The Fell (The Naetan Lance Saga Book 1)

by Lyndsey Harper

  “You’ve Private Boxwell to thank for confirming that,” Lieutenant Doyle replied with a sly grin. “Or should I say, Finnigan Lance’s journal? Though naturally, I came prepared.”

  Leer froze, looking at the tip of his drawn arrow for a brief moment.

  Purple stone. Like the knife.

  Maloden.

  Maloden—suppression.

  The Grimbarror shrieked as it clutched its chest and tipped backward to the cold floor, blood painting the stone underneath it.

  It was dying.

  But if he could heal, why wasn’t the beast?

  The maloden. It draws away the power.

  The Grimbarror rustled, shaking Leer from his stupor. He dropped his weapon and rushed over, desperate for the knowledge that would soon die with the beast.

  The prince.

  The Grimbarror’s face contorted in pain as the blade penetrated his sternum. The beast convulsed, growing shock visible across its scaled face, blood pouring from its chest through its clothes. Leer desperately tried to withdraw the blade, but it seemed to have partially fused itself into the beast’s body.

  It gasped for sips of air. “The Vei has awakened in you,” it whispered breathlessly, shaking. “The truth you seek is still hidden.” It coughed, blood sputtering from its lips. “The truth about you.” Its clawed hand reached for Leer’s, but fell short. “They have withheld much. They have kept you from your true self. Embrace your power and take revenge on them, Naetan—Son of Night.”

  Leer watched the Grimbarror weaken, the color draining from its face, its final gasp of air escaping as it died.

  Trembling, Leer stood, his hands by his sides. He felt the familiar stiffness between his shoulder blades—the same stiffness he had felt in the woods. He swallowed, blinking as he focused on the Grimbarror’s body. He caught a glimpse of his own left forearm, at the array of gray-green scales scattered across his skin, at the line of them creeping up under the sleeve of his tunic.

  His fingers slid across his stubbled face as he stood over the Grimbarror’s body. His breath hitched when he felt the same scales across the burn on his left cheek and surrounding the outside of his left eye.

  “Now,” Lieutenant Doyle said; Leer turned to face him. “It’s your turn.”

  “You,” Leer growled when he saw the Lieutenant’s blade lift.

  “You seem surprised,” Lieutenant Doyle smirked.

  “You set me up, you whoreson,” Leer argued. “You killed the prince!”

  “And now, I’ll kill you to gain the beast’s power.”

  The Lieutenant lunged at Leer, who leaped to his right to dodge the attack, tumbling over himself before coming to his feet. His bow was too far away, and nothing remained but the poker near the fireplace. Leer rushed to it and lifted it over his head just in time to block a strike from the Lieutenant’s sword. The red hot iron sparked with the collision.

  With a groan, Leer pushed against the iron rod he held, throwing Lieutenant Doyle backward against the wall. He scrambled to straighten up, bracing himself as he watched his enemy stand and laugh. For the first time, the Lieutenant’s purple hued sword made sense. It had been made with maloden.

  He knew all along.

  “The truth will be known,” Leer said, his eyes fixed on Lieutenant Doyle.

  “What truth is that, Boy?” he asked, smirking. “The one we create? You’re a fool to think you’re anywhere other than right where I want you to be. Perhaps you should’ve paid more attention to what Finnigan taught you.” The Lieutenant’s satisfied grin enraged Leer; he growled, grounding his stance.

  They parried, the Lieutenant proving himself a worthwhile opponent. Leer’s concentration split between staying out of the hot fire behind him and the weapon Lieutenant Doyle held. Leer tucked and rolled away from the fireplace, panting as he saw the Lieutenant turn to face him.

  Within a moment, Leer went back on the defense, the glowing iron slowly cooling. Sparks rained over the stone floor as Leer blocked the Lieutenant’s strikes, the two equally matched in strength and skill. Except, Leer’s foot slipped on his discarded bow, giving enough opportunity for Lieutenant Doyle to take the advantage. The Lieutenant knocked the poker out of Leer’s grip. Leer groaned as the Lieutenant slammed him against the stonewall.

  “Once you give me what I want, the entirety of Hiline as you know it will perish,” Lieutenant Doyle said, pushing his blade toward Leer’s neck. Leer braced against him, straining to slow the blade’s approach. “In her place, I will birth a new nation of indestructible men. Everyone you know will die—Aldred Lance, that pathetic blacksmith and his family.” He smirked. “Even your little thief.”

  “Not if I kill you first,” Leer growled.

  The ground under them trembled, quaking in sudden protest. Leer felt the burn of his anger rise through himself, his breath evening as he pressed against the Lieutenant. The candelabras dotting the nearby mantle swayed with the quiver, crashing to the stone floor as furniture and other decor rattled and collapsed.

  Leer seized the brief moment of opportunity he created when he saw Lieutenant Doyle’s attention turn toward the chaos around them. He shoved the Lieutenant away, watching with satisfaction as his body crashed into the back wall next to the fireplace. Energy renewed, he swiped up the iron poker and raced toward Lieutenant Doyle, ready for the kill.

  Through his guttural snarl, Leer heard Princess Maegan shriek, “Edward!” Heat spread through Leer’s chest as he halted his approach on Lieutenant Doyle, his eyes turning toward the doorway where Princess Maegan stood. She stared down in horror at her brother’s bloodied body, clutching the doorframe as the earth rumbled under them.

  “This beast killed your brother,” the Lieutenant lied, nodding to Leer as he moved to Prince Edward’s body and removed the maloden blade from it with mock horror. “He wanted Edward’s power for himself.”

  “Lies!” Leer spat, frozen in place as panic swirled within, slowing the quaking of the floor.

  “Yet, you ready yourself to kill me.”

  “You—”

  “Go, Princess,” Lieutenant Doyle ordered. “Wait by the moor for me. He shan’t harm you.”

  Leer was momentarily distracted by Princess Maegan’s hasty exit, failing to keep his eye on Lieutenant Doyle. Before he knew how, Leer’s thigh burned with a powerful ache as the Lieutenant’s maloden knife lodged into his quadricep. He groaned and sunk to his knees, the earth under him stilling with his lost concentration.

  The stone seared through his muscle and tissue, the pain greater than he ever felt before in his life. Water clouded Leer’s eyes as he screamed and gripped the hilt, slowly prying the nearly fused knife from his thigh. His hands shook, and he panted when he finished, looking at the jagged wound the blade left in its wake. Though it momentarily tormented him to do so, he managed to stand up. He grimaced as his body rejuvenated itself, the pain lessening with each second he concentrated on healing.

  By the time he was fully mended, he saw he was alone in the room once again.

  Then, another feminine voice punctuated the air.

  Astrid.

  He bolted toward the doorway, pausing briefly to retrieve his discarded bow. Astrid’s voice in the distance was motivation, his power resurfacing with his renewed direction.

  Leer raced through doorway and into the corridor. His heart thudded in his chest as he honed in on the sound of Astrid’s voice. He could finally hear what she was saying as he burst into the courtyard outside of the abandoned Sortarian palace:

  “Shoot, Leer! Shoot him!” she pleaded, her voice raspy and raw with desperation.

  Leer froze; his boots sunk into the snow as he considered her words. He shut his eyes briefly against the pit that grew inside of him.

  It’s a trap.

  Of course she would try to do the honorable thing, the bloody fool.

  Tightening his grip on the bow, Leer swept across the thick powder in the courtyard. Heat began to spread from his chest to his fingertips whe
n he spotted Astrid in the distance a few moments later.

  The Lieutenant gripped Astrid near the edge of the ravine, his sword resting against her throat. Leer swallowed when he saw the pouch he recovered from the Keeper’s hold swinging from the Lieutenant’s belt.

  -22—

  Purple and red rays of dawn’s sunlight filtered from behind Leer, illuminating snow and trees around them. Leer quickly loaded his bow and drew back on the string, aiming for Lieutenant Doyle with disdain. He made a mental note of his low supply of arrows in the quiver strapped to his back.

  “I’m going to presume that you understand the choice you need to make,” Lieutenant Doyle said, as he pressed Astrid close. “Despite your…‘power,’ you simply can’t have it all, can you?”

  Leer glanced at Astrid. Seeing her struggle made him burn with anger, but her plea for him to abandon her made him ill.

  “Don’t,” Astrid breathed. “It’s is more important than my life, Leer.”

  “How noble,” Lieutenant Doyle commented with a laugh. Leer looked back to him. “Quite surprising, coming from a professional thief.”

  Leer heard Astrid whimper. Flames of heat spread across his chest, but he kept his eyes on Lieutenant Doyle.

  “You’d kill her for a purse?” Leer challenged, shifting his weight forward a little more on his toes.

  Lieutenant Doyle smiled. “Nice try,” he replied. “Do you really consider me that daft?”

  “I consider you a dead man,” Leer snapped, watching as Astrid tried to maintain purchase on the slick snow.

  “Make your choice, Private,” Lieutenant Doyle warned.

  Leer’s nostrils flared as he drew short breaths through them, his fingertips digging into the bowstring. His heart thudded in his chest, a sheen of sweat breaking over the skin of his palms.

  He could hear Astrid softly pleading with him to take the shot he had. She was begging to die, to die for something she didn’t even know the importance of, something he could hardly prove was even worth sacrificing her life for. His throat ran dry at his vivid mental image of her lithe body collapsing to the ground, her doe eyes wide as her blood sputtered from her throat and dripped through her dark locks.

  I can’t let her die.

  Leer squeezed his eyes shut with resignation. He reluctantly loosened his biceps, his arms sinking, his weapon lowering. A cold pit of dread churned deep within. He opened his eyes, surrendering.

  How many others will now die because of it?

  “No, Leer!” Astrid shouted. “You idiot. Kill him!”

  Leer ignored her and kept watching Lieutenant Doyle, whose mouth turned up on one side as he examined Leer’s face.

  “Bound by honor,” the Lieutenant remarked. “I would expect nothing less from you. Put your bow on the ground, Boxwell. Or should I say, Naetan?”

  Leer squeezed the wood of the weapon in consideration, swallowing back his disdain; he growled, fuming as he tossed it on the ground.

  A satisfied chuckle flowed over the Lieutenant. “Oh, Private,” he mused, his eyes still closed, “you made the wrong choice.”

  The Lieutenant shoved Astrid toward the edge of the ravine. Leer gasped, watching as Astrid slid toward the edge on a patch of ice. She screamed wildly as her hands clawed at the ground, finally taking hold of a small rock, keeping her from falling.

  “You son of a bitch!” Leer yelled at Lieutenant Doyle, picking up his bow and firing off an arrow, just missing the Lieutenant as he disappeared into the thick wood, the arrow lodging in a hewen trunk. He snarled and tossed the bow on the ground, turning toward the ravine edge.

  With every ounce of strength he had, Leer scrambled toward the edge to Astrid, wasting no time as he wrapped his arms around her arm and pulled her to safety. She was weightless, no more than a kulipe’s feather cradled in his grip. The all-too-familiar ache rushed through him as he felt the vibrant warmth of her skin under his fingertips. He took a deep breath as he guided her to stand, steadying her as she leaned on him.

  She met his eyes, shifting her weight forward and she lost her balance on the ice. He was caught off-guard as she tripped and fell on top of him. Leer’s back crashed into the crusted powder underneath them. Astrid’s chest collided with his, her face falling into the nook of his shoulder and neck. Air whooshed from his lungs; he braced his hands against her ribs to keep her from sliding off.

  Her hair swept across his cheek. He drew a deep breath and turned his face in toward her. His lips brushed over her velvet-soft skin below her earlobe; his stomach groaned with fervent pain. His mouth dragged a little further down her neck as she lifted her head.

  She looked into his eyes. He held his breath.

  Damn.

  He watched her for a moment as she stared down at him, losing himself in the hypnotic scent of her skin. Where a part of him hungered for her destruction, another was at peace under the contact. She was a soothing balm to the burn of his existence, the healing to the deep pain that resonated within.

  “Leer,” Astrid breathed, her chilled fingers coasting over the scales on his face with innocent curiosity, sympathy in her eyes.

  Let her go.

  His eyes shut against her touch; he let her examine him, drinking in her heat selfishly. The pads of her fingers glided along his jaw, hesitating where the scales ended at his gently parted lips.

  But she caressed them with innate fear. It reminded him of when he was a boy and he saw a girl in the Vale with a dying olis:

  The slithering creature was scaled as he now was, beaten with sticks at the well behind a tavern for no good reason by the high and mighty Elistair and his minions. In an effort to be included, Leer too had beaten the olis, running away when a peasant girl fetching water saw it. Leer was afraid he would be caught and switched, so he hid behind a wall and watched her.

  The girl stroked the beast’s skin with methodical sadness, her tawny face wrinkled, her stubby fingers caked with dirt and likely making its wounds worse. The creature watched with unblinking eyes under her ministrations, its lower half flicking angrily in protest while its bloodied upper rested in odd peace under her gentle caress.

  The girl made sense in its world when nothing else did.

  Just like Astrid.

  Yet, despite the girl’s attempt to soothe the olis, the creature wanted to rip at the girl’s hand.

  Just like Leer.

  You need to let her go.

  Leer opened his eyes and swatted Astrid’s hands away. “Don’t touch me,” he warned through clenched teeth.

  He stood with suddenness and pushed Astrid off of himself. He turned away as she fell onto the snow. With a deep breath, he crossed the space to retrieve his discarded bow, stooping low and swiping it from the ground. Standing straight, he looked into the distance where Lieutenant Doyle had once stood. The woods were lifeless beyond Astrid’s small voice behind him.

  “Leer—”

  “What do you want?” Leer snapped, turning to face Astrid.

  His expression rendered her speechless. “Leer,” Astrid finally breathed, “you shouldn’t have—”

  “Don’t,” he warned, taking a step closer to her. “Don’t tell me what I should and shouldn’t do, you filthy thief. You’re nothing but a liar and a roach, just like your dead brother.”

  Her jaw quivered as it dropped. “Then why did you bother to save me if you think my life is so useless?”

  “Because I didn’t want blood on my hands.”

  “So you let that maniac have a brilliant source of magic instead?” she challenged. Leer shut his eyes, turning away as he adjusted the quiver on his back. “What other lies would you like to tell me, Leer?”

  “Leave me be, Astrid,” he warned under his breath.

  “No, I won’t,” she insisted; he heard her step closer to him. “I care whether you live or die, and judging by the incredibly daft decision you just made, I’d say you care about me the same way. So tell me, Leer—what else might you try to say to deter me from following you?�
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  Leer turned toward Astrid, his heart clenching at the pain he saw in her beautiful clear blue eyes. He breathed, his pulse racing, his stomach sick. He wanted to throw himself into the ravine. Still, his fate was sealed. It was as sure as the stiff scales that littered his body and the growing veil that settled over his mind. There was no turning back.

  “It’s Naetan Lance now, Astrid,” he replied, a rueful smile playing about his lips. “And you shouldn’t follow me because everything you believe about me is wrong. Especially about me caring for you.”

  The deep snow sloshed over Leer’s boots with each step he took further into the wilderness of Sortaria, the crystals melting immediately upon contact. Never before in the middle of such vast, open wilderness in the dead of winter had he felt so warm.

  Too warm.

  His skin was on fire. Every inch of him burned with a scorching heat he couldn’t flee. His brow was damp with sweat despite the minimal clothing he wore.

  His stomach rose and fell, waves of guilt, anger and grief ebbing and flowing through the silence of journey. Where he was headed, he didn’t know—he only prayed that with each step, with each mile of distance, those he had left behind would be long gone from his mind’s eye.

  Aldred.

  Jarle.

  Astrid.

  Leer paused, pressing a hand to his ravenous stomach as he peered over the endless green ripples of hewen and lingan trees. At the elevated height, he spotted a group of graceful nim. The females feasted on strips of bark they raked from the trees with their elongated teeth, their two front hooves steadying themselves as they performed acrobatics to reach the next bite.

  He let out a puff of air as he saw the lone male nim dart to the side and grunt furiously at another approaching male before locking into a tangled mess of golden twisted razor-sharp horns.

  You’ll lose, he idly warned the challenging rebel male. He saw you coming a mile away.

  The irony didn’t escape him. Leer’s hand lifted from his hungry stomach to touch his face, pushing the pads of his fingers into the hardened formations around his left eye and down his cheek.