by Lisa Cassidy
The Mage Chronicles
The full series
Lisa Cassidy
Contents
DarkSkull Hall
Taliath
Darkmage
Heartfire
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Creator: Cassidy, Lisa, 2016 - author.
Title: DarkSkull Hall
ISBN: 9780995358904 (Printed)
ISBN: 9780995358911 (eBook)
Subjects: Young Adult fantasy
Series: The Mage Chronicles
Copyright © Lisa Cassidy 2016
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning or by an information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
First published 2016 by Tate House
This book is dedicated to Mama and Pops. A small way to repay thirty-three years of unwavering love and support.
Prologue
A cold wind gusted, whipping the little girl’s hair back from her face. She whimpered as thunder crashed overhead and her small body burrowed deeper into her brother’s arms. Though at nine he was only four years old than her, when she glanced up at his serious face, it softened into a reassuring smile for her sake.
The wind gusted again, causing the small boat they were on to rock wildly. Icy needles of rain pelted against her face and a violent shiver racked her small frame. Fear curled in her; she wanted to go home, where it was safe and warm and her mother would tuck her into bed with a story and a kiss on the forehead.
“Papa!” her brother called out. “This isn’t good for Alyx.”
Their father turned, his tall figure outlined in the darkness for a moment by a bright flash of lightning.
“We won’t be long, lad. Just look after her another minute.”
Then his attention was gone, back to the two shadowy figures he stood with—their mother, and an older man Alyx vaguely recognised.
Her brother’s arms tightened around her. “It’s going to be okay, Aly-girl,” he murmured in her ear. “Remember who I am?”
“My big brother,” she mumbled into his shoulder.
“And what do big brothers do?”
She smiled a little now. This routine never failed to calm her. “Look after their baby sisters.”
“That’s right.” He cuddled her tightly to him.
Alyx looked back at where her parents stood with the older man. Something about the sight made the dread she’d been feeling return, and not even her brother’s warm arms around her could stop it. She wanted to look away but was riveted by the sight of the three figures. She strained to hear their voices, hoping they would stop talking soon and take her home.
“They’ll be safe with us,” her father shouted over the wind, desperation in his voice as he looked at her mother.
“Shouldn’t they go to DarkSkull, or even the Island?” the older man asked, meeting Alyx’s eyes briefly before looking back at her father.
“They’re too young for us to know yet. Sending them to either place could be useless.”
“But they’d be safe.”
“I don’t think any of the mages or Taliath will be safe for a long while.”
Alyx’s mother turned to the older man, speaking for the first time. “Garan is right.” she told him. “We’ve talked about this already, Astor.”
“We can keep them safe.” Her father spoke again, stepping closer to her mother.
“No, you know why they’re coming for us. The two of us can’t protect them alone.” She looked like it hurt to speak the words, but she was resolute, green eyes bright with a sheen of tears. “We have to hide.”
“We can protect them,” her father responded steadily. “The two of us, together, we can do it.”
“No, we can’t. You know it too; you just refuse to accept it.”
Momentary silence fell, and the older man spoke into it. “All right. The decision has been made. Temari, are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?”
“No. I’ll be fine. Help Garan keep her safe.”
The older man nodded, and after a moment left the other two alone, making his way towards Alyx and her brother.
“Come on, you two. We need to get you settled so the boat can leave.”
“Isn’t the sea too rough for a boat this small?” her brother asked, sounding far older than his years.
“Not if it sticks close to the coastline, lad. It will be fine.”
Astor began hustling them into the small cabin on the boat, and Alyx was suddenly afraid her parents would disappear forever.
“No!” She struggled against her brother’s hold, trying to keep them in sight.
“Let her be,” her brother spoke sharply to Astor. “She’s fine with me.”
Her parents were still talking, and although Alyx couldn’t really understand the content of what was being said, she could just make out the words.
“Darien won’t betray us. Alyx and I will be safe here. He’s my oldest friend, Temari.”
“I know.” But her mother’s green eyes looked stormy.
“Stay with us.” Her father’s voice turned pleading. “Both of you. It will hurt them to be separated.”
“You know I can’t.”
“I’m not enough for you,” her father said. “I understand.”
“You know I wish things could be different, Garan, I just…”
Garan sighed and reached out a hand to gently touch her cheek. “I do understand.”
“Thank you,” she said brokenly as tears mixed with the rain droplets running down her face. “I’m so sorry for everything.”
He smiled, even though his eyes were full of pain. “I don’t regret a single second. Know that.”
“I don’t either.”
“Goodbye.”
Garan’s hand reached out to clasp tightly to her mother’s. They didn’t embrace further, but Alyx saw enough in both her parent’s eyes to make her feel even more afraid and uncertain. She didn’t understand what was happening, and she clung tighter to her brother.
“Let go of Alyx, lad.” Their father came over, pitching his voice above the storm. “You have to go with your mother.”
“No!” Her brother’s arms tightened around Alyx. “I thought we were going together. I’m not leaving my sister behind!”
“I’m sorry.” Her father gently pushed back wet strands of hair from the boy’s forehead. “You want to keep Alyx safe, don’t you?”
“Of course.”
“Then you have to be apart from her. If you stay together, she’ll be in danger. The best thing you can do to protect your sister is to go with your mother.”
Alyx glanced between them; her brother looked torn. After a moment his arms loosened and he let go of her. The fear flooded back, and she started trembling. None of this made any sense.
“No,” she whimpered, clutching at her brother’s arm. “Don’t go.”
“I’ll see you again, Aly-girl.” A sad smile broke across her brother’s serious face. “I promise.”
“It will be all right,” her father soothed. “Let him go.”
She shook her head, clinging determinedly to his sleeve. He knelt and gently pried her fingers away, leaning in to give her a warm kiss on her cheek. Astor joined them, one hand settling on Alyx’s shoulder in reassurance.
“Do as Papa says.” Her brother gave her a sad smile. “It’s all going to be okay. I’ll see you again soon.
”
Alyx watched, not understanding, as he walked away to join their mother. She said something to him, and then crossed to kneel before Alyx. Her green eyes were dark, her face wet with more than just the rain.
“You be good, Aly-girl.” She pulled her into a hug. “I’m doing this to keep you safe. You need to be safe, and happy.”
Alyx clung as tightly to her mother as she had to her brother, and eventually Temari had to gently pull her away and stand back. “I love you.”
Before Alyx could respond, her father was picking her up and climbing off the boat onto the dock. Astor was the last of them to leave the rocking boat, stepping away to give Alyx and her father some privacy.
“Papa, I want to go with them.” She struggled in his hold. “Why are they leaving? I don’t want to say goodbye.”
“I’m sorry,” he murmured in her ear. “You’ll understand one day, I promise.”
Alyx’s brother raised his hand in farewell while her mother untied the mooring ropes and the boat slowly moved out into the water. Soon it began fading from sight, hidden by the night and a curtain of falling rain.
“It’s okay, Aly-girl.” He held her tighter. “You and me, we’re going to be okay.”
Alyx looked up to see the tears welling in her father’s eyes as he watched the boat leave, and followed his gaze. Her mother stood there at the rail, barely visible now, her gaze steady on Alyx and her father. As Alyx stared harder, trying to keep sight of them for as long as possible, an odd numbness seeped through her body.
Then the boat disappeared entirely and Alyx began crying, the tears streaming down her face. Everything was wrong. Something inside her understood she wasn’t going to see them again for a long time, and she cried harder, wriggling to try and get free so she could run after them, beg them to stop.
“I love you, darling girl.”
The words whispered deep in Alyx’s mind, and for a moment, deep love filled her. It was her mother’s, powerful and enduring, and then it was gone, and darkness claimed her.
When Alyx awoke from a deep sleep, it was daylight and she was in her bed at home.
“Papa?” She blinked. He was sitting by her bed. “What happened?”
“You don’t remember?” he asked carefully.
“No. Why are you in my room?”
He smiled and leaned forward to kiss her brow. “Just watching you sleep, baby girl.”
Chapter 1
Alyx’s riding boots crunched on the pebbled drive as she crossed from the main house to the stables. It was a warm morning already, and she was glad she had decided not to wear her jacket. The interior of the stables smelled like horses, straw and leather tack as she stepped inside, waiting a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dimmer light. One of her father’s grooms was mucking out a stall nearby, but he looked up at her entrance, his posture straightening immediately.
“Hello, Henri,” Alyx greeted him. “Would you saddle Daffodil for me?”
“Of course, my Lady.” Henri nodded. “I won’t be long.”
Alyx waited outside in the sunshine until Henri appeared leading her small white mare. He offered her his hand as she stepped onto the mounting block, then helped lift her into the saddle. “Enjoy your day, Lady Egalion.”
“Thank you, Henri,” she said. “I’ll be back before dark.”
Alyx urged Daffodil into a trot over the short grass before pulling up under the window of her father’s study. He was in there, concentrating at his desk, but smiled as he looked up and saw her.
“I’m going for a ride over to the palace, Papa. Don’t worry, I’ll be back in time for the dinner this evening.”
“Ride carefully.” Her father sighed. “Say hello to Cayr for me.”
Alyx turned her mare towards the front gate. The wide iron gates stood open at this time of the afternoon, and as she paused by the edge of the path to allow a cart full of hay from their fields to pass through, she glanced back.
Her home was a beautiful one, a graceful three-story estate with arched windows facing out over the front of the property. The stables sat off to the left of the house, a long terracotta-roofed building adjacent to an exercise yard for the horses. At a good distance behind the house were the servants’ quarters and storage sheds. The remaining space of the main property was covered in beautifully landscaped gardens which ran all the way up to the boundary of the royal estate, lands that covered the entire hill above their home.
The cart cleared the gate and Alyx rode through, crossing the wide road that passed her house and wound up into the hill above them to the palace. On the other side of the road ran a deep river that flowed down into the city below. She followed the river away from the city as it curved up the hill. Now she was on royal land, though the palace itself was still quite a distance away, through many acres of lovingly kept gardens.
Daffodil slowed as they reached the top of the hill, but Alyx allowed it. She loved the winding paths leading through the picturesque palace gardens. Even though she’d grown up spending her days playing amongst them, she never tired of their beauty. It was summer, and the carefully arranged flowers were in full bloom, a veritable rainbow of blues, reds, yellows and pinks. The air smelled sweet with their fragrance, and Alyx breathed it in deeply. There could be nothing more beautiful in the world than this place.
Some minutes later she rounded a corner in the path, and the sandstone walls of the palace came into sight. The walls gleamed golden in the early afternoon sunlight. It was such a large, rambling building that the rays of sunset never failed to light up the area in a glow that–for a few minutes each day–could be seen for miles around.
Not far ahead of where she had stopped to admire the view was the inner palace wall and a wide-arched gate that led inside. She knew from experience that officers from the king’s Royal Blue Guard would be manning the gate, and so she turned the mare off the path instead.
Reaching a small field of green, she dismounted and left Daffodil to graze placidly in the sunlight. Hiking up her skirts, she then pushed through a thicket of trees and came to a smaller, secret gate set in amongst thickly growing ivy covering the wall. The gate was well oiled from use and opened easily at her touch. The other side revealed another copse of fir trees, more garden, and beyond that the walls of the north-eastern wing of the palace.
Alyx walked through the trees and around the side of the building. After crossing a pebbled pathway that wound around a pretty gazebo she entered a large courtyard. Bushes and flowerbeds lined the base of the walls, and ivy crawled up the sandstone to frame the row of arched windows set into the wall. Alyx glanced around, waiting for the guard on patrol to pass by, before dashing across the courtyard to the window on the far end of the wall.
It was unlocked, as always, and Alyx turned the catch to swing the window inwards. Curtains obscured her progress for a second but she pushed them aside and climbed through into the room beyond.
A gangly figure lay stretched out on the bed inside, a slight frown on his face as he concentrated on a book. He looked up at her entrance and a wide smile crossed his impossibly handsome face. Tossing the book to the floor, the prince of Rionn sat up, raking a hand through tousled blonde hair.
“You’re late,” he chided affectionately, bright blue eyes sparkling as they always did when he saw her.
Alyx shrugged. “It’s a beautiful summer day, I was enjoying the ride up. Besides, these skirts make it difficult to creep through trees and avoid Bluecoat patrols.”
Cayr raised his eyebrows at her. “You love wearing those skirts. Ever since your sixteenth birthday you’ve made sure to have the best and the prettiest.”
“I can’t have the other girls in the palace outdoing me; I’m an Egalion,” she responded airily. “If I ran around in breeches like when we were children I’d be a social outcast.”
“And would that be the worst thing in the world?”
“It would.”
He made a face. “My father certainly doesn’t apprecia
te me showing up for dinner with dirt smudges and patchy clothes anymore.”
“You’re seventeen now, a whole year older than me,” she said. “You’re surprised your father expects more than he would of a child?”
“No. But it was much easier when we were children. You could have just come to see me through my front door, you know?”
“If I’d done that, your father and mine, and every other important noble in residence would have known I was here visiting you.”
“You didn’t tell your father you were coming?”
She sighed and flopped onto the bed beside Cayr. “Not specifically. But he guessed. I’ve been visiting you since I was five years old, Cayr. Why does it have to be such a big deal now?”
“You know why.”
“I don’t think I do.”
“Really?” He raised an eyebrow. “What does your father say?”
“He says we’re getting too old, and that very soon it will be inappropriate. He cares so much what the court thinks. It’s frustrating.”
“Says the girl who thinks being a social outcast would be the worst thing ever.” He sighed. “Your father is right, Alyx. We’re not children anymore. I’m the heir to the throne, and it matters what the court thinks. Propriety is important. If they knew we were alone together in my bedroom right now...”
She pushed away from him. “I know that! But you’re my best friend in the world, and that’s never going to change. Do you want a chaperone watching whenever we spend time together? Because that’s what will happen if we do things the appropriate way.”
“We’ll work something out, Alyx. I promise.”
A knock came at the door in the room beyond, and Cayr bounced up and strode out of the bedroom. Alyx followed, straightening her skirts with an irritated sigh. Cayr was already opening the door to his quarters by the time she came through, greeting the new arrival with another beaming smile.
