by Drae Box
“Let’s get out of here,” he said.
“About time,” said Prince Pedibastet, springing from a chair in the corner of the room. He padded silently over to them. “Let’s go home.”
Raneth swooped to the left with his griffin-self’s wings, avoiding a rain cloud so they wouldn’t get wet. Aldora gratefully rubbed the right side of Raneth’s neck, revelling in the soft feel of his white feathers and the heat sinking into her fingers. She nestled her cheek against his neck and looked down towards the ground. Tricolq City twinkled up at her, the remains of the night’s gaslights and candles in windows waving them on. Raneth swept slightly to the right, catching an air thermal from the settlement. It wouldn’t be long now before they’d be flying over her village, heading to the palace to give King Cray the Shotput of Power.
Aldora kissed the feathers at the back of Raneth’s neck, but as she drew back and Raneth swooped closer to the ground, her brown eyes looked ahead and caught sight of something in the sky.
“No,” she murmured.
Her chest felt as if it were being crushed under the paw of a moth dragon. Up ahead, black and grey smoke beckoned them closer, smearing the sky. She shifted slightly, craning her neck to get a better view of where the smoke was coming from. They were so close to her village. So close. Please no. Her fingers tensed in Raneth’s feathers.
“Giften’s soil.”
She pressed her eyes to Raneth’s warm neck, wishing he could speak, give some sort of comfort, even if it were just a gentle touch of his hand against hers. There was no mistaking the small black gate or the walls that surrounded the fire. The Brown Buzzard Village didn’t twinkle like Tricolq City. Wasn’t lit by the soft glow of candles’ promises, nor the hissing welcome of gaslight. Aldora strained her eyes through the gloom. Her village was on fire and many of the buildings were already gone, leaving misshapen outlines visible through gaps in the smoke, creating unfamiliar streets between the ruins.
Prince Pedibastet, snuggled against her, looked past the griffin’s neck. He swore a stream of profanities that, if Aldora’s stomach hadn’t been clenching in horror, would have made her laugh – the cat had never sworn in front of her before.
Feeling the fierce prickle of tears in her eyes, Aldora gripped Raneth’s neck feathers tightly. “Can we fly faster, Raneth? Please?”
The griffin nodded. The thumping of his wings on either side of her changed, becoming frantic, and he panted hoarsely. The royal official ration bar she’d eaten flew up from her stomach and she barely had time to lean over Raneth’s side to let it fall to the ground. She lifted her gaze back to the village as tears crept down her face, taking in what she was seeing as Raneth strove to get his partner back to her home.
Or rather, what was left of it.
Acknowledgments
No book is created by just one person, and The Common Kingdoms / Two Giftens books are no different. Without the support of the people I’ve met through the years of writing Raneth’s and Aldora’s adventures, at some point I might have stalled indefinitely.
Clare, Eve and June: my lovely editors. You have each taught me quite a lot just by doing the editing work that you do. Each structural report taught me more about character development, worlds and story structure, and each line-edit run showed me my back-to-front sentences, weird ticks and other such blunders. I look forward to working on new projects with you!
Alyrim: your mastery of book cover design should be better known! The Common Kingdoms books look absolutely fantastic in both book one’s and two’s original launches in 2015 and 2016, and their relaunches in 2019 (along with books three, four and five in 2019). Readers wouldn’t have paid them any mind without your design skills. Thank you!
My email subscribers: it’s been a long journey since that first email in 2014, hasn’t it? Those of you whom have been a part of my writing or reading tribes in the past and/or currently are greatly appreciated for the support, and the trust you put in me and my work.
Bryan Cohern: when I heard your interview on the Science Fiction and Fantasy Marketing Podcast about your relaunching, Ted Saves the Day, I knew I have to get in touch to ask for your advice for relaunching books one and two in this series. You were kind enough to reply and share your experience with me, and for that I thank you. Not everyone would.
Twitch: you crazy, big-eared pup, you! I love ya, and I couldn’t ask for a better writing companion and friend! You make sure I get up and move about instead of sitting every free moment of my day, staring at a computer screen, hyper-focused on my writing goals. I simply adore you and your ability to bring joy to everyone who knows you.
My readers: I argued with myself about where to put you guys on this. Top, bottom? But it doesn’t really matter, does it? This list of thank-yous isn’t by order, after all. I hope you all realise how important you are, for sharing in my journey as a continually-learning writer. Whether you’ve been with me since The Royal Gift’s original release in 2015, or you discovered my books before or after the relaunch in 2019, thank you. Thank you for taking a chance on an author you’d never heard of before. I hope you loved Aldora, Raneth and Pedibastet, and that you’ll love my upcoming characters in other series and standalone novels.
My Youtube tribe: for always being supportive of me and making me feel welcome in the Authortube community, thank you! If you all hadn’t reached out and been there for me, I might never have finished the Series Relaunch Project, and I may have stopped participating in Authortube too! You don’t know it, but you also reminded me to ignore some really awful suggestions from people that had no place telling a writer what to do, and (as I later found out) were likely giving me bad advice on purpose. I hope I can always be there for you too.
My family: Baby brother, our walks together with Connie are some of my favourite memories of you growing up. Not only did we create stories and mash the Common Kingdoms and your floating werewolf island world together, but you taught me how to keep a reader’s attention, and let me create world lore on the spot every time our stories found a flaw or underdeveloped area. Nowadays as an adult, you’re always there for me and Twitch if we need you. Thank you.
Baby sister, no, Rhiannon Danae is not named after you. She gets brutally murdered. I wouldn’t wish that on you. Raneth and Aldora are almost as old as you are, and I hope that as you figure out adulthood, that they maybe provide a moral compass whenever you need to follow your gut. Take a look at their decisions and their outcomes (especially Raneth’s) whenever you feel stuck.
My dear twin, I know you can’t read due to your disabilities, but you have helped me more than you possibly understand. You put up with (and hopefully enjoyed) my reading to you until you fell asleep when we were little. Without that practise, I wouldn’t have overcome my reading, writing and speech difficulties. I also wouldn’t have discovered my love for reading aloud and reading in general… In short, without you being a vital participant of my practise in reading and talking, I never would have been able to read well or write novels. Every novel I write is because of you.
Mum and Dad, I know more often than not that you don’t understand this need to write and share my novels, and I still remember the discussions we had. I know that your serious talks about being an author and getting published came from a place of concern and love. Thank you for letting me get on with it anyway, for always encouraging my independence and having my back. You are both the golden standard in parenting.
About the Author
Drae Box is a fantasy author that lives in the UK with their rescue-dog, Twitch. They enjoy hikes, shows that mix crime and fantasy together, Fairyloot and fantasy novels that leave a lasting impression.
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Preview Broken Crown
Book Four of The Common Kingdoms
Releases 5th November 2019.
Available for preorder.
Chapter One
Raneth
It was the lack of ravens and crows that caught Raneth’s attention. This doesn’t feel right, he thought, observing the black smoke curling around his girlfriend’s village. He stood outside the east gate of the small settlement, his back stiffening as he resisted the urge to shiver from the morning’s cold breeze. He ignored the grey and black ash in the air and on the ground as he stepped past the outer defence wall. He prowled past the twisted shape of the metal gate that had protected this entrance and hesitated at the mouth of the inner wall where it gave way to a clearing in the village. Directly opposite him was a street of burned houses and to his right was a small, mostly undamaged hospital. On the left side of the clearing, a wide path curled along the side of the wall, without any additional buildings to call its own, though the ends of multiple streets touched it. Between Royal Official Raneth Bayre and the first of those streets were the burned husks of ten bodies, too badly burnt for carrion birds to even bother to feast on them.
Oh-oh. Raneth glanced over his shoulder towards Dagger Bearer Aldora Leoma, his girlfriend. She was standing at the outer wall, waiting for him to give her a sign that it was OK for her to come to his side. She’s going to be devastated, he realised as he shook his head, letting her know not to join him yet. At her feet, the Prince of the Cats, who had accompanied them to Newer, sat waiting in unusual silence.
Looking upwards, Raneth realised that there was no sound at all coming from the village, except for the soft crackle of fires that had yet to die down. How did this happen again? The royal official crept to the side of one of the bodies and squatted down to inspect it. He couldn’t tell if it had been a woman or a man; whatever had burned them had been incredibly quick and unnaturally hot. Common Gift of Fire, perhaps, he reasoned, knowing that those who mastered the Common Gift were able to increase the heat of the fires they produced. He hovered his left hand over the body, feeling for any hint of warmth from the remains, but there wasn’t any. It’s been a while since this happened. The fires should have been put out by firefighters from nearby settlements by now, so why haven’t they come to help? What happened whilst we were in the Newer Kingdom, and why didn’t we hear about it?
As a precaution, Raneth glanced around to make sure nobody was creeping up on him, before continuing his observations. The body had a small blade attached to its hip on what remained of its belt. A legionary’s sword. This person was full-time army. He carefully prised free the hexagonal tags from around the dead person’s neck. He wiped the soot from their surface and read the rank and legion. 413. Third Legion. Fairly new recruit, otherwise his tags would have been rectangles like mine, but larger. Hexagonal tags were introduced last year for the Royal Giften Army. Poor sod.
He stood up and walked the short distance back to the inner wall and Aldora, with the cat at her feet.
“Aldora, Cray sent help this time. There’s some army here.”
“I should have been here,” she uttered, her brown eyes sparkling with tears that had yet to be crushed against her eyelashes. “I could have held them off with the Dagger. I shouldn’t have gone to Newer with you to find the Shotput of Power.”
Raneth eyed the gold blade of the Dagger of Protection in Aldora’s hand. It’s not her fault she wasn’t here with the village’s Weapon of Protection when they needed it. It’s mine. He gently took hold of the side of her face with his calloused hand.
“This isn’t your fault, Aldora. You’ve left the village with the Dagger before and nothing happened. This isn’t your fault.”
“But…” Aldora’s lower lip quivered as she looked past Raneth to the street opposite the gate. “It’s too quiet. There’s no way anyone is still alive here.”
The royal official slipped his hand into Aldora’s. “There’s no carrion birds either, which means there’s no bodies for them except those scorched by gift-fire. I think your villagers are probably safe somewhere, your family especially, A. Don’t forget, your sister is a royal official and her husband has the gift of materialisation. There’s no way they didn’t get out. We should head to the palace and find out what happened.”
“We have to check my family’s OK. Can we go to my house and make sure? And the refuge? Maybe they and the other villagers are waiting for someone to tell them it’s clear to come out.”
I suppose that’s possible, decided Raneth as he watched Aldora chew at the inside of her left cheek. Please don’t cry, sweetheart. Her brown hair was a mess from their flight back to the Giften Kingdom from Newer, and having carried Aldora and Pedibastet whilst in griffin-form, Raneth’s body ached with the urge to find somewhere quiet to catch up on his sleep. Gotta sort this out first before we can get any sleep.
“Yeah, we can check,” promised Raneth.
“You two don’t need me for this,” stated the tabby-and-white cat at their feet. The Prince of the Cats swished his black tail once against the ground, sending a small cloud of ash and dust into the air. “I will go ahead to the palace and make sure Cray is aware of the amount of damage,” he added.
Raneth watched the cat prowl down the street opposite the gate, the same street that Aldora’s family lived on. “Be careful,” he called.
Prince Pedibastet paused and looked at Raneth over one of his white shoulders. “I’m not an idiot.”
After checking Aldora’s home and the village’s refuge, and finding both empty, Raneth held Aldora’s hand as they walked the beaten path to the palace. Aldora had taken the same path from her village to the palace four years before to report the last attack on the village and the theft of the Dagger of Protection.
“That’s twice now the Dagger’s not been around to help the village when it needed it,” stated Aldora as they walked through Little Wood, the only feature other than grass between Brown Buzzard Village and the royal palace. “I should never have taken it with me. I should have left it with Haethowine.”
I doubt the village leader would have done much with the Dagger even if she had, thought Raneth. “That still doesn’t make this your fault, OK? You’re the Dagger Bearer, not the village’s prisoner. You’re allowed to leave and still carry the Dagger.”
Aldora frowned up at Raneth.
She’s clearly going to keep disagreeing with me on that. Fine.
Raneth inspected the path they were following, looking for any signs that others had walked the same way recently. There were a few footprints caught in the dirt, some more defined than others due to the rain that had taken place the night before. None of the branches that were low to the ground on either side of the path had been snapped. He smiled when he spotted a fresh cat paw print in the dirt.
Stepping clear of the trees, Raneth caught sight of the palace and quickened his pace. It was a small, white mansion rather than a typical palace, with twelve square windows across the front, and two window impressions above the open front entrance, which held no door. Instead, three white stone steps
led up to a gaping corridor, which would lead them to the double doors of the throne room. Raneth hesitated at the steps. Prince Pedibastet sat on the top step, his black tail curled around his back legs and its reddened tip dangling off the edge. He looked up at Raneth and Aldora.
“All the doors are locked, even the kitchen door, and nobody responded to my meows.”
As a royal official serving his kingdom, Raneth knew that wasn’t normal. Peering down the corridor, he spotted the absence of Rikward, the royal official who was charged with protecting the throne room’s entrance during the day.
“Are you sure you meowed loud enough, Your Highness?” he asked.
Pedibastet flicked his tail as his white ears twitched. “Yes. I did the long yowls that you humans hate.”
Nobody can ignore those for long. Raneth glanced at Aldora to see her chewing at the inside of her cheek again, looking at him hopefully. He gave her a smile, trying to make her feel better, even though his stomach was starting to knot.
“Let’s take a closer look,” he suggested, stepping past the cat and into the corridor.
At the bronze-painted double doors, Raneth carefully ran his hands over the stone wall to the left, where Rikward normally stood with his water bottle. No stone gave at his touch. “I had hoped one of these would open to reveal a spare set of keys or something,” said Raneth, resting a hand against the door. “Without my lockpicking kit, I don’t think we’ll get in.”