Heir of Vaashaa: The Lost Child of the Crown (The Lost Child of the Crown Series Book 2)

by Celine Simpson

  “I was there when you were born. I was there when you were sent from us. All but ripped from the arms of your father and handed to a stranger, someone whom we did not know, did not trust. You were simply gone, as if you had never even been. A place in our lives and our hearts so completely void of what should have been the ringing of your laughter and the tapping of your steps as you grew. The clashing of the metal of your sword as your strengthened.” Her voice grew thick, louder at the end, traced with anger and fury. It seemed to shock me, as if I was watching a show of emotion that rarely occurred, and perhaps what shocked me more was the love this woman had for me. This person who I did not know but had thought of me, it seemed, every single day of my life.

  I had only known Drasmoré for a very short while – less than a day actually – but she did not seem like the type of woman who allowed her emotions to be sensed quite so easily. She broke her stare with me to compose herself, the sheen gone from her eyes when she locked my gaze again.

  “To your mother, I was her eyes and ears, her confidante and protector. To you, Terraleise, I will be the same.” A smile cast like a shadow across her lips, her eyes filling with hope, just slightly.

  “I have waited a very long time for you, Terraleise. Also, you may call me Dee.” Her smile widened and became suspiciously curious.

  Seven

  Silas

  The coastline of Vyterra seemed to have dulled to me in the time since I saw it last. The east coast of the kingdom was foreign to me, having never sailed so far from Lygot. I suppose it was possible for there to be some differences in this part of the continent. Its differences were not something I could point out at first glance…something just felt wrong.

  Perhaps it was my mistake at holding it to such a standard as its southern sister, but I had assumed it would hold the same beauty as the glass-cliffed coastlines I had grown so fond of. The varying shades of blue that stretched from the alcoves dotted sporadically, the crystalline sheen of the sea spray as it crashed against the mainland. Yes, there was definitely something wrong.

  I wasn’t slipping into the same place of despair that gripped me during the time that followed the scouting mission into Altrey. So, when I questioned if it was my fractured heart, my dreadful guilt that took the brightness from the wildflowers that dotted above the harsh cliff face of Vyterra, I did so with a clear mind. The brightly coloured flowers, mere dots hovering above the top of the land mass, in hues of pinks and reds and oranges. They, in all fairness, just did not seem so bright.

  The kingdom looked so sick. Like it had come down with a fever and was pale in its appearance. Like it needed to rest.

  Not all of Vyterra was completely inhabited, at least not with towns or villages well known enough to travel to instead of through. I knew there were no major cities but only small villages that resided along this side. Bare for miles between one another except for the forest that nestled between the base of the ranges and the land’s end. It was not fruitful enough to support much life, so it just simply existed and did not much else. Aside from Altrey, the majority of the wealthier families with title and royal relations resided mostly to the west and to the north. Vyterra had always had strong relations with Shellandria, until recently. Most of the manors and residences were scattered along the border and up towards Move. Where Altrey had been a beautiful sight at night, Move was to be admired during the day. The city was made of sandstone and watched over the unchartered ocean to the north. Where Altrey was beautiful, regal, almost gentle, Move was wild and carried the scent of spices and laughter wherever you turned. A recount I wished belonged to my own memories, but indeed were my father’s. He had spent a lot of his youth in this kingdom before settling down to his duties in Lygot.

  But along the eastern side, there were not enough people to pillage the land, to scar it with their presence. Nowhere and nothing for soldiers to burn away. Nothing that would be worth the time of a corrupt royal anyway.

  I knew the small communities that dwelled in the villages that dotted the eastern coast were full of good people. The type of Vyterrans that would have begged for mercy for the life of their queen.

  The cliff faces, like those to the south, were smoothed down by the years of a constant rhythmic stream of air that beat against it, swam alongside it, but they didn’t shine. I didn’t wish to stare at it for hours as I had done on our trek from Lex.

  I exhaled the frustration from my lungs, the disturbing feeling that I couldn’t figure out what was wrong, and so I sought for comfort where I knew it was. There was a wind that hugged the jagged edge of the coast, whistling in a song I had heard many times before, that called to my blood. It was to me a piece of normalcy, a constant amongst this new reality that seemed already too broken to continue navigating and so I reached for it, for its comfort and advice.

  I reached out like I had during the Tour, to explore its ancient energy and to maybe get a reading or understanding of the things it had seen or passed by, what it had brushed over like invisible hands, etching an invisible map.

  My breath caught in my throat; like spiders crawling along my skin, this wind did not greet me as its kin, it screeched at my magic. Starved of its own, I felt it yearn for mine. Tugging at my power as if its own was withering away. Parched of water and presented with a single drop.

  This ancient magic that was scattered across all of Vaashaa, the magic that had been long before us and would remain long after we returned to dust, the magic that would watch over our children, and theirs after – it clawed at those binding threads that were woven into my very being.

  It did not greet my magic as an old friend, no.

  It was trying to take it away from me.

  Terror surged through me as I pried the ancient magic from my own. My barriers had been down, my mental shield open and inviting. I had never been so frightened of this wind before, had never needed to be on guard or take caution.

  As a child, it had nurtured me, saw what I was and looked kindly on me because of it. As I grew, it began to respect me and urge me onward, to learn more of my gift – a prince of its name. On every trip across the seas I sought this power out. These ancient winds that caressed the landforms of all four kingdoms, that danced over the dark abyss of the sea we sailed on and ran its tendrils and ribbons of air and wind through the canopies of trees. Moved across the skin and lives of every person to have so far lived on the surface of the land it travelled across. The very same wind that carried the breath from every mouth and man that sailed the seas it swam over. That magic had held a kindness about it. It had never once harmed.

  My hands swiped at my body, clawing and digging at something that was only tangible in my thoughts – in my mind. The crawling sensation morphed into a feeling of blisters all over my skin, it became unbearable. Flashes behind my eyes, and echoes in my ears of screams. All entwined with haunting whispers of those who perhaps had never been anything but this ancient wind as well as those who had eventually joined it. My whole self was withering and contorting, fighting against the invasion until I would be utterly broken. No attempt at closing off my magic would do as my body was taken over by another and the pain seeped into my bones.

  Cocooning, my own power lashed at me, its tendrils of air like whips of leather. I wasn’t sure what was worse in that moment. To be broken apart by my own self, my soul, or to watch others be broken. My screams didn’t reach my own ears, and no one could reach me within the prison of wind that had encircled me. Panic rose in my throat like bile; burning and metallic. My temples pounded with the blood that rushed too quickly around my body. My heart beat too frantically, I could almost feel its fatigue, its inability to fight the ancient grasp that held me firm.

  Still, the wind whipped. Striking again and again; relentless. In part, it was almost as if my power had a mind of its own, lashing out to rid the threat that was me. Though it seemed to slowly morph into the mind of another, a being so savage and full of rage. Two sides of the same coin fighting for the top, to w
in. Rage, yes, but there was also such paralysing heartbreak. Attacking me to take back what it thought belonged to it. To fill what had been stolen. I could feel the gaps, I could hear the screaming and sobbing at the absence of its power as I resisted being shoved into the emptiness it now harboured.

  The enemy that could neither be seen or touched, the enemy that had once been a friend that helped me grow was chanting on as I destroyed myself.

  Silence.

  My power still whipped around me, but there was another essence that had joined us. It calmed and soothed. It didn’t quake or falter as I would imagine anyone would in the face of this ancient magic that left no tamper on its presence, on its power. This magic so filled with distain I couldn’t fathom what had occurred to taint it so violently.

  This essence – this magic – coated the ancient power that was working so hard to pull apart the threads of my own being. It seeped into the age-old wind, giving itself away. It simply approached and met the savage, ancient power with a warm embrace. All-consuming, it carried with it an air of summer scented with honey and jasmine.

  My body burned, my mind felt moments away from being fractured. I didn’t trust to know if it was fully real, if I was truly witnessing what was before me. Hungrily, the power that was pulling from my own magic looked upon the offering of this gentle handed magic with pity, a flash of what it used to be – for a moment it seemed to be saddened by its own self, its own unstoppable need. It was gone as quickly as it had come about for it showed no remorse as it took what did not belong to it.

  There, but not.

  Like he was made of ribbons.

  I dropped my head, as I knew I should.

  His magic was not familiar to me but not foreign either. Like I had seen it before in a shadow or an echo. Its tenderness and boldness, its selflessness I had come to know so well in another. I knew whose energy now stepped before me to save my own. The words were whispered like I had heard them on the wind. A time that seemed so long ago, it didn’t feel like those memories belonged to me anymore.

  “She heads north, Prince. Your time is running out.

  Steer clear of the elements. This world is hurting.

  She heads north.

  Trust.

  Trust.”

  He drifted from my vision just as the old magic of the continent retreated, taking with it the magic that had given in instead of my own.

  My mind reeling as my power came to ease. I knew my

  legs wouldn’t hold me. When my boots touched the deck

  of the ship I had been suspended over I had prepared to collapse, but it was my father caught my full weight.

  I had thought that it was him, that after my tea with Queen Phillipa, and learning of her husband – the King’s – affinity. The wind that whispered to me and pushed me onwards, pointed me in the direction of the truth about Terra. He had remained amongst the living for fear of this. Perhaps in hopes to help his daughter learn to carry the burden that the crown of her lineage would bring with it.

  To find peace in what it would demand of her, not to resent it. But now, perhaps not.

  I knew it was King Eaton who had just saved my life.

  Eight

  Silas

  Violent shakes woke me.

  My body burned like it was home to dancing flames. No matter how I tried to beat them away, they didn’t settle. My breath like rusted nails catching down my throat. My hands came away from my body warm and slick. Blood.

  “Silas,” my father’s voice commanded.

  A haven in this hell.

  “Be still my boy, all will be well.” I held onto his voice, his words. He had never steered me wrong before. His words were not filled with promise but they were full of hope and that’s all I wanted, all I had been trying to have for myself. I focused on his words, repeating them within my own mind until everything finally stopped and I began to descend into a darkness that promised to cool my body, wrapping me in pine and earth.

  My mind woke first, allowing me time to listen, to smell and try to determine where I was.

  “We must know what was said, what he felt. We need to know what happened.” Jude said. Not in a way of coldness or lack of concern, but factual. He was in charge and he had a job to do. I could understand it and if I was able, I would have sat with him then and there to share what had happened even as my own mind, still weak and weary, struggled to fathom the experience as reality. I knew – hoped – it would help me move past the clawing, the ancient power that still dragged its invisible talons down my body, but a phantom as I knew it was.

  “We witnessed what happened, Jude. We saw what was happening to him.” Tashka said. Jude and Tashka were equals in their role as generals of the Lygot Army but it was a first for me to witness any kind of disagreement between them.

  It was clear to me that there was more to them than simply a shared title and responsibility. They were incredibly well matched. Jude was always the person to step forward. Do first, think later. Had anything ever needed to be done, his was the first hand to go up. It was one of the reasons we had become friends, he was always volunteering himself for duties or missions that needed attending. I had since come to know that it was not just his duty as a soldier, but it was Jude. A truly good man through and through. Tashka, well, she was not so forward. She too always came to the table when things needed to be done but she would always take the time to think it through and she never showed up empty handed. There was no one more prepared to answer your questions that Tashka. I knew she had done a lot to help Terraleise when she first fell into this world and for that she will always have my gratitude.

  Tashka and Jude were magnetic. If one were without the other, they would somehow gravitate towards one another before the day was done.

  “We witnessed the Prince, Tashka, not what was happening inside him. It was not his own power that attacked him; something happened. We all felt it, even without gifted blood we all felt what was around us. Like the dust of thousands of lives lived settled on our tongues.” His voice turned sour at the end to where I knew his face had scrunched in disgust. It was something I had to remind myself of from time to time, that though we looked the same as common folk, though we were responsible for many things; for ruling kingdoms and keeping those under our crest safe, we were still different. Our magic was foreign to them. It was as much a part of me as the ability to breath – it worked with the rest of my body much the same as my heart worked with my blood. It simply was but to them…Yes, it was respected, praised and admired but all from afar. Up close it was strange, too much – other. There were many who feared it in the same breath they spoke of our abilities in awe, but for every handful of those people there were also many who welcomed our gifts not just as a grace in times of trouble, but because it was part of who we were.

  The whooshing sounds of fabric colliding gently told me that she was trying to comfort him, “I know you are concerned, maybe even scared but it will not do us good to force the words from him. He will tell us when he can, Jude.”

  With only a sense of the room feeling emptier did I imagine that Jude had left.

  “You will allow him to rest, Tashka,” King Rolland commanded.

  She replied with a quiet voice, “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  Boots landed heavy as they moved away from me. The sound stopped before their sound faded naturally. A scuffing noise told me my father had turned to look back. “He will be okay, you can let Jude know. He is weak, but the prince will live.”

  A moment longer passed without any sound of their movements.

  “Tashka, perhaps we can have someone come now and help clean the prince and his wounds.”

  “Of course, Your Majesty.” Her response was rushed, as if she couldn’t believe she had not already organised it. “My apologies, Sir, I will see to it immediately.” No footsteps followed her voice, I could still feel her eyes on me, the weight and responsibility. Whether it was hers or mine I didn’t know.

  “I know it ca
n be difficult to see those you care about suffer, where you think they are to be taken from you forever,” my fathers voice was the reassuring hand of a beloved leader as he offered his General words of comfort. “I know it is hard to see him this way, just as I know much of the last few weeks have not been easy for you, Tashka.” A sharp sound of fabric moving indicated that Tashka had moved her focus to my Father, he went on.

  “As leaders we always try to carry the burden of hurt and disappointment, but it is also our duty to surround ourselves with persons of importance. Leaders, confidants, soldiers, and generals who, should we be unable to do it alone, can carry the burden with us, and support those around us in times of difficult decisions. When we are faced with sacrifice and loss. There are many unknowns that are to accompany us as we continue our journey north, even my old eyes have never seen the likes of some of the things to come, but it is how we handle ourselves during and after the points of great difficulty that define the leaders we are. It is not always in the triumph that we find the types of rulers we are, Tashka.”