EDIT: I updated this 28/6 after deciding to do another rewrite, so bear with me for future updates as I continue to beat this book into shape. It’s... mainly the same, except I cut a bit to put into the next chapter and rejigged the wording. So enjoy!
So I decided to finally post some of this book I’ve been talking about for the past while, so here goes.
High fantasy series written by a Monty Python and Terry Pratchett fanatic, inspired by my other hyper fixation, Game of Thrones. Please like and subscribe for more content. Thank you for your time.
A moodboard for your attention:
The continent of Truphoria, the third weed of summer on the 1345th Year of Mortality.
On the Night of Raining Thorns, Prince Seth Crey was killed by a masked assassin. Everyone who knew him agreed he most likely deserved it.
But hours earlier, public dislike of the adolescent had been placed aside. Dusk fell over the heart of Adem as the nobility of the world, plus a few opportunistic stragglers, flocked into Creys’ Keep. Any concern about masked assassins had, unfortunately, fallen by the wayside. There was a far greater matter at hand.
There was a wedding due to start.
This was to be no normal wedding. It was a royal wedding, in the kingdom of Adem, no less. There would be romance, and love, and drinking and fighting in liberal amounts and, more importantly, cold feet…
Thirteen was a young age for one’s youth to die.
Or so Seth considered, sitting on his throne beside his father. He glared down at his Portabellan guests, or, rather, King Theo’s future investment.
The family of three plus their enormous entourage were recognisable purely by the sheer amount of gold coating their clothes and adorning their wrists and throats. Seth’s father had laughed himself sick when he clapped eyes on them.
Best day of my life? Best day of his, more like.
Seth was far from having a good day. His mother had gifted him a ridiculous outfit she appeared to have fashioned out of an old dress, his shoulder-length hair was itching up a storm inside the collar and his Uncle Osney had forced him into a bath that left him smelling like a first-prize flowerbed and feeling a prize twit to match.
He was quite used to fragrant baths and ill-designed clothing of his mother’s making. Thirteen years of being crown prince of Adem had well equipped him for that. It was the hair. Truphorian men kept it short and out of the way. Portabella had a fetish for long, luscious locks. He’d been growing it out on his mother’s command since the betrothal was finalised a year ago. Queen Eleanor had curled it into tight coils with a pungent oil. It was hideous in every sense.
It’s all for the sake of the alliance, his father had told him.
As far as Seth was concerned, he could stick his alliance up his arse. No Portabellan stick insect was going to have his babies anytime soon. He’d heard rumours about the procedure. It seemed ridiculously unhygienic.
King Theo Crey reached an elbow out to nudge his son’s arm.
‘Pretty little thing, isn’t she?’ he said over the din of the celebration.
‘Dunno. The mother’s in the way.’
The mother was a mishmash of wig and petticoat. Seth couldn’t tell woman from accoutrement.
‘The girl, over there, look.’ Theo pointed.
Seth looked her up and down.
Cienne Fleurelle stood between her parents, her skinny form trembling within what must have been six tailors’ worth of silk petticoats. She peered up at Seth over the top of a gilded fan and gave him a tiny, tentative smile, which he pointedly ignored.
‘She’s very… small,’ he drawled. ‘Lilly’s bigger than her. Is she three years old as well? I don’t think I feel comfortable seeing someone a full decade younger than I am.’
‘Don’t be stupid, she’s of an age with yourself. You can’t afford to be fussy, you know. You’re a man now, or as good as at this age. You must spread your seed now that you’re still young.’
Seth’s face screwed up in disdain.
‘That’s disgusting,’ he said with a shiver. ‘Imagine sticking yourself into a girl. Ew.’
‘It must be done. You are my heir, young Seth, and heirs must procreate. Why don’t you show her around? Get to know her a bit before the ceremony?’
Seth threw his eyes towards the heavens and rose from his throne.
‘And remember,’ his father reminded him.
Seth pivoted with a dull expression.
His father flourished his right hand.
‘Polite, chivalrous…’
‘And complimenting,’ Seth finished. ‘The exact opposite of what you’re like to Mother.’
‘Be gone, Seth,’ Theo told him irritably, ‘and heed my words or else!’
Seth stormed away, trying not to think of what ‘or else’ meant as the King of Portabella beckoned him over eagerly.
His matchstick of a daughter had taken heed of Seth’s hostility and cowered behind his broad build, her silver-blond head scarcely visible.
Seth approached the family and bowed.
‘Welcome, your majesty. My father and I are pleased to receive you.’
‘And we are as pleased to be received,’ the king said, his voice thick and jolly. ‘Your highness, may I introduce Princess Cienne, my daughter.’
He directed to Cienne a stream of nonsensical speediness that Seth wasn’t sure was even a human language.
The princess emerged from behind him to drop a quick curtsy.
‘Greetings, my prince,’ she said in a small voice, a thick accent curling prettily between the words.
Seth recalled his earlier counselling with the Duke of Osney and knelt onto one knee to take her hand.
‘Greetings, my lady.’
He pecked the back of her wrist.
Princess Cienne retracted her hand, smitten.
‘Do not let me keep you, Prince Seth,’ King Fleurelle said to Seth with a benevolent smile. ‘I’m sure you have much to show your future wife.’ He winked.
Seth inclined his head with a faint, fake smile.
Give us a chance to unpack the rings, you dirty bastard, he thought privately.
Seth offered an elbow to Cienne.
She beamed at him and took it.
They strolled to the courtyard together.
He walked her around the perimeter, through the dining hall, around the spiralling patterns of the back gardens, everywhere he could think of to postpone having to invent small talk to amuse the silly creature clinging to his arm. As rain began to pitter onto the transparent crust that had become of Seth’s hair oils, he led her back indoors and commenced a tour of the castle before, finally and tentatively, showing her to his rooms.
Where the fragile door of common courtesy was, abruptly, shattered from both sides.
‘Get off! Get off!’
Seth tried to scream through a mouthful of Portabellan tongue technique as Princess Cienne squeezed him to her as tightly as possible.
He wrenched himself away and wiped his mouth.
‘Salator Crey’s balls!’ he gasped. ‘What the hell was that?’
‘A kiss, my prince,’ she said timidly, assuming her previous saintly façade.
‘Is that what you call it?’
‘Was it not pleasing, my lord?’
‘Pleasing?’ Seth shuddered. ‘It was more… torturously inexperienced. Don’t they teach you these things before you get here? Honestly. It was like having a puppy in my mouth.’
Cienne’s face fell. ‘I apologise, my prince.’ She reached forward with both arms. ‘Let me try again—’
‘No!’ he exclaimed.
He stumbled out of her reach.
‘You’re already nearly suffocated me to death, leave me be!’
Cienne stood back, a delicate frown between her brows.
‘Death? How could I have kissed you to death? You still live.’
Seth rolled his eyes. ‘No, love, that was a joke.’
‘Juh-oke?’ she said slowly. ‘I am not familiar with this word. It is like the word “poke”?’
‘No, it is not definitely not like the word “poke”!!’
Seth stepped back again for self-preservation.
‘I meant it was an exaggeration—’
‘Eggs? What have eggs to do with me kissing you to death?’
Seth dropped his head into his palm.
‘No, you nitwit, visit a library. You haven’t kissed me to death, I only meant—’
Cienne’s expression turned stony.
‘Nitwit. I think I’m aware of this phrase,’ she said in a monotone. ‘I beg your leave, Prince Seth. I feel a bit sick, I should like to get some air.’
‘Sick,’ Seth echoed. ‘I like that, I think I’ll use that. It will look more convincing if we’re both unwell, won’t it? We can blame it on the shrimp, put off the wedding for at least another—’
The door slammed behind her, to the concern of no one but a raven outside, which left a spatter-shaped indication of its disgust on Seth’s window.
Smiling faintly at his newfound excuse, Seth entered his bedroom and bolted the door behind him. Women, he decided long ago, were not his speciality.
Cream cakes, however, he thought warmly, were very much his best friend. His mother was bound to bring him a platter of two once she heard he was ‘sick’. Particularly if he dropped the good old ‘growing pains’ line.
Anyway, he was a prince of the realm. The next king, in fact. He would get married whenever he bloody well felt like it, and his father… well, Seth could think of what his father would do in the morning.
He climbed under the covers of his deluxe four-poster and, despite the imminent arrival of cream cakes, fell asleep within moments.
Six hours passed.
Seth awoke to the sound of a raven pecking on his window. He sat up to chase it away when a small hand shot out of the shadows to slit his right palm with a short dagger.
Seth screamed out in fear and alarm.
The shade slapped another hand over his mouth.
The hand held a cloth… a damp cloth…
A raven’s squawk echoed in his ears. Blackness washed in from the edges of his awareness, like rolling waves on a shore. The last thing Seth remembered on the night of his murder was the assassin taking blood from the wound on his right palm.
The second and considerably more consequential thing that happened on the Night of Raining Thorns concerned an actual egg.
The Queen of the Forest was pissed off. Very pissed off indeed.
Someone had made shit of her castle.
She sat on the landing of what used to be a full set of stairs. Steam burned her lungs as though she sat inside a recently erupted volcano, but steam was the least of her problems.
Red smog drifted around her from the ground floor, dissolving the flagstones. She peered down into the centre of a massive crater in the middle of what used to be her audience chamber.
A few remnants of egg shell lay scattered in the centre.
The Queen shook debris out of her hair.
She tried to recall the date.
Third week of summer. King Theo’s kid was getting married today. She hadn’t been invited, but that was fine. Social ostracization wasn’t something she was unused to.
Having explosive dragon eggs thrown at her was a different story.
Of course he would form an alibi first. That was King Theo Crey down to a T.
He could at least have given her a bit of notice, she thought sourly. A hoard of Crey foot soldiers arriving at her gate, that would have been fine, but magic… that was a cheat. And she should know. Cheating with magic was her signature move.
The Queen examined her household from the foot of the stairs. Some were badly injured. A lot of them were dead. This was not good. Hosting a retaliation with half a house and a council of six cripples was like enrolling in a jousting match with no arms – she might as well go ahead and put a sword in her own throat. Which was no doubt his plan.
Now she was really pissed.
She limped to the remains of her bedchamber, adjusting her dress, stained a dull grey from the debris thrown at her in the explosion. She brushed her dust-coated hair away from her face. A mass of smouldering splinters in the corner marked the remains of her bureau.
A red glint caught her eye.
She dug a hand into the wreckage.
The amulet felt cool under her fingers, in spite of the blast. It had sat inside the drawer for years, decades even. The amulet had never been used. She had never had the desire to use it.
Similarly, the Creys had never made shit of her castle either. And nothing on their part had ever meant war. This had changed a lot of things… and there were a lot of things still to change.
She clenched it tightly in her fist and closed her eyes.
Chapter Two of Rosethorn! I’m enjoying this latest rewrite: returning to the beginning having spent four books with these characters has really been beneficial for me. I love finding out how these characters have grown since then.
I’m also loving making these moodboards right now. I do them on Canva using images from Pixabay, it’s really good for moodboards:
Lilly-Anna stood inside the entrance to the throne room as Cienne entered.
Cienne scowled with contempt at the highly decorated hall. Stone statues of Crey kings of old and emerald-coloured banners alternated along the walls, lining the pale stone behind them. The banners bore the Crey family motif: two snakes, emerald and gold, entwined in a knot to represent the intimate bond between Adem’s king and god. And also to show what traitors would look like on the way home.
Cienne directed her trail of thought away from that note.
She turned to face her sister-in-law, whose blue eyes – so like Seth’s – were fixated to a huge crate outside the doors. Her brother’s untouched riding clothes hung in folds over her small form.
There was something about Lilly-Anna that deeply unsettled Cienne, but it was difficult to say what it could be specifically.
It could have been the fact that she often carried a mace, like she was doing now. She twirled it in one hand as she circled the box.
Without warning, she swung it an inch from the guard’s nose.
He flinched violently, a bead of sweat dropping down his temple.
Lilly cackled.
Similarly, it could be that she frightened the living daylights out of men six times her size. This Cienne pondered as the guard excused himself to walk to the outhouse stiffly and quickly.
But most likely reason was probably the way Lilly stared at her sister-in-law the way one would stare at food. Which would have been fine were she, say, admiring her clothing. Cienne knew what she was doing and resented it. Bad enough for a man to hungrily ogle a married woman without the public’s most prominent women’s rights representative hopping on the bandwagon.
Lilly approached Cienne with a smile.
Cienne plastered the most stoic smile she could manage, quickly asserting a boundary.
‘Morning,’ Lilly said, in a high-pitched voice grossly ill-fitting to her personality. ‘Any joy with Seth?’
Cienne sighed. ‘I wish.’
‘Oh. Well, the old man’s new toy has arrived,’ she said brightly.
She skipped to the crate, her mace swinging idly at her side.
‘Come and see!’
Cienne approached the crate warily.
The thing about crates like this arriving on the Creys’ doorstep was that they were frequently very dangerous – which was probably the point. She missed Portabella and its frilliness. At least it was genuine and didn’t have a couple of knives hidden anywhere.
Lilly-Anna (what a terrible name that was for her, Cienne thought) grasped a handful of the cloak covering the crate and thrust it away grandly.
The dragon blinked in the sudden light and screamed, sending smoke billowing from its great nostrils.
Cienne gasped, stumbling backwards into the middle of the hall.
The cage stood ten feet wide and tall, and it was packed with furious muscle. The dragon’s long neck hunched beneath the top bars of the cage. It’s discomfort was evident in the beast’s wriggling and jerking. Scales shimmered with every movement, turning from crimson to jade green to every colour in between. It had Crey written all over it.
‘That’s his “new toy”?’ Cienne gaped, unable to blink for fear of missing a single movement. ‘I, I thought he could get a, a dog or something, not a, a—’
‘Dragon.’ Lilly beamed. ‘Isn’t it brilliant? We’ve always wanted one, ever since we were little, me and—Seth! We should bring him out, he’d love it, come on!’
She tugged on Cienne’s sleeve and pulled her to the stairs.
They panted up every step, Lilly in her ill-fitting breeches and jerkin, Cienne struggling to gather her masses of petticoats, until they reached the third and highest floor of the palace and burst into Seth’s private quarters.
Lilly threw the coffin door open and shook Seth by the arm.
He snorted awake.
‘Seth, Seth, wake up, look! He got a dragon! Come down and see!’
Seth bolted upright. ‘A dragon?!’
‘Yes, a dragon! Come on!’
She pulled him upright and dragged him downstairs.
Cienne followed close behind.
She knew, deep down, that no one could get Seth to do anything except for his tomboyish baby sister and her insistent enthusiasm. Not even his mother, or his wife – especially his wife. And it wouldn’t even bother Cienne all that much were it not for the fact that she loved him, indefinitely and inexplicably.
And he knew it. He knew it from the day they first met… and he hated it.
They arrived back to the imposing animal’s cage. As Cienne predicted, all memory of Seth’s ‘death’ had temporarily dissipated, to be replaced by awe.
‘Mine!’ he proclaimed in a hushed voice, staring up with wide eyes.
‘No hogging it, brov, it’s mine too,’ Lilly said with a smile.
Seth reached between the bars to brush its scales.
It hissed smoke into the air.
‘What do we name it?’
Cienne approached and brushed a tentative hand against his, thinking he wouldn’t notice.
He edged away, fixated to the dragon.
‘What about Smokey?’ Lilly said.
Seth burst out laughing.
‘Smokey? What kind of a name is that? Why don’t we call you Smokey, since you have smoke for an imagination?’
‘Oh, alright then,’ she said mildly. ‘How about—’
‘Lyseria,’ Cienne said.
Seth turned to her in surprise.
Cienne’s heart skipped a beat as their eyes met, a seldom occurrence.
‘I like it,’ he said. ‘Where did you pull that from?’
‘It’s the same of Salator Crey’s companion,’ she said meekly. ‘I figure the king would approve, since she’s a religious figure. She’s a deity in her own right in my parts.’
‘Oh, the dragon lady,’ Lilly said in recognition.
The dragon released a puff of approval.
‘Lyseria it is,’ Seth said with a grin – the first she’d seen in a long time.
‘Is it a girl?’ Lilly wondered.
Seth tilted his head to the side and bent his knees.
‘It’s either that or a eunuch.’
A messenger entered the hall and they turned to face him as he bowed theatrically.
‘Your highnesses,’ he said, touching his forelock, ‘I come from Stoneguard with a message. The king cannot attend today’s discussion on the betrothal.’
Lilly breathed a sigh of relief.
‘Why not this time?’ said Cienne sharply.
There’s always an excuse, she thought irritably. The king has man-flu, the prince is violently hung-over…
‘The king is missing, your highness,’ said the messenger. ‘He’s presumed dead.’
The gods proclaimed to anyone who would listen that all things happened for a reason.
When Adrienne’s father was killed by a lunatic and her mother died in childbirth, Adrienne believed this had to happen in order for her to live with her beloved uncle Archie.
And when Archie brought a mysterious orphan born on the Night of Raining Thorns to live with them as his apprentice and made them move to a strange country, Adrienne believed this had to happen in order for her to fall in love with him.
And Adrienne reckoned that one day quite soon, something else would happen in order for her to marry Howard Rosethorn and have a lot of children. Or at the very least treat Howie for an injury and examine him very closely.
At the moment, the two were in Adrienne’s tiny bedroom, unpacking her things. She waited for the catalyst for her aforementioned fate. She’d been waiting for eight years. It was bound to happen sometime.
Her room was half the size of Howie’s, but she forgave him for that. It was littered with Howie’s definition of art – little boxes with ‘Adrienne’ carved on top clumsily and frames for her sketches that were more like wonky diamonds than squares. Half of her charcoal drawings were of Howie, much to his approval: the rest were landscapes and still life drawings with him in there somewhere, usually bent at a ninety degree angle for reasons only an artiste can justify.
The only parts of the room that showed no hint of Howie’s existence was where the straw bed consumed most of the floor space. Even the dangerously lopsided chest of drawers stood in the corner as a mark of Adrienne’s reluctance to part with his good-intentioned yet poorly-crafted efforts for her.
‘So what’s working with the dreaded Serpus-folk like?’ asked Howie, listlessly scanning the junk mail from his Aunty Philippina.
‘It doesn’t end,’ she said with a sigh, sitting on her bed beside him. ‘It would probably be fine if they weren’t all sailors. Not only do you have to monitor those nearly on the croak, you have to keep the rest from fighting each other and throwing knives at people. They’re lunatics.’
Howie laughed. ‘You’re better off setting up here, then. Worst you have to deal with is that rash going around. Speaking of,’ he added mischievously, twitching ominously. ‘Think I might have a touch of it down there. You wouldn’t mind taking a look, would you?’
The image appeared in her head in total clarity.
‘Of course,’ she said evenly. ‘I am a professional.’
Howie snorted and dropped the pretence. He flopped onto his back to gaze at the ceiling.
‘So what have you been up to in my absence?’ she said, diverting her attention to cleaner territory. ‘Anything interesting?’
‘Got my hair cut—’
‘Looks great.’
‘Thanks,’ he said with a smile. ‘That’s about it, though. Talking to Archie doesn’t beat our little chats, you know.’
‘You missed me, then?’ she said with a grin.
‘Of course I did,’ he said, sitting upright to meet her gaze. ‘You’re my favourite person.’
A pink sensation blossomed in her chest, spreading out in a glorious wave.
‘Oh,’ she said faintly.
She dropped her head on his shoulder.
She turned her face upward and her head spun at the mere smell of him. It was funny how the sawdust wasn’t as appealing on Uncle Archie. His skin was coated in it, the fine substance settling in the folds of his shirt and even in his ears. He reminded her of the seaside on a sunny day with his sandy hair and eyes the colour of a summer sky. His hair really looked like sand, especially cut short, and his arm was warm around her shoulders, like the sun.
She felt immensely happy. Any minute now, the catalyst was going to occur. She could already hear wedding bells from the near future. Or maybe cow bells from the market outside, one or the other.
‘Adrienne?’
‘Mmm?’ she murmured happily.
‘I know you’re tired from your trip back, but can I have my shoulder back? It’s gone numb.’
She opened her eyes. ‘Oh, sorry.’ She sat up awkwardly.
Archie’s voice floated up the stairs.
‘Oi! When are you getting started on those pews?’
‘In a minute!’ Howie called.
He glanced at Adrienne with a wink.
‘I’ll manipulate Archie into letting me off and I’ll be right back.’
‘Okay,’ Adrienne said, beaming.
He pecked her cheek. It grew warm and reddened profusely.
‘Happy birthday,’ he said, rising. ‘I’m missed you!’
Adrienne smiled.
I’ve missed you too, she thought privately.
‘Have you searched the Forest?’
‘Yes, your highness. We’ve also searched the city, to no avail.’
‘Maybe yusshould check the booze cabinet, ‘e migh’ be’n there,’ slurred Ron in amusement.
In the upper level of the Stonekeep, Stoneguard’s only tourist destination, two princes stood in the drawing room of the elder prince’s quarters. One was considerably wobblier than the other as the elder, a narrow man with a pointed face, folded his arms impatiently, his brown hair hanging over his bloodshot green eyes.
‘Did he arrive in Adem?’
‘There have been no sightings in the ports of King Samuel—’
‘King Stuffs ‘Is Face, more like,’ snorted Ron. ‘Have you tried the pantry? Probably stuck in the sweetie cabinet, the shtupi’ bah—’
After twenty minutes of pithy remarks, Prince Vladimir, finally, snapped.
‘Be gone, you utter wretch!’ he screamed at Prince Ronald, shoving him backward.
Ron stumbled on the flagstones, waving his wineglass in the air.
‘Ooh, somebody’s got all his feathers in a clump,’ he trilled, with a pronounced ‘P’. ‘All summer roun’ the lower regions, where even the tumbleweed’s bin avoid—’
‘GET! OUT!!’
Vladimir grabbed the scuff of his neck and threw him bodily into the corridor.
The man was a menace. At the tender age of twenty-one, Ron had gained the maturity of a six-year-old and a drinking problem that resulted in him looking physically ten years his own senior. Except that his hair, Vladimir mused hatefully, had managed to stay black while Vladimir’s wasn’t staying anywhere at all.
Ronald was the last thing the Hornes needed right now.
Ron slammed into the wall opposite.
‘Watch out, you mis’rubble git!’ he barked.
‘Get out of my sight! I have more significant issues to deal with then your DRUNKEN BUMBLING!’
Ron pulled a face at him and stumbled out, cackling.
One of the most unfathomable mysteries of the continent of Truphoria was the condition of Ronald Horne’s psyche. The trouble was that he had the mind of a ten-year-old – until he started drinking. It was incredibly difficult not to wonder how a man with such a passion for daisy-chains, climbing trees, leap-frog and the weekly game of snakes and ladders every Tuesday could have a tendency towards alcohol.
As if his childish imagination and energy weren’t exhausting enough, Vladimir had Ron’s drunken hallucinations to contend with, not forgetting a vulgar interpretation of life’s little details that, once sobriety hit, seemed to disappear without a trace. This double-personality was aging Vladimir so badly he reckoned he’d die of old age before he hit thirty-five.
Vladimir dismissed the messenger with a wave and glared out at the morning sun.
King Samuel was missing, presumed dead by the authorities. Which was Vladimir, his successor, but that was besides the point. King Samuel dead wasn’t such a bad thing. King Samuel dead meant good things.
King Samuel and the crown of Stoneguard missing, however, did not.
The crown of Stoneguard was a hideously important factor of Vladimir’s life. Without the crown, the king was not a king, and without a king the kingdom was not a kingdom, making the Battle for the Orchard over fifty years ago – the Hornes’ greatest victory – void. Without that awful, jagged crown-shaped lump of rock, Vladimir was nothing, and Stoneguard was a joke.
Needless to say, the safety of the crown was a damn sight more important to him than that ‘shtupi’ bastard’.
Vladimir narrowed his eyes to the south, to where the black mountains of the Wastelands framed the distant horizon.
He suspected her, of course. Who didn’t? The nameless Queen was a madwoman, which was perfectly fine compared to her people. Vladimir didn’t dare contemplate what the king might have gotten himself into with them.
Because in actual fact, despite being well-liked in general, King Samuel of Stoneguard was a fool. A big fool. And Prince Ronald was inheriting that foolishness in every respect.
A knock came to the door.
Vladimir spun on one heel, his jewellery clanging.
A monk stood just outside the door, twiddling his thumbs with the sheepish little smile his people favoured. A steel cross hung from his neck, adorned with five buttons down the spine and one more on the end of each arm – the motif of the Faith of the Seven.
Vladimir heaved a sigh. ‘I take it my mother summoned you?’
‘Um, no, your highness,’ he said in a quiet voice.
Vladimir shot the Cross of the Seven scathing glance.
What the Seven actually were was disputed – their faith thought they were gods, the Faith of Salator Crey thought they were devils, and most of the higher class thought they were imaginary.
But they definitely existed – Vladimir had seen the proof of that, twenty years ago, when his mother had deposited him on the altar and they had bestowed upon him the Sword of Thorns.
Apparently. His eyes were closed at the time in prayer, so he couldn’t be sure.
But they definitely existed – the chapel in Stoneguard’s capital of the same name often saw food donations vanish without a trace. And on very rare occasion, some small-folk swore blind that family members of a sinful persuasion sometimes disappeared as well.
Vladimir wished that had the decency to take Ronald with them.
‘Go on,’ he said. ‘What is it?’
The monk bowed in his filthy grey robe, his bald and badly sunburned head reflecting the light of the sun. ‘Majesty, there is a matter of great importance we need to discuss with you. It is a prophecy concerning the king’s disappearance.’
Vladimir glared at him in disdain. ‘Of course there is.’
The monk nodded. ‘Indeed.’ They never were very good at picking out sarcasm. ‘My lord, it is finally time to wield the Crystal Sword. The Knight of Thorns has been summoned by law of the Testament.’
Vladimir’s eyes rolled upward.
‘The Prophet has confirmed it,’ the monk continued, ‘and the texts of the Testament have illuminated in light of the Catalyst—’
Vladimir opened his mouth and, with great volume, yawned.
The monk looked taken aback. ‘Am I boring you, your highness?’
Vladimir closed his mouth.
‘Oh. Yes,’ he said mildly. ‘You rather are.’
The monk spluttered. ‘But—the Prophet—he said—it’s the day we’ve been waiting for, your highness. Your time to defeat the Antichrist is come.’
‘Has come,’ Vladimir corrected. ‘Proper grammar isn’t a sin, you know.’
He eyed the monk’s defeated expression with a mild sense of pity.
‘Look, I grew out of this religious hero lark a very long time ago,’ he drawled. ‘But if it entertains you lot to pander to the call of a group of tricksters, by all means have fun with this new charade. Just keep me out of it. You can tell my mother I have handed in my notice as resident Knight of Raining Thorns, or whatever it is. Hers is the east wing, by the way.’
He waved a dismissive hand.
‘But your highness—’
‘Oh, “but your highness” what? “The world is coming to an end”? “A traitor is among you”?’ Vladimir mocked shrilly, waving his arms about. ‘Oh, what about “the holy flying”, I dunno, “cat has descended from the heavens to proclaim the Chosen One”!’
‘My lord, that is something the Crey religion would come up with,’ the monk said in a hurt tone.
Ronald’s re-entrance to the hall interrupted them.
He stood before them, his eyes wide and bloodshot.
‘A cat just flew right past my bedroom window!’
Vladimir gave him a withering glance. ‘Have you been at the incense again? You know you’re not supposed to drink that—’
‘A flying cat?’ the monk cut in.
‘Glowing, too,’ Ron added.
‘Don’t encourage him,’ Vladimir scolded the monk, ‘he was just eavesdropping at the door—’
‘See? Look! Look out there!’
Ron pointed out of the window, bouncing on his heels.
Vladimir pivoted lazily.
And leapt back at the sight.
A scruffy old grey cat glared at them through beady eyes. It hovered behind the glass and hissed at them through an ethereal glow.
Vladimir trembled, his back pressed to Ron’s shoulder.
‘Th-this is highly irregular,’ he stammered.
The cat launched himself at a robin and slammed it into the glass.
‘Quite,’ said the monk. ‘Usually the Seven aren’t quite so receptive to idle mockery outside of mass.’
‘You were blaming it on the Creys a minute ago,’ Vladimir drawled.
‘The ethereal glow, your highness,’ the monk said, gesturing with splayed fingers. ‘The Seven do this all the time at the chapel, usually when someone questions their existence. Religious artefacts fly about the place every odd Sunday. Keeps the patrons coming in.’
‘Do I get a reward for finding the Holy Flying Cat?’
‘The only reward you’ll get,’ Vladimir sneered at Ron, ‘will be a sharp shove down a long flight of stairs if you don’t sober up sharpish.’
Ron cowered. ‘Can I have the cat?’
‘No, you can’t have the cat. Honestly, your father’s presumed dead and the entire kingdom dangles by a thread, and you’re stood here going on about a stupid cat—’
‘Behold!’ exclaimed the monk.
The cat had disappeared.
The three rushed to the window to see it soar into the chapel after the robin.
Ron bolted outside, curious.
Vladimir’s eyes flitted back to the window.
The local carpenter carried three benches into the chapel, assisted by a young fair-haired apprentice.
Vladimir blinked and looked closer at the youth, who promptly dropped all three benches on his master’s foot with a wince.
‘The boy,’ Vladimir said. ‘Who is he?’
‘An orphan, your highness. Comes from Serpus originally.’ The monk lowered his voice. ‘There is a rumour he was found in the Queen’s Forest on the Night of Raining Thorns. He may be an instrumental part of the prophecy if the rumours are true.’
Vladimir cracked a smile.
The monk shivered. A smile from the elder prince of Stoneguard never boded well.
‘Of course he is,’ he said. ‘He’s Seth Crey’s double.’
Happy M&GM! For an OC of your choice: you are casually walking in a forest and you hear a strange sound coming from... somewhere. What do you do?
For Seth I’ve already written such an occurrence in Rosethorn, so I’m going to deviate from the prompt slightly and just copy paste that, if that’s ok...
(For context, Seth is at this moment in time pretending to think an assassination attempt on him has succeeded in order to get out of his duties as Crown Prince of Adem, assisted by his semi-sentient Method Acting.)
Seth’s surroundings consisted of lots of green, the smell of outdoors and a wretched howling loudly in the distance. No, not the distance, he decided after brief observation. Quiet. And close, in all directions.
A normal man would simply have described this as a forest, but Seth was more observant than that. His method acting proclaimed that ghosts were hyper-aware of their surroundings, and far more appreciative of it thanks to the ironic contrast of death and its view into the attributes of life he was now missing out on. That and there was bugger all else to do.
Rustling interrupted Seth’s appreciation of his surroundings. He swung around to see nothing he hadn’t already observed for the past hour.
Something like suspicion niggled at him, but it couldn’t be actual suspicion because that was an instinct and ghosts have no instincts, his method acting reminded him, except for perhaps the sudden urge to shout ‘BOO!’ in dark corridors.
In death there was no suspicion, his method acting reminded him. Just memories. And senses. And other-worldly thoughts, he’d just decided.
There it was again. That unidentified rustling.
He kicked himself away from the tree behind him and slowly approached the sound.
He grossly misjudged its direction.
As was evident by the strong arms wrapped around his elbows from behind.
TLDR: when confronted by dubious sounds in the forest, Seth thinks about it hard for a few moments before doing nothing about it.
He’s the firstborn of King Theo Crey, the maniacal ruler of the fair kingdom of Adem, known to all outsiders as Savage Central.
Smug, supercilious, god’s gift to women (or so he thinks), Seth Crey fits the bill for Least Charming Prince of all time. Which probably explains why his father wants him dead...
He wasn’t supposed to be the main character of the series, but he stole the show from poor Howie and, yeah. It’s his series now.
Face claim: Paul Bettany
Musical artist that inspired his arc and motivations: Marco Hietala
