Shattered Kingdom

by Angelina J. Steffort

  There, at the end of the tunnel, outlines appeared, dark spots before a soft light.

  So quick he couldn’t protest, Gandrett grabbed the torch from him and suffocated its flame on the ground. Instincts. She was acting on instincts like some of the best fighters in his army. An army he hoped would one day protect the borders of Sives rather than fight a war on Sivesian soil, where the lush green of meadows and the light gold of ripe grains should reflect the color of the lands and not the crimson of its own men and women’s blood.

  He blinked into the darkness, letting his eyes adjust, Gandrett beside him still like a statue.

  The dragon lairs of Eedwood. Not a legend. He still wondered why that door had never shown for him, never revealed itself to the true Lord of Eedwood. Perhaps it was Gandrett’s magic that had triggered it. Even if, when he had spoken about the conundrum of Joshua’s compelled actions and how lucky she had been to have been able to stop him, she had denied she had ever used magic before, that she had even known she was carrying it within her, maybe the door had known. Maybe the dragon magic buried deep under the castle had known.

  He glanced at her outline, loose strands of hair floating behind her in the draft.

  Had she told him what her mission was, had he known sooner, he might have turned the castle upside down in order to help her. Even if eventually Joshua would have never agreed to leave—but, by the gods, Armand would have tried. It didn’t matter who she truly was. A mercenary or even a random girl pushed into the wrong path. He had never seen an image of Mckenzie Brenheran, but the similarities with Joshua were nonexistent, so he excluded that option. Even if the pendant on her chest suggested otherwise. One thing was certain. She wasn’t the Lady Starhaeven she had been letting him believe, but something much, much more. And may it be reckless, but the thought of her having so much more depth to offer was exciting, thrilling. A kindred spirit in this godsforsaken world.

  He inched closer, feeling the energy brewing in her.

  “Last time I was down here, I saw someone,” she whispered, leaning toward him without compromising her center of gravitation. “They fled when I called out to them. I don’t want to spook them this time.”

  Without waiting for his assessment of the situation, she started moving, slowly and noiselessly like a ghost. Armand followed, fascination and concern fighting to gain the upper hand as they slowly descended into the darkness of the tunnel and toward the figures that had stopped far away enough that it was impossible to tell who they were.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Addie tumbled into the darkness, Linniue and her guard behind her, the former wrapped in a Denderlain-blue coat lined with white fur, the latter grunting with every step, as if he knew exactly what was about to come and was only half-excited about it as he pushed her further and further into the cold.

  With half a thought, Addie wondered if he was like Joshua, if he served Linniue without consent. Or if he truly believed that what he did was right.

  As for herself, she couldn’t find any indication that her mind had been clawed into by the lady behind her. No traces of compulsion besides the hands that were roughly shoving her on and on.

  She didn’t fight the guidance, no matter how much her back hurt, no matter how the cold air made her shudder as it kissed the open wound on her shoulder. Appearance was all she thought about for now. She had to appear as if she was already under that spell Joshua and probably half the castle-guards had fallen victim to. And she needed to be convincing enough to get the lady to speak freely so she could collect whatever scraps of information to carry to the young lord and the future king. And to Gandrett, whose life she had saved and who had a secret of her own she carried with her.

  Magic didn’t scare Addie as it did most people in Sives. Even if she had grown up on a farm, she had been exposed to all sorts of people over the years. People who had crossed through the north-east of Sives and passed by her parents’ house, seeking shelter for a night or two. And her parents, may the gods cradle their souls, had helped whoever they could. Until that night their farm had been set on fire. “Brenheran sympathizers,” the cruel people who had done it had hissed as she had escaped the flames. And instead of killing her—an orphan by then—they had taken her to the prison in the north. A girl no one would miss to rot in the ice and snow of the mountains.

  But now she knew better. Shygon worshipers. That’s what they were at the prison in Lands End. And the inmates were vessels to be sacrificed eventually. To the god of dragons. For what reason, she could only suspect. But there was a reason Neredyn was grateful that the dragons had been eradicated. The Dreads of the Skies had plagued the lands too long, and what few had bonded with humans had caused destruction and terror wherever they had gone.

  So Addie steeled herself for the cold that she was used to and kept putting one foot before the other, head high, and in her mind, she chanted a prayer to Vala, hoping the goddess of life would remain with her.

  As the tunnels grew darker, Linniue stepped past her, the bucket in her hand, the fine lady actually taking the chore Addie normally did. It was clear that to her it wasn’t ordinary water, that it was something so vital she didn’t entrust anyone else with it. At least not now that she had retrieved the bucket from Addie.

  “Where are we going?” Addie kept her voice steady, interested, without letting show the desperate need to figure out if she was going to get out of there alive.

  Whatever Armand had planned to get Joshua out of Eedwood, Addie hoped he was going to do it soon. That if she didn’t return, he wouldn’t wait to save the future of Sives.

  “You’ll see, my faithful servant,” Linniue said with a smile. “We are almost there.”

  Addie watched her step as the path wound into the depths under Eedwood castle, trying to keep track of where she was, to mark the turns in case she needed to run… Not that she was in any shape to run. It was an endless walk through the darkness, each new breath filling her lungs with more icy air than the one before. But at least the faint, blue light grew brighter as they finally slowed.

  Linniue’s skirts fanned out to the side as they stepped into a circular open space where in a gigantic stone bowl, a slow, flickering, faint-blue flame was burning.

  “Dragon fire,” Linniue whispered, her eyes lighting up like a child’s as she admired the deadly flame.

  Addie knew dragon fire from legends, from the balls of flame that the Dreads of the Skies had spat upon their enemies. But this—

  She stepped forward on her own accord, joining Linniue in her marveling. “It’s—”

  “Beautiful,” Linniue finished for Addie.

  Horrifying had been the word Addie would have chosen, but she nodded anyway, hair shifting over her carved shoulder, and she sucked in a breath through her teeth. “What does it do?” she asked instead.

  Linniue eyed her with a smile of anticipation. “It is our bridge to the one god of dragons. Shygon, the Bestower of Power.”

  Addie shuddered at the mention of the name. She knew that it was said that Shygon gifted strength and power—but for a price. The price of blood and life.

  “You are so lucky, Addie,” Linniue set the bucket down near the altar in front of the flame and reached for Addie’s hands as if she were reaching for a friend. “Your sacrifice will gift my son eternal greatness.”

  Addie’s heart raced. So that was the plan. One life—her life—sacrificed for the power of another.

  Suddenly the pain in her back no longer mattered. She needed to get out of there, or she’d end up on that altar. Was that blood on there?

  Dark stains and streaks decorated the rough stone, making her guess she wasn’t the first one to be brought down here.

  Time. She needed time.

  “How does it work?” Her voice was a meek sound in the dome-like chamber that rose around the flame, light spreading into the two other corridors that led away from it.

  Linniue’s smile spread wider. “Since this is the last time you’ll be aski
ng questions, I’ll be generous and grant you your answers.” She squeezed Addie’s hands, eyes shining with something that Addie could only name madness. Linniue was mad. “Even if I let you live, the spell I put on you will make sure you won’t speak a word about it, ever.”

  Addie nodded, in her mind clinging to the assumption that the spell couldn’t be complete without Dragon Water. She had drunk normal water as Linniue had chanted the words. Not Dragon Water.

  “My son is almost ready for his big day. The future king of Sives.” Pride filled her eyes as she tugged Addie forward. “While your life slowly fades, he will gain strength, power, bestowed by the god of dragons. Your blood will be the medium to bring his power to life.”

  Words. They didn’t make sense.

  “Why me? Why now?”

  Linniue pulled her closer to the altar, swaying backward as if she was inviting Addie to dance. “You have fulfilled your task, bringing the water that bound my son to my will for the past year. The girl doing it before you met her fate the day before you arrived.”

  Addie suppressed a gasp. So that had been it from the beginning? She had been brought here to serve and then die?

  “What an honor, Lady Linniue,” Addie said, every inch of her body screaming at the flat-out lie.

  But that was what she was supposed to act like, wasn’t it? Like a smitten slave. “It’s an honor to die for him.”

  Addie’s eyes darted to the corridors behind Linniue, both of them dark holes that no one could tell where they led. But did it matter? Anywhere that was away from her was good.

  With a quick glance over her injured shoulder, she measured the distance to the guard behind her. Three long strides. If she was quick, she’d make it to the other side of the altar before he’d be able to react. But then, one well-thrown blade could easily bring her down. Even the touch of a hand on her back probably would. Too raw the tissue, too fresh the wounds.

  So Addie played for the only factor she could influence—time. Even if time would be her certain death if she stayed in the freezing cold with her rag-dress much longer.

  But even that would not be granted to her. For Linniue nodded at the guard, who approached them and shoved Addie forward to the broad side of the altar while Linniue led her by one hand as if in a procession.

  With horrified eyes, Addie noted that there were shackles hooked into both ends of the stone. Two that would fit around her wrists and two that would fit around her ankles. She twitched, aching to do anything but stand and watch as her own life was being offered to a god of destruction and terror. A god of creatures that had no regard for human life. Shygon, the god that should have been forgotten.

  Armand’s arm and sword were a reassuring presence at Gandrett’s side as she groped her way along the wall, Nehelon’s knife in one hand. There were three figures by the light down at what seemed to be the end of the tunnel, and this time, she would approach slowly enough to make sure she saw their faces.

  The cold grew with every step, making it harder to remain so still. But she was so close to finishing her mission, so close to figuring out those last details, that she couldn’t stop now.

  So she took one icy breath after the other and moved forward until voices made her yield.

  Not voices. But one particular voice she had heard before in a dream. A whisper, speaking in the language Neredyn had forgotten. Or should have forgotten. For some odd reason, the words the icy air carried toward her made sense. A summoning of the god of dragons, the offer of a vessel in Shygon’s name.

  Armand tensed beside her as they witnessed what they had been suspecting: someone was praying to the god of dragons, and as far as Gandrett knew, that included blood sacrifice.

  They had made it halfway down the corridor when the bluish light revealed its shape as a flame. High and wide, set in a bowl of stone, and seemed to flicker tall into the chamber that the tunnel opened into. The three shapes paid them no heed. Too dark was the tunnel that was swallowing their movements.

  Another few steps, and Armand froze beside her. “Addie.” It was less than a whisper but enough to make Gandrett stop and grab his forearm.

  She took in the slender shape that stood between a woman in a big dress and a tall man, and her breath caught in her throat. Armand was right. That was Addie down there. And the chanting whisper was—

  “Linniue.” It was Gandrett who spoke this time, and Armand’s infinitesimal nod was enough to confirm she had guessed right. “She’s going to kill her.”

  Gandrett couldn’t tell if it was her or Armand who charged first as they rushed down the corridor, blades at the ready, and stormed into a dome-like chamber where Linniue and a man in the armor of the Denderlain guards blocked Addie’s path, forcing her toward the stone altar behind her.

  Addie saw them first, eyes horror-stricken and skin as pale as the frost covering every inch of the room. Even the flame seemed to be made of ice rather than heat.

  While Linniue seemed to have fallen into a trance, chanting in the ancient language of the times of dragons, the guard beside her very well noticed the intruders and pushed Addie against the stone before he drew a second blade and planted himself between Linniue, and Gandrett and Armand.

  As he approached with slow, solid steps, Nehelon’s knife suddenly felt like a toothpick in her hand. But she had defeated men with less than that. And Armand was right next to her, his longsword ready to strike.

  Before the first blow fell, Gandrett noticed Addie sliding to the ground, face down, and exposing a back covered in lines of blood. What had they done to her?

  Then the guard’s sword hit Armand’s blade with a powerful strike, and Armand engaged the man in combat, buying Gandrett time to take care of Addie and Linniue.

  The latter hadn’t so much as realized that someone else had joined their little ritual but continued her chants, arms spread wide and eyes closed. Gandrett snuck up from the side, half a thought on Armand’s aunt as she crouched down beside Addie, checking if the girl was still alive or if they had come too late.

  Addie groaned at Gandrett’s touch, the bare skin of her shoulder like ice, and there was a symbol carved into her—a symbol Gandrett had seen before in her dreams. Only this one was crimson with Addie’s blood, while the ones in her dreams had been a turquoise-blue like the flame above the altar.

  “She’s alive,” Gandrett said to Armand and tried pulling the girl up by her arm, but Armand’s shout of warning reached her just in time to turn and parry the guard’s blow, which would have surely hit its target in her back, with a twist of Nehelon’s knife, the curved blade somewhat helping to direct the force of the guard’s sword away from her. Caught off guard, the man landed on the altar, cursing as he pushed himself off the edge and attacked again.

  Armand had already joined her, tugging on Addie’s arm as if he wasn’t certain Gandrett had assessed the girl’s condition right.

  “We need to get her out of here,” Gandrett said to him over her shoulder, this time, boots ready to kick the guard’s blade out of their trajectory. “If she doesn’t die of her injuries, she’ll surely freeze to death.” She spun, letting the guard stumble into the empty space between Linniue and where Armand was crouching on the ground beside Addie, eyes wide as he watched her keep the heavily armed and armored man engaged in a battle he couldn’t win—even with little more than a toothpick in her hands.

  The guard attacked again. This time, Armand took the blow with the flat of his blade before sending the man tumbling away with a push of his foot.

  Not bad. Armand was fighting well—given that they had one injured and one religiously frantic to consider.

  “What do we do with your aunt?” she asked, eyes on the guard who was restlessly coming for them again and again as if someone had erased all common sense. But his blades were still sharp, his blows still deadly. And it took Gandrett all her attention to not simply throw Nehelon’s blade to silence him forever. That wasn’t how she had been trained at the Order of Vala. Killing an opponen
t was the last resort—always. So she kept at it, taking turns with Armand, their strength slowly fading, and hoping that it wouldn’t be too late for Addie, while Linniue’s chanting turned from a whisper to a song, and eventually faded.

  The silence that fell was sudden and dreadful, and when Gandrett looked up, Linniue was smiling at her from beside an array of blue-glowing symbols which was the altar in front of the fire.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Nehelon cursed creatively at the first rays of sun peeking through the canopy of leaves. How long had he slept? An hour was what he had allowed himself. That had been after Riho had circled toward him from the night-sky, cawing urgently the news that he had found Gandrett. Also, the message that she would be on her way the second she’d eaten. No indication of what had happened to her, his mind was already flipping back and forth between anger and worry for her life. No clear statement about whether or not she was bringing back Joshua. What did it mean, She wasn’t sure he wanted to return? And most certainly no specifics about where and how she would exit the castle. Almost as if she wanted him to lose his mind.

  He leaped off the ground, grabbing his sword in the process, and whistled for Alvi who came trotting from the nearby stream.

  “It’s time,” was all he said to her, and the mare understood, black eyes blinking as she nudged his bicep with her nose, eager to see Lim again. “I hope she brings him,” he added. “If not, we’ll have to go in later and do that for her.”

  Alvi nodded and stomped her hooves as Nehelon reached for the saddle and bridle and readied his horse for the most significant ride in a century.

  “My nephew’s new toy,” Linniue cooed as Gandrett’s eyes met hers. The guard stopped his attacks as if halted by Linniue’s words. “And Armand.” She glanced at the ground where Armand was crouching beside motionless Addie. “What ever are you two doing down here?” She didn’t give them a chance to respond as she said with a wicked smile, “Nevermind. I had planned to take down the Lord of Eedwood much later, once Joshua is on the throne, but this way I am getting an early reward.”