Hearts and Shadows

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

Princess Adeline of Kelverny curled on her divan in her sitting room.

A book lay forgotten on her lap as she stared out the window looking east to the Pernell Mountains.

From this distance, they looked so peaceful, a line of blue-purple crags outlined in ethereal white.

She couldn’t see the armies gathered on either side of the pass.

At a knock on her door, she closed the book and bade the person enter.

Thaddeus Wilks stepped into the room. A thatch of gray hair tufted above his slim face while a gathering of wrinkles framed his mouth.

He was the only person in this entire castle she dared trust implicitly besides her personal maid.

Before he’d been her personal secretary, he’d been her father’s, before her father and mother had been killed in the Andur Pass five years before on a diplomatic mission to Lalsacia.

“Any word from Grandfather?” Adeline swiveled in her seat to plant her feet on the floor in proper princess fashion.

She chewed on her cheek as she waited for Thaddeus to answer.

Her grandfather worried her. Even before her parents’ deaths, he’d hated Lalsacia.

In the wake of their deaths, he’d gone to war, ostensibly to avenge the death of his son and daughter-in-law.

But everyone knew he was actually trying to claim the Donnaris Forest with its tiny fleech dragons.

Now his hatred burned with an intense fury. No peace would ever be satisfactory to him. He wanted to destroy the entire kingdom. He’d likely destroy the very woods and fleech dragons he’d started the war to gain.

Would he destroy Kelverny along the way?

Thaddeus folded his tall, bony frame onto one of the chairs across from her. “Still inspecting the army. He plans to be gone another week.”

She nodded and stared back out the window.

A gurgle of guilt swirled in her stomach.

Only two weeks ago, Lalsacia had sent a party under a white flag of truce to discuss ending the hostility.

Instead of a discussion, her grandfather had them arrested and thrown into the dungeon as spies.

Before he’d left for the border, he had given the order for the guards to torture them to gain information about Lalsacia.

All of that was a gross violation of the accepted rules of war. Lalsacia wouldn’t extend a hand of peace again after this. They, too, would be out for blood and destruction.

“I’m just so helpless, Thaddeus.” Adeline resisted the urge to push to her feet. Instead, she remained where she was, her legs daintily crossed at the ankles, even with only Thaddeus in the room. “I’m the crown princess of Kelverny, but I have no power.”

Even her father, as much as he’d tried, hadn’t been able to sway her grandfather when he set his mind to something.

What could she do when no one but Thaddeus and Jelsa, her lady’s maid, listened to her orders?

When the crown landed on her head in the far distant future, would she truly be allowed to wield its authority?

Or would the lords overrule her and force her to do their bidding?

There was a contingent of lords who were loyal to her father and thus to her, but they couldn’t support her more until she was queen. While her grandfather lived, they were as helpless as she was.

Thaddeus leaned forward and patted her knee. “I know. Your day will come. Someday you’ll stop this. I feel it.”

She didn’t feel so sure. What good was a crown if she became nothing but a pretty figurehead?

Lorne, prince of Lalsacia, slouched on the dungeon floor and flexed the fingers chained above his head. His back, chest, and ribs ached from the beatings he’d suffered since he’d been brought here. The cool stones of the wall behind him provided some relief, even as they chilled him.

The darkness closed around him, suffocating, all-consuming. The walls on either side were so close he could nearly brush them with his shoulders. When he stretched out his legs, his feet touched the solid wood door of his cell.

He’d been so foolish. His father had been right. The king of Kelverny wasn’t ready to talk peace.

Guilt stabbed his chest along with the pain. His stubbornness had cost two good men their lives. They’d fought to protect him, but the Kelvernese sylon fighting cats had taken them down, ripping them apart before Lorne had been forced to surrender.

His foolishness in trying to bring about peace could cost still more lives. Would the Kelvernese kill his remaining guards one by one? And what would his father do to rescue his only son and heir?

Thankfully the Kelvernese didn’t realize who they had. Not yet anyway.

They could never find out. If they did, they’d bring his father to his knees…

and Lalsacia with him. Lorne’s mission would end the war, but it would destroy Lalsacia in the process.

The precious fleech dragons would be taken from their home in the Donnaris Forest and forced to do who knew what in the hands of the greedy king of Kelverny.

Lorne trusted his men not to talk. They were all battle-hardened warriors. They’d faced pain before, and they would hold up under whatever torture the Kelvernese king put them through.

No, Lorne was the weak link. He was the one who had to learn to be strong.

“Sir?” The voice filtered, faint, through the stones and thick wooden door of his cell.

Lorne swallowed, ran his tongue over his teeth, and tried to find enough breath to raise his voice. “Still here.”

“Stay strong, sir.”

Lorne couldn’t bring himself to reply. His men had been doing that throughout this imprisonment, shouting encouragement to him, even though they were suffering just as much as he was.

They wouldn’t say his name or call him Highness. But he had been dressed as a lord, clearly not one of the guards, so calling him sir and treating him as their leader wouldn’t give away anything their Kelvernese torturers didn’t already know.

They had to assume someone was listening at all times. There likely was a guard out in the passageway at this very moment.

The door of his cell rattled. He drew in as deep a breath as he could manage, gathering his courage to face more torture. Stay strong. His only choice was to stay strong or put his entire kingdom at jeopardy.

A slim old man, who looked too frail to hurt anyone, stepped into the cell. Not the usual brawny guards sent to whip and beat the words out of him. Lorne eyed the man. What torture did the Kelvernese have planned now?

The man drew out a waterskin, uncorked it, and poured a stream of liquid into a pewter cup. He knelt by Lorne. “You must be thirsty.”

Lorne turned his face away. “I won’t drink your poison.”

The man’s huff sounded like a laugh. He sipped from the cup. “It’s just water. Not poison.”

Lorne clenched his fists. What game was this? A ploy of kindness to weaken his defenses? His throat ached with thirst that urged him to take the offered water.

It shouldn’t hurt to accept the water. He could play along, for now. He turned his face toward the man and allowed him to hold the cup to his mouth. He drained the cup in a few swallows, the water cooling the heat of his thirst.

The man rocked back on his spindly legs and studied him. “You want peace between Lalsacia and Kelverny?”

Lorne wasn’t sure if he dared answer. But it wasn’t a secret. He’d been on that mission riding into the Kelverny lines under a flag of truce. “Yes.”

The man speared him with another look. “What would you be willing to do to achieve peace?”

Lorne raised his eyebrows. “So that’s your game. Wheedle information out of me in the name of peace.”

The man glanced toward the door then leaned closer. “Believe me. I have no love for this war. So I ask you. What would you be willing to do for peace?”

Lorne clamped his mouth shut, but he doubted it did any good. The man could read his answer in his eyes. He’d do just about anything to end this war.

The old man gave a nod before he poured more water from the waterskin into the tin cup. He pressed it to Lorne’s mouth again.

He was weak. So very weak. This time, he gulped the water down without hesitation.

Adeline dismissed her maid and brushed her own hair.

The dark brown waves cascaded around her shoulders and down to her waist. If she closed her eyes, she could still remember the way her mother used to brush her hair when she was a child.

Her mother’s hair had been the same color, a memory of her that Adeline carried with her always.

Setting down her brush, she wrapped her arms around her waist, holding a knitted shawl over her shoulders, and walked from the dressing room, across her bedroom, and to her balcony, the doors standing open to let in the early summer night air.

A breeze whipped down from the distant mountains, cooling her skin. Somewhere, far away, the two armies were camped in that pass, resting from a day of battle and yet preparing to go back to fighting again the next day.

A commotion rose from the main gate, accompanied by the clack of horse hooves. The creak of the gates rang into the night a minute before a soldier cantered his horse into the courtyard, the mail of his armor gleaming beneath his coat of arms.

That was one of her grandfather’s knights, but it was too early for her grandfather to have returned. And this knight appeared to be alone.

Stepping away from the balcony’s railing, she began to braid her hair. She hadn’t changed into her nightgown yet, thankfully, so she only had to braid her hair to be somewhat presentable in case she was summoned.

Her fingers busy with her hair, she nudged open the door from her bedchamber to the sitting room with her shoulder before shutting it behind her with her slippered foot.

Almost as soon as she’d tied off the end of her braid, Thaddeus burst into her sitting room with barely a knock of warning.

She jumped and dropped the end of her braid. Her stomach twisted at the grim lines written across his face. “What’s wrong?”