Forsaken Kingdom (The Last Prince Book 1) Read online

  Forsaken Kingdom

  The Last Prince — Book I

  J.R. Rasmussen

  Copyright © 2017 by J.R. Rasmussen

  Cover Design © 2017 by Wicked Good Book Covers

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Map

  1. Wardin

  2. Wardin

  3. Bramwell

  4. Wardin

  5. Wardin

  6. Bramwell

  7. Wardin

  8. Erietta

  9. Wardin

  10. Wardin

  11. Wardin

  12. Erietta

  13. Wardin

  14. Bramwell

  15. Wardin

  16. Wardin

  17. Erietta

  18. Wardin

  19. Erietta

  20. Wardin

  21. Bramwell

  22. Wardin

  23. Erietta

  24. Wardin

  25. Erietta

  26. Wardin

  27. Bramwell

  28. Wardin

  Dear Reader

  Map also available at http://cairdarin.com/maps/

  1

  Wardin

  Wardin spit out his third mouthful of dirt and gravel. Or was it the fourth? He rolled over and got to his feet, ignoring a new pain, this one in his left knee.

  Arun shook his head, his shoulders quaking with laughter. “You seem to be having a bit of trouble. Sure you don’t want to go two on one? The rest of us ought to stand together against these cheating contrivers.”

  “Oh, really?” Erietta hid her own laugh only slightly better than her brother. “What about standing together with your family?”

  “Should have thought of that before you chose your affinity,” Arun said. “Besides, you don’t need the help. War does.”

  “Need help carrying your wounded sister back to her hall, perhaps.” Wardin winked at Erietta.

  She snorted as she got back into position, facing him from half a dozen strides away. “Do your worst.”

  “On my mark,” Arun said. “And … begin.”

  Once again, Wardin focused on his assignment, a shield to counter Erietta’s trick. He’d expected his studies to become a bit more exciting once he chose his affinity, but so far battlemage training involved a whole lot of standing still, waiting for his opponent to strike.

  He concentrated on his body and the space around it, imagining an impenetrable wall of dancing, whirling blades. The sounds they would make as they cut through the air. The way they would glint in the sunlight.

  It was hard to resist the temptation to release the swell of energy as soon as he felt it, but that was how he’d ended up on the ground the first three (four?) times. He waited. Then forced himself to wait a bit more. Only when he was sure the power was at its peak did he finally put it to use.

  Erietta released her own spell at the same time. For a moment there seemed to be two of her, one standing where she’d started, another rushing forward in a blur. Then both were gone.

  An instant later, she hit him from behind—with all the force of a gnat. Finally, his shield had held.

  She jumped back, shaking her arm as if it had been stung, though she was smiling. “I swear I almost felt your knives this time.”

  “Swords, more like.”

  “Well, if you’re going to keep getting better, I’d appreciate you switching to something gentler. You couldn’t think of ice? Or— Oh.”

  Erietta bit her lip. Arun swore. Both were staring at something over Wardin’s shoulder. Quiet descended over the yard, as the other groups around them stopped what they were doing.

  Wardin turned and saw the reason for the sudden unease. A blackhound, waist high and with a massive square head bigger than Wardin’s own, padded across the practice yard. Straight toward him.

  Time seemed to slow as he waited. The autumn breeze chilled the sweat on his face and neck, until he felt clammy and a little feverish.

  When the blackhound stopped in front of him, she did not sit. She did not growl or bark or wag her tail. She merely stared.

  “Poplar.” Erietta’s whisper was unnecessary. Poplar was instantly recognizable to anyone at Pendralyn by the silver collar she wore.

  Wardin tried to swallow, found he couldn’t, and gave up on the idea of saying anything to his friends. What would he say, in any case?

  Nor did he meet their eyes—seeing his own fear mirrored there would only make it harder to put one foot in front of the other. He only nodded, and followed the archmagister’s dog as she turned and led him back toward the manor.

  The soft ringing in his ears did not keep Wardin from catching snatches of murmured speculation as he walked by.

  … must be over … dead … Draven’s lost the war … more likely betrayed us again … doomed … going to find us …

  He kept his eyes forward, but it seemed to him that the yard had tripled in size. When he finally reached the relative solitude of the lawn, the voices didn’t stop; they were just as loud inside his head. Dead. My father must be dead.

  But perhaps it wasn’t so. There was always hope. Perhaps the archmagister had sent for him because there was good news. It was possible, wasn’t it?

  Except he knew it wasn’t. If it were good news, the archmagister would have no reason to deliver it to Wardin in private.

  The bookcases that lined the manor’s corridors, and even its stairways, made them confined, narrow spaces where footsteps did not echo across the stone floors. This usually made Wardin feel safe and cozy, as if all those hundreds of books served as both armor and blanket. Now it only made him feel trapped, especially as he passed other students, too closely to turn away from their stares.

  He weaved his way up to the archmagister’s third floor chambers and found the door open. Poplar entered ahead of him, and immediately settled down beside her master’s fireside chair, head on her paws.

  The small sitting room smelled of woodsmoke and paper and ink. Wardin stood straight—uncomfortably so, with an aching knee and hip—on the thick velvet rug, hands clasped behind his back, and waited.

  “Thank you, Poplar.” The archmagister gestured at the armchair across from him. “Sit down, Wardin, please.”

  He was a stern and formal man—none of them even knew his given name—and never invited a student to sit in his presence except at meals. Much less with a kindly expression on his face. That as much as anything told Wardin that the news he was about to receive was indeed of the worst possible kind. He pressed his teeth together as he sank into the soft chair.

  “I’ll show you the respect of speaking forthrightly,” the archmagister said. “Word has just reached me that King Draven was captured three days ago. He is to be executed. I don’t know when.”

  Wardin clenched his teeth harder still. His chin was trying to tremble, and he must keep it steady. At twelve, he was well practiced at hiding his most shameful secret: that he loved the father who was always glad to ride and hunt with his son, who always had a grin and a joke at the ready.

  Captured. Executed. Wardin took a strange, cold comfort in that. At least his father would die an enemy of Harth’s king, not selling his soul—or his kingdom’s—in some treacherous deal with his old friend. Draven Rath would die an Eyrd.

  The archmagister finished with one last, superfluous addendum. “The war is over.”

  “With respect, sir, th
e war has been over since midsummer. My uncle was the last true King of Eyrdon. Our cause was lost with him.” It was a reflexive response, one Wardin knew was expected of him. A test of his loyalty, perhaps.

  But the archmagister gave him a shrewd look that suggested he was not fooled by this stoic reaction. “Be that as it may. Eyrdon is no longer a sovereign kingdom. It is now a barony of Harth, and King Bramwell has named his eldest son our new lord. I will make the announcement at dinner, but I didn’t want you to hear all of this in front of the whole magistery.”

  The old man leaned forward, his hawkish nose looking even larger in the flickering firelight. “I also wanted to tell you about the circumstances of Draven’s capture. It happened in a short skirmish near the western mines.”

  “I appreciate—” Wardin’s polite thanks died on his lips, as the archmagister’s last words sank in. “Apologies, sir, did you say the western mines?”

  None of the fighting had happened in that part of Eyrdon. Those were the most impenetrable mountains in a land made mostly of mountains. Eyrdri’s teeth, had his father been trying to flee, to hide? Was he going to a dishonorable death after all, not a traitor this time, perhaps, but a coward?

  The archmagister spared him a small, cheerless smile. “I did. And that is exactly why I wanted to speak with you about it. The story you will hear—the story all the world will hear—is that he intended to disappear into the mountains and abandon Eyrdon to its fate, but was betrayed by his own men.”

  Wardin rubbed his palm over the tufted silk arm of his chair, while hope battled with grief for the rule of his hammering heart. Nothing about that story would be difficult for anyone to believe. He’d just been thinking it himself. Yet the archmagister spoke as if it were false. “But you don’t think that’s the truth of it, sir?”

  “I do not. I’ve been anxious for quite some time now, knowing the Harths suspected we had a magistery somewhere in Eyrdon. People were using magic in battle, rumors were spreading. Your father would have known this, too. And he would have known that if Eyrdon were conquered, Bramwell Lancet would tear this kingdom apart, mountain by mountain, stone by stone, until he found that magistery and destroyed it.”

  Wardin shook his head. “I don’t understand, sir.”

  “Draven was taken near an abandoned mining village. I’m told it was very recently razed and burned. There were a great many charred books found in the wreckage—and one enchanted inkwell.”

  This only left Wardin more bewildered. One of his father’s most cherished possessions was an enchanted inkwell. It had to be the same one; enchanted objects of any kind were extremely rare, outside of Pendralyn. If anything, the fact that Draven had this treasure with him when he was captured supported the theory that he was running away. He wouldn’t have left it behind. Not even for his son.

  “The men who betrayed your father brought these things to the Harths along with their prisoner,” the archmagister went on. “As evidence.”

  “Evidence of what?” But as soon as Wardin spoke the question, he found he knew the answer. Or at least, he could guess. “You think my father burned the village himself, and created this evidence to make it look like magic was being practiced there. Then told his men to take him to King Bramwell, and claim they’d captured him and destroyed the magistery.”

  The archmagister sat back, resting interlaced fingers across his belly. “That is precisely what I think. Whatever happens to Eyrdon, the Harths think the magistery is gone now. I think Draven saw that the war was lost, that there was no hope left for either his kingdom or for him. And so he sacrificed what remained of his life, to protect what mattered most.”

  Wardin’s breath caught. “Do you think … because I’m here? That he was trying to keep Pendralyn hidden to protect me?”

  “Naturally, he wanted to protect you.” But the archmagister’s eyes slid away. Wardin’s face warmed; it had been a child’s question.

  He rushed to speak before the archmagister could, as if completing his thought, saying what he’d meant to all along. “But most of all, he had to protect Pendralyn itself. Because it’s the only one left.”

  Of course. That should have been obvious from the first. Once there had been a dozen or more magisteries, where magic was preserved, nurtured, expanded, and taught. Until the dissolution. Now practicing magic was treason in each of Cairdarin’s three kingdoms. (Two, Wardin reminded himself. Just two kingdoms now.)

  Only Pendralyn’s secret location had protected it. It was no longer a magistery, but the magistery. The last guardian of the only magical knowledge left in all of Cairdarin. If Pendralyn fell, magic itself would become extinct.

  That was what Draven Rath had just sacrificed himself for. Not to protect one insignificant boy.

  “Your father’s last act as King of Eyrdon was to safeguard the last magistery,” the archmagister said. “Because he understood that magic isn’t just a useful skill. It’s power. That’s why old King Cadric tried to eradicate it in the first place: to keep people ignorant and submissive. To make sure he could never be challenged by anyone more powerful than he was. Do you understand?”

  “I think so,” Wardin said. “You mean that by preserving magic, my father made sure that the king’s power could be challenged again, one day.”

  The archmagister raised his chin, a gleam in his eye. “Perhaps. Perhaps that will be your destiny. But we’ll have some dark days ahead of us first, and I want you to know this: the people of Eyrdon are already calling Lional Rath Our Last King. Much as you did a few minutes ago. It’s your uncle’s name they’ll remember, his memory they’ll cherish. They will forget that Draven Rath was also their king, however briefly. If they speak of him at all, they will say he was a traitor, a man who changed cloaks the way other men change tunics, who gave his allegiance to whoever had the most to offer him.”

  In one fluid movement, the archmagister left his own chair and dropped to one knee beside Wardin’s. Wardin nearly recoiled in surprise and embarrassment. He’d never seen the man so close, nor at eye level.

  “But Pendralyn will remember,” the archmagister said. “We will never forget that your father died a true son of Eyrdon. As far as this magistery is concerned, he was our last king. You are our prince, and always will be.”

  Wardin didn’t know what to say to that. To any of it. His throat was dry. The fire was too hot. He was sweating. The sound of Poplar’s panting grated against his ears. He wanted nothing more than to escape this room, flee to his dormitory in the battlemage hall, and lose himself, his father, the war, all of it to the dark void of sleep.

  “Thank you, Archmagister,” he managed.

  The archmagister squeezed Wardin’s shoulder, then stood. As was proper, even for a prince, Wardin got to his feet as well.

  “I can’t give you much comfort in your grief, but I can give you some privacy, at least,” the archmagister said. “You’ll find one of the guest rooms prepared for you. Second corridor to your left as you leave this room, then the fourth door down. I’ll have your dinner sent in.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Wardin said again, with much more warmth this time. It would have been torture to be penned in the keep at dinner, while the archmagister told everyone else this news. He turned to go, but hesitated at the door. “Sir, if my father had his inkwell … did whoever told you about all of this say anything about Dragon’s Edge?”

  The archmagister looked momentarily confused. Then his face cleared, and he fixed Wardin with another shrewd stare. “Your uncle’s sword?”

  “My grandfather’s, actually. But I believe it disappeared when my uncle was killed.”

  “I’m afraid I’ve heard nothing of it. A pity for the Raths to lose it. I’ve heard rumors it’s enchanted. I believe it would be the last enchanted weapon in Cairdarin, if that’s true.”

  Wardin made no comment, only thanked him again, and bid him goodnight.

  The archmagister inclined his head. “Goodnight, Highness.”

  The guest room
was so cramped that even with the chair pushed back against the bed, Wardin was pressed against the edge of the small desk. But he was grateful for the space, and for the quiet as he sat solving equations and puzzling over star charts.

  It was the last thing he wanted to be doing, trying to concentrate or even think at all, under the circumstances. But there was no help for it. He’d been in the yard doing battlemagic for two hours that day, and he couldn’t afford to jeopardize his balance. He knew that the archmagister was right: there were dark days ahead. Wardin would need his wits about him.

  Still, he was glad to take a break when an insistent knock announced the arrival of Erietta and Arun. They had to sit on the bed, while Wardin sat backwards in the chair, the three of them crowded into the little room like conspirators in a secret chamber.

  “The archmagister pulled us aside after dinner and told us where to find you,” Arun said. “Said he thought you could use your friends.”

  “He was right about that.” Wardin made a game attempt at his usual grin. “Although I’m not sure what that has to do with you two.”

  The teasing fell flat, and Wardin looked down, scraping his thumbnail against the back of his chair.

  Erietta cleared her throat. “It’s incredible, what your father did. And we agree with the archmagister. Everyone does. We won’t forget that he was—is—a hero.”

  Wardin kept his eyes on the thin light line he was scratching into the wood. “I don’t know whether it’s was or is. I know he’s to die, if he hasn’t already. But the archmagister didn’t know when. Or how.”