Aurora's Heart Read online

  V.C. Sanford @ Copyright 2014

  Young Adult/ New Adult Fantasy

  83,228 Approximate W.C.

  Sons of Omission Book 1

  Aurora’s Heart

  Blood. The room was covered in it, every surface … the walls… the floor…everywhere. The room stank of recent pain and impending death. Yawning, Lord Torrin Baldric, newly elected Governor of Cabrell, nodded slightly, adding a slight wave of his hand, before he stepped back and to the side to avoid the sudden spurt of bright red droplets. A second nod and the knife flashed downward once again adding to the crimson design decorating the hanging man's chest.

  “Tsk, ...this was one of my favorites.” He removed a lacey handkerchief from his pocket, dabbing daintily at the single crimson drop that marred his pristine tunic. “Oh, well, white is so passé, don’t you think?” He addressed the darkly dressed woman who stood to his right, seemingly oblivious to the gore-spattered surroundings.

  Her eyes narrowed as she studied him for a moment. “You need a change of style anyway,” she replied, unconcerned if he even heard her. Lord Torrin waited for her to continue but she fell silent once again.

  Sighing aloud, Torrin gave a petulant shake of his head before turning once again to the task at hand. His sibling was stronger willed than he’d imagined, surviving torture that would have driven a lesser man to uncontrollable babbling. Darien’s chest rose and fell in asthmatic spurts. His anguished whimpering turned into a strangled gurgle, triggering a bout of coughing that sprayed droplets of bloody sputum directly into the face of the taller of the two onlookers. The smaller figure allowed a flicker of amusement to cross her face, permitting a brief glimpse of pearl white teeth, but only for a moment, before it was once again replaced with an aura of icy detachment.

  “Bring me something to wipe this mess off my face,” he demanded before turning back to the task at hand. “Whatever is he babbling about?”

  “Aurora, my lord, he keeps repeating Aurora. And whining about his heart.”

  Lord Baldric’s livid features softened as he stepped closer to the tattered remains of his younger brother. “Your heart? Ironic isn’t it dear brother? You thought to show me you were the better man, marrying the beautiful daughter of a rich man. Lord Jarnigan of Harn wasn’t it? The lady Aurora was lovely, tis true, but alas beauty fades quickly with no money to purchase the salves and unguents that keep the skin soft and hair silky. And it was so sad…her father dying so soon after your wedding… a stroke wasn’t it?” His eyes narrowed as his brother uttered a barely distinguishable, but vulgar expletive before once again falling silent. After a moment Lord Baldric leaned closer to his brother’s head. “You will tell me what I want to know,” he hissed, any attempt to conceal his outraged fervor lost. “You have no idea of the agony a man can suffer before his body fails. This is your last chance, where is it hidden? I know the slitch told you before she died.”

  Stretched tightly between the upright posts that were all that remained of his shattered bedstead, Darien Baldric’s body quivered uncontrollably. Despite the pain, some small aspect of his dim consciousness continued to rebel, and his body struggled to pull away from his constraints, oblivious to the futility of his escape attempts.

  “I ask you one last time…where is it?” When his demand yet again failed to receive the desired response, Lord Baldric abruptly nodded to the heavily scarred brute waiting patiently to continue. In response to his silent order, the disfigured thug shifted his weight, swinging his cudgel overhead, the short heavy club slick with scarlet gore that reflected momentarily in the flickering torchlight as its wielder brought it down across the stricken man's forearm. The eerie silence was broken by a muffled scream, then nothing.

  Immediately the tattooed man froze--- fighting an instinctive desire to throw his body prone and beg for mercy from the now glowering lord.

  ‘Wake him. I don’t have time for this.’’

  With the slightest swing of his body, the tattooed man set aside the bloody cudgel, reaching instead for an iron rod, its tip glowing white hot from the fire that burned in the tiny hearth. Seconds later the screams continued…

  Chapter 1

  It’s said that time heals every wound, but no matter how much time passes, the scar will always remain. Yeah…be great if all I had to deal with was a stupid scar.

  Balanced defiantly against the ship's figurehead as the Sea Wyvern rose and fell with the outgoing swell, Alexander Baldric stared out across the inlet, enjoying his first view of Cabrell, the city of his birth. Cool bursts of early winter’s breezes rising off the seawall whipped his long black hair around his face. Unaware of his childhood habit, he ran the tip of his tongue over his cracked lips, licking the crusty salt that had formed from the water in the air.

  Dawn… at last. It’d been a long night. Crimson fingers of bright light breaking over the northern horizon signaled the imminent arrival of the first of Omission’s twin suns. The early morning heat enticed the mists on the ocean waters into a naiad’s dance, beckoning the heavily laden ship into the sea. Distant spires cast faint grey shadows across the vivid green and cool blues of the water, broken only by the hazy form of a black shirk as it swam a lazy crisscross pattern around the ship while scouting for his breakfast. In the distance, a single bell rang hauntingly, announcing to all concerned that the Sea Wyvern had finally arrived in port.

  “Something’s bothering you?”

  Startled, Alex lost his balance, grabbing hastily onto the breast of the bow’s scantily clad figurehead in a desperate effort to keep from falling into the brackish water below. For a moment, he flinched, embarrassed as his hand slid along the breast before his fingers wrapped tightly around the upright nipple. Caught deep within the tangled nets of his ill-timed daydream, he’d failed to notice his silent friend standing nearby

  “Nothing gets past you, does it?” He kicked out at his friend’s head, not really trying to hit him, but clearly not caring if he did land a lucky blow.

  “Hey, I’m not the one feeling sorry for myself. You’ve been moping around like a condemned man heading for his own funeral.” Untouched by Alex’s display of self-pity, Maxx made a halfhearted gesture with his three middle fingers before turning back to his bucket. He dunked the unwieldy mop he was carrying into the pail of soapy water and then slapped it down onto the worn wooden deck, sweeping it back and forth across the salt-stained planks a few times, before ducking it into the pail again.

  Alex swung his leg over the battered copper stanchion, wavered once or twice before catching his balance and then dropped gracefully down onto the deck, landing just to the right of his friend.

  “I keep second guessing myself. I should’ve killed that son of a mangy warrg while I had the chance. Every time I close my I eyes, I’m inundated by visions of my mother’s battered body, there’s blood everywhere. I still wake up screaming. Now I’m going back? Am I crazy?” Kneeling slightly outside the sodden mops arch, he reached down and picked up the end of a rope from a tangled pile and began winding it up, looping it over his shoulder and around his arm until it was too short to continue.

  Maxx struggled with an answer. Alex hated his memories of Cabrell, it was a sore spot in every conversation. But Cabrell was situated on the main trade route between the Dyrropian Sea and Alliance. There was money to be made transporting food and supplies through the mountains to the mines nearby. Establishing a trade route between Cabrell and Alliance was their best chance for a successful business. They’d debated it for five years. Once they’d even come to blows over it. Now was the time to either start their business or forget it completely. It wasn’t fear that held him back. Alex was afraid of nothing… nothing except the idea of facing his father again.

  The young entrepreneur rarely le
ft himself this wide open. This could be a great opportunity to score a few points while recouping some payback from earlier pranks. He debated, enjoying several possible retribution scenarios for a few seconds before deciding against it. Alex had been right to tear into him after he got wasted in that dive in Altair last week. It was only by Tyche’s grace that he’d escaped with only a scar on his wrist to remind him of his lack of judgment. One day his temper was going to get him in serious trouble.

  Shrugging, he shoved the oversized horsehair mop across the deck a few more times and then dropped it into the bucket of grimy water. Alex drove him crazy at times. He was always overanalyzing everything. I gave up arguing with him long ago but that doesn’t mean I have to let him off easy.

  “Stop complaining, you sound like a crabby old woman. Poor little Alex…always whining about what might happen. Let’s finish up what we started and lay low until we reach port.” Maxx’s pales green eyes narrowed. “I never want to lay eyes on a mop again. Why the captain insists we scrub this old scow from bow to stern escapes me. It’ll just get filthy during the offloading. Drasst!” He jumped back, cursing loudly as another watery white offering was deposited on the section of the deck he’d recently cleaned. “Stupid flying rats don’t make it any easier.” He swung the mops handle in a futile attempt to annihilate a pair of seagulls who fought over the remains of last night’s dinner that had been recently dumped overboard by the ships cook. He felt better, but he would still need to redo it. Disgusted, he wrung the dirty water from his mop, then swiped at the bird droppings.

  Alex grinned, allowing a slight chuckle to escape at his friends’ crude outburst before bending to pick up the end of another length of twisted hemp. Maxx made life aboard the ship easier. The work was hard, everyone was expected to pull their own weight, but anything was better than his previous life. That part had sucked. He’d spent the better part of the last five years trying to forget. Now, he was going back, to Cabrell and to what was left of his family. Yes, of course, he had doubts. The idea of facing his father had him feeling like a ten-year-old again. Not that his father would have missed him, he doubted the sadistic drunkard had even noticed he was gone. He only sobered up when he ran out of money. It was his mother who’d made life bearable. Unconsciously Alex wiped away a lone tear that fell from his bad eye. He’d never cried, not once, since he’d found her that night, her lifeless body lying at his fathers’ feet, with him passed out drink at the table.

  That was the moment everything changed. Nightmares brought back bits and pieces, but he was never sure how much of it was true and how much was just wishful thinking. All he remembered was swinging, blow after blow until his father stopped moving. Then he ran until he was too tired to run anymore. He was still covered in blood when the ships cook found him, asleep inside an empty water barrel. Unconsciously, his finger traced the jagged scar that marred his handsome features, a constant reminder of how fickle fate could be, fate and a cold-hearted woman.

  “So, we go?” Maxx asked. “This is it, your last chance to change your mind. Leaving the ship is a big step. If you can’t hack it, now would be a good time to speak up.”

  “You can’t do it alone,” Alex replied. “And it was my idea.” Yeah, Maxx’s is always willing to try my ideas----especially when a profit was to be made.” His mouth twisted slightly as he struggled to keep a grin off his face, so many of the memories dancing through his mind were of good times.

  “Glad to see you’re through doubting yourself. It was starting to get on my nerves. Yes, it’ll be hard, anything worth having is. My mamma always told me: ‘You gain strength and confidence when you look fear in the face’. Not sure where she heard it, but it makes sense.”

  Maxx paused, remembering how she’d died. After all this time it still tore at his heart. He allowed his gaze to shift once more toward the small town growing closer as each minute passed. No, it wasn’t going to be easy.

  Stone-faced, he wrung the dirty water from his mop and then began talking again as he swiped at the salty buildup.

  “We’ve been on this ship nigh on five years---five very long years. We’ve torn up and been thrown out ‘a more places than I’d care to admit to around the rim of the Star-Mist Sea. Some we survived, a few survived us. Together we can face anything, including your family.”

  “I know---I know, and I’ll do what I need to do when the time comes.” Alex studied the piles of cargo waiting to be offloaded once the ship docked. “Right now, I only want to do two things, get this drassted ship unloaded and then get good and drunk.” He glanced up at a group of coin girls walking by, hips swaying in time to the soft jingle of the bells around their ankles, and grinned. “Let’s make it three things.”

  Maxx quickly agreed.

  Chapter 2

  Dust fell from the ceiling, coating everyone seated at the table with a thin white powder. Overhead the ornate iron chandelier began to sway back and forth, the sibilant squeak adding a discordant counterpoint to the already irritating booming sounds. Almost as soon as the peculiar noise faded, the sound came again, a loud banging that reverberated throughout the dining hall, followed by a faint vibration and a shifting of the floor that caused everything on the table to slide from its current position.

  Asmaris Shalestone, elected head of faculty at the exclusive Rosemount School of Elemental Magic, reacted without thought, stretching his arm across his table-mates plate in a desperate attempt to save his goblet of Alaric’s Gold as it worked its way toward the edge of the ornate mahogany table. Sipping the delicate apple-pear concoction once more, he set the fragile crystal carefully back in the center of the table, then leaned back in his chair before addressing his companions.

  “Master Stolinn, what exactly did you cover with the first-year students today?”

  “We discussed gravity and its effects, as well as going over the basics of levitation and feather fall spells. You don’t think--- Nikiva? Drasst it! Not again!”

  Master Shalestone didn’t have to finish his sentence. Despite one hundred twenty-six years of experience teaching at the academy, Stolinn could not recall another student that could raise his blood pressure half as fast as Nikiva Del Soro. He truly prayed the school could survive her. He prayed he’d survive her. It wasn’t enough that she disrupted every class. Nikiva had developed an annoying habit of interrupting his dinner at least three times a week.

  “Perhaps you might consider…”

  “Nikiva has the potential to wield powerful magic. As a natural sorcerer, she has an innate ability to command and manipulate the elements. She could become an extremely powerful Elementalist if we can figure out why her spells exhibit such erratic outbursts of power. I am not going to turn my back on her, you’ll just have to suffer through the next few years.” Rising from his chair with a resigned nod to his fellow diners, then moved his fingers in an intricate pattern that left a trail of glittery motes of light upon the air. Abruptly he stopped. “I hate cold fish”, he said. Stepping back to the table, he snatched one last bite of the pecan encrusted trout, wiped his mouth with a slightly dusty cotton napkin, muttered two final words and vanished.

  Almost instantaneously he reappeared just inside the doorway of a small dorm-room directly above the dining hall. His eyes widened slightly at the chaotic scene before him. Sure enough, standing on top of her bureau, clutching desperately at a small tattered book that strained to escape her fingers, was Nikiva.

  “What in Ligazra’s Nine Realms are you doing now?” he thundered.

  “It was supposed to simply float up a few inches.” She paled as her fingers slipped and once again, the book slammed into the ceiling.

  Stolinn managed to control his anger long enough to snap a few quick words, followed by a tight flick of his hand, quickly dismissing her spell. Face frozen, he bent over to pick up the now tattered black book. Silence filled the room, broken only by the soft pattering sounds of plaster and dust drifting slowly to the ground. Even Tweet, her ever-present Mir-cat, made it a
point to be conspicuously absent, probably cowering in the bottom of the overturned wardrobe.

  “Next time, you might consider the use of an alternative to your spellbook when you experiment. Something in lead perhaps? It would be exceedingly difficult to recreate all your hard work. And could you perhaps practice outdoors, I truthfully don’t know if the building can handle it.” His face twisted wryly as he struggled to keep a stern expression on his face. Realizing he wasn’t going to be able to keep the smile from his face for long, he nodded abruptly to his favorite student, turned and left the room, slamming the door to the room against the wall as he exited. Immediately the room started to fill as everyone ran to see what ‘Nikiva had done now’.

  Thankfully, the dust from the ceiling covered her face so no one could see the crimson flush of her cheeks. Mumbling a few words about getting a broom and bucket, she used the cover of the other students’ laughter to escape the crowded room. Ducking into the first supply closet she came to, she shut the door behind her, turned a bucket over and plopped down with her hands covering her face. Once again, she’d managed to humiliate herself and her instructor. Despite her best efforts, she was still a misfit…unable to complete the simplest incantation without everything getting completely out of hand. She sighed, leaning forward and listening at the door.

  No, they were still out there, waiting, like vhulls circling a dead rabbit. I hate when they stare. They could be so hateful. The idea of disappointing Master Stolinn once again brought her to tears. Despite extensive study and her every precaution, she couldn’t recall the last time she’d completed an assignment without mishap. Notwithstanding it all, Master Stolinn never seemed to grow jaded, despite continuous derision from his fellow instructors. Ever pessimistic, they failed to understand why he was wasting his time on a student with so little control. Instead, he confessed to her that it didn’t matter what others thought, it was what she thought of herself that mattered.