Forsaken Kingdom (The Last Prince Book 1)

by J. R. Rasmussen

  Wardin snarled as he felt a rush of venom coursing into him. He dropped his lantern and hacked at the lizard with his blade. His focus was lost; he would have to fight without magic for the moment. He stabbed straight through the beast’s snout, then flicked his wrist to send it flying into the water, his blood still dripping from its nearly severed jaw.

  “Wardin!”

  White pain shot through his head. Erietta’s voice seemed to echo, then split into two.

  Wardin!

  What in Eyrdri’s name is that thing?

  Get it off!

  And then his own voice. Fire. They don’t like fire.

  He opened his eyes, but the jumble of images of him and his friends as children remained, mingling with the tunnel of the present. Erietta fighting, trying to cast an illusion. Arun backing against the wall and muttering a spell of his own. Wardin himself, slashing not with a dagger, but with a torch.

  His lantern was on the floor, but Erietta—the adult version of her—was beside him. She swung a torch, just as he had in his memory, fending off one of the creatures and setting fire to a second. The latter rolled toward the water, shrieking all the louder. At the same time, Erietta brought her free hand up to her mouth and blew slowly across her palm.

  Several splashes sounded through the tunnel, and then a single, pale human arm shot up out of the water. Another followed, a short distance apart, and then another beyond that, all leading westward away from them. Within moments, the mix of fire and distraction sent the remaining creatures running.

  Erietta picked up Wardin’s lantern. “You should have brought a torch instead. Let’s go, before they decide to come back. I assume you weren’t fool enough to bring Rowena down here with you.”

  Her voice was muffled by the others in his head, hers and her brother’s, even his own, at various ages and times. Many trips through this tunnel seemed to be happening simultaneously.

  It’s up this way.

  Careful you don’t fall. It’ll look suspicious if we come back all covered in mud.

  Don’t let your torch go out!

  “They don’t like fire,” he murmured. “They don’t like fire.”

  He was vaguely aware of Erietta, speaking somewhere behind the light of her torch. “No, they don’t. We have to go.”

  “The mead. I hated it at first.”

  The tunnel rushed by, flitting past Wardin’s eyes in a dizzying swarm of other images. The archmagister’s hound, coming for him. His father, laughing. A horse—a dark gray mare, nearly black. What was her name? Wardin had loved her. Erietta as a girl, sitting by the waterfall, her hair flowing like spilled ink over his shoulder as they leaned together to talk.

  He wouldn’t execute a boy.

  Perhaps we’ll see each other again.

  Perhaps I’ll be at the head of an army when we do.

  “Tempest,” he rasped—he was out of breath now. He felt like he’d been thrown down a mountain. His lungs would not fill, but he ground the words out anyway. He needed to say it out loud. He needed to know it was real. “The mare’s name was Tempest. That was a bit of a joke, because she was very calm. I learned to ride on her.”

  “War, how many times were you bitten?”

  “Just the one, I think, but … my father had dark hair and a wide mouth. And green eyes.”

  “Er. Yes. People said he was quite handsome. I only saw him once or twice.”

  “Etta, I remember.” Wardin laughed as the pressure on his chest suddenly lifted, and his lungs expanded at last. His whole body shook. “I remember everything.”

  “How did you know I was down there?”

  “Odger saw you go in and told one of the magisters. He said you’d been asking about the tunnels. And as I have particular knowledge of the dangers down there, I thought I’d better go and get you.” Erietta wound a bandage around Wardin’s hand and nodded at the mug on the table beside him. “Drink your tonic. The bite won’t have any lasting effects, but you’ll be learning the true meaning of pain tonight. And the one time it happened to me, I had terrible nightmares, so be ready for that.”

  “Should I go to the sage hall and ask for a healer?” The pain was indeed excruciating, though Wardin’s excitement served as a distraction. It had all come back in a single, soul-pounding rush, every memory, every bit of what had been missing. After nearly eight years, he was finally himself, finally whole again.

  “No point.” Erietta blew a few loose strands of hair off her face, and lowered her head to examine her handiwork. “They can’t do anything I’m not already doing. Vividrake bites aren’t exactly a common ailment, seeing as those tunnels are home to the only ones in existence. You’ll just have to let it run its course.”

  “Vividrake.” Wardin tested the word on his tongue, then grinned at her. “I know this! They’ve been down there since we first came to Pendralyn.” He frowned. “No, longer than that, much longer. A sage. An experiment gone wrong.”

  “Yes.” She gathered up her tin of ointment and the remaining length of bandage. “A living lesson on why it’s forbidden to try enchantments on animals. Don’t feel bad about your shield not working, by the way. They have a bit of magic of their own.”

  He watched her as she went to put her supplies back in a waist-high cabinet beneath the window. Why was her voice so flat? Why wasn’t she smiling? “But I remember them. I remember you got a bite, and we had to hide it for a week until it finally healed over. We were only ten. I remember everything.”

  “Yes. So you’ve said.”

  “But you don’t seem happy.”

  Erietta turned back to him and nodded, once again, at the mug. “Drink your tonic. It’s the only thing that will help.”

  Wardin took a sip of the bitter brew, not so much to ease the pain as to give himself a chance to hide his disappointment. He didn’t want to sound like a pleading child. But now that he remembered her as she’d been—as they’d been—he wanted to know why she was being so cold to him now. “I thought you would be happy. I thought my forgetting was the reason you’ve been so angry with me since I got back.”

  She crossed her arms, leaning back against the cabinet. Not coming back to the table. “Don’t be ridiculous. Why would I be angry with you for something you can’t help?”

  “But you are. You have been. And you still can’t forgive me, even now that I’ve remembered.” Wardin shook his head. “The Erietta I knew didn’t hold grudges.”

  “The Wardin I knew didn’t abandon his loyalties.”

  He slammed his mug down hard enough for the tonic to slosh out onto the table. “It was a trick! You know that now!”

  Erietta shrugged, unmoved. “Of course. You couldn’t help it.”

  “But?”

  “But nothing. You say you couldn’t help it. I’m sure you’re right.”

  “You’ve gone rather quickly from couldn’t help it to say you couldn’t help it.”

  “What difference does it make what I think?”

  “Because I’m tired of you looking at me like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like I betrayed you.”

  She threw her arms wide. “You did betray me!”

  Well, at least he’d finally provoked some emotion. Wardin leaned back in his chair, jaw set, and waited.

  But it seemed Erietta was in no mood to elaborate on that point. She cleared her throat and turned away, busying herself at the cabinet again, although he saw nothing that needed tidying. “You got this flood of memories right after you were bitten,” she said. “And you say you saw things? It wasn’t as though the memories were just missing one moment and there the next, right? You actually saw and heard them rushing back in.”

  “Etta.”

  “We have to tell Arun. I wonder if vividrake venom might be useful in—”

  “Etta!”

  “You wanted to forget!” Her back was still to him. She stood with her palms pressed against the top of the cabinet, head bent, shoulders rigid.

 
Wardin made no attempt to answer. It was work enough to breathe.

  After a moment, she spoke again, her voice much softer this time. “I told you, that first night you came back. A trick like that couldn’t be cast day after day on a closed and unsuspecting mind.”

  “You also told me that same night that such a trick was impossible under any circumstances. But I’ve since proved you wrong about that, haven’t I?” Wardin could barely hear himself over the pounding in his ears. “Are you suggesting that I knew? That I was complicit?”

  “Not on purpose, no.” Erietta finally turned around, and he saw with some satisfaction that there were tears in her eyes. “I’m suggesting you were open to it. That some part of you must have been. It’s well known among contrivers that there are two kinds of minds that will accept illusions: those that are weak, which I have never known yours to be. And those that are seeing what they want to see.”

  She turned her face away from his glare, staring instead at Hawthorn, who had spent the entire argument napping on his favorite rug by the fireplace. “I’m suggesting that you preferred to forget.”

  Before Wardin could answer—or even think what he wanted to say—Arun stormed into the room without knocking, making them both jump.

  “No need to be so dramatic.” Erietta walked forward to meet her brother, her voice cool once again. “I suppose you heard he was down in the tunnels, but he’s fine. He was bitten once, and the effect was quite int—”

  “He knows,” Arun interrupted.

  With a start, Erietta glanced at Wardin, then back at her brother. “How did you know that? I was just about to tell you he rememb—”

  “Bramwell. Knows.” Arun’s hand twitched to the back of his neck. “I don’t know how, but he knows there’s a magistery in Eyrdon. And he’s already torn apart a dozen mountain villages looking for it.”

  16

  Wardin

  “May I have silence, please?”

  Erietta’s voice was neither harsh nor overly loud, but to Wardin’s surprise, everyone quieted nearly immediately. Since getting to know some of the magisters, he’d realized they weren’t quite the united force they’d seemed to be the first time he was in the old hall; there was a decided lack of respect for the archmagister, in some circles. But now all eyes were on her, all mouths pressed into thin lines. It seemed that when trouble was afoot, they were prepared to rally to her.

  He only hoped the same would be true of the Eyrds, and the banner of Rath. If Bramwell was coming, Wardin had a definite opinion as to how they should meet him.

  The torchlight danced over Erietta’s somber face. She was the sole person at the front of the hall this time, standing rather than sitting. The headmagisters sat on the benches, along with every other magister, housekeeper, kennel keeper, and other adult at Pendralyn. They’d left nobody behind to care for the students tonight, apart from the older ones watching the younger.

  “I know you’ve heard rumors and gossip this afternoon,” Erietta said. “And you know I wouldn’t have called this meeting unless there was some truth to them. We’ve much to discuss.” She gestured to her brother. “Arun, please explain what you learned, and how.”

  “That’s fairly simple.” Arun stood and turned to be heard by all. “I have an associate in Narinore, a fellow sage, who keeps an eye on Tobin’s activities for me. His image came to me this afternoon to impart a message: Bramwell is aware that there is a magistery somewhere in Eyrdon. He knows it’s deep in the mountains. Tobin’s men are, even as we speak, roaming the villages and shepherds’ settlements asking questions.”

  “Forgive me, Arun.” Two rows ahead, Eldon stood as well. “But thus far, you’ve not shown a very great talent for speaking with other sages that way. Perhaps if I—”

  “Which is why I consulted the bones immediately afterward.”

  Eldon scoffed. “The bones. Hardly a reliable—”

  “I can assure you, the danger is very real,” Arun interrupted again. “However,” he added with a bow to his visibly offended headmagister, “it’s always good to be certain, with a matter of this weight. You should speak with your own connections across Eyrdon. I trust you have some?”

  “Of course,” Eldon muttered, although it looked like perhaps he did not. Wardin resisted the urge to snicker.

  “For now, we will proceed under the assumption that Arun is correct.” Erietta gave Eldon a pointed look. “As he nearly always is. He’s honed his art with the bones to an extraordinary degree, and this is much too urgent a matter to wait for further confirmation.”

  “Indeed it is,” Alaide said. “If so many people are being questioned, it’s only a matter of time before one of them gives an answer that will harm us.”

  “By force, by bribery, or by magic,” Arun agreed. “Wardin is proof that our Lancet monarchs are not above using the outlawed art, no matter that they’re the ones who outlawed it. One way or another, the Harths are coming for us.”

  “But not yet. They don’t know where we are yet.” Erietta paced back and forth in front of the benches. “Even when they come to Avadare, we’ll still be hidden. There’s only one entrance, and it will take them some time to find it.”

  “Will it?” Magister Conrad spoke up from somewhere in the back. “The hand of any student or magister Pendralyn has ever had will get them through that tunnel door.”

  Erietta turned toward his voice. “Very true. But while we know the door is vulnerable, they do not. And until they learn the secret of it, they could tear The Dark Dragon apart board by board, and never find it. I agree it won’t stop them in the end, but it will delay them.”

  “We need to use what time we have to our advantage, then,” said Eldon.

  “We must find better ways to conceal ourselves,” called a voice Wardin didn’t recognize.

  “I may be of some assistance there.” Still standing, Arun bowed with a flourish. “As you know, I’ve been studying and attempting enchantment for some time. I haven’t gotten it yet, but I think I’m coming close. I’ll lock myself away day and night.”

  Erietta nodded at him. “It would certainly be useful to add more enchantments to the door. Not to mention the gate. And perhaps some other objects at the Dragon.”

  “I hardly think we can depend on Arun managing to do what nobody else has done for years.” Wardin couldn’t see Bartley’s face, but the sneer was evident in his voice. “Hiding has always been a job for contrivers. We can use tricks to make the tunnel appear collapsed, or to make anyone who gets as far as the gate mistake what they’re seeing.”

  “We can try,” Erietta agreed. “But we can’t depend on contrivance any more than enchantment. Illusions are temporary. And vulnerable. Someone who knows the truth of it can lead others inside. It all comes back to the same inescapable problem: sooner or later, somebody who knows where we are will tell our enemies.”

  “So we stop them.” Alaide’s voice was more grim than Wardin had ever heard it. “Tobin isn’t the only one who has the means. We can threaten and bribe as well as he can. And I’d wager we’re a great deal more skilled at magic, no matter who he’s got working for him.”

  “We can’t spell people into keeping their silence,” Eldon said.

  “Can’t we?” One of the other contrivers stood. “Perhaps station some contrivers and sages in Avadare at all times, casting tricks, confusing people—”

  “No,” Wardin interrupted, getting to his own feet. He’d been listening to this debate with increasing impatience, and with every word they said, it seemed his neck got a bit tenser, his head a bit hotter. He was in no mood to keep silent while Tobin crept closer and closer to their gate. Though he’d known the facts for some time now, he’d only just remembered how it all felt, the agony of the war, his last days at Pendralyn, his father’s awful death. For him, these were all fresh losses. He was not going to let the Harths take so much as another scrap of what was his.

  Erietta turned toward him, eyebrow raised. “I beg your pardon?”


  “Don’t you think every one of these things has been tried?” Wardin crossed his arms, looking from her pinched face to the determined—and sometimes terrified—faces of the others. “If magic alone could hide this place, it would have hidden it during the war. Instead, my father had to die to make Bramwell think Pendralyn was gone. Precisely because hiding doesn’t work.”

  He looked back at Erietta. “You said that yourself. All my father could do was give us time.” Wardin spread his hands. “It seems that time is up now.”

  “Thanks to you,” someone said. “You brought this upon us. Bramwell is looking for you, and now you’ve led him to the ones who are harboring you.”

  Murmurs of agreement followed. Wardin’s ears began to pound, and his limbs prickled with the desire to… what? Strike the speaker? Or was he more angry with himself? He remembered, too, his terror that his very presence would bring doom to Pendralyn. A fear that, it seemed, had now been realized.

  “I won’t have you casting blame around,” Erietta warned. “We don’t know how Bramwell heard about us, or that it has anything to do with Wardin.” She held up a hand for silence when someone started to protest, her eyes flashing in the flickering light. “And even if we did, questions and accusations don’t serve us now. It’s solutions we need.”

  Wardin couldn’t help a grim smile. Erietta didn’t meet his eye as she spoke, but she was defending him. It was the first time he’d felt like they were on the same side since his return.

  “Honestly, under Harthian rule, I’m surprised we’ve managed to stay hidden this long,” Alaide added. “This was inevitable.”

  “On that we agree,” Wardin said. “Which is exactly why we can’t keep trying to hide. It doesn’t work. It’s just not tenable.”

  “What alternative do you suggest?” A magister named Desmond stood and scowled at Wardin. “Surely you aren’t saying we should fight off Tobin’s army with less than forty magisters and a lot of children?”