by K. C. May
“I was wrong anent him,” Arc said. “I should have abought.”
Jora gave him a dim smile. “We say apologize not abye. And you may yet get a chance.”
“If you make him an ally,” Retar said. “That’s what he wanted.”
Perhaps she would someday.
“What’s happening in there?” someone outside the door asked.
“I should tell them,” Jora said, climbing to her feet. She reached out toward the stacked chairs, and Retar hopped off to perch on a wooden leg.
Arc barred the door with one massive arm. “Nay, portwatcher. ’Tis dangerous for thee. The princess shall address them.”
“Yes,” Rivva said, climbing to her feet. “I’ll do it. They don’t have orders to kill me.” She wiped her face and then wiped her palms on her trousers. With a deep breath, she nodded. Ludo opened the door to the nave, and she stepped into the doorway.
The men outside, some forty or fifty enforcers and Legion soldiers along with a pair of adepts, quieted to hear the news she bore. Jora took the opportunity to Observe one of them, to get a better view of what was happening out there. She looked around the nave and found Finn sitting in the pews near the back with two men guarding him. He appeared none the worse.
“My father,” Rivva said, “His Majesty King Yaphet, and I have agreed to a strategy proposed by Jora the Gatekeeper for ending the war.” The room erupted in cheers, but Rivva waved her hands to quiet them down. “Dominee Ibsa opposed both the strategy and the decision to implement it. In an effort to manipulate the king into changing his decision, she seized the justice captain’s crossbow and attempted to slay the Gatekeeper.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “King Yaphet tried to push Jora out of the bolt’s path and was accidentally shot instead.” Her statement elicited a number of gasps and murmurs.
“Is he dead?” someone asked.
“Thanks to the Gatekeeper, he’s safe from his wounds while we wait for the medic to arrive. The dominee is in custody and will be tried…” She scrunched her brow and peered into the distance. “Is that the medic?”
“Yes,” a woman’s voice called from the back of the nave. “I’m the surgeon.” Jora recognized Naruud, the physician from the Justice Bureau, rushing up the carpeted aisle.
“Stand aside,” Rivva said. “Let her pass. I will notify you of the king’s condition the moment we know more.”
Jora closed the Mindstream and waved to the others to step away from the door. Once the surgeon entered the hallway, Rivva shut the door to the nave.
Naruud entered the room, clutching a black leather satchel. She looked warily at the statues of Milad and King Yaphet, but when her gaze fell upon Po Teng, standing quietly behind Jora, she froze in fear.
“He won’t hurt you,” Jora said, beckoning her with an outstretched hand. “He’s my ally.”
“What’s going on here?”
“The king needeth tending,” Arc said, lifting his chin toward King Yaphet.
The white statue lay flat on its back, its eyes closed and an oddly peaceful expression on its face.
Naruud made her way past the alabaster form of Milad and knelt beside the statue of the king. “How am I supposed to treat him?”
“I’ll release him from stone when you’re ready,” Jora said. She and Rivva gave her a summary of what had transpired and the attempt to cauterize the wound.
“I see.” Naruud opened her bag, and withdrew bandages, a spool of thick thread, and a needle. “Would someone bring clean water?”
“I will find it,” Arc said.
Naruud threaded the needle, then laid out a scalpel and a small pair of scissors. Next, she examined the stone wound and the bolt they pulled from the king’s chest while she wanted for Arc to return. After a few minutes, he arrived with a basin of water, carrying it carefully to avoid spilling, and set it beside her. “I need one of you to stand by with these cloths, ready to blot up blood.”
“I will,” Jora said, taking the stack of cloth. She set it on the king’s hip.
Naruud glanced at Jora’s burned arms but made no mention of the injury. After tucking her blond hair behind one ear, she said, “All right. I’m ready.”
Jora commanded Po Teng to release the king from his statue form.
Naruud immediately began wiping the wound clean, but her fingers halted and her brow creased. She pulled the bandages away, then pressed two fingers to the side of the king’s neck.
The surgeon shook her head. “I’m sorry. We’re too late. He has already expired.”
Rivva lay her head upon the dead king’s chest and sobbed.
Jora’s heart ached and her eyes burned, partly because she knew the princess’s pain, and partly because she could do nothing to ease it. If anyone understood the agony and grief of losing her loved ones to a murderer, it was Jora. She looked over at the sleeping dominee, her heart filled with loathing.
What now? she wondered. The king was dead. Everything had fallen apart. No, she thought. Not quite. Princess Rivva would take his place on the throne, and she’d already voiced her agreement with their plan. It would work out. They would end the hundred-year war.
“Jora, I can’t do anything for the king,” Naruud said, “but I can help you. Your arms–”
Rivva gasped and slapped a hand over her mouth. She was staring at the king, his silver wrist cuff in her hand.
But it wasn’t the king anymore. The hair was grayer and thinner, the face thinner, the nose smaller and the eyes farther apart. It was a different man.
“What in Aerta?” Jora asked. Statuing him could not have changed who he was.
“Who is that?” Rivva climbed to her feet and took two steps back away from the false king.
Jora studied the king’s changed face, struggling to understand. “I hoped the statue would keep him alive until the medic got here, but this… This isn’t right.”
“What have you done to him?” Rivva asked, turning, her tone accusatory.
“Jora did nothing,” Arc said. “She froze him in stone. I have been frozen thus with no ill effects. Jora is not to blame for this.”
Everyone looked at each other in stunned silence, each as confused as the next.
“May I see that?” Jora took the cuff from Rivva and examined it. The symbols on its outer surface were as clear and black as those on Rivva’s. She put it onto her left wrist and slid it up her forearm, where it fit more snugly—and stopped, staring at her hand, now larger, hairier, and covered with wrinkles and freckles.
“Retar’s bloody fists!” Rivva gaped at Jora with wide eyes, as did Arc, Ludo, and Naruud.
Jora touched her face and felt the coarse whiskers, the regal nose, the hair atop her head. “Challenger,” she said, her voice the deep timbre of a man’s. The king’s voice. She ripped the cuff from her arm as if it were a spider and flung it away. It skittered across the floor and came to a stop at Arc’s feet. He reached down and picked it up.
“How could his cuff do that to you?” Rivva asked.
Jora felt her face again, smooth and soft. Big nose. No hair. No whiskers. A shudder rippled through her body.
“Another inscription is here, on the inside,” Arc said, showing the cuff to Ludo.
“Let me see.” Rivva removed her own wrist cuff and compared the inside to that of the king’s. “Mine has no inscription inside.”
“A scribe added that inscription to put an imposter on the throne,” Jora said, though she was sure everyone else was thinking the same thing.
“Dost thou—you know a scribe?”
Jora pointed at Dominee Ibsa. “Her.” That was the leverage she’d had over the king—the knowledge of his true identity, but she couldn’t have revealed his secret without also implicating herself.
“If he wasn’t the king,” Rivva whispered, “then I am heiress to nothing but a web of lies.”
“In the absence of a clear line o’succession,” Arc said, “the rule o’Serocia falls to the highest member o’the Iskori Temple.”
“The dominee,” Rivva said with a groan.
“Nay,” Arc said, turning his gaze to Jora. “That person is nie the dominee but the portwatcher.”
She stiffened in stunned surprise. The red robe, next in the rainbow after the dominee’s orange. No. This can’t be.
Rivva’s mouth dropped open, but she was too stunned to speak.
“No,” Jora said. “I cannot. This is wrong. Rivva is the princess. Everyone knows that. Her child will succeed her. If I go out there…” Jora pointed toward the nave where all the soldiers waited. “…and announce myself as the new queen, they’ll name me usurper and slay me.”
“Then his true identity matters nie,” Arc said gently. “He was King Yaphet. ’Tis all anyone needs to know. And this secret moste be kept between the five of us.” He turned his gaze to Naruud. “I would know whether you stand wyth Queen Rivva.”
Naruud blinked up at him. “M-my loyalty has always b-been to the royal family. It always will.”
The gray parrot partly unfolded his wings as if he would take flight, but he didn’t. He watched the dominee with a lowered head and fluffed feathers. “She’s waking.”
Rivva fell to her knees beside the false king and slid the wrist cuff onto his arm. His appearance changed back to that of the man they knew as King Yaphet.
“What is the meaning of this?” the dominee said, brushing her hair from her face as she sat up. Ludo took her by the arm and helped her stand, not in a kind, gentlemanly way, but in the way an enforcer did a prisoner.
Retar watched the dominee warily. Jora saw apprehension in those golden, parrot eyes. Why was the god afraid of her?
Dominee Ibsa’s gaze shifted to the dead king, lying pale and bloody on the floor. “He’s dead?” Her eyes narrowed at Jora. “You’ll pay for this. Everyone saw what happened. Your trickery cost the king his life.”
“No,” Rivva said. “You killed him. We all saw it.”
Alarm lit Dominee Ibsa’s face, and she opened her mouth to speak.
“It might’ve been an accident,” Rivva said quickly, her hands out in a calming gesture. She glanced at Jora. “Perhaps you didn’t mean to do it.” There was something meaningful in that glance, something that begged Jora to trust her.
“I meant only to protect him–”
“Swear fealty to Queen Rivva now,” Jora said, “and we’ll report the king’s death as a tragic accident.”
Dominee Ibsa looked around the room, her gaze flitting from the dead king to the statued justice captain, to the surgeon looking bewildered and afraid, to the two blood-drenched Colossus warriors standing stoically, and finally to the princess and the Gatekeeper, both expectant. Everyone who might have been her ally was either dead or unable to witness the scene.
“Refuse,” Rivva said in a low voice, “and I’ll remove the king’s barring cuff for all to see. As the only scribe among the cabinet ministers, you’ll have to answer for any irregularities that might be discovered.”
Ibsa struggled against Ludo’s firm grasp. “Unhand me, brute. I answer to Queen Rivva.”
Ludo let her go with a wink at Jora. “Hail to the queen,” he said, kneeling in front of Rivva.
Beside him, Arc took a knee too, his sea-green eyes gleaming and a smile playing on his lips. “Hail to Queen Rivva.”
The End.
Thank you for reading Call of the Colossus. Subscribe to my newsletter to find out about the next book in the series and receive a free novelette or short story that’s not available for sale!
Just a little note from the author
Thanks so much for reading Call of the Colossus. I hope you’ve found a few hours of enjoyment within these pages or pixels.
With this book, I wanted to create not only a magic that was unique and delivered in an unusual way (through a dolphin!), but I wanted a character who starts as a gentle, humble person who, through necessity and adversity, becomes a force to be reckoned with.
Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks for reading this book. As an independent author, I don’t have a team of publicists and marketing specialists to spread the word about this book. I’m just a writer sitting at my keyboard searching for readers like you. If you enjoyed the story, please recommend it to a friend! If you’re so inclined, a review or rating on the ebook site of your choice would also be greatly appreciated.
If you’d like to contact me, visit my web site at http://www.kcmay.com or email me at [email protected] — I welcome your emailed comments! I’m also on Facebook at www.facebook.com/kcmaybooks.
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Acknowledgements
As with every book I write, I rely heavily on others to help me get facts straight, get the story elements aligned, and get the words right.
Again, I’d like to thank William Ast, who spent quite a bit of his life as a dolphin trainer. Will’s input during the research phase was invaluable, as he helped me gain a better understanding of dolphin vocalizations and behaviors, especially when interacting with humans. I very much appreciated his time and expertise.
I also owe a huge thank you to fellow author India Drummond, whose opinions on story structure, plotting, and characterization I value highly. As a beta reader, she helped me see where things needed attention and where the story was working.
And of course, thanks to my editor, Carol Scarr, whose input has been invaluable.
Books by K.C. May
The Kinshield Saga
The Kinshield Legacy
The Wayfarer King
Well of the Damned
Kinshield’s Redemption
Legends of Thendylath
Sole Sacrifice
The Star Fire Gem
The Mindstream Chronicles
Song of the Sea Spirit
Call of the Colossus
Dragons of Kudare
With India Drummond
The Lies Dragons Tell
Stand-alone novels
Inhuman Salvation
Writing as Alane Hudson
Body Double
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Just a little note from the author
Books by K.C. May