Darkwind, p.1
Darkwind, page 1
Table of Contents
DARKWIND
COPYRIGHT
DEDICATION
VALGARD
THE PRINCESS OF BOOKS AND BEAUTY
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
THE STUDENT OF BONE AND BATTLE
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
THE HEART OF FLAME AND WILD
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
EPILOGUE
A GUIDE TO OLD VALGARDAN
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Read On For a Sneak Peek at
CHAPTER ONE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALSO BY R. DUGAN
DARKWIND
THE STARCHASER SAGA
BOOK I
R. Dugan
DARKWIND
Copyright © 2019 by R. Dugan
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
For information contact:
R. Dugan
PO Box 1265
Martinsville, IN 46151
reneeduganwriting.com
Cover design by Maja Kopunovic
Map by Jessica Khoury
ISBN: 978-1-7339255-0-1
Second Edition: May 2020
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
DEDICATION
To Pam
For the song that introduced me to the truth
of who Cistine really was.
The
Princess
of
Books and
Beauty
CHAPTER ONE
CISTINE NOVACEK KNEW something was wrong the moment she woke with her bodyguard’s fingers wrapped around her shoulder.
The last vestiges of a bad dream drummed in Cistine’s pounding heart as she loosened her white-knuckled grip on her sheets and scrambled up in the disparity of light and darkness. The darkness was one of Talheim’s deep nights pressing against the panes of her floor-to-ceiling windows; the light was a ghostlamp, a bioluminescent shell of phosphorus plants glinting in a small jar. Its gentle glow limned the contours of her bodyguard’s face as the woman released Cistine’s shoulder and straightened, her tan skin, feather-short reddish hair, and mismatched eyes stroked by the teal glow.
Cistine rubbed her cheeks, still itching from the day’s cosmetics. “What’s wrong, Ashe? Why are you still here this late?”
Ashe threw Cistine’s robe into her lap. “Get up and follow me, Princess.”
If she hadn’t known Ashe her entire life—if some of her earliest memories hadn’t been of this solemn-faced girl standing beside her crib in this very room, teasing her with a flash of sunlight along her battle knives—she would’ve gone straight back to bed. But Ashe was normally a pillar of calm, so it was the nervousness minting her blue-and-green eyes that dragged Cistine fully awake. She tugged on the robe, freed her hair from its collar, and hurried after her guard.
The halls of the Citadel—Talheim’s crown jewel—looked no different from any other night. Through the great bay windows, Cistine could barely glimpse two of the four bridges that joined the Citadel’s broad stone plot to the capital city of Astoria. Beyond that, there was a small pocket of coastline visible, glimmering jewel-bright under the full moon’s light.
Everything appeared calm. Everything was in order.
Cistine elongated her stride to match her guard’s. “Ashe, what time is it?”
“Quarter past midnight. Try to keep up.”
Cistine was trying, but Ashe set a grueling pace through the empty corridors. “You know, respectable people are sleeping at this hour.”
Ashe’s mouth quirked. “And you know the King’s Cadre Wardens never sleep. Especially the one who’s tasked with keeping his young, impressionable daughter safe.”
Cistine pressed a hand to her breast, privately relieved Ashe had risen to the bait. “Me? What trouble am I? All I ever do is gossip in the Citadel and read my many, many books. Surely I’m not the reason you look so out of breath and distracted tonight.”
“I wish it was your fault,” Ashe said. “You know all those distant cousins and lords’ wives you’ve been gossiping with for the past week?”
Cistine smiled. “No, I’m just so blind, I’ve missed how they’ve all been fawning over me.”
This time, Ashe did not smile. “They aren’t here for your twentieth birthday celebration as we’ve been told.”
Suddenly, Cistine was glad of her robe. Though light and soft, it hid the prickle of gooseflesh that reared under her thin shift and traveled along her thighs, down to her ankles.
Her father had made such a fuss over her coming-of-age birthday. He’d sent invitations to the four corners of Talheim, inviting all his relations and the lords who oversaw the smaller provinces, and even convinced the ones in the south to attend. As rumor had it, they all needed a reprieve anyway from the tension of holding the shaky peace with neighboring Mahasar at the border.
King Cyril and Queen Solene had never been sparing in their celebrations of Cistine’s birthdays, particularly as she’d grown older. A coming-of-age ball, with all her cousins and aunts and uncles present, and half the kingdom in attendance, was simply to be expected.
But if that was a sham…if there was something else at play here…
“Ashe, what’s the matter?” Cistine demanded.
“I’ll show you.”
They reached a private study that abutted the throne room itself. Ashe ushered Cistine into the cool, dark confines, sliding the door shut at their backs. She went to the wall, motioned Cistine to crouch beside her, and pried loose a small stone, sending a shower of white dust onto the polished boots of her black Cadre uniform.
Cistine wasn’t surprised by any of this. After all, the Cadre served as both the King’s household guard and his eyes and ears around Astoria. It made perfect sense that Ashe had places to listen in at every wall…even to the throne room.
That room was one of Cistine’s least-favorites in the Citadel, possibly in all Astoria. The soaring high-backed seats—one carved of ivory, the other of obsidian—perched grandly on the dais where her parents sat. They stood as stark reminders that one day, as sole heir, Cistine would sit on the ivory throne, someone would sit on the obsidian one beside her, and duty would force her to legislate hour after hour.
It would be the end of all the books and tea, the years spent researching subjects that interested her. All the long winters of blazing hearths with no demands on her time but chatting with her people in teahouses and shops…gone. After her twentieth birthday, she would have to focus on matters of succession-planning and law, just as her mother had done when she’d married King Cyril at the tender age of nineteen.
Cistine almost looked away from the room and asked Ashe to describe what she ought to be seeing, but the strangeness she glimpsed inside anchored her gaze and slit a slow frown into her brow.
The thrones were empty.
The King and Queen occupied the head seats of the throne room’s long table instead, and Cistine’s aunts and uncles were seated on opposing sides of it, along with her remote familial relations and the lower lords to whom she had no blood affinity. Among those men was Lord Rion Bartos, the last Commander to lead the Cadre before his retirement to the estate of Practica when Cistine was thirteen years old. He’d come frequently to the Citadel since then, but always with his wife, Eboni, and his son—and never to sit at the planning table with the King. He’d outright refused to allow political matters to interfere with that friendship.
But there he was, grim-faced, slant-mouthed, scowling.
And wearing his Cadre uniform.
Cistine looked swiftly at Ashe. Her focus was trained on her old commander, too.
Soft murmurs pattered around the table like summer rain, too low for Cistine to hear. She shifted closer to Ashe, balancing her chin on her Warden’s shoulder. What are they discussing?”
The answer came from above their heads: “The South.”
Cistine sat back hard on her heels, dragging her robe tightly around herself. “Julian?”
“What are you doing here?” Ashe hissed.
The eavesdropper, hidden in the shadows of the room’s long, sculpted upper edge, dropped from his perch and landed lightly beside them. “There’s another loose brick up there.”
Cistine sputtered. “No one told me you were coming!”
“You really think I’d miss your coming-of-age celebration?”
Cistine forgot everything that worried her as Julian Bartos joined them at the wall, moving with the same long-limbed grace—and the same firm set to his heavy brows and high cheekbones—as his father. But Lord Rion’s son lacked his father’s ruddy countenance. He favored his mother more, with his wing of dark hair and equally dark eyes. Cistine knew this because she’d been studying him from the corners of her eyes every time he and his parents returned to visit the Citadel.
Julian held her stare openly now and flashed a smile that made Cistine’s knees turn to lead and changed her heart to a crashing surf. “Princess, it’s good to see you again.”
His midnight eyes glinted with mirth as he took her hand and kissed it, and in that moment Cistine was glad she was wearing her periwinkle robe, and not the red one that would have accentuated her blush rather than her curves. “You as well, Julian.”
He crouched between them, serious again. “So. They’re saying the danger has grown near the southern border with Mahasar. Lord Trevar just reported sixteen small raids in less than three weeks.”
Ashe skimmed her thumb along her lower lip. “Dangerous.”
“Terrifying, if you’re a southerner.”
Cistine frowned. “What does this mean?”
Julian’s eyes slid to her. “It means our neighbors in the Southern Kingdom are flexing. Mahasar is testing our mettle along the border.”
“A raid every few seasons, especially after a hard winter, isn’t uncommon,” Ashe said. “But it’s early summer. Usually things would’ve quieted down by now.”
“They’re not sacking grain silos or releasing a few paddocks of cattle, either. These are forts they’re attacking.”
Cistine’s blood chilled. The Talheimic forts, framing their borders with the Northern and Southern Kingdoms, were the outlook for any sort of disturbance from their volatile neighbors on both sides. “Mahasar is sending a message.”
“Well, if you wanted to raise the notion of war without actually declaring one,” Julian said, “that would be the way to go about it.”
King Cyril cleared his throat, and the muttering at the table stopped. Julian, Cistine, and Ashe pressed themselves closer to the small gap in the wall to hear him speak: “This is a dangerous dance we’ve stepped into. Mahasar struts, but they have yet to make any advances that would truly constitute an act of war.”
Rion nodded. “If we were to attack them now, even in retaliation for the forts, it would make us the instigators. After that, King Jad would have no trouble rallying the support of his entire kingdom, even his laziest magnates, to battle. His ranks would swell to the hundreds of thousands, and that’s besides Mahasar’s usual army, which far outnumbers anything we’ve faced in battle in the last two hundred years.”
The lords and nobility shifted and muttered. Cistine’s throat cooled with dread.
“We can’t allow the fate of the forts to go unmentioned,” her Uncle Filip said. “There must be some retribution short of declaring war.”
“We could invite King Jad and his advisors for peace talks,” Queen Solene said, “but don’t think for an instant that he would not seize the opportunity to search out this city’s weak points while he’s here. He’s coveted the Citadel as a prize for years.”
“Of course he has.” Lady Eboni rested a hand on Rion’s brawny arm and smiled at the Queen. “You remember the state of his old capital city, Solene? What chaos that was.”
The King shook his head. “I would not allow King Jad to set foot in my city under any circumstances. I might meet with him in Middleton, if Lord Dorminger is agreeable.”
Lord Dorminger nodded slowly as he palmed his red-bearded face. “But to what end? Asking them kindly to cease the border raids?”
“To learn what they hope to accomplish through them.”
“Cyril,” Solene murmured. “We know what Jad wants.”
Cistine’s father sat back in his seat, running a hand through his hair. The agitated movement belonged to the reckless prince he had once been, now buried under the threads of silver in his brown hair and the weight of the thin circlet on his scarred brow. “There is another way. A means of frightening Jad into keeping his treacherous fingers inside his own borders.”
“What are you going to do, march down to the forts and flash your pale buttocks in his face?” Rion asked.
Cistine was grateful for his irreverent question, because it made her father smile.
“No,” Cyril said, “but we could make him think twice before attacking us if we had Valgard standing at our backs.”
The rarely-spoken name of the Northern Kingdom whipped through the room, stealing the breath from every pair of lungs—including Cistine’s.
“Siding with Valgard,” Rion scoffed. “To what end? We defeated them in the last war—what good is their strength against Mahasar?”
“Not all strength is strength of arms,” the King said. “The North is tenacious and its people are clever. They have certain powers we lack. And perhaps they would stand united with us in friendship if they perceived the threat from Mahasar would bring war to their border once again.”
“Stand with us, against Jad,” one of Cistine’s aunts muttered, “and without their augments. Augments they no longer have because of us…because we made them seal the Doors to the Gods.”
King Cyril was quiet for a very, very long time.
“Conquest is Jad’s goal,” he finally said, “to expand his own borders at any cost. If he marches across the Middle Kingdom, do you really think he won’t try to take the North as well? Valgard is in as much danger as Talheim if Jad can’t be stopped.”
“We haven’t even spoken of Valgard in years, or allowed the people to discuss it after what happened there,” Solene said. “The risk is so great if we broach that subject now, Cyril.”
“You know all the reasons this is a terrible idea,” Rion added.
Several heads bobbed in agreement, but Cistine didn’t join them. Her mind was already racing through all the things she knew of Valgard.
She’d been told very little about the Northern Kingdom or the war between them and Talheim, except that her father, a newly-married prince at the time, had fought alongside Cistine’s grandfather against Valgard. King Ivan had died in the last battle before Cyril and Rion led the Wardens of Talheim to the heart of the North.
The rest of what happened was shrouded in mystery, unwritten in any book Cistine ever found. She only knew from Ashe’s stories that the closing of the Doors to the Gods and the dissolution of augments—the gifted power of the True God and his lesser vassals to the people of the north—had severed the line of the Northern Kingdom to their vast wells of inhuman power.
No one spoke of that anymore, not even her father. And yet here, at this table, with so much at risk from Jad’s movements in the south, the King of Talheim himself ignored the unspoken rule.
Clearly, he was desperate. Everyone was, to even dare mention Valgard in friendly terms.
“Cyril.” Rion’s vulnerable, earnest tone drew Cistine back from her thoughts. “I fought beside you in Valgard. I saw what it cost them, and us, when they surrendered and closed the Doors. Even though their Chancellors agreed to that ritual and signed the truce, that peace is tenuous at best. We can’t risk alerting them that Mahasar is on the move against us. What if they join forces with Jad instead?”
Solene nodded slowly. “We can’t hold out against an attack from both sides. Forget the North, my love. They can’t help us.”
Cyril took his queen’s hand, lacing their fingers together. “Then what do you suggest? Jad will only be content with fort sackings for so long. Sooner or later, we all know he’ll make a show of his true intentions, whether we instigate or not.”
