Page 1 of Slaying the Shadow Prince
1
Drue
Drue Emmerson patrolled the northernmost point of the fallen kingdom of Naarva and looked into the festering darkness. As she gazed upon the looming clouds and the gathering night, she could scarcely contain her rage. Her homeland, the kingdom of gardens, had once been a place teeming with life and colour, its provinces lush, its gardens overflowing with vibrant blooms and its skies a soaring blue. But that was then.
Now, fear was the constant companion of all those who remained in Naarva, always begging the question: who would be next? The shadow wraiths had taken not only the kingdom’s soul, but Drue’s mother and brothers as well, leaving only her and her father behind.
She was one of many with such a tale.
The capital, Ciraun, along with the palace within its citadel, had been the first to fall. There had been no sign of the royal family in nearly a year; all the while their people lost their lives and loved ones, one way or another. An entire kingdom was scattered to the wind, with most now living underground or in rural strongholds across the broken lands, constantly on alert for the next attack. Drue’s countrymen were still reported missing on a weekly basis and there were rumours of an increasing threat to what little remained of her beloved homeland.
‘We shouldn’t be out here,’ said Coltan, her childhood friend, following her eyeline to the Broken Isles across the seas to the east, and then to the west where the Veil towered. Even from a distance it was a sight to behold: a wall of billowing mist that surrounded all the midrealms, a barrier of protection, so they’d been taught. A shield between the people and the creatures that lurked beyond. A shield that was fracturing.
‘Youshouldn’t be here,’ Drue snapped, his comment only reigniting her frustration.
‘I didn’t want you out here alone.’
‘I wouldn’t have been. If you hadn’t messed with the patrol roster, I’d be here with Adrienne.’And I wish I was, her clipped words implied. She would choose the company of her best friend and the general of the guerrilla forces any day over the entitled demands of Coltan. What felt like a lifetime ago, Drue had made a mistake with him. They had known each other their whole lives, and thinking he understood the grief she was going through, she had sought comfort in his arms. She’d been paying for that mistake ever since.
‘I was just looking out for you,’ Coltan said, his mouth downturned.
But Drue didn’t have the patience for hurt feelings of his own making. ‘You were just sticking your nose in where it doesn’t belong. Trying to claim what’s not yours to claim.’
Coltan made a noise of disbelief.
Unclenching her jaw, Drue ignored him and scanned the burnished skies again. It was near dusk and she hadn’t meant to stay out so late, but the latest less-than-detailed reports from this perimeter had bothered her. She had wanted to check for herself.
Drue was one of the best rangers to have risen from the fall of Naarva. She had shed her noblewoman’s skin and shaped herself anew in the wake of all that death and destruction, spitting in the face of laws and tradition.
Her father had too, and as one of the few folk left who knew how to manage such things, he’d taken over the forge of Naarva and the crucial task of hammering the blades of the Warswords. For even amid the fall of a kingdom, the elite warriors of Thezmarr must have their weapons. They were the protectors of the midrealms, the only men capable of slaying a shadow wraith.
But Drue refused to believe they were Naarva’s only hope, for they’d failed her people before. She had joined the guerrilla forces as a ranger, hoping one day she might discover the monsters’ lair, that she might be the one to set the fucking thing ablaze and watch it burn. But, cloaked in dark magic, it had eluded her for a year.
Drue herself could practically smell a shadow wraith a mile off, and she had no shortage of rage to wield against them. Her hand drifted to the steel cuff at her wrist that she’d forged herself… An experiment that had become her obsession, the thing that filled her mind when the movement of constant travel ceased. She ran her fingertips over its dented surface. She was no master smith like her father, but the cuff wasn’t for looking pretty. It sensed the power-hungry magic of the wraiths, warming against her skin when they were near. It was a glimmer of hope, on an otherwise bleak horizon, that there might just be a way to keep the monsters of the midrealms at bay.
‘Drue?’ Coltan’s voice jolted her from her reverie. ‘What’s that?’
She followed his pointed finger to something in the clouds moving towards them, fast. Her eyes narrowed, her hand shifting to her cutlass, but pausing as the creature came into full view. A sigh of relief whistled between her teeth.
‘It’s just Terrence,’ she replied, not taking her eyes off the wide expanse of those soaring wings closing in. She braced herself for her hawk’s landing.
Sure enough, she had to dig her heels into the earth as a powerful gust of wind hit and the bird’s talons gripped her shoulder, his substantial weight settling there. Drue found it comforting and reached up to stroke his feathers fondly.
Terrence gave her finger an affectionate nip with his beak before he cast his discerning yellow gaze upon Coltan with unmistakable disdain. Drue loved him for it, especially when it made Coltan yield a step back from her.
The hawk was an impeccable judge of character, to be sure.
‘I really wish you wouldn’t bring him everywhere,’ Coltan muttered.
‘Adrienne loves him.’
‘Because Adrienne shares your sadistic sense of humour.’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘Please,’ Coltan scoffed, starting after her as she continued along the kingdom’s perimeter. ‘The two of you and that damn bird love ganging up on me.’
‘We do no such thing.’
