The Stolen Princess

by Kristen Gupton

  Baden hung his head.

  * * *

  Keiran stood on the deck of the ship. His sickness had finally passed, although the sea had definitely calmed. The dark water went on around them, land nowhere in sight. The only things breaking up the watery disk they sat upon were vast chunks of ice. They traveled near a few, giving him a better look at their oddly blue structures. Some were flat on the water’s surface, others mountainous and towering up into the air, dwarfing the ship.

  Though the air was cold, it was fascinating to look over the sea around them. He leaned over the side, looking down. The water was surprisingly clear, and he got occasional glimpses of fish darting to the surface before vanishing again.

  Keiran leaned over further, the number of small, silver fish rapidly increasing. They seemed in a panic, and soon the surface of the water beside the ship was boiling with them. They jumped up from the water, several thumping against the wooden hull before tumbling back into the sea.

  Then, the school of them parted as something massive charged toward the surface.

  He couldn’t understand what he was seeing, and the surface of the water rose in a large mound before it was broken by a gapping maw. Keiran recoiled away from the rail, nearly falling in his panic.

  The sound of a blast came from behind him, ice crystals falling from the air and sticking to his clothes and hair.

  Dassion let go with a cackle of laughter, strutting over. “Look at you! Cold, isn’t it? Scared?”

  “What in the hell is that?” Keiran asked, pointing his hand toward the railing, though he had no desire to go near it again.

  “Come on!” Dassion did go to the railing, however. “Get over here! You’ve never seen such a thing before, have you?”

  Keiran wasn’t comfortable in returning to his spot, but he wasn’t going to be a coward about it when the sailor seemed so unmoved. He went to Dassion’s side, seeing a massive forked tail, the color of storm clouds, arc up out of the water before slipping below again.

  “What is that thing?” he asked, as another plume of vapor rocketed into the air a short distance off. It froze instantly in the cold air, slowly drifting back down to the water.

  “Leviathans,” Dassion said. “Didn’t know about them, did you?”

  “How dangerous are they? Something that big could sink this ship without a second thought.” Keiran shook his head and looked at the captain.

  “No!” Dassion laughed. “Gentle creatures, really. Unless you’re a little fishie, eh? Leave them alone, and they go about their business. There are those who used to try and hunt them. Didn’t go well for them, did it? That’s when they turn nasty and will kill an entire ship of men without a second thought. I think they see us as pretty insignificant, really. They know they can eradicate us with just a flip of their tail. Never been one single account of them harming anyone who wasn’t out to harm them first. Not a one.”

  While that wasn’t a complete assurance they weren’t a threat on some level, he had to defer to the captain’s experience. Dassion didn’t seem the type to not hype up something if it was honestly dangerous.

  Keiran turned his eyes back over the water, watching. It wasn’t a single animal, but a group of them. They rose to the surface with their mouths open, before crashing back to their sides, disappearing from view to be followed by their tails breaking the surface.

  “I’ve heard stories of large animals living in the sea,” Keiran said, almost smiling. “Those tales are always horror stories, though.”

  Dassion snorted, waving a hand out over the rail. “No, no. There are more types of fish and creatures out there than you see on land! Leviathans are good, though. They keep the other big ones away. Now, you see a monster squid, that’s a problem. Climb right up the side of the ship, those will. Rip men straight from the deck before dropping back into the water to eat them!”

  Keiran’s expression fell. Dassion didn’t know when to stop.

  Kayla wandered over and came to stand beside the two men. “Oh, leviathans.”

  Keiran looked over at her and quirked a brow. “You’ve seen these before?”

  She shrugged and leaned against the rail. “They spend their summers near the shores of the Wastes. The Nahli make use of their bodies when they die.”

  He wrinkled his nose at the thought of the smell something so large would produce when dead. “I suppose they have to use whatever resources they can get.”

  “They’re heading south, now,” Dassion said. “That’s when you know the ice is about to get problematic. They start coming down as to not get trapped beneath it. Have to breathe just like us, they do.”

  “Dassion, would you excuse us for a moment?” Kayla asked, giving the captain her best smile.

  He gave her a slight bow. “As the lady wishes! Someone should be steering the ship anyway, shouldn’t they?”

  Keiran waited for him to move out of range before saying anything. “Our lives are in that man’s hands.”

  “He is different, isn’t he?” she said, her smile fading.

  “What did you want to talk about?” Keiran asked.

  Kayla turned to face the water, resting her forearms on the rail. “Baden may not be hopeless.”

  “Did you have a breakthrough?”

  She shrugged. “He’s dodgy with what he’s actually thinking, but perhaps something got through to him, finally. He didn’t throw a full bucket this time, anyway.”

  He frowned at the recent memory. “If you do get through to him, then what? He can’t go north with you, unless you plan to bleed every time he needs a drink.”

  “I have no thoughts of taking him with me, the Nahli wouldn’t allow it. I may have only gotten through to him until he convinces himself again of Athan’s credibility.” She waved a hand over the water. “I can’t undo in a matter of days what Athan has built up over all these years.”

  “It wouldn’t be easy,” Keiran agreed.

  “I’m still in shock over knowing he’s alive.” She hung her head. “It brings into question what else I’ve thought was real during my life that might not have been.”

  Keiran placed a hand in the middle of her back. “I may not have the experience in life you do, but I’ve come to realize nothing is ever as easy as one expects.”

  “A true enough observation.” Kayla gave him a sidelong glance. “I don’t know what he will try when I move out of range, Keir. I think he’s scared of you, but if he does attack…”

  “You don’t want me to kill him,” Keiran finished for her.

  She nodded.

  He sighed. “I will do my best to keep the situation from escalating.”

  “I know it’s a foolish thing, and if I get my wish, and he still is at his father’s side when the time comes, he will have to die anyway, as you said. But he’s still my son, Keir.” Kayla gave him a pained smile. “I’m in an impossible situation. To know my deepest aspiration may condemn my own child…”

  Keiran didn’t know what to say. He rubbed her back and turned his eyes to the sea around them.

  Chapter 7

  A raven sat atop a pier post in the Tordanian town of Stanth. It had made a circuit around the place and to nearly every boat at the docks. The gulls were troublesome, doing their best to chase the unfamiliar bird out of their territory, but Athan was unmoved by their shrieks and dives toward him.

  Yet another of the gulls came near, hovering over Athan’s perch. It attempted to land and physically shove the raven from his spot. The seabird screamed as an unseen force swatted it from the sky, sending it crashing to the side of a crate below. Stunned, it flopped around the dock, trying to regain its senses.

  Athan hoped the sight of the bird’s condition would serve as a warning to the others, but he didn’t have much faith in their intelligence.

  He’d picked through the minds of assorted sailors and townsfolk throughout the course of the day, looking for clues. He’d found the river boat that had brought Keiran and the others to the port, but that’s whe
re the trail went cold.

  Keiran had been discrete, and it was frustrating.

  Athan realized there were only so many places they could have headed toward to return Kayla to the Northern Wastes. All the routes there would go through either Talaus or Minar. While he speculated they’d go for Minar given those options, there were a dozen major port towns there to choose from, with a multitude other smaller harbors. The odds of picking the right one weren’t in his favor.

  He tipped his head sideways, one of his teal eyes fixing on a fat man waddling along the dock with a friend.

  “My brother already paid it off, actually,” he said.

  The smaller man snorted. “I’m impressed. How did he pull that off in just a few months? It was one of your more expensive ships, wasn’t it? What in the world has Dass been hauling?”

  “Not what,” the large one replied, “but who? He wasn’t very forthcoming with the details of it. He seemed to be in a hurry when he dropped off the payment. All I could get out of him was it wasn’t criminal in the least, simply some rich fool all too eager to be parted with his gold.”

  “Someone paid that sort of money to catch a ride on a freighter?” he asked, laughing. “Must have been in a terrible hurry to get somewhere.”

  “Dass said he was dropping them off with his load of steel in Pardirkov, if I’m not mistaken.” He passed directly below Athan’s vantage point and kept going. “Regardless of how he did it, Dass made good on his debt with me. I’m proud of him.”

  The raven laughed and took to the air, heading out over the water. There was an entire ocean to cross, but he had a destination, finally. It was a small inconvenience to overcome if it finally meant getting to Kayla.

  Keiran had almost gotten away with whatever he was planning.

  Almost.

  * * *

  Mari and Garhan sat together in the library. With snow falling outside, the courier had been forced to stay in for the day instead of going out to exercise her horses. Still, she’d felt the need to do something with her time, so she’d settled in to catalogue and sort through the documents gathered on her previous outing.

  Garhan sat opposite to her, reading an old history book. He was trying, anyway. While he’d been working to become literate in Tordanian, the elaborate calligraphy in the tome made it a challenge. The scribe had been more concerned with artistry than readability, it seemed. He flipped a page, finding a beautifully rendered illustration.

  He sat bolt upright. “Mari, I’ll be right back.”

  The courier lifted her gaze from her paperwork and gave a small nod before watching him take long strides from the room. Something seemed to have gotten his attention, but she disregarded it and turned her sights back toward her logbook.

  When he returned several minutes later, he wore a smile. He went over and picked the book he’d been reading back up, showing the page he’d stopped on to Mari. “I’ve got it… I have our evidence for Theryn.”

  * * *

  The door to their cabin on the ship was thrown open on the evening of the fourth day.

  Dassion stood there, exuberant. “All right, everyone! Welcome to Pardirkov! The men are getting us moored as we speak!”

  “Thank God,” Jerris mumbled, getting up from one of the uncomfortable wooden bunks.

  Keiran stood, too, and went to the captain. “How long will your offload take?”

  “Well, given the snow falling at present, and the fact the lumpers here are notoriously slow, hoping to be bribed to go faster, we won’t be reloaded and ready to go until tomorrow afternoon.” He shrugged and huffed. “They know shipping season is at an end, and they’ll try to milk this one for all it’s worth.”

  Keiran turned toward his sister. “That won’t give us much time to escort you very far.”

  “Let’s see what’s out there before we get ahead of ourselves,” she replied. “Right now, I just want to be back on solid ground.”

  “I couldn’t agree with that more,” Keiran said, going over to unwrap the sword box he’d brought along with them.

  Kayla’s eyes went wide, recognizing the box. “You have it?”

  He glanced over his shoulder at her, nodding. “I brought it as a precaution.”

  She knew Athan had sought the sword in the past. He’d bemoaned to her after Ilana’s death how it had been hidden away. Ilana had told her about the weapon and what it could do. Kayla desperately hoped it wouldn’t be needed.

  He replaced his normal rapier on his sword belt with the other weapon before cinching it around his waist. “All right, let’s go.”

  Exiting the ship was treacherous. The dock and gangplank were glazed with ice, the spray from the sea freezing on everything it contacted. The town itself was quiet, most of the citizens locked away and huddled around their fires to ward of the bitter cold.

  Baden moved along with them silently, still bound. Though he’d been less combative since his conversation with Kayla, he was eager to get loose and return home.

  Traction was a little better once they got onto the street. The thin layer of snow gave better footing than the slick ice they’d crossed near the water.

  “Well, where to for the night?” Jerris asked. “I’m hoping all of us can agree getting a room at an inn would be a nice change from our recent accommodations.”

  Kayla lifted a hand toward the others, her attention focused down the dark street. “He’s here.”

  Keiran’s left hand flew down to the hilt of his sword as he jogged forward to get beside Kayla. He drew several long breaths, trying to pick up any hint of Athan. The cold dampened any scents on the air, however.

  She smiled back at him. “Relax, little brother. I didn’t mean Athan.”

  He slouched in relief. “Then who?”

  “Him.” She pointed down the road, the snow fall growing heavier, making the approaching figure difficult to see.

  Sytir walked toward them, his pace fast but graceful. His soft leather boots hardly made a sound in the snow as he approached. What could be heard was the gentle tap of his spear contacting the road with each of his steps as he used it as a walking stick.

  Keiran was fascinated. He’d never seen a Nahli before. He looked more like a ghost as he drew near than a living being. The vampire’s eyes panned up, Sytir being far taller than him. His white cloak and light grey complexion reflected the scan light penetrating the clouds above.

  Kayla ran to him, and they embraced tightly. “I was hoping you’d be here.”

  “I felt you returning. Who have you brought with you?” he asked, his words spoken in smoothly flowing Nahli.

  She turned toward the others, responding in Tordanian. “Sytir, this is Keiran Sipesh, King of Tordania. That is his guard Jerris, and my son Baden.”

  Just as she’d learned Nahli from Sytir, so had he learned Tordanian from her over the years. His steel gaze landed back on Kayla. “How can that be? Athan killed him all those years ago.”

  “Aye, he did,” Kayla looked up at him, pain digging into her heart again. “He is a vampire like his father, however, and his death was merely part of his transformation. Athan left out that detail.”

  Sytir stepped around her and moved closer to Baden, bending down slightly to get a better look at him. “I assume you’re hostile to all of this?”

  “I’m not in chains because they thought it would be fun for me,” Baden grumbled back, recoiling a step. He, too, had never seen a Nahli, and he was leery.

  Sytir straightened up and turned toward Keiran. “And, the King of Tordania. Taking quite a risk to come this far with such a small protection detail. Only one man?”

  Jerris grunted, taking offense to that.

  Keiran paid the guard no mind. “It was easier to travel this way. Her unexpected arrival and our urgent need to depart when we did meant we had to move quickly.”

  “I thank you for delivering her safely back to me,” Sytir replied, bowing his head in gratitude. “It has been difficult knowing she was out there where I co
uld not follow.”

  “It was the least I could do after she took such a great risk in coming to see me.” Keiran smiled at Kayla. “I agree with her reason for doing so, however, and I will do my best to find a way to help.”

  “That is good news.” Sytir took a step back from the group again. “The power from your Northern Star is quite faded, Kayla. You are lucky to have gotten back to me when you did.”

  She reached beneath the neckline of her dress and pulled out the talisman, seeing its glow had grown very dim. What might have happened on the ship or elsewhere if Baden’s powers had been restored sent a shiver through her.

  “We will be out of Athan’s reach soon,” she said. Kayla faced her brother again. “Sytir and I will have to leave. We would love to stay with the rest of you, but it is in our best interest we part ways now.”

  He gave a small nod. “I suppose I won’t see you for a while.”

  “You went your entire life without doing so, I think you’ll be fine.” She reached out and embraced him. “I’m worried what will happen after I’m out of range. I don’t want Baden to give you too much trouble.”

  He returned her hug before stepping back. “I think I can handle him for now. He’s more concerned with getting home than he is with challenging me. He’s calmed down since our journey began.”

  She nodded then faced Jerris. “Thank you for coming along.”

  He tipped his head toward Keiran. “It’s my job. Someone has to watch him.”

  “Well, keep doing so.” She kissed Jerris’ cheek before going to Baden. “As for you, my son… Despite all the misgivings you may always carry for me, I still love you. Circumstances be damned, part of me has been put to rest by learning you still live on.”

  Despite the cold, Baden felt heat in his cheeks, and he averted his gaze to the side. He held his tongue, conflicted over how to respond and not wanting to emasculate himself in front of the others.

  She nodded and returned to Sytir’s side. “All right, I’m ready.”