Arkhel Conundrum

Sarah Ash

Description

"But what happened to Gavril and Kiukiu after Children of the Serpent Gate? When is the sequel coming out?" Readers have been asking me this question ever since Book 3 of The Tears of Artamon was published - and at last I've had the chance to provide an answer in Book 4: The Arkhel Conundrum. Azhkendir, land of snow and shadows, harbours many secrets - and a powerful ancient winter deity is awakened when a foreign mining company begins to strip out the rare mineral resources beneath the mountains. Old clan hatreds are stirred up. The High Steward of Azhkendir, Lord Gavril, and his wife, Spirit Singer Kiukiu, hope to seek help from the Emperor Eugene. But their onetime enemy turned ally is distracted by his competition to build a flying machine. Is someone from their past trying to destabilize the fragile peace of the empire? Or are there supernatural forces involved? The Magus, Kaspar Linnaius, may have the answers...but he has disappeared and no one knows where he is or how to contact him.

Sujets

• Fantasy (canción de Mariah Carey)
• Fantasy

Informations

• Publié par: Tourmalise Press
• Date de parution: 26 octobre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781913227470
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

2019 Sarah Ash
Sarah Ash has asserted her rights in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
Published by Tourmalise Press
First published and printed in 2019 First published in eBook format in 2019
ISBN: 9781913227470 (Printed edition: 9781700902719)
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the Publisher.
All names, characters, places, organisations, businesses and events are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Contents
Prologue
Part One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Part Two
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Cast List
Acknowledgments
The Tears of Artamon
The Story So Far...
Portraitist Gavril Nagarian has inherited more than a distant wintry kingdom and the title of Drakhaon of Azhkendir from the father he never knew. With the title comes the curse of the Drakhaoul, a daemon-dragon spirit that inhabits his body and lends him tremendous shape-shifting powers—at a terrible cost. After Gavril and his Drakhaoul Khezef defeat the invading army of neighbouring ruler Eugene of Tielen, Eugene collects the legendary Tears of Artamon, seven rubies that enable him to summon his own Drakhaoul and make himself Emperor of the Western Quadrant. But when his rash act sets free other Drakhaouls, Eugene and Gavril must put aside their differences and make a pact to send them back through the Serpent Gate to the Ways Beyond, in a bid to restore peace to the mortal world. Gavril is helped by Kiukiu, a servant girl, a Spirit Singer who uses her songs to travel into the world of the dead—and ambitious Eugene is aided by his onetime tutor Kaspar Linnaius, the long-lived Magus, a powerful wind-mage and alchymist.
PROLOGUE
Steamy waters bubble and fizz. Clouds of mist, tinged with the acrid scent of minerals, rise to blot out the stars. And through the rising steam, eyes gleam, green as jade. A soft, sibilant voice whispers, “I can see you, Kiukirilya. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, I shall be watching you, watching and waiting.”
Kiukirilya sat bolt upright, staring into the darkened bedchamber.
“Do not forget your promise .” A barb of pain, sharp as a serpent’s poisoned bite, pierced her ankle.
My promise.
“What’s wrong?” a sleepy voice asked from beneath the rumpled blankets beside her.
“How can she be here?” Kiukiu could still hear the faint bubbling of the hot springs, could still sense the serpentine eyes gazing at her.
“Who’s here?” The bedclothes heaved as her husband turned over, surfacing from deep slumber.
His question jolted her fully awake. “I must have been dreaming again.”
“Another nightmare?”
She nodded.
“It’s all right.” Gavril reached out in the darkness and pulled her to him. “I still have nightmares too. Sometimes it helps to tell.”
She snuggled closer, absorbing the heat of his body, the comforting strength of his arms. She wanted to lose herself in that human warmth and forget the insistent, sibilant voice that had penetrated her dreams every night since she discovered that she was bearing his child. But she could never tell him the substance of her nightmares. Not until she had figured out a way to undo the secret bond she had entered into with Anagini, the Guardian of the Jade Springs, a bond sealed by the touch of the snake goddess’s fangs on her ankle.
“ Give me your firstborn child, be it boy or girl, to tend my shrine . . . And you must never tell anyone what passed between us here today or you will find yourself an old woman again.”
Part One
Chapter 1
“What will the druzhina say?” Kiukiu felt tears pricking at the corners of her eyelids. “She’s just a girl. They were expecting a boy. An heir to Kastel Nagarian.”
“She’s perfect.” Gavril gazed at their newborn child. He was holding her very gingerly, as if afraid she might break. But the look in his eyes had softened to one of such tenderness that it made her heart melt. “Let the druzhina say what they will. She’s my daughter—and they’ll learn to love and respect her. They’ll get their heir next time.”
“Next time! Who assumed there’s going to be a next time?” Exhausted, Kiukiu flopped back on the pillows and closed her eyes. Did Gavril have any idea what she had gone through to bring his daughter into the world? Every muscle in her body ached as if she had been stretched to breaking point.
“Look at her hair; it’s coppery in the candlelight,” she heard him say. “What there is of it, that is.”
These moments were so important that she wanted to remember every second so she could treasure them when the time came to give up her precious firstborn.
No . She stopped herself. There must be a way to annul her contract with the Guardian of the Jade Springs.
“What’s wrong?” Gavril leaned across, still cradling the baby in one arm, and stroked her face. “Are you in pain? Should I send for Sosia?” The gentleness of his touch only made the tears well up and spill down her cheeks.
“I’m all right,” she said, forcing a smile as she wiped them away with the back of her hand. She was annoyed at herself for feeling so weak. “Just a little . . . weary.” She reached out to tousle the baby’s soft wisps of hair. “Auburn, like your mother’s. Should we call her ‘Elysia’?”
“What about ‘Malusha’, for your grandmother?”
She shook her head vehemently. “An Arkhel name for a Nagarian child? The druzhina would never allow it.”
“The druzhina will do as I tell them.” For a moment, the sea-blue eyes darkened and she caught a brief glimpse of the stern, ruthless clan leader he had forced himself to become to win back his kingdom. Then he said, less harshly, “But you’re right, love; there’s no point creating bad feeling when this little one is the first of a new generation of Nagarians, and our hope for a better future.”
“Still here, Lord Gavril? Your wife needs to rest.” Sosia reappeared, carrying a steaming cup of tea. “A long first labor drains a woman of her strength. Drink this, Kiukiu.”
“What’s in it?” Kiukiu sniffed the tea suspiciously.
“Just a few medicinal herbs,” Sosia said, plumping up her pillows. “They’re good for women after childbirth.”
Kiukiu sipped the tea; it tasted bitter, with a strong hint of aniseed that made her pull a sour face. “Are you trying to make me feel worse, Auntie?”
“Drink it all down; you’ll thank me later on,” Sosia said briskly. And then she turned to Gavril. “My lord, you mustn’t hold your daughter like that, you have to support her head properly!”
Kiukiu saw Gavril’s mortified expression as Sosia took the baby from him and demonstrated.
“And what’s this little angel’s name?” Sosia asked, cooing over her great-niece.
Kiukiu exchanged a guilty glance with Gavril. “We haven’t quite decided yet.”
“But all the kastel are waiting to celebrate her birth,” Sosia said, shocked. “Askold can’t propose a toast to a nameless child.”
Sosia’s words made Kiukiu laugh—and then stop abruptly, sucking in her breath as her aching muscles protested.
“Besi des, you know the old tales, Kiukiu, that a nameless newborn is easy prey for the Lost Souls trying to find a way back into this world.”
“Yes, Auntie,” Kiukiu said, handing her the empty tea cup. And I should know more than anyone, for I’ve encountered them on the borders of the Ways Beyond.
“Well, I need to go help Ilsi in the kitchens; old Oleg’s drunk as a pig again. He insists that he had to sample the wine to make sure it was a good vintage to wet the baby’s head.” Sosia placed the baby in Gavril’s arms again and bustled out.
Kiukiu lay back on the pillows. Had there been a sedative in the tea? She felt suddenly sleepy.
“I’ve always liked the name Larisa,” Gavril said after a while. “It comes from an old Smarnan song our housekeeper Palmyre used to sing to me when I was little.”
“Larisa? I like it too,” she said drowsily. “And I don’t think there’s ever been anyone of that name in either clan, Arkhel or Nagarian.”
***
Kiukiu had lapsed into sleep and Gavril sat beside her, doing his best to hold Larisa the way Sosia had shown him.
My daughter. It still seemed too extraordinary a thing to comprehend. I’m not ready to be a father. I’m not worthy to be given this precious new life to guard and protect. Yet the warm little bundle that he was supporting so cautiously knew nothing of who he was—or what terrible things he had done. She just lay there, lightly dozing, letting out the faintest little squeaky sound from time to time. Her vulnerability terrified him. Do all newborn babies make such strange grunts? Is that normal? Suppose she’s struggling for breath? He tried to push all the worries and fears to the back of his mind. How would I know what to do?
Suddenly her lids opened and she gazed directly up at h