Prince of Swords

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Epilogue

T
HE FIRST TWO OF THE PROPHESIED WARRIORS WHO WERE
called to the fight against darkness—the healer Ariana and the psychic Queen Keelia—have fulfilled their destinies, but they have not given up the battle against Prince Ciro and the demon that possesses his body. All that is left is for Lyr Hern, Prince of Swords, to wield the crystal dagger. When contemplating on the dagger and the questions of where and why, the answers did not come easily, not even to a psychic as powerful as Keelia. So she allowed Joryn to take her through the fire once more, to the land in-between where spirits spoke the truth and no dark interference clouded her mind. There she discovered the secrets of the dagger. She saw the weapon's location and its purpose.

The crystal dagger was the only weapon in this world or any other which was powerful enough to take the life of the monster Ciro had become.

The Prophesy of the Firstborn

A darkness creeps beneath Columbyana and the lands beyond. This darkness grows stronger each and every day, infecting those who have an affinity for evil. As it grows stronger, it will also begin to affect those who are of weak mind, and eventually it will grow so strong no one among us will be able to defeat it. If this darkness is allowed to grow to this point, the world is doomed to eternal shadows, where evil will reign.

Only the firstborn children of three fine women
[later translated as Fyne]
have the power to stop the darkness and restore the world to light. These firstborn will be the warriors who lead the fight. Our fate rests in their hands, and in the hands of the armies they will call to them.

Of the three fine
[Fyne]
warriors who are called to this battle, one will find and wield the crystal dagger. One will betray love in the name of victory. And one, the eldest, will die at the hands of a monster who will hurtle a weary soul into the Land of the Dead.

Many monsters will rise from among us in this unholy war, soulless monsters such as the world has never seen. Heroes will be born and heroes will die. Death and darkness will threaten all those who choose to fight for the light.

Scribbled in the lefthand margin, in an almost illegible hand:

Beware Serrazone,

and beside it,

He who walks through fire may show the way.

Scribbled in the righthand margin:

Those who are called must choose between love and death, between heart and intellect, between victory of the sword and victory of the soul.

The remainder of the prophesy is illegible scribbling and indecipherable sketches. A scraggly tree; a bird with wings too large; a flower; a heart; a dagger
[The crystal dagger, perhaps?]
. Do they have meaning or are they simply a dying old man's insignificant doodles?

R
AYNE HADN
'
T ATTEMPTED TO ESCAPE FROM HER PRISON
for several weeks. In months past she'd tried everything from pleading with the old man who was on constant guard to attempting to physically yank the chains that bound her from the wall. Her jailer was deaf to her pleas, and she didn't even make the mortar rattle with her physical attempts.

She was doomed. Doomed to wait here in the dank cellar of her home until Prince Ciro returned to make her his bride. Doomed to helplessness. Doomed to rely on people who despised her for food, water, implements for the occasional attempt at bathing.

Rayne hadn't even known her father's odd guest was a prince until after his departure. The servant whom Ciro had left in charge of her care referred to him as “prince” often, and when Rayne had challenged the ridiculous notion, it had been explained that Ciro was indeed the only son of the Emperor Arik and next in line for the throne. The man in question did not fulfill any of Rayne's notions of what a prince should be. From a distance, he had the outward appearance of a finely bred prince, she supposed, but his eyes were alternately dead or heart-stoppingly wicked, and his actions were not at all what she considered to be majestic.

Sitting on her cot, as she had all morning, Rayne stole a glance at the guard who kept constant watch over her. Jiri was an elderly man who had worked for her father for many years. A simple and quiet man, he'd always been pleasant enough in the past as he'd gone about his odd jobs on the grounds and in the house. She'd certainly never thought of him as threatening in any way.

The thin old man still didn't strike her as being at all fearsome, but he was mightily afraid of Prince Ciro. Jiri would not help her in any way, not if he thought the man who commanded him might be displeased. When Ciro had left this servant in charge of her care, he'd promised to drink his blood and eat his soul if he failed. That wasn't possible, she was sure of it, but Jiri seemed to think that the threat was a real one.

Jiri wasn't frightening, but there were others…others who remained above stairs, others who were devoted to the prince. She heard them often, their boots pounding and their laughter grating. There were many loud arguments, and daily noises which sounded as if they were literally tearing her home apart. These others never ventured into the cellar where she was imprisoned. For that, Rayne was grateful. Their distant laughter caused a chill which danced in her blood and down her spine.

Even though she was a prisoner, Ciro had gone to great pains to see that she was relatively comfortable. Her bonds were not too tight, though the shackles rubbed her wrists raw when she fought against them. There was a fairly comfortable if smallish bed, a few books, candles which were replenished as necessary, and plenty of food. In the early days of Rayne's imprisonment, a few of the maids who'd worked in this house before Ciro had incarcerated her had remained. These female servants were always skittish, and Rayne could understand why. They'd constantly sported bruises and small cuts on their hands and faces, injuries they refused to speak of when she asked. They'd brought food, and they'd helped her with her awkward baths, but there was none of the easy banter she remembered from the days before all had changed. Like her, they were helpless. The frightened girls followed orders, and were too afraid to so much as speak to the woman who'd been their mistress for many years. They didn't even dare to whisper.

The maids hadn't lasted very long, in spite of their devotion to their duties. In those early days, when Rayne still had hopes of escape, she'd sometimes heard screams from above. For many weeks past she'd heard only the soldiers. The women no longer came to her. It was now Jiri who fetched her food and water, and she saw to her own bathing with the inadequate rags and water he provided. She tried not to think of what had happened to the maids who'd done nothing to deserve their fate, but she knew in her heart that there was no one left to scream. No one but her. She was afraid her screams would bring the men from above down into the basement, so she remained quiet. Quiet and doomed.

Rayne's view through the one high, narrow window of the basement signaled the time that had passed. Summer was gone. She'd spent an entire season chained to the wall of her own cellar. Autumn, with its cooler winds and changing leaves, was upon them. What had become of her garden? She could not imagine that any of the coarse men above stairs would've bothered to tend it. Without watering and weeding and loving attention, her garden had likely perished long ago, the flowers wilting and the vegetables drying on the vine. Such a shame.

Perhaps it was silly to think of something so meaningless as her plants, but it soothed her to think of her garden. Rayne had always loved her time outdoors. She relished digging her hands into the dirt and watching things grow. Her mother had introduced her to gardening at a very early age, and in truth Rayne could not remember a time when she had not tended a garden or two. If she cared enough, she could urge things to grow even here, where the ground was often rocky and unfriendly.

Perhaps she'd loved her time outdoors because this house, her father's house, had always been oppressive in a way she could not explain. It was as if the air were heavier here, as if someone were always watching, as if something was always wrong. It was a fine house with many comforts, and still…she had never cared for her home much, especially not after her mother's death had taken all the light out of it.

Even now she remembered vividly the hours she and her mother had spent outdoors; she remembered the flowers they had grown, the vegetables they had nurtured, and the hours of freedom away from this house.

Being of agreeable spirit, Rayne had bided her time, taking comfort in her hours out of doors and dreaming of the day when her father would arrange a suitable marriage for her. When she had her own home, she would fill it with love and light, as her mother had tried to do here. Even if it was much smaller and plainer than this home where she'd been born and raised, she would make it agreeable.

That simple dream had begun to fade long before she'd been imprisoned. Rayne was almost twenty years old, and her father had never mentioned marriage. In the weeks before she'd been trapped here in this cellar, she'd begun to fear that her father intended for her to marry Ciro. Those two had spent much time together, locked in her father's study. Her father was a talented wizard who had always openly mourned the fact that his daughter, his only child, possessed no magic. Perhaps Ciro was a wizard as well as a prince, and when her father and the man who called her “beloved” were alone, they honed and practiced their magic.

The wizard Fynnian, who grieved because his daughter had no magical gifts, might've been planning to demand that she produce gifted grandchildren who would follow in his footsteps.

Rayne wanted no magic in her life. She wanted a simple marriage with an ordinary man, but that was likely a foolish desire. Her father would never allow her to marry anyone ordinary or simple.

Since the age of fifteen, she'd more than once thought of running away, but when faced with reality, she'd always been too afraid to confront what might await her beyond the walls of this home. In all her life she'd never been forced to fend for herself, and her father had always painted a bleak picture of what existed beyond these walls. She'd been spoiled horribly. Did her father realize that making her dependent upon him and his servants would keep her tied to him? Or was she simply weak of character? Her skittish nature had never before seemed to her to be egregious, but now, trapped as she was, she wished she'd been braver. She wished a thousand times that she'd followed her instincts and taken her chances in facing whatever awaited beyond the walls of this house.

Rayne looked again at haggard, elderly Jiri. Though he had worked in this household for many years, he was now Ciro's servant in a way she could not explain. She remembered the last time she'd seen Ciro, and she wished with all her heart that she'd run away from this place when she'd had the opportunity, that she'd taken a chance at discovering what lay beyond these walls.

As if her father would've allowed that to happen.

Ciro, who was young and handsome, well dressed and well spoken, had no life in his eyes. At first glance he was every young girl's dream, with long fair hair and lovely blue eyes, but when one looked into those eyes and saw only darkness, that dream became a nightmare. She could not think of anything else but those dead eyes when she remembered him and his last words to her, words that had followed a cold kiss and a terrifying grab at her breasts.

“We will be married,”
he'd said with confidence.
“There will be a priest of my choosing in attendance, and we will have a few witnesses as our guests. And if you do not happily agree in front of them all to be my wife, I will kill them one at a time until you do. I'll start with your father, if he lives that long.”

Her father had left this house with Prince Ciro at summer's outset, and she could not help but wonder if he had survived. There was no goodness in the man who claimed to love her. There was nothing even remotely human in the eyes of the man who called her “beloved.” Rayne could very well imagine Ciro taking her father's life without a moment's regret. Perhaps if she and her father had been closer, she'd know somehow if he lived or not. More than eight years past her mother's death, there were times when Rayne was sure she felt her mother's spirit near her. She did not think she would sense her father's spirit in the same way, if indeed he were dead. A daughter should know, shouldn't she?

The sounds from above changed. A distant shout spoke of fear, but it was not of the type she had heard in the past. Rayne glanced up, even though all she could see was a plain wooden ceiling reinforced in many places with sturdy rafters. As she watched, the ceiling shook slightly and dust drifted down.

Metal met metal, clanging even though the conflict was far away. Sword fight! This was unlike the brief skirmishes she had heard from above in months past, when those men fought among themselves. This was more intense, and it spread and continued long after a burst of temper would've ended. She was not the only one who realized that something had changed. Jiri drew a short sword of his own, but he did not run up the stairs to join the battle. Instead he placed himself before Rayne and adopted a defensive pose, ready to take on any who tried to rescue her.

Rescue.
This was the first moment she'd dared to think of such a possibility. The house her father had built long before her birth was isolated and high in the mountains, no one knew that she was being held prisoner, and Jiri had told her that the men above were fearsome fighters sworn to do as their prince commanded. Even if anyone did attempt to rescue her, it was unlikely that they would succeed.

Did she dare to hope?

“Jiri, there is no reason for you to stand guard as you do.” Rayne spoke in a calm voice, even though her heart pounded hard and she had not known
calm
in many months. “If the men above are defeated, then you do not stand a chance of winning against the intruders. You are a gardener and a carpenter, not a swordsman. If someone you do not recognize comes down those stairs, step aside. Surrender.”

“I cannot,” he said evenly. “You are to remain pure for Prince Ciro. No man is to come near his beloved before he returns to collect you.”

Pure? Ciro himself was anything but pure, so why did Jiri seem so adamant that he was to protect that attribute in his intended? “I'm sure he would not want you to sacrifice your life. There are other women in the world, and I can be easily replaced.”

The old man turned to look at her, and she saw the depths of fear in his eyes. “No, it must be you. The prince told me so, you see, before he left. You are pure of soul and heart and body, and you must remain so until he gives you a child on your wedding night. Why do you think the men above have not come down here in all this time? Why do you think Prince Ciro has allowed me to keep my soul thus far? He does not trust his Own to guard you. He's afraid of what they might do to you in a moment of rage or lust.”

Rayne shuddered. She hugged herself with trembling arms, and the chains which bound her to the stone wall clanked gently. “What has Ciro promised you in return for this betrayal? What does my sacrifice gain for you?”

“Everything,” Jiri whispered. “When you are wed to the prince, my wife and child will be returned to me, whole and alive after all these years in the Land of the Dead. There will be eternal life for all of us, and we will live together in a place so beautiful it would take your breath away were you allowed to see it.”

“You know what kind of man he is,” Rayne whispered.

“Yes.”

“And yet you would sacrifice me for a promise that is impossible. The dead do not come back! There is no eternal life on this earth!”

“Ciro said…”

“He lied!” Rayne insisted. “Do you really believe that a man who threatens you as your prince did would reward you in such a way?” She yanked at her chains in frustration. “Release me, and while the others are fighting, we can escape.”

“I can't,” Jiri said. “Ciro will know. He knows everything, and there is no hiding from those eyes. If I fail, if I run, he won't just make me pay, he'll take out his anger on the souls of my wife and child. I cannot allow that. I failed them before, when I let them die. I can't allow that to happen again.”