The Stolen Princess

by Kristen Gupton

  “Kanan and Corina stayed with me every night after Athan’s visit,” Thana said, a smile creeping up. “Three adults and an infant fit in our bed quite nicely.”

  He slowly turned his head toward her, a brow quirking upward. “…they both slept in bed with you?”

  “I know, not terribly appropriate, but I was scared,” she admitted. “I felt like a child who’d seen a ghost in the corner and needed to sleep with my parents. They were happy to oblige, though, they both snore like mad.”

  “I think the two of them would have done anything you asked,” he said, a smile coming to his lips. “They both adore you nearly as much as I do.”

  “Our type of adoration is a bit different, though.” Thana felt her cheeks burn.

  He cast his gaze to the side. “This is true, and I’m glad for it.”

  Thana kissed his cheek and stood up. “See? The good outweighs the bad in our lives, Keir. Now, our son is probably getting to the point of needing me.”

  They dried off and dressed, then heading downstairs. Corina was near the base of the stairs with the baby in her arms.

  “I was going to come looking for you,” she said, passing off the baby to Thana.

  “I knew it was about time.” Thana took him and walked over to the doors of the throne room, ducking inside. She wandered to the queen’s throne and sat in order to nurse the baby.

  Corina and Keiran followed her in, the vampire going to sit beside his wife, looking over and smiling at his son. “He looks fine, though I suppose I don’t have the experience to know otherwise.”

  The old woman snorted and shook her head, lacing her hands together as she stood before them. “Aye, he’s fine and doing well. He reminds me so much of you when you were small, Keir.”

  He touched the top of the baby’s head, before settling back into his seat. “Hard to believe we all start out so small.”

  “But, we do.” Corina smiled again. “Kanan told me you got Kayla home.”

  “Aye.”

  Corina watched Keiran for a few seconds, noticing his eyes had closed. He was clearly worn out from the trip. She gave Thana a smile and a shake of her head before retreating from the room. She knew she’d get the rest of the story from him sooner or later.

  Chapter 9

  The Great Hall of the Nahli was in a subterranean chamber deep below the ice. The walls of the vast space were held up by massive rib bones harvested from dead leviathans. From the dome-shaped ceiling hung a multitude of oil lamps, giving the place a bright but warm illumination. The floor was lined with the pelts of ice bears, upon which the assorted caste chieftains sat with their mates.

  Grand Chieftain Halier stood in the center of the circle they formed, his centuries-old body leaning heavily on the walking stick he required to get around. His eyes, milky with cataracts, scanned over his audience.

  “Kayla has returned to us, as promised,” he said, his voice dry and wavering. “We are eager to hear what you learned during your excursion.”

  She sat beside Sytir but stood up when Halier addressed her. “To my great relief, I found my brother eager to help with ending Athan Vercilla’s reign in Talaus.”

  “You found him trustworthy?” Halier asked, cutting through the murmuring voices of the others.

  “I did, yes.” Kayla looked down at Sytir for a moment. She’d never been a fan of speaking before large groups. “However, his country is still working to rebound from the economic depression my father threw it into. He doesn’t have the means to go after Athan alone.”

  “What of the other southern nations?” the elderly chieftain asked.

  “Aleria has the ships and manpower needed to make any move against Talaus, and King Sipesh intends to seek a better relationship with them. Aleria has a new queen, I have learned,” she said. “He will know better where he stands with Aleria come next year.”

  Halier nodded. “Positive steps, but still a long way from being able to move against Talaus.”

  “It will not be a fast process I’m afraid,” Kayla admitted. “But there is hope we will not stand alone when the time comes.”

  “Lord Vercilla has strengthened his nation and grown his powers over eight centuries.” Halier moved one of his hands away from the staff supporting him. “Twice as long as I have lived. What took so long to build, we cannot expect to undo quickly. While we have tried to avoid conflicting with the human world, it was inevitable we would be forced to act someday.”

  “I still feel somewhat responsible for it.” She averted her gaze.

  Halier took a few slow steps toward her before reaching out and placing an arthritic hand onto her shoulder. “Talaus was moving to take Minar before Athan knew you were with us. Thanks to you being here, we had a means of outreach to the human nations. You may have saved us.”

  “Athan only learned you were here because I got heated when I met him,” Sytir said, standing up as well. “I let my emotions get the better of me, wanting to see the look on his face when he found out you were alive.”

  The Grand Chieftain turned away from Kayla and toward the mage. “We all make mistakes when we first obtain positions of power. It is easy to forget the larger picture when we are emotionally invested in something. I have already forgiven you, knowing it has taught you this necessary lesson.”

  “Regardless of how we arrived here, we do need to make plans,” said another.

  Attention shifted toward the other side of the circle as the chieftain of the warrior caste rose up.

  Halier turned around, nodding. “Indeed we do. We must be prepared, whether Kayla’s brother can help us or not. Warriors, alchemists, mages, and all must begin holding regular meetings to address preparedness.”

  Another stood up. “As well as the smiths. We must be included in order to make sure we provide the others with the materials needed.”

  “All the castes must participate,” said another.

  Halier turned around slowly, seeing the representatives from all thirteen of the castes stand up around him. “All of you can see how you will need to contribute. I will leave it to the discretion of the castes to hold their meetings with one another. It has been a long time since the Nahli have faced such a threat. I do imagine we will need the efforts of all our people in order to survive this.”

  * * *

  Danier had settled back into his home. Though he’d survived without his assorted luxuries over the past year, he had no trouble adjusting to his higher standard of living again.

  He’d begun the damage control over his reputation within days. While there were several of his men from the Tordanian invasion back in the Quitam territory, their numbers had started to dwindle.

  He stood in a tower of his palace, looking out the window at the beautiful oasis it had been built next to. A smile graced his lips as he’d longed for the view during his ordeal to return home.

  A sound from behind him caused him to sigh and turn around. One of the survivors of his military unit sat there, chained to the wall. Danier had held the man for the last three days.

  “Please, let me go. I will sing your praises,” the man begged from where he slumped against the wall.

  Danier went closer and crouched down before him, taking a few deep breaths. He’d only allowed him fruit and water over the previous days, purging his prisoner’s system of any traces of garlic.

  “You had your chance before I arrived, and you opted to betray me and tell them I was a coward,” Danier said, shaking his head. “Fortunately, most of those in our tribe are willing to take my word over that of a few lowly soldiers. Still, there is damage I must correct, and for that, you must pay. It won’t be pointless, though. What you can give me now makes up for it.”

  The man’s eyes went wide as Danier drew a long, curved knife from his belt. “Please! I beg you, don’t kill me! General, I never meant to dishonor you! We could only relate to what we saw!”

  Danier considered the blade in his hand for a moment, letting it glint in the sunlight. “I won’
t kill you. Not this time anyway. You see, I have to be careful with my food supply now. I believe I can use you for a while before I’ve gone too far and you die.”

  “General, don’t…” the man closed his eyes, shaking his head. The terror coursing through him locked him up, not that he could escape. He’d been trying to slip from his chains for three days to no avail, his wrists and ankles raw from his attempts.

  Something in the man’s terror thrilled Danier in a way he’d only become familiar with since he’d been changed. It was intoxicating, and he lingered in it for several moments, his fangs slowly sliding down over his canines as the tension built.

  When he could wait no longer, he reached out and grabbed one of the man’s arms. The prisoner struggled to pull his arm back, but Danier was far stronger and had no trouble keeping his grip.

  He slashed the man’s arm, without the care with which Keiran had cut Jerris. No, this was a brutal act fueled by his greedy thirst and his new found pleasure in the fear of others. The knife went deep, slicing through veins, muscles, and tendons alike.

  The man shrieked and again tried to pull away. The fingers of his right hand immediately all fell lax, no longer connected to the muscles that had controlled them further up his arm.

  Danier put the blade against the man’s neck to gain his cooperation. “Stop flailing!”

  The man froze up, his eyes wide as they saw Danier’s fangs. “You… you are one of them!”

  The general gave a snort and dipped down, beginning to drink in the copious flow from the wound he’d created. His victim wavered, and though he didn’t lose enough blood to kill him, he did lose enough to slip from consciousness.

  When Danier was satisfied, he tied a thin rope around the man’s arm above the wound to quell the flow. He wiped his knife clean and sheathed it, looking down at his unconscious victim.

  He’d never had a shortage of enemies. Now, he had a use for them.

  Danier tipped his head back and smiled, feeling the relief his drink gave him. Intentional or not, Keiran had granted him a wonderful gift. He knew the day would come when he’d be able to meet the vampire in person to thank him before killing him.

  Prior to that, however, there was the small issue of taking the throne of the Sador Empire for his own. It had always been his destiny to do so, and he’d tried to achieve it by playing along with Betram’s rules. Now, however, the rules had changed.

  * * *

  Athan felt something prodding against his cheek. He growled and tried to ignore it for a moment, but it persisted. It took him a few moments to fight his way back to lucidity, the sleep he’d fallen into profoundly deep.

  His eyes opened to mere slits, his lips tensing down. “What…do…you…want?”

  Sabetha’s glassy black eyes stared back at him. She was the only one in the fortress lacking the good sense to stay away from Athan when he retreated to his quarters.

  “I saw something far, far away!”

  As usual, he knew he couldn’t lay into her for her actions. He drew a long breath and rolled onto his back before sitting up. “How long have I been asleep?”

  “Two days. I counted, and you said one to two,” she replied, her head bobbing.

  Athan threw the blanket off and stood up. Though he was unclothed, he felt no particular shame in being seen by the harpy. They’d simply been in each other’s company for too long.

  He looked down at his injured shoulder. The skin near the wound was bruised for a good radius around the puncture as he expected it would be. The margins of the injury, however, were strange. Athan wasn’t capable of suffering an infection, and yet the tissue was black and dying back. Though he knew the sword hadn’t been hot at all, the area appeared almost burned.

  “I saw something.”

  His head snapped up and he focused on the harpy again. “And it was?”

  “There’s a vampire in the Sador Empire,” she said, her head stretching out as she got her own look at his injury. “Does it hurt still?”

  Athan tried to move his arm, but it barely shifted, grinding pain radiating through his chest and back. “Very much, but what of this vampire?”

  She pulled back a step. “I was thinking about your story of the Sador Empire invading Tordania, so I pushed myself to see if I could look there. That’s when I saw him!”

  Athan sighed and moved away to grab a robe. The fire in his room had gone out long ago, and it was cold. “Sabetha, there are no vampires in the Sador Empire. I know this to be true.”

  “There is now,” she countered, shaking her head. “He has a man chained up. He cut him and drank from him! Tall man, long black hair, but orange, too.”

  Athan’s spine straightened and he slowly turned around to face her again. “His hair has red streaks from the temples?”

  Her head bounced in the affirmative. “Where yours is white, his is orange. Like the Tordanian guard’s.”

  His jaw set and he gave her a slow nod. “That is quite interesting, Little Bird. Quite interesting, indeed.”

  * * *

  Though Keiran had been home since the day before, Mari and Garhan hadn’t approached him immediately. They knew the king had multiple things more pressing to deal with.

  While Garhan was upstairs working away on another commissioned portrait, Mari had slipped off to the library. She’d become ravenous in her consumption of Tordanian books. Since her arrival, she’d not only become literate in modern written Tordanian but fascinated by it as well.

  The books she’d read in the palace back home had been all factual accountings of historical events. Tordanians, however, seemed to write stories for the sheer entertainment of doing so.

  She loved reading the old volumes, the activity something she could carry out no matter how her body pained her. It gave her an escape, though temporary, from the world around her.

  “Thoughts on this?”

  Mari lowered her book. She looked up to see Keiran standing there, holding a dagger toward her. She set the book onto her lap and reached out, taking the weapon. “Well, look what you managed to find.”

  “I didn’t find it so much as have it thrown at me by Athan himself,” Keiran said.

  She turned it over in her hands, looking at each side of it carefully. “It is exactly like the drawing. There aren’t any identifying marks on it, though.”

  “So all that means is I have one exactly like what was found with Adira’s body.” Keiran sighed and shook his head. “Theryn trusts you, though. If you told her how I obtained it, wouldn’t it mean something to her?”

  “She can trust me all she likes, Keiran, but that doesn’t mean she may trust the source of the information I’ve been given.” Mari set her book aside and stood up, passing the dagger back to him. “I’m not saying that in an accusatory way, mind you. I do trust you completely about this, you know.”

  “I feared that would be your response.” He took the dagger back and frowned. “I don’t suppose you and Garhan came up with anything while I was away?”

  She gave a smile. “Actually, I think you should go see your brother. He found something that might help.”

  Keiran raced from the library and up the stairs, seeing the door to Garhan’s room open. He stepped inside to find his brother away from his painting and standing near the window.

  Garhan heard Keiran enter and he addressed him without turning around. “I was planning on seeing you this afternoon.”

  “I found Mari, and she said I should come see you.” Keiran went over and stood beside him, trying to see what he was looking at. The courtyard was nearly vacant, snow falling and obscuring the few who were outside working.

  “Did she?” Garhan turned sideways toward the other vampire.

  “Aye.” Keiran held out the dagger toward his brother, handle first. “Athan threw this at me while I was in Minar.”

  Garhan took the dagger and moved to hold it in the cold, gray light coming through the window. “Absolutely beautiful, isn’t it? The drawing she had hardly
did it justice.”

  Keiran shrugged. “It looks better now that it’s not covered in my own blood.”

  Garhan handed back the dagger and raised his brows. “Land a shot, did he?”

  “I’m afraid so, but I got him back. Regardless, Mari gave me the impression you might have something to say?”

  Garhan nodded and walked away toward the dresser. “I saw something while you were gone, and I was able to put together a few things you might find interesting.”

  He was intrigued and followed. “What?”

  “This book had something in it I recognized immediately when I saw it,” he said, picking up an old leather-bound tome.

  “Which was?” Keiran asked.

  Garhan went closer, opening the yellowed pages to a spot he’d marked. “Have a look at this.”

  Keiran leaned forward and studied the page. Situated within the text was a carefully rendered drawing of Athan’s royal seal. Keiran had seen it on multiple occasions, given his father’s close correspondence with the Talausian warlord. “All right, familiar enough, but there’s no such marking on the daggers.”

  “The daggers, no.” Garhan smiled and turned around again. He placed the book down and picked up a sword that had also been put on top of the dresser. “This, however, very much does have that marking.”

  Keiran reached out and took the broadsword. “This is the one Baden ran you through with?”

  “Yes.”

  Though bigger than the dagger, the hilt of the sword was designed to be identical. It was a raven, but even more detailed than the one on the dagger given the greater size. He turned the weapon over, and there it was.

  Above the cross guard, a gemstone version of Athan’s seal had been inlayed right into the blade. It had been done with a jeweler’s precision.

  Garhan came closer and reached out to touch the design. “Flipping through that book, I saw the picture, and this was burned into my mind. I hadn’t paid it much attention before, not knowing if it was simply Baden’s mark or perhaps that of the sword manufacturer. This, however, is Athan’s seal, and the sword matches perfectly with the daggers.”