The Destroyer Book 2 (64 page)

My mind refused to help me out of this mess and I accepted that this was the end. I had done everything I could. I escaped the dungeon and gave what was left of the forces of Nia a purpose. Then I infiltrated the castle again to gain valuable intelligence.

Now my only opportunity to avenge the people I loved was lost.

I had always done everything well. When I failed, I learned from the mistake and improved. That was how a successful woman should lead her life. But now, the one time when failure was not an option, I was failing. Failing my father, failing Paug, failing my uncle, failing my country, failing my people. Blood filled my mouth again but I didn't let it trickle down my chin.

"Who did this to you?" He said it with mockery. He didn't really care what had happened to me.

I spit out the blood in my mouth. It flew the few feet that separated us and connected with his nose and eyes. I may not be able to kill him, but I could piss the bastard off before I died.

"Fucking shit fuck!" he screamed like a baby and fell back away from me. The guards tightened their grip on my arms and yanked my hair back. Nanos wiped his nose with his fingers, looked at them, and then wiped the rest of his face with his fine green tunic.

I smiled at him.

"You could never be the docile little girl your father wanted you to be. I wanted to kill you in the dungeon, but they needed you to learn about Kaiyer. Now they think you are already dead. No one needs you anymore."

He stepped toward me again. His hand grabbed my jaw and yanked my face toward his so that we stood eye to eye.

"Looks like you'll bleed out in ten minutes anyway, Cousin. Think of this as a mercy killing. I'm putting you out of your misery, and mine." He tensed his shoulders and the blade of the knife entered my stomach with a frigid kiss of ice. I gasped, and more blood flowed out of my mouth.

"Drop her!" my cousin commanded, and my back hit the ground.

Nanos and the two soldiers stood over me. The fear was plain on the guards' faces. Murdering someone was a crime in our country and killing a member of the royal family went against every vow the guards had ever spoken.

I moved my hand to the handle of the knife; it felt as if it was all the way in my stomach, and agony spread from the wound to the rest of my body.

"After she bleeds out, cut her body up and throw it down the trash chute. I don't want anyone to find her corpse in here," Nanos said. The guards startled like someone had thrown ice water on them.

"What the hell was that?"

"It came from the door!" the male guard yelled with fear. I hadn't heard anything, but then the sound came again and there was no mistaking it.

It sounded like a battering ram slammed into the steel door of the Safe Room.

“They are breaking in?” Nanos said in confusion. Another screeching cry came from the door. Somehow it was louder than the blaring alarm. The guards jumped up and I saw a flurry of armored figures dash to the hall. Most carried crossbows or short swords.

"Stop them! Protect me!" Jessmei's brother yelled at his guards and then he moved behind the couch. I couldn't move my head to see him but he returned to my field of vision holding his father's hand-and-a-half sword.

The beautiful weapon looked out of place in the traitor's grasp.

I love you Nadea.

My father's voice echoed in my mind. I missed him so much. I wanted to see him, to tell him how much I loved him, and how much I appreciated the life he gave me.

He could have left me to die in the shrine of the mountains. Instead, he treated me like the child he lost. He treated me like I had been given to him by the love of his life.

Sleep my darling. Tomorrow is a new day. Your sword will still be here.

He had been disappointed that I never found a mate. I remembered the conversation about Kaiyer. Father knew that I had feelings for the O'Baarni. He was happy about it instead of fearful. He wanted me to love and to feel love.

It sounded like the door ripped open. There must have been dozens of soldiers out there to break down the steel portal that quickly. I couldn't move my head; all I could see was Nanos quaking with his big sword. I heard a scattering of crossbow bolt fire and screams from the other room.

And I heard bones breaking.

Then there were footsteps. Bare feet walking down the hallway. It sounded like one person. Who could have killed more than a dozen soldiers in a few seconds?

My father and I rode through the foothills of the Teeth Mountains. The air pulled my hair away from my body and made a long brown flag. We came up here often. It was close enough to the keep to be a day long journey, but sometimes during the spring or summer we took a few guards and camped through the night.

If this is what you want to do, I will allow it.

He hadn't been thrilled about the idea of me hunting down the O'Baarni, especially when I asked to go to meet Staril in Astical. My planned journeys would cost several stones of gold, require too much travel, put me at risk, and keep me from him for possibly more than a year.

It is what I want. You know why. Can you convince the king?

I grinned at him and he smiled back with a sigh. He had tried to guide me, but I always ended up getting what I wanted from him.

"I can explain!" Nanos said as he backed up away from me and the entrance to the corridor. His face looked horrified.

"Of course you can." The voice came out like a growl but there was no mistaking whose it was. It yanked me from the memories of my father like no other voice could.

Kaiyer.

He came into my peripheral vision and I tried to turn my head. I couldn't quite see him and I attempted a moan to get his attention, but my body had stopped obeying me. All I felt now was coldness and creeping darkness.

And sleep. I had been fighting it for so long, I could not resist it anymore.

He stepped toward the prince again and into my field of vision. He was naked, or at least seemed to be. It was hard to tell, because he was covered in blood. It ran down his arms and legs like thin crimson paint. Draped across his shoulder was some sort of intestine that coiled around him like a snake. I didn’t understand how he was still alive or where he had been. I must have died already.

"She came here and attempted to kill me." My cousin's voice quivered like a terrified child.

"You probably deserved it. You probably deserve much worse." Kaiyer turned his head and looked down at me. My heart skipped a beat and everything turned to black night except for his face.

Then even Kaiyer faded away from me.

"Nadea. Nadea. Come back to me." I opened my eyes again, but it was all I could manage. He held me in his arms as I dreamed he would have. His face was just inches from mine, but it seemed an eternity away. His green eyes looked like an endless forest. I could walk through those trees forever with him. I wanted to tell him so many things. I wanted to ask him so many things. I wanted to know everything about him. I wanted him to know everything about me, to explain my heritage. He would still love me, even if he knew I was an Ancient.

I wanted to sit with him in my father's study and share memories, discussions, and laughter. But there was no time for us. I could not feel him holding me. I could not feel anything but the cold and numbness.

Then I felt nothing.

Thank you for reading this novel. Don't forget to write a review!
Kaiyer and friends continue their struggles against the Elvens in
The Destroyer-Book 3
. Keep reading for an excerpt!

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Editing and e-book formatting by Ginger Earle
Cover art by Daniel Kamarudin
Typography, illustration and print book formatting by Jason Faraci

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Copyright © 2016 by Michael-Scott Earle

I preferred to spend my early mornings alone.

I awoke at dawn to exercise and stretch as I watched the sun slowly warm the world and wake my troops. Normally, my lieutenants would arrive in my tent for our breakfast and strategy meeting just after I had finished, but we had decided not to meet today. Malek was working with a new batch of recruits, Thayer was doing some survival training with his troops, and I had given leave to Gorbanni and Alexia.

I could let my friends have a day off, but I did not want a break. I studied the map on the table, calculating the various risks to our army against the damage we could do to our enemies. It was somewhat refreshing to do this on my own, and I was so absorbed in it that I only realized the sun had already risen to mid-morning when I heard footsteps approach. A throat cleared at the entrance of my tent and I debated dismissing the visitor.

“Enter.” I changed my mind as I wiped some of the lingering sleep out of my eyes. The footsteps hardly sank into the soft grass outside my tent, so I guessed a female was visiting. It wasn’t Alexia, the blonde woman made absolutely no noise when she walked, and she would just come into my tent without alerting me to her presence.

A dark-haired young woman, maybe a few inches shorter than my six-foot height, carefully ducked under the canvas flap. She carried a large wooden tray with bowls of steaming gruel, a pot of tea, and two covered dishes that smelled like eggs with beef. The woman’s hair was tied back in a high ponytail and her eyes glittered a bright green.

“Kaiyer?" Her eyes searched my face and I heard her heart thunder in her chest.

"That is me." I guessed who this was, but I didn't understand why she had entered my tent.

"I'm Shlara." She smiled confidently, and I understood why Malek had told of her beauty. She was painfully thin though, and I saw the blue network of veins beneath the smooth skin of her arms and neck. She was wearing a set of our dark gray training tunics and pants. It hung tight around her famished body, revealing a pitiful lack of muscle and an emaciated over-emphasis of bone.

"I've heard about you."

"I've heard about you as well. I brought you breakfast. Have you eaten?" She seemed to second guess herself; it was past breakfast time for the rest of the army.

"No, actually, I haven't."

"Why aren't there chairs in your tent?" she asked with a frown. She looked for a place to put the food and the only open spot was either my cot or the table where I stood.

"I'll take that. Thank you." I grasped the wooden tray and wondered for a second how she had gotten the extra plates. Even though the woman was thin, the meals were carefully rationed by the cooking staff. The tray almost didn't fit on the side of the small table. I grabbed a bowl of gruel, dipped a wooden spoon in it, and shoved it down my throat. It burned like molten fire, but my mouth healed almost instantly.

"Why are there no guards outside your tent?"

"Why would I need guards?" I didn't look up at her.

"Couldn't someone come in here and assassinate you?" she answered with a question.

"Who would want to assassinate me?" Our eyes met and I smiled at her mirthfully.

"The Elvens of course!" Her brows knit and she seemed outraged with the idiocy of my response.

"I doubt they could get through the camp."

"What if they did?" She folded her arms and bit her lip.

"If an Elven somehow made it through the camp and got to my tent, I'd probably have to kill it. You may find this hard to believe, but I've killed them before." I chuckled.

"What if they send a half dozen?" She didn't seem to understand my lack of concern.

"I doubt half a dozen could make it through the army. But I've killed that many before." I turned back down to the map and ate another spoonful of the gruel.

Half a minute passed before Shlara cleared her throat again. I looked up at her and noticed she was eyeing the plate of food with one eyebrow raised.

"I forgot to thank you for bringing the food."

"No. You thanked me. I brought food for both of us. I wanted to have breakfast with you." She unfolded her arms and smiled confidently, but I heard her heart race with nervousness.

"I see why Malek likes you so much." Her smile brightened at the mention of Malek. "But I have plans this morning. Perhaps we can have lunch a few months from now, after you begin your training." Her grin faded.

"I have wanted to meet you for so long. We traveled such a great distance." She tried to regain her composure.

"Malek mentioned something of that to me." He had actually been bragging about Shlara for the last week. She had led a group of over two hundred men, women, and children through the wilderness to find us. She had orchestrated the group's escape and killed four Elvens with various weapons the slaves had crafted.

"We have been searching for your camp for sixteen moon cycles. I've heard stories of you and your army. I didn't want to wait for you to come free us." She regained her confidence and pushed her pretty chin up into the air boldly.

"Because of this, you think you deserve some of my time?" I stared at her.

"You normally have breakfast with your lieutenants." She licked her lips nervously and her heart betrayed her poise.

"Yes."

"Just think of me as your next lieutenant then. Actually, consider me your next general." She smiled again and I had to force myself not to grin back. Malek was never wrong about people and this girl already impressed me. She bordered on arrogant, but not without cause.