Excerpt
Prologue
Vamreth
Ten Years Ago…
The coup began long before Vamreth's fighters poured through the palace gates that night, but the bribe was the key. Vamreth would always remember that. What would come to be known as the Purge of Usara took a year of planning, secrecy, the expert counsel of the mysterious and chilling Tovos, and a hundred swordsmen. But in the end, a bag of gold coins pushed into the hands of two guardsmen brought the Laochodon reign crashing down.
Once the bribed guards let Vamreth and his fighters through the gates, the loyalists fell quickly, surprised and unprepared for his single-minded onslaught. Vamreth's force cut through the palace like a scythe.
If the king's guards had possessed even another few minutes to rally, the battle would have gone differently. But they didn't, and Vamreth did not delay. Tovos had counseled him to not hesitate, even for a second, and to show no mercy.
Once inside, blood on their blades, Vamreth's mage cast her spell and located the king. By the time the alarm had raced throughout the palace, Vamreth burst through the door to the royal bedchamber.
In his night clothes, the king spun to face the armed men and women.
A veteran of the Triadan Wars and no stranger to swordplay, King Laochodon went for his blade, perched on iron hooks embedded in the marble wall. He attacked and Vamreth leapt to meet the king.
Steel rang as Vamreth and the king crossed swords. They exchanged a flurry of blows while Vamreth's cohort respectfully stood back. Parry, riposte, lunge, retreat. Vamreth had hoped the king would be caught by surprise, that his worry for his queen—for his entire kingdom—would distract him and sour his swordplay. It didn't.
The king and Vamreth were evenly matched.
"No," Vamreth finally said, winded. He leapt toward the safety of his fighters. "It's taking too long. Kill him."
"Coward!" Laochodon snarled, lunging. But Vamreth's men rushed forward and a dozen swords pierced the king at once. Laochodon collapsed, gurgling his last breath.
The queen screamed.
At a nod from Vamreth, his men charged the queen.
She screamed again and leapt off the bed, but not before a pair of blades stabbed her. She fell to the floor, crying, gasping, crawling toward her dead husband.
Vamreth stood over her. In sight of a dozen of his fighters, his mage Halenza, and her ten-year-old apprentice, he ended the queen's life with one brutal thrust.
He waited until her body went still before pulling out his sword.
"Where are the children?" he asked.
"They are being dealt with," Vamreth's captain said over the screams coming up the hall.
"No survivors," Vamreth said. "Not one."
"And the servants?" the captain asked. "The tutors?"
"Kill them all. When the guards arrive, I want nothing left but the blood of the dead. Let the Laochodon loyalists feel my presence. Let them know that carnage and despair comes for them if they stand in my way."
"Yes, sir." The captain hurried away.
More screams echoed down the hall as Laochodon's children and servants were put to the sword. The captain returned, bloody blade in hand.
"She wasn't in her room," the captain reported.
"Who?"
"The youngest princess. Rhennaria."
"Did you search it? If she's hiding under the bed—"
"Every inch. She wasn't there. The Luminent girl is missing, too."
A queasy feeling spread through Vamreth's gut. He heard Tovos's voice in his mind, the last thing the frightening man had said: Be quick, for Fate will attempt to thwart you. Kill them all. Not a single can remain.
