Leoht (BloodRunes: Book 3)

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2011 Laura R Cole

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PROLOGUE

Things were getting out of hand. When Layna
had left her life in the country for the promise of excitement
living in the city, she hadn’t realized quite what she had
bargained for.

After falling for the noble man her mistress
wanted and weathering the woman’s consequent jealous rage, the two
of them were drawn into a far larger issue than either of them had
ever dreamed possible.

Lord Gryffon, Layna’s love interest, reveals
himself to be a spy for the neighboring country of Treymayne which
has been cut off from Gelendan for hundreds of years by a magical
barrier. After discovering that the mysterious mark that appeared
on Layna’s neck when she dabbled in the forbidden art of magic
meant she was a descendant of the Dark King, a ruler who was
responsible for the Massacre; and that the new King of Gelendan
also had this mark and appeared to be following in the evil man’s
footsteps, Layna and Gryffon determined that they needed help.

They set off to enlist the aid of Gryffon’s
countrymen in Treymayne, but first had to figure out how to get
past the magical barrier whose properties had suddenly changed so
that not even a message could get through. They meet Aileen, a
cryptic but knowledgeable old woman, who helps them dissolve the
barrier, allowing them to pass. Aileen has grand ideas of a great
slumbering evil which is awakening and against which she believes
Layna will be an invaluable asset.

Though Gryffon and Layna are skeptical about
her proclamations of doom, they do deliver their warning to the
officials in Treymayne that evidence of blood-magic and the new
King, King Nathair’s involvement in it in Gelendan. Unfortunately,
their claims are discredited by an emissary that the King sends who
turns out to be none other than Lady Jezebel, Layna’s former
mistress. The lady’s insatiable quest for power and revenge had led
her to be torn apart by a pack of hellhounds she had created, but
King Nathair saved her and has been magically reconstructing her
body and mind for his own uses.

Lady Jezebel can’t remember the reason for
her abhorrence of the two, but her hatred has withstood King
Nathair’s spells. Therefore, she hatches a scheme to poison Layna,
which only partially works. Layna is saved by King Nathair’s
intervention as he is drawn to her both because of her magical
power and because of their shared mark. Katya, a woman who has been
enslaved by Jezebel’s father into a life as his personal assassin
learns of Layna’s predicament through King Nathair’s bond to her
and shows up to further heal Layna. Unfortunately, she remains in a
coma even after her body has healed and Gryffon and Katya are both
dedicated to awakening her.

Katya discovered when she escaped the prison
of the magical collar that bound her that Layna’s parents held some
connection to her past. When she showed up to question them,
however, they were both killed. Layna might be the only one who
might be able to tell her who she is.

Gryffon, though the tumultuous situations
that the two of them have been thrust into has complicated things,
loves Layna.

They succeed in waking her by heeding the
Word of the Three and bringing her to the source of the river where
they have to go through three trials to prove their worthiness to
an unknown entity. When she wakes, she does so holding a very real
sword and utters the mysterious words, “Those who fear the
darkness, haven’t seen what the light can do.”

Another force, a secret society called the
Order, has been directing events behind the scenes and is
increasingly involved at every turn…

CHAPTER 1

Ranis looked around the room with unease.
There were far too many empty seats around the large table.

She cleared her throat to begin. “Our
experiments into the use of the control collars have been wildly
successful and already the modified bracers for the army have been
implemented in several areas and whole garrisons have been
converted to our control - unbeknownst to the King,” she started,
setting the mood with some good news. “Unfortunately, we have had,”
she paused, and then with a sigh continued, “other
complications.”

Lord Telvani chimed in. “The nearly twenty
years we spent grooming and watching the late King Edward were
wasted. As he neared his eighteenth birthday with still no sign of
the mark, or indeed any talent at all, we grew suspicious. Our
agents pressed the King and Queen for information, but it wasn’t
until the Queen uttered her dying words that the truth was
revealed. The Queen, in her pain-induced delirium, whispered to the
nurse ‘they took my little baby girl.’ The nurse - one of ours -
thought quickly enough to delve into her memories and was able to
pull forth the image of two people. They have now been identified
as two mages on the palace staff at the time, Gerald and Evelyn,
both of whom mysteriously vanished afterwards. Obviously, the
Hyrdraeden had also realized the significance of the birth and
switched the child before anyone was the wiser.”

“Which explains the suspicious lack of
interference we had with Edward,” put in Ranis blandly.

“Why are you telling us this? We don’t need
to know the details of your project.”

Ranis took a deep breath, continuing on as
though she had not been interrupted. “Though we hadn’t yet
identified the real prophesized one after realizing that Edward was
not that person, we
were
finally able to locate the
Bloodstone hidden in Treymayne and we smuggled it across the
barrier just before its defenses were refortified. The Bloodstone,
it is written, was the source of much of the Dark King’s power.
According to the prophecy, it had chosen him as a temporary host
since there was not yet one born who could bear its power, and
therefore he was only able access a tiny portion of its real
potential. If one of the chosen ones was to bond with it, the power
they would be able to command would be almost unimaginable. As
prophesized, the time when there will be one who can command its
power is upon us.”

“What do you mean ‘one of the chosen ones’?
Isn’t there only one?”

“I’ll get to that in a moment. Please bear
with me,” Ranis answered and carried on with her narration, “We had
to make several adjustments to the original plan since we were not
already directing the host as we had hoped, however. Rather than
bring the Bloodstone to the chosen one after they were already
under our control, the Bloodstone was stolen before we found the
one we needed. We identified the person who stole it as none other
than Lord Nathair who we helped become King after dispatching
Edward. We have now belatedly realized that he is actually one of
the chosen ones. Unfortunately, while we had him we didn’t know
this and believed him to be another like the Dark King who was just
trying to access the surface powers and therefore underestimated
him.” She gave them all a regretful look, “We are still learning
just what the Bloodstone is.”

“But he’s obviously not the heir, you said it
was a girl. Was the prophecy wrong?”

“On the contrary, it was our interpretation
of the prophecy that was incorrect. The heir is one of the chosen
ones, and Nathair appears to be the other. While we had originally
thought the phrases of the prophecy to be describing two sides of
the same person, there appears to actually be two different people.
When we realized that it was Nathair who had taken the Bloodstone,
we extracted him to be subdued and regain control of the situation.
Again, this was before we found his true heritage and realized his
significance. We had him replaced with another on the throne until
such time as we either got him complacent or were able to remove
the stone, and were transporting him to the carefully constructed
prison to deal with him…when he escaped.”

“What?!”

“You mean the man going around telling people
he’s a god is NOT under our control?”

“How did this happen?”

Lord Telvani held up his hands for silence.
“This is only a temporary set-back. The King is amassing a great
army of his own accord and plans to use it to attack Treymayne.
These are goals we hoped to achieve. Furthermore, we believe that
it was not a failing of our contraption that allowed him to escape,
but rather that he had outside help to do so. So, while we have
lost the element of surprise, we should still be able to accomplish
the end outcome of our original plan.”

Ranis added with a wry snort, “Other than not
having him under our control before presenting him with the
Bloodstone, it actually worked out quite fortuitously that the host
ended up exactly where we intended him in the first place.

“Who helped him escape?”

“When we discovered the names of the two
mages who had spirited away the child in the night, we of course
mounted a search for them. At that point we still thought that the
prophecy only referred to one person and believed the heir would be
the one over whom we needed to gain control.” Ranis laughed
humorlessly.

“I don’t see how this is answering the
question.”

“Patience.” Ranis held up her hand to
indicate she was getting there. “At a recent meeting, the subject
of the heir and the missing mages was brought up and a suggestion
was made for how to find them. One of our experiments was under the
supervision of Karl Alamanni and it was suggested that this
particular experiment be allowed to escape after being implanted
with the images of the two mages. This would imply to the girl that
they were the parents that she never knew. As we have discovered
with past subjects who have worn the collar over long periods of
time, its removal leads to emotions so intense as to be almost
uncontrollable. So these images would be irresistible, and she
would be compelled to track them down. The experiment that Karl was
overseeing was a very high talent and so it was believed that this
combined with the information network she had gathered as Karl’s
personal assistant would be sufficient to have her do our work for
us.”

“And it worked too,” interjected Lord
Telvani, “she found them alright, and the assassin was able to take
them both out.”

“Yes,” agreed Ranis, “But the heir was not
present and so far interviews of the neighbors have all come back
that there was no young woman living there at all. Now that we have
located their whereabouts, however, she will be found.”

“Why didn’t you keep them alive to
interrogate them?” asked Lord Farthen, the member who oversaw the
experiments with bloodbeasts. Ranis thought him unsavory and found
herself scowling at his query.

“We expected the girl to be there or at least
that the townspeople would know where she had gone. They were too
dangerous to keep alive. Regardless, questioning them, even under
duress, would have been extremely unlikely to have been
fruitful.”

“But entertaining,” Lord Farthen
countered.

Ranis decided to ignore him this time.
“Anyway,” she went on, her annoyance clear in her tone, “the
assassin was supposed to then re-collar the girl, but was
overwhelmed. Our people who investigated the scene weren’t able to
determine if it was the magical onslaught that killed him, or the
knife to his back. But since the girl was standing in front of him
and the other two already incapacitated, obviously someone else was
present. The insignia of the royal guard on the hilt gave us our
first clue. It appears to have been an agent of Nathair who helped
the experiment escape. On a side-note; after the incident we
discovered that our faith in Karl was misplaced. He had been using
the girl as his own assassin instead of a mere informant,
effectively honing her skills for a real escape. It appears that
his own mistakes came back to bite him.” She couldn’t help herself
and added, “Quite literally.”

She was rewarded by a light tinkling of
laughter.

“But to answer your original question: We
believe it may have been Karl’s experiment who helped him. Whether
she was working with him before or after finding the renegade mages
is unknown, but she is our most likely suspect. She would have
reason to trust Nathair if he had helped save her from the assassin
and from the reports that were found locked in Karl’s secret safe,
she was actually much more talented than he reported so would have
the means to break the bonds. Apparently he thought he would be
replaced by a better handler if we knew how powerful she really
was.”
And look where that got him.