The Twilight Thief: An Epic Fantasy Adventure (Thrones of Midgard Book 1) Read online

  I smile in triumph, still hurling toward the streets. Before I can rile in the sensations of victory, the monstrosity impaled on the ivory spire fades into black ash that’s carried away by the harsh winds.

  Fucking peachy. At least it’s dead.

  With a flick of magic, I wisp back into the room I just left. I hope I’m fast enough that the fae is still be in the common bathroom, but he’s not. I wisp to the lobby, hoping to cut him off when I hear more shouts and a loud crash of metallic trays clashing with the tiled floor. I wince as I realize the sound bursts from the hall where Ricon is.

  I run down the hall, cautiously avoiding wisping into a trap. I burst into Ricon’s treatment room to find Ricon is awake and struggling against the fae. The prince has a metal tray in hand that he slams into the assassin’s back. It dents and does nothing to dissuade the fae assassin. Ricon shoves the fae against a wall with his only arm, pressing his forearm against the fae’s throat.

  A guttural moan escapes Ricon’s lips, and I witness the nightmarish sight of the assassin’s long serrated fingernails piercing Ricon’s torso. I rush forward when the fae flings Ricon across the room and grabs the prince by his throat. I watch Ricon’s body lying on the cold ground, limp and facedown. My mother’s image surfaces. The memory hikes from the depths of my mind, like a bubble seeking the surface air.

  I imagine her in the dirt, her red hair dull and still. My heart thrums in my chest, and my magic pulsates as if it possesses a heartbeat.

  I wisp in front of the fae, grabbing his throat, much like his hold on the prince, and I consume him in my pearlescent twilight of magic. My mind is disheveled and wild. I can’t pinpoint a place to take him, but I desperately yearn to. Without a destination at the forefront of my mind, plagued with the images of my mother’s lifeless body, I pull the assassin into the void.

  The moment I feel myself breach from the void, I lift the fae by the throat and slam his languid body against the dry, crusted dirt. The prince falls to the ground beside me, gasping for air. The fae sneers until something catches his eye. I’m too overwhelmed by the fear of losing Ricon. I don’t notice his spindly fingers wrap around the black stone that hangs from my neck. The fae yanks, ripping the leather cord, and shoves his feet against my chest, launching me backward and hurling through the air. Before I crash into the dirt, I summon my magic and wisp into a crouch beside the prince.

  I’m about to call on my magic again and pull the prince to safety when he shoves away from me, his eyes widen and fill with fear.

  “What are you?” he says, his voice broken.

  “What?” I ask, confused by his repulsion.

  He points towards my face, but I still don’t understand. The fae behind us cackles. It’s a sickening sound like the Hyenae in the Hjornholm mountains. When I peer at him, my heart sinks into my gut. I reach for my throat, desperately searching for what should be there but isn’t.

  “Looking for this?” The fae sneers, “Everything makes much more sense now.”

  Dangled between his fingers is the black gemstone fastened around a leather cord, the last gift and memory I have of my mother. He twirls his hand, the cord swings and wraps around his finger tauntingly.

  “I asked myself—how in the world did a puny human become bestowed by the gifts of magic?” The fae confides. “But now I realize that you are no puny human. This makes so much more sense. Tell me, little fae, how long have you been hiding?”

  I clamor for a retort, but my lips are frozen, and my mind is blank. I know what I am. I’ve known for a very long time. However, no one else has.

  I recall the first time I saw it, my proper form. It was long after I found my mother lying face down in the dirt. Our village was attacked, so much blood. I ran aimlessly in the night away from our village and fell into a river I nearly drowned in. I remember how it felt to swallow too much water, choking, and lungs burning, desperate for air. I’m not sure how much time passed in the river when I awoke on a strange shore, alone, shivering in the cold. That was the first time I wisped, though I didn’t know it yet.

  If it weren’t for a fisherman and his wife discovering my frigid, corpse-like body, I would have died from the elements. They nursed me back to health and offered me safe passage aboard their fishing vessel. They docked at a fishing port and I left in the middle of the night, concealed by darkness. I wandered for months, foraging half-rotted berries and questionable tree shrooms, stealing scraps from travelers. I stowed away in a cargo vessel that sailed by sea for what felt like forever. I was kicked off in Nebach when the crew found me. Eventually, I came to the royal highway leading to Rhenstadt. A traveling merchant nearly trampled me with his steed. I think he took pity on me, though he’d claim he only offered me help so I could pay him back. I ditched him the moment we crossed the Rhenstadt borders. That’s where I met Ricon in the slums soon after. We squatted mostly, but sometimes there were beds available in the poor houses.

  I was alone in the cragged washroom—a long gilded mirror anchored above the sinks. I’d never seen a mirror before. The village I dwelled in was austere. I removed the black stoned pendant my mother had given me, but when I peered back into the reflection, I saw someone else staring back at me.

  I learned a truth about myself that night, but the fact only cast light on the series of secrets still unanswered. I never removed the pendant in front of another. Especially after the Purge of Arcana started. I coveted the gemstone as my most precious possession. My true form is fae. My honey gold eyes encircled by red are more vibrant, like scarlet red and orange of a flame. My ears point slightly, though not nearly as pronounced as most fae.

  My form is what the prince is apprehensively gazing at, the form that the fae assassin tauntingly elucidates.

  The assassin meanders forward, his hand twirling and untwirling the corded pendant around his finger as he whistles a shrill tune through his jagged teeth. I stand, bracing myself for a fight. I pull on my magic, not yet manifesting but ready to spring like a steel coil in a clock.

  “You disgust me,” the assassin hisses. “Hiding your form and mingling with these wretchedly pathetic things.” He points to the prince, who still won’t look away from me. I move in between them, shielding the prince.

  “Look who’s talking,” I retort. “Have you ever looked in a mirror lately?”

  The fae recoils and spits at the ground.

  “You cohabitate with these morsels as if they’re equal. The repugnance. An abomination,” he condemns and lurches forward. I wisp behind the fae, like a snake, primed to recoil and snap, but he anticipates the move. As I appear, he wraps a hand around my throat and the other against my forearm, my black stone pendant caught between his palm and my skin. He snickers and utters words in another tongue I don’t recognize. I feel the flesh of my forearm sear like a molten rod presses against my skin. I smell the scent of burning flesh, and a prism of violets and greens illuminate between the fae’s fingers braced against my arm.

  I manage to gain enough momentum with my free arm, slamming down against his wrist that grips my throat. His hold breaks, and I tumble to the ground, coughing and grunting at the pain that still burns through my veins. I look down, expecting my flesh to be singed, but what I see instead is more disturbing.

  A picture of vibrant green vines encroaches on my forearm, twisting around my limb. Butter-yellowish and lime-green thorns protrude from the braid of vines, delicately placed amongst the green and yellow are roses, fully bloomed and white as snow. A tattoo imbued with magic. The image itself isn’t disturbing, but the ominous way the image shifts and twists as if it were alive sends chills down my spine. The white roses, fully bloomed, slowly whither. The petal crumbles and curls and darken.

  I scrape at the tattoo as if it’s painted and I can erase it from my flesh. My skin still burns at the touch, and as the vines twist, it feels as though real thorns stab into my arm. A booming laugh bellows from the assassin as he watches me claw at the moving tattoo sh
ifting on my arm.

  “What did you do to me?” I sneer viciously. Spittle flings from my lips.

  The fae makes clicking noises with his tongue to teeth and says, “I gave you a gift, little fae. I’ve revealed your true form. This stone will no longer conceal you.”

  He drops the black stone, the gift from my mother, to the ground and digs a heel, grinding it into the dried earth.

  “Now, how about we take care of that pesky magic of yours,” the fae hisses. “It’s rather unbecoming of a fae in this realm to possess chaos magic. My masters will surely enjoy flaying your flesh from bone and study your magic while you scream in agony.”

  The fae reaches into his leather vest, revealing a sizeable prismatic stone carved like a garnet. The facets gloss over with a sheen of light. The rock is solid black, yet somehow the blackness glows. The shape etched into a familiar outline. A human heart.

  “Sage Stone,” the assassin sighs as he admires the pulsating stone in his palm.

  I don’t wait for his next move. I wisp from above him, knowing he’ll expect me from behind. I reappear, falling onto his shoulders, digging my heels as sharp as I can. The fae growls in pain. I kick off, wisping into the air and reappearing in front of him in the middle of a round kick. The back of my heel slams into his jaw. I hear the crack of teeth and bone. I expect the fae to falter, but instead, he grabs my ankle, and with impossible strength, he swings me into a nearby tree husk. The force so strong, the trunk splinters and cracks as I fall to the ground.

  The assassin grabs a fist full of hair, yanking my head back, pressing the heart-shaped stone against my throat. He mutters more foreign words as the blackness that emanates from the stone seeps into my skin. I feel my magic flicker as if it were a candle-lit flame threatening to distinguish with a gentle breeze. I summon as much magic as I can muster, desperate to escape the fae’s hold on me, but the iridescent hues of violet and blue slip away like grease and water.

  Suddenly, a burst of light pulses through the air, blinding. I clench my eyes but the light still pierces my eyelids. The weight of the fae’s body lifts, and he hisses. The light fades, and I squint, pausing as the blinding whiteness seared into my sight fades away.

  The prince is standing above me, his hands glowing a soft white. He’s gazing at his open palms in shock before he looks to me, his expression instantly harden. We’re frozen, unmoving. I search for something to say, but words fail me. I hear the fae grunting a few paces away on his hands and knees, panting with the sage stone still clasped in his hand. He pulls himself up, and I do the same, bracing an arm against the splintered tree.

  The assassin holds the sage stone towards me, and I panic. I call on my magic, pulling with all my might, but nothing surfaces. I feel it there, beneath my skin swirling and itching to release, but when I command it to pull me into its void, it falters.

  “Your magic isn’t completely bound, but enough you can’t annoyingly wisp about,” the fae sneers.

  Panic starts to set in as my limbs tremble from the pain. The vines on my arm shift and tighten like barbed wire wraps my flesh. The rose petals fall from the stems, slowly drifting towards my wrist until they fade from my skin. On my wrists are cuffs of runic symbols tattooed into my flesh. I summon my magic again. I can feel it blazing like fire, but when I imagine it consuming me, wisping me to wherever I choose. The runic symbols glow, not binding my magic completely but tethering me to the earth, preventing me from slipping into its void.

  The prince stands in front of me, his arms raised and glowing, in a stance I recognize but cannot name. The fae curses and rushes forward with his sage stone in hand. The prince swings his arms in a half crescent motion, breaking apart and slamming his palms together—a light cascades from the prince in pulsing waves of energy. The fae drops to his knees, sliding against the earth and dodging the wave of magic. He appears in front of us, his jagged fingernails swipe at the prince, who reacts effortlessly with another smooth transition of stances until a wall of light erupts before him, deflecting the fae’s assault.

  The prince shifts once more, his motions like a dance as he slams a lustrous fist into the assassin’s chest. Light from the prince’s fist gleams in iridescent shades of white, yellow, and red like holy fire. The sage stone in the fae’s hand cracks. Fissures appear across its black garnet facets until it crumbles into pebbles. The fae hisses violently. I pull my blade from a notch in my leather boot, and duck under the prince’s raised arm. I spin, building more momentum into my swing as my blade sinks into the fae’s throat. Blue blood spills from the gushing wound, and I shove my heel into his chest, forcing him to collapse backward. He heaves, and his body contorts in a shriveled manner. His skin tightens and becomes brittle like burnt leather. His eyes sink into the back of his skull, and his jaw widens unnaturally until a final gasp escapes his shattered teeth. He’s dead.

  I fall to the ground, panting and writhing in pain. My forearm burns where the blossomed roses were nothing but vines and rosebuds. The runic cuffs around my wrists ache dully.

  The prince drops to his knees beside me, leaning on his haunches. I look up at him to see his brow is pinched while he studies his hands, as though he doesn’t recognize them.

  “You have magic,” I say without meaning to. The prince burries his chin in chest and avoids my gaze. Useless. I decide the son of a genocidal tyrant possessing magic is the least of my worries right now.

  I spit a wad of thick blood before running the back of my hand against my busted lip. I look around, finally observing the terrain. I was too distracted by the chaos earlier to notice we’re in the middle of a dead forest. Trees stretch beyond my gaze like an ocean of tree graveyards.

  The tree husks are burnt, shriveled, and hollow. The earth is dry and cracked, with large fissures. The air is hot and arid. Each panting breath sucks the moisture from my tongue. My lips already feel the itch of chap.

  “Where are we?” The prince asks, breaking the silence.

  Instead of answers, I offer what could barely pass as a shrug.

  “Didn’t you bring us here?” He asks accusingly.

  I want to argue, but he’s right. I was so desperate to take the assassin as far away from Ricon as possible. I wisped us somewhere without a place in focus.

  Then, my mother’s image lying face down in the dirt resurfaces. Bad memories with an ebb and flow like ocean waves. I stand on shaky knees, scanning the surrounding desolation. I see a hovel of shambled leathers and broken stones in between the husks of the dead forest.

  I limp toward the rubble. When I reach it, I inspect the debris until my forgotten memory rises. My mother is sitting in a tent, her back turned to me as she hums, weaving twines into a basket.

  “I’ve been here before,” I say aloud, though I’m speaking to myself. The admission is unsettling. The forgotten memory feels like a phantom itch, so I chase it, trying to force it to play longer in my mind, desperate for my mother to turn and reveal her face. The memory fades each time I try.

  “Where are we?” The prince asks from behind.

  I turn and say, “I think this is what’s left of my village.”

  “I don’t recognize the terrain. I don’t know of any forests in Edonia besides Nolbhan and Ceribhan.”

  Neither do I.

  I scan the horizon, which is no easy feat. The sky is plagued with billowing black smoke. A large, blackened peak is visible in the far horizon where the smoke emanates. I squint until I recognize it and say, “Is that a volcano?”

  The prince follows my gaze, squinting until his eyes widen.

  “I think it is,” he says. “There aren’t any volcano’s in Edonia.”

  The grim realization settles between us. We’re not in Edonia.

  “You can take us back, though, right?” The prince asks.

  I wince at the sound of his voice, hopeful and on the verge of helplessness. I want to reassure him. Promise him I’ll wisp him right back to Laenberg to the safety of h
is chambers, but I can’t.

  “You can, right?” He asks again, even more pleadingly.

  I look down at my wrists, inspecting the runes, then at the prince grimly.

  “What are those?” His voice now has a bite.

  “Runes,” I answer because it’s obvious.

  “I’m not a moron. I can see that. What are they for?” He spits.

  I roll my eyes, and retrace my steps to where we first wisped. I reach the fae’s body and rummage through his clothing. I feel bitter touching the corpse, but it’s necessary. I find a few dried herbs, probably for spellcraft. I discard them, unfamiliar with their practicality. I withdraw the small blade from the fae’s withered neck and wipe the blue tarry blood on his slacks. I sheath the blade and stand.

  I turn my attention to finding the delicate black pendant that the fae kicked into the earth by his heel. It takes me a while, but I finally find it. After sifting through the dirt, I pull the black stone with the snapped leather cord from the earth. I rub it against my vest, brushing off the dirt. I tie a makeshift knot in the leather threads and fasten it around my neck.

  “I can’t wisp,” I admit. The prince flinches, and his brows pinch. He’s ready to argue, accuse, attack. I interrupt him, exposing my wrists, revealing the runic symbols seared into my flesh.

  “He bound my magic, not completely, but enough that I can’t wisp anymore.”

  “Impossible,” the prince rebukes. I sigh and then shrug because what else can I say?

  “Fine, impossible. Why would I wisp us back to Laenberg when I love the drama of nearly dying and getting stuck in a foreign land that looks primed to kill us just with the elements alone? Who knows what lurks in the dark. I can’t wait to find out,” I say satirically.