The Chronicles of Lorrek Box Set

by Kelly Blanchard

  2

  When Vixen and Lorrek emerged from the room, Radella turned to face them. She noticed Vixen’s new black vest and acknowledged it with a nod but then shifted her gaze to their faces. “Do you recall Princess Mordora?” She raised her brows.

  Both Lorrek and Vixen nodded, and Lorrek answered, “Princess of Nirrorm. I briefly trained her and her brother to use magic before Countess Verddra overthrew Nirrorm. I helped them escape, but that is the last I saw of them.” He frowned. “Why? What of them?”

  “Her brother, Moren, is currently the king of Nirrorm while your mother is acting as his regent until he is of age.” Radella locked eyes with Lorrek. “Mordora is the rightful heir of Nirrorm, but she vanished after the Battle of Cuskelom. That is why Moren currently rules. Now though, you remember Skelton and Adonis?”

  “Magical brothers we met in Jechorm,” Vixen answered, and she had to smirk. The last time she encountered them, it was a good fight.

  Radella nodded. “Aye. Well, apparently Skelton took a liking to Princess Mordora, and he has made it his mission to track her down and return her home. Of course, where one brother goes, the other follows. However, it appears Mordora had been under the tutorage of King Roskelem prior to him losing his power because when Skelton and Adonis encountered her, she turned Adonis into stone.”

  Upon hearing this, Vixen frowned. The brothers were loyal to one another and very close. Skelton was reckless whereas Adonis was responsible and always pulling his little brother out of trouble. For Skelton to lose his brother in this matter only deepened the pain, and Vixen wasn’t sure how stable he would be. However, she drew herself out of her thoughts and listened as Radella went on.

  “Afterwards, Skelton came to me, seeking my help. I was unable to reverse the spell which turned his brother into stone, so we resumed hunting down Mordora. However, it seems she stumbled upon an artifact which has given her much power.”

  Lorrek narrowed his eyes when he heard this. “What artifact?”

  “This one.” Radella gestured with her hand, conjuring an image in the air of a bracelet with runes on it.

  Lorrek walked around the image, inspecting it. It was bronze and had etchings on it almost like runes, but unlike any Lorrek had encountered. In those runes were thin threads of light almost like something digital. “I have never seen this before. These runes are different from the ones on the handblades, and it almost looks like some kind of technology is woven inside. Jechorm’s handiwork?” He furrowed his brows as he looked back at Radella.

  She shook her head. “Nay. If the magic dating is right, it is over a thousand years old. Jechorm’s technology was much more rudimentary when this was forged.”

  “What does it do?” Vixen asked as she crossed her arms.

  She shrugged and motioned the image away. “It protects Mordora with more power than even I can combat. Neither Skelton nor I were able to get remotely close to her, and it seems the more powerful the individual who is trying to subdue Mordora, the stronger this strange magic is against them. Skelton was able to get closer to her than I, but not by much. Also, she is entirely irrational. She must be subdued before she causes harm to herself or anyone else.”

  Vixen turned to Lorrek with raised brows. “Well? What do you suggest?”

  Lorrek pressed his lips into a thin line as he contemplated this. His first instinct was to go back to Cuskelom to the library there and find what information they could on this bracelet, but he knew the contents of the library well. Nothing there mentioned this bracelet. Only one other place had an extensive library of knowledge gathered throughout the ages, so he looked at the two women before him. “We go to Athorim. Perhaps they will have answers.” He offered Vixen his hand and Radella his other hand. They took his hands, and he magicked them from Elloi to Athorim.

  After appearing just outside black walls of the capitol of Athorim, the three ventured in at a brisk pace. Heads turned at the sight of two black-haired magic users marching through the streets straight for the palace, and they were also curious to see a non-magic user with them. Athorim was home for pure magic, and the sign of a pure magic user was blond, almost white, hair. Tainted magic users had black hair. While almost all the Athorians also used tainted magic, they wore glamour spells to keep up the appearance of using only pure magic, so seeing any obviously tainted magic user march through their streets was always an unusual sight.

  While Athorim was a place of refuge for many, most refugees entered the city bewildered, exhausted, and uncertain—not confident like these visitors.

  Lorrek paid them no heed as he walked on ahead. His mind revisited the last time he was in this capitol in the middle of the desert. He had just rescued Prince Moren of Nirrorm from Countess Verddra and brought him here to be protected and properly trained to use magic. Lorrek had not expected to see his mother there, but the reunion had been bittersweet and too brief before Lorrek had to leave on an errand for King Caleth which had sent him straight to Serhon.

  Forcing himself not to think of the dark consequences of that errand, Lorrek shook his head and spread out the senses of his magic to locate the king and his twin sister, Anelm. He found Caleth’s blinding magical presence in the library rather than the throne room, so he turned and headed that way with Radella and Vixen following him.

  As he approached to the doors of the room, the guards pulled the doors open, and Lorrek realized they were expected. He strolled right in. His gaze wandered up to the impressive height of the room and all its many bookcases which lined multiple narrow corridors. Books and scrolls filled the shelves, but in front of all the shelves were rows of tables, and at one table stood King Caleth beside two tainted magic users. Lorrek halted, pulled his shoulders back, and bowed his head in reverence to them. “Your Majesty.”

  “Prince Lorrek,” Caleth greeted him. “Lady Radella. Lady Vixen.”

  “Wait,” one of the tainted magic users interrupted, fastening his eyes on Vixen. “You’re Vixen? From House Rodden?”

  She frowned with confusion but nodded. “Aye. And you may be...?”

  “Jaegar of Ceraleo! I’m thrilled to see you are still alive!” He smiled widely, but when Vixen gave no sign of recognition, he explained, “My father is Adrik. He is close friends with your father, Sirros. Sometimes my father would visit Sernroth and bring me along, and you and I would play as children. You always beat me up though.”

  Vixen swiftly stepped up to Jaegar, unsheathing a blade from her vest as she did so, and she quickly placed it against his throat. Jaegar stiffened, and Vixen stared him directly in his eyes. “Do not mention Sernroth.” She stared at him until he understood his error. Sernroth was home to the Assassins, and no one outside of the Five Houses were supposed to even know its name or location. Vixen did know Adrik, who came from across the ocean, was a unique exception.

  Once Jaegar nodded with eyes wide, Vixen gave him a curt nod then stepped back, sheathing her knife. “And I vaguely remember you. What are you doing here in Athorim?”

  “Visiting my sister, Lailorea.” He motioned to the dark-haired woman beside him. “She lives here in Athorim, learning what she can from the Archives.”

  “As delightful as this reunion has been, we have important matters to address,” Lorrek cut in, fixing his gaze upon Caleth. “We’ve come because Radella has discovered an artifact, which is utterly unfamiliar to me and bears markings we have never seen before. We were hoping there might be an answer here in this library.” He spread out his hands, motioning to the numerous books and scrolls around them.

  Caleth nodded as he moved around the table to approach them. “Where is this artifact?” His eyes fixed on Radella.

  “We don’t have it with us.” She shook her head but then conjured the image of it in the air. “But this is what it looks like.”

  Caleth circled the image, making note of all its details. He frowned because it was something he felt he should recognize but couldn’t place it.

  Yet something about it struck Lai
lorea as familiar. She pressed her lips together, quickly turned on her heel, and marched to the bookshelves. Her fingertips skimmed the spines of books as her eyes took in the titles, searching for something.

  Jaegar and the others watched her curiously. “Sister? What have you found?”

  She didn’t answer right away but soon located a scroll and pulled it out, then she marched to the table at the front. Pushing aside the books she had been looking at, she unfurled the scroll and ran her fingertips over the ancient language until she came to runes matching those on the bracelet. She stared for a moment and then lifted her gaze to Radella. “Was someone wearing it when you saw it?”

  Radella nodded. “Yes. Princess Mordora.”

  When Lailorea let out a dreaded sigh, Vixen crossed her arms. “What’s so horrible?”

  “That is the bracelet of Rykeldan.”

  Caleth’s eyes widened when he heard this, but everyone else furrowed their brows in confusion.

  Only Vixen voiced the question on everyone’s mind. “And what is that?”

  Lailorea let out a patient sight and fixed her gaze on the assassin. “What do you know of the kelliphs?”

  Lorrek and Vixen shared a look with Radella, and Vixen had to shake her head as she answered, “I’ve been getting quite an education on them lately. They’re immortal—or something like that.”

  “They’re an extinct race once thought to be immortal, but the secret of their immortality lay in the borders of their land which gave them an extra life every year, leading them to have thousands of lives at a time,” Radella clarified. “They sought to extend their rule over both dragons and humans, yet they were cut back by the creation of the handblade, and all the kelliphs met their end.”

  “Not quite.” Caleth shook his head. With another sigh, he opened his eyes to look at those before him. “After their downfall, the remaining kelliphs were scattered across many worlds and different lands. Being outside of their land, they no longer gained an extra life with each year that passed, so they began to die off, and any new generation of kelliphs only had a single life. They began to breed with humans and other races because their race was diminishing, but this only served to weaken the kelliph race, and they began losing touch with their own sacred magic. However, some traits remained consistent—tall, pale skin, and ashen blond hair.”

  Everyone paused as the pieces fell into place, but Lorrek was the first to break the silence. “The kelliphs are the ancestors of Athorim.”

  Caleth nodded. “Yes.”

  Vixen wasn’t interested in all this talk about magic. She only wanted to know one thing. “What is this bracelet of Rykeldan?”

  “Rykeldan, yes…” Lailorea looked across to Caleth. She only knew what she knew from reading the scrolls, but he was more knowledgable than her.

  All eyes turned to Caleth as he paced while speaking. “Rykeldan was the king of the kelliphs who went mad. In the ancient kelliph culture, when a kelliph is born, a Dragon Prophecy is given which names the soulbound of that kelliph, and a kelliph can only ever have a single soulbound and must never love another. However, hundreds of years could pass before his soulbound is finally born, and many young kelliphs grow restless. They try to dismiss the Dragon Prophecy and seek out their own soulbound, but when they do this, slowly they begin to go mad. This is what happened to Rykeldan. He did not wait for his soulbound, Therina, and when he broke the Dragon Prophecy, even before they ever met, she knew what he had done, and she was not forgiving.”

  He shook his head as he continued speaking. “Therina decided to ignore the Dragon Prophecy and never join union with him. The Kelliph Court tried to persuade her to change her mind, but when she refused, they sent her away into exile. If it had been anyone else, he would have been dealt with, yet Rykeldan was king the kelliphs. He was supposed to have his soulbound, and he was determined to have her. He went out into the lands of the humans to find her and bring her back, yet he couldn’t find her. She hid among the humans too well, and the humans refused to surrender her. So Rykeldan lashed out, almost completely annihilating humankind off the face of that world, but the dragons intervened.”

  Vixen raised her hand, and Caleth looked at her, so she asked, “What are these dragons you keep mentioning?” She looked between Radella and Lorrek to determine if she was the only one clueless about that, but she saw confusion on their faces as well.

  “You must understand, this was the world of Nedra—not this world. And on that world there were three races—the humans, the kelliphs, and the dragons, but the dragons were also shapeshifters, whose preferred form was that of a human. Humans were the weakest of the three races, whereas it was extremely difficult to kill a dragon—but not impossible—and as we said, the kelliphs were thought to be immortal. The dragons only die by being killed, so there were many of them who were quite ancient, as old as many kelliphs, and the two races were always rivals.”

  “However,” Caleth resumed the narrative, “when Rykeldan set his mind to find Therina, and in doing so almost destroying all of humanity on that world, the humans somehow developed this bracelet.” He motioned to the image still in the air. “I know not how it came to be, but it is jealously guarded by the most dedicated of the Thymord Order.”

  “Thymord Order?” Jaegar spoke up, furrowing his brows. He lifted his hand to his chin in a thoughtful pose, as he was quite curious about this development in the tale.

  “The special human faction that helped defeat Rykeldan,” Lailorea explained, having seen mention of the thymords in the books of the Archives. “They chose very devoted men to guard this bracelet. It must never be worn by anyone.”

  “And if it is?” Lorrek broke his silence.

  Caleth sighed then lifted his shoulders in a slight shrug. “We know not what will happen. However…” His gaze fell down to the scroll, and he reviewed what was recorded there. “The runes on the bracelet indicate a very strong protection spell has been placed upon it.”

  Vixen cast Radella a look and then both of them looked at Lorrek. At least now they had a better understanding of the history of the bracelet, but this still did not offer them a way to take it from Mordora

  “Is this all the information you have about the bracelet?” Radella set her gaze upon Caleth and the other two.

  Caleth nodded. “That is all we know. It has been nothing more than a myth to us, so we never thought that we would encounter it.”

  Lorrek motioned to the scroll. “May I copy that?” When Caleth gave a nod and stepped aside, Lorrek moved forward and gestured over the scroll. He conjured another identical scroll out of nothing, and immediately the wording from the first scroll began to appear on the new one. Once this was completed, he rolled it up before pocketing it away in another dimension. “We never know when we might need the information. I thank you, King Caleth, for your time and for these answers. We should be going.”

  “Stay a little,” Caleth said, “and refresh yourself. You are our guests. I wish to do further research on this bracelet before you leave, and any information I find I will give to you—on one condition.”

  “And what might that be.” Vixen crossed her arms.

  Caleth smiled at her before looking at Lorrek. “If you find this bracelet, you are to bring it to me immediately. In the meanwhile, you are all my guests. You will rest and prepare yourselves for this journey and whatever it may bring. Lailorea, Jaegar, show our guests to their chambers.”

  Lailorea bowed to the king of Athorim then watched him leave. Once Caleth was gone, she turned to Lorrek and the others. “If you would follow me...”

  “One moment, sister.” Jaegar fastened his eyes on Lorrek and stepped up to him. “We met briefly before the coronation of your brother, King Heldon. Do you remember?”

  Lorrek narrowed his eyes, trying to determine if Jaegar was a threat or not, and he thought back to the few days before Heldon’s coronation. Lorrek nodded. “I was in the library of Cuskelom when you and your father entered the archives.”


  “Yes.” Jaegar nodded. “And you said you killed Vixen.”

  “I thought I had.”

  Jaegar stared at Lorrek and then gave a curt nod. “I will be accompanying you.”

  “What? Why?” Lailorea turned to them with a frown, surprised by her brother’s statement.

  He merely set his gaze upon Vixen. “Because Vixen is the daughter of a good friend of our father. After the coronation of King Heldon, Father and I visited Sirros and Nyvera to better understand what had happened. Your parents were very distraught, Vixen.” He nodded to her. “Have they seen you since your return?”

  Vixen glared at Jaegar. She got the feeling he was trying to position himself as her personal protector, and she didn’t need that. She was a trained assassin. However, his question caused her to pause for a moment, and she shook her head. “Haven’t had the time.”

  “Which is why I’m coming with you—to ensure that nothing happens between now and when you have the opportunity to meet with your parents.”

  “I don’t need a protector. I am more than capable of handling myself.”

  Jaegar smiled at her. “Perhaps, but I’m still coming with you.”

  Vixen growled and almost unsheathed another blade, but Lorrek stayed her hand. “Having another magic user with us may be useful,” he told her before fastening his gaze on Jaegar. “But you will do as I say and not get in our way.”

  “I will use my best judgment to determine if your commands are best for all of us.”

  Lorrek stared at Jaegar but then had to smile. He gave the man a nod out of respect. “Very well.” Then he looked at Lailorea. “Where will we be staying?”

  “This way.” Lailorea motioned for them to follow, but she gave her brother a firm look in passing. They were going to have a talk before anyone left Athorim.

  While the others followed Lailorea out, Radella lingered for a moment longer, taking in the sight of the library. One day she would come back and spend years here, reading and learning, but that would have to wait for another time.