Valandra: The Winds of Time Cycle (Book 1)

by Tristan Vick

  I bow my head and gravely inform her, “There were no survivors.”

  “We must inform the Queen,” says Leif. He looks right at the woman knight, who ignores him and keeps her eyes fixed on me.

  Riding up next to me, Alegra sniffs the air and then whips her head to the side and looks directly at me. She frowns and a worried expression settles upon her face. “Arianna, something’s not right.”

  I’m at a loss as to what she’s getting at. But then the female knight reaches up and grabs the reins to Merrium and says, “I’m afraid I’ll have to hold you here until I can confirm your story.”

  “What?” It’s hard to mask my shock. “You don’t understand. There’s no time. We must get word to Queen Sabine!”

  “I’m afraid I cannot allow that,” the knight says, tugging on Merrium’s reins firmly and guiding her to the encampment where the large group of knights are gathered.

  Suddenly, Alegra leaps off her horse, sword drawn. Flying sharply athwart the camp as fast as an arrow, she intercepts the knight and stabs the woman in her neck with her sword. Alegra shoves her blade downward so it bypasses the upper body armor and cuts into the knight’s sternum. Alegra lets out a grunt as she rips her blade back out and lets the knight plunge to the ground.

  “What in the blazes?!” Leif cries out in complete shock. “Are you out of your bleedin’ elf mind?”

  Alegra flicks the blood off her blade as she stands over the dead body and ignores Leif’s question. Without looking up, she says, “It’s a trap.”

  Suddenly a puff of dark green smoke manifests out of nowhere and envelops the knight’s body. What follows it peculiar to say the least. The female knight’s armor dissipates in the evaporating smoke, revealing the body of one of Dathrium’s male centurions.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Lisette asks.

  “It’s black magic,” Alegra states rather dryly. “Obviously a masking spell to alter their appearance. I could smell it on them,” she says looking up at the rest of the group of soldiers. “On all of them.”

  Glancing back up, I scan the other knights. Sure enough, a daisy chain of dark puffs of smoke erupts and the façade of Belleran soldiers vanishes. An entire battalion of Dathrium’s men emerge from the billowing blackness. And a wicked cackle cuts through the crisp morning air.

  We all turn toward the tent, from which the malevolent voice emanated. Two guards dressed in black armor emerge from the tent, followed by a familiar face. A face I hadn’t expected to see again anytime soon.

  Zarine of Koroth tosses her short black hair, brushes back her long black cape, and then locks onto me with her obsidian eyes. She knows exactly who she’s caught in her snare of deception, and a malicious smile forms on her dark purple lips.

  “You?!” I growl angrily.

  “Do you know her?” Leif asks.

  “She’s a duplicitous snake.” My jaw flexes as I speak through clenched teeth. I have to push the rage back down into the pit of my stomach so that it doesn’t overwhelm me. I take a deep breath and fix my gaze on Zarine, who stands a safe distance away from us, and glower intensely at her.

  Ignoring my previous insult, she paces back and forth. She tugs at the leather breastplate of her armor so as to allow her bosom to fill the crevice of its V-cut design just as a couple of loaves of bread will swell up from the bread pan.

  “It’s been a long time, Arianna,” she says. A narrow smile that curls up at the corners of her mouth does little to hide her malicious intent.

  “Not long enough,” I spit back.

  “Oh, come now. Don’t tell me you’re still sore about what happened between us.”

  “You drugged and kidnapped me. Then you sliced me open on your carving table. And when your black-hearted treachery was revealed, you fled like the craven wench you are!”

  My rebuking doesn’t seem to faze her. Zarine merely lets my words run off her back like droplets of rain. After my berating, I look to Alegra for confidence when Zarine catches us sharing glances with one another. She seems to be piecing together the clues about our relationship faster than I’d like.

  A cruel smile crawls onto Zarine’s lips as she unravels the truth about. Glancing at Alegra sideways, Zarine addresses her. “Do you want to hear about the time Arianna and I kissed?”

  “Arianna’s past is her own. If she desires to share it with me, she will,” Alegra says, staring fiercely back at Zarine who ignores her words and continues to tear me down in front of my friends.

  “If I were you, I’d be extremely careful with this one. The moment she gets what she wants from you she’ll feed you to the wolves.”

  “That’s not fair!” I growl, agitated by Zarine’s relaying of half-truths to make it appear that I was the one who was in the wrong. “I was drunk.”

  In an attempt to save face, I turn toward Alegra plead for her understanding. “I know it’s no excuse, but it’s the truth. I made a mistake. Obviously. But if I could go back and do things differently…I would You have to believe me.”

  Regrettably, Zarine, the evil witch she is, has me completely at her mercy. Either Alegra will believe me or she won’t. And it kills me inside that I can’t tell what Alegra’s thinking behind those violet eyes of hers.

  The last thing I want Alegra to think is that I’m some kind of reckless thrill-seeker who engages in all manner of dalliances with other women, but by the way Zarine tells it I’m a wanton hussy and womanizing drunk. Pressing on my chest just above my heart with my hand, I look deep into Alegra’s eyes and say, “Just know that what I feel for you, inside here is real.”

  “I understand,” she responds. “We all make mistakes.”

  I let out a huge sigh of relief. A look of disappointment comes over Zarine’s face when she realizes she won’t be able to tear us apart so easily.

  “It seems that you’ve found a keeper,” Zarine says to me with a contemptuous look. Her voice is saccharine, replete with an artificial graciousness which does little to disguise her lightly veiled contempt. Of course, the feeling is mutual.

  Having grown bored with her mind games, Zarine extends her slender finger and points it at us. With a vicious smile curling her lips, she commands, “Arrest the traitors!”

  Stepping out from the tent come three more soldiers, now totaling ten, not counting the one Alegra took out earlier. We are sorely outnumbered and I don’t see an easy way out of this mess. If we fight, not all of us will make it. If we surrender, then Sabolin’s plea for help will never reach Queen Sabine and all will be lost.

  25

  Armed guards surround us and then line us up. One by one, they walk down the row and confiscate our things. After taking our weapons and anything that could potentially be used as a weapon, they bind our hands behind our backs with rope and place us in front of Zarine’s tent. Without warning, one of the guard kicks the back of my knees and I drop to the ground. I fall onto my side. Immediately another guard pulls me up by my hair, setting me on my knees. The first guard knocks Leif, Lisette, and Alegra to their knees as well. I glower at Zarine. “You won’t get away with this. I swear it.”

  “My dear Arianna,” she says with a hefty sigh. It sounds disappointed and annoyed all at the same time. “Get away with what, exactly? What do you think is going on here?” Zarine walks over to a round wooden table with a silver bowl full of fruit set out on it and plucks out an apple. She slides out a knife from under her black leather body armor. She flips the knife up into the air, then catches it, and in one fluid motion, viciously stabs the apple.

  After inflicting unnecessary violence upon the fruit, she cuts out a wedge and then eats it. Chewing ever so slowly, she closes her eyes and enjoys every mouth-watering bite.

  While she’s not paying attention, I take a quick headcount of the nearby soldiers. I count five soldiers directly in front of us. Three behind us. And the other two are attending to our horses.

  After a long savory bite of the apple, Zarine opens her eyes again and scans all our fac
es as we kneel before her.

  “My father is Rikkard Durante, the Duke of Algoroth!” Lisette informs Zarine in a stately manner. She looks right at Zarine when she says it. Zarine stops eating her apple and turns her gaze toward Lisette. “I demand to know the meaning of this! Why have you arrested us?”

  Pointing the knife at Lisette, Zarine says, “Isn’t it clear, dear noble daughter of Algoroth? You are in league with a well-known extremist.”

  “More lies,” I state dryly.

  Zarine glances at me but ignores my quip and goes back to addressing Lisette. “This woman,” Zarine begins, waging her finger at me, “ambushed a prison transport and assaulted several Royal Guards, unlawfully broke a prisoner out, and then fled the authorities. She was also placed at the scene of an arson that burned down the religious district of Valandra Igthium.”

  “Arson?” Leif asks, puzzled by the extraneous accusation. Obviously, they’re trying to pin Dathrium’s torching of the temple on me.

  “That’s rich,” I scoff. “The whole thing was a set up from the beginning. And now you’re just going to pin all the blame on me. Aren’t you, Zee?”

  Zarine grinds her teeth. She hates when I call her that. Shrugging it off, she makes her most serious accusation. “Eye-witnesses place you at the scene of the fire. Do you deny it?”

  I stare at her with loathing.

  “No? Didn’t think so. And why is it the very same day you enter Valandra there is suddenly a fire which you are fleeing? Are you honestly going to say you were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time?”

  “She was!” Lisette cries out, tears welling up in her eyes. “We all were.”

  “Which is why I’m placing you under arrest too,” Zee informs Lisette.

  “Under whose authority?” Lisette asks.

  “Under the authority of Lord Dathrium,” Zarine says. A guard steps up to her and hands her a scroll. She unravels it and thrusts it in my face. “I have a warrant for your arrest, Arianna De Amato. Is there anything you want to say? Because if there is, I strongly urge for you to come out with it.”

  I refuse to incriminate myself by saying anything she can twist around and use against me.

  “What a bunch of bull,” Leif grumbles. “The temple was already up in flames by the time we arrived.”

  Zarine raises an eyebrow at him then laughs. “And who, pray tell, will believe you? It’s your word, as a thief, against the word of Lord Dathrium, the Royal Guard, and numerous eye-witness testimonies that can place you three at the scene of the crime.”

  Annoyed, Leif turns his head away.

  “You, on the other hand,” Zarine says, turning her attention to Alegra. “I don’t know you.”

  Alegra follows my lead and gives Zarine the cold shoulder.

  Ignoring the fact that we’re giving her the silent treatment, Zee cuts another wedge from the apple, pops it into her mouth, and chews noisily. “No matter,” she says with a mouthful of apple.

  Zarine’s gaze grows cold and harsh as does her voice. “But seeing as I cannot take you prisoner and pass safely back through the Dark Forest without being stopped by your fellow elves, I’m afraid…I’ll just have to kill you instead.”

  “No!” I scream, but it falls of deaf ears. Zarine flips her knife into the air, like she did when she stabbed the apple, and catches it above Alegra’s head. Just as she is about to bring it down on Alegra’s face, Alegra’s bindings snap. She springs up and tackles Zarine.

  “Way to go, Alegra!” Lisette says in a burst of excitement.

  Zarine and Alegra topple to the ground and tumble around until Alegra finally gets the upper hand. Kicking the knife away, she rolls backward, doing a summersault away from Zarine.

  Zarine’s henchmen rush forward to help her, but Leif lies down on the ground and deliberately rolls into their legs, taking them down. Three guards topple onto him.

  I hear the guards directly behind me move to intervene, and I spring to my feet and then throw my body into them. We crash to the ground in a heap.

  Tightening my lips, I release a high-pitch whistle, and Merrium snorts, bucks, and kicks the guards off of her. Free of her captors, she trots over to our position and whinnies.

  “Take Merrium!” I say to Alegra. “Get our message to Queen Sabine!”

  Alegra hesitates to do as I say. I know she doesn’t want to abandon me, or any of us for that matter, but this may be our only chance.

  “Go!” I shout.

  Alegra turns, grabs Merrium’s mane, and swings herself up and onto Merrium’s back. Once she’s up, she slips her feet into the stirrups and gives Merrium several kicks to her side to get her running.

  Zarine gets up just in time to see the two gallop away at breakneck speed. By the way her jaw muscles are flexing, I know she must be furious.

  As Alegra and Merrium disappear across the rolling hills of Bellera, one of the guards approaches Zarine. “Ma’am, shall we go after her?”

  Raising her hand, Zarine informs him, “No, that won’t be necessary. We have the ones we came for. Besides, there’s nothing Queen Sabine or anyone else can do anyway. Ashram and his army of the dead are marching upon the Holy city of Sabolin as we speak.”

  Dismayed, Lisette gasps, which elicits a cruel smile from Zarine.

  “Oh, I’m afraid it’s quite true,” Zarine taunts. “You have all failed. But perhaps the best part of it all is, you fell right into Dathrium’s hands and were never the wiser.” Sauntering over to me, Zarine places her bony finger under my chin and raises my head so that my eyes meet hers. “A pity too,” she adds. “If only you’d have listened to my warning when we’d first met, then none of this would have ever happened.”

  Zarine raises her slender hand and snaps her fingers. On cue, three of her soldiers drag us to our feet and then march us over to what appear to be oversized bird cages.

  The guards shove us into our cages and Zarine fastens us in with a key she wears around her neck. Once we’re secured, she looks directly at me with her cold, hardened gaze and smiles. The smile is brief, and meant only to rub my nose in the fact that she beat me. With that, she turns and marches off.

  Her black cape fluttering in the wind, Zarine heads back to her tent. She tosses the half-eaten apple onto the ground without a care, and then barks orders at her men. “Ready our things. We return to Valandra immediately.”

  THE WINDS OF TIME CYCLE

  VALANDRA

  PART III

  26

  I open my eyes and find myself lying on the damp stone floor of a prison cell. It’s smooth and cool, yet has a fine grit to it, just like the limestone floor my childhood home in Bellera. I sit up and a sharp pain shoots through the back of my skull. The last thing I remember is, upon arriving at the palace, I gave the prison guards hell and fought like a mad badger, kicking and clawing, refusing to let them take me. But the dominio, the head of the prison keep, bludgeoned me so hard with his truncheon that I instantly blacked out. And now I’m here, sitting in this dank, drab, and depressing place—with a throbbing skull.

  A shiver shoots down my spine. I wrap my arms around myself and rub my body for warmth. I realize my clothes have been confiscated and all I’m wearing is some tattered old prison rags that hardly cover me at all and provide little in the way of warmth.

  When I stand up, my skull throbs as though it has been split open like a melon. I can feel the damp stones of the dungeon beneath my bare feet, and I cautiously step toward the cell door at the other end of the dark room. I can make out a dim light seeping through the barred window and into my cell from the outer hallway. Yet these pinpricks of light are the only thing allowing me to see anything at all. And even then, just barely.

  Suddenly my foot snags on something sharp, like a tree branch, and I stumble forward and fall to the ground. I roll over and see the smiling grin of a skeleton staring back at me.

  Startled, I scramble to my feet and quickly shuffle away from the pile of old bones. Staggering clumsily in the dimn
ess, I keep one hand on the cold and clammy dungeon wall as I feel out my surroundings.

  Somehow, I manage to make it through the darkness to the heavy wooden door of my cell, I put my face up to the barred window. The stench of the dungeon assaults my nostrils and causes me to gag.

  It smells like a sewer. Like rot and decay. And the potent ammonia-rich scent of urine lingers on the air, indicating a lack of decent ventilation. I fight hard not to hurl my own sick all over the place. And by the grace of the Goddess, I manage to keep myself from throwing up.

  “Don’t worry,” a voice says to me in the dark. “It gets better with time.”

  The voice sounds distant but, at the same time, close by. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly. If I had to guess I’d say it was coming from the cell next to me.

  “Who’s there?” I ask. But there is no immediate reply.

  I cannot tell if the voice is coming from inside my cell or one of the adjoining cells.

  I shuffle back to the bars of my door and press my face as far as I can in between them to try and see into the hall. There is a single torch at the base of a spiral staircase. It is the only source of light. I see three cells across from me. If the layout is the same on this side of the corridor it means there is a cell to either side of me. But that’s all I can make out from this angle.

  Unexpectedly, there is a jangling of keys. I hear the upstairs gate unlock. Voices are chattering, and I can make out two people by the sounds of their footsteps making their way down the spiral staircase at the end of the hall. Soon enough, a couple of men with torches enter into the corridor. One of them is carrying a bucket. The other one carries the keys.

  I slink back into the shadows of my cell and search my surroundings for something, anything, I can use as a weapon. I find a rock on the floor resting in the corner of the room and quickly pick it up.

  “I wouldn’t do anything rash, if I were you,” the voice from the other cell cautions. I ignore it.