by Fran Jacobs
* * *
Ellenessia's Curse Book 1: The Shadow Seer
By Fran Jacobs
Writers Exchange E-Publishing
http://www.writers-exchange.com
* * *
Ellenessia's Curse Book 1: The Shadow Seer
Copyright 2008 Fran Jacobs
Writers Exchange E-Publishing
PO Box 372
ATHERTON QLD 4883
AUSTRALIA
Cover design by: Charlotte Thomson
Published by Writers Exchange E-Publishing
http://www.writers-exchange.com
ISBN 9781921314933
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation to anyone bearing the same name or names. Any resemblance to individuals known or unknown to the author are purely coincidental.
* * *
Contents
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
About The Author
Return to Contents
* * *
Dedication
I doubt that this novel would ever have happened without the help and support of a few people. The first are my parents, Rita and Geoffrey, who have always given me constant support, advice and encouragement. That has always meant a lot to me and I wish that I could do more to repay everything you have given me in my life.
I also want to thank Jenna Kay Francis, a fellow fantasy author, for editing my work, having faith in me, and recommending me to her publisher, and to the members of Fantasy-Writers.org. In particular I want to thank Elisabeth and Dan, the creators, and Joanne Hall, Nyki Blatchley, R. S. Leergaard and Glen, for their help and advice during the writing stage. Thanks also to Gemma, for my website, and Charlotte for my cover. And to all my friends for their support and encouragement, especially Ria, for getting me and agreeing to travel to with me in search of werewolves, Lisa, for always showing an interest in what I've done and Scott, for everything you've done always for me. You guys mean a lot to me, I'm lucky to have you in my life, thank you.
Finally, this novel is dedicated to my grandparents, Adele and Harry, and to my friend Ailsa. I still miss you, I still think of you and I wish that you were here now to share this with me.
Return to Contents
* * *
Chapter One
THE DYING BOY
It was hot in my room, dark and stifling. The heavy red curtains were drawn against the window in such a way that not even a bare trickle of light could seep into the room, and the window behind them was firmly locked. The healer had suggested it a month or so ago, convinced that sunlight and fresh air would actually make me worse, but I didn't know how that was possible, considering the fact I was dying.
Not that anyone would say that to my face, of course, for fear of upsetting me, perhaps, or just because they didn't want to accept it themselves, that a seventeen-year-old boy, Prince Candale of Carnia, was dying, but I knew it all the same. It wasn't a complete surprise to me either, as I'd never been particularly strong, suffering from seizures all of my life. But I'd never thought that I would die like this, wasting away in the darkness of my room.
It had all started innocently enough, with a few bad headaches and the odd dizzy spell. After I'd almost collapsed in the Great Hall one evening, my father, Prince Gerian, had insisted that I go to bed. I had gone, complaining the whole time, insisting it was just a bad summer's cold and that I'd be all right again in a few days. Only I'd gotten worse, and quickly, too, and within a few weeks I was bedridden.
Some days were better than others. On the good days I could sit up; I could even hold a conversation with someone, although it might take me a while to get my words out. But on the bad days I was unable to do anything for myself; somebody had to wash me, feed me, even turn me over. It was something I had found embarrassing, at first, but after a while, as the bad days had become more frequent, it had no longer seemed to matter. In fact, I had become grateful for the help. My strength had gone and it had taken my dignity with it, leaving me trapped in my bedroom, in my red-covered bed, at the mercy of the healers who came, and went, and failed all the while, to cure me.
When my bedroom door swung open, it brought with it a much-needed blast of fresh air and light. For a moment I could only blink, as my eyes adjusted to it, but then my vision cleared and I saw my sister, Aylara, standing there, peering around the door. She gave me a bright, but nervous grin. "Hello," she said.
"Hello," I replied.
Then her blue eyes narrowed. "Gods, Dale, you look awful. Like a living skeleton."
"Thank you," I said, dryly. I struggled to sit upright, pulling myself up against the red silken cushions, shoving them as best as I could beneath me to support my back and shoulders. But moving like this hurt, it made my arms ache, and in the end Aylara had to come over and help me, holding me up while she arranged the cushions behind me. "Thank you," I said again, genuinely this time.
"Would you like to go outside?" she asked me in a quiet voice. The struggle it had been for me to sit upright had robbed her of her bright smile.
"I'd love to," I said. "But I can't walk."
"I'm not asking you that, Dale. I'm asking if you want to go outside."
"Then, yes, I would."
"Good." She gave me another bright smile and then turned on her heel and walked out of my room, closing the door behind her. For a moment I could only stare at the wooden obstacle, not sure what to think. Had Aylara really come to see me, and helped me to sit up, just so she could ask me if I wanted to go outside? It was such an odd thing to do, especially when she already knew the answer. I was desperate to be taken outside, to feel the sun on my face, smell the lush grass and feel a cool breeze against my skin. Was she just trying to torment me? Confuse me? Or was this some sort of surreal dream?
A moment later, the door opened again and Aylara returned, but this time she had Lord Kal with her.
Kal had been my friend for years, since I was a child. He was a few years older than me, being twenty-three, but we had always gotten on well together. He had taught me to hunt, with birds and with dogs, and the first time I had ever gotten drunk had been with him. He had always been a major part of my life and often came with Aylara to visit me, so to see them together was no real surprise. But the look in his eyes now made me instantly suspicious. He looked nervous.
"I'll take the blankets and pillow downstairs," my sister said. "You can carry Dale for me." I watched in silent amazement as she opened the carved chest that stood at the foot of the bed and helped herself to two blankets and a spare pillow. Kal, meanwhile, was picking up my black, silk robe from over the arm of the chair in the corner of my
room.
"Carry me?" I whispered.
"Outside," Aylara said, over her shoulder. "It's what you want, isn't it? To sit in the garden?"
"Yes," I said. "But ... but Father won't like this."
"Father isn't here," Aylara replied. "And I'll take full responsibility for this."
"Oh," I said. "All right. If ... if you're prepared to stand up to him, then it's not my place to argue with you."
Kal studied me and then half turned to my sister. "I'm not so sure this is a good idea," he said, in a low voice. "He looks terrible. Maybe your father is right; perhaps rest is the best thing for him."
"No," I said. "It ... it is a good idea. I've rested all summer."
"Just bring him, Kal," Aylara said, in her no nonsense voice, and she left the room carrying the blankets in her arms. Kal looked back at me.
"You have your orders," I said, with a forced grin.
"Yes, I do," Kal replied, with an equally forced smile, as he came toward me with my robe in his hands. He slipped it around my shoulders and leaned over to pick me up. "Oh," he said in a quiet voice, more to himself I think. "You hardly weigh anything, my prince." His face had turned ashen; his soft brown eyes were shadowed with worry.
"I know," I said. "I know. I am tall, though. Don't bang me on anything."
Kal laughed but it sounded strained. "You're the clumsy one," he said. "All legs and arms, always colliding with things or falling over. I think I can manage to carry you outside without knocking you against anything." He lifted me higher in his arms, cradling me against his chest, and carried me out of my bedchamber.
I hadn't left my bedchamber in almost three months, so it felt a little strange to be carried through it now, to see that it was exactly how I had left it, even down to the book I had been reading left open on my couch. I probably wouldn't get the chance to finish the book now and, only vaguely, did I wonder what the ending was.
"It feels like I have been ill forever," I told Kal. "I can't remember what it was like to be well anymore."
"No," Kal said, as we left my suite and entered the corridor outside. "It hasn't been forever. It wasn't so long ago that you were in trouble for climbing out onto the castle roof. Do you remember?"
I laughed faintly as the image came back to my mind of how it had been that spring evening when I had climbed up onto one of the castle roofs and watched the sun set. It was before I had fallen ill, before all of this had happened to me. "I do remember," I said, clinging a little tighter to Kal's strong body as he started to go down the stairs. "Am I getting heavy?"
"No," he said. He met my eyes just briefly. The worry was still there. "You weigh less than your sister." He flushed. "Less than a kitten."
"When ... when will you be betrothed officially?" I asked.
Kal hesitated. "Candale." Then he sighed. "After."
"After?" Then it came to me. "Oh. After I'm dead?"
"Yes."
I swallowed tightly, trying to force back the lump that had formed in my throat. This was the first time that anyone had mentioned my death, my dying, out loud to me. Hearing it spoken seemed to strike the realisation of it home, like a sharp blow to my belly, and for a moment I couldn't breathe. "S-so you think I'm going to die?" I whispered finally.
"I don't know," he said honestly. "Aylara fears it. She cries about it nearly every day. No one knows how to make you better, Candale, and you can't go on being ill forever. You will either get better on your own or ..."
"Or I will die."
"Yes."
"Oh."
"I'm sorry, Candale."
"No," I said, closing my eyes briefly. "No. It's all right. You ... you're not telling me something that I don't already know."
"I'm sorry," he said again.
I just shrugged my shoulders. There wasn't anything else that either of us could say and Kal continued to carry me in silence.
I soon realised where he was taking me and my heart started to race with nervous excitement. We were headed towards my mother's garden, her own private area of grass, trees and flowers, mostly roses, in all the colours of the rainbow. It was also home to a dozen or so peafowl, which wandered around it, happily making a lot of noise, the males flashing their beautiful tail-feathers at the females. It was here that my sister and I had played together as children and where I had often gone, as a youth, to be alone. It was an ideal place to take me now, as there was little chance of being spotted, or of anyone coming across us by accident. It was also peaceful, which was something that I craved. But most of all, it was one of my favourite places to go in the entire castle, the place I had dreamed about, more often than not, while I lay in my bed. I couldn't believe that I was being taken there now.
Kal had to kick open the garden door so he could carry me outside, and then I was hit with the heady scent of roses and the sweet smell of the long grass. It was a warm day, but not as hot as the middle of summer would have been. There was a pleasant breeze and the leaves on the trees were already turning golden brown. I sighed contentedly.
Aylara had spread out a blanket for me on the grass and arranged the pillow. Kal set me down gently, pausing to tighten the sash of my robe around my waist.
"Oh," I whispered slowly. "Oh, I love this."
"I thought that you might," my sister said. She covered me over in the second blanket. "Warm enough?"
"Too warm," I said. She eased the blanket down to lie around my middle and stroked my hair. "Better. Thank you."
"This is a good idea, right, Dale? You're not too tired for this?"
"No," I assured her, giving her a weak smile. "No, this is lovely." I closed my eyes. "I'm just going to lie here, with my eyes closed, for a moment or two. I-I won't be asleep, I'll just be resting." I opened my eyes again to look at Aylara and lifted my hand as best I could to shake my finger at her. "So no talking about me."
"We have better things to talk about than you."
"No, you don't," I said. I closed my eyes again. "The world revolves around me."
Though my eyes were shut, I could tell that Aylara was smiling at me as she answered, "Of course it does, Dale. Of course."
I listened to the sound of the birds for a while, and just enjoyed feeling the sun on my face. It was remarkable how alive and real everything felt outside in the fresh air and in the sunshine. In my room, time seemed to stop. It had felt, sometimes, as though there was no one else alive. There had been no other sounds, no other presence, except for when people came to visit me, and when I was alone, it felt as though there was only me in the world. I had forgotten how good just the sound of a bird singing could be, or the noise of a cricket chirping. It was so nice to feel the wind on my face, to feel it blowing through my hair, like the touch of gentle fingers moving. I felt alive. Even as weak as I was, as tired as I was, I felt alive.
My sister and Kal talked while I rested; well they gossiped really. It was strange to listen to their soft voices and to think about how much I had missed lying in that sterile room of mine. While I had been lying in that bed, dying slowly, the rest of the world had gone on without me. People had gone on having arguments, falling in love, having babies, continuing with their lives the way that they had before I had fallen ill. My presence, or lack of it, had made no difference. The world didn't need me in it. The world could go on without me, and it was strange to realise that it had, while for me everything had stopped.
Their voices washed over me until Aylara started to talk about my parents. "They keep fighting," she said. "Mother isn't even talking to Father now, I think. They were so quiet at dinner last night and then she just left, before the second course was even brought out, and Father didn't say a word to her."
"I wish I had been there," Kal whispered, "and offered you support. I know how hard this is for you."
I struggled to open my eyes; they felt so heavy. "Why are they arguing?" I asked weakly.
Aylara didn't look up at me. She had picked some daisies and was threading them together to make a chain, as we
had done when we were children. She had always looked like a doll, my pretty sister, and now she resembled one more than ever with those daises in her lap. She was a sixteen-year-old doll, with long, blonde hair, and large, blue eyes that were framed by the longest eyelashes I had ever seen on anyone. She dressed in the height of current Court fashion, but then, Lara set the fashion trends, was the centre of Court life, even when she didn't try to be. And she always looked as though looking beautiful took no trouble at all, but I knew that wasn't the case, having been forced to wait for her for several hours while she got ready for something as simple as a hunting trip.
"I thought you were asleep," she said. "I wouldn't have mentioned it if I had known you were awake."
"Why?" I whispered. I licked my lips. My mouth was dry. Kal must have realised, as he leaned in toward me with a mug of water. I realised then, that they had brought out some food with them and had wine that they were drinking. Kal lifted me up gently and I sipped the water gratefully, spilling most of it down my chin and throat. Kal smiled at me as he cleaned it up with the corner of the blanket, and then he settled me back down again. "They're my parents, too. Besides, I told you I wasn't going to sleep."
"I didn't want to worry you." She set the chain of daises down and gave me a sad look. "They argue all the time, Candale. I don't think they have said one word to each other in the last few days that hasn't been angry or hostile in some way, or even, just coldly polite."
"Is it my fault?" I whispered. "Are they fighting about me?"
"Yes," Aylara replied, "they're fighting about you, but no, of course it's not your fault!"
I was beginning to feel very tired; that familiar heavy feeling was washing over me and everything was turning dark. I struggled to draw the blanket higher to cover me. Kal leaned over and smoothed it carefully up to my shoulders. "Thanks," I told him.
"Do you want to go back inside?" he asked me gently.
"No. I can sleep here. In a minute." I settled down, gripping the blanket tightly in my hands and turned back to my sister. "Lara, I can talk to them, if you want. I can tell them not to argue about me. What are they saying?"