PROLOGUE

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Edarri Palace

Kingdom of Elan

 

 

Prince Jair Serenth, fourth in line to the throne of Elan, came awake in his bed. The hearthfire had gone out. His head servant, Lillil had stopped leaving candles lit in his sleeping quarters three months ago when Jair turned seven. His father had said it was time to start acting like a man and not be afraid of the shadows. The only light in the room came from the full moon softly illumi‐
nating his bed through his window.
He rubbed his eyes as they grew accustomed to the light. Shadows danced all around him. Despite what his father had said, he was afraid of them.
“Who’s there?” he called out softly.
He swallowed, doing his best not to call out louder and reveal his
fear of the dark.

​What had awakened him and set his heart beating so frantically? “Hello?” he called out a little louder.
A scream pierced the silence and turned Jair’s blood cold. The heart wrenching sound was followed by another from someplace else in the castle, and then the wail of a woman. A nurse? Men began shouting commands.
“Report! Report!” Jair heard his father’s guardsmen yelling.
“Two in the west wing!”
Jair didn’t know if he should get out of bed and hide, or run, or...
he looked into the shadows. Was someone there? “Hello?”
He whimpered. Who had screamed? What was happening? Where
was his father, or Captain Pairi?
Another scream from the east wing. Not too far from him! Were
the womens’ cries coming from his brothers’ nurses? Was one of them his step-mother? It was followed by the heart twisting cry of a child. His older brother Toria! It was a harrowing sound that reached Jair’s young ears and wedged a place deep within him.
Jair covered his ears with his palms. “Father?” he called out boldly. He scampered from the bed and hurried just out of the light.
Men were running, their boots clicking on the floor. Commands were being shouted. More people were filling the air with their screaming and wailing his brothers’ names.
“Bialla!”
“Diagan! No!”
“Toria! Oh, Toria!
His brothers! No! Jair covered his ears and squeezed his eyes shut.
He was fourth. He would be next.
The children were being murdered. He had heard Captain Pairi
warning his father of it happening. The heirs to the throne had many enemies. Sooner or later an attempt would occur. It was sooner.
He had also heard enough conversations to know who was the boys’ greatest enemy.
His gaze shot across the room where he knew his small sword was. Should he go get it? Could he use it to truly kill another person?

Where was his father? Why hadn’t the king taken his captain’s advice and done something to prevent this and keep his sons safer?
He felt his eyes burn with tears.
I will keep you safe, Jair.
He blinked the tears away. Who was that?
The chamber door burst open.
His heart thrashed against his ribs. No! He wasn’t about to die
without a fight! He was ready to make a run for his sword when a hand reached down and took him by the collar of his nightshirt.
“Come, Your Highness! There isn’t time!”
It was Captain Pairi! Jair didn’t know whether to cheer or weep like an infant. “Are my brothers...? Where is my father?”
“There’s no time for that, my lord. We must go!” The captain dragged Jair toward the window.
What? No! They couldn’t–it was too high up! “No! I will not jump–”
In the next instant, he was wrapped up in the robes of the captain’s uniform and falling from the window.
Time seemed to slow down while they were falling. Jair looked up into the captain’s slate gray eyes and in that moment of his life, under‐ stood what it felt like to believe death was imminent. “I don’t want to die.”
“We aren’t going to die.”
They crashed into a nest of branches from a stand of red maple trees beneath Jair’s window. Branches cracked and scraped across Jair’s face and arms that were tightly coiled around the captain’s neck. But despite a few cuts and scrapes, the trees broke their fall and kept them from breaking their necks. The captain had kept his word. They weren’t dead.
“You didn’t scream.” Captain Pairi’s voice was warm through Jair’s dark hair while the prince looked down at the tangle of branches where they landed, and the ground about five feet below.
Jair’s eyes felt as if they might fall out from shock and fear when the captain held up his sword with the hand that wasn’t clutching him to his chest and began chopping at the branches below them, at the nest that had saved them.
They fell free, with the captain landing like a cat on his feet and Jair still in his arms.
“Are you hurt, my lord?”
Jair finally breathed. “The outside of me is unharmed,” he said, unclamping his arms from around the captain’s neck. He rubbed his palms over his arms, and chest. “But I can’t speak for the inside. What–”
His words were whisked away with him when Captain Pairi carried him away from the trees toward the Torenka River. Where was he taking him?
Jair strained to look over his shoulder to see his home. “My brothers.”
“Nothing can be done for them, my lord. I will pray that my God comforts you and gives you strength to fulfill your destiny.”
Jair didn’t want to think of his destiny. As the king’s now only living heir, he would someday be the king of Elan.That is, if he lived.
His head became dizzy and he slumped over backward. He was grateful that the captain became aware of his weakened condition immediately and held him a little tighter while they ran.
“If you pass out I can’t promise that I won’t eat you if I get hungry enough.”
Jair’s eyes opened wide. “Then I will stay awake and stab you in the eye if you show your teeth.”
The captain threw back his head and laughed with genuine amuse‐ ment as he ran. “You make threats with pale skin and a quaking heart.” He looked at Jair a little more closely. “Are you ill?”
Yes, Jair felt ill over losing his brothers, over almost being murdered in his bed along with them. But even more was that Jair knew the weight on his father’s shoulders was immense. An entire country depended on the king. Jair would have to have guards every‐ where he went. He would never be free. He would be forced to marry someone his father believed was most beneficial to the throne. Have sons with his wife, the way Jair’s mother had, while the woman he truly loved waited in the shadows for his wife to die.
No! King Teleh’s second wife, Queen Maya was not responsible for killing his brothers. No. His father would never have allowed it.
“Was my half-brother, Tarrant killed?”
The captain was quiet for a moment. Then, “He was alive and being brought to safety when I went to your room.”
Jair’s lips trembled. He fought not to faint, not to cry. “She...I...”
An arrow landed close by in the trunk of a tree. The captain ran faster.
“Is it them?” Jair asked in a hollow whisper. “Is it them?”
“Yes,” the captain told him and came to a stop. “Stay down.” Peeking out from behind a thick tree trunk where the captain set
him down, Jair watched seven Assassins reach the captain and surround him.
Even in the moonlight, Jair almost couldn’t see them, not because of their dark clothes, but because they moved like moths, fluttering in and out of shadows.
Jair blinked and three of the ethereal figures were down. The captain hadn’t unsheathed his blade. Or had he?
Two of the Assassins must have seen Jair, for they leaped forward, swords drawn and ready to kill him. The captain’s swift arms stopped them. First, he unarmed them by taking hold of their hands in each of his and twisting them in an unnatural position until the Assassins cried out and dropped their weapons. Then the captain elbowed one in the nose, and kicked him in the shin, breaking his bone. The assailant went down. The captain was already doing the same to the next man...and Jair hadn’t even taken a second breath.
The last two gave it a valiant effort but went down after the captain cracked their kneecaps.
“Stay close to me,” Captain Pairi commanded when he returned to Jair. He pulled him closer, clasped his collar, and continued running, lifting Jair’s feet off the ground.
“I can’t!” Jair cried out and yanked himself free. He swiped the tears away from his eyes and stared at the captain. “Why did you save me? I would have preferred to die with my brothers.”
“That’s noble of you,” the captain replied, moving quickly for him. When he reached him, he picked Jair up in his arms. “But it doesn’t matter anymore what you prefer. Go ahead and cry if you feel the desire to do so. Have a good one. I do it myself at times.”
“A prince shouldn’t cry.”
“Says who?”
“My father, the king!”
The captain was silent while he ran. He could barely breathe by the
time they reached the docks and the fishermens’ boats along the shoreline.
“Where are we going?”
The captain turned to look behind them while he caught his breath. “Far away.”
“But the kingdom!” the little prince protested.
“My lord,” his rescuer set him down on his feet and bent to look him in the eye. “You must forget the kingdom. Do you understand? At least until the Lord wishes to send you back to Elan and restore you to your rightful place. While you wait, you are no longer a Prince of Elan.”
“What am I then?” Jair asked him, wide-eyed.
“You’re a regular boy.” He placed his big hand on Jair’s shoulder. “It’ll be alright. It will always be alright. Remember that and be grateful for everyday the good Lord gives you. Now come, we must leave.”
He took hold of Jair’s hand and turned for one of the boats.
A man stood in their path. His gaze was locked on Jair, his eyes wide. He’d heard them. He looked even older than the captain, forty years maybe. He wasn’t dressed in blacks and grays like the Assassins. He wore loose tan pants tucked into his water boots and a dingy shirt beneath his long, thin coat. He smelled of fish and the sea.
He held up his hands in terror when the captain raised his sword. Jair covered the captain’s hand that was holding him. This man wasn’t a killer. He’d done nothing to them. Jair wouldn’t let Captain Pairi kill him.
The captain looked down at him for an instant to see the prince shake his head. He took another, clearer look at the man cowering before him and lowered his weapon.
The fisherman glanced down at Jair and gave him a thankful smile. “Come this way.”
They followed him onto an empty fishing boat. “The other fish‐ ermen will be arriving soon. Stay back there.” He pointed behind several barrels of something that smelled foul, and made the three- hour-long trip across the Rivers Torenka and Lanris to the shores of Vendica unbearable and unforgettable. When they finally anchored at the docks of Vendica, the captain thanked the fisherman who’d helped him, and then warned him to forget them and never mention them to anyone.
“If I find out that you told anyone, I will find you and kill you. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Sir.”
As the captain pulled Jair away, the prince turned to look over his shoulder.
The fisherman saw him, smiled, and bowed low.
Their journey wasn’t any better once they were back on land. Vendica was cold and the captain was leading them toward the snow- capped mountains in the north.
Jair didn’t have a coat with him.
“I’m not going to use any titles with you anymore.”
Jair wanted to breathe normally again. The thought of not being
royal with enemies everywhere, was appealing.
“What will you call me, then?”
“You will be called Joah from this moment on.”
The prince stopped and tugged on the captain’s sleeve. “You...You
mean I won’t even be Jair anymore?”
When his teeth chattered, the captain picked him up and stared into his dark eyes. “You will be Joah Makai and you will live. Understand?”
The prince could barely see him through the tears about to fall from his eyes. “Who is Joah Makai?”
“Just a regular boy. Remember?” the captain told him, sounding unsure if giving him a different identity was the right thing to do. How was Jair to know if the captain didn’t?
Just a regular boy. How many times had he thought about not being royal, of having friends and being allowed to play? But not like this. His family was dead. His brothers, killed by...Assassins.
This wasn’t the time to let his heart break. If he was going to start living as a regular boy, their lie had to be without fault.
“Won’t people know who I am when they find out that you’re Captain Edder Piari? The king’s most dangerous warrior?”
The captain stared at him, his unblinking gaze would have unset‐ tled another boy, but Jair didn’t think he would ever be the same again after tonight.
“You’re thoughtful for a boy of seven. I hear you're the best in all your classes.”
“It’s only a matter of thinking,” Jair said softly, like a boy hesitant to speak too much, and an arrogant prince in training to be king, “You risked your life for me tonight, Captain. Shouldn’t I make certain I live?”
The captain narrowed his flinty eyes on him, and then smiled ever so slightly. “Yes, of course. Of course you should live. No one will know who I am. I’ll be changing my name as well. I am Ezra Makai, and you are my son.”
“What?” Jair let his mouth fall open. “No! I can’t do that. It’s trea‐ son. My father is the king!”
The captain’s smile faded and his eyes grew darker, like the sky just before a storm. His bearded jaw was tightly clenched when he spoke. “Joah, do not doubt that you’ll die if anyone discovers who you are. They’re not going to stop searching for a while. That’s why we have to go so far. But if you would rather go back and continue being Prince Jair of Elan–”
“No! I just...” Jair hated himself for the tears streaming down his cheeks. What did he want to say? He didn’t know. In one night he lost his entire family, his country, his identity.
He looked forward, at the road they were traveling and let the wind snatch his tears away.
“It’s all right. Everything will be alright,” the captain promised, wrapping him tighter in his robes. “I won’t leave your side. I’ll teach you about God and about defending yourself until you’re better than I am. Trust me, Joah.”