Reign of Darkness

  Reign of

  Darkness

  ALSO BY MICHAELA RILEY KARR

  The Story of the First Archimage Series

  The Allyen

  The War of the Three Kingdoms

  The Desire to Know

  Reign of Darkness

  The Story of the First Archimage

  Book 3

  Michaela Riley Karr

  Rye Meadow Press

  Copyright © 2019 by Michaela Karr.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Rye Meadow Press, based in Emporia, KS. ryemeadowpress@gmail.com

  ISBN (paperback): 978-0-9986065-5-2

  ISBN (hardback): 978-0-9986065-6-9

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2019906339

  Cover Design © 2019: Magpie Designs, ltd.

  Photo Credit: Pixabay

  Texture Credit: Sascha Duensing

  Author Photo Credit: Jordan Storrer Photography

  Interior Map © 2019: L. N. Weldon

  Printed in the United States of America.

  First Edition, 2019.

  Dedication

  To my husband, Olin,

  my one and only.

  Table of Contents

  The Map of Nerahdis

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Acknowledgments

  The Map of Nerahdis

  Chapter One

  L unaka was thawing. The mountains were balding as their icy caps slowly receded, and it seemed the prairie grass grew inches every night. There was still a slight nip in the incessant Lunakan wind that had brushed my cheek since my birth, but most of winter’s traces were all but vanished. In some ways, it felt like Lunaka never changed. However, I couldn’t say the same about much else.

  I walked slowly along my well-worn path back toward the Rounan compound from my daily escape. Kylar toddled before me on his awkward, ever-lengthening legs. Rayna watched him intently from my arms, jealous of his ability to be mobile. My two children were growing like weeds, and yet most of the time I couldn’t look at them with the joy of a mother. Instead, I always felt the worry of my precarious position.

  Rhydin had been emperor for a year now. I was an Allyen, and yet I couldn’t stop him from slaughtering Archimage Dathian and turning the people of Nerahdis against us. They all believed Rhydin a hero for liberating them from the made-up tyranny of an Archimage who controlled all of the Royals’ abusive actions. I had hoped they would have realized otherwise by now.

  While Rachel insisted that we needed to leave the Rounan compound as soon as possible, Sam and I had done our very best to stall that decision. We needed to get our children to safety, but we couldn’t abandon our people, even if most had already abandoned us. I could feel it in my very bones that we would have to choose between the two soon. I refused to even ponder which of those parties I would consider. And so, while Kylar and Rayna continued to grow by leaps and bounds, every time I saw them, I was only reminded of the situation I dreaded. Thankfully, Rhydin recently seemed too busy establishing his reign to begin hunting for us and the Rounans.

  The Ranguvariian feather hanging around my neck jingled against the warm metal of my Allyen locket as we continued our walk back to the Rounan compound, our home. It hid my presence from being detected by any mage, most important Rhydin, every moment of every day and night. Kylar and Rayna both wore ones as well, even though technically Kylar, as a Rounan, couldn’t be sensed unless the mage saw him. Our whole compound was actually protected by an entire wind chime of these special feathers, but I knew the day was coming when it would not be enough.

  When we came to the top of the last grassy hill between us and home, the compound came into view. It was a rather small settlement compared to the other established cities and towns in Lunaka, but it had been growing in recent years as Rhydin began spreading his message of revolution during the war and ultimately came to power. A few dozen small shanties were now sprinkled across the plain. No roads connected them, only a general sense of community and some trampled grass. Over the last couple of months, Rounans had started leaving the compound. They seemed to sense the same thing I did.

  Our tiny shack was still on the very edge of the compound. It made things easier when we first moved here since the Rounans very obviously hated my guts. I was Gornish and belonged to the class of people actively persecuting and executing them, so I guess I couldn’t blame them too much. After I brought Sam home from the war last year, a fraction of that hatred seemed to have dissolved. The men still viewed me with dislike and the women only made small talk with me, but it wasn’t quite loathing or disgust like it had been before. I took it as my one victory from the entire war.

  I knew from one look at the house that Sam wasn’t inside. He very rarely remained indoors during the day, an age-old habit of the farmer he was, but my shoulders fell when I spotted him across the way in the area that was our field last year. He had a hoe and a large, burlap sack with him. I failed to suppress my inward groan and told Kylar to change his course.

  As we approached, I could see the moment that Sam sensed me coming. He had been working furiously, his hoe rising and diving deep into the earth at the rapid pace of a woodpecker. His Rounan magic gently lifted each seed one by one out of the sack and planted it into his row. Abruptly, when I knew I was in range of his senses, his hoe slowed as it flashed in the light, and his assembly line of seeds halted wiggling themselves into the dirt. A small part of me never grew tired of watching him farm Rounan style, something he’d never been able to do when we lived in the Canyonlands south of Soläna, the capital city. However, I couldn’t help the small bite of anger that arose within me.

  “Sam,” I groaned as I set Rayna on the ground and placed my hands on my hips. “I thought we talked about this. We weren’t going to plant anything this year because there’s no point.”

  My husband tugged on the tails of the blue, purple, and gold bandana tied tightly around his head, the one that signified him as Kidek, leader of the Rounans. His brown eyes darted to the hoe in his hands before they reached me. He mumbled, “You don’t know that for sure. We’ve been safe for a year, we could still be here in the autumn to harvest it.”

  “Sam, there’s no way-…”

  “There’s still a chance.” Sam cut me off. He let the hoe drop to the ground and crossed the distance between us, placing his hands on my shoulders. “Rhydin could still reveal his true motives and turn the people against him before he finds us. No one can live a lie forever.”

  I paused as I stared at him. My eyes traced the puckered edges of the white scar that etched Sam’s face from his brow to his jaw, the only physical reminder of when Rhydin imprisoned him during the war. I took a deep breath and tried to say, “But, the money for the seed-…”

  “I have to do this, Lina,” Sam murmured before he glanced at the toddler and the infant sitting at my feet, the former attempting to hold a conversation with the latter. “If he doesn’t come and we don’t plant something, we won’t have any food this wi
nter. I have to provide for us.”

  I exhaled louder than what was probably necessary. “Fine. After all, we can’t really return the seed now.” I gestured to the rows he had already planted.

  Sam grimaced, but then responded, “I’m sorry I didn’t ask. I just have to do this.”

  “I don’t want to leave either, y’know.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “If I could wave my hand and cast a spell that would cause the people of Nerahdis to see Rhydin for who he is, I would have done it a year ago. I don’t want to abandon our people any more than you do.”

  “I know,” Sam said quietly. His hands dropped from my shoulders, and one of them found one of mine, his tough calluses grated against my own. He whispered, barely audible, “We don’t have to go, you know.”

  My brow furrowed, and my hand clenched his. “What do you mean? If Rhydin finds us, he’ll kill us on sight.”

  “Not if we fight,” Sam hissed. “We’ve got tons of Rounans here. We could stand a chance!”

  “Rounan families, Sam,” I clarified, “Half the people in this compound are just kids who can’t protect themselves, not to mention our own! Even then, the rest of Nerahdis would just see it as a Rounan uprising, and whether we succeed or fail, we’d all be hanged. The Gornish people have to come around to our side first.”

  “And how’s that going?” he scoffed.

  “They will! I know they will,” I cried.

  Sam let go of my hand and reached for his hoe. He brushed the loose dirt off the worn, wooden handle, and then he met my gaze once more. “I’m not leaving my people to be hunted down and killed under Rhydin’s rule, Lina. I can’t.”

  “I don’t want to either,” I sighed defeatedly, my glance sliding to my feet where Rayna babbled happily at something Kylar told her. There we were, back to the same conundrum as always. Stay for our people or go for our children.

  “I know,” Sam conceded before he turned to his hoe and struck it down into the dark, Lunakan soil. Suddenly, nearly microscopic seeds floated out of the burlap sack a few feet away and began digging themselves into the row he created. “We’ll figure it out. We’ve still got time.”

  “I hope so,” I mumbled before scooping both Kylar and Rayna up under each arm and turning on my heel.

  I walked briskly back to our shack, narrowly opening the rickety door and getting it closed again with my full arms. I set Kylar and Rayna down on their little spot in the corner of the room where a blanket was laid on the floor with a few meager, wooden blocks, and then I began to search for our other hoe so I could help Sam. It felt like the right thing to do at the moment to help make amends for our argument, and I also loved to help out however and whenever I could.

  When I moved our cloaks on their hooks near the door, a gleam of metal caught my eye, and I unearthed our second hoe. The handle was missing a foot or so off the end after it was accidentally crunched under a wagon, and the wood was cracked down the middle, which reminded me that I should find a pair of gloves or my hands would fill with splinters.

  As I searched the counter for my moth-eaten pair, Sam’s being hopelessly too large, my fingertips brushed something that felt like the rough texture of parchment underneath a pile of clothing waiting to be mended for the hundredth time. Upon dragging it out into the daylight, I recognized my name in Frederick’s familiar script. A smile crept to my lips.

  Every once in a while, Frederick would write me a letter to keep in touch. Granted, he never told me where he, his sister, Cornflower, and his son, Dominick, were, but it was better than the absolute silence I had heard from Xavier and Mira over the last year. Rachel and her brothers delivered the letters of course, but they had developed a paranoid habit of hiding them somewhere in my house in case someone else came in. Sometimes, if Luke delivered the letter, I never found it until he helped me. On the other hand, James always made sure some portion of it was sticking out so I could find it, while Rachel would hide it in something I would eventually move. I could only guess whether Rachel or Luke hid this one.

  I set the hoe against the wall once more and sat on my stool at our wobbly table. Kylar was very diligently stacking blocks, and he laughed hysterically every time Rayna pushed them over. I broke the brilliant gold wax seal, which was imprinted with the Lunakan Royal family crest – a head of wheat framed by twin moons – and slid the letter out of its envelope.

  Dear Lina,

  Things are rather quiet here, but I thought I would write you anyway. If anything, you know we are still alive and well. Cornflower sends her greetings and well wishes. She may be young, but I think she is finally adapting to this life. It took her a long time to grow accustomed to being even more secluded than we were in the cottage during the war. I am not sure I can say the same, hiding here while my people continue to throw themselves at Rhydin’s feet.

  Admittedly, Frederick’s letters were often boring. I often thought that he put quill to parchment just to ease his own boredom. He wrote three pages’ worth in his beautiful, Royal penmanship that had likely been drilled into his brain since he could first hold a writing utensil. He mostly summarized things I knew well enough by now: Cornflower was becoming a young lady and yet had never experienced any of the normal, coming-of-age events for a princess, and Dominick was growing at the same wickedly fast pace as my own children.

  Frederick expressed his feelings of regret that his father, King Adam, was one of Rhydin’s Followers, which was nearly the entire reason that Frederick, Cornflower, and Dominick had left Lunaka Castle and Royal society. Rarely, he would mention his grief for Cassandra, his wife who had passed of a serious illness during the war. I always tried to write back something supportive, but on even more seldom occasions, Frederick would ask about Rayna. I almost always wished he wouldn’t.

  After all, how could I forget? My eyes trailed from the last page of parchment to the tiny girl on my floor. She beamed up at Kylar with her Allyen eyes, brown mixed with golden specks, and there was no denying the red strands streaked through her hair, the same as Sam’s. I sometimes forgot she wasn’t born that way. That she was born to Frederick and Cassandra with hair blacker than coal, and we had to magically change her into the new Allyen to save our magic, and therefore Nerahdis. Sometimes, I wondered if even her blood was Sam and I’s now. If anything at all of Frederick or her late mother remained.

  Quite honestly, my eyes glossed over the rest of what Frederick had to say. He’d still heard nothing from Mira and Xavier, his sister and the stubborn heir to Mineraltir’s throne she married, which still worried him. They had not parted ways well after the death of Archimage Dathian, and he endlessly hoped that Xavier would eventually come to realize that it wasn’t Frederick’s fault that Xavier’s son, Taisyn, had been blinded by one of Rhydin’s Followers. That Follower had been Robert, whom I had discovered was my biological father after running into him while freeing Sam from Rhydin’s prison tower. I preferred not to ever think about that either.

  I was just coming to the end of Frederick’s letter, my hand absentmindedly reaching for the battered hoe once again, when some of the final lines caught my eye:

  Anyway, please take care of yourself, Lina. I wish you and Sam were not so stubborn about remaining in that compound, and I really don’t see why you two keep up the whole farming thing anyhow. You need to get underground before it’s too late. You are more than welcome to join us, although I think our Ranguvariian protectors might object to having so many of us in one place. Tell Sam I say hello, and I look forward to hearing from you.

  Best,

  Prince Frederick Tané

  My blood began to boil. I crumpled the parchment pages and flung them at the door. Frederick had never made any sort of commentary on our farming before. Why couldn’t he understand that it was our way of life? Our passion? Our entire worlds for our whole lives had revolved around the rhythm of planting in the spring and harvesting in the fall.

  My mind churned with angry thoughts. It was probably because he was a Royal. Royals
didn’t understand commoners’ connections to their jobs, to their livelihoods. Everything was given to Royals on silver platters. Never had to work a day in their lives. I growled as I pushed myself from the table, beginning to pace. After that didn’t burn off any of my anger, I at least had enough sense to grab Kylar and Rayna before I stomped out the door.

  I marched barely a quarter of a mile toward the next shack along the general string that lead toward the heart of the Rounan compound. The slumped building was nearly identical to ours except for the general absence of any sort of barn or fencing for livestock, but I could hear the twinkling song of a violin from within and that was all that mattered.

  I rapped on the rotten door with my free hand, daring to release Kylar’s hand for the five seconds it took to do so. My heart still beat out an angry rhythm, but the walk had cooled me ever so slightly. By the time my twin brother finally managed to put down his violin and answer the door, he probably only saw a half-blisteringly-angry woman accompanied by two innocent children who were simply thrilled to see their uncle.

  Evan took one look at my expression and then immediately stood to the side to allow me entry. “Come on in, Lina.”

  I stood on my tippy toes to peer over his shoulder. Cayce, his lavender-haired, Auklian, Rounan wife, sat at the meager table with a strange array of knitting and throwing knives spread before her. I cleared my throat. “Actually, you better come out here if you don’t want me to wake your kid, as long as Cayce doesn’t mind watching mine too.”

  Evan’s brows threaded together, but he knew me well enough by now not to argue.

  Cayce nimbly picked up all of her knives and tossed them into a high cupboard, a white smile gracing her rosy cheeks. “Anytime you like, Lina, just make sure to return your brother to me in one piece.” She winked as she took Rayna from my arms.