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  Forged

  Thorned: Book 1

  Liam Reese

  Contents

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  Prologue

  1. December

  2. Into The Woods

  3. Fleet Like A Deer

  4. Sunspot To Shade

  5. Hidden in Truth

  6. Truth Will Out

  7. Time Spent With a Legendarian

  8. Bandits and Highwaymen

  9. The Next Part of God’s Plan

  10. Mercy Kills

  11. Out of the Woods

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  Prologue

  The Forged were real.

  They were real men and women, brothers and sisters, parents and children. They were born, they struggled and grew. As their powers developed, so their popularity soared. At one time, the Forged were in high demand, especially among the wealthy, elite, and powerful — or among those who had ambitions to be so. There were too few for every noble home to employ one, and so those that did were considered distinguished indeed. Games were played, bets placed, more than a few battles fought over the Forged.

  What did they do, these Forged?

  Imagine the first to discover their potential. He lived in a small village in Ainsea and spent his life suspecting that he was different. When the time is right, he discovered why. He bent over something — a sapling, a cat, a spider — and put his right hand solidly but gently on it, then concentrated.

  change. Live. Grow.

  The energy is palpable, visible. A strange golden light comes from his hand, as though lit from within by a golden lamp. When the glow fades into nothing, the small piece of creation — the sapling, the cat, the spider —- has changed.

  Why did he do what he did? The sapling was dying, the cat had a broken leg, the spider was a spider. He changed it to heal it, to fix it, to make it something different.

  Playing God, they called it, even then.

  The tales started small: the truth, simple, unvarnished, green as a new stem. But, as tales often do, they grew.

  Where was the legendary Forged who could turn a palace into a swamp? Or the one who could make mountains of molehills, and molehills of mountains? Where could you find the mysterious figure who could make dreams come true, simply with the pressure of his gilded right hand?

  Many believed it. Perhaps even some of the Forged believed that they could become something more, greater than what they were.

  With the growth of the legends, another element grew - greed. For power, money, for fame. For the Forged.

  Their power was too easily corrupted. They themselves were too easily corrupted. Where once the power was used to heal, to preserve, it became reserved for the highest bidders. The way that a crooked physician might reserve his ability to heal for nobles and merchants, while leaving the poor to suffer.

  While the power could be used to heal, it could also harm. When turned on an enemy, a Forged could take away their power. No man could keep hold on his own might, or even his own possessions, when he has been turned into a frog. There were limits to the abilities of the Forged. Transformations lasted only seven years, unless done on grey stone iron, which seemed to bond the change for longer. But as some of the Forged grew more corrupt, even seven years proved to be too long.

  Within a hundred years, the number of Forged soared. The battles fought over their power crippled the kingdom.

  But it wasn’t until the king of Ainsea was nearly the victim of a Forged-driven plot that he took action.

  He lived, but they said he was never the same. Suspicion and fear do things to the mind, even if you are a king. He killed the Forged assassin himself, but it did not alleviate his fear.

  A law was passed first, an edict against aiding and abetting anyone who was proven to be one of the Forged. The rumors came next: the Forged were cursed, not blessed. Their power was unnatural, unearthly. The deformities that the Forged were often born with — missing ears, extra fingers, colorless eyes — were held up as proof. Such forsaken creatures would not be tolerated in a modern, God-fearing kingdom.

  The people of the land gradually turned on those they did not understand, the ones they had once revered. At first, the Forged were ignored, then mistreated, abused, chased from their homes, arrested, abandoned by their families, left to die in the wilderness.

  The battles gradually ceased, and Ainsea came back to its senses; the country woke and blinked and looked about itself like a man who had been asleep. The Forged had disappeared overnight, and no one knew quite where they had gone.

  No one quite wanted to ask, either.

  The power of the Forged passed into legend, into secrecy, into whispers and rumors. When Forged children were born, their powers were hushed up, covered over, buried in the woods.

  After all, no one wanted to lay claim to a curse.

  1

  December

  The years leapt swiftly past, the throne passed from king to king, at times a queen, – Ainsea was not particular. The kingdom did not require much, beyond a body on the throne.

  Twelve rulers to an era, as the accounting went, and so each royal in line had their place among the months.

  Every now and again, there was a jolt, a stutter, a grab for power. The people didn’t seem to mind. The nobles and royals fought over power and money, and the peasants got on with the business of living and dying. Politics were for the rich.

  Take the current government, for example.

  Oh, the November King had died suddenly, it was true. That was part of the problem with not employing someone to test your food before you ate it. Had he been poisoned? It was almost certain. Someone had hung for it, after all.

  The next in line, his daughter Irae, was not much more than ten. Far too young to take up the royal mantle, though old enough to be trained. She was a strong-minded young woman, much like her father, and as she took diplomatic lessons — which she frequently failed — and spent time among her people, the hope was that she would become a better, more gentle ruler than the November King had been. As the last in line for her era, her reign would determine whether the January King would continue the bloodline, or whether the title would be passed to another, more capable family.

  In the meantime, a steward, Lev, held her place. A man of middle age and gentle ways. He had a kindly, handsome face, blue eyes, and hair white with wisdom. As the uncle of the deceased November King, he was sworn to the good of the country. He would oversee the throne while the king’s daughter grew up, advise her afterward, and know his place.

  While she grew, he proved to be a good steward. He listened to the people. He kept the roads cleared and in good repair, and only raised taxes a little. He hardly ever threw wildly debauched parties or held public hangings, but the people were ready to forego a little entertainment in order to lead quiet, peaceful lives.

  Besides which, rumor said he had been blessed with immortality. A powerful magess had fallen in love with him, and given him the gift of eternal life, though he must have broken her heart in the end, since she was nowhere to be found now. It was lucky for them, the people thought, that he was a good steward. Had he been corrupt, or ineffective, what would they have been able to do about it?

  But there was, even then, a saying about power.

  Irae turned eighteen in the summertime. The morning of her
birthday, she woke with the

  conviction that it was time to go to work.

  She hummed absently as she dressed, peering out the window to the cobblestone courtyard of Castle Balfour and the teeming people. There would be no celebration of her birthday, not with her coronation so close. She had made the decision that Birthday feasts were for children; there were more important things to be concerned with.

  She had a list.

  She hummed also as she went in to breakfast. She hummed over the eggs, over the sausage, and accidentally blew bubbles in her tea. Graic, who had successfully raised her from a motherless infant to a young regent ascendant, looked up in surprise.

  “Rude,” she said, frowning. Graic was not given to long sentences; at least, not long sentences that made much sense. She was ancient, as far as the princess could tell, and what little mental ability she had left was reserved for correction and punishment. But she had mothered Irae when no one else had, and so Irae only rolled her eyes a little, and smiled despite herself.

  “I’m humming again,” she said.

  “Like a bee,” murmured Graic into her own cup.

  “I can’t help it. There’s so much to be done. I feel as though I’ve come into pieces in my own skin and everything — I’m all bees, all over inside.” She poked at her plate. “I can’t help humming when I’m nervous.”

  Graic patted her hand. “Best take a bit turmeric,” she advised.

  Turmeric was her suggestion for most things, and so Irae ignored this in favor of action. She leapt up from the table, nearly knocking over the carved, heavy chair, and made for the throne room where her great uncle would be waiting.

  Today was the day.

  They would set her coronation for a week hence, at the most, but today she would be the December Queen in all but name.

  She burst through the double doors into the throne room without waiting to be announced. She was Queen, after all.

  Her uncle lounged on the throne, legs crossed, an elbow on his knee and his chin in his hand. He had apparently been contemplating the floor. Which was silly, in Irae’s opinion, when there was so much to be done.

  “Uncle!” she called, as she advanced. Castle Balfour was not a large edifice, but it made up for its lack of overt grandeur with the majesty of the throne room. She had played here as a child, trained here as a young woman, and knew it like the back of her hand. She loved the echoes: how a peasant making supplication, standing in the center of the room, was easily heard, but the regent on the throne, conferring with her advisors, could do so almost completely inaudibly.

  At one end of the throne room stood the throne itself, and beside it, the little anteroom where the Anvil of the Soul was kept, more a relic now than anything else. The possession of it was a show of strength and power: once, the castle’s own Forged had Forged the king’s enemies irrevocably on the greystone iron of the Anvil. In the absence of a Forged, the Anvil was still used occasionally for important executions; irrevocable in their own way.

  Irae had seen one or two, but she wasn’t sure what the difference was between an important execution and an unimportant one. They all made her feel slightly ill.

  Her uncle looked up from his place on the throne and offered her a faint smile.

  She came to him, took his hand, and kissed it. It wasn’t a requirement, as he was just the Steward, but it was a mark of respect that had started as a childhood joke. She stood above him, and looked down, returning his smile. She never ceased to marvel that he looked so much younger than he must be. His eyes were deeply lined, his face a bit more weathered, but apart from that, he had not changed for as long as she could remember.

  “There is much to be done, Uncle. We must begin by setting the day for my coronation. And I have plans for immediately afterward, as well. Last week, Sir Merundi advised me that there were reports of highwaymen and rogues increasing in activity, especially in the north. I suppose you’ve heard all about it, but Mecen’s wife and daughter were turned out of their carriage and their valuables stolen. We can’t have that sort of thing. We must hunt them down and make them an example. The highwaymen, I mean, not Mecen’s family.”

  She sat down on the arm of the throne — she would make sure to have it reupholstered, the entire thing was very uncomfortable — and folded her arms, looking up at the far-away ceiling as she went through her mental list of things to be addressed. “Then there is the issue of money. I know I’m not meant to be involved in that quite yet, but after all I am the regent ascendant, and so I met with the treasurer, I can never remember his name. I met with him last month and he says that while we are doing well, there seems to be more money going out than coming in. And the taxes must be raised, he says, though I know you did that last year and I don’t know that it should be done again, just to keep the people happy. Also, the prisons are overflowing — did you know that? And I’ve heard from Karyl that there are reports of armies mobilizing in Elgodon — they want to reclaim the land we rightfully won and will start a war to get it. We don’t want war, do we? I don’t see how that could work to our advantage, unless we struck first and were sure to win. Are you listening, Uncle?”

  He did not appear to be listening at all; instead, he carried on smiling his gentle smile, which no longer seemed directed at her. It was a gentle, indulgent, overly patient smile, like a teacher with a particularly stupid pupil.

  She prodded at his shoulder. “Perhaps we could start by letting me sit on the throne? After all, it is mine.”

  Her uncle gave a little cough. “Well, my dear,” he began, “there is an important matter we must discuss.”

  “Of course,” she said. “There are lots of things we must discuss.”

  “Come and sit in the chair, there.” He gestured to the little wooden chair that had been set before him.

  Irae eyed it. “No,” she said. “I want to sit on my throne.”

  “You always complain about how uncomfortable it is.”

  “But today it is mine, by right, and perhaps it will feel different.”

  Her uncle heaved a quiet little sigh, and stood up. She bounced to her feet, quite sure that he was acquiescing, but he picked her up by the arms before she knew what was happening and settled her firmly in the little wooden chair.

  “Stay put,” he said, still smiling.

  That she had actually been lifted shocked her into silence, though her face flushed darkly. How dare he treat her as such a child? What could he mean by it?

  The unknown strength in his arms, as he lifted her without apparent effort, disconcerted. And the way he looked at her, still with that patient, gentle smile — the way he had kept her from her throne — made the bottom of her stomach drop and fall away. He had never before possessed that fixed, cold expression.

  “Now, my dear,” he said, “I’m well aware that this is your eighteenth birthday, and by rights you should be able to take the throne. You’ve been trained for it, goodness knows. Your father would want you to be a part of running this kingdom.”

  “Certainly,” said Irae. “You trained me from the time my father died — I could have had a say in decisions from a much earlier age. This is my kingdom, after all.”

  “Ainsea belongs to itself,” he gently chided. “Those who take the throne are nothing more than stewards.” He paused, dabbing at his lower lip with his tongue, considering his words. “Which is why I feel that I will do it a much better service by remaining as ruler, rather than handing it over to you.”

  Irae’s face became even hotter. The bees inside buzzed with renewed energy.

  “After all,” said her uncle benignly, “each time there is a change in ruler, there is a great deal of unrest and dissatisfaction, even wars. The people get upset. Feelings are hurt. Wouldn’t it be so much better for the kingdom to have a ruler who cannot die?”

  There was a moment of silence before Irae found her tongue.

  “You cannot mean this,” she said, dully.

  “I most earnestly do,” her unc
le assured her.

  “This is treason!”

  “Once I am the king, it will not be. Once I am crowned, all of this will be forgotten.” He gave a patient little chuckle that matched his patient little smile. Irae ground her teeth.

  “Come now, I’m not exiling you. You can still be a part of this kingdom, just as you have been up till now. Just as your father would have wanted. It is only that you cannot wear the crown — it would not sit right, anyhow. It would be too large.”

  She leapt from her seat, fists clenched. Tears sprang to her eyes, betraying her just as her uncle had done. Her heart wrenched within her, half from anger, half from a slow-dawning, disbelieving sorrow.

  “My father would not have wanted this! You cannot do this! I am the December Queen, by right of blood!”

  The patient smile disappeared, and her uncle eyed her with something much more like distaste.

  “As long as I live,” he said, “you will never be the December Queen. And I, my dear, will live forever.”

  “You can’t hope to get away with this! The people will fight for me.”

  “Will they? I think not. After all, I’ve been a model steward, have I not? The people don’t care what happens in the castle, as long as they’re left to live and die as they please.” He laughed, but it was mirthless laughter. “And after all, what are they going to do to me?”

  She leapt at him, hands out, furious and ready to draw blood if she was able. But he held her off without much effort, with that terrifying strength that she had never realized he possessed.