Guderian bellowed as he plummeted downward between the spiraling staircase at the perimeter of the tower wall. His claymore slipped from his grip and he dropped sixty feet to the ground below. Body and sword hit the ground simultaneously. The sword shattered. Guderian died with one last blood-filled gasp in a broken heap.
When the echo of Guderian’s yell finally died, Makarria forced her eyes open. She saw her parents across the room, hanging from their wrists the same as she. Darkness tugged at her mind, and she felt herself drooping into unconsciousness, but she fought it off. She reformed the floor in her mind and made it so. She dissolved away the shackles binding her and her parents and made them gone. Her parents slid limply to the ground, and when she saw that they were finally free, she too collapsed to the floor and fell into unconsciousness.
In Emperor Guderian’s study, Talitha broke her chains and stood. She yanked the barbed scold’s bridal from her head, then strode out the doors, erect and uncaring of her nudity. The guards at the door tried to stop her, but she struck out at them with her power, and they were hurled back to shatter against the far wall like dried twigs.
She walked down the steps from the Emperor’s tower and killed all who tried to stop her. She made her way through the keep, then to the base of the torture tower where she found Guderian’s broken body. She nodded with satisfaction and strode up the stairs, sixty feet up to the bottom-most torture chamber, and there she found Makarria, deathly cold and breathing in shallow gasps. Talitha sat down and put Makarria’s head into her lap, then closed her eyes. Very slowly, she pushed life energy and warmth back into Makarria’s body.
“You’ve done it, Makarria,” Talitha whispered softly. “You’ve done it.”
36
Epilogue
Makarria looked out from the balcony to watch the sun rising over the white city. Sol Valaróz. She’d heard much of the city from her grandfather over the years, but even his stories did not do it justice. In contrast to Col Sargoth, which was enormous but rigid and menacing, Sol Valaróz was a beautiful, sprawling mess of ancient buildings covering the mesa, each and every one of them different from the others. I suppose I’ll have plenty of time to explore it now, Makarria mused, but she was cheered little by the thought. All she could think about was her grandfather.
“It’s nearly time,” Prisca said from inside their room in the Royal Palace. “Here, I have something for you”
Makarria went to her stiffly, still unused to walking in a gown and heeled shoes.
“It’s your grandfather’s ring,” Prisca said, taking Makarria’s hand and slipping the ring onto the thumb of her left hand. “He left it for me to find when the two of you left. It’s yours now.”
Tears filled Makarria’s eyes at the thought of the day she fled with her grandfather on the skiff, seemingly a lifetime ago.
“Don’t be sad for him,” Prisca told her. “His time had come. He knew that long before you ever made him young again.”
“He’s one with Tel Mathir now,” Makarria replied. “That’s what he told me would happen.”
Prisca smiled and kissed Makarria on the forehead. “Come now, it’s time to go. You have a kingdom to rule.”
Makarria sniffled back the tears in her eyes and nodded. “Alright.”
Outside in the corridor, Caile stood waiting for her. “Are you ready for this?”
“I guess so.”
Caile grinned and ushered her forward. “It’ll get easier and don’t worry, I’ll be there right beside the throne with your mother and father. Once the coronation is over, take your seat on the throne and wait. Today’s business will be simple enough, just a bunch of aristocrats, ambassadors, and guild masters coming to swear their fealty to you. Just thank them, and I’ll fill in any necessary formalities you might miss.”
Makarria nodded wordlessly and followed after him toward the throne room. It was as if she was walking in a dream. The last two weeks had been such a whirlwind she could hardly keep track of it all. With the death of Guderian, the Sargothian advisors had surrendered, along with King Lorimer of Golier. Talitha called for a council of all the highest Sargothian officials and together they began the long process of choosing a new ruler. The Sargothian Empire was officially dissolved. By then, Siegbjorn had arrived in Col Sargoth, along with Caile. Caile brought news of Wulfram’s death and the surrender of Sargoth’s generals. Taera, he explained, had gone back to Kal Pyrthin to be anointed queen now that the war was over. At hearing this, Talitha urged Makarria to go to Sol Valaróz with all due haste. “You are needed there,” is all she would say. Caile offered to accompany her, seeing as how he knew as much about Valaróz as anyone, and so they set sail with Siegbjorn on the airship: Makarria, Prisca, Galen, Caile, and Lorentz, who had been freed from the torture tower along with all the other prisoners.
When they had arrived in Sol Valaróz, they learned of Parmo’s assassination. Makarria was devastated. She cried and cried and could not be consoled for days, but Prisca finally put an end to it. “There’s no time for crying like a little girl anymore,” she had said. “You’re to be queen now, and a queen must be strong.”
“A queen?” Makarria asked incredulously. “Me?”
“I’ve renounced my claim,” Prisca told her. “I am a farmer and a mother—that’s what I’ve been my whole life. You are young and already stronger than I’ve ever been or ever will be. Valaróz is your responsibility now. Prince Caile has promised to stay here as your advisor, and your father and I will be here… to be your parents and to help you.”
The weight of it all had pushed all other thoughts aside. And now, here Makarria was in the throne room of Sol Valaróz, standing before hundreds of Valarions, all of them staring at her adoringly. The crown Vala herself once wore sat on a cushion beside the throne, waiting for Makarria to place it on her head.
Nothing will ever be the same again, she realized. I’m a queen now. More than that—I’m a dreamwielder. Grandfather would be proud.
More from The Dreamwielder Chronicles!
Continue makarria’s journey in Book Two of the Dreamwielder Chronicles,
Souldrifter
In the shadow of Emperor Guderian’s fallen empire, young Queen Makarria finds her throne—and her life—in grave danger. The Old World Republic has come, demanding that Queen Makarria bring order to the struggling Five Kingdoms by forming a new empire, one she would rule as the Old World’s puppet. When Makarria refuses them, the Old World threatens war and unleashes a nefarious spy to sow discord in her court. Before she knows it, Makarria’s budding romance with Prince Caile has been exploited by the spy, and Makarria finds herself embroiled in a complex game of power and lies in which she can trust no one.
Betrayed and lost, Makarria is forced to shed all pride and discover the true nature of her power as a dreamwielder in order to recreate herself and face the sprawling threat that is the Old World Empire.
Keep reading for a preview of Souldrifter
Souldrifter
The Dreamwielder Chronicles: Book Two
1
Enter Darkness
Khal-Aband, the underground prison, was four hundred miles south of Sol Valaróz, shrouded in the broad-leafed rainforest that clung to the jagged, mountainous terrain of the Spine. There was no path, no gate marking the entrance, only a spire of rock known as the Finger to find one’s way, and even then it was only visible in the waning hours of the evening, when the setting sun over the Ocean Gloaming backlit the angular, straight lines of the Finger in stark contrast to the undulating silhouette of the forest. It was no wonder it had taken Makarria so long to discover it.
It was nearly a year since Makarria’s coronation, and Emperor Guderian’s fallen empire still cast a shadow over her every action as Queen of Valaróz. Don Bricio, the usurper Guderian had placed on the Valarion throne, had turned Valarion politics into a knot of corruption, and even with Don Bricio and Guderian both dead and gone, their reign of terror had scarred Makarria’s people. More tha
n anything, they were apprehensive about sorcery. Guderian had all but exterminated sorcerers in the Five Kingdoms, so what were people to think of Makarria, a dreamwielder, when the only sorcerer they had ever known was Guderian’s shape-changing monster Wulfram? At best, they were grateful to Makarria for having liberated them from tyranny, but distrustful of the changes she tried to bring about. At worst, they openly questioned her ability, saying sorcerers couldn’t be trusted and that a fourteen-year-old girl didn’t have the strength to rule.
That’s why this trip to Khal-Aband was so important.
Inside—locked away in the secret prison where Emperor Guderian and Don Bricio had sent the enemies they hated too much to kill—was a man who could make the people of Valaróz trust the throne again. Assuming he was still alive.
Makarria tore her gaze away from the Finger and glanced to the far side of her encampment where four scouts emerged from the forest, having returned at last. “Well?” she asked, striding forward to meet them in the middle of the encampment. “Is the perimeter clear?” Patience was something she was working on, but not today, not when she was so close to her goal. Not when Caile was off searching the prison without her.
“Yes, Your Majesty, the perimeter is clear,” the lead scout said. “My team searched the forest a mile to the north and south, across the entirety of the Spine. There is no evidence anyone has been here in months. All we found was an abandoned skiff in a cove along the western shoreline.”
“Abandoned?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. It appears someone tried to sink it. The hull was shattered and someone filled it with rocks. If the tide hadn’t been out, we wouldn’t have noticed it at all. By my estimation, it’s been there a year or more. There’s not much left of it.”
Makarria frowned, not liking the sound of someone purposefully sinking a boat. “Don’t be so sure it’s been there as long as that. The sea is harsh to sunken vessels, particularly on rocky shores. What do you think, Lorentz?”
Captain Lorentz—her advisor, friend, and personal bodyguard at Prince Caile’s insistence—stood up from where he had been sitting on a rock, gazing up at the Finger. His face still bore the scars of the torture he had endured as Emperor Guderian’s prisoner: part of one ear gone and three of his front teeth missing, in addition to the crosshatch of thin pink scars on his forehead from knife wounds. “A year sounds about right,” he said, his words tinged with a slight lisp due to his missing teeth. “That would have been the last time Don Bricio could have sent anyone here.”
“But why on the western shore?” Makarria asked. It didn’t make any sense. “If he were sending word from Sol Valaróz, the vessel would have landed on the eastern shore, the same as us.”
Lorentz shrugged. “Perhaps he sent word from one of the western cities. Or perhaps Guderian sent someone from Col Sargoth.”
It was possible, but Makarria didn’t buy it. A skiff was too small for transporting prisoners, and even if Don Bricio or Guderian had merely sent a messenger, they wouldn’t have risked sending a message in such small vessel. Makarria knew all too well how dangerous it was sailing the open sea in a skiff. She and her grandfather had nearly died in one fleeing from Guderian when a storm came upon them. It seemed so long ago now, but Makarria still recalled how small she had felt in the skiff, a toy against the fury of the sea.
Makarria had new and more pressing concerns now, though. She shook the memory away and eyed the sun, looming ever closer to the treeline to the west. “We only have an hour or so of daylight left. Still no word from Caile?”
“Nothing,” Lorentz said, stealing a glance up the hillside toward the Finger and the prison entrance. “I can’t imagine what can be taking him so long.”
It was clear Lorentz was as worried about Caile as Makarria was. She couldn’t blame him. Lorentz had, after all, been Caile’s protector and mentor, his father practically, for over ten years, and here he was, stuck waiting outside with Makarria while Caile searched the interior of the prison with only a small contingent of troops. He had been gone the entire day now. It was time to go after him. Makarria had been a fool not to go with him in the first place.
“We’re going in,” she decided. “Gather our two best men and follow me.”
Lorentz’s eyes widened in alarm. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. It’s not safe.”
“That’s why I’m bringing you along.”
“Pyrthin’s arse, you’re as pigheaded as Caile is,” Lorentz swore. “It’s no wonder the two of you get along so well.”
Makarria grinned despite herself. Apart from her parents and Caile, Lorentz was the only one who spoke to her like a real person, not a queen. That wasn’t to say he was all jokes and quips. He, out of all of Makarria’s advisors, had been the most outspoken about her remaining in Sol Valaróz and leaving this expedition to soldiers. She had overruled him, but that didn’t mean she took his counsel lightly.
“Hurry along now, Captain,” she told him. “Meet me up top, or I’ll go in alone.”
Lorentz frowned at her, but said nothing before jogging off to gather two guards and leave orders for the others to stand watch. Makarria turned to regard the Finger one last time, then began the climb up the loose shale embankment on her own. The footing was treacherous. She had no idea how a forest was able to thrive in the barren, rocky soil. Anything that manages to live here must be more pigheaded than me, she mused, testing each foothold before shifting her weight and continuing her ascent. The roots of the trees and ferns were woven into the cracks of the rock itself, creating a crumbling matrix of jagged footholds. She was glad, not for the first time on this trip, that she had set aside the burden of her cumbersome royal gown for leather boots, breeches, and a vest.
By the time she reached the plateau at the base of the Finger, she was nearly out of breath. She didn’t have the leisure to bemoan the climb, though. In front of her lurked the entrance to Khal-Aband, a dark fissure in the rock face no more than four feet tall, shored up with two diagonal beams of rotting timber. Makarria shuddered. Although the Spine couldn’t have been more different than the snow-covered Barrier Mountains two thousand miles to the north, the entrance to Khal-Aband looked eerily similar to the entrance to the Caverns of Issborg. Makarria had been a prisoner herself there in Issborg, along with Taera, Caile’s sister, trapped in the ice, under the control of the sorcerer Kadar. Kadar’s black teeth still haunted Makarria’s memories, as did his horrible fate at her hands. She had used her power as a dreamwielder to trap him in the rock of Issborg, and his body was as much a part of the mountain now as was the glacier that carved the cavern centuries before.
Makarria closed her eyes and forced herself to push the memory away. No more reminiscing. No more daydreaming. If she needed to use her power, she would need to control her dream visions, not be caught up in past memories.
“Well?” Lorentz asked, huffing to a halt beside Makarria along with two soldiers. “Now what?”
“Like I said, we go in,” Makarria replied, retying the leather strap that held her brown hair back in a ponytail. “One of you in front of me, two behind. If we run into trouble, stay close, protect me for just a moment, and I’ll do the rest.”
Lorentz grabbed the hilt of the short sword at his waist, thought better of it, and instead pulled out a dagger. “I’ll go first.”
The others fell into place behind Makarria and they entered the tunnel leading to Khal-Aband. No more than ten steps inside, the passageway made a sharp turn to the right and they were plunged into utter darkness and silence. The hair at the nape of Makarria’s neck stood on end and she felt a brief surge of panic.
“This is madness,” Lorentz whispered, shuffling to a halt. “Caile has all of our equipment. We have no torches. Nothing.”
Makarria closed her eyes and let out a long, slow breath to drive away her fear. A year before she wouldn’t have been able to control her thoughts like this, but she had been practicing, and now she was able to slip into a dreamstate almost effo
rtlessly. She pictured a floating light in her mind—a lifeless, formless lightning bug—and made it so, drawing upon the energy within her to push the object from her dream vision into reality. Lorentz gasped in surprise when the glowing blue sphere appeared in front of him from nothingness, and almost simultaneously a gust of wind blew past them from the entrance of the cave. The light was undeterred, but Makarria shivered. She should have planned better. It was foolish wasting her strength to dream up a light when unknown danger lay before them. There was nothing for it now, though, but to move on.
“Let’s keep moving, Lorentz,” Makarria said.
Lorentz nodded and led the way, following the curves of the passageway, ever to the right and downward, inexorably spiraling deeper into the mountain beneath the Finger. The air grew stagnant. Then repugnant. By the time the passageway leveled out and they reached a rusted gate barring their passage, the stench was unbearable, a palpable haze of rot and death. Makarria had to cover her nose and mouth with one arm to keep from retching, and even then saliva filled her mouth and she had to choke back her gagging reflex.
“It’s locked,” Lorentz whispered through gritted teeth as he examined the padlock on the gate. “One of ours, but we don’t have the key. Caile does. Of course.”
Makarria took it all in with a glance: the original rusted padlock Caile had split apart with a hammer and chisel only to toss aside on the passage floor, and then the new one in its place to protect his back and make sure no one snuck in behind him. It was a simple matter for Makarria to separate the new padlock from the hasp mechanism, just like her first test as a dreamwielder back in the Caverns of Issborg. She slipped into her dreamstate, then imagined the two rings melding together into one solid piece, and then individual again, this time apart from each other. When she pushed through the resistance of rearranging matter and opened her eyes, the padlock fell to the ground alongside the other one.
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