Heir of Pendel (A Pandoran Novel, #4)
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Authors: Barbara Kloss
Heir of Pendel
By Barbara Kloss
Copyright 2015 Barbara Kloss
All Rights Reserved
Cover art by Ben Kloss
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Dedication
For my son, Brennan.
Thanks for being so easy. And so cute.
Table of Contents
1
STEFAN
"T
hirty dead, sire." Sir Armand de Basco stood in the threshold. The door was gone, taken for firewood like every other bloody door in this depressing stone dungeon. "That is the total count from this morning's rounds."
Thirty people—dead. That was in addition to the fifty or so tallied over the last few days. All because my uncle, Lord Eris Mordryck Regius, had planted his army of shadowguard just outside the city walls. He'd laid siege to Castle Regius, my home and the capital of Valdon, and our forces weren't numerous enough to fight back, at least not yet. Help from Gesh and Pendel would arrive soon, but while we waited for their reinforcements, my people were dying.
It wasn't that Castle Regius hadn't prepared for a siege. My father had personally seen to the castle stores in case of an event like this. I'd always assumed his natural paranoia had driven him to such extremes, and Daria had assumed this as well, but recent events had proven that his paranoia wasn't for naught. He was, perhaps, the one person who hadn't underestimated the power of his brother, and he'd also been the one person who possessed the power to do anything about it. But he couldn't have foreseen this winter.
This winter hadn't brought snow, but cold. A frigid cold that was colder than anything Valdon had ever endured, and we simply didn't have the right provisions. We didn't own the piles of furs and thick wools needed to combat this climate, and we certainly didn't have enough firewood. This was Valdon. While we may suffer winter, these temperatures were cold enough to freeze the Icelands.
I rubbed my hands together, forcing down a shiver. It was colder than the winds on Hell's Peak in here. I refused to use our limited wood supply to light a fire in the hearth during our meetings. The people needed it more.
"What's the status of the wells?" I asked.
Sir Armand exchanged a hesitant glance with Aegis Brant, who sat at my table. "Ah, we're down to one, sire," Sir Armand de Basco replied.
"
One
?" I leaned over the table. "Yesterday, you said there were four!"
"Yes, and yesterday there
were
four. Since then, two have dried and one was poisoned."
"
Poisoned
?" I growled. "You're supposed to be keeping an eye on them!"
Sir Armand de Basco's lips thinned. "We are, sire."
"Then how in the seven territories was it poisoned?"
"I don't know. I found out when one of my lieutenants died after drinking from it this morning." Sir Armand's tone was as cold as the air.
I leaned back in my chair and pinched the bridge of my nose. One well. How could a city survive off of one well? That was aside from the fact we'd run out of firewood a week ago, and with the roads blocked to and from the city, we'd been forced to start burning the furniture. Even so, there still wasn't enough for all the inhabitants of this city to burn a fire all day and all night. And my people were freezing to death.
I clenched my fist upon the table—the long, sturdy table that had been a great family heirloom. According to my grandfather, who was still wasting away in his chambers, the table had been used for diplomacy for generations, even before my grandfather stepped onto Gaia's throne. I stood and my chair screeched. "Someone get this bloody table out of here!" I yelled.
Uncertain glances flitted across the table. My advisors were all so buried in wool, it was as though I were surrounded by a bunch of cloak stands. They moved like cloak stands, too, which meant not at all.
"Sire, is this really necessary?" Headmaster Ambrose said in a condescending tone that I was beginning to loathe. "It is a short-sighted solution to a much larger problem."
"Then give me a long-sighted solution, Headmaster, because I'm losing my patience with you and your guild. For all your combined talent and foresight, you've done nothing to help bolster our defenses, let alone help us survive this damned cold."
The table fell silent. Bitter wind rattled the windows, whistling through the cracks, and the Headmaster's anger simmered around him in a mirage. His power used to frighten me, but it wasn't frightening me now.
"I assure you the guild is doing all it can." His words fell flat and chilled, the edges of his voice frayed.
"In only three days, almost one hundred people have frozen or dehydrated to death, Headmaster. One hundred!" I narrowed my eyes upon him. "This table can go. It should've gone yesterday."
Headmaster Ambrose stared absently at me, frowning as he folded his long fingers together, which were just visible at the ends of his heavy crimson sleeves.
My gaze darted around the table, irritated. "
Move
!"
Everyone stood at once, chairs screeching throughout the empty hall, and about a dozen servants came and carted the huge table away. I stalked over to the window and looked out. There were so many shadowguard just beyond the wall, thousands upon thousands of them, flooding the valley like black water hemmed in only by our great wall. They waited there as they had been doing for three days, and they seemed to be weathering this cold rather well, bloody half-breeds. I wondered how many of them were human Morts and how many were my uncle's blasphemous creations, because it was impossible to tell from here, especially when they all wore the same black armor. I didn't see Tiernan in their midst today, or Eris, but that didn't mean they weren't out there somewhere.
I reached out to grip the drapery before I remembered it had also been taken and used as kindling. I let my hand fall to my side, aware of my advisors behind me, silent and watchful.
"This isn't your fault," Aegis Cicero Del Conte said quietly. He was trying to comfort me, but I was far beyond the point of ever being comforted again.
"The citizens of this world are dying, Aegis Cicero," I said at the window. "Under
my
care. It's every bit my fault." I glanced over my shoulder at Sir Armand, who still stood in place of the door. "How much wood do we have left?"
"Enough to get through one more night, your highness."
Spirits of the realm. One more night. Gesh and Pendel would never get here in time. We were trapped here.
I had failed.
I stared absently at a little bubble in the diamond-shaped pane of glass in the window. I might have failed the people of Valdon, but I could still help the rest of Gaia.
"Leave me," I said.
I didn't hear movement, and when I looked over my shoulder, all of my advisors were still standing there.
"I said leave!"
My advisors shuffled away, all accept for Aegis Cicero Del Conte. He stood in my periphery, his attention fastened on the window as the last of my advisors slipped out of the great hall. He would know what I intended. He would know because my father had always shared everything with him. Aegis Cicero Del Conte was the one man my father had trusted with his life, just as Alexander was the one man I trusted with mine…and Daria's.
"Are you sure about this, Stefan?" he asked quietly.
"Yes." I pinched my lips together and turned to face him. He looked so weary inside all those layers. "I don't see that I have a choice. I have no idea when Gesh and Pendel will arrive,
if
they arrive, and I can't wager the safety of this entire world on a game of time. Every moment I wait is a gift to my uncle. The people need to be warned, and they need to get to safety immediately."
He nodded a fraction. I knew he was thinking about his family, just as I was thinking about mine. What I was about to do might mean we'd never see them again.
"I will leave you to it, then," he said.
Just as he started to turn, I said, "Cicero."
He paused and looked up at me with Alexander's green eyes, and then I remembered Daria, and my chest squeezed a little.
"What do you think my father would have done?" I whispered.
Cicero gave me a tight smile, a sad smile. One that was nostalgic for the past but resigned to the present. One that wasn't going to fill me with false hope, but would also let me know that he would stand by me no matter what I decided. He reached out and rested his hand on my shoulder. "He would've done right by the people, just as you are." He squeezed my shoulder, turned on his heels and strode out of the room. The hall was empty and cold, and I'd never felt more alone.
The little box taunted me from where it sat, hidden inside the table in the far corner of the room. The small table was the last surviving piece of furniture still standing inside this big stone box of a room. I hadn't sent the table to be hacked to pieces because of what it contained: a failsafe for a kingdom on the brink of extinction.
