Page 5 of The Sea of Zemira (The Zemiran Chronicles 1)

Mason bowed his head doubtingly, signaled to the remaining royal guard, and then headed towards the chamber where they laid the queen to die.

Matthias’s legs went unsteady once he heard Tristan’s guttural cries echo through the castle walls. The king eyed Mason as he dragged the boy’s small frame through the courtyard, wailing and screaming for his father to help him. Still, the king stood with his chin held high with a forced, icy glare.

Elijah came out of the room into the courtyard following the guards and shot his father a venomous look. The seven-year-old prince watched in horror as his brother was taken away outside the palace’s gates. The king unexpectedly stumbled back, catching himself on the corner of the wall.

And this is just the beginning,the king thought, trying to remain still.

He had to take back Zemira and bring order to its destruction. Matthias would put a stop to the nonsense, even if it meant executing his child.

* * *

In the small village of Baylin, outside the central city of Zemira, they could still hear the palace bells chime loudly throughout the night. It had been over a week since the king set out his guard to track down the Elven spies.

Val Lardbrak sat on her couch with her knees up to her chest, wondering if, at any moment, the royal guard would knock down their door—not that they would find spies hiding within their home. However, the guards never played fair. So far, she had survived another day.

Earlier that morning, Val watched the king’s men rummage through their village, asking questions she knew very well how to answer.

“An elf?” she had said, trying to mask the stammer in her voice, “What’s a bloody elf?”

For more than a year, the redheaded woman and her husband, Duncan, pretended to be oblivious to magic because it was the only way to survive. They had the sight, but most of their neighbors around them did not.

She pretended not to know any of the Elven spies hidden in their neighbors’ homes or the fact that mystical fairies and mighty dragons existed. But she and her husband also knew the risks of keeping such secrets. Someday, the king would come looking for those who had deceived him—the resistance. Or whatever they called themselves. Val and Duncan wanted nothing to do with it because staying alive was more important than getting mingled with the king’s affairs.

The soldiers barged through her door that morning, tossing everything in sight. She kept herself poised, looking out the window, hoping her husband would be home soon, but she knew he would not be. He was out in the sea, catching fish for the upcoming winter, and he was not expected until later that night.

She looked up as she heard laughter coming from her neighbor’s window, two doors down.

“Elves?” the neighbor called out through her opened window, followed by another uproar of laughter, “Like those pointy-eared creatures in fairy tales?”

She will get ’erself killed wit’ a tongue like that, Val thought.

Regardless of how many times she and her husband planned what they would say when the guards came looking for Elven spies, nothing had prepared her for when armed guards knocked on the door. Five of them stood in her doorway and pointed their pistols at her forehead, eyeing over her shoulder. Nausea gripped the muscles in her stomach, and when she felt faint, she told them she had not eaten that day to explain her reaction away. No elf was in their home, of course, but with five armed guards before her, she second-guessed.

Val took several steady breaths as she tucked her crimson curls behind her ear, not to alarm the guards. She nodded, smiling, knowing full well no spy hid behind their walls. Yet, not until the guards left did her fear simmer down inside her thin chest, burning like a hot stove.

Most of the resistance had given up overthrowing King Matthias. They no longer cared that their land had been dying for the last three hundred and sixty-eight days. They did not want war. At least Val and her husband did not. To her, it was better to stay blind to the deception and be alive than fight against it and die trying.

“Come ’ome, Duncan,” she said aloud, “Please come ’ome.”

Val assumed the worst, that they had found him, questioned what he knew, and saw the truth in his dark eyes. She was pacing the kitchen when she had heard a click at the front door.

“Duncan! Where ’ave ye been?” she cried, running to meet him before landing a kiss on his well-groomed beard. Val noticed his soppy clothes as he lurched in the doorway, but her big eyes immediately drew to what he held in his arms. The blanket they kept on their fishing boat wrapped around a bulky thing he held close to his muscular chest.

“Wha’ is goin’ on?” she asked, not addressing the bundle in his arms, “Why do ye look like ye ’ave gone for a swim, Duncan?”

“Somethin’ happened, Val,” he said, almost to a near whisper. He looked over his shoulder at the window, then back to meet her eyes. “Somethin’ terrible has happened.”

“I’m quite aware of wha’ ’as ’appened, m’love. I ’ave locked me self in the house all day while the king’s men roamed our village, rummaged through our things, looked under our beds, even inside the cupboards! I’ve ’eard shots today, right outside the village,” she explained. “One of the guards dared to point a pistol at me ’ead.” Her eyes went back to the blanket.

Duncan blinked, stunned silence as he thought about what his wife had just said.

I should have been here for her, but—, he thought before she interrupted.

“Wha’ do ye ’ave there, Duncan?” She disrupted his thoughts as her eyes went wide, down at the blanket. “Duncan, what’s wrong?” She rubbed her knuckles nervously. “Wha’ the bleedin’ ’ell did ye do?”

“The sirens were attacked today out in the sea. I saw it with me own eyes. The ships were sailin’ from the east. The bloodshed wasn’t in Zemira alone, Val. The guards attacked everyone,” his voice pitched.

Duncan retracted his hand from the blanket as a soft whimper muffled under the cloth.

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