by Jordan Rivet
King of Mist
Steel and Fire Book 2
Jordan Rivet
Copyright © 2016 by Jordan Rivet
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author.
Contact the author at [email protected]
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Cover Art by Deranged Doctor Design
Edited by Red Adept Editing
Book Layout & Design ©2013 - BookDesignTemplates.com
King of Mist, Steel and Fire Book 2/ Jordan Rivet – First Edition, May 2016
Contents
Contents
Map
1. The Fourth Good King
2. The Council
3. The Firesmith
4. The Ladies
5. Encounters
6. The Guardsman
7. House Denmore
8. The Caverns
9. Night
10. Plans
11. The Army
12. House Zurren
13. Training
14. The Fire Warden
15. Harvest Festival
16. The Lantern Maker
17. Aftermath
18. The Queen
19. The Parents
20. Farewell
21. Fireworks
22. Scouting
23. News
24. The Phoenix Leaf
25. The Bottle
26. Firetears
27. Preparations
28. The Engagement Feast
29. The Mountain
30. The Fire Guild
31. The Castle
32. Lantern Maker’s Daughter
33. Flight
34. Daybreak
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
For Kaylee Peelen.
Thank you for your friendship, encouragement, and all the bookish conversations.
1.
The Fourth Good King
KING Sivarrion Amintelle tossed his crown onto the floor. The tarnished silver rang against the stones. He grumbled to himself and crossed the library to retrieve it. He’d been aiming for the table.
Siv picked up the crown and ran his fingers around the inner band, feeling the metal worn down by three—now four—generations of Amintelle kings. It was a heavy thing, weighty like the duty of the kingship that now rested on his shoulders. He tossed the crown again.
“Point for Amintelle!” The crown rang like a bell as it caught on a candlestick, then it landed on the table with a satisfying thunk. “Amintelle takes the lead! Will he be able to defeat his opponent?” Siv deepened his voice. “I don’t know, Dun. After his recent setbacks we weren’t sure we’d ever see another Amintelle victory. He looks in peak form now, though, wouldn’t you say? He’s winding up for another toss.”
Siv retreated to the door of the library and spun the crown across the room. The Firejewels set in the band flashed in the lantern light. The crown landed on the candlestick again. A perfect shot.
“It’s a ringer! Amintelle wins! Amintelle—”
The door burst open. “Sire, did you summon me? Are you in peril?” Pool ran into the room, a long knife in his hand, deadly focus on his face.
Siv snatched a book from the nearest shelf and leaned against the bookcase.
“Of course not, Pool. I’m busy preparing for the council meeting.” He quickly flipped the book so it was right side up. “Why? Did you hear something?”
Pool looked around the library, eyes narrowed. He took in the crown resting around the candlestick and raised an eyebrow.
Siv cleared his throat. “I’m very busy being king, Pool, so if you don’t need anything . . .”
“Of course, my king. I wish only to prevent any nefarious and untoward things from happening to you as they did to your father.”
Siv grimaced. “I know. It’s okay.” He put the book back on the shelf and strode to the table to retrieve his crown. He sat, turning it in his fingers. It was just a piece of metal and a handful of jewels, but it had changed his whole world.
He looked up at Pool. “Any word from the investigation?”
“Not since we cleared the last of the kitchen staff of any wrongdoing, Sire,” Pool said. “We will discover the perpetrator of your father’s murder.”
Siv hadn’t thought it was one of the servants, but they had to cover all the possibilities. He’d been king for a grand total of one month, but they were still no closer to discovering who had slipped Firetears into his father’s tea. The poison took a while to kick in, so any of the dignitaries King Sevren had entertained the morning of the Vertigon Cup could have been responsible. Many of them had been visiting from the Lands Below to watch the dueling competition and pay their respects to the King of the Mountain. Some were rulers in their own right. Siv would have to be very careful whom he accused of regicide. This could go bad faster than dumping a jar of zur-wasps onto a sleeping velgon bear.
Even though the traditional mourning period had only just come to an end, Siv had spent the past few weeks meeting with the heads of noble family after noble family, trying to establish a rapport with each of them. No one had expected the king to die so young, and many of the old nobles still considered Siv an irresponsible youth. They thought he could be contained and controlled. He couldn’t let that idea fester and take root amongst his people too.
Being king was burning difficult. Not for the first time, he wished he could ask for his father’s advice. King Sevren had tried to teach him when he was alive, but Siv had missed too many opportunities. He frowned at the crown in his hands, willing away the grief clutching at his belly. His father was gone. It was up to him to take care of their mountain.
“Where’s Dara stationed today, Pool?” he asked. Pool still lingered inside the door to the library as if he expected whatever had made that noise to jump out from behind a bookcase.
“Miss Ruminor is guarding the entrance to the cur-dragon cavern today,” Pool said crisply.
“I’m going down there.”
“Don’t you need to continue your preparations, my king?”
“No, I’m ready now.” Siv grabbed some scribbled notes from the table and stuck them in his coat pocket. There were only a few items of business that required notes. Today was more about establishing the dynamics of the new royal council. He didn’t need notes on how to be charming.
Siv and Pool made their way down the winding staircase from the library. Siv hadn’t planned for Dara to spend her days guarding doorways when he asked her to join his Castle Guard, but too many guardsmen had been involved in the plot against his father, and the remaining few had to take up the slack. A month before the king’s murder, Captain Bandobar had recruited a dozen men to reinforce the aging company. They’d been perfectly positioned by whoever had truly hired them to betray the royal family. They had incapacitated the loyal guards and tried to abduct Siv and his sisters. Only Dara, his training partner and friend, had been able to save them.
Siv had to figure out who was responsible for the treacherous guardsmen soon. The plot had failed, but unless they could root out the source, his father’s murderer was sure to try again. He would have to keep a close eye on the nobles at the council meeting for any signs they were disappointed to have a new Amintelle king.
Meanwhile, Pool was vetting replacements for the short-staffed Guard. It had been safest to fire all the new recruits, whether they were sure of their involvement or not. He’d sent Captain Bandobar away too. Rot and mold had been allowed to infiltrate the Guard—and the kingdom—for too long. They needed a fresh start with people they could trust. Such people were in disturbingly short supply in Vertigon these days. But Dara Ruminor was one of them.
Dara did footwork back and forth in the entrance to the tunnel. The stone stretched flat and straight as a dueling strip. No one would be able to get past her, and it was just the right length for her exercises. Advance, retreat, advance, lunge.
Her steps echoed through the tunnel, and a Firebulb on the wall vibrated with the rhythm of her movements. She kept her black-hilted sword in its sheath at her waist, pointing her fingers as she lunged and stabbed at the air. She imagined a shadowy opponent, blade sharp and eyes deadly. She bounced on the balls of her feet, anticipating a rapid attack or a vicious feint. She had to remain ready, ever on the defensive. She lunged, driving her invisible blade into her imagined enemy. Then she resumed her guard stance and started again.
The light from the Firebulb cast a muted glow around the tunnel. Every once in a while she glanced down the passageway, but the only people likely to come up that way were the dragon keepers. The entrance to the cur-dragon cave opened above a sheer cliff. No one could threaten the prince from there.
Not the prince. The king. She had to keep reminding herself that Siv was now the ruler of Vertigon. She had been a member of the Castle Guard for a month, but she’d spent most of that time guarding the castle’s various orifices rather than the king himself. He hadn’t been outside of the castle much, as they still didn’t know the identity of his enemies or where they might ambush him.
Or at least, the king didn’t know his enemies. Dara had a pretty good idea about one of them.
She stabbed the air, a light sweat breaking out on her forehead. Her footsteps rang loud in the empty tunnel. She was beginning to wonder whether she might have been a more effective protector if she had stayed at home. At least there she could have gathered proof of her parents’ involvement and maybe learned about their new plans instead of guarding unassailable hallways. But she couldn’t stay under her father’s roof, not when she was fairly certain he had been the one to kill King Sevren.
At first she had doubted her suspicions. She thought the whirl of adrenaline and fear when she foiled the kidnapping—and possibly the murder—of the prince and his sisters had made her jump to conclusions. But when she returned to her parents’ dwelling long after midnight that fateful evening, her fears had been confirmed.
Dara trudged up to the house, shaken and numb from the events of the day. Her mother and father were sitting at their large stone table, talking in low voices. She paused on the porch to listen through the kitchen window.
“Where is Corren?” Lima said. “He should be finished with the bodies by now.”
“Have patience, my darling.” Dara’s father sounded calm and sure.
“We must find out who stopped Farr.”
“Corren will do everything he can. He has to make it look like Farr’s death was unrelated to the others.”
“Stupid boy.” Lima made a strange sound, partway between a snort and a sob. “How hard could it have been to stab the young—?”
“Lima. The job isn’t done. We must be careful for a while yet.”
“At least your part succeeded. And good riddance.” A chair scraped across the floor. “Where is Dara?”
“I expect she is with her dueling friends.”
“I’m going to . . .”
Dara hadn’t heard the rest. She stomped on the steps by the porch to alert them to her presence, hoping they’d think she just arrived. She had heard enough to confirm that their assistant, Farr, had failed at an important mission—one they had sent him to carry out. They already knew he wouldn’t return.
He wouldn’t return because Dara had killed him.
Her parents had looked up when she entered the room, taking in her fractured, exhausted appearance. She wasn’t even sure whether what she had overheard or the fight she had barely survived had shattered her more. She told them she’d gone for a run to clear her head after hearing the news of King Sevren’s assassination. Fortunately she hadn’t been injured in the clash, so there was no reason for them to suspect she had been outside the Fire Guild at the crucial moment. Her parents had offered her a bowl of porridge and sent her to bed. They’d been kind and nurturing, as parents should be. If only she’d learned the truth about what they were capable of before she faced Farr on that boardwalk.
Dara gritted her teeth and picked up the pace of her footwork as regret squeezed her like a hand around her throat. There was no point thinking about that. Farr had made his own decision. He’d been trying to abduct young Princess Selivia, and his companions were about to stab Siv to death when she stopped them. She had no choice.
That didn’t save her from seeing Farr’s face in her dreams, his eyes going wide and then lifeless. He had seemed like a nice person, and she’d thought him harmless. But he had fallen under the thrall of the Ruminors, and they were a force to be reckoned with. Dara was only just coming to understand how dangerous they were.
The morning after the king’s murder, she had moved out of her parents’ home to live with their enemy. She didn’t reveal what she suspected, simply saying she’d been offered a job on the Castle Guard. She had long failed to live up to their expectations anyway, and her departure would just be one more disappointment. Her father had given her a cold stare and turned his back as she left through the Fire Lantern shop. But her mother had flown into a towering rage. She screamed about how Dara would never be as good as her sister, Renna, who had been killed in a surge of Fire a decade ago, and how she was betraying their family name. Dara trudged down the slope of Village Peak with her mother’s shouts hammering her like hailstones, desperately fighting the urge to cry. If Lima hadn’t been so harsh, Dara might have turned around and decided to stay. Instead, her mother had treated her with the same derision she’d experienced for the past decade—and her father had done nothing to ease the sting.
She was fairly certain the only reason her parents hadn’t marched to the Castle Guard barracks and dragged her back home was because they didn’t want to draw attention to themselves while the investigation into the king’s murder was underway. The relative ease with which she’d been able to walk away from them only helped to confirm her suspicions.
She’d tried to sort out what her parents wanted as she got used to living away from them for the first time. Her father resented the restrictions placed on his power by the Fire distribution system. Her mother believed in the Fireworkers’ natural superiority—even though she didn’t have the ability herself. But Dara knew it was about more than that. Her parents wanted revenge for Renna’s death. Zage Lorrid, the Fire Warden, had been responsible for the accident, and the Ruminors’ hatred of him was well known, but they held a deeper grudge—one that was much worse than Dara had realized. The king had pardoned the Warden and denied them justice. Now they wanted the king and his children to pay the price.
Dara intended to atone for what they had done in turn and prevent them from trying again—if she could. And if she ever got to do more than guard an empty passageway.
Her boots shuffled and scraped against the stone floor as she moved, switching directions as rapidly as possible. A cold breeze drifted from the cur-dragon cave, carrying a hint of mist through the corridor. Autumn had been cold and rainy so far, and it was threatening to be a vicious winter.
“Do you never rest?”
Dara spun to face the entrance to the castle. Siv—the king—leaned in the doorway. He wore a deep-blue coat and a sword buckled at his hip. Dara recognized it as a Fire Blade, even from this distance. Pool’s tall form loomed a few paces behind him.
“I have to stay in shape,” she said.
&nb
sp; “You make me tired just watching you.”
“You should be training too,” Dara said, wiping the stiff, too-long sleeve of her guard uniform across her forehead. She was having new coats tailored to fit her better, but this one would have to do for now. “You’ll be too slow next time we duel.”
“I am in wonderful shape,” Siv said, putting his fists on his hips and posing with his chest puffed out. “You should spend more time admiring me, really.”
Dara fought a grin. He wasn’t wrong. He had a strong, slim waist and broad shoulders, and the shadow of a beard on his jaw emphasized his high cheekbones and intelligent eyes.
“I’m too busy keeping my eyes on this passageway in case the cur-dragon keepers rise up against you.”
“I’ve always suspected them,” Siv said. “They’re sneakier than burrlinbats under an Eventide moon.”
“Did you need me for something?” Dara asked. “Or are you just here to critique my footwork?”
“There’s no way I’d be as critical of your footwork as you are of it yourself.” Siv stretched his arms over his head, joints cracking. “I happened to be walking in this general direction and thought I’d say hi.”
Pool made a sound very like a snort behind him.
“Don’t you have a council meeting soon?” Dara asked.
“Yeah, but I’m making them wait. It’s all part of the plan.”
“Right. Today’s the day you’re going to demonstrate your brilliant political maneuverings.”
Siv nodded sagely. “It will be a council meeting for the ages. You should come. I’m sure to be very impressive.”
“I am on duty, Your Majesty,” Dara said.
“Majesty. Ooh, that’s a new one.”
“Would you prefer ‘Your High and Mightiness’?”
“That is very tempting, but seriously, it’s just me and Pool. I wish you’d go back to calling me Siv.” The king’s voice was casual, but there was sadness in his eyes, something that had been there too often of late. Dara’s chest tightened at the sight. She knew how much Siv’s father had meant to him. And his life wasn’t supposed to turn out this way.
