Daughters of Fire & Sea
Book One
Holly Karlsson
Contents
Author’s Mailing List
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
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Author’s Note
Up Next
Also by Holly Karlsson
About the Author
DAUGHTERS OF FIRE & SEA
(Daughters of Fire & Sea Book One)
Copyright © 2019 by Holly Karlsson
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or redistributed without written permission from the author, except for brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cover design by Maria Spada
Ornamental break design by Lisa Kaplan-Salgado
Developmental Editing by Kendra Olson
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-7330998-0-6
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-7330998-1-3
www.byhollykarlsson.com
For Kent, who always listens to my ideas even when I talk loud enough to be heard from space. Passion and enthusiasm in all things. ;)
Author’s Mailing List
Click on the image above or visit my website www.byhollykarlsson.com to sign up for my mailing list. You’ll receive a free copy of A Wish in the Dark & Lawbringer, two short fantasy stories inspired by fairytales.
Prologue
Elaina
Elaina was excellent at hiding. It was a skill she’d mastered as a small child, evading her nurse and older brothers when she wanted to be alone. She’d hid from her mother as well before Queen Arina had died and left her.
Her vibrant red hair was always a mess, her dresses constantly in need of soap and needle, and her pale skin perpetually smudged with dirt and ink. When Elaina wasn’t hiding in the numerous, dark tunnels that filled the old keep or terrifying her nurse by climbing the castle’s walls, she was ensconced in the library, pouring over ancient manuscripts on magic. She’d even managed to blackmail her brothers’ fencing tutor into teaching her on the sly, one of her proudest achievements.
Elaina was, if her father had bothered to pay attention, the worst possible princess, or best if her opinion mattered at all.
“I’m going to join the infantry,” she’d told her brother Raendar on her seventh birthday.
He’d laughed at her and shook his head, his good humor remaining even as she hooked the back of his legs and unbalanced him, driving him to the ground.
“There are women in Father’s army,” Elaina had argued, glaring at her brother, as she caught him in an armlock.
“Yes, but Father will never agree.”
“We’ll see,” she’d said.
Now, fifteen years old and a near echo of her dead mother, Elaina had caught her father’s attention, but not in the way she’d hoped. He hadn’t stopped her from fencing or studying magic in the library — in fact, he’d demanded she do more. Elaina was expected to best a man with both her wit and a dagger. She was expected to speak multiple languages and to argue politics in the Scorched Court. She was supposed to draw the eyes of suitors for political alliances, and yet be seen as unattainable and untouchable, loved and feared by men and women everywhere.
Elaina was supposed to be everything, and need nothing. It was exhausting and alienating and had driven her to hide more and more. In stolen moments in dark hallways, she’d allowed herself to breathe, cry, and scream silently unobserved.
On one such day, when she’d slipped away to pound her fists against the wall, she’d ended up inside a secluded passageway off her father’s study, the doorway concealed by a heavy tapestry. She’d been standing just inside it, taking deep, shuddering breaths in the unused space, trying to calm her racing heart when she heard the door open. Back pressed against the slick stone behind her, Elaina could see a sliver of the large room and the bookcase of massive, leather-bound tomes against the far wall. Willing her breath to slow, she watched as her father stepped into view.
King Rakarn was a large, imposing man, with broad shoulders and a barrel chest. His thick, dark brown hair was clipped short, military style, and tamed with oils. His pale skin was coarsened and tanned by the harsh ocean winds, and scaly red patches marked his cheeks and neck. Elaina’s father was a man of rough, blunt edges and dangerous power, and whether he chose to smile or not, which was rare, there was always something threatening in his brown eyes. She’d once overheard her nurse say that her father’s eyes were his worst and best feature, terrifying with their fierce focus, and yet beautifully edged by thick, black lashes.
Elaina’s father turned, and she wondered if he’d seen her behind the tapestry, but he merely stepped deeper into the room. “Why did you come here?” he asked, his voice both harsh and indifferent, a tone Elaina knew well.
An unknown woman answered his question. “You owe me a favor,” she said.
The woman’s tone was nearly as severe as her father’s, and Elaina craned her head curiously, trying to see who it was. Shifting sideways along the wall, she caught sight of a woman standing in front of the door, now closed, her hand on the shoulder of a young boy.
Elaina smothered a gasp. The woman had wings tucked behind her back, the feathers black like a raven’s. She was tall, taller than her father, with long blond hair and bright blue eyes, and skin so pale that Elaina wondered if she’d ever seen the light. Her arms, bare from wrist to shoulder, were long but muscular and covered in tattooed runes that glinted an unsettling green. Armor covered the rest of her, a combination of black leather and scale, and a coiled whip hung from a belt around her waist.
She’s a Daughter of Valen, Elaina thought, her heart pounding in her chest. She’d only read of them in the old histories in the keep’s library, never seen one. What was she doing here? The Daughters lived inside the Veil, ushering the souls of dead warriors to Vaelnorn.
The boy shifted, catching Elaina’s eye. She’d been so fascinated by the woman she’d forgotten he was there. Was he related to the Daughter somehow? The boy shared the woman’s features, with the same blue eyes and blond hair on the edge of becoming brown. His feet were bare, which Elaina thought was odd, and he was wearing a simple tunic of white cloth over trousers. He was silent and reserved, immobile as a statue, with a calmness Elaina’s brothers were incapable of. If not for his curious eyes, taking in the room, she’d have thought him frozen, perhaps magicked by the woman behind him.
Elaina’s father was silent for a long moment, and then he answered, his voice thin, not quite resigned but without its usual force. “What do you need?”
“You must take my son,” the woman said.
“Your son?” There was a note of disbelief in her father’s voice.
Elaina’s eyes widened. The Daughters of Valen did not have sons, only daughters. Her tutor, Gaila, said no male could handle
their power and were therefore killed to spare them torment and protect the souls in the Veil.
“He’s been bound, his wings … removed,” the woman said. Her voice tightened, and a muscle rippled in her cheek. She looked like Ryker, one of Elaina’s brothers, when he was trying not to cry, not to show emotion. “When I leave here, he will not remember me.” Her fingers shifted on the boy’s shoulder, and he looked up at her.
“What do you expect me to do with him?” Rakarn asked.
It sounded like he was sneering, and Elaina could picture the expression on his face well. Her father did not like to fix problems that weren’t his own. He saw it as a sign of weakness.
“You must hide him for me. Place him with a family. Maybe in Thenda. Don’t keep him here.” The woman’s eyes narrowed, and she clenched her hand, igniting the runes on her arm. “Be careful how you treat him,” she said. She looked again at the boy, her face softening with a genuine, loving, heart-broken smile that Elaina had seen on her own mother’s face.
Chest tightening, Elaina pressed her fists against her mouth as tears filled her eyes. The boy didn’t cry or beg; he merely stared into his mother’s face with quiet focus. He didn’t seem to understand she was leaving him, that this might be the last time he saw her.
“He’s bright and curious,” the woman said. “It should not be hard to find someone to care for him.”
Elaina expected her father to voice some argument about why he, of all people, should not be tasked with such a simple thing, why it was beneath him, beneath a king. She expected him to demand an apology for the insult. But her father did none of those things.
“We are even, then, if I do this for you?” Elaina’s father asked. It did not sound like a question.
The woman laughed, a harsh, joyless sound. “We will never be even, Vel’kah. You are a scourge on my soul.”
“As are you, on mine,” her father growled back.
Vel’kah? What did that mean? Elaina wondered. She looked back at the boy’s calm face. What was wrong with him? Could he not hear his mother’s words to her father? They were deciding his life right in front of him, and he wasn’t raging or yelling or feeling the fury and agony that Elaina felt on his behalf. She couldn’t understand it.
Confused, Elaina looked at his mother. What had she meant about binding him? And what did her father owe her, this Daughter of Valen?
“He is not yours,” the woman said, perhaps prompted by some unseen expression on her father’s face.
Elaina bit down on her lip, eyes widening. Had her father bedded this fearsome woman? She was not so naive that she didn’t know her father had mistresses since her mother’s death, and she wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d had any before. Possible though it was, the boy looked nothing like her father. He was leaner, more delicate in his features. He didn’t have the Raendasharan fierceness.
“I’ll send word where I’ve placed him,” Rakarn said.
“No,” the woman said sharply. “I can find him if I need to.” She looked down at her son. “I hope I never do.” Fixing her eyes on Elaina’s father again, the woman frowned. “He won’t age for seven years,” she said. “An effect of the Veil. You’ll need to prepare the family. Make up an explanation; threaten them if you have to.”
Elaina’s father barked an incredulous laugh. “And after that?”
“He’ll age as any human.” The woman crouched down and gently turned the boy around, putting her hands on his arms.
“You are loved,” the woman said, her voice soft. “Never forget that. Never lose your curiosity for the world.” She squeezed his arms, an affectionate gesture, and began to speak in runes, the magical language of the dragons, the Old Ones, long dead. Her arms glowed as she spoke, the runes igniting in a rush of color.
Elaina felt magic fill the room, a stifling pressure that made her sweat. She knew elemental spells, but the woman was talking too quickly, too quietly, for her to hear. She was activating something connected to her son, and as Elaina watched, she saw the boy’s eyes glow.
He cried out, curving forward, and Elaina saw blood darken the back of his shirt. The woman grimaced, back arching like the boy’s, but she didn’t stop speaking. Her eyes shimmered, wet and dark and anguished.
Elaina smelled blood and charred flesh, and her stomach flipped in revulsion. She wanted to scream, she wanted to run, but the terror of her father finding her here, thinking she’d spied on him, kept her frozen in place. He wouldn’t believe it’d been an accident.
Abruptly, the boy sagged in the woman’s arms, and her words cut off as she hugged him to her chest. Then, she pushed him gently back and stood up, releasing his hands.
The boy looked up, his face puzzled, recognition gone. “Who are you?” he asked.
The Daughter smiled sadly. “No one important.” Looking back at Elaina’s father, she gave him a sharp, dangerous look, and then she turned and left.
Elaina stood trembling, watching from the dark passageway, as she listened to the door open and close. The boy turned with a confused expression and looked at her father.
Stepping back into view, Elaina’s father placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder. His face looked ... almost sympathetic, and Elaina’s heart ached. She couldn’t remember him ever looking at her that way.
“Come,” her father told the boy. “Let’s get you back to your family.”
Together, they walked out of sight. Elaina listened for the heavy thud, as the door closed again, and then she scrambled down the passageway to her room wiping tears from her cheeks.
She never saw the boy in the keep again.
1
Lyric
Lyric held a steaming cup of tea beneath her nose for warmth and stared up at the shingled roof of her front porch. The dead branch, dropped from one of the onyx-bark trees arching overhead, had smashed a hole through the old gray wood. It’d have to be repaired.
She squinted as the sun slid free of the scattered clouds overhead. Light bounced off the pearled glass of the attic’s round window, momentarily blinding her as it shimmered like a dragon’s eye.
The sun was warm on her head, and Lyric tilted her chin towards the sky. She closed her eyes, appreciating the unexpected warmth, and breathed in the sweetened air, smelling the tall grass of the prairie at her back. As she inhaled again, letting her worries slip, just for a moment, she detected an older, earthier smell, wood and dirt and dampened moss, the scent of the Umberwood forest.
“You’ll have to go up there,” Runa said, jarring Lyric from her thoughts.
Lyric cracked open an eye and spotted her twin sister’s slim shape on the shadowed porch.
The sun, perhaps startled by Runa’s brusque tone, slipped back behind the clouds.
“Yes,” Lyric said, sighing. She shivered, tugging her shawl closer and brought her cup to her lips.
Runa stepped down the stairs and joined her on the grass. She planted her hands on her hips and looked up at the damaged roof with a cross expression.
Though she’d become familiar with Runa’s wraithlike state the past six months, it still unnerved her to stare straight through her sister’s body. Looking at Runa as she was, Lyric could see the wandering border of the forest and the distant mountains beyond.
“Stop that,” Runa said without turning her head.
Hiding a smile, Lyric looked back at the house. “It’s a shame Mr. Torenson is too scared to come out here now,” she said. “Remember how he repaired our door last autumn? It doesn’t get stuck anymore when the rains come.”
“We’re capable on our own,” Runa said, crossing her arms. “We have nails, a hammer, extra wood from the shed.”
“Yes, I’m capable of climbing up the ladder and fixing it, but that doesn’t mean I want to. It’s cold, and my shin still hurts from when Mrs. Laelan’s son kicked me.” Lyric made a face. “Your fault by the way.”
Runa chuckled, her sharp face softening at the memory. “I was checking to see if you’d set his arm yet. I fel
t like a bandit, skulking beneath the window in the dark.” She grinned. “That boy’s a little monster.”
Lyric laughed, and freed a hand from her shawl, placing it on Runa’s arm. She didn’t understand why she could still touch her. Her sister was dead, a ghost, at least she seemed to be. Lyric could feel the shape of Runa’s arm beneath her fingers, but there was no familiar warmth of living skin, no real sensation or texture.
She’d wondered, more than once, if she could only touch Runa because they were twins and connected in some way, soul to soul, that transcended death. It was a theory, and one she couldn’t test. No one in Elae’s Hollow would enter their house now, much less touch her phantom sister.
Sighing, Lyric tucked her hand back into her shawl. They should probably be grateful that their neighbors were only avoiding them, and that no one had attempted to burn their house down. Kalizans were not exactly welcoming of anything weird or magical.
Runa tucked a lock of red hair behind her ear and squinted up at the trees around their house. “What tree did this come off of anyway? I don’t see any broken branches.”
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