Prince Anryniel lay at the foot of a mountain slope with a knife in his back. He came around when a white-hot lance of pain shot through his left shoulder. He sat up, shaking off a rind of snow and splintered wood. Stunned, he looked around and realized the wind had flung him like a rock from a sling. He looked down at his arm, noticing how it seemed to throb when the wind touched it. From the elbow down, his skin was a tangle of  burnt velvet and blackened flesh. 

He’d fallen on the pyre—or it fell onto him when the wind ripped the burning timbers upwards. The witch’s cloud sucked everything into the sky to hurl miles across the ground. Debris dotted the snow all around him, splinters of lumber and shards of glass littered across the snowy slope. 

A spell, it was a spell! Anryn thought. Never in his eighteen years had he seen witchcraft before. The priests all spoke of it as if it were a small and secret thing—whispers in the dark, the curl of perfumed smoke from incense over a brass lamp. A witch might say a few foul words and then sometime later their neighbor would fall down dead. Never, never had Anryn thought that it could be like this. A calamity that seemed to come from everywhere at once and touch all that beheld it. 

He tried to reach for the knife with his good arm, but could not stretch far enough to do more than brush the hilt with his fingers. Anryn looked around to see if someone were nearby to help, but not even a plume of smoke could be seen in the low gray clouds that dragged over the valley. He must have been miles from Dorland, even further away from the safety of Amwarren University—or any town he knew that would offer him shelter. 

Anryn had the vague impression someone was nearby, watching him. He did not want to find out who it might be. The witch’s curse had brought down the wind, but someone else had stabbed him.

I have to get away, a voice inside his mind urged. It repeated itself, rising above the memory of the wind, louder than the dull roar in his ears. Get up and move…

Anryn stumbled to his feet. He could see the slumped strip of a road beneath the fresh fallen snow, snaking up the mountainside into a thick treeline. He thought it might be the North Road that wound through the mountains around Dorland. This range of peaks separated his kingdom from the next—shielding Ammar from the magic of its neighbor, Nynomath. The mage kingdom loomed just beyond the frost-kissed crags thrust into the sky. No one came near this range now, not since Anryn’s father defeated Nynomath in battle and shut the border dozens of years before Anryn was born.

He started up the road. Snow crunched under his feet and the witch’s scream echoed in his head. Deep in the chill green veil of the treeline, he pressed himself to the bole of an old pine and tried to gather his wits. Anryn still had his sword. He clutched it in his good hand, steadying himself. He’d lost his cloak. If Anryn could not find shelter soon, he would freeze to death in the night. 

A rustle of leaves startled him. Anryn looked around and thought he saw a shadow pass behind a tree a dozen yards away. He clutched his sword and fought to stop the rising panic that threatened to overwhelm him. Was it an assassin? Was it a witch? 

It did not matter. He had to keep going, or he would die there in the woods. Anryn found the thin trail of the North Road winding up the mountain, and started to climb. Surely there would be a village up here. Some small place that fished from the river or kept goats on the plains. His teeth chattered even as he tried to grit them together. 

I’m going to die out here, he thought, despairing. Anryniel, scrawny son of the Lightning King, couldn’t even burn a witch at the stake properly…

Like most men, Anryn felt he would never live up to his father. King Anathas, the Lightning King, rose like a hero out of legend. He married a woman for love, and led an army over a mountain by a hidden path to surprise the enemy. Prince Anryniel was a living contrast. He was never tall enough, smart enough, strong enough… something enough to be worthy of the Lightning King. 

And here I am, surprised by an enemy… Running away from a fight instead of toward, Anryn thought. What kind of king would he become, he wondered. 

The quiet voice urging him on seemed to reply: Live long enough and you might find out.

Anryn thought he saw a light in the distance. The trees thinned and sure enough, he spied a cluster of houses stacked onto the slope. They were old and abandoned—the rotted roofs jagged like a mouth full of broken teeth against the night sky. Higher up from the ring, one house glowed with firelight in the windows and smoke curled from its chimney. He stumbled toward the house, his uneven pace quickening at the sight of safety. 

Anryn didn’t hear the footsteps in the snow behind him until his hand hit the weathered fence. He turned and barely had time to think before the flash of steel came down. By some miracle, his sword met it before the blade could find its target. 

Don’t think—react! Anryn slid into a sideways stance, narrowing his body so that his attacker would have a smaller target. His ankle protested when his knees flexed. Yet his numb feet seemed to recall some feeling as he shuffled them backward over the ground. His fencing masters always said the key to any fight was distance between himself and his attacker—be they witch, mage, or man.

Now he could see that it was a man—one of the sleigh drivers who had brought him to the witch burning. Other than this, Anryn knew nothing about the servant. Nor why he would want to kill the Lightning King’s only son. Charcoal colored hair and beige skin flecked with sunspots. He wore the colors of the royal family of Ammar and bore a sword thicker and wider than the knife still buried in Anryn’s back. 

“Who are you?” Anryn shouted. He tilted his wrist inward, angling the cutting edge of his blade toward the man’s face. “What do you want?”

In answer, the driver slashed at him. His teeth gnashed the air, lips peeled back in a wordless snarl. 

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

Anryn met the slash with the flat of his blade. He followed up with a thrust over the top of the crossguard, aiming for the man’s face. A hard parry nearly knocked Anryn’s sword from his hand. He saved himself by using the force of the blow to rotate his sword out of the engagement.

His sword now below the man’s guard, Anryn thrust again. This time, his ankle gave out and the prince stumbled. In this frantic moment, the tip of his weapon met flesh—and the momentum of his slip drove it home. 

“Little blue-blooded shit…!” the driver snarled. He grabbed for the blade that impaled him, not seeming to realize how deep it had gone into his gut. 

Anryn wrenched back on his hilt, one-handed. Warm flecks of blood landed on his cheek. The wet coppery smell hit him, and Anryn fell to his knees, retching. The knife in his shoulder wrenched at him as he doubled over. Dark spots swam behind his eyes and the roar of the wind howled in his ears again. The memory of the witch’s tornado swallowed him up in a swirl of black. 

For an age, Anryn could not say whether he died there in the snow—or only fainted. 

No, he thought, I’m not dead. Death could not be so warm and soft. It felt like being held by his mother, when Anryn was still very small. The gauzy warmth of her veil under Anryn’s fingertips. 

“You are the Prince of Ammar. You have nothing to fear,” Queen Eva would say, stroking her son’s hair. “I’ve got my eyes on you.”

This time when Anryn came around he saw a tall, pale man leaning over him. Not a servant, but a peasant with brown hair and fine dark eyes beneath heavy brows. Anryn frowned—the man stood far too close for a peasant to stand near a prince. He sat up and the man stepped back. 

They were together inside a cottage with a low thatched roof and a stone chimney. A fire crackled in the little hearth, and wolf pelts covered the floor. The bed he sat on was piled high with wool blankets over a thick straw mattress. This must have been the cottage he’d seen from the road, Anryn thought. 

The peasant went to a chair beside the fire and slumped down onto it. After a moment, he pointed. Anryn’s gaze followed to where the man’s long finger stretched, and he found a teapot beside a chipped stone cup. Shaking and faint, he reached for it. It felt warm cradled in his palms. 

Anryn looked at the liquid inside and saw nothing amiss—a dark amber tea like any brewed from the dried black leaves sold in Ammar’s markets. He swallowed a hot mouthful, thirst overpowering caution. His tongue went numb in an instant and his eyes watered. 

Whiskey, he thought, gagging. A peasant’s last resort—that’s what the Lightning King called it. 

Then Anryn noticed his left hand, curled around the teacup. Where the skin had been black and red, he saw new pink flesh underneath the ragged edges of his burnt shirt. The fingers tingled as the whiskey crept into his blood. He rolled his shoulders and felt only the slightest twinge where the knife had been.

He glanced at the tall, pale peasant. The man stared right back without blinking. He looked not very much older than Anryn, but a strange heaviness clung to him. Something that should not have been, like a compass pointing east. 

This man is a witch, he realized. 

There was a saying among Ammar’s priests—If you find yourself on the same road twice, be sure to read the signs the second time. Until Dorland, Anryn had never before met a witch. The Lightning King’s witch laws kept them well away from the royal court, from churches, and from all the places the Prince of Ammar was expected to go. Now, in just one day, he’d met two witches—one whose life Anryn ended, and one who had apparently saved Anryn’s.   

He glanced around the cottage again. A sigh of relief swept over his lips when he found his sword in its scabbard propped beside the bed. He set down the cup and snatched it up. Having it in his hands made Anryn remember himself—and the courtly manners to which he’d been raised. 

He cleared his throat and spoke to the witch: “You’ll pardon me for staying the night. I swear as Prince of Ammar, I will repay you the favor.” 

“Are you sure?” The witch spoke very slowly, as if he tested each word before it left his mouth. 

“Of course,” Anryn replied. 

“I mean—are you sure you are a ‘prince?’” the witch asked him. “You… look like a girl.”

The blunt comment shocked Anryn. He knew that he was small for his age—and try as he might, he hadn’t been able to grow a beard. But a girl? How dare he! What sort of girl wore a sword?

“I am Anryniel of Mahaut, Prince of Ammar, son of the Lightning King.” Anryn said, making his voice as sharp as he could. “Of course I am not a girl.”

The witch stood from his chair so fast he knocked it over. The shadows from the fireplace seemed to grow longer while the light in the hearth dimmed. The heaviness he’d felt before spread from the witch, and Anryn’s nose prickled as if it were about to bleed. 

“Are you a mage?” the witch snarled. 

This was more than an insult to Anryn. No one in Ammar would suffer themselves to be called a mage—one of the meddlesome fiends of Nynomath. Pride won out over fear. Anryn drew his sword and pointed it at the witch, the tip of it just an arm’s length from the man’s chest. 

“Not another word, peasant. Utter one more ridiculous aspersion, and I will cut your tongue from your mouth!” he snarled. 

“It would grow back,” the witch laughed. His cheeks flushed pink and his eyes glistened like raindrops on glass. Drunk, Anryn realized. 

“What is your name?” he demanded. 

“Maertyn Blackfire,” the witch answered. He picked up his chair and sat back down. He started to chew on a fingernail. “This is my house. I am not used to having people in it.” 

Anryn could well believe it. This peasant, living all alone in an abandoned village, had no sense of manners or even conversation. His voice was strange, too—uneven as though the man had forgotten how to speak. So much the better, Anryn decided. It would make it harder for him to cast spells. 

The prince drew himself up and, with the sword still pointed at the witch, spoke with all the authority he could muster.

“I am not ‘people.’ I am a prince,” Anryn said. “Your prince; this is my father’s land you live on. You do him homage by giving me shelter. I will be sleeping here tonight and departing tomorrow.” 

“That… is good, I think,” Maertyn said around the fingernail in his mouth. “But is your father sending more men to kill you…? Like the one in my yard?” 

Anryn thought of the sleigh driver, remembering the colors of the jacket. The tip of his sword wavered in the air. Had his father sent that man?

He was the only son of the Lightning King, born late in his father’s reign. King Anathas had no other heirs. Even Anryn’s cousin, Gruffydd the Younger, had never been named more than a godson to the King. Anathas needed Anryn—not only to succeed him, but to marry a rich heiress with a mighty fleet to lead into war with Nynomath. The wedding was just weeks away.

Perhaps Anryn was more of a disappointment than he’d even realized. 

The witch held out the teacup full of whiskey to him. “You want a drink?” 

Anryn took the cup from the witch. He gulped it down, for once, heedless of what his father might say.