Heir of Thunder (Stormbourne Chronicles Book 1) (27 page)

I rubbed my eyes and looked up from the
scroll. Reading the legend and translating it had taken a while, but I was
certain I read it correctly. “So,” I said. “You want to take back what you
think is rightfully yours.”

Daeg tilted his head forward in the
affirmative, but said nothing.

“How do you know this is true?” I waved the
scroll. “It sounds like a fairytale to me.”

“That scroll was written by the same man from
whom the birthright was taken. He put down his history and passed it to his
sons so we would never forget.”

“What does this mean for me?”

“Your eighteenth birthday is several days
away, my girl. If you give your birthright away freely, then I won’t have to
take it.”

“It cannot be received after your eighteenth
birthday. And forgive me, my Lord, but for you that occasion passed many years
ago.”

Lord Daeg tilted back his head, letting out a
rib-cracking guffaw. “You are right my dear,” he said still chuckling. “It has
been many years since that grand age for me, but my son is only sixteen. He
will take the birthright from you, now, and on his eighteenth birthday, he’ll
come into his full power—the power that should have always been his right.”

“I don’t think it works that way,” I said,
though I didn’t know much about how the Lord of Thunder’s powers were received
or bestowed other than it passed from father to his offspring. I was the first
female heir, ever, and I wondered if it was a sign of change. “If that story in
the scroll is right,” and I was not at all convinced that it was, “then don’t I
need my father’s blessing before I receive my birthright? And in that case,
didn’t it die with him?”

“You weren’t a twin,” Daeg said. “The Lord of
Thunder had to bestow the birthright because it couldn’t be split between his
two heirs. Because you were the only born, the birthright went to you by
default when Trevelyan died. But, it is merely a transient gift until your
eighteenth birthday.” The greedy glow in Daeg’s eyes sent shivers over my skin.
He looked as though he wanted to eat me.

“It’s convenient that my father passed when he
did,” I said, noticing the uneasy sensation that had traveled with me since
entering Daeg’s estate. “Did you wait for his death to plan your revolution, or
did it start before that?”

He pondered my question, possibly deciding how
much he wanted to tell me. He exhaled, letting a slow, malicious grin split his
face. “Oh, my dear, since the day you were born I’ve planned for the moment
when I could have you in my grasp.”

“My father died of a punctured lung and a
fractured skull from falling off his horse. His men said a wild animal made his
horse skittish, and she threw him.”

Daeg nodded, encouraging me to continue.

“I rode with him many times. He took me
hunting with him. Nothing scared that horse, not storms, not
gun shots,
not wild game darting in front of her. And absolutely
nothing
, threw Father from his saddle.”

Daeg arched a single eyebrow. “Your point is?”

“I never really believed it was an accident.”

“You’re a clever girl, but then you must be to
have survived as long as you have.”

His answer was as good as a confession. The
grief of my father’s death washed over me anew, fresh and raw as the day his
Crown of Men brought his broken body to the house. Gerda had tried to keep me
from seeing him, but I tore away from her and threw myself on his body, begging
him to wake up and put his arms around me. It was Terrill that had found him. Now,
I wondered if Terrill had killed him.

I didn’t care for my birthright so much for
the power it gave me, but giving it to Daeg let him justify my father’s murder.
This man had taken everything from me, and I would be dead before I allowed him
to take anything more. “What would I have to do?”

Daeg’s smile widened. “So you’re going to
cooperate? Good. It’s a simple task for a Magician to make the transfer, so
long as you are willing.”

“And if I’m not willing?”

“Then, it will be my pleasure to take it from
you by force.”

***

Compared to the blue room at Rouelle
Thibodeaux’s house, the little stone room Daeg kept me in truly felt like a
prison. If I had counted the days correctly, I was two nights away from the eve
of my eighteenth birthday, the night my captor intended to make his son the
next Heir of Thunder. I had asked Daeg if he liked to go in for dramatics. Why
else would he wait for the last minute to attempt the transfer of the
birthright?

He had explained the modification of a
birthright required a great deal of Magical energy. The transfer would be much
easier on the eve of my birthday, something about the barriers of my own Magic
being thinner that night. Daeg must have had great confidence in his plan to
allow no room for errors. Perhaps I could find a way to use his overconfidence
to my advantage.

I stood at the tiny window slit in my room and
stared down to the courtyard below. Marlis wandered through it in the
afternoons, sometimes, but I hadn’t seen Gideon since I ran from him in the
field. Just as well, I couldn’t have bared looking at him.

It had rained a steady, gloomy drizzle ever
since Daeg locked me in this place, and I wondered if the weather was responding
to my dark mood. I experimented with the thin watery clouds, shaping them into
vague silhouettes of horses and airships.

Marlis hadn’t returned to my room since she
brought me the headache tea, but sometimes I caught her staring up at my window
from the courtyard, wearing a frown. The day before, I had shaped a long, wispy
cloud into a row of paper dolls, hand in hand, floating across the sky. I
pointed to them and Marlis looked up.

I let the figures wander for a moment before
bringing up a big gust that smeared them like grease across a cold plate. Marlis
watched the smear until it faded. Then she continued on her way without looking
back. Maybe she preferred flowers over dolls. If I saw her again, I would make
a bouquet for her out of a great fluff of cumulonimbus.

***

A boom of thunder splintered the air, followed
by a streak of lightning so bright it sent the stones in my room into stark
contrast. Someone scratched at my door. The thunder shattered the sky again as
I jumped to my feet and dashed to the window. I hadn’t consciously made the
storm, but the days had grown darker and the clouds more ominous as the conclusion
to Daeg’s plan drew near. A click in the lock followed the scratching, and the
door scraped over the floor as my visitor pushed it open.

“Marlis,” I said she stuck her head in my
room.

She pressed her finger over her lips and shook
her head. Behind her loomed the darkly robed figure of Lord Daeg.

“It is time, my child,” he said, gliding into
the room. Gideon’s sister came in bearing a thin silk gown, more like something
one might wear to sleep. It shimmered a deep maroon, the color of drying blood,
as she laid it across my bed.

“What’s this?” I asked Daeg. “All you need is
my cooperation. What does it matter what I’m wearing when I give it to you?”

He folded his arms over his chest. “The House
of Daeg has been waiting for this day for a long time. Forgive us if we make a
bit of a spectacle out of it. I want to create a ceremony worthy of the
grandeur of this occasion. My people will celebrate it for years to come, and I
don’t want it dampened by the memory of a girl in muddy tatters.”

“Or you want it to look like you have my
complicity,” I spat back at him.

His face turned red, and he balled his fists
at his sides. “I
do
have your
complicity, Stormbourne, or I’ll have your death. The color of your gown shall
complement the color of your blood.” He spun on his heel and stalked out of the
room, leaving me with a shamefaced Marlis.

She reached into the satchel she’d also
brought and pulled out velvet slippers dyed to match the gown, a brush,
hairpins, and several thin ribbons also colored a bloody maroon.

“You know what he plans to do,” I hissed at
her. She refused to meet my gaze, but she nodded. “And you won’t do anything to
help me?”

She stared at the floor and waited. Contrary
to what Daeg assumed, he did not have my consent. He had exited the room,
leaving me with the diffident Marlis, a wide open door, and my Thunder Cloak. I
might not make it far, but I had to try. Yanking my cloak from the hook, I
pinned her with a threatening look. “You don’t have to help, but you don’t have
to get in the way.”

The cloak wouldn’t work inside the house. It
needed full sunlight for the invisibility effect, but if I could get outside....
My gaze swung to the window. The clouds that had mirrored my mood for most of a
week blocked the sun, but maybe I could do something about that. I stepped into
the dark hallway outside my room, fastened the clasp of my cloak, and whispered
my father’s name.

I closed my eyes and tried to overcome the
gloom in which I had dwelled for the past several days, looking for a bright
memory that might chase away the clouds. Malita’s face popped up in my mind’s
eye, and she wore her effusive grin. The brilliance of it made me smile. Buoyed
by the memory, I stepped toward the staircase, but a firm grasp on my arm
turned me back.

“He’ll hurt me,” Marlis whispered, and the
shock of hearing her speak stole my own words. “Don’t go, or Daeg will punish
me.” Her emotive eyes, so much like her brother’s, revealed her fear. “He’ll
blame me.”

I stepped closer and took her hands in mine.
They felt cold as ice. I rubbed her thin fingers, trying to generate some
warmth. “But, if I don’t go, he’ll hurt
me
. He’ll
take everything
from me
, and I might as well be dead.”

She implored me with her eyes, but said
nothing else.

“Come with me,” I said. “We can both leave
this place.”

“Where will you go?”

“I have friends who can help.”

“The Fantazikes?”

I nodded. “Maybe. And others. If I can’t find
them I can make it on my own. I’ve done it before.” I watched her and thought I
saw her hesitancy turning into something else. Hope? “I have to try, Marlis.
Please.”

A brief smile touched her lips, but then shook
herself and backed away. “I can’t leave my father, or my brother. This is my
home.”

No matter how I felt about her brother’s
betrayal, I understood family devotion. I didn’t press her again to go with me,
but I couldn’t stay for fear of Daeg’s retribution. Maybe Gideon would protect
his sister and not fail her the way he had failed me. “I understand. You can’t
leave your home. If Daeg hadn’t taken mine away from me, I would have never
left my home either. I’m sorry, but I have to try.”

I turned away, ignoring the desperate look on
Marlis’s face, and hurried for the stairs before I
could change my mind
.
Please, Father, please
, I begged as I
skipped down the stairs, hugging the walls, urging my feet to move swiftly and
silently.

Daeg’s household had prepared for a grand
affair: swaths of
flowers decorate
d every surface,
candelabras blazed in the corners and on a grand banquet table laid with linens
and fine crystal. A few starched and liveried servants dashed about, moving
furniture, carrying trays laden with dishes and crystal.

None of them noticed me as I slipped around
the corner into a back hallway. I had no idea where the passage led, but I
prayed I wouldn’t encounter anyone along the way. The smell of roasting meat,
baking bread and heat from the kitchens greeted me long before I stepped into
the room full of ovens and gas stoves.

A large woman elbow-deep in dough yelled to a
man stirring something in a bubbling pot. Both of their backs were turned to
me, and I sidled through the room, trying for stealth, praying the cooks kept
their attention on their work. I had almost reached the pantry and the exit on
the other side when my knee brushed a wayward pan stacked haphazardly under one
of the worktables. It clattered to the floor, louder than the shrieking of a
banshee.

I ran.

I didn’t look back to see if anyone chased me,
but I flew—through the courtyard, across an open lawn, to the stables Gideon
had pointed out on our walk earlier in the week. The first guests had arrived
for the ceremony, and several young boys lead two horses toward the stable.

The ray of sun that had broken through the
clouds when I thought of Malita’s smile sparked the powers in my cloak and
turned me into a semi-transparent blur. Without more sun light, I might avoid
notice from a distance, but I would look like a blurry shadow to anyone paying
attention.

I paused and gathered my wits. The boys took a
big bay gelding into the barn, but they left his pretty gray companion tied up
outside. I searched my memories again for something uplifting, and remembered
the wind in my face as I stood on the deck of the Tippany’s airship. Another
cloud burned away.

I felt it then, the hollow sensation of my
cloak when it reached full power. I crept toward the gray mare. Her head turned
when she caught my scent, but when she couldn’t see what she knew she could
smell, she stamped her foot, shook her head, and whinnied.

“Shhh,” I whispered in her ear as I loosened
her reins from the hitching post outside the barn entrance. “Easy girl. Don’t
be afraid.”

I slipped my foot into the stirrup and let her
feel my weight. She sidestepped, but I anticipated her move and hauled myself
onto her back before she could pull away. I gave her a moment to get used to me
and gathered the reins. When she settled, I kneed her into a swift trot and
headed toward the forests lining the estate boundaries.

“Hey!” one of the stable boys shouted when he
returned to collect the horse I had just stolen. Glancing back, I saw him
racing after us on foot, and the cook who had been kneading dough in the
kitchen stood in the yard behind him, watching an apparently riderless horse
hurrying for the woods. I nudged the mare again and she responded,
transitioning into a smooth lope.

“Aren’t you a bonnie girl?” I patted her neck
as she carried me into the woods surrounding the estate, and we delved into the
dark shadows until the calls of the stable boys faded away. The shadows sucked
away the abilities of my cloak, leaving me visible and vulnerable, but there
was no avoiding the trees until I reached the eastern border of Daeg’s estate.
Once there, my pathway opened to sunlight and freedom, but until then, the
horse and I picked our way over roots and stones, and hoped the forest’s
shadows would hide us from observers.

I had no plan, no hope for success. I made up my
escape as I went along. Maybe that was why it failed. In the trees ahead, only
a few yards away, a man sat on a horse. I paused, hoping he hadn’t seen me, but
I wasn’t that lucky, of course.

“Hello, Evie,” the rider. “Long time no see.”

I recognized the voice before I recognized the
face. As he approached, my eyes confirmed what my ears had already told me.
Perched in the saddle of a beautiful stallion, the head of my father’s Crown of
Men smiled like a starving animal of prey—a wolf, or more likely a jackal.

“Terrill,” I said with a sneer. “What are you
doing here?”

“Security, my dear. Your father’s men have
been put to better use.” His horse moved forward with slow, plodding steps. “Daeg
suspected you might get this far in an escape attempt, and we’ve set up a
perimeter, just in case.”

“If you and Gideon worked for the same master,
why were you chasing us?”

“Once Gideon removed you from Fallstaff, I was
ordered to do whatever was necessary to ensure you made it here, to Daeg’s
estate. He wasn’t certain of Gideon’s loyalties; thought he might have
succumbed to the Stormbourne influence. Thought he might feel sorry for you. Besides,
if I brought you in alone it meant a bigger reward for me. I’m not inclined to
share the glory.” Terrill raised an eyebrow and swept his eyes over my figure
in a lewd way. His lips curled into a lecherous grin. “Or the spoils of war.”

“Looks like you’re a puppet on another string,
to me.” I urged my horse to back up a step, one for each of Terrill’s horse. “Did
you kill my father?”

Terrill’s wolfish grin turned even more
malevolent. “I took pleasure in it, my dear. The same as I’m going to take great
pleasure in watching Daeg bring you to your knees tonight.”

“Why, Terrill? I understand greed, but why
have you made it personal?”

I never got his answer. While he kept me
distracted, another betrayer from my father’s guard snuck up behind me and
clamped down on my leg and shoulder. He yanked me from my horse.

I struggled and kicked and bit, but I never
stood a chance of overcoming a trained warrior, especially not after Terrill
slipped from his horse and joined the assault. Before long, they had me tied and
trussed like a roast pheasant. They draped me over the rump of Terrill’s
stallion and carried me back to the castle.

Daeg greeted us in the courtyard with a
triumphant smile on his face. He chuckled when Terrill removed me from his
horse and tossed me over his shoulder.

“Oh, Evelyn,” Daeg said through his laughter. “I
almost regret what I’m about to do to you. You’re so much more worthy than my
son to carry the honor of your birthright. Too bad you were born to the wrong
father.”

I cursed at him through my gag, but the
muffled sounds that came through only made him laugh harder. He and Terrill
tossed me back into my room, dumping me on my rear onto the hard stone floor.
Daeg crouched beside me, removed my gag, and gripped my jaw. He whipped a flask
from his pocket and pressed it to my lips. “I said I would have your
compliance. I take no chances.”

He pressed the flask to my lips as Terrill
pinned my arms to my side. I clamped my mouth shut, kicking and struggling
again, but Daeg’s fingers dug into my flesh and forced my lips apart. A bitter
liquid trickled into my mouth. I tried to spit it in Daeg’s face, but he
pressed a hand over my mouth and clenched my nose shut. Either I swallowed, or
I choked. I might have chosen the latter, just to spite him, but my survival
instincts kicked in, and I swallowed.

Daeg grunted, nodded, and Terrill let me go.
The men left the room and two women swept in to take their place. Whatever
concoction Daeg forced me to drink went to work fast, making my bones heavy,
and my head droop. The women stripped me, scrubbed me in frigid water, and
dressed me in the blood-silk gown. It glided over me like a second skin, and I
tried not to relish its softness and warmth.

The women stole my breath, yanking my hair.
Perhaps they had snatched me bald. A strip of color flashed past my eyes, and I
recognized the ribbon Marlis had shown me earlier. It disappeared into my hair
with more yanking and tugging. At the end, they shoved the velvet slippers on
my feet and forced me to twirl around as they inspected their ministrations.
Not a modicum of pity shown in either woman’s eyes, but I recognized the looks
on their faces as satisfaction.

One of them disappeared, but returned moments
later with Terrill. He paused at the doorway when he saw me, and his eyes
poured over me in an oily gaze. “My, my, Evie. There’s a woman inside you after
all.”

My skin crawled as his eyes grazed over me
like creeping, crawling things in the dirt. I felt naked and longed for the
modesty of my Thunder Cloak.

“Come along,” he said. “Everyone is waiting.”