The scion conspiracy, p.1
The Scion Conspiracy, page 1
The Scion Conspiracy
Crucible of Legacy, Book I
Mike Cahoon
Copyright © 2025 by Michael B. Cahoon
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permission requests, contact Michael B. Cahoon.
The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.
Book Cover by Holly Lowe
1st edition 2025
To my brother Thomas, my first reader, who deserves more credit than I can give for his unwavering support.
To my Dad, the greatest storyteller I know, who first instilled a love of reading in me.
To my Mom, who taught me to fight for what I want and never settle.
To my daughters, who I love with all my heart and hope I always make proud.
And finally, to my wife Beth, who's constant love and support has made me the man I am today.
I could never have done this without all of you.
Contents
Prologue
ACT I 1. A Warrior & A Lord
2. Son of a Sailor
3. The Sun's Summit
4. The Artist
5. A Wolf at the Door
6. Crucible
7. Form & Function
8. Winds of Change
9. Fugitives & Criminals
10. Sundered
ACT II 11. Disagreements
12. The Dawn City
13. Flower From Stone
14. Into Red Water
15. Bending With the Wind
16. The Emperor
17. Higher Learning
18. Dinner Plans
19. The Coast
20. Problems
ACT III 21. New Recruits
22. Angles
23. Risk & Reward
24. Consequences
25. The Conspiracy
26. Duty & Desperation
27. The Red Wolf
28. Dark Dealings
29. Legacy
Epilogue
Dear Reader
About the Author
Prologue
A Voice In the Night
The night was still and thick with summer heat. Darkness hung heavy in the forest with only a sliver of a moon to shed its pale light. Shadows clung to the trees and even the nighttime sounds of bugs and small creatures seemed muffled. It was like a heavy, unseen blanket had been laid over the woodland. Sam was nervous. He had lived in these woods his entire life; played in the creeks and groves as a boy, stalked game trails and helped fell trees with his father once he was old enough. Yet, even still, this night made him uneasy. His pace was painstakingly slow, every step careful as he made his way down an embankment, trying to avoid making the slightest sound. Every crunch of leaves or broken twig under his foot seemed to echo in the stillness like the deafening crash of a falling branch. Sam held his bow with an arrow knocked at the ready. His eyes darted back and forth, scanning for hidden figures in the shadows. Normally, he would have been thankful for even the smallest of moons, but this sliver of moonlight only seemed to give the landscape a ghostly quality, deepening the shadows that surrounded him and making them play oddly amongst the trees and underbrush. Every shift in the light birthed cloaked figures stalking through the dark, every whisper of wind was like the footsteps of a cutthroat sneaking up behind him. He wished he was back home before his smoldering fireplace, listening to it crackle and hiss as he sipped a summer ale in his high backed chair.
But somehow he had found himself compelled to enter the woods. He had tried to ignore it for weeks now, the call that only he could hear. It had come on slowly at first. The tickle on the back of his neck when there was no breeze in the air. A nagging in his mind like he had forgotten some indistinct task. Then, over the days, it slowly took shape and became a whisper in a voice that seemed so familiar yet entirely foreign at the same time. It sounded like someone calling to him from so far away he could not make out the words, only the tone; beckoning, full of a desperate yearning. The sound plagued him day and night, left him distracted and staring into the distance, straining to make out the words. Then one night, the sound became a voice, so soft he barely heard it. A woman’s call, all kindness and temptation. It said only one phrase; come to me.
Somehow, he knew where it wanted him to go; into the woods. It pulled at him, and him alone, to leave the lights of his village and wander into the darkness. Something in that voice promised much. He heard a temptation, felt the desire of a woman who wanted him, who needed him to find her. But Sam was no fool. He had not yet reached his fifteenth year, but he knew voices in the night were strange and dangerous. He had grown up hearing all the stories of the dangerous creatures that inhabited the woods; witches and ghouls who made meals of men, fairies who stole lost children away, and spirits that lured wandering travelers into the marshes where they met their doom. After arguing with himself for a long while, he told his father and mother about the voice. They, of course, quickly took him to the local temple. The priest had told Sam it was an evil spirit, that it wanted him to abandon his family and his town. He had given him a symbol and told him to pray to the gods to relieve himself of this terrible curse.
Sam had tried. He really had. He had prayed everyday, many times, with the fervor of a man on his deathbed. He grasped the symbol of the Mother until his palms were red and had a deep imprint of the matronly figure in each one. But the voice only came more often, becoming stronger and more insistent. He pretended it went away, seeing the worry in his mother’s eyes and hearing the whispers around town as people stole glances at him when they thought he was not looking. But day after day he caught himself staring across the pastures into the wood line. At times he could almost see a woman standing there, beautiful, waiting for him. The voice wormed its way into every thought, pulled at his mind like a cat unraveling a ball of yarn, until he could no longer shut it out. It spoke to him lovingly, with the same quiet phrase over and over; come to me. He heard it even in his dreams, waking with a start, covered in cold sweat, only for that voice to still be echoing in his mind.
So it was that Sam found himself standing at the window of his bedroom in the middle of the night, staring across the dimly lit farms and fields beyond. The trees sat motionless on the summer night, stalwart sentinels guarding the secret siren that called to him even now. He cursed his weakness, tried in vain to have yet another talk with himself. To tell himself it was foolishness. He knew this was a trap, a honeypot meant to lure him in, only for some awful creature to devour him in the darkness. But even still, he found that his boots were on, then his cloak, then he was standing on the porch of his childhood home, the door still open behind him. In a moment of clarity he reached inside and grasped for his bow and quiver from where it hung from a peg by the door. If he was to die tonight, he reasoned, at least he would put up a fight. As he strode off across the fields, he never looked back.
Now, in the dark wooded landscape, he could still hear the voice. It seemed to grow louder now that he had entered its domain. Come to me. Over and over, echoing in his mind, dominating his thoughts. It pushed out his fear, his foreboding. It was like a white hot iron laid across his mind. It could not be ignored, it could not be looked away from. As he made his way, he became more bold. He stopped being careful with his stride, stopped watching for hidden enemies and ambushes laying in wait. He hurried along, brushing aside tree limbs and bushes, crunching sticks and leaves underfoot. He splashed through a creek without a second thought and trotted along in his boots, making squelching noises with every step. His bow hung loosely from his hand, the arrow dropped without notice somewhere along the way. He was practically running now. He crashed through the underbrush, noise filling the night. He breathed heavily, anticipation building to a crescendo in his chest. He was almost there, he knew it was close. He knew she was close.
Suddenly there were lights ahead of him. An orange glow in the darkness. This was it. He knew it was what he had been looking for. He rushed towards it, unbothered by the branches that tugged on his clothes and tore little gashes in his exposed flesh. He was here, finally, after all this time. The nagging notion of dread that had been his constant companion and had begged him to turn back was deathly silent now. The enchanting voice was practically a scream as he burst through a bush and into the light.
He blinked. The voice had stopped so suddenly he was taken aback. Silence, except for the crackle and spitting of a campfire, filled his head for the first time in weeks. He was so unused to having his mind to himself, the quiet seemed more deafening than the voice had been. He stood in a clearing where a small band had made its modest campsite. There were several tents and three large wagons around a roaring campfire. The wagons were covered with canvas, nondescript, and their horses were tied up at the edge of the clearing, bridles and tack removed for the night. It was a caravan of some sort. Around the campfire were several figures who appeared to be cooking. A spit was being turned by a large man with very dark skin crouching down beside it. On the opposite side sat two other figures, a woman with short red hair and patterned tattoos down her exposed arms and a man with one eye. All three had turned to look when he had c
She stalked towards Sam and he took a step back. He silently cursed himself for being a weak minded fool when he realized he had dropped his bow in his mad rush to get here. She smiled. It was unpleasant, the curve of her lips seeming to mock him before she even spoke a single word.
“Are you lost, little boy?” She looked him up and down, even in the dim light he could see the way her eyes shone with a deep green hue.
“I-I was just…looking for someone…” He stammered. He was unsure of himself, trying desperately to get his bearings. He glanced towards the fire and saw the other two men were grinning and watching intently.
“Looking for someone?” She made a confused face, “Out here? In the dark?”
She was playing with him. He felt a bit of anger creep past the fear and uncertainty. He steadied himself. He let his hand drift around to the back of his belt where he always kept his hunting knife sheathed and tethered. It was still there, thank the gods. He grasped it. Feeling the worn leather gave him back some of his lost nerve. He stood a little straighter.
“Yes…I must've gotten turned around. I’ll leave you all to it then.” He started to back up, but never let his eyes off the woman.
She smiled, showing her teeth for the first time. They were pearly white and gleamed even in the dim light. “Oh no…no, no, no. You mustn’t go so soon. We were just sitting down to eat.”
She shifted her weight. Her hand rested on the hilt of her sword. Sam started to sweat. He knew these people were dangerous. Everything in him screamed at him to turn tail and run. But he knew deep down that these were the sort of people that would have no problem catching him, even in the dead of night. His only advantage was the knife he hoped they had not noticed him reach for, “No, thank you…I need to be going now.”
Suddenly, the voice returned. Louder than it had been before. It hit him like a flood breaking through a dam. His knees nearly buckled, his vision blurring as he held his ears in desperation. But the sound was inside his head. COME TO ME. Over and over, he felt it tearing at his mind. It was still feminine, but now a roar rather than a beckoning whisper. A cold, unflinching command. Through his pain, he could see that the red haired woman seemed amused. She watched with curiosity, still grinning, “Something bothering you?”
He tried again to shake his head, but the voice persisted. He looked around, trying desperately to find the source. He needed to find it, felt as though he would die if he could not. Just as he thought his head would burst, a voice cut through the noise, “Go? But you’re right where you need to be.”
A new figure appeared from out of one of the carriages. It was a man with blonde hair and a slight build, with sharp features that cut harsh angles across his face. He was short, for a man, and draped himself in a fine cloak of rich red velvet. The strangest thing about his appearance, something Sam noticed almost immediately, was how clean he looked. Not a smear on his clothes or mark on his skin. No hair out of place, not a stitch of clothing unkempt. Like a nobleman or a scholar, completely out of place here in the deep woods. As he stepped out of the cart and into the dirt with the rest of the group, he seemed to glide in his soft looking shoes towards them. It took only the briefest of moments before Sam recognized him.
“You…were in the village…” he mumbled, still holding his head in his hands, “You’re that magician…came through with the carnival…you read my fortune…”
Sam noticed the cloaked man held something which swung loosely from his left hand. It was hard to tell what it was at first. But once the man got closer, it looked, for all the world, like a small birdcage made of some kind of metal. Only, what it held was no bird. It seemed to be a solid ball of light. It floated in the cage, a sphere of pale gray green suspended in the air. Once he saw it, he knew. The sound was coming from the light. He stared at it, unable to tear his eyes away from the soft glow. It called to him. He started to walk towards the light, even as the man was walking towards him. He never reached it.
The woman intercepted him. She dropped to one knee and swept his leg out from under him while he was midstride. He slammed hard onto his back. Staring up into the starry sky he was disoriented for a moment, the voice still echoing in his head. As suddenly as it started, the voice was gone. He looked over and saw the man and the woman stood beside each other a few feet from him. The man had draped the cage with a cloth, the light entirely hidden under it. He shook his head, the silence again feeling so unusual. He groaned as he hauled himself into a seated position, staring at the two figures.
“What is that?” He muttered, staring at the cage.
The man in the cloak gave a small shrug, “That’s not for you to worry about Sam. You have far bigger concerns now.”
“You know my name?”
The man continued as if he hadn’t heard Sam’s question, “I brought you here, my boy, because you are special.”
Sam was still trying to orient himself. His senses were reeling as if he had just torn free from the smothering depths of a relentless tide. The world crashed into focus, jarring, like he was a dreamer thrust awake after being lost in the depths of slumber. He tried to make sense of it all, “What do you mean? Who are you?”
“All in due time.” He turned, making a slight motion with one hand, “Kacey, if you please. We do have a schedule to keep.”
The woman, Kacey, Sam had a moment to register, nodded and strode towards him. He had a second to react and remembered the knife. He reached back, grasped the handle and swung out in a wide arc.
The woman was fast. So fast Sam barely knew what happened. She reacted in a moment, stepping back while catching his arm mid swing. She turned his arm backwards, twisting so hard Sam yelped and dropped the knife. She kicked it and it went skittering away, disappearing in the dark. The woman grinned, her unsettling smile full of blazing white teeth, “You’ve got a lot of fight in ya, kid.”
While still holding his arm, she hit him across the face with a gloved hand. Sam felt a burst of pain across his face and nearly passed out. He fell over into the dirt and tasted blood, thinking she may have broken his jaw with that one strike. He had been in scraps before, other kids in the village. But this was different, these people were trained, maybe even professionals. He tried to crawl away but he felt large, strong hands, which must have belonged to the two men he had seen before, grab his ankles. They dragged him through the dirt, past the campfire. He tried to struggle, but he was barely holding onto consciousness at that point. He kicked his legs as hard as he could, trying to wriggle free. But a swift kick in the side sent a shock of pain through his entire body. He whimpered, tears of pain and fear forming in his eyes. But they did not let him go.
He was lifted roughly to his feet behind one of the carts. Inside, it was nearly pitch black, an open mouth which threatened to swallow him whole. He could vaguely make out a few box shapes near the rear of the wagon. The one eyed man moved into his field of view and reached into the darkness. There was a metal clink and a door swung open. Sam was shoved forward, tripping over his own feet, pain still radiating across his entire body. As he crashed into the back of the cart it took a moment before his eyes adjusted and he saw what awaited him. It was a cage. He was being forced into a cage. Panic swelled in his chest and overrode the pain and exhaustion. He swung wildly, desperate to get away. All he hit was empty air before another vicious strike landed, bludgeoning him low in the gut. It forced the air out of his lungs and he felt sick. Another blow to the stomach came right behind the first and this time he did empty his guts. The taste of bile mixed with blood filled his mouth as tears streamed from his eyes. Spots filled his vision. He was starting to black out from the pain.
