Lightborn
Page 1
Lightborn
LJ Andrews
Dedicated to those who always look for the light in life
Copyright notice: All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Table of Contents
Map of Bloodlands
Glossary
Prologue
Part 1
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Part 2
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Epilogue
Sneak Peek
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The Shattered Empires
Glossary
Annis: miss
Oumi: mother
Jamila: beautiful
Bok Tov: beautiful morning
Bachcha: little one
Shaanti: peace
Zaeim: master/leader
Earthbreakers—control the elements
Mindweavers—control the mind
Fireshaper—builds with fire
Nightmaker—can extinguish mystic power.
Diviner—see the future
Shen—skilled fighter and weapons handler
Banesman—assassin
Prologue
The Halfling
When Roark’s mother excused him to the front patio it was clear something was amiss. For one thing, his mother never skipped a language lesson with her only child. Another clue, because Roark wasn’t a boy who played outside often.
Talk was muffled as he strained to hear, and tension bled from the clay walls onto the stone porch. A scribe’s lot in life was to learn the languages of the empires, ancient writings, and decipher hieroglyphs. Playing a solo game of Kings and Swine wasn’t typical, especially since the game was meant for three players.
Roark tapped his lips in thought as he studied the gameboard. Rubbing a copper serpent piece between his thumb, he analyzed the defenses he’d created around the royal line on the opposing sides of the angled board. The serpent could crumble the wall defenses on the left side. Even the two river pieces he’d placed on the right could be diverted with the serpent. But then the king piece would be in position to crush the snake and call kingmaker to the opposing royal line. He’d worked his way into a corner. Impressive since he was playing himself.
Roark stroked his chin as if stubble dotted his smooth face; a habit he’d fallen into since his father often brushed his own thick, black beard. At fourteen, a boast-worthy beard still seemed a lifetime away. His father was broad, and looked fit to be a military man, not a studious scribe. Roark looked more the scribe part with his lanky arms and torso that revealed his ribs no matter how much his mother fed him.
Raking his fingers through his cropped dark hair, he sighed and leaned back from the gameboard. Time to readjust the strategy. Roark took a turn around the yard, trying to catch any hint of the secret conversations between his parents and the Saronas as he pondered his game. Something was happening with the nobles of the Jershon empire. That was all he knew. Something terrible that needed to be recorded without a young scribe knowing the details. Roark kicked a pebble bitterly. Apparently, he was still a child who couldn’t scribe the more difficult parts of history. He could handle politics; he wasn’t some whimpering girl.
The same moment the thought passed through his mind; a soft sound prickled his ears. Someone was whimpering outside the gate. Dusk had settled across Scribe Square, and most people in the city of Sortis would be tucked inside their homes. Roark snatched a dead branch from the olive tree in his yard. The boy had only studied swordplay and had never handled a weapon, but the Saga gypsies were known to rob homes by using children as bait and distraction. He wasn’t taking any chances.
Swallowing back grit in his throat, Roark peered over the small wooden gate and dropped the branch immediately. A girl was certainly whimpering, but her gown was made of azure silk and she wore sandals beaded in gold. A noble.
“Annis, are you hurt?” Roark asked softly as the branch dropped to the sandy road.
She faced him and he sucked in a breath. Though her head shawl covered her chin, lips, and half her nose, her blue eyes were as clear as glassy ice during the frosts. That wasn’t all; her skin wasn’t the same as his. The tone was sun-kissed and paler, but not creamy like the nearby people of the Zaharan empire. His own complexion was a soft brown, much like every legal person in Jershon.
A halfling.
Roark knew he should report her. If Emperor Abram knew the Varonis house had let a wandering halfling go free, he could be imprisoned. But the tears in her eyes and the strangest sort of warmth radiating from the girl brought Roark to pause. Based on the fine materials of her dress, the girl was from the wealth of Jershon, but how was a noble halfling possible?
“Annis,” he said again. The girl was clearly terrified when he opened the gate. “Are you alright?”
“I fell,” she said mildly and reached for her foot.
“May I see?”
She shook her head, covered her ankle with her gown, and tugged the shawl tighter around her face.
Roark tried to force a smile. His heart thudded in his chest the closer he came to the girl. She was younger, but not by much by the dark liners around her eyes to signal approaching womanhood. Roark wasn’t one for silly crushes since he would be paired with an honorable scribe family someday. What was the point? However, her rare blue eyes and soft voice, he found the girl being a halfling hardly mattered. And he wouldn’t mind learning her name.
“I see you,” he said, hoping she realized he already knew her blood status. “May I examine your foot?”
“Don’t tell them,” she said with a nod toward his house. “Please. I’m leaving. I beg of you, Scribe.”
Roark shook his head and glanced over his shoulder when someone within his house lit a lantern. “There are no patrols here. I’ll call to no one and keep your secret. Now, where have you been hurt?”
She slowly lifted her gown and Roark could see slight swelling in her ankle. “I slipped and my foot twisted.”
Roark reached for her foot but jumped back in surprise when she jostled at his touch and soon a sharp point was pressed against his neck. “What…why do you have a knife?” he said as his adolescent voice cracked and pitched.
She released a haggard breath and glanced sheep
ishly at the small blade she’d pulled from nowhere. Tucking it back in the ribbons of fabric in her gown she let out a shaky chuckle as she swiped a few stray tears away. “Forgive me. Tonight, has caused me to be unnerved.”
Roark’s throat was dry. A halfling noble…with a knife. Curious.
“I can help you.” He didn’t wait for her to respond before rushing toward the well in the corner of the yard, partly because he feared she’d gut him at the slightest sound.
With the changing seasons the water would be chilled. Reeling up a newly filled bucket, he rushed to the ice shed where his mother stored meats. Chipping a few blocks off the wall, he tossed the ice into the bucket and returned to the gate. The girl was standing and beginning to back away with a limp.
“Annis, please. This will ease the pain in your foot.”
“You will keep me here,” she said, glancing cautiously over her shoulder. “You shall tell your household of me.”
He shook his head, surprised himself, and stepped closer. “No, I promise you. Now, rest your foot in here for a time, then continue on your journey.”
The girl’s blue eyes bounced back and forth between Roark and the gate. She tangled her gown in her fingers and glanced over her shoulder. Finally, after several heartbeats she nodded.
“Only for a moment.” Her voice cracked and Roark saw a swell of new tears glaze the blue. Something had happened to this girl, and he wouldn’t add to her suffering by calling the patrols.
With her arm slung across his shoulder, Roark guided them both past the half-finished game. Her eyes smiled and Roark chuckled. “Do you play?” He helped ease her to the ground and slipped off her sandal so she could soak her foot.
“It’s my favorite game,” she said as she dipped her foot in the water. “Oh, by the Mount that’s cold.”
Roark furrowed his brow. A Mount believer. He shouldn’t be surprised, many people in Jershon worshiped the Mount and the gods. The religion preached by the dead Light King was still part of most empires. After reading many texts of varying ancient scripture he wasn’t certain there was truth to any of it. Although the religion taught about unique voices in rays of power, and god-blessed people chosen to serve the Mount, since the discovery of the scrolls a century earlier no concrete evidence of any mystics or chosen people had arisen.
“Let the water soak your skin for some time,” Roark urged with a glance at the gameboard. “Would you…like to play while you wait?”
Her mouth was covered by the head shawl, but the way her eyes brightened he could see the girl was grinning.
“Yes.”
Roark had a strange excitement at the idea of having a partner other than his mother or father and folded his skinny legs beneath his body. “We’ll make do with the two of us, but I warn you, I’ve set up a rather difficult playing board. You go first.”
“My sister and I play a two-person board often. It can work,” she said.
The girl leaned forward as best she could with her foot draped over the bucket and lifted the right-side queen piece. She moved outside the wall defenses he’d built and landed on one of his soldier pieces. With a grin she tipped the soldier off the board. Roark’s mouth dropped slightly—he’d missed the move completely.
He moved his king. Next came her soldier. Roark returned his king behind his stronghold. She built more walls around her royals. The scribe broke away bits of her strategic defenses with his stone pieces. The noble only added more and took his second soldier.
By the time Roark helped the girl ease her numb foot from the bucket she had lost her queen, he’d lost everyone apart from his king, and it was a faceoff for kingmaker between sides. Roark was educated and prided himself on his strategy, but he’d never expected a girl to be on the brink of besting him.
“I feel a kingmaker in my favor coming,” she said with a grin.
Roark wiggled the serpent piece in one hand with a flick of his brow. “But remember I have the snake.”
“Are you a snake, Scribe?” she chuckled, resting her chin in her palms.
“When it comes to winning, I assure you I can be a snake.”
Roark found his move. He saw a weakness in her defenses; a weakness the serpent could crumble. The moment of victory was near at the same moment the bamboo shade on the back window lifted.
“Roark…” His mother called.
The girl struggled to her feet, knocking the board slightly. A distant thunder clapped as her shoulders heaved with sharp breaths. “I must go.”
“Wait,” he said as she hobbled toward the gate. “Don’t go out there in the dark. Stay. Why are you running?”
“Staying means death. You see me; you know what becomes of halflings.”
“But you are no normal halfling, clearly by your fine things.”
“That life is over.” She slipped out of his family’s yard, and Roark had little idea how to stop the child. Darkness had settled over the city. If she was leaving to the outer fields of the empire at night, she was at risk for trappers. And a halfling with blue eyes and noble dress would fetch a fair price for a trapper band.
“Please, let me help you.”
“Roark, where are you?” his mother called again.
The girl paused and tugged her shawl over her head tighter. “Thank you, scribe. I shall hold onto your kindness.”
“My name is Roark.”
Her eyes smiled again. “Then may the Mount bless you, Roark.”
“It’s dangerous in outer Jershon, Annis.”
“I don’t stay in Jershon. I can’t.”
“You’re not leaving the empire. Are you looking to die?”
She chuckled weakly. “I know how to survive. Clearly I have a brain by how I defeated you in Kings and Swine.”
“You didn’t defeat me, but you can’t…go into the wilds of the Bloodlands.”
She drifted toward the shadows cast by the scribe homes and nearly disappeared. “Farewell. Should we meet again, I hope you have improved your game.”
“Wait what’s your name…” he shouted toward the shadows. He couldn’t see her anymore. As if night had swallowed the girl, she was gone.
Roark startled when a strong hand clapped on his shoulder.
“What are you doing?” His father towered over him. His voice was stern, but his father had kind eyes that made Roark hardly fear his discipline. It was always delivered fairly.
“Sorry, father. I thought…I saw something.”
Tugging Roark toward the house his father nodded. “Come inside. The blood moon is coming, and your mother will faint with nerves if you stay out in the dark much longer.”
Roark obeyed, glancing once at the game board as he passed. His curiosity about the mysterious girl eventually faded through the years. But there were moments, as he grew, whenever he played Kings and Swine that he wondered what became of the noble halfling with blue eyes.
Part One
The Passing of Five Annual Blood Moons
Chapter 1
The Thief
War came when the moon turned to blood.
The first blood moon divided lands centuries ago. Brothers turned against brothers, fathers against sons. Greed, power, and betrayal soon ravaged a fallen world. The Lightborn were exterminated and magic from the mystical Mount of Rays was lost in the oblivion. Ancient walls divided lands and a shattered empire fell to a game of survival, cunning, and ambition. Two hundred years later and nothing much had changed, but it was the only land Isa had known for all her sixteen years. Even as the frigid breeze blew from nowhere and a rancid swamp soaked her clothing, this night seemed hardly different from others.
Unwashed skin and rotting wood teased her nose. “May I offer some advice,” Isa urged as cold light shone across murky water. “If you insist on huddling so close to a woman, soap would be appreciated.”
The barbarian’s greasy fingers yanked her hair, losing the black hood off her head, and burned the tiny pores across her scalp. Isa only chuckled darkly.
; By now the coarse twine around her wrists dug into the warmth of her flesh. Skin puckered in welts around the restraints and was sure to bring sores in the morning. Bale brushed the tip of his amethyst blade along the smooth edge of her cheek. At one time the sword might have been a fine quality and the envy of others. Now, the cutting edge was chipped, and the hilt wrap had faded from years of sweat and blood. Isa met his stormy gaze without a flinch.
“I’m insulted,” Bale said. The touch of his dirty fingers prickled like spider legs beneath her chin. “He sent a child. I never imagined the great Hadeon would lose his touch.”
Bale’s crooked shoulders slumped forward. Attempts to frighten her with his ugly sneer fell flat. Isa returned his stare with no affection and ignored the chill soaking through her hand-stitched hosen as her knees sunk deeper in the black mud. Her stature might be considered small, but she was no child and the hungry gaze from Bale’s narrowed eyes left a bitter taste on her tongue. Gold powders dusted her skin and dark liners coated her lashes to add a dignified disguise. Bale sniffed one of Isa’s dark curls he’d tangled around his fingers and took a daring step closer. Isa shifted, building tension in her legs should she need to pounce. What Bale wouldn’t see were the two thin blades hidden beneath the folds of her sapphire tunic. The steel seemed alive like a flame igniting in darkness. Not long now and he wouldn’t be laughing.
“You w-w-would be unwise to question Hadeon.” The stammer spilled out forced and intentional. She’d let the barbarians have a lick of confidence.
Bale crowed toward the sky and each cackle boiled in Isa’s blood. The sky darkened.
Three men mimicked their leader’s laugh as they shoved Isa about, but she never lost the smirk on her lips. Bale stroked his curled beard and raised a hand to silence his men. She knew there were more barbarians at the shore, but this travel party revealed Bale’s arrogance since it was unwise for a renowned criminal to cross with so few men. Brushing some flecks of crusted food from his beard onto the crown of Isa’s head, Bale lowered to his haunches which cracked with age and pressure. She didn’t bat a lash, but her lips twitched when his breath reeking of stale wine and sickly, sweet smoke accosted her nostrils.