The Unseen Heir (Legends of Abreia, #2) - Kenley Davidson

Prologue

The king of Garimore stood alone atop the tower, allowing the moody autumn wind to ruffle the ends of his hair and comb its rain-kissed fingers through the gray strands of his beard. The sky was dark, the weather damp and dreary, but he scarcely noticed, even when a chill began to seep in through the folds of his robes.

He was too busy searching, plumbing the depths of his mind and his magic for any trace of the one they called the Raven.

His most trusted lieutenant and the linchpin of his plans. His most successful experiment and his most valuable asset.

But the longer he searched, the more apparent it became that something had gone strangely, terribly wrong.

His Raven was gone.

It was possible that the creature had simply gone beyond the reach of the king’s ability to perceive their link, but the king doubted it. The dark, heavy kernel of turmoil that was the Raven’s mind had not simply faded—it had vanished.

But how? The mask had been the culminating work of generations of metalsmiths, steeped in dark magic and keyed to a single mind. No one in Garimore should have been able to remove it, and most certainly not the Raven himself.

The answer, he knew beyond a doubt, lay with the girl—the princess from Farhall whose person and character had been most appallingly misrepresented. He would have to consider how to make Soren of Farhall pay for his omissions—at length and with great inventiveness.

No, the princess had not been at all what he expected. She had not only failed to be suitably overwhelmed by the splendors of Garimore, she had also refused to be intimidated by deliberate isolation. If anything, once her ladies, maids, and guards had been removed, she’d grown into a far more formidable opponent.

And once, when she’d thrown his words back in his face, he’d even thought for a moment that something about her defiance seemed familiar.

But that was a thought for another day.

As the king looked out over the now-familiar landscape of his kingdom and calculated the changing odds of his success, he knew they were not as encouraging as they had once been. The Raven had been his secret weapon, his insurance, and his peace of mind. There had been little need to spend his energies on internal security when everyone knew a remorseless assassin might be lurking around the next corner.

So he would need to make some changes. Alter the trajectory of his plans.

And he would need to remind everyone of the consequences of defiance.

The queen would be a simple matter. She was worn down by too many years shackled to a cold, unresponsive man and had sought refuge in folly and frippery. She cared for little except her sons, but those sons were all too easy to use when he needed to force her to fall in with his vision for the future.

Danric, too, was almost too easy. A man of honor and principle, driven by duty and commitment to the uncompromising ideals he’d learned at his father’s knee. He wore the blinders of a child’s trust in a parent, and the king doubted those could be easily removed. Fortunately, they suited the king’s plans well, and he took care not to permit the eldest prince to encounter persons or situations that might make him question his beliefs.

Vaniell though… His mind was a closed book, as twisty and unpredictable as the king’s own, and the knowledge thrilled him as much as it infuriated him. He’d thought he had the boy well in hand—as different as the two were, the young prince adored his mother and would never allow her to come to harm. And as for the other… She’d turned out to be an even more useful hostage than first anticipated. But lately, Vaniell had begun challenging the king’s wishes in spite of his loved ones’ precarious positions, though always in small ways that could never quite be construed as outright rebellion.

Until that necklace.

A harmless gem, meant only to torment his father.

Or was it?

The king allowed himself a moment of unfettered speculation. While he had no proof—nor even the smallest shred of evidence—he knew these things were linked.

Vaniell. The gem. The princess’s flight. And the Raven’s disappearance.

Slowly and with effort, the king throttled his rage at these setbacks and leashed it to be used at a later time. Anger weakened the mind and dulled the senses.

Amidst the shambles of his original plan, he began to build the framework of another. The chances of its success