CHAPTER ONE
Iris Lake
Daren was well aware he was watching his world burn. He could smell the smoke, hear the screams, taste the acid, copper tang, and sharp spice of magic in the air, and feel his wounds. He knew what was happening.
He could see the building that had once been his home away from home. He saw fire blasting windows, melting glass. He saw the blaze consume everything it could, dash up the stone by the way of vines and the pine trees planted all around the grounds. He watched it lick the still intact windows.
His eyes were locked on one window—second story, several to the right from center. The glass was mercury as it slid down the wall, fire the green of a grass snake running along with it.
He let in a shuddery breath and closed his eyes. He knew what was happening; he just couldn’t accept it. The blood wetting his clothes to his chest helped nothing and the burns on his wrists made him feel like a prisoner.
He was a prisoner, after all—a prisoner to death.
A whimper and a gurgle caught his attention and he opened his eyes. The hazy heat helped obscure his vision of the castle, but he could see his last job lying clearly on the ground on top of his bag. The son of his master was looking up at him with confused eyes, face spotted red and tear stains obvious.
“I’m sorry,” he said. His throat hurt as he let the two words loose. With the realization that the baby couldn’t understand a word he was saying, he’d about wished he hadn’t spoken.
The babe just let out a sad whine.
He steadied himself on this child’s sword, which was sunk deep in the mire surrounding the castle but worked quite fine as a walking stick. He knew they needed to leave, but he didn’t know how. His horse was in the barn and he wasn’t sure he could get there and not be spotted, or whether or not it had already burned.
“We should probably leave.” He tensed and he looked over. The man who had spared him and his master’s two children was sitting in the dirt.
“I believe that’s obvious,” he responded. He let out a small cough and just looked over the man.
“Then why aren’t we leaving?”
He took the time to categorize the person before him. He had a pleasant face, long forehead with hair strewn across it; only tarnished by a scar running down his jaw. He was young, perhaps half his age, and much darker skinned. He could see his Mark, one hard to spot, creeping up his neck; just a shade darker, in the shape of a serpent.
And around his neck hung a piece that made him think of a sharp spider web, how odd the image might appear—lacquered to a black.
He was a Daka and he was the enemy. He had the Mark and his adornment showed his allegiance to the man who had ordered the murder and arson before him.
“Take it off.”
The man blinked at him, a surprised expression taking over his previous blank canvas of a face. “What?” he asked.
“Take off the jewelry you wear, Daka.” Daren let the words fall like ice off a roof.
A muscle in the young man’s jaw twitched. “Why?”
“Did you want this to happen?” He gestured sharply at the castle.
“No! I told you I didn’t. They did this to my village—I was the only one alive.”
“And why was that?”
His potential enemy just jerked a hand up to his neck. He touched the Mark on the side of his neck carefully, almost cautiously.
“Because,” the young man said, “I had this.”
“I assumed.” He looked over the lad. He’d be trouble. He’d known he’d be trouble. But he hadn’t managed to kill. That had to count for something. “Why would you keep wearing it then, when I’m giving you an out?”
“You’re attempting to damn me.”
He winced. He couldn’t take both of them. He could deal with the male child. He knew where to take him. But the girl—he had no idea what to do with the girl. And he couldn’t leave them together. Twins anywhere of the same age of his master’s would be far too suspicious, especially going by their unique bloodlines.
“So,” the lad said, breaking him from his spell, “where do we stand?”
“They’ll kill you if you stay now.”
He saw the boy pale and heard him swallow hard.
“Take if off and I’ll give you protection.”
“You’re half dead.”
“Some of my friends aren’t.”
“What? They’re totally dead?”
He felt anger pulse in him, but he said nothing. He waited, just watching him. He figured he didn’t have much more time. He needed to find a horse and if he was to place the brother and sister as far from each other as possible—well, he was running out of time. The spread of blood was telling him that.
“I’m Badal,” the boy said a moment later.
Daren nodded, unsure of what he meant exactly or what to make of that. He knew the Dakas had odd names, but honestly?
The next action of this Badal person gave him a small bit of hope, however. He just latched onto his charm and yanked. The thing fell off and plopped into the dirt. The boy continued to stare at it. “Where will I go?” Badal asked.
“South and west,” he said in response.
Badal gave him a look.
“I have a friend. His name is Najm. He will offer you protection. He lives south of Shairan.”
“No Raziran lives south of Shairan.”
“I never said he was a Raziran, did I?”
There was another loud gulp.
“I’ll take the female?” Badal asked him, awkwardly.
“Yes.”
“Why did you pick me?” Badal asked, a beat later. “It was my job to kill you.”
He sighed at the lad’s stupidity, “You didn’t kill me.”
Badal opened his mouth, seemingly to argue, but then he kept it to himself. “Okay,” he said finally. Daren felt eyes on him as the youth took his turn to look him over. “You’ll need a horse, right?”
“Correct,” he said.
“I know where we can find two. You’ll have to keep the kids quiet, though.”
He just nodded in response and gave another small cough. His throat felt like someone had jammed pine straw down it, then yanked it back out—which was obviously not a pleasant feeling.
#
He swayed slightly on the mount he’d been given. The saddle felt odd under his rump and he felt so very tired. It was making him ill.
“You okay?” Badal asked. At his feet was the fallen horse guard and in his arms was Mirabella, Daren’s master’s daughter.
He nodded to the boy, but that just messed with his head more. “I am fine.”
Badal nodded, before walking over somehow mounting the black mare not far off without using his hands. He could only be impressed by the feat, while wishing he didn’t risk such a thing.
“Be careful with her. She’s breakable.”
“Most babies are,” the boy responded easily. “But don’t worry. This is my horse.”
That didn’t comfort him whatsoever.
“Her name is Mirabella,” he said quietly a moment later. “And don’t you dare pawn her necklace. It’s the last link to her parents.”
The boy looked confused, even as he single-handedly reined his horse closer to Daren’s. “How so?” he asked.
“It was her birthday present.”
Badal froze in his seat. “Right,” he said.
“Just be careful with her,” Daren muttered.
“I will. You be safe, too, Daren. Good luck,” Badal said.
He nodded and, with one look back into the almost black eyes of his sudden ally, he dug his heels against the horse’s brown flanks. He rode off without a goodbye.
It wasn’t like he could have spoke, however. He knew this as he rode, down the slope and away from the burning castle and creeping fire behind him. If he’d spoken, he’d have been sick. The anxiety eating at his insides and the pain from his stab wound were far, far too much for a simple man like him.
#
Daren spluttered and let his head fall forward as he coughed. He tossed away the empty flask and grimaced. Grog was most certainly not his favorite drink. His throat was burning worse, but it felt like he could breathe easier now, even if he had probably just sent black sludge down into his belly.
It wasn’t really if it mattered at this point now. The bandage he’d put on while riding, boy equally balanced on the saddle and held with one hand, wasn’t going him much good and it was soaked through now, as well.
And with being drenched in soot, blood which wasn’t all his own, and sweat came a certain level of dizziness he’d never felt before, a sickness he couldn’t shake.
But that didn’t matter either. He was sitting on the worn mount, which was as sweat-covered as he was, and surveying this new world he had somehow landed himself in. He’d broken from thick woods, woods that wouldn’t allow in the light of the moon except in the shiftiest of ways, and he was now overseeing something he now regretted to have never witnessed before.
Giant hills rolled against the horizon along with thatched roofs, turning up and leaving splayed dirt and heather at random intervals. Sheep wandered the moor in droves, kept tight together by lean sheepdogs and a few distant shepherds.
He’d stumbled upon Viren and he knew that at once. He glanced back to see the woods, a forest he now knew was called Damis, and he urged the horse beneath him to a trot. There was a nicely placed pebble road not far down the hill and he knew if he got on it, he’d find a town, one smaller than that in the distance.
#
“Cornelius Badri,” Daren murmured, “this is your new home.”
There was a house before him. It was oddly built compared to the others; made of broken up stretches of sawed wood, stained brown with wood shingles covered in pitch. It leaned to one side and it had an attic that didn’t match up perfectly with the lower story.
But he’d seen a mother, father, and two toddler sons out on the porch not an hour ago. They’d been happy and they looked like decent people. And it wasn’t like he could change his mind now.
He let out a sigh and just moved forward. His legs ached and were stiff from riding, so he was practically forced to shuffle over to the porch.
He placed the young boy down, wrapped in cloth, and just took in the scent of swarthy night air and mothballs, a smell he wasn’t sure why was there.
“Be safe,” he informed the tike, even if he most likely didn’t understand a word he said. The blankness about his newborn-gray eyes convinced him he probably couldn’t even see him right.
He stood back up, as well as he could, and he just took the young boy’s birthday gift from his pocket—a bae and copper piece that glittered in the moonlight, slightly less intricate than his sister’s.
“This doesn’t look very manly,” he said, but shrugged. It matched a sword. He couldn’t complain too much.
He took out a piece of parchment and his ink pen, a special gift that held the ink inside of it of all things, and began to write the boy’s name. The family would like to know the name of the boy they’d most likely take in.
He wrote a c and an o, before he stopped. He couldn’t quite rightly write down Cornelius, could he? That would be too obvious.
He frowned at his own scratchy writing and just thought back. Queen Suzan had given him a pet name, hadn’t she?
Then it hit him. She’d called him Coh, some name stemming from the Old Tongue, something she and his master had spoken well. And this made sense, as it was the language of magic—even if it was also the language of their barbaric neighbors to the north.
He just let out a quiet chuckle and tacked on an h.
“Your name is Coh now,” he said, voice going hoarse towards the end. “Don’t forget it.”
The babe just continued to stare in his general direction, as he put the paper down on the porch, weighted by the necklace.
“My job’s done now,” he whispered. The relief that came with this admission to his self nearly brought him to his knees.
He exhaled long, then went to find the horse he’d come with. He’d need to be far from here.
///
AN: So, this is the revamped first chapter of a novel I wrote when I was eleven. I hope you enjoyed...and any critiques would be welcome, because this is the second draft and if possible I'd like to send it out when it's on third or fourth draft, just to see what sort of responses I can glean. Anyway.
NEXT TIME: Meet Coh, as he begins to meet himself...or part of himself...thirteen years later. Meet Coh, the Hunter. Coh Gray. Coh Jacobson. Coh, son of Jacob. Coh of Tariq.
Also, for each chapter I post, I'm going to post a nifty pronunciation guide, for those of you who want to know how to say the words. Yes. (Or at least have them in your brain properly.) Normally at the end of a novel, but you can't just flip to the back, now can you? So I'm going to post it chapter-to-chapter. Yeah.
PRONUNCIATION GUIDE:
Badal--BA-dal.
Daren--DARE-n.
Tariq--TA-rick.
Bae--BAY.
Badri--BAD-ree.
Daka--DA-ka.
Shairan--Shai-RAN.
Najm--Na-JIM.
Razira--RAZIR-ah.
Raziran--RAZIR-an.
Damis--DAM-mis.
Suzan--SU-zhan.
Viren--VI-ren.
Coh--Co.
Mirabella--MIRA-bella.
Gender:
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