Chains of Fate (The Fate Circle Saga Book 1)

by Alledria Hurt

  Leviana toyed with a bone on her plate. Through this, Curcula stood patient. Her robes had already been changed into something far simpler than she had worn to the wedding in anticipation of this event.

  “I will allow it,” Leviana said finally, her gaze drifting from the woman to her husband. “Perhaps it will be good entertainment for you.”

  “Thank you, my love.” Vad’Alvarn stood and stripped out of his robe. With one hand, he tossed it into Navar’s lap. He stepped across the low table with one long stride until he was standing facing Curcula who stood tall. They were not the same height but she was not much shorter than he.

  “Choose your weapon.”

  The princess pulled a curved dagger from her robe. Stepping back, she turned it in her hand until it laid across her arm.

  At the other end of the room, word had reached that the king would be fighting one of his wives in the Queen’s Indulgence. The drummers who had played for the dancers, who still hovered at the edge of the room like a flock of multi-colored bird, began to drum a powerful line for the battle.

  The two combatants walked down to the center of the tables where the dancers had been. Around them, people moved away, making even more room. The stones were slick in places from spilled drink, but it was a near perfect arena.

  Leviana stood at her seat and said,

  “King Vad’Alvarn is to fight Princess Curcula who has said she will settle her dispute with him.”

  Though he was unarmed, Vad’Alvarn seemed unconcerned. The drums built into they were a sprinting heartbeat. Then as one they fell silent. Curcula made the first move feinting to Vad’Alvarn’s left. The princess flipped the knife out in a wide arc aimed for his midsection. With an easy motion, Vad’Alvarn avoided the strikes. As she attacked again, he brought one arm up to block her and then used it to pull her off balance. They traded places as if they were dancing; Curcula whipped around on the balls of her feet to come at him again.

  Leviana creased the edges of her sleeves as she watched.

  Around in a circle, they went. Vad’Alvarn one step ahead of the princess, who huffed her breath. The soldier could have ended the fight many times, but he allowed it to continue. Curcula was drawn in one final time, her arms trapped at her sides, against Vad’Alvarn’s chest. Then he spun her away. As they parted, he felt the bite of the blade as it caught the inside of his arm. The wound was minor but he hissed and with one powerful blow knocked Curcula to the ground.

  Caught up in the dance of the battle, Leviana gasped.

  Blood seeped from the small wound to drip down Vad’Alvarn’s fingers. On her back, Curcula rolled to pick herself up off the floor.

  “This has gone on long enough,” Leviana said. “Enough,” she called from the royal table. “I call this grievance settled. You have drawn blood.”

  On her feet, Curcula stared at the other woman.

  “I will not allow you to take what’s mine,” she said before drawing her weapon along her thigh splitting her robe. “I will be his Queen.”

  Vad’Alvarn shook, grabbing his wounded arm. His legs gave out from beneath him and he went to his knees. Turning toward the royal table and the woman he longed for, he said,

  “Leviana.”

  When he collapsed to the stones of the floor it seemed as if a giant’s breath blew on every torch in the room, nearly putting them out. For two breaths there was no light, except for the moonlight shining around Leviana herself. Though none saw it, the shadow cast in the room wore dragon wings. Then the lamps returned and a cry went up.

  “The King has been poisoned!”

  The stopped buzz of activity started once again. Leviana leapt from her place at the table, running around it to reach Vad’Alvarn’s cooling body. Lecern saw his opportunity and surged forward, grabbing her by the elbow and trying to pull her away.

  “Unhand me or I will slit you open like a roasted pig.” Their eyes met and Lecern recoiled. The eyes staring out of Jalcina’s face were not the ones he knew. They could not be, not that unearthly blue.

  “No, Jalcina. Come with me!” He pulled her as he ran, dragging her with him. Digging in her heels, Leviana pulled back, snatching her arm out of his grip.

  “I said unhand me.” With her free hand, she slid her arm along his side, pulling his dagger and with a whipping motion drew it across his back. It severed nothing, but threw blood across the floor.

  “Jalcina?” Lecern stared at her with wounded eyes.

  “I do not know that name,” she cried, stabbing him in the stomach. The blood ran out of him onto the hall floor as others ran around them, some crying, others screaming.

  Leviana let Lecern slide to the floor as she pulled away from his nerveless grip. He was no longer of any concern to her. Instead she sprinted to Vad’Alvarn, cradling his head on her knees.

  “Vadian,” she pressed her lips to his face. “Vadian.”

  He did not stir.

  The festive reds and flowers of Arthum were replaced with the mourning black of a fallen king. Vad’Alvarn was laid in the temple of Ancel for three days. While his body lay there, the betrayer Curcula was hung at the gates. Her body hung by its wrists before all who came to pay their respects. At the end of the third day, her body was taken down and burned. No one was allowed to attend her pyre. She was set in the center and when it finally burned down, her bones and ashes were added to the mortar for the door of Vad’Alvarn’s tomb so she could do in death what she should have done in life: protect her husband.

  His generals, led by Navar, would lay him within the tomb while his wives knelt along their route. Leviana kept her eyes lowered until the procession passed. Then she watched their backs, the roll of their shoulders, and the soles of Vadian’s boots. She ran her tongue over her teeth and then shut her mouth and her eyes. She would remain there until the door of the vault settled shut, blowing a puff of dust onto the road before it. After all others left, leaving her with nothing but the moaning of the wind and the disturbed rustle of the silk flags sliding against the tomb’s stone. Leviana rose, hands clasped before her, the dust of the road mixed with her sweat to make mud on her red skirt.

  The tomb stood, certain of itself and its occupant, its door decorated in rubies. The dragon Vadian wore as his standard stared at her, daring her approach. Leviana slipped her fingers across it, caressing its jeweled scales.

  “You are with me,” she whispered. “You are with me, my dearest darkness, my Vadian.”

  With a slow motion, Leviana scrapped her cheek along the mouth of the dragon ignoring the blood drawn to the surface.

  “I will go on until you return.”

  38

  Navar, the second Vad’Alvarn had trusted with his life and his secrets, received a summons a bare three days after the funeral to attend upon the queen in the palace, not the women’s palace where she was meant to be, but the palace where men lived and made decisions. He found her seated in the room of standards, each one a marker for conquest, either past or future. It was then Leviana watched at Navar with heavily lidded eyes, finger testing the edge of her husband’s sword.

  “He is dead,” she said the words quietly and then continued to test the edge of the blade. “And we have no choice now.” The man who had stood as Vad’Alvarn’s second watched her, waiting for what would come next. The king had been buried less than a week. His body hardly even cold in its grave. Now the queen summoned him, wearing the king’s seal around her neck as a brooch and holding his sword with the ease he had seen the day he fought her at the practice field. Then she had been barely awake, now she was fully awakened, blue eyes sparking like the king’s red eyes had. A gorgeous sight to say the least, it was easy to see how she could command the fidelity of every man she came into contact with. “I will continue what he started.”

  This was what he had expected, the reason she had summoned him, to know she was going to continue on the king’s path.

  “You will stand with me?”

  She was the queen now. If Navar
wished to keep his place, he now had to bow to a woman, the woman who had brought his closest friend to heel. Did he want to follow her into hell as he had his best friend, the hell called unending combat? His eyes roamed away from her, toward the trophies collected on the walls, the flags flown over city states and kingdoms. Trophies his best friend, closest companion, and king had collected with the strength of his arm. The wall of trophies was incomplete because some kingdoms still roamed free, without knowing the control of the kingdom he represented, seemingly unaware of this new world order created by his undying king.

  “Finish what he started,” he echoed her words as he continued to gaze around, noticing the conspicuous absences on the wall. One of them being the standard of Sartol, the Queen’s own home. Perhaps she would wish to bring that kingdom to heel without bloodshed, but it was the last kingdom on this continent not tributing to the king. “Do you expect the army to follow you?”

  “Yes, and anyone who wishes to doubt my abilities can do so. It will cost them dearly, but they may do as they please.” Vad’Alvarn had said much the same thing to him when he first began to gather his army. “They will follow you, and you will follow me.” True, most of those who followed the king would know Navar had been a more than loyal servant, willing to go into the wilds with nothing more than his sword on his king’s word.

  “But first I must know.” She rose from her seat and approached him. “Will you follow me?” She was shorter than he was, but only just barely, yet the difference in their height only made him more aware of her, not less. This woman had nearly bested him on the battlefield, probably would have if it had been allowed to continue. He could still remember the way she drew sparks off his armor almost effortlessly, the sound of metal scraping metal. He dropped his eyes just a smidgen to glimpse into hers.

  “I will follow you, my Queen.” Then he swept backwards and into a formal bow. “Wherever you deign to lead.”

  A devious smile played across her lips as she watched him. Leviana needed his loyalty. In this era, women did not go out with the army; they had no choice but to remain behind. So she could not lead her own forces, not without someone trying to shout her down all the time. However, with Navar at her side, as her second, she was simply carrying on her sainted husband’s wishes. Finally granting him the conquest he strove his entire life to achieve. The conquest he waited lifetimes for. Perhaps he would get a chance to see it. Surely he would be reborn just as she had been, only one of them granted immortality at a time and then only when alone. A cruel trick to say the least, but it was the decision the gods had foisted upon them for what they had done. It was now their lot to live with. And if it kept them separated for long periods, then there was nothing that could be done about it other than to live on, fight on, and surely bring the world to its knees. Sartol would be her first conquest as queen.

  “Ready my army then, Navar,” she said the words so sweetly. “Under my orders, you will bring Sartol to heel. It has stood too long in defiance of proper rulership.”

  “Are those your orders, my Queen?” Navar could not hide his surprise, the words falling out of his open mouth.

  “Those are my orders. Do not worry Navar, I only offer those who raised me the same courtesy I was given: the chance to fight for their lives and either win them or lose them.” She continued on. “My Father,” Jalcina was long gone, replaced by Leviana, but the ties of blood were still there. “He will stand and fight. He will, of course, die. Yet I do not think he would have it any other way.”

  Dear Reader,

  Chains of Fate was almost a book that wasn’t. When I finished writing it years before I published it, I didn’t think there was anywhere it could truly call home. It’s a Sword & Sorcery tale pivoting on a romance with no Happily Ever After. And as you well know, no HEA is a sin in Romance circles. Just the same, I finished writing it and decided I was going to publish it because I am, like many deluded fools, thinking there is a market for everything.

  Two words: Tyrannosaurus Porn.

  If you read closely, you realized there were no dinosaurs to be had in this particular book. Nor am I planning on a foray into the realm of what T-Rex peni looks like. Gonna miss that boat, thanks.

  For those of you who got all the way to the end and felt cheated, you can send my mother love letters for making me write the sequels. Or hate mail, whatever floats your boat. Actually, no, do not send my mother hate mail. Send me the hate mail. It’ll save on therapy.

  Well, you made it this far. Kudos to you! If you’re willing to come this far, perhaps you’re willing to go a little further. Below you will find three things. You can do one of them or all of them as your fancy takes you. (I’m kind of partial to ALL myself.)

  REVIEW.

  Order the Sequel: Blades of Fate.

  Join the VIP List. (Early release info, ARCs, and occasional giveaways!)

  That’s it. Perhaps I will see you again soon. I’d very much enjoy that.

  Alledria.

  P.S.: Drop me an email at alledria@alledriahurt.com. It’ll be fun to chat.