The Sorceress of Aspenwood Trilogy Pack

by Sam Ferguson

  Feberik then turned back around to face the first guard, who was sliding up the door as his legs pushed him back upright.

  “You can’t go in,” the guard said dopily, the strength gone from his voice.

  Feberik tossed the spear aside and launched a massive front kick that connected with the guard’s chest and blasted him through the front door.

  He could hear people screaming and shouting as he entered the manor. His boots thumped heavily upon the marble floor as his anger propelled him down the short hall to the left and into the parlor.

  Most of the people inside the room cowered against the walls. The women screamed and shouted at him, but Feberik locked his eyes on Lord Caspen and moved steadily toward him.

  A large man stepped in front of Feberik and swung his fist.

  Feberik blocked it, snaked his hand around the back of the attacker’s neck, and then pulled in as he gave the man a heavy head-butt that dropped him to the floor.

  A second man drew a dirk and rushed forward, screaming and shouting obscenities.

  Feberik grabbed him and tossed him out through a closed window like a rag doll.

  No one else dared move.

  Lord Caspen cowered in the corner near the hearth, sitting upon a cushy chair with a woman in a green dress sitting in his lap. The woman was obviously too frozen with fear to think of moving. Her lower lip quivered and the glass in her hand trembled violently as she looked up with wide, brown eyes.

  Feberik reached down and grabbed her by the wrist, yanking her up before shoving her away.

  “Everyone out,” Feberik ordered. “Party’s over.”

  No one argued with him. The guests all scrambled out of the parlor and ran down the hallway, some of the more drunken guests tripping and falling in the hallway as they screamed and shouted from all the excitement.

  “Now, Feberik, don’t do anything stupid,” Lord Caspen said.

  Feberik struck out with a back-handed slap across Lord Caspen’s face. Whether it was the force of the blow, or the sheer panic that had seized Lord Caspen, Feberik didn’t know, but the man lost consciousness right there in the chair, along with his ability to hold his bladder.

  Feberik turned and helped usher the last of the guests out, literally tossing two of the drunken men out onto the front porch, and then went back to the parlor, closing the door to the room behind himself. He went to the couch, which was pushed up against the wall with the windows, and picked up the piece of furniture to place it back where it had been the last time he was in the home. He looked through the windows to see that carriages and horses were filing out along the main road, and then he sat down and waited for Lord Caspen to wake up.

  In the hour he sat there, he helped himself to a snifter of brandy to try and calm his nerves. Mad as he was, he knew he was already likely in trouble. He only hoped that his status as in-law would be sufficient justification for a certain amount of…liberty to be taken inside of this home.

  As the nobleman began to wake up, he mumbled a few things. Something about a woman named Geraldine, and a few things that threatened to stoke the fires in Feberik’s soul. However, not everything the nobleman jabbered about in his unconscious state drew ire from the hulking man. Lord Caspen also mentioned something about dark creatures in the woods, and appeared genuinely afraid of them as his body shook and he thrashed about.

  It was during a particularly violent episode that Lord Caspen woke, screaming in horror and calling out for help. The nobleman then seemed to recover, wiping a hand over his face and taking in a few breaths. When the man’s hand slid down his face and touched upon his reddened jaw, his eyes flicked up and about the room, wide and filled with fear. The orbs fell upon his guest as Feberik took his last drink from the snifter before tossing the glass down at Lord Caspen’s feet, shattering it to pieces.

  “What do you want?” Lord Caspen asked as he tried to sink back into the chair and melt away.

  Feberik stood and picked up the couch with one hand, setting it just a couple of feet away from Lord Caspen before sitting down and leaning forward, glaring into the nobleman’s eyes. Lord Caspen’s color drained from his face and small beads of sweat formed upon his brow.

  “I didn’t know,” Lord Caspen said. “I had no way of knowing she wasn’t mine! You have to believe me. I would never have dishonored you—”

  “Dishonored me?” Feberik echoed as he narrowed his eyes on Lord Caspen. “You think that is why I am here?”

  Lord Caspen shrugged, pulling his legs up and hugging them into his chest. “You’re going to kill me, aren’t you? Guards! Guards! HELP!”

  Feberik sighed and leaned back, shifting his large claymore so it wouldn’t be in his way. “I came to discuss Kyra’s support, and her dowry.” He produced the school papers from a pocket inside his vest and waved them at Lord Caspen.

  Lord Caspen nodded quickly. “Of course. The wedding is off! I understand. Keep the dowry. I’ll sign the dissolution papers. No harm done.”

  Feberik reached up and scratched the corner of his mouth with his left hand. “Shut up,” he said calmly.

  The words may as well have been daggers, for Lord Caspen ceased breathing and sat helplessly, terrified.

  “These are not papers to dissolve our contract. I came to tell you that I still intend to marry Kyra once she becomes of age. I’ve come to get your signature on Kyra’s school papers, and to convince you to abandon this ridiculous notion of disowning her.”

  “You…what?” Lord Caspen said. His brow drew in close and he narrowed his eyes on Feberik. “But why? Wouldn’t that dishonor the Orres family?”

  Feberik leaned forward and grabbed a fistful of Lord Caspen’s shirt, pulling the man in close. “I do not need lessons in honor from a man who is gallivanting around with whores and drunkards instead of mourning for his departed wife. That isn’t even mentioning the fact that you have abandoned your daughter.”

  “She isn’t mine!” Lord Caspen squeaked.

  “You raised her for fourteen years as though she were. That makes her yours. You have no right to punish her for something that isn’t her fault.” Feberik rose from his seat, picking up Lord Caspen and holding him above the urine-stained chair. “I was going to come to convince you to return to Kuldiga Academy. Your daughter is in pain. She has lost everything she has ever loved. I was hoping you would have a heart large enough to swallow your pride and help her.”

  Feberik glanced around the room, his anger rising once more with each glass and bottle he saw.

  “Okay, I can do that,” Lord Caspen said. “I can help her.”

  Feberik shook his head. “No, you can’t. You have neither a heart, nor a spine. I was wrong to think you could offer her anything.” Feberik roughly tossed Lord Caspen back to the chair, which would have toppled over backward with the sudden impact had it not been for the wall behind it. He retrieved the school papers from the couch where he had been sitting and thunked them down on a short end table that he dragged into place before Lord Caspen. He retrieved a quill and ink from a desk in the corner of the room and pushed them into the quivering man’s hands. After glancing momentarily at Feberik’s stony face, Lord Caspen signed each of the papers, and then pointed meekly with trembling hands back to the desk.

  “M-m-my sealing wax,” he stuttered weakly. Feberik retrieved the wax and a candle with which to melt it, and stood right near Lord Caspen’s shoulder as he used the ring on his left hand to properly seal the final document. Then he pushed the man back into his chair and retrieved the papers, placing them back into his vest pocket once the wax was sufficiently dry. He turned back to Lord Caspen, who was now shifting uncomfortably in his chair, undoubtedly bothered by the cold, dampness of his clothing. He pointed a stern finger at Lord Caspen and leaned in closely.

  “Stay away from her. Better she never know the cad you have become.”

  Lord Caspen nodded with a whimper.

  Feberik looked down at the man’s wet pants and shook his head. “Kyra is now
a ward of Kuldiga Academy,” he patted the place on his chest where the papers were now held, “however, you will contribute to her care. I have the dowry to offer her, but you will pay for her tuition. Maybe in that way you can atone for some of your worthlessness while not adding injury to Kyra. I will inform the administration at the academy to expect to receive payments the first of each month.”

  “Sure,” Lord Caspen said with a quick nod of his head. “Anything you say.”

  Feberik reached up and drew his claymore. The sword ground against the scabbard and filled the room with a terrible schring!

  Lord Caspen looked to the blade and began to cry and shake his head. “No, please, I’ll pay, I swear it by Icadion!”

  Feberik nodded. “Kyra is boarding at the school for each summer as well. I expect you to pay every month of the year.”

  Lord Caspen nodded as tears streamed down his red face. The noble’s eyes were locked on the shining blade. “I’ll do as you say.”

  “And make sure you stay away forever. If you should come looking for her, or if you should ever miss a payment…” Feberik stabbed the blade through the chair just an inch away from the left side of Lord Caspen’s face. The nobleman’s eyes rolled into the back of his head and his body went limp.

  Feberik turned and replaced his sword. With a sniff he wondered what the headmaster and the local magistrate would say when and if they received word from Lord Caspen about the manner in which this visit had been conducted. What he had just done was far more than what he should have. He had come only to have a discussion after all. Still, he couldn’t help but hope that perhaps somewhere in the plane of the dead, Kyra’s mother was smiling, appreciative of his actions. As he left the parlor he caught sight of the servants he had encountered when he first arrived. He offered them a limp salute and a tight-lipped smile that likely betrayed too much amusement for the potential consequences of this visit.

  Climbing atop his horse, Feberik made a decision. Though the young girl didn’t yet care for him, he would watch over her in any way he could. Perhaps one day she would see that his efforts on her behalf were worthy of her affection. For now, though, it was enough to know that Lord Caspen had been chastened.

  Chapter 2

  Kyra walked through the tall pines, taking in a breath of warm, summer air. The first full week of summer term had finally come, and she couldn’t help but feel utterly relieved that most of the other students who attended Kuldiga Academy had gone home until regular classes would reconvene in the fall. She could finally move through the corridors, eat in the dining hall, and wander the school grounds without hearing whispered conversations that featured her name, or catching stray glances from unfriendly faces everywhere she went.

  Since her encounter with a shade, a dark creature not unlike a vampire that drained a person’s life force and magical essence instead of blood, the hostility toward her had become different from what she had faced shortly after initially arriving at the academy for the first year of sorcery training. At first she had been teased because of the rumors that had cropped up as a result of too frequent visits from her overly attentive fiancé, a man twenty years Kyra’s senior to whom Kyra had been betrothed by her father just before her 14th birthday. A man who, to Kyra’s chagrin, had taken up a teaching post at the academy. However, the treatment she had received as a result of her relationship with Feberik had melted away once word had spread that she had needed to be interviewed by a tribunal of priests from Valtuu Temple after surviving a battle with a shade. The news of Kyra’s true identity as the daughter of a vampire had somehow been leaked as well.

  As a result of these two bits of supposedly confidential information becoming widespread knowledge, a general fear and awe for Kyra had overtaken the disdain and teasing she had previously thought to be the most unbearable of treatment from her peers. Instead of openly bothering her, they whispered quietly whenever she entered a room, and were quick to look away if she glanced at them. Now she found herself fantasizing about how much easier it would have been to complete the next three years of schooling if the only peer difficulties she had to deal with were a few pranks and some childish teasing about her fiancé.

  Even Lady Gerrigan, who had comforted Kyra after her mother’s murder, now scrutinized the young apprentice with narrow eyes whenever she passed by. Kyra knew better than to hope for any amount of comfort from Lady Gerrigan now. That woman had even once muttered the words ‘half-blood’ while staring at Kyra and talking to another one of the instructors.

  Given these developments, Kyra might have left the school if not for Cyrus. He was the one shining beacon of hope in an otherwise dreary school. He was always the optimist.

  “We must train to find the shade once more,” the old wizard had said whenever Kyra would get discouraged.

  True to his word, that is exactly what they had begun focusing on once she was healed up enough from her battle to return to her classes with him. Despite having gone into battle with a dragon on her side, Kyra had been grossly outmatched by the Shade, and had been lucky to come away with scarcely more than a broken ankle. Her dragon friend, Leatherback, and she had been pinned down by a host of illusionary shades, each able to cast its own spell, and would surely have been done for had Cyrus not arrived just when he did, banishing the shade, and returning Kyra, unconscious, to her room at the academy.

  Now that summer had come, she was looking forward to enjoying her time at the school, reading, pursuing her own studies, and working with Cyrus to prepare to defeat her mother’s murderer. She especially was looking forward to spending more time with Leatherback in his secret aspenwood grove where the taint of Nagar’s Blight, a terrible curse that promised to overtake the mind of any dragon still found in the middle kingdom, so far had been unable to find him. It was strange to think that, except for the daily lesson with Cyrus, she would be entirely self-directing her use of time this summer.

  There would be no summer festivals to attend, no travels to other parts of the middle kingdom to occupy weeks of time, and no stuffy dinners to attend with other noble families. She didn’t mind the lack of structure, but she did desperately miss her mother, and was almost happy not to be returning to the home she had grown up in, where she would certainly be confronted with hundreds of things that would remind her that her mother was gone forever.

  As Kyra had been disowned by the man she had grown up thinking of as her father, she had been given permission to stay on at Kuldiga Academy for the term of her enrollment. Though she wasn’t sure who was paying for it all, it seemed her room and board were being handled through the school. She had been allowed to stay in the same room on the top floor of the school to which she had been assigned after first arriving at the academy, and had still not been re-assigned roommates since having them transferred away after the death of her mother.

  She had been happy to be rid of those first roommates – girls with whom she had nothing in common, and who had never taken up her defense when the rumors had begun about her and Feberik, even though they had been there each time he had come to call. The private room had also afforded her the necessary privacy to magically open a portal whenever she had needed to last term, and travel through it to visit Leatherback. Now that the summer was setting in, she wondered how much longer she would be so lucky in her housing situation. Perhaps by next year they would require her to take on a roommate. It would be strange to share her little place with someone. She smirked at herself for a moment, realizing that she had come to look upon her dorm room as her own private little apartment, as though she would be able to remain there for the rest of her life.

  While most other students and half of the faculty went home for the summer, Kyra was already at home. Though she despised the news that she would be expected to attend weekly dinners with her fiancé Feberik and his brother Janik, she did enjoy knowing that it seemed this would be the most she would have to see Feberik, as he had been assigned a summer cohort of third and fourth year apprentices of the sw
ord who would be staying on for extended training during the summer. With the reduced faculty during the summer, as many of them were sent away on assignments for the king, Feberik would be with his students almost constantly, supervising their training and helping them grow accustomed to the regimented life of a soldier.

  There had been some discussion of putting her with a similar summer cohort of sorcery students to keep her out of trouble. But when word of her potentially being re-integrated with the other students had gotten out, the few sorcery candidates there had been had mysteriously all chosen to spend their summer months at home. As a result, all of the sorcery faculty had also been sent out on assignment for the summer, and there was now no worry in her mind of being paired with a hostile instructor.

  Her ankle had healed nicely, thanks to the priests from Valtuu Temple. Still, she had hated having them around so close in the weeks and months since the fight with the shade. And now, despite the marvelous ways in which her dragon, Leatherback, had been developing, the older priests were still always trying to convince her that Leatherback was not to be trusted. Their rhetoric was much like Njar’s when she had first met the Satyr, but there was something about the way the priests said it that made it more insulting somehow.

  Worse than this, though, was the fact that they could see her aura from a great distance. It had never been overly difficult to sneak out of the academy before, but now, having these priests tasked with watching over her, it was much more complicated than she would have liked.

  Then there were the semi-weekly visits with the priests. They would examine her aura and then go to see Leatherback. She hated those days. Kyra knew they meant well, but it felt like they were judging her value as a person each and every time they stared at her with those dull, gray eyes. She could only imagine what Leatherback must feel like. She wondered whether the dragon knew that the priests would condemn him to death if they saw the slightest hint of what they called “the taint” in his aura.