Firemage (RAVENMINDER #3)

Chapter 1

From the second he was born, Arawn Laroux carried the burden of being Lordach’s future king. He’d always known it, for they called him the Chosen, while Kinlear, born just moments after him, was considered the Spare.

He never understood what it meant, to wear a crown, nor why it truly mattered...

Not until his fifth birthday.

The Year of the Gods, it was said, a special milestone to celebrate for every young Sacred.

But for Arawn there was no celebration, no family prayer of thanks to the Five for another year of life.

There was no cinnamon roll tower – he’d been dreaming of one for his fifth birthday, for he adored the fresh, sugary rolls that were born in the Citadel’s kitchens – and there was certainly not a present.

Not like there was for the other Sacred.

There was, instead...another meeting.

One that only the Crown Prince was allowed to attend.

“But it’s Kinlear’s birthday, too,” Arawn said, as his Mother’s servants dressed him in Sacred whites, and combed back his snow-white hair. It was growing longer, enough that he’d be able to have a warrior’s braid in a few more months. “We can’t just leave him alone.”

Kinlear was alone all the time. He was always sick. But it also meant he got to do as he wished, to lay in bed with his books and his treats and his dreams.

Not Arawn.

Never Arawn.

“My dear Crown Prince,” the Queen said, and frowned down at him, though there was no malice in her gaze.

She saved the ire for Kinlear, whose illness frustrated her.

Arawn didn’t need to be older to realize it.

“Your gift is knowledge for the future, a lesson of utmost importance, and it is meant only for you. Not him.”

He rocked back and forth on his toes, already certain what her answer would be. But...he still had to try. “Can Kinlear come with me? Just this once?”

They were born together, after all.

He didn’t understand why they couldn’t rule together, too.

The queen got down on a knee, until she was level with him. They were eye to eye, both of them boasting hair so pale it could have been ice.

“Your heart is soft, Arawn,” she said. She smiled, but it was always laced with sadness, as if the war had stolen her joy along with her people. “You must learn to strengthen it, to cage it with iron, for there are a great many things a prince must do alone. Even more, when he becomes a king.”

She gave him no chance for questions. Not that he would have asked again anyways, for he’d already pushed her limits.

Another little bit, and he’d have to pay penance for breaking one of the most important laws: honor.

Still, Arawn felt strangely sad, his footsteps heavy, as they left his room behind.

His eyes lingered on Kinlear’s closed bedroom door.

He wanted to sink behind it...to spend the evening with his brother, laughing and playing and dreaming of better days, when the two became war heroes, side by side.

When they set their kingdom free.

Instead, he followed his mother down the stairwell and away...ever the loyal Sacred prince.

She led him deep into the Citadel, up and down twisting stairwells and courtyards covered in snow, past soldiers who inclined their heads at him in a show of respect, even though they were three times his size.

“Crown Prince,” they said, and Arawn held his head high as he was taught.

“Gods be with you,” he said, his little voice echoing across the courtyard.

He rolled back his shoulders the way his mother expected him to.

He walked like a boy twice his age...and despite himself, despite the longing in his bones to join them.

..he ignored the cluster of Sacred younglings playing in the snow.

Their laughter followed him like a ghost as he and his mother headed back into the Citadel’s embrace. She stopped before a room he’d never once been allowed to enter. Nobody but the Queen and the Masters could...for it was his father’s throne room.

A place for those that were highly favored by the gods.

It was so private, there were two doors to go through to get to its center.

The first was guarded by Sacred Knights, men so towering that Arawn had to crane his neck back to gaze up at them.

He’d be one of them, someday. He’d wield a blade like them, and magic from whatever god chose him to represent their Sacred pillar. If he was truly blessed, he’d get to ride a war eagle like the very best of them.

And if he didn’t?

Then he wouldn’t be like his father.

He wouldn’t be like any of the Laroux kings before him.

You’ll be a failure, his father had said to him once. And failure is not an option for a Laroux Prince.

Arawn swallowed, his palms growing sweaty as they entered through the first door, and he got even closer to his father.

It wasn’t that he was afraid of him. He simply did not enjoy the feeling he got in his heart -- like it had sprouted wings and threatened to leap from his chest -- when he was near the king.

“Pray while you wait,” his mother told him, as she always did.

So Arawn prayed.

For strength, for courage, for wisdom and bravery.

But mostly...he prayed for Kinlear. He asked that the gods heal him. He asked that they fix the aching in his brother’s legs and lungs, and make him strong enough so that maybe, just maybe...

Their father would allow Kinlear to rule with him.

They would be the first set of Sacred Kings, two instead of one.

He opened his eyes when his mother began to invocate, a beautiful whisper to Aristra, her pillared god of Realm. And as she did, the second door began to glow.

It was rounded at its top, and there was no handle. No space for a key.

There was only a single beautiful sigil inscribed into the ancient wood, and it took up nearly all of the door’s face. It glowed like it was made of liquid sunlight, a mark in the shape of outspread war eagle wings. Five symbols arched above it, one to represent each pillar of Sacred magic.

Water, fire, wind, realm, and the Ehver.

His mother placed her hand right over the mountainous symbol and sighed the last of her invocation.

A click came from the other side of the door.

A few seconds later, it creaked inwards...and cold air sighed towards Arawn, wrapping around the fringes of his pressed white cloak. Almost as if it were beckoning him in.

The queen pressed a gentle hand to his shoulder. “We will be in the presence of the gods today, my Prince. Does that suffice for a birthday gift?”

His eyes widened.

But before he had a chance to speak, she’d already nudged him inside...and closed the door shut behind them.

He noticed, at first, that the room was very long and very narrow.

Strange, that there was no throne. Not as he’d expected.

There was, instead, a white stone archway in the furthest edge of the room, standing freely as if by magic. A softly glowing light emanated from beneath it. It looked like the Gates that led outside of Augaurde, keeping all the wards in place.

Behind the arch was an enormous wall of stained-glass windows. There were five of them in total, side by side, that had been crafted in the shape of giant blades.

Five blades, for five gods.

From floor to ceiling, they spanned, each one in a different shade to match a pillar of magic.

Incredible, Arawn thought. And if the gods were still here, larger than life itself, he could have pictured the way their swords would have fit perfectly into those enormous spaces.

Like keys, he thought.

Keys to unlock Lordach’s salvation.

There was never any true sunlight in Augaurde, but if there had been...

Arawn imagined how this entire room would have sparkled when it shone through those towering, sword-shaped windows.

Because the rest of the space, from the elegantly stamped floor to the spiraling pillars that lined the edges of the room, was made of pure gold. True gold, the kind that could have funded armies and kingdoms.

“Come,” his mother commanded.

Arawn flinched. He’d forgotten she was even there.

He followed her as they crossed the shimmering floors, all the way to the opposite end of the room. At first, he was eager with anticipation. But the closer he got to the archway...

The stranger he felt inside.

Each step, his heart raced a bit faster.

His skin felt warmer, until there were beads of sweat glowing on his forehead. Until he thought he might be sick from the sheer feeling of power that emanated from that strange archway and its glowing light. He wanted to take off his cloak, if only to get a bit of cooler air upon his skin.

He wanted to stop walking entirely, because deep in his belly, in his very soul...

Arawn Laroux was afraid.

“My King,” his mother said, bowing only to Draybor first, as they stopped before the arch.

And then she knelt before the archway itself, her head lowered in reverence. As if it were a true, living thing.

Arawn did the same, dropping to a knee before his father’s eyes could narrow upon him. But he didn’t dare look at the archway. Didn’t dare edge any closer to it, for now he truly thought he might vomit.

It was powerful.

So powerful he wanted to back away, but then his father’s voice latched onto him.

“Crown Prince,” Draybor said.

“Father,” Arawn said, until his mother tsked in warning, and he corrected himself. “King.”

He dared look up at him.

Draybor wore the Sacred Diadem today, a crown that rarely left this throne room. Arawn had never seen it before, but of course he’d studied depictions of it in his lessons, as every Sacred youngling had.

It was one of Lordach’s most treasured relics, and no one knew what it truly looked like, what its real form was, for it always mimicked the magic of the wearer.

On his father’s head, it was formed of true flames, even all the way to the delicate points around its top.

A magicked wind seemed to stoke those flames, causing each one of them to dance, a symbol of his father’s double-pillared power.

The Sacred Diadem was lovely.