The Red Wrath, page 1
part #3 of Storyweaver Series
The Red Wrath
THE STORYWEAVER SAGA: BOOK 3
D.K. HOLMBERG
Copyright © 2023 by D.K. Holmberg
Cover by Damonza.com
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Author’s Note
Series by D.K. Holmberg
Chapter 1
SOPHIE
A massive forest stretched out in front of Sophie, looming with a darkness that left her feeling the energy of it, but not so much that she worried about the power that might be trapped among the trees. She held her prayer pose, as it was one of the easiest to form. It had been one of the very first that she had ever mastered, all those years ago, when she had begun to train with Ridaln. Even now, she found herself drawn to some of those early lessons, and the way that he had taught her, so that she focused the power from somewhere deep inside her. The difference between now and when she had first trained with Ridaln was that she no longer contorted her body into a pose.
The pose was still necessary. It just wasn’t as necessary as it once had been. Sophie was now able to form the image of the pose in her mind and use that image to concentrate the same sort of power. The position was key, as it permitted her, as a sorcerer, to create the form of power that she wanted. Yet it was not necessary for her to position her body as she once had.
She shifted from the prayer pose into another. The gilan pose offered protection she needed.
“Be ready,” Sophie said softly.
She didn’t glance behind her, though she had the distinct sense that several Karell were waiting on her. They had all come out here because of something that Sophie had detected, to know whether there was a danger present near the city, though Sophie wasn’t quite certain what she had sensed. She might be able to draw upon considerable power now, but she didn’t necessarily have enough control to be able to determine what she was picking up on.
She shifted the prayer pose, the mental image forming so that she sent it sweeping out and into the trees.
When it flowed away from her, there was a faint shimmering. That was the only sign that Sophie had other than what she could feel flowing outward. There were some sorcerers who could easily see the type of power that they held, but Sophie wasn’t one of them. She could feel it, though. There remained a connection, however faint, that linked her to the power that she sent away.
The prayer pose could be used in many different ways. She suspected that was why Ridaln had taught it to her so early on. As could the gilan pose, one she’d learned from Parvella. She had initially treated it as nothing more than a barrier, but that wasn’t the only thing that the prayer pose was good for. As she had increasingly grown confident with forming it in her mind and pushing power through it, she had gained an understanding of how she could send the power sweeping outward, turning it into a technique that allowed her to detect other entities. That was what she did now.
But there was something else to the prayer pose that Sophie appreciated. In this case, it was the fact that she remained connected to the pose, which allowed her to feel the energy as it swept outward. She scanned through the forest. The Karell behind her began to take up a different position, as if they were aware of what she was doing. She didn’t move, though she was curious about how much they could detect.
She wanted to push them back, though. If they stepped forward too quickly, they would disrupt the remnants of the pose, and Sophie wouldn’t be able to detect what she wanted.
“Stay still,” she snapped.
As she did, she formed a second pose in her mind. The lional pose was simple and created a curving sort of energy that she could solidify. She didn’t want anything complicated now. She would need only to hold them back, and so as she solidified the power, she created a wall they couldn’t push past. She even shifted the pose ever so slightly so that they would be able to see it and know what she was doing.
She felt one of the Karell attempting to push against her wall. Sophie resisted the urge to push more power out from it, not wanting it to explode against the Karell, but irritation was there.
There had been a time when she would never have been so irritable with the Karell, but having been betrayed by one of them, Sophie found it hard to trust them. This despite the Raven Queen telling Sophie that she needed to move past such betrayals, as it didn’t serve her or her people at all. Sophie found that incredibly difficult to get past as well.
But she could find a measure of calm so she could perform the pose well enough to push power out through it and track what she knew was out there. As she focused, she could feel the sweeping of energy…
There.
She darted forward.
She could now hold different poses while she was moving, which made it easier to be prepared to encounter something dangerous. Inside this forest, there were many dangers. It wasn’t like the Devlar Forest, in which she had been trapped with Nevarn a year ago, though that was part of the reason that she was out here now. This was what the Raven Queen wanted from Sophie.
But she didn’t feel anything.
Part of the mission was about chasing these unusual powers to ensure that the Raven Queen was not surprised by the Shavln power, something that Sophie had come to believe was tied to one of the gods, though it was one of the gods that she had not come to know very well. The other part was to seek out creatures that might pose a danger. She hadn’t seen the thisten for quite a while, but that didn’t mean they were not still present. There might be other creatures with some connection to the gods. At least, that was what the Raven Queen believed.
Sophie continued sprinting through the forest and realized too late that she had been holding the secondary pose that prevented the Karell from following her. She released the wall of power but didn’t slow down. Up ahead, she felt something. She passed pines, a few oaks, and some small shrubs bursting with berries, then jumped over a stream. She really should wait. It might be unsafe for her to go by herself.
Or it once would have been. Now she was a sorcerer.
Then she reached a small clearing. This was what Sophie had detected. She wasn’t sure what she might find here, but there had been a vague sense of emptiness pressing upon her. When she had been in the city, using her pose to test for any sign of the Shavln, she had detected a faint stirring. Sophie had no idea what had caused it, and she knew better than to ignore such strangeness. In the time since Thea had attacked, Sophie had been using her prayer pose more and more, to try to uncover additional dangers, but had not found anything.
“Is this it?” Sophie asked.
Sophie glanced over at the woman approaching. Jamilla was about ten years older than Sophie and had been serving the Karell for longer than Sophie knew. She was capable, though as far as Sophie was aware, all the Karell were capable. She had green eyes that seemed to take in everything, reflecting the colors of the forest. Her dark cloak matched her eyes, and she held her Karell wand in hand, glowing with energy of the same green as her cloak and eyes. All of this suggested to Sophie that this place was more for the Karell than for her.
Maybe I should’ve left them to it.
But the Raven Queen had wanted Sophie to go.
“They may need a sorcerer, Sophie Varison,” the Raven Queen had said before she’d departed. “And you may need what they can share.”
“What’s that?” she’d asked.
The Raven Queen had watched her, then sighed. “Perhaps the stories you seek.”
Sophie wasn’t sure what that meant, but she’d agreed to work with the Karell—as she had several other times over the last year, always looking into some strange ruins that the Karell had seemed to know about already.
And now she had to trust them.
“What do you think?” Jamilla asked.
“I don’t know what it is,” Sophie said, turning her attention back to the ruins that the forest had attempted to swallow. Vines crawled over broken debris, and moss coated exposed stone. Some plants cropped up in cracks along the boulders. Sophie couldn’t imagine what it might have looked like at one time, though her research had suggested that this had been a vibrant and thriving city long ago. Not only that, but there once would have been a temple here.
Perhaps this was a temple.
She certainly detected something. She felt her prayer pose washing over the stone, and though she couldn’t detect anything clearly, she was ready for any energy here to push against her. She had been using the prayer pose repeatedly, testing for anything unusual, but each time she attempted to do so, she felt some part of the energy in the forest, and of these ruins, straining against her.
“You told her there was a danger here,” Leanne said, joining Jamilla. She was an older woman, with graying hair and a round face that matched her body. “If this is what your sorcery detected,” she started, almost sneering at the word sorcery, “then I fail to see the danger. There are other things we could be doing.”
Sophie resisted the urge to tell her that she could absolutely go and do whatever it was that she thought she needed to be doing. The Karell did not need to come with her.
That’s not entirely true.
She hated having to remind herself of that, but then the Raven Queen had suggested that the Karell come with Sophie, because they could offer her a measure of protection. Not that Sophie needed protection from anything—at least, not that she wanted to acknowledge—though having others with magical power, especially the Karell, who were well known to have considerable magical power, was potentially beneficial.
Only potentially.
Sophie wouldn’t acknowledge that they could offer her much more than that.
“When I was back in the city, I detected something out here,” Sophie said, and she shifted her pose, switching to one that the Raven Queen herself had taught her. It was a variation of the prayer pose, which meant that it shared many similarities, as variations often drew upon similar aspects of power. But in this case, the variation allowed her to probe a little more deeply and to have a bit more of a sense of connection to what she felt. “There was a void of power.”
Jamilla regarded Sophie for a long moment before tapping her wand on her free hand, and then she paused, positioned her feet at about shoulder width apart, and waved her wand in front of her.
Leanne frowned, though she motioned to some of the other Karell, who had continued to spread out into the forest, though they had not gone any farther. They were waiting on someone—probably Sophie—to tell them that it was safe to proceed.
A streamer of green energy slipped out from Jamilla’s wand. It twisted, spiraling, and formed a pattern. It reminded Sophie somewhat of one of her poses, though when she had asked the Karell about the similarities, she’d been told that their magic was not at all like the kind of sorcery that she performed. Given that weavers, like her nana, had some connection to the Karell, she believed them, even though the parallels seemed strange.
“I’m not detecting any void here,” Jamilla said.
“The effect is subtle,” Sophie said.
She held her pose and let the power flow from somewhere deep inside her. The concentration of energy built up, and as she pushed it out, she began to feel it sweeping out and away, flowing toward the boundary of the forest around the ruins. As it touched all within the clearing, Sophie became aware of something else here, though she wasn’t entirely sure if it was tied to the ruins or if it was simply her power fading with the distance. There was a reason that she couldn’t use this modified pose over such a distance, as it did not generate the same strength as the standard prayer pose did. Still, Sophie thought that if she could uncover anything by holding this variation, she needed to try. This was the reason she was out here, after all.
She stepped forward, and Jamilla joined her. She held her pose firmly in mind. That was a lesson that Parvella had taught her, helping Sophie find that concentration, and ensuring that she was able to maintain the poses as silently as possible.
“I can feel it now,” Sophie said, continuing to push outward. “But…” She frowned. The power that she was pushing out didn’t allow her to detect much of anything. Whatever was here, whatever void of energy she detected, it was mild. “It’s not strong enough.”
“We can search,” Jamilla suggested. “We can report back to the Raven Queen and let her know we haven’t found anything dangerous.”
“We need to,” Sophie said.
Jamilla was watching her, and there was a look in her eye that suggested that she wasn’t sure why Sophie had been the one entrusted with this journey. For her part, Sophie wasn’t sure why she had been chosen either. Maybe it was because of what she had experienced and the power that she had felt in the past, or maybe it was just because the Raven Queen had been working with Sophie and wanted to see what Sophie was capable of. Perhaps this was nothing more than a test.
“Let’s start digging,” Jamilla said, waving her wand, and the other Karell began to march in from the forest, surrounding the temple ruins. Each of them had their wand out, and they worked together, forming a weave of power that swept downward.
It was more potent than anything that Sophie could draw on her own, and it left her wondering, once again, why the Raven Queen had sent her.
Her return to the city was quick. Sophie hadn’t waited for the Karell, as she had learned that she wasn’t going to find much inside the temple ruins and hadn’t wanted to linger there any longer than necessary, especially as the Karell were intrigued about some of the markings on the stone for reasons that Sophie was not. There were aspects of the Karell magic, and the way that they used it, that Sophie did not fully understand and was not permitted to ask about—or get an answer when she did.
She reached the palace without any complication.
The city of Hester was quite different from Valan, the city she had first come to when she had left Lorant. For one, it was deeper into Reyash, which protected it somewhat from Lorant, but there were fewer Taihg here as well. Sophie was accustomed to having the Taihg around her, and she felt their absence. Maybe it was just about not having Lan, or maybe it was the idea that she didn’t have the measure of protection that she had come to value.
That was partly because the Taihg were more than just soldiers. Sophie knew that they had some connection to magic, even if she didn’t know what that connection entailed, and her brother had not been helpful. Now that he had connected to a goddess, he might not be able to explain anything more to her.
She would have preferred to stay in Valan, but then again, that was only because of a familiarity, not because it was a place that she would call home. The tower there had served as a training ground for several years, but now that she was working more with the Raven Queen, she had reason to study away from that city and here in Hester.
The palace was enormous. When she had been trapped in Neylash, Sophie had thought that the palace there was massive, but this one put it to shame. It towered over the city, stretching out with its enormity, and was built all of a gleaming white stone, with flowering vines that crept over its surface. Sophie suspected the flowers offered a measure of power and protection, as everything around Hester had been made with purpose, all of it guided by the Raven Queen’s hand.
Sophie paused in the garden for a moment and was sweeping her gaze along a series of rose beds when she heard someone clear their throat behind her.
“Get on with it,” Sophie said without looking up.
Parvella approached. Sophie had detected her. She had taken to holding the prayer pose in her mind and letting a faint amount of power leak out from her. It permitted her to feel others approaching, so that she wouldn’t be surprised by somebody like Parvella. Then again, if Parvella truly wanted to surprise her, Sophie had little doubt that she’d be able to do so.
