Miraden's Folly: Her Soul of Fire Book One, page 1
MIRADEN’S FOLLY
Her Soul of Fire Book One
Copyright © 2015 J. V. Fahl
www.jvfahl.com
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead or otherwise, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover and Interior Design by We Got You Covered Book Design
Ebook ISBN: 978-0-578-25635-1
Softback ISBN: 978-0-578-25636-8
Hardback ISBN: 978-0-578-25637-5
Contents
1. The Prodigal Daughter
2. The Lost Artist
3. An Unlikely Hero
4. A Devil's Compass
5. The Blacksmith’s Apprentice
6. Lovo the Unfortunate
7. Caught
8. Valdenfest
9. The Blight
10. The Trail Goes Cold
11. The Prowlers
12. The Confession
13. The Ice Grew Thin
14. Bleak Gale Pines
15. The Nightmares Grow Darker
16. The Mage’s Secret
17. The Desperate Journey
18. The Trek South
19. The Baron
20. The Unfortunate Choice
21. A Step into the Past
22. In the Gods’ Hands
23. Into Civilization
24. Gearing Up for the Journey
25. The Shaman’s Calling
26. The Confessions
27. The Shipment
28. The Altar of Sacrifice
29. The Turning Point
30. The Bearer of Doom
31. The Bloom on the Battlefield
32. Homeward Bound
33. The Voyage South
34. Finding the Cause
35. The Final Letter
Preview of Book Two
Afterword
About the Author
Dedication
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LET’S GET YOU TO THE STORY
In a wooden cottage deep in Baregorin Forest, Ceychell prepared juniper tea with nutmeg. It was not one of her alchemical specialties, just something for her mother to sip. The kettle whistled above the crackle of the fire in the hearth. As she lifted it from the rung over the fire, she heard a knock at the door. She loosened the top of the kettle and replaced it on its hook over the fire, walked across the fur rug to the door, and opened it a crack.
Standing on the stoop was the old seamstress, Vera, her wrinkled face nearly covered by the cowl of her cloak. Next to her stood the cobbler, Steljen, whose face was a swollen crosshatch of red scratches. Ceychell didn’t greet them.
The seamstress sounded like a choking horse as she cleared her throat. “How adorable you look with your hair bundled up like that… Is Curasca feeling better yet?” Vera asked. “This cough, I’ve had it in the past.” Ceychell glowered at her, and her wrinkles folded in on themselves.
“My mother is very ill,” Ceychell said. “Yet, you wish for her to care for you?” Ceychell shook her head. “I suppose I’ll be helping Steljen first.” She opened the door for the fidgeting cobbler. He was half of Vera’s age. He didn’t argue, didn’t even look back at Vera. He just stepped inside and removed his gray, moth-pecked wool cap. There was plenty of room in the house for Vera too, but Ceychell cast her a mean glare and then shut the door behind Steljen.
Twenty minutes later, the door opened again. Out stepped Steljen, groaning, with a pungent balm smeared on his face to suppress the itchweed infection. Vera shivered and hobbled up beneath Ceychell’s outstretched arm holding open the door. The old seamstress smiled as she entered Ceychell’s warm, juniper-scented cottage and seated herself on the couch.
Thick blankets lay folded next to her. She ran her hand over a soft bear pelt she had sewn for Ceychell’s mother nearly twenty years ago. Below it was several colorful, beautifully knitted quilts. Ceychell’s younger sister, Kyradel, and their mother still used and appreciated them.
Nevertheless, Ceychell would have preferred not to have her as a visitor this morning. “How long have you had the fever?” she asked.
The old woman’s smile drooped, and she coughed again. “Two days… would you be so kind as to share a bit of that tea? It would help ease this old wom—”
“I’m afraid not,” Ceychell said, placing her long fingers on Vera’s sweating forehead. Ceychell shook her head and felt Vera’s throat. She was deliberately brusque in her poking and gripping like testing a hunk of butchered meat for tenderness.
“Ceycha?” her mother’s voice rang out from her bedroom. “Ceycha, is that Vera?”
Ceychell’s back stiffened as both her mother and Vera fell into coughing fits. She waited for the coughing to subside and then answered, “Yes, mother.”
Curasca, nearly engulfed by an earthen-colored patchwork quilt, stepped to the top of the staircase. Her thinning brown hair showed streaks of gray, and her once-beautiful face was jowly and wrinkled. She smiled, though, seeming pleased and eager to have company.
Ceychell stood erect with her back half-turned toward her.
“Have you not offered her a cup of tea?” Curasca asked.
Ceychell’s eyes met Vera’s. She didn’t like the old seamstress, and she resented her rising grin. “I spent an hour picking these herbs for you this morning. I made the tea for you. There just isn’t very much.”
“Nonsense.” Curasca stepped down the stairs. The long quilt trailed behind her like a regal cape of the forest floor. “Why don’t you fetch some lunarcaps?” she said. “I’ll attend to Vera,” Curasca passed Ceychell and grabbed a pad before removing the kettle from the fire.
Ceychell sulked. She didn’t want Vera cared for; she wanted her out of her house for meddling with her life. She wrested her coat from a wall hook and shuffled to the door, eager to leave.
“Ceycha?” Curasca called.
She whipped her coat on, turned around at the door, and looked at her mother.
“Have you seen Kyradel this morning?” Curasca asked. “I didn’t hear her humming before she left the house.”
Ceychell pulled her coat on the rest of the way, sloppily flipped her hair out from under its collar, and grabbed her pumpkin-orange gardening bag from next to the door. It’s not as if she spoke to her sister nowadays. If Kyradel wasn’t such a dreamer, Ceychell thought, maybe she’d help her with at least some of the chores. Maybe even do them all and give her a day off! “Maybe she is out chopping wood or pulling weeds in the garden.” Ceychell laughed, trying to quell her rising anger.
“Your sister is an artist… don’t be so—”
Ceychell turned, stepped out the door, and slammed it behind her.
Ceychell pulled up her hood and breathed in the fresh forest air. Warm wisps drifted from her lips as she walked up the hill toward her vast garden, stepping to avoid every fallen leaf and sprig. She loved to garden, loved bonding with nature, knowing which herbs are ready for clipping and when each mushroom will be in perfect bloom for medicines. It was the one chore that brought her joy and a sense of accomplishment each day.
Ceychell opened the garden gate. She carefully navigated the path between the precious herbs and bountiful vegetables and continued to the mossier side of the hill, where she kept invasive plants under careful watch. She approached a red lump on the earth where red ivy, like a tentacled beast, had strangled and downed a tree. The vine had started to climb up nearby trees in the garden, too, threatening to kill and pull them down as well. Ceychell put on her gloves and drew her copper hunting knife from its holster. She hacked through the vines and untangled them from the trees.
Then she carefully approached the downed tree. As she stepped around it to find the rotted hole where the lunarcaps grew, she wondered how much ivy she’d have to cut away to reach them. The red monster smelled iron-rich, thick like blood, tickling, and burning in her nostrils.
She heard the faint, crackling laughter of that gossipy harpy, Vera, from down the hill, from her home; it boiled her blood. She enjoyed referring to Vera as a monstrous, winged hag but never to her face. Vera knew her secret, a deep secret. Every time Vera spoke with her mother, Ceychell feared she might reveal it: why she and her sister weren’t close anymore. Ceychell seethed, remembering the day; that day Vera saw her—
Ceychell shook her head. She reached into her bag and withdrew a digging spade with an oak handle. The metal was spotted with rust, but it was still her trusty tool. She stepped up to the rotted hole and brushed away a few freshly snipped vines. Inside the dark hole, she could see broken purple stubs jutting from the soggy crumbled wood.
“Looking for these?”
Ceychell jerked and turned around. Miraden stood, leaning against a blue dwarf pine, a line of game hens hung over his shoulder. As usual, the young ranger was dressed in soft brown leather from foot to collar and partially covered in a timber-green cloak. His reddi sh-brown hair drooped over his face, not quite covering his broad grin—her fondest, most haunting memory. He waggled a bouquet of purple fungus at her. Her sternness wilted his smile.
He looked away. Brushed purple specks from his gloves a moment.
She stepped up and took the mushrooms from his gloved hand. Pushed the caps into her bag without moving her gaze from him. “Shouldn’t you be still hunting or chopping lumber? The storehouse is nearly empty.”
Ceychell stood tall, and when Miraden tried to smile again, her gaze hardened. She felt his love, his search for hope, for a glimmer of her affection. She wanted to hold him close like she used to but gave him nothing.
“I thought it would be nice—”
“You thought wrong.”
His posture weakened. When he looked away again, all the anger inside Ceychell started to surface. But when his eyes became misty, she struggled to maintain her coldness. She clenched her fists. She finally looked away when he turned back to look into her eyes.
“Valdenfest is only a few weeks away, I was—”
“No!” she nearly screamed. “Why keep asking me, Miraden?” Her eyes were beginning to water.
He shifted the hens to his other shoulder. He looked down at his muddy leather boots. Stupidly, he asked, “Are you going with someone else then?”
“I will not be going at all!” She stepped up to Miraden and stared down at him. She stood taller than him, nearly half a head. Their faces nearly touched.
She let him stare at her in a brief daydream. She knew he could smell the limebloom perfume she was wearing. It was her favorite, and she could only make it thanks to a single plant that grew in the blue pine flowerbox outside her bedroom window. That limebloom was planted long ago by none other than Miraden. It was always cared for, but not by her.
She cracked a trembling grin at him. She’d not smiled at him in two years. It was enough to make Miraden step back. She grabbed his collar and halted his retreat. When she ran her other hand along his cheek, he shuddered. Years ago, she’d expect a hug from him; she expected it now. She also expected him to run. She pulled the pin holding up her hair. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her as her burnished locks fell in a silky veil of autumn colors.
Ceychell whispered, “Each morning, I wake up and wish it was like it used to be.” She brushed his hair aside and placed her other hand on his face. “I wish my sister still loved me. Mostly, I wish you and I—”
A scream rang out from the village.
She knew that scream. So did Miraden.
They sprinted down the hill. A crowd of villagers was gathering at the cottage across the road from her own. Miraden and Ceychell reached the edge of the crowd as Ceychell’s father, Chieftain Ormus, pushed through them like a mad bull. The dairymaid, Lolia, was wailing into the chest of her husband, Wermen. She shook him violently and howled, “They’ve taken him! They’ve taken Kjod!”
Ormus’s blond hair looked like the tips of a fierce flame as his face reddened with anger. His enormous figure trembled like a mountain ready to blow. The chieftain sighed through his teeth and put a hand on the stout dairymaid’s shoulder to steady her rage before she broke her slender husband in half.
“Ormus, you must do something!” Lolia shouted. “You must! Kjod is the second child this month!”
Ceychell felt Miraden shaking next to her. The ashenkin were getting bolder. They snatched the first local child from an outlying farm. Now the ashenkin had penetrated the center of the village.
Lolia continued screaming, “Please, Ormus, you are our chieftain. Will you do nothing? We must hunt these devils down!” Lolia raised her fists, and some other villagers joined in, shouting for Ormus to do something.
“We have only a few able militiamen,” Ormus said, rubbing his square chin. “Should I send them when we can’t—”
Another scream cut the air. This time clearly from Ceychell’s own home.
“Mother?” Ceychell said, her voice a rasp. She shoved past Miraden and ran toward her cottage. Her father and Miraden were close behind her as they trampled inside, scattering two dogs and a cat toward her mother’s wailing.
Ceychell burst into Kyradel’s room. She saw Curasca lying on the floor beside the bed, crying. The floor was littered with Kyradel’s torn blankets. Blood trailed to the open window where claw marks scarred the sill.
“No. No. It can’t be,” Ceychell whispered, barely audible. “Please, no.”
Ormus pushed past her and stood over his wife. She watched her usually impassive father wail and stumble to the floor next to Curasca. Tears flowing down his cheeks, he embraced her, nearly covering her with his bear-like arms.
Ceychell turned toward Miraden, standing in the doorway. She trembled and struggled to stand. She tried to push him aside.
“Ceycha… what—?”
She punched him in the chest. He allowed it, and she hit him repeatedly until he grabbed her wrists. She wailed and let him wrap his arms around her. It had been a long time since last he held her. Too long. She held him back.
She trembled in his arms, her lips quivering. Drool and tears blotted on his cloak as she screamed against his chest.
“I am so sorry,” he muttered. His tears fell onto Ceychell’s forehead.
Three hours passed, but the village still buzzed like a hornet’s nest knocked from its branch. Miraden brushed past a group of villagers gathered around a house. They discussed sealing homes with wood boards. He approached Ormus, who buried his face in his enormous hands, and stood before him, unnoticed.
Miraden wanted to cry; he couldn’t fathom how his chieftain was coping with the reality of his lost daughter. Ormus was the bravest man Miraden knew, but no man, no matter how brave, could bear such a loss. “Chieftain Ormus?”
Ormus lifted his head as if under great strain and squinted his bloodshot eyes at Miraden. Miraden knew Ormus thought he was a pain in his youngest daughter’s side. “What do you want, Miraden?”
“I know you cannot spare anyone,” Miraden said, wishing his voice would not quaver so much. “I wish to track the ashenkin and find Kyradel. I will bring her back.”
Ormus’s eye twitched. “Brave words from a boy who runs from his own shadow, Miraden. Even if you tried, you’d do nothing but sacrifice your life. What could you do against those vicious, burning, soulless beasts?”
Ormus’s words doused Miraden’s courage. Miraden shifted his weight and took a step back. He wanted to pull his green cloak around his face and hide. Ormus’s shadow was crushing him. When he couldn’t even face Ormus, he realized the truth: If Ormus, a true warrior, didn’t go to face them, what real chance did he have? He heard they were eight feet tall and red as fire.
“Sir, I—”
“Stop wasting my time, Miraden. Go back to your chores.”
Chandar, the village carpenter, tall with long graying hair, stepped forward from the gathering, calling Ormus’s name. Miraden didn’t care for the sawdust-smelling stoic. He never even paid when Miraden cut his wood. Ormus, clearly finished, turned away from him and gave Chandar his attention.
“If we work day and night,” Chandar said, “we can construct a wall in a few weeks. We can build watch platforms in several trees surrounding the village. Look here.” He pointed to a crude map of the village scratched into the dirt in the middle of the gathering.
Miraden crept up behind Ormus and looked down at the sketch of the village. At its center was a crude representation of the statue of Kaehrn. Surrounding the statue were three pods of shops with the villagers’ homes spread around them. Ormus’s cottage was at the base of some curved lines showing Kaehrnstone Hill, and Curasca’s old herb shop was sketched in a pod at the far end of town. A line weaved around sketched trees and surrounded the village. He saw the line passed close between Ormus’s home and the trees.
