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jaarundelauthor · 2 months ago

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Here's the first chapter of Apprentice Witch, the first book in the Venus King series of supernatural mystery books, which will be released in March 2025:

Venus King pulled her worn woollen jumper tighter around her shivering body in a vain attempt to keep out the March chill. It was almost spring, but her tiny flat was still freezing. It had been an especially cold winter, yet for most of it, she hadn’t had enough money to turn on the heating. Especially since losing her dishwasher job two months ago. She’d spent the whole winter shivering underneath layers of worn-out clothes, the holes growing ever bigger. She didn’t have enough money to replace those, either.

She was using her sluggish internet connection for her near daily ritual of scrolling through rental websites, looking for a cheaper place to live. Once again, she didn’t find anything. Even the box apartments covered in mould were out of her price range.

She sighed again as her fingers played with her long auburn curls, now lank and dull from the cheap pound shop shampoo. She glanced around at the exposed plaster, which she had attempted to decorate by putting up paintings. Her own paintings. She made a meagre living as an artist, but that was going even worse than usual. She had a few freelance clients and got the occasional donation from her art blog, but otherwise she had to rely upon temporary retail jobs to make up the rest of her expenses. Now even those jobs were becoming just as hard to find as art jobs.

When she had graduated from art school fourteen years ago, she had known it would be tough. But she had imagined that by age 35, she would have figured something out. She had never thought she would still be living this way. For years now she had been trapped in this cycle - she would move to a cheaper place, the rent would go up or she would lose her job, then six months later she would be moving to a new place to start all over again. She could blame the economy and the job market as much as she wanted, but she was starting to think that the real problem was her. She just wasn’t good enough.

It seemed that the cycle was finally coming to an end, but not in the way she’d wanted it to. Now she couldn’t even move somewhere cheaper, because there were no cheaper places left.

She glanced at her phone (it was five years old with a cracked screen, but she couldn’t afford a new one). Not for the first time, she contemplated calling her parents and asking if she could move back into her childhood bedroom in their house in Hatfield, a suburb in the Midlands. They still kept it as a ‘spare bedroom’, but she knew they were saving it for her to return and live with them. That was the last thing she wanted to resort to.

She knew she was being too prideful. She knew her parents would welcome her back with open arms. They had offered to let her move back in with them several times before. But she also knew that moving back in with them would mean taking whatever job they found for her. It would mean giving up her art and all of her dreams. It wasn’t that her parents weren’t supportive of her creative endeavours, they were just realists. They had warned her before she had started art school how hard it would be to make a living as an artist, and she had unfortunately proven them right. But what other choice did she have? Her dreams wouldn’t pay her rent or fill her stomach. They wouldn’t turn on the heating or buy her clothes without holes in them. She had to finally pull her head out of the clouds and start living in the real world. She wasn’t going to cast a magic spell and find a solution to her problems.

Just as she was about to close her laptop and pick up her phone to dial her parents’ number, something on the screen caught her eye; a room listing she hadn’t noticed before.

Lodger needed for room in pleasant rustic house in south east Kent. Nice views. Ideal for single adults or anybody looking for a change. Must be willing to leave offerings and maybe feed the cat.

That was odd. She had been searching for flats in the local area, but must have accidentally changed the settings for the entire country.

Still, it seemed ideal. There were a few grainy pictures she couldn’t quite make out but from the look of them, the room seemed nice. So did the communal rooms she would be sharing with the landlord. Her hand hovered over the contact button.

She stalled. There had to be a catch. There was always a catch. Her eyes drifted to the rental price, preparing to be turned away.

“Two hundred pounds a month!” she said out loud. “No, that has to be a mistake.”

But she read the listing again and it was right - £200 per calendar month, including utilities. Even Venus’ measly freelance earnings would cover that.

She shook her head. It had to be a prank or a scam. There was no way this could be legitimate. But it was the only affordable place she had found in the entire country. She knew she should close her laptop and call her parents, but something was stopping her, like some invisible force was guiding her hands. She must have wanted it to be real so badly that her body was moving on its own.

Her eye caught the day the room had been listed and her heart sank. The ad had been put up on the website a week ago. Even the overpriced places usually only stayed up for a few days before somebody snatched them up. If this place at this price was real, somebody would have taken it days ago. The owner had probably just forgotten to take the ad down.

Her hand hovered over her phone. Could she really afford to take the chance? Would it hurt just to call and check?

She found herself unlocking her phone and dialling the number listed in the advertisement almost automatically. As she heard the dial tone, she told herself that this was foolish and she was going to be scammed and nobody was going to pick up anyway. She was setting herself up for even more disappointment.

Almost a whole minute passed and Venus surmised it really was a false listing. She pulled the phone away from her ear and was about to hang up when she heard a voice.

“Hello,” a woman said on the other end.

Venus almost dropped her phone. She barely managed to hold it to her ear.

“Y-yes. Hello. I’m uh… calling about the room to rent. Is it still available?”

“Yes, it is.”

Venus sat up straighter. She had fully expected to hear her say ‘No’ and hang up the phone.

“Oh. And… and the price? Two hundred a month?”

“If that’s fine with you. Utilities are included, of course.”

“That’s great. Perfect,” Venus said, hardly believing what was happening. She fully expected a tv crew to burst in at any moment and reveal she was being pranked.

“Excellent. When do you want to move in?”

“Immediately! I mean, any time is good with me.”

“Let’s see now… How about a week from today? That will give me enough time to get everything ready.”

“That’s fine,” Venus said, looking at her calendar. It was empty, of course. She never had much to do.

“Okay, the address is Moonrise Manor, number thirteen, Herla Street, Cliffwood. If you can’t find your way then ask the people in the village. They’ll point you in the right direction.”

Venus scribbled the address down on the back of a receipt. “I’ve got it, thank you. I’ll see you in a week’s time.”

“Yes, I’ll see you then.”

“You didn’t actually-” a high-pitched voice sounded in the background before the line was cut off.

Venus stared at the phone. The line must have picked up somebody else for a moment. She shook her head. It had to be her overactive imagination again. Ever since she’d been a child, everybody said she saw and heard things which weren’t really there. Her parents and teachers had always said she was ‘away with the fairies’. She had spent hours at the bottom of the garden talking to her imaginary friends and drawing pictures of make-believe creatures. As she’d grown older, the other children had teased her for it, so she’d kept it a secret. Even as an adult, she occasionally thought she saw things out of the corner of her eye or things that other people claimed weren’t there. It seemed she had never truly let go of her childhood fantasies.

Still, she could hardly believe her luck! She had actually found a place she could afford! She would have sprung up and danced around the room if it was big enough, but if she tried, she would have hit the walls and probably sent more loose plaster falling to the dirty carpet. Maybe her cycle of poverty was finally coming to an end. Maybe just one thing in her life was going to work out for once.

The next week was a flurry of packing and change-of-address forms and looking up train timetables. She had been worried about ending her lease early, but the landlord seemed eager to let her go. She had been late with rent several times. Still, it was over now. She wouldn’t have to worry about that anymore.

The only thing she had trouble with was finding the address her new landlady had given her. Looking it up, she saw that Cliffwood was a small town on an island off the coast of Kent, like a bubble floating off the tip of Margate. That would be a change, at least. She had grown up in a regular middle-class suburb and since then had mostly lived in run-down apartment buildings in grey brick cities.

Yet no matter how many times she tried, she couldn’t actually find the address she’d been given. Typing it into Google Maps only showed her an empty field. She’d even tried looking for it in some ordnance survey maps in the bookshop, but it wasn’t in any of those, either. Still, the landlady had said she could just ask the people in town for directions. She was sure that once she got there, she would find her way.

Exactly a week after the phone call, she was sitting in a train carriage, her travel bag on her lap, watching the English countryside zoom past the window. She’d had just enough money left in her bank account for the train ticket and to ship the rest of her things which she couldn’t carry. She’d brought her backpack and a suitcase with her essentials - her laptop, some clothes, and toiletries. Everything else - her old paintings, art supplies, books, and the rest of her clothes - she was having delivered.

She was so excited, she couldn’t even pick up a book to read or scroll through her phone. Her head was spinning with the knowledge that her financial and housing problems might soon be over.

The train journey took a few hours and by early afternoon she stood on a platform in Canterbury in east Kent. Apparently since Cliffwood was such a small and remote village, the main train lines didn’t stop there, so she’d need to transfer to a local train for the last leg of the journey.

It was a Saturday in March so the station platform was practically empty. There were only a few shoppers and tourists lingering around. None of them seemed to acknowledge the overhead speaker announcing the 13:47 train to Cliffwood. Venus stood close to the edge of the platform, almost bouncing on her heels if she wasn’t weighed down by her heavy suitcase. She already felt like she was being pulled forward, and she wasn’t even on the train yet.

Finally, the train approached the station. Or more specifically, it chugged up. Venus took a step back. She hadn’t expected to see an old steam train spilling clouds of water vapour into the air. She thought trains like these were only used for movie shoots. But there it was, pulling up in front of her. The sleek black metal glistened in the sun and plumes of smoke emanated across the entire station. Pistons and gears whirled slower and slower, letting out almost guttural growls. As it came to a sputtering stop, the door lined up right next to where she was standing, as if it were inviting her in.

She glanced around. Perhaps this was a mistake. This couldn’t be a regular passenger train. But nobody else on the station even seemed to notice the train was there! They either stared at their phones or frowned at the timetable board.

She reached for the door handle, only for the door to be pushed open from the inside. A man stood before her with a moustache almost too big for his face and a navy-blue shirt, trousers, and cap which looked more like a costume than a work uniform. He stared down at her, looking her right in the eye.

“Anyone for Cliffwood?” he said. He had probably meant to announce it to the entire platform, yet he seemed to be speaking only to her.

Venus could only nod and hand out her ticket.

The man plucked it out of her hand and inspected it for a second before using the device he held to punch a hole into it and handing it back to her.

“Let me help you with that, Miss,” he said, picking up her suitcase.

It was a good thing he did, because it was a high step up to the train carriage. The man had to take Venus’ arm to steady her as she climbed up. He shut the door behind her, put her suitcase in one of the luggage racks, then turned back to her and tilted his hat.

“Have a blessed journey,” he said before vanishing into the next carriage.

The train lurched slightly, moving away from the station. Venus staggered into the nearest empty seat, which wasn’t difficult because she was the only person in the carriage. It was far nicer than the train she’d just ridden on with rows of comfortable plush seats, wide tables, and wooden walls. No sterile plastic or torn upholstery. She wished she could have made the entire journey in this train. It felt almost more like being in a living room than a train carriage.

Outside the window, the sights of the city gradually gave way to vast, sprawling countryside, just waking up from its winter slumber. Venus sighted spring lambs and flowers already sprouting. She wasn’t even at her new home yet and she was enjoying it already.

After about twenty minutes of chugging along, Venus spotted the ocean. Soon she could hear the train’s movement changing slightly, becoming almost metallic. She saw from the window that it was crossing over a long bridge. Peeking out, she could just about see a slight jut of land at the other end. This was it. She would soon be in Cliffwood.

As the ocean passed by underneath her, an odd sensation overwhelmed her. It was as if she had left one place and entered another. Her nervous anticipation was replaced by a sense of calm, as if she was right where she needed to be. As if this was where her life had always been leading her.

The ocean gave way to countryside once again, and it was even more wondrous. Seagulls cawed as they soared around the tall white cliffs. Waves of clear blue ocean lapped against the shining yellow beaches. The fields sprung with flowers Venus couldn’t even recognise. It wasn’t much different than the countryside she’d been passing by for miles, yet it somehow seemed brighter and more alive, like something from a storybook. It made a real change from the urban Hell Venus was used to. She could hardly believe that this was going to be her new home.

That was if the online advertisement really had been genuine and she wasn’t being led to an island almost completely separate from the rest of the country for no reason. She pushed that thought from her mind. Nothing like that was going to happen, she was sure. She’d had enough bad luck in her life already. She wasn’t going to get anymore. But she knew that wasn’t exactly how it worked. She would just have to wait and see what happened, good or bad.

“Cliffwood. The next station is Cliffwood. This is the last stop,” the overhead announcement interrupted her thoughts.

Venus scrambled up and retrieved her suitcase, barely avoiding having it tumble on top of her head. She only vaguely pondered that the train hadn’t stopped at any other stations as it slowed down and she caught her first glimpse of the village. She could already see brick houses and steam floating up from chimneys.

The train came to a gradual stop and Venus carefully juggled her suitcase and backpack down the steps. She almost smacked them straight into a woman in a smart business suit getting onto the train. She muttered under her breath as she struggled past. Venus tried to turn back and apologise, but the woman had already climbed the stairs and was hastening into the carriage. She only caught a glimpse of her shining diamond earrings and the bright red soles of her expensive heels.

Once she had clamoured her way down to the platform, bags still intact, she took a gasp at the sight of the town. She’d seen a few pictures of it online, but none of them could do justice for the real thing. It was like she’d stepped into a real-life fairy tale. Everything was rustic and stylish. A real old country village. She almost felt out of place standing there in her hoodie and faded ripped jeans. But not by much. This was exactly the type of place she’d always preferred, but had never thought she could actually live in.

She was finally home.

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indie-author-n-b · 1 year ago

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The Man in the Gray Cloak

“Princess? Princess Amelia! Oh, where is that girl? Princess!”

Amelia sighed at the sound of the maid shouting for her. This was the first chance in weeks she had to herself in a long time, and she had only just sat down at the foot of the lone tree in the castle courtyard to read her book when the panicked cries had begun. Her maidservant worried over her way too much for not being Amelia’s nanny. Not anymore, anyway.

“Princess! Hello? Where are- THERE you are!”

The pudgy woman barrelled down the stairs from the castle doors to the tree. She tripped on the hem of the baggy, dull red and orange maid's robe she wore, causing her to stumble down the flight of steps to the courtyard. Her black hair bounced in its small bun at the back of her head as she halted, wheezing for breath. She had been a maid at Naryn Keep for many years before Amelia was born, and no longer had the energy to run through the entire castle. This didn’t stop her from doing so anyway.

“M’Lady, you know your mother does not want you wandering around the castle grounds! You nearly gave her a heart attack! Certainly almost had one myself on her behalf!”

Amelia brushed a lock of her brown hair behind her ear as she closed her book and stood back up, brushing a little dirt from her warm orange sundress. The emblazoned crest of the Kingdom of Naryn, a golden crown set above a blazing fire of oranges and reds, shimmered in the sunlight over her left breast.

“I have been stuck inside for ages, Elizabeth,” Amelia said, stretching. “I needed to get some fresh air and sunlight. Besides, there are guards all over the castle grounds. Nothing can get to me here. I am still well within the castle walls.” She gestured to the castle gates, still a more-than-safe distance away from the front of the castle.

“No ma’am!” Elizabeth exclaimed, waddling between Amelia and the gate as she threw her arms flapping out to each side. “You can’t be saying things like that. I can’t have you wandering away! One moment you’re safely within Narynian grounds, next, you are in the grasp of the Guild!”

“I am nineteen, Elizabeth, not four.”

“I know, M’lady, but now, since the Guild is-”

“You know very well that the Guild hasn’t attacked for several years. If they were going to attack, they would’ve done so by now. Now, if you excuse me, I’d like to get back to Simeon Florez.” Amelia waved the book she was trying to read at Elizabeth to punctuate her point. “The Secret of the Fifth Crown is the last book, and I haven’t had any time to read so much as a single page out of it.”

“There’s been talk, your Highness, amongst the guards.”

“Is it talk about secret nations and sacred knights? What about an ancient prophecy about two swords, locked in eternal combat? You know, not real life?”

“Princess, this is serious! Some are saying the Guild is building in numbers. They might come and finish what they started ten years ago.”

The sarcastic grin that had been building fell away from Amelia’s face. “They did not start anything,” she said, turning away from Elizabeth. She clutched the book to her chest, gripping it tightly as she attempted to calm her breathing.

“Oh, my dear!” Elizabeth clasped her hands over her mouth. “I’m so sorry, M’lady. I didn’t mean to-”

“No… I’m fine.”

Indeed, it had been ten years since Guild had last attacked. And yet, she couldn’t push the memory out of her mind. No child should have to witness what she had gone through that day.

“M’lady-”

“I said I am fine.”

A short moment of silence passed between them as Amelia collected herself. Her tears were not for the world to see. After this, Amelia sighed in resignation and turned back to Elizabeth.

“Alright, let’s go in before Mother gets too worried.”

“Too late for that- I mean, the Queen is at her wit’s end! She doesn’t want anything-”

What the maid was going to say was lost. A platoon of thirty knights came running from within the castle to surround the princess, weapons were drawn, faces fixed on the gates.

“Stay on your guard, men!” a forceful voice bellowed from behind. Closely following the call was a tall and sturdy man, his black beard glistening in the daylight. Nestled on his shaven head was the ruby crown of the nation he loved dearly, a nation he led proudly. This was King Ezekiel III, the King of Naryn.

“Father, what’s happening?” Amelia asked.

“A man has been apprehended from the city.”

“One man?” Amelia asked, confused by the concern. “This seems extreme for one man.”

The king looked at his daughter, his eyes wide in a way Amelia had never seen when he spoke of the Guild. “He’s no ordinary man.”

“What do you mean?”

The king placed his hands at his sides, the fingers of his right dancing on the hilt of his sword. “If the reports are to be believed, he has infiltrated Guild-controlled land and came out unscathed and with followers clothed in the bloodied armor of the Guild's warriors. He has defeated massive divisions of the fiercest mercenaries money could afford. By himself, no less.”

“It sounds like he’s against the Guild, not us.”

“Aye, that’s what the stories would have you think, but from the word coming from Aslodora, I don’t think he’s anyone's ally.”

“What word comes from Aslodora?”

“Get inside, Amelia. This man is more dangerous than anything the Guild-”

The king was cut off by a guard shouting from the parapets of the castle wall.

“Who goes there?”

“Dawnlight patrol squad twelve with the prisoner in hand,” a voice replied with urgency.

“Is he detained?”

“Affirmative.”

The king demanded that the gates be opened. The gears that controlled the giant iron doors whirred to life, slowly lurching outwards revealing the guards on the outside: a company of twelve men, swords clutched in their right hands. At their center was something that Amelia rarely saw used: a large glowing orange orb. Any person held within one was suspended in midair while the guards took the orb where they needed to be. If the prisoner tried to break out of the orb, the surface would give them an intense shock, dissuading a second attempt.

If the guard had to deploy this measure to capture this man, it was a testament to the dangers he was capable of.

The king approached, looking at what floated within the orb. A man of average build, wearing a long gray cloak that covered much of his figure. The only things left visible were the bottom of his face, from just under his nose, and his hands. In his left hand was an old walking stick: tall, straight, smooth, and worn from years of use, no doubt.

The man looked at the king, despite the hood covering his eyes.

“Ah, King Ezekiel III of Naryn,” the man said, his voice slightly muffled by the orb. “It is an honor to be brought before you today.”

The figure bowed with his head and arms as a sign of respect, but in a grand enough fashion to make one question if it were feigned.

“May the fires of your rule burn forevermore.”

The praise he spoke was befitting when addressing a king, but his tone was loose and playful, almost as if he were speaking to an old friend.

“What business do you have in the Kingdom of Fire, wanderer?”

The man smiled. “I have no agenda other than my own, and surely not one that would tamper with your affairs. In fact, I had no intention of entering the castle gates until your loyal men nearly subdued me.”

Nearly? He is contained within the orb, isn’t he?

As soon as the thought crossed Amelia’s mind, it became obvious that he wasn't.

The orb that the man was held within was not designed to open from the inside. The only way to deactivate it was for a member of the guard to input a code into the side of it. This fact did not stop the orb from shattering outward, hitting all twelve of the guards near it. Most of them were merely shocked, but four of them had been paralyzed from the impact.

In an adrenaline-fueled panic, each of the men quickly unsheathed their melee weapons of choice: long rapiers of stout, firm metal. With a press of a button on the hilt, the energy crystals within the swords whirred to life, setting the swords ablaze with intense flames that flickered off each man’s form.

The hooded stranger seemed unfazed at this turn of events. If anything the grin plastered on his face grew wider. “Ah, the cherished Elikri blades of Naryn. I’ve been yearning to see these in action again for years!”

The figure planted his feet a shoulder’s width apart and crouched slightly, shifting most of his weight forward into his left foot. He then lifted the walking stick in both hands, extending his left hand toward the guard while keeping his right hand back.

“Don’t disappoint me.”

The Narynian soldiers had trained for years on end to be able to allow several individuals to move as a single unit, moving as one mind and soul. Yet this man showed no indication of standing down. A firm tree before a blazing inferno.

The soldiers attacked the hooded man with a flurry of blade falls with absolute precision. The soldiers knew how to time their attacks, so no two swords would land at once. A constant stream of strikes and stabs fell upon the man.

However, the man in the gray cloak maneuvered with an elegance of his own, adding his steps to this dance with death. Each blow was parried with godlike precision, regardless of where the strikes came from. It was as if he was able to sense where each man would strike, as he almost beat the guards to where they would send their Elikri. Each blade fall met the staff with a loud clang and a shower of sparks, feeding into the already emblazoned swords. The man’s staff could not have been made of wood, as it appeared to be at a glance. Otherwise, it would have burst into flames from hitting the Elikri.

Amelia saw the widening eyes of the guards. They could not beat him. They could not even deter him. But the steadfast will of the Kingdom of Fire forced them to keep up the attack with all they had.

The man must have known that the guards were not able to beat him, as he no longer tried to defend himself. While he may have instigated the guards into beginning this waltz, he was now wrenching the lead back for himself. The man found openings the guards didn’t know existed and struck. The guards stumbled at the blows, thrust back with increasing force. They were landing further and further away from the epicenter that was the man.

The purpose of this staff was more evident now. It was never a simple walking stick. Nor was it designed as a defensive tool. It was meant to be used offensively. The staff could lay blows as easily as it could block them, effectively landing where the man aimed. It was clearly no burden to maneuver for him. The larger size gave it an advantage of sheer momentum to rocket through the thin blades with ease.

Amelia began to feel uneasy. Never before had anyone lasted so long when confronting a regiment of this number. This mysterious hooded man was able to block, parry, and return everything that was dealt towards him, causing each of the men to quake at the knees from the force.

Then the man did something no one in Naryn could have been prepared for. In one sweeping movement, he lifted over his head the staff while it spun aggressively, threw every surrounding member of the guard off of their balance, then drove the staff into the ground. The impact created a bright iridescent light that radiated away from the man. The guards were thrown back, hitting everything in the courtyard, from the ground to the walls to the tree, and slumped toward the ground, their blades extinguished as they fell from their masters’ hands.

Amelia’s eyes were wide with horror. None of the guards were moving, and the force she had felt had almost knocked her off her feet. This man had powers she had only ever read about.

But this was no storybook character.

The man stood up from his kneeling position, pulling the staff out of the ground. Amazingly, there were no signs of there having ever been an impact in that spot. Not so much as a blade of grass had been crumpled by the weight of the walking stick.

“Your Highness, you may search each one of these men and find not one is dead. They did put up a valiant fight. I must say, I’m impressed. Most of my foes don’t last nearly as long as your men did. You’ve had them trained well.”

King Ezekiel stood dumbfounded. Amelia knew what was going through his mind. This man was powerful. The king knew his greatest strengths were in allies, and Amelia knew her father well enough to know what he was going to do when he came to his senses.

Shaking himself, the king touched a button on a bracer he wore strapped to his left forearm. A team of castle medics came out and began to round up the unconscious soldiers. As they were carefully moved to the clinic for proper care, the king walked over to the man.

“What kind of man are you? Are you a demon in the guise of man or a man with abnormal abilities on his own?”

“How I have acquired my skills are of my own concern, Sire.”

“I see. Are there more of you?”

“Perhaps, but I came to fulfill my agenda, not promote it. I had not planned on coming to the castle at all until your soldiers made me an offer I could not refuse.”

“And why is that?”

“My matters are not that of royalty. Not of Narynian royalty, anyway, to the best of my knowledge.”

Amelia stepped behind her father, nearly tripping over Elizabeth, who had fainted during the fight. Medics came over and retrieved her soon after.

“Have you a name, traveler?” the king asked.

“I have.”

The two of them stared at each other for a moment in dead silence.

“...Well?”

“Yes?”

“Your name!”

“What about it?”

“You do have one?”

“That is true.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“Are you stupid or by some other means mentally afflicted?”

“I honestly believe the answer to that is no, though I could be wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been asked that.”

“HAVE YOU SOME NAME OR TITLE BY WHICH WE MAY ADDRESS YOU?”

“I have both.”

“WHY HAVE YOU NOT TOLD ME?”

“Simple, your Majesty. You have neglected to ask.”

Amelia couldn’t help a small laugh. The king, however, was not amused. “Now see here, knave. Naryn hosts one of the largest armies on the whole planet. I could have you imprisoned and punished for your actions.”

The hooded man leaned on his walking stick and casually glanced around at the teams of medics carrying the last of the guards inside. A few had started to sit up, but could not sit too tall before slumping back down in pain.

“Are you so certain of your men’s abilities?” the man asked.

The king held his face stern for a moment before relaxing his face in defeat with a sigh. “State your name before I go insane.”

The hooded man quickly smirked at his antics. Amelia now began to feel drawn to the man, rather than repulsed. This man was able to play with emotions, or so it seemed to the princess.

“As you wish, your Highness. My true name I cannot reveal to you, Sire. Such information at your disposal would be unwise, both for myself and yourself. Trusted as you may be to your people, my name may lead you to ruin and disaster.”

The king let out a gruff scoff at this. “Disaster? The Guild has never been so active! I continuously build up my forces to defend my nation only for the Guild to knock them down as if they were mere paper! Demands to stop resisting come every other day. How might anything be more of a disaster?”

“I assume you are not a fan of literal hellfire falling from the sky as you watch every single citizen of your nation slain before your eyes one by one?”

The king fell silent.

“As for what you may call me, I am Loquitur Lingua Ignis. You may refer to me as Loquitur or simply Walker. Does that satisfy your desire, my Liege?”

“...Slightly...”

“Good. Now, as my agenda has been altered, I have to make a request.”

“What is it?”

“Is there a place where I may make camp? It need only be for a short time until I can verify what I have come for. Then, I shall leave you in the peace of mind knowing that we may never cross paths again.”

King Ezekiel stared at the man in confusion. “What kind of lodging do you have in mind?”

“I feel much more comfortable outdoors.” Placing his right hand closed over his heart with a bow, he addressed the king. This time, he held no air of sarcasm about him. “I wished to come in the name of friendship if I had come at all, my Lord. I understand the concerns relating to the princess as well. Your daughter is precious to you, and all dangers to her must be removed. I shall make my way to the woods I passed with my escort.”

As Loquitur turned to leave, the king attempted to halt him by taking a hold of the hood of his cloak. In an instant, Loquitur had spun around, staff poised mere hair widths from the king’s throat.

“Sire,” he said with a newfound harshness, “if I’m going to be your ally, allow me to convey one very important rule for you. Never touch my garment. Understood?”

Before Ezekiel could gather his words, Loquitur turned once more and headed out of the still open gates, passing under the wide-eyed gaze of the few conscious guards, all pondering who this man thought he was to threaten the King Ezekiel of Naryn, one of the four Kings of Pacem Aeternam.

(Chapter One of "The Walker: Legend of the Oracles Book One: The Kingdom of Fire)

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