A Legacy of Storms and Starlight

  For Amy Eversley—

  for your unwavering support and

  friendship

  Copyright ©2022 by Victoria J. Price

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright holder.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-1-9163540-4-3

  Editing services provided by Melanie Underwood

  Cover and title design by Franziska Stern

  Map by Andrés Aguirre Jurado

  www.victoriajprice.com

  Contents

  Map of Southern Astaria

  1. Chapter One

  2. Chapter Two

  3. Chapter Three

  4. Chapter Four

  5. Chapter Five

  6. Chapter Six

  7. Chapter Seven

  8. Chapter Eight

  9. Chapter Nine

  10. Chapter Ten

  11. Chapter Eleven

  12. Chapter Twelve

  13. Chapter Thirteen

  14. Chapter Fourteen

  15. Chapter Fifteen

  16. Chapter Sixteen

  17. Chapter Seventeen

  18. Chapter Eighteen

  19. Chapter Nineteen

  20. Chapter Twenty

  21. Chapter Twenty-One

  22. Chapter Twenty-Two

  23. Chapter Twenty-Three

  24. Chapter Twenty-Four

  25. Chapter Twenty-Five

  26. Chapter Twenty-Six

  27. Chapter Twenty-Seven

  28. Chapter Twenty-Eight

  29. Chapter Twenty-Nine

  30. Chapter Thirty

  31. Chapter Thirty-One

  32. Chapter Thirty-Two

  33. Chapter Thirty-Three

  34. Chapter Thirty-Four

  35. Chapter Thirty-Five

  36. Chapter Thirty-Six

  37. Chapter Thirty-Seven

  38. Chapter Thirty-Eight

  39. Chapter Thirty-Nine

  40. Chapter Forty

  41. Chapter Forty-One

  Afterword

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  I didn’t mean for him to die.

  The scent of freshly baked bread drifted through the grate at the top of Zylah’s cell, and her stomach growled in response. It was from the Andells’ family bakery; she’d know it anywhere. There was no use climbing up to the grate—she’d almost broken her wrist trying to do it the day before. Instead, she folded her arms tightly around herself and pictured the bakery: the way the warmth hit you the moment you opened the door, the soft glow of the orblights, the mouth-watering smell of the canna cakes, and Mrs Andell behind the counter, flour brushed over her cheeks and green apron.

  And the painting that hung on the wall behind her. She’d said it had been gifted to them by a traveller one day who couldn’t pay for bread; it depicted a snowy mountain and verdant trees dusted in white snow, a blazing beacon in the background the only speck of colour. Somewhere in the Rinian mountain range, the traveller had told them. Zylah had never seen anything like it—no one she’d ever met had seen mountains. She knew the range began—or ended—somewhere upriver, but few people seemed to travel from that direction these days.

  Someone in a nearby part of the prison threw up, and Zylah was brought right back to her cold cell, to her throat that was hoarse from screaming, her filthy uniform and the fetid stench of death. The last of her tears had dried up days ago.

  I didn’t mean for him to die. It was the only thought that stopped her hands from trembling. It was an accident. Surely they’d realise that soon enough?

  A mouse shot out of the grimy hay beside her feet, scurrying away into the shadows to hide. Not that it was difficult, the grate only let in a thin shaft of light, and it was all she had to illuminate her cell, which she’d rather not have seen, anyway.

  She shouldn’t have even been in the prince’s quarters, but when Kara had asked her to cover the evening shift, Zylah couldn’t refuse. She already owed the girl for covering her back on more than one occasion, and besides, she’d do anything for her friend.

  Zylah wrapped her hands around the iron bars of her cell, the cold biting into her fingers. The reek of the prison was worse here—on her first day it was so bad it had made her eyes water. But she needed to listen, and she pressed the side of her head against the bars, straining to hear the whisper of the guards in the darkness. Nothing.

  I didn’t mean for him to die. But he was hurting her. The moment Prince Jesper had caught her eye as she swept ash from the fireplace, Zylah had recognised the look that darkened his face. She’d seen it enough times on Theo’s face to know precisely what the prince had intended, and the feeling had most certainly not been mutual.

  “Please, please let us out,” a woman from another cell called out. “We’ll leave the city, we’ll pack up and go, just please let us out.”

  But that was not the way things worked in the king’s prison. Zylah ran her thumbnail over a flaking piece of rust, listening to the woman’s quiet weeping, fighting with her own rising panic. If she hadn’t already heaved her guts out in various parts of the rotting hay, she’d be sick again.

  “Be quiet, Maren, or they’ll kill us before our trial,” a man hissed.

  Footsteps sounded, and Zylah pressed the side of her head against the bars again. Two sets, at the top of the staircase that led down into the prison: one heavy and one light. No other prisoners would have heard them yet, they were too far away still. But Zylah had always been a little… different, not that she’d welcomed it—she’d always had keener hearing and sharper vision than the other children when she was a child. Had always been the fastest in races. And she’d been bullied for it, no matter how much she’d yelled at them that she wasn’t different, not truly.

  Unusual was not something you wanted to be in Dalstead or the villages, like hers, that surrounded it.

  It hadn’t always been a curse. Her father had taken her on as his apprentice because of her keen sense of smell. One afternoon in his apothecary, she’d caught a trader trying to sell perfumed tea leaves instead of crushed erti root. Zylah frowned at the memory. She would never see the apothecary again.

  If only she’d had some erti root in her apron, or better yet, some besa leaves, anything to cover the stench of the prison, but she was fairly certain her clothes had soaked up the stink now, too. The footsteps were getting closer, almost to the door at the bottom of the spiral staircase, and Zylah heard the dainty sniffing of a woman. A maid, maybe? No, they wouldn’t be sending a maid down for a prisoner the day before her execution.

  A key turned in the lock, and the door swung open on creaking hinges. Zylah couldn’t see along the corridor, could barely see to the next cell, but she heard the intake of breath, the stifled sob and the mumbled words from whoever accompanied the guard. It was Kara.

  Zylah smoothed down her filthy tunic, huffing a quiet laugh at herself as her hands reached her sides. What good would it do? She most likely looked a complete mess, but it helped her hold onto her last shreds of sanity. Tomorrow, she’d never see anyone again. She took in a few deep breaths, practised her smile, and waited for Kara to reach her cell, for the soft glow of the orblight the guard carried to grow brighter.

  “Oh, Zy,” Kara said, the moment their e
yes met. Kara’s tiny face was puffy from crying, her tight brown curls escaping haphazardly from the wrap she wore to keep her hair in check whilst she worked. She reached her hands out for Zylah’s through the bars.

  “How did you convince them to let you down here?” Zylah asked, placing her hands over Kara’s tiny fingers. Everything about the girl was dainty. Her nut-brown eyes, her soft nose, the way her little curls brushed against her deep brown skin. Zylah tried to hide her shaky breathing, tried to keep her smile bright for her friend.

  Kara wiped at a tear with the back of her sleeve. “Mama’s friends with—” She looked up at the guard beside her, who had turned his back to the cell, but kept watch diligently, the orblight hovering above him. “Mama helped me,” she said softly. “I’m so sorry, Zy. This is all my fault.”

  Kara’s face blurred and Zylah saw the prince approaching again, saw the way he’d caught her off guard and taken the fire iron from her hand. She’d been stoking the fire as a pretence, just so she had a weapon to defend herself with. But when he’d stepped before her, she’d frozen. She didn’t know why, but she was furious with herself for it. All her training with her brother had been for nothing when she needed it most. Well, almost.

  “None of this is your fault, Kar, okay?” Zylah squeezed Kara’s fingers gently. “You’ve covered my shifts a hundred times. I’d cover for you again in a heartbeat.”

  “But it was your last week,” Kara said, her voice breaking on the last few words.

  Zylah schooled her expression as best she could. It was true, she was only meant to be working for the royal family for another week before she went full time with her father. Business had been better than ever, and they could finally afford to go without her meagre salary from the palace—she could, at last, spend her days doing something she loved. But she wouldn’t burden her friend with any of that.

  “You did tell me my hips would get me in trouble one day,” she said, with the closest thing to a smirk she could muster. There must have been a reason he’d attacked, some glance she’d given him, but no matter how many times she replayed it, she couldn’t remember what had happened in the moments right before he’d confronted her; it was as if there was just a gap that she’d blocked out.

  The prince had split her lip, and it still hadn’t healed. It had broken open every time she’d spoken, every time she’d screamed in the darkness. Every time she’d thrown up.

  Kara didn’t return the smile. “Your face,” she said quietly. “He did this to you?”

  Zylah wondered how bad her eye must have looked if the bruising was still as bad as it felt. She swallowed, not wanting to think of the way Jesper had put his hands on her, the way his breath had reeked of avenberry liquor. “He did. I was defending myself; I didn’t mean for—”

  The guard shifted his weight beside Kara but didn’t turn to look at Zylah. None of them had. They all knew the truth. It was impossible to take one look at her and not know. They were cowards, all of them.

  “Have you heard from my father? I haven’t seen him since they put me here. I’d hoped he’d come to see me before the execution,” Zylah said. Her voice was quiet, but she tried her best to keep it hopeful, for Kara’s sake. She was afraid to die, but dying was the easy part, wasn’t it? After, it wouldn’t matter for Zylah. But it would for her father. For her brother. For Kara.

  Kara flexed her fingers in Zylah’s hands. “They didn’t tell you?” She shook her head. “Of course they wouldn’t. He went to find Zack, to beg your pardon before the execution.”

  Zylah’s chest tightened at Kara’s words. She knew it would never work. The prince was dead, and the king would never pardon her, no matter how highly he thought of her brother. Zack was the King’s Blade, but that wouldn’t make any difference now. Still, she wouldn’t let Kara know that. They’d been friends for as long as Zylah could remember—Kara was the only one who had never shied away from her strangeness, well, other than her brother.

  She and Kara had grown up together, worked together, shared stories of first kisses together. Some things Zylah had kept to herself, even when she knew Kara wondered what a man’s touch felt like. Her friend always seemed too pure for any of that. But one day soon she’d be married off, whether her mother wanted it or not. Women had little say in the city of Dalstead.

  “Thank you,” Zylah finally said. “You’ve given me hope. Something I thought I’d lost entirely.” The truth was, she’d lost hope days ago.

  “Did he—the prince?” Kara’s eyes filled with tears again, and Zylah could only feel relief that it hadn’t been her friend with Jesper that night.

  “No. He tried.” Zylah reached for her face in a poor attempt at disguising her wince. “It all happened so quickly. I was stirring the fire, and he crept up on me. I just knew his intentions were not—” She glanced up at the guard as he coughed uncomfortably. “Honourable. I asked to be excused. He told me to stay. When I made for the door, he threw me against the wall, and—” Zylah’s heartbeat was like a raging drum in her chest, the sound filling her ears. But she knew Kara wouldn’t have been able to hear it, or the guard. She willed herself not to be sick again, shoved aside the thoughts of the prince’s hands tugging at her tunic.

  “I was defending myself,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean for him to die.”

  “He deserved it, for what he tried to do to you.” Kara pressed her face against the bars, her eyes wide and filled with tears.

  “Kara, you’ll get yourself thrown in here with me,” Zylah said, shuffling closer to her friend.

  The girl closed her eyes for a moment. “Do you mean it, Zy, nothing else happened?”

  He’d tried. Gods, had he tried. That’s how she’d got the split lip and the black eye—because she wouldn’t go down without a fight. The minute he’d thrown her against the wall and broken eye contact, it was like she’d stepped out of quicksand and woken up all at once.

  “Only this,” Zylah said, waving at her face.

  She’d replayed it all, over and over again. Enough times that every moment felt as if it were burned into her eyelids. She’d hesitated, and if she hadn’t, she could have darted out of the room, and none of this would have happened. But she’d hesitated, and he’d seen it, waited for it—like she was nothing but his prey. The moment she’d snapped out of her stupor and realised he wasn’t going to stop, she’d grabbed the fire iron out of instinct.

  “This was enough,” she said after a moment, her voice raspy.

  Kara nodded in understanding. She looked up at the guard beside her, his gaze still fixed ahead of him, and reached into her apron. Zylah kept her eyes on the guard as Kara’s delicate fingers slid something into hers against the bars. Something very small. Zylah flicked her attention back to her friend, and Kara tightened her grip.

  At the end of the corridor, the rusty hinges squeaked as the door to the prison slammed open, the guard beside them reaching for Kara’s arm.

  “I’ll wait up for your father,” Kara said. “I’ll tell him I’ve seen you. We’ll get you out of here, Zy. I promise.” The guard was already pulling her away, fresh tears glistening in the orblight.

  Zylah didn’t protest, didn’t do anything that might put Kara in more danger than she already was, just kept quiet as whoever had entered the prison approached, praying they wouldn’t throw her friend in the adjacent cell.

  She slipped whatever Kara had given to her into the pocket of her apron, smoothing it down and steeling herself as the footsteps came closer. Kara and the guard left quietly, the door falling shut with a thud behind them.

  Zylah counted three, maybe four sets of footsteps, and they seemed to be taking their time, delaying the inevitable. No one in the prison made a sound, even the quiet whimpers had stopped, as if the air had been sucked out of each cell.

  Zylah didn’t need to see to know who it was. King Arnir. He stank of the same avenberry liquor as his son had. Not that she could blame him, his only son was dead, the piece of shit. The orblights cast
a soft glow across the corridor, but Zylah didn’t let herself look into the surrounding cells. There was nothing within them that she’d want to see in her final hours. She took a step back from the bars and braced herself for the king’s abuse, knowing all too well it could be more than just words.

  “Any other bitch would have been grateful for his seed inside them,” the king spat as he stepped up to her cell, wrinkling his nose in disgust. “Brought down by a maid,” he seethed, banging his sceptre against the iron bars, his fat jowls vibrating as he spoke.

  Zylah didn’t flinch. She wouldn’t let her fear show, not to him. She took steadying breaths in through her nose, ignoring the burn of the prison’s putrid stench at the back of her throat. She said nothing—there was no use—not to the likes of him. He’d only silence her anyway, and that was precisely what he was trying to do, to rile her so he could cut her down in front of his guards. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

  “Fine. Have it your way,” King Arnir hissed. “Guards. Take her to the gallows.”

  Chapter Two

  “Wait!” Zylah pleaded, taking a step back from the iron bars. She pressed her hands to her sides to hide her trembling. They couldn’t take her, not now, not like this. “My father is coming. My brother. Please, Your Majesty, I know you value Zack’s word.” She hated that she had to beg, but she would do anything to see her family.

  King Arnir’s face was purple in the orblights as he slammed his sceptre against the cell bars again. This time, Zylah couldn’t help but flinch.

  “How dare you speak of what I value,” Arnir spat. “My son is dead because of you. My only son!” He clasped a hand around the bars, narrowing his eyes at Zylah as the guard’s key rattled in the lock.

  She took another step back, sending more mice scurrying from the hay. This wasn’t right. She was meant to have until tomorrow. Was meant to see her father. Her brother. A pathetic whimper escaped her as panic coiled in her chest. Not at the approaching guards, but at the thought of never seeing her family again. It had never mattered that they weren’t her real family—they were all she had. And she couldn’t die without saying goodbye. Without thanking them for the life they’d given her.