Amber Queen Read online

  Amber Queen

  Age of Azuria Book Three

  Beth Ball

  Contents

  Prologue

  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

  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

  Epilogue

  A Special Short Story Bonus!

  The story of how it all began…

  About the Author

  Author’s Note

  Also by Beth Ball

  Map of Azuria

  Prologue

  “Rowan, wait!” Yvayne reached out toward her lover. The elf’s spirit-shape flared brighter. She looked nearly corporeal, poised atop her grassy grave.

  “I must go,” Rowan whispered. Her bright green eyes met Yvayne’s. “We will find one another again.”

  “When?” Yvayne’s distress reverberated out from her chest and struck each of the burial mounds around them. “We just brought you back.” The slither of quick-growing ivy and vines filled the silent hilltop. Don’t you dare leave.

  In a flash of garnet and peridot, Rowan disappeared from the barrow.

  Yvayne choked back a cry and a curse. The folly of falling for a phoenix.

  Behind her, Vaxis squealed. “Where did she go?”

  Amethyst, the Brightland fae’s forest-green fox, blinked its purple eyes at Yvayne. How was it that these creatures were never surprised?

  “I can think of one of two places,” Yvayne answered slowly. And to only one of the two would Rowan have invited her to follow.

  “And?” Vaxis leaned closer, her hesitant smile a light through the clouds that gathered around Yvayne.

  “She’s either returned to her fortress, her soul searching back through her past records to see what she missed . . .”

  Vaxis waited, eyes wide.

  Yvayne revealed the second with a sigh. “Or she’s following her soul’s beacon, returning to the call of her amulet and its binding to Marcon.”

  “I see.” Vaxis cleared her throat, hesitating to say more. Restraint did not suit her autumnal personality.

  “Go ahead. Ask me.”

  “Well, I have been thinking about what you told me about your meeting Marcon again. But I don’t understand. Why does he not remember her?”

  Yvayne nodded. “It’s a long story.” She herself had discovered, piece by piece over the course of years, what had transpired between Rowan and Marcon. How much she owed to the fiery warrior, without whom they would have utterly lost the War of the Champions. And without whose sacrifice she would never have met Rowan. “But I believe the memories will return to him, given time.”

  She told Vaxis what she knew of the betrayal that had separated Rowan and Marcon. One of the champion’s closest companions had turned Rowan over to Lucien’s power. The resultant spiral of events had ushered in the end of the War of the Champions. “As you might imagine, Rowan preferred not to speak of those days.” Even years afterward, night after night, Rowan awoke screaming, consumed with nightmares from her time spent as Lucien’s prisoner, when he had departed from his life as a guardian and fallen into the soul-consuming lichdom that still held him in its thrall.

  “And it was after her time in the Shadowlands that the two of you met?”

  Yvayne nodded. “I was there when she returned to life in Faer Haven.” How similar that cemetery was to the one where she and Apollo had buried Rowan, where she and Vaxis now stood.

  Marcon and Quindythias had made a deal with her mother, Yvayne was certain. “I cannot ask the Shadow Queen to explain—she forbade my return long ago.” Yvayne understood her mother’s reasoning, but still she longed for the black fields and dark stone castle of her homeland, the violet moors she had roamed as a gar. “I do not know the particulars of the deal they made with my mother, but I suspect that Marcon, and his friend Quindythias, traded their memories of Rowan in exchange for her return to life.”

  Vaxis settled onto the thick bed of moss beside the barrow next to Rowan’s, where another of their friends of old had been laid to rest. One after the other, Yvayne had buried her friends and allies. In some periods, the deaths came quickly, one after the next after the next. At other times, years would pass between her farewells, but they came all the same. Only a lucky few had been granted death after a peaceful descent into old age.

  Her friend laid her burgundy head back against the flower-laden side of the moss-covered casket. “So what now, Yvayne?” Vaxis shrugged and poked out her lower lip, eyes turned to the mist-clad sky. Places of death and loss were difficult for Vaxis. They ran counter to her nature and dimmed her smile. Worse still, they blanketed her in memories Yvayne knew she would rather forget. “Do we follow these new druids on their quests, watching over their journeys so as to keep them from true danger?”

  Yvayne gave her friend a small smile. Though the three druids were still at the start of their adventures, the growth in their magic, their coming into their own powers, into connection with the natural world, left a trace on the breeze for those who knew how to sense it. She closed her eyes and inhaled.

  Persephonie’s travels through the streets of Andel-ce Hevra carved a sparkling path along the stone roads—fae laurel mingled with spices and dark berries. Iellieth’s path, deep in the Caldaran forest, was harder to catch, but her vervain-scented aura whispered all the same, citrus grasslands waving along a rocky seaside. Genevieve was the most difficult to find. Of the three, the lycan-druid was most resistant to her own magic, still coming to terms with the wolf who dwelled within. Yvayne’s shoulders relaxed as she caught the aromatic trail of soft florals and wild pepper amid the roiling ocean waters, a sprig of rosemary whose aroma lingered on the hand.

  Vaxis’s question churned in her stomach. The two fae could watch over the burgeoning druids, waiting nearby and out of sight should their fortunes turn or their enemies discover their precise whereabouts. And while she and Vaxis could sense the druids’ locations, their enemies would not yet be able to. The natural world did not answer their call in the same way.

  But if she and Vaxis were to intervene . . . Lucien and Syleste, Alessandra, and whoever else was searching for them might quickly find their trails. Magic such as Yvayne’s left an indelible mark on the world around it.

  Yvayne leaned toward Vaxis, her lavender eyes brightening. “What if I told you that there were other tasks we might accomplish, ones to shift the stakes in our favor without drawing undue attention to the three we protect?” If they could continue to take steps Alessandra would fail to expect and keep the dark goddess off her guard, Iellieth, Marcon, and Quindythias stood a better chance on their mission of uncovering the final seal piece.

  Vaxis grinned, wiggling on the bed of funeral mosses. “Tasks like what?”

  “Are you aware of the disappearances in the Brightlands? There are a few scattered across the Elven Realms as well.” She had been preparing to investigate such occurrences before she and Vaxis had decided to awaken Rowan instead.

  Her friend shook her head. “We have not heard of these in the Autumn Courts.”

  Of course you haven’t. The fae courts had retreated behind their own enchanted walls, unwilling to intervene in the fast-changing workings of the worlds. Another of Alessandra’s wars loomed before them, whether the Brightlands fae wished for such a recurrence or not. “I think it’s time to see if we can uncover what’s happening to these fae and druids.” Yvayne had been too fixated on Lucien’s movements to find out what was happening to them, but now, such an activity might be exactly what she and Vaxis needed to keep her charges safe.

  She had promised herself this conflict would be different. They would act offensively and not simply respond to the dark goddess’s assaults. Uncovering lost souls who had likely been imprisoned was precisely the sort of task they needed to undertake.

  Yvayne rubbed her fingertip over the emerald of Mara’s ring. She was still keeping her promise to watch over Iellieth. Drawing Alessandra’s eye elsewhere could only help their cause.

  “My Lord”—Senator Antonus Ignatius bowed before the flickering image of Lucien that had appeared before him—“the girl cast something. There was nothing we could do.”

  The towering lich chuckled. “Nothing you could do? You place a great amount of faith in the saudad’s magic then. The dark goddess will be pleased.”

  “No!” Ignatius’s hand shot out, calling back the spectral form. “That is not what I meant, Lord Lucien.” He bowed his head lower. One day, his work in Andel-ce Hevra would earn him an audience with
the goddess herself, but in the meantime, he would have to abide by her servant’s rules and follow his whims. “We destroyed the druids, and with Aylin gone—”

  “Aylin was still to be of use to me.” Lucien’s image grew taller as his voice thundered across the room. “The druids’ souls give me strength and, as your soldiers can undoubtedly attest, Aylin’s possesses a powerful magic. But no matter.” Lucien swept his cloak to the side and turned, calling Ignatius’s gaze outside to look over the city’s expanse. “There are others who can find her for me and bring her into my realm.” Lucien spun back, his yellow eyes glowing. “But I still require a sacrifice from you, Ignatius.” The lich smiled. A cold wind wheezed through the room and into Lucien’s throat. “Bring me the saudad girl, or I shall demand your son’s soul instead.”

  Chapter 1

  Iellieth stared back over her shoulder at the sprawling mass of roots and vines the black oak had created for her. “Thank you,” she whispered. Without the dryad’s intervention, she too would have fallen into the blood portal that had consumed Lord Nassarq, Briseras, and Lavinia.

  Freed from the vampire’s oppressive presence, the catacombs around them were merely dank and dim. Iellieth’s stomach flipped. Now that the immediate threat had passed, she remembered the room Marcon hadn’t allowed her to see, the slaughtered man who had helped them, and the child’s body waiting back in Nassarq’s chamber.

  The champion’s brow furrowed as he looked down at her sudden shudder. “What is it, lady?”

  Iellieth laid her hand against her throat. The black branch the oak had grown for her rested on the far side of the chamber, inaccessible from where they stood and coated in blood. “I, umm . . .” Iellieth cleared her throat. “I was going to suggest that we return to the surface.” The ceiling of the dungeons seemed intact for now, but she wasn’t sure how badly the portal’s sudden appearance had shaken the stone tunnels.

  While she and Marcon talked, Scad had crept over to Quindythias’s side. He kept the lower half of his body far away from the elf and leaned dramatically forward, peering at Quindythias’s tattoos. They were brighter than usual after the elf’s time in the amulet.

  “Ellie, who are these two again?” Scad straightened, frowning as he stared between Quindythias and Marcon, the two ancient champions bound to her and her amulet until they found the final piece of the planar seal, located somewhere in the Elven Realms. There, she hoped, she would also find her father, an elven diplomat who didn’t yet know he had a daughter. But he soon would.

  “I’ll explain on the way.” She turned to Marcon, who continued to study her with brow furrowed. “The man who arrived with Briseras, and the child . . . should we bring them up with us?”

  The champion bowed his head. “If we are able, yes. They have spent enough time in this place.” Marcon glanced around at the dark stone walls, scowling at the crypt where she had nearly disappeared with the two women they’d met in the catacombs, Briseras and Lavinia. They had leapt through the blood portal after the vampire, Lord Nassarq.

  There was so much to explain to the Linolynnian court above.

  “Very well,” Iellieth said. “Let’s go find them.”

  “And be on the lookout for tiny vampires on our way,” Quindythias added. “No sense in driving off the big one only to be turned ourselves and then stuck here, or worse.” He grimaced.

  Iellieth turned her head to the elf. “What would worse be?”

  “Undeath has always been exceedingly distasteful to me.” He shivered dramatically. “To dwell on and on, never changing? I’m already beautiful, so I don’t know that turning into a vampire will help matters. Very few are considered handsome and heroic. Most undead are driven by a hunger to consume life, while others become puppets.”

  “Or what’s happened to Lorieannan.” Marcon’s voice was low and abrupt. His scowl deepened.

  They would find a time, once they’d had a chance to rest, to discuss what had transpired in the tunnels beneath the Nocturne estate, especially the fact that his first love had been turned into a revenant whose deepest desire was to kill him. Or to kill Iellieth and wipe out the two champions with her. Clarifying that fact wouldn’t make Marcon feel any better.

  Silently, they retraced their steps through the halls and returned to Nassarq’s bedchamber. The man who had arrived with Briseras lay on the floor, his blood pooling around his head and shoulders from the gaping wound in the side of his neck, already crusting over. Iellieth’s hands started shaking, and she stopped at the edge of the room. Nassarq had ripped out this man’s throat with his teeth.

  Marcon stretched out his arm, preventing her from going closer. “Lady, perhaps you might find a scarf or cloak to wipe the blood from his bag, and a blanket or sheet to wrap the body in?” He pointed to the closet in the corner, where Scad and the woman called Lavinia had hidden.

  Iellieth skirted wide around the body and avoided looking too closely at the dark streaks along the floor, either blood or burns.

  Between the closet and a wardrobe, Iellieth found the items Marcon had requested. She flinched as she glanced over toward the bed where the child’s body lay facedown on the mattress. Quindythias stood over the child, lips compressed into a thin line. His amber eyes shone bright as Iellieth approached and held out a blanket for covering and transporting the small body.

  Scad had yet to pass through the doorway. He stood with arms crossed tightly around himself at the chamber door.

  When she returned to Marcon’s side, he had knelt over the man’s body, uttering a prayer in a tongue she did not know. The words were gravelly, rumbling in the champion’s chest. Their weight settled onto her shoulders, and yet there was a sense of peace to them as well. In the doorway, Scad’s hold around himself relaxed.

  Marcon arranged the body as he completed his prayer. He placed Briseras’s broken crossbow on the man’s chest and folded his arms over it.

  The champion rose. Tears shone in his eyes as he turned to her. “A prayer of peace and prosperity for one’s battles in the afterlife,” Marcon murmured. “It was a customary rite for those in my battalion who fell in the line of battle. We adopted it from the flaming soldiers of Ignis, warriors wreathed in fire. And we extended the rite to those who died fighting at our side.”

  Marcon carried the man’s body out of the dungeons, and Quindythias the child’s. Iellieth exhaled slowly as she watched them walk from the room. She bent to retrieve the man’s satchel, wiped it clean of blood, and wrapped its strap over her shoulder.

  At the doorway, she embraced Scad. “Let’s get you out of here,” she whispered in her friend’s ear.

  He held her hand tightly as they climbed the pathways out of the dungeon behind Marcon and Quindythias. “We’re going to get you some food and a nice, warm bed.” She squeezed his hand. “And then, I’m going to take you home.”

  Scad sniffled and nodded.

  As they climbed toward the light, she could see his gaunt cheeks, the dark purple circles under his eyes, and the slashes down the sides of his neck. How long must his days in the dark have stretched, being fed on by a cruel, twisted vampire? A sob gripped her throat, and Iellieth clenched her free hand around the strap of the satchel. How hopeless Scad must have felt, despairing of anyone ever coming to help him. Was it possible to recover from such an experience?

  She calmed her own racing thoughts. It was just a spark for now, but she caught a glimmer of the familiar vivacity that had danced behind Scad’s eyes. She didn’t know how long it would take for him to recover from his imprisonment, but in her heart, Iellieth knew that, given time, he would be himself once more.