Forged in Blood (The Forged Trilogy #3)
Chapter 1
Chapter One
THE TEMPLE
Ventus
Twenty years after the battle in Anu
R eclining back against the hillside, Bastian folded his hands behind his head and inhaled the eternal aroma of autumn–bitter and honeysweet–intertwined with the briny tang of sea. A crisp breeze drifted over his bare skin, kissing away the heat from the noonday sun. He closed his eyes.
“How much longer?” a wispy voice whined beside him.
“As long as it takes,” he replied.
An exhausted huff. “That could be forever …” Silence. “This is so boring.”
Bastian grinned. “It is only boring because you are eight.”
“What does age have to do with the untimely arrival of a ship?”
Bastian cracked an eyelid, needing visual proof it was, indeed, a little girl sitting to his right. Not some wise old crone, too long-lived for this world.
Bright citrine-colored eyes glared at him. As if he had personally caused the ship’s delay .
“Patience is a virtue, Oakley.” He closed his eyes again.
“Hog poo! You sound like Master Warelow.” Another tortured sigh. “Why allow me to follow you from the training yard, if this is all you planned to do?”
“I do not recall allowing you to do anything,” he chuckled. “Don't you have piano lessons? Or something else befitting a young lady?”
“I'm not a lady!” She toed her velvet slipper into his ribs. “And piano lessons are for Hanna.”
More disgruntled grumbling, and then the tiny vibration of her flopping onto her back. “Tell me a story about the old days.”
Bastian rolled his head to look at her.
“Please,” she added sweetly, thick lashes batting against cinnamon-colored skin, her auburn ringlets fanning out around her like a halo in the rich, verdant golden grass.
“The old days in Ventus?” he clarified. “Before I arrived here?”
Her eyes filled with excitement as she flipped onto her stomach and propped her head in her palms. “Were there really horses that could fly?”
“Pegasuses.” He smiled at her innocent wonder. “But not like the ones in the books Anne reads to you.”
“Oh, no.” Her little face grew serious, as her brows creased. “Scary, big beasts with glowing eyes and razor-sharp teeth.”
“More suited for warriors than little ladies.” Bastian tapped her nose, but continued before she could protest. “A good thing the latter is not present. I fear such tales would be too frightening.”
Oakley beamed. “Only those possessing pure magic could ride them?”
“So it is said. Same for the wyverns.” She studied him carefully, the way she often did, as if she were deciphering some great puzzle. “Do you have pure magic, Bastian?”
“Not in the way the fae define it. I can control the elements, harness the energy, direct it for my own use, but I cannot become it.”
“Have you ever met anyone that can?”
“No, I have not. ”
She grew pensive as those brilliant-colored eyes slid to the sea beyond. “Anne says they’re all extinct. The pegasuses, and the last of the pure magic lines. Neither has been seen since the fall of Arrowren.”
Bastian looked toward the ocean. The sun, high in the sky, bathed the water in diamonds of light. The white caps sparkled and broke on the reef where gulls swooped in between the crashing waves. He could very well understand the child’s fascination with the history of her birth realm. Likewise, he found it interesting, if also sad.
Fifty years ago, the Great Siege had played out, propelled, as with all conflict, by fear and greed. Brother turned on brother, city gates were barricaded, alliances were forged in dark rooms, and division took root and spread across the realm.
In the end, it proved to be about more than the sacking of one castle–the fall of one family.
It had been an extermination. A carefully crafted one. The annihilation of an entire bloodline: the Astameres. And with them, a magic deemed too unpredictable and dangerous.
Pure magic.
Though, it was whispered around campfires and taprooms in the dead of night when voices weren’t prone to carry that a few practitioners had survived. And with them, a nameless child; the heir to the Arrowren throne.
After the siege, Ventus had been divided into two kingdoms. A caste system was put in place and magic was sanctioned. Anyone possessing it must register with either Windsong or Hornhall by the age of ten. What fraction of magic one possessed determined where they would be placed next.
Most ended up in the royal armies, others in covens. A select few were chosen as champions for the king’s inner circle. It was a great honor to be counted among the High-fae, a life far superior to lesser fae. In reality, it meant a life of servitude. A life not of one’s choosing.
An archaic way of thinking. Even Gerra allowed its’ own the right to choose their path. Provided they were willing to claw their way to it. Ventus was the only realm in history to travel backward through time, tightening its control over its people, alienating itself from the other realms. Permitting only two ruling houses to dictate all.
Yet, there was such beauty here, such hope. As if half the population had forgotten what sacrifices it took to keep them protected. What limitations shackled this realm’s potential. What rights they gave up.
Bastian was not of that mindset. He couldn’t look at the staggering splendor of this land and not see the corruption used to maintain its prosperity. He could not ride past the pregnant mother in the village and keep from wondering if she lay awake at night praying her child was not blessed. He certainly couldn’t find comfort in the invisible cloak that dulled his own powers whenever he set foot outside of the Temple grounds.
Such had been the price of admittance. One of two conditions the fae demanded of him and his kin. To willingly subdue their natural gifts, and to abstain from drinking from another living being while in the realm.
Synthesized blood was the means of nourishment for Ventus’s vampire guest. The taste was one step up from drinking warm piss. But it was a sacrifice worth making to advance his craft.
Which was the entire reason Bastian was even here. To hone his powers and study under a coven of wizards renowned for their wind-magic, the final element in his training. Once he mastered air he could go home, rejoice in modern day technology, and wait…
Wait for the hand of fate to decide who would lead all four realms. Who would wear the crown.
“If I had a pegasus, I’d meet that ship out at sea.” Oakley stood, pulling him from his thoughts. She shielded her eyes with both hands, her delicate pointed ears peeking out through windswept curls. “A ship!” She hopped in place. “Teakin’s ship!”
Leaves crunched behind them with someone approaching and Oakley turned, eyes gleaming with excitement. “He’s here, Sterling. Let’s go.”
A chuckle was all Sterling was afforded before Oakley grabbed him by the hand and dragged Bastian’s cousin toward the beach. Sterling smiled over his shoulder, and then disappeared over the cliff’s edge with Oakley.
Bastian sat up as the ship dropped anchor. Sterling and Oakley appeared in miniature minutes later on the beach. Teakin waved from the bow of the boat.
Uncoiling to his feet, Bastian felt two emotions warring with each other–joy and apprehension.
He was happy to see Teakin. The male who had trained him, fought beside him, and had his back for the better part of the last twenty years. But, as with everything in his life, this reunion would come at a price. He could just feel it.
The only question now; would he be willing to pay it?