Sanctuary Tales (Book 1)

by Robert J. Crane

  “What do you want of me?” she asked as he pushed old, wrinkled fingers into her jawline.

  “I don’t want anything of you,” he said, as though the very suggestion he would were something revolting to him. “Thin waif of a poor girl, I have nothing I would entrust to you and nothing I’d care to give you. But the Sovereign … he has uses for you.” Shrawn withdrew his face from to hers. “Do you know the problem with a policy that calls for the death of thieves?” He sighed, not waiting for her to answer. “It makes it so hard to find exceptional liars. Certainly, there are more than a few in the nobility, but it’s such a chore to convince them to do what we would have them do. No, we have more than our fair share of cruel men, of harsh and vicious ones. But ones skilled in the art of subterfuge? No weak-willed thespian will do. We need someone smart enough, clever enough … tell me girl, are you clever?” He stared down at her as though he were studying his dinner.

  “Clever enough,” she answered, hoping it was what he wanted to hear.

  “Perhaps you are,” Shrawn said, watching her, weighing her answer. “Let us see. The Sovereign wants you to understand power. Ours. Over you.” He leaned in close and she smelled the remnants of the night’s feast on his breath, some spices that were familiar to her from the buffet table. “Do you understand our power over you?”

  “Yes,” she said, whispering, as his fingers pushed against her face.

  “Need I demonstrate?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head quickly.

  “Perhaps you are a clever girl,” Shrawn said with a thin smile that disappeared a moment later. “Do you understand that if we tell you to walk along a line, you will walk that line until it falls off the edge of a cliff?” Shrawn asked, pushing her head against the wall. She could feel the pressure building in the back of her head, pain welling where he had already struck her into the stone.

  “Yes,” she said, and felt a tear run down her cheek, warm and salty.

  “Do you understand that if you don’t, we will kill your friends through methods of torture so prolonged that their own entrails will be the only meals they eat for the months that their suffering goes on?” His eyes were right in front of hers, great black orbs of hypnotic power. “Do you know that we possess healers whose sole purpose is to bring tormented souls back to life so we can torture them to death again?” He waited a moment and she nodded a fraction, as much as his fingers would allow. “And do you doubt we will visit all this and more upon your compatriots and then yourself once we find you—and find you we will, should you try to escape our grasp?”

  “I believe you,” she said, and the pressure lessened on the back of her head.

  “What would you do to escape that fate for yourself? For your friends?” Shrawn’s face started to show a gleam. “For your lover … Norenn, is it?”

  Her mouth now felt as dusty as the stone of a high cave wall. “Whatever you say.” She said it, meant it, and closed her eyes, imagining Norenn. She pictured him in some room like this, beaten, flayed, and forced to relive it over and over again on Shrawn’s spiteful order. Anything to save him from that.

  “If we tell you to steal from a man, will you do it?”

  “Yes,” she said without hesitation.

  “If we tell you to cross the world and kill a man you’ve never met, will you do it?”

  To be an assassin of the Sovereign? She thought once more of Norenn, and her answer came easily. “Yes,” she said after only a moment’s pause.

  “If we tell you to sleep with a man in order to learn his secrets, will you do it?”

  “Yes,” she answered, and this time she shook ever so slightly, pushing down the thought of betraying Norenn, pushing it down below the thought of him being tortured, tormented to death over and over. For you, Norenn. I would do it for you, if I had to. She blinked away a tear. Perhaps it won’t ever come to that.

  Shrawn stood, pushing his weight onto the staff and lifting himself up. He stood above her, leering down, his face lit with a smile that was filled with enormous cruelty. “Welcome to the service of the Sovereign, Aisling Nightwind.” The smile grew wider. “Grow used to it, to the duty, to the quick effort of doing the Master of Saekaj and Sovar’s bidding.” The smile vanished as quickly as it appeared. “For you will be in the Sovereign’s service until you are dead.”

  Twelve

  Three Years Later

  Aisling’s skin prickled as she crossed the foyer, dead dark elves stacked in piles, waiting for morning to be dragged out. The Luukessian army was encamped within the walls, which were still fractured by the dark elves’ use of Dragon’s Breath powder to breach them during the siege of Sanctuary. That was a surprise, she conceded. Didn’t think the Sovereign would chance that. The smell of the dead was still pungent in the air, mixed with the faint scent of the fire going in the hearth that extended along one wall.

  The foyer was filled with the living as well, Luukessian refugees sleeping on blankets amidst the corpses. The doors to the Great Hall were open wide, and sleeping and huddled figures could be seen all the way to the back of that room. She ran a hand down the cloth garments she wore in place of the leather armor she’d left in her quarters earlier in the night, feeling the soft sensation of the stitched clothing; she’d gotten so accustomed to the leather armor that wearing cloth was almost like wearing nothing at all.

  “Aisling,” came the lilting voice of Samwen Longwell, looking weary where he stood near the far edge of the hearth. His armor was a deep navy blue, and his eyes were thinly lidded. She crossed over to him, careful to step over the figure of a child under a blanket, sleeping on the floor.

  “Quite the mess around here,” she said without much expression, still taking it all in.

  “Yes,” Longwell agreed, still wearing his full armor and leaning on his lance, the dull end of which was against the floor, reminding her most unfortunately of Dagonath Shrawn’s walking stick. It always reminded her of that. “Evacuating an entire land of its surviving peoples into a place recently invaded by the dark elves has a way of being messy, I suppose.”

  She nodded, not wanting to be drawn into the dragoon’s moodiness. “Have you seen Cyrus?”

  “I have been out with a hunting party all night tracking down a dark elven general,” Longwell said. “I have not seen Cyrus Davidon since the Council meeting earlier this evening.”

  “Hm,” Aisling said, coolly. “If he didn’t go with you, he’s probably still here.”

  “Fair assumption,” Longwell said. The man looked deathly tired but still stood an exhausted vigil here. Aisling looked behind her and noted that there were others as well, Belkan and a few more, arrayed around the room, ready to repel any teleporting army.

  “I’ll leave you to your guard duty, then,” Aisling said and slipped past him up the stairs.

  “You might try his quarters,” Longwell suggested, and she looked back to see him meet her gaze with a tight-lipped expression. “I doubt he’s still in Council at this hour.

  “Right,” Aisling said, and felt her feet carry her up the steps. The jarring movement of her legs going up and down was the capstone on a day that had started with Sanctuary under siege and ended with the walls being torn down. I need a bed. And sleep. But first, business to attend to. It hadn’t been just this day, but the accumulation of countless days, all of them. Peace was a distant memory. Comfort was something nearly forgotten, something she recalled vaguely from those days in Sovar, with Norenn at her side.

  Norenn … She put aside the thought of him. It barely brought so much as a pang of guilt anymore.

  She walked down the hall of the officer quarters without a sound, easing over to the door she knew was his. She hesitated before knocking, waited a few seconds and knocked again. She heard someone moving inside before the door finally opened, and he stood before her.

  “You,” Cyrus said dully. She had to concede he was ruggedly handsome, even while half-asleep. His hair was long, his beard was full, and yet none of it di
d a thing to take away from his good looks. His muscles were visible even through the underclothes he wore in the night. And so were some of his scars.

  “You sound disappointed,” she said haltingly, staring at him over the threshold.

  “No,” he said. “Just surprised.”

  She stared at him, waiting for him to say something. When he didn’t, she broke the silence. “May I come in?”

  “Yes,” he said after a moment’s pause and stepped aside to let her in.

  She started to pass him but as she did, he reached out for her, hand landing on her cheek as he leaned in to kiss her. She returned the kiss, leaning back into him, her fingers running over the soft fabric of his nightshirt. It was new, foreign, different from how it had been in Luukessia when she’d conquered him that first time.

  He was wild, and she could feel his passion as he pressed into her. She grasped him, lifting his shirt up as she paused to get it off of him. He replied in kind and she heard the door slam shut while her cloth shirt was over her eyes. She undid his pants as they made their way to the bed, and she pushed him on it. This was easier than I thought it was going to be.

  She slipped out of her cloth pants and was on him a moment later, lips on his until he went to her neck. She rolled to the side and let him take over, lying back as she felt a momentary chill creep up her. She encouraged him, giving him the same performance she’d given all along, since the day they’d met—every effort she made was turned toward this purpose, toward getting him to this moment.

  Her hands ran along his chest. This was where she was supposed to be, after all. Where she had to be, she reflected as he entered her, his built-up lust pouring out. Exactly where they’d ordered her to be. Close enough to touch. Close enough to learn his secrets. Close enough to kill, if ever the word came to her for that.

  She played the role, masking herself as she carried on doing what she’d been told. When they were finished, he fell into a deep sleep by her side. She, on the other hand, lay awake, staring at the ceiling of his quarters and pondering how little her fate—her destiny—rested in her own hands anymore.

  A Note From the Author

  So, a funny thing happened on the way to Thy Father's Shadow. I know, it was supposed to be the next Sanctuary release. The problem is, I got about 35,000 words into it and had to put it down. I was struggling with it, big time. I had the ending in mind, and I'd obviously written the beginning, but I was missing a critical element. Fortunately, I've figured it out, now, but I've got a few other things to write before I can get back to it. Anyway, I pushed this up in the schedule to compensate, and now at least you know who Cyrus went to bed with at the end of Crusader.

  Though I'm not sure you'll be any happier with me now that you know...

  Anyway, I'm working on getting the first three books in my Southern Watch series out right now, but I'm also working on Master: The Sanctuary Series, Volume Five at the same time. My hope is that by the time I get Thy Father's Shadow finished (it's a few books down the line), Master will be ready shortly thereafter. We'll see if it all goes according to plan, although if it does, it may be the first time in my writing career where that happens.

  If you want to know when these books are coming, you really need to sign up for my NEW RELEASE EMAIL ALERTS – CLICK HERE to sign up. All the cool kids are doing it.

  Cyrus Davidon will return in

  MASTER

  THE SANCTUARY SERIES

  VOLUME FIVE

  The disappearance and presumed death of Alaric Garaunt has thrown the guild of Sanctuary into chaos. Added to the upheaval are the sudden disappearance of Sanctuary's old allies, The Daring, the resurgence of the Dark Elves in the war, and a mystery brought to Cyrus Davidon by an old friend. As the darkness rises in the land of Arkaria, Sanctuary must find a way through their struggles to unify, even as a battle between two pillars of the guild threatens to tear them asunder once and for all.

  Coming in 2014

  But first...

  THY FATHER'S SHADOW

  A SANCTUARY NOVEL

  Terian Lepos is a man without a home. Cast out of Sanctuary, he wanders the land of Arkaria until a messenger arrives with a curious offer, one that will take Terian into the darkness of Saekaj Sovar, a place he thought he had long ago left behind, and into the service of the Dark Elven Sovereignty, where he will face his worst fear – his father, and the secret that drove him from his homeland once before.

  Coming in 2014!

  (No, really. For real this time.)

  About the Author

  Robert J. Crane was born and raised on Florida’s Space Coast before moving to the upper midwest in search of cooler climates and more palatable beer. He graduated from the University of Central Florida with a degree in English Creative Writing. He worked for a year as a substitute teacher and worked in the financial services field for seven years while writing in his spare time. He makes his home in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota. Now he pretty much just sits around and writes books all day long.

  He can be contacted in several ways:

  Via email at cyrusdavidon@gmail.com

  Follow him on Twitter – @robertJcrane

  Connect on Facebook – robertJcrane (Author)

  Website – http://www.robertJcrane.com

  Blog – http://robertJcrane.blogspot.com

  Become a fan on Goodreads – http://www.goodreads.com/RobertJCrane

  Other Works by Robert J. Crane

  The Sanctuary Series

  Epic Fantasy

  Defender: The Sanctuary Series, Volume One

  Avenger: The Sanctuary Series, Volume Two

  Champion: The Sanctuary Series, Volume Three

  Crusader: The Sanctuary Series, Volume Four

  Sanctuary Tales, Volume One – A Short Story Collection

  Thy Father's Shadow: A Sanctuary Novel*

  Master: The Sanctuary Series, Volume Five*

  The Girl in the Box

  Contemporary Urban Fantasy

  Alone: The Girl in the Box, Book 1

  Untouched: The Girl in the Box, Book 2

  Soulless: The Girl in the Box, Book 3

  Family: The Girl in the Box, Book 4

  Omega: The Girl in the Box, Book 5

  Broken: The Girl in the Box, Book 6

  Enemies: The Girl in the Box, Book 7

  Legacy: The Girl in the Box, Book 8

  Destiny: The Girl in the Box, Book 9*

  Power: The Girl in the Box, Book 10*

  Southern Watch

  Contemporary Urban Fantasy

  Called: Southern Watch, Book 1

  Depths: Southern Watch, Book 2*

  * Forthcoming

  Acknowledgments

  The stories collected in this book were written sporadically, over a greater than two year period. During that time, I received help from the following:

  Heather Rodefer – dutifully beta-read every single one of them, provided feedback, and helped me avoid the most egregious errors.

  Shannon Garza – beta read at least one of them, I think it was A Familiar Face.

  My Dad – helped me with a specific passage of The Greenest Fields to help me get it right.

  I should thank Edgar Rice Burroughs because I borrowed his titled "A Princess of Mars." Also, the first line was inspired by the awesome Andrew Stanton-adapted movie of a couple years ago. You should watch it if you get a chance.

  And then come the usual suspects – Sarah Barbour on editing, Karri Klawiter for the cover and Nick Ambrose for formatting (and editing on A Familiar Face and Savages, actually). Muchas gracias, gang. I don't really know what I'd do without you. Flail about uselessly, I suspect.

  Thanks of course as always to my mom and dad, wife and kids.

 

 

 
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