by Morgan Rice
He could see a golden armored warrior approaching now. Henry knew that when the man got here it would be over. He’d seen them fight, and they didn’t rely just on speed and strength. Wounded as he was, he couldn’t hope to survive, even if this wound didn’t kill him first.
Was he close enough to throw the spear? Henry hefted it, trying to judge the weight. He’d been planning to administer justice at close range, but perhaps a sudden bolt thrown from the blue would be enough. He drew the spear back, concentrating on the figures standing out there in front of him, the traitor queen was there… but so was the Master of Crows. Which counted for more, vengeance, or the chance to rid the world of an evil like that?
Henry made his choice and threw.
The spear sang through the air, arcing like something out of legend. It was, Henry thought as he collapsed to his knees, a throw worthy of Thom Witchbane himself. He tumbled forward, but he was still able to see the moment when it struck the Master of Crows, plunging through his flesh and sticking.
“I’m sorry, Imogen,” Henry whispered as the darkness started to close in on him. The last thing he saw before death claimed him was crows falling from the sky.
CHAPTER FORTY
Lucas saw the crows start to fall, and he leapt at the Master of Crows. In spite of the spear sticking out of him, the other man was still fast, twisting aside from the blow, so that Lucas struck the haft of the spear and sheared it in half.
He struck back and Lucas had to dodge in turn, parrying low and high to prevent the Master of Crows from killing him. They circled one another, blades probing, seeking an opening.
“You think that this will weaken me enough for you to kill me?” the Master of Crows demanded, with a jerk at the spear. “It might cut me off from more death for a while, but after all the power I’ve absorbed, I can still kill you. I’ll feast on all of your corpses.”
His blade flickered out, forcing Lucas to parry again and again. Lucas cut back, scoring a line of blood on the Master of Crows’ flesh, but the price for it was a wound of his own, as his opponent’s shorter blade caught him just above the hip.
“I’ll kill you a piece at a time,” the Master of Crows said, the wound on his arm closing. Lucas tried to take comfort from the thought that it must have cost him power to do, but even so, it was a reminder of just how much power his opponent still had. He couldn’t hope to beat him alone.
Then it’s a good job that you aren’t alone, brother, Kate sent. She was there then, circling the Master of Crows in the opposite direction to Lucas. She landed a cut at his ankle, and when he spun to parry, Lucas was able to sneak a cut past the other man’s guard. The Master of Crows struck back at him, forcing Lucas to parry, and Kate sent a blisteringly fast cut towards his shoulders.
They struck again and again, working from both sides, striking out the way a wolf pack would, each of them driving the Master of Crows towards the other, each striking while he turned his attention to parrying attacks from one direction or the other.
He was still a deadly opponent; the sheer amount of experience he had in war made that inevitable. Lucas saw Kate cut by a thrust of their opponent’s dueling blade, and Lucas winced as the same sword cut along his arm. The Master of Crows feinted towards him and then kicked back towards Kate, catching her in the stomach. Lucas returned the blow, buckling the other man’s leg.
“You can’t wear me down,” the Master of Crows said. “You can’t hope to outlast me.”
He’s trying to force us to do something desperate, Lucas sent to Kate.
Then let’s do something desperate, she sent back.
She leapt for the Master of Crows, sending a barrage of cuts his way. Lucas saw her drop her sword as her opponent lifted his blades to defend, grabbing his wrists instead of trying to cut him, holding him in place.
Lucas seized his chance, plunging the spirit blade home in the Master of Crows’ chest. The New Army’s leader swayed in place, then collapsed to his knees.
“This won’t stop me,” he wheezed, the breath bubbling in him. “I have the power to hold this. I can survive this. I can survive anything that you can do.
Right then, Lucas suspected that he might have a point. He’d just dealt the Master of Crows what should have been a fatal blow, but the man was still there, still breathing, still dangerous.
Sophia stepped forward.
“You took my daughter from me, and my kingdom,” she said. “You almost took away the man I loved and my family. Let’s see exactly what you can survive.”
***
Sophia reached out to the power around Monthys, feeling the threads of power that sat there, and the web of magic that was woven into the very fabric of the place. She could feel the way that elements of it connected together with the power of the stones she and her siblings held, as well as the ones that sat in the main house. She felt fire and shadow, ice and earth and spirit, all interlinked, all feeding through networks of magic that channeled power the way a canal might guide water.
Part of Monthys had been designed for this moment; Sophia was sure of that. It fit together too perfectly, it focused on this spot too well. She shouldn’t have been surprised by that, when her family had been able to see so much of the future. Sophia had the feeling of destiny closing in around her, of this being a moment that all of her siblings had been working towards. This needed all of them here and now.
When the Dowager had tried to kill them and destroy the house, she hadn’t just been targeting her family, Sophia realized, she’d been trying to destroy the magic underpinning them. She’d been trying to avert a moment in the future.
They were still here though, and now Sophia knew what she needed to do.
Join with me, she sent to her siblings, and they gave her their hands, Kate’s in her right hand and Lucas’ in her left. Sophia could see how the mechanism of her family’s estate worked now, and as the others lent their power, Sophia sent it through the workings, along channels designed to guide it for exactly this. Sophia sent power circling around the Master of Crows, wrapping around him like a web, or a cage made from insubstantial strands of the elements.
“You are a thing that can’t be reasoned with,” Sophia said. “If we let you go, you would come back. If we tried for a truce, you would only bring more death. More importantly than that, much more importantly, you killed my daughter.”
“She isn’t dead,” Sebastian said, rising to stand beside Sophia, her healing holding him up. “Sophia, she isn’t dead.”
“I saw her power die,” Sophia said. “I was looking for her, and he was chasing her, and…”
“That was me,” Emeline said. “I was luring him away.”
“So she’s safe?” Relief almost made Sophia let go of the power she was holding. “Sebastian, is our daughter safe?”
Sebastian shook his head. “It isn’t that simple. There are people who… they’ve taken her, Sophia.”
Sophia let out a cry and squeezed her hands tight onto her siblings’. The power she held in the workings of Monthys contracted like a vise, the elements the stones channeled pouring into one tiny spot, filling the Master of Crows to bursting and beyond.
He vanished in a spray of dust, reduced to less than ash.
In the wake of it, Sophia fell to her knees, feeling hollowed out, and not just by the magic. It was Sebastian who lifted her to her feet, although he seemed to be leaning on her as much as she leant on him.
“Is it over?” Sophia asked him. “Please tell me that it’s over.”
“Look for yourself,” Sebastian said, gesturing to the battle. To what had been the battle. Now, the last of the fighting seemed to be fading away, men who had been trying to kill one another moments before staring at her, at her siblings, and at the space where the Master of Crows had been. Black feathers fell from the sky like rain, and Sophia stood there, letting them fall around her before she turned to Sebastian and kissed him.
“It’s done,” she agreed. “Except for one thing: we still ha
ve to find our daughter.”
CHAPTER FORTY ONE
They searched for her the way only a king and queen could search for her. They sent out messengers, posted rewards, and splintered the army in a thousand different directions to look for her. In that moment, it didn’t matter that the remnants of the New Army and the nobles had fought against them in the last battle. All that mattered was that they were willing to try to find Violet.
That shared search seemed to do more to bring the kingdom back together than a thousand speeches could have done, a hundred attempts at rebuilding. Still, it seemed like too little to find her daughter. Sophia paced the halls of Monthys, hands balled into fists, unwilling to let go of the tension that filled her until this was done and she had her baby back.
“We will find her,” Lucas assured her. “I am searching with magic, and so is everyone with the power to look. Kate is charging high and low, trying to locate where they might have taken her.”
“But who are they?” Sophia demanded. “We don’t even know that much. People who vanish into rags when you kill them? Hooded people who talk about destiny and know just where to strike to take my daughter? How can they be that powerful, and we don’t even know who they are?”
“Because they’re that powerful,” Kate said, coming into the room. “There’s a way to find them though. They obviously deal in secrets, so the shadow stone will know.”
“Kate, it’s too dangerous,” Sophia said.
Kate shook her head. “No, it’s not dangerous enough, not to make up for half of the things that I’ve done. And for Violet, any risk is worth it. I think… I think that here, with Monthys’ guards around it, then it should be possible.”
Sophia wanted to tell her sister that she shouldn’t risk it, but Kate was right: for Violet, it was worth it.
Kate took out the shadow stone, fitting it into a spot on the wall that seemed designed for it and placing her hand over it.
“Hooded men,” she murmured. “Bright boats. A child. Come on, you piece of rock. You owe me for what you made me do.”
Sophia could see the battle between her sister and the stone, and she reached out to put a hand on Kate’s shoulder, seeing her expression ease as she did it. Lucas did the same. Maybe that was why, when the shadows flickered, all three of them saw the boat.
The figures on it looked strange, as if their flesh was a kind of mask, worn badly. Sophia didn’t care about that though. She only cared about the tiny figure there on the deck with them, held in one of their arms as they sailed down river.
“Violet!” Sophia cried out, and in an instant, the scene shifted from a shadowed thing to something real. She, Kate and Lucas were truly standing on the boat’s deck, truly there where her daughter was…
…truly surrounded by foes.
Kate and Lucas’ blades sprang from their sheathes as they sprang forward. The hooded men and women were fast and strong, but Sophia’s siblings were even more dangerous. They cut into them like farmers claiming the harvest.
For her part, Sophia struck out with magic. She clamped down on the minds of the kidnappers, holding them in place. She lashed out with fire from the stone she’d claimed, burning them to ash. Her kingdom rose in response to her mood, filling the sky with lightning that lashed down to strike more of them.
“Give me back my daughter!” Sophia yelled.
One of them stood by the edge of the boat, Violet held in her hands as if she might jump with her into the water. Sophia couldn’t strike at her then, not without sending them both tumbling into the river.
“Christina has a destiny!” the woman called out. “You cannot stop it. No one can stop-”
She fell silent, and for a moment, Sophia didn’t understand what was happening. Then she saw the tip of the blade sticking out of the woman’s chest, and saw Kate, stepping out of her shadow, just in time to catch the princess as the woman vanished, leaving only the cloak she wore.
“Her name is Violet,” Kate said, taking Sophia’s daughter.
She carried her over to Sophia, and Sophia looked around to find that the boat was empty and drifting. She, Kate and Lucas had cleared it of their foes, leaving only empty cloaks littering the decks.
“Who were they?” Sophia said.
“I don’t know,” Kate admitted, “but that’s not the important part. The important part is that Violet is safe.”
Suddenly, a cackle rose in the air. Sophia looked everywhere for the source, but could find none.
“We will come back for her,” sounded an unearthly voice. “One day, we shall come back.”
And just as quickly, the cackle faded.
Sophia exchanged a horrified glance with the others, wondering what was true.
Kate handed Violet back to Sophia, and Sophia realized the important part lay in her arms. Whatever future these people had in mind for her daughter, here, now, they couldn’t inflict it on her. Violet was safe.
Sophia held her baby in her arms, and a warmth spread through her that she could never have imagined was possible.
She wept with joy as she stared into Violet’s eyes.
It was over.
Finally, it was over.
CHAPTER FORTY TWO
Sophia stood on one of Monthys balconies, looking out over the sea of people below her with something close to disbelief. There were so many here to hear her, so many people who were slowly rebuilding their lives after the war.
Around Monthys, she could see more literal rebuilding, as houses had started to spring up like mushrooms, built by ready hands. No one, it seemed, wanted to go back to Ashton after all that had happened there. Sophia was happy enough with that. Let it become the kingdom’s second city. Let the Assembly and the people come here. It would be a good place from which to rule.
“Are you ready?” Sebastian asked, stepping onto the balcony with Violet in his arms. He looked as perfect then as he had on the first day Sophia had seen him, back at the Dowager’s ball.
Sophia took Violet from him. “I am now.”
She looked out, seeing people there she knew and people she didn’t, people who must have come over with the New Army, and others who had been displaced by the war. She spoke to all of them.
“We have all been through so much in recent times,” she said. “We have suffered war, and we have suffered hatred. I will say this: it is over now. We will rebuild our lives. We will rebuild them, not the way they were, but in a better way, a more just and beautiful way.”
She looked to the people there, making a silent promise that she would rule in a way that listened to them, and that worked for all of them.
“I’ve learned a lot in the last few months. I’ve learned about who I am. I’ve learned to use magic that I had never thought possible.” She looked down to Violet, and then over to Sebastian. “And I’ve learned that none of it, none of it, is as important as the love we can find. We will rebuild this kingdom based on that love, and it will be better for it.”
She kissed Sebastian then, because she could, and because of all the times that she had almost lost him. They held Violet between them while the crowd cheered, and even though Sophia knew there would be more to do soon, more problems to deal with in ruling a kingdom, in that moment, everything seemed perfect.
It wasn’t just enough.
It was all that she had ever wanted.
COMING SOON!
ONLY THE WORTHY
(The Way of Steel—Book One)
“Morgan Rice did it again! Building a strong set of characters, the author delivers another magical world. ONLY THE WORTHY is filled with intrigue, betrayals, unexpected friendship and all the good ingredients that will make you savor every turn of the pages. Packed with action, you will read this book on the edge of your seat.”
--Books and Movie Reviews, Roberto Mattos
From Morgan Rice, #1 Bestselling author of THE SORCERER’S RING, comes a riveting new fantasy series.
ONLY THE WORTHY (The Way of Steel—Book 1) tells the epic
coming of age story of Royce, 17, a peasant farmer who senses he is different, that powers reside within him beyond what he can understand. When his true love, Genevieve, 17, is stolen from him, he must risk it all to wage war with the nobles and save his love.
Banished from his homeland, sentenced to the infamous Red Isle—a barren island known for turning boys into warriors, and for leaving behind more dead than alive—Royce must hope to survive.
Genevieve, meanwhile, desperate for Royce’s return, is forced to inhabit the cruel and conniving world of aristocracy, immersed in a world of cutthroats and liars.
As Royce’s powers develop, and as he learns of his secret lineage, he can only wonder: is he the destined one?
ONLY THE WORTHY weaves an epic tale of friends and lovers, of knights and honor, of betrayal, destiny and love. A tale of valor, it draws us into a fantasy world we will fall in love with, and appeals to all ages and genders.
Book #2 and #3 in the series will also be available soon!
ONLY THE WORTHY
(The Way of Steel—Book One)
Did you know that I've written multiple series? If you haven't read all my series, click the image below to download a series starter!
Books by Morgan Rice
OLIVER BLUE AND THE SCHOOL FOR SEERS
THE MAGIC FACTORY (Book #1)
THE ORB OF KANDRA (Book #2)
THE OBSIDIANS (Book #3)
THE INVASION CHRONICLES
TRANSMISSION (Book #1)
ARRIVAL (Book #2)
ASCENT (Book #3)
RETURN (Book #4)
THE WAY OF STEEL
ONLY THE WORTHY (Book #1)
