Gwyn: Light Chaser Legends (Book 2)

by J B Cantwell

  “What choice did I have?” Gwyn asked. “He would’ve forced me into bed with him. That is something I’ll never allow. Not for anything.”

  Her mother stood there, dumbstruck. Then, finally, she smiled.

  “Let’s get him undressed and into the bed,” she suggested.

  “Ew, Mother,” Gwyn began to protest. “I’m not going to touch him. If Father thinks—”

  “Your father must think the king has had his way with you,” she said. “That is what was promised in exchange for the stones.”

  Gwyn frowned, then, her anger rising, she made for the door.

  “Gwyn, stop!” her mother commanded. “You must see this as an opportunity. You have the power to subdue, and the only way you’re to get hold of the gems is to have these men in your bed. You can do what you’ve done tonight. It can all be a farce.”

  Gwyn wanted nothing more than to wrench open the door and go find her father. This was it; she’d had enough.

  But she recognized her mother’s logic, and she understood how she might play her cards in order to obtain the stones she so desired.

  So, when her mother began to pull the stinking boots off the king and move his large body onto the bed, Gwyn stepped up beside her and helped. Together, they moved him until he was squarely in the center of the bed. Then, with great effort, they pulled his pants down until he was in nothing but his underclothes and covered him with a thick blanket.

  They both emerged from the effort sweaty but satisfied.

  “Do you think Father will know?” she asked her mother. Her heart was beating fast, and she wondered if her father was planning to stick his head through the door to check on her.

  “I don’t know,” her mother said. “But you must play the part. Look sullen and ruffle your hair so that it looks like you’ve been rolling around with him.”

  Gwyn approached the mirror and pulled some strands of her hair loose, then used her palms to turn the rest of her hair into knots.

  Her mother stood behind her, helping her relax the corset of her dress.

  “Now,” she said. “Let’s leave the room. I’ll be expected back in my bedroom, and you can wander the castle as you wish. Make it seem as though you are on the run from this man.”

  “But I am on the run,” she said.

  Her mother smiled down at her, her face pained.

  “This will be the way of it,” she said. “You’ve found your way forward. Your father has given the world to you by treating you this way; he just doesn’t know it. Now, you must ready yourself for the tests that await you. And trickery will be at the heart of your defense. Can you do that?”

  Could she?

  After a few moments of thought and a good look at the passed-out king on her bed, her resolve hardened.

  She would succeed.

  She would fool them all.

  And above all, she would escape this life no matter what befell her.

  She retrieved the emeralds from the table, turned toward the door, and then looked back at her mother.

  “I’m ready,” she said.

  The Show

  Every time a king would come to call, her wicked father would lead them to her chambers. And every time, Gwyn would sedate them, giving them just enough to make them think they’d had their way with her. It was much easier when they were drunk, and so at the many meals they shared, she would encourage them to drink. Of course, in order for this to work, she would often have to drink herself. She got used to this fact, and by the time she was sixteen, she was able to hold her own in just about any drinking competition.

  Some kings liked this behavior; they thought of her as a challenge, and they rushed to beat her in these trials. By doing so, they made themselves so drunk that they couldn’t remember the next day what had happened. All they knew was that they’d awakened in her bed, and that appeared to be proof enough that they’d had a successful conquest the night before.

  She’d amassed quite a fortune over the course of two years from all of the jewels she collected, but she didn’t hide them, though that had been her original intent. She’d even found a place for them in her secret room.

  But that wouldn’t work. Now, she kept the gemstones in her bedroom beside her bed. She knew well enough that if her father came to call, she’d better be ready with the proof of her willingness in the bedroom.

  He disgusted her, her father, as well as every other man who came into her chambers. It was always the same, and no matter how drunk she herself became, there was no joy in her game.

  It’s just until we have enough.

  Her father’s routine was always the same. Get the king drunk, steal his sorcerer away, send the king for Gwyn to deal with, and come away from the meeting with another follower.

  In the beginning, her father had killed several of the sorcerers who accompanied their kings. But soon, he realized this was a mistake. This change of tactic made Gwyn’s life more difficult; it was much easier to enchant the king with no magic nearby to protect him. Luckily, Torin would often distract the sorcerers, himself, leaving her with nothing more complicated than the kings to deal with.

  As the months dragged into years, she began to wonder if the gems matched those her father kept hidden in his vault. Finally, one night, her drinking had encouraged not only the king of the day but her father as well. She excused herself from the table at the appropriate time, glancing back at Bevyn and her mother. Torin was drunk enough not to notice, and she knew she had some time before he would send the king in her direction.

  Once she left the dining room and was alone in the hall, she smacked herself a couple of times across the face, willing the alcohol to leave her system. She needed to focus.

  The vault.

  Her mother had told her at the beginning of it all that her father kept his most precious artifacts in a room adjacent to where he slept. There were two entrances, one directly across from his bed and the other from a large room on the opposite side. Torin used this other room to train his sons, and he put the utmost faith in them, allowing them to have access to many of his magical wares.

  Gwyn had never been inside that room, but she was alone in the hall, her brothers and mother left behind at the table with the men. She dug her hand deep into a pocket sewn into her dress and felt no fewer than fifteen gemstones. She had many more, of course, but she’d brought with her an array, hoping that she would have enough to fool her father.

  Without delay, she turned a corner and scurried down an adjacent hallway. At first, she thought to go through her father’s bedroom; then she realized it was guarded, and she was unlikely to gain entry.

  Instead, she walked around this hidden room to the other side, to the training room.

  She quietly opened and closed the door behind her. The only light in the room came from the moon through several large windows on one side, and the room was oddly bare.

  She approached the wall where she knew the entrance to the secret room lay.

  Secret rooms, however, are called secret for a reason. She knew that somewhere upon the wall would be a hint, some marking, magical or no. But the wall was blank, a sheet of cream-colored paneling, giving away nothing about what waited on the other side.

  She ran her hands along the wall, searching for the slightest difference, for a bump or a gap in the surface. There was nothing.

  Magic. Use magic.

  She shook her head vigorously, still trying to sober up from several hours of drinking. Then, she approached it again, closed her eyes, and walked back and forth, searching.

  She knew the room was there, could feel the vibration of the magical items within. But it wouldn’t do to tear down the wall in search of the door, and even if she did, the magical protections might not allow her to enter.

  Back and forth she went, and finally, she thought she felt an opening. She’d long since taught herself how to unlock doors using nothing but magic, but this door was different. She pressed her hands up against it, thinking, wishing for it to op
en. Was there a password? A magical key?

  She was becoming frightened, hurried, and suddenly realized how much trouble she might be in if she were caught.

  She pulsed power from her hands into the wall, willing it to open.

  Nothing happened.

  Then she remembered; her magic came with anger, not fear. To be afraid was enough to kill her magical gift. The only way around that fear was to go straight through it.

  She thought about her mother, stuck in a marriage to an evil man.

  Her brother, abused and tortured over decades.

  And herself, her face destroyed, her body forced into prostitution, however fake it may be.

  And there it was, white-hot anger boiling up inside her.

  She tried the wall again, and this time she didn’t wish for it to open; she commanded it to.

  The wall itself did not open as she might’ve expected. There was no handle nor a proper doorway. Instead, the wall vanished before her, and she found herself amazed at the wide array of weapons stored in what was a gigantic room in and of its own.

  She thought about herself when she been younger, fourteen, fifteen. She’d taught herself to be a princess and had acted as spoiled and powerful as one since that first day she’d held her chin up high. With this attitude, she walked into the room. Immediately, the wall reappeared behind her, trapping her within.

  Fear threatened, but all she needed to do was think about what kind of man Torin was to keep her anger running high, to keep her power strong.

  The room was lit by several torches that had come to life as soon as the wall had reappeared. She took one and began walking back and forth amidst the weapons. So many. Knives and swords and staffs. Now, where would he keep something as simple as jewelry?

  She fiddled with the stones in her pocket.

  No fear.

  She kept her head held high and strolled through the room. She didn’t dare touch anything, for she knew the vibration of her own power might betray her secret if her father were to sense it. Instead, she tried to use her mind, closing her eyes and reaching out with her consciousness, searching.

  But this didn’t work.

  She lowered her chin and began looking with her eyes. Her mother had told her long ago that Torin didn’t feel the stones were worth much at all. To Gwyn’s mind, that meant they must not be hidden too well.

  Something caught her attention, a shimmering in the relative darkness of the room. She walked down toward the end and found there a small box, entirely gold, a jewelry box.

  Eagerly, she hooked the torch to a nearby mount and moved to open the box, but as before, nothing happened. She picked it up and struggled with it, searching for a way inside. The sound of gemstones tumbling within it made her greedy with desire.

  But no, desire wouldn’t work, either.

  Anger.

  Bevyn’s head hitting the ground, a blood-red path following him as his chair flew across the floor.

  She put the box down and put her hands upon the lid once more.

  Her beauty, forever lost without magic to hide behind.

  She closed her eyes.

  Her mother, forced to lay with her father in order to protect her children from his wrath.

  The box opened.

  Inside was a small suede bag with a drawstring at the top. She loosened it and emptied the contents into the box.

  Immediately, there was a problem. The stones in the bag were small, even tiny by comparison. The rocks she held in her pocket were larger, brought to her to impress.

  But this did not thwart her. She picked up one of the tiny stones and held it in her palm, and she thought she could feel the vibration her mother was talking about. The stone in her left hand had a life of its own. The one in her right hand was lifeless. She put down her father’s jewel and gathered five different colored stones from her pocket. She closed her hands together and ground them down with nothing but her will until only small stones and dust remained.

  Suddenly, there was a sound outside, and she froze. For a moment, she just listened. The voices in the other room, the training room, were those of her father, the king, and the king’s sorcerer. She wasn’t sure if this was usually part of Torin’s show, but she was sure that if she were caught, she would be in the worst trouble of her life.

  Quickly, she stashed half of the magical stones in her left pocket, and then she replaced them with several of the jewels she’d made smaller. She dared not take all of those with power. In this way, if it were ever suspected that the stones had been tampered with, at least half of them would still hold magic.

  The voices were coming closer; time was running out. She had two options: she could hide, or she could flee. Going back into the training room was not a possibility, so she put the lid back on the jewelry box and walked to the wall on the opposite side of the room.

  The drunken kings knocking on her door.

  She put her hands upon the wall.

  The many meals Bevyn had lost both his food and his health.

  She pulsed her power through the wood, searching.

  The torment from Varik and Phalen for her entire sixteen years.

  A door quietly popped open, and she took her opportunity. She flew through it and tried with everything she had to close it quietly from the other side.

  “Did you hear something?” one of the guards outside said.

  For a moment, she panicked.

  “I didn’t hear anything,” the other guard said.

  Armored footsteps in the hall.

  She had yet to learn how to make herself disappear, so instead, she did the only thing she could think of; she dropped down to the floor and crawled under the bed as if she were five years old. She was slight, and so she was able to fit beneath it. Her dress was the biggest problem, and she tried to arrange it quietly before the man entered the room.

  She heard a scuffling sound, the sound of the guard’s boots as they walked across the thick carpeting that surrounded the bed. They turned around as the guard took in the room, but he didn’t bend over; he didn’t see her. Instead, he walked back out of the room, through the hall, and back to his post in front of the door.

  She was trapped.

  She wondered how long her father would entertain the king before sending him her way. From deep within the house, she thought she could hear his drunken spells ricocheting off the walls in the training room.

  She had to get out.

  She would subdue the guards with whatever she could think of, and hopefully, the blame wouldn’t fall upon her.

  Or upon Bevyn.

  But before she had a chance to crawl out from under the bed, she heard soft crying and high-heeled footsteps in the hall.

  There was only one person that could be.

  She shifted her weight and shimmied out from under and slid across the carpet to meet her mother as she walked into her room.

  “Oh, Gwyn,” she said, her hand over her chest. “What are you doing in here? You gave me such a fright. You must leave; he could be here at any moment.”

  Gwyn got her feet and approached her mother, drawing out the small handful of magical stones from her left pocket and holding them out to her.

  “Mother, I’ve been inside the vault; these are the stones. We must go now. The time to flee has come.”

  Riona was taken aback, clearly surprised and seemingly not ready to follow her daughter on the journey they’d discussed for so many years.

  Gwyn, Bevyn, and their mother were to go to the Dreue Kingdom to dress as paupers and hide among the many poor. Her father would hunt them, of course, and during this time, they would keep up the ruse. Clearly, disguise was something her mother excelled at; she’d been keeping Gwyn’s scars hidden for years. Gwyn suspected her mother could turn them unrecognizable, even by Torin.

  But the look on her mother’s face now made Gwyn’s heart fall into her stomach.

  “You’re not coming?” she asked.

  Her mother shook her head. “Of cour
se, I’m coming,” she said. “But tonight would not be wise. Your father, while very drunk, will be looking for you soon. We must wait until he goes away before we make our attempt.”

  It was true that the plan had always included leaving during one of Torin’s many exploits. It would be easier to leave the castle without having to fight him, though all three of them were certain that whatever protections he might instill during his absence would make things difficult as well.

  There was logic in her mother’s words; she knew this, and yet now that she had the magic in her hand, she was desperate to leave. It had been too long, too many years for her to endure any more. And Bevyn. Could he take even one more day of mistreatment? Could he survive it?

  “I don’t care,” Gwyn said. “Don’t you think we’ve lived through this long enough?”

  Her mother approached her and put one hand softly on Gwyn’s cheek. She had tears in her eyes when she spoke.

  “We must wait,” she said. “It won’t be much longer; before you know it, we’ll be watching the sunrise from the other side of the world. But now, you must go before your father comes looking for you, before he comes to bed.

  Gwyn’s heart broke.

  Would she ever leave? Gwyn wondered now. She slipped the magic stones back into her pocket and stared at her mother. Wasn’t her mother supposed to protect her? Wasn’t somebody?

  Gwyn dropped her head and walked toward the hall, exhausted.

  “Gwyn!” her mother hissed. “You can’t go out that way. You know that; he’ll be back any minute. And those guards….”

  But she didn’t care. Everything she’d worked for, everything she’d planned on, seemed to be evaporating.

  She felt her mother’s hands upon her arm, but this angered her, and she easily cast her away. Riona gave a little squeak of pain, probably jolted by the magic within Gwyn and her temper. But Gwyn walked on, ready to face whatever demons might await her in the corridor.

  Indeed, as she waltzed out of the room, the same guard who had come looking for minutes ago stepped out in front of her now.

  “What are you doing here?” he said. “This room is for Torin alone.”