Prologue
Clangs of steel on steel announced the arrival of the blacksmith’s fate. Yos Steelring passed a borrowed quarterstaff from hand to hand, trying to grow accustomed to its weight and balance. It was a sorry replacement for his usual stave, having none of the life nor familiarity of that rare weapon. Nothing to be done about it. The Loresmith stave—better known by its storied name, Ironbranch—could not be among the Vokkans’ spoils, which meant Yos’s companion of so many years was far from the palace and his grip.
Sounds of battle were closer now, much closer. Worse than the ring and scrape of steel were the screams followed by wet, guttural moans. Yos knew that those who remained of the palace guard had attempted to barricade themselves behind broken furniture, blocking the path to the royal apartments. That pitiful bulwark must have fallen, leaving only Yos between the soldiers and their prize.
Despite his determination to hold his post, Yos couldn’t keep fear-borne doubt from wriggling into his thoughts. Is there honor in laying down one’s life for a king who brought his people to ruin?
Yos ground his teeth at the question. Too many times he’d thought of what his life might have been outside of the palace and city of Five Rivers. The Loresmith hadn’t always served in court. Generations ago the Loresmith roamed the provinces of Saetlund, offering aid where it was needed and joining the Loreknights in times of trouble. Together, smith and warriors had quelled threats, thwarted invasions, and crushed enemies of the kingdom.
Yos shook his head, pinpointing the moment in history when it had all fallen apart. The moment that King Nirn made the fateful declaration centuries ago. Loreknights would no longer be chosen from among the people of each province, but would instead be appointed by the monarch and take their place at the royal court. With that decree, Nirn had riddled the foundation of Saetlund’s defenses with cracks. Those cracks had widened over the years, becoming fissures and faults.
Today the walls had crumbled. Yos was close to sinking into despair. He reminded himself it wasn’t the current fool of a king, Dentroth, behind the door over which he stood watch. The royal twin toddlers were innocent and deserved his protection. If all had gone as planned, they were no longer in the nursery at Yos’s back. They should be miles from the city in care of their guardians. Their destination: Port Pilgrim, a ship, and obscurity. The little princess and prince would be exiles, but they would be safe.
Yos continued to guard the room he hoped was now empty. Every minute he defended the door was another minute bought for the twins’ escape. He had prayed for their safety, but most of his pleas to the gods begged for the salvation of an unborn child and its mother.
A tear rolled down Yos’s cheek as he thought of his wife, Lira. It had been five years since they’d first met, but the memory of that day was so clear he felt like he could step into it.
He had been in the market district, on his way to the tanner’s. The time had come to retire his smithing apron, and he wanted an exact re-creation of the garment that had served him so well.
Yos had been to the tanner’s before, but he took a wrong turn and found himself on a street he didn’t recognize.
“Are you lost, blacksmith?” A young woman was watching him from a few feet away. She had pale pink skin and sable hair that fell down her back in a single long plait.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been on this street,” Yos admitted.
“
"That’s your loss,” she said, walking toward him. “The finest weaver in Saetlund has a shop on this street.”
He could see now that her eyes were lavender-gray, a shade he’d never seen before. “Your shop, I assume?”
She tsk’d. “My mother’s shop. Elke Silverthread. She creates exceptional fabrics. You could ask any of the ladies at court and they would tell you all their dresses are made of Silverthread fabrics.”
“Why do you think I’d know the ladies at court?” Yos’s face clouded. He wasn’t dressed for court. He’d come straight from his workshop, and his clothing showed it.
Buds of blush appeared on the woman’s cheeks. “I know who you are, Yos Steelring. My father is a blacksmith and a great admirer of your craft. He has pointed you out to me many times. And speaks of your generosity in sharing your knowledge with the guild, despite the king’s disapproval.”
“My thanks to your father for his kind words,” Yos said, feeling his own cheeks redden. He cleared his throat. “As you already have my name, may I ask yours?”
“I’m Lira,” she told him. “Lira Silverthread.”
“Lira.” For some reason, Yos could say nothing but her name. An awkward quiet stretched between them as he tried to remember how to speak. He couldn’t stop staring at her, and he was horrified by his uncouth behavior.
“Tanner!” he blurted. Lira looked startled, and Yos hurried to say, “I was on my way to the tanner.”
“Ah.” She nodded. Her lips quirked as she returned his gaze.
“Come to the shop first,” Lira coaxed. “We will find the most beautiful scarf for your beloved.”
Yos was startled to find himself blushing again. “I don’t have a beloved.”
She smiled at him then, and Yos knew his heart would belong to no one else.
That first meeting led to a second, a third, and before Yos knew what was happening he found himself deeply in love. He wanted to marry her, but to do so would likely put them both at risk—Lira particularly.
For years, King Dentroth had been suggesting, loudly and often, that Yos should marry. The king had taken to ushering various high-born ladies into Yos’s company. He knew Dentroth was serious. Yos’s parents’ marriage had been arranged by the previous king. He believed King Dentroth would not go so far as to force him to marry, but he had no doubt the king would be furious if he married into a merchant family after rejecting the royal preferences.
Despite the risk, Yos and Lira did marry in secret, in the old way, at a shrine of Nava. They kept their marriage hidden from all but Lira’s parents. Even if the king had welcomed Lira to court and given their union his blessing, Yos knew Dentroth would lay claim to any child of the Loresmith. The line was hereditary. Neither Lira nor Yos was willing to hand their child’s fate over to the ruler of Saetlund.
Lira was six months pregnant with their first child when word of the Vokkan landings at Daefrit and Kelden reached the palace. Panic gripped the city. Given the state of Saetlund’s army and the size of the invading forces, Yos knew the enemy would reach Five Rivers within a week. Though he longed to flee the city with his wife, he couldn’t bear the dishonor of foreswearing his oaths. For three days, Yos and Lira had planned, debated, fought, and held each other until they came to an agreement. Those had been the worst three days of Yos’s life.
The Vokkan warriors appeared from the side corridor. They were laughing. Clapping one another on the shoulder. Smiling. Yos saw splashes of red on their lips and teeth.
Servants of the Devourer.
He imagined the royal toddlers mangled and bloody; he needed to give their guardians more time. With a ragged war cry, Yos made the second-hardest choice of his life. He charged at the blood-soaked soldiers.
Having waded through so many blades and bodies to reach this corridor, the Vokkans were taken aback by this lone man’s wild attack. Surely a person outnumbered ten to one would surrender rather than fight.
Their brief hesitation gave Yos the few seconds he required to sweep his quarterstaff through the first three soldiers, cracking skulls. He took some satisfaction in watching them crumple. Then, as he expected, a shudder swept through his limbs, followed by an emptiness that felt like grief.
“I am Loresmith no more,” he murmured. It would mean nothing to the invaders, so Yos had indulged the impulse to speak the words aloud.
He didn’t feel the sharpness of the first blade that pierced his abdomen, only a sudden pressure and the inability to draw breath.
Yos fell to his knees. Death blows came but didn’t surprise him, who had known that this would be the ending to his tale. His heart had already left this room, and his mind chased after it till both reached the same place. The memory of his wife’s face and his hand upon the roundness of her belly as the sun rose, after another sleepless night, when they agreed she must leave Five Rivers and go into hiding with her parents—taking Yos’s stave and their unborn child with her.
The hardest choice he had ever made. In saving their lives, he’d accepted the necessity of his own death. Had he gone with them, they all would have been hunted. The Vokkans not only conquered lands, but had gained infamy for mining the mystic of each society they consumed. Emperor Fauld craved anything with a whiff of occult power; possessing the Loresmith of Saetlund had become his obsession. If the coveted blacksmith couldn’t be chased, Lira and Yos’s child would disappear. Lira would be safe in the anonymity of a tiny mountain village. Their baby would be cherished by a mother and grandparents. That knowledge brought Yos comfort.
His mind remained fixed there as his life drained onto the stone floor. He took no notice of the soldiers standing over him while his blood pooled at their feet. The soldiers did not understand whom they had killed. They could not foresee their torment and death awaiting at the hands of their emperor. As they screamed and groaned and begged while Fauld the Ever-Living watched, they still did not grasp the reason for their suffering.
What the soldiers saw as a brief skirmish, the Vokkan emperor judged an intolerable failure. It mattered not that the soldiers had been following their orders—to find and seize the young royals at whatever cost—only that in doing so they had robbed their master of another treasure.
The twins’ escape gave Fauld ample reason to punish his men, though he had little concern for the toddlers who carried the blood of a pathetic king.
The emperor’s real rage at his soldiers reflected fury at himself he would never admit to, nor take responsibility for. Fauld had assumed that one man facing insurmountable odds would surrender. When his soldiers insisted that the man had attacked them and not the reverse, Fauld called them liars and ordered their execution. He couldn’t believe the Loresmith would raise arms against an enemy when it meant forsaking unfathomable power.
The soldiers’ slow deaths brought the emperor no succor. He had conquered the kingdom he so desired, but its most precious jewel had eluded him, and the truth of it gnawed upon his soul.
The Loresmith was no more.
1
Fifteen years later
By the time Ara’s fate came for her she’d stopped believing in it.
Outside the smithy a wintry wind shrieked ceaselessly. Gust-driven snow flew, swirled, and shuddered with each frigid blast. All the while beads of sweat formed on Ara’s forehead. Nothing existed for her but the forge, the anvil, the hammer, the heat.
Strike. Spark. Smoke.
To Ara it was a song, the smithing of metal.
Ring. Roar. Whisper.
Heat so intense it kissed the air with shimmering ripples.
Ara’s hammer met the smoldering metal. Iron alive with fire. Along with the vibrations from the hammer, Ara could feel that life, that burning force racing up fingertips, coursing into her arms, her shoulders, and finally, her heart, where it continued to dance to the rhythm of her craft.
That morning Ara had the smithy to herself. When great storms swept over the village, Old Imgar’s joints complained and kept him inside seeking relief using hot compresses.
Spring storms could be the most violent. Winter lashing out in its death throes. The blizzard at Ara’s back was a blinding one. The sort that necessitated following the rope, hand over hand, that stretched the short distance between her grandmother's stone cottage and the smithy. On a summer day the walk from the front door to the forge would be no more than fifteen steps. A fool might assume those steps could be easily made without the rope guide. That fool would discover how easily the currents of snowdrifts pull a person from the safety of the shore. That fool would too late regret dismissing local tales of folk found frozen in place, shrouded by snow, only a few feet from shelter.
Ara was no fool. She’d been taught to revere nature’s power from the moment she could comprehend it. She knew everyone in the village would be huddled in their houses, taking comfort from a warm hearth and hot spiced tea.
She had no reason to peer into the white whirlwinds, searching for danger. She thought not of attuning her ears to sounds outside the smithy.
When shadowy figures moved within the blasts of ice and snow, Ara had not seen them. When footsteps sank into the deep powder banks forming along the walls of the smithy, Ara had not heard them. Nor had she sensed the presence of another joining her in the sweltering room.
Ara remembered the viselike arm around her waist and the damp cloth pressed over her nose and mouth, its cloying scent as she drew a startled breath. Then there had been only darkness.
2
Steady murmuring roused Ara from a swampy sleep. Perhaps a creek bubbling over sticks and pebbles. As her mind began to clear, Ara could pick out variations in the noise—breaks, hesitations. A rise and fall of pitch. Not running water.
Voices.
Ara went rigid, but not with fear. Fear took time, demanded awareness. Ara hadn’t gotten past disbelief.
Has it happened? she thought. Has it actually happened?
She remembered that first warning from her grandmother. It had come on the eve of Ara’s fifth birthday.
“Ara.” Her grandmother had given Ara a wooden mug of warm milk, sweetened with honey and spiced with cinnamon and pepper. “You’ve reached an age where there are things I must tell you. Some are very nice things. Others are unpleasant. There are too many things to say all at once, so tonight I’m going to tell you one nice thing and one not so nice thing.”
Ara still remembered the warmth of the milk in her belly, the way the spices tingled on her tongue and throat.
“What’s the nice thing?” she asked her grandmother.
The older woman smiled. “Your father left you a gift.”
With glances searching the room, Ara asked, “Where is it? Do you have it?”
“It isn’t something you can hold.” Her grandmother laughed gently. “It’s already inside you, waiting for you to learn how to use it.”
Little Ara looked down at her belly, giving it a curious poke. “Inside?”
“Your father’s gift is part of you,” her grandmother answered. “And will always be with you.”
Then the older woman’s face creased with regret. “Your father was meant to teach you about this gift, but your grandfather and I will begin teaching you in his place. You have much to learn.”
While Ara puzzled over how a gift could be something learned instead of an object, the lines in her grandmother’s face grew even deeper.
“It is now time for what is unpleasant,” she said with a sigh.
To Ara, it appeared her grandmother’s gray eyes suddenly turned a darker shade, like clouds heavy with rain.
“There are people who are jealous of your gift,” she told Ara. “Who want it for themselves. Your father died to keep them from taking it.”
A rock-hard lump lodged in Ara’s throat, and the milk in her stomach no longer felt so comforting.
“Did they kill my father because he wouldn’t give it to them?” Ara knew her father died fighting in the Vokkan conquest, but nothing beyond that fact.
Her grandmother’s lips pressed together. “In a way.”
“Do they want to kill me?” Tears pricked at Ara’s eyes, and she was ashamed that fear could so easily make her cry.
“No,” her grandmother said firmly, and she placed her hands on Ara’s shoulders. Ara was comforted until her grandmother added, “They want to take you.”
The memory hung in Ara’s mind, glaring and insistent, but she couldn’t accept that it was real. That everything she’d been told was true.
It can’t be, she argued with the past. There’s another explanation.
If you are ever taken, her grandmother had instructed, learn all you can before you act.
Perhaps that advice could get Ara out of this mess and back to the world she understood. After all, her kidnappers could be bandits taking advantage of the storm—though outlaws in the highlands were rare. Almost unheard of in winter.
She’d have no answers until she discovered where she was and who her captors were.
As far as Ara could tell, she wasn’t hurt aside from a dull ache at the back of her skull. Keeping still, Ara used her gaze to search the space. The air was hazy and irritated her eyes. A familiar scent told her woodsmoke was the culprit.
Above her, Ara could make out a rock ceiling. To her right, pale light barely reached her eyes, and a trickle of cool air touched her cheek. From her left side came a warm, flickering glow.
Outside to the right, fire to the left—Ara knew she was in a cave. But what cave?
In this storm, Ara doubted it could be far from Rill’s Pass. There were several caves to the north and west of the village.
The voices came from the direction of the fire. Ara risked turning her head, very carefully, to the right. Two cloaked figures: one hunched and huddled close to the flames, the second kneeling close by.
“We should have waited.” The kneeling person had a low female voice.
A reedy male voice replied. “I-i-i-it was ou-ou-our b-best ch-chance.” His teeth chattered so violently that Ara could barely make out his words.
Both sounded young—girl and boy rather than woman and man.
A low noise of disapproval came out of the girl’s throat. “You can’t be exposed like that. You’re too weak.”
“I-I-I’m fine,” he argued. “I j-just need t-t-tea.”
“It’s almost ready.” She sounded apologetic.
After wrapping her hand in cloth, the girl lifted a small kettle from the fire; then she uncorked a jar and tapped some of its contents into the kettle.
“P-pour me a cup,” the boy begged.
The girl didn’t look at him. “It has to steep.”
“P-please.” The desperation in his voice made Ara wince.
“This wasn’t worth the risk,” the girl said. “I don’t think she can be the one.”
Ara heard the sound of tea pouring into a cup.
“It has to be her,” the boy said. “There’s no one else.”
Maybe the cave was farther from Rill’s Pass than she thought. The boy’s pleas seemed evidence of the north’s cruelest punishments: purple-black toes that couldn’t be saved, clipped ears, and blunted noses. To thaw what could be saved, the sufferer had to endure a warm bath that felt like being boiled alive, so Ara had been told. Those were the warnings children received lest they underestimate the dangers of the dark season.
Despite her predicament, Ara found herself wishing she could help them. They spoke with an accent unfamiliar to her. Their fire had been poorly constructed and placed, so it lost heat quickly and smoked too much.
Ara’s brow crinkled as she watched the girl lift a wooden cup to the boy’s lips.
Why these two?
They didn’t look like bandits. Nor did they resemble any of the nightmares that had plagued Ara’s childhood. Her dreams had conjured hordes of Vokkan soldiers. Or worse, a Wizard of Vokk, murmuring spells over her bed.
Ara had never imagined the evil coming to take her would be a girl and a boy, shivering from the cold.
She considered running. Having the advantage of surprise, Ara could get a strong head start on the girl. The boy was in no condition to give chase.
The storm quashed Ara’s hope of escape. She might evade her captors, but she’d be as good as dead without a clear path home. She had no way of knowing when the blizzard would end. Spring squalls brought storms that came and went in the space of an hour, but also those that lingered for days. Ara hoped that this bout of weather would quiet before dusk. If she didn’t return home by dark, her grandmother would call a search. The whole of the village would risk their lives looking for Ara. She couldn’t bear the thought that anyone might be hurt on her behalf.
Ara eased onto her left side. The girl’s attention remained focused on the boy. Slowly, Ara pushed herself up to sitting and felt no twinges of pain nor the burn of frostbite. She was still wearing her leather apron, but had none of her tools. Searching around the space in her immediate reach, Ara found nothing that would serve as a weapon.
The nape of her neck tingled, the hairs there standing at sudden attention.
Ara looked back at the fire.
The girl was staring at her.
Ara moved into a crouch, muscles taut. Running might be futile, but it might also be her only choice.
The girl stood up. She was very tall. Something glinted in the firelight. Ara saw the sword hilt. The girl’s hand on it.
About to bolt, Ara was stopped by the boy’s abrupt lurching to his feet.
“Don’t run!”
The girl abandoned her aggressive stance to steady the boy.
“Please,” he called again to Ara. “We need your help.”
When Ara didn’t move, the boy straightened. At full height, he was still a few inches shorter than the girl. His hair was a pile of soft brown curls that would not take kindly to a comb. He had wide, dark eyes.
“Take off your sword,” he said to the tall girl.
She gave him an incredulous look.
“Do it.” The boy’s voice could be very firm when he wanted it to be.
Grumbling, the girl unbuckled her sword then tossed the belt and scabbard aside.
Ara stood up, perplexed by the unfolding situation. “Who are you?”
Now that she faced them, Ara saw that both had umber skin and bore a strong resemblance to each other. Brother and sister? They could not be bandits. Now that they stood in front of her, Ara could see their clothing beneath their cloaks. Instead of patched trousers and spotted shirts, this boy and girl wore belted tunics of fine wool, his dyed deep blue and hers a delicate shade of green. Their legs were clad in soft leather breeches, and the cut of their boots showed impeccable craftsmanship. No one in Ara’s life boasted such a luxurious wardrobe.
“My name is Eamon,” the boy said.
His voice was steady now. The tea had done its work. He looked at the girl with adoring eyes.
Her hands clasped opposite elbows and her body tightened. “Please don’t say it.” “You know I have to,” he replied before rolling his shoulders back and addressing Ara. “This is my sister Nimhea, eldest child of Dentroth crowned by flame, son of Emrisa, daughter of Rea, daughter of Polit, son of Trin, son of Vinnea, daughter of Hessa, daughter of Imlo, son of Gright, son of Penla, daughter of Terr, son of Olnea—first of the Flamecrowned dynasty.
Princess Nimhea, daughter of fire, heir to the River Throne of Saetlund. The—“There is no River Throne.” Ara’s voice was flat. Her bones felt hollow, as if they sensed Ara was about to be flooded with knowledge she didn’t want. Nimhea’s expression shifted from hostile to curious, while a flustered Eamon groped for a response.
“Of course, after the conquest the Vokkans declared the end of Dentroth’s line,” Eamon said. “But that was—”
Ara cut him off again. “Why should I believe anything you’re saying?”
Eamon elbowed Nimhea. “Really?” She gave him a sidelong glance that hinted of disdain.
When he gestured for her to act, she sighed then reached up and pushed back the hood of her cloak. Ara had to stop herself from gasping.
Thick curls were caught back from Nimhea’s face, held by a gold cuff at the base of her skull. Its length fell to the small of her back in a sectioned twist held by three additional golden cuffs. The style was like nothing Ara had seen, but it was the color that held her gaze. Nimhea’s hair glowed in the firelight; her locks had living flames within each strand. Red, gold, copper. Its hue was ever-changing. Mesmerizing. Made even more so by its contrast to her thundercloud eyes. Fire and storm.
Ara stared at the Nimhea’s long twist of flame-red hair. Something about it nagged her, like a word on the tip of her tongue that she couldn’t recall.
Eldest child of Dentroth.
Ara’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “Crowned by flame.”
Eamon beamed at her, but Nimhea pressed her lips together and averted her eyes.
Crowned by flame. It was a phrase that made Old Imgar snort with disgust or, if he was particularly irritable, spit. “When folks decided only a special head o’ hair and a certain name made a king, that’s when Saetlund was doomed.”
Inevitably, the soured blacksmith would launch into a history lecture Ara had heard dozens of times before.
“Saetlund didn’t always have a hereditary monarch, you know. Did fine for centuries, with a king and queen chosen by the people,” Imgar would grumble, and return to work. That hadn’t meant he’d stop talking. “Then there was the provincial council.
Also chosen by the people. Their job to make sure the king and queen kept the good of all the provinces at the fore.”
At that point Old Imgar would stop and jab whatever tool was in his hand at Ara to get her attention. “You know why it all fell apart?”
He never let her answer.
“Because people are greedy bastards.” He continued to jab the air in front of Ara. “Had to ruin a perfectly good kingdom. Nava’s wrath upon them, I say. She knows they deserve it. Now where are those nails I asked for, girl?”
Ara had heard Imgar’s rant so many times she could recite it word for word. Those greedy bastards he hated so much. They were Nimhea’s bloodline. Eamon’s too.
The thought of Imgar getting the chance to jab tools and lecture at them filled Ara with a mad desire to laugh. But the stark reality of the situation quelled her glee before it could make any sound.
Ara didn’t know if the Flamecrowned Dynasty had always been corrupt. Or if the seed of deceit planted at its origin had simply sprouted through generations, roots going deeper and deeper. By the time of Ara’s birth, most of Saetlund accepted that it had always been that way. Only curmudgeons like Imgar railed against the system. And curmudgeons tended to be cursed at, then ignored.
How the first king and queen of that line had ensured that their child would be the next to take the throne, Ara wasn’t sure. Nor did she know the details of how, over time, all key positions in the government—including the Provincial Council—became royal appointments. She’d heard court at the Five Rivers palace consisted almost exclusively of citizens from Sola and Ofrit.
Ara did recall reading that the name Flamecrowned wasn’t coined until five generations into their rule; a result of that striking shade of red appearing with regular frequency in the royal nursery. It was widely acknowledged—to the point of being mentioned in history books—that in subsequent generations a few Dentroth monarchs had used crushed beetle shells and ochre to coax their tresses toward the royal hue.
What stood out the most clearly in Ara’s mind was the reason Imgar had such vitriol for Dentroth and his ancestors. They’d let their kingdom bloat, allowed its bones to become weak and brittle. When the enemy arrived, Saetlund could do nothing but collapse. There was no restoration. No revolt against the Vokkan Empire.
How could there be when the heir to the throne had been lost? But here she was.
More importantly, the Loresmith was gone. Would never return—so most of Saetlund believed.
But the truth coursed through Ara’s veins. The blood of her father, who had been slain by the empire. She had the potential to become the next Loresmith. I have the chance to know my fath
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