Fallen Princeborn: Chosen

by Jean Lee

  Liam groans, “Ar son Dé!” He thrusts his dagger into the ground, burning the spiders, as Arlen summons up another vine of iron thorned roses to ensare the severed bud.

  The new bud buzzes loud enough to drive Keller to run with blade high. “I have it, Father!” He slices through half of it, but the cut half falls upon Bearnard’s other arm and chest. They hook into the ground, sealing him in place.

  Oil bubbles up from beneath him.

  Keller staggers back. Bearnard’s eyes fill with tears. “Treasa!” he cries, again and again, but she’s entranced by the hollow mask of Orna. It is unchanging, unfeeling. Oil lifts and falls beneath it like a breath. The needle arms open wide for an embrace. “Constantine…”

  “How do we stop this?!” Keller calls to the others while he spins, swings, slashes the new bud off, stabs the crawling petals and burns them only to have another bud appear from the peeling vine.

  The sewn ground above the Pits splits open, and two new buzzing Hissers rise, buds spinning, their oil painting the grass with poison.

  “We must locate the root!” Liam stabs the ground, burning it open and sending the two new buds rocking back and forth in rage, both aiming for Liam—

  No-No-NO

  Charlotte practically dumps Dorjan on the doorstep and runs, bone knife out. “Don’t you touch one hair of that curl-less head!”

  “CHARLOTTE!” Keller cries, but from too far. Charlotte drives her bone knife into the oily flesh of the vine just beneath the bud. But it doesn’t sever.

  It begins to lift her up. The second Hisser smells her and salivates oil.

  I really need to learn strategy sometime.

  Keller roars, and snicker-snacks through the newest bud. Arlen runs his blood sword into the oil bubbling around Bearnard, but no fire burns.

  The oil begins to suck Arlen’s sword into the ground. Only with Liam’s added strength does Arlen pull it free before the oil can run up the blade and glue to his own hands. “That same magic from before,” Liam pants, “from fighting Campion at the Wall. It tried to pull my sword into the ground as well.”

  Higher, higher, higher than Rose House. Charlotte’s hands are sweaty, she’s really hungry, and it feels like this thing’s ready to launch her into the orchards to get impaled by a peach tree.

  Dammit.

  And to add insult to injury, Vincent’s hawk self is soaring around Rose House and coming her way. He’s aiming for her feet, where the bud can’t get him—

  Sea-screams flood the air.

  The force of them blasts both vines to smithereens.

  Sending Charlotte into a nose dive. At least she gets to kick Vincent in the beak as she falls—

  With a golden screech, Liam cracks sound to fly under her. He unfolds his wings just before they crash; his tailfeathers singe the grass as he lifts to arc upwards. But his feathers only warm Charlotte, soothe her nerves. She kisses Liam’s neck, and waves to Captain and three other Stellaqui standing alongside Rose House.

  But one’s already crumpling, and Captain leans upon her spear. “They can’t be this far from the water!” Charlotte says into Liam’s ear. Vincent’s righted his flight and is now flaring with spurts of tan flame, talons growing. Keller readies his sword, takes aim—

  “LEAVE THEM ALONE!” Charlotte shouts. Liam drags his talons into the grass to catch the tongue still clinging to Bearnard, but it snares him instead. Charlotte flies loose and rolls to Treasa’s feet.

  “Liam!” Treasa’s ring sings high and true, eviscerating the snare. “Please, listen to your mother and come to me, please.” Her ring hand reaches for him, the same hand that threw him to the Cardinal, forced him to torture others…

  Liam turns away…and nearly into the arms of the Orna vine.

  He drops and rolls. The needle-hands flail in the air above his head.

  Bearnard’s head is all that remains visible. The oil upon him coagulates, takes shape into something like giant roots…or fingers…“Dammit, woman, now pull me up!”

  Orna’s face in the trunk vine turns ever so slowly to Treasa. “Give me Constantine…” The needle fingers dance hypnotically to the name.

  Captain’s fins can barely hold the spear, but she manages to leap and slash Vincent’s fiery belly. When she lands, her scales flake—they’re too dried out. Vincent crashes nearby in broken branches and swears.

  Keller wields his blood sword upon Sergeant and the others, snapping their bone spears with a wicked laugh and blocking all their awkward hits. Keller slams Sergeant to the ground, grabs one of his fin-arms.

  With an ear-splitting howl Dorjan leaps onto him. He’s got a bannister for a crutch, and he bludgeons Keller on the temple before he can growl.

  “Go to the water!” Charlotte calls to the Stellaqui, “and get back when you can!”

  Three more Hissers rise from the new crack in the clearing.

  Dorjan’s blue eye calculates, green eye cringes. “You know I hate to be a pessimist…”

  Bearnard unleashes a roar of such pain it pulls on even Charlotte’s heart. Another tongue’s got Bearnard by the belly and is squeezing tighter, tighter, until Charlotte’s sure jelly’s going to squirt everywhere.

  Arlen pulls his blood sword back out of the ground. “To the root!”

  Liam nods and stabs the ground as hard as he can. The crack around the original vine brings sunlight to the atrium once more. There, at the atrium’s floor, the trunk vine’s tendrils squirm in every direction. The trunk itself is embedded in what remains of Orna’s body.

  “Charlie, Dorjan—into Rose House!” Arlen cries, and together he and Liam jump, daggers at the ready, and drive their blades in on either side of the trunk to split it open as they rappel into the Pits.

  “I need me one of those,” Dorjan says wistfully.

  A crack runs quickly around Orna’s face.

  Liam and Arlen leap free in unison, and nearly slip in unison as well—the ground’s slick with the oil, numbing Liam’s feet so he almost—almost—wishes for shoes. Despite the oil oozing from their incisions, Liam can see scraps of Orna’s white snakeskin beneath the base. “Here!”

  But the trunk knows.

  The splits they made on the rappel peel out, forming petals full of thorns, lunging downward—

  Arlen strikes the one aiming for Liam, and Liam acts in kind. The roots tremble about them, bursting open of their own accord for fresh mouths, fresh tongues, a hundred whips of flesh for two blood swords—

  A spiderish shape peels free from the vine bearing Orna’s face, her needle-arms now its legs.

  “Constantine…” The tongue dangles from the open mouth as the Orna-thing skitters towards Bearnard.

  Bearnard screams again, oil creeping up his neck. “Treasa, please!” he weeps.

  Treasa says nothing, eyes rimmed with tears. “You were a capable partner,” she says, voice full of pity, “for a time.”

  The spider now looms over Bearnard’s chest. Its body turns to goo, drooping Orna’s face to rest over his heart. The root-fingers about his body tighten and begin pulling the Orna face and Bearnard’s body into the ground.

  The Orna face begins to melt, through the root-fingers, through Bearnard’s suit, through his skin.

  Through his flesh.

  Bearnard. He screams. Screams. Screams.

  “DO SOMETHING!” Charlotte slaps Treasa so hard she spins. “You’re the one with the—”

  Keller rushes past Charlotte, blood sword high, battle roar clear. The fire blinds Charlotte, and she hides her face against Dorjan when the strike is made. When she turns back, smoke billows from the Orna face and the trail it made to the trunk vine.

  Bearnard’s lip twitches. All beneath his shoulders has been burned to ash and bone. He blinks once, twice. His lips tremble, and his throat moves to swallow whatever saliva remains. There is, perhaps, a smile. “Cairine,” he whispers with his final breath.

  In that same moment down in the Pits, the hundred tongues shiver, the buds frozen mid
-attack.

  “Hurry, Liam, now!” Arlen cries, and they drive their blood swords into the base of the trunk. Iron thorned vines bust forth and grow, wrapping around the roots and up the trunk while Liam’s fire catches the iron and sets it aflame.

  But the magic tires Liam, and his limbs quickly begin to shake. He can feel his power sucked into this, this thing rooted in Orna’s flesh. “How much longer?” he says above the din.

  Arlen heaves a breath. “As long as it takes!” His wedding ring catches the light of Liam’s fire.

  Liam’s own wedding ring glistens proud and bright.

  His limbs shake no longer.

  “Damn, Keller,” Vincent stands, open-mouthed and bleary-eyed, his body charred and cut beyond his caring.

  Keller plucks Bearnard’s stone ring from the smoking bone. “A mercy killing. That is honorable, isn’t it?” He looks at Charlotte eagerly.

  Dorjan grabs her arm—to lean on her, but that hungry blue eye promises teeth for any approach.

  Treasa snatches the ring before Keller can put it on and slides it onto her own finger. “Do not think for one moment you are worth even this pathetic kind of power. Now to the west so we can still salvage some good from all this.”

  “But there’s still more to do!” Charlotte points to the hole where Liam and Arlen dove, where all that nasty-ass magic’s determined to kill them all...

  “Not here, and not for us. Come Vincent. Keller.” She looks upon the head of her dead husband.

  And with a single note, burns it to a lump of ash.

  Vincent trudges over, but Keller walks towards Charlotte, eyes on no one else. Charlotte holds tight to Dorjan, worried she’s going to drown in that freezing sadness in front of her. “But I want to stay with Charlotte.”

  “No, Keller.”

  “Yes.”

  “NO.” And she grabs him as the harmony of her two rings rises, the fire and light swirling around her, Vincent, and Keller. His hand reaches out as it vanishes, the last of his fingertips grazing Charlotte’s face before leaving her, chilled and pale as the white roots underground.

  “Those, bastards,” Dorjan unleashes a torrent of French curses. “What can we do now?”

  Charlotte eyes the opening into the Pits.

  I think you are ready for something new, the Voice in Charlotte’s heart says warmly, excitedly.

  “Goin’ down.”

  Dorjan’s green eye sparkles with mischief. “YES!” He transforms and grabs his crutch in his mouth. He grunts, ready.

  One two, count’em and steady’em, Charlie. Three four, just a bunch of hell-plants. Five, six—go!

  Charlotte runs right for the trunk vine, even as the new Its target her and Dorjan hobbling speedily in the rear. The trunk vine looms, innards pussing where it’s already split open. Charlotte’s bone knife gleams. Dorjan pants behind her. She’s going to make it–she’s going to LEAP and stab and this time in the puss of it she’s sliding down as Dorjan digs three paws’ worth of claws in to slide down as well. The trunk’s smoldering beneath her, and she kicks free before catching on the fiery iron thorns wrapped at the base. She lands between three tongues aimed for Liam, while Dorjan tramples several going for Arlen. Despite his leg, Dorjan starts snapping and yanking whatever tongues and petals he can without touching a thorn.

  “We can’t focus our power on the trunk,” Arlen cries out above the fray, “there’s too many!”

  And there are so, so many. As fast as Liam and Arlen cut them, and Charlotte now, too, and Dorjan’s teeth pulling whatever he finds, more keep coming like some devil’s garden. Charlotte slices one, but another whips at her arm, and FUCK another strikes her back—

  Charlotte rolls up and finds the cord and shards from the dead river—the current or something. It burns like hell…

  Charlotte slips her bone knife beneath the cord. No burning.

  “Don’t cross the elements,” she laughs, and whips the cord at a root.

  Immediately the root begins to deflate with an unearthly scream. “The dead river thingeys!” Charlotte waves up at the wall with the cascade of cords.

  Liam runs along one of the largest roots, slashing tongues and petals as he goes, and jumps, sending a wave of fire high across the wall. Every cord falls, some finding roots and withering them immediately, others falling on clear ground for Charlotte to fling.

  Arlen drives his sword back into the trunk, this time with Gaelic that sets a violet fire coursing up the trunk. “Here, Liam, it’s weakening! It’s now or never!”

  Liam races back, but a tongue grapples his neck and pulls him to a root. Dorjan pulls him free, and Liam slides back with his sword to stab the trunk. But another root suddenly crashes down on Liam’s legs. His screech shatters Charlotte’s breath, limbs, heart—

  “You can’t have him!” Charlotte thrusts her own hands into the root and wrenches it apart with strength she’s never known. Her senses are burning, every smell is vicious and deadly and she, will, thrive—

  But she’s too slow to catch the root that wraps round Dorjan’s leg and pulls him towards a Hisser, petals open, thorns spinning wet and wicked. “DORJAN!”

  “Finish the bloody thing already!” he cries, changing, burning, howling, clawing, yet not enough, not enough. More Hissers bloom near his front legs.

  Liam and Arlen pour every ember of magic into the root. More roots deflate and crumble, but the trunk only sways, and whispers, “My…Constantine…”

  “You got nothin’!” The Voice in Charlotte’s heart melds with her own, and there’s fingers beneath her fingers, lungs beneath her lungs, fire burning in her skin as she cries, “This is MY family, and you will NEVER have them!”

  Green fire pulses from Charlotte’s body, again, again. She sees the trunk shrivel in on itself and shriek, smothered by gold, violet, emerald. Black fire holds her upright as stormy skies envelope her, crying her name. Flames blossom silver and white upon the blood, upon the battle, upon the past, upon the storm, upon The First—

  Gosh, that’s pretty.

  Then all is darkness.

  To be Continued in Book 3,

  Fallen Princeborn: Hidden

  Acknowledgments

  Once upon a time, a girl wrote a story to help her through her inner darkness. Eight years and three children later, that story was published by an indie press under the title Fallen Princeborn: Stolen.

  But as with all good stories, there is a twist in this tale’s plot: the indie press chose not to continue the Fallen Princeborn series. Should the girl keep writing?

  She did.

  She had to. Characters like Charlotte, Liam, Arlen, and others had fought too hard in the first story for their next chapter to be left unwritten. With the editing help of amazing souls like Anne Clare and Jenn Italiano and the bottomless support from fellow indie authors like Chris Hall, Cath Humphris, P.J. Lazos, Shehanne Moore, the Steeden family, S.J. Higbee, and so many more, the girl found the strength to share her own stories her own way.

  And of course, more than anything, thank you so very much, Dear Reader, for picking up my book. All the tales told are nothing but words on a page without readers’ imaginations to bring them to life. You keep reading. I’ll keep writing. Together we’ll set the darkness on fire.

  About Jean Lee

  I started telling stories before I knew how to write them, filling pages with pictures and audio cassettes with words. This passion for storytelling grew every year to become not only my focus of graduate study, but an escape from trauma and savior from postpartum depression. That savior has since transformed into the young adult dark fantasy series Fallen Princeborn.

  Stories are the fire that warms the soul. They melt fear, ignite hope, and spark relationships like nothing else. I’m honored you seated yourself here by my hearth to enjoy my fiction’s light. Please feel free to visit often, for there are many treasures bizarre and fantastic in my imagination waiting to speak with tongues of flame. Then we can talk about the writers that refuel
us, and the stories that stir us like marshmallow sticks poking a campfire’s embers. Let’s send the fire’s sparks flying like so many fireflies into summer’s night, and invite more out of the cold darkness.

  You can reach me at jeanleesworld.com. Please subscribe to my email list to get updates on the Fallen Princeborn series, receive free e-books, and explore some cool writer stuff like inspiring music, writing tips discovered while reading, and interviews with fellow YA authors. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram (@jeanleesworld). And if the spirit should move you, please write a review on Amazon or Goodreads. You may also email me at jeanleesworld@gmail.com. I would love to hear from you, O Awesome Reader!

  Read on and share on—

  Jean Lee

  Books by Jean Lee

  From the Fallen Princeborn Omnibus

  Novels

  Fallen Princeborn: Chosen

  Fallen Princeborn: Stolen

  Novella

  Tales of the River Vine: Night’s Tooth

  Short Stories

  Tales of the River Vine Collection

  coming soon!

  Other Works

  Novels

  Shield Maidens of Idana: Middler’s Pride coming soon!

  Fallen Princeborn: Chosen.

  Copyright © 2020 by Jean Lee. All rights reserved.

  Tales of the River Vine: Night’s Tooth.

  Copyright © 2019 by Jean Lee. All rights reserved.

  Fallen Princeborn: Stolen.

  Copyright © 2018 by Jean Lee. All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the