by Jacob Cooper
CIRCLE OF REIGN
Book 1 Of The Dying Lands Chronicle
JACOB COOPER
Copyright © 2014 Jacob Cooper
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 0692246738
ISBN 13: 9780692246733
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
IN ANY LARGE ENDEAVOR of the heart and mind, there are often many contributors that helped bring the project to life. I hope I catch all of you, and know I thank all of you who were part of the journey so far. To my parents, Michael and Beverly, who taught me something worth doing is worth doing right, not fast. To brothers, Jared, Jason, and Jed, whose enthusiasm early and throughout the writing process was bolstering and energizing, providing much of the stamina to carry through to the end. To Seth, for your unyielding excitement and encouragement. Your excitement was contagious. To Lathe, for your sincere efforts in guidance and editing, all of which was edifying. To Jordan, for tearing apart early renditions, causing me to refocus my efforts. To Nate, for enduring hours of self-recorded audio on our road trips and endless optimism about the story, even when I’m sure it was tough. To Tasha, for challenging me to grow the world with history and depth. To Mike Sirota and Michele Scott, accomplished authors and mentors, for bringing my efforts to a whole new level and challenging my ideas and writing. Mike, I hope your eyes have stopped burning! To John Avon, for bringing the fullness of his legendary artistic talents to bear. To Michael Kramer, for giving the story and characters life in the audiobook in only the way he can. To Bauer, my Akita, who kept me company during the long hours of writing through the night. To my wonderful daughters for always insisting on an original bedtime story, planting the seeds for many of the storylines herein.
Finally, to my wife Kristen, who endured endless discussions about the story with grace and patience, excitedly reading every new scene I put in front of her. Your belief in me is what I continue to stand upon.
DEDICATION
For McKayla, Haley, Kelsi, and Adelyn.
May you always walk in the Living Light.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
PART 1: THE FALL OF HOUSE KERR
CHAPTER ONE: Reign
CHAPTER TWO: Aiden
CHAPTER THREE: Reign
CHAPTER FOUR: General Antious Roan
CHAPTER FIVE: Rembbran
CHAPTER SIX: High Duke Emeron Wellyn
CHAPTER SEVEN: Ehliss
CHAPTER EIGHT: Shane
CHAPTER NINE: General Roan
CHAPTER TEN: Moira
CHAPTER ELEVEN: Molina Albrung
CHAPTER TWELVE: Reign
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Shane
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Shilkath
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Reign
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Tyjil
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: Lord Thannuel Kerr
PART 2: FRACTURE
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Honleir
CHAPTER NINETEEN: Ehliss
CHAPTER TWENTY: Reign
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: Hedron
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: Aiden
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: High Duke Emeron Wellyn
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: Aiden
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: Honleir
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: High Duke Emeron Wellyn
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: Lord Calder Hoyt
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: Holden and Ryall
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: Reign
CHAPTER THIRTY: Ehliss
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: Shilkath
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: Reign
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: Reign
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR: Ryall
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE: Aiden
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX: Lord Calder Hoyt
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN: Prime Lord Banner Therrium
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT: Rembbran
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE: Prime Lord Banner Therrium
CHAPTER FORTY: General Roan
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE: Rembbran
PART 3: TEMPEST
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO: Aiden
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE: High Duke Emeron Wellyn
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR: Reign
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE: High Duke Emeron Wellyn
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX: Hedron
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN: Reign
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT: Shilkath
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE: Hedron
CHAPTER FIFTY: Reign
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE: Aiden
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO: Reign
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE: Ryall
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR: Lord Hedron Kerr
EPILOGUE
PROLOGUE
Day 11 of the 2nd High Cycle of the Moons
403 Years After Unification (A.U.)
IT SEEMED AN ODD THING to Rehum to lie dying from dehydration in the clutches of a rain forest. Shouldn’t he just need to open his mouth and let the water find him? Haunted or not, it was still a rain forest; but precipitation somehow constantly eluded him…almost as if it consciously fled from him. Ancients, could even the waters be sentient? So much effulgent life around him and yet his slipped away. He had survived all manner of misfortune in his eclectic life, constantly reinventing himself, evolving, becoming whoever was needed. He had started to feel almost immortal…almost. But that was why, in part, he now searched for them, wasn’t it?
This time, however, he feared there would be no survival.
He lay on his back looking up at the tall trees with the blazing sun piercing through. These trees were “fluent,” the Arlethians claimed, but he could not experience this for himself. He was not a wood-dweller, although some of his findings suggested that this should not matter. There was a copse of Triarch trees that stood like sentinels in front of him, mocking him as they stood with their strength, undaunted by the long ages of their life. Somehow they were vibrant despite his withering, as if they were what withheld the moisture of this cursed forest. He had seen the veins of the three-pronged Triarch leaves glow at night on occasion in his earlier days when he would spend hours studying and contemplating in the Arlethian forests, their bluish-tint masquerading as an odd species of firefly—perhaps a cousin to the more common yellow-glowing variety. Smooth tan bark ascended up for some hundreds of feet before the Triarch branches sprawled out, joining the thick canopy of umbrage that hid large swaths of the sky. The Arlethians claimed they felt safe under the sentient canopy, but to him, it felt like a net cast by misfortune that he could not escape.
Holding the map in front of his face to block the blinding light, Rehum stared at it with an intensity that seemed to demand a response from the parchment itself. Intensity—or was it desperation? He was certain that he had copied it correctly from the crumbling parchment he had discovered, but how could any map be trusted when the land constantly changed?
A group of green and black butterflies swooped past him, struggling as if a great wind were present, causing them to swirl and spin in erratic flight patterns, dancing upon an invisible stage of effervescence. No wind was present, however. It might have been beautiful in another setting, rather than unsettling and chilling.
He would die like all the other fools who searched the Tavaniah Forest, though he had assumed himself so much more worthy than any before him. None had ever found what they sought here; and though Rehum had never believed the Tavaniah was haunted, he felt certain now that it was.
Ancients Come! I’m as deranged as a rabid dog, as much as they all said I was! As he inhaled, his lower lip quivered with shame at the realization.
With his dry tongue, rough and cracking, he licked the leaves of a nearby bush. His taste buds were too numb to register the bitterness of the leaves, and the few drops of dew he was able to find stung his tongue.
“I know you’re here, blasted Night!” he yelled, still supine. Blood seeped from the dry, ch
apped corners of his mouth. “I know you’re here!”
One part of his mind told him to conserve energy, but another reminded him that it didn’t matter. He would be dead later today or tomorrow. Two span of searching for the Gyldenal and he would die, painfully, like a slug that had fallen from a branch to a salt hollow of the Silver Pools in the Eastern Province. He was already an outcast, having been dishonorably discharged from the Changrual Order. Once a preceptor of the monastery and a revered high vicar with respect and clout, Rehum could no longer be where more than one hundred souls gathered or lived by royal decree.
I curse the name Parlan Wellyn!
Parlan’s son, Emeron, now ruled as High Duke of Senthara, but that did little to quiet his own shame. He did take a small morsel of pleasure in knowing that Parlan died in prolonged pain—a little parting gift Rehum had managed to bestow after his banishment.
Letting the map fall to his chest, he reached into his long pant pocket and gently caressed the scroll hidden there. It had been his greatest discovery and the most compelling evidence of what he sought. All other references to the Gyldenal had been from apocryphal stories or fables. Children’s tales used to put little ones to sleep at night. By and by however, amidst the scorn of his colleagues at the monastery, he discovered the truth. He had literally been on top of it for decades. With the knowledge he now possessed, he knew the Changrual Order to be a faint shadow of the truth, of pure Influence. Their knowledge was as shallow as a puddle after the rain on the streets of Erynx, the state city of the East and once his home. He knew why the lands cycled and died. He also knew that the Living Light was not the only Influence in this world of Våleira. Others existed and he found himself tempted by them as well. In truth, Rehum was tempted simply by power.
They selfishly keep the Influence of the Living Light to themselves! He had planned to work himself in among the Gyldenal and steal the Lumenatis, the very Living Light, for himself.
He wept without tears. “It was all for naught!” Exhaustion threatened to take him but he feared to fall asleep lest the land change yet again while he dreamed. Or worse, he would just not wake up.
Is that really worse?
He saw the image from the corner of his eye. An outline that appeared to be a silhouette of a person. With a feeling of falling in his stomach, he snapped his head toward the personage but saw nothing save branches and shrubs. The arrangement did somewhat resemble a person as he squinted at it. Scuffling of some create found his ears next and chills ran up his spine. A forlorn feeling started to find its grip on him. He closed his eyes tight and reopened them, attempting to cast the building anxiety from him.
“How foolhardy I have been,” he whispered to himself.
Another specter teased his peripheral vision, much closer this time. He again turned his head quickly to capture the vision fully and discover his observer. Nothing.
“No! No, no, no!” Rehum tried to rebuff the madness that he knew was taking hold. Crushing his own proud image of himself was the realization that the madness had always been with him. This cursed forest was simply bringing it out in him, causing it to bloom as a poisonous flower in the early Rising Season. Trepidation expanded within him, forcing out beads of sweat that manifested on his brow and lips. This was the last of the perspiration his body could muster. He shook on the ground, not sure if the certainty of a long, drawn-out death by dehydration or the depths of madness his mind would spiral to before the end finally came scared him more.
The day wore on and he had not moved. Nor had the lands, he noted with mild interest. At midday, the sun felt like a torch upon his skin, searing through his thin clothing. His anger turned to pleading and desperation.
“Please,” he gasped with his hand raised meekly in the air toward the sky. “Please.” When no answer came, Rehum thought to call upon other powers that were foreign to him, those barely spoken of by the Changrual and understood even less. Well, to lesser mortals, anyway. He would serve whatever master saved him.
He lowered his upstretched hand and closed his eyes. In his delirium, Rehum swore he had heard a melody playing in his head, one of longing but also promise.
“Please. Hear me.”
Or let the Dark take me!
Evrin had watched the short bald man for roughly half a span, intrigued. Many came and searched for the Gyldenal, most out of curiosity or seeking fame. All but few had other than pure motives. But this one sought his order for knowledge with a determination that was insatiable. For what purpose he desired to employ the knowledge was, however, not certain; but even laying defeated at death’s door he still sought them, pleading for deliverance.
To whom does he plead? Evrin wondered.
The old Light Shepherd put his hand to his chin and thought, absent-mindedly tracing the outline of a scar on his cheek with his index finger. He had refused to let that blemish heal over the centuries. It was a solemn reminder of the pride that had once almost destroyed him.
Looking left, he met the gaze of his long-time friend. Jayden, the wolf shepherd, gave her consent with a slight nod. He agreed with her. This one had suffered long enough.
Evrin had been taking in all the light around him, making himself invisible to the untrained eye. He let the mirage fall, visibly revealing his presence. Then Jayden let her façade also melt away. Others followed suit and soon all five of his companions were now visible to the naked eye. The half a dozen Gyldenal walked a few paces forward and encircled the xeric man, looking down on him.
A weak hand raised up, open to Evrin.
“Please,” he gasped. “Please. Save me.”
“What is your name, young man?” Evrin asked.
There was a look of confusion across the cracked and dry face of the bald-headed man. He was likely not used to being referred to as a young man, but by Evrin’s standards he was quite young.
“Rehum,” he rasped.
“And what, Rehum, do you seek?”
“The Lumenatis.”
“A children’s story? You have come through such suffering for a myth?”
Rehum averted his eyes for a moment, obviously struggling, and then shook his head. “No, it’s not a myth. I know it’s real.” He reached in his pocket and produced a scroll. Feebly and with a shaky hand, he raised it toward Evrin. The Light Shepherd accepted it. The Scroll was written in a tongue long lost to the world.
“Can you read this?” Evrin asked.
Rehum nodded. “Yes, though I cannot speak the language.”
Evrin was impressed. “And what would you do with such a mythical power as the Lumenatis?”
“I don’t know, honestly,” Rehum croaked.
Truth. He spoke the truth. Evrin could see it in the man’s countenance. Truthful though the answer was, it was nevertheless somewhat disturbing. He felt a small foreboding and chose his words carefully.
“The Living Light cannot be held by one who has selfish motives, young Rehum. Those who seek self-aggrandizement find the Lumenatis elusive at best,” Evrin warned. “The principles one lives his or her life by are what enables one to harness the Light. Knowledge of a thing does not grant control of that thing.”
“I will live a life of Light,” the dying man promised.
“We shall see.”
PART 1
THE FALL OF HOUSE KERR
We are often blinded by the very light we seek, stunted by the growth we desire, and belittled by the knowledge we profess.
— Girshkil, Hardacheon Philosopher
Innocence is a frail lie that requires constant rebalancing lest the illusion be too soon shattered and the young see beyond the false veil of a cruel world.
— High Vicar Imol Dolbrey, “An Age of Heresy”
ONE
Reign
Day 18 of 4th Dimming 406 A.U.
SWEAT MIXED WITH REIGN’S DARK HAIR as she ran, stinging her eyes. Though she ran hard, bursting through the brush and thick of the forest, Reign didn’t feel anything. Glimpses of memory flashed th
rough her young nine-year-old mind as she sprinted, images of monstrosity. Strange men were in the forest of the Western Province this night. A few on horseback, most on foot.
The High Duke of the Realm had been among them. The emblem that shone in the moonlight’s glimmer as his large hooded robe parted for a brief moment gave his identity away. The gold medallion that hung from High Duke Wellyn’s neck with a shield and four-pointed star flare engraved upon it was unmistakable. It was curious to find anyone in the forest at that hour, especially someone not of the Western Province. Surely if the High Duke was coming to visit her father, word would have been sent earlier. But this assembly did not seem to be traveling toward the hold, not because Reign actually knew where she was at the time but rather the men appeared to be exactly where they intended to be—nowhere in the sight of others.
As she had followed and observed the small party, she noticed one man who stood taller than the others and had a long beard hanging down nearly past his chest. She heard small clinking sounds from the trinkets woven in his beard when the wind blew. Men in the Realm generally did not wear beards save for the Changrual, and even then only a High Vicar was permitted to grow one so long as it was cropped short to the flesh. This beard was not anything typical she had seen, Changrual or not.
They hadn’t seen her, not at first. She had felt their vibrations transmitted through the ground and intricately woven root system of the forest. Curiosity had pulled her close to observe their dealings, and what she witnessed stole the breath from her lungs. Reign did not breathe for what felt like an eternity. Then came the sound, a sound she knew was only in her mind but was no less sickening as it reverberated through her small body. Every bone and joint shuddered. It grew in intensity until it ceased so abruptly that the silence rocked her. Her breathing became faster and shallower, spurring forth small bursts of visible vapor from her nose.
She must have made a sound, though she did not think she had moved. One of the hooded men had suddenly turned in her direction, attentive. Even beneath his thick robe she could tell he was a large man, for his build resembled that of an ox. Reign knew he couldn’t have seen her in her concealed shelter from that distance, but he stared right at her as if she were glowing. The High Duke then also became alert, taking the first man’s cue, but did not seem to know where to focus his gaze or where she hid.