Mightier than magic a ri.., p.1
Mightier Than Magic: A riveting romantic fantasy adventure, page 1
Copyright
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author. If you would like to use material from this book, such permission can be obtained by contacting the author at gskenney@gskenney.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses or organizations, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Mightier Than Magic
Copyright © 2022 by G. S. Kenney
Cover art: Deranged Doctor, derangeddoctordesign.com
More about the author: www.gskenney.com
Praise for the Sons of Aran series
by G. S. Kenney
“An incredible amount of world-building sets the stage for a story that will grip the reader and not let go... It is a powerful coming-of-age tale. This book is brilliantly presented as an environmental thriller… The action scenes are edge-of-the-seat exciting. There is drama, there is danger, there are tears and there is joy. This book simply has it all...A great book that will make readers want more.”
- N. N. Light
“A spellbinding sci-fi adventure. This space opera is exceptionally well-written and expertly plotted with a complex series of interconnected storylines, including a love story, for a riveting, dramatic celestial crusade for the truth.”
- Self-Publishing Review
Contents
1. A fortuitous introduction
2. The topic of magic is broached
3. The queen sets a ransom price
4. Alaric proposes a union
5. Alaric makes his wishes known
6. Katie comes up with a plan
7. Katie performs a serious magic
8. A new beginning
9. Too much, too fast
10. A worthwhile mystery
11. A mystery in a cavern
12. In Larippia
13. Katie gets to know Rom
14. Return to Darimbia
15. A reintroduction
16. The fighting intensifies
17. Katie learns more magic
18. The truth will out
19. The oathstone has its way
20. The end of the beginning
Saving Aran
Acknowledgments
Chapter one
A fortuitous introduction
Mouse slipped into the kitchen and inched along the wall, holding her skirts so that they wouldn’t rustle.
“Hello, Princess Mouse,” said the first assistant cook. He was a young man, no older than her own eighteen years, with curly blond hair and freckles. He turned from the fruit he’d been cutting and gave her a slight bow and an amused smile, revealing uneven teeth.
Mouse found him frightening. All the people in the castle were. They talked about her behind her back. They laughed at her when they thought she wasn’t looking. Worst of all, they reported everything she did to her mother, who was always critical of her. Mouse remembered her manners, though, and stood a bit straighter as she returned his greeting.
The young cook went back to his task, that amused smile still on his face.
Mouse redoubled her hold on her skirts and moved as soundlessly as she could along the wall behind the backs of half a dozen people hard at work. Their chopping set up an arrhythmic clatter, a percussive backdrop to sizzling and boiling sounds from the massive stoves and the chatter of the cooks. She edged past the cooking area with its savory aromas of fresh meat and onions, garlic and herbs, and crept up a steep flight of stairs into the staging area.
Tables sagged with dirty dishes littered with bones and half-eaten vegetables and meats waiting to be tossed to the dogs. Other tables were piled with courses still waiting to be served—decorated cakes and pies that had been completed by the pastry chefs earlier in the day, and platters of artfully arranged cheeses and fruits.
A screen between the kitchen staging area and the banqueting hall hid the dirty work involved in the preparation and clean-up of the feast from the nobles dining beyond. Shouts and laughter emerged from the hall, loud and raucous over the clanking of dishes and cutlery. The noise hit Mouse like a barrage of arrows, sending her heart into overdrive.
She reassured herself that she could do this. For all its rich fabric, silk that whispered softly when she moved, her gray dress was almost the exact shade of the stone walls, making it easy for Mouse to creep invisibly around the perimeter of the room.
No, this would be easy. All she wanted was a glimpse of the exotic stranger whom her mother had taken prisoner, a hint that might allow her to dream of someplace faraway with lots of sunshine and fresh air, where perhaps people would be less critical of her many failings.
It probably wouldn’t even be necessary to enter the large hall with its pennants and tapestries, its gaily clad nobles and hovering wait staff, its disharmonious noises. Perhaps she could see the man from right here. She hunched down low and leaned forward to look around the screen.
Some twenty-five people sat at the elongated U-shaped table, with her mother in the middle of the narrow far end at the table’s head. Queen Claudia wore an elaborately embroidered green satin gown. In her cleavage glistened a large solitaire diamond, a family heirloom. Two young men sat next to her, one on either side. The brilliant red of the one man’s costume vied with the bold orange of the other, colors so vivid their faces seemed washed out, their hair the color of old straw. From their age and positions of honor to the queen’s right and left, they must be the princes Enrico and Ferdo from Bonaveria, come to court her sisters. And yes, next to each sat one of her sisters. Jocasta, the eldest, wearing a sapphire blue gown embroidered with sapphire beads, sat next to the one in red, and next to the orange-clad prince sat Mercuria, second oldest, giggling at whatever he was saying. She wore an emerald gown a slightly darker shade than her mother’s and as richly embroidered as her sister’s. Everyone said the two princes from Bonaveria were the most eligible men around. And indeed, Mouse’s two sisters were trying very hard to please.
Down the rows of both arms of the table sat all the usual courtiers, from ancient Lord Ned of Desseldown to young Lord Tobey Byron who recently inherited Connoway, the richest estate in the land. Lord Tobey was buck-toothed and a bit slow witted, and he brayed when he laughed. Especially when she was angry, the queen had already told Mouse she was considering marrying Mouse to him.
For her part, Mouse wanted to escape her mother’s castle so badly that sometimes her stomach cramped with the ache of it. But she wasn’t desperate enough to marry Lord Tobey. Better to stay out of her mother’s sight. Better just to disappear.
But where was—?
There he was, the captured king Mouse hoped to catch a glimpse of, right at the very end of the banquet table closest to her. Her mother had brought her prisoner to this dinner to show him off to her court.
He sat in profile to the screen where Mouse hid, his head turned slightly away as he looked down the long table. His dark hair was long and curly and looked a bit unkempt for a king. At least, for the kings she’d read about in her romance novels. But of course, as a prisoner, he wouldn’t have the valet and other servants he was probably used to. Or maybe they didn’t have servants over there in Westland the way the gentry did here. Mouse could just see the edge of a neatly trimmed dark beard, a prominent nose, a sculpted cheekbone. A good-looking man, and his clothing—sent by the king’s brother under truce—was exotic enough to suit her notion of what a foreign monarch would wear. A vest-like garment of white silk covered in delicate rainbow-colored embroidery and thread-of-gold showed off his strongly muscled arms. With gilded buttons along the chest, it fell loose across his legs, revealing slim-fitting dark blue pants that gave a hint of the well-formed legs inside.
Mouse smiled. Indeed, he was attractive enough to claim a place in her dreams.
She’d heard that he’d sworn not to attempt escape or try to harm anyone here, and that her mother referred to him as her guest, not her prisoner. But the man was bound. A thin band chained his left hand to his chair, long enough only to allow him to manipulate his cutlery. But he wasn’t eating. He rested his chin on his hand, his body sagging as if with the weight of a great sorrow.
With a rush of empathy, Mouse realized that he probably wanted to escape even more than she did. Poor man! She wished she could see more of his face. She inched out farther past the edge of the screen.
Something whacked her shoulder with frightening force.
“Ow!” She whirled around, frightened.
Her cry was drowned in the clatter of a falling metal tray and the crash of breaking dishes. A serving boy tumbled to the floor after his tray. Mouse reached out her hand to him in case he needed help, but he scrambled quickly to his feet and began loading broken fragments onto the tray.
The banquet hall fell silent, and every face turned toward Mouse. Her face burned; it must be redder than the strawberries all over the floor. She wished she could vanish. Or just die on the spot.
“Mouse!” The queen’s voice was coated in ice. “Come here.”
Alaric’s thoughts kept returning to the problem of how to free himself.
He had no regrets about his attempt to rescue Marco and the two other Darimbian resistance fighters from Claudia’s encampment where they’d been held prisoner. He didn’t want to lose any of his fighters, especially not his younger brother Marco. They were good men, all of them. Alaric loved Marco, and the people of Darimbia loved him too. While Marco was free, the fight for Darimbia would continue, perhaps even escalate. He still believed he had made the right decision. Assembling enough fighters to face the queen’s army would have taken a week or more, and by that time, the prisoners would have likely been dead.
No, the rescue had had to be undertaken immediately, and Alaric was the only one who could do magic, and therefore the only one with any hope of getting safely in and out of the camp.
Only he hadn’t managed to get safely out.
He glanced at the forged-iron chain that ran from a cuff on his left wrist to a thicker-than-decorative circle in the framing of his heavy metal chair. He tried to imagine escaping this castle with the chair in tow. Dragging it behind him? Lifting it onto his shoulder? Alaric smiled grimly.
No, there was no escaping. He’d given his word in exchange for his life, and his word was good.
With little notice, Alaric had been ordered to clean up and dress, and then ordered to attend the queen and thirty nobles of the realm at dinner. No doubt she was gloating about making him her prisoner, and there was nothing he could do about it.
He took the opportunity to observe his enemy and the nobles of her court. He would not have chosen this imprisonment as a way of getting to know Queen Claudia, but it had been instructive. She sat at the head of the table, of course, where he had a clear view. She was beautiful in a cold way, her red hair elaborately adorned with feathers and diamonds, her spine stiff, her expression betraying no emotion. Her pale green gown revealed an enticing amount of cleavage, showcasing an ostentatiously showy diamond of several dozen carats.
The conversation at the head of the table was inaudible from his seat, but he could see the queen was doing most of the talking. To either side of her sat a young man, one dressed in bright red, the other in orange, both looking for all the world like overdressed tropical birds listening intently to her words. At first, Alaric thought they might be vying to become her lovers, or perhaps already were. But on the other side of each man sat one of Claudia’s three daughters, with the third daughter right next to the second. All three practically hung on the young men as the men focused on the queen. These must be suitors for the daughters then, the young princes from Bonaveria whose names Alaric didn’t know, but whose security arrangements he had overheard the guards discussing.
Like their mother, the queen’s daughters were beautiful. Alaric had learned their names and descriptions from the reports of his spy, a Darimbian who worked at the palace as a gardener’s assistant and saw them coming and going often enough. Now he matched faces to the names. Next to the red-clad prince was Jocasta, the eldest, in a gown of royal blue that set off her deep blue eyes and the highlights in her raven hair. On the other side of the queen next to the orange-clad prince sat Mercuria, second oldest, giggling at whatever he was saying. She wore an emerald gown that matched her emerald eyes and emphasized hair as bright red as her mother’s. Next to her was the youngest daughter, Stefania, fair-skinned and blond, in a deep pink dress set with pearls. Yes, all three were trying very hard to please.
“Don’t you think so, Your Majesty?” asked the elderly woman sitting next to Alaric.
He hadn’t heard a word she’d just said. The lady had been talking nonstop since she sat down, rattling on about trivialities of her life that were obviously as fascinating to her as they were tedious to him. “I beg your pardon, Madam,” he said. “I didn’t quite catch that.”
She drew a deep breath. “Well. I was saying how the fashions today seem to favor the young women over the old. One should not be forced to wear clothing that shows off a girlish waist, not after a certain age, don’t you agree?”
“Oh, indeed, Madam. But you, of course, look ravishing.” She was wearing a high-collared, loose-fitting dress richly decorated with pearls and sequins. Its pale gray color nearly matched her hair. The dowager countess Matilda, from the far northern province of Nostrium, as far from Darimbia as was possible to be, and still be one of Queen Claudia’s subjects. It was a clever seating plan. The countess would be worthless as a source of information for him, and a constant drain on his attention. He nodded his acknowledgment, though, and gave her a warm smile.
“But I say, the young have always wanted to show off, haven’t they? I remember, when I was a girl—”
The sudden clatter of a falling metal tray and crash of breaking dishes silenced all conversation. Alaric turned to see a serving boy tumbled on the floor, splattered with cream, surrounded by shards of china, rolling strawberries, and ruined cake. Nearby sprawled a rather nondescript-looking young woman with long light-brown hair, her clothing too rich to belong to a servant, yet too plain for this gaudy company.
“Mouse!” The queen’s voice was frigid with suppressed anger. “Come here.”
The young woman—Mouse, was it? Certainly an unusual name—stood awkwardly. “Yes, Mother.” She walked up the center of the table’s U to face the queen.
Mother? Alaric straightened, studying her. Could it be that Queen Claudia had a fourth daughter, one his spy had never seen, or had not seen fit to mention? True, his spy worked out-of-doors, but he had seen the other princesses coming and going. Why not this one? And why had she not been invited to the feast? Could this daughter be an outcast in her own family? If so, that was something Alaric might find useful, if he could make contact with her.
“You told my page you were too sick to attend the feast tonight,” the queen said.
“Yes, Mother.”
“And now you’re obviously feeling better. Unfortunately, you’ve missed most of the dinner, but perhaps you’ve come to entertain us. Is that so, Mouse?” The queen’s voice dripped with a cloying, false sweetness, inviting ridicule. A few people around the table tittered.
The poor girl looked like she would be sick. She twisted her skirt in her hands. “N-no, Mother. I’m sorry. I’ll—I’ll go now.”
“No, you will not. Since you have inserted yourself into the banquet, you may as well make yourself useful. Why don’t you sing something for us? And stop bunching up your skirt like that. They’ll never be able to iron out those wrinkles. Stand up straight.”
A few more of the queen’s guests joined in the laughter.
Mouse stood straighter, her face now red. She rubbed her hand over her skirt as if trying to straighten it. “What—what shall I sing?” Her voice was so choked she was hardly audible. She looked like she might be about to cry.
“You’ll never sing a decent tune if you don’t speak up.” The queen turned to the young prince at her right. “She actually has a decent singing voice.”
“If we could only hear her,” added Jocasta, the eldest daughter. The prince next to her gave a laugh, and he was joined by others around the table.
The queen smiled.
Why would a mother humiliate her daughter like that in front of all her guests? Alaric’s hands clenched in fists, anger rising like heat in his chest. Whatever this performance was going to be, he didn’t want the girl to be subjected to it. He didn’t want to be subjected to it himself.
“What did you say? Really, child, you must learn to speak up.”
But instead of speaking louder, the young woman burst into tears. “M-mother—”
Queen Claudia looked around the room. “What am I to do with a child like this?” It was a rhetorical question, drawing a few additional titters from the guests. “The burden I bear.”
That was it. He’d had enough. Alaric stood abruptly, his chain clattering against the chair as he drew it back. All eyes turned toward him. The queen looked surprised, and well she should be. Whether or not this unexpected fourth daughter would ever prove useful to him, he was determined that Claudia would not have her way in this painful little game. He picked up the heavy chair and carried it down the center of the table toward the queen and her timid daughter. He nodded at Mouse, attempting a harmless smile.
