Guardian Queen: Epic Fantasy Romance (Hardstorm Saga Book 3)

by Dana Marton

  On that wall above the throne, mounted like a hunting trophy, hung Lord Samtis’s head.

  He had been younger than Batumar, a born warrior, the man the warlords elected as High Lord of the Kadar when they thought Batumar had perished on the mainland. Samtis had been a good man, a strong man, even handsome. Now his dark hair was matted with blood. His eyes stared unseeing, his mouth hanging agape, his tongue black and shriveled.

  He did not deserve to be mocked in death this way. Grief welled in my chest anew. Then that grief turned to anger. It turned to something hard and cold and determined.

  As Khan Verik dismissed his commander, Onra and I were dragged forward by our arms. Our turn.

  The new khan looked very much like his father, the man I had watched Batumar kill when Khan Woldrom had laid siege to the fortress city. Verik had the same hulking stature and the same red hair, the same flat nose, although, his small brown eyes were sharper and meaner. Black armor of boiled leather—from some rough and scaly animal—covered his body. He had two curved swords in his belt and daggers strapped to both thighs and both arms.

  He barely glanced at us, irritation filling his voice as he spoke. “Have I no man left to beat servant girls into submission that you must bring them before me? Give them to the men, or give them to the dogs. I have more important affairs to attend to.”

  “Forgive me, Great Khan.” Ginger Nose bowed his head. “But this one,” he yanked Onra’s arm up, “says that this one,” he yanked my arm up next, “is the Lady Tera.”

  Verik’s gaze snapped to me, his attention absolute and absolutely malevolent.

  I straightened my spine and did not wait for permission to speak. “I am the Lady Tera. I have come to take back my island.”

  “You dare to look me in the eye and stand before me instead of falling to your knees?” he demanded, his cold voice whipping through the room like a north wind.

  I apologized not. Neither did I lower my gaze.

  “You imagine yourself my equal?” He scoffed, tapping his fingers on the arms of his throne—half a dozen thigh bones bundled together with iron chains—as he waited for my answer.

  How many dead men had it taken to make that cursed throne? Were they Kadar warlords? I doubted they were simple servants.

  The man liked his trophies. If I fail here, I wondered for a moment, will my head be mounted next to Lord Samtis’s, or will the khan have my bones made into some macabre scepter?

  “Tell me, then, Lady Tera, how do you find Khangar?” the khan asked with a dark smile when I remained silent. “Do you like the changes I have made?”

  Khan-gar meant the khan’s seat. He had renamed the city already.

  Khangar. I despised the very word. So, the true name of our city was already erased. If Verik stayed in power, how long would it be before our people were erased as well, then even our memory disappeared?

  “How do you like my throne room?” He glanced back pointedly at Lord Samtis’s mounted head.

  I hated his damned throne room, his throne, and the man. I was used to being in this room at the nightly feasts, sitting at the Lord’s table on the dais at Batumar’s side. I tucked those memories away until my mind cradled but a single thought: I shall claim it all back, and I shall save my people.

  “Are you so great a sorceress as they say?” the khan demanded next. “I heard that when you first came to this city, you rode a manyinga beast. They say you called an army on the mainland with your power. You made them charge into battle and fear not the spilling of their blood. You have tigers fighting by your side. Rumor is, you brought Batumar back from death.” He leaned forward on his throne. “Do you deny the reports?”

  The fingers gripping my arm tightened enough to hurt. The captain holding me did not like the khan’s talk of sorcery. I remained silent.

  “Speak!” the khan shouted. Then he calmed himself once again and taunted with a smirk, “Is your fear of me so great that you are struck dumb?”

  “I stand alone and unarmed.” I made sure my voice carried. “You sit there covered in blades, with a dozen guards, and still have me restrained. Which one of us is afraid of the other?”

  Fury reddened his cheeks, but I was not yet finished. I held the khan’s murderous gaze. “Withdraw from the city now. Leave the island with all your men, and you shall be spared.”

  “So, you do claim yourself to be a sorceress without equal?” His sharp gaze burned into mine, as if he was searching for the source of my power deep inside me. “I sent a Black Rock assassin for you. Yet you are here, and he is not. Which means when he offered you life in exchange for serving me, you killed him instead. You would have to be a great sorceress indeed to kill a Black Rock assassin.”

  “You may believe what you wish to believe.”

  He leaned forward in his seat. “I believe I am khan of the Kerghi, the founder of a new empire. I believe you will lose your head here today, sorceress, unless you pledge yourself to my throne.”

  At his words, the captain holding me shoved me down onto my knees. When Onra cried out, he roughly shoved her back at his friend standing behind us, who caught her and threw her to the floor. Then he stepped up and grabbed my free arm to help keep me down, the two men holding me between them.

  They gripped me so hard that pain shot up my arms. They held me immobile, as if they thought I might need my hands to draw symbols in the air to work my sorcery. Tension poured off them, easing none even when one of the khan’s guards strode to us and positioned himself next to me, drawing his curved sword with a menacing hiss.

  Most people believed the only way to kill a sorceress was to boil her in tar. I was glad the khan did not hold with superstition. All in all, I preferred a clean death.

  But not yet.

  I was willing to die for my people, but not like this, not without gaining their freedom. I searched for the right words to say, anything that would delay my sudden and violent end here. Help me, kind spirits!

  I opened my mouth, but before I could utter a single word, an oddly familiar sensation slammed into me, and I gasped instead of speaking. That odd sensation tugged at the edge of my consciousness. It had been tugging for a while, I realized, but until now, it had only whispered. Now it shouted. Yet I sensed not a sound, but a strange, vast emptiness, a yawning dark hole that for some reason made me think of…Batumar.

  My heart sped.

  Is he here?

  But no, this was not Batumar, I knew a heartbeat later. The strange feeling reminded me of the Hollow, the empty thing Batumar had once been, after the sorcerer of Ishaf had nearly ripped his spirit away from him.

  My breath caught as understanding dawned on me at last. I was feeling the presence of a sorcerer. And since the sensation was strengthening, I was fair certain that the powerful sorcerer was drawing near.

  Then he was right there. The khan’s men held me fast so I could not turn, but I heard men rush in, weapons and armor rattling. A surprised expression flickered across the khan’s face, then was quickly disguised.

  I stared as golden-uniformed guards carried past me a frail old man reclining on a litter. He ignored Khan Verik and kept his gaze instead on the little golden dog that squirmed in the crook of his arm and licked his chin.

  “Emperor,” some of the men murmured, bowing deep.

  The man was completely hairless, his skin painted gold, his shaved scalp studded with golden studs that ended in spikes. He resembled the carved images of the sun god, the desert god, I had seen on the mainland. He wore a robe richly embroidered with gold thread, the flower pattern running in stripes from his shoulders to his feet. Only when I looked closer did I realize that what I thought were flower heads were human heads instead.

  The chopped-off heads depicted the way the men looked after their beheadings, blood running from their severed necks, eyes wide, faces distorted, but each individual and unique. Some wore crowns still.

  “You were to hold her for me,” the emperor I couldn’t look away from told Verik in a
mild tone, his voice ancient and redolent with power. Here was a man whose nonchalance was not faked. He had seen it all and owned it all. He was secure on his throne. He did not shout. He could afford to whisper. All men still listened to him.

  Khan Verik drew deeper into his throne, his hands fastening onto the armrests. “Emperor Drakhar.”

  I no longer struggled to rise. My mouth dry, I drew myself instead as small as I could, wishing I could disappear. Maybe I could. Maybe they would forget about me. Maybe I could escape.

  Then the sorcerer came into my line of sight at last, walking behind the emperor’s litter, his long black hair decorated with a handful of thin braids, the end of each braid bound with silver wire. He was not much older than I—so young a man to hold all the power that emanated from him. He wore black leather as a warrior would. No palace sorcerer was this. He moved like a man who had seen battle.

  On his belt, next to his sword, hung a hammered-iron war horn, covered with symbols I had never before seen. I heard much about that horn at Uramit. Its name was Tigerbane, created with magic so its sound would drive tigers mad, drive them off the battlefield.

  As I looked up from the horn, I found the sorcerer’s gaze on me. The amused glint in his eyes raised goose bumps on my skin. His eyes were blacker than his clothes. They were twin openings to a dark cave, and in that cave hid something watching and waiting.

  When a cold shiver ran up my spine, he smiled.

  Even the curve of his mouth was cruel. There was a sharpness to him, all lethal angles. Yet most women would find him handsome. He had the beauty of a well-forged blade. The foremost thought in my mind when I looked at him was: deadly.

  I tore my gaze from him. I needed to send word to Batumar that the emperor and his sorcerer were in the city, but I could not fathom a way. I needed a distraction.

  The emperor played with his little dog and gave no orders, yet two of his guards rushed to me and shoved Khan Verik’s men away. One of the imperial guards helped me to my feet, respectfully avoiding my gaze and stepping away as soon as I was standing.

  Then the emperor’s imperial guards each moved to one of the khan’s men, and this time, I did catch the slight flick of the emperor’s fingers as he gave the order. The khan’s men had their throats cut before they could rise from their kneeling positions. Blood spilled, then ran in rivulets to gather into pools. The emperor’s little dog lifted its head and gave a few excited sniffs. The emperor petted him.

  “You have no right!” Khan Verik sprang to his feet with a protesting snarl on his lips, his twin swords in hand. In but the blink of an eye, the imperial guards surrounded him. In another blink, he was disarmed. Then he was thrown down the steps, and he sprawled on his stomach in front of the emperor.

  Verik scrambled to rise, cheeks reddened, blue veins popping out at his temples as he grabbed for his knives. “I have taken these lands. These islands are mine!”

  Two of the imperial guards knocked him back down with the pommels of their swords, driving the metal hard into his back, then, as his knees bent, they drew their blades across the backs of his knees. The khan collapsed once again. This time, he did not rise.

  The emperor barely looked at him, his gaze glassy and unfocused, as if his mind was somewhere else, as if he was merely passing through here, the people in the room not important enough to hold his full attention. “You are a mercenary, Verik. Your people sell their swords for gold and always have. Your father, Khan Woldrom, understood that. You do not. It is unfortunate.”

  “If you kill me, the Kerghi will rise against you.” Verik spat the words as he struggled again, for the imperial guards now held him beneath their boots, pressing his chest against the stones.

  “The Kerghi are not the rising kind.” The emperor’s gaze rested on him at last. “Your people are not organized enough. Never have been. You are a good scourge, a good mercenary army, good at sweeping through and killing without mercy. Your value has always been in knowing how to follow orders. Without that, you have nothing to offer me.”

  Another flick of his fingers, and the two guards yanked Verik to his knees, into the exact same position I had been in earlier.

  Just the distraction I needed. I shifted on my feet, trying to ease back. I managed but one step before the sorcerer’s attention snapped to me. His cruel lips flattened. He was not amused by my escape attempt.

  While I silently cursed him, one of the imperial guard grabbed the khan by his red hair and jerked his head back, while the other cut his throat with a slim dagger, as quickly and easily as a cook killed a chicken for dinner. Blood sprayed, but only for a moment, then it gurgled and bubbled, flowing down the khan’s chest. He was still trying to reach for his knives as he crashed forward.

  As his executioners stepped back, leaving the khan’s body to lie in the gathering pool of his own crimson blood, the emperor’s glassy gaze turned to me. “I regret you had to witness all this unpleasantness, Lady Tera.”

  Whatever his mouth said, his tone told me he regretted nothing. Indeed, the khan’s swift execution might have been for my benefit. The emperor was demonstrating how he treated resistance.

  While he studied me, his imperial guards kicked the bone throne down the steps, then kicked it apart until it lay in pieces. Then they carried the emperor’s litter up the three short steps to the dais. They set him down in the exact spot where the bone throne had sat moments earlier. The emperor remained reclining. He never stopped playing with his little golden pet.

  The sorcerer did not join his master but drew closer to me instead. I did not move away. I did not want him to think that I feared him. I refused to look at the man, but I could swear I heard him chuckle under his breath.

  The emperor cast a brief look at Khan Verik’s body at last, then addressed the captain of the imperial guards, a big man with close-cropped blond hair. “Find someone to replace him at the head of the Kerghi. A man who knows his place.”

  He let his pet go, and the little dog ran down the stairs, straight to the khan’s body to drink from the pool of crimson gathering by the man. The eager lapping sounds sounded unnaturally loud in the sudden silence.

  The emperor’s gaze returned to me once again. “I understand both Verik and his father, Woldrom, have caused some harm to your people, the Shahala. That was not my intention nor did it happen on my orders. Have the Shahala lost a great number? I hope all have not perished.”

  “Not all,” I told him. Whatever he was, whatever else he had done, he had stopped the khan from eradicating my people. Even if he saved them for his own evil purposes, I was grateful that many of the Shahala yet lived.

  “I am glad to hear Verik was able to follow some of my direction. He did have orders to hold you safe and secure for me. Yet I have a feeling if we arrived but a moment later, you and I would not have met. A good thing I decided to visit a mooncrossing early. I have been looking forward to meeting you, Lady Tera.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “Ah, the impatience and directness of youth.” He smiled, but the smile was far from indulgent. It was a cold smile that suggested further outbursts would not be tolerated.

  “My empire is vast and war is constant,” he went on. “I need healers. Since Woldrom and Verik managed to decimate the Shahala before I stopped them, I need their numbers increased again. I understand that you, proclaimed by many as the greatest of all healers, come from a Shahala mother and a Kadar father. It appears only one Shahala parent is necessary in a breeding pair.”

  Again, I remained silent.

  “You do not protest?” he asked.

  “Would anything I say stop you?”

  He almost smiled at that. “You caused much upheaval on the mainland that cost me both men and coin. I thought you would be more obstinate, the type who refuses to acknowledge defeat. I am pleased to be mistaken. I have great plans for the world, and you have an important part in those plans.”

  His words brought to life a terrible suspicion in my mind. “Y
ou wish to breed me to make more healers?”

  “Not quite. Your great-grandmother was a sorceress, was she not? Your grandfather and mother must have inherited the trait, yet never used it for anything but to enhance their healing. Unusual. Few with the power of sorcery are ever that restrained. Even you are not. You go to war. I have heard much about your exploits. I suspect most of your victories were achieved by the power of sorcery.” He sounded almost like a proud parent.

  His gaze flickered toward his sorcerer for a moment, but he kept addressing his words to me. “To rule the whole world, to become the Emperor of the Four Quarters, I need more power. My empire will need a faithful sorcerer or sorceress in each of the territories I hold. You are to breed with Drav.”

  Rage threatened to swallow me, but I refused to allow it to take over my heart. I saved that rage for later, for when I would be in a position to use it to destroy the man.

  “Now, unlike healers,” the emperor went on, “the most powerful sorcerers are bred from two sorcerers. Both mother and father must possess true powers. A sorcerer can gain power from killing another sorcerer and taking his power, but it is never as strong as power that is bred. That is what I want. Blood power.”

  This time when I remained silent, I did so because speech escaped me.

  At last, the emperor smiled. “You probably think I will not live long enough for your children to serve me. But Drav assures me he knows how to make me live forever. Let us all plan together for that happy future. Can you not see it? Your descendants will stand next to my throne. The world will bow to them. They will have power you cannot yet imagine.”

  He reached out toward me, his emaciated arm slipping forth from the sleeve of his embroidered robe and sparkling. His skin was painted with gold even under his clothes. “Come, my Lady Tera, and take that power from my hand. Come pledge your allegiance.”