Unleashing the Shadows (Nine Kingdoms Book 1)

by Ann Bakshis

  “You’d better watch yourself,” Gregor threatens, shaking a finger at her while he continues to hold Lycus.

  Moyra ignores the threat and turns her attention to me. “A century ago, one of the then ruling king’s brothers left Geron and tried to establish his own kingdom,” she says, adjusting her head so her eyes are glued on my father. “He despised his family and felt he had just as much right to the throne as his brother. He gathered a small army and managed to carve out a piece of Geron for himself, building his own castle and villages. It didn’t flourish like Geron and struggled during its inception as it technically wasn’t one of the nine kingdoms founded by Dermont the Wise, so when my father became ill, he finally gave in to Gregor’s demands to reclaim his rightful property.” She turns to look at me. “So, you see, Kerron, I’m distantly related to David… and Gregor.”

  “Extremely distant,” my father says through clenched teeth.

  “But I’ll be damned if you’ll be raising my son without me,” she rages.

  “Then death it is,” my father says, then snaps his fingers.

  I grab a handful of her red hair, yank her head back, remove a knife from my belt, and slice her throat. While Gregor smiles and laughs with Lycus, my men enter and remove Moyra’s body, which I imagine will be buried in a pauper’s grave since my father absolutely refuses to put her in with the rest of the family. He next calls in a countess to care for Lycus for the time being since he can’t be bothered to actually raise the child himself. Within a very short amount of time the young woman becomes Gregor’s new lover, though he still slips from the castle some nights to meet up with his whores in the bathhouses.

  As Lycus grows older he spends more time with his grandfather traveling the villages, the valley, and the countryside learning the ways of being king. David would be cringing with everything his son is being taught, so in a way I’m glad he’s not alive to witness it. When Lycus turns thirteen, Gregor begins to give his grandson a little leeway in trying his hand at ruling, and it’s at this moment I fear for the kingdom. My nephew is far crueler than my father, who’s relishing his creation, but I sense something much darker lurking inside Lycus other than horrid upbringing. During one of his visits to the village, several drunken men try to overpower my nephew during a scuffle in the street because they see him as no more than a child. Gregor is back at the castle, which makes me and several of my guards the young prince’s escort.

  As I’m about to intervene, Lycus takes a knife from his waistband, stabs one of the men, and doesn’t stop until he’s dead. He then orders me to round up the others as they flee, as well as their families. I do as instructed, but I’m not prepared for the sentence Lycus orders. He makes the men who accosted him kneel on the road in front of their loved ones, calls for the executioner, and has the men beheaded right there. Women and children cry in horror at the sight, but Lycus forces them to watch as the blood of their husbands and fathers fills the streets. When I report to the king what occurred, he smiles with pleasure and remarks that Lycus will be a formidable ruler when his time comes.

  I grow cold inside knowing this is just the start of Lycus’ tyranny, but my duty is to the throne and whomever sits upon it. I swore an oath to protect it and do my king’s bidding, no matter who that might be.

  I begin to wonder what changed between David being brought up and Lycus and decide it has everything to do with the late queen and the amount of time she spent with David, and me, when we were children. I’m sure the king saw this as the reason why his eldest son turned out weaker than he wanted. I, on the other hand, was reminded constantly by Gregor where I came from and who my mother was, so the queen’s care for me didn’t have that much of an impact on my overall demeanor.

  With each passing year Lycus begins to become more unbearable and harder to control, almost as if something unnatural is eating away at his soul. My father tries to remind his grandson who’s actually in charge of Geron and the two almost come to blows several times. The hostility escalates to a point where Lycus is remanded to the castle for several years without the ability, or the right, to leave the castle grounds. He becomes withdrawn and starts spending much of his time in the library with the door always locked. Gregor is pleased with the peace that’s fallen over his kingdom and then slowly works on reintroducing Lycus to the people as the day commemorating his seventeenth birth year approaches. He takes his grandson to the bathhouses at least once a week, and both always leave with a smile on their face. The two seem to be bonding again—until the day of Lycus’ birth celebration.

  A momentous festivity is planned for the evening and only the elite houses of the kingdom are invited since the scraps of society are never permitted on the grounds, unless it’s to sleep with the king. The great hall is decorated for the occasion and filled with food, laughter, music, and dancing. Lycus spends most of the evening dancing with several different young ladies who vie for his attention while Gregor observes from his hardbacked throne. I monitor the crowd by slowly traversing the room while keeping men positioned at every entry point whether it be a door or a window. As the evening begins to wind down and the guests leave, Gregor has Lycus follow him to the far end of the castle where the library is, for a glass of brandy to top off the evening. I have two men stand outside the door while I close it as Gregor pours three snifters of the caramel-colored liquor.

  “How was your birth celebration?” Gregor asks as he takes a seat in front of the roaring fire.

  “It was almost perfect,” Lycus says as he stands by the fireplace, his fingers caressing the tools needed to stoke the flames. A strange mood looms over him causing the hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” my father asks, sounding rather cross. “Were you not satisfied with all the young women competing for your affections? The gratitude our citizens displayed tonight with their generous gifts to you? Or that you have a very special young lady waiting for you in your bedchamber?”

  “Those things were, and will be, wonderful,” Lycus says, his hand wrapping around an iron poker. “But there’s one more thing I’d like.”

  My nephew is quick on his feet and before I have time to react, he rams the poker so forcefully into his grandfather’s chest that it pierces the chair, sticking out of the back, as thick blood drips to the rug beneath. I’m in the process of removing my longsword when Lycus darts beside me, pressing a knife to my throat. The young man is cunning, fast, and since he’s a little taller than me at six-foot-two he has the advantage.

  “Don’t do anything hasty,” I say as calmly as possible.

  “Then let go of your weapon,” he hisses in my ear, standing behind me.

  I release the grip and Lycus relaxes his arm.

  “Now, Kerron, where do your loyalties lie?” Lycus asks as he comes back around into view.

  “With you of course… my king,” I reply, too terrified to relay my true concerns.

  He smiles and places the knife back into his waistband. “Good,” he says. “Clean up this mess while I go and make my acquaintance with the young woman upstairs before she changes her mind… or her father discovers she’s here without his knowledge.”

  Lycus leaves the library with a grin on his face and an unsettling sparkle in his eyes. I instruct the guards at the door to dispose of the king’s body in the family mausoleum and to remove the chair, burning it at the back of the property with the refuse. I order every Vagter not to speak of anything that occurred tonight, reminding them that telling what happened would mean an immediate death sentence not only to them, but to their families as well.

  Once the castle is locked down for the night, I retire to my room and contemplate what I’ll need to do to ensure my own survival. My initial instinct is to kill my nephew, but since no one in the entire kingdom knows I’m an heir to the throne such an act might cause a rebellion and there’d be no one to stop it. I previously wanted such an event to occur, but Reynes can’t afford to have another kingdom brought
down by anarchy, so I’ll have to make sure that I don’t offend Lycus in any way and make myself indispensable to him. Of course, Lycus has no idea who I really am to him and if he should ever discover it, my life will undoubtedly end.

  The following morning, he orders me to meet him in the library. Spread across the massive desk is a detailed map of Reynes as well as the documented kingdoms that call this realm home. I’m curious as to why he has it out and how he found it since Gregor had it hidden in a secret cabinet behind one of the bookshelves when he realized how dangerous Lycus was becoming before he was exiled to the castle for those few years. Perhaps he found it during one of the times he was locked in here, as he did that often.

  “Have a seat, Kerron,” he says, gesturing to the chair opposite him. “Have you ever ventured out of Geron?”

  “Only on a couple of occasions, Your Majesty,” I reply calmly, though my nerves begin to tremble.

  “I find Reynes to be a fascinating place,” he says, his eyes glued to the old, crinkly parchment that covers the entire desk, the edges hanging slightly off its sides. “So many people and creatures that I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting, roaming just outside our borders.”

  I remain silent, trying to understand what Lycus could possibly be thinking given his demented state of mind.

  “The emblems depicted next to each kingdom’s name represent a creature or being that resides there, except for ours,” he says, tapping the map where Geron is located. “We’re home to the griffins, but I’ve never come across one. Do you know why?”

  “They went extinct over a century ago,” I reply. “Too many kings hunted them or tried to control them, which led to their demise. Griffins were powerful creatures that should’ve been revered, not caged or mounted on a wall. Like the one down the hall in the trophy room.”

  Lycus reaches under his collar and pulls out a long silver chain with a medallion at the bottom of it. I’ve seen it before around David’s neck, so I assume Lycus must have inherited it after his father died.

  “I found this among my mother’s possessions when I was younger,” Lycus says, rubbing the shiny metal between his fingers. “It belonged to my father, or so Gregor told me when he discovered me wearing it one day. It’s the mark of a king, or queen, and each kingdom has two of them per the literature I read years ago. Do you know the history behind them?”

  “No, Your Majesty, I don’t.”

  Lycus takes a seat before continuing. “When Reynes was first conquered by Dermont the Wise and the nine kingdoms were established, each were given a set of medallions with their own emblem etched inside. One went to the king and the other to the queen. Per tradition they would be passed down to their first-born child, who would put one around their neck and keep the other for when they wed. I’ve only been able to locate this one,” he says, holding the chain out so the medallion twirls in front of him. “Where do you suppose the second one could be?”

  “I’m not sure, as I only saw one during my entire employment,” I reply.

  “And who wore it?”

  “Your father. He gave it to your mother on their wedding day.”

  “The second one could be buried in the mausoleum with my father’s remains? Or even perhaps with my grandmother’s, since Gregor didn’t have it?”

  “I guess anything is possible, but what’s the importance of locating the other medallion? Do you intend on bestowing it upon another?”

  “No, of course not,” Lycus says, laughing. “I don’t intend to get married until it becomes absolutely necessary. I prefer to keep my options open with as many women as possible, just like my grandfather. It makes life more enjoyable that way. No, the reason I need the second medallion is to open the gate to the lost kingdom, which is said to reside on the other side of the Kunlun Mountains.”

  “The what?” I ask, never having heard such a thing before in my life.

  Lycus stands, goes over to one of the bookcases, and looks over the spines of several books before finding one and removing it. “This, Kerron, houses everything anyone has wanted to know about Reynes and its kingdoms,” he says, handing the thick, heavy book to me. “It details how each kingdom was established, their first rulers, the wars that were fought, the demise of the Kingdom of Drouviel a century ago, and a mysterious world no one’s been able to reach since the beginning of time itself. According to the book, one set of the medallions from all nine kingdoms opens the gate. And since I don’t intend on using mine, I need to locate the other.”

  I flip through the book while Lycus returns to his seat, carefully skimming the colorful pages that depict what each medallion looks like, as well as what kingdom they belong to, in great detail.

  “Are you proposing to search for this so-called forgotten kingdom?” I ask, closing the book.

  “Yes,” he answers.

  “But you’ll need an entire set of medallions and there’s no way any of the current kings and queens will relinquish them to you willingly. Also, the ones for Drouviel will be long gone, since that kingdom is in ruins.”

  “I know, which is why I intend on taking them by any means necessary, even if it includes destroying the rulers and their kingdoms in the process. As for Drouviel, I plan on searching every inch of that land, including the catacombs. I doubt anyone has absconded with the medallions because they would’ve been buried with the royal family when they were slain.”

  “How do you know that?” I ask, surprised.

  “Because one of my ancestors made a notation on the last page that tells the history of Drouviel, stating that he and several of the other kings took great care in laying the slain family to a proper rest,” he replies. “And it’s tradition for the medallions to be entombed with the dead if there’s no one left to succeed them, which is what would’ve happened in this case.”

  “What would be the benefit to any of this?” I ask. Given the cracked spine and torn pages, obviously nobody else in our family felt this was important, since the book looks to have been heavily read.

  “To enhance my power,” he answers, but I feel he’s not implying his rule over the kingdom. “Not only should Reynes belong to the Kingdom of Geron, so should anything associated or attached to it.” He adds as if trying to hide a mistake in his speaking.

  “But you’re already ruling at an exceptionally young age, Your Majesty. Surely there are other things you might find more interesting and worthwhile for the time being. Perhaps you should wait until you’re older to go after such a treasure.”

  “Kerron, I won’t be satisfied until I rule the world,” he says, putting his legs on top of the desk as he pushes the map aside with his boot. “If there’s anything my grandfather taught me, it was never to be overlooked. I intend on stamping my name across every map and history book, and that can only happen if I control everything and everyone. Finding this lost kingdom will help me accomplish that, and show all the rulers in Reynes that I’m a force to be reckoned with should they decide to invade.”

  “Which kingdom did you want to attempt to tackle first?”

  “I think we should go to the Kingdom of Pelheim first,” Lycus says as he pushes an errant strand of his fiery red hair out of his face. “They’re the closest to us and the smallest, so it shouldn’t be too difficult.”

  “King Job is a very formidable opponent,” I say. “He won’t give up easily.”

  “He may have been once, but given the king is now dying it’ll be quite simple.”

  “Where’d you hear that?” I ask, intrigued by the news.

  “Gregor received a message from one of his spies the other day. I read it while you were disposing of his body,” Lycus says with no emotion. “There’s only one heir to the throne and he’s to take power at the end of the month, but if we seize control before then it won’t be an issue.”

  “How do you plan on doing that?”

  “We murder the prince,” he replies, smiling. “The king will be too distraught to see us coming. We’ll be able to walk right in and
assume power. But before we do that, I need you to find the second Geron medallion.”

  “I’ll assign a few of my men to the task.”

  “No, Kerron. I want you to do it… only you, is that clear?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty. I’ll start today.”

  Lycus returns to his map, which indicates I’m dismissed. I first head to my bedchamber at the far end of the castle as I refuse to go inside the dusty mausoleum in my uniform. I don simple brown pants and tan shirt before retreating to the back of the property where the monumental structure resides, constantly guarded by two Vagter. They salute me, then before I enter, they step inside to drop the chandeliers that hang from the ceiling and light the candles so I can see my way inside. After the chandeliers are secured back into their positions, the guards step out and I’m able to go inside.

  The entire building is constructed from granite, wood, and stained glass. The wooden doors open with a simple push and my footsteps echo around the crypts that are partially buried into the floor and fill the immense space. Gregor’s body is the last one that’ll ever be buried here, unless Lycus decides to remove his ancestors so he can continue with the tradition of a proper royal burial. Or, he’s going to have to build a new mausoleum, and I highly doubt he’d ever consider that.

  The first two rows are home to the kings and queens, consisting of ten in total with a combined reign of around three hundred years. The next dozen rows are dedicated to the spouses, and since several had multiple marriages this space is quite cramped—but not all husbands and wives wind up here. Moyra is a good example of that, though there have been plenty of others before her who were relegated to the paupers’ field at the end of the village.

  I slowly wander the rows, reading the gold plates that adorn the side of each crypt, looking for David’s mother since these aren’t in any particular order, unlike the previous rows. It takes me several minutes to locate her, then I have to unscrew each bolt holding the lid in place before I’m able to slide it so I can see inside. I hold my breath so I don’t inadvertently inhale the vile stench I know will escape the confines. A slight hiss exits the coffin and I’m greeted by delicate bones covered in a dark green embroidered gown. David insisted she be buried in it as it was her favorite, not that the king cared one way or the other. I carefully feel around for the medallion, but the only jewelry I locate is her wedding ring and a string of pearls. I seal the woman back into her crypt and secure the bolts into place before I move on to the last section where all the children have been buried, and there’s too many to count.