Fatal Heir Read online

  Fatal Heir

  L.C. Ireland

  Copyright © 2015 Ghost Light Publishing

  All rights reserved.

  Cover art and illustrations by Fariza Dzatalin.

  Cover typography by Mariah Sinclair

  ISBN: 978-1-943367-03-0

  Special Thanks

  Special thanks to my beloved sister, CallyAnn, for her unending support of my writing; to my darling cousin, Hallie Kate, for being the best fangirl I could ever hope for; to my wonderful fiancé, Isaac, for always believing in me; and to my beta readers for helping me make Fatal Heir the very best it could be. Fatal Heir wouldn’t exist without the support of my readers.

  Contents

  I. The Heir of Aldrin

  1. Stories

  2. The Man

  3. A Leap of Faith

  4. Visions of the Seer

  5. Mel

  6. The Arrest

  7. The Other Izayik

  8. Imposter

  9. Answers

  10. The General’s Plan

  11. Execution

  12. The Heir Has Risen

  II. The King and the Imposter

  13. Changeling

  14. Spirits

  15. The Prince

  16. Deadmen

  17. Banash

  18. Bumps in the Night

  19. Vala and Sys

  20. The Trade

  21. Treason

  22. Last Man Standing

  23. Escape

  III. It Doesn’t End Well

  24. Stupid-Brave

  25. The Dream

  26. Home Again

  27. Bodies

  28. Queen of the Dead

  29. Fatal Flaws

  30. Beware the Shadows

  31. Speak

  32. The King’s Order

  33. Promises

  34. Corrupted

  35. Rescued

  IV. The Prince of Death

  36. Voices

  37. Poison in the Well

  38. Haunted

  39. Breakdown (Rath)

  40. March of Kings (Shyronn)

  41. Embrace (Mel)

  42. Child of Death

  43. Saving Grace

  V. The Gates of Heaven

  44. Hira

  45. The Seal

  46. The Last Seraph

  47. The Wish

  48. The Rim

  49. Ascendance

  50. Wings

  51. Closure

  The Reaper

  BONUS! Chapter 1 of Book 2: FATAL COURT

  Fatal Court

  Thank you!

  About the Author

  Author’s Sketchbook

  Interview with the Author

  Also by L.C. Ireland

  Coming Soon

  My pa always said that fear was the savior of mankind. He said this every night as he barred the door and locked the shutters, creating any barrier he could between his family and the outside world. Fear was good, he would say.

  My pa worshiped fear like most men worshiped the great Seraph Alaudrin. As far back as I could remember, Pa terrorized us all with the possibilities of what could be lurking beyond the door of our little cottage.

  Pa told stories about haunts who stole limbs and warned us to stay away from shadows. Not even death was safe because our souls could be devoured by soul-eaters called reapers. But mostly, Pa talked about the deadmen.

  Deadmen were walking corpses who jealously hunted the living. Though slow, they were wickedly dangerous with the help of the mist they vomited from their mouths.

  “The mist,” Pa said one cold winter evening, “is the breath of deadmen. It carries curses to trap the living. If the mist touches your skin—” his voice trailed off as if lost in a memory.

  My oldest sister, Lily, grabbed my hand and gave it an anxious squeeze.

  Pa found his voice again. “The mist will kill you in a thousand ways. Breathe in that mist and you will drown on dry land, burn without fire, be cut to ribbons without a single piercing of skin. And while you struggle just to breathe, the deadmen will get you and choke your life away. And then you’ll become one of them.”

  I practiced holding my breath when Pa told these stories. I wanted to see how long I would survive if the deadmen came for me.

  I never lasted long.

  Pa was wholeheartedly convinced that everything in the world was out to kill us. The only way to survive was to have a wilder imagination than all of the things that wanted us dead. Imagination, according to my pa, was the same thing as fear. My pa was the most paranoid man in the world.

  And then there was me. I was a hellion of a child, enthusiastically sniffing out adventure whenever and wherever it could be found. Mum used to moan that she was being punished, cursed with a child intent on dying young and taking her along with him.

  The fear of death had been worked out of me at a young age. I had seen too much to believe the stories of the afterlife that crazy old Mosby hollered at me from his perch on the town square fountain. Mosby said that naughty boys like me would die and go where the demons lived — to have their toenails peeled off for all eternity.

  “But what happens when we run out of toenails?” I asked once. “We only have ten.” Mosby threw a rotten apple at me. I shrieked gleefully and ran away.

  I didn’t think much about what came after death. I assumed that I already knew. I knew that the dead didn’t go anywhere; even after their bodies were burned upon the funeral pyres, the dead lingered.

  And I saw them.

  I saw Old Man Keller, the cart maker, staring at me from the shadows a week after his body was burned at the cemetery grounds. I saw little Lucy Vender playing out at Chester’s Field two nights after she died of fever. I even touched my grandpa’s dead face to make sure it was cold and hard before they lit him up, but then I saw him in his rocking chair with the flames of the cemetery altar still burned into the back of my eyelids.

  When I told Mum about the people I saw all around, she called it “wishful sorrow seeing.” Pa insisted I was telling tales just to scare folks and would send me to my bed without supper. I loved to eat more than anything else in the whole world, so I stopped talking about the spirits.

  But I never stopped seeing them.

  For a while, I was angry at my pa. Why did he get to make up stories about monsters and curses and then punish me when I told him the truth? I only believed in the things I saw with my own eyes, and I had never seen a haunt or a deadman or a reaper. I always assumed they were just characters Pa created so people wouldn’t call him a coward.

  I was wrong.

  I was seven winters old when I learned that my pa’s stories were real. I was in Mum’s chicken coop collecting eggs with my brother Tan when Pa came running from the fields. He said “deadman” about eight times, gathered my sisters from the garden where they were plucking weeds, and herded them inside. Then he turned and called for me and Tan.

  I held a finger against my lips and scooted around the chicken coop where I knew Pa couldn’t see me from the cottage door. Tan followed me.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  I nodded toward Lord Brenden’s fields. We could hear some sort of commotion, people screaming and shouting. It was exactly like my pa to run away and hide when anything exciting happened.

  “I’m going to see a deadman,” I said.

  The color drained from Tan’s face like water out of a leaky bucket.

  “Don’t do it, Don,” he said. “What if the mist gets you?”

  I rolled my eyes and waved his question away. I just wanted a look. I wouldn’t get anywhere near the mist.

  “Don? Tan? Where are you boys?” Pa approached the chicken coop. I needed to make my move quickly or he’d drag me inside and lock me up unt
il all the excitement was over.

  “Don’t you want to see a real, live deadman?” I asked Tan. I didn’t want to be brave all alone.

  “No.”

  “Don’t you ever wonder if they’re really real at all?”

  “No.”

  I snorted in disgust and shoved Tan out from behind the chicken coop, sacrificing him to Pa’s attention. I heard Pa asking about me as I ran into the fields. I didn’t even look back.

  The nearest field was growing corn that season. It was easy to hide in the tall stalks. I held my hands out in front of me to fend off the long leaves as I wiggled toward the sounds of yelling voices. I almost collided with Sem Goodrow, so I quickly withdrew. He would send me back to the cottage if he caught me. I scooted a couple paces to the right, peered through the corn, and immediately regretted my decision.

  Lying on the ground was Mam Petrie. She was dead. Her eyes were open, but empty. Her limbs were twisted unnaturally. She looked like a discarded doll. Far more horrifying than Mam Petrie’s body, though, was the creature that crouched above it.

  A deadman.

  It had once been human — that’s what made it so terrible. What was left of its flesh was green and gray. Whole sections of its skull showed through beneath rotting, matted hair. Its eye sockets were empty holes in its twisted, bloated face.

  The men from the village circled like restless wolves. They whispered and shouted to each other but wouldn’t move any closer to the monster. What were they waiting for?

  The deadman noticed its audience. It stood slowly, deliberately, on spindly legs — legs that didn’t look strong enough to hold it upright. It took such effort to stand that I was surprised the monster didn’t just fall apart where it stood.

  Sem Goodrow took a hesitant step forward, but quickly retreated when the deadman’s mouth fell open. A moan bubbled from its throat. Out of its mouth spewed the gray mist my pa told such awful stories about. I caught my breath.

  I had seen enough. I wanted to run back to the safe confines of my pa’s stuffy cottage. I wanted to cling to my sisters and sob desperate prayers to Seraph Alaudrin.

  But I couldn’t move.

  The mist traveled faster than I thought possible. It rolled across the ground like a determined, living thing. I clapped my hand over my mouth and nose and wet my trousers in terror.

  The men began to shriek as if the mist burned them. They clawed their faces and fell to their knees. Sem Borden pawed at the sky as if he were trying to swim into the air. His eyes rolled back like the eyes of a diseased cow.

  The deadman approached Sem Brench and reached out a hand to grab him. Sem Brench was the father of one of my dearest companions. I was going to watch him die if I didn’t pass out first.

  My lungs screamed for air. I couldn’t hold my breath any longer. I struggled as long as I could, but at last, I had to breathe. The cold mist shocked my lungs. I sobbed and waited to die.

  Nothing happened.

  My heart pounded so hard it hurt, but I felt nothing more. Maybe I was too horrified already to feel the effects of the mist. Whatever the reason, I was spared.

  But rather than run away as I had fully intended, I jerked forward on legs that didn’t feel like my own. I seized Sem Brench’s hand and pulled with all my seven-winters’ might. He stumbled and fell on top of me.

  Sem Brench panicked as I desperately tried to wriggle out from under him. The deadman lurched into view through the mist. It bored down on us, its mouth lolling open. The stench of decay stunned me.

  Suddenly, bright light cut the mist like a knife, followed quickly by another blaze of fire. Two forms appeared on either side of the deadman: one held a torch that burned the mist away, the other held a whip with a lighted tip. She lashed the fire whip all around, scaring the mist away. Together, they dealt with the deadman.

  I heard screams of anger and harsh wails of agony, but the view was blocked by Sem Brench’s body. I clung to the rough fabric of his shirt as he moaned like a dying man and pressed my face against his heaving shoulder.

  At last, the awful deed was done. The sounds of the deadman faded away, and my nostrils filled with the scent of smoke and burnt flesh. I had never liked the smell of smoke, but in that moment, it was the most beautiful scent I had ever breathed. Burnt things could not come back to life.

  The strangers pulled Sem Brench off of me and dragged him away. The woman scooped me into her arms. Normally, I would have protested being carried, as I was much too big for such things, but instead, I wrapped my arms around my savior, but almost put an eye out on account of the spiked collar she wore around her neck. It would be much harder for a deadman to choke a person who wore a spiked collar.

  These strangers were safeguards. Our lord employed a couple, as did any lord with foresight, but I had never seen them in action before. They wore spiked metal collars and fabric wrapped around their heads so only their eyes could be seen. They carried a strange array of tools that clanked when they moved: bags of lighting powder, torches, lanterns, and jugs of oil. They were deadman hunters.

  “Can you breathe?” the safeguard asked me.

  I nodded solemnly, not yet trusting my voice. The safeguard set me down next to Sem Brench, who lay on the ground, trembling all over. All around us, grown men curled up in the dirt like animals, shamelessly sobbing. I had never seen a grown man cry before, let alone a whole bunch of them. The entire scene was surreal.

  I watched as one safeguard knelt over Mam Petrie’s body. He sprinkled oil over her prone form and rubbed lighting powder between his fingertips. It was customary to burn bodies. Now, at last, I understood why. Mam Petrie’s body burned while the safeguards stood watch so the flames wouldn’t catch the corn and light up the whole field.

  “Donny-Boy, are you alright?” Sem Brench’s hoarse voice startled me. He stood slowly and put a big hand on my shoulder. I couldn’t stop shaking. My cheeks were filthy with dirt and tears. I was weak all the way to my toes.

  I was afraid to part my lips and let out more scared noises, so even though I knew it was rude not to respond, I kept my mouth clamped shut. Sem Brench seemed to understand; he didn’t press me for a response. Instead, he took my hand and walked me home. I kind of wished he would carry me, but I didn’t know how to ask. So I walked in silence beside him, feeling hollow.

  Pa wasn’t even angry when he saw me. He just looked sad and tired. The helplessness in his eyes told me what his lips would not:

  Welcome to the real world, Donny-Boy.

  I lived with my parents and siblings in a cramped little cottage in the village of Hazeldown. Hazeldown belonged to Lord Brenden, and so did we. I suppose I grew up poor, but I never minded it. I liked Lord Brenden because he kept the deadmen away.

  Lord Brenden was especially keen on disposing of any dead in a timely manner. There was no reason good enough to delay a funeral. The moment some poor soul was pronounced dead, a messenger would be sent to fetch the workers from the fields. At the signal, we would drop everything and run to the funeral pyres. As the body burned, we said our prayers to Seraph Alaudrin, asking him to protect the spirit of the deceased from any reapers who might try to devour it. Then we returned to our chores.

  Sometimes I saw the dead back in the fields, working away as if nothing had happened, completely oblivious to their own mortality. But I said nothing. No one would believe me anyway. No one ever did. Besides, spirits were harmless. They weren’t deadmen.

  I grew comfortable in my belief that death, however frightening, was far away from me and my loved ones.

  But death was right around the corner.

  Tan came home one day with red, rheumy eyes and a cough bigger than he was. Since he was my favorite playmate, it wasn’t long before his illness crawled inside of me and made a home in my lungs.

  Tan died two days later, and I knew I wasn’t far behind him.

  The sickness sapped my strength and twisted my mind. I was accustomed to the noise of my brothers, but now Tan was gone, and the o
thers were banished from our room.

  The silence drove me crazy.

  When I could manage to speak, I talked to Tan. His body had already burned, but I still saw him every night in our room when the lamps burned low enough. We made plans for all the mischievous things we would do once I joined him in death. I asked him all about what it was like to be dead and pretended that he responded. The spirits never spoke to me, but I didn’t mind. It was good to have someone to talk to.

  If I was too disoriented to speak, I would stare at nothing and listen to the frail beating of my own heart. I would lay in bed for hours, watching lights dance along the ceiling, wondering if they were real or imagined.

  It was in the midst of these fevered dreams that I met The Man. He was the most peculiar man I had ever seen. His skin was the color of stone, a brown-ish gray that reminded me of the dark sandstone buildings of the marketplace. His hair was a brilliant shade of red that I had only ever seen before on a bird’s wing. It was cut so short it stood up on end. His beard was maintained like a work of art, shaved into swirls of bright red that stood out against his dark skin. A mask of brightly colored makeup framed his eyes and curled down onto his cheeks.