Welcome to Fireheart Mountain

The teaser page for my current major writing project:

Book 1
Working Title: The Girl in the Mountain
Status: Complete

Book 2
Working Title: The Boy in the Tower
Status: In Progress
  
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Eighteen-year-old Lydia Black’s world is a quiet, soul-crushingly predictable place...until the Dragon Riders come to her tiny village in search of a few qualified young men for acceptance into their Academy. When the dragons offer Lydia a very different future, she must decide between tradition or adventure, monotony or mystery. She has no idea how far her choices will ripple—or the increasingly dangerous repercussions for those around her.

Lydia is about to learn just how unpredictable (and brutal) the world can be.

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Prologue

Spring, 345^th Year of the Empire

Ten-year-old Rayan of Ladon, only grandson of the Emperor and sole heir to the throne, lowers his weapon and lifts his mask. He frowns and whines, an unpleasant combination but forgivable in one so young.

“Stop!”

His fencing partner pauses mid-lunge, recovers his balance, and lets his rapier come to temporary rest at his side. The teen frowns to match the boy. This is their third interruption already today, and it is not yet noon.

“What is it now?” He ignores the glares of those watching them, particularly from Rayan’s manservant Shields. Such impertinence in a tutor is tolerated—but barely.

“I’m thirsty.” The prince looks to his attendants expectantly.

It is alarming to watch the ease with which tiny Rayan already commands the adults in his life. Everett Tod focuses instead on the fruit trees surrounding them, small white blossoms coating the light breeze in a heavy floral scent; he stares out over the green manicured lawns and artful hedgerows of the palace’s rooftop garden, waiting for his young friend to finish.

“I’m done with fencing. Forever and ever,” Rayan declares a minute later. “It’s ridiculous. Nobody would ever dare attack me.”

Despite the obvious fallacy of such a claim, the prince’s tutor gives in. It is futile to pretend he does not know the source of his student’s distraction today. They pack away the equipment—hard looks from the servants again, silently offended at boys clearing their own toys—and once the garden has been restored to its original immaculate state Everett lets Rayan lead him to the roof’s edge. They watch the flow of humanity in the plaza below. The young observers are quiet, thoughtful.

“I don’t want them to pick you,” the prince whispers. “Can’t grandfather order them not to?”

Everett swallows a sudden hard lump of emotion. Pats his young friend on the shoulder.

“Not even the Emperor can stop a Selection, you know that. It’s bigger than one man. But if they do pick me, which they might not, I’ll still be around. All the time,” he lies.

Rayan rolls his eyes, insulted. “Don’t do that thing grown-ups do, where they give a made up answer so children will feel better,” he accuses. “You’re not really an adult, you know.” The distinction matters. Grown-ups are not friends.

“I’m sorry.”

“Yes, well. You’re forgiven, of course. Everett... do you want to be Selected?” The prince stares up with slate-grey eyes, hoping to hear confirmation, fearing dismissive denial. Everett looks into those small worried features and answers honestly.

“I don’t want to leave you,” he promises. “And I’m a little scared. I think, maybe even… a lot scared. But I’m more scared of not being picked.” He closes his eyes, trying to force away anticipatory images of his father’s reaction to such an outcome.

“Oh. —Because your parents would be disappointed?”

“Because they would be… disappointed. Yes.”

Rayan sighs, the resigned sigh of an old man. It seems out of place pouring from a child’s body. He looks back out over the plaza.

“I’m always afraid of disappointing people. I’m afraid I’ll be a bad Emperor.”

Everett furrows his brow. “You have time,” he points out.

“That’s true,” Rayan concedes. He smiles then, the irrepressibility of childhood beating out such temporary anxieties. “And when I am, my first edict shall be to make you my Captain!”

~*~

Spring, 346

Eleven-year-old Rayan of Ladon looks up from his books, relief battling anger for control of his mouth and chin. He tries to smile and frown simultaneously at the lean, quietly powerful figure standing in the palace library's doorway. The effect is comical but his guest does not laugh. Instead, Everett offers a small bow.

“Before you start, at least let me apologize—”

Rayan races forward, thin arms circling his friend’s waist, squeezing as if to hold him in place. “You said you’d still be around!”

“I know.”

“It’s been half a year since your last visit! It’s practically Selections, Everett.”

“I know, but—”

“—No excuses. You made a promise to your lord and you’ve broken that promise. I could have you killed, you know.”

“You could not,” Everett scoffs. Rayan crosses his arms and looks uncertainly at Shields—a humorless shadow standing just behind the prince’s chair.

“Sadly, no,” the unsmiling figure answers, narrowing his eyes at Everett as the boys return to the table in the center of the room.

“Still. I am offended.”

Everett nods, chastised. He sinks into the chair beside Rayan and slides the boy’s current reading choice close, examining the thick volume’s title.

“The Peerage?” Everett shudders. “How tortuous.”

“It matters.”

“Mm.” No need to fight with a child about the over-bred, over-fed contents of those gilt pages.

Rayan recovers the heavy book and bends to his reading, pretending assiduous study.

“By the way, congratulations on your father’s promotion,” he announces into the silence.

“Yes. The promotion. Thank you. The Emperor really had no choice though, after… everything. With Nia.” A familiar hard knot forms just behind Everett’s navel. Dark anger. Sharp talons digging into bowels and heart. The bitter tang of grief.

“Oh! Oh. I didn’t mean to bring up your sister’s… I didn’t know they were connected. But yes, I see now, how…” His words trail off. Rayan has that look on his face, that older-than-his-years look, as he works out the politics of promotion as payment for royal error. He seems ready to apologize.

Or cry.

Everett cannot be the cause of either—not here, where he is already barely tolerated by the boy’s handlers. He forces calm over his features, as Commander Tallis has been showing him to do. “It’s fine. We can’t hide from it forever.”

He bounces up from his chair. Paces. Avoiding grey eyes; avoiding too many questions. Terrified of the hatred within and terrified it will one day overtake him, despite Tallis’ efforts.

“Everett? Are you sure you’re fine?”

“I’m sorry, I thought I could—I should go.” He flees the conversation, and despises himself for running away. The boy is not to blame. He is nothing but a hapless pawn. Easily manipulated. Easily maneuvered.

Easily sacrificed, just like the rest of them.

~*~

Spring, 347

“Prince Rayan?” Everett smiles in confused delight at the appearance of his liege in the Academy courtyard. “What brings you across the plaza?”

“I insisted on a tour,” the twelve-year-old announces. He walks with a strange new assurance; a disquieting confidence. A swagger.

“We are honored by your presence.” Everett bows, formal in this public forum. He watches the heir to the throne assert his dominance over this place of learning. Worries, at a certain unwelcome imperiousness supplanting what had once been mere childish bad manners.

When the boy and his courtiers leave the bright spring-green courtyard, they sweep Everett along in their wake. He observes with increasing discomfort the play being acted out for students and teachers: the too-skinny boy, pretending he knows what it means to lead. His horde of preening fawners, pretending to care about the still-forming-soul beneath the royal wardrobe.

“Grandfather says Empyrean will be mine when I become ruler,” Rayan confesses in excited tones as they descend a wide stone staircase. Mismatched footsteps echo: a young prince’s carefully-groomed saunter, a busy cadet’s careless staccato.

“She is a beautiful creature,” Everett answers circumspectly. “But how do you know she will accept you?”

“Grandfather says he will tell her to.”

“Ah, well. Problem solved then.”

“He’s going to take me riding. After the Selections, when it’s less busy.”

“It will be your first time?”

“Everett. Don’t be such a fucking peasant. Of course it will.”

The cadet raises one offended eyebrow; Rayan has the sense to flush at the collar.

“I think you’ve missed me more than I realized,” Everett finally murmurs, regret-filled and guilty. “You’ve spent too long in that palace. Maybe we should pick up your fencing lessons again.”

“Oh, yes please!” And the little boy behind the royal mask reappears as if by magic, as if waiting, all this time, for a chance to break free from the heavy bindings of his future role. “I actually miss practicing left-handed, believe it or not!”

“I do not,” Everett teases, tension in his shoulders easing. The prince grins.

“You know, Shields hates you,” he shares in low tones, eyes flickering back to the austere visage of his manservant. He seems proud of his discovery of such dark sentiment. Proud and nervous. Uncertain what to do with this revelation regarding the foibles of human nature.

“I can have that effect.” Everett smiles; it never reaches his eyes. “Feel free to tell Shields he is not alone.”

“I told him he’s not allowed,” Rayan protests. “You’re my best friend!”

I’m your only friend, Everett corrects silently. He tries not to dwell on that thought. Or the image it conjures: of a young lonely Emperor atop a too-big throne, isolated and angry, equal parts spoiled excess and premature responsibility. A pawn-turned-king without knights or bishops anywhere to be seen.

~*~

Spring, 348

“Everett!” Rayan’s sharp voice—still occasionally prepubescent even at thirteen, high and clear, almost soprano—pulls his friend from reverie. Princely fingers curl impatiently over the ornate pommel of a long, lean rapier. Everett shakes his head at his own absent-mindedness, and tries to blame it on the cloying perfume of those damn fruit trees. They really are overbearing this time of year.

“…Sorry. You’re coming along well with that new grip. Time for something more… challenging.” Everett tosses his own sword into the air, catching the hilt in his left hand with arrogant ease; Rayan groans.

“Not fair, Ev! It’s too easy for you.”

“But fighting with my right isn’t, and you’ve been taking advantage of that for the past half hour,” Everett points out. Rayan laughs, sheepish, unable to deny the accusation.

At least the prince can still find humor in his tutor’s accidental jokes. So little in his life these days seems to give cause for joy.

“You leave tonight for the Selections.” Rayan hands his blade to Shields without acknowledging the quiet man. There is a mischievous glint in his eye as he changes topics. “I have a better idea than fighting. It involves a bucket of cold water, and grandfather’s new scullery maid. You know, the pretty one. With the...” he gestures to indicate the generous curves of the lady in question.

Everett shakes his head. Ever since Rayan discovered girls, he has become a handful of distractible hormones and ineffective attempts to see one naked.

“What would your mother say if she overheard you?”

“…That was a low blow, Everett. Bringing my mother into it.”

“Lady Mona is the best influence in your life, Rayan; you’d do well to remember that.” He bites back a harsher comment, one wreathed in jealousy, and turns toward the garden path.

The boys wander past overfilled flower beds, avoiding the humming apiaries in a far corner—the Lady’s newest hobby—and take up position at their favorite spot along the edge of the palace roof.

“Grandfather is sick again—really sick this time,” Rayan confides without warning.

Everett tenses. His young friend might make a great emperor one day, if he can learn the right lessons… but he has barely more than a decade of life behind him. It is too soon.

Not now. Not yet. “Well… I’m sure he’ll recover quickly.”

“But they took him to the specialists last night.”

“Which only means he’ll be better than ever when he returns,” Everett murmurs; blue eyes are unfocused, thoughts racing as he tries to see the future, tries to understand how this revelation changes the game. Rayan elbows him in the stomach.

“Lying. Remember?”

“I actually meant it, I promise.” He tries for more confidence in his tone.

“Everett. When I become Emperor… will you leave the Academy? To serve as my advisor?” And there, in the frightened plea of a child, is the truth of this tiny future leader of men. Naïve still. Innocent even, despite his hours of daily lessons, his false bravado and his all-too-real sense of entitlement.

“My life is my Emperor’s,” Everett pledges, repeating the centuries-old oath instinctively. He stares out over the plaza once more, eyeing the towering Academy uncertainly. “I serve my Emperor on all days, and in all ways. With my life and my death do I serve my Emperor.”

Rayan flings still-too-thin royal arms around the teen in relief. He squeezes his eyes shut tight, childish fears no match against his protector’s ancient timeless declaration of fealty.

~*~*~