by Leah Ross
CURSED: Legend of the Grimoire, Book One
by Leah Ross
Copyright 2015 Leah Ross
All Rights Reserved.
License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
To those who believed in me,
who helped me figure things out,
who took the time to read it all,
THANK YOU!
Table of Contents
Preface
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
About Leah Ross
Other Books by Leah Ross
Connect with Leah Ross
Preview of DESTINED
Preface
The world presented in this series is entirely of my own creation. Even though it is based on Earth and has many familiar Earth-like conventions, my beta readers impressed upon me the need to differentiate it from the Earth we know. I have made a concerted effort to do so. As such, there are terms that my characters fling around with which they are entirely familiar and which my Earth-based readers are, regrettably, not. Therefore, for those who would like a brief primer on how the Syndrayan world works, I provide it here. If you’d rather just jump in and sort it out as you go, please go right ahead.
Syndraya is a world similar in composition to Earth, though slightly smaller (~19,000 miles/30,500 kilometers in circumference). It orbits a single sun, may or may not be part of a well-populated solar system (I honestly haven’t had the need to figure that out), and its surface is primarily water. Navigating about the world relies upon the same standard geographic coordinate system familiar to Earthlings, with coordinates in degrees, minutes, and seconds. Cardinal directions are also the same—North, East, South, West—and it should be assumed that the Syndrayan magnetic field is roughly the same as Earth’s, even though I don’t delve too deeply into magnetics as a resource for navigation. This was done to maintain my sanity.
Now to the differences. The Syndrayan year is 450 days long, divided uniformly into fifteen months of thirty days apiece. Days are 26 hours long, weeks are comprised of six days each, and months, therefore, have five weeks. Syndraya travels around its sun in a near-circular orbit, and the planet’s axial tilt is approximately 20°. As such, Syndraya does have seasons similar to Earth’s winter, spring, and autumn. Syndraya lacks polar ice caps and, excepting a few high-altitude terrestrial locations, no part of the planet experiences perpetual ice cover. Because of its high percentage of planetary water, negligible orbit eccentricity, and ideal distance from its sun, the average Syndrayan temperature is well-moderated, with seasonal extremes that are milder than those experienced on Earth. The only locations on Syndraya which experience conditions similar to summer on Earth are those deep in the interior of a continent and near the equator, of which there are very few.
Below is a visual reference of how the Syndrayan year is laid out, especially as it relates to the school year experienced by the students of Holystorm Academy in Book One:
Those are the basic planetary mechanics of this world. I am not an astrophysicist, or any type of scientist for that matter, so it’s likely that my cursory understanding of such topics lacks the depth that some readers may desire. For that, I defer to the more knowledgeable science fiction authors out there who have a much better handle on it than I do.
Enjoy the adventure, and please feel free to contact me through my website with any questions or comments. Readers may also sign up to follow my blog for updates and explore more in-depth information about my characters, places, and books. Thanks for reading!
https://iamleahross.wordpress.com/
Prologue
The boy slithered on his belly in the dust, inching toward the cliff’s edge. Allowing just his green eyes and the gleaming copper of his hair to protrude over the rocky drop, he smiled in satisfaction. His brother never could beat him at this game; he was too fast, too quick.
“Psssst!” his friend Ryan Byrne hissed at him from farther up the trail.
“Declan!” his older brother called.
He could see Logan’s brown hair weaving through the tall brush below, and he stifled a snicker. Ye’ll ne’er catch me, ye uptight arse.
“Godsdamn it, Declan!” Logan yelled. “I dinna have time for this! Da’s ready to skin us both!”
Declan scooted silently back from the edge and joined Ryan. “What’re ye doin’, lunkhead? Logan could have heard ye!”
“Sorry, mate.” Ryan hitched a thumb over his shoulder. “Can we go now?”
“Aye.”
The fair weather break between school years in Arcana was simply filled with activity for boys of ten who would rather go off on an adventure than do their chores, and Declan and Ryan seemed determined to find every adventure available. On this particularly fine afternoon, Declan was avoiding fence mending at his family’s ranch in favor of a hike into the surrounding foothills with his best friend. Nothing fired Declan’s spirit like being out in the untamed wilds of nature, and neither his brother’s annoyance nor his father’s wrath would deter him.
As they rounded a bend, Declan peered through the brush and viewed the vast Maclairish property from above. The stables at the far end, off the wide lane, were only a small part of their holdings. His family’s land extended the entire width and much of the breadth of the sizable Kynacor Valley, encompassing the finest pasture and breeding grounds in the entire Annali Republic.
Maclairish Farm bred and raised the most desired stock of nymeran in the country. With a strange, yet intriguing combination of features, the hairless working animals had long necks and almost feline faces. They were nimble and fast, generally docile, and specifically bred as ideal versatile harness and riding stock. They came in every color, and the Maclairishes had recently begun offering nymeran in designer colors for those wishing to pay for them. Declan had a natural ease and comfort with the animals that exceeded anyone else’s ability, and it was for this reason that his father had deemed him the farm’s successor over his elder brother.
The problem was that Declan didn’t want it. In fact, what he wanted was the complete opposite of the neverending monotony of life tethered to a nymeran ranch in a landlocked hell. As he clambered up the rocky slope ahead of him to the scrub-dotted summit of a minor peak, he held his dream in his mind’s eye. Plopping down on a flat rock with Ryan next to him, he grinned widely, seeing that dream laid out before him.
Declan wanted to be a sailor. More specifically, he wanted to be a great Annali pirate and join the ranks of his legendary predecessors in the noble pursuit of maintaining his beloved country’s safety and security. And being his father’s ranch slave didn’t fit in with that plan at all. The lad breathed deeply of the salt t
ang in the air and gazed out past the sprawling Annali capital city of Terracova in the distance, where it nuzzled right up next to the sea. There, almost too far away for him to detect, laid the tantalizing sparkle of the Syndrayan ocean and limitless possibility.
“‘Tis fair beautiful, eh, Ry?” Declan sighed with reverence.
“Yeah, I guess so. Ye’re obsessed wi’ this, ye know.”
“Aye.”
“Have ye told yer father that ye’re no’ takin’ the ranch?”
“No’ yet. ‘Twill crush the man for certain.”
“So ye’re just goin’ to keep lyin’ ‘bout it until it’s time to head to the Academy? What then?” Ryan asked.
“I havena figured that out yet.”
“But ye’re goin’ to do it anyway, aren’t ye?”
“Ye bet yer arse, I am!”
Ryan jumped down from their perch to the sandy trail. “Good luck wi’ that one, mate. Yer da’s super scary when he’s mad.”
“I’m no’ afraid o’ Da.” I’m fair terrified o’ gettin’ stuck here, though.
“Come on, Mac,” Ryan said, using the nickname that only he’d been given the permission to use. “‘Tis gettin’ late.”
“Comin’, mate.” Declan craned his neck for a glimpse of sunset-gilded waves before reluctantly turning back to his mundane existence. As he jumped down from the rock, his feet skidded on the loose sand and he went down with his face in the dirt.
Declan’s face flamed as brightly as his hair while Ryan leaned against a boulder, overcome with hilarity. Spitting grit from his mouth, Declan planted his palms under his shoulders and began to push himself back up. Then he stopped, squinting at a faint gleam catching the dying light beneath the boulder. Pressing his body against the rock, he reached into the tiny crevice, feeling for anything unusual. He stretched his short arm to its limit, able to touch something with just the tips of his fingers, and then, yes! With a faint metallic scrape against the rough ground, he dragged it free.
He sat there, in the dirt, and rubbed some of the thick coat of dust and grime from the surface of the small disc in his palm. The unmistakable glint of gold winked back at him. Though it was scratched and worn and quite dirty, Declan had found a gold medallion. Turning it over, he frowned at the unfamiliar crest stamped into it—an eclipsed sun and a water blossom. He grinned with shameless pride. It seemed he was a pirate already; he’d found his first buried treasure.
Finally registering the fact that Ryan was still cackling maniacally at him, Declan twisted around and slugged his friend hard in the shin. “Knock it off, ye bleedin’ jerk! I found somethin’!”
“Ow! Godsdamn it, Mac!” Ryan hopped around, holding his smarting leg.
Declan cradled the medallion in his hand and stared at it. The gold beckoned invitingly and began to feel warm against his skin. He frowned slightly, thinking he must be imagining things. Suddenly, a bolt of excruciating pain lanced through his palm and up his arm. Screaming, he desperately shook his hand, trying to drop the medallion, but it stuck fast, as if fused to his skin. The pain spread through his entire body, and he curled into a writhing ball on the ground. Unchecked sounds of agony fell from Declan’s mouth as the surge of torment ravaged him, feeling like it was shredding his insides.
“Declan!” Ryan rushed to his friend’s side and reached for him to see what was wrong, but a powerful and painful blast shot out, stinging his fingers and forcing him to pull back. “Oh, gods! Hang on, mate! I’m goin’ for help!”
Declan didn’t even hear him. He couldn’t think of anything but the searing pain. Just as it began to finally and blessedly subside, something far more terrifying took its place. A low ripple of purely evil laughter rolled across Declan’s consciousness, seeping into every corner of his mind and making him feel unclean to his very core. Someone, something, some entirely foreign presence had invaded his soul. Declan felt it churning inside him.
Ryan left me alone. Even though Declan couldn’t do anything about it, the urge to escape was desperate in his heart.
No, boy, the being’s voice oozed through his mind, You’ll never be alone now.
“Who are ye?!” Declan rasped aloud, needing to hear his own voice to confirm he was still alive.
I am Ashur. And you, my lucky lad, are my new plaything. The entity chuckled cruelly. What fun we’ll have together…
PART ONE
Chapter One
On the Syndrayan seas, eight years later
Kendrick Archer, captain of the Annali pirate vessel Tyrian’s Lightning, gazed out over the rail at the cluster of islands through the lens of his spyglass. Not wanting to give up such a valuable item, but needing to get the damn thing off his ship before it caused any more trouble, he’d decided to hide it until it was of most use to him. This archipelago was ideal; there were hundreds of individual spits of land, it was remote enough to escape most notice, and most of the islands disappeared underwater when the tide came in. He collapsed his spyglass with a decisive snap and spoke to his quartermaster, “Do we have our two volunteers, Mr. Tate?”
“Aye, Captain.”
“Excellent. Send them in a longboat with the chest. I don’t care where it’s buried, as long as it will stay there. When they return with the coordinates, kill them both. I am the only one to have those coordinates, is that clear?”
“Perfectly, sir.”
“Has the locator charm been applied?” Archer asked.
“Spelled it myself, sir,” Tate replied.
“Let’s get it the bloody hell away from our ship, Tate.”
“Damn right, Captain!”
Archer scrubbed his hand through his thinning brown hair as he watched Tate carry out his orders. He’d had his quartermaster offer a small bonus to only a select portion of the crew—the most expendable ones—to recruit their two volunteers. He couldn’t afford to kill anyone else. He hated that this tactic was necessary, but he wouldn’t take the risk of anyone else knowing where to find the thing.
Damn cursed piece of shit! Yet, the problem was that it was actually a very fine treasure, the most valuable prize that Archer had ever had the privilege of possessing. It was just such a blasted shame that they’d had nothing but bad luck since it came aboard.
First, Archer had suffered a nasty cut on his arm that became infected and required painful treatment. It was still healing. Then, most of the crew came down with a miserable stomach illness that kept them groaning in bed for more than a week. During that time, without a sufficient number of men available to sail the ship, they’d drifted aimlessly and ended up becalmed in the doldrums. They spent another week praying for any breath of wind to get them on their way again. When they did manage to find the wind again, a microburst snapped the fore topmast, the ensuing destruction sending eight men to the infirmary with injuries. Archer was well aware of their need to make repairs, take on supplies, and replenish their health and severely-depleted morale, but he refused to risk any further calamity.
As he watched the longboat take the small chest away from his ship, Archer breathed a small, gusty sigh of relief. When they’d begun their quest several months ago, there had been no shortage of enthusiasm. The men spent hours planning how to spend their share of the vast treasure hoard; they were so certain of their success. It was mostly luck and good timing that had delivered the chest into Archer’s possession. At first, the entire company celebrated heartily, with extra rations of rum and grand schemes for their next victory. Then it was as if the gods had abandoned them to the vagaries of ill fate.
Yet, despite the consensus to remove the chest from the ship in the name of self-preservation, Archer felt oddly bereft as the distance increased between him and his greatest prize. He’d felt instantly connected to it the first time he’d laid eyes upon it, and his attachment had only increased the longer he kept it. The overwhelming desire to acquire the rest of the legendary hoard had grown into a desperate obsession. He would stop at nothing to pursue it, and he would destroy any who stood
in his way.
Archer retreated to his cabin and lost himself among the teetering stacks of books strewn haphazardly across his table. He had to find the next lead in their search and quickly, or his crew’s low morale might turn to outright mutiny. If only he could find some clue among the volumes of myth.
Two hours escaped without the captain’s notice, and then there was a knock at the door. “What is it?” he called. Tate stepped inside and shut the door behind him. Archer assessed his quartermaster with a grave expression. “It’s done?”
“Aye, sir,” Tate replied stoically. He handed a slip of paper to Archer.
Archer’s gaze bored into Tate’s. “Did you look at this?”
A look of incredulous distaste flickered across Tate’s face before he notched his chin higher with pride. “Of course not, Captain.”
“Good,” Archer said. “I’d hate to have to kill you too.” He smiled, but he was only half joking. Looking at the paper, he cemented the information in his memory with the help of a minor spell, and then crumpled it, set it on a saucer, and burned it to cinders.
“So, what next, sir?”
“We put into port as soon as practical. We’re in sore need of many things, Roderick, not the least of which being some good cheer.”
“Indeed, sir. Perhaps now our luck will improve.”
Archer heaved a great sigh. “I sure as hell hope so. It damn well couldn’t get much worse.”
~*~
Stumbling from his bed as the timber beneath his feet rolled and pitched erratically, Archer hastily struggled into his overcoat and boots. Torrents of rain lashed at his windows, driven by a surly wind, and punctuated periodically with garish webs of lightning and growls of thunder. Above the background roar of wind and rain, in between deafening crashes of the heavens’ wrath, the shouts of his men were barely audible.
