The Banished of Muirwood

Book 1: The Covenant of Muirwood

by Jeff Wheeler

Genres: Epic Fantasy; Fantasy Romance; Fantasy action & adventure; Historical Fantasy; Sword & Sorcery; Young adult; YA Epic Fantasy; Coming of Age; YA Coming of Age

Synopsis

In a stand-alone series set in the world of Muirwood, eighteen-year-old Maia is the exiled princess of Comoros and heir to the throne. As a result of her father's ceaseless need for authority, she was left disinherited and forced to live as a servant in her enemy's home. When the king invites chaos into the land by expelling the magical order known as the Dochte Mandar, Maia finds herself on a perilous quest to save her people. To survive, she must use magic she has learned in secret-despite the fact that women are forbidden to control it. Hunted by enemies at every turn, Maia realizes that danger lurks within her, too. Her powers threaten to steal not only her consciousness but also her sense of right and wrong. Can she set herself free and save the realm she loves-even if that realm has forgotten her?

Release date: August 18, 2015

Publisher: 47North

Print pages: 418

Sample

CHAPTER ONE

Kystrel

Maia watched from the window seat as Chancellor Walraven’s eyes turned silver. The councillor reposed on a stiff wooden bench against the wall, lanky and relaxed, his aging body covered in the black cassock of the Dochte Mandar. Incongruously, he wore brown leather clogs over his dark stockings. A golden tome sat open in his lap, and one of his hands stroked the gleaming aurichalcum page; the other hand rested crosswise against his breast, just under the kystrel that hung from a chain around his neck. His wispy gray hair was askew, and a thin trimmed beard adorned his jaw.

As he invoked the magic of the kystrel, whispers of the Medium swept through the tower cell and filled the turret. Maia felt a shudder shoot through her, the sensation tinged with excitement and fear. Every time she watched him use the kystrel, that same nervous feeling squirmed to life as she stared into his glowing eyes. His gaze was fixed on the corner of the turret, where several books bound in leather had been stacked haphazardly. Aisles and aisles of books, tomes, chests, and urns cluttered the circular space. The only window in the tower was above her seat, and she could feel the dusky light bathe her small shoulders as she looked on with utter fascination.

Maia was nine years old and she was a princess of Comoros, the only child of her parents. On her name day, she had been bequeathed the name Marciana after a distant ancestor related to her Family, but her father had taken to calling her Maia, and it had not bothered her in the least.

Scuttling noises sounded from the stairwell. Maia shivered involuntarily and kept her legs tucked tightly underneath her, despite the pinpricks of pain that shot down to her ankles from staying in the same position for so long. She gazed in wonder as the first arrival appeared from behind a worn leather book, drawn forth by the kystrel’s magic. Dark beady eyes and twitching whiskers announced the arrival of the mouse. Then another appeared. And another.

As Chancellor Walraven sat idly, absently stroking the tome, the rodents began to flood the turret floor. The air jittered with squeaks and rustling as the mice began to file toward the chancellor, sniffling around him as if he were a piece of sweetmeat. Soon the floor writhed with gray fur and twitching pink ears. The feeling of power lingered in the air, thick and palpable, and the chancellor’s silver eyes focused on the doorway, his expression weary yet firm. He shifted on the bench, and the wood groaned softly beneath him.

“Do you sense the Medium, Maia?” he asked her in a soft voice. “Do you feel its power holding them in thrall?”

“Yes,” Maia answered in a hushed voice, the hairs on the back of her neck prickling. Part of her feared that some of the mice would leap up onto the window seat, but she knew that she needed to control her fear or else they would. She sat stonestiff, eyes watching the mass of mice in fascination.

“The mice must obey the summons from the kystrel. They cannot help themselves. They are drawn to it. They cannot think right now. All they can do is feel. If I asked you to open the window, I could fill them with fear and make them rush off the edge and plunge to their deaths. And they would, Maia. They would.”

“Kara Cook would thank you for it,” Maia said, a twinkle in her eye. She shuddered with revulsion at the teeming mass that only continued to grow. A few rats began to appear, their whiskers even longer, their front teeth like saws.

The feeling in the chamber began to ebb as if it were water draining from a tub. As the Medium dispersed, the spell broke. The mice and rats scrambled with chaos and fled the turret down the steps, cascading over each other like pond waves. Maia started when several tried to leap onto her lap, but she shooed them back into the avalanche.

Maia tried to calm herself, touching first her heart and then the jeweled choker around her neck. She gulped down huge breaths of air, waiting for her nerves to calm.

“To use the Medium, one must be able to control their thoughts and emotions,” the chancellor said. He shook his head. “You are not ready yet, Maia.”

A pang of disappointment stabbed her, and she tried not to grimace. “Not yet?”

He scratched his cropped whiskers, making a scratching sound. “You are still young, Maia. Years of turbulent emotions lay ahead of you. Wait until you are say . . . thirteen, hmmm? Turbulent emotions aplenty then! No, I will let you read the tomes, even though it is forbidden, but I cannot trust you with a kystrel until you are much older. The old Dochte Mandar failed because they used the kystrels’ power unwisely. The maston tomes have taught us the proper way to use the Medium, and we must ensure that kystrels are only wielded by those who will not abuse them, whether intentionally or not. You, my dear, are not yet ready.”

Maia sighed deeply. She wanted a kystrel. She wanted to prove she could be trusted with one. Many maston families could still use Leerings to invoke the Medium, but for reasons no one understood, mastons had grown weaker with the Medium over the centuries. The only way to channel real power through the Medium was by using a kystrel, and kystrels were only used by the Dochte Mandar. Still, Maia was not ungrateful for her rare position and her treasured secret.

None of the girls of the seven realms were allowed to learn the secret art of reading and engraving. That was a privilege only allowed to boys and men. Because of something done in the past, something related to the Scourge that had destroyed so many people, women were not trusted to learn how to use the Medium by reading ancient tomes, and it was absolutely forbidden for a woman to be given a kystrel. Some women, because of their lineage, were strong enough in the Medium that Leerings obeyed them, and that was considered acceptable. Those women could become mastons. Women could be trained at abbeys to speak languages, learn crafts and music, but nothing more. Except for Maia, and she knew that it was because her father was the king, and he made his own rules.

Maia uttered a Pry-rian epithet about patience.

Walraven scratched his beard again. “You must have inherited the Gift of Xenoglossia from your ancestors, child. How many languages do you speak now?”

“Dahomeyjan, a little Paeizian, and our language of course,” Maia replied, sitting up straight and smiling broadly. “I can read and scribe them all. I wish to learn the language of Pry-Ree, my mother’s homeland, next. Or the language of Naess. Which would be better?”

“You are only nine, child. I find Naestor particularly excruciating. There are too many runes to memorize.” He tapped his finger on the polished golden tome in his lap. “You must never let on that you can read, Maia. I would be put to death if my brethren of the Dochte Mandar discovered our secret.”

Maia twirled some of her dark hair and gazed at the chancellor with concern. “I would never betray you,” she said gravely.

He smiled. “I know, child. The Medium broods on me. You are destined for great things. I think it is quite probable that you will become the Queen of Comoros someday.”

Maia felt a spasm of dread. “What about my mother’s confinement? Do you have a premonition of evil about the baby, Lord Chancellor?”

Walraven combed his fingers through his wiry gray hair. “I will always tell you the truth, Maia. You were the firstborn, a daughter. By law and custom, you cannot rule even if there are no male heirs. Your mother has had three stillborn children after your birth.” The words sent another shudder through Maia, and a terrible surge of guilt nearly strangled her. Still, she did not cry. Her father had once boasted to an emissary from Paeiz that his daughter, Maia, never cried.

“Was it my fault?” Maia asked in a calm serious voice.

“Who can say for certain? Perhaps it is the Medium’s will for your mother to bear no other children. Even now, we await the word.” He waved his hand toward the mounds of parchment on his desk. “I have missives to write, instructions to send, curiosity to sate. Every ruler of every kingdom wishes to know the sex of the child and if it is born living. Do you see that pile on the edge of my desk? It is an offer of marriage from the King of Pry-Ree if the babe is a boy. A vast sum. The King of Dahomey has several daughters, quite old already, and you can be sure he would send a parchment and a cask of jewels to secure an alliance with the young prince, just as he did for you.” A wise smile split his mouth. “He may still begrudge the past, but he is clever enough to value a relationship with a stronger kingdom.”

Maia smiled ruefully at the thought of her marriage. When she was two years old, the King of Dahomey had sired his heir and promptly made an alliance with Comoros, binding the two infants with a plight troth. The troth was retracted years later after a trade agreement fell apart between Dahomey and Paeiz, a conflict that had ended in a brutal war.

Maia had always known her marriage would be political. Even at nine, she harbored no illusions about that. However, she trusted Chancellor Walraven and knew him to be a shrewd man . . . and a caring one. He was her father’s closest advisor, her personal tutor, and a prominent Dochte Mandar even outside their kingdom.

Maia smoothed the front of her dress over her aching knees. “Do you have any plans for me . . . to marry?” she asked him, trying not to betray her conflicted feelings on the subject.

“Hmmm?”

She saw that he was cocking his head, his ear angled toward the open door.

“Are there any negotiations underway for . . . my marriage?”

“Not presently,” Walraven replied. “You are a handsome lass, if a bit shy. There are certainly no shortages of offers for your hand. But it would not be politically prudent to finalize anything until it is clear whether or not your mother will give birth to an heir. As your father’s advisor, I must steer the ship the way the winds are blowing, not where I wish them to blow. If I judge them properly, you will one day rule this realm even though no woman ever has. That will make a difference in who I select as your consort, do you not think?”

Maia could hear shuffling feet coming up the turret stairwell. Chancellor Walraven stood and hefted the tome onto his desk, shoving aside a stack of parchments to make room. He frisked the front of his cassock and gazed through the window pane, out over the mass of shingled roofs and belching chimneys. The sky was a soot stain outside.

It was one of her father’s knights who breached the threshold. Carew. His face was damp with sweat, his eyes haunted with emotion, and Maia knew just from looking at him that the babe was dead. Her stomach shriveled at the thought, and she felt the ache press against her heart. She wanted a sibling, even if it meant losing her chance of becoming Comoros’s queen one day. She had always enjoyed the company of other children, but though she never lacked for playmates, every other child in the kingdom was inferior to her in rank and station. She knew the other children had all been trained to agree with her. To let her win at their games, to fawn over her ideas and her desires.

She hated that.

To her mind, it was nothing more than luck that had made her a princess. She considered everyone her equal unless they proved themselves not to be. Maia was competitive by nature, she wanted to win on her own merits, not because someone else let her. As a result, she did not have many friends her own age. Most, like the chancellor, were much older and wiser.

“The babe . . . is stillborn,” Carew said between gasps. He hung his head and shook it. “A boy. You must come down and console my master. He is beyond himself with grief.”

“I will come presently,” Walraven said gravely. Maia watched him as he peered out of the window again, steeling himself for the encounter to come. His jaw muscles clenched, and his hands fidgeted, but he took a calming breath and then turned toward the knight. “Come with me, Maia.”

She was shocked and pleased that he would invite her on such an errand. She clambered off the window seat and felt dagger slashes of pain shoot down her legs. Rubbing her calves, she began hobbling down the steps after the chancellor.

Maia’s heart was on fire with conflicting emotions. Her little brother was dead. Or perhaps he had never truly been alive, though she remembered pressing her palm against her mother’s abdomen and feeling his gentle kicks. The memory seared her heart, threatening to destroy her composure. Her mother’s previous miscarriages had happened long ago, when she was too young to feel them keenly. This burden was much harder to bear without breaking, but she had to be strong for her parents. Yet there was a slender, guilty part of her that was almost . . . excited. The chancellor had been preparing her for the last year to be her father’s heir, but his training had been more discreet lately given her mother’s pregnancy. Would she be given the chance to rule on her own right and not as a result of whom she married? The idea of becoming queen one day was sweet on her tongue, sweet as crispels, and it conflicted with the bitterness of the moment. She wondered if she were truly a wicked child for having such thoughts.

When they reached the main corridor, they marched vigorously. Moans and wails were already starting to echo throughout the castle as news spread. Her parents’ grief would be shared by everyone. Maia clutched her stomach as an awful, constricting feeling clutched at her chest. She kept close to the chancellor’s heels and together they mounted the steps to another turret. Leerings began to illuminate the way as they climbed, bathing the steps in cool, smokeless light. Around and around they climbed, and soon Maia could hear voices. The handsome knight shook his head and refused to go any farther. He crumpled into tears. Still Maia did not weep. She merely followed the chancellor as he walked around the man.

When they reached the landing at the top of the turret, Maia could hear her father’s voice. That he was suffering was obvious—his voice was husky and ferocious.

“Why did I even marry you?”

Her eyes went wide with shock as she took in the meaning of the words. She had never heard him say such a thing, and was stunned silent.

The chancellor paused at the threshold, his eyes narrowing with anger. His face became a mask of calm, his lanky body stiffening with resolve as he held out an arm to prevent her from entering the room.

Maia could hear her mother’s sobs. “Forgive me, Husband. Forgive me. It . . . I . . . please . . . forgive . . . me. My child! My son!” There was a torrent of tears, gulping and swallowing and hissing breaths.

“To see you in such pain!” her father moaned. “It would have been better if we had never . . .” His voice trailed off and he coughed violently. “How could the Medium fail us . . . again? My thoughts were fixed. So were yours. It begins . . . with a thought, that is what they say. And all the vigils that were held to strengthen our connection to the Medium . . . the whole city was holding vigil!” His voice rose like thunder. “How could it fail us like this? What, in Idumea’s name, does it expect from us?”

“No . . . no . . . it is not . . . no . . . the Medium . . . it is not . . . the Medium’s . . . fault, Husband.” Her mother was babbling.

Maia shrunk, experiencing a dread that she had never felt before. Her parents had always made her feel comforted and safe. Hearing them so distraught, so wild, frightened her.

“I thought,” her father said venomously, “that if we obeyed the will of the Medium, our line would be secured. This is the fourth stillborn! It must be a sign that our marriage is cursed.”

“No!” came the pleading voice. “We both felt it, Brannon. We felt the Medium consecrate our marriage. This is a test. To see . . . if we will be faithful.”

Her father let out a hiss of anger. “Another test? And what then? Another? What if we were wrong? What if we should never have married? We are being punished by a mistake from the past.”

“Hold me. Please, Husband. Hold me. To hear you say such things . . .”

Maia heard only muffled words after that. Chancellor Walraven’s hand pressed against her shoulder now, squeezing it firmly enough to cause a flinch of pain. She stared up into his glowing silver eyes. The emotions from the chamber were draining away, drawn into the kystrel hanging around his neck. Walraven’s face twitched with agony, his fingers digging into her flesh so painfully that she nearly cried out, but she chewed on her lip and endured it, seeing the calming effect it was having on her parents.

He was taking their emotions into himself, drawing away their pain. She saw the snakelike vine of a tattoo crinkle along his neck, poking out from above the ruff of his collar. He had warned her that the use of a kystrel painted the flesh of the chest with strange tattoos. It was a residue of the magic that marked the one who wielded it. He had shown her his own whorl-mark once, half-hidden beneath a thatch of gray hairs.

The storm of emotions was passing. The chancellor’s eyes filled with tears and he brushed them away with his wrist, releasing the painful grip on her shoulder. She knew there would be bruises in that spot later.

Walraven gave her a fierce look. “Never repeat what you heard here,” he whispered. “Your parents’ grief is private. When husbands and wives suffer blows such as these, they say things they may later regret. I have helped them through the worst of it. Remember the lesson, child. Even the deepest griefs can be governed by a kystrel. Above all, you must learn to control your emotions.”

“I will,” Maia said solemnly.

Together, they entered the birthing chamber where the smell of blood made her sick.

CHAPTER TWO

Corriveaux

A rough hand shook Maia’s shoulder, waking her. She blinked rapidly, still lost in the fog of the childhood dream. The whine of mosquitoes barely penetrated her thoughts and she struggled to remember where she was. The forest was thick and impenetrable, damp with soggy vegetation that clung to her tattered gown and frayed cloak. She sat up, wincing with pain from her festering wounds and bruises, and tried again to remember where she was and how she had come to be there.

It took her several moments to orient herself. When the memories finally came flooding back, she almost wished they had remained elusive. She was camped in the cursed forests of southern Dahomey. In a desperate attempt to find a solution for the troubles that had beset Comoros after his banishment of the Dochte Mandar, her father had sent her to this land with a kishion—a hired killer—and a few soldiers as protectors, on a mission to seek out a lost abbey that contained secrets of the order. The way to the abbey had been lined with terrors, and a giant beast had scattered and brutalized her father’s men. Only she and the kishion still lived. They had at last found the abbey, and there, in a dark pool bathed in mystery, Maia had learned that her journey had only just begun.

It was a nightmare, and yet it was all real.

“You have a faraway look in your eyes, Lady Maia,” the kishion said, coming around and squatting in front of her. Sweat dribbled down his cheeks—his coarse hair was damp with it. Rags encrusted with dried blood bound wounds on his forearms and legs. His eyes surveyed her warily, his gaze flashing surreptitiously to the kystrel hanging loose in her bodice and the whorl of tattoos staining her upper chest and throat.

“I was dreaming,” she mumbled hoarsely, shaking her head to try and clear the memories that clung to her like spiderwebs. Her dark hair was a nest of twigs and nettles. She arched her back, trying to loosen her muscles, and rubbed her arms vigorously. The world was syrupy and slow, the edges not quite real.

The childhood feelings of anger and pain still churned inside her from the dream. Slowly, she kneaded circles into her temples. That long-ago day when the babe was lost was the first time she had witnessed a hint of the man her father was to become. She shuddered and bile rose in her throat as she thought about how young and naïve she had been. The memory of what it had felt like to be a princess of the realm glimmered brightly.

Well, she was no longer that young naïve girl of nine. She was twice that age now, and a princess no longer.

“What troubles you?” he asked gruffly, his face livid with scars. Part of his ear was missing.

She squinted up at the kishion. “It was a sad dream. One from my childhood.” There was a stitch of pain in her side, and she kneaded it with her fingers to relieve the sensation. “Another stillborn babe. My mother’s grief. My father’s callousness. It was long ago.” She paused. “Before my father sent me away.”

“You mean before you were banished,” the kishion said flatly.

Maia shook her head. “No—he sent me away first, to the town of Bridgestow on the border of Pry-Ree. I was ostensibly there to help manage the border disputes between Pry-Ree and Comoros.”

“Ostensibly,” the kishion said with the twinge of a chuckle. It was the closest he ever came to laughter. “And what am I to make of such a word, my lady? I am a killer, not a scholar.”

“Forgive me. My thoughts are still muddled from the dream. I was only nine years old when I went to Bridgestow. It was at the chancellor’s suggestion. Do you remember Chancellor Walraven?” It earned her a curt nod. “After my mother’s last failed birth, he advised my parents to send me to Bridgestow so I could begin learning my duties as the heir to the throne. I lived on the border of Pry-Ree for three years. That is where I learned to speak Pry-rian.” She smoothed the wrinkled mass of her skirts. “Beautiful country. My mother’s Family is from there. I think my grandmother is an Aldermaston at one of the small abbeys. The trees are ancient. Have you been there?”

The kishion shook his head no but said nothing.

She gazed at the swarm of gnats that surrounded them, seemingly attracted to their voices. Waving them away with a stroke of her arm did little. She was tempted to use the kystrel to disperse them, but she needed to be sparing in its use. Already the tattoos were nearly climbing up her throat, and soon they would be visible to any keen observer. Once she was discovered, someone would tell the Dochte Mandar, and she would be executed immediately.

Of course, she was going to her death anyway.

The quest she had been given in the lost abbey had sealed her fate. She was to go to Naess, the seat of the Dochte Mandar, to seek the High Seer of the mastons—a woman—and learn the history of the Myriad Ones and how they had once infested and destroyed the kingdoms. It was the only way to save Comoros. But how could she possibly travel into the very heart of the place that had outlawed women to read or use the Medium?

Maia stared at the bark of a fallen redwood, the trunk slender and stricken with lichen and moss. Noises and clicks filled the gap in the conversation. She and the kishion were hurrying westward, trying to return to the shores of Dahomey, where the ship that had taken them here, the Blessing of Burntisland, hopefully awaited them. Though the kishion was as harsh as the unforgiving terrain they had wandered into, their journey was still beset with woes. Each night brought hordes of insects to torment them. Serpents were common—dangerous and poisonous. Clean water was scarce, but thankfully a path of Leerings had been left as waymarkers to the lost abbey.

Maia turned to the Leering she had slept beside. It was a tall, rounded stone, almost her height when she stood fully erect. There was a ravaged face carved into it, a face that had nearly been rubbed away by the centuries. All Leerings had faces carved into them and could channel the power of the Medium in some way, providing water, light, fire, heat—along with many other arcane powers. The Leerings had eased their journey.

Their rations had already vanished, but the kishion was adept at living off the land, even though the fare was not to her liking—lizards and rodents and sometimes bats for meat. She was starving for a decent meal and hoped they would reach the ship within the next few days. Sailing to her doom in Naess would almost be a relief so long as she had a bed to sleep on for the voyage.

“Let me check for bites,” the kishion said, motioning toward her ruined gown.

The front of the garment had been torn when the soldiers her father had sent as her protectors attempted to snatch the kystrel from her neck and choke her to death. She clenched the fabric tighter around her throat and shook her head. “When we reach the ship,” she said. “I don’t feel any bites.”

He snorted, shrugged, and rose, surveying the Leering and rubbing his bandaged hand across the rippled edges of the stone. He sniffed at it, his expression one of disgust or superstition, and waited for her to summon water for them to drink.

Maia brushed a mass of tangled hair behind her shoulder and bent at an angle next to the Leering so that the gushing waters wouldn’t soak her. She invoked the kystrel and the fire-coal eyes of the Leering ignited instantly. Water began gushing from the slats where the mouth had once been carved. Maia rinsed her dirty hands first, scrubbing away the dirt and muck, feeling the cool clean water play across her fingers. She cupped water into her palms and gulped it down, coming again for another drink. Then a third. The excess water dribbled onto a small bed of silt at the base of the Leering.

The kishion took his turn once she was through, burying his head under the stream of cold water before tipping his scarred lips up to the flow and gulping down deep swallows. Maia rested her palm against the Leering.

When her skin touched the stone, an image burst into her mind so sharp and clear it was as if a window to another place had opened and she could see both places at once.

Who are you?

The thoughts came from a man—a man kneeling in front of another Leering, another of the waymarkers leading to the lost abbey. She recognized his surroundings instantly, a grove of dead bones and rusted armor. It was the graveyard of some vicious battle where the participants had all slaughtered one another. The man’s hair and beard were ash blond; his countenance was tired and stained with grime. His black Dochte Mandar tunic was splattered with mud, and he clenched his own kystrel in his left hand.

Who are you, girl?

His fierce thoughts snatched at her mind, gripping her in a vice that bound her to the Leering. She could not move. She could not breathe. Soldiers wearing the uniform of Dahomeyjan knights scuttled around the man. Panic began to churn inside her. These men were also in the cursed woods . . . and they were hunting her. She could sense the blazing intensity of the blond man’s thoughts.

Maia tried to release the Leering, but her hand would not move. A surge of piercing power cut through her marrow and sinews, binding her fast.

I have her, the man thought to someone else. Another Dochte Mandar loomed into view and he put his hand on the stone next to the blond man’s. His thoughts joined the fray. She slept by the gargouelle last night. Orlander is almost there. I will try and hold her until they come. We have her! She is the one we seek.

Maia shoved at his thoughts with her will. The viselike grip of the power that had her pinned groaned, and she tried to pry free. Some of her memories leaked through the bond.

She is strong, Corriveaux! the second Dochte Mandar thought, almost admiring.

Not as strong as me, the blond man snapped. She could still see him . . . the bearded one, Corriveaux. His thoughts began to intrude into her mind. His will was like a bar of iron, and he used it to bludgeon her resistance, his jaw clenched with fury.

Yes, you are Marciana Soliven, Corriveaux thought to her. We seized your ship and crew. Whilst you slept, I sent soldiers ahead with two hunters. Do not think you can escape me. Yield, Lady Marciana.

Maia’s whole body trembled with fear and rage. She flexed her will against theirs and felt the resistance start to budge. Corriveaux scowled, his brooding look turning darker. I see you. You cannot outmatch the resources of the King of Dahomey. We will hunt you down, my lady. Trust that. You cannot escape. When the soldiers arrive, you will surrender to them. You will instruct your protector to hand over his weapons. You will . . .

Maia squeezed her eyes shut, trying to blot out the Dochte Mandar’s thoughts. Despite her best efforts, they embedded themselves into her consciousness like runes carved into a rock. He was forcing his will on her, commanding her to obey his instructions. A raw compulsion gripped her, and she knew that if she saw those men, she would obey.

“My lady?” the kishion asked, looking up at her, at last sensing something was amiss.

She could not speak. Her tongue clove to her mouth. She looked down at him, her eyes pleading.

Leave me alone, Maia thought in desperation. Do not interfere.

I cannot hold her, the second Dochte Mandar thought with a groan of mental anguish.

We have her, Corriveaux thought. With both of us, we can tame her. Do not slacken your thoughts!

The grip on her mind tightened further, sending a piercing shard of agony into her skull. She began to moan, feeling her will crumble. Her knees were shaking, and the rest of her body started to convulse. She hunkered inside herself, summoning reserves of strength and determination. She would battle them off. There was no choice. She was willing to die in her quest, but not this soon.

Lady Marciana, you will surrender. You will surrender. You will surrender!

Her breath gushed out of her as the kishion tackled her away from the waymarker and landed on top of her. With her connection to the Leering abruptly broken, she felt herself free of the torturous grip on her mind. She was soon hyperventilating, gasping for breath.

“They found us!” she gasped through chattering teeth. “The Dochte Mandar are in the woods!”

“Where?” he asked, getting up quickly and pulling her with him. He unsheathed a blade and whirled around, staring into the dark woods.

“The way we came,” she said, pointing west. “I saw them in my mind. They said they have our ship and crew. They knew we were camping by the boulder, so they sent men ahead, including two hunters. We must flee, but where? Now we have no way of crossing the water.”

Her heart pounded with confusion. This was a foreign land. It was the land where death was born.

“If the ship was taken, then the west is closed to us. We have no choice—we must go north and cross Dahomey on foot.”

Maia knew he was right, though she dreaded it with all her heart. An ancient rivalry existed between Comoros and Dahomey. The ruler of Dahomey was an ambitious and ruthless young king who had sworn to humble her father and subdue Comoros, not only for daring to expel the Dochte Mandar, but also for breaking the long-ago plight troth binding him to Maia. What the King of Dahomey did not know was that her father’s kingdom was already rife with violence and unrest. And now its fate rested her shoulders, the banished daughter her father had disinherited.

Grabbing their supplies, Maia and the kishion started away from the Leering and plunged into the woods. There was no use running and tiring themselves needlessly. Their pursuers had traveled all night in the dark—they would be weary and confused. An oily black feeling swirled in Maia’s mind as they made their way, an imprint of the Dochte Mandar’s intentions. She had never encountered a person with such a forceful will before, let alone two. Worse, there might well be more of them traveling with the soldiers. If the Dahomeyjans knew they were facing a woman with a kystrel, they would have sent sufficient men to bind her powers.

Maia swatted at a tree branch, her heart pounding with the effort of hiking. She had always been fascinated by maps of the known kingdoms and had studied them all her life, memorizing the names of cities and provinces, tracing mountains and forests with her finger. What she remembered from her childhood studies was that more than half of Dahomey was still uninhabitable. Nature itself had turned against the kings and queens of this land, and the Blight that had destroyed all the kingdoms still reigned here. Deadly serpents and poisonous spiders had proliferated in the cursed part of the kingdom, making it impossible to settle. There were communities throughout the northern part of Dahomey, but very few in the southern hinterlands. She could not remember a single name of any of the villages or towns.

She realized, with dread, that there were three other kingdoms blocking her way to Naess, the seat of the Dochte Mandar—Hautland, Paeiz, and Mon. The latter was a coastal kingdom that could probably be avoided, but there was no other way, except by ship, to pass around the other kingdoms. And all had been hostile to her father since the day he drove the Dochte Mandar from Comoros.

They walked with determination born of desperation. Maia was sturdy and had survived the dangers they had faced thus far. With each slogging boot step, she pushed herself hard, not deigning to complain or utter curses. There was too much to do. They had to outdistance their pursuers, find supplies, and race toward their goal as quickly as they could.

Her stomach cramped with the strain of the pace they kept, and her throat seared with thirst as the sun climbed and arced across the sky, filtering through the dusky leaves and moss-ridden boulders scattered throughout the way. There was no sign of any habitation. No waymarkers to guide the path.

They paused to rest briefly; Maia needed to preserve her flagging strength. Her legs itched from the continuous scratches and slashes from the poking undergrowth. Her ankles were swollen. She breathed hard, feeling her heartbeat pound in her ears.

“How far do you think they are?” Maia said with a wheeze.

The kishion shook his head, gazing ahead, not behind. “They will need to stop and rest eventually. But let us keep walking, even if we walk all night. It will be harder to track us, which will slow them down. They do not know our destination, do they?”

Maia shook her head. “They cannot. And Naess is the last place they would ever expect us to go.”

He grabbed her arm, signaling the rest was over, and they continued to plunge through thick woods and dense scrub. Thirst was a continuous torment. Neither had dared to drink from the bracken ponds they encountered, knowing the water would be as poisoned as the land they traveled through, and Maia could not take the risk of seeking another waymarker. Not when Corriveaux could be lurking by one again, waiting for such an opportunity. No, they had to blind the Dochte Mandar to their presence and their path. Make them trudge in the dark and jab sticks into every bush.

What they needed was their own hunter, someone who could disguise their trail. Someone who knew the land and its secret places. Someone who could be trusted. The greatness of their need pounded through Maia as they continued to forge their way. She fixed her heart on it, pushing the fierce, focused thought into the aether: I need a hunter. I need a guide.

A gust of wind blew into her eyes, almost as if in response to her pleading thoughts. She did not know if it was the Medium.

Before nightfall, she realized that it really was.