A Kingdom Lost

by Barbara Ann Wright

  Synopsis

  Princess Katya Nar Umbriel has little left to lose. Her uncle Roland took her home, scattered her family, and forced her to abandon Starbride, her dearest love. Slim hopes and righteous anger carry Katya into Starbride's homeland to raise an army and take back all that was stolen from her.

  Starbride never dreamed she'd lead a pack of foreign rebels against a Fiendish usurper. She holds the capital city out of love, denying any rumor of Katya's death. As the two strive toward each other, Roland dogs their every step, loosing Fiend-filled corpses on Katya's army and hypnotizing the capital's citizens into hunting Starbride down. If they ever meet again, it'll be over his dead body.

  A Kingdom Lost

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  A Kingdom Lost

  © 2014 By Barbara Ann Wright. All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-62639-098-0

  This Electronic Book is published by

  Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 249

  Valley Falls, New York 12185

  First Edition: April 2014

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Credits

  Editor: Cindy Cresap

  Production Design: Susan Ramundo

  Cover Design By Sheri (GraphicArtist2020@hotmail.com)

  By the Author

  The Pyramid Waltz

  For Want of a Fiend

  A Kingdom Lost

  Acknowledgments

  Ross and Mom, all books are secretly dedicated to you. Thanks to Writer’s Ink for giving me a great writing start. Matt Borgard, Jim Reader, and Deb de Freitas, thanks for being my staunch readers. Also, Pattie Lawler, there will always be feelings at you.

  Thanks to Radclyffe and Bold Strokes for their faith, thanks to Cindy Cresap and Stacia Seaman for their wonderful editing work, and thanks to Sheri for her covers. Also, to the person who does my interior layout, you are wondrous. I don’t mean to brag, but my books look FANTASTIC.

  A last thank you again to my very soft pets. I snuggle you, and I am calm.

  Dedication

  For George

  Chapter One

  Katya

  The deck swayed under Katya’s feet, and she fought not to void everything she’d ever eaten. Captain Penner had assured her that she’d get her sea legs any day now. While she hung over the railing, Katya declared Captain Penner a cheat and a liar, unworthy of even charitable thoughts.

  Up in the crow’s nest, someone called, “Sails!”

  Katya squinted into the sun. The crow’s nest was one part of the ship she could put a name to; the rest was a jumble of decks and sails and rigging.

  “What colors?” the first mate cried.

  “None, sir!”

  “Combat stations, Mister Black.” Captain Penner raised a spyglass to her eye as the first mate roared her orders to all hands. She never had to do the shouting.

  Katya wiped her mouth. They’d had days of clear sailing with only passing merchant ships to mark their way down the coast. Fah and Fay had cursed them with bad luck at last: pirates.

  Brutal leaned against the rail at Katya’s side. “Wouldn’t it be cleverer to fly merchant colors and surprise their quarry at the last minute?”

  Katya didn’t answer, both because she feared dry heaving again and because his red robe made her queasier. And she knew it was petty, but she still hadn’t forgiven him for choosing her rather than staying behind to protect Starbride in Marienne.

  Katya’s chest ached, and for a moment, she could smell the rosewater Starbride had added to their last bath together. She blinked away threatening tears and took a deep breath of the briny ocean air.

  “They fly no colors in order to strike fear in the hearts of their prey, Brother Brutal,” Castelle said from behind them. Katya and Castelle hadn’t been lovers in nearly three years, but her voice could still pluck Katya’s spine. “They hope to drive the pursued into doing something stupid.” Her light touch grazed Katya’s shoulder. “Are you all right…Highness?”

  Katya groaned for her heaving stomach and the title. Since she’d made the decision to accompany her parents into exile, Katya and Castelle had engaged in several fights strong enough to blow the hatches off the ship. Castelle had yelled at Katya to stop torturing herself, that Starbride would be fine without her.

  Katya had told her to piss off. When Castelle wouldn’t let it go, Katya had pulled rank, turning her shouts into orders. No more nicknames, then; she had gone from Katya to Princess Katyarianna, or just Highness if Castelle wasn’t feeling particularly prickly. Maybe Katya’s nausea tweaked her sympathy.

  Castelle’s long curly black hair fluttered in the wind, and she brushed it behind her with delicate fingers. Her athletic frame bobbed with the motion of the ship. Her turquoise eyes fixed on Katya. The tattoo of a rose vine curling around her right eye wrinkled as she frowned. “Are you going to be all right, or should I worry about my boots?”

  Any good feelings Katya had about her blew away. “I’m fine.” She stalked past. Brutal’s large, well-muscled body shielded her from the sun as he followed.

  Katya crossed to the foredeck, glad she’d convinced Captain Penner not to fly the royal colors of Farraday. Even though the Spirits Endeavor carried Farraday’s royalty, they didn’t want to announce it.

  Well, the ship carried all the royalty except the one who’d run off in a jealous fit and those driven mad by Fiends. If the pirates managed to take a few royal prisoners, Katya wondered if Roland would pay to get them back. Maybe he’d even paid the pirates to look for them. More Fiends at his fingertips would mean more power. Unless he got hold of Katya. Without her Fiend, she was useless to him, just an obstacle to be rid of.

  Katya thought she might welcome death then, as long as it happened on dry land. “Can we outrun them, Captain Penner?”

  The captain shut her spyglass with a snap and shoved it in the pocket of her heavy black coat. She tossed her gray braid over one shoulder and turned her hard, wrinkled face to Katya. “Doubtful, Highness. See how she skims over the water? She’s going light.”

  “Turn and fight, then?”

  Captain Penner frowned as if she’d just eaten all the sour fruit in the hold. If they turned, the Spirits Endeavor could fire the ballista mounted at her bow. The ship had smaller weapons at the sides and the back, but the giant spear on the front could do the most damage, especially with the long length of chain that ran from it. Trying to flee from the faster pirates would leave them at the mercy of the pirates’ forward weapon.

  “They’ll want to close,” Captain Penner said, “and fight hand to hand.”

  Brutal cracked his knuckles. “Good.”

  Captain Penner glanced at Katya. “I’m thinking of our…passengers.”

  Katya slid her rapier out of the scabbard. “Those that need to stay below will stay below.”

  “Begging your pardon, Highness,” Captain Penner said, “but these won’t be arming dummies we’re fighting.”

  Katya resisted the urge to push her overboard. “I’d better go get my sharp sword, then.” She turned away as the ship began to slow and angle toward the enemy.

  “Let’s stay away from the railing,” Brutal said, “and
hang on to something until our ship closes with theirs.” He drew his large mace.

  “I’ll warn those below.” Castelle hurried down to tell Katya’s family and the cadre of nobles and servants that had fled Marienne with them.

  Katya wasn’t surprised when Lord Vincent returned with Castelle, both with weapons drawn. As the champion of Farraday, Vincent wouldn’t be left out of a fight that might involve his young charges. The pirates wouldn’t know what hit them.

  “Highness,” Vincent said. He bowed as he always did when he saw her, even though they’d been cooped up together for weeks. And unlike most of them, his coat was immaculate, immune to dirt somehow. Katya bet he kept the buttons done up to his chin even in high summer.

  He gripped his slender longsword and watched the closing pirates calmly. When the wind ruffled his silver hair, he didn’t bother to smooth it, and not a worry line crossed his young face. Katya noted his tightened shoulders, though, and the slight bend in his knees. He was a coiled serpent waiting to strike.

  The pirate ship pulled close enough for Katya to see the faces of those swarming her decks. They howled like bloodthirsty beasts as they waved swords and axes.

  “Amateurs,” Brutal said.

  Katya smiled. After fighting Fiends, they weren’t that impressive.

  The pirates fired their ballista, ripping a hole in one of the Spirits Endeavor’s sails. Katya ducked as bits of falling rope pelted her.

  “Fire!” Captain Penner called, and her ballista bolt thudded into the pirates’ hull with its long chain clanking behind it. Katya staggered as the two ships dragged toward each other, each listing sharply, wood groaning and shrieking. The pirates sent grappling hooks whistling through the air to crack into Penner’s ship.

  “Repel boarders!” the first mate cried

  The sailors of the Spirits Endeavor drew axes, boathooks, and cutlasses. This wasn’t the average merchant ship, but one that worked specifically for the crown, and Katya’s father hated having his cargo stolen.

  The ships banged together in a deafening crack. Katya rushed forward, eyes on a pirate with a thick black mustache. Her seasickness had fled. Combat seemed just the remedy she was looking for. Now all she had to do was find people to fight all the way to their destination. The mustachioed man swung as if hacking a tree. Katya leaned away from the blow, dipped, and stabbed him in the heart.

  None of the pirates proved challenging. Only one gave her pause, clumsily blocking her first few blows, but she tricked him with a feint to the side before she stabbed him. She’d been fighting traitors to the crown since she was sixteen, nearly four years in the past, and they tended to fight a lot harder than thieves.

  Castelle and Brutal had the same luck; Brutal sported a disappointed frown. Through a break in the fighting, Katya had to stop and watch Vincent work.

  No movement wasted, no stutter of indecision; he fought like the wind in human shape. He slashed a pirate across the midsection, sidestepped the falling body, spun, slashed another across the throat, dropped to one knee to dodge another attack, stabbed his attacker in the belly, rolled, took another in the groin, and then stood again. He never stopped to watch his opponents fall but killed with the surety that his strikes were true.

  Katya blocked a pirate who caught her with her feet oddly placed, parried a few strikes, and waited for an opening. Before she could thrust, the pirate fell backward, the back of his neck spraying blood. Vincent had sliced him open, tugged at him so he wouldn’t fall on Katya, and then moved on, all before she could get her feet back under her.

  “Spirits above!” Brutal said. “Maybe we should have stayed below with the kids!”

  As she rushed to help the sailors, Katya called, “I want to see if he kept his coat clean through that!”

  The pirates surrendered within moments. Katya wondered how many had seen Vincent fight and just thrown down their swords. The sailors made them kneel at Captain Penner’s feet. As Katya’s father had said before, this was Penner’s command. Unless she did something that put them all in danger, they would let her do as she would on her own ship. Da trusted her, so Katya supposed she’d have to do the same.

  Captain Penner gave the pirates a stony glance. “Kill them.” She turned her back on the pirates’ cries of protest.

  Katya nodded even as she grimaced. They couldn’t hold prisoners. The ship was full, and they couldn’t risk bringing the pirates to shore for trial and have them blabbing to everyone about the royal family aboard the Spirits Endeavor.

  Katya walked with Captain Penner as the sailors put the pirates to the sword. “What will you do with their ship?” Katya asked.

  “Strip it and sink it. I’m not leaving it for some other damned pirate to find.” She gave Katya an appraising glance. “You did well. Better than I thought.” She stared at Vincent as if he was something otherworldly. “Especially you.”

  He nodded, all the consideration she’d get as a ship’s captain speaking to a lord. She shrugged and went about her business. Vincent barely had any blood on him, the bastard.

  Katya went down the ladder and to the captain’s old quarters, her family’s quarters now. “It’s me, Da,” she said as she knocked.

  The tumblers of the lock clicked, and Ma opened the door. The neck of her coat was open, the same as Da’s. Even though it was a grim sight, Katya had to smile. If the pirates had made it into the ship, they would have broken down this door to find that Katya’s parents had removed their pyramid necklaces. Add to that a bit of rage, and their Fiends would have slaughtered everyone on board.

  Better that than capture. Katya’s young niece and nephew crawled out from under the bed and cuddled close to their grandparents.

  Katya leaned against the wall. “They’re all dead.” She didn’t bother to check her language in front of the children. Though only three and four, they’d seen enough that a mere word wouldn’t faze them. “Lord Vincent…” She shook her head. “I haven’t seen him fight since the champion tournament. He’s like a winter storm.”

  Da smiled wearily. As impressive as Vincent was, none of them could get excited about much. It had been a hard couple of weeks. Katya realized with a start that her seasickness hadn’t returned. Captain Penner had been right.

  As if a dam had broken, thoughts of Starbride rushed to fill the void in Katya’s mind that had been preoccupied by her roiling stomach. Left somewhere in Marienne when Katya and her family fled, she could have died, or worse, been captured by Roland. Spirits only knew what he would do to someone with her burgeoning pyradisté power. He couldn’t take over her mind—her ability prevented that—but he could find some way to use her.

  No, she wouldn’t let herself be used. She’d prove too big a liability, and he’d kill her.

  Worse still, a voice inside her said, he’d convince her that he held Katya prisoner. If Starbride didn’t do as he wished, he’d promise untold tortures. And Starbride would do anything to keep her alive, Katya was sure of it. Starbride would become something she hated just so a madman wouldn’t tear her lover limb from limb.

  Da patted Katya’s shoulder, and she jumped. His smile was soft, sad, and had a twinge of guilt Katya wasn’t used to. “It’s all right, my girl.”

  She nodded, but she wanted to scream, “No, it isn’t!” But he had to know that. He’d asked her to leave Starbride behind, to help him raise an army and take the throne back from his murderous brother.

  “Get some rest,” Ma said as Katya left them.

  But what rest was there for her when Starbride haunted her dreams?

  Chapter Two

  Starbride

  Pennynail waved Starbride forward. Even in the meager light from the streetlamps, she could make out the white of his laughing Jack mask. She followed him to the end of the alley and glanced into the street beyond. No one traveled the city night with them, no corpses that Roland had imbued with Fiends, and no slaves he’d subjugated with a pyramid.

  Starbride gestured to Lord Hugo. He hurried forward
on the balls of his feet, his plain brown coat and cap blending with the shadows. When he reached her side, he waved the last of their party forward: Master Bernard, one of the few pyradistés to escape after Roland had sacked the Pyradisté Academy. His left arm, broken some months ago, was bound close to his body, and he’d shaved his trademark red beard. They all had to be more careful. Starbride and Dawnmother always wore their long hair braided, and they dressed in hoods and cloaks to hide their Allusian features. Lucky for them, the cold wind of fall made it easy to wear bulky disguises. Even luckier, Starbride had convinced her maid to stay behind in their underground sanctuary that night. They needed stealth, and fewer people was the only way to make that happen.

  Pennynail worked his way down the street, keeping to the shadows. Starbride waited. The balls of her feet ached, and she realized she was standing on tiptoe. She forced herself to relax. They’d heard of a group of pyradistés hiding near one of the warehouses, and Starbride couldn’t bring them into her fold if she got a cramp and had to be left behind.

  Still, she wished for more speed. If she’d heard about a few hiding pyradistés, Roland certainly would have too. So far, he’d left no pyradistés alive but himself, not trusting loyalty that had to be bought instead of forced. Rumor had it that he never believed anyone who claimed to be on his side unless they had a personal stake in helping him succeed, like his odious henchman Darren. Roland preferred to guarantee loyalty by bending minds to his will with his considerable power.

  Pennynail waved them forward, and they repeated the same pattern, stop and go, stop and go. When they neared the warehouse district, Pennynail froze ahead of them. Starbride waited for whatever it was that had spooked him to move on. When she felt a wave of cold harsher than any wind, she knew he hadn’t been scared by anyone or anything ordinary.