The Meldling (First Novel of the Daemonva)

By Claire Ryan

She was rescued from a darkened dungeon; brought out into the light with no memory of her past. Her only certainty was her name: Suzanna.

Her flesh marks her as a daemon, one of a race of deadly warriors locked in a war with their mortal enemies, the daevas, that has scoured the surface of the world. But her soul is something more, something that sets her apart from her own kind and lets her speak the language of humans.

She exists between the world of the human knights who saved her life, and the fragmented memories of her former self. Drawn into events beyond her control, Suzanna must accept her past and finally learn who or what she really is, underneath her daemonic skin.

She will become the key to ending the war - but will it be with the destruction or the salvation of the daemonva?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Claire Ryan
• Release date: Jul 30, 2015
• ISBN: 9780988100824

Claire Ryan

Claire is a writer who produces fantasy adventure, steampunk, sci-fi, genre - basically anything weird. Irish ex-pat now living the Canadian Dream in Vancouver. Web programmer by day. Occasional maker of cloth-based stuff. Longsword fighter.

Book preview

Chapter One

The Waking Darkness

She opened her eyes, as if there was anything to see in the darkness of the hole in which she had been left to rot. There was never enough light to see, even with her enhanced vision; her other senses filled in the gap left by sight. The smell of damp and mold clashed with a vague undertone of burnt straw. The sound of dripping came from somewhere to the far left, and the rumble of... something, some machinery, from behind the wall at her back. Numbness. Her skin felt nothing, her mouth tasted of nothing. Her body, already at the edge of complete failure, could not transmit much to her fragmented mind.

The wall. Very cold. Something of her body was not dead yet. She moved, weakly, and heard the faint clink of the chains around her wrists. Something... she remembered a feeling, of open air and sunlight and breezes, and wind flowing around her body, and...

Wings. Her wings, and flight through open skies. The few shreds of memory flickered in her mind and faded in and out like a lighthouse in a storm. She could not trust them. Memories were fickle and nebulous; sometimes she almost knew who she was, and other times her mind was nothing but a deadened void. But these memories were compelling, and enticed her with the wavering thread of light and hope in this dark pit.

She moved again, and there was a brief needle of pain in her back. The memories scattered as she tried to make sense of this new feeling, tried to make her tortured nerves work again. Another memory blossomed in her mind. Wings, her wings, spread behind her body which was chained hands and feet to the wall. Muscles ached, stretched and stiff, with the effort of holding her upright. Long metal spikes were driven through the delicate membranes, pinning down her wings and staking her to the cold stone. The rust flaked in the congealed wounds, and her dried black blood streaked down her body and stained the flagstones. A brief, aching flash of sensation rippled through her limbs, and the memory coalesced into reality.

He had staked her to the wall by her wings.

Chapter Two

A Name

Eternity passed. Her mind flickered with faint memories, rising and falling like leaves on the wind. She saw warriors, battles, great armies clashing and breaking over each other like ocean waves; then gardens, children playing, and joy in their eyes when they turned to look back at her. Images and feelings whirled through her aimlessly, surging like the tide and falling away to nothing. Maybe she had slept, when her mind darkened and all time and sensation was lost for a while.

Her captor returned.

A faint glimpse of light breaking through the darkness was the first sign. It grew slowly, flickering like a torch, through a stone archway off to her right. She could not turn her head to see more.

The servant was the first to appear. He—though it could have been an 'it'—was barely four feet tall, with long, crooked arms. His face was scarred, with patches of discolored skin and stitches running across his cheek and over his forehead. He carried a point of light, dancing on his palm, and the brightness of it burned into her eyes like molten metal. The pain, like all sensation, was fleeting, and she did not have the will to embrace it or struggle against it. Her limbs did not obey her anymore.

They had come many times before, and she had resisted, once, but nothing had changed. The torture was endless. The visits blurred together, and time itself was meaningless here.

There was no question that her captor was a man. He followed behind his servant, with a large, ornate book tucked under his arm, and he wore the same robes of silk and finery, with embroidered symbols and arcane incantations.. His face was thin and clean-shaven, and his hair was short. He moved with purpose, but he did not look at her.

The book was opened, and placed in front of him. It hung in the air, without a stand or a table, as if it were tethered to him. He spoke a few incantations, and faintly glowing symbols rose from its pages. A few of them drifted towards her, and sank into her skin. She did not feel them.

He began to ask her questions. She did not answer; she had no strength to speak, and her broken mind could not understand what he wanted to know. He quickly became angry and struck her with magic and his own small dagger, while the servant held up the light for his master and drooled all over his ragged vest. She watched the motion of the drip of saliva, and his empty, lifeless, unknowing eyes. The pain was a distant line of red in her battered psyche. It had been some time since he had truly been able to hurt her.

The robed man stopped. Maybe there was something she could have said, something she could have told him that would have ended all this and let her finally pass into the afterlife. But he was already turning away to his servant, and all that came out of her mouth was a faint hiss of air. There was no respite, no final cut to release her pathetic existence. He only looked at her with a bizarre expression of annoyance and frustration, and leaned forward to examine her bloodshot eyes.

Sunekhar, he growled under his breath, with a hint of purest contempt. As he turned away, the memory flared in her mind like a candle in a darkened hall. A face, huge and leering, laughing as she struggled madly against bonds that would not break, even with her own incredible strength. Sunekhar, the face jeered at her. How the mighty have fallen.

But her name was not Sunekhar. It was a false name, belonging to someone else, someone on the edge of her mind, with eyes as black as blood.

Her name, Suzanna. Her blood... black as her blood... as black as... as black as... black as night... not her blood...

And the memory collapsed and was gone, leaving only the certainty that her name was Suzanna. In the twisted and fractured plane of her consciousness, she latched onto this one thing, this rock in the storm-tossed expanse of recollection. Her body ached with red lines of pain that streaked over her chest and across her face, but this certainty blotted them from her mind. I am Suzanna. Remember this. Suzanna. She had grey skin, short white hair, and once she had drifted through an endless sky on broad, strong wings.

And now there was no void. When her memory failed, and the endless nothing threatened to darken her mind for good, the certainty held it back. She drew strength from it, and the pain began to fade away.

He watched her carefully, but she simply hung, motionless, from the wicked spikes in her wings. Then he snapped angrily at his servant, and stamped out of the room. She saw a brief outline of the stone archway before the light was gone, and the darkness engulfed her again.

The certainty remained, and the emptiness was a little less severe.

Chapter Three

Into the Light

Noise. Shouts. Clashes of metal on metal, and metal on stone, and metal on meaty flesh. Screams of the dying. It was like a dream, or one of her memories, and it was only when there was a faint light in the archway that she realized it was real. She tasted the sharp acidic tang of blood in the air; not human, not her. Bad blood. The image of the servant rose questioningly in her mind, and for a moment she remembered the thin thread of drool hanging from the thickened lip, the vacant expression of imbecility.

The light grew stronger. It fluttered, faded, grew with the sounds of battle, and it was more yellow than the white point of light carried by the servant. There was a single loud scream of pain, and she saw a thin splash of red stain the side of the doorway. The light became more constant, then became a torch, followed by a hand in a blood-splattered gauntlet.

The knight was tall and rugged, and his armor was silver-grey. The helmet was low and practical, the visor covering his eyes and nose. He moved cautiously, with the torch held high and a sword thick with flesh and fluid in his other gauntlet. She noticed the plates of the armor, and how cunningly they overlapped and flexed to allow him to move. They were washed in the blood of the dead, and his every step left a footprint of thick ichor.

He exclaimed in surprise as soon as he saw her, and stepped half-out of the room to shout at someone farther away. She watched the torch, and how little glowing bits of ash constantly fell from it and sizzled to nothing on the damp floor. She felt a small gleam of hope that this man, this knight, might do what the man in the fine robes would not, and strike her down.

More came, all garbed as he was. Three stood around her, torches in hand, staring in wonder and fear. The light hurt her eyes, but she was too weak to care. She could not move, could not speak, could not do anything but hang there pathetically, battered and naked.

There was some commotion outside now, and the crunching sound of many metal-clad feet came closer and closer. She watched, eyes half-lidded, as a knight in quite beautiful armor appeared in the doorway.

His helmet had a crest of eagles and little jagged lightning bolts engraved into it. His sword was jeweled and covered in scrollwork in gold and silver. He even had a cloak thrown over one shoulder, over his shining armor that sparkled in the yellow torchlight. Runes and magical glyphs jumped out at her, and dully she knew what they meant; protection, wisdom, strength.

One of the lesser knights came forward and, with an air of someone handling an dangerous animal, he grabbed her chin and lifted her head. It did not occur to her to resist the action. She saw more now, at this new angle; the roof was old, damp stone, and there was a hole in the corner by the roof where the water dripped in. It was dripping now. The water drops were falling on one of the knights' helmets, and then running down his armor and out of sight. They left a channel of clear metal in the blood.

The leader, if he was such, took a torch from one of his men and leaned forward, peering at her. His expression was grave and serious as his face drew close to hers, seemingly searching for something in her half-dead frame. He had blue eyes.

Somewhere in her memory, his eyes stirred a feeling. She knew him. He made her think of light, and happiness. There was no doubt in her mind that he was a good man, unlike her captor, and she was glad—so very, very glad—to see him.

The torch sputtered and crackled again, and a fleck of ash drifted from it to her cheek. She flinched instinctively, though the action felt rough and painful.

He leapt back with a cry of surprise, and suddenly the knights drew their swords and faced her with deep fear and suspicion. Her head was dropped and hung again; the little fleck of ash burned on her cheek before the heat faded from it. They were terrified of her. She wondered in the depths of her fractured mind why they were so fearful of someone who could not even move unaided. She wondered if they would leave her here to the darkness and the madness.

The leader came forward himself, and she felt the cold metal of his gauntlet around her throat. He lifted her head, looking into her eyes again, and she blinked slowly and painfully. More than anything else, she wanted to tell him her name, but her voice was still lost to her. She made her lips move in the shape of her name, and hoped that it was enough.

He frowned at her. Then his eyes became hard, his face was set, and he began to call out orders.

She was confused, as they began to break the chains around her hands and feet, then there was no time or thought for confusion as they pulled out the spikes that nailed her wings to the wall. She had thought that she had long since lost all feeling in them, and she was wrong. She was very, very wrong.

The first spike went beyond agonizing. It slid out with a wet sound, and she felt a gush of blood flow down the tattered membrane. She had no memory of when it had been hammered through her wing, but she would never forget the experience of it being removed. Then another came out, and another, and another, and the pain turned into an oppressive force that tore through her soul as well as her body. There was no release from it, no hiding from it; she would have given anything to scream, but the pain seized her throat and stole her breath away. She sobbed pitifully, and even found the strength to shake her head.

The knights were very wary of her, and when she let out a whimper of pain, they nearly dropped her. As the last of the spikes came loose, she toppled forward, and the leader of the knights caught her. Something gave way, as if a spell were finally broken. The world spun before her eyes, every joint aching with the release of her limbs, and she felt a rush of freedom—of long awaited flight. The agony began to subside.

They folded her wings with care, and lifted up her body. She wanted to curl in on herself, and fall further into unconsciousness, but the needling pain in her back kept her awake. Their leader still barked orders at his men, and one pulled the cloak from his shoulder. She was wrapped into it, and found herself being carried out of the dark cell.

It felt surreal. They carried her along corridors she did not remember ever seeing before, of grey, grimy stone, and dark-red brazier lights. They marched past rooms she could not look into properly, but where a thin line of dried blood ran out across the floor. She saw bodies, some contorted and twisted in their death-throes; she saw a knight drag his sword out of one and flick a spray of liquid from the blade. They kept moving on, upwards and through thin steep staircases that were splashed with steaming blood.

There were more lights up ahead. They passed through a single stone arch, and she was blinded by magical lights that danced across her vision in waves of flickering color. The pain was a lance, a dagger into her eyeballs, but it faded slowly. The room came into focus; it was a large, expensively furnished library, with beautiful leather armchairs, soft rugs and high shelves of hundreds of books. There was a single long table in the centre of the room where a few books lay open and one or two magical apparatuses clicked and whirred.

The magical lights danced erratically near the ceiling, causing the shadows to shift and waver eerily. She watched them move with a deep fascination. They were little more than lanterns, but her time in the dark made them look as bright as the sun.

The knights lifted her carefully onto a makeshift stretcher. They were moving her faster now, and with more caution than it seemed was necessary. She was brought out of the library, through a long corridor with a floor of polished marble, past the occasional body. The ones below had been like the servant; misshapen, garbed in ragged clothes, and almost insensible. Those she saw here were men and women, all with unnaturally pale skin, all clothed in the same white robe. She knew, somehow, that they were more like puppets than actual people.

Everywhere she looked, there were broken doors, shattered furniture, and splashes of blood. This was a house, then, maybe even a mansion, and it appeared that the battle was over. She could not remember anything about this place; no fragment telling of how she came here or why. Like a slate washed clean, her memories had nothing but a few vague feelings of her life before the dungeon, and before the pain.

There was still certainty. Her name was Suzanna. The knowledge was a small and humble pebble in the vast and empty void of her mind, but she held onto it tightly. This was her anchor, her light in the darkness.

They carried her outside through a solid iron-bound oak door, and it was clear that it was night time. She smelled the acrid scent of sweat and earth and horses, and heard their stamping and neighing. There were other men nearby talking, their words a low and somehow comforting hum. But what held her attention was the sky, that opened up above her like a flower opening to the sun.

The stars twinkled in the firmament, and they went on forever. The sky curved down to the horizon, far away, and the stars faded into the last orange and red of sunset. She could almost feel it calling her to leap from the earth and drift freely again, held aloft only by the strength of her wings. Again the memories rose in her mind, and she felt the wind in her face and the simple pleasure of flying on the breeze with the world at her feet.

The feeling was so powerful she sighed in happiness.

The stretcher was placed on the ground for a moment. She was lifted up and put in front of their leader on his horse. From her high vantage point, she could see the enormous stone tower behind them; presumably that had been her prison for so long. It was built on a rise, and surrounded by woodlands, and it rose into the sky as if it had been grown instead of built. All she could do was watch, listen, smell, and hear; the sensations came fast and thick now that she had been pulled out of the darkness of the dungeon beneath it.

The horses drew her attention. Most were dark brown and black

Reviews for The Meldling (First Novel of the Daemonva)

[brandilynne-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'm always impressed when an author can pack so much into a shorter book. It's fast paced with non stop action. I was hooked from the first pages. I really enjoyed all of the fantasy elements, and the author's amazing ability to vividly describe the setting. I'm definitely excited to see where this series will go!

[perrywilson-2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It's a world being torn apart. Two powerful races use the world of humans to carry out an epic battle, one so old that they don't remember why they fight. A sorcerer, as powerful as he is evil, melds a human soul to a daemon body, creating the first meldling. As she struggles to find out who she really is, Suzanna finds companionship in the knights who rescued her, and one in particular. Is there a way for creatures so different to become allies? Lovers?I recommend this book to anyone who loves epic fantasy, and the search for identity in a world of enemies.

[feeroberts64 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was a very good story. I connected to the characters really well. There was a lot of action, which kept me enthralled. My only complaint is that the author needed an editor. The writing threw me off track numerous times. I had to keep rereading parts of the book just to understand what the author was trying to convey. This book would have been a five star rating, if written better.