Blood of a Daydreamer (The Virtuae #1)

Prologue

Something in the way my mother screamed that night told me that everything was about to change. I awoke in my bed, all hot-skinned and dazed from being broken from my dreams with an overwhelming feeling that something was wrong. Very wrong. My mother’s scream came soon after.

I was but a child, untouched by fear and suddenly drenched head to toe in it.

I heard the frantic footsteps of the servants racing down the halls, their indistinct shouts of alarm making the skin on my arms raise with hundreds of those tiny bumps.

I wondered if someone would come for me, if anyone in the thick of their panic would remember the princess all alone in her bedchamber.

For some reason – be it my innocence or fear – I was not hopeful, so I slid my little feet from the sheets and onto the glacial stone floor below, overcome with an immediate chill that made the skin turn numb. I would go find my mother, her shrill shriek still ringing in my mind.

As I quietly slipped from the door of my bedchamber and into the dimly lit hall, I caught sight of my brother, staring into the abyss of darkness at the end of the corridor to my left, where the hall led onto my parent’s bedchambers.

I reached for him, and he flinched as my hand made contact with his, all warm and clammy. His gaze, however, did not budge.

‘Ori—’

‘They are in there… the men,’ he whispered, his voice crackling in his throat. ‘The Umbrians.’

Firm hands grasped my shoulders, and I screeched with the fright of it.

‘There now child, find your calm.’ It’s the voice of our governess, Mrs Knitt. I turn and fall into her, seeking comfort, and she pats my back gently.

‘I heard Mama scream. Ori says there’s men in—’

‘Do not fret, child, come back to your bedchambers, your brother will join us too.’

She began to push me back towards the door, but Ori remained paralysed in place, and I couldn’t discern whether he heard Mrs Knitt or not.

‘Ori, please come,’ I begged, my hand tugging on his. He broke his gaze away from the dark and blinked at me, his eyes glazed with tears and swimming with distress.

He took a few steps towards us before another scream erupted from down that hall. Our mother’s scream again. He dropped my hands and broke out in a sprint towards the shadows, and I yelled out for him.

‘Ori, no!’ I tried to writhe free of my governess’s grip, but her hands were firm and unmoving, and I did not possess enough strength in my juvenile body to break free.

But I had to get Ori. I had to follow my mother’s scream.

I twisted my neck to my shoulder and clamped my jaws tight on Mrs Knitt’s wrinkled fingers until the metallic of her blood made my tongue swell with the bitterness of it.

She yelped and released her grip entirely, and I bolted in the direction my brother went, my little limbs moving as fast as they possibly could to propel me towards my family.

I didn’t even think about the men, or the dark, or the wrath of Mrs Knitt.

I just needed my mother.

I skidded round the corner and towards the light seeping from the open doors of the bedchambers, and straight into a tall, solid wall of black.

I looked upwards into the scarred face of the Umbrian guard and whimpered, warmth trickling into my nightclothes from my bladder. He grunted and grabbed my arm, his hold strong but not to the point of pain.

‘Ori, run.’

My mother sounded strained, terrified but determined.

I could see her standing at the bottom of the bed, a severe Umbrian soldier holding her upright, the glint of the blade pressing into her throat.

‘No,’ I whispered, unable to muster a shout.

Ori was there in the doorway, held by a shadowy Umbrian guard like mine.

I swallowed down air at the sight of the long sword sheathed upon his belt.

‘The Relic,’ the man holding the knife to my mother’s neck growled. ‘Hand it over and no blood need be spilled.’

‘You will not harm the Queen of Reyhen, and wage a war on your neighbours now, would you?’ my father asked from somewhere in the room that I could not see. ‘You and me both know it would not be a fair fight.’

The man’s face stiffened. ‘It is ours just as much as it is yours.’

My mother trembled in his arms, the blade slicing her skin slightly with the movement, a tiny train of blood appearing in its wake.

‘You revoked your right to the Relic as soon as you entered Reyheni territories with the intent to threaten and kill your way to its power.’ My father sounded, eerily calm. ‘Your actions do not bode well with the Virtuae Gods.’

The man twitched his knifed hand as though to follow through on his threat.

The whole scene shifted in an instant. The blade flew from his hand and directly into the forehead of the guard restraining my brother. His head wobbled and his body crumpled to the ground, Ori screamed as his arm was yanked downwards with him.

Then the sword sheathed by the fallen Umbrian’s side, flew to the guard towering over me, and sliced his throat clean open. Blood spurted violently, and I screamed in horror as I found my white nightclothes splattered in red.

Two more dark guards emerged from the shadows, swords drawn with sinister intent, but before they could reach the threshold of the bedchamber doors, their blades seemed to move with a mind of their own, slashing through the air before their last simultaneous plunge into their fellow Umbrian’s chest.

Powerless without his only weapon, the empty-handed Umbrian threw my mother to the ground and made a desperate attempt to flee in defeat, but my father appeared at the doorway before the man could even reach the hall.

My father’s face was twisted with quiet, controlled rage, dagger clenched in his fist and then – imbedded in the heart of the coward Umbrian.

His chest flashed with a burst of light that shuddered in my vision after multiple attempts to blink it out.

The man crumpled on the floor like a pile of rags, and my father calmly sheathed his blade back into its rightful place on his holster.

He stood firm on the threshold, the lambent light of the bedchamber flooding around his silhouette in a god-like aura. Rushing of booted footsteps came to a halt behind me. The muscles in the King of Reyhen’s face twitched at the sight of his children stained crimson.

‘It is time we initiate our plans for the Divide.’

His gaze shifted to whoever stood silent behind my back.

‘Fuck the prophecy.’