Reign of Darkness

by Michaela Riley Karr

  While he did so, I finally removed the heavy rucksack that had miraculously remained on my back, burned though it was, and searched for a roll of bandages. When I turned around, Sam had already flopped forward onto the bed, sound asleep. I could only vaguely remember now that I had gotten a few hours asleep while he had gotten none, spending the night warning as many Rounans as he could.

  I removed my own blackened and crusty clothing, and then set about bandaging the cuts and burns that decorated Sam’s body, his arms bearing most of them. Then, I wrapped a couple strips around my fingers, which were a little singed and raw from shielding my head from the giant vortex of fire, tucked my back into Sam’s chest, and allowed myself to unwind and sleep.

  Sheer exhaustion allowed me to sleep for what I could only guess to be a couple hours, but it felt like I had only blinked when dawn’s light started filtering through the lightweight, gauzy curtains that appeared to float in the ocean breeze. Sam was still a solid lump behind me, so deep in sleep that his breaths were hardly detectable.

  I rose slowly, stretching my arms carefully as throbbing aches rumbled down them. It had been some time since I had fought so hard. My bare feet made slapping noises against the cold flagstones of the floor regardless of how quiet I tried to be as I made my way to check on Kylar and Rayna. The latter stared up at me with her bright, Allyen eyes, so I scooped her up and began a search for clothes so I could take her out and let Sam sleep.

  A short rummage through the various dressers in our room revealed nothing but clothes suited for nobility. Long, colorful dresses made of fragile fabric. Elaborate suitcoats and fine trousers that looked like a knee would bust open the first time the wearer knelt to the ground. All of the shoes that were small enough to fit me looked like pajama slippers.

  I wrinkled my nose. I wouldn’t be me in this type of clothing. My desperate eyes glanced to the pile of crumbled, burned clothes in the corner that Sam and I had worn last night before landing on my blackened rucksack. I gave a sigh of relief and gave the dresser drawer a nice shove to reject what it had to offer.

  After dressing in my only other set of normal clothes, a plain, brown tunic, tough, woolen trousers of the same color with a threadbare, black shawl for the drafty palace, I took Rayna and headed out the bedroom door. I was just thinking to myself that the cold, stone building was as silent as a tomb when I remembered that, quite frankly, it was one.

  I made my way back down the ancient armor-lined hallway, intending to find the door to the ocean-side balcony we had entered upon last night. All of the armor was Mineraltin in style, each of them seeming to mark different decades as they evolved from crude, ill-fitting iron pieces to refined stuff that shined. We must have been on the Mineraltin floor, judging by the armor and the emerald banners every few feet. The Archimage Palace had floors and suites dedicated to all the Royal families of Nerahdis, even a suite for the Allyen where I’d stayed last time.

  My hand was on the latch for the balcony door when a shiver tingled my senses. It was like I had almost felt another presence, but it disappeared before my magic could recognize it. I froze as Rayna babbled a little louder, wondering if I had imagined it. After a second or two went by, I gripped the latch tighter and raised it, beginning to pull the door open when I felt it again. Just a tremble of a presence coming from further down the hallway.

  “Hello?” I called as loudly as I dared, seeing as people were still sleeping.

  My word echoed through the dusty hall, and while there was no verbal response, I felt another ping of a presence. My mind raced with memories of the strange, distraught presence I had felt before I left the palace after Dathian’s death as well as Arii’s stories of Dathian’s “ghost.”

  I shook my head and turned to Rayna in my arms, trying to calm myself. “Perhaps, Frederick or one of the other Royals is getting close. Let’s go meet them, hmm?”

  Rayna gurgled, her tiny mouth hanging open in a smile simply because I was talking to her, but I took it as agreement. I closed the door to the balcony and walked to the other end of the hallway where the main staircase of the palace appeared.

  Again, it appeared utterly unchanged from the time I had lived here for a few weeks while Archimage Dathian conducted his experiments to discover why an Allyen would not be born naturally after Evan and I. The spiral, marble behemoth stretched from darkest black on the main floor to the whitest of whites at the very top, and it appeared the Mineraltin floor resided at about the slate gray portion of the spectrum.

  I moved to go down the stairs, steeling myself for whatever remnants of that horrific battle still existed, when I felt another tug on my senses. The pull made me glance behind me at the stairs leading up, instead of the ones going down. I swallowed a little hard. If it was a Royal, they’d surely be arriving downstairs. Not up.

  Well. I’d faced far more dangerous situations in the past, right?

  Taking a deep breath and holding Rayna tight, I magically summoned my sword with my other hand, just in case. Out of habit or paranoia, I wasn’t too sure. Regardless, I began the climb up the stairs. Past the third floor, the Auklian floor on which Evan had roomed during our stay since there was only one Allyen suite. Past another floor that appeared Lunakan in style, and then the floor I had stayed on. I kept waiting for some sort of nudge to give me some sort inclination as to whether to exit the staircase or keep climbing, but none came.

  As the staircase reached its height, turning snowy white from an ash gray for the Allyen floor, I reached uncharted territory. The top floor was reserved for the Archimage, and I had never stepped foot upon it the times I had been here before. It was Dathian’s personal space away from the rest of the Palace. Had been. I grieved more for our failure than the arrogant, pompous man himself.

  Sure enough, at the landing for the Archimage’s floor, the faint presence gave me a push, a little stronger now, but still so small and weak that I likely would have never felt it if I hadn’t been all alone.

  This hallway was just like the rest of the palace; black onyx flooring and white marble ceiling with all the shades in between stretching up and down the columns. However, while the rest of what I had seen of the palace had been mostly untouched aside from a layer of dirt and dust, this floor had been trashed. Tapestries had been ripped down from their hangings, and the navy carpet that lined every hallway had been removed entirely. Suits of armor and other decor had been pushed over or ripped to shreds. Portraits lined the walls on both sides, all of people, but those, strangely enough, looked like they hadn’t been moved.

  On my left, Dathian stared back at me, in painting form. The deep blue of his eyes was unmistakable, although it seemed the artist had been very forgiving of the natural flaws in any human being’s appearance. I was beginning to hear noises downstairs, but my curiosity was too piqued to stop.

  I walked slowly forward, carefully stepping over the strewn-about paraphernalia. Even Rayna somehow sensed the strange situation we were in and no longer made her constant babbling noises. As we passed more and more portraits of stately-looking people, it hit me that these were all the Archimages Nerahdis had ever had. Men, women, all nationalities, all ages, all Royals who likely weren’t in line for the throne. We passed doorways that appeared to lead to bedrooms and living spaces and a majestic library, but no gentle push toward any of them.

  At the very end of the hall, I realized that one portrait had been set on the floor between two others, the only one in the whole area that was not still on its nail. The portrait on the floor was of a thin, unremarkable Mineraltin woman, but my breath hitched in my throat at the sight of a much younger Rhydin residing within the final portrait. Or, I guess I should say the first portrait.

  A shiver rolled down my spine with the reminder that Rhydin had been the First Archimage, especially with this proof. His likeness commanded my attention; I stared at him, nose to nose, and almost couldn’t believe what I saw.

  It was definitely him, but he was so unlike the Rhydin that I knew. The
Rhydin who had halted his aging in the mid to upper twenties, who had unleashed Duunzer, who had sparked the corrupt, Nerahdian war, who was now emperor in the evilest way possible, who was never to be seen without his death glare or huge, midnight cloak.

  The Rhydin in the portrait was so young. Eighteen at most, if that. He was swamped in the regalia of an Archimage, which displayed subtle hints at each of the Three Kingdoms’ couture. His dark hair was shorter, tidier, and his familiar, amethyst eyes appeared huge on his slightly less pale face, emphasizing both his youth and…dare I say it, innocence. I couldn’t stop gawking. Time had frozen.

  How did such a young boy become Archimage of Nerahdis? He looked so small. What in the world happened to him to make him the Rhydin I knew now?

  An unintelligible call floated up the staircase from down below just as I finally felt a vague pull in the direction of the final door in the hallway, just to the side of Rhydin’s young portrait. I walked in hesitantly, only to find a small study that had similarly been upended. Ancient papers, books, crumbling tools that I could only recognize enough to having something to do with astronomy, and various writing utensils were littered about the floor. Bookcases lined the room, their shelves sagging or fallen, and one of them had been tipped over entirely. A bulky desk sat mostly undisturbed in the middle of the room.

  My skin crawled. The strange presence that had weakly beckoned me here was at its strongest in this room. Yet, my sword pointed to the floor. I couldn’t sense any malice in this presence now. Only sadness and loneliness. A breath of wind pulled me further into the room to where I could see a small trapdoor in the corner sitting open.

  Another call sounded from the staircase, louder this time. The presence reacted in a tizzy, pulling on me as hard as it could manage toward the trapdoor. The sad desperation of it made me move faster, so I walked around the desk and began to descend the cold, misshapen steps beneath the trapdoor. I didn’t get to the bottom before my chin was forced to the left, right in line with a stone shallowly etched with the seal of the Archimage. Nobody would see it in the hazy light of the trapdoor unless they knew it was there.

  I withdrew my sword and dug out a dagger from my boot. Then, one-handedly, I dug it into the paste between the stones, which crumbled from centuries of existence, freeing the marked stone. I put my dagger away, pulled the brick out and set it on the floor, and reached inside up to my elbow, hoping there weren’t any creepy-crawlies back there.

  “Lina, where are you?” I heard Rachel call from much closer, probably this floor, at the same moment my fingers touched leather.

  Chapter Four

  I yanked the book out of the stone wall like it had bit me and rapidly fitted the stone I’d removed back into its spot. I didn’t know why, but for some reason, I didn’t want Rachel to know what I was doing. I shoved the book into my big cloak pocket, then tripped up the steps and back out into the hallway.

  The guiding presence had faded away now that I could sense Rachel nearing the top of the staircase. I jogged down the hallway as far as I could before Rachel’s willowy form appeared on the marble landing, and I slowed to a walk.

  Apprehension melted into relief before screwing up into suspicion on her freckled face. “Lina, what on Nerahdis are you doing all the way up here? Didn’t you hear me calling?”

  “Uh, yeah, sorry,” I replied, trying not to breathe too hard. “I was just exploring to keep Rayna from waking the whole floor, and I didn’t hear you until you got closer. What’s going on?”

  “The Royals are here, we’ve been waiting for you downstairs,” Rachel chided, gesturing back toward the staircase, “Come on, we don’t have all day! It’s dangerous to be all together like this.”

  I nodded, quickening my stride, and then we descended the staircase together. The heavy, leather volume thudded against my thigh with every step I took, and I searched the back of my mind for that pitiful, forlorn presence to no avail. I could sense no one beyond Rachel’s warrior-mother-hen air, as well as the other Royals downstairs as Rachel ushered us closer.

  To my relief, when we reached the ground floor, Rachel pulled us in the opposite direction of the massive throne room. I never wanted to see that place again. Instead, she guided Rayna and I down a hallway that ended with another balcony overlooking the sea. About halfway down, she turned through a reinforced wooden door into what appeared to have once been a small conference room complete with the same table that Dathian, Arii, and I first met around so long ago.

  Gathered around the table now were Frederick, Mira, and Cornflower. It gave me pause to see the three siblings together again. So much had changed since my childhood of growing up terrified of these three Lunakan Royals’ mysterious wind magic. The years had not been kind.

  Frederick was my age, twenty-three, yet he was beginning to look a full ten years older. His hair was no longer the goldenrod of our late teen years. Instead, it was a dull straw color that was coming away at his temples. His wiry frame was thinner than when I’d last seen him the day Dathian died, and his ice-blue eyes seemed sunken into his skull. Cassandra’s death had altered him forever. Dominick, their toddler son, was the image of the young Frederick I remembered, and he sat in his lap as still and silent as stone, which unnerved me.

  Mira was dressed in bright, Mineraltin green, although her outfit was more in line with someone in hiding rather than the queen she should be. She looked older than her years as well, but not quite to the extent of her older brother. Cornflower, identical to the dark-haired Mira in every way except for her wavy blonde tresses, appeared too young to be sitting at this table.

  “Where’s Xavier?” I asked, the words spilling out of my mouth. At Frederick and Mira’s pained expressions, I realized I probably should have known better.

  “He didn’t want to come. He is home with Taisyn,” Mira mumbled, her violet eyes downcast.

  I eyed Frederick carefully. Was their feud really still ongoing after so many months?

  The future king of Lunaka cleared his throat, his eyes hard. “Has Xavier still not accepted that it is not my fault Taisyn was blinded by Robert, Rhydin’s Follower?”

  “I know, Frederick,” Mira sighed, her hands gripping the knees of her skirt. “In my husband’s mind, he still thinks you should have been home with your family rather than away in Auklia.”

  “I was just trying to help Daniel!” Frederick’s voice rose. “And to show the people of Lunaka that I was working to end the war! Daniel refused to fight and was trying to reveal the truth about Rhydin.”

  Mira remained silent, unwilling to engage in an argument that had likely been fought hundreds of times wherever she and Xavier currently called home. I wilted inwardly. I had hoped by now that their feud was over. In the corner, Sam, Evan, and Jaspen stood silently with similar expressions on their faces. I assumed Sam must have left Kylar with Bartholomiiu again.

  Frederick pinched the bridge of his nose, a movement I had witnessed too many times to count, until he took a deep breath and turned to me. “Sam was telling me of the destruction of your compound. I am sorry to hear you have lost your home,” he said quietly, and then turned to Rachel, “I also understand that this is why you have called us all here?”

  Rachel, my best friend and future Clariion, leader of the Ranguvariians, took her place at the head of the table as I grabbed a seat next to Frederick, settling Rayna in my lap. Sam and Evan came to sit on my other side as Rachel began to speak. “There are a couple of matters we need to discuss this morning, all of which are of the utmost secrecy and importance. This is why I asked everyone to come rather than depending on messengers, Ranguvariian though they may be.”

  I looked to Sam at the sound of that, but his eyes remained on the marble veins of the table in front of us. I wondered if he was still grieving the loss of the compound, our failure to protect the people there.

  “The first matter concerns the destruction of the Rounan compound. Tomorrow morning, Jaspen, Bartholomiiu, and I will be escorting the Allyens a
nd their families off the continent,” Rachel stated, matter-of-factly, avoiding eye contact with both Evan and I. “With the Lunakan Royals in the mountains and the Mineraltin Royals in the Great Desert, my grandfather feels that we should move the Allyens to an entirely different location to keep Rhydin from wiping us out one blow. This will be in an area of Caark we have chosen.”

  Sam went rigid beside me, but he didn’t say a word. I bit my lip in an attempt to keep my anger to myself. I still wasn’t on board with this. How was leaving the continent going to get the population to realize Rhydin was evil? But the thought of my children’s safety kept my teeth locked together.

  “That’s probably wise,” Frederick responded stiffly.

  I angled daggers in his direction with my eyes. Unfortunately, both he and Rachel noticed.

  “The other matter,” Rachel announced anyway, “is the status of the Kingdom of Auklia.”

  Mira piped up, “Were you able to discover the identity of the green-haired woman in Dathian’s portrait miniature?”

  “No,” Rachel admitted, her energy faltering. “My grandfather and I have scoured the known parts of the Auklian Royal family tree with no results. Dathian may have been Daniel’s uncle, but when a Royal becomes the Archimage, they are struck from the tree to keep them from favoring their kingdom of origin in continental affairs. We haven’t even been able to discover a living relative who knows of Dathian’s personal life, even if they happen to remember he was originally Auklian.”

  “Did Daniel have any other cousins whatsoever?” I asked, “Surely he must have some sort of long-lost aunt or uncle of a grandparent or something!”

  “I doubt it,” Frederick murmured, shaking his head. “The Auklian Royals have always historically had small families. It’s been a belief of theirs for centuries to keep the Royal bloodline small and exclusive to stop any remote chance of a challenge to the throne. They often only produce one heir unless it is Auklia’s turn to supply an Archimage, in which they allow two. Dathian was an extremely rare second-born.”