by Elise Kova
Even the gate was left unattended. It turned the poor feeling in her stomach even more sour.
Raylynn remained crouched along the low wall, creeping around the exterior of the estate. She had done this once before—slunk in unnoticed. But when the manor had proven difficult to penetrate and the servants milling about a little too attentive, she had given up.
Not this time.
This time she would find her mother’s sword. She would avenge her mother’s death. And she would reclaim her prince of fate.
Along the manor’s left side, there was the slightest gap between the main house and the outer wall. Away from public view, the stone had cracked and crumbled, creating soft spots in which she could wedge her toes and hands.
Hoisting herself upward, she scaled one step at a time as the world around her darkened. Her ears strained but found only the sound of her movements. Her sword clanked softly, as if nervous for what she was about to do.
On the other side of the wall, Raylynn pressed herself to the building, listening carefully. There wasn’t much to be heard even now. The soft whinny of Baston in the stables was enough to reach her ears in the silence. Quiet was more unnerving than noise. Noise meant screams and struggling and life…
Quiet meant death.
Poking her nose around the edge of the manor house, she looked into the main courtyard. Its only occupants were the dust on the ground and the horses that stood dutifully in their stalls. The servants’ quarters were dark and still.
Raylynn worked her way to the door Baldair had promised to unlock for her. She braved entry but wasn’t surprised when the handle didn’t budge. Tipping her head to the sky, she confirmed the moon wasn’t yet risen to the appointed height for their rendezvous.
She retreated back into the shadows, debating her options. She could wait. She could force entry. To her surprise, she didn’t even consider leaving.
Raylynn wasn’t one to wait, especially not when doing so wasn’t in her best interest. She had waited long enough, and she would not wait any longer.
She grasped her sword and took a slow breath, composing herself. This would not be her final battle, she reminded herself. For Princess Fiera’s premonition had yet to come to pass. She had yet to truly serve the golden crown. Armed with that knowledge, Raylynn bundled her hand in the scarf she usually reserved to keep the sun off her head and face and punched through a nearby window—the sound of shattering glass surely enough to alert anyone and everyone to her presence.
26. Baldair
His head was never going to be the same again. At least, that’s what his mind promised. His brain had been scrambled and was now slowly trying to find form again. It was a futile attempt yielding a minimal success rate.
Baldair moved his hand to his temple, his arm sticking at a point. He tried to move it again, and the clanging sound brought reality into focus. His eyes fell on a chain that kept his wrist tethered to the wall he had been ungracefully slumped against.
I am chained up.
The fullness of realization dawned slowly as he gazed at his other wrist, equally bound. The irons felt heavier than normal and seemed to glitter in his confusion. Eventually, his attention moved beyond himself, to the man on the opposite side of the room.
Seeing Baldair awake and alert set the man to scuttling through a nearby door.
Baldair groaned and tried to remember exactly where he was and how he’d gotten there. Everything was suddenly hazy, every thought heavy. He focused on the servant who had left, the most immediate trigger of memory. Yes, he had seen that face… he had seen that face when… the man reentered the room.
“He’s awake now,” the servant said.
“You hit me in the head with a fry-pan…” Baldair mumbled, his own voice too loud for his ears. “You hit me in the head with a fry-pan,” he repeated, finding his conviction. He never expected to be bested by a cooking utensil.
“Not very elegant, I agree.” A lean-looking Western lord strolled in with all the airs one could muster.
Lord Twintle.
Yes, yes, it was all coming back to him now, and the facts did nothing to sweeten Baldair’s mood. In fact, they had quite the opposite effect.
“But,” the Lord continued, “I think the lack of elegance is fitting for the Empire’s most brutish prince.”
“Let me go or I will—”
“Or you will what?” The lord arched his eyebrows in question. “Kill me? I highly doubt that. Those chains were made to house creatures far more fearsome than you.”
Baldair looked at his shackles once more. What he had thought was merely haze from his muddled vision was in fact a product of rough, shimmering stones inset around the wrists.
“I do not want to know what you do down here,” Baldair growled. “But if you do not unchain me, you will face the wrath of the Empire.”
“No, I do not think I will,” the man hummed, tilting his head. “The playboy prince off gallivanting alone, found dead on the side of the road. Such a shame. The investigation will be extensive, but when no one is convicted, his death will be written off as the sad work of a common cutthroat.”
Baldair swallowed, staring down his own mortality for the first time in his life. Certainly, he had sparred before, even fought against people who wanted to kill him. But it was a very different sort of truth when someone had him laid out vulnerable and presented the facts with encyclopedic detachment.
“If you wanted to kill me, why have you not already?”
“Because I wanted to give you the opportunity to barter for your life,” the man replied easily. “I’ve heard from my comrades that you’ve been in contact with the woman known as Raylynn Westwind.”
Baldair pursed his mouth, reminding himself not to dare speaking a word. He would die before he outed Raylynn to this man.
Lord Twintle chuckled darkly. “Defending her doesn’t go against your princely oaths? I’m surprised. After all, she has killed members of your court.”
“With good reason.”
Lord Twintle strolled over to him, looking down his diminished features in disgust. “Whose side are you on, Prince Baldair? After all, you were the one to spare Jax Wendyll when he killed the entire Dustend family.”
“And I’ve never regretted it for a moment.” The words were easy to say when they were utterly true. “What do you want with Raylynn? Was killing her mother not enough for you?”
“Her mother should’ve never been given the sword and the helm of the Knights with it.”
Baldair knew Lord Twintle was grasping at straws by the fact that nothing he said made any kind of sense. Dishonest men always fabricated their own histories to ensure time remembered them as heroes, saving the day.
“Fiera marked her for death by the Knights the moment she accepted her into her service. Killing her was justified to our cause, just as slaying a prince of the Empire Solaris will be.”
“Whatever you have to tell yourself to sleep at night, you twisted bastard.” Baldair was actually impressed at his ability to deliver the words with such conviction, slinging them with gusto. Inside, he was fighting off tremors that reverberated throughout his muscles.
“Unfortunately for you, I have heard the brave words of too many boys before they die to be swayed. Tell me where Raylynn is, leave her to the Knights so we may have our justice for the crimes she has committed against us, and live. Or die for a woman who holds no love for anyone beyond herself.”
Baldair opened his mouth to espouse an objection when a servant rushed to the door.
“Lord Twintle, the mercenary is here!”
The Western Lord turned back to Baldair, his eyes alight with malicious glee. “Well, Prince Baldair, it seems I have no need of you after all.”
Baldair strained against his chains as though he could rip them from their bolts in the stone.
“First yo
u, and then I will deal with your precious mercenary.” The man flicked his wrist, and a dagger of ice materialized in his palm.
The chill from the blade froze Baldair’s breath in place as Twintle plunged the weapon into his chest.
27. Raylynn
Find the prince. Find the sword. Kill Twintle. Get out.
Find the sword. Kill Twintle. Find the prince. Get out.
Raylynn couldn’t make up her mind as to the best order of attack. Everything around her filled with noise, a crashing beat of panic and chaos and death. Her sword echoed against the makeshift weapons the loyal servants were using to keep her at bay. It resonated brilliantly with a stunning sound until the vibrations were silenced with the tear of flesh, only to be repeated.
She didn’t give them any warning. If they fought against her, they would be killed. Their warning was the first to fall before their eyes, the servant’s neck ripped asunder by the point and edge of her weapon.
Just when she had gained ground, a man lunged at her from behind. Raylynn ignored the stabbing pain in her side where his dagger had grazed. She had been torn up before, she had been cut. Her panting and determined grunts just changed the song of the sword she would sing.
It would be their funeral dirge.
“Where is my mother’s sword?” she screamed, her voice overwhelming all those in the close quarters. “Where is the man who killed her?” Raylynn spun, impaling another man on her weapon. “Where is the prince?”
Bloodlust howled through her like the unforgiving winds of a sandstorm. It picked up all the gritty bits that had embedded themselves into her personality over the years and strewed them about the world around her. She wouldn’t stop until she had what she came for. She didn’t care about the rest of them.
Where there had been servants, seven bodies now littered the floor. Her ragged breathing was the only thing that filled the hall, yet Raylynn’s ears strained to hear the next verse of her battle. Footsteps in the courtyard, a distant clang of metal—barring the gate, no doubt. Silence upstairs, two more pairs of footsteps nearing from before her. Raylynn adjusted the grip on her weapon and continued onward.
An unexpecting servant burst from a nearby door. Raylynn grabbed the woman by the collar, slamming her against the wall like a rag doll.
“Where is Twintle?” she demanded in a snarl.
“I’m here, Raylynn Westwind.” A voice spoke from behind her.
Raylynn gouged the woman through her core, tossing the dying body aside without the slightest bit of care. There before her was the man who had killed her mother—a high-up leader in the Knights of Jadar. She wanted to feel justified in all the hate she’d experienced toward the shadow that now had a face. But all Raylynn saw was a scrawny old man who played dirty tricks to win—and she felt very foolish for fearing him at all.
She slowly raised her sword, arm straight, pointing the tip at the Lord a few steps away. “I am here for my mother’s sword.”
“I do not have it.”
“I know you killed her.” Raylynn didn’t move, not even a fraction. “The sword is my birthright.”
“The sword was never hers,” Twintle snapped back.
“It was given to her by Princess Fiera to head your Knights!” Something in her bent a little too far. The ice cooling her anger fractured, letting through the boiling lava of loathing. “She was your chosen leader by your sovereign, and you killed her!”
“Fiera forfeited her place as our sovereign when she slept with Lyndum’s tyrant.” Twintle hadn’t moved either. He continued to stare down her blade, fearless. “At least your mother had the sense to cast aside your father and raise you properly in Mhashan, rather than letting you keep ties to your Lyndum roots.”
Attacking her father wasn’t going to goad her into anything. She’d never known nor cared about him. “I want what is mine. I want her sword.”
“I told you, I do not have it. It was stolen by one loyal to the Empire you seem to be so fond of.” Lord Twintle held up his hands. “If you want it, perhaps you should go ask him.” The lord motioned to the tapestry he had just stepped from behind. “But, I recommend doing so with haste. When the ice in his chest melts and his body warms again, he’ll bleed out quite quickly.”
Baldair. Against the pull of fate, she had to struggle to keep her feet rooted. He was hurt—dying even. If Twintle was to be believed.
“If you think he can wait, I’ll show you the sword stand, empty. You can see it with your own eyes.”
Raylynn glanced behind her at the two other servants who ran in, looking far better equipped for combat than those she’d struck down in the hall. The sands were shifting around her the more she stalled. She was losing her edge and had to make it up quickly.
“Show me,” she demanded. Princes be damned, she’d come too far to back away now.
The lord led her into a study and motioned for the bookcase. Raylynn kept her blade in hand, as the two others took their places by the door. Lord Twintle stood a few feet away, allowing her to approach alone.
She didn’t want to see the familiar weapon stand—what had been a source of so much pride for her mother. She didn’t want to see its plaque or insignia of the phoenix that was now only a font of pain. Least of all, Raylynn didn’t want to see it empty.
“What happened to it?” Raylynn whispered, finally willing to believe the man. It was the one truly important thing her mother had said about the sword, something Princess Fiera had told her, and Fiera’s father had told her before that, all the way back to King Jadar: the sword was never to leave its stand unless duty called to defend the West.
“I told you, it was stolen.” Lord Twintle took a step toward her. “Stolen by a minister who thought he could use its powers to unlock the Crystal Caverns for himself. An upstart Southerner who thought he knew better than the years of research we have put in. His error resulted in its destruction.”
Raylynn felt like a part of her own soul had been destroyed in that moment. She had failed her mother. She had not honored the one simple command she had been given from her girlhood years—defend the sword, keep it safe.
“Now that you finally know the truth, Raylynn, you know you cannot trust the Southerners. Cast aside the false prince. Come back to your mother’s order, become a Knight, and serve the memory of our most loyal king.”
Raylynn continued to stare at the sword stand. Everything sounded muffled, like she’d gone deaf, plunged into an ocean of hopelessness, adrift. She had failed.
Unless the Lord was lying.
She adjusted the grip on her own blade. He was lying, and the sword was still out there, waiting for her to find it. Or, he was telling the truth, and she had failed one purpose in life. But there was still another. Another fate awaited. Perhaps it was her only fate all along.
Raylynn looked to Lord Twintle, and something in her eyes made him freeze mid-step.
“Princess Fiera, youngest child of King Rocham, imparted the Sword of Jadar to my mother and made her your leader. When she died—when you killed her, that role fell to me.” Raylynn raised her blade again like a conductor’s baton. “I will see you dead, Lord Twintle, for killing your leader and breaking your oath. And then I will live out the dying wishes of our princess. I will honor my fate. And I will defend the crown her son will inherit.”
Lord Twintle roared with laughter. Raylynn barely heard it. Instead, she heard the footsteps of the two servants starting for her. She heard the men drawing weapons. She heard the fracturing of the air around Lord Twintle to make room for the icy magic he wielded.
28. Raylynn
She focused on the two servants first. No, their footwork betrayed them. These weren’t mere servants; these were trained killers, just like her.
Unfortunately for them, she was better.
Raylynn dodged the first weapon, twisting behind and stabbing backward to avoid the spear
of ice that appeared in the air before her. The other servant lunged to help his friend, and Raylynn spun, keeping the man behind her on her sword and using him as a shield between her and the attack.
Blood trickled down the edge of her blade and splattered on her face as the man was cut into a second time. Raylynn narrowed her eyes at his loud curses, the shield of his friend’s body still keeping his attacks from her. He gripped his comrade’s body, pulling it back from him.
If she held onto her sword she’d risk getting tugged off balance as it stuck in the bone. Raylynn twisted, propping up a foot on the dead man’s back and kicked his corpse off her blade toward his erstwhile companion. The second servant was sent reeling, the weight of a dead man atop him, but Raylynn was also left pinwheeling wildly for balance.
A spear of ice nicked her side, drawing blood and a curse from her lips. Twintle gave an equally frustrated noise, the spear no doubt missing its mark as it had likely been intended for her gut.
Recovered, the other servant seized the moment. She had just enough time to predict his likely target, and his blade landed off-target for her chest, instead finding her sword arm. Raylynn yelped in pain, returning the blow in kind to his shoulder.
Twintle was relentless and summoned another point of ice, magically throwing it through the air. Expecting it this time, Raylynn batted it away but opened up her chest in the process. The servant swung for her, seizing the opening, and Twintle already had another icicle at the ready.
In one movement, Raylynn cleaved the tip off the icicle, dulling it. She brought her blade through its arc down upon the servant’s shoulder, tearing through sinew and bone straight to the center of his chest. Bones fractured and shattered under the pristine sharpness of her blade as she sought to rip through every living organ the man possessed.