Non-Heir: The Black Mage Prequel Novella

by Rachel E. Carter

  And it was then Darren knew he could shut his eyes.

  His brother was safe.

  2

  When Darren awoke, he was lying on a cot in a room filled with empty beds. The air was sour, a strange mix of bitter herbs and chalky powder. He recognized it from his trips before.

  Every part of him ached, and when he tried to shift in the bed, his insides rebelled. The boy just barely made it to the bucket on the floor.

  He was clammy all over and shaking. His whole body heaved with the effort to breathe, and the light was playing with his eyes. His mouth tasted like—the boy shuddered—blood and something foul.

  There was a table next to his head.

  With a trembling hand, he reached for a water-filled glass. Darren could barely lift it, but somehow he managed to get three swallows before his fingers gave way and the contents sloshed against his bed.

  The sheets were soaked, but his clothes were clean. One of the healers must have changed them while he slept. Parts of him were scabbed. He could feel the coarse material of a bandage wrapped around his ribs. Another dug into the skin on his left arm when he tried to bend it.

  It was as if he had been dropped from the sky and every bone shattered upon impact, and when they were put back into place, it wasn’t quite right.

  There was a rustle of movement on the cot to his left and the blankets shifted. Blayne, with Darren’s same dark hair and the blue eyes of their father, was staring right back at him.

  “Darren?”

  The boy blinked as the memories came rushing back.

  The dark room and the monster-man. His brother in a corner. The way the first blow felt.

  “When he….” A lump rose and fell against the base of Blayne’s throat. “I told you to pretend, Darren…. Why did you do it?”

  The boy fisted the blanket. The memories hurt. “I didn’t want to pretend.”

  “Why?”

  Because he was hurting you. Darren didn’t reply.

  Blayne stared at the bandage on his leg. “You knew it was hopeless,” he croaked.

  “I know.” The boy flushed. But I still wanted to save you.

  “Don’t ever do it again.” Blayne slid off the bed and grabbed the boy by his shoulders, shaking him. “You hear me, Darren?” His voice was pained. “It’s not worth it.”

  “On the contrary, it was.”

  The monster’s voice rang out, and the temperature dropped in an instant. The older boy froze. The younger shoved his trembling hands under the blanket so the king wouldn’t see. Princes don’t show fear. He told himself to breathe.

  Then he let the air out through his nose.

  There were two healers on the other side of the room. They were treating a soldier with a missing arm. The monster would never emerge when an audience was present. That was another rule.

  The king obeyed his own rules.

  The man strolled down the narrow aisle to their row and paused at the edge of Darren’s cot. He studied each son, taking in their recovery. Darren could never tell whether their father was pleased or disappointed their scars were able to fade.

  The boy got the impression his father would rather they stay.

  The man’s face was hard and lean. Although still in his prime, his skin was weathered and lined. His eyes were two shards of ice, shrewd and calculating. Darren’s own were garnet—an uncommon, deep shade of red, easily mistaken for brown unless he was standing in just the right light. It was the one trait he shared with his mother. Lucius’s hair was clipped short like Darren’s brother, and all three shared the coal black locks so unlike the warm yellow of their mother.

  The king tilted his head as he examined his youngest, ignoring the fact that his heir was still standing, quivering from head to toe.

  “Starting tomorrow, you will be training with Sir Audric at dawn in the barracks,” the man said. “He is the best of Commander Salvador’s men.” His eyes narrowed to slits. “When you are done with your training, you will bathe, take your meal, and report to the library with your brother and your tutors. Understood?”

  “Yes, Father.” The boy was confused. He repeated his brother’s earlier question. “Why?”

  His father folded his arms and gave Darren an unsettling smile. “Because, my son, you have finally done something right. You put your brother before yourself. And as distasteful as I found your actions at the time—and there will be no repeats—I was impressed.” He cleared his throat. “The scholars were grooming you to be your brother’s advisor, but after last night… well, I can see the error of their ways. Commander of the Crown’s Army would be a much better title. Who better to protect the first-born than the second?”

  Darren’s jaw dropped. He wasn’t being punished. This was a reward. He’d been tested by the monster, and he had passed.

  He waited for the next words to come, but his father had already turned heel, his cape flapping as he strode toward the door.

  “Father,” Blayne wrung his hands together. Even though his voice quivered, the older boy held strong. “What about me?”

  “You will be spending your mornings with me. It is clear you have much to learn in the way of kings.”

  The next morning, the boy arrived at the palace training grounds well before the rising sun. His father always said a king was on time, and since he would never be king, Darren hadn’t paid the words any heed. But now he did.

  A knight was a hero, someone they wove into tapestries adorning the palace walls. Always golden, respected, wanted. He’d spied on the soldiers for ages, and for the first time, he would have the chance to join them. He wanted to impress this man.

  “Your highness.” A man approached. His coarse red hair matched the heavy beard framing his jaw. He was a giant, larger than the boy’s father, and his legs were as wide as the boy’s head.

  Darren tucked his hands behind his back. “Sir.”

  “Your father tells me he wants to make you a knight. Do you agree?”

  “Yessir.” The two words slipped out as one. The boy was trying so hard to hold his breath and not run up and hug the man who was bringing him freedom.

  “It will not be easy.” Sir Audric furrowed his brows. “And you are only six years of age. You will not cry.”

  “Yes—” the boy let the air out from his lungs, slowly “—sir.”

  “I’ve heard you are a troublemaker. Defiant. That you like to bully the other children. That stops today. One word from the servants and I send you straight back to your father.”

  The boy nodded earnestly. He wouldn’t need to pick fights, not if he was sparring with a knight.

  “Good.” The man seemed satisfied. “Now, the first thing to take care of is your clothes. Have you a pair of training breeches and a light shirt?”

  Darren shook his head. The Crown tailor only liked Borean silk and brocade. The stuffy, fancy fabrics were befitting a prince who was supposed to spend all his time indoors. The boy used to delight in making them rip, if only for the man’s horrified shriek.

  “Well, then. You can report to the regiment tailor after our training. I’m sure he can whip you up a couple of pairs. In the meantime, you will wear these.”

  The knight had been carrying a brown and tan bundle in his arms. Now he dumped it on the grass. A small tuft of dirt swelled up when it hit the ground.

  “Thank you, sir.” Darren ran forward to gather the bundle like it was the most precious thing he owned. He proceeded to change in a nearby stall, and when he emerged, the man gave a low whistle.

  “Looks like I was right. You are the same size as my daughter after all.”

  “Your daughter?”

  “Eve.” The corner of the knight’s lip twitched. “Surely you remember her? You picked a brawl and lost to a little girl in the gardens.”

  The boy’s memory returned and he scowled. “She broke my arm. It hurt for weeks.”

  “My Eve. She’s got the looks of her mother and the spirit of her father, what can I say?

  W
hat do I have? The boy wondered. Aloud he said nothing.

  “Now grab one of those staffs lining the wall. We are going to start with your basic stance. The soldiers say they’ve seen you practicing with a stick outside their drills. Let’s see where your instincts are wrong.”

  The boy jogged to the rack and pulled out a simple, rounded pole that was as thick as his fist and as tall as the man. It was made of wood. He looked back at the man with a dubious expression. “This is only a stick. I thought knights fight with swords.”

  “Don’t be pert.” The man waved him over. “You won’t get near a blade until you can master this ‘stick.’ All the students of the School of Knighthood do the same.”

  Darren had been a master of sticks for over a year. He told the knight as much.

  Sir Audric guffawed. “Have at it, your highness. You give me a flawless performance this next hour, and I will bring you a sword myself. You fail even once, and you will respect your staff and dedicate yourself to its study, never again to call it a mere ‘stick.’”

  The little boy smirked. “Deal.”

  The knight won the bet, and the boy quickly learned he was a living, breathing mistake. His feet were wrong, his aim was sloppy, he was too quick to judge and too slow to counter.

  The man had him holding a stance for ten minutes at a time. Just the effort sent the boy’s limbs quivering. And if he ever thought to release his grip on the weapon to scratch an itch or wipe away a bead of sweat, the man had him hold the pose twice as long the next time.

  Then there were the drills. Up and down. Back and forth. Left and right. Simple, but tiring. The moves seemed to echo in his bones.

  Darren had watched the soldiers perform dances with their weapons—spins and swoops, the stuff of heroes. The knight just laughed, telling him he couldn’t master the footwork, that it would be at least a year before they would attempt anything half so pretty with him.

  A year with a stick? The boy couldn’t believe there was so much to learn.

  “You are to be the best, your highness,” the man told the boy. “And you are still so young. You can’t afford to make mistakes when you are older. You practice with that staff every day. You run your laps, and you hold those stances and complete those exercises like I taught you. You do all of that, and by the time you get your sword, you’ll be ready. Three years. Not a day sooner.”

  On his fourth month of practice, the boy had successfully mastered the stances. The next morning when he arrived, there was a girl standing next to the knight.

  Her hair was pale and thin, almost white. She looked like a bird—hollowed bones and light skin, a bit scrawny, and had he not known her, he might have expected her to fly away with the wind.

  But Darren knew better. She was the knight master’s daughter, Eve, and she was far from helpless. If anything, she was a cat—a tiny thing with claws or, in her case, a fist like iron. Though quiet, her violet eyes were fierce.

  “You are now ready for a partner,” the man said. “She will be yours. From now on, the two of you will drill together. My Eve will also be attending the School of Knighthood when she comes of age.”

  The boy tried to hide his disappointment that it wasn’t another boy. This girl didn’t like him, and she was better.

  “You don’t get better without adversity,” the girl declared.

  Darren stuck his tongue out the second her father’s back was turned.

  She kicked him in return.

  It was the start of several long months.

  The girl beat him every time, not that he didn’t try. The little boy had never tried harder in his life. Strike. Block. Strike. Block. But Eve’s blows were heavier than his.

  Darren’s hands were blistered and shiny and red. The knight warned him not to let the nurse make a fuss. “If she gives you salves, you tell her no. A real soldier is proud of those ridges and bumps. They make him a man.”

  When Sir Audric finally let them train without orders, their drills got harder. Trying to think up moves and guess the girl’s wasn’t easy. He found himself making simple mistakes because his mind was too busy trying to anticipate a move in the future.

  It was three months after his seventh year that the boy could finally block the girl half the time. He wondered why he was never better until he saw her later that day practicing on her own. It was then he realized how he could better himself.

  So the boy started to train in his rooms. The knight wouldn’t let him take the staff off the training grounds, so he just practiced the exercises. Lifting heavy objects helped. Running every chance he could strengthened his legs. Another couple of months and he could block almost all of her moves.

  But never win.

  It was another year and a half before the boy and the girl were equals. By the time Darren reached nine years of age, he was ready, and so was the girl.

  When Sir Audric finally gave them their practice blades, it was the best day of both their lives.

  The boy was so caught up in his new world that the Crown lessons his father had ordered hardly seemed worthy. What feat was there in sitting in a boring library with his brother when there were enemies to slay? Darren skipped a couple of lessons, leaving Blayne in the hands of the angry scholars so he could practice behind the Crown stables with his sword.

  One of the guards found him a couple days later. Lucius was furious when he found out what his youngest had done. He told Darren he was disappointed, and when the boy readied himself for the monster, it took Blayne instead. The king informed him that would be his price.

  “Every time you neglect your studies for your own amusement, you are neglecting your duty to the Crown,” the man said. “Your brother will be the one to pay the price. This is but a small taste of how you could affect his reign. Perhaps now you will think twice about playing the fool.”

  The king dragged his twelve-year-old son by the arm and slammed the door shut in front of his youngest, locking Darren outside in the hall.

  Blayne’s screams haunted him all night.

  The boy swore never to make the same mistake again.

  When the healers finally released his brother from the palace infirmary, there were dark circles underneath Blayne’s eyes. He wouldn’t even look at Darren as the boy apologized. It was then, for the first time, that Darren understood what being the monster’s heir meant.

  There was no freedom from the Crown for its heir.

  When the knight master found out about Darren’s antics with the tutors, he was in trouble. The master had him sit out of drills as Eve practiced by herself. Meanwhile, the knight spent all five hours lecturing him on the importance of his Crown lessons.

  “What they have to show you is important,” the man declared. “Numbers and maps will tell you how to plan your soldiers’ battles. Crown policy will dictate how you honor your brother’s rule. Knowing your noble families will tell you which are most likely to stray from the Crown. Those studies of science are what the healers and apothecaries use to treat your men’s injuries. If you find yourself bleeding and alone, you will need to know what plant can save your life.”

  “But why do I need to learn about the past?” the boy complained. “What good is it to learn about old battles and people who are dead?”

  Sir Audric gave him a lofty look. He’d been doing that more and more often, in addition to addressing the prince by his name instead of his title as the rest of the palace court did. The boy liked that. “History repeats itself all the time, Darren. Your enemies know this, and if you do not, they will be able to anticipate your next move. As a commander, your mistakes will have more impact than the others, you need to make sure the ones you make are not ones that could have been prevented.”

  “You are lucky,” the girl told him later, following him into the dining hall. It was a grand thing, swirling marble and giant tapestries with several long tables and lots of color. Darren hated it. The others always stared at him while they ate. “My father says you have the best tutors in the land. Th
at it’s just you and your brother.”

  “So?” Darren sat down at the far end of the Crown’s personal table. It was smaller than the rest. His father had a different room for private affairs and dinner, but the king preferred they take most meals with the rest of his court. Many of the highborn families had apartments inside the palace, after all, and a wise king kept his best men close, even if it meant putting his sons on display for the rest of the world.

  Eve dropped down into the seat beside him. Darren watched her in amusement. In the last three years, the girl had grown comfortable with his stony silences and biting remarks. He supposed somewhere along the line they had become friends. What surprised him was he didn’t mind.

  “So I have to take lessons with the rest of them.” She raised her hand and made a sweeping motion around the room. “Not everyone is serious like us,” she added. “Half just want to be mages.”

  “Mages.” The boy scoffed. “Won’t they be in for a surprise when their magic never shows.”

  “I know.” She made a face. “They should be training to be soldiers or knights like us.”

  “Who would ever want to be a soldier?” His tone was dry.

  She just gave him a long look. “Darren.” She’d grown more comfortable with his humor, too.

  The prince rolled his eyes. “If they are highborn, they have no excuse. Lowborns, well, they aren’t really that keen, are they? I doubt they’d know a staff from a stick.” He had conveniently forgotten he once hadn’t either.

  “My father is lowborn.”

  Darren’s confidence faltered. “But Sir Audric is a knight…”

  “Yes.” She stood abruptly, her food untouched. Her lips were pursed. “Perhaps you should think about Sir Audric the next time you make fun of those less fortunate than you. No one likes a braggart, especially one that isn’t really that clever.”

  Darren stared at the girl as she got up and exited the hall, a fist curling into his side. How dare she! Who did she think she was? His whole face burned in indignation. He had come to think of her as a… friend.