Chapter One The Prince of the East
The Eastern Territories
City of Quezira
Min-Thuret Temple, Rite Hall
Thamaos’s ancient ritual room is deathly quiet, save for the crackling of flames and the sizzle of my blood burning in the offering bowl. “Hear me, my lord. I beg you.”
My slit palm throbs as I squeeze crimson drops from my body for the third time today. This time, I let the blood flow. No gentle pricks. No careful measure. Instead, warm, scarlet rivers seep through my fisted fingers and pour into the fire.
I’ve knelt here long enough that the morning sunlight shining through the stained-glass windows upon my arrival has changed to the silvery glow of a coming winter’s starlight. My back has grown stiff and my knees ache, having been pressed against the unforgiving stone floor for so many hours.
A servant enters the room to deliver fresh water. He sets the decanter near the altar, along with cloths soaked in yarrow tincture for my ritual wounds.
“Are you sure you’re all right, my prince?” he asks for the second time within the hour. “You look so unwell.”
“Because I haven’t consumed a soul in over a week,” I reply, my voice tight and hard.
When I sifted to this very room from the Shadow World, collapsing in the ritual circle with Colden Moeshka in my arms, I could barely move. Parts of my body were burned from Raina Bloodgood’s fire, and my insides felt like they might crumble any second. Already, I starved.
But after feeling Garujo die, his Summerlander powers with him, and after so much death in the North, I couldn’t stomach the thought of feeding. Since then, my skin has taken on a waxen sheen, and my veins stand out in relief. I need no looking glass to know my face is gaunt, my body thinner.
“Perhaps you should…eat,” the servant says. He glances over the healing gash across my face before lifting his gaze toward the rafters.
The souls of three prisoners hover in waiting, silken and billowing. One smells like seawater, another like sweet earth, and the final one like the tall cedars in the East’s Forgotten Forest. Tonight I will feed and begin the task of restoring myself. If I don’t, I will die.
And yet, miserable as I am, and much as I need to abandon these prayers and feast, I cannot make myself give up.
Not yet.
“Go.” I force every bit of annoyance I possess into the word. “I want to be left alone, do you understand?”
He nods and hurries from the room, closing the wooden doors quietly.
It’s been weeks since I’ve been inside the temple. Weeks since I last heard Thamaos’s transcendental voice commanding that I go to the Northlands. I fear no matter how long I remain on my knees, he might not hear me. Or perhaps he changed his mind about our plan and shunned me.
I pray I’m wrong because I’ve brought him quite the gift.
From the moment I laid the God Knife on the sunlit altar, I swore my lord spoke to me from the Shadow World. A hushed murmur crept through the halls of this holy place, then all fell silent and still. I need his instruction. His direction. His assurance.
And so I bleed. And wait.
Once again, I dip my fingers into the blood and draw three runes on the altar.
Connection. Faithfulness. Fealty. With a deep breath, I press my forehead to the marble dais, the very place where Thamaos and the Eastern Territories’ kings and queens once rested, watching rituals performed in their names.
An arm’s length away stands the gilded throne that will soon be mine, an honor I must earn.
Eternal Emperor of Tiressia.
We no longer desire your world, Thamaos once said.
But the Nether Reaches are not our home, and our realm of Eridan is no more.
The gods can rise and offer their immortal life forces to Tiressia’s blessed lands.
An offering to you, that you might know true power through us.
Because you are the one who will unite this empire, my little prince. Perhaps even the world.
A thought flutters through my mind. When I take the sovereign seat, will my lord grant the memory of my true name? The memory of who I was before I became his? A distant part of me longs to know, to be more than a nameless being hidden by shadows, surviving off souls.
At times, I remember that young man, like right now. Something in the act of worship and ritual is familiar in my marrow, beyond my years as Thamaos’s chosen. Even beyond my years as a vagabond along the eastern coast.
I also remember magick. Potent, wild, and dark. Flowing hot in my veins.
My magick. Controlled by me and me alone.
A cold draft tickles the hair at the nape of my neck. I lift my head as the flames in every bronze brazier throughout the hall flickers but holds, as though a gentle breath has been blown over the fiery light.
“Little prince.” Thamaos’s voice drifts into this room of devotion, ritual, and sacrifice, and any rising memory is swept away. “You failed,” my lord whispers in a sibilant voice. “You didn’t kill them. Not all of them. Thanks to that Witch Walker from Silver Hollow.”
I shut my eyes, and a bead of sweat trickles down the side of my neck.
It’s cold in the ritual hall tonight, yet anger burns hot as a bonfire in my chest. Thamaos’s last instruction had been to capture Colden Moeshka, the Frost King, and to destroy every Witch Walker living along the edge of Frostwater Wood.
I did that. Save for that damned Raina Bloodgood and a handful of others.
And it wasn’t easy.
“I hadn’t the strength to last any longer, my lord. Garujo withered after the attack on Winterhold. My siphoning killed him.”
I press a hand against the dark granite altar and inhale a ragged breath. I’ve turned many people to husks in my long life, but my misery over Garujo’s death is suffocating. Though he offered his life for my survival, the loss weighs too heavily.
“The witch also had help,” I continue. “Un Drallag freed Neri so he could protect the witch from Silver Hollow. Now I have a loose god spirit to locate.”
One who supposedly wants to see me reign as emperor of these lands yet failed to offer his aid on Winter Road.
A flicker of reflected firelight snags my attention, and my gaze falls to the altar, to my grand gift. When I reach for the weapon, the entire piece—even the black-bone blade—is frigid. But at least it’s here. Surely my lord will be proud.
“Two good things did come of this,” I tell him, doing my damnedest to mask any hint of regret about the first matter.
“I captured Colden Moeshka, and I learned that Raina Bloodgood had possession of your God Knife, my lord. After centuries of absence, I brought this treasure home.” I extend the blade in supplication as a question rages, one I must ask, no matter how foolish.
“Did you know where the God Knife was, my lord? That the king’s Collector was its Maker and Raina Bloodgood its Keeper? All this time?”
I’ve pondered this for days, if that was why he sent me to raze the valley.
The only way I had known was because Garujo’s soul recognized the Summerlander magick on the blade when the witch and I fought on the village green.
Seconds after she ripped the God Knife across my face, Garujo’s whisper of Keeper and all the understanding he could provide echoed through me.
A pregnant pause fills the air. For several terrible seconds, I’m certain I’ve overstepped, but nothing happens, save for an answer.
“Her father was the Keeper. The witch inherited his obligation the moment the blade returned to her family, and she grasped its hilt. When he died, and his soul entered the Shadow World, I knew this time would come.”
I cannot help but wonder how, but this time, I decide against inquiring further.
“In regard to all else,” he says, “you will be rewarded for capturing the Frost King and for sacrificing Garujo. As for Neri, for now, he does not matter. I will deal with him in time. Your primary concern is to prevent that Keeper from setting foot in the City of Ruin. She and Un Drallag are no doubt on their way there now. If they are allowed to interfere in our plans, my resurrection and your future as the lord of Tiressia are but a dream.”
By all the sainted Ancient Ones. That insignificant witch is forever an obstacle. Though I’m beginning to question if she’s ever been insignificant at all.
“I’ll send word to my men in Malgros, my lord.
My general is en route to the coast as well.
” I pause, carefully selecting my next words.
“There’s an issue, though. I can offer no aid in locating the Keeper.
Un Drallag bound himself to the witch. Claimed her.
Carved his mark upon her skin. He will protect her. Even now, he shields her mind from me.”
Though I met him when he and Colden Moeshka visited my palace after King Regner died, I hadn’t known his identity.
In truth, I know little about Un Drallag, only what I’ve read in history books.
If he’s anything like Quezira’s scribes depict in their tales, however, I’m not confident my assassins can stand against him. Much less him and Raina Bloodgood.
Anger roils beneath my skin. How could such a revered Eastlander share his sacred power?
So foolish. So traitorous. So fucking problematic.
A resonating breath snakes through the room.
“Think, little prince. If Un Drallag is shielding her mind, his power is awakening. Take him as a source to siphon. You will require a fount of power to succeed in conquering the Summerlands. It won’t be long until Un Drallag’s magick grows strong enough to see you through any battle or war that lies ahead. ”
I clench my offering hand so hard that blood flows from my sliced palm and drips to the stone floor. Take Un Drallag. The greatest sorcerer Tiressia has ever known. Feed from his power and soul.
If I can manage that, gods and men be damned.
A moment passes, and my lord continues as if he didn’t just present the most impossible yet most desirable solution.
“For your second task,” he says, “you must unearth the Fury at Un Moritra. Soon. Her value is limitless. Use her, to whatever end, so I can return to the land of the living and ensure that Tiressia is yours.”
Doubt and hesitance dominate my thoughts, as they have since this possibility was first mentioned many weeks ago.
Though history holds that Fury died three centuries ago, according to my lord, she’s still very much alive.
Like Un Drallag, she’s a whirlwind legend I’ve only ever read about.
A very deadly legend. Chained to the pits of the earth for attempting to overthrow King Gherahn’s throne after Thamaos died.
Still uncertain, I soften my voice. “My lord. I don’t possess the power to enter Un Moritra.
I cannot break through your wall of runes.
And Fury…After all these years in isolation, she must be mad.
I need her whole, and that will be a struggle, as will be convincing her to cooperate.
I’ve a feeling she’s going to be rather angry. ”
A low laugh rumbles from wall to wall and slithers around every massive column.
I follow the sound, from the arched observation nooks along the sides of the room to the sloped rafters set into the high, mosaic ceiling.
Though impossible, it feels as if Thamaos, long-dead God of the Eastern Territories, is right here.
“Un Moritra will know you,” he says. “And Fury will cooperate. Bind her with a clever deal before you free her. Offer her complete freedom in exchange for her aid. Restore her health. Then, if your men cannot rise to the task of capturing Un Drallag, Fury will. She will have no choice. Fury can see you and the Frost King safely to the Summerlands.”
The Frost King.
“My lord, you’re certain Asha’s curse doesn’t extend to Mount Ulra?” Though I know better than to show doubt, I must know. “The king won’t turn to dust if I take him there?”
“Why so worried?” Thamaos says. “I need him. I would not ask if it could not be done. Mount Ulra is not the City of Ruin, and that was Asha’s mistake. Do as I say, little prince. I have opened the way for you. All you must do is follow.”
The air moves once more, every firelight flares, then my lord’s presence is gone.
After long moments, I stand on numb legs, and in the ritual circle of the moon and sun, study the runes etched beneath the Stone of Ghent, the transparent amber orb fitted into the God Knife’s white granite hilt by none other than Un Drallag himself.
Take him, Thamaos said. Easier said than done. Then again, I’ve always enjoyed a challenge.
The thought of such domination makes me smile, much as it pains the knife wound Raina Bloodgood carved into me from temple to chin.
I picture her then—the witch. See that pretty face contorted into her familiar scowl.
Thanks to Un Drallag, I can no longer infiltrate her mind, and thanks to the Eastland Brotherhood’s protections, she cannot see me with her gift of Sight.
But as I step into the full dark stretching over the vast and shining city of Quezira, I send her a message anyway, willing it across the many miles of land and sea between us.
“The rise begins, lovely,” I promise her. “And I’m going to make it hurt.”
Read More in City of Ruin
Turn the page to see the Prince of the East