Fall of Thrones and Thorns Page 21

  But now, with the threat of war diminished, the riots of battle halted, and the fall of his father, I can finally let myself look ahead to something. And I can hardly wait to discover what that may be.

  I take Caden’s hand.

  And I walk forward into the future.

  Dear Reader,

  Thank you so much for taking the time to read my work. Word of mouth and readers like you are an author's greatest joy.

  If you enjoyed reading Fall of Thrones and Thorns, I hope you'll take the time to drop a review on the retailer you purchased from and keep up with my new releases by joining my newsletter.

  And thank you very, very sincerely, from the bottom of my heart.

  -Jennifer Ellision

  The Threats of Sky and Sea series:

  Book 1: Threats of Sky and Sea

  Book 2: Riot of Storm and Smoke

  Book 3: Fall of Thrones and Thorns

  Prequel short stories in the Threats of Sky and Sea world:

  “Sisters of Wind and Flame”

  “Defining Justice”

  “Breathe In”

  Also by Jennifer Ellision:

  Now and Again, a New Adult romance

  Acknowledgements

  Wow. The final book of a trilogy.

  Reader, there are days I never thought I’d get here.

  When I initially conceived Threats of Sky and Sea, it was as a standalone fantasy novel. Throughout writing it, it became obvious fairly quickly that there was simply too much story for one book. Too many distinct character and plot arcs. Too much to the world, too many mysteries in the characters’ pasts. Three books felt like it would allow me to tell a more complete tale.

  So it’s strange to say, but, now that the books are done, I first want to acknowledge Bree and Aleta. Thank you for jumping into my mind as I worked a shift in events parking, daydreaming on the top a parking garage. Thank you for choosing my head to have your argument in as your voices grew louder and louder until one of you shoved the other—and one of you, when you tripped into a fire, didn’t sustain any burns.

  I’m going to miss you. Thank you for making me into an author.

  Next, I need to thank my friends and family for their unwavering support. Often, despite the majority of positive thoughts, it’s always that one negative thought that has a way of worming its way into our hearts. Defeatist voices circulating around my mind have done battle with the encouragement of my friends and family who have buoyed me in those tough times, when I felt overwhelmed by those murky thoughts.

  Alex Brown and Lindsey Young— you two have been with me as beta readers and critique partners since I first decided to seriously pursue publication. I could never have done this without your thoughtful criticism, enduring friendship, and caps lock flails lining the path for me.

  Rebecca Coffindaffer worked as my editor on all of the Threats of Sky and Sea novels. Thank you for your careful eye and applying your practiced hand to my books. They’re better for it.

  Thank you also to Nathalia Suellen, who, time and time again, has created stunning covers for the series. Of course, I’m biased, but I think her work on the series speaks volumes of her skills and talent.

  Likewise, I’d like to thank Caitlin Greer, who has created the beautiful interiors on all three novels, as well as the lovely ebook files.

  Thank you to the team at Patchwork Press Author Services, for enabling authors like me to have access to Netgalley and reach more readers and reviewers. Thank you also to Giselle of Xpresso Book Tours for organizing the cover reveal for Fall of Thrones and Thorns, as well as the blog tour for this book and the first book in the series.

  Thank you for the multitudes of bloggers, reviewers, and social media influencers who have taken the time to review the Threats of Sky and Sea and spread the word about it. Thank you for posting your reviews on retailers to make it easier for other readers to find.

  And speaking of readers…

  Thank you, reader. Thank you for taking Bree and her friends into your imaginations, into your homes, onto your bookshelves and e-readers alike.

  If it weren’t for you, this endeavor would be rather like shouting into a vacuum.

  Thank you all.

  About the author

  Jennifer Ellision spent a great deal of her childhood staying up past her bedtime with a book and a flashlight. When she couldn't find the stories she wanted to read, she started writing them. She loves words, has a soft spot for fanfiction, and is a master of what she calls “The Fangirl Flail.”

  She resides in South Florida with her family, where she lives in fear of temperatures below 60 Fahrenheit. She makes her internet home at www.jenniferellision.com or you can find her on Twitter @JenEllision. Stay up to date on all of Jennifer’s new releases and receive a free novelette by signing up for her newsletter. You can also like her on Facebook as Jennifer Ellision.

  If you love your romance mixed with magic— or fantasy with a smattering of swoon, join other like-minded readers over on Facebook in the Fantasy Romance Fanatics reader group

  Need more in the Threats of Sky and Sea series?

  Subscribe to Jennifer Ellision’s newsletter to receive a free prequel novelette, “Sisters of Wind and Flame,” and read on to explore “Defining Justice,” a short Prince Caden prequel to the series.

  Defining Justice

  “Justice is defined by those who hold the power.”

  As my father closes court for the day with those words, I clamp down on my tongue between my teeth. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this recitation of his opinion. His explanation of justice is one he’s repeated to me often over the years, one of many lessons he’s given me in ruling over a kingdom.

  Father dismisses me and I utter a silent blessing. Praise Egria. I grow tired and already resist the urge to rub at my eyes. After all, princes don’t show weakness no matter how fatigued they might be. I sigh and straighten my shoulders as the guards open the throne room doors for me to stride through. The urge to acknowledge them with a nod is there, but, still in my father’s sights, I refrain. He disapproves of such gestures.

  “How was it?”

  Aleta’s step falls in with mine. I hadn’t noticed her lingering around the corner, ladies in tow. Her green eyes pierce mine. Two years my junior, the princess of Nereidium is my father’s ward and my betrothed.

  Her skirt is a green velvet so dark it’s nearly black and it trails on the floor behind us like an obsequious escort. Her ladies-in-waiting are just as close and she shoos them back with imperious hands that they pretend not to see, disregarding her wishes and moving closer.

  The furious look she shoots me lets me know that if I don’t intervene she’ll blister my ears later.

  I sigh. “Thank you, ladies.” I turn to them smoothly and smile my most charming smile. “I’ll see the princess safely back to your care after we speak.” They can’t ignore such pointed words from the crown heir and, though the look on one woman’s face suggests she’d like to fight me on it, they curtsy and back away.

  “Well?” Aleta demands impatiently, crossing her arms. “Tell me.”

  “There’s little to tell.” The lie squirms in my throat.

  She grabs my arm and pins me with a look, scrutinizing my features. Try as I might, I find that I can’t hold my grin for her. My face must communicate all that I feel, for hers falls. “That bad?”

  The thing is… if hadn’t been for one case, it wouldn’t have been terrible. Most of the cases had been ordinary: several appeals for provincial matters to be heard at a higher court by my father. He’d rejected a few, and commanded the scribes to gather further information on a few more. Any pleas for a special dispensation of Elemental duties had been summarily dismissed. Standard judicial proceedings, really.

  But the farmer we’d seen— the farmer we’d judged weighs on my mind.

  Suspecting my thoughts will reflect in my eyes, I turn, avoiding Aleta’s gaze as I mentally relive the hearing.
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  Browned hands, wrinkled and spotted by the sun, wring the farmer’s hat as he steps forward in the throne room to take his turn and have his case heard. I miss the herald’s announcement of his name, focused as I am of getting the measure of him.

  I know not whether his lands are large or small, plentiful or barren, but he has the look of a hard worker. The barest hint of paler skin peeks out at his clavicle, several shades lighter than his hands and face. Plenty of time in the fields then. He must work them himself.

  His clothes are old. Faded from exposure to the elements, but well taken care of. He has a care with his finances. Finally, as the man begins speaking, my scrutiny moves to his brow. Deep carvings of worry sit between his eyes.

  I shift in my chair, the crown atop my head a weight that I’m accustomed to by now. The farmer begins by stating his loyalty to the Egrian crown. A wise move; I credit his intelligence there. Promises of fealty are a smart tactic, if you know my father. In truth, if one has so much as heard of Father’s reputation, it’s a promising start.

  The bristles of my father’s red beard crumple in his hand as he leans into it indulgently, gesturing with the other for the man to continue.

  Encouraged, our subject elaborates. Though only a simple farmer, he says, he’s contributed many of his crops to the king’s war efforts, often at a loss to himself and his family.

  His request is simple: the Torchers my father has stationed nearby have a habit of running Fire Elemental drills in the man’s fields. His crops span several acres and is ordinarily prosperous, excepting this season. His harvest yield has been scorched, a large portion of it unsalvageable. He simply asks that the king issue an injunction; should his appeal be granted, his farm will be off-limits to the troops.

  My father leans back on his throne, thoughtful. He purses his lips as though mentally calculating large sums. “How much would you say you’ve earned over the last year, Walden?”

  I stay silent, but cut my gaze at him. What point is he attempting to make? What has the man’s income to do with the petition?

  The farmer falters. “Your Grace?”

  “Majesty.” My father is sharp, the point of a blade that, if pressed, will draw blood. He levels his eyes at him, a shade of gray that matches my own. “You say your farm is profitable. I wish to know the extent.”

  The farmer’s throat bobs. He names a figure so high that my eyebrows shoot up.

  “You say you’ve come from the West?” I ask, unable to help myself. I don’t ordinarily speak up at these hearings, but curiosity gets the best of me in this case.

  A bit rattled, he nods, a wary eye on my father. “Three day’s ride from the Aridan border, Your Highness.”

  “That’s astonishing!” I grin, happily surprised by this turn of events. “Your region has a historical difficulty with turning out a carrot crop. It rarely takes in the West’s soil. And you say you’ve acres of it? You must share your innovations.”

  My mind fairly races with the possibilities. We could grow anything— at least, we could grow the crops that are notoriously dependent upon a certain type of soil. Perhaps even off-season fruits. It could revolutionize things for hungry people in the cities, if we were able to mass-produce those difficult crops.

  The farmer’s eyes flick uncertainly between my father and me, and my grin fades like a dying candle, uncertainty unfurling in my chest. Father leans forward, expression dangerous.

  “It was—it was simply hard work, Your Highness,” the farmer says.

  “Prince Caden,” Father says. His eyes remain trained on the farmer. The man’s hat is now wound into a coil and his hands tremble. “Have you heard of any others successfully growing carrots in the West?”

  His point strikes home as my heart sinks. How has the man been able to sustain the crops that no others have? I can think of only one explanation and I find that I can no longer look the farmer in the eye as I skirt the inquiry. “Your Majesty is undoubtedly aware that I am not an agricultural authority,” I say, turning a self-deprecating smirk toward the other throne.

  Father doesn’t return my glance. “But I am aware that you are a scholar of a high order,” he says softly, watching the farmer. “The court’s tutors have seen to that.”

  My father and I are of an accord that a well-educated ruler is a strong ruler. I’ve never had to fight him for a bit of extra time spent pursuing academia in the palace archives so long as I devote equal time to his military training. I have been schooled among both academic teachers and royal advisors awarded with the honorary title of Tutor.

  But in this moment, I’d gladly trade education for ignorance.

  I’ve stayed silent too long and my father’s voice breaks the quiet. “Your king has asked you a question. You will answer.”

  I swallow. “I have not heard of any others. No, Your Majesty.”

  The farmer closes his eyes like I’ve pronounced his death sentence. And he isn’t very far off.

  I come back to the present as Aleta prods me. “Caden? What happened?”

  I’d managed to expose the farmer as an Earth Shaker—one who had somehow managed to escape detection from my father’s Elemental Adepts all these years. Instead of making the ground quake beneath the feet of Egria’s enemies, he’d eked out a life for himself, quietly coaxing a valuable crop to rise from the soil. The king’s soldiers had dragged him from the throne room as he begged for leniency.

  That’s what happened, Aleta.

  But, parroting my father, I force a smile. Rulers don’t waver. “Justice was served.”

  I wonder if she can hear the echo of the farmer’s screams beneath my words.

  ⚔

  Aleta and I have been betrothed since before either of us can remember. I’m told I was three when she was stolen away from her homeland to Egria under my father’s bold pretense of “sanctuary.” One of my earliest memories is of her rounded toddler face looking up at my father and plainly saying, “No.”

  If the Makers are real, I thank them both that I don’t remember what happened to her after that.

  Playtime is different for young royals than it is for other children. We played chase just as the rest did, but we were more often called away for lessons or affairs of state. There were always some children of nobility visiting the palace, but Aleta was a constant in my life—sometimes a relief, sometimes a frustration during an age when I didn’t even think to defy my father. She’d be my wife someday. I was stuck with her.

  I was thirteen and she, about eleven the first time I realized that she was growing to be unsettlingly pretty. I spent an embarrassing few weeks in our literature lessons trying and failing to come up with an appropriate metaphor for the green of her eyes. Emeralds were wrong. Leaves were banal.

  I’m grateful that I hid those scribbles long enough for the feelings to fade. She’d never forget my precise, humiliating phrasing.

  Years passed. I turned fourteen, fifteen, then sixteen, and there was the usual celebration. The meaningless inundation of gifts. Wine that flowed like a river.

  The nobles who were beginning to wonder when my betrothal would turn into a marriage.

  Aleta’s hands were folded neatly in her lap as my father talked over her. As the years went by, she kept her own council more and more, but wielded her words and actions like instruments of precision, finely tuned for the performances she chose.

  “In due time,” my father responded to the pressing requests for a wedding date, ‘any date, Your Majesty.’

  “Let’s see a kiss, then,” one woman demanded. A baroness of some lesser house. But a wealthy house. My father plied her with drinks, trying to encourage a pledge of extra funds to the treasury. She was drunk on wine and royal favor. “Between our future king and queen.”

  I was… not entirely averse. I’d once spent what was probably an unwarranted amount of time contemplating Aleta’s lips, wondering if they would feel different or the same from others I’ve kissed. Wonderi
ng if she’d react the same. Would she blush like some of those other girls? Turn her eyes down and giggle?

  There, I was certain, the answer was no.

  “You speak out of turn, madam.” Aleta’s chin raised and I was instantly ashamed with myself for not voicing that first, jumping in hastily to agree with her.

  The woman sobered a bit. Her apologetic curtsy wavered. “I didn’t mean to offend, Your Highnesses.”

  “They needn’t demonstrate their affection here,” my father had said, and I felt an absurd amount of relief that it was not a battle I’d have to fight that day. “Trust that when I command it, it will be done. Until then—”

  Aleta seized my shirt and yanked, and just like that, her lips were planted on mine. I barely blinked before it was over, entirely underwhelming. I suppose that was one mystery solved. There weren’t any sparks when my lips touched hers. No yearning to explore the rest of her. In fact, I felt more excitement when I kissed the ground in training practices.

  The nobles laughed and whooped and applauded. Something dark crossed my father’s face for an instant as Aleta looked him dead in the eye.

  She couldn’t have made her resistance to his will any plainer than if she’d told him ‘No’ once again.

  ⚔

  She isn’t exactly the prying sort, Aleta. She asks what happens in the hearing. She waits. But she doesn’t pry. She doesn’t need to. As soon as I have regained my wits, I am eager to tell her all that happened.

  Father would say that I am too weak to keep my private struggles private. I say that two pairs of arms struggling to lift a burden have an easier time of things than one.