“Alvina!” he heard his father shout to his mother, “Go back, damn it!” Then there was a wrenching jolt of magic and Dayn was suddenly inside his father’s head, seeing what he was seeing, feeling what he was feeling.
Horror and grim determination thudded in Aelfric’s veins as he slashed at the creature confronting him on the narrow open staircase. He didn’t know how the Blood Sorcerer had gotten his army onto the island undetected, but the castle was overrun.
Monstrous scorpion creatures filled the great hall below the curving staircase, knocking aside elite guard-soldiers with their poison-tipped tails, then slicing through their armor with razor-sharp claws. As blood splashed and men screamed and died, the king slammed a bolt of magic down the stairs, driving back the ettins that were trying to win their way up the steps to the upper level. The huge three-headed ogres stumbled back, dazed, but not for long.
Aelfric spun to charge up the stairs and found himself on his wife’s heels. Which didn’t surprise him, because his lovely Alvina was a fighter, fierce and powerful in both love and war. What surprised him was the panicked ache he felt at the sight of her rushing up the stone steps ahead of him, the inner whisper of, Please, gods, no. I’m not ready for this.
Worse, he saw the same emotions reflected in her eyes when she ducked into an alcove just short of their chambers and turned to him, holding out her hands for his. “We must act quickly,” she whispered as the stones trembled beneath their feet with the force of the battle. “We can still save the children.”
He wanted to argue, but knew in his heart that it would only waste time.
Folding his hands around hers, he moved in close and laid his cheek on her brow. “Ah, my queen. My love. I am sorry.” Sorry that he had waited too long to go after the Blood Sorcerer. Sorry that he had no hope to offer. Sorry that they had so quickly gone from talking about little Micah’s fifth birthday to this.
Her next breath was a sob, but she said only, “We must hurry.”
He eased away, keeping hold of her hands, which trembled in his. “Tell me what to do.”
“No!” Dayn shouted, pain searing through his chest as the vision dissolved. “Gods, no!” More, as the mindspeak faded he heard the distinctive buzz that said it was a memory, that what he saw had already happened. He struggled against the invisible force that held him at the center of the whirlwind, lashing at it, cursing it. “Malachai!” he shouted. “To the castle!” But there was no response, and the forest suddenly seemed very far away.
Dayn. The word was spoken inside his head, in a familiar low, rumbling voice.
“Father?” Hope burst through him. “Thank the gods. Get me out of here. I can gather the villagers and—”
It is too late. The castle has fallen, and us with it.
“Don’t say that.” His voice went ragged, his breathing choppy. “Hang on. Just hang on. I’ll get Nicolai. If we work together—”
The spell is cast, our lifeblood gone. I don’t even know how much longer I’ll be able to reach you, so you must listen.
“No!” Dayn shook his head wildly, denying both the statement and the whisper of echoes that said his father had passed on to the psychic space between dead and alive. “Father … Mother … gods …” He felt no shame in the sobs that tore from his throat, jumbling his words with terrible, awful guilt. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper, shouldn’t have ridden out. If I had been there—”
Cease! Aelfric snapped, much as he did to his men in battle.
Dayn came to attention, but his voice shook when he said, “I await your orders.” He had said the words many times before, though most often lately with resentment. Now it took on a new, sharper meaning, because he didn’t know what to do next. Find Nicolai? Muster an army? A magical attack? A retreat? Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined the castle taken, his parents gone. But he couldn’t waste whatever time his father had left in the in-between, so he whispered, “Speak, Father. I will do whatever you tell me.”
Good, then listen well. Because of our wounds and the sorcerer’s power, the spell turned warped as your mother and I cast it. The magic has sent you and your brothers and sister far away, as we intended, but it has also tied the four of you to the castle and begun a countdown. When this count enters its final four nights—and not before then—you must all return to the island, retake the castle and kill the Blood Sorcerer. If you do not, you will die and Elden will be lost. But you must wait until the time is right.
Dayn’s breath rasped in his lungs; his mind spun. “How will I know?” Gods, was this really happening?
A woman will come to guide you home. The countdown begins when she arrives and ends on the fourth night. You must let her guide you, but remember: stay true to yourself and know your priorities. Promise me that.
A sob backed up in his throat. “I promise. Gods, Father—” He was cut off as the tornado suddenly accelerated with a roar. Seconds later, he was flying away from the calm center and back out toward the whipping wall of air. “No!” he howled as the wind grabbed him, latched on and flung him forward into the spin. In an instant he was moving, tumbling over and over, leaving him to shout into the roaring wind, “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help fight!”
Thunder cracked and energy detonated inside him, searing his flesh and driving the breath from his lungs. Pain consumed him, convulsed him, as his body suddenly sought to tear itself apart from the inside out. Flesh and muscle ripped; sinews snapped from one place to another and his bones bent. There was a sharp jolt, and agony javelined through him, so terrible that he screamed and his senses went dim for a few seconds.
Then, between one second and the next, the howling stopped and the tornado disappeared, blinking out of existence as if it had never been. He hung for a second facedown in midair, eight or ten feet above a grassy clearing surrounded by strange stone pillars. Then his weight returned and he fell.
“Son of a—” He hit hard, with a rushing boom of impact that made his eyes blur, his ears ring and his brain spin. Surely that explained why, as he struggled to his hands and knees, the world around him seemed too bright, the sky too pale, the trees too tall. But no head injury could explain the cold that cut through his tunic or the way he could see his breath on the air. Or why the sky was a strange color and the ringed stones and tall, thin trees didn’t look like anything he’d ever seen before.
Where was he? Had the spell sent him to the High Reaches? Even farther? Gods, what if he was all the way out by the Barrens? It would take him months to get home. His father had said he needed to wait for a woman guide and a four-night countdown that started when she arrived, but impatience stirred at the thought. What if he didn’t wait? What if he returned on his own? He was a hunter, a Forestal. If anyone could make it safely through the kingdoms alone, it was him. What if—
He jolted when movement blurred in his peripheral vision, and his pulse thudded thickly in his ears as he turned, hoping to see his guide.
Instead, men emerged from the trees. One was a gangly youth in his late teens, while the other appeared to be in his third or fourth decade. They shared long-nosed, forbidding features that suggested they were related, and they wore brightly colored clothing that wasn’t made of any hide or textile Dayn had ever seen before. The strange fabric crinkled like parchment when they moved, coming toward him.
Dayn dragged himself to his feet, belatedly realizing that the magic had stripped him of everything but his clothing, leaving him unarmed and wearing only the common laborer’s homespun he favored. But if he was in hostile territory, that was probably for the best. He needed to lay low and keep his true identity hidden until he knew whether it was safe for him to reveal himself as a prince