Heritage: Book One of the Gairden Chronicles

by David L. Craddock

  Heritage: Book 1 of the Gairden Chronicles

  Published by Tyche Books Ltd.

  www.TycheBooks.com

  Copyright © 2014 David L. Craddock

  First Tyche Books Ltd Edition 2014

  Print ISBN: 978-1-928025-01-6

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-928025-04-7

  Cover Art by Lili Ibrahim

  Cover Layout by Lucia Starkey

  Interior Layout by Skyla Dawn Cameron

  Editorial by M. L. D. Curelas

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage & retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright holder, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third party websites or their content.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this story are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Any resemblance to persons living or dead would be really cool, but is purely coincidental.

  For Margaret Curelas, editor and friend.

  For Mom and Dad.

  Last but never least, for Amie Christine.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Glossary

  Author’s Notes

  Author Biography

  Chapter 1

  The Great Day

  AIDAN GAIRDEN OPENED HIS eyes to see the first rays of the Lady’s light creeping through the thick layer of frost over his bay window. He rolled over and nuzzled his pillow, granting himself a royal decree to spend the day burrowed beneath his blankets. His eyelids grew heavy. Just before they closed he caught a glimpse of the day’s outfit laid out for him on the table across the room. His eyes snapped open.

  No royal decree could save him. Today was the great day.

  Aidan groaned and threw his bedding over his head. The great day, he thought with more than a hint of sourness. That was what his mother and everyone else in Sunfall called it, and in the most aggravatingly cheery tones. As if reciting it in tones as sweet as birdsong would make him believe it.

  A knock sounded at his door. Aidan peeked out from his covers. Maybe whoever it was—his mother, probably—would take pity on him and let him sleep a few minutes longer. Then the door opened and a troop of attendants bustled in.

  “Happy sixteenth birthday, Prince Aidan,” they said in perfect unison. Aidan gave one last groan that rivaled the most enthusiastic of his mother’s great days. Then they swarmed him, yanking off his bedcovers and hoisting him to his feet. He gasped, shocked at the cold of the stone floor. The attendants gave him no time to recover. One propped his arms out to either side while another slipped on the white shirt his mother had set out and began doing up the buttons. Others smoothed out wrinkles and straightened his collar.

  “I still—” Aidan began, but cut off with a yelp when their pack leader, a bald man of medium height, stood on tiptoe and ran a comb through his curly brown hair.

  “Need to trim that,” he muttered, combing none too gently.

  Aidan shook free and flapped his hands at the lot of them. “I still know how to dress myself!”

  “Still?” one of the women murmured. Two of the other girls broke into a fit of giggling.

  Aidan glowered. “That will be all.”

  “Very well, Prince Aidan,” the bald man—Gilton; that was his name—said, bowing low. “When can we tell your mother you’ll be ready? Ten minutes? Perhaps five?”

  “Fifteen. Perhaps twenty.”

  Aidan waited until they left, then finished buttoning his shirt and crossed to the dresser to scrutinize the day’s other garments. White pants, white boots, and a cape. A cape. He rolled his eyes. At least it was white, too. He could blend in with the snow and sneak away.

  He finished dressing and cracked open his door. Sounds of chatter made their way up from the corridor to the left, the one that led into the heart of the palace. Aidan went right. His footsteps echoed through Sunfall’s empty corridors, galleries, and parlors. Gray light lit the tall, frosted windows that ran the length of each corridor as he wound his way along. He drank in the quiet. It was likely the last stretch of solitude he would ever enjoy.

  Aidan rounded one last turn and saw Helda, his mother’s head cook, standing in the doorway to the kitchen, hands on her hips and a wooden spoon tapping against a leg as thick as a ham. Filling the doorway was more like it. Helda always said that one didn’t become head cook in the royal kitchens by skipping meals.

  “Up with the Lady, I see,” Helda boomed, spotting him. “Never thought I’d see the day.”

  Before Aidan could reply she put hands as large as dinner plates on his shoulders and steered him into the kitchen. All around him, cooks clattered pots and pans, stoked roaring fires, and carried trays containing freshly baked bread, steaming platters of meat, and desserts. Aidan absently reached for a cookie. Helda rapped his fingers with her spoon just as absently and steered him on. She planted him at a small table in the corner where a jug of juice and a plate of poached eggs, fried potatoes, and three strips of bacon crispy as a twig sat waiting.

  Aidan brightened. Helda never forgot his favorite meal and had made it every year on his birthday. He used one of his bacon strips as a shovel to break ground in his yolk, spilling golden goop over the pile of potatoes. Feeling quite like an artist, he dipped his bacon into the egg and painted streaks over his potatoes while Helda fussed at his hair and straightened his collar.

  “Your mother says to swallow without chewing and make your way to the south gate,” Helda said, stepping back to admire her handiwork.

  Grumbling, Aidan began shoveling his last meal down his gullet.

  Her fists returned to her hips as she came around to face him. Aidan wondered if she had been born that way.

  “Won’t you be needing a coat? You’ll catch your death out there. Wouldn’t want your guests to remember the great day that way, would you?”

  Aidan chewed on the idea while his mouth chewed on a greasy strip of bacon. Dropping dead from the sniffles wasn’t exactly a demise worthy of the heroes from the stories, but it would be memorable.

  “You’ll fetch a coat, then?”

  He shook his head and waved a stick of bacon in an elaborate gesture.

  Helda harrumphed. “No coat warmer than the Lady’s light, I guess.”

  Aidan munched leisurely until Helda began tapping her foot. He to
ok the hint, slurping up the last of his eggs and chasing them with swigs of juice.

  “Your mother says to use the east path down to the city,” Helda called after him as he hustled to the door. “People are already gathering in the south courtyard. Tyrnen will meet you outside in... Well, at this rate, he’s probably there now.”

  Aidan turned on his heel and slipped down a side hallway that deposited him in the east hall. Tall arched windows frosted over with ice ran down either wall, stamping the floor with light. Below each one, Wardsmen in white mail stood straight and still, backs against the wall and a spear standing point-up in one hand. They moved their eyes, caught sight of the prince, and relaxed, breaking their statue-like postures.

  “Are you ready, Prince Aidan?” one called. His name was Thomas, Aidan recalled. He was only a few years older than the prince.

  Aidan pasted on a grin. “Do I have a choice?”

  The Wardsmen shared nods of understanding. They knew what it was to lead lives of duty. The two stationed at the door that opened onto the courtyard gripped either handle. “Leaving this way?” one asked. Through them, Aidan could hear muffled laughter and shouts. Flutters in his stomach churned his breakfast like a plunger churned butter.

  It’s happening. This is really happening.

  “I’m to take the east trail,” Aidan said, stretching his grin as far as it could go and gesturing at the door. “The women are already lined up out that way. Can’t have them getting a look too early, now can we?”

  The younger Wardsmen crowed and banged the butt of their spears on the floor while the older ones chuckled and shook their heads.

  Aidan headed down another side passage and entered the east courtyard. Walking paths and stone benches hibernated beneath a blanket of white; a curtain of snow as thick as fog stitched new layers over top it. Over the icy walls, the babble of the gathered assemblage doubled in volume. This time Aidan ignored it. The cold was a bigger concern. Forcing himself to relax, he let a sliver of daylight flow into his skin while he whispered a prayer to the Lady of Dawn, spoken in the Language of Light, from between chattering teeth.

  Kindling, men called the process. Men who wrote stuffy textbooks that were even older than Tyrnen. Aidan preferred to think of it as playing with fire, but his grumpy old teacher discouraged the term. As his lips closed over the last word of the prayer, warmth settled over him like Darinian fur. He crossed the courtyard to the wrought iron gate at the far end. Snow peeled away and ice melted to watery trails as he went.

  He took his time picking his way down the twisty, rocky path from Sunfall’s mountaintop perch to Calewind’s backstreets. The tumult rose with every step. People had gathered in the city, too; he could see them below, a shifting mass of heads, furs, ribbons, and banners flapping in the wind. His feet grew heavier. He had to drag himself up to the gate that opened into the city. The four Wardsmen standing guard clapped him on the shoulder in greeting. Two of them broke away and walked him along the predetermined route through empty side streets. Bodies clogged the alleyways that fed into Calewind’s main thoroughfare. Wardsmen stood at each opening like dams built from steel and flesh.

  At last he reached the south wall and banged his fist on the door to the guard tower. The door opened and a Wardsman waved him in. Another hurried to unlock the far door while the others crowded around Aidan, talking idly of the turnout for the great day and holding up their hands to him as if he were a hearth. Then the door swung open, the Wardsmen wished him luck, he stepped out, and the door clicked shut behind him.

  The heat bubble surrounding him cut a path through the ankle-deep snow as he walked a mile outside the city, toward the white expanse of rolling hills and skeletal woods. All at once a great roar rose up from Calewind’s four walls. Aidan paced back and forth, now quite positive his heart would break free from his chest at any moment and go tearing across the hills.

  Aidan would have watched its flight with the utmost envy.

  Unbidden, his gaze rose up from Calewind’s high walls to where Sunfall sat on the lowest peak of the Ihlkin range. From here, the palace was a gleaming mass of spires, arched bridges, and stained-glass windows.

  He resumed pacing. He didn’t have to go back. A few prayers, a little light, and he could be on Leaston’s sandy coasts, or hiking along one of Darinia’s mountain ranges. He would come back to visit, of course. His mother and father would miss him dearly. He would explain his reasons to them later. Right now he needed to get moving. If he left now, he—

  Aidan felt his skin grow warm. He looked around, alert. Someone had kindled, or was in the process of kindling. A wave of snow slapped against his cape and pants. Aidan spun—and immediately felt his shoulders loosen. Moments ago, the north had been an unbroken quilt of white. Now an old man in fine blue robes and a long, white beard stood behind him. Together, they gazed out at Calewind’s high walls.

  “You can’t run, you know,” the old man said pleasantly, coming up beside the prince. Aidan’s skin warmed as the old man kindled again. Heat radiated from him, drying the patches of snow clinging to his clothes and the braids dangling from his long white beard and peeling a hole in the snowy quilt beneath his feet.

  “Do you read minds, too, Tyrnen?” Aidan said. His heat bubble had already dried the patches of wetness on his back and legs that Tyrnen’s sudden appearance had kicked up.

  Tyrnen’s bushy brow rose. “I’ve spent the last thirteen years watching you stare daydreaming out of windows. I don’t need to read your mind to know what you’re thinking.” He paused. “Although I do dabble in telepathy from time to time.”

  Curious, Aidan forgot all about the terrible fate about to be thrust upon him. “Could you teach me?”

  “It involves reading. You wouldn’t be interested.”

  “What a hurtful thing to say,” Aidan said, pouting. “You’re my oldest friend, Tyrnen.”

  “Really?” Tyrnen said, sounding touched.

  “Yes. You are so old.”

  The old man scowled and opened his mouth to deliver a scathing riposte. Another cheer rose up from Calewind. Aidan’s anxiousness came flooding back.

  “Is it time?” he asked.

  Tyrnen consulted the Lady’s position, squinting up through the falling snow. “Hard to say with all this cloud cover.” He eyed Aidan. “I suspect we can wait a few minutes longer.”

  Aidan shifted his weight from foot to foot, fidgeting with his cape.

  “Stop fussing,” Tyrnen said.

  Aidan sighed and let his arms dangle. No one can tell me to stop fussing once I’m on that rock of a chair. Why can’t we just get this over with? I— He noticed Tyrnen picking at his robes and muttering a string of curses under his breath.

  “Stop fussing,” Aidan said, and laughed when Tyrnen glared at him.

  The old man flailed around before gathering his composure with an effort and folding his arms behind him. “I’m practically swimming in this... this tarp your mother asked me to wear.”

  Aidan’s laughter caught in his throat at the sound of bells clanging from inside the city. The cheers amplified, swelling over the walls. Calewind’s southern gate split down the center; both halves swung slowly inward, revealing roads bordered by throngs of onlookers.

  Tyrnen placed a gnarled hand on Aidan’s shoulder. “Let’s get this over with. Then, after things quiet down, we’ll see about your first telepathy lesson. How would that be?”

  Aidan felt some of his tension trickle away like the snow at his feet. “Really? Tonight?”

  “I was thinking tomorrow morning, but, yes, all right. If you don’t mind keeping an old man up far past his bedtime.”

  “I don’t. Why am I only hearing about this now?”

  “It’s not a skill I use often, although I’ve been known to pluck out a thought from time to time,” Tyrnen said airily. “Not from your head, of course.” He smiled and gave Aidan’s shoulder a squeeze. “Are you ready, boy?”

  “Of course,” Aidan lied.

&nb
sp; Tyrnen took a step forward, then sighed. “I had almost forgotten. The fountain in the square, correct?”

  Aidan broke into a sly smile. He had forgotten about his plan for this part of the ceremony: a harmless little display he had concocted all on his own.

  “Correct. Race you there?”

  “Very well,” Tyrnen said. “On your mark.”

  “One, two, thr—”

  Tyrnen kindled and vanished, kicking up another flurry of snow.

  “Cheater,” Aidan muttered. Then he let his body relax, opening himself to the Lady’s light. Not that there was much for the taking. A few faint rays seeped through the gray clouds overhead. The paltry warmth bled through his skin like water soaking through a sponge. As quickly as he’d opened himself up, Aidan closed himself off, no longer a sponge but a rock that rejected water that lapped against it.

  The scant amount of heat he’d drawn ran through him like hot cider racing down his throat to warm his belly. For almost any other Touched, shifting was much more complex than forming a heat bubble. Aidan had only taken in a dewdrop’s worth of heat, but he had never needed much. He pictured the ornate fountain in the center of the Calewind, directing his will at it. Then he closed his eyes, spoke a prayer to the Lady of Dawn in the Language of Light, and the dewdrop propelled him forward.

  The shifting was over and done in an instant. One moment he was a mile outside Calewind. The next, the roar of shouts and cheers crashed into him, as if he’d been listening to a conversation from outside a closed door that had been thrown open. He stepped down from the fountain’s rim, gawking. People were everywhere; leaning from windows, packed into alleyways, pointing down at him from rooftops. Wardsmen, red-faced from the effort of holding back the tides that surged forward at the sight of him.

  He looked around the fountain and saw Tyrnen moving toward him, wincing against the deafening roar. Cringing himself, he kindled again, feeling the Lady’s light warm him as his prayer was swept away in the commotion. A soft touch like fingers in silk gloves settled into his ears. All at once the whistles, shouts, and screams cut off, leaving him in blissful silence. The people still strained for him, their mouths opening and closing without sound.