The Movement of Kings

By Nadine C. Keels

Movement of Crowns, Book Three: the chronicle of an untried ruler

The nation might have longed for his coming rule, but will they now regret it?
The charge of the Eubeltic Realm has been passed over to a young monarch known for his brilliance and brooding ways—as well as the “way” he has with vibrant ladies at court. Yet, from a political and cultural standpoint, the Realm has entered uncertain times.

Their inexperienced king is faced with the nation’s domestic and colonial crises, the bereavement of his family, and his curious attraction to a councilman’s modest daughter. Could everything in the king’s untried hands be on the verge of falling apart?

While this historical fantasy book does not have magical elements, the story is set in a completely fictional world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nadine C. Keels
• Release date: Dec 23, 2013
• ISBN: 9781311643155

Nadine C. Keels

Nadine. A French name, meaning, "hope."Her lifelong passion for the power of story makes reading and writing an adventure for Nadine C. Keels. She’s driven to write the kinds of stories she’s always wanted to read but couldn’t always find, featuring diverse and uncommon lead characters in a medley of genres. Through her books and her blog (Prismatic Prospects), Nadine aims to spark hope and inspiration in as many people as she can reach."My aspiration is for my words to help people: to bring hope, to change minds, to expand imagination, to provide entertainment, and to save lives—as other authors’ words have done for me."

Book preview

The Movement of Kings

Movement of Crowns Series Book Three

Nadine C. Keels

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 by Nadine C. Keels

Cover Design:

Nadine C. Keels

Literary references to Scripture are taken from the King James Version of The Holy Bible.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to events or locales, is not intended.

Find Nadine online at:

www.prismaticprospects.wordpress.com

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Contents

~~~

He’ll live.

The Eubeltic Realm

Breaking Points

A King’s Heart

Before Leaving Diachona

~

There’s More

~~~

"He’ll live."

~~~

He’ll live.

No one save Alexander heard the raspy declaration he uttered as he jolted upright on his bed on a late afternoon. He was breathing heavily, staring wildly into the dimness of his bedroom where only a hint of brilliant, auburn sunlight was receiving admittance inside through the drawn drapes of the room’s windows. One palm ran over Alexander’s chest, feeling the dampness that had seeped through his informal tunic, and then both of his hands went up to hold his lowering head, agitating his sable hair with shuddering fingers.

A few guttural groans of anguish issued up and out from the hollow of Alexander’s roiling stomach, but he only sat there long enough to get a handle on his breathing, and he was soon flying up from his bed, pulling his tunic up over his head and tossing it aside as he moved across the room to one of his windows. He pushed back the drapes to see the grounds outside on this opening day of spring, where glistening drops of rain that clung to the grasses and trees were catching the sun’s belated offering of rays for the day, and then he turned from the window, going to his washstand.

His smoky eyes remained wide open as he bent to douse his hot, clean-shaven face with cool water. He would have preferred to hang back on his bed for as much time as possible, anything to postpone what he knew was ahead of him, but he feared that his presence had been awaited for too long, and he would have to use up additional minutes to wash, to don fresh clothing, and to ensure that his countenance had the appearance of one who had his wits about him.

It wasn’t a quarter of an hour later that Alexander was making his way through the eerily still family wing of his home. He crossed the parlor and a corridor to enter the prime bedchamber of the wing, his eyes vacant of their earlier fierceness as he stopped in the chamber entrance. Right away, he was impressed with a sense of wonder, unsure of precisely what was giving him such an impression, but the very air inhabiting the room called for reverence.

Alexander looked around, spotting the lined, bereft face of his grandmother, who was sitting over in one corner, a solemnly clad bishop standing beside her with a condoling hand resting on her shoulder. Alexander saw his four younger sisters sitting in silence near the bed, each of the young ladies having already had their turn, the betrothed of the eldest sister standing behind her. Alexander’s father was on the opposite side of the bed, sitting on its edge, speaking in low tones, with warmth in his azure gaze and facial flashes of merriment accompanying the majority of his words: not because the man was finding or feeling much to be merry about, Alexander knew, but because the woman in the bed had always lived to see flashes of that grin as much as she lived to see anything.

It was with the tense swallowing of bitter bile that Alexander finally permitted his eyes to settle on his mother, the bile having risen as a horrific question hissed its way past his soul, taunting him with the idea that a curse might have crept into this line of succession at some indeterminable time. Alexander well remembered the day years ago when word had come to his parents that his grandfather had passed in his sleep, and though Alexander had been but a boy, something hadn’t seemed quite right to him about a man heading out of this life, out of the blue, without making it to the threshold of his sixty-fifth year.

Now, here was Alexander’s mother, the strongest woman he had ever known, lying in a bed she’d been confined to for months. Ironically, she’d once told him, the first of her children, that back when she was an unmarried woman, she’d been plagued by the unknown odds that barrenness, and its inevitable consequences, might one day be the undoing of her.

She was laughing gently, at the moment, on account of something her husband had just said, her tired face somehow as luminous as that of a young lady experiencing the initial, blossoming stages of a longed-for courtship, her tresses of bronze hair lying loose and free on her pillow, a rich sprig of laurel tucked in her hair above one of her ears. Watching the espoused couple on the bed, holding hands, wrapped in an exchange that only the two of them understood, an uninformed onlooker could have thought that no other people were in the room. Indeed, the chamber was empty of servants, as Alexander’s mother had wanted time alone with her family. The doctors and, at last, even the nation’s chief apothecary had been kindly sent away, being told that their medical attention was much more required by another patient, at this point.

Eventually, Alexander’s mother turned her drowsy brown eyes to him, fond recognition brushing over her face. Junior, she addressed him with the name his family members had been calling him by long before he’d officially been given the title, over a year ago.

Alexander’s turn had come.

Forgive me, Mama, he said, now approaching the bed with haste. For being so late.

Never mind it. She waved his petition off, extending her free hand to him. I know what you were about. Here.

Alexander took her outstretched hand, bestowing a kiss on it before he let it go. He knelt down beside the head of the bed, not wanting to hinder his sisters’ view of their mother, who, staring over at her son, gave a sigh, her look empathetic as she told him, You’ll have to deal with this matter concerning the colonies, as soon as it can be seen to. I believe that will be your first order of business.

Yes, ma’am, Alexander answered, well aware of the situation.

As for a vital part of your business as a man, you must do as your father has said more than once, she went on, her pitch rising a notch with insistence. You must bridle that temper of yours. Don’t let all of that fire be wasted, burning when and where it need not burn. Learn to use it for good—your good, and the good of others—and your passion will then be power, for you.

Alexander took this admonishment not with ease but with calm, having suspected that something like it would be forthcoming. Another acquiescent acknowledgment was out of his mouth, but then he was taken aback by an announcement he hadn’t anticipated, accented by a smile from his mother. Before my confinement here, I would see you eying her at court, Junior. What’s preventing you from making your move?

Alexander blinked in surprise. Ma’am? he murmured, even as he did catch his mother’s meaning.

She gave a little chortle. Ah, it’s not so hard to tell when the ‘eying’ changes, when it becomes something different, and I think it’s about that time. Her smile persisted, but she spoke in all seriousness. I know how much you value your solitude, and there is nothing wrong with that. But you cannot properly care for your people from a place of seclusion. You need companionship. You need someone who knows how to draw you out into life as much as she knows when to give you your space. Moreover, you’ll benefit from that added safe place to invest your—well, yes, your passion. Passions.

Had this been any other occasion, Alexander might have realized a mite of discomfort over that statement being made to him in the hearing of his younger siblings, but as it was, he couldn’t help indulging in the upward tugging he felt at the corner of his mouth. He gave his mother a conceding nod, and her smile softened as she said to him, All in all, you are my confidence, Alexander Matthias, and I know you will not fail me. She reached her hand toward him again. Your nose, if you please.

The tugging at Alexander’s mouth gave way to an entire smile and a wistful laugh as he lifted himself from his knees, leaning forward. He let his nose receive an affectionate squeeze from his mother’s fingers, a gesture she’d guaranteed she would lay aside as each of her children advanced out of toddlerhood, but she’d never gotten around to giving the gesture up altogether. She watched Alexander return to his knees, and she breathed in deeply. Now, my son, I am ready. What have you to tell me?

Alexander felt a painful rumbling at his core. He had to take a second to inhale deeply himself, but he kept his voice steady as he spoke, his stare brimming with assurance, with saddened triumph. The child will live, he proclaimed to his mother, seeing the response of welling in her eyes. He may have a fight ahead of him, Alexander allowed, "but even so, he will outlast the struggle. And this family will make certain he grows up knowing that his mother survived to see him, that she held