CHAPTER ONE: Luscia
Luscia stretched her neck until she felt a sharp pop of relief. Only four days on the road to Bastiion, and her bones were already weary. But as the distance ahead stretched farther than that behind, Luscia chastised herself for the silent complaint. They were still a week’s journey from the lowlands of Hildur, and her neck would just have to accept it.
“Captaen!” a man’s voice shouted. The greenery by the side of the road parted, revealing Declan, the brawny najjani warrior who’d been sent to locate the next stage of their route.
Declan brought his horse up to address the handsome man riding beside Luscia. Bright, unruly copper hair fell out of the disheveled knot he’d tied at the crown of his head. Swatting it out of his eyes, Declan wiped away the beads of sweat trickling down his slightly crooked nose and paused, as if suddenly remembering protocol.
“Ana’Sere,” he huffed the Northern title in reverence, bowing his stocky frame to Luscia before turning toward Marek Bailefore, the captaen of her guard. “Captaen, the structure we recalled is just a mile south. You’ll find the same broken tree marking the hidden turnoff.”
“Waedfrel, well done,” Marek answered, a hint of relief in his deep voice. “Declan, take Noxolo and scout the area for dinner. We’ll reconvene at the ruin.”
Luscia watched the two warriors disappear into the surrounding wood, the shock of Noxolo’s off-white hair trailing in the wake of Declan’s horse. Her sharpened hearing caught Noxolo attesting to the distinct flavor of possum, and a faint grunt of exasperation in response.
“This way, Ana’Sere,” was the captaen’s only directive before moving on.
It was nearing dark when they arrived at the place Marek and Declan sought. They’d ridden farther that day than expected, certainly farther than Luscia’s sore limbs would have preferred. Dodging contorted branches and jutting limbs, they carefully approached a ruin comprised entirely of materials from the Lost Ages, which could have once been anything from a meetinghouse to a place of trade. With half the walls in a crumbled heap, overtaken by the elements, the remnants were beyond recognition. Arms of the nearest trees embraced the ruin, leaving the rest clothed richly in emerald moss where the jaws of nature had consumed it.
Evidence of the Lost Ages was uncommonly discovered in Orynthia. After the Forgotten Wars desolated the ancient world, the generations of survivors had only fragmented structures such as this to piece together a conclusion for what had been committed against the earth and her inhabitants. A muddied, empty conclusion about the evils of men taught still, even a thousand years later.
Instantly, Luscia understood why Marek thought it wise to make camp here. With so much of the ruin intact, the walls would block a fire from sight, as well as dull the evening’s inevitable chill.
Tonight may actually provide a decent rest, she pondered optimistically.
Following Marek’s lead, she dismounted the dappled mare in a graceful leap, cushioning the impact with a slight bend of the knees. Luscia wasn’t a tall woman by any standard, so it was a fair distance from the saddle to the ground. She’d always resented her small stature, as men rarely took seriously a woman whose height resembled that of a large child. Blessedly, the rest of her body hardly looked like a child’s. Boreali women were known for their shapely figures, and Luscia was no exception. Though, from a defensive standpoint, longer limbs would’ve offered a useful advantage in combat.
Still, the more cunning part of Luscia reveled in her lack of height. As a daughter of Boreal, stealth and speed were given abilities, but her smaller frame was often smoother and quicker than her average sparring partner, even among the najjani elite.
Out of the corner of her eye, Luscia spotted Marek approaching. He stopped a few feet away, gathering back the strands of crimson hair that had escaped their leather lacing during the journey here. Luscia busied herself with unharnessing her mare, trying to ignore the appeal of Marek’s chiseled cheekbones and strong jaw, each characteristic begrudgingly appreciated. Luscia wished he would keep his distance. Their close proximity suggested an unspoken familiarity between them, however inevitable it may be.
“You rode well today, Ana’Sere,” Marek offered as she unfastened the saddle. “We’ll set your quarters against the farthest wall. It’s the tallest and most stable. Provides the greatest security. You must have been cold last night—do you require another set of furs?”
Luscia made an effort to soften her features, knowing they could be severe. As much as she’d like to ignore his companionship, she could not allow herself to remain petulant when addressed out of duty. Insightfully, Marek had started to use her formal title, Great Sister, regularly once he realized she was more receptive to it.
“Tadöm, Captaen,” Luscia conceded, thanking him.
“Yeh’maelim, Ana’Sere.”
Finally making eye contact, she met a pair of cerulean lights in the darkness. His suggestion was earnest, she knew, by the way his fine brows lifted in concern.
“You navigated well, I see,” she acknowledged. He nodded, and an awkward silence fell between them, the air growing still. Bristling, Luscia inquired, “How do you know this place? I’ve seen ruins of this size only a handful of times. On my last journey to Bastiion, my aunt’s guard kept us to the main roads.”
“Your father—the clann Darragh, I mean….” Marek cleared his throat. “He sent us on a scouting assignment two months ago to prepare for your journey. He thought it prudent to explore alternative routes in case we needed to avoid the main roads. Declan noticed framing underneath the overgrowth and led us to find the perfect shelter.” He paused to gesture at the rotted frame. “In order to remain undetected, we haven’t made our fires as large as I’d like. Tonight, we should be able to.”
Marek fiddled with the bedroll he carried, clearly uncomfortable speaking so much. It was the longest monologue she’d heard him give in normal conversation. Luscia opened her mouth to reply, but was cut off when Declan and Noxolo stalked past, thoroughly engaged in an argument over venison seasoning. With a buck thrown over his shoulder, Declan trudged toward the fire another warrior had built. Noxolo dragged a sad-looking possum, yammering on about horned thissleweed and an old family recipe. Luscia controlled her smirk and braced for the thunderous explosion about to erupt from the bulkier najjan.
“I’m grateful for your consideration, Captaen,” Luscia finally said to Marek, despite Declan and Noxolo’s brewing dispute in the background. She lowered her head a fraction, excusing herself, and turned in the opposite direction. “Oh, and tadöm, for the furs,” she added over a shoulder, “but I’m certain Aksel will be warmth enough once he returns from terrorizing the local wildlife.”
With that, Luscia headed to the farthest wall, desperate for some space.
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Over the next hour, Luscia found solace in the symphony of the wildwood. She slowly picked at her second portion of venison, savoring the flavor. He could be a real nuisance, but Noxolo was onto something with the horned thissleweed. An odd combination, she concluded, from an even odder family.
Her gaze followed her warriors while they moved about, going through the motions of their nightly routines. Not for the first time, she recognized why Boreal’s clan elders chose each of these men to play this coveted role in her life. There was the twenty-three-year-old Marek, of course, who traversed their camp almost silently as he prepared for first watch, gliding like an extension of the mist as he searched for potential threats. His Northern heritage combined with his years of training on the Isle of Viridis had honed him into a deadly warrior, and his keen mind for strategy had earned him leadership over the other four najjan.
Stolen novel; please report.
The musical beat of clashing metal drew her eyes to the twins as they sparred in a series of dancelike steps and arced maneuvers. The golden- haired brothers circled one another, a competitive joy radiating from both men. At twenty-one, they were the youngest members of Luscia’s quintet of warriors, though still older than her own eighteen years. Outsiders often found their abstract precision to be unnerving, but the House of Boreal commended both Böwen and Creyvan Tearlach as shining examples of its beauty and military prowess.
Beyond the crackling fire sat the eldest of the group: Declan Athdara. He had readily become Luscia’s favorite among her escort. Though he tended to erupt whenever his patience tired, she felt most at peace with his otherwise quiet disposition. A superior tracker and hunter—as evidenced by the dinner he’d provided—but Luscia felt certain there were many reasons Declan had been chosen to protect her. She studied the artistic way he sharpened and polished a set of luxiron blades laid before him, admiring the way he held each with such care, like they were precious stones instead of death-bringers.
To their communal relief, Noxolo Egon snored in a corner of the ruin. It was the most reasonable he’d been that day. Translucent skin as pale as her own was concealed beneath his fine, moonlit hair, though Luscia could still see his long nose peeking through the curtain of platinum strands. It was Noxolo’s speed that positioned him at her side— when engaged, Nox moved as fast as Luscia, despite being almost three heads taller.
Shadowmen, the citizens of Orynthia called them. Boreal’s najjan fought in the shadows with a chilling patience, a fearsome caste of warriors who danced with blades like the whistling tempests over the Drystan Sea. Luscia found the adopted name rather appropriate, as opposed to the slew of distasteful alternatives the realm enlisted. Even in the face of Boreal’s crumbling political status within the Ethnicam, the Order of the Najjan retained their repute, and were entirely resented for it.
Through the Ethnicam, Orynthia maintained a careful alliance between the four Houses that ruled each corner of the realm. After the Forgotten Wars, the earth had been forsaken to the Shade Age, a time too old and too dark to recount. Not once did Luscia voice a desire to uncover what horrors had plagued the world during those shadowed centuries, nor had any of her peers. From her understanding, survivors who hadn’t starved from the desolation were either clean or unclean. Residual war-taint disfigured and drove the afflicted into grotesque madness, while mortal disease had threatened the rest. But when the Spear Age arose and the remnants of humanity struggled to withstand a land of famine and war-taint, shrinking tribes found solace in their respective lineage and cultures, wielding every custom as fiercely as their spears.
Luscia’s tutors taught that it’d not been long before skirmishes broke out amongst many tribes and their bordering adversaries, forcing groups to focus inward when the land’s natural resources had begun to disappear. Birthing a new war—one of sheer numbers—forces dwindled within the outer territories, including her own. To the north, her ancestors of Boreal declined, just like those of Pilar to the west and Darakai to the south. Yet instead to the east, the people of Bastiion reached outward to neighboring tribes and bolstered their legions, each sacrificing their heritage to become something new and unified. In doing so, Bastiion thrived. Together, the emerging Unitarian tribe that dominated the east had strengthened a force and military might capable of establishing the oldest kingdom of the remembered age: Orynthia.
It was the House of Bastiion that ultimately united these four territories, hundreds of years after the Forgotten Wars. In exchange for protection, the outer territories of Boreal, Pilar, and Darakai formed in an uneasy treaty with the prosperous Unitarians—the tribes who’d sacrificed their heritage to form another. An alliance forged during the Spire Age, binding each territory and political House in peace to other, just as they were bound to the throne.
Luscia snorted at that and rearranged herself upon the log, balancing her plate over her knees like the realm ought to balance the inequity of the Ethnicam.
Although her House’s history with Orynthia dated further than that of Darakai or Pilar, all owed their survival to the crown. Even now, a thousand years after the earth shed its taint and began to bloom, the Houses continued to pay homage to the Orynthia’s founding epicenter, Bastiion. In signing the Accords, the ruling powers of each House constituted the Ethnicam, solidifying their allegiance under a unified Orynthian banner. From Bastiion were the Peerage of the Nobility; from Pilar, the Shoto Collective; from Darakai, the tribal chieftains; and from Boreal, Luscia’s own clan elders.
All four owed fealty to the Royal Line of Thoarne, whose descendants ruled from the Orynthian throne. And who rule there still.
This balance of power worked to ensure that through domestic faculty and trade, service was paid in full for the benefit of all Orynthia, the central kingdom. As the Houses retained enough independence to govern their own territories, the Ethnicam provided accountability against partiality—or so it claimed.
However, during the last century, friction had escalated within the Ethnicam when the House of Boreal suspended all trade beyond standard weaponry with the rest of the realm. A suspension that inspired recent generations further into reclusion within their sacred highlands. Luscia knew them better than most, though she was not the only child of the age who’d been sequestered among those verdant, snow-capped heights. But more than any highland, her House was famous for its deadly luxiron blades. Forged with the mystery of lumin, the Northern iron was unparalleled in battle. The Boreali guarded the secret of luxsmithing carefully, and trade of these special weapons with the rest of Orynthia had always been rare, even before Luscia’s forefathers forbade their sale outside Boreal’s borders. Luscia privately found the Ethnicam’s resentment to be ridiculous, as Orynthia’s grudge with Boreal was over the monopoly of trinkets. Corrosive and bewitching trinkets, but trinkets nonetheless. It was the najjani warriors who were the true weapons of Boreal. It was in their blood, their very nature.
By belonging to the line of Tiergan, it was a nature that segregated Luscia even further from her five.
With some surprise, Luscia realized that she’d finished her plate of venison while studying her men so intently. She rubbed her tired eyes, then rose to her feet with a groan, making her way over to the well-made tent of Orallach hide that Creyvan had erected for her.
“Thank Aniell for privacy,” she murmured as she slipped inside.
Surrendering a sigh, Luscia peeled off her layers of traveling gear, desperately wishing for a hot bath. It’d been days since her last true wash. When all that remained was the thin layer of her linsilk shift, simpler than the others she possessed, Luscia lay back against the bed of lush furs and combed her fingers through an untidy cluster of dark-blonde knots.
As she finished fighting with the last of the tangles in her waist- length hair, a wet muzzle parted the opening of her makeshift quarters. Aksel waited until Luscia obliged him with a warm, “Well, come in, you brute.”
The lycran’s huge form shook the tent as he made an obnoxious attempt to lie down. The tent was good stock, but it was never intended to house a woman and her overgrown wolx. Regardless of his enormity and the rank stench of his latest conquest, Luscia welcomed Aksel’s company as well as his warmth. She had slept safely with the animal for three years, since he was a pup. Even now that he was considered fully grown, she didn’t intend to stop.
Nestling closer to Aksel’s thick coat, she listened to the distant tinkling of metal as Declan rewrapped his luxiron blades. Breaths later, she heard his voice rumble in the night. Gently, barely audible to most, he sang to the unseen threads of lumin in the darkness. Luscia was nearly asleep to the sound of his melody when the twins began to accompany the native Boreali hymn, forming a soothing blend of masculine tones that rose to greet the wind stirring the leaves. They sang for no one in particular, except the moon and her maker.
Taken in by the music and its simplicity, Luscia repositioned her head at the opening of the tent. She fastened a flap to the side to better appreciate the old song branded in their Northern hearts. With eyes closed, she intertwined her offering with that of her warriors.
From the mounts of Orallach we sing,
From the crest of Aksel’s Keep we bring,
A song of Old, a song of some.
For those who’ve lost what Tiergan found,
My soul turns ear to hear such sound,
Of Dönumn’s light and Lux’s stream.
Though ash and flame and darkness came,
New life and burnished day remain,
Resilient against horrors sought.
’Tis in the wind, between the trees,
Whispers proof of everlasting.
Though in their absence I will hold,
Aniell’s delight in Boreal.
Her harmony trailed off as she felt compelled to look toward the heavens of Aurynth and its watchman, the moon. For her vow to Aniell and the children of Boreal, her life was no longer her own. Luscia knew the day would come when she’d be asked to sacrifice everything because of it.
Summoning all the bravery she could, Luscia Darragh Tiergan accepted her fate. She was, and would forever be, al’haidren to the House of Boreal.
* * *
Luscia’s eyes flashed open.
Rotating her neck in a slow, controlled motion, she locked eyes with her lycran. The eerie gleam of Aksel’s irises flicked to the front of the tent, then tracked some unseen movement around the side of the cramped space.
Luscia reached for the dagger under her pillow and soundlessly pushed herself off the ground. Balancing on the ball of each foot, she inhaled deeply, but the air smelt only of moss and pine. She crept outside, listening intently all the while. The darkness was devoid of sound—even the animals had gone quiet.
“Ana’Sere?” Böwen advanced from his post behind the edge of the ruin. “Are you well?”
Aksel circled her legs, bare beneath her shift, sniffing the undergrowth.
“It’s nothing,” Luscia started to murmur, but froze when the lycran yipped at the base of the tent. Along the side, a deep gash scored the stretch of hide, ending exactly where she’d laid her head. From the laceration, a beetle writhed out between the fibers and scurried back to the earth.
“Wake the sleepers.” Luscia swallowed as the hairs on her arm lifted to another calling. “We leave within the hour.”
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