Red Twins (eBook)

Tony Belmonte (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2018 | 1. Auflage
638 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-5439-2439-8 (ISBN)

Infos

The Torcama Dynasty has ruled the small island of Saara for generations. Saara, besieged by the monstrous veshuti, is the last holdout of civilization, and though the mighty walls of the island keep the vile sea serpents from conquering the island, there seems no hope for renewed contact with the mainland. When the King betroths his daughter Princess Aelia to Earl Pedras, expecting her to do no more than breed heirs, she cherishes every remaining moment of freedom. But when the mysterious disappearance of the veshuti alters her destiny, the fate of every last Saaran depends on Aelia's courage. The first book in The Cosovallia Saga is a dark and gritty page-turner that epic fantasy lovers will devour!

Textauszug

Princess Aelia Torcama stared down at the waves washing against the cliffside of Saara, the island her family had ruled for generations. Usually the waves of the Tytherian Sea crashed against the granite face of the cliff with great force, sending towers of foam high into the air. Today, however, there was a marked calm. It was this very calm that had driven Aelia’s father to send her on this errand.

She cast a glance toward the southwest tower of the keep, where her brother Varro lived. Varro was the best veshuta killer on the island—not just currently, but in all recorded history. As much as Aelia despised him, even she could not deny his right to make this boast. She was as well read in history as any Saaran. She would have loved nothing more than to find an example of any man, no matter how long-dead he might be, who could be held up as an equal to Varro in this regard. But copious research had failed to find any such man.

Despite his skill at defending the king’s subjects from their tormentors and saviors, Varro was by far the least popular of the king’s three children. Aelia was very popular, but even more so was Crown Prince Runario, the “Golden Prince.” That popularity led many Saarans to claim that Runario surpassed Varro as a warrior, but Aelia knew better. She had seen many attacks on Saara’s mighty wall. Runario was an able fighter, but he lacked Varro’s raw rage and ability to direct it at the veshuti.

“Good morn, Yer Highness.”

Aelia spun about, startled. She found the little waif Tisenna standing behind her, hefting a bag of laundry. Aelia smiled at her. “Hello, Tisenna.”

The girl’s jaw dropped. “Yeh...know me name, Highness?”

“Of course. I know the names and biographical details of every single one of my father’s subjects. All 3,263 of them.”

Tisenna stared at Aelia blankly. With shame, Aelia realized how foolish it was of her to assume that the poor thing would know what “biographical” meant. Why should she? She was born in the Chain District (named for the great chain that once existed there, four centuries previously), the seediest part of seedy New Saara. Aelia hastened to elaborate, hoping Tisenna would be able to work out the meaning of the word by context and spare both of them the awkwardness of the princess having to explain it to her. “It is important for every member of the Royal Family to know the details of the lives of every single Saaran, because we are all that is left.”

“God preserve ta’ Granite Ark,” Tisenna said, releasing her right hand from its grip on the sack and doing a quick sign of the Io-Vu on her chest. Aelia repeated the words and did a more elegant sign of the Io-Vu. The first and last letters of the alphabet, they symbolized beginning and end. A strained silence ensued, during which Tisenna shifted under the weight on her back.

“It’s a beautiful view, today,” Aelia stated.

Tisenna grinned, taking the princess’s words as permission to drop her burden. The maid flopped the sack on the ground and went to the battlements. “’Tis, Highness. Such a lovely view, up ta’ keep.” Aelia smiled indulgently at her, then took stock of the same view. Though raised in the towering keep of Saara, which doubled as the Royal Palace, she still found the vista impressive. To a girl raised in the lowest part of New Saara, it must have seemed like a vantage point from heaven itself.

Old Saara had been built by the mighty Tytherian Empire, Queen of the Seas, six centuries before. The Tytherians meant the masonry of Saara to impress potential allies and intimidate potential adversaries. They quarried the granite of Saara to build the glowering wall that encircled the island and built stout buildings on the terraces that the quarrying left behind. The cliff-face was nearly four hundred meters at its highest point, upon which the keep was perched. The island sloped down at a steep gradient from this pinnacle until it plunged below the old natural coastline.

The Tytherians liked the mighty cliff on the western side, but the eastern side did not suit the needs of a maritime empire. So they extended the wall into the water, to enclose a large artificial bay. Then they temporarily drained this bay and straightened out the exposed granite to form a neat wharf. Finally, the water was let back in through the gap between the two most easterly towers. Between these towers went the chain, which could be raised to bar the entry of ships or lowered to allow it.

For over two hundred years, ships sailed in and out of the harbor. Though built to withstand a siege, Saara did not have to endure a single one during that entire period. None of the empire’s rivals were foolish enough to test the island’s defenses. But then a new enemy arose, one that even the Tytherians could not withstand. The wall was sealed up once more, and the artificial bay drained. The purpose was not to improve the wharf, for it was now useless. No more ships would ever again come to Saara. On the drained land New Saara was built.

Even from the lofty height Aelia and Tisenna beheld it from, the inferiority of New Saara’s masonry compared with that of Old Saara was obvious. The class divisions of Saara were equally visible from their vantage point. In the high keep were the Royal Family and their courtiers. Further down were the nobles, and at the bottom were the Saaran equivalent of peasants: the blacksmiths.

“Good bein’ out ta’ soot,” Tisenna said. It was vital that the blacksmiths never rest, for only they could feed Saara. The veshuti were willing to give fish to the Saarans, but only in exchange for something the monsters could not create in their briny home: galvanized steel. All day every day, the forges poured out smoke and soot. Despite the best attempts to carry it away from the island, soot coated New Saara. The chimneys of the blacksmiths’ shops joined together like tributaries of a river, forming the great chimney that went over the wall. Prevailing winds carried the smoke away, so that the rich and powerful living in Old Saara need not be troubled by it.

“I would imagine that serving Varro is hardly less pleasant than living in the Chain District,” Aelia said wryly.

“No, Highness. Much talk growin’ up of how nasty ta’ Slag Prince be, but he’s nay spoken an angry word me ways.” Aelia nervously glanced about to make sure that no one was within earshot. There were two militiamen on duty, but they were far away, on the opposite battlements. There was no way they could have heard Tisenna refer to Varro as the Slag Prince. Whatever wag had coined the phrase, he had neatly encapsulated the contrast between the Golden Prince and Varro. Varro had once beaten a courtier half to death when he overheard the man refer to him by this moniker. “Much betters livin’ up here, in ta’ keep, than down chain way. Only regrets ta’ reason, Highness.”

Aelia steeled herself to respond to Tisenna’s words in a way that her parents would be proud of. She must not surrender to the temptation to ignore the remark and avoid the painful subject. “Your father was a valued member of the militia. My dear brother Runario mentioned his bravery to me more than once. Allowing you to serve as a royal servant before the proper age was the least we could do, to help your poor widowed mother.”

“We’ll always be grateful, Yer Highness.”

“It’s unfortunate that all new royal servants must serve Varro first, before serving...” Aelia stopped herself before she said “the real royal family.” The king valued Varro’s skill at veshuta killing, and nothing more. The Slag Prince’s obnoxiousness had led him to be exiled to the southwest tower of the keep. It was not suited to serve as living quarters, but there was no other way to keep Varro away from the rest of the family and still have him within the keep.

“Still no veshuti, Highness?”

“No sign. Fourth straight day. The first day was a bit rough, so it didn’t seem too strange, then. But each day since it’s been clear and calm. It doesn’t make sense. Very odd, to so miss one’s enemies.”

“Hate ta’ hand that feeds yeh, Highness.”

Aelia nodded. This was a very old saying, on Saara. The veshuti, who attacked the wall of Saara at least once a week, also gave the Saarans all their food. The violence that the countless veshuta tribes inflicted on the Saarans was as nothing compared with the violence they directed at each other. For their endless wars, the veshuti required spears, hook-spears, and javelins with galvanized steel tips. Only Saaran blacksmiths could give them these things. The veshuti brought the Saarans both scrap iron and iron ore. How and where the veshuti acquired this raw material for Saara’s forges was a matter of great dispute on the island. The veshuti had steadfastly refused to answer any questions on the subject. Whatever the source, clearly the veshuti could not make their own weapons, for they would never have contracted with the Saarans to do so if they had an alternative. Despite their mutual loathing, the Saarans and veshuti needed one another and had come to a rough understanding.

“Well, I must stop tarrying, and give Varro the message,” Aelia said. The tone of her voice made her distaste at the prospect...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 24.1.2018
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Fantasy
• ISBN-10: 1-5439-2439-5 / 1543924395
• ISBN-13: 978-1-5439-2439-8 / 9781543924398