Heir of Autumn Read online

  HEIR OF AUTUMN

  GILES CARWYN

  and

  ToDD FAHNESToCK

  TODD

  For my mother, Lynnette, who gave me the wings to fly.

  And for my father, Jim, who gave me the strength to use them.

  GILES

  for my brother

  Contents

  Book I

  A CITY OF STONE AND LIGHT

  Prologue

  Death belonged to her now. She must sit with it…

  1

  Shara’s Father called her a whore the day she left…

  2

  I’m going to break your balls with this one!” Trent…

  3

  Will I ever know, Baelandra thought, if I saved Ohndarien…

  4

  The Ambassador’s galley rocked gently in the soft evening breeze.

  5

  I’m ready to sleep with him,” Shara said out of…

  6

  Baelandra carefully made her way toward the top of the…

  7

  Steam Rose around her. Shara imagined it curling like smoke…

  8

  Night had fallen and a hush hovered in the Hall…

  9

  Baelandra crouched in the farthest corner of her balcony, curled…

  10

  Brophy crouched out of sight on the stairway until Krellis’s…

  11

  There’s another one!” Brophy shouted.

  12

  Brophy followed Trent’s gaze. A dark-haired woman struggled with a…

  13

  Brophy felt like a thief, standing in the shadows of…

  14

  Krellis stabbed a juicy half sausage and brought it to…

  15

  Even the sunlight tortured him. It trickled in through the…

  16

  Shara blinked. The knock sounded again. She shook her head.

  17

  The afternoon sun filled the balcony with warm light, causing…

  18

  Brophy stared at the chamber pot. The sides glistened red with…

  19

  Shara walked through Baelandra’s front door into the garden. She…

  20

  Baelandra fumbled through the carved marble box and found what…

  Book II

  A KINGDOM OF BLOOD AND GOLD

  Prologue

  A Howling Wind Rushed from the blue-eyed infant, drowning out…

  1

  Brophy stumbled naked down the street toward the Physendrian gate.

  2

  Krellis stood at the prow of the longboat, torch in…

  3

  Brophy looked back. The barren Physendrian hills extended into the…

  4

  Baelandra stood on her balcony overlooking the garden. Beyond the…

  5

  Brophy tried to open his eyes, but they were gummed shut…

  6

  Brophy awoke in Physendria for the second time. The feather…

  7

  When the light of morning reflected through the underground room…

  8

  Baelandra stood on her balcony looking over the bay. To…

  9

  Baelandra urged the other Sisters to continue up the stairs…

  10

  The locks of Ohndarien were the dream of Donovan Morgeon…

  11

  The desert was still chilly in the predawn light, but…

  12

  Jayden’s Granddaughter, Mave, lay naked on the bed when Krellis…

  13

  Vomit dripped from Brophy’s chin. He breathed through his mouth…

  14

  Shara awoke alone in the dark.

  15

  Brophy stepped out of the tunnel into the arena. He…

  16

  Shara limped down the sinuous tunnel. The cavernous labyrinth had…

  17

  Ossamyr drove him into the desert again, holding the chariot…

  18

  Dark clouds bunched and twisted on the western horizon, rolling…

  19

  Krellis seethed as he arrived at the Zelani school. The…

  20

  Brophy sat beside the wardrobe, staring into the darkness. He…

  21

  For the third time, Ossamyr’s chariot drove Brophy into the…

  22

  Brophy awoke with a start. He ached all over, and…

  23

  The wall closed seamlessly behind Brophy, and Ossamyr crossed to…

  24

  When brophy returned to his rooms that night, he thought…

  Book III

  A LEGACY OF PAIN AND GREED

  Prologue

  Copi clung to Raindancer’s back as the little mare pounded…

  1

  Krellis and Gorlym stood on the Quarry Wall and looked…

  2

  Baelandra’s blue skirts rippled behind her as she stood on…

  3

  It was strange to be back in her house after…

  4

  Sutom’s Palms began to sweat. The carvings were recent. Flecks…

  5

  Shara bobbed naked in the water, clinging to the wooden…

  6

  Dathyl wouldn’t shut up.

  7

  Brophy…”

  8

  The Sea Breeze blew wildly through Brophy’s hair, and he…

  9

  Brophy reached for the latch on their door as quietly…

  10

  Brophy had never seen fog so thick. It rolled in…

  11

  As The Sun Rose, the mist lightened. Whenever the clouds…

  12

  Baelandra Concentrated on her breathing, waiting until her body and…

  13

  White Fumes curled around the ridge as Brophy stared at…

  14

  A Familiar nausea came over Brophy as he crawled into…

  15

  Brophy Sheathed his sword as the Ohohhim soldiers surrounded them.

  16

  Krellis watched the Physendrian and Farad armies swarm across the…

  17

  The Ambassador’s ship slid down a swell under full sail.

  18

  Rain pounded down on Ohndarien that night, but she was…

  19

  Brophy And Medew bobbed in the ocean at the base…

  20

  Shara stood in the rain staring into the night. Brophy…

  21

  Brophy lumbered through the darkness snarling and wheezing, dragging his…

  22

  Krellis closed the back door of the Blue Lily and…

  23

  We lost the city when we lost the wall,” the…

  24

  Shara ran toward the Market Bridge in the uniform of…

  25

  Brophy’s Eyelids fluttered.

  26

  Shara screamed and fell to her knees, clinging desperately to…

  Epilogue

  A hooded Woman walked carefully through the Night Market. It had…

  Acknowledgments

  About the Authors

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  book I

  A CITY OF STONE AND LIGHT

  prologue

  DEATH BELONGED to her now. She must sit with it for one turning of the moon like her mother had before her. As Copi drew closer to the fire, she heard the music that haunted her dreams. It wasn’t real music, not heartbeats, not drums or chanting, not the wind in your ears as you danced. It chirped like a bird, tinkled like silver beads.

  In one month
Copi would be a woman. Her family would give her a young stallion to call her own. When the colt grew strong she would ride across the Vastness and find a man with many mares to breed with her stallion. And that man would give her many children to ride on the backs of those horses. But first, she must endure one month with the child.

  She stepped out of the darkness into the light of the fire. Her sister sat upon a log in front of the flames. Nili’s eyes were red and sunken like an old woman dying of the fever, but she offered a weak smile at the sight of her sister.

  Nili held the music box in her hands, turning its delicate handle. The strange metal of the box reflected a rainbow of colors in the shifting firelight. As long as Nili kept turning the handle, the box kept singing. As long as the music never stopped, the child would not wake.

  Copi looked across the fire at the sleeping girl. Her tiny chest rose and fell as she breathed. She had dark hair and skin so pale blue lines showed through. When Copi’s mother told her the child’s face was blue, Copi imagined it blue like the sky. But the little girl wasn’t the monster from the old women’s stories. She was just a tiny child from across the Great Ocean, no more than ten moons old.

  The sleeping girl was naked. Her clothes had rotted away generations ago, but no one dared give her new ones. She lay in the snow all winter. She lay in the rain all spring. She did not eat, she did not stir, she did not wake. She dreamed. Her eyes darted back and forth under their lids, lost in a nightmare, but they never opened. No one knew what color those eyes were.

  “She’s not what you expected, is she?” Nili asked, still winding the music box.

  “She’s so small, so beautiful.”

  “She is horrible. She is worse than you can possibly imagine.”

  Nili stared back at the child and turned the handle, around and around.

  “Aren’t you tired?” Copi asked her sister. “You’ve been here a full moon with no sleep.”

  “No. You will not sleep. You cannot.”

  Swallowing past the dryness in her throat, Copi asked the question she had been dreading.

  “Shall I take the box now?”

  Nili shook her head. “There is something I must tell you first. It is a story you must remember and pass on to the woman who bears this burden after you. It is the story of how the dreaming child came to us and why she must never, never wake up.”

  THE FIRST LIGHT of dawn bled into the black sky. Copi sat on the log beside the fire, turning the handle of the ancient box. She couldn’t look at the child. She stared at the fire, her feet, the music box, anything but the child. Her first night was almost over. She couldn’t imagine twenty-eight more. It was more than any woman could bear.

  She wasn’t cold, wasn’t hungry. Her hand never grew tired. Her back never felt sore. The fire never died down, but it could not hold back the chill of the little girl. It seeped into her bones, and Copi knew she would never be the same. She closed her eyes and turned the handle, on and on and on.

  As the sun crested the distant hills, the handle of the box lurched and stopped.

  Frantically, she turned the wheel harder, faster. The handle snapped off and came away in her hand. She clutched at the box, let out a cry of dismay. Her fingers fumbled for the tiny nub of the broken handle. She tried to turn it, but it would not go. She pinched it against her knuckle so hard she bled and spun the box instead of the handle. A single note chirped out, then another.

  She heard a tiny moan. The child’s little hands rose to her face and rubbed her eyes. She arched her back and stretched.

  Copi turned the box over and over again, pinching the nub as hard as she could. The music returned, awkward and halting like a horse with a broken leg.

  The naked child yawned once, sticking out her little pink tongue.

  Copi started to scream.

  The child opened her eyes.

  They were blue eyes. Pale, pale blue eyes.

  1

  SHARA’S FATHER called her a whore the day she left home. After ten years, that was what she remembered most about her parents. She could still hear the hate in her father’s voice as he passed his final judgment, could see him scowling in that chicken-scratched yard while her mother stood by, head bowed, saying nothing in Shara’s defense.

  Shara would soon be worth her weight in jewels, but somewhere deep inside she was still a hog butcher’s daughter. Despite a decade of training, the smell of pig still drifted into her mind whenever she was scared, whenever she felt lost and out of place.

  For the thousandth time, Shara let go of those too-familiar thoughts. They would not serve her, not tonight. She opened her eyes and looked out the window. The sun was setting behind the Windmill Wall on the far side of Ohndarien. The dying light made the Free City’s harbor and canals shimmer like liquid gold.

  Shara sat on a teak window seat, leaning on silken pillows. She kept her breathing slow as her fingers brushed the tip of her nipple. Her other hand was nestled warm between her thighs. She could feel the energy expanding beyond the edges of her body. Her skin, her white cotton robe, the pillows, the dying light were all becoming one. But that word, “whore,” kept her from dissolving completely.

  She painted the scene in the air outside her window. Her mind’s eye conjured a three-dimensional portrait of her parents. She saw her father’s face, swollen fat through the jowls and pinched tight around the eyes. She saw her mother, shoulders habitually curled forward, a strand of her wispy brown hair fluttering in the breeze.

  Shara let the accusation build within her. “Whore,” she breathed, blowing the word back at her parents, scattering their images like pipe smoke. They swirled away, and she was free of them.

  “If I am a whore,” she said to herself, “what a magnificent whore I will be.”

  She shuddered as the last of her resistance fell away. The power hung about her like a haze and she lost herself in it. Reveled in it.

  Standing up, she dropped her robe. The woven cotton whispered off her shoulders and down her arms. As it brushed her skin, she gasped and felt her control lurch again. She was on fire. The spell would be powerful, if she could hold the reins.

  She walked to the door and ran her sensitive fingers across the dark oak. Beyond her chambers, the school was quiet. The servants were gone for the night. Her fellow students were sleeping in their rooms. Victeris was alone in his tower. She had a brief urge to test her strength against the Zelani Master, but she let that go also. With a smile, she breathed her hubris into the spell along with everything else.

  A thrill ran through her, and she nodded.

  Now.

  Shara opened the door and stepped naked into the hallway. Her bare feet smacked softly on the cool stones. Through the open colonnades, she could see the gardens in the courtyard below. Reaching out with her mind, she brushed the water in the fountain. It felt cool and moist in the hot night, but her thoughts made no ripples on its surface.

  At the end of the hall, she turned and headed down the stairs. Her hair slid across her bare shoulders, and she closed her eyes. If this is what the Fourth Gate felt like, she couldn’t imagine the Fifth.

  Lost in her trance, she almost walked straight into Sybald. The old man cleared his throat to catch her attention. Shara fought to maintain control as her cheeks reddened and her ears burned. The old man looked her up and down disapprovingly. Sybald was Victeris’s manservant. The acerbic man was as rigid in his thinking as he was crooked in his body. Like the other students, Shara had feared and hated him while growing up. Now, within a hair’s breadth of her full power, she couldn’t imagine being terrified by such a tiny little man. He was so old he must have been born ancient.

  “What are you doing out of bed?” Sybald asked, holding his candle closer to her face.

  “I’m going to the Night Market. Perhaps I’ll see a show,” she told him. Her voice sounded hurried and nervous, but she stood defiant, chin out, shoulders back, breasts pushed forward. She continued blushing but did not move.

  Sy
bald’s wrinkles deepened in his confusion. “Out? At night? What’s this nonsense?”

  Shara exulted. He didn’t see! He didn’t know.

  Her triumph turned smug. With a wicked smile, she laid a hand on the old man’s arm. “But I’m no longer a student, am I?” she said, feeling her power swirl around them.

  Sybald nodded as if half-asleep. “No, I guess you’re not.”

  “Would you please open the front gate for me?”

  She might be pushing the limits of her influence, but she was on fire. Nothing could stop her.

  The old man headed down the stairs. She followed his shuffling steps through the arched doors and across the rose marble walkways to the front gate. As he fumbled for his keys, she looked down at her naked body. Her smooth skin glowed in the darkness. Smiling, she turned back to Sybald as he opened the heavy iron gate.

  “Leave that unlocked, would you?”

  “Of course,” he mumbled, and shuffled back inside.

  Shara slipped through the gate, barely able to contain a grin at the power she had, the influence. She couldn’t wait for the life she would lead in the next few years. Tonight was her final lesson. After this, she would be ready to pass through the Fifth Gate, into true power and influence. She would escape from under the thumb of any father, husband, or cruel-eyed Zelani-Master and owe fealty to no one. The whole world would open to her. She would walk with kings, whisper in their ears, and change the course of nations.