The Sword

THE SWORD A MORTAL FATES NOVELLA VOLUME 2 J BREE CONTENTS Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Coming April 27th PROLOGUE The scent of spilled blood wakes me. I’ve never been to war, never spilled more blood than what’s welled from a simple nick here or there while training, and yet there is no mistaking what I'm smelling. At sixteen years of age, I’m barely more than a faeling, not even close to being considered fully grown by fae standards. My body is near maturity; I already tower over my father, and in the sparring ring, I'm stronger than most of my family. Now that summer’s begun, my closest cousins and I are being trained by the sword master here at Yris Castle, our home. It never gets truly hot in the Southern Lands, but as the blizzards and bleakness of winter recede, we’ve come to our summer home to live and rule. As the heir to the throne of the Southern Lands, I have more than just a bedroom here at Yris Castle. I have my own wing. A bedroom, a bathroom, a sitting room, chambers to entertain in, my own dining room should I choose not to join my parents in the formal areas…I have never been in want of my own space, and as I pass through it all, there isn’t a drop of blood to be found. Yet the scent is choking me, creeping down the back of my throat until I feel as though I'm being smothered. It's true that the fae have a keen sense of smell, but I've never experienced anything like this before. Growing up, I heard stories of old rituals to the Fates, sacrifices involving blood—gallons of it—and I have to shake myself to clear the wild images that fill my mind as a deep sense of dread settles in my gut. The truth may very well be worse. I may be young, but my father has been preparing me for the throne my entire life, teaching me what it means to be not only a man of the realm but a king, and I am deeply aware of the unrest that exists in my kingdom. There are whispers that carry through the castle but stop when I enter a room, as though they're all trying to protect me from the coming war with the witches. As if I don't spend my days training at the edge of the sword, to sense the sword, to become the sword, and ensure that I will fulfill my duties. I have no intention of remaining safely in one of those war rooms, demanding the sacrifice of my people while I stand there draped in finery, never to see any of the horrors myself. No matter what I’ve been taught in my years of preparation for the throne, that is not the man I wish to be. The hallways are empty. That is the first real indicator that my nose is not lying to me, that something here is wrong. Yris Castle is my family’s ancestral home, the seat of their power, and it’s always bubbling with life, overflowing with people, as the entire household lives here. With the maids, the cooks the gardeners,, and the hundreds of guards to keep our family safe, I've never walked down a hallway without bumping into dozens of people, and yet, there is no one. Not so much as a single guard. When I turned twelve, I demanded my own space from my parents, insisting I was more than old enough to sleep in chambers by myself. My mother was reluctant to agree. Like most high fae women, she had struggled with her pregnancy, struggled to fall pregnant in the first place, to carry me to term, to bring me into this world, and so she had to fight hard not to coddle me. In the end, she had agreed to moving me into the heir’s chambers. It was as though she was proving to herself that she could share her most beloved son with the world and the realm as was expected of her. As my feet pick up their pace, I almost wish she had fought a little harder so I didn’t have to travel so far to find them, to get their reassurance that everything is okay, to know that they’re smelling what I am in the air and finding themselves confused and disoriented by it too. I reach the double doors to my parents’ chambers and, before I get the chance to take stock of what I'm seeing, blood seeps slowly out from under the bottom of them. By the time my brain has caught up, I’ve shoved the doors open, and I see the carnage everywhere. Bodies of maids and guards litter my parents' entryway. My feet slip in the mess as I stumble toward their bedroom, my eyes flicking around everywhere at my family's household, my mother's chambermaids, dozens and dozens of people who had a hand in raising me, all of them cold corpses. The only way these people could have been killed without waking me is magic, the type the high fae forgot a long time ago. Even as panicked as my mind becomes, I note the guard who shouldn’t be here amongst the dead. He’s not one of my father’s men; the colors of his cloak are off and stand out amongst the rest like a beacon. A dagger protrudes from his back, plunged deep into his heart. It is the only wound on him. A sigil peeks out from a tear in his uniform, blackness oozing from it as though it’s bleeding ink. It’s not ink though; the way it shimmers and sizzles speaks of the magic it contains. That sort of magic isn’t used in the castle, and certainly not by the high fae. My mind absorbs the information, but I can’t get a hold of it; nothing