Dream of Darkness and Dominion
SoulShifter: Book 3
HILARY THOMPSON
Star Shadow Books
United States
Copyright © 2018 by Hilary Thompson
All rights reserved.
Published in 2018 by
Star Shadow Books
United States
No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without written permission from the publisher.
For information regarding written permission, please visit:
www.hilarythompsonauthor.com
This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, incidents, and places are products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Summary: Corentine and her friends have killed the Restless King, only to discover Queen Mara was the real threat.
June 2018 First Edition
Cover design by Deranged Doctor Design
Edited by Rebecca Jaycox
Book design by Eight Little Pages
Dedication
This is my dream, but you are dreaming it.
This is my wish, but you are making it.
This is my magic, but you are creating it.
What you find here, all of it, is for you.
You know who you are.
Table of Contents
MAP
DREAM OF DARKNESS AND DOMINION
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Chapter 1
THE BOAT ROCKED IN a slice of moonlight, gliding toward the darkness hiding StarsHelm Palace. Corentine’s magic was more drained than ever before, and she was grateful Reshra had the strength to row them forward.
She doubted Syashin had enough power left to shift the water beneath them either, and Jyesh still slept. Unconscious by Resh’s hand, Coren suspected. Yet with the uncertainty surrounding her brother’s loyalty to their mission, his sleep was a relief she was thankful for.
None of the four made a sound, but she knew the very air and water vibrated with their presence and the knowledge of what they had done.
The Restless King was dead, yet his blood still ran in her veins.
The man who had destroyed her people - her family - was her own grandfather. And now she was expected to wear his mantle of power over Riata, the greatest, worst country in all the land.
Between her Weshen shifter magic, her brother’s Brujok ties, and the black diamond ring resting heavily in her lap, Corentine Ashaden was suddenly more powerful than anyone she knew of, now or in the history books.
And she cursed the days she’d stared at the MagiSea from her tiny island, wishing for more.
She wanted none of this.
Weeks before, Nikesh had cautioned how vast power would always be a siren song to power-seeking creatures and men, beings whose cruelty knew no bounds. Regardless of her blood claim to the throne of Riata, Coren was certain there would be others waiting to challenge her.
They would be foolish not to.
She was a daughter of Weshen - sworn enemy of Riata, and an illegitimate princess, valid only by way of an archaic Riatan law granting the throne to first-born children, regardless of their legitimacy.
Then there was Queen Mara. No longer a true queen, but no less intent on ruling. Not dead, but vanished with her twin brother, Aram.
Just as winter returned each year to silence the land, so would Mara return. Coren was sure of it.
Of course, her friends had already discussed that Coren on the throne of Riata would be a challenge Mara could not overlook.
“I have no right to rule Riata.” The fearful words slipped from her lips before she could stop them, beginning again the circular conversation they’d had just a few hours before, when they decided to sail for StarsHelm that same night.
Resh didn’t look at her, but she noted the tic of his jaw and the increased sharpness of his oar cutting the dark water. He’d had no right to rule Weshen, but he’d wanted it. She knew he wanted StarsHelm with even more fervor, and she worried what he might do to ensure that power.
He thought himself a born leader with no country to lead, while she thought herself more of a loner, forced into the spotlight by her unfortunate family connections. Still, she wanted him near. She depended on him in ways she couldn’t yet define.
She glanced at Sy, Weshen’s First Son. General Syashin, she amended in her mind, as his father had been killed barely a week ago. Even though General Ashemon had ultimately rejected both of his sons, one of them would need to return to lead their people. It wasn’t simple, though.
Sy’s hands and tunic were spattered with the Restless King’s dried blood, and his eyes were wary of the darkness surrounding them. His face was haggard and exhausted. “These spirits have no right to rule my body, but I feel them and their curse, tugging me along even now.”
She sucked in a breath. “Even now?” she whispered.
He nodded. “Graeme’s brothers own my soul now. They’ve been whispering in my ear all night. If I stray too far from StarsHelm, they will kill me.”
“The King built enough resistance to leave. So will you,” she answered. But the words sounded false in the quiet night. Zorander Graeme had spent decades with his curse, and still, it had overpowered him in the end. “We’ll find a way to break the curse,” she added.
A noise escaped Resh’s lips, sounding suspiciously like a snort.
“What?” she asked, her voice edged with warning.
“If Mara and Graeme couldn’t break it in all this time, surely we have little hope.”
“Perhaps Mara never wanted it broken,” Sy countered, sitting up to stretch his back. “Perhaps allowing the curse was just one more way to control Graeme, to keep him confined to the palace in pain.”
Coren raised her eyebrows. Like all Weshen, she’d been raised to view Zorander Graeme as a ruthless, restless king, bent on nothing less than the total destruction of her people.
And he’d certainly done much of that.
But now she knew Mara was the larger threat. The queen herself had created most of Riata’s horrific legacy.
“What is she?” Coren wondered. “Part Sulit?”
Sy shook his head. “It’s possible. I sensed shifter magic in her, but she has mastery of Sulit spells beyond what should be possible for any of us.”
“And she knows blood magic,” Resh added, glancing to Coren
. “Umbren magic.”
Sy nodded. “She has the Kitsuun blades.”
Resh grumbled something rude under his breath and Sy smiled. “The last time you saw one of those blades was on the back of a Giant Arach, right?”
Coren’s eye widened, and she sat up too quickly, rocking the boat a little. “You’ve seen the blades she used?”
“I’ve hunted them for years. Since I was barely a boy running in the alleys of EvenFall while Father traded. The witches are always willing to sell a story about them, but they’re nearly all lies.”
Resh lay the oar in the bottom of the boat and stretched his muscles. He reached into a pack, digging out a silver flask.
“Here.” He offered it to her. She inhaled the fragrance of lemondrine liquor and grinned, a soft sigh escaping her lips. Resh muttered an appreciative curse, and her cheeks flushed. But she upturned the flask and poured the sour, fiery liquid down her parched throat.
Capping it before she would have liked, she tossed it to Sy. He needed the lemondrine’s restorative properties as much as she.
Leaning forward, she impulsively pressed her lips to Resh’s grin. His arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her against him as he tasted the liquor on her lips.
“We’re in exactly the place the Mirror Magi want us to be,” Resh murmured against her neck, curling his fingers tighter around her hip. “Take what the world offers you and make whatever the world needs. That is the power of a shifter.” His palm was hot against the back of her neck.
“This from a boy who hated shifter magic not long ago,” she whispered. He didn’t answer, and she tilted her head back enough to catch his gaze.
“We often hate what we will never possess,” he said. At his guarded expression, something in her chest snapped to attention. The moonlight shone on the loop of fine black prayer beads around his neck, and she thought she understood more of Resh in this moment.
During the Separation, shifter magic was despised and feared by all the Weshen, because their gods decreed it. Now, the magic was again awake, and possessing the power of the twin gods was something Resh respected. Desired for himself.
“Somehow, we’ve slipped into a new era, haven’t we?” she asked, her voice low in the dusk of night.
“Father used to tell Sy and me that we were the future of Weshen. The future of the very world. It rested in our blood and our words and our actions.”
“And now the future is here.” She nodded, feeling somehow stronger in the knowledge that time was intended to pass, years meant to inflict change on the world.
Resh released her, though she could tell he didn’t want to.
She sat back and surveyed the lake once more. Sy’s eyes had brightened from the lemondrine, and she felt her magic beginning to lap at the walls of her veins again.
Coren dipped her fingers deep in the cool of the lake, swirling them in its sources. She pulled at the pieces of the water, urging some forward and others back, and the boat began to move again, sliding along the surface of SunMelt Lake.
Soon Sy joined her, and the boat nearly flew the last part of the journey, heading straight toward the blazing torches at the entrance to the Conqueror’s Channel.
“Shall we sail right to the gates of StarsHelm Palace?” Coren wondered, and she was rewarded with a searing grin from Resh. Something in her belly stirred and stretched, and she smiled back, for the time being, unashamed of her power or her past.
THEIR ENERGY - THE very signatures of their shifter magic - seeped through the fibers of the boat and rippled far beneath them in the depths of SunMelt Lake.
Weakened though it was from battle, the shifter magic was a precious scent in the air, a priceless gem sparkling in the depths.
Like a coin drifting to the bottom, a heaviness entered the water. Ripples grew into fingers of water pushing into the sand and earth, messenger droplets reaching toward the farthest shores of Sulit and Riata and beyond.
As the magic beat its way through the night air and the night water, a gasp sputtered up from the earth in Riata, and a heartbeat quickened in the forests of Sulit.
One two three shifters. Those were more than enough arms and legs and hearts to make a full new body.
Deep in its wooded, earthen prison, Shadow stretched into their pull. Such tempting, tempestuous, gorgeous magic. Such beautiful red rubies of blood to use.
To awaken forever, for good. To raise friends nearly forgotten and practice magic nearly forsaken.
Shadow pulled its fragmented pieces closer and closer still, assembling its intangible body the way a bird assembles a nest.
Piece by piece, it formed the very shell to house a life that was even now rocking closer to the gates of the Conqueror’s Channel.
AS THE STONE MOUTH of the Conqueror’s Channel swallowed them whole, the water thickened unnaturally around Coren’s fingers, coating them like cold honey. She glanced back at Sy, who had pulled his hand from the water, too, and was examining with alarm how it gelled around each finger.
Their boat slowed and drifted to a stop, as though they were caught in marsh reeds.
“Sulit magic?” Resh questioned, peering down the length of the dark channel toward Starshelm Palace, its torches blazing in the distance. The sky behind was still muted gray, though the stars had begun to fade above them.
Coren nodded, watching the black water intently for movement. She shuddered, hoping the water plants weren’t spelled to pull them under. The last time she had been in this channel, the Brujok guard had used those reeds to bind her beneath the water. “Perhaps they just have the channel spelled to prevent non-Riatan boats from entering.”
“We may need to walk from here,” Sy said, moving to gather his weapons. Coren scanned the forest that bordered the channel on both sides. Somewhere ahead was the city, and beyond it, the palace, a mere blur of light in the distance.
“What about Jyesh?” Coren asked, sliding an accusatory glance to Resh.
He shrugged, unrepentant. “Leave him here?”
Coren rolled her eyes. “Actually, I believe I’ll leave you all here.” She reached for the paddle and began to maneuver them toward the carved stone shore. “I should go first anyway. I have Graeme’s ring. It should at least gain me an audience with whoever’s in charge. Honestly, it will go better if I’m alone than if I’m bringing leaders from Weshen and Sulit.”
Resh shook his head. “I don’t want you going alone. It’s dangerous.”
“It’s more dangerous for you,” she countered, and his jaw clenched. She knew she shouldn’t keep pointing out his lack of magic, but it was true. In a world of witches, shifters, and alchemists, Resh was in the most danger.
“Besides. When Jyesh wakes up, your odds of keeping him contained are better with two,” she said.
Resh muttered something under his breath, but Coren didn’t bother to ask. She reached to smack the paddle against the ornate lip of the channel, pulling the boat flush with its edge. Careful not to tip the boat, she climbed out onto the pale stone.
She reached inside her mind to the resting Vespa.
Fly, she encouraged it. The sources of her bones and skin shifted like stretching out of sleep, reforming to accommodate the new shape. Her four wings snapped wider than the small boat, the feathers ruffling like a dawngull waking in the morning. Her fingers lengthened into golden-tipped claws, but she kept her body human, still clad in its plain, bloody tunic.
She glared down at Sy and Resh, daring either of them to tell her no.
But the brothers only watched her, very different expressions on their faces.
Coren didn’t stop to think about what each look meant. She bent her knees, leaping into the air and shooting above the smoky clouds, toward the pale, rising sun on the horizon.
They were all depending on Graeme’s black diamond ring being enough to grant her access to the court, as well as the idea that many Riatans had feared their rulers and would be happy for a change, if it were better. She hoped Giddon and Kashar had
been right.
The plan was, once inside the palace, she would announce the death of the Restless King and the cowardly, defeated desertion of the ruthless Queen Mara and her mute twin Aram.
She would explain her blood claim to the throne and the kingdom of Riata - how Zorander Graeme was her grandfather, and she was now the true heir to the throne of Riata.
She would allow her life to become a tangled game of waiting and watching, because otherwise Jyesh - or someone worse - might try to make the same claim. Jyesh worried her almost as much as Mara’s return; as her twin, he too could claim rights to the throne. As Mara’s protégé, he would likely rule with just as much cruelty.
If Riata were to become a good country instead of a threat to the lands around it, Coren knew she would have to put aside her reluctance and rule.
But she promised herself that as soon as Riata were stable, she would use her new power to help her family, hidden somewhere in the Sulit woods, and her people, decimated but still clinging to life in the cliffs of Weshen.
In a few minutes, she would.
For now, she submitted to the craving deep in her bones - the Vespa’s innate desire for the calm, still whiteness of the world above the clouds.
Enrobed in mist, with its chill droplets clinging to her skin, she flew, each synchronized thrust of her four great wings like a second heartbeat.
In the air, the Vespa was quiet within her mind, and above the clouds, Coren allowed her form to shift fully into its great, bird-like shape. The heavy black diamond swung from one curved, golden claw.
The air thinned as she beat up and up, beyond the clouds. How far could she go? Could she leave the realm of life altogether and shoot into the cold, gray nothing, the vast sky of fading stars?
But her lungs faltered in the thinning atmosphere, and she hung, gasping, before the lack of breathable air pushed her down. She spiraled without control, her feathers shuddering at the momentum.
The air shoved back into her lungs, reminding her she could no more leave this task behind than leave her life behind.
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