Crown of One Hundred Kings (Nine Kingdoms Trilogy Book 1)

by Rachel Higginson

  We’d been on the road for two hours and already I was exhausted from the trip. “Not a word, Oliver the Silent. It’s quite miraculous when you consider how very often and how loudly you are speaking. I’m surprised the houses we’ve passed along the way haven’t risen from their peaceful sleep to offer their own opinions on horse travel.”

  He glowered at me. “You don’t need to be rude. I can be silent. When I want to be.”

  “And I can be kind when I want to be.” I sighed, sorry for being mean. “I’m nervous for the journey.” The warming sun turned the gray sky to a panorama of soft colors. Fingers of pink, purple, and indigo stretched across the wakening expanse overhead, bringing the day fully to life.

  He elbowed me again, his satchel shifting with the jerking of his body. “Oh, little royal, there is nothing to be worried about! These roads are well-traveled. Which means there will be plenty of travelers to keep us company and keep the rebels at bay. We shall arrive in your precious kingdom unscathed with only a bath to worry for.”

  I raised an eyebrow at him. “And how often have you traveled these well-traveled roads, little monk?”

  His smile wavered. “You’re worrying for nothing,” he insisted. “We know how to take care of ourselves. There is nothing to fear.”

  Two weeks later, Oliver realized that wasn’t entirely true.

  We stood at the border between Heprin and Tenovia with not a clue which way to go. The road out of Heprin split, taking two equally twisting paths. Forest loomed over either road, blocking out the sun almost completely.

  The two countries couldn’t have been more different from one another. While the landscape of Heprin had become clustered with towering trees and little sun, it wasn’t until we stood at the border between our idyllic kingdom of Heprin and the Blood Woods of Tenovia that the light seemed to wholly disappear. The road was no longer bordered by wildflowers and tall grasses dancing in the wind. The quaint cottages lining the road were no longer well maintained with flower boxes in open windows and vegetable gardens blanketing the small properties. The spacious hillsides boasting shrines to the Light gave way to gnarled patches of towering trees until finally they weren’t patches, but thick, untamed walls of deadly forest.

  Tenovia was not a land filled with light and sunshine and flowers. Tenovia was nothing but black trees as thick as castle keeps, knotted roots that clawed their way from sticky dirt, and shadows that seemed to shift and crouch in the darkness.

  “Father Garius told us to stay north whenever possible,” Oliver reminded me. “That road heads south, which would eventually take us to the Burning Desert and slavers waiting to sell us to the highest bidder.”

  I chewed on my bottom lip. “But that road also seems more traveled. Safer.”

  “How is that?” he asked with genuine curiosity.

  “There’s light.” And there was, even if it was minimal.

  “Where?”

  I shifted on my feet. “Well, maybe not light exactly. But I can see flowers. And if there are flowers, there has to be light. At least some of the time.”

  “We are not picking our road based on… on… weeds. We need to take the north road. Less chance of running into Vorestran hordes.”

  “More chance of running into rebel armies.” I pushed down a fresh wave of fear.

  He murmured, “Father Garius said to stick north. We need to stick north. Either way is dangerous.”

  He was not wrong.

  I jerked my chin toward the northern road and moved forward. “You’re right. We can take care of ourselves. You said it, remember?”

  I heard him swallow but didn’t spare him another glance. I would lose my nerve if he gave me any reason to.

  We had a rough map that Father Garius had given us to navigate the journey, but it didn’t include every road we’d encountered so far, and nothing we’d run into lately seemed right. We were either on a totally different path than we’d started out on or this map needed to be rewritten.

  Which was completely possible.

  Father Garius had only ever left the Temple of Eternal Light once and he’d ended up with me as a parting gift.

  It was no wonder he’d never wandered from the Temple’s gates again.

  Goosebumps pebbled my skin as the temperature dropped. The tree trunks stretched over the ground as thickly as the Heprin cottages we’d left behind and rose to where I could have sworn they touched the sun. Their heavy branches wound around each other, tangling to make an impenetrable canopy.

  “This feels ominous,” Oliver mused with a chuckle. “It was a pleasure knowing you, Princess.”

  I ignored him.

  We walked for another twenty minutes in silence before Oliver couldn’t stand it anymore. “What is it about the Vorestran hordes that make them better than rebel armies? I never quite grasped the different degrees of ways-to-die from all of our potential threats.”

  “If the Vorestran hordes were to catch us, they would cut off our heads, mount them on spikes outside of the walls of their city, and eat our hearts raw.”

  “Dragon’s blood!” Oliver cursed. “Simply for trespassing?”

  “For survival,” I told him. “The heads are to keep away the night dragons and slavers. The hearts are delicacies.”

  “Dragons,” Oliver gasped. “And you prefer Vorestra over Tenovia? Are you out of your mind?”

  “We would have stayed along the border, reducing our risk of being caught. But you’re right. It probably wouldn’t have worked. I heard that the hordes watch their borders closely these days.”

  “Every kingdom is watching their borders closely these days.”

  An emptiness filled me. I ached for this realm, this realm that used to be united and prosperous. This realm whose people trusted each other. My need to change it now bloomed into an intense sense of purpose. It started in my toes and bubbled through me, rushing through my veins, filling my blood with intention and my bones with determination.

  Oliver spoke again, unable to let the peaceful silence remain. “At least the rebels won’t eat our hearts."

  “No, they’ll just use our appendages as kindling so they don’t have to cut down their holy trees to make fires.”

  Oliver’s sharp intake of breath was the last sound I heard from him for hours.

  “We should stop for the night,” I told him when the dim light of day had faded into the haze of early evening. “Now, before it gets any darker.”

  “Do you mean for us to sleep in the open?” As hard as he tried to keep his voice even, I heard the tremor. Sleeping in the open had not bothered us in Heprin. But now that we’d crossed the border into Tenovia it was impossible not to fear the unknown.

  “I see lights up ahead.” I pointed toward a bend in the road. “They’re bright enough to be a tavern. Let’s hope they don’t charge too much.”

  I dropped my hands and let my fingers curl around the strap of my satchel. I couldn’t decide if it was more dangerous to face people or to try to avoid them. But Oliver’s fear had been well placed. We couldn’t sleep out in the open in these woods. Not if we wanted to wake up with all our appendages attached.

  We walked in silence to the door of the inn, slipping inside and finding a small table in the back of the room. I wanted more than anything to grab Oliver’s hand and hold on, but I couldn’t let strangers see these nerves. I had to do whatever it took to protect the crown I carried.

  It was odd to be surrounded by people after spending so much of the last fortnight in isolation. The hearth fire warmed my chilled skin. I kept my satchel in place across my torso, where it had become an extension of my body.

  I glanced wearily from face to face as I looked about the room. It felt as if every eye turned and recognized me. I resisted the urge to smooth my hair. None of the faces were familiar and I wasn’t entirely sure why I would have expected to meet someone I knew. But my senses were buzzing with paranoia.

  I couldn’t help but feel as though there were watchful eyes on me
. That they somehow saw me. Saw what I carried. That they were, even now, planning the best way to kill me.

  My family had been betrayed and murdered by people we could not yet name. They had escaped without punishment. They roamed the realm free to live as they pleased.

  I shook my head. It had been eight years. I’d been a child. Now I was a woman, grown and different.

  Nobody would recognize me. It wasn’t possible.

  “What do we do?” Oliver whispered a bit frantically.

  I looked into his wide brown eyes and shrugged. “I’m not entirely sure. I’ve never been to a tavern before.”

  He leaned forward, his fingers gripping the edges of the small table. “Me either!”

  “What? How is that possible?”

  Exasperation colored his cheeks. “I’ve lived at the monastery since I was a baby. When would I have had the opportunity to visit such a place as this?”

  I leaned in and dropped my voice to a murmur. “I grew up in a palace! Why would you think I have experience that you don’t?”

  He growled at me, his features transforming from freckled monk to feral ferret. “So what are we going to do?”

  “You’re going to have to ask for a room,” I told him.

  “Me?”

  “Well it can’t be me! I’m a woman.”

  His sigh would have made Father Garius proud. “If I die up there,” he gestured toward a long counter where a burly man with small eyes and no neck stood pouring tankards of ale, “Tell my mother I went valiantly, on a quest to save a princess.”

  I pressed my lips together to keep from smiling. “I swear on my life, I wouldn’t let her believe anything else.”

  He continued to grumble as he made his way through the room, trying to avoid touching anything human in his path.

  The patrons of this tavern were boisterous and well into their ale. I watched as a man half the size of one of the trees outside swung his tankard wide, sloshing amber liquid all over poor Oliver.

  I was just about to wave him on when another gigantic man stepped in the way, blocking Oliver from view.

  Spittle collected in the corners of his mouth when he grunted, “Girl.”

  I raised my eyebrows at him and waited for more.

  “You don’t belong here,” he snarled. His booming voice drew the attention of several surrounding tables.

  My cheeks flushed. Glancing around the room, I noticed that most of the patrons were male and stood as tall and thick as he.

  Scratch that, all of the patrons were male.

  I straightened my shoulders. Chairs scraped against the food-littered ground as more men rose to their feet.

  “What’s the matter?” I heard one of them ask.

  “There’s a girl in here,” growled someone else.

  A hostile rumble rippled through the room.

  What did they have against girls?

  “I take it you have a no female policy?” I asked the original behemoth.

  “No girls after twilight.” His meaty fist jabbed toward the door. “You need to leave.”

  My shoulders sagged with a sigh. I opened my mouth to argue, but Oliver pushed through the crowd and appeared at my side. “We’re travelers,” he explained. “We weren’t aware of your rules.”

  The expression on the original man’s face shifted from furious to irritated. Apparently, they’d dealt with unwanted females before. He took a step back, but still pointed toward the door.

  “Females are not allowed outside after dusk,” he huffed as I stood.

  “Why not?” The words slipped out before I could temper them.

  He leaned forward and I inhaled the sour smell of ale and animals clinging to him. “The demons prefer the girlies.” A lascivious grin lifted the wet corners of his mouth. “They taste sweeter than the menfolk.”

  “Demons?” Oliver gulped.

  “That haunt these woods,” the man explained and the other men laughed as though he’d made a joke. It wasn’t a happy laugh or even a taunting one. A bite of nerves clung to the sound, causing chills to race down my spine. “The demons would like to find you, lassie,” he said to me. “They’d love to happen upon you while you’re stumbling about in the Blood Woods in the dark. Love to snatch you up and ferry you away to Denamon.”

  I felt light-headed. I wasn’t scared of demons or the Blood Woods or stumbling around in the dark. And yet these men believed in the curse of this forest stronger than anyone I’d ever met. And they lived here. This was their homeland.

  The man’s attention swiveled back to Oliver. “Get her inside somewhere soon or you’ll lose your pretty companion to the Woods.”

  “Th-thank you,” Oliver stuttered.

  My fingers wrapped around the strap to my satchel and squeezed until they felt cold and stiff. It was probably futile to point out that I was currently inside some place safe and that he was the one sending us back into the dark unknown.

  I glanced at the faces of the men gathered around one more time. No, we wouldn’t find help here.

  Oliver took my wrist in shaking fingers and yanked me toward the door. “Do you think if I asked nicely, he would give us directions to the nearest temple?”

  I pressed my lips together to keep from laughing. I couldn’t tell if Oliver was jesting or not.

  Looking back at the stern-faced ogre I shook my head. “I doubt it. Ten to one odds, he would prefer it if the demons found us as soon as we stepped outside.”

  Oliver snorted. “Not helpful.”

  “Did you say you were travelers?”

  I jumped, startled by the gruff voice near the tavern door. His voice cut under the guffaws of the men watching us leave and if I had been less jumpy, I might not have heard him at all.

  I looked up to see a man leaning against the door frame. He was almost entirely hidden by a black cloak with a hood draped low over his eyes. I could just make out a scruffy beard covering the lower half of his jaw.

  “Who?” Oliver stared wide-eyed at the man. “Us?”

  “Are you travelers?” the cloaked man repeated slowly.

  “Y-yes,” Oliver answered for us. “We’re on our way to… to… to visit an aunt.”

  I elbowed my friend in the side and found great satisfaction in his low grunt. But honestly, Oliver. Our aunt?

  “Papers,” the stranger demanded.

  I studied him and tried not to panic. The rest of the men of Tenovia were built as thick as their trees. They were made for hard work in their forests, chopping down ancient wood, and hauling lumber to all corners of the realm. The stranger didn’t have that build or height, yet he was no less threatening.

  His cloak didn’t help. I imagined all manner of weapons tucked into the folds. His gloved hands rested on the hilt of something that promised to be especially sharp. And he kept his face tilted away from us so that all I could see was that strong jaw.

  If I could only see his face, then I could relax. I would be able to…

  “Papers?” Oliver squeaked.

  So much for a guardian to protect me. It looked as though I would be the one defending Oliver.

  “You must have travel papers if you’re not from Tenovia. Otherwise we’ll have to assume you’re with the rebels.”

  “We’re not!” Oliver squeaked. “We’re not with the rebels.” He glanced at me fidgeting nervously, shifting from one foot to the other. I poked him in the back to get him to settle down.

  It didn’t work.

  “So you have papers,” the stranger assumed.

  Oliver’s voice could barely be heard, “Not exactly…”

  “Then you’ll have to come with me,” the stranger told him. “You’re trespassing.”

  Trespassing?

  They would find the crown within minutes. We’d only been on the road for two weeks. We’d only been outside of Heprin for one day!

  “They’re with our horses outside,” I lied as quickly as the thought came to me. “They’re out… side. With our horses.”

&nb
sp; “With your horses?” the man asked dryly. “Outside?”

  I nodded.

  He swept his hand to the side, flashing tanned skin. He pushed the door open while I considered how a man in this kingdom could have skin that bronze. The men behind us were all pasty and neglected by the sun.

  “By all means,” he drawled. “Lead the way.”

  Oliver walked out first, giving a furtive glance over his shoulder. I followed right on his heels, pushing his back with my hands. The stranger stepped outside behind us. I could feel his shadowed eyes on me and had to swallow hysteria.

  As soon as we stepped into the cool night, my touch firmed.

  “Run!” I whisper-yelled in Oliver’s ear. “Into the forest! Go!!!”

  Thankfully, after our years of joint mischief and trouble, he knew when to listen without hesitation. Both of us lunged forward at the same time and sprinted off the main road into the nearest cluster of towering trees. The Blood Woods stretched out before us, a never-ending expanse of haunted shadows.

  The stranger’s shouts chased after us, unintentionally encouraging us to run harder, faster.

  Maybe demons were waiting for us inside this tangled purgatory. But anything was better than letting a meddling constable haul us away to jail, only to declare himself the next King of Elysia and master of my realm because we lacked proper paperwork.

  5

  This was a terrible idea.

  Jail would have been a considerable improvement to running blindly through the deadly Tellekane forest.

  I stumbled over roots while claw-like branches cut at my face and clothes. Twigs snagged my braid and I almost lost my footing altogether when a low-hanging branch suddenly manifested directly in front of me.

  I didn’t know what had happened to the constable. He could have been directly behind us or even beside us, but the moaning of the wind and the roar of leaves waving overhead paired with the frantic beat of my heart and our stumbling footsteps drowned out all other sound.