Daegan (The Age of Alandria: A Companion Novella) (2 page)

He was ripped from his thoughts by the vision of his father stepping out of the carriage and his mother following shortly behind.  His father stood proud and brave as the man confronted him. His mother stood close to him holding his hand, but she, too, looked confident as she shook her head in response to something the Ferrishyn was asking her. He was a strong man, built like a warrior, and wore tarnished golden arm braces, a breastplate, and short boots laced up over his brown linen pants. He also had a large broadsword strapped across his back. The boy closed his eyes, straining to hear what was being said, and to his surprise he started to make out some of their words.

“No one has been sanctioned to leave this area. Where are you going?” the Ferrishyn asked.

“We did not realize this road was off limits. My new bride and I were just out for a romantic ride from the village. Apologies, we will be headed back to the village then,” the boy’s father responded with a slightly inclined head in a submissive stance.

The man stood poised with his legs braced apart and his hand lightly resting on the hilt of his sword, ready at a moment’s notice. A second man, an Elf, approached behind him with one hand holding the bow that was braced over a shoulder and the other hand free and ready to pull an arrow out of the covey across his back. Both men looked tense.
What do they want?
The horses behind them seemed agitated, stomping and snorting while they waited.

“Is it just the two of you in the carriage?”

Both nodded in confirmation.
Where is Grandmother?
The boy looked about, concerned.

“I will need to search it,” the big, muscled Ferrishyn stated flatly as he walked past them and leaned into the carriage’s open door. Obviously, he found nothing else.

His father spoke. “Why the extra patrols on these roads, sir?”

The man looking at him with a curious gaze was just a little bigger than his father, both with similar builds of the Ferrishyn warriors, though his father was hiding his warrior attire under the glamour portraying him as a thin, younger Elf in traveling clothes. “Where have you been hiding? Do you not get the news where you dwell?” The man noticed that his father’s expression did not change. He went on, completely unaffected by what he was about to say, “The King, Queen, and Princess of Feraánmar have been slain in an uprising during the peace agreement.”

There was a gasp from his mother, and his father’s expression went from quizzical to concerned.

“But that’s not all. Oh, no, not all indeed. Prince Brandt and King Ryek of Adettlyn have gone missing and are both presumed dead as well.” He looked around as if concerned that someone might hear him then whispered, “We are trying to help restore the balance and police the areas while there is unrest. We’ve got new leadership set up in place to govern that territory until everything is settled.”

“And Adettlyn?” his mother asked.

“From what I’ve heard, there is a brother to the king who will be sitting upon that throne.” The big warrior had his arms crossed but picked his teeth with one of his hands. Deciding he was finished with questions, he moved past them to look in the carriage once more before bellowing back to the envoy of horse and riders. “It’s just the two of them. There’s no one else. I don’t think this is them.”

Just Mother and Father? I do not understand. Where has Grandmother gone?
The boy strained his eyes, looking for any sign of his grandmother.

The cloaked warrior barely even acknowledged the Ferrishyn, but stared straight ahead with a deathly gaze, searching for something in the man and woman standing by their carriage waiting for permission to leave. “No, there is something hidden here. I can almost
see
it.” A woman’s voice.

“Like a glamour?” The tall skinny man who must be a shifter spoke for the first time.

The woman turned her intense gaze to him, considered his words, and ran her long red nail sensually across the man’s cheek. “Yes, exactly. A glamour... I can’t see what is beyond it, but I can almost
see
the residue of a magic constructed for a glamour.” Then she turned back with a knowing smile toward the man and woman.

His mother turned her head to gaze directly into the eyes of the woman on the horse. There was a spark of arrogance in his mother’s eyes that told the woman to try something if she dared. The woman hidden beneath the cloak spoke to the Ferrishyn. “Find out where the whelp is.”

The boy had to cover his mouth so he wouldn’t make a sound.
She knows about me. How?
He watched the man with the broad shoulders and the big muscles walk back to his parents, strength in his stride. Straining his ears, he heard him again. “Where’s the whelp?”

Confusion clouded his parents’ faces. “We do not yet have offspring.”

The man hollered back to his mistress, “They say they don’t have any young ones.”

He knew his parents were trying to hide him, but still a pang shot through his chest at their denial of his existence.

“Ask them again
politely
, Frent,” the woman said with deathly sweetness.

“My lady believes you are...mistaken. I will ask you again. Where is your child?” His posture was tall and unyielding. His arms crossed over his chest and his stance was wide.

“She is mistaken. We do not know what you or she is speaking of. We would like to be on our way now,” his father answered with apparent frustration.

The big oaf of a man turned back to his lady and shook his head. The boy watched as the woman slid down from her horse—the only solid black one in the bunch—and began to walk slowly toward his parents. Upon reaching where they stood, she paused, looking them each over hungrily, causing uneasiness in her prey as was her intention. She cocked an eyebrow in their direction. “So I am mistaken, am I? No little one dependent upon you then?”

“No, my lady.” His father tried to use the term that her men had used. “It is just the two of us. We would be happy to be out of your way and head back to our village...with your permission,” he added.

Thinking for a moment, she nodded her consent. “Yes, you are dismissed, but hurry straight back to your village. From which village did you come?”

“Kandri, my lady. Thank you, we will take our leave.” Both his parents bowed slightly as they backed slowly toward their carriage.

“Safe travels to you both,” the lady spoke with a little finger wave of her hand. Both she and the warrior turned back to their horses and fellow riders. As she passed by one of the riders, she paused and looked deep into his eyes. “You have not been with us long, so this is your mission: Take care of them.” She mounted her horse, as did the others who were on foot, except the man she left standing there staring ahead at the backs of his parents.

“Do it and be done with it!” she spat.

“I don’t understand,” he whispered back to her. “You told them they were free to leave. They are not the ones we were searching for—why kill them?” He spoke flatly, not to betray his true emotions on the matter.

“In this force, you do not question my commands.” She brought her horse around to circle him as she stared down at him, like a lion ready to pounce on its prey. “If you want to stay with us and advance within our ranks, then you will do as I command.  Is that understood?”

Without response, without thought, without emotion, the young rider reached for his bow as he grabbed two arrows, simultaneously stringing one and releasing it, then stringing the other as soon as its twin left the bow. He turned before even seeing his shots. He didn’t need to. He wouldn’t miss. He never did. As he headed back to his horse, the archer could hear their hushed, strangled murmurs of love for each other.

The last in his envoy to pass by the carriage, he looked down into each of their eyes. They were still holding hands. “I am truly sorry. More than you know. Please forgive me.”

“Young man, we already did. It is you who will need to forgive yourself.” His father’s words came weak, but genuine as he spoke. He watched as the rider with unshed tears began to break, but the young Elf refused himself and regained his composure. Refilling the cracks in the figurative armor he had erected around his emotions needed in order to pull the bow, he would not allow himself the freedom to grieve—instead, he would live with what he had done.

The archer, reluctant to leave the couple dying on the road, but with no other alternative, whistled a complicated yet short tune into the wind. A tiny bird, smaller than a female fist, flew right up onto his outstretched hand. Looking at the little silver bird with the blue streak down its back, he whispered to it. The bird sang a sorrowful song as it took off, circling over the couple, then landed on his mother’s head. It looked as if it was about to peck his mother’s forehead, but instead it left a kiss and then moved on to his father for the same.

The boy, stunned and in shock, looked back at his mother’s head, noticing the little bird had left a pearlized white marking but couldn’t tell what the symbol was from where he hid. Then the little silver and blue bird took off into the now darkening sky and, when it reached the treetops, it suddenly vanished. The boy did not know what kind of magic the bird had, but he wished he knew now. He wanted the shooter to leave so badly, so he could check on his parents. Perhaps he could help them get up.

Responding to his wish, the archer mounted his horse and looked around once more, searching for something or someone. With desperation in his eyes, he ordered his horse, “To Elnye... Hyah!” It took off at a run as fast as a beast of its size could manage.

When the shooter was far out of sight, the boy emerged slowly from his hiding place beneath the greenery. He ran, stumbling as he went, to reach his family lying still on the hard, rough dirt road. Coming to an abrupt halt and falling to his knees, he ran his hopeful eyes over each of his parents to see how he might help.

“What do I do? Father... Mother...” He choked on a sob. His small fingers hovered over the part of the wooden arrow sticking out of his father’s chest. “Do I pull it out?”

His father’s hand struggled to reach up and loosely grab the boy’s hand. “Son... Son, look at me.” 

The boy looked, but didn’t want to. He didn’t want to see the pain or regret in his father’s eyes. But instead, he gazed at love and confidence. The boy let loose the tears that had been threatening to fall. One by one, they trailed down his rosy cheeks until the dark, bloodstained earth below absorbed them.

“Son, there is nothing you can do, nor was there anything you could have done with them here. Now, you can escape. Follow the plan—head to the mountains... Ar...i...l... find you.” His words became more choked as he tried to get his last words out. “Fol-l-ow... this...” His hand rested on his son’s heart.

The boy cried harder, gripping his father’s hand as his mother’s hand reached over and grabbed his other one—the circle their family had always been and never would be again.

Tears streamed down his mother’s face as she looked on her son with love and pride. “You can do this. You must hide,” she whispered. “Always fight the darkness. Remember... you are light.”

The boy nodded through his tears, knowing his mother needed to see him brave—to know that he would be all right. He took a deep breath.

There was a noise off in the distance. Flapping.
A bird?
And a thundering beat. 
A horse?
Then there was a buzzing in the boy’s head like static. He had never felt it before. The wind began to blow strangely, whipping the hair off the boy’s brow, but oddly not his parents’. There was a strange peace and serenity blanketing them. Their breathing became more labored. Panic began to build in the boy’s chest as he looked wildly around, trying to shield his mother and father as best he could.

“Look at us. Go. It is time,” his father stressed.

The young boy took one last look at his mother and father, etching their faces forever onto the still soft clay of his young heart. Taking a deep breath, he reluctantly nodded, knowing what he needed to do.

His mother shouted with all that was left in her, “Daegan, run!”

CHAPTER ONE

Alandria. The castle at Elnye in the territory of Feraánmar

16 years later...

Daegan woke with the edginess that dreaming of his mother and father always brought him. As much as seeing them alive and talking with them made him feel like they were still here and that he had family, the waking memory of watching them shot down and killed in front of him, stirred the steely anger of revenge along with unsettled confusion all over again. Not only that, but every time he had the dream, something bad seemed to follow.

Running his hands down his face, he breathed deeply and took a moment to focus his inner magic, which brought him a tiny fraction of a sense of peace. Daegan prepared for a rigorous day of training that would help clear the cobwebs of the past and distract him, as well as prepare him for what else might be coming.

Unfortunately, he didn’t get the chance to get to the training field. On his way down the hall from his quarters on the second floor in the east corridor, a severe pain in his head stopped him in his tracks. As Daegan gripped his head, he slowly fell to his knees, sliding against the cold hard stone wall.

He didn’t get these headaches very often, but when he did they rendered him immobile for at least a couple of minutes. He had been trying to devise a defense for himself should it ever happen while he was in the middle of fighting a real enemy, but he had yet to do so.

Feeling the cold stone of the floor under the hand he was using to balance himself provided a slight distraction from the pain. Then, as soon as it came on him, it was suddenly just... gone. It was strange and he was not even sure who to mention it to. He had mentioned it once to his aunt Maleina, one of the Paladin—rulers of Feraánmar alongside his uncle Wren—but she had dismissed it as a possible side effect of coming into his state of maturity regarding his magic. But no one else that he knew of had any similar reactions.