.’

  The boy’s mouth dropped open. He looked like he was about to wet himself. ‘You can’t take the throne. Not you, nor your line…’

  ‘Who did this to you?’ Bastien’s grip tightened to steel.

  Running feet behind them, shouts of alarm as guards finally appeared in the empty throne room, and Bastien and his captive were surrounded. He held out the crossbow to the first one to approach without comment.

  ‘Your highness, apologies, we were—’

  ‘Where is the king?’ he asked. He had no interest in their various excuses. So many people should have been here, the guards were the least of his worries. If they were elsewhere they had been ordered to be elsewhere.

  Not you, nor your line…

  ‘He took to his bed an hour ago. His physicians are with him. And the queen, of course.’

  Where else would she be? Aurelie adored her husband. Everyone knew that. She made sure of it.

  Basti
en knew for a fact there were a lot of people Aurelie adored, so long as they were useful. Sometimes that included him. Not that he had ever been useful to her, not in the ways she wanted. That hadn’t stopped her trying.

  ‘I should go to him then. When I was summoned I assumed he was holding court. Take this…’ He dragged the boy out of his corner like a squirming pup, and dropped him at the guard’s feet. The boy just lay there, sobbing, his chest heaving in great racking silent sobs. There was no point in crying for help, no help going to come for him. Not now.

  He knew it as well as everyone around him.

  Not you, nor your line…

  The echo of those words taunted Bastien. He couldn’t summon up a feather’s weight of pity with that simple phrase rebounding through his mind.

  ‘Take him to the dungeon. Give him to Marshal Milne, under my authority, understand? I’ll interrogate him myself.’

  ‘Yes, your highness,’ the guard stuttered and tried to bow, but Bastien had already turned away.

  Intriguing that no one had told him the king was ill again. And that no one had thought to inform him that the throne room was empty. The messenger… ah, of course. The messenger hadn’t said where the king was. He’d asked Bastien to accompany him, meaning he would lead the way.

  Where would he have led him? Here? Or to the private chambers?

  Bastien sighed, annoyed with himself now. If he had listened, if he had enquired, this might not have happened.

  But that didn’t explain why the boy was waiting here. He’d been set up. Perhaps they both had been. But by whom?

  Ah, that was the question, wasn’t it? There were so many options.

  Enough. He would find out. Simona would watch the boy and keep him from killing himself before Bastien had a moment to interrogate him.

  Not you, nor your line…

  No… that wouldn’t do. But he needed to see the king now as commanded, or questions would be asked. It wasn’t the sort of time to defy direct orders, after all. People would talk.

  Though who was he fooling? They always talked.

  He turned back. He should question the boy first, while he was still more terrified of the Lord of Thorns than anyone else.

  He passed a group of servants, all laughing about some servant concern. As he came into view they fell into respectful silence and curtsied, one after the other, a sea of bobbing heads and downcast eyes. And when he had passed them, he heard the whispers starting, a wave of noise on the edge of hearing which set his teeth on edge. They vanished down the master staircase, towards the terraces and the kitchens below.

  He couldn’t get that phrase out of his mind. It mocked him, taunted him, like a nursery rhyme that he couldn’t shake off.

  Not you, nor your line…

  His thoughts were interrupted by an explosion of noise. The shouts of the guards up ahead, the screams of the servants below.

  Bastien sprinted to the end of the corridor, where it opened up to a balcony. The guards were clustered around the balustrade, staring down.

  And he knew, knew with all the certainty in him, what he’d find.

  The half-Brindish boy, would-be assassin of the Lord of Thorns himself, was sprawled on the paving stones of the terrace, two floors below, his limbs twisted, blood spreading around him in a glossy pool.

  Not you, nor your line…

  Marius was meant to be sleeping but the moment Bastien arrived, he levered himself up in the bed and tried to smile. He wasn’t a vain man, Bastien knew that, but he pushed his dark brown hair out of his face and tried to look as if he hadn’t been overcome with exhaustion yet again. Pain lined his face, made shadows under his eyes. He had that kind of refined beauty of the royal family, hard lines and delicate features, and a gaze that Bastien had always found compassionate.

  The king looked small in the enormous bed raised like a throne in the room that Bastien always thought far too ornate to be restful. Gold scrolling decorated pillars and cornices. The crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling rose blazed with light. Everything was sumptuous and rich, every surface gleaming. Velvet throws covered silk sheets, and Marius was childlike beneath them. Marius, who, for as long as Bastien could remember, had been the centre of his world. More brother than cousin.

  ‘I didn’t think you were coming,’ Marius said, in that soft voice which made Bastien worry for him. A kind man, a good man, a man consumed by his role and the magic that bound him to the throne.

  Bastien bowed, and the respect in the gesture wasn’t in any way feigned. He had never bowed like that to Marius’s father, or so Marius liked to tell him. King Leonis had found it amusing, as if his rebellious nephew was no more than a joke. Bastien somehow doubted the truth of that but it was the tale Marius always stuck to.

  ‘I was delayed. My apologies, my king.’ There was no way he was going to tell the king what had happened. He would deal with it himself. Marius had more than enough to worry about. ‘Is the pain bad? Can I help?’

  Marius sank back again, his hands shaking. ‘It… it has been easier.’

  Bastien knelt beside him and took his wrist. His pulse was racing and his skin felt cold. ‘May I?’

  ‘Please.’ The king closed his eyes, and with his other hand touched the necklace hanging around his own neck, a small golden disc, like a coin. The royal warrant. Even looking at it made Bastien’s heart ache because he knew what it was, what it could do, what it could make Bastien do. The pact between the royal Larelwynn family and all the mageborn in the kingdom dated back to the fall of the Hollow King. It bound them together, made them all safe. But there was a price. There was always a price, for both the mageborn and the king. Bastien himself was payment of that price. The pact Lucien Larelwynn had demanded of the Hollow King bound one member of his bloodline to control the mageborn, to keep them in check, and to keep everyone safe. But that much power was dangerous. The king needed to control him. That was why mageborn could never rule. Mastery of Bastien’s magic, and by extension the mageborn themselves, resided within the golden disc that hung around his cousin’s neck.

  But Marius never used the warrant. In fact, though he wore it, the king made a point of hiding it from Bastien in an attempt to protect him. They were like brothers. In other circumstances, in another world, they would have been friends. They almost were. In the brief moments when they could forget who they were. What they were. And how they were bound together.

  Bastien closed his eyes and let his magic draw the pain out of the king’s body, the golden light inside him welling up and spilling out, skin warming where they touched.

  ‘Better?’ he asked, as Marius relaxed, the tension in his whole body melting away.

  ‘Much better. Thank you, my dearest.’

  Once more, Bastien sought out the source of the illness, but it was elusive. It always had been. If he didn’t know it was impossible, he almost thought it was magic itself, or the source of it, the Maegen, eating away inside him. But the king had no magic other than the ability to command him, the Lord of Thorns, through the warrant. And Marius had never abused that.

  ‘There’s nothing you can do,’ Marius said, his hand stroking Bastien’s. ‘I know you would if you could. Will I tell you a story instead?’

  Bastien’s throat closed as grief choked him. ‘Please.’

  When they were boys, they had listened to stories together, tales of their history, their family, their heritage. Tales of Lucien Larelwynn and the Hollow King. Tales of their ancestors’ famous acts of heroism. Not that Bastien had any memories of these stories – not since the accident, when he was around eighteen. Even the details of that were gone and no one had ever filled in the gaps sufficiently. No one wanted to talk about it. At the same time, his sister had been taken to the Temple. There were rumours of course. There were always rumours. Celeste had been… difficult. And after the incident with Hanna Kane… Bastien sighed, trying to push those thoughts aside. He’d never know for sure what had happened. There was always a story, and everyone
had a version. He had to believe what Marius told him because, otherwise, who could he trust? He had completely lost his childhood – their childhoods. So Marius had taken it on himself to fill in all the gaps. Even when he had so many more important things to do. Even when he married. Even when he fell ill.

  ‘What will it be? Do you remember when Kazelle Durin came to fight in the tournament of champions? He looked so terrifying we thought he was the Hollow King come again. He wasn’t though. We were thirteen and you were so determined to sit at the front to best see the combat. So you and Hanna and I stole away from Simona. We even brought little Asher with us…’

  Bastien sat back against the bed, on the floor, still holding the king’s hand, listening to another chapter in his life that had been wiped away, and fought back tears. Marius had the kind of voice you could listen to forever, gentle and lilting, musical and arresting. At some point Marius’s other hand reached across to rest on his head and Bastien sat so still, listening. He wove wonders with that voice. And soon, Bastien knew, it would be silent forever. Because he couldn’t find the source of the illness, he couldn’t make it go away. Whatever was killing his friend, his cousin, his king… he couldn’t cure it.

  No one could.

  What good was magic anyway if it couldn’t save someone like Marius?

  Chapter Four

  The dream was always the same. It began with fire and billowing waves of light. It encircled her, caressed her. She floated in a pool of liquid sunlight and phantom kisses teased her skin. It was bliss, this perfect peace, this serenity.

  Then she heard the voice. Eventually she always heard the voice. It rippled through the light. It touched her in ways nothing else could. The voice of a man, but not a man. Deeper and older than that. Older but at the same time ageless. A timeless music.

  ‘Beloved,’ he would murmur and that single word made her heart grow inside her, made the fire in her blood sing.

  In that unfurling luminescence, she curled into his embrace as she had done a million times. But only ever here. No other lover had ever compared. Who could compare to a dream? His kiss brushed her throat as she let her head fall back to give him access. He paused against her leaping pulse to trace it, feel it, and she ran her hands along his broad shoulders, marvelling at the strength and the tenderness, the way they combined, embodied only in him. She drew in a ragged breath and buried her fingers in his long hair, pulling his mouth towards hers.