by Millie Burns
Return of the Crown
By Millie Burns
Illustrated By Schea Epling
Text Copyright 2010
Published by Millie Burns at Smashwords
All Rights Reserved
ISBN 978-0-9857724-0-6
To Ron my wonderful husband, this book is dedicated to you. You have always had faith in me, even when I had none in myself. You are my hero.
To my incredibly outstanding daughters Nicki, Sami, and Sierra, there’s a little of Ravyn in all of you. You inspire me to live life to its fullest. Every day I spend with you is a gift. I love you.
Joanne Hagopian, thank you for all the tireless hours you invested in this book. You were invaluable in helping me bring this story to the Light.
Schea Epling, from the bottom of my heart, I thank you for your magnificent art.
Chapter 1
Connor shuffled to the Royal Coach, leaning a wrinkled hand on its glossy side, steadying himself. The King and Queen stood side-by-side waiting for his final report. Connor sensed the pervasive evil that clung to the air, throwing the safety of the royal family's trip in peril. How could he convince them to stay? King Bryant overflowed with bulldog determination, and he’d set his sights on making this trip. Blowing out a heavy frustrated breath, Connor looked up into his King’s eyes.
The Coach creaked and rocked, drawing Connor’s attention to the window. Small hands ripped back the red velvet curtains, and a mischievous smile lit the little face in the window.
“Father, let’s go. The tide’s going to leave without us.” Princess Ravyn grinned at Connor, “Goodbye, Connor, I’ll see you at the end of summer!” She pulled her head back into the coach and resumed bouncing on the seats, setting the whole thing rocking.
Connor’s brief smile faded. “Your Highness, you must postpone this trip. A sorcerer of the Dark Arts is out there, lurking in the shadows, waiting to strike. I’ll be blasted if I can get a lock on the snake’s whereabouts.” He slapped the coach’s side in frustration.
King Bryant’s smile faded, brows furrowing. Something was wrong. They’d raked the woods and surrounding countryside for months, never turning up anything unusual. “I’m uncomfortable about this trip as well, but we can’t delay any longer. We’ve postponed this trip for two weeks already.” He paused, rubbing his chin, “If this rogue sorcerer is nearby, it may be safer for us to be traveling abroad. Connor, you are Aigerach’s anchor, weathering every storm. I have complete faith in you.”
Connor looked past his King, staring into Queen Lareina’s blue eyes, willing her to understand the danger she was in. She smiled, leaning across her husband to plant a soft kiss on Connor’s cheek. “Connor, you have more control over the Light than any living being in Aigerach. While we are gone, you will discover who this sorcerer of Darkness is. I know someone is out there, I sense the changes in the aural plane. It’s so close. In fact, the other day, I could have sworn,” she paused, closing her eyes. She shook her head. “Never mind, that’s impossible.”
“Your Majesty, what do you suspect?” Connor scanned Lareina’s face for a clue to her suspicions, receiving only a sad smile.
“I suspect the tide will turn soon. We must leave. All practitioners of the Light are at your disposal. You’ll find the sorcerer, and you’ll dispose of him.” Giving a nod of dismissal and taking King Bryant’s hand, she leveraged herself up into the coach.
Bryant patted Connor’s shoulder and then disappeared through the door, following his wife. Ravyn’s squeals of delight drifted out through the door before it was shut tight.
Connor turned, heart weary, and shambled back through the crowds that parted for him, aiming for his workrooms. As he passed through the archway into the Great Hall, he hurried his steps. Ominous vibrations pulsed along the aural field. Something was happening, and it was not under his control. Fear nagged his every step. He hastened to reach his scrying bowl to watch the royal family’s departure and aid when trouble struck.
Ravyn dangled halfway out the window of the Royal Coach, inhaling the rich scent of chocolate as the carriage rumbled past the bakery. She waved at the crowds lining the cobbled lane. Her ebony hair drank in the summer sun, her deep blue eyes twinkling with excitement. She was finally going to sea. She’d watched the ships come and go from the harbor for as long as she could remember and dreamed of the wind ruffling her hair, the sun kissing her brow, and the smell of salt tickling her nose. Oh, how she wanted to climb the tall masts, to gaze out at the immense briny expanse. Mother and father would never allow it. If she had the chance, she wouldn’t let the opportunity escape her grasp.
For the last seven years, her parents traveled to the Summer Estate without her. Left in the care of Nurse Mayweather, she waited out the long hot summer for their return. Nurse Mayweather was kind, and they always had fun; but Ravyn knew she was missing some marvelous quest. This year she’d worked hard to show her parents how mature she’d become so she could accompany them. All the effort to keep to her studies, and keep out of too much mischief, had paid off.
She pulled her head back through the window. She leaned into the corner, looking up into her mother’s blue eyes. “Mama, Nurse Mayweather said the Summer Estate is more beautiful than the castle in Veris. Is that really true?”
“Well it’s beautiful in its own special way.” Lareina closed her eyes, a dreamy expression crossing her face.
“Nurse Mayweather said the hills are so green all the other hills are envious. She said wild flowers are everywhere, blossoming all spring and summer. She said I could never even begin to count all the different types.”
“That’s true. I spend a good portion of my time scouring the hills for plants to bring back to the healers. Many of the things growing there are very rare indeed. Would you like to help me gather plants? They’ve given me a long list of things they’d like for their storeroom.”
Ravyn frowned, picking flowers wasn’t the kind of excitement she had in mind. Instead of answering, she changed the subject, “What about the maze, Mother? Will you show me the maze?”
Lareina smiled, “I remember solving the maze for the first time, finding the fountain at its center. It’s a very difficult maze, and I can show it to you; but you’ll have to solve it for yourself.”
King Bryant smiled at Ravyn. “Maybe you can help me with matters of the court. I’m sure I can find a job for you as a scribe, or something. There are court rulings to be read, accounting papers to double check, trade agreements to work through, and I need someone to document it all.”
Ravyn’s button nose wrinkled at the thought of stuffy rooms, filled with stuffed shirts jabbering politics all day long. “Umm, writing really isn’t my best quality. I think I should be in charge of inspecting the Estate, and the surrounding countryside. I will give you a detailed report of my findings. You know, should anything be amiss.”
Suddenly a young boy burst through the crowd waving his arms wildly at the coach. The driver reigned in the horses with a frantic tug, and the coach lurched to a halt, skittering little stones across the cobbles. The boy scrambled up onto the coach’s runner, clinging to the window casing. He peered in looking for Ravyn.
“Ravyn, can’t you stay one more summer? I can’t play knights by myself. I can’t solve the castle’s mysteries alone. We still haven’t found that secret passage Nurse Mayweather hinted was in the library.” His tawny head bowed. “Please don’t go.”
Ravyn sniffed back a tear. She was sorry to leave her very best friend Blade behind. They had the most wonderful adventures sneaking about the castle.
Blade looked hopefully into Ravyn’s face, his green eyes brimming with tears. He bit his lower lip to keep them from falling freely. Ravyn brushed an errant strand of hai
r away from her watering eyes, straightened her shoulders, and lifted her chin.
“I shall miss you too. I shall sorely miss your help with all the dragons and unicorns I will be finding, but I will remember every detail of my adventures and share them with you upon my return. You do the same. We will have twice the adventures when I return.”
Her voice softened as she added, “Here, take this to remember me by when you get lonely.” She unclasped a delicate gold chain from her neck, removing her unicorn pendant. She placed the intricate carving of a proud unicorn in his trembling hands. Pure white quartz shimmered in the mid-day light. Its delicate horn was spiraled in gold, and silver traced each prancing hoof. There was no other pendant like it in all of Aigerach.
“Then you take my pendant and keep it close to your heart,” he said stifling tears, trying to emulate her poise. He placed a dragon in her hand. It was meticulously carved out of a piece of deep purple amethyst, with silvered wings and glinting diamond eyes.
Queen Lareina smiled. “We’ll be back before the beginning of harvest, Blade. We must be going, or we’ll miss the tide. Or is that what you were hoping?” she teased with a sly wink. Blade lowered his eyes and slipped back off the coach’s runner edging back into the crowd. Before the driver could order the horses to start, Ravyn wriggled out the coach’s tight window flying across the cobbles to Blade. She gave him a big bear hug, squeezing him long and hard. “I’ll miss you so much. Think of me every day, I know I’ll think of you. I’ll be back soon. I promise.” She pecked his cheek. Whirling around, she scrambled back through the tiny window in the blink of an eye.
The driver clucked to the horses, and the coach began its bumpy descent to the harbor. King Bryant grinned like a fox. “You really should try using the door next time, little bird. The way you flit through the windows is unbecoming of a princess.”
Ravyn giggled. Her father furrowed his dark brows in mock agitation. Then laughter erupted from the coach as the horses picked their way down the cobbled lane teeming with well-wishers. Ravyn beamed as the docks came into view.
Glaring down from the battlements of the castle, the Queen’s sister Zelera scowled at the coach as it disappeared into the bulging crowds. She was tired of taking the backseat to her perfect little sister. Zelera was the elder daughter of the deceased King Alric. If she had been born a son, she would be the ruler of Aigerach.
However, King Alric never had any sons, and Lareina had always been his favorite. Pretty Lareina, smart Lareina, talented Lareina. Talented in the Light Arts, yes, but she knew nothing of the power of the Dark Arts. Zelera paced like a panther.
She stopped, gripping the stony wall in her bony fingers. She tossed her dark head back, crying out with evil abandon. Today things were going to change. Like a giant spider in its web waiting for a fly, she had been biding her time patiently until events fell in place. She mastered the Dark Arts, gaining powers no one suspected right beneath their shortsighted eyes. It had taken years of quiet study and cunning to direct attention away from what she was learning. Practicing the Dark Arts carried the penalty of death on Aigerach and had for hundreds of years. That would be the first rule to change, after the fly snagged her web.
A slow lazy smile tugged at the corners of her crimson lips. She had the power to throw the royal family into a timeless void. “Bye, bye, baby sister,” she murmured to herself.
After she absorbed more power and gained more control of the Dark Arts, she would banish them for all eternity into the Darkness. Her violet eyes blazed as she savored the power she would possess. She would be the absolute ruler, not of Veris, or Aigerach, but of the entire world. No one would loft power over her ever again.
Looking out over the rooftops to the harbor, she could just make out the shapes of the happy family boarding the ship. They looked like little ants heading into their hill. Crushing that hill would be delightful. She spun on her heel, slamming into Connor, the King’s advisor. The bumbling old fool had been with the ruling family for as long as she could remember. She despised her father’s faithful old lapdog. She straightened her spine, looking down her nose at him.
“Out of my way you old fool,” she sneered, “Things are about to change around here, and if I were you, I’d disappear.” Feral teeth gleamed beneath thin blood red lips. “I can make that happen for you,” she hissed, brushing past him with a swish of her robes. He stumbled awkwardly to keep his balance, falling into the rough stones of the battlement. He watched her haughty retreat.
Connor’s chalky brows furrowed as he contemplated her words. Alarm bells rang in his mind; her anger and power soiled the air. It tasted dark and sulfurous. Tossing aside his façade of bumbling gait and frailty, he quickly retraced his steps. He entered the long dark hallway frantic to reach his chambers. He paused, slipping his hand into a chink in the masonry behind a suit of armor standing guard over a dimly lit alcove. A switch released with a light clink, and a panel of wall grumbled open behind the heavy armor revealing a secret passage leading to his study.
Frantic steps drove him up the narrow stone steps. Fingers of shivers raced up his back as he hastily took down his scrying bowl, calling upon the swirling waters to show him the royal family. He sent his aural self out over the rooftops of Veris and down to the harbor.
The ship was well underway. The sea was calm, the afternoon breeze filling its sails, driving the ship rapidly away from shore. Ravyn leaned over the prow soaking up the spray as the ship crested each trough, rapture filling her eyes. Bryant and Lareina leaned against a nearby rail laughing as Ravyn absorbed each salty blast.
Everything looked perfect, but the air vibrated with discord and a rotten taste was building in his mouth. Fear gripped Connor. He knew where the evil he had been sensing was coming from. He’d been scouring the countryside looking for a rogue sorcerer. The evil had been under his nose all along, no sorcerer, but a sorceress.
Zelera. It was obvious she’d been unhappy about losing the throne, but he never dreamed jealousy would lead her down the path of Darkness. She’d never been as adept at the Light Arts, where Lareina shined, but he thought she was content with her role in the royal court.
He began casting a protection spell, draining his stores of energy and cursing the shortness of time. He grabbed the skeins of Light that surround all life on Aigerach, weaving them into a protective net.
He closed his eyes, “Blessed Light, give me time to save them.”
Returning his gaze to the scrying bowl, he located the ship, now well out to sea. He focused on Ravyn, shooting tendrils of protective netting through the aural field, cloaking her. As the Light wrapped protectively around her tiny frame, he glanced at Lareina, reading fear in her eyes. Light and Dark power erupted along the aural field. Streams of colorful Light sparked as they crashed into black fingers of malignant Darkness. The streams of Light sputtered feebly as the Darkness smothered it, choking it. Overwhelming vile flavors filled Connor's mouth as he watched the Darkness wrap its evil talons around Bryant and Lareina and claw its way across the deck toward Ravyn. Though he was miles away from the ship, he struggled not to vomit.
Aboard the ship, Lareina gasped as the sky smoldered in a smoky black blanket, the image of Zelera’s rage filled face swimming within it. Zelera’s hatred and jealousy stabbed deeply into Lareina’s heart, burning her with its intensity. She summoned all her power, knowing it was not enough to ward off the imminent attack. She tasted the bitter anger swirling around her, clawing at her, knowing in her heart that she could not beat her sister. As waves of despair washed over her, she sensed the sweetness of the Light, directed at Ravyn. She focused all her strength on Ravyn, standing paralyzed in the bow. She formed an image in her mind of safety and security; wrapping her daughter in a cloak of invisibility.
Tendrils of Darkness wrapped tightly around Lareina and Bryant, choking off daylight, but the Darkness lashed blindly about for Ravyn. A vortex formed sucking Lareina deeper still. She thrust all the Light left within her, around her
daughter’s shivering form, blasting her away from the doomed ship.
Ravyn found herself wrapped in an iridescent globe that lifted up into the sky, zipping away from the ship. It glided with ever-increasing speed northwest, spinning and tumbling this way and that. Her eyes darted about trying to focus on any spot for more than a moment; she glimpsed her parents disappear into the inky Darkness. The Darkness wore a face belonging to her auntie. It made no sense. Tears flowed down her cheeks.
The Darkness shrieked in frustration, and tendrils of evil slashed the skies for its missing quarry. Too late, the colorful shimmering orb was miles away, and Ravyn could only see the ocean blurring beneath her. Her stomach turned somersaults as the globe swiveled and spun, searching for safety and security, following the order imbedded in that last spell. Heaviness fell on Ravyn’s eyes, and she could no longer keep them open. Colors blurred, the sweet smell of Light magic easing her fright, she drifted into dreamless slumber.
Connor collapsed against his workbench knowing Ravyn was safe, but Lareina had cloaked the girl in invisibility. He sighed; there was no way he would find her with a scrying. Her aural trail was lost to him until she came into her own power. He struggled to push himself upright, staggering to his cabinet of magical tools. Zelera would know the difference in the taste of two separate magic forces.
The King and Queen knew he was a Master of the Light. Everyone else thought he was just a doddering ancient adviser. It wouldn’t take Zelera long to conclude his talents. He hurried to gather his more unusual supplies, those rare and irreplaceable. Bending the Light about him, he draped himself in invisibility. He hastened out of his rooms, descending the narrow flight of stone steps. He needed to hide, until Ravyn’s sixteenth year, some nine years away. In his haste, he nearly ran into Blade. The boy was sitting on the cold stone steps head buried in his hands, weeping softly.