To Protect A Princess

Chapter One

The Southern Isles were the last scrap of land before endless ocean.

The nights passed slower here, the days barely bright enough to sustain life… but those who scraped out an existence on the Southern Isles, were hardened survivors.

The shutters of the tiny shack were closed, locking out the cold wind which swept up the cliffs and battered at the building’s sides. The ocean spray itself would not carry this far up the cliffs; but the crystals of salt did. They would be collected in the morning and then taken to market, the trip long enough to dry out the salt. Along with the few potions in the basket by the front door and the dozen or so Rook-bird eggs, there may be enough coin to buy a little flour and some meat.

Stoking the fire, she lowered herself onto the small stool, as the flames and sparks danced before her eyes, igniting the pot to boil again. Stirring the vegetables in their stock, her face remained passive, although she wanted to be eating anything but what was in the pot.

Soup. Again.

They’d not eaten meat in almost a month.

Fishing was out of the question. By the time the catch was hauled up the cliff-side, birds had pecked the bones clean.

The Rook-birds were too fast to catch and even if she did catch one, they’d barely enough meat for one person… and she had two mouths to feed.

Casting a glance to the pile of furs, her heart ached with sorrow. Only three days short of his ninetieth birthday, the man piled in those furs… was dying.

She’d seen death. Witnessed it in all its glory and horror.

Bodies twisted by magic. Broken by swords and mauls. Pierced through with arrows.

She’d seen what death did to those who survived, like the man in the furs.

The mage had never recovered. The sheer willpower it had taken him to not run to his friends and help and leave the small six-year-old girl to defend for herself, even after she had tossed the bag of coins at his feet.

His guilt still burned strong, twenty-years after he sent them through the Noor-Blume—the mystical iridescent fog which Mages used to draw on their powers and traverse the world. He lamented for weeks on how he should have stayed, fought, and helped the soldiers avenge her father’s death…

“Nym…”

Blinking from her memories, Nymeira stood and crossed the hard-stone floor. Crouching beside the pile of furs, she moved one and exposed Mage Reglin’s face.

Etched with wrinkles of age, scars of battle and tattoos of his mage standing, his features were sagging, as if melted. His once bright eyes were pale; the rich brown they had been when he was younger, giving out to almost white.

“I’m here.”

A frail hand lifted from the mound, catching hers and held on with what little strength he had left. Those hands did not mend clothes, or cook, or make potions to sell anymore. It had fallen to her to keep his business going… and even that had dwindled.

A new mage had come to the tiny village south of where they lived. A mage whose potions were easier to access—and cheaper.

But thankfully, Reglin still had a few loyal customers. They would see the eight potions in the basket by the door, sold and food into their aching bellies.

“Can you hear it?” His voice was a soft whisper.

“Hear what Reglin? All I hear is the howl of the wind. As I do every night.” Her spare hand lifted and tucked the furs in around his frail body. He’d lost so much weight… and it wasn’t solely to do with the vegetable soup in the pot. Something was eating at him. Maybe his drain of the Noor-Blume had finally caught up to him. “I can’t hear anything else.”

Reglin managed a smile. Something she hadn’t seen in a while. Nigh on ten years to be exact, when she’d first learned to the arts of potion making and had successfully brewed her first tonic.

“The screams of dragons. Of wyverns. Of your father’s High Dragon.” His eyes closed and the smile spreading further. “Do you hear them? The calls they utter, as night closes in? The crooning, as they are oiled? The sound of the High Dragon, landing on the Keep?”

Nymeira couldn’t hear them, but she did remember them.

All the sounds which still echoed in her dreams. Sounds which signaled dinner, then the late-night company of her father before bed. He would tell her magnificent tales of the High Dragons and their purposes. How they controlled the flow of the Noor-Blume. How the realm of magic couldn’t survive without them marshaling it.

“I can hear them…” Her eyes opened and stared into the white ones of Reglin. “Can you not hear them Nym?

Shaking her head, she gripped his hand tighter and lied. “Of course. Now I can.”

The man chuckled softly and snuggled down into the pile of furs. “We will see them again my precious Nym. My sweetest little princess. We will see them again.”

She crouched by his side for a few more moments, until the soft snores started. He would not eat tonight and would be lucky to be awake in the morning. His slumbers were taking longer and longer, and she knew, one day—soon—she would find a corpse in those furs.

Releasing his hand, Nym climbed to her feet and adjusted the furs again, so they kept him warm. She turned from Reglin and walked to the door of the shack.

Pulling it open, she quickly stepped outside and closed the door behind her, as to not let the biting wind in, to put out their fire. Standing on the rough-hewn step, she stared out over the flat grassy knoll to the cliff.

The Rook-birds screeched overhead, before swooping down over the face of the cliff to roost in the craggy rocks. It would be the screech of those birds which Reglin heard. Their cooing sounds as they drove off the edge of the cliff to roost, reminding him of the wyverns and dragons of her father’s court.

She remembered little of the luxury she experienced for the first six years of her life. It had been so cruelly torn from her in the dead of night, by the one woman who she had loved above all others.

Her father’s second wife; Melinoe.

Nym’s own mother Adyssa had died in childbirth. Melinoe had stepped in to help raise her, while the King grieved. Eventually he fell in love with the soft beauty… and she had killed him for the crown.

Now Nym was living in a shack, barely eating enough to keep herself alive, while her stepmother no doubt lived in the castle which should have been hers.

Most people would have demanded revenge.

Nym just wanted closure.

To see where her father’s body had been buried. Entombed with his forefathers in the family burial crypt. She wanted to say goodbye to him, for she’d not had the chance as a child.

Corban had snatched her away too early.

Sighing, she turned back to the shack and went inside.

Making sure Reglin was covered still, she turned to the pot on the fire and waited for the soup to be ready.

****

“We have reports of Wyverns returning to the roosts of Draken Castle.”

His gaze lifted and dark brown eyes stared at the man in front of him.

Barely older than he himself had been when they had fled Draken Castle; the boy looked uncomfortable in his over sized chain mail and boots. “Go to the armory and get Lisette to fix your amour. You’re more likely to trip over it, than it saves you.”

The kid blinked and his eyes widened. “But ser…”

“Give me the scroll and go.”

The young soldier all but threw the parchment on the table in front of him and fled the room, chain mail echoing down the corridor.

“You should be gentler on them, Corban.” His attention turned to the man sitting at the end of the table, his graying hair the only thing showing his age. Mage Ortic still looked barely thirty and his dull blue gaze lifted to his.

“To be gentle, is to be weak.”

“You are not weak Corban. Far from it. Showing the soldiers your anger every five minutes is not the way to instill awe. You’d only have to—”

“Ortic, you know it is not going to happen,” Corban growled, silencing the man. “I need the soldiers strong and able; fearless.”

“Fearless of what? A band of ragged men, an old Mage and a young—”

“Ser!” Corban’s gaze snapped to the new man entering the room, his ramrod straight back, eyes on the wall behind him. His uniform screamed of Telesia; the white cloth of the Telesian Kingdom dotted with pale blue flowers. It was hideous.

This was the part Corban hated the most. Demands of some court on the other side of the world. Wanting the swords of the last soldiers of the Draken Empire. No other army was as well equipped, or brutal in battle as those who controlled dragons.

“What is it?” Leaning forward in the huge chair, his hand lifted, scratching at the underside of his beard. He had tried to remain clean-shaven, but his nature had dictated otherwise. He had had to live with it since he had been twenty-one. “I haven’t got all day.”

“Ser!” the man clacked his boots together, stepping forward and his gaze fell to Corban’s finally. “The Telesian Kingdom requests your presence, Lord Commander.”

Lord Commander

A title King Drake had placed upon him in his dying breath. Making him the most powerful person in the Draken Empire, behind the Crowned Princess, Nymeira.

“And what does the Duke of Telesia, want of me? I am but a commander of a broken army. We have nothing to offer…”

“Duke Poll’d humbly asks that the Lord Commander of the Draken Empire confer with him on the matter of Wyverns.”

Corban blinked and his hand fell from his wiry beard. “Wyverns?”

This had been the second time in less than a minute he had heard of the two-legged, winged cousins of the dragon. They were hideous beasts, with snake-like heads and nasty tempers. Best for riding, if you could tame them. King Drake had commanded a fine army of Wyvern Raiders.

“Yes sir. The Telesian Kingdom has had an influx of Wyvern in their farmlands. They flock to the herders and take the Duke’s yak. He is quickly running out of meat for his people.”

The soldier held out a scroll and Corban looked to Ortic. The mage stood and took the parchment from the young man’s hand, much to his surprise. The older man turned and walked to the window, unrolling it, and muttered to himself.

“Thank you, that will be all.”

The Telesian soldier blinked. “But—”

“I will send my advisor to you the moment I have made a decision. It is not fair to expect me to shirk all other requests, from other kingdoms, to come to the Duke’s aid.” As much as he wanted to yell at the soldier to leave him alone and go home, Corban managed to keep his diplomacy about him. “Let me confer with who I will. Return to your place of lodgings. I will send someone when I have reached a decision.”

The soldier hesitated and Corban raised an eyebrow. “Yes Ser! Lord Commander!”

The man rushed from the room, clanking down the hallway and Corban leaned back in his chair, turning his attention to Ortic. “Well?”

“Well, if you’re hoping the Duke is full of yak shite, then you’re going to be sorely disappointed.”

“Damn.”

“What he is full of though, is wyvern. Over fifty. Of all classes. White, red, green, blue.” Ortic lifted his gaze to him. “Corban, there hasn’t been this many wyvern since…”

“I know. I was hoping it wouldn’t happen.” Turning his head back to the scroll the young soldier had dropped earlier, he leaned forward and picked it up. Unrolling it, he scanned the message. One of his scouts had seen wyverns coming to roost at the Draken ruins. Ten by number, with more returning every day. “I was hoping the Makutu was wrong.”

“The Makutu is never wrong,” Ortic replied and returned to his seat. He tossed the scroll on top of the one Corban had discarded. “Change is coming Corban. The Wyverns are returning to Draken ruins, which means only one thing.”

The dark-haired man frowned, his beard itching, and he lifted his hand, scratching at it again. “It means we need to find Nymeira.”

****

Nymeira left Reglin sleeping. He’d been nigh on unconscious since the night before. She had left soup for him when he woke. Not that he had the strength to hold the small cup to his own lips. Nym just hoped he would remain asleep long enough for her to make it to the markets and back. Then she would see to his needs and make sure he’d eaten.

Pulling the scarf over her strawberry colored hair, she made sure the pins would hold it in place. She had the hair of a foreigner. Even after twenty years, she hid it. No need for people to see it. The colour of Draken Royalty; no other family in the world had their shade of hair.

Picking up the basket, she hooked it over her arm, allowing it to rest in the crook of her elbow. It was heavy today. The wind having swept more salt than normal up the cliffs. Instead of three jars of the precious crystal, she had seven. Add them with the fresh and pickled Rook-bird eggs and the eight potions she had brewed, meat would surely be on the cards to buy.

Her mouth salivated with the idea of a leg of mutton, slow roasted over the coals while vegetables cooked underneath in a pan. It might be enough to add meat to Reglin’s bones and energy to his old body.

Walking down the grass covered path toward the bottom of the hill, she hummed to herself. Songs which her father had taught her, one of the only things which reminded her of home.

Along the path toward the village, she almost skipped, knowing tonight they would be fed well and Reglin might last a little longer. Nym did not know what she would do when the man passed into Noor-Blume. He was a mage. His body belonged to the mists which granted him his powers. To those mists, he would return.

She would be left alone. High on those cliffs at the mercy of the wind. She would get old; she would die too, and she would never marry. Nym knew that. While her standing called for her to marry a prince, her heart called for someone else. Someone she knew would be dead.

Walking the forests toward the village, the droning started inside her head.

Ever since she had been little, she had been able to hear the forest. Here, so far from home, the sound was more of a low hum; not the intense painful drone she had experienced the night they’d ran. Reglin had never explained it to her and she had never pushed him.

Now she would never know. The mage’s ramblings were becoming more and more disjointed with each passing day.

The forests opened to farmland.

Sheep and cattle roamed freely in the large paddocks and small haystacks dotted the fields.

Farmers stopped to wave, their wives scowling. She’d been on more than one occasion; the victim of some poor love-struck man, wanting her attention. She chalked it up to the fact she was unmarried. At twenty-six years old, it was unheard of in these parts. Most women by her age were up to their hips in children.

Moving past farms, she came to the edge of the village. This was where her first clients waited. The few older women standing at the edge of the markets, their faces lighting up as Nym came closer. They rushed forward, their questions spewing forth.

“Ira! How is your Grandfather? Is Reginald doing okay?”

Reglin had made her repeat the names since she had been young enough to go to the markets with him. No-one but the village knew Ira and her grandfather Reginald.

Almost the whole world knew Nymeira and Reglin.

She had seen posters and scrolls asking for their whereabouts, not long after they had fled. They had to change—hence the reason she covered her hair.

“He’s getting old. I’m afraid he’s not as spritely as he once was,” she smiled, lowering the basket to the old stump in front of her. “But I have potions he’s brewed for you all.”

Peeling back the cover of the basket, she dug in past the salt jars, for the vials and containers at the bottom. The women crooned, crowding around her as she pulled them out, holding them out, the women’s names labelled on the jar. As quick as she exposed the jars, they were spirited from her hand, replaced with coins.

Nymeira smiled, pocketing the coins in the pouch at her hip.

This would be a good trip.

****

Corban paced, his boot steps heavy on the tiles. It had been almost a full day since the scrolls had come about the Wyverns. A whole day for others to find out and the word to reach Queen Melinoe.

That woman….

Wherever Corban turned, he saw her destruction.

Whole cities wiped out, as she sent her armies looking for Nymeira and she hadn’t stopped looking. Not in the twenty-years since she had slaughtered the little girl’s father.

What was left of the soldiers of The Draken Empire had done what it could to lessen the damage the woman wrought; but there was only so much their small collection could do; short of declaring war on the widow of King Drake.

She had destroyed Draken Castle. Taking the tomes the mages used, the gold King Drake had acquired and moved the soldiers and courtiers still loyal to her to, back to her home.

The glacial Kingdom of Farronfall.

She had never done well in the lush greenery of the Draken Empire.

“Corban.”

He stopped and turned to Ortic.

The mage was not alone.

A young woman stood by his side. No older than twelve, her long hair was braided behind her head, brushing against the floor. It showed her connection to the earth.

Corban bowed, his gaze lowering from her white eyes. “Makutu.”

“You seek out the Princess.” She spoke, her childlike body hiding the voice of an old woman, “She is to return—now the Wyvern are roosting at the Draken Ruins.”

He nodded and stood straighter. “Yes. But we do not know where she is. My scouts cannot find her, or Reglin. They have hidden too well.”

“Reglin has his reasons. He knew Nymeira needed to be protected.”

“But we need her here, now. Melinoe is moving quicker. She will know the wyverns are being spotted all around the Empire. It won’t take long for her to realize they are roosting at the ruins.”

The young woman’s head turned, tilting to the side, eyelids fluttering, and Corban closed his mouth. He had been privy to her visions before. She could tell the future within seconds of being asked.

She was a Makutu. One of the oldest of her kind. One of the last.

“I see cliffs. The ocean.”

Great

That could mean anywhere.

This world was full of islands. The Islands of the Fells housed over one-hundred alone. It would take centuries to search every single coastline.

“I sense something else…”

Corban looked to Ortic. The man had stepped away from the Makutu. While they were of the same magic source, the small white-haired woman concerned him. She saw things no-one else could. She was the last of her kind and if she ever fell into the hands of Melinoe… it would spell disaster. Now he was staring at her, waiting, as she envisioned the future.

Corban looked back to the woman, “Yes?”

“A death.”

Sickness grew in his stomach. “A death?”

“Yes… as this soul passes, the Noor-Blume will expose the whereabouts of the Princess. She will no longer be able to hide. The world will come looking for her. You need to be there when it happens.”

Corban stared at the woman.

Reglin was dying. There could be no other explanation.

The mage was going on ninety. Most mages did not normally make their fortieth year. Cut down in the heat of battle by sword or arrow.

“How am I to know where she is? I can’t make it to her before Reglin dies.”

Makutu turned her child-like face to him, wrinkles showing at the corners of her eyes, the only thing hinting at her vast age. “Then let us hope while you chase after the soldiers who are looking for her, she can survive. For if she does not, then the time of the Draken Empire and the High Dragons will be gone.”

****

Crouched by the door still, Nym stared at the pile furs.

They hadn’t moved since she’d left this morning and there was an… odor.

Tears welled in her eyes. She’d lost him.

Reglin had died while she’d been at market.

Her bottom lip trembled, and she lifted herself, leaving the little shack.

Closing the door, she leaned against it for a moment, before stepping away and moving toward the cliffs.

Fifteen coins she’d made today.

More than double the usual amount.

A small hunk of cheese, fine flour and a small leg of mutton sat in the basket, just inside the door. A meal she had been looking forward to cooking for herself and the elderly man. Now she felt sick to her stomach and the thought of food was the last thing on her mind.

Stopping at the edge of the cliffs, Nym stared out over the turbulent ocean.

The world was continuing.

There was no great explosion. No cataclysmic moment when the Noor-Blume ripped open and snatched Reglin back into its depths.

There was only the sound of the ocean and the Rook-birds. The screech of the birds above her echoed in her head, reminding her of the dragons and wyverns of her father’s castle.

Blinking through burning tears, Nym sank to her knees on the cliffs, tipped her head back—and screamed.