Forsaken Kingdom (The Last Prince Book 1)

by J. R. Rasmussen

  He might have spared himself the journey this time. The dissolution of a single magistery should not require a king. But Tobin had not yet proved himself a sufficiently able leader, and magic made any conflict risky. Bram wished to take as few chances as possible.

  Besides, he wanted to kill the boy personally.

  Their informant in Avadare had assured them that the magistery was small, but Bramwell had still brought fifty men of his own to join Tobin’s company. Among them, a wizened old sage whose service had been assured by the imprisonment of his daughter and her children. The man had been hard to find; the scant handful of magicians left in Cairdarin was dwindling quickly. Though unwilling to make new ones, Bramwell preferred to take advantage of those who remained, when he could.

  Magic. His constant dilemma, just as it had been his father’s. It was Bram’s lifelong and secret shame to have little talent for it. Even had the magisteries remained intact, he never would have amounted to a magician. And if he couldn’t possess that kind of power, he wouldn’t allow anyone else to, either. No king could afford to surround himself with people powerful enough to challenge him and win.

  He’d often considered making a few carefully chosen exceptions, training a small order of subservient, pliable magicians for his own use. But power too often turned servants into rivals.

  And in any case, building a new magistery had always been impossible. His father had destroyed every book, every enchanted object, every scrap of magical knowledge he’d been able to root out.

  Until now. Perhaps Bramwell would find a great many things to collect at this Pendralyn. Perhaps he would take a few prisoners.

  And perhaps there would be more for him there than just magisters and books. Perhaps Dragon’s Edge would be found at last.

  He’d been searching for an enchanted weapon for most of his life, chasing every rumor, seeking out hidden places, spilling more blood and paying out more silver than he cared to count. All for naught. All while Lional Rath wielded Dragon’s Edge, the most legendary of them all.

  But the sword had disappeared when Lional was killed, and since then there hadn’t been so much as a whisper about what became of it. It was simply gone, as though it had never existed at all.

  Such a sword would make Bramwell as powerful as a battlemage. It had to be somewhere. Why not at this secret magistery?

  His reverie was interrupted by Tobin, striding at last into the thin ring of lantern light. Looking sullen, as he so often did.

  “Father.” He didn’t quite meet Bramwell’s eye.

  “Tobin. I expected you some time ago. I trust you had no difficulties on the road.”

  “Not on the road, no. But the archmagister escaped before we left Narinore. I don’t know who was helping her, but she can’t have gotten too far ahead of us.”

  Escaped. An interesting development, but it neither distressed nor especially surprised Bramwell. Imprisoning the archmagister had been as much about testing her capabilities as seeking information. “You’ve sent scouts ahead to look for her, I assume?”

  “Yes. One of the parties hasn’t returned. Two men. Could be they got lost or ran into some other trouble.” Tobin tugged at his ear. “Or, could be she got them.”

  “Did you instruct them to use powdered eagrim?”

  “I did, but dosing her ale with it didn’t do any good while we had her at the castle. She used plenty of magic to get the better of my men.”

  Bramwell nodded slowly. “Good.”

  Tobin took a step back, as though he suspected a trap. “Good?”

  “How many times must I tell you, knowledge is always an advantage.”

  “But aren’t you angry she escaped? I expected to find myself on the wrong side of your temper.”

  “I made sure any outcome could be useful to me, as a smart man does. For one thing, we might have learned that eagrim does not, in fact, block magic. That needed to be tested.”

  Tobin jerked his thumb back toward the fires. “I’m told you have a magician with you. Why didn’t you test it on him?”

  “Because we didn’t know what its effects would be, nor how long those effects would last. I need his magic intact.” Bramwell scratched his beard. “We really must find something that will block magic, or dampen it. But at least we know not to waste our time gathering eagrim. It’s not exactly easy to find up north.”

  Somewhere above them, an owl cried. Bram was likewise eager to claim his territory—and begin his hunt. He felt every shift of man or beast around him; his ears pricked at every sound. But his heart was light. If Tobin were any sort of warrior, he would not have feared his father’s temper that night. Few things put Bramwell in better spirits than closing in on an enemy.

  “Meanwhile, if this magister makes it back ahead of us, that will also serve a purpose,” he said. “But we can’t give her too much time to prepare. We march again in an hour. I want to arrive before dawn.”

  “How did you find out how to get into the magistery?”

  “I didn’t.”

  Tobin frowned, mouth slack. “But you said you knew.”

  “No, I said we didn’t need to know. Your informant told us there’s only one entrance. As I understand it, the surrounding area is too unforgiving for anyone but the most experienced mountaineer to attempt getting in another way.”

  “I don’t understand.” Tobin resumed his infernal ear-tugging. “How is that a good thing?”

  Bramwell ground his teeth. Elinor had brought him a useful alliance and a sizable amount of silver, and he was genuinely fond of her. But the woman did tend to produce infuriatingly slow sons. “Because, Tobin, one way in means one way out.”

  “The village is empty, Majesty. It looks like most of the departures were hasty ones.”

  The long, cold night’s march had taken a toll, but this news lifted Bramwell’s fatigue. He drummed his fingers against the table where he sat, long legs stretched out beneath it. The Dark Dragon was drafty, but clean enough. He’d certainly set up command in far less comfortable places.

  “Excellent, Darren. Take any supplies you find and make use of the houses and shops as you see fit.” He pointed at Tobin. “You brought some experienced miners?”

  “Seven of them.” Tobin’s voice was thick with exhaustion.

  “Good. When the men are rested, form crews to start tunneling through the rock on this end of the village.” Bramwell looked from his son to Darren and back again, assuring himself of their full attention for this next order. “Every room on the first floor of this inn is to be watched at all hours. At least eight men to each. More, where there’s room for more. Our prisoner took out four on her own. Practice your signals and be ready to fight at a moment’s notice, if anyone should come out of the magistery.”

  “Yes, Majesty.” With a quick bow, Darren left to go organize the men.

  Tobin remained at the table, gaping at his father through bleary eyes. “You’re glad the people are gone.”

  “Glad?” Bramwell scoffed. “There’s no point in gladness. Just as there’s no point in disappointment. You find an advantage in any situation, is all. The townsfolk most likely took shelter inside their impenetrable magistery. That means more mouths to feed.” He smiled tightly. “Better yet, it means more restless, anxious souls in close quarters.”

  “And you intend to starve them out.”

  “Yes, Tobin,” Bramwell said with a heavy sigh. A shame Janet had been born second, making her useful for little more than a beneficial marriage. Hers was the brighter mind, and she’d have made a better heir than her brother.

  “Consider Pendralyn under siege,” he went on. “And as you would know, if you’d ever seen a real one, the worst part of a siege is not the hunger, or the disease, or even the fear. It’s the confinement. Nothing can drive a man so mad. Nothing can test—and break—his loyalties quite so well. And these aren’t soldiers.” Bramwell chuckled. “They’ll be killing one another for us within a week.”

  The idea of all that mad
ness and death seemed to lift Tobin’s spirits considerably. For the first time that night, his smile showed some spark. Good. He had the capacity for cruelty at least, despite his other shortcomings. Not an undesirable trait, in a prince. Far better that he be cruel than weak.

  “Now go and get some sleep,” Bramwell said. “But find Darren first, and tell him to see to Walter. Our old sage hasn’t earned his rest quite yet.”

  “What will he do?”

  “He will tell them they’re under siege. And organize their surrender.”

  When Tobin had gone, Bramwell stayed on in the common room, surrounded by men but speaking to nobody. Instead he stared into the fire, his mind drifting back twenty years, thirty, more.

  The face he saw in the flames was one he hadn’t thought of in quite some time: Calla Ladimore, his cousin. A slip of a thing, she’d been as a girl, ethereal and wild. He remembered her golden hair would never stay in its braids. It was always coming loose and flying free about her face, her little pointed chin.

  She’d worshipped Bramwell and Tobald, and they’d indulged her. Protected her, made her laugh, taught her to shoot a bow. She was as much a sister to Bram as to her own brothers. As much a sister as his sisters by blood.

  Until he killed her father and her brother. Tore her family asunder, and forced her and her mother into exile.

  Years later, he’d married her off against her will, to a man she didn’t want but eventually grew to love. Then he killed that man, too. Horribly.

  And now he’d come to kill her only son.

  If Bram had his way, soon he would spill the last drop of Ladimore blood Cairdarin would ever know. He would obliterate Calla and the rest of her house. From existence, even from memory.

  Perhaps then they would cease to haunt him at last.

  Bramwell raised his goblet in a salute. And as he drank, he pretended it was the very bad wine that made his throat burn so.

  “I’m sorry, Calla,” he whispered. “I really did love you, once.”

  22

  Wardin

  Wardin’s fingers twitched against the hilt of his dagger as he hurried into the old hall, Rowena at his side. He wished it were a sword at his belt. Every muscle in his body felt bunched, and his skin itched with the need to act, to move, to fight.

  Instead he was attending what would no doubt be an interminable meeting. Many of the villagers crowded into the hall alongside the magisters. Everyone was talking at once. Their nervous clamor did nothing for the tension and pain at his temples and the back of his neck.

  The only one missing was Erietta, who was still in the sage hall, under the care of the healers. A dangerous fever had taken hold overnight, leaving her delirious and insensible. Had they tarried on the road even another hour, she might have been lost.

  She’d showed some improvement that morning, and she was expected to recover, with time and careful attention. But she was in no condition to attend to the magistery’s defenses. As far as Wardin knew, she was not even aware of their circumstances.

  He ignored the sickening drop in his stomach when he thought about her; there was no time for worry or distraction. He must remain focused if he was to get what he wanted here. Or even, he thought wryly, if he wanted to avoid yet another meeting ending with him a captive.

  Not that there was anywhere to go. They were all captives now.

  The message had come from a sage in Bramwell’s service, once again proving that the king was not quite so opposed to magic as his policies suggested. There was no telling how many other magicians he had with him.

  Sage communication was a peculiar thing, and not always clear, but the king’s demands were simple enough: unconditional surrender. Children would be spared. If every magister and villager—and Wardin, naturally—submitted without violence, the students’ families would also be spared. Otherwise, Bramwell promised to hunt down every last soul complicit in the existence of the magistery, and charge them with treason.

  It was an obvious tactic, laying siege to Pendralyn rather than trying to take it by force. So obvious that Wardin was ashamed not to have anticipated it. It seemed he’d inherited none of his uncle’s or grandfather’s talent for warfare. Either grandfather, now that he thought about it. Hawkin Ladimore had been a great warrior in his own right—until he’d been utterly destroyed by the same foe Wardin now faced.

  But it didn’t matter whether Wardin was a natural commander or not. Command he would. This had become a martial matter, not a magical one, and none of the magisters had any real experience in conflict or combat.

  Nor did Wardin, of course. But he was the one responsible for their present situation. He still didn’t know how Bramwell had connected him to the magistery, but it was obviously not a coincidence. If the king hadn’t been looking for Wardin, he never would have found Pendralyn.

  Wardin’s chest constricted as he looked at the pale, wide-eyed faces of those around him, and thought of the other faces—the much younger ones—elsewhere in the magistery. His childhood fear had finally come to pass. They were all in danger because of him.

  He meant to lead them back out of it.

  Someone had to take charge, that was for certain. If the chaotic, uproarious state of the hall was any indication, they would never make any decisions, otherwise. Wardin only wondered how hard he would have to fight, to get them to accept the leadership of a man who was both young and untested, but who was, nonetheless, their rightful prince.

  He didn’t stop at any of the benches, but strode straight to the front of the hall, where he crossed his arms and stood, stiff-backed and grim-faced, girding himself for that fight.

  But to his great surprise, it proved unnecessary.

  As though they’d all been waiting for him, the room quieted almost immediately. With somber, slow steps, Eldon came to stand beside Wardin. Alaide, Bartley, and Arun all did the same. But none of them spoke. Instead they looked to Wardin, and waited.

  Perhaps this was how Erietta had been voted in as archmagister, despite some objections to her age and affinity. Perhaps, when it came down to it, nobody else was willing to put themselves forward to lead—because that would mean accepting responsibility for the very survival of magic itself. Few would ask for such a burden.

  But that burden was his birthright. Wardin resisted the urge to clear his throat. He must not appear tentative, not now. “I trust you’ve all heard about the message Eldon received this morning. I hope it’s obvious that Pendralyn cannot surrender to the Harthian king.”

  He paused and looked around, waiting for somebody to argue. Regardless of the deliberately chosen word, he very much doubted it was obvious to everyone. Last magistery or not, they were outnumbered and surrounded by a vastly more experienced enemy. There were children to consider, both the students and the village children. And some of the people of Avadare would surely prefer to surrender; Pendralyn was not their responsibility to defend.

  But there was no sound, and Wardin’s gaze was returned steadily by every eye he met. He wondered which was the greater motivation: loyalty to their cause, or the conviction that the famously callous Bramwell Lancet would show no mercy even if they did surrender. The magisters, at least, must know they were doomed if they lost this fight. Enough of their kind had been killed in cold blood during the dissolution.

  “Good,” Wardin said. “Then let’s discuss how we’re going to drive our enemy away. Bramwell thinks his chief advantage is time, but he’s wrong. We should be able to withstand a siege almost indefinitely. There’s space enough for everyone, though I understand it’s close quarters. The stream is a fresh water supply, and we can use magic to multiply food as needed. And other supplies, too, I imagine?”

  “It’s not quite that simple,” Arun said. “Replication is an arcane art, and like most magic, there is no precise recipe for it. It’s … finicky.”

  “Finicky how?” Wardin asked.

  “Well, animal materials, for one thing, are delicate. Flesh is right out, so no meat. Plants
and metals give the best results, and those have to be in their natural state. Once a thing has been cooked, fermented, combined with other things to form something new, anything like that, it can’t be replicated.”

  Wardin rubbed his beard. “So grain, but not flour or bread.”

  “Right. We can only work with certain things, and those things can only be duplicated exactly. When what we have ages, goes stale, or rots, that’s it. It’s gone.”

  “Anyone making plans for our defense should know how this magic works.” Magister Desmond, a plump, sour-faced man who had taken a nearly instant dislike to Wardin, stood. “Why are we listening to someone who doesn’t even know that?”

  Ah, there it is. Wardin took a step forward, ready to answer.

  Jasper’s cousin Polly spoke up first. “He’s a Rath. He’s our prince.”

  The stocky man nodding beside her caught Wardin’s eye. Marwin wasn’t just Avadare’s tailor; he was a veteran of the last war. He heaved himself to his feet and crossed his arms. “I fought under Lional Rath. I also fought under Draven Rath. And I’m here to tell you, that one wasn’t the coward the stories would have you believe. At least, not in the end.”

  “That is not news to anyone at Pendralyn,” Alaide said.

  “A shame, then, that neither Lional nor Draven is here,” Desmond said with a sneer.

  “He’s a Rath,” Polly repeated, as if that explained everything. When Desmond merely shrugged at her, she huffed. “The house of Rath was chosen by Eyrdri herself to lead us, a thousand years ago.”

  Desmond scoffed. “Are we here to discuss children’s stories, or the enemy right outside our gates?”

  “I am not a child’s tale, nor a child.” Wardin straightened his back and set his jaw. “I am the rightful heir to the throne of Eyrdon. If you can show me a man with a stronger claim to leadership, by all means, point him out. Otherwise, I suggest you sit down, so we can focus on our enemy, instead of wasting our time squabbling amongst ourselves. ”

  He raised a brow at Desmond, who scowled back, but said nothing. That was the difficulty with disputing Wardin’s credentials, of course: it required a person to produce a better candidate. And the fact was, there was none. Every man and woman in the hall—Wardin included—was woefully unfit to face Bramwell Lancet. At least Wardin had his title and his lineage to cling to.