Wildheart, p.1
Wildheart, page 1
Table of Contents
WILDHEART
COPYRIGHT
DEDICATION
MAHASAR
TALHEIM
THE PRINCESS OF CUNNING AND MIGHT
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
THE QUEEN OF SHADOW AND SWORD
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
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
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
THE KING OF HONOR AND SACRIFICE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
CHAPTER FIFTY
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
CHAPTER SIXTY
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
THE PRINCE OF BLOOD AND STARS
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
CHAPTER SEVENTY
A GUIDE TO OLD VALGARDAN
A GUIDE TO MAHASARI
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALSO BY R. DUGAN
WILDHEART
THE STARCHASER SAGA
BOOK VII
R. Dugan
WILDHEART
Copyright © 2022 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: 978-1-7339255-5-6
First Edition: December 2022
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
DEDICATION
To JD
who, like this book, brought the end of one saga
and the start of something beyond what I could ever imagine.
Your Mama loves you, Little Man—with her whole heart, for her whole life. Thank you for being my new dream. <3
The
PRINCESS
of
CUNNING and
MIGHT
CHAPTER ONE
IN THE VIVID lavender glow of late autumn lightning, Princess Cistine Novacek of Talheim fled for her life, fifteen Mahasari Enforcers in pursuit.
The thick undergrowth snapped against her armor while she bent nearly double, scaling the slope of the lower Calalun Peaks. Everywhere her fingertips brushed the last valiant threads of autumn foliage, they crumbled away from her touch. She did not look back to watch them die or to spot her enemies in the gloom. Eyes trained forward, vision cut with snaking tendrils of augment-shocked silver hair spilling from the knot behind her ears, she ran with all her might.
Only a half-mile to go.
She burst over the crest of the hill and skidded down the far slope, arms windmilling to break her fall. Arrows peppered the vegetation around her, smooth-tipped and reeking of Mahasari paralytics, and panic closed her throat. If she’d misjudged the distance or the direction…
There was no time to question the plan. Popping to her feet at the base of the hill, she dodged another volley of arrows and tore forward, legs pumping, lungs heaving.
The half-mile blurred by in a wash of rain and crackling thunder, and with every bolt of lightning she fought not to think of augmented energy, diamond-hard skin, or midnight eyes. Heedless of the death fuming from her body, she punched through the last wall of living undergrowth, killing it in her wake, and skidded to a halt on rain-slick rock.
She’d reached a ledge looming into the deep valley between the Calaluns. Shadow-dipped hills rolled before her, limned in lightning flashes and soaked in rain. There was nowhere else to run.
She spun back, hand to her dagger Nail, as the sounds of pursuit slowed and the Mahasari patrol prowled into the open. Their leader’s familiar, pale face reared up a memory of a late-night ambush, striking pain into an old scar on her side. Setting her teeth, she regarded his approach.
“Faes alykar, Princess.” The musical Mahasari syllables rolled from his tongue, but he bit out her title in the common language of the Three Kingdoms. “We’ve been looking for you.”
“You’d think I’d be used to that by now,” Cistine muttered, half to herself.
“You are quite the prize. And now you have nowhere to go.” He extended a hand.
“I don’t think you want to do that, Vezzik.” Cistine crept back from him, nearer to the ledge. “You’ve probably heard the stories.”
“Of the princess who can kill with a single touch?” he scoffed. “Talheim has always been keen on tall tales. I’m willing to take my chances.” On either side, his men fanned out—a fourteen-bowed falcate with their weapons primed. Training clamored in Cistine’s mind, half a dozen voices warning her against sudden movements. “Come with us, and you can live in luxury until the game is over.”
Her heels snagged the edge of rock and sky. “Game?”
Bowstrings twanged. Vezzik lunged for her. And she jerked back.
The ledge vanished. She plummeted.
A great roar cleaved the whistling wind; a blur of gold streaked past her, shooting up toward the ledge where the Enforcers’ cries of shock turned to screams of terror. Fire lit the sky, burning the rain to steam.
For a heartbeat, Cistine closed her eyes and envisioned a river below her, a gorge above, and strong arms shielding her body.
Glass pinged and shattered, and wind wrapped around her. Power surged through her fingers like breath blown from the True God’s nostrils, and then she was rising—a star falling in reverse, alighting with bent knees and hair ripped loose from its tie to find the stone aflame and a battle raging across it. Fifteen Enforcers dueled five warriors in a halo of dragonfire, bows traded for blades in close quarters. A summoning whistle cut through the clash of Valgardan steel and Mahasari metal, and with brilliance that seared Cistine’s vision in bright mint dapples, a fire flagon exploded.
Tatiana, limbs striped in trembling heat, ducked and swiveled, hurling a globe of flame to Quill. He flipped over two opponents to catch it from the air, handspringing backward to clap hands with Ashe, who portioned the fire to Ariadne. All of this while Maleck, braided death-god and swordmaster, dueled ferociously against six Enforcers at once, drawing their ire; and in the sky above, Bresnyar slithered through the clouds, cutting off their escape with his own fire.
Cistine’s chest swelled with fierce love for her cabal.
Before she could gather her wind and leap into the fray, it was already over; Maleck drove the Enforcers back toward the others, and in a cage of fire, one by one, they brought them to their knees. Quill discharged the fire augment and pounced on Vezzik, driving him face-first into the rock and perching on his back. Eyes battle-bright, he tossed a grin at Cistine. “You know, I’m not usually one for using our own as bait, but that went better than expected. Good strategy, Stranger.”
She sketched a curtsy. “We aim to please.”
“We succeed.” Sending out her fire in a gust, Ashe sheathed her blade Starfall, kicked an Enforcer onto his back, and planted her knee on his chest. “Why are you hunting the princess?”
“Don’t answer that,” Vezzik mumbled against the rock.
“Do answer that.” Maleck spun Stormfury into its harness. “If you value your lives.”
When no Enforcer spoke, Ashe craned her head back. Flickers of gold speared through her eyes, and the man in her grip squirmed under the heavy press of her knee to his chest. “What—what is she doing?”
“Cleaving.” Tatiana’s smile was a feral glint. “If I had to guess, she’s summoning her dragon for an evening feast of Mahasari flesh.”
“It’s for the game!” A younger Enforcer, barely Cistine’s twenty-one years if that, broke first. Vezzik spat a curse Cistine ignored, passing him and Quill to crouch before the Enforcer—though not near enough to touch.
“What game?” she demanded.
Dark eyes, round with terror, fixed on her. “You really don’t know?”
Ashe’s ragged scream burst across the rock; in the clouds above, Bresnyar roared, and the cleaving severed so suddenly Ashe pitched from the Enforcer’s chest, saved from crashing into the stone only by Maleck’s arm swooping around her shoulders and spinning her back to her feet.
“They have gods-damned dragons!” Ashe bellowed.
In a flash of lightning, a small, dark streak shot through the clouds, colliding with Bresnyar’s golden bulk; from the treeline, through the dragonfire still gulping the dead grass, a line of scaled bodies emerged, driving against the cabal like a scythe.
Sulfuric breath blasted Bresnyar’s wall of flames to deadly whips. The cabal dove left and right with shouts of shock and rage, and the dragons bowled into their midst; not sharp-edged, horned creatures like Ashe’s dragon, but snake-sleek with tapered muzzles agape, foul breath pluming the wet air. The rotten-egg stench sent Cistine gagging as she scrambled up and dodged the barbed whip of a tail aimed for her legs.
While the cabal evaded the dragons’ vicious breath, the Enforcers rallied and struck again. Steel sang, and not for the first time in this war, Cistine heard the cruel slice of deadly Mahasari metal cleave through threads she’d once believed all but indestructible. With a bark of pain, Maleck fell to one knee, blood streaming from his upper arm; Ashe’s answering cry was world-ending in fury, Starfall a glistening flame in her hand when she sprang over her valenar’s bent form and kicked his attacker down, running him through.
Despair gripped Cistine’s throat. The plan was crumbling. Above, blood mingled with rain as Bresnyar and the Mahasari dragon shredded one another, ripping the clouds with bass roars and owl-like shrieks; all around her, fighting raged, Ariadne dueling three Mahasaris, Ashe towing Maleck back to his feet, Tatiana and Quill guarding one another’s backs but still overwhelmed when the dragons charged them.
Cistine knew what must be done. Even as her conscience rebelled, stomach cringing at the choice; even as she stripped off her gloves, flexing her cold fingers into the blood and rain—into the power lying dormant beneath her skin, girdling her bones. The augment that would never be fully spent, never dispatched like the fire dazzling in the lines of Ariadne and Tatiana’s armor still.
This was her curse. But she would use it to defend her family.
She hurtled toward Vezzik, arm extended, death unspooling between her fingertips—
The rain stopped.
For a moment, the battle halted as well. Cistine stumbled to a standstill, hair prickling on her nape and gooseflesh pebbling her body.
Augmented power rode the wind’s currents, and a sensation three months buried reared within her so violently her heart staggered its pace. She sucked in her breath, choking on a Name.
Starchaser.
The rain descended all at once, flooding the rock, driving Mahasaris and Valgardans alike to their knees; two warriors drove from the scorched treeline, crashing into the enemy flanks, sending the dragons into a spinning, spitting whirlwind. Arms slashing in tandem, the men smashed their water augments into the Enforcers once, twice, three times…buying Ashe a moment to break a healing augment against Maleck’s arm, Ariadne to fall back with Quill and Tatiana, and all five of them and Cistine to rally and attack.
Overwhelmed, the Enforcers broke, lunging onto their mounts. Vezzik led the charge, swinging onto the back of a piebald dragon and drawing a whip from the saddle; hatred burned in his gaze when it found Cistine’s across the ledge, promising theirs was not the last patrol who would hunt her personally. Just as it hadn’t been the first.
In that moment he paused to convey his silent rage, Quill reached him. When the whip reared back to snap against his mount’s hide, Quill leaped, catching the lash against his armor and yanking with all his might. Vezzik hauled back, cursing and driving his heels into the dragon’s flanks. With a pained screech, the creature lofted, dragging Quill up with him. Steel flashed as Quill drew his dagger Fjadar, driving toward the dragon’s brow—then hesitated.
Heart in throat, Cistine watched him dangle. Then he let go.
The crack of boots on rock boomed in tandem with thunder and more than a dozen pairs of dragon wings slashing down all at once, and in a torrent of rainfall the beaten patrol vanished into the same peaks they’d haunted for nearly a year.
Tatiana was at Quill’s side in a heartbeat, dragging him up from his landing crouch. “What was that? Why did you let him go?”
He brushed his hands off on his thighs, furious gaze scouting the clouds that shuttered to hide the Enforcers from their view. “Those scales felt like a red adder’s. Didn’t want to blunt my dagger if I couldn’t break through.”
Cistine blew out a long breath, spraying rain from the tip of her nose. Her body didn’t know whether to slump with defeat or straighten with relief when she sheathed her weapons and swiveled to face the newcomers who’d turned the tide. Their leader shoved back his hair, dark marriage band snagging in strands far too silver for his age—barely thirty years old. “Honestly, that wasn’t the worst scrape I expected to find you all in when we returned.”
Cistine flashed a sheepish smile. “Hello, Thorne.”
Soft blue eyes swung to her. “Hello, Logandir.”
A rough sigh. “I’m here, also.”
Laughing, Tatiana burst forward to fling her arms around the other man’s neck. “We missed you, Aden.”
“The new valenar glow just hasn’t worn off for those two quite yet,” Quill added wryly. “How’s Pip?”
“Good. Missing you,” Aden chuckled, squeezing Tatiana.
Thorne shaded his eyes as Bresnyar descended in a blur of gold, smashing into the ledge and staggering toward them. Ashe swore and hurtled to meet him, the last silver threads of the healing augment gliding from her fingers and running over his golden scales. “So, I wasn’t seeing things. Those were Iteilach Tayir the Enforcers rode out on.”
“Yes, my delightful southern cousins,” Bresnyar spat. “Fireless, but full of venom.”
Quill flung up his hands. “Here we go again. Shei, Thorne, and Bresnyar, our walking bestiaries.”
Tatiana chucked a crumbled bit of stone at his head. “At least they bother with books every once in a while, Featherbrain.”
Ashe’s gaze swung from her dragon to Thorne. “So now Jad has dragons in his army?”
“Judging by the look of those spurs and whips, they were not drafted of their own volition.” In Ariadne’s tone hung a visnpresta’s indignation for all abused creatures formed by the True God.
Aden scratched his thick golden beard. “For what purpose? Fireless dragons do little at long range, and less for stealth.”
“And their poison wasn’t even that potent,” Quill pointed out. “Mostly putrid. Seems like all they’re good for is a quick escape.”
“Speaking of that.” Thorne’s gaze leaped back to Cistine. “Your father seems to think the cabal is on a reconnaissance mission to the east, not the south.”
Cistine sopped her rain-soaked hair from her brow. “That’s because I didn’t want him to know what we were doing. He’d never agree with it.”
He cocked a brow. “With his only heir making herself bait to his decades-long enemy?”
“Well, when you put it that way,” Quill muttered under his breath. Tatiana jabbed him in the ribs.
“We know they’ve been targeting her,” Ashe said grimly, laying a hand on Bresnyar’s shoulder until he stood steady again. “Patrols have twice as much engagement when Cistine is with them. She can barely set foot outside Astoria without encountering a slew of Enforcers. We want to know why.”
Concern drew a divot between Thorne’s brows. “What did they give you?”
“Nothing,” Maleck sighed. “And with the aid of their dragons, we have no one left to question.”
