Prince of Swords

by Linda Winstead Jones

  The sounds from above changed. A distant shout spoke of fear, but it was not of the type she had heard in the past. Rayne glanced up, even though all she could see was a plain wooden ceiling reinforced in many places with sturdy rafters. As she watched, the ceiling shook slightly and dust drifted down.

  Metal met metal, clanging even though the conflict was far away. Sword fight! This was unlike the brief skirmishes she had heard from above in months past, when those men fought among themselves. This was more intense, and it spread and continued long after a burst of temper would’ve ended. She was not the only one who realized that something had changed. Jiri drew a short sword of his own, but he did not run up the stairs to join the battle. Instead he placed himself before Rayne and adopted a defensive pose, ready to take on any who tried to rescue her.

  Rescue. This was the first moment she’d dared to think of such a possibility. The house her father had built long before her birth was isolated and high in the mountains, no one knew that she was being held prisoner, and Jiri had told her that the men above were fearsome fighters sworn to do as their prince commanded. Even if anyone did attempt to rescue her, it was unlikely that they would succeed.

  Did she dare to hope?

  “Jiri, there is no reason for you to stand guard as you do.” Rayne spoke in a calm voice, even though her heart pounded hard and she had not known calm in many months. “If the men above are defeated, then you do not stand a chance of winning against the intruders. You are a gardener and a carpenter, not a swordsman. If someone you do not recognize comes down those stairs, step aside. Surrender.”

  “I cannot,” he said evenly. “You are to remain pure for Prince Ciro. No man is to come near his beloved before he returns to collect you.”

  Pure? Ciro himself was anything but pure, so why did Jiri seem so adamant that he was to protect that attribute in his intended? “I’m sure he would not want you to sacrifice your life. There are other women in the world, and I can be easily replaced.”

  The old man turned to look at her, and she saw the depths of fear in his eyes. “No, it must be you. The prince told me so, you see, before he left. You are pure of soul and heart and body, and you must remain so until he gives you a child on your wedding night. Why do you think the men above have not come down here in all this time? Why do you think Prince Ciro has allowed me to keep my soul thus far? He does not trust his Own to guard you. He’s afraid of what they might do to you in a moment of rage or lust.”

  Rayne shuddered. She hugged herself with trembling arms, and the chains which bound her to the stone wall clanked gently. “What has Ciro promised you in return for this betrayal? What does my sacrifice gain for you?”

  “Everything,” Jiri whispered. “When you are wed to the prince, my wife and child will be returned to me, whole and alive after all these years in the Land of the Dead. There will be eternal life for all of us, and we will live together in a place so beautiful it would take your breath away were you allowed to see it.”

  “You know what kind of man he is,” Rayne whispered.

  “Yes.”

  “And yet you would sacrifice me for a promise that is impossible. The dead do not come back! There is no eternal life on this earth!”

  “Ciro said…”

  “He lied!” Rayne insisted. “Do you really believe that a man who threatens you as your prince did would reward you in such a way?” She yanked at her chains in frustration. “Release me, and while the others are fighting, we can escape.”

  “I can’t,” Jiri said. “Ciro will know. He knows everything, and there is no hiding from those eyes. If I fail, if I run, he won’t just make me pay, he’ll take out his anger on the souls of my wife and child. I cannot allow that. I failed them before, when I let them die. I can’t allow that to happen again.”

  Jiri was lost in his illusion that his long-dead family would be returned, that they could be threatened by whatever Ciro had become, when in fact the dead were the only ones safe from such a monster.

  The sounds from above gradually faded, as the fight waned. Who had won? Did it matter? Even if the invaders defeated Ciro’s men, would they be any better? Would their victory mean her rescue, or would she simply exchange one jailer for another?

  The door at the top of the stairs opened, and solid footsteps pounded on the stairs. Rayne did not know what fate awaited her, but she was about to find out. Her mouth went dry. Her heart beat in an odd rhythm, as if it might stop functioning at any moment. After all she’d been through, it was unexpected that she could still experience such fear, but there was great fear in the unknown.

  A bald and sturdy middle-aged man was the first to set foot in the basement where Rayne was kept prisoner. He held a long-bladed sword stained with blood, and wore loose pants, scuffed boots, and a purple vest which revealed a hairy chest and muscled arms. He’d been cut on one arm but ignored the bloody wound. The man was sweaty and breathing hard as he quickly surveyed the cellar and lifted his sword to challenge Jiri.

  “Step aside, you old geezer.” His oddly accented voice was rough and too deep. “I don’t want to harm you but I will if I must.”

  “I will protect the prince’s beloved with my life,” Jiri said, his voice and his sword shaking.

  The armed and bloody man sighed. “You can keep the girl. We have no interest in her. We want the crystal dagger, that is all.”

  So much for rescue. “Please, sir,” Rayne began, wondering if the rough-looking man had a heart beneath that broad, hairy chest.

  “Silence, wench,” the swordsman said without taking his eyes from Jiri.

  “I am not a…” Rayne began haughtily, and then they were joined by yet another of the intruders.

  This one was not middle-aged or bald. He was, in fact, so handsome he took her breath away. His dark hair was cut very short, and while he had muscles, they were not quite as oddly bulging as those of his companion. He was dressed in a similar fashion, in boots and dark pants and a purple vest over a well-formed but hairless chest. It must be some sort of uniform, but she was not familiar with the markings on his vest. The handsome man with narrowed eyes that seemed to see everything was much younger than the gruff bald fellow, and yet it was immediately evident that this new arrival was the man in charge. “Wench,” Rayne finished in a whisper.

  The bald man nodded toward Rayne. “I have found Prince Ciro’s beloved,” he said, his tone dry and disrespectful.

  “She is promised to the prince; she is his betrothed,” Jiri insisted. “Leave her be.”

  The younger man responded with a slight lifting of his eyebrows, and then he, too, readied his sword.

  Jiri realized that he couldn’t defeat the two men before him. For a moment, Rayne thought he would surrender, but she’d underestimated his devotion to—or his fear of—Prince Ciro.

  “No one else shall have her,” Jiri whispered.

  The intruders were prepared to fight. They were not prepared for Jiri to turn the sword he wielded on the woman he had sworn to protect. All Rayne saw was the sharp blade of Jiri’s sword moving closer to her throat so quickly she couldn’t even find the time to scream.

  LYR HAD LONG AGO SWORN NOT TO USE HIS GIFT IN BATTLE unless there was no other choice. After all, it was an unfair advantage, and there was greater nobility in victory won on an even battlefield.

  But when a woman’s life was in danger, what choice did he have? He drew his power into a ball in his gut, and waved his sword in a sweeping arc. Time stopped. Time did not stop for him, but all else froze. Only he and those things he touched remained mobile. Above, all was silent, as footsteps and distant banter ceased. The birds which had been flying beyond the small cellar window stilled in midair, their wings and their song immobile.

  Segyn had prepared to rush forward, but he would not have been fast enough. The old man’s blade had swung too quickly, and the tip of that blade came within a hair’s breadth of touching the girl’s pale, slender throat.

  Lyr stepped toward the girl.
He’d been riding for weeks, and with his mission dominant in his mind, he had not so much as thought of a woman until this moment. She was fine, this one was. Very fine. Ciro’s wench was petite and dark-haired and fair of skin, with rosy lips and nicely swelled breasts. There was an air of innocence about her, though he doubted very much that air held any truth. She was Ciro’s woman, after all, and likely as much a beast as her betrothed, appearances aside.

  With an easy hand, he moved the tip of the threatening blade away from the girl’s throat and shifted the old man’s body slightly. He tipped Segyn’s blade aside as well. After all, it was possible the old man might know something about the dagger they had come here to collect, so it was best that he not die immediately.

  Before swinging his blade again and setting the others into motion, Lyr took a moment, only a moment, to study the girl. Was she one of Ciro’s Own, the soulless creatures Keelia had warned him about? If that was the case, why was she chained to the wall? She was a captive, and this dank cellar was her prison. And yet she was also apparently Ciro’s beloved, his betrothed, his future bride.

  She had parted her lips to scream, but the old man’s sword would’ve cut that scream short. Now it would not. Lyr studied her fine lips, parted and soft and full and tempting, and though he had promised his mother he would use his extraordinary gift only in cases of dire emergency, he took a little extra time to trace the girl’s lips with his fingertip.

  “So very pretty,” he whispered. “So tempting. Too bad you’ve aligned yourself with a soulless fiend.” Chains or no chains, she was Ciro’s and therefore the enemy in this important war.

  Lyr stepped back, swinging his sword as he did so and allowing time to move forward once again. The old man stumbled forward and his steel blade met the stone wall. Segyn lurched and tripped, then circled about with an expression of disgust on his face. The girl screamed, but then she stopped suddenly, surprised into silence to find herself still among the living. Beyond the small window, a bird cawed. A step from above which had been stopped in mid-stride sounded. Lyr easily knocked the old man’s once-threatening sword aside, then placed his own blade so that the geezer could not move without bringing about his own death. If the old man moved forward, Lyr’s sharp blade would slice easily through his throat.

  “I hate it when you do that,” Segyn muttered as he righted himself and squared his shoulders.

  “I will ask once more,” Lyr said. “Where is the crystal dagger?”

  “I know nothing of any dagger,” the old man responded hoarsely. “You have made a mistake in looking for it here. Now go, and leave the girl and me alone.”

  Confused still, the girl remained silent. She didn’t understand what had happened, and if all went well, she never would. People tended to treat him differently once they knew what he could do. He found it easiest to trust the knowledge of his abilities to a few. The girl before him was attempting to make sense of what had happened; he could see that in her eyes. She’d eventually assume that the old man’s aim had been off and she’d only imagined that she’d been about to die.

  “I am not leaving without the dagger,” Lyr said. Keelia swore the weapon necessary to defeat Ciro was located here in this house. Somewhere. “You can tell me where it is and I will leave you to your business, or I can tear the house apart, stone by stone, until I find it.”

  The pretty girl squared her shoulders. “You will never find the dagger.”

  Lyr turned his eyes to her. “Have I been bargaining with the wrong person?”

  The prisoner managed to look dignified, even though she was chained to the wall and dirty from a long period of neglect. “Yes, you have. I am Rayne, daughter of the wizard Fynnian and mistress of this house.”

  “She don’t look like any mistress I ever saw,” Segyn muttered.

  The girl gave Segyn a withering look. “I have been held prisoner against my will for many months. Release me, take me to a place of safety, and I will see that you have the dagger you seek.”

  “Where is it?” Lyr asked.

  “Not until I have your word,” she said. “Promise me that you will take me away, that you will not leave me until I am safe, and I will deliver to you the crystal dagger.”

  Rayne, daughter of Fynnian, was Ciro’s woman, but perhaps that was not of her choice. Lyr looked into her dark eyes, trying to find the truth there. Yes, she appeared innocent, but that wasn’t what convinced him that she might be telling the truth. The girl was terrified, not of him and not of her jailer’s blade, but of being left here to wait for Ciro’s return.

  “Your father is a wizard, you say. Do you have magic?” It would be good to know what he was taking on, if he chose to rescue her.

  “None, much to my father’s regret,” she said.

  Why had he bothered to ask? There was no guarantee that she was telling him the truth. For a long moment Lyr studied the girl. He had been taught not to offer his trust easily, and pretty women were not exempt from his caution. “Segyn, have Til and Swaine search for the dagger. I will wait here.”

  “Only two of your men to search?” Rayne said, seemingly unworried that they might find what they’d come here for without her assistance. “It won’t be easy. You might as well command them all to tear the house apart.”

  “Two is all,” Lyr said.

  “Did Ciro’s soldiers kill the rest?” she asked.

  “Ciro’s soldiers killed none.”

  That news did elicit a reaction, from the girl and from her guardian—the old man who remained against the wall with his throat at the tip of Lyr’s sword. Rayne’s surprise was evident, in her expression and in her words. “Four of you defeated all the men above? It has always sounded to me as if there were…many.”

  “There were eleven,” Lyr said. “Twelve if you count this old man.”

  “Eleven of them and four of you, and yet you defeated them in short order.”

  “The Circle of Bacwyr does not know defeat, and such odds are not beyond our capabilities.”

  He could almost see the girl’s mind working, and he was so focused on her face that he did not realize what the old man was about to do until it was too late.

  Rayne’s guardian thrust his head forward so that Lyr’s motionless sword sliced through the artery there. The girl yanked against her chains, moving as far away from the grisly scene as possibly. She turned her head and screamed in horror, and when the scream ended, trailing away to nothing, she began to shake.

  Lyr drew his sword away, as the old man quickly passed into the Land of the Dead—or wherever his tainted soul might be called—and watched the tears flow down Rayne’s face. Were the tears real? His mother and sisters were not prone to shedding tears, but then again, they were unlike other women in his experience.

  “Why do you cry for a man who kept you prisoner against your will?” he asked. “Is that the case, or did you choose your current position?”

  Rayne, daughter of the wizard Fynnian and the monster Ciro’s betrothed, glanced at him with an anger that hinted at strength beneath the petite exterior and feeble tears. “Before Ciro ruined Jiri with false promises and hideous threats, he was a good man. I do not cry for my jailer but for the man I once knew, a man Prince Ciro destroyed months ago.”

  Perhaps that was the truth, perhaps not. Lyr was oddly undecided about Rayne’s character. Why had Keelia not spoken of her when she’d sent him so specifically to this house to fetch the crystal dagger? Why had she not told him what awaited him here? Keelia was a most powerful psychic, and a bit more information would’ve been helpful.

  Ah, if only it could be that simple. If only Keelia and others like her could see which steps should be taken to bring victory, and which should be avoided. Instead they all were meant to stumble along and confront whatever surprises were met along the way. It was the way of life, or so he had been told.

  Segyn carried Jiri’s body up the stairs. Once there, he would order Til and Swaine to search for the dagger, and he would assist them.
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  Lyr pulled a chair—Jiri’s chair, he assumed by its position—to the center of the room, where he could sit and study the girl who was chained to the wall. While he should join the others in the search, he wasn’t certain it was safe to leave this one alone. She said she possessed no magic, but could he believe her? For all he knew, she was a pretty trap, chained to the wall moments before or immediately after he and his men arrived.

  There was a brilliantly colored flower which grew near his home, the Ksana. This flower was more beautiful than all the others, and drew the eye with its color and the nose with its sweet scent. But the Ksana was poisonous. A momentary touch, and the skin would turn red and blistered, and if one were so foolish as to lay a petal against the tongue, illness, and possibly death, would soon follow.

  As far as he knew, Rayne was like the Ksana flower. Beautiful, sweetly scented, and deadly.

  If his men found the crystal dagger, he would not be obligated to accept her proposition and take her into his protection. If they did not…well, he would address that when and if the time came.

  Rayne yanked against one chain. “Jiri kept the key to my shackles with his belongings.” She pointed, and her chains rattled. “Over there.”

  Lyr nodded his head but did not rise from his chair.

  “Aren’t you going to release me?” the girl asked, indignation in her sweet voice.

  “Not as of yet,” Lyr responded calmly. “I haven’t decided what to do with you, Rayne daughter of Fynnian.”

  Anger flashed in her dark eyes. “I thought you were an honorable man.”

  “I am honorable.” He smiled. “But I am not gullible.”

  Again, tears slipped down her cheeks. Lyr studied the tears, unaffected by the display.

  “If you would leave me here, then you are no better than Prince Ciro,” Rayne spat in anger.

  Lyr’s smile died quickly. From all he had learned of Ciro and his plans, she had just uttered the greatest of insults.

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