by Aleah Raynes
Touch of Ice
Vaskell Empire, Book One
Aleah Raynes
Mandy Caruso
Opal Moon Press
Touch of Ice
© Copyright 2017 Aleah Raynes and Mandy Caruso
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Published by: Opal Moon Press
PO Box 224
Middleburg, FL 32050
OpalMoonPress.com
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Cover by Desiree DeOrto Designs
Formatting by AG Formatting
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All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Contents
Introduction
1. A Kingdom Falls
2. Camp Evil
3. Can Boys Be Trusted?
4. Gaining a Princess’s Trust.
5. The Escape
6. The Trials of Survival.
7. A Dragon’s Frozen Tear…
8. Too Young to Be an Outlaw
9. Oighear, Kingdom of Ice
10. Dragon Magic
11. Castle Oighear
12. An Ice Fae and Water Dragon Must Work as One
13. The Kingdom of Ice Is Alive
About Aleah Raynes
About Mandy Caruso
Note from the Publisher
Touch Of Ice
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Escaping is only the first challenge she faces.
Fifteen-year-old Ayla Vaskell is the youngest daughter of the deceased king of Crio and no less determined to reclaim the kingdom from her evil uncle. He killed her parents, claimed the throne, and threw Ayla and her three sisters in a slave camp for children. With their powers bound, hope for a future is lost. Until Dain demands her attention and reveals that he and his friends were sent to aid the princesses in putting an end to the mad king’s reign.
After breaking out of the camp and fleeing to an inn outside the kingdom of ice fae and water dragons for shelter, Ayla is giving a journal that belonged to her father. The former king had left the girls clues to help along a journey they aren’t sure they are ready for. When she is also given the first relic—a frozen dragon’s tear—she’s drawn to it and knows what she must do.
With Dain, his friends, and her sisters at her side, Ayla is more focused than ever to complete her mission to set the realm back in balance. If she fails, the realm, and the four kingdoms within it, will be lost forever.
A Kingdom Falls
Ayla
“Cheater!”
I laughed and flew down the hall, my wings allowing me to zip into the ballroom. My sisters gave chase. I realized too late that I’d trapped myself in. Footsteps to my right made me whirl around and put my hands up, fingers ready to blast my sisters with snow.
Marybeth, my nursemaid’s daughter, stopped mid-step, her eyes wide as she stared at me. I slowed my wings and drifted down so my feet touched the ground. “I thought you were my sisters.”
Mary was in her early twenties but seemed to love hanging out with us. She and Luna, who was seventeen, were the best of friends. Mary had her thick brown hair twisted up in a bun, a few hairs falling loose around her round face. “They may be setting a trap for you.”
“Maybe.” I studied her more. She had a smirk in place even though she tried to hide it. Then I glanced down, noting her hands were behind her back. No. “Traitor!” I squealed and took to the air again but didn’t get very far before she raised her hands.
Ugh. A blanket of goo settled over me, weighing me down. Just then Luna, Ena, and my twin, Pyria, raced into the ballroom. Their laugher echoed off the walls. I sat on the ground and folded my arms. “Who’s cheating now?”
Our games of hide and seek always turned out with someone covered in something. And we leave a mess, which our nursemaid walks in on.
Footsteps stopped just inside of the ballroom. And there she was. Corinne, Mary’s mom and our nursemaid. The scowl on her face made me look away. We were in trouble. But Corinne’s form of punishment was to make us clean up our mess, then some other task that involved cleaning.
And we had to do it without using our magic.
“Look at her wings!” Corinne stormed across the vast ballroom.
I glanced over my shoulder but couldn’t see much. The weight said enough. My wings were coated in the slime my sisters threw on me. A giggle escaped. I couldn’t help it. This was payback for what I did to them last week. It took them days to get all the honey and feathers off theirs.
“I don’t understand you girls.” Corinne gripped my upper arm and tugged me to stand. When she started toward the bathroom at the back of the room, Baxter, our father’s soldier in arms, burst into the room.
His features were darker than I’d ever seen them. His brows bunched and his eyes were dark, commanding. My heart pounded. Something was wrong.
Corinne stopped and stared at him. I could tell by the way her face paled that she, too, knew something happened. Or was about to.
Baxter advanced to us, motioning for my sisters and Mary to gather around Corinne and me. He was in full battle gear with his helmet under his arm. Cold fear sliced my insides. We were being invaded. Most children didn’t know the severity of being invaded. We, however, had been trained for such an event.
The day our mother banished her brothers from the kingdom for threatening her and our father’s lives, a seer told them our uncles would seek their revenge. So, we were trained. Trained to fight and run.
Baxter knelt on one knee and took Luna’s hand. With his head bowed, he said, “Take your sisters to the boat like we talked about. No matter what happens, you must survive. All of you.”
I glanced from Luna to Baxter in confusion. They’d planned this? “What about Mom and Dad?”
I couldn’t hold back the panic any longer. I used my magic to clean off the slim, dissolving it into dust that settled to the floor.
“We’ll will be right behind you.” Baxter stood and pushed us, Corinne included, toward the back of the ballroom. “Now go.”
Corinne gripped my hand and pulled me behind her. I met each of my sisters’ scared gazes. This was no drill. My bottom lip trembled and my eyes watered.
Just as we reached the secret passage to the stairs that descended to the caverns and river underneath the castle, soldiers in uniforms I didn’t recognize charged inside the ballroom. Baxter drew his sword and sounded an alarm.
The clanking of swords faded as Corinne led us deeper underground. I shook all over, and my ice magic became uncontrollable.
From the corner of my eyes, I noted Pyria was having the same problem with her fire magic. Her hand glowed in red and orange hues. “We should be fighting with them. Protecting our home!”
She stopped and glanced back as if deciding to go join the battle.
Luna blocked Pyria’s way up the stairs. “You must resist the pull. Your emotions…all our emotions are
taking over our powers. We can’t let that happen. If the castle falls into Iveos’s hands, it is up to us to take it back.”
That was part of the plan I never understood. How were a group of kids supposed to reclaim a kingdom from a madman?
I shook my head. I didn’t want to think about that. Mom and Dad would survive. Our soldiers would win. They had to.
Reluctantly, Pyria started moving again. I linked my fingers with hers. As twins, we centered each other, even though our powers were complete opposites. Hers fire and mine ice.
When we reached the boat at the underground dock, I almost cried in relief at the sight of our parents waiting for us. They were in common clothes, their wings folded in the back, hidden from sight.
This was worse than I thought. If we were all going into hiding, then the castle had already fallen.
I raced to my mom and wrapped my arms around her. She hugged me back, then drew each of her daughters into a tight hug. Then she kissed each of us on the forehead. “My angels.”
Sorrow squeezed my heart and lungs while fear still taunted my ice magic.
Mom let us go and ushered us into the boat. After I stepped in, I met Mary’s saddened gaze as her mother whispered something in her ear. Then Mary untied the boat and pushed it. “Be safe,” she whispered and stepped back.
“What are you doing? Come with us! Mom. Dad!”
They didn’t have time to answer before the dock was overrun by Iveos’s soldiers. Mom and Dad fought them. Baxter came rushing in with several of Dad’s guards, joining in the fight. My chest tightened as I helplessly watched.
Luna leaned down and touched the water. A small wave formed and pushed our boat farther out.
“We can’t just leave them!”
As soon as the words left my mouth, Mom screamed. I jerked my gaze to them. Mom crumbled to the ground. No! Tears fell in fat drops. I crouched and placed my hand in the water, freezing it.
Luna pulled my arm up. “Stop. There’s nothing we can do.”
She was trying to hold it together, but I saw her tears, her trembling lips, and her heart breaking as mine was. I hugged her and glanced to the dock to see our father, the king of Croi, fall to his knees then to the ground. A sword stuck out of his chest.
“No!” I readied to leap out of the boat, not knowing where I was going or what I’d do when I got there.
Luna tightened her arms around me. Ena and Pyria cuddled into us. We cried.
Suddenly the boat slammed into something, jarring us. Glancing up, I gasped at the large ship our boat hit. No! Soldiers stormed our tiny vessel, grabbing at us and tearing us from each other’s embrace. A wash of power settled over me. I tried to fight it, to call to my own magic, but it was too late. The spell was done.
They’d bound our powers. And tied our wings to our backs.
Iveos loomed over us, a sneer on his face. “Put them in the camp. Let’s see if they survive among the commoners.”
Camp Evil
Dain
Rain poured from the heavens, drenching me to the bone. At least, that’s what it felt like. The scent of snow hung heavy in the air, but it didn’t fall. Instead, the icy tendrils of an early winter shower slid down my spine and settled into the threadbare uniform I’d been forced to wear. I blew out a breath, releasing the tension from my body. I wouldn’t allow the guards to see me shiver or hear my teeth chatter.
Here in the cold.
Here in the rain.
A cry of sickness rang in the wind, echoing off the spiked, wooden walls surrounding us. A cough from a sick child followed. Another would die tonight. If I didn’t shut down my emotional response to those in need, I’d lose focus. Instead, I continued to muck the paddock, heaving shovel after shovel of horse manure into the wheelbarrow before carting it off.
The only adult contact we had consisted of a bullwhip striking our backs if we failed to stay on task or talked back. While we’d been sent here in servitude, our parents were either slaughtered or worse, imprisoned without committing a crime.
My brother and I, along with our friends, weren’t sure where our parents were. On the day the evil King Arolan came to our village, the children were sent in one direction and the parents in another. For all we knew, our parents were six feet under, or close to death in the putrid cells beneath Castle Vaskell.
The tragic events that led us to the slave camps were rumors, some more vulgar than the rest. The most prevalent one, spoken over and over, didn’t ring a bit of truth—King Vaskell had gone mad.
Supposedly, he killed his wife in a blind, jealous rage, then sent his daughters to the slave camps because the very sight of them reminded the king of their mother and how she betrayed him. I didn’t believe the rumors one bit nor did those in the surrounding villages, even though the king’s daughters were in the slave camp.
The months following the beginning of King Arolan’s rule caused rippling effects among the kingdoms. Magical resources were sucked dry. The bountiful harvests never materialized. Each kingdom within the realm suffered more and more while he continued to strip those who had nothing but the clothes on their backs. As they starved, he gorged.
“Back to work,” the guard snarled, giving me a shove. I lost my balance in the mud and muck and fell forward, landing face first in a sloppy puddle of dung. He let out a raspy laugh, rankling my nerves. I’d get even with him. Eventually.
“Get up. You look like a fool,” my twin, Vander, muttered, holding out his hand. His shaggy, sandy-blond hair hung in his face as rivulets of water streamed from the tips. More dripped from his nose, hitting me in the forehead.
“I grow tired of this.” I grasped his forearm and pulled myself off the sloppy ground. “How many more days should we play this game?”
“Until they agree to talk to us,” Vander snapped. “It’s why we are here.”
I wholeheartedly doubted that. We were here due to our parents’ imprisonment. The hows of our arrival were inconsequential, especially to the men honor bound to the treacherous king. “We’d end up here anyway, Vander.” I motioned to the other children surrounding us, some barely old enough to hold the tools they were given. “This is where they bring us all.” Alive or dead.
In the few short weeks we’d been here, I’d seen too many buried or burned after a brave but lonely battle with sickness. Some were frozen in a state of crying for their mothers. The sickness knew no discrimination, traveling from child to child. Those who were strong fought it off. Those who were weak…another cry of sickness broke through the heavy rain.
My faith withered.
“What do you think our mother and father would say? Seeing you moping around while they’re stuck in a cell deep within the belly of the castle.” Vander didn’t mince words with me. It was no use since we were twins, after all. “Do you think they’re sulking because a girl won’t listen, or do you think they’re fighting every chance they get?”
Probably neither.
“They’re dead. You and I both know it. They were dead the minute we were rounded up and brought here.” I realized the truth after our father explained what would be expected of us. My and Vander’s, as well as our friends’, fathers were loyal to King Vaskell. The whole dragon clan of Croi was. They’d do whatever it took to prove the king’s innocence and remove Arolan from power, including dying for the cause. “You saw them. They were rounded up, thrown into cages like us, and taken to the gods know where. They’re not alive.”
My brother sighed. “They are here,” he placed his hand over my heart, “always.”
Downtrodden, I wondered if it’d been worth it. Were the princesses important enough to sacrifice our lives for theirs? No matter how many times I’d approached Ayla, she brushed me off, refusing to talk to me. “She won’t listen. This is futile.”
“Don’t you dare give up on me,” my brother stated. “Not here. Not now.”
“Cool it, both of you,” Caspian, the leader of our group, snarled. “You’re going to draw unwarranted attenti
on to us.”
I grimaced. “Sorry.” I rubbed my hands along the front of my soaked pants, trying to remove as much mud from them before cleaning my face. “If this isn’t a pisser, nothing is.”
“I agree.” Caspian clasped me on the shoulder then inclined his chin to the horizon. “The storm is clearing. When it stops, we’ll try again. You’ll try again and you’ll keep going to her every afternoon, until she finally agrees to hear you out.”
“Have you tried befriending here?” Jaden’s unusual amber gaze landed on us before pushing his red-streaked hair from his face. “Explain the situation, not demand her attention?”
The girls spoke with no one. Kept their heads down and did their chores and nothing else. The first time I approached Ayla, she ignored my speech about being there to rescue them. Going home and…no, she kept her head down. Acted as if I were some noisy gnat, irritating her.
So, I tried being nice. Blunt. Caring. Engaging. I’d asked about the weather. How she felt. If she needed anything. I inquired about her sisters. I even tried to share a scrap of food with her, something I should have eaten on my own, but wanted to show a level of trust between us.
Nothing.
The heavy weight on my shoulders compounded. How did I win over a girl who’d also seen tragedy in her life? The princess among her peasants. A girl who’d never understood a hard day’s work in her life, now subject to the rigors of a corrupt society that had stolen her birthright. Couldn’t have been easy for her or her sisters.
