by Drae Box
“I will.”
Raneth left her.
Aldora picked up the file from the chair and sat down. She inhaled sharply, feeling the tug of tears at her chest, her breath juddering. She rested the back of her head against the chair’s headrest and closed her eyes, gripping the arms of the chair hard and feeling her eyelashes slice the tears. I’m so sorry. She leaned forwards as the shivering of her lower lip became uncontrollable. Her stomach twisted, her body chilling and warm tears slid free.
After a few sobs, Aldora sucked in a deep breath to try and quell her swirling feelings. I can’t feel sorry for myself. I’ll make it up to you, Raneth. She lifted her gaze from her lap and wiped the tears away. Her breath still juddered, but she slowed it and focused on her breathing until it calmed.
I’m the Dagger Bearer, she reminded herself. I’ll clear my reputation and I’ll help Raneth. I won’t lose him. She took another slow breath. And maybe, if I’m lucky, I’ll hunt down the Dagger myself.
Epilogue
Koyla
Twirling his silver pen in his hand, Koyla Rifthold mutely nodded at his friend, who paused in his rant to look at him. Pleased by the nod, his friend continued to pace, snarling and spitting out angry words. By the Goddess, Denzel Leoma – the man he had thought would strengthen Giften – had been like this on and off for two weeks. Ever since they had fled their own headquarters.
Koyla wasn’t really listening to Denzel’s rant. He’d stopped listening the first day, but had somehow managed to get away with nodding and throwing smiles whenever his friend looked his way for approval.
Propping his head against a hand, Koyla retreated into his own thoughts once more. Somehow, Royal Official Captain Raneth Bayre had brought the Shotput of Power against Broken Crown. With barely any allies, the captain had destroyed Denzel’s years of hard work in one small battle; the Shotput had given him all the additional firepower he needed to win. Denzel’s men had barely stood a chance. Everyone had been forced to flee.
There is no going back now, thought Koyla. He had once been the highest tribune in the First Legion, but now he was nothing. A traitor. It made his skin crawl. If Denzel’s organisation had managed to keep its iron grip on Giften, everything would have turned out fine, with time. The Brethren, Denzel’s men who had sworn to use their magic gifts to serve, would have stopped any further rioting and rebellion. The Guardsmen, Denzel’s weapon-wielding men, would have calmed crime. Yet the Royal Official Captain had barely given Broken Crown chance to breathe upon his return from Newer Kingdom.
That’s where he got the Shotput. It should have been with the city overseer of Newer’s capital, Chaol City; Koyla had carefully orchestrated its getting there. What had gone wrong? Clearly the overseer had never gotten it as payment for killing the child – the child who had seen Denzel’s plan with his gift, and who had foolishly told his teacher of his vision. And there were rumours about the mother. About a murder. Something had gone amiss.
Koyla focused briefly on Denzel. He was still pacing back and forth in the living room, his boots thudding against the thick pale green carpet. Worse, his veins had started to show in his neck, pulsing as he continued to snarl. Denzel was so full of hatred. So… So…
He did this to Giften. To me. To Reinette.
Koyla inhaled sharply at the memory of his love smiling at him. “It’ll be easy to take the king,” she had said. “All I have to do is kill two royal officials and then that sweet tongue of yours can do the rest. Brainwash him so Denzel can take the throne legally.”
He never should have made the introductions between Reinette and Denzel, but how could he have known that every plan Denzel would come up with, every plan that Koyla helped him fine-tune, would fail?
Koyla rubbed his eyes. Since the fall of Broken Crown, he’d hardly had any sleep. He and Denzel had barely escaped Raneth’s wrath with their lives. He’d brought Denzel here, to his dead aunt’s home, and as he watched him spin on one foot to pace the other way, he remembered Denzel introducing him to the idea of Broken Crown. It had happened right here, after Koyla had served on the trial of a murderer and won, and then dispatched word to King Cray to send a royal official to arrest the murderer. If he hadn’t decided to reward his achievement by buying himself a new book, hadn’t decided to support his friend’s seemingly failing bookshop, he never would have gotten involved with Broken Crown, and Reinette… Reinette would still be alive.
Banished, but alive.
When he had discovered that the Leoma Bookshop wasn’t failing, that its income was being put towards saving the kingdom, Koyla had been intrigued enough to invite Denzel home for dinner and discovered the truth of what he was up to. But it had taken his friend a while to admit that the whole idea wasn’t actually his, although if anybody asked, it was. There was somebody else behind it all, somebody else that Denzel had been so worried about, feared even, that Koyla had advised him to find a way to protect himself.
Two days later, Denzel had got a plan to seize a Weapon of Protection for himself. Knowing the Third Legion would be on exercises the following month, Koyla had warned Denzel that if the Dagger were to be stolen, he might as well attack its home, the Brown Buzzard Village, to assess the training of what would become the kingdom’s Guardsmen. Denzel’s tongue had loosened then, revealing that Broken Crown had already been working to increase the workload of royal officials so that Giften would be more vulnerable to his future aim — to seize Giften from King Cray.
Koyla had agreed to help for two reasons: his loyalty to Denzel, and his hope that if Broken Crown did get the kingdom, Reinette could come home and become his wife.
“So what do you think?”
Koyla’s attention snapped back to Denzel. “Hmm?”
Denzel’s grey eyes flickered with irritation. “Of my plan. That we kill Raneth Bayre before we try anything else.”
Koyla straightened in his seat. “Kill the captain?”
Insane.
He shook his head. “He’s too well trained for any of your people to get close,” he said. “He’s a royal official and a Bayre.”
He didn’t bother telling Denzel that he knew from a friend at the Royal Official University that when Raneth had shown up for his admittance exams at the age of six, he had already displayed mastery of the fighting skills that trainee royal officials only had by the end of the first year. Bayres had been Giften’s secret champions for centuries. Their preference for working in the military, their focused discipline in forcing their heirs to become warriors from a young age so they stood a chance of surviving the Bayre-Frey Feud – it all made the family invaluable to the Giften royal family. And when you considered that they were relations of the royals too… He shook his head again.
“Even if we wanted to, reports says Raneth has barely left the safety of the Royal Palace since he destroyed our headquarters. The Creator’s magic is still strong enough to defend the blood of a royal from spilling.”
It was thanks to the protective magic in the walls of the royal palace that they had kidnapped King Cray outside of the palace some years before, when he was guarded by only two royal officials.
What fools we’ve been.
They’d been unlucky that Raneth had been filling in for an injured royal official that day. Maybe if the Bayre heir hadn’t been there when Reinette seized the king, Denzel would be ruling now, with a brainwashed Cray at his side.
“You’re a tribune. Why can’t you do it?”
“Was a tribune,” corrected Koyla.
He placed his pen down on the side table by the arm of his white sofa and sipped at the cold cup of tea there.
“You told Aldora that I was a tribune. Once King Cray reaches the palace, with the kingdom’s Record Keepers in tow, they’ll look me up and they’ll find me. I doubt there’s another tribune currently serving with the name of Koyla. It’s not a common name.” He paused, giving Denzel a warning look. “And we’ll have to find somewhere else to hide, somewhere that you and I can’t be
traced to by those Record Keepers.”
“But the army taught you to fight, didn’t it?” asked Denzel, clearly unfazed by the threat the kingdom’s records posed to their current hiding spot.
“Yes, but not as well as a royal official,” said Koyla.
Who had put the idea into Denzel’s head that a tribune could kill a royal official? Or was his common sense that far gone now?
“After my initial training with the army, I was sent to law school for seven years before I returned to the legions and worked my way up into being the First Legion’s First Tribune, and Jovian took my spot last year.”
He set his cup down a little too roughly against the table, causing it to clunk. Tribune Jovian had been after his position for years and, after hitching himself to Raneth’s career during Raneth’s hearing for failing to protect the king against Reinette, he had managed to get it with ease.
“You would be better off honouring the Bayre-Frey Feud and our agreement with the Master Frey. Ask him to get a wiggle on and kill the captain, rather than focusing his attention on Raneth’s father.”
“Thane doesn’t want anything to do with Broken Crown. Not now he’s supplied the real founder with the guns from the Southern Kingdom. He wasn’t a true believer. He just wanted to line his pockets.”
Koyla tried not to smile. “I did warn you that the Frey, especially the Master Frey, only ever do anything to help their efforts in the Feud. He probably helped you just to make sure he had enough information to keep Raneth safe from you. He must have known Dragon Bayre would stay with Cray to protect the king, and leave Raneth the work of sorting us–”
“Perhaps,” snapped Denzel. “But I can’t trust him.”
Koyla nodded, choosing not to remind Denzel that most of his men were criminals with grudges against royal officials, or disillusioned men who had seen or read about the reign of Cray’s father, the Cruel King, King Nicodemus. At least Cray had the good sense to be kind and just. Koyla wouldn’t trust any member of Broken Crown – not with their backgrounds and what they had pledged allegiance to.
“So I want the person I trust the most – you – to do it,” said Denzel.
Koyla strode over to the white marble mantelpiece and poked at the fire, forcing it to grow. “Like I said, asking a tribune is a mistake. We don’t keep our fighting skills honed. Only our tongues.”
“But you already know so much about the Bayres.”
Only because the Bayre-Frey Feud has caused laws within Giften that apply just to the Bayres and Frey.
“I can’t keep helping you, Denzel,” said Koyla softly. “You know you are one of my most cherished friends but,” he shrugged, “Broken Crown failed to deliver its promise. You didn’t give us a better Giften. Your Brethren massacred more than a thousand people and you didn’t rein them in. Your Guardsmen were no better, and then there’s what you did with the hostages. Nearly three hundred men you killed, publically, when you promised the king – no, by the Goddess’ name, the Kingdom – to release them if he handed over the Kingdom’s Shield.”
“He had no intention of honouring that promise. You saw how Dragon Bayre swooped down over those rooftops to snatch the Shield out of my hands.”
He had. It wasn’t the first time Koyla had seen the Master Bayre in his blood-gift form, a large, muscular-classed navy-blue dragon, but it had been the most impressive, if only because the Brethren had attacked him and he’d had to fly without getting burned to death. Getting the Kingdom’s Shield had been vital; having it gave any Giften the right to call Giften theirs, to be its ruler. It was an heirloom Cray had inherited from Giften’s first king, just as his father had before him.
Koyla gestured at the blade by Denzel’s hip. It shouldn’t have been there, but they’d managed to keep it as they fled. The Dagger of Protection, one of six magic artefacts, made by the kingdom’s strongest sorcerer, to protect its village. Denzel had forced Thane to take it off Aldora Leoma – Denzel’s niece – to retire from serving the terrorist organisation Denzel was running.
“Why don’t you just zap him with its lightning attack?” asked Koyla.
“Because it won’t kill him. He’s a representative of the king. That’s why it didn’t kill Aldora when we ran.” Denzel strode to Koyla’s side and clasped his wrist. His eyes burned with pure unchecked hatred as he looked up at him. “I understand that you feel Broken Crown… that I failed you. I know why this mattered to you.”
Koyla nodded, swallowing a lump in his throat, his eyes watering at Denzel’s surprisingly gentle words. It had been three years and he’d only just managed to stop sobbing at the very thought of Reinette. If only the tears and the way his chest seized would stop happening too.
“But you can’t give up on us yet,” uttered Denzel, his eyes finally softening. “We have time.”
“Time?” growled Koyla. “I have no more time with Reinette thanks to you.” He clenched his jaw, watching Denzel take a quick step back from him, a hand settling onto the Dagger of Protection. “I won’t be staying, Denzel.”
“But, but you’re important to the cause, Koyla. You’re the best at recruiting members, you–”
“No, Denzel. My involvement with Broken Crown is over.”
Denzel’s eyes gleamed and he began to smile.
By the Goddess, what now?
“Kill Raneth and I’ll let you leave,” said Denzel. “Kill him, and I won’t send every Brethren in hiding to hunt you down and kill you.”
Koyla clenched his eyes shut for the barest of moments, swearing in his mind, calling Denzel every foul name he could think of. If this was how Denzel wanted to be, if this was how he was going to treat one of his oldest friends, a man who had even saved his life from the power of the Shotput, then maybe they had never truly been friends at all.
Even if I run to the Silver Kingdoms or the Starborn Kingdoms, the Brethren could find me. Most of them will recognise me from when I recruited them.
Even though a life with Reinette wasn’t possible anymore, Koyla still wanted to die of old age, not from a gift-attack, and he knew that any death at the hands of the Brethren would be neither quick nor pleasant. Even Thane Frey had known better than to dare Denzel to try.
Koyla looked at his friend and wondered just what he had become.
“Very well, but don’t expect it to happen overnight.”
Denzel smiled. “Take all the time you need.”
About the Author
Drae Box is a fantasy author that lives in the UK with their rescue-dog, Twitch. They enjoy hikes, shows that mix crime and fantasy together, Fairyloot and fantasy novels that leave a lasting impression.
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Preview Daggerless
The Last Book in The Common Kingdoms Series
Daggerless releases 3rd Decembe
r 2019 and will be available for pre-order at Amazon.
Chapter One
Raneth
There was only one person that could be knocking at his bedroom door. Acting Regent Raneth Bayre refocused from the papers on his bed and looked to the door. They were the only two in the palace, other than a cat. Had been for the past two weeks. She knocked again, a little louder this time.
“Just a sec,” he said, grabbing at the reports he’d been reviewing. He dumped them in an unordered pile at the bottom of his bed before he slipped free of the covers and padded to the door. He opened it.
“I can’t do this anymore,” said Aldora Leoma as she looked up at him.
He swallowed. Her eyes glistened in the corridor gaslights, the brown of her eyes almost entirely swallowed by her pupils. He glanced at her lips. Smooth, plump lips that shone in the lights.
“I just can’t,” she added, squeezing past him and into his room. The heat from her shoulder soaked into Raneth’s chest as she brushed against him.
He swallowed again, turned, and shut the door with his foot. “Do what?”
She stopped at the corner of his bed, a hand sliding through the chilled air of his room to toy with one of the report pages. She turned. “Keep giving you space. I’m your girlfriend. You said you understood why I did what I did.”
Raneth turned to the chest of drawers by the door and grabbed a pair of brown civilian trousers. He shoved a foot into it.
“Don’t. Don’t do that,” she said.
He froze and turned his gaze to Aldora. “Do what?”