Jaded Crown

Prologue

He had seen many shades of red but this was by far the darkest. The color was almost black, bordered by splashes of bright scarlet in the places where it touched the snow. It pained him to see the stain desecrate the mark of beautiful winter.

It also pained him to see the one he loved standing in the clearing, holding a dripping blade to her palm, her eyes wiped with moonlight as she searched the sky above the trees almost imploringly. The man was aware that she had good reason to do it, yet the sight of the white-haired boy at her side, shivering and confused, made his chest tense like a vise.

The boy’s soft whine of Geujinese could be heard as he wrapped his small hands around himself, the motion accentuated by another shiver. “Can’t we just go home, please . . .” 

“Hush, Aeyghos.” Her tone was compact and strained; desperate, with no trace of the harshness her words might assume to passersby. But save the three of them, there was no one in the Forest of Arrowheads.

He stepped around the tendrils of stray blood, so as not to stain his boots, and leaned against a fir tree. “You should listen to him.”

His deep voice was quiet, but nevertheless carried across the silence. The woman startled—so briefly that only one watching closely could have seen it—then turned and let her weapon fly in a flash of steel. Her son shouted, “Mother, no!” but the man, anticipating the attack, raised his hand, and the blade stopped midair. Instead of apologizing, the woman sighed, speaking his name as she exhaled. “Is that you, Vrin?”

“It is I,” he confirmed, the sharp syllables of Geujinese scraping his lips.

Vrin rocked away from the tree, and its shadow unveiled him: pulled-back sable hair shot through with silver, snow-white skin, and clear, piercing eyes like arrows.

He was striking in the way many Mizogan men were, but Vrindaris Nagrikov was only half Mizogan—his mother had been from Kandien, one of the neighboring Six Nations. He had not been there in twenty-eight years, however, so he could hardly call it home.

Assured of his identity, the woman threw back her hood. She had a wintry beauty to her looks, with blue-tinted lips, pale hair and skin, and snow-laced lashes, with a trace of warmth that showed in the auburn eyes her son shared. Her expression of worry only became more pronounced as the silk revealed her sculpted features. 

Some of Vrin’s austerity dissipated at the sight; his voice was softer but nevertheless firm as he asked, “What are you doing away from the palace so late?”

He already knew the answer to the question, and it was clear that she knew he knew, but he wanted her to confess and, in doing so, realize the foolishness of what she was doing. She said, in a voice that sounded as if it wanted to be steady, “I’m leaving.”

“Leaving to go where?” 

The woman lifted her eyes to his and switched to English, which Aeyghos did not understand. “Anywhere but here.”

Realization dawned on Vrin, but he kept his expression blank and matched her change of tongue. “I’m not sure I understand.”

“How could you? My daughter is dead! Poisoned by her own handmaiden! What will I tell them all?” At those words, she threw herself at him, fell at his feet, and took the hem of his hunting gear in her hands. A smear of red appeared on Vrin’s weapon belt, birthed by the open wound on Nutanva’s palm.

“An empress,” Vrin said sternly, looking down at her, “should not grovel at the feet of an Iron Trainer.”

“Don’t you see, Vrindaris? I am tired of being empress. I’m tired of it all.” She spat the word empress vehemently as if it was the mark of a curse she had to bear. 

“You cannot leave your people because of Idreia.”

“Yes I can, and I will!”

Impatience colored his tone. “If all rulers were to pack up and leave when someone they love perishes, do you think Sora would have any left?” 

His argument was vehement, but knew that it was not getting through to his mistress, and for good reason: he himself could see it. The truth was that Nutanva was growing weaker and more paranoid with each day she continued to live; she had always been withdrawn as a young princess. If not for her older brother’s public disgrace, she would not have been pushed to the front seat of ruling with little to no real experience of how to rule, but that was how it worked—as there were no other boys in the family, the throne went to Nutanva. Her husband Ivan’s death had nearly broken her, too, but though both situations were tainted with the sour taste of grief, this was different. Vrin had scarce seen her this wild—this desperate—before. It sickened him to say it, but this empire needed someone better.

Someone worthy.

Slowly, Vrin pried Nutanva’s hands from his belt and held her wrists an inch apart so he could look down at her face. He said quietly, without looking away from her, “Hand me your blade.”

Nutanva went wide-eyed at the realization of what he was going to do; she groped around for the weapon she had thrown at him only a few minutes previous, and once she found it, pressed it into his hands. Vrin flipped it onto its sharp end, then dragged the steel across his scarred palm. Blood welled in a dark bubbling stream and stained his sleeve as he turned his hand over, letting a drop fall onto the snow.

“Endaehl jien saeig, eun vicshir,” he recited, deepening the wound with the blade’s blunt side, “arotak vosik ieln kkogeun rukkend saraeng spectregeoukk.”

Come to me, tempest, blood and bone of my soul.

He had barely looked past the trees before it happened. Lightning split the sky in two and clouds rolled over them; his hair came loose from its knot as hot wind whipped at their faces. A roar shook the trees, preceding the large beast that dove through an opening in the branches and landed between them, curling itself to face its master. Vrin smiled the slightest fraction, striding forward with his hands outstretched to rest between the storm tempest’s eyes on its silver scales.

“Evavaen, Tathrukkiena,” he said fondly. Good girl, Tathrukkiena.

Nutanva took a step back, but her son seemed intrigued. He stepped around the beast’s tail and reached out to touch its widespread wings: Tathrukkiena snarled, but only defensively, her muscles coiling as a sign to stay away.

“At ease,” Vrin commanded, and the tempest calmed. He turned to the duo. “If you mount her now, you could be there by sunrise.”

There was a brief silence. Then Nutanva asked, “Mount her?”

“How else do you expect to reach Avairis?”

Nutanva’s eyes widened as he spoke, registering not just his words but also the meaning behind them. He could practically hear thoughts flitting in and out of her head: thoughts that he was willing to help them, he was willing to let this—whatever this was—go. Some part of her seemed to harden inside: her voice was clear and determined when she said, “Let’s go, Aeyghos.” 

Vrin helped them mount Tathrukkiena, murmuring words of reassurance to the wary tempest all the while. When they were situated on her back, he instructed Kiena, “Take them straight to the Rift. Do not let yourself be seen. Watch over them until they have gone safely through it, then come straight back to me.”

The tempest lowered her great head as an indication that she had heard. Then he looked straight up at Nutanva—at his empress, at the woman he loved. At the woman who would be leaving him in mere seconds.

“Do not look back,” he said. “Take on a new name, start a new life. Find a new home.”

The light in her eyes seemed to flicker when she looked at him, but she replied, “You are my home, Vrin.” Not anymore, he wanted to say, but she wasn’t done. “You will be my home, no matter what Realm I may be in. You have always been.” A pause. “What will happen after this?”

“I will find your lookalikes, if I can, and have them live in your and your children’s stead. If not, the blame for your escape will be on me.” He contemplated for a moment. “If all goes well, I will return.”

“To me?”

“To my birthplace.”

Nutanva seemed to understand. She looked to the sky for the briefest of moments, as if she hoped to find the answer to their problems hidden in the stars, then back at Vrin. “I hope you find them,” she said softly. “The new empress. And the children.”

He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. 

“So do I.” 

Vrin whistled to catch his tempest’s attention, uttering an ancient command that only the best of riders knew. Tathrukkiena lifted her head, snapped her wings open, and, with a flourish, took off into the air. He watched them go with the slightest smile perched on his lips, his head tilted to catch the wind, moonlight filtering through the trees and illuminating his face.

And he did find them. He found Eden and Madeline—a boy and a girl, two winters apart just like Idreia and Aeyghos had been. He found their mother, Audrey, an Avairisian woman Nutanva’s age. All three of them bore the same appearance as the royal family, save a few stray features here and there, though he knew it would be no cause for trouble.

For what were details, but the things people chose not to see? 

feedback and critique would be much appreciated !! ^^