Birthright: The Crystal Throne - Book 1

by Kim Fedyk

  Absalom agreed. He didn’t have a better idea and he generally, although grudgingly gave in to what Rogan suggested when magic was involved. He could see the logic anyways in making sure their prey was at least not still down here in the bowels of the castle, while they went off prancing around upstairs trying to find them. They needed to be certain where they weren’t, if they had any chance of finding where they were.

  He told as much to Rogan. Then added, “We need to hurry, we can’t afford to waste any more time.”

  Rogan nodded, looked appropriately concerned and then turned to leave the chamber.

  Perfect, he thought. Like taking candy from a baby. Rogan’s cold eyes glinted with excitement.

  * * *

  While Absalom was busy in his garden, angrily stamping the grass into green paste; Arleth, Selene, Aedan and Zeeshan were safely hidden halfway across the castle.

  As a boy, one of Aedan’s favourite pastimes had been playing hide and seek in the winding corridors and halls of Iridian Castle. He and Val had spirited away hours, sometimes even whole days discovering new hiding spots, hidden passages and secret tunnels all throughout the castle. They had fancied themselves true adventurers, heroes out of their old story books. Little did they know then, that their discoveries on such innocent pursuits would turn out to be even more important to them as adults. It was precisely this secret network that had allowed Aedan to have spies in the castle. Early on, he and Val had recognized the importance of such knowledge and together had drawn detailed maps from memory. These were taught to each and every spy that entered the castle. When a spy was caught, the assumption was made that one or all of the secret hideaways they had used had been compromised. These were therefore crossed off the maps and the next spies were told not to use them. Unfortunately over the years, dozens of hideouts had been crossed off. But Aedan and Val had been zealous in their boyhood game and there were still a fair number of available passages.

  It was in one of these that the four of them now hid.

  Aedan had led them to one of the larger hideouts he could recall, but even still the four of them were cramped. A lot of this had to do with Zeeshan’s massive size; he had been forced to hunch over just to fit inside the room. Once inside it had become quickly apparent that in order for him to be even remotely comfortable, he would take up pretty much the entire space by himself. The end result was that Zeeshan was as spread out as much as he could be in the small room, with Arleth, Selene and Aedan sitting in a row on top of his legs.

  Arleth shifted her weight carefully on top of Zeeshan and attempted to stretch her legs out. Her stretch was only partially successful, but she did manage to prevent her right leg from falling asleep, a fate it had been slowly edging towards. She repositioned her legs as best she could even though she knew it was useless. Their plan was to hide out here until nightfall and then sneak out of the castle under cover of darkness. In that time, her legs were going to fall asleep about a dozen times, careful repositioning or not.

  Lucky for her, she had about a million questions to ask to pass the time.

  First things first, she wanted to know how she had come to be separated from her family and been raised on a different planet with no knowledge of who she really was.

  At this question, Selene raised her eyebrows and looked over at Aedan. The room was dark, lit only by a small ball of light Selene had conjured, but even so Aedan saw the glance, smiled sheepishly and nodded, “Yes Selene I get the hint, I will no longer attack my sister with information.”

  Selene smiled, her white teeth flashing in the gloom, “Just making sure.”

  “So Arleth,” Aedan began, turning his attention from Selene to focus on his sister, “In order to answer your questions, I will start from the beginning.”

  Arleth nodded eagerly, excited to learn about the history she didn’t even know she had until a few hours ago.

  “As a child, Absalom lived in the castle with his mother and father. His father, Aban, was in charge of the Royal Guard, the personal army of the king and the highest ranked professional fighting force in Oherra. For a number of years, Aban held this title and was highly regarded and well-respected. Then his wife became pregnant and gave birth to a baby girl. It was said that he took one look at the child and lost his mind. He flew into a rage, took his sword and ran it through both his newborn daughter and his wife.

  "Why would he do such a thing?" Arleth asked in shock

  Aedan hesitated, "Well..."

  "Holding the post of Royal Guard would have been very stressful," Selene cut in, carefully avoiding the glance Aedan was giving her. "It's hard to know why someone would snap."

  Arleth nodded, she supposed that was true. "What happened next?"

  "Our father decided to exile both Aban and his 13 year old son Absalom. For a while, our father kept tabs on where they went. By the terms of the exile, none of the cities were supposed to let them in. But Aban had been highly respected as the leader of the Royal Guard and our father wanted to make sure none of them decided to make an exception. He knew they had gone to each of the five northern cities in turn and been rejected by each. The last word was that they had travelled north into the ice plains. Then I guess our father either lost track of them or stopped caring. He met our mother, and then 5 years later I was born.

  When I was 7 Absalom came back. He was 25 years old then, slightly younger than I am now. He started off as a kitchen servant, but was soon trained into the army. The only person he ever associated with was Rogan – he was only an apprentice sorcerer at that time. I guess that period was where their partnership started, although no one really knows if they had been friends as children or not. Aside from a constant group of different women that would all but follow him around, everyone else avoided him.

  Then one day, about two years after he arrived, he disappeared. Rogan was questioned; a number of heartbroken women were questioned, but either no one knew where he went or no one would talk. My father tried looking for him, but when there were no traces of him, he along with everyone else just assumed that after years of exile, living in the castle had proven too much for him and he had left for a more quiet life.

  This was very likely the worst assumption of my father’s life.

  A year later, almost to the day, Absalom came back again. This time though, things were different. For one Arleth, you had been born and were a few months old at the time. Secondly, when Absalom came, he came with an army. An army of mercenary soldiers – the Dursk from deep in the ice plains.

  He attacked at night.

  I was awoken in my bed by my mother urgently shaking me awake. She told me the castle was under attack and to go hide. As I was racing through the castle I ran into Selene and Val and the three of us, along with Val's father Bain found a hidden passage to hide in. Bain left us there to go fight the intruders and the three of us hid there, waiting for him to return for what seemed like an eternity. We were terrified, shaking, hearing the screams of dying people just outside the door.

  Bain finally came back and when I questioned him, he reluctantly told me that you had been killed.”

  “Wait, what?” Arleth interrupted.

  “When Bain went to your crib, he saw a lot of blood.” Selene explained. “There was no body, but there were dozens of dead bodies scattered around the room. You could have been easily hidden among them, too small to notice. At that moment Bain made a hard decision. He chose to go back and save the 3 children he knew were alive, rather than risk their lives as well as his own for a baby he was almost certain was already dead.”

  That sounded very harsh to Arleth. But as cold as it was, she had to admit it did make a certain amount of logical sense. She still didn’t appreciate that she had been left to die though. “So clearly I am not dead, what did happen to me then?”

  Selene and Aedan shared a look.

  “We aren’t entirely sure Arleth. We only recently found out that Neve had survived the attack and had taken you with her to Tocarra. And that
is all we really know. Somehow Neve was able to sneak you out of the castle and take you across the universe with no one seeing her do it. Exactly how she did it is a mystery.”

  “But Absalom did know I was taken and he knew I was on Tocarra.”

  Both of them looked at her in surprise. “What do you mean?” Selene asked.

  “Rogan came for me when I was 10.”

  “What?!?” Both Selene and Aedan exclaimed incredulously. Neither of them had any idea that this was the second time Absalom had tried to reach her.

  Arleth spent the next 15 minutes telling them about the attack on the orphanage. Aedan was insistent on details and by the end Arleth was almost in tears when she described the death of Flora and how she had left Neve.

  Selene shuffled her way over to Arleth and put her arms around her to comfort her. “I’m so sorry Arleth, we know how terrible it is to lose those closest to you.”

  Arleth hadn’t let herself cry over this in years, but now, for some reason she couldn’t contain her tears. Perhaps it was Selene’s gentle tone and understanding or just the fact that this was the first time she had spoken out loud what had happened to her that day, but Arleth dissolved into incontrollable sobs. Selene just held her, patting her back and stroking her hair. She didn’t say anything; she just patiently let her cry herself out.

  After about 10 minutes, Arleth’s tears had just about dried up. “Thanks,” she muttered, wiping the tears from her eyes. “I didn’t think it would still affect me so much.”

  “When you go through a traumatic event, especially when you are so young I don’t think you can every really forget about it. And this was probably the first time you had to talk about it isn’t it?”

  Arleth nodded.

  Selene smiled and moved back away from Arleth, but still held onto her hand. “Well I think that it is only natural for you to react this way. I know Aedan, Val and I are still affected by the deaths we witnessed as children and we have had a lot of experience with death since then. And we have each other; you were left with no one. You are one brave girl Arleth.”

  Arleth certainly didn’t feel brave at that moment, but she appreciated what Selene was trying to do.

  “And besides,” Selene said winking at Arleth, “Sometimes a good cry makes you feel better.”

  They sat in silence for a few minutes, each lost in their own private thoughts.

  “Why do you think that Absalom waited 10 years to try and kill Arleth?” Aedan breathed into the darkness.

  “I was wondering that too,” Selene said. “I think he probably knew all along that Neve had taken her. But at that time he just didn’t care. In the beginning, he was interested in consolidating his power and eradicating any traitors. Then he had the northern annihilation, the subjugation of the southern cities and all his experimental creatures. Think about it, he thought he was invincible, why would he care about a child across the universe?”

  “And then we grew up, became more powerful, formed an actual resistance and that child suddenly became more important.” Aedan continued. “But he still thought he was strong enough to beat us. So instead of wanting her alive, on his side, he just wanted to kill her, finish the job he didn’t do 10 years before.”

  “Right, but he failed.” And in the intervening seven years, we grew even stronger, doubled our numbers and beat him into a stalemate.”

  “And then he wanted Arleth for her powers, to break the stalemate,” Aedan finished.

  “But if he had failed in killing her 10 years ago, why would he all of a sudden give up and forget about her for 7 years?”

  “Arleth,” Aedan said turning to her, “You said that when you left Neve, Rogan was unconscious right?”

  “Yes, he was lying on the floor.”

  “Neve must have cast a spell on him when he was sleeping; made him think he had killed Arleth, something like that. It’s the only explanation that makes sense.”

  “But how would he have known she was alive now?”

  “The Erum!” They both exclaimed together.

  “Of course,” Selene said. “One of them must have found a way to read it. They must have decoded it to track you, but soon realized that it was tracking not one, but two Amaras. And then realized that Arleth was still alive. Aedan, we need to get that book. Now.”

  “Selene it’s too dangerous....”

  “If one of them can now read it, it is too dangerous not to. Up until this point it didn’t matter as much that we didn’t have it. But he can track every single move that you and Arleth make. It won’t be a war anymore Aedan it will be a slaughter.”

  Aedan sighed, he knew she was right. He started to stand up, but Selene immediately pushed him back down.

  “Don’t even think about it. You know it has to be me. Magic will be needed to get to it.”

  Aedan looked pained, but he nodded. “Please be careful Selene.”

  “I always am! Be back in a flash” She winked at him and with a smile at all three of them in turn, she handed her ball of light to Aedan and left the room.

  When she had left, Aedan sighed and shook his head sadly. He knew she had to be the one to go, but he didn’t like it one bit.

  “Aedan, what is an Erum?” Arleth asked.

  “The Erum. There is only one. The Erum is a book”

  “A book?!?” Arleth didn’t see what the fuss was over a mere book.

  Aedan laughed, “It’s not just any book. This one is imbued with tracking magic. It tracks the lives of each Amara currently alive and writes an ongoing account of their daily activities. In essence, it is a self-writing journal.”

  “Are you saying this book has my entire life history in it?”

  “Yes, and mine too. What we have experienced, our feelings, emotions, it tells everything.”

  “And Absalom has this book right now? And has been reading about our lives?”

  “Yes that is why it is so important to get it back. Its real purpose is so that Amaras can look up past relatives and see how they handled a situation. So no knowledge is lost through the generations and so that the mistakes of the past aren’t repeated. But it is a dangerous thing in the wrong hands. As a protection, it is written so that only a person from the Amaran bloodline can read it. But it is possible to learn how to read it given enough time, and Absalom and Rogan have been given decades.”

  “Wow,” Arleth said. She sat in silence thinking of all the things that Absalom would have read about her and her skin crawled. She felt very violated. Then, she thought of something else,

  “But this is Iridian castle. It guards the crystal throne for the rest of the universe. How could it just be taken and the rest of the universe have no idea. Life is going on peacefully on Tocarra with no knowledge that the King of Oherra is not an Amara.

  Zeeshan, silent up until this point also chirped in, “And how come my people, the Talywags have no idea that Absalom is not the real king? Occa supports him, throws banquets for him when he comes through.”

  “Well,” Aedan said, “In answer to your first question Arleth, there has been peace in the universe for so long that it has gotten complacent. As you probably know, the worlds aren’t as connected as they once were and many of the artefacts have been lost or reside in museums in the royal cities. Not only that, but Absalom spent the first couple of years of his reign playing the perfect diplomat with those worlds that were the most closely connected to Oherra; Senan, Rizod and Lothe. I don’t know how exactly he did it, but somehow he managed to convince their ruling families that he had ended a brutal regime and had brought peace to Oherra. I want to believe that he had Rogan conjure up something for him. I want to believe that their kings and queens are not that dumb and gullible. But I really have no idea.... And Zeeshan, about your question. The Talywags do know the truth about Absalom.”

  “They do?!?”

  “Yes, they have been helping us from the beginning.”

  “But how come I didn’t know?”

  “The Talywags do not have t
he strength to stand up to Absalom and, as you know they are a timid race; they don’t have the courage to join our army and live in the mountains. So they help us by providing us with food, clothing and other supplies. To protect their people, on the outside they are loyal to Absalom, but they have been leaving us valuable supplies at specific drop off points in the Frasht Forest for years. It is quite a testament to the intelligence and loyalty of your people that they have managed to successfully fool Absalom for over a decade... It’s funny actually,” Aedan continued after a brief pause, “The Talywags are known as a timid race and they are few in number but they are risking everything to help us. While the heavily fortified cities of the south have a large fighting force and submitted to Absalom almost right away.”

  Zeeshan smiled, he was quite proud of his people. “Well good! I am glad us Talywags are on your side.”

  “So am I Zeeshan, so am I.” Aedan turned away from Zeeshan to stare into the darkness, thinking about just how true that was. Without the Talywags, Aedan didn’t even want to think about how he would get the food and supplies needed to sustain his army as well as the civilians in the stronghold. Not to mention the raw materials they needed to make and repair their weapons and armour. For such a timid race, they were a vital component in the resistance against Absalom.

  “Aedan,” Arleth said, breaking his train of thought, “What did you mean when you and Selene were talking earlier and you said that Absalom wanted me for my powers?”

  “Hmmm?” Aedan said, his mind still a bit distracted, “Oh your powers.” He paused briefly, “With your powers, if you were fighting on Absalom’s side he would have the advantage in the war.”

  Arleth just stared at him, her confusion etched on her face.

  “Um what powers? I don’t have any powers!”

  Now it was Aedan’s turn to look confused. “Of course you do. It’s your birthright.”

  “It’s my what?”

  “Your birthright. You know, as a female in the Amaran bloodline? The power every Amaran woman has been born with since the Great War?”