Last Stand (The Black Mage Book 4) Read online

  Last Stand

  The Black Mage Book 4

  Rachel E. Carter

  Contents

  Dedication

  Map of Jerar & Surrounding Kingdoms

  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

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Rachel E. Carter

  Copyright © 2016 Rachel E. Carter

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

  Rachel E. Carter

  www.rachelecarter.com

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Cover Design by Deranged Doctor Designs

  Edited by Hot Tree Editing

  To Craig,

  Because you’re so much more than a memory.

  You were the goodness inside that most of us push aside as we grow older, the kind of light we don’t deserve, the kind of hero we only read about in books. You saw beauty and joy in everything, and you were first to believe in the best of us.

  The world never deserved you, but you deserved the world.

  You once told me you couldn’t bear the idea of cremation because you needed a place to cherish the memories of those you loved, that you didn’t want their memories to fade over time. Your parents built you a beautiful headstone, and this book is my plaque for you. This dedication is my way to make your memory eternal, a way to tell the world exactly what kind of person they lost.

  I’ve been waiting nine years to write your name. Craig LeAron Cagley Short. This book is for you, because if anyone ever deserved a happily ever after, it was you.

  RIP Craig LeAron Cagley Short (1987-2007)

  Map of Jerar & Surrounding Kingdoms

  1

  It was supposed to be the best day of my life.

  The noise was deafening. Cheers, clapping and thunderous applause, even hysterical weeping came from Jerar’s most privileged families as they shared in a moment that they believed would save them all from the Caltothians’ tyrannous plague.

  If only they knew it was all a lie.

  I forced my lips into a shaky smile, my heart fluttering like a thousand wings against my throat.

  The prince’s eyes met mine across the small podium we were standing on. For a moment, that was all I needed to hold on, and I was able to exhale. The corner of his eyes crinkled as he took in the expression on my face. I’m sure he imagined it was due to the hematite crown the priest had just placed upon my head.

  Darren had no reason to question my fear.

  The prince reached out to pull me forward by the nook of my arm, slowly, until there was no space left to cross. His eyes held mine as his other hand took my trembling chin and tilted it up.

  My skin burned under the pads of his callused fingers. I didn’t have a choice. I caught fire every time.

  His breath was warm as he leaned in so that his lips brushed my ear. “And now to kiss my beautiful bride.”

  Darren’s mouth found mine, tasting of hot cinnamon and cloves, and for a moment… for a moment, I forgot. And the girl let herself melt into her prince’s embrace; she kissed him back, letting that elation rise up in her chest, her cheeks flushing crimson as he dipped her low and proceeded to kiss her so thoroughly, a second applause rang out from the crowd.

  And she was happy. In this beautiful, perfect moment, she was soaring.

  The girl had her happily ever after. She had the boy she loved, and it was all she would ever need.

  Hundreds of petals rained down from above.

  “Long live the Crown!”

  And the moment their voices rang out, that girl disappeared. Elation was met with shame. Guilt. Self-hate and flagellation. Shards of glass twisted in my gut, and I jerked back from the kiss, nearly stumbling down the steps in shame.

  I couldn’t pretend. Not when I knew our future was a tangle of lies, and that he would never look at me the same when he discovered the truth.

  “Careful, dear sister…” Icy fingers wrapped around my wrist. They were all that kept me from plummeting into the crowd below.

  It took everything I had not to react, to remain silent and still when every part of me was writhing in a storm cloud of red. It was him.

  The king of Jerar. The young boy whose tragedy had made him the worst man of all.

  My hands trembled and the white-hot rage boiled, threatening to sputter out. In another second, I wouldn’t be able to stop—

  “Ryiah?” Darren’s voice caught me just in time.

  The king of Jerar let out a laugh as he handed me back. I was still shaking, my pulse thundering in my ears. “A bit of shock. She just became a princess of Jerar, brother. What else would you expect?”

  I barely felt Darren’s hand slip around my waist as he helped me down the final step. “I know it’s a bit much,” he whispered. His words called me back, twisting and weaving their way across the chains that had taken hold of my lungs. “I’m sorry.”

  I wanted to tell him I was too, but my tongue was too heavy to lift.

  All I could see was my little brother’s lifeless body sprawled out against the marble tile and the look on Alex’s face when I told him Derrick was dead.

  The priest’s loud declaration brought me back to the present: “And now to present the Crown Prince and Princess of Jerar. Together, for the first time, as husband and wife.”

  I made myself breathe. And swallow. And then I made myself move, one foot, then the other, as the prince and I traversed the great hall.

  It was supposed to be a beautiful fairy tale.

  But there would be no happily ever after.

  As the Crown’s carriage paraded down the streets of Devon, I did my best to mirror Darren and Blayne’s gestures with my own. Courtier smiles and nods to all. It was an acknowledgment and a promise. I saw it in the hundreds of eager faces shoved into every alley and shop, waving hands and throwing seeds and chanting blessings at every corner we passed. Their hope was contagious. Even the ones hiding behind their dirty windowpanes, I could see it shining there too, past tight lines of worry and fear. It was a great beacon driving them to look and stare.

  They believed the Crown would save them all.

  I couldn’t consider them fools. I had shared the same dream just hours before.

  And now your life will never be the same.

  Darren caught my frown and squeezed my hand, mistaking the reason for my discontent. “I’m sure your parents would be here if they could.”

  I glanced down to where his fingers interlocked with mine and swallowed. I needed to say something. The longer I remained silent, the more his worry would grow.

  I wet my lips and cleared my throat. “It would have been too painful.” It didn’t matter that it was their only daughter’s wedding—and
to a crown prince of Jerar. After Derrick’s death, they refused to set foot in the capital ever again—not after their youngest had been strung up from the palace rafters, branded a traitor to the world.

  My parents might not have blamed me with their words, but I’d seen it in their eyes. Their child was gone, and I should’ve found a way to save him.

  They weren’t wrong.

  But how was I to know? Not even Derrick had guessed how far the Crown’s treachery had gone.

  I’d been so busy defending the boy I loved that I’d forgotten to look to his brother. And why would I? Blayne had played his part well, so well that after years of cruelty, he had still managed to convince me there was something of the boy he used to be. I had believed him to be somewhat good. A man whose horrible past had hardened his edges, but still left him capable of kindness. Benevolence. Regret. Better than his tyrant of a father.

  That had been my biggest mistake of all. The two children might have been raised in darkness, but only one was capable of light.

  As I adjusted my seat, the yellow silk ruffles of my dress shifted, and I prayed Darren didn’t notice the small splotches of red staining their base—my blood from just an hour before.

  “We can visit them on our way, if you’d like.”

  I swallowed, my mouth as dry as sand. “That would be nice.” As soon as the weeklong celebrations were over, the two of us would be tasked with hunting the rebels. I wasn’t surprised by Darren’s decision to go north; he’d been discussing it for weeks.

  Marius, the former Black Mage, had already scoured the south during the last ten years of his reign. It had made sense at the time. All the attacks and sabotage had taken place in Jerar’s southernmost towns—primarily the Red Desert, Port Cyri, and the salt mines in Mahj, wherever a shipment was due. Why wouldn’t the rebels have been stationed nearby?

  Unfortunately, the new Black Mage had other theories as to why the rebels had never been found—theories that would eventually lead to Ferren’s Keep and my brother and friends.

  To the rebels.

  Panic squeezed my lungs as I took a shaky breath.

  It was up to me to lead Darren astray. I knew full well this act would cost me my prince in the end.

  It was the only way. I had seen the bond between brothers. Even now, the two beautiful boys cracked jokes during our procession across the city, neither quite aware that the girl beside them was bleeding out from the inside, screaming for help.

  Gods, I had lived out my own choice just two months before. Given the choice between Derrick and what was right… I had chosen my brother, not that it had mattered in the end. I had acted too late, and that was still before I had realized the nefarious ploy of the king, before I had realized Derrick had been telling the truth all along.

  Back then I had believed my little brother to be a traitor to the Crown. I had known full well that, should he escape with the information he had stolen, hundreds of lives would be the debt to pay, possibly—definitely—more. And yet I had been willing to risk them in the end, anything to save my brother from a horrible fate at the gallows, and I knew Darren would do the same.

  It wouldn’t be my husband’s fault if he made the same mistake for Blayne. Darren’s father had groomed the second-born son as his brother’s protector through years of abuse, and when one spent so many years protecting someone they deemed a victim, it became impossible to see them any other way. Even after everything Blayne had done—assaulting my best friend and tormenting me all throughout the apprenticeship when he thought I was just some pitiful lowborn that had caught his brother’s eye—I had still pitied the heir.

  Besides, there were some choices one should never have to make, and I never wanted to give Darren that choice. I didn’t want to let him choose wrong. I didn’t care how selfish that made me. If he went to his brother first, if he gave Blayne a chance to explain, the evil king would have the whole world up in flames before Darren had a chance to recoup his mistake. Two of the country’s most powerful mages were nothing against a king’s army. Everything would burn and shatter, and every one of the rebels would be put to death at the crack of dawn.

  Not me, of course. Blayne was too shrewd, too calculating. He disliked me from the start, and yet he had made me a part of his plans. As sick and twisted as the king was, he cared for his brother and wanted his support. Until Blayne could turn Darren against me, the king would have me rotting in a cell. And once he’d succeeded, then he’d take my life.

  And then the king would go to war—a pointless, costly war that his father had been staging for countless years, all part of an elaborate scheme to portray Jerar as the victim and Caltoth as the aggressor. The other two countries in our nation’s Great Compromise would break with King Horrace, and Jerar would become the country with the biggest army, and the wealthiest.

  No, I couldn’t tell Darren, not until I had undisputable proof and the other countries’ support. Because right now, all I had was the ranting of a madwoman.

  Darren had never seen the little girl in the stands of the Candidacy. He wouldn’t be able to piece together her face with the noblewoman and her daughter we’d stolen away in a mission to Caltoth so many years before. The blackmail of Lord Tyrus and the murders during the Victors’ Ceremony were all parts of the same ploy to frame King Horrace and win the support of two skeptical nations.

  Darren would only see a lowborn who had never liked his family, a girl who had lost her youngest brother and was desperate to clear his name.

  And even if he saw past all of that, I couldn’t risk the chance he’d choose wrong.

  I had chosen wrong just two months before. What was to stop Darren from doing the same? There were too many lives at risk. This was bigger than the both of us. This was the world.

  And if he never forgave me for my breach of trust… well, that was my cross to bear.

  An invisible hand squeezed my chest. I knew I was making the right choice, but it felt wrong. Two hours into our new marriage and already I was plotting to betray my husband.

  “The two of you should make an effort to question the villagers while you are in Demsh’aa.” Blayne leaned back in his seat with a lazy smirk. He had been listening in on our conversation.

  I flinched as the king’s gaze caught on mine.

  “My apologies, Ryiah, but I doubt you sought to question them during your last visit… you had more pressing affairs at the time.”

  Like breaking my family’s heart? Telling them their youngest was dead? Watching Alex scream that he’s never coming back? My best friend following after my brother, knowing both could die for the rebels’ cause? Nails dug into my palms, and it was with the greatest effort that I unclenched my fists.

  A second too late, I realized I had still been holding onto Darren’s hand. The prince’s startled gaze fell to mine, but when it did, it was sad.

  His thumb pressed against my palm and he shot his brother a scowl.

  “That’s enough, Blayne.”

  “Your wife isn’t a fool. Her brother was a traitor and put our whole kingdom at risk. Surely she doesn’t fault me for considering her village a possible base for rebel activity. Do you, Ryiah? After all, we’ve never investigated the towns of the north.”

  Play the part. That’s the only way you can honor Derrick’s sacrifice now. Show your hand, and this plan will be over before it has begun. “No.” I made myself meet the king’s gaze head on. I made myself breathe. “Of course not.”

  Blayne smirked. “See? Even she understands.”

  “It doesn’t mean we have to talk about it.” Darren’s voice was low and imploring. “Please, not tonight, brother.”

  The young king’s eyes slid from Darren to me, and he heaved an impatient sigh. “One day you must tell me what makes this one so much more special than the rest.”

  You’ll know the moment my blade is at your throat. I made myself scoff outwardly; Blayne would expect as much. I wasn’t known to back down from a challenge. Holding on to silence
would only garner suspicion. “Don’t worry, by the end of the year, I’m sure you’ll find out.”

  “Ah,” the king played along, enjoying our little game, “preparing something big?”

  At least I didn’t have to lie. “Saving a kingdom from corruption.”

  “After the rebels?” Blayne’s brow shot up. “And here I thought you would want to take on the villainous king himself.”

  My heart stopped beating and my body drew cold, the color draining from my face.

  “King Horrace is mine.” Darren’s voice was hard as he cut in. “When the time comes—after everything he has destroyed—he is mine.”

  The air whooshed out from my lungs. Of course. The Caltothian king. The man Blayne and his father had convincingly portrayed as the enemy.

  For a moment, I had thought Blayne knew.

  “Not if I get to him first.” I blurted the challenge as fast as I could. Good, Ryiah, keep pretending. Keep smiling.

  “Horrace should be afraid.” The young king brushed himself off, standing as the carriage came to a halt. We’d finished our procession through Devon, and it was time for the ceremonial feast in the palace. “I’ve got the two most bloodthirsty mages in the realm.” It was impossible to miss his pride. “The war will be over before it’s begun.”

  It will. But not for the reasons you think.

  I followed the king with my eyes. With his back turned, he was saying something to a guard as he descended the steps. For the barest second, I entertained the notion of what it would be like to end this here and now, to strike down the king of Jerar in cold blood and let the pieces fall where they may.

  It wasn’t my responsibility to make sure everything worked out in the end. Blayne was a villain. For all the innocent lives he and his father had stolen, did it really matter whether he lived or died? If I got rid of him, I would be doing the world a favor, and someone else could figure out how to put it back together.