If Light Above (A War of Whispers Book 1) Read online

  If Light Above

  A War of Whispers Book One

  Lily Anne Crow

  Raven & Rum Press

  Copyright © 2022 by Lily Anne Crow

  Raven & Rum Press

  Ontario, Canada

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Untitled

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  To my prince, my inspiration, my partner in crime, my partner in life … and everything else. This wouldn’t be half the story it is without your help.

  ~yk

  Prologue

  “Charge!”

  Captain General Osmund Benwickery screamed at his men as he clung with his knees to the mount beneath him, eyes watery from the wind, stomach clenched with fear, heart hammering with battle lust, ears thundering with the sound of horses and men in swift advance. One hand gripped the reins, while the other, gauntleted in blinding silver metal, held aloft a length of steel, flashing in the midday sun like a pennant of impending glory.

  The captain general’s massive gray warhorse bore him with impressive momentum across the valley floor toward the Worgarren army.

  Osmund gulped in a great lungful of air and bellowed again.

  “For Tourenne!”

  Some nearby voices echoed the cry, muffled by helms.

  “For Tourenne! For King Edrick!”

  Pershall was among them, surely. Perhaps Delannair and Brogue as well. Hartley without a doubt.

  At his side the mounted soldiers kept pace, but only just. The barest nudge to his mount’s sides would send the beast into a gallop unmatched by any horse in the kingdom, propelling him beyond the line of his soldiers. While Captain General Benwickery preferred to lead from the front, he didn’t relish the idea of becoming so obvious a target to the Worgarren archers, so he kept a tight hold on the stallion.

  “Easy,” he said to the animal, trying to maintain some sort of grip with his legs while avoiding the horse’s sides with his jouncing feet. It was something of a balancing act, flying over the ground as they were.

  It was always amazing to Osmund how time would flow in a battle. Some parts slowed down, seeming to last forever, while other parts—usually the most terrifying parts—flashed by so fast that he could barely control his own actions, let alone keep watch of what was going on around him. And then there were those bizarre moments when everything seemed unutterably slow and yet indescribably fast, all at once.

  The next several minutes of Osmund’s life turned out to be the latter.

  As he neared the enemy, individuals in the Worgarren army began to resolve themselves before the captain general’s wind-stung eyes. Their front line was not advancing, but they were shifting position. A great split opened up directly in front of Osmund, the Bear King’s forces moving to either side and revealing a large, ornate sedan chair. From within the tentlike covering emerged a tall, thin person, entirely bald and robed in brilliant orange. The figure raised long, thin arms, the sleeves of the robe puddling around his shoulders to reveal bracelet upon bracelet, stacked from bicep to wrist and twinkling with red crystals.

  A yell rose in Captain General Benwickery’s throat. He needed to tell his men to target the recondant, to kill the crystal wielder before he could use his unpredictable magic. But the command on his lips was cut short as a blast of sizzling red fire shot out from the robed figure’s hands, striking the ground mere feet in front of Osmund’s mount. The blast was enough to knock the captain general clean from the saddle, while horses and men around him were thrown into the air like the toys of a child on a rampage.

  Wheezing from the upthrown dust, moaning with the pain of landing heavily on his side, Osmund clawed his way over the dry, scrubby grass, trying to get his bearings. The noise of the blast had left his ears ringing, and he couldn’t see his men or the enemy through the thick cloud. He tried to stand, but something held his foot. He kicked, looking down to see what had him caught. His horse lay motionless, the stirrup bent and twisted, holding Osmund’s foot near the dead mount’s neck.

  Nearby he caught sight of his blade glinting a bothersome distance away. He pulled at the stirrup, but the weight of the horse held him fast.

  A noise like a thunderclap came from somewhere to his right, and Osmund whipped his head around. The dust was beginning to clear—the battle was met, his men fully engaged with King Ufrar’s forces. Another tall, thin figure, this one robed in sky blue, was casting a great snaking bolt of white energy out into the air before him, like sideways lightning. It shredded through a group of foot soldiers like a gale through chaff.

  This is a mistake. We shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t have called for a charge.

  Hadn’t King Edrick’s spies warned of recondants? Hadn’t Osmund himself imagined this exact disastrous scenario?

  Fool. You let the fervor of battle override your judgment! You wanted revenge as much as recognition—to be the first Tourennese leader to win a battle with Worgarren in twenty years!

  He struggled again, pulling ineffectually at the stirrup, even trying to slide his foot free of the boot. Nothing worked. Without his sword or any other way to cut himself loose, he was well and truly stuck.

  Now here you are, sitting in the dirt, caught like a hare in a trap, no sword, no horse, no victory on the horizon. For Sephra’s sake, sound the retreat!

  A shadow fell over Osmund’s face, and he looked up. Another recondant, bald and skeletally thin, with sunken eyes, robed in a soft gray that matched her skin, floated toward him. He only knew it was a woman by the small twin points on her scrawny chest. She raised her hands toward him, sleeves falling back to reveal at least a dozen silver bracelets, each dotted with shards of jagged black crystal.

  Someone yelled behind her, and she tilted her head to the side. Horseman Hartley came running at the recondant on foot with his glaive raised, ready to slice her from shoulder to hip. But as his blade struck, the gem wielder turned from solid flesh into a wispy, shadowy, wraithlike silhouette of herself. A heartbeat later she was solid once more, and the soldier’s weapon thunked into the dry ground beside her feet. Hartley blinked and the crystal user smiled. With a casual hand, the recondant gestured toward him, and a black tendril snaked out from her palm like a viper, wrapping around his neck, his chest, his face, his limbs. The horseman was pulled into the air, writhing, his eyes bulging as he tried to scream, blackness filling his open mouth, choking him.

  “No!” Osmund yelled. He struggled once more to free himself from the stirrup, p
ulling at the leather strap until his muscles burned, but it was no use. Hartley’s polearm was still jutting from the ground, no more than ten feet away. If he could just reach it …

  On his other side, someone else approached. The blue-robed recondant had blasted his way through the nearby Tourennese forces and was looking for a new target. His eyes fell on Osmund. With raised hands, and a too-wide, soulless stare, he pushed his palms toward the captain general with a jerk.

  Osmund tried to roll away. With a crack that shook the ground, a bolt of lightning struck his left shoulder and sent him flying, his stuck foot wrenched painfully free of its boot. He landed heavily on his good side, shouting and crying and moaning in pain, seemingly all at once.

  Retreat! The word echoed in his pain-numbed mind. Retreat, you fools!

  Just before the empty darkness of Oblivion swallowed him up, he heard a sound. Like the sweet refrain of a familiar melody, the Tourennese horn played out a five-note pattern somewhere behind him.

  Yes. Retreat. Get out while you can.

  Oblivion claimed him, and everything faded to black.

  Chapter 1

  “Get your hands off me, you heathen bastards!”

  Osmund Benwickery woke with a start, blinking and breathing quickly in the chill darkness. His head ached, his shoulder throbbed, and his useless arm lay beneath his side, even more numb than normal. He wiped the sweat from his brow with his good hand and lay still for a moment, getting control of his breathing.

  With a grunt of effort, the captain general rolled onto his stomach and pushed himself up onto his feet, his stockings scant protection against the cool stone floor. He leaned heavily, still bent over the side of the bed, holding himself up with his right arm while the left hung down like the useless piece of meat it was. As the blood flowed back into it, feeling returned—as much feeling as it ever had, at any rate. He winced with the tingling sensation and groaned with the pain.

  The nightmares had yet to fade after nearly a year. Twelve months’ worth of useless sleep in which he relived each horrid, gut-wrenching moment in his final battle with Worgarren.

  Tap-tap-tap. There was a gentle rapping on the door.

  “Master Benwickery? Are you awake?”

  The voice was soft but urgent. Senzen must have heard his thrashing.

  “Aye,” Osmund croaked. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Yes, I’m up. You can come in.”

  A middle-aged man entered, of medium height and mediocre appearance, save the notable scar running all the way from his left jawline, through both lips, to his right hairline. His shoulder-length brown hair was down instead of pulled up in its customary white nightcap.

  “Is it morning?” Osmund asked.

  Senzen nodded, taking the older man’s lifeless hand and lifting it. “I was just coming to wake you when I heard your voice. Another bad dream?” The servant opened up the linen sling that was looped over Osmund’s good shoulder and carefully tucked the dead arm into it.

  Osmund grunted. “No, not another bad dream. The same bad dream.” He nodded his head at the sling. “This thing still isn’t working. Abyss-cursed arm comes out when I move around at night.”

  Senzen considered this. “Hm. Maybe the wrap again? You just can’t lie on it.”

  “I was lying on it last night,” Osmund grumbled. “What’s the difference? And that damnable wrap is too hot.”

  The servant tilted his head. “I’ll see what I can do.” He went to busy himself at Osmund’s wardrobe, getting the captain general’s clothing out for the day.

  “Your black jacket is clean,” Senzen said conversationally, “so you can wear that one if you like. I was thinking roast ybo for dinner, perhaps with some sort of potato. Red wine, of course. Will you be back around the normal time?” He glanced back over his shoulder before moving to the dresser.

  Not for the first time, Osmund felt more like he was conversing with his wife rather than his manservant. Except that he’d never had a wife, and from what he’d heard from other men, Senzen was far more accommodating than a wife might be. After all, he was being paid handsomely to acquiesce to Osmund’s every request.

  “Yes. Before dusk, I’d say.” The former soldier went over to the washbasin and poured in a small amount of water. “And ybo roast sounds good.”

  Osmund excused himself to the lavatory, returning a short while later to rinse his good hand in the water. He dried it off on his nightshirt, dumped the water down the latrine, and refilled the washbasin to the brim.

  “Do we have any of those butter biscuits left?” he asked without turning.

  The older man lifted a small pool of water with his good hand and splashed it on his face, the burn-scarred flesh of his left cheek tingling with the coolness of the water. He scooped another handful of water over his short-cropped gray-shot hair and dried off with a towel. He rinsed various other parts of his body the same way, tingling sensations coming to his neck, left shoulder, and lifeless left arm. It was a slow and sloppy process.

  “I’m afraid not,” Senzen replied, still surveying clothes. “But if you’d like, I can go to the market for some fresh butter. I could do some baking this afternoon.”

  “No. Don’t bother yourself,” Osmund said, sopping up some of the water from the floor with his foot on the towel. He picked the sodden towel up using his toes and flung it expertly into a tall basket in the corner. It was amazing what tricks your feet could learn when you only had one hand. “You’ve enough to do without that today, I’d imagine.” And I’m already far more of a burden than any man should have to deal with, servant or no.

  Senzen helped the older man get out of his nightshirt and into his clothes, a tedious and painfully intimate affair. When that was done, the manservant tied on a fresh sling and put the black jacket on his employer, Osmund’s good arm through the sleeve. The sling hung beneath the left side, where the jacket’s sleeve was pinned up.

  The servant smiled, showing straight yellow teeth. “Very smart, Master Benwickery. Will you take some breakfast? There’s some ham left, and I can cook a few eggs.”

  Osmund was about to shake his head, wanting to get out of the house and into the fresh morning, when his stomach betrayed him with a gurgle.

  He forced a humorless smile. “That will be fine.”

  * * *

  By the time Osmund left his small stone home on Highriver Way, the sun was chasing the shadows from Vercolline’s streets. Folk all around the White City were emerging from their houses, emptying chamber pots, shaking out bed linens, and a few, like Osmund, making their way to work.

  As he crossed over the first of the three bridges he would traverse on his path to the preceptor’s office, he looked down into the dark water. Though Vercolline was often called the White City, in this part of Lowtown it was more of a dirty gray. The Nemanorre River here was narrow and fast, bordered on each side by three levels of buildings built on top of each other. Each tier had its own bridges while the lowest level sported a narrow stone walkway running along the water on either side. Canals ran from the river in various places, providing the city’s inhabitants with water, and creating an even more arduous task for Vercolline’s bridge-builders.

  Along most of the Nemanorre proper, the buildings were set back far enough from the water to provide spacious thoroughfares for the area’s many citizens to travel. Osmund enjoyed the view down onto both Midriver and Lowriver Way, bridges crisscrossing over the water like a children’s game of pick-up sticks. He kept an eye on everything from up here, watching the common inhabitants of Vercolline go about their business. Some of that business, the seedier sort, tended to occur near the shadowy canals off Lowriver Way, and though Osmund was no city watchman, he made note of what he observed and reported it to his employer, Preceptor Brant.

  Osmund had a keen eye to go along with his tactical mind, so he’d put his time to good use since leaving his post in the king’s army. He solved all manner of problems for Brant, the king’s liaison to the city, from
unauthorized trading of guild-managed goods to catching thieves and even killers. It wasn’t as glamorous as being a captain general, to be sure, but Osmund was still doing good work for Vercolline. After all, it was the greatest city in the kingdom of Tourenne, and likely on the entire continent of Koranth. Some might even argue it was the greatest city on all of Erlahain.

  A pleasant scent wafted out from Lemmy Chessler’s bakery, at the corner of Highriver Way and Courgette Street, tempting Osmund to go in and buy some of her fresh cinnamon rolls. They weren’t Senzen’s butter biscuits, but they were sweet and soft and delicious all the same. If he waited until he was on his way home, the bakery would be closed.

  He was in no great rush this morning, so he ducked through the doorway and into the dim shop. Inside, the air was heavy with the warmth from the ovens, already churning out bread rolls and loaves in every shade of brown imaginable, as well as cinnamon buns by the panful.

  Lemmy herself was out front, rolling pale dough on the counter while two other women and a teenage boy worked away at tables behind her. Other customers were wandering about, looking at various baked goods displayed around the shop on angled wooden shelves.

  The proprietor looked up when Osmund entered.

  “G’morning to you, Cap’n Gen’ral!” she called with a smile before turning back to her work, spreading a thick layer of soft butter over the flattened dough. She glanced up at him. “What can I get for you today?”