Buried heroes, p.1
Buried Heroes, page 1
Buried Heroes
Age of Azuria Book One
Beth Ball
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Epilogue
The Adventure Continues
Find out what happens next!
About the Author
Also by Beth Ball
Map of Azuria
Prologue
The sharp ends of tree branches tore at Yvayne’s face and hair as she darted through the forest. Her breaths came quickly, her heart pumping adrenaline into her veins to maximize the fleeting seconds she might have before Lucien captured his prey.
Yvayne discarded the flashes of regret behind her flying footsteps. After she saved Fhaona, she could apologize for dismissing her. She only needed to ensure the survival of one more druid in the world. They were each necessary to the others.
Fhaona’s role had to be more complex than sacrifice.
A scream flickered through the trees ahead, and Yvayne groaned, pushing herself harder. What had happened? Had he caught the elf already?
She called on the latent fae energy buried deep within. Green ripples of vitality ricocheted off nearby branches and joined her magical aura. Only used as a last resort, this gathering of natural power would serve as a beacon, declaring her position to the dark forces that sought to destroy her and her allies. But in this moment, she had to see what transpired, despite the loss of anonymity.
Yvayne’s vision narrowed; her eyes burned, molten gold, as nearby spirits surrounded her. They blotted out any details she didn’t need to see, freed her focus to the two souls ahead. Ancient lines of sacred trees, rooted through centuries of upheaval elsewhere in the world, crashed into one another in the corners of her eyes as the spirits swarmed around them, dimming their visual presence. They would be there, waiting for her after the confrontation was over. Fhaona might not be.
A wing of possibility caught on the wind. Fhaona fled, and the forest grew behind her feet to protect her—perhaps Lucien might be stopped this time.
But she was already too late.
A few thousand feet ahead of Yvayne’s pounding footsteps, at the edge of her heightened senses, the attack unfolded.
Fhaona fell, exhausted, at the base of a towering silver tree. The scarlet canopy of the autumnwood above her trembled, and the leaves recoiled as evil stalked closer to the elven druid, one of their protectors against the greedy ravages of the outside world. Even from a great distance, Yvayne could feel the tree’s desire to catch Fhaona in its branches, but something held it fast.
A tall, cloaked figure glided closer to the woman’s shaking form. As Lucien’s fungus-ridden cape caressed the earth, the young grasses and freshly fallen tree petals became perfumed with the stench of death.
“Fhaona,” his voice sighed out, half from his mouth, half from his decaying throat. The elf screamed in terror as her eyes lit upon his face. “You are perhaps the most interesting of those I’ve tracked. The greatest challenge, we’ll say, if that’s of any comfort.”
The druid tried to pick herself up from the ground, but Lucien withdrew a thin, gray-green arm from beneath his robe and, with a simple twirl of his long, delicate fingers, her body grew rigid, and she collapsed back to the forest floor.
Yvayne ran faster, trying desperately to arrive before he was able to finish his task, but already, the silver-tinged glow faded from the elven woman’s face.
With a cry that originated from her very core, Fhaona arched her back against the magic holding her and clutched at the moon-shaped charm around her neck. Yvayne felt the despair as her own when the druid was unable to shape-shift, a special ability enabled by the crescent pendant. A low sob escaped from Fhaona’s throat as she grabbed on to a root with her other hand and pulled herself forward. Surely in this moment, the forest would be able to protect her.
She could sense Fhaona willing an explosion of vines into existence. Again the forest’s desire pulsed in Yvayne’s heart, but no vines appeared. Fhaona’s labored breathing pressed on her ears, urgent, and Yvayne shuddered at the heavy, wet breaths of the pursuer. Beneath each of their exhalations of life and death, the burnished oak and her fellows groaned; no matter the power of the spell or their own wishes, they could do nothing to aid Fhaona.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk, my dear.” A gray-green hand reached down toward the druid’s walnut-brown hair and selected a set of lightly curled strands. She looked up at him in horror as each breath grew more strained in her chest cavity. “You won’t be able to perform any of your tricks in my presence.” Lucien withdrew his other bony, half-decomposed hand from beneath his robes to show her the large black ring that clung to his rotting finger.
“It took quite a long while to discover these, hidden away within the Shadowlands. But I succeeded nonetheless. I have an excess of time now, as you and your kind once did.” He smiled. “But, my, how things change. Darkstones were designed to restrict other magical energies, particularly nature-based magics as”—he inhaled deeply over her head—“yours most certainly seems to be.”
Yvayne leapt over a fallen tree. She would be upon them in a moment. Spectral faery wings sprouted from her shoulders, and another breath of hope entered her lungs. Stay strong, Fhaona.
“Relax, and this will all be over soon,” Lucien purred. He twirled Fhaona’s hair in his hand. Yvayne choked on bile at the sight. If she could catch him and rescue Fhaona, they could bring an end to this particular aspect of their greater enemy. Alessandra wouldn’t expect to lose one of her servants so soon.
Fhaona’s hand darted out and struck Lucien’s throat. The elven woman was more powerful than he had reckoned, and the darkstone didn’t render her immobile as it did many of the others. The contact with his skin covered the back of Fhaona’s hand in pus and spores. She screamed as the poison began to do its work, nearly all her energy sapped by the necrotic ring.
Lucien clutched his hand to his neck and growled. His fingers dug in and reformed the injured areas in a fresh layer of fungus. “Enough. I grow tired of this.” He snapped his fingers, and the earth around Fhaona roiled. Two narrow sets of feline shoulders emerged from the soil, and warm dirt cascaded to the ground.
“No!” Yvayne shouted. If she could distract him with more promising prey, perhaps she could save Fhaona.
“Madeline, Micaela, show our guest below.” Lucien’s cold, dead eyes searched the clearing until he found Yvayne’s speeding form closing the distance between them. The corners of his mouth lifted.
Shadows continued to rise from beneath the earth and took the shape of two hulking tigers made of smoke and darkness. Their entry left open an abyss that led directly to the Shadowlands.
“I’ll send my regards to your mother then, shall I?” Lucien called out to Yvayne.
Fhaona opened her mouth to scream, but the dark maws that had emerged from the depths claimed her body and dragged her below.
“Fhaona!” Yvayne cried. Her wings, finally ready, lifted her into the air and propelled her the remaining distance to the clearing as the druid slipped beneath the surface. At the edge of the darkstone’s sphere of influence, twenty feet off the ground, the magic pulsing inside her stopped, and her wings vanished. She didn’t need her special vision to see Lucien’s smirk as she plummeted to the earth below. Her momentum dragged her along the forest floor, and she collided with the base of one of the grove’s oldest trees. Her breath burst from her body.
Lucien stood over her panting frame. “I have been expecting you, Yvayne. I am pleased you did not miss your cue. We shall meet again soon.” The lich’s foul form floated into the portal he had summoned between the planes and disappeared deep into the realm of shadow.
Yvayne lay motionless on the ground, unable to pick herself up. When her breath finally returned, she scrambled forward to where Fhaona had lain only moments before. The druid’s crescent-moon necklace rested against the leaves and scattered dirt. The gold charm was cold even though it had recently rested so close to the heart of its keeper.
Had Fhaona left it behind on purpose, knowing her successor was coming soon?
“Please, I only need a few days,” Fhaona had said after she arrived outside Yvayne’s secluded home high in the Frostmaw Mountains.
“It’s too dangerous for us to be so close together. He’ll sense it.”
“Yvayne, he already has. He’s following me.”
“So you decided to lead him here?” She shut her eyes against the memory. If Fhaona had known to come find her then, just on the edge of their waiting’s end, it would only be a matter of time before Lucien made moves of his own if he hadn’t alread
Yvayne ran her fingers over the dry leaves that had last touched the druid, their life suddenly sucked away as Fhaona’s would soon be inside Lucien’s lair. She pulled their corpses into her chest as she sobbed. There was one less soul in their conclave. Fhaona was gone. She had failed again.
A breeze of cool night air roused her from the ground. Whispers darted through the trees, vying for her attention. The spirits knew another was coming, someone returned, yet new. The ancient mountain site was only a few days’ travel to the south. She had time to prepare. Yvayne’s cheeks lifted against her dried tears as she smiled. For the first time, they would have the upper hand.
Chapter 1
Iellieth trailed her fingers lightly across the tall wildflowers trapped inside their designated plot in the castle gardens. She breathed in their shy, hopeful aromas as she passed. A memory trickled by from when she had been only as tall as they, running through the fields outside of Aurora, ready to show off her newest discovery. The flowers’ faces seemed to turn toward her as she walked; they alone would bear witness to the tears that gathered in her eyes. She would be forced to leave them behind, like everything else that had grown in her years here. But however hopeless the situation appeared, she was determined to have a say in her ultimate destination.
She and Katarina had arranged to meet in her favorite spot in the gardens, just at the edge of the arboretum. Many others had claimed it as a cherished location since Iellieth started tending it a few years before. She felt more at peace than she had in days as the blush-flowering trees poked their arms above the other greenery and beckoned her forward to their petaled embrace.
When she first told Mathilde, the gardener, what she wanted to plant in the formerly overgrown bed, the woman had scoffed. The Lady surely had her head in the clouds if she believed the spring-blossoming trees would grow beneath the shelter of the carefully groomed forest. They wouldn’t receive enough sun, and if they did grow, they would cast too long a shadow over the collections of crimson and ivory flowers Iellieth wanted to cultivate beneath them.
“Breathtaking as always, Lady Amastacia.” Katarina feigned a short curtsy from beneath the stone archway. Iellieth grinned and hurried forward.
“Did you catch sight of yourself in a mirror, or are you waxing poetic about the flowers?”
Katarina laughed at Iellieth’s teasing. She extricated herself from the raptures of the climbing roses and embraced her friend. “How are you?” she asked as she leaned away to look at her face.
“I am as alright as you would guess.” It seemed they were alone in the gardens, but the fresh growth obscured the far bends too fully to be sure.
“I cannot believe it’s finally here.”
“Nor can I.”
“And there’s no way they can be talked out of it?”
Iellieth sighed. “No, dear Katarina, not that I have found.”
“Well, I find it truly abominable—”
“Wait, please. We cannot all be free-roaming Celestial scholars, and I would choose for . . .”—her voice grew husky as the tears gripped her throat once more—“for our final chat to be of something more high-minded than my stepfather’s scheming. One last story, before I go.” Katarina loved telling stories and would never be able to resist such a request, especially under the circumstances. “A new one.”
Katarina grinned at her as a tear fell from her dark eyes and carved a path across her warm brown skin. “Very well.” She pulled Iellieth’s arm through her own, and they began their final walk together around the gardens.
“There was once a beautiful oread, one of the dryads of the mountains, who would disguise herself as a human and tell her tales to curious travelers making their way from one land to the next. Eramis, that was her name. What Eramis valued, as most oreads do, was a mingling between cultures so that all lands might be joined, especially through their stories, one to the other.
“The type of traveler Eramis encountered determined the story she told. Those who left their small villages seeking adventure learned of distant, exotic lands where even their wildest dreams for what life might contain would be surpassed. Those who returned home from a long journey heard of incredible transformations or revelations that others had experienced after an extended time alone on the road, engaging with the sanctity of the land around them.
“But Eramis’s favorite story to tell was that of Hugh and Lilia, two great heroes of old. He was the leader of the lycan people, the first humans to emerge on the surface of the prime plane, protected by the wolf god Fenrir in their journey across the lands. One day as he ventured through the forest, he heard a heartbreakingly gorgeous song that danced its way between the trees to nuzzle against his ears.
“Oreads are beautiful mistresses of song, as you recall I’m sure, so this part of the story is somewhat suspect. It’s possible that Eramis inserted herself in some ways into the role of Lilia in the romance, which is of course up to her to do as the storyteller, but it bears noting all the same.
“Hugh tore through the forest in search of the singer, sure that his life would be forever darker if he could not find the being behind the song. And there ahead of him, with her pale hand pressed against the firm body of an oak tree, was Lilia.
“She looked rather like you if the stories are to be believed. Deep red hair that cascaded all the way to her waist and mystical green eyes starred through with gold.
“The lycan alpha was caught off guard by the embodiment of loveliness before him, and he stopped, frozen in his tracks. Lilia’s bright eyes turned slowly at the disturbance she felt in the woods. In the space of a heartbeat, she withdrew a deep green bow and notched an arrow. ‘Who dares disturb our morning ritual, between the woods and I?’ she demanded. Hugh stumbled back, surprised by the aggression from what he had previously seen as pristine beauty.
“By this point in the story, Eramis would have walked for some time with the traveler and would know which part of the legendary love between the two they might most need to hear. And, in that tradition, thinking of our friendship, I’ll leave you with the end.
“A great tragedy overtook the world and drove apart what had previously been woven together by the natures of magic and time. Hugh and Lilia faced a choice: to abandon their peoples or to be divided from one another. They each chose the latter, though it was the hardest thing they’d ever done. He remained with the humans on the prime plane. She retreated with the other fae to the Brightlands, a realm of wild beauty and mischievous magic well suited to their empathetic, curious natures.
“Enid called the soul of her daughter into the heavens after a time, and Fenrir brought his warrior to a place of peace. Through the ages, they would long for one another, as we long for those we are separated from, either through space, time, death, or other machinations. Some believe that this longing proves that we are alive. Others, that it marks the path forward.”
“What do you think it means?” Iellieth asked, knowing Katarina was fond of burying lessons inside ancient tales.
“I believe the answer is somewhere in between the two. Many emotions remind us of the life pulsing through our veins. Many forces conspire together to illuminate the roads ahead. We live, learn, and love by both.”
“I shall dearly miss your stories, Katarina.” Their moments together were among her few bright memories of life in the castle.
“And I shall dearly miss you, Iellieth. In my heart, I want to tell you that things may turn out better than they seem, but I don’t wish to make your journey any heavier than it is already.”
