Soul Siphon: Set includes four books: Midnight Blade, Kingsbane, Ash and Steel, Sentinels of the Stone (Soul Stones)

by T. L. Branson

  Another guard opened the door to the queen’s private quarters and all eyes turned to him as he entered.

  “Thank the gods,” Alexander Drygo, king of Sunbury, said in relief.

  The grand marshal of the royal guard, Davion Callum, stood at Ocken’s side a second later, helping him lower the healer onto the ground. Alijah teetered off balance as he regained his footing.

  The queen, Evangeline, lay quiet and still in her bed. Blood coated the sheets. Sweat ran down her brow.

  Alijah laid his hand on her forehead. Ocken, Drygo, Callum, and Callum’s wife, Chelsea, craned their necks to watch the healer. He pulled a cloth from his pocket and wiped her brow. When he turned to open his bag, he found four sets of eyes staring back at him.

  “Out,” he said, waving his hands. “Give us some space.”

  Callum looked to Drygo, who nodded.

  Ocken, Callum, and Chelsea left the room, closing the door behind them.

  “What happened after I left?” Ocken asked.

  “Not much that you can’t surmise for yourself,” Callum replied.

  “Any idea what caused it?” he pressed.

  “None,” the grand marshal said, rubbing his face.

  Ocken looked to Chelsea. She had a curious expression on her face. Like she might know the answer, but didn’t want to share it.

  Callum caught Ocken’s stare and turned to look at his wife.

  Her face turned red under the scrutiny.

  “Do you know something?” Callum asked.

  “I…”

  “Well?” Callum urged.

  “She made me promise not to tell,” Chelsea said, bringing a hand to her face as if breaking eye contact made it easier for her to cope with her deception.

  “Made you promise not to tell what?”

  Chelsea did not respond.

  “Chelsea,” Callum said, his voice growing stern.

  The door to the queen’s quarters opened, sparing her from answering. Alijah emerged, his face downcast. Callum’s eyes grew wide.

  “Oh!” Alijah said, realizing what they had assumed. “She is quite all right. I’ve given her some medication for the pain and to reduce the fever, and she’s going to need a day or two of rest, but I… Well, it’s best if the king tells you.”

  Drygo emerged a moment later, his face a mask of confusion and sadness.

  “She was pregnant,” the king said, his eyes wide and mouth agape. “She’s had a miscarriage.”

  ***

  “The state of our economy is at an all time high,” the commerce advisor droned. “Our fishing vessels are bringing in more produce this season than we’ve seen in a long time, the miners have uncovered a new pocket of silver beneath the escarpment, and trade with the Northern Isles continues to flourish.”

  Ocken stood silently at his post by the door to the council chambers. Eight men and four women were in attendance. The queen’s chair sat empty beside the king.

  “What about Havan?” shouted the advisor of foreign affairs, a man named Stratton. “Our trade with our closest neighbor has decreased dramatically in the last two years. How can you offer praise when we hang on the edge of economic collapse? They claim they no longer have confidence in our leadership after we failed to uncover the source of the attack that left our poor Alexander without a father and our country without a proper king.”

  Everyone in the room audibly gasped and all eyes turned to Drygo, expecting a swift rebuke. Instead, he sat slumped in his chair at the head of the table, his chin resting in his palm. His eyes stared off into the distance. The silence shaking him from his daze, the king blinked and sat up straight.

  “That’s out of line, Counselor Stratton,” Callum barked. He looked to the king and back to the counsel, unease growing steadily on his face. “Dismissed!”

  A low rumble filled the room as private conversations erupted. Chairs groaned as they were pushed away from the table. The men and women rose and exited the council chambers. All except for the king, Callum, Ocken, and another of the king’s royal guard, a man named Geoffreys.

  “Are you all right, sire?” Callum asked the king.

  “Of course I’m all right,” Drygo blustered, his eyes shifting to Ocken and Geoffreys. Callum caught the movement.

  “You can wait outside, men,” Callum said. “Thank you.”

  Ocken and Geoffreys stepped outside and shut the door. Despite the solid oak door that stood between them, it did little to mute the conversation.

  “What does it matter if I’m distracted?” Drygo said. “I’m the king for Iket’s sake.”

  “What does it matter?” Callum parroted. “What do you mean ‘what does it matter?’ The man just called you a weak king and wished your father were still here and you ignored him.”

  “Perhaps he’s right,” Drygo replied. “Perhaps you’d all be better off with my father.”

  Geoffreys shifted uneasily beside Ocken.

  “Your father is dead! You are the king,” Callum said, then he sighed. “Where is this coming from? You put an end to the uprising. You secured the trade deal with Kent. You found the blasted pocket of silver while inspecting the mines. By the gods, the only thing you aren’t responsible for is the fish. Sunbury owes every bit of its successes to you. Stratton has no right pinning Havan on you. Aren’t you upset?”

  “Of course I’m upset,” the king said. “It’s just…”

  “It’s just what?”

  There was a pause.

  “It’s been a week and Evangeline’s situation has not improved,” the king finally said.

  Ocken closed his eyes and sighed. He remembered standing by helpless as he watched his own mother lie in bed growing worse with each passing day. He felt intense anger at the time. Anger with the gods, anger with life, anger with himself. Now there was only bitter remorse and sympathy for his king.

  “What did Alijah say?” Callum asked.

  “The old fool says she just needs proper rest and she will recover,” Drygo said, scoffing.

  “Perhaps you should seek a second opinion?” Callum responded.

  A moment later the door opened. Callum stood in the doorway. He turned to Geoffreys and said, “Fetch Sophia and bring her to the queen’s chambers.”

  “Sophia?” Drygo said from within the council chambers. “What could my maid possibly do to help?”

  “Just… trust me,” Callum said.

  Ocken followed Drygo and Callum as they left the council chambers, moved down the hall, and ascended a flight of stairs to the personal residences on the third floor of the palace. The party came to a halt outside the queen’s chambers.

  Drygo knocked before cracking the door and peering inside. A moment later, he opened the door wide and walked in. Callum and Ocken followed.

  Evangeline sat upright in her bed, a pail in her lap.

  “How have you been feeling?” the king asked.

  “All right,” she said weakly. “It comes and it goes. I can’t keep any food down and I have an awful headache, but otherwise I’m fine.”

  “Alijah insists you should be getting better.”

  “I am getting better, I—” she leaned over the pail and vomited.

  “That doesn’t look better,” Drygo said, frowning. “At Callum’s behest, I’m getting a second opinion.”

  Callum stood like a statue with his arms crossed in front of him, a smug look on his face. Geoffreys arrived a moment later with Sophia in tow.

  She ran up to the queen’s bedside and began dabbing her head with a rag. “What’s wrong?” she asked, alarmed.

  “Nothing’s wrong… well, nothing serious,” Callum said.

  Ocken could have sworn he heard Callum mutter, “I hope.”

  Sophia visibly relaxed, but she didn’t speak.

  Callum cleared his throat and continued, “I want to know your personal analysis of the queen’s ailments.”

  “I am no healer, sir, I—”

  “Just… humor me,” Callum said, waving his hand
toward Evangeline.

  Sophia spoke quietly with Evangeline. Evangeline explained how she felt and her lack of improvement over the past few days.

  “Hmm, I…” Sophia started to say, then she paused, placing her finger over her lips.

  “Yes?” the king asked.

  Callum leaned in a little closer. Ocken stood as a stone sentinel, as a good guard should, but inwardly he leaned, too. He wished to know what illness befell his queen and how he might assist her in any way. He couldn’t bear to lose his queen as he lost his mother. The pain of his mother’s passing was still present within his heart like a dull ache that would never fully pass. No. He couldn’t—he wouldn’t—let his queen suffer the same fate.

  “Well,” Sophia said, “only time will tell, but I believe the queen is still with child.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Elation had filled Ocken following Sophia’s announcement. When pressed how that could be, she only guessed that the queen may have been carrying twins before the miscarriage. She couldn’t know for certain, but it’s what they all chose to believe.

  Ocken was especially glad to see Drygo back in action. There was a spring in his step as he returned to his normal duties, his focus back on running the kingdom. After all, the king—or the crown prince, as he was at the time—was the only reason Ocken stood as a member of the royal guard today.

  Forced onto the streets following his mother’s death, he and his brother, Thren, had resorted to thievery. A young and unsuspecting Ocken reached into the pocket of the crown prince, but the prince caught him. Instead of turning him over to the guards to have his hand taken from him, the prince offered to put Ocken’s hands to better use as a swordsman.

  Ocken still didn’t understand it. He didn’t understand why a young prince would take an interest in a street rat like him, but that’s just who Alexander Drygo was. He genuinely cared about his people. When he found out about Ocken’s mother, he offered the same deal to Thren.

  Following the king’s death and Alexander’s ascension to the throne, Drygo appointed Ocken to his personal guard while Thren continued on in the regular regiment. Thren was out on assignment now, stationed nor’east of Sunbury at the Eastgate on the western side of the Frostpeak Mountains.

  Ocken never understood why they had an outpost way out there. Few people lived beyond the Frosties, just his own people in the Dhelgur Desert and a few other small lands and villages. But almost exclusively, those peoples traveled west of the Frosties by boat.

  Between the Frosties and the lands of Eastern Aralith lay a forest.

  No one knew its true name. It had faded over the years, replaced with an appropriate moniker: the Wandering Wood. Some say the wood itself wandered, moving about the land, but most people brushed that off as an old wives’ tale. Instead, they believed that those who entered its borders always became lost, wandering its depths until at last death took them.

  Ocken didn’t know what he believed, but at least Thren was safe. He needn’t worry about his little brother so far removed from harm’s way, even if the reason for the outpost was to keep out danger. Danger from what, Ocken couldn’t say. No one in recent history could even recall a time when the Frostpeak Pass had been invaded.

  Thren put up some resistance, but in the end, he could not refuse his king. Ocken knew his brother would come to little harm there, but just to be certain he gave Thren a pendant bearing a carnelian stone that was said to bring good luck. He had it engraved with and old Khurlish says, “Eyes open, ears on the wind.”

  Ocken was thankful the king had granted his request. He had grown quite attached to the king. While they may not be flesh and blood, Ocken viewed Drygo as a shieldbrother—a brother in war, a brother of leather and steel.

  So it was that as the weeks passed and the queen only worsened, the king, too, returned to his worried state. Now, Ocken found himself once again in Evangeline’s chambers listening to another report on the queen’s health.

  Alijah placed his hand upon the queen’s swelling stomach, a frown on his face.

  “The baby appears to be fine,” he announced. “He’s quite active.”

  “He?” Drygo asked, excitement in his voice.

  “Please don’t misunderstand,” Alijah said in obvious alarm. “I have no way of knowing for sure. I prefer using ‘he’ over ‘it.’ As I said, ‘he’ is moving and kicking as he should…”

  “But?” the king pressed.

  Alijah frowned again. “The queen has progressed into the second stage of pregnancy. By all accounts, she should be feeling better. The first is characteristic of nausea, the third, all manner of discomfort, but the second? The second should offer a brief reprieve.” The healer rubbed his forehead. “I’m afraid…” He glanced at the queen. Her brow was furrowed.

  “Spit it out already,” Drygo said, tapping his foot.

  “May I speak to you outside, please, Your Majesty?” Alijah asked.

  The king waved his hand and the two proceeded for the door. Ocken swung the door wide, allowing them to exit. He followed them out and closed the door.

  “This is a sign of bad news,” Alijah whispered. “It is too early to tell, but I feel I must prepare you… It is highly possible the queen may not survive childbirth.”

  “What?” the king yelled.

  The healer shifted nervously, looking from side to side. “I’m sorry if this upsets you, sire. I only thought you should be prepared for the worst.”

  “You only thought?” Drygo fumed. “Well maybe you should do less thinking and more healing.”

  “What’s going on?” Callum said as he ran up. “I heard shouting. I—” He saw the king running his hands through his dark brown hair. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’ll be on my way,” Alijah said. “There’s little more I can do, I specialize in herbs, not pregnancy, just… keep an eye on her situation?” The healer bowed, and took his leave.

  “What was that about?” Callum asked again.

  Drygo told him what Alijah had said moments earlier.

  “Surely he exaggerates?” Callum asked.

  “You heard him, did you not?” Drygo asked Ocken.

  “Yes, sire,” Ocken replied. Then to Callum he said, “It is as the king said.”

  “The old fool,” the king muttered.

  Callum said, “Perhaps he does not expect her to die, but he—”

  “Then why say anything in the first place?” the king countered.

  “Well, place yourself in his position. You are responsible for the queen’s health and safety. Should the queen die, by no fault of your own, who do you think would be held responsible?” the grand marshal asked. “I believe he’s just trying to save his own skin in case the worst should happen.”

  Drygo pondered Callum’s explanation for a moment. It sounded reasonable enough to Ocken.

  “And if the worst should happen?” the king asked, now pacing up and down the hallway.

  Callum replied, “It is the nature of things, I—”

  “That’s unacceptable. I can’t lose her,” Drygo said. “Surely there must be a way to heal her. Anything. Something we haven’t thought of. Something we haven’t tried.”

  An idea came to Ocken, but he didn’t wish to voice it. He had been written off for raising his people’s superstitious beliefs in the past.

  “If there is, surely Alijah would have tried it,” Callum said. “What?”

  Ocken hadn’t noticed the question was directed at him. The king stopped his pacing and came to halt in front of Ocken. His expression must have given him away.

  “What do you know?” the king asked.

  “Know about what, sire?” Ocken replied.

  “About the weather,” Drygo said, impatient. “What have we been talking about the last ten minutes? About Evangeline! I mentioned finding a way to heal my wife and your face lit up like a longboat ablaze in the night.”

  “I—I do not wish to say,” Ocken said, nervous jitters running up and down his spine. A bead of swe
at ran down his brow.

  “You do not wish?” the king mocked. “I order you to tell me what you know.”

  Ocken closed his eyes and sighed. This was it. Surely the king would dismiss him from the guard for his outlandish beliefs. “You’re familiar with the gods of Aralith?”

  “Of course, who isn’t?” Drygo snapped.

  “Sire—” Callum started, but Drygo held up his hand, silencing the grand marshal.

  “I apologize,” the king said to Ocken. “Go on.”

  “There are ten gods, but there used to be twelve,” Ocken explained.

  “Yes, I know this,” Drygo said. “Our temples still hold two places for the lost gods, though their candles are extinguished and their shrines darkened.”

  “Well… do you know why that is? What happened to them?” Ocken asked.

  “Of course, every child knows this. Qirrut and Daldre, were elvish gods,” the king said. “When we drove off the elves at the end of the Great War a thousand years ago, we removed their gods from our places of worship.”

  “Well, my people, the Khur, have a different belief,” Ocken told them. “We call this “Great War” the War of the Gods. We don’t believe it was man against elf, but rather god against god.”

  “Your basis for this belief?” Drygo asked.

  “Are not Lotess, Erintos, and Ophi elves as well? Yet they still remain in our temples,” Ocken said.

  Drygo frowned. Callum pursed his lips.

  “What does this have to do with my wife?” the king asked.

  “There is a legend among my people, passed down from generation to generation, that claims the gods, in order to prevent another catastrophe, relinquished their powers and locked them away into stones. They then hid these stones, believing no one should possess such power.”

  “Again. I fail to see how any of this relates to Evangeline,” Drygo said.

  “Patience, sire,” Callum said. “Please, continue.”