Fallen Empire Page 10

  Like Rowen’s mother.

  Rowen could never be as beautiful as her mother either. Short, thin, with dull gray eyes that never shown any light, and pale skin absent of any shimmering scales, Rowen was simply different.

  Maybe that’s why Prince Rickard chose to pursue her.

  Brea smiled at her. “I don’t blame you, Rowen. But, Draconia is your home.”

  “It’s not as if I haven’t thought of finding the human kingdoms. They are my people. It would be nice to be wanted and accepted for a change.”

  “You are half Dragon as much as half human.”

  Rowen stopped on the lush landscaped evergreen grass and looked to the pale moon above. “But, your race hasn’t descended from humans in thousands of years. You hate them for betraying you. For hunting you down and trying to exterminate you.”

  Shrugging, Brea looked into Rowen’s eyes. “I don’t hate anyone. That’s ancient history. Nothing to do with you and me.”

  “I know,” Rowen said with a sigh, her eyes resting on the massive castle before them. She’d only been there a few weeks, but was already twisted in a web of lies and deceit, and a plan that would elevate her family.

  But, only if she succeeded.

  “Maybe one day I will go find the humans.”

  “You can’t. You can’t fly or fight, or do anything that would keep you safe.”

  Silent, Rowen chewed her bottom lip.

  I can do more than you know. Sometimes she wished she could tell Brea her secret. Even though she was the best friend she ever had, she still could not trust her with the truth of her power.

  “It’s too dangerous to leave the safety of the kingdom. There are beasts and monsters out there. On land and in the sea.”

  “There are beasts and monsters inside as well.”

  They paused on the cobblestone path as a large black dragon flew overhead from the city and toward the palace. It lowered itself to the ground just before the main entrance, and shifted back into a tall young man dressed in fine clothes.

  Rowen took a step back, hoping that he wouldn’t look back and see them. Her face paled as he seemed to sense her presence and did exactly what she hoped he wouldn’t.

  Prince Lawson Thorne turned and looked right at them. In the torchlight, Rowen could only make out the hints of gold in his eyes. Her heart skipped a beat as their eyes met.

  Rowen took Brea’s hand into her own wishing they’d been invisible when the prince arrived. “He saw us.” The thought of being caught and turned in by the prince struck fear into her heart. An excuse for being out after dark is what they needed, but her mind drew a blank.

  To their surprise, he simply turned away, and walked up the stairs that led into his palace.

  “Well,” Brea said. “Aren’t we lucky?”

  Rowen swallowed with a nod, curious as to why the heir to the Withraen throne didn’t seem to care that they were out after curfew. “Indeed, it’s all I’ve ever been.”

  An Exclusive Look at Half-Blood Dragon

  From Chapter Two

  A DEATHLY QUIET settled on the tavern, almost as dead and quiet as the bloody remains of the man on the floor.

  Elian Westin bent over and wiped his bloody fingers on the trousers of the dead man, curling his lip with distaste. He didn’t mind death; he just didn’t like the mess. The heavy stares and held breaths of the sailors, fishermen, and dock workers didn’t bother him.

  Treachery bothered him.

  But, Cook had paid the price he had to have known was coming. After all, Elian was nothing if not clear in the exact degree of loyalty he expected from his crew.

  Uncaring of the witnesses, Elian paused and centered himself, stilling his senses so that the tangible world wobbled, bending and revealing currents and waves of energy, emotions, and one soul about to escape a very dead body. He would not normally have taken in a soul like Cook’s, after all, a man had to have some standards. But, the bastard knew too much, and to release a soul full of knowledge into the oceans of the Other Side would be foolhardy.

  Pursing his lips, Elian forced the breath from his lungs. With a burst of unnatural power, he breathed in, frowning with the strain as he inhaled fiercely. Energy swirled, emotions snagged and tugged on each other, and the black shadow of a man’s soul wavered, bending like a sapling in a storm toward the mighty pull of Elian’s breath.

  He called up more magic, his vision pulsing with the pounding of his heart. Cook’s soul shook and fluttered in his direction, finally snapping away from the body like a topsail rope come loose in the wind. His lungs swelled painfully as he inhaled the soul through his lips. The soul burned as it went down, as if the man’s last scream was silently clawing at the tender tissue of his throat.

  Then, it was done. The world shivered back into solidity, with no one the wiser except for Siddhe, who gave him a look that was both shrewd and bored.

  “The next one needs to be smart enough to keep his trap shut,” he said to the woman.

  She rolled her green eyes, being perhaps the only one who could do that to Captain Westin of the Wandering Star and live to do it again.

  “This time, I want a Wordsmith, not just a scribbler.”

  Siddhe quirked her eyebrow. “Full abilities to transcribe memory?”

  He nodded. She pursed her lips. He wasn’t fooled.

  She’d find him what he needed. She always did. That’s why he kept her.

  He began to smell the stink of the dead man soiling himself and decided he was done here. He glanced down one last time at the corpse on the floor then grinned at the barkeep. “Clean that up, will you?” he barked. “Bad for business, that.”

  The portly barkeep’s frightened jump set his belly jiggling like a pudding, and it was with an amused smile on his face and whistle on his lips that Elian walked out.

  The sun was beginning to set as he left the tavern. It never failed to strike a bittersweet chord with him that something as achingly beautiful as the sun turning the sky to flames and the ocean to glass could be inevitably and implacably accompanied by the putrid stench of the docks.

  The wet rope and mildewed wood of a hundred ships clashed with barrels of fish heads and bait. Not to mention the simply lovely aroma of too many men and too little soap. This port of Lidenhold on the Agion Sea was just like all the others. Dirty. Smelly. Dangerous.

  Elian shifted and settled himself underneath his tunic and jerkin. He’d be glad enough to get back to the ship tonight and soak in the deep copper tub in his quarters. It would be a good, quiet time to think, as well, and he needed to think. The loss of Cook was nothing, but his treachery could spell disaster for the hunt. He shrugged as if to shake the burden from his shoulders. It wasn’t as if this hadn’t happened before. He could deal with it. There was always a way.

  He was so calm and certain, he almost convinced himself.

  Siddhe came up and fell into step with him. He appreciated her silence. Once upon a time, he had appreciated her full breasts and the sway of her hips as well, in a vivid and detailed manner. But, every day closer to the Red Dragon was a day that his interest in such trivial things washed away like water grinding down a stone, though a man with his appetite could never bear to completely starve.

  “Did Cook actually get a message out?” he asked.

  “Yes, but I haven’t found out to whom. Yet.”

  The ‘yet’ was telling. Siddhe was angry, though her expression was serene to the point of blankness. She didn’t like not knowing, feeling like she had failed. She would chase this down until she got her answers, uncaring of the blood and chaos in her wake.

  He liked that about her.

  He also liked that her ‘yet’ had never failed him.

  Yet.

  The day it did? Well, with luck, that day would be a long time in coming. She was useful. He caught her twitching her mahogony braid over the swell of her breasts and felt a familiar stirring. Hopefully, a very long day in coming.

  “It wasn’t to any of the oth
ers,” Siddhe said suddenly.

  This stopped him in his tracks. He gave her his full attention.

  “I can track anything that goes to the Spindlewald, the Black Fairy, or any of the other ships.” She frowned. “Cook’s message wasn’t headed for any of them.”

  He waited.

  “I don’t think it was sent to a ship at all,” she said finally and resumed walking.

  Elian pondered her words, but not for long. They soon reached his destination in the miserable warren of dock houses and narrow streets. A wretched, battered little door to a sad, squat tenement of mud and sticks, liable to wash away as to blow over.

  He knocked three times, and the door opened to reveal a plain girl, barely over the threshold into maidenhood. Stoop-shouldered and skeletal, she’d never be beautiful, and her life would be short. Her freckles reminded him of the spattering of stars he used for navigation in the night sky.

  “Captain,” the girl chirped, a wide grin revealing buck teeth.

  “Cota,” he answered gently as she ushered them both in. He didn’t miss the way she wrinkled her nose at Siddhe or the way Siddhe curled her lip at the girl. He sighed inwardly. Women.

  There were too many stale smells in the hovel, and Elian had no desire to try and pick apart their origins, each, no doubt, less savory than the last. A rough bench sat before a rusted brazier where a few forlorn coals wheezed out a pitiful amount of warmth. He and Siddhe took the bench while Cota bustled about the room, pulling chipped jars and pots from corners and piles of rags, assembling them before the brazier.

  “Where’ve ya’ been?” she asked cheerfully.

  “Harrow.”

  “I ain’t daft.”

  “Nor am I, young lady. And, is that any way to speak to your elders?”

  She cackled, and Siddhe shifted beside him, resolutely looking anywhere but at the girl.

  “How many before Harrow?” Cota asked slyly.

  “Twenty-three.” Twenty-three souls to feed his own.

  “How many after Harrow?”

  “Twelve.” Thirteen, if he counted Cook’s soul.

  Cota snorted. “Not exactly making my job easy, now, are ya? Even fifteen would’ve been better for me. The more Dark Soul you’ve got on board, the easier I can swim through the visions.”

  Elian suppressed a smile at the girl’s grousing. It didn’t fool him at all. She was angling for more money. Just as she always did.

  “It’ll be like paddlin’ through treacle today, it will,” she grumbled.

  “Double for today, Cota.”

  Like magic–he chuckled to himself–she was back to her usual spry movement and keen glances. Siddhe glowered, and he slipped his hand behind her to give her bottom a little caress and pinch. Her jaw twitched. All was well, then.

  Cota began throwing pinches of powder and herbs on the brazier, poking the lethargic coals to life. Blue smoke began dancing up from them, pulsing, swaying, bucking. In Elian’s mind, the forms became intimate, almost obscene in their motions. The hard walls of purpose and practicality melted, slithering away from his consciousness.

  Ambition and desire bubbled up, drowning his thoughts. Then came indolence, indulgence, libertinage, gluttony, carrying him along on a tide that was rolling toward a shore of bright, blazing glory.

  In a haze, he saw Cota kneeling motionless before the brazier. Her eyes were wide and unseeing, and her mouth hung open, a line of spittle hanging from her lips.

  “Dragons in the water. Skies full of flames.” Her voice was disturbingly sonorous. “Inside out. Upside down. The map will lead you to your heart’s desire. Your heart’s desire will be the death of you. Unless you learn to desire differently. Dragons in the sky. Oceans full of flames. Treachery for truth begets treacherous truth. That which you seek is not what you want. That which you want is not what you need. Lines are drawn by men. Both men and lines do lie. Water may tame a dragon, but a dragon can burn a ship. Pursue, but with caution.”

  Cota’s head fell forward. Siddhe’s snort rang in his ear. He blinked, the haze becoming nothing more than perfumed smoke, and Cota nothing more than a girl in rags.

  “Well?” Siddhe demanded callously.

  The girl shook her head and rubbed her eyes, but there was no cheeky smile that usually accompanied her predictions. She looked from Siddhe to him with dull, frightened eyes.

  “Do we proceed?” Siddhe pressed.

  “It’s always a choice, ain’t it?” Cota answered with a weak shrug.

  “Tchah!”

  Elian studied Cota, refusing Siddhe’s quick pull on his sleeve to stand.

  “Tell me,” he said gently.

  Cota slumped back on her heels and picked at the calluses on her hands. “It’s conflicted, ya see? Used to be just one thing out there you were chasin’, one thing you were wantin’. Now, there’s two of ‘em. But, I canna see if you’re chasin’ both or if one of ‘em is chasin’ you.”

  “Two?” Elian’s head spun, and not from the residual effect of the drugs. There was only one Red Dragon. Nothing had ever mentioned a second one.

  “Two,” the girl affirmed, nodding wearily. “Near just the same.”

  For a horrifying moment, the room closed in on him. Two dragons. The Red Dragon and then… another? How could this be? It felt like a betrayal, yet he had no idea of who or what the traitor was.

  Siddhe had clearly lost patience with the whole thing. She pulled him to his feet and gave the girl a scant nod before storming out the door. Numbly, Elian dug through his pocket and paid Cota double her price. He turned to leave, but was held back by a grimy little hand on his arm.

  “I didna’ like to say it in front of your trout-in-trousers,” Cota whispered, a ghost of her old grin peeking through as she deftly insulted Siddhe’s mermaid heritage. “But, there was one clear thing that came through.”

  He waited, hardly breathing.

  “Withrae,” she said. “Go to Withrae.”

  Available on Amazon

  An Exclusive Excerpt from Rise of the Flame

  In a magical world where fairies, elves, and dragons exist, one girl is the key to saving humanity. But, can she escape slavery in time?

  After traveling the world with her surrogate family, Lilae learns she's being hunted. A dangerous elf brought back from the dead is tracking her. But, what she doesn't know is why. When strange magical abilities surface, she begins to wonder just how powerful she really is. That is until she's captured and enslaved in a foreign empire with a handsome and charismatic emperor who just might make her forget her destiny.

  Prince Liam is set to rule the Tryans of Kyril, a land separate from the human realm. After a breach in the magic barrier that keeps the different races from one another, he finds himself leading an army across to protect the Tryans and the fairies from elven raiders.

  When their odds of survival become next to impossible, he must set out on a journey to find a dragon, a powerful child king, and the blessing of a fallen god to aid him in the inevitable realm war.

  The path forward for both Liam and Lilae seems clear until their dreamscapes collide. But while they draw strength from their connection, Lilae may be falling for the mysterious emperor who should be her greatest enemy.

  CHAPTER ONE

  LILAE FLOATED BARE-SKINNED beneath the bright crescent moon, her arms outstretched on the lake’s calm surface. Winter never seemed to end in northern Eura, but she braved the frigid water for the solitude offered by an evening swim.

  Alone, she thought, just how I like it.

  Just as she began to relax, Lilae felt the presence of her Elder in the black shadows of the forest.

  This is not good. She peeked over and saw Delia in the human form she’d stolen when she was forced to leave the Underworld, her pale face illuminated from beneath the hood of her wool cloak. She held her wooden staff in one hand and Lilae’s discarded cloak in the other.

  “Lilae!”

  Lilae swallowed and then flipped over to swim back toward
the shore, closing the gap between them. She quickly got out of the water and dressed, taking the heavy cloak from Delia’s grasp and flinging it over her shoulders to ward off the chill in the air.

  “What is it? What’s happened?” Her breath escaped her lips like a puff of smoke in the darkness.

  Delia looked over Lilae with dull blue eyes. “I don’t like how close they are getting. We need to leave before dawn.”

  Lilae tucked her boyish pants into her boots. Only a few years ago, she would have refused; she would have run away to stay with another family in their village. Now, at almost eighteen, Lilae resigned herself to their nomadic lifestyle.

  That’s because she had finally learned why they moved so much: Lilae was being hunted.

  Lilae followed Delia through the forest to their little cottage on the edge of town. It was a small structure, built into the side of a hill. Though it was once a cave, Pirin had made it into a real home. A squat chimney protruded from beneath the soil, a trail of smoke wafting from its mouth into the gray sky.

  Ducking, Lilae stepped inside. Pirin, Lhana, and the twins, Risa and Jaiza, were already awake. Her surrogate family. They glanced at her and, without a word, returned to their preparations. They all moved slowly as the cold air in the room bit at them.

  Pirin put his arm around Lhana. She stopped packing and buried her tears in his shoulder, sighing. “Just tell me why? Every time we finally get comfortable and make friends, you make us leave.”

  He smoothed her blonde hair and kissed her cheek. “And every time you ask me this same question. The answer will not change. They are coming. We don’t have time to waste.”

  “Let us stay behind. It’s not the girls and me that he wants.”

  Pirin grabbed Lhana by the elbow. The room fell silent, and Lilae tensed, her eyes darting from Lhana’s stunned face to Pirin’s stern expression.