Embers of a Broken Throne Read online

  Novels by T.C Simpson

  Aegis of the Gods series

  Etchings of Power

  The Shadowbearer

  Ashes and Blood

  Embers of a Broken Throne

  The Quintessence Cycle

  Game of Souls

  Soulbreaker

  Soulsworn

  The Arcanus Archives

  Shadeborn

  Welcome

  Begin Reading

  Maps

  Copyright

  Table of Contents

  Newsletter

  Books by this Author

  Dedication

  To Kai, you are the reason I do this. My inspiration comes from watching you grow every day.

  Denestia

  The Broken Lands

  Prelude: Echoes of War

  He strode through ruins. Ash fell, sooty snow from a sky swathed in bloody hues and grays so dark they appeared black. From a distance the reddish tint could be mistaken for the setting sun, until one reached the summit of an incline and saw the flames. The gray billowed up from the skeletal remains of the city’s corpse. What had once been pristine flagstones along huge marble colonnades were scorched, some melted. Buildings that survived the onslaught leaned listlessly, the whispering breeze threatening to topple them. Once renowned for the water drawn from rivers far below the surface, the great fountains along the main thoroughfare were silent and dry. Likewise, the channels snaking through the devastation stood empty, choked with ash, as devoid of water as Telistar was of life.

  The first great citadel in the Broken Lands had fallen.

  So why did he feel no satisfaction at the accomplishment? Why was he so … empty? Where was the thrill of victory? He sighed, knowing Telistar’s fall had gained him little if any advantage. What he required had been life, the essences that fed it. The essences that fed him. He craved them.

  Such longing set his right hand trembling where it caressed the hilt of his unsated blade. The creature inhabiting the arm stirred, uncoiling itself from the withered appendage. Tentacles as thick as his fingers waved in the breeze, sampled the air. The beast was livid. And ravenous.

  So was his army where it awaited beyond the walls. Both men and monsters had starved, their supplies running out shortly after invading the Broken Lands. Unlike the Rotted Forest at the Broken Lands’ borders, the food to be had here resided in or around the towns and cities. His enemies had razed all behind them as they fled, leaving nothing, not even the dead, to feed upon.

  An old tactic, the creature on his arm relayed, more impressions than words.

  He nodded. The success of any war began with supply. If a commander failed to keep his soldiers fed, they grew weak, might rebel, and against a well-prepared enemy they would eventually fall. This held true even for his forces, regardless of them being more monster than men. He didn’t need to be a great tactician to know this; he and his people, the Alzari, remnants of the once great Setian Matii, had been children born to war, to battle. The old memories became handy now that he was much more.

  He extended his power to touch the wards buried beneath the ground he trod upon. They matched those spread all across the Rotted Forest, blocking the ability to open a portal in order to replenish his provisions from Ostania’s fertile lands. As expected, their protection held fast. Preventing Materialization had been the major reason no one had taken the Broken Lands since the Eztezian Guardian Delesden claimed it. That and the armies. The same armies that now fled after he’d decimated the first one he faced.

  He passed through Telistar’s easternmost gate, taking in the chasms that gave the Broken Lands their name and made travelling in the normal phalanxes and with any speed near impossible. The enemy’s insistence on tearing down the bridges, overpasses, and paths across those gaping rents from which heat spilled in a wavy haze compounded the dilemma. His generals had been unable to produce an acceptable solution even when faced with the threat of death.

  Thunderous footfalls announced Menistille’s approach. The archdaemon was one of his more competent officers. A miniature mountain of black flesh with leathery wings fifty feet or more wide, and numerous tentacles splayed about its head like hair, it was also the most fearsome. Clawed feet stopped before Jaecar, kicking up stone and earth in their wake, the beast so large he barely reached its ankles. Gold eyes in a face somewhere between a man and a lion peered down at him.

  “The gurangars and their minions are ready,” Menistille said, voice the sound of a grumbling belly.

  Jaecar took in the beasts behind the archdaemon. Worm-like grogs ran sideways on six legs, almost invisible within the shadows cast by their masters, the gurangar. A quarter the size of Menistille, the gurangars carried double-bladed swords as long as the shadelings were tall, holding them by handles carved in the middle as a man might wield a stave. Covered in near impenetrable ebon steel armor, they made quite a show. Shade seeped from the gurangars, and within it they faded from sight.

  He picked up a rock, black and shiny as marble, and hefted it. Within the stone lay the key to conquering the Broken Lands. After a moment’s contemplation, he tossed it through the area where the gurangars disappeared. The rock arced through empty air and into a nearby chasm where lava bubbled thousands of feet below. He nodded in appreciation of the creatures’ skill.

  “Give the order for the daemons and the Forgers to begin,” he said.

  Menistille roared, the sound enough to strike fear into the heart of the bravest man. A few of the armored humans prodded captured scouts forward to kneel before a line of Matii and daemons. The Matii began their work.

  The first scream sent a shiver of ecstasy through Jaecar. The last time he heard such delicious agony was during the harvests to reinforce his army. Countless thousands had died then, from as far east as the Green Wastes, all across southern Harna, northern Astoca, and eventually through the old Alzari clanholds. Those willing to convert became Amuni’s Children. For the others, nothing of their past selves remained. Those who weren’t skilled enough to warrant a transformation into darkwraiths, bodies shrouded in a mist of shade, had become wraithwolves, pets to stalk wayward Matii.

  As he listened to the screams increase in pitch and reveled in his recollections, Jaecar surveyed the land. The stony rises ahead hid the dips and valleys that would contain other villages and cities. Beyond them rose the Flaming Reaches protected by the wide, jagged gap men called Hydae’s Gorge. An apt name. Smoke and mist shrouded the highest peak. Lightning rippled among the clouds in fitful spurts. Kajeta, the Broken Lands’ greatest citadel, awaited at its foot. He allowed himself a smile.

  The Desorin plan to abandon, slash and burn, and continue to retreat had one flaw. He would destroy them with it. Access to the Chainin would be his. With the divya in his possession he could challenge the Nine. And eventually he would free Amuni. The thought brought a measure of delight rivaled only by the death throes.

  Jaecar strode from the city toward the writhing masses of his waiting army. Soon they would feed. He continued to savor the screams.

  Exalted Buneri thumbed through the reports. Failure after failure after failure, preventing them from their rightful places. With a snarl he crumpled the papers and threw them into the fire. The scent of burning parchment grew stronger, the flames adding the new reports to old embers.

  To know he had the last surviving Beasttamer in his grasp and let her run free ate at his insides. Normally one such as he did not show emotion, but in this he couldn’t help himself. If one great threat to the Nine’s plans existed, it was with Irmina.

  Her kind had thwarted them in the past.

  For a moment he considered taking out his frustration on his favorite prisoner before he stopped hi
mself. Such emotions were human things. Not a part of the Nether. Control. With control came clarity. The prisoner was still necessary for his plans to advance.

  He thought back to Malinda’s plot to have Irmina kill Ryne and the Eldanhill Council. A test of loyalty. Irmina failed as he’d expected, but it had proved useful. The members of the Gray and Shadow Councils had been revealed. There was no hiding now. All that remained in the Iluminus served the light or the shade. In turn, they served the Nine.

  But that was not so with all of Granadia. As systematically as they had placed the Devout throughout the centuries, some pockets of resistance still existed. People who still worshipped the gods of Flows or Forms. Not that worshipping those deities were necessarily bad, but in belief, power existed. The Nine needed every dreg to succeed.

  With the thousands of capable Matii they lost to desertion and death during the uprising in the Iluminus, they weren’t ready to proceed with the rest of their plan. Particularly now that it included the systematic destruction of each Bastion. The consolidation of their forces and recruitment from each Granadian kingdom, from Torsen to Barham, had become a must.

  Of those, Barson was the greatest threat. Their king refused to bend, much less acknowledge the Tribunal, although they had defeated him at Randane. The city was gone now, burned to a husk thanks to Ancel, its Chainin destroyed. He smiled at the irony of the situation. The Tribunal advance into Barson had not gone nearly as well. The Nine held little sway within the kingdom, but a way to seize control existed.

  Buneri focused his will and touched Mater, but not just the individual elements, the combination of all three. Back arched, he reveled in the pleasure the voices brought him. The power he felt made him crave the day when he could feed off Prima in the same fashion. The idea made him shudder. Linked with Mater, and all the netherlings at his disposal, he ordered a dozen Deathspeakers to attend him. When he released Mater the sense of loss was so great he almost fell to his knees. He was still recovering when they arrived.

  To another person’s eyes the Deathspeakers looked like normal men and women, friendly, trustworthy, even somewhat familiar. At one time they had appeared that way to him also. That was before enough Prima became available in the world. Now, he saw they were made of the Nether’s formlessness combined with ebon steel and flesh that shaped itself into tentacles, eyes, and arms.

  “You called, master?” they said as one.

  “I have a task for you. A delicate one.” He sifted through papers on his table until he found a map of Barson with notes attached. “You must find a way make these armies here support us. We cannot have them at our backs once our advance begins. Take these.” He passed the notes to each. “They are the men and women you are to seek out.”

  When the Deathspeakers left with their orders, Buneri stood and made his way across the room to an area not covered in carpet, exposing the stone and his personal message map. The map displayed all the cities and towns across Denestia, even ones supposed to be long dead. With a wave of his hand he connected with the essences imbued into the materials that made up the map, materials with matching versions within Ostania. Five small portals opened. Careful not to allow any part of him to pass through to the other side, he dropped a set of instructions into each. A smile on his face, he returned to his desk to consider how best to go about destroying the Bastions of Light.

  Chapter 1

  The Toscali warrior wasn’t alive. Neither was he dead. He possessed a heartbeat, marched, fought, and had a dozen other nuances besides, but he was not alive. Clad in white and gold armor covered with glyphs and runes like the others of his ilk, he carried a shining spear, and watched Ancel with eyes that hinted at sentience. But Ancel knew better than to think the apparent intelligence was the construct’s own design. It was a glimmer of memory, imprinted into the Etching from which Ancel had called forth the warrior, a record of what this construct did best: fight.

  Despite all its ability, the Toscali lacked the most important requirement for life. Sela essences, that which powered the soul, made things more than just animate. The thought of sela brought on a chill unmatched by the weather and the swirling wind.

  Ancel could no more Forge the essence into his construct than he could sprout wings and fly. Months spent practicing in his free moments, often late at night or the hours before first light, had seen him develop this, one of his proudest achievements. Hidden from prying eyes in one of the numerous back alleys in the abandoned city, he had begun to master this skill by choosing smaller objects from his Etchings, like birds and insects, drawing from the memory of the Chainin replica Ryne had taught him to create.

  Charra would often watch him as he was doing now, lying on his stomach in the shadow of one of Aldazhar’s ruined buildings as if he was indeed a simple daggerpaw. He’d grown to the size of a large horse, dispelling the idea of his normalcy.

  “Begin,” Ancel commanded.

  The warrior shifted into a fighting stance, and then attacked the empty air, booted feet flowing over broken cobbles and uneven ground without missing a step. The movements were familiar, twists on the Styles and Stances named after the essences they imitated, but adjusted for the choice of weapon. The spear became a blur, Ancel following each strike and parry as if they were his own, as if he were the opponent. He imagined using the two swords he’d taken to carrying now, one in the scabbard on his hip, the shorter one on his back, its hilt jutting above his left shoulder.

  “You’re at it again, I see,” Irmina said from the mouth of the alley, the waning sun behind her.

  “Didn’t we have a talk about sneaking up on me?” Ancel focused on the construct, watching for its reaction to the intrusion. It continued to whip its spear without pause.

  “You did, but when have I listened to you? Or anyone else for that matter?” She stepped into the space at the end of the street, eyes twinkling with amusement. Ebony hair fell past her shoulders, and she was clad in leather armor and a short cloak.

  “You do have a point.” He smiled. “And you, Charra, I know you heard her coming, why wouldn’t you warn me?” Charra cocked his head to one side, yawned, and continued to gaze at the construct.

  She sauntered over to him, making a show of her swaying walk. Toscali warrior forgotten, he held his breath.

  “It’s not nice to leave me alone in bed,” she said.

  “I’m sorry. I needed to time to think.”

  “The other evenings and nights you did the same thing? You had to think then too? Besides, this doesn’t look much like thinking.”

  “But it is. I’m considering how best to deal with our enemies, and there’s no better method for learning than constant practice.”

  “True.” She snaked a hand around his waist, the scent of bellflowers radiating from her. “But you also need rest.”

  “I can rest when I die,” he said, averting his eyes before the urge to take her to bed overwhelmed him.

  She snorted her disapproval. “You sound like Ryne.”

  “You say that as if it’s a bad thing.”

  “When your mood turns dark like his, it is.”

  Ancel understood her point. She’d brought it up enough times, and in truth she might have been right. But what was he supposed to feel? A year had passed since they entered Ostania, and they were still struggling to reach Benez, constant obstacles in their path, and had lost many to disease, desertion, and shadelings. Then there was the link to his mother at the back of his mind, often recalled due to Father’s outbursts and obvious instability. Although no one could hold those against Stefan, not after the torture he suffered at the hands of the Tribunal’s Matii, they were no less troubling.

  “I’m trying my best, but it’s hard,” he admitted.

  “I know. I don’t envy you one bit.”

  He hugged her, and together they took in the Toscali’s session. The scuff of a boot announced someone else’s presence. A cough followed.

  “I’m not allowed any privacy, am I?” Ancel turned to f
ace Mirza.

  “You’ve become too important for that.” Mirza was a Lieutenant now, and filled out the dark green uniform of his position. His flame-colored hair, done in a ponytail, and his matching braided beard, did not suit his rank or garb.

  “How did you find me anyway?”

  “One can hardly miss those Pathfinders of yours. Their silver armor can be easy to spot even when they’re hidden inside buildings, but following her was simpler.” Smiling, Mirz nodded toward Irmina.

  Annoyed, Ancel shook his head. He had asked Cantor to keep the Pathfinders away, but he should have known better. They were fanatical in their roles as his personal guard. The few among them with no aura bothered him. He couldn’t help it, knowing they were netherlings but not being able to tell if they were a threat. The other men and women among his people with similar traits posed the same problem. And he dare not attack them. The results would be catastrophic.

  “I thought I lost you,” Irmina said to Mirza.

  Ancel recalled a time at the start of the journey when Mirza still bore some animosity toward the woman. As the two spent more time together, often on scouting expeditions, that dislike had lessened.

  “I wanted you to think that way.” Mirza shrugged and held out his hand.

  Grumbling under her breath Irmina removed her hand and fished into the pouch at her waist. Clinks followed as she produced several coins. “Four hawks.”

  Mirza took the coins, teeth showing in a wide grin. “Nice doing business with you.”

  “I can’t believe you two.” Ancel glanced from one to the other.

  “What?” Mirza asked innocently.

  “You interrupted me for a wager?”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time,” Mirza said, “but no.” His expression became grave. “We have a problem.”

  Behind them the Toscali’s spear hummed.

  “Stop,” Ancel ordered, letting the command flow through his link to the construct.