Talisman of Song

By Maria Rachel Hooley

Prince Brannon has no love for his cruel father, King Roderick, who sets his guards against his own son and plunging his kingdom into chaos. Yet the King has another child, one due any day—a child he’ll be able twist into the kind of king Brannon will never become.
As such, Brannon must not only stay a step ahead to save his own life but to seek the woman who can change everything with only a magical song, even reversing death itself, a woman even now doomed to an unimaginable fate.
When the newborn prince dies suddenly, she becomes the most sought after individual in the kingdom —more so, even, than Brannon himself. Once Roderick has her, he’ll force her to resurrect the dead child and kill her after, unless Brannon can somehow save both her and the kingdom he loves.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Maria Rachel Hooley
• Release date: Oct 25, 2009
• ISBN: 9781452333380

Maria Rachel Hooley

Maria Rachel Hooley is the author of over forty novels, including When Angels Cry and October Breezes. Her first chapbook of poetry was published by Rose Rock Press in 1999. She is an English teacher who lives in Oklahoma with her three children and husband. She loves reading, and if she could live in a novel, it would be Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn.

Book preview

One

Jewels of sunlight shimmered through branches laden with green leaves, thick mistletoe vines, and other dangling creepers. Poison ivy flocked the shaded trunks as a cool breeze rippled leaves. Brannon Gilcrest noticed the light diminishing under the latticed trees. The shadowed wood smelled of damp earth as it always did. Still, he focused on the clearing ahead. Sunlight reflected off a small pond. Knee-high grass and wildflowers tangled around his boots. As he reached the outskirts of the meadow, just behind the pond, he saw a log house to his left.

A scream rent the silence. Brannon ran toward it, slowed by the grass clutching his feet. Just ahead, a man knelt before a girl. His breeches were undone, and he hastily drew them to his waist and fumbled in fastening them. Flushed, his eyes narrowed.

Shut up, whore! he snapped.

Oh, God! He’d raped her! Brannon stumbled forward as the man drew a dagger and threw it. The blade’s hilt thudded against her chest, silencing her screams.

You killed her! Brannon yelled.

The man collected his cape from the ground and drew it about his shoulders. He plucked the blade from the girl’s body and wiped the stained silver on her muslin skirt. It’s not murder to eliminate vermin. The real crime is letting it breed.

Brannon looked at the girl—barely fourteen or fifteen—lying on her back, her skirt hitched high on her thighs, her peasant blouse ripped open. Her brown eyes stared vacantly; lips parted as though screaming. Long hair spilled around her head.

Damn you! Brannon yelled. She was a child! He yanked his sword free of its scabbard. Taking three giant steps, he rushed the man in black.

Fool! Brannon’s adversary shouted, whipping the dagger through the air at him.

Blackness.

Brannon jerked upright in his bed. His heart thundered, racing. Sweat spilled down his face. His hands clenched the blanket so tightly his short fingernails dug into his skin. He released the blanket and touched the sheets. Damn it to hell, he snapped. Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to stand and stride to his bedroom window. Through blurred vision, he sought out the moon--a full yellow orb lit the sky.

He’d only had this dream during a full moon, and with each cycle the dream advanced, like a story spinning toward its finale—one over which he had no control but bore witness to in its unfolding. Tonight had been the first night he’d seen the man throw the dagger.

But what was this dream? Why did it haunt him? He raked his fingers through his hair and rolled his shoulders, trying to loosen the knotted muscles.

For all the clarity of detail—green leaves swaying, pollen floating, sunlight burning—one thing eluded him.

He couldn’t remember the man’s face.

The night air chilled his sweat-drenched skin. Would these nightmares never cease? Even if he closed his eyes, he couldn’t dismiss the images--the girl's face, her lifeless eyes.

He peered at the bed, entertaining the idea of climbing back into it. Tempting, he thought. But sleep wasn't an option, not with a dead girl's face haunting him. Instead, he strode to his chair and grabbed the tunic and breeches draped there. If demons were going to plague him, he thought, he might as well go out and meet them head-on.

Trying to ward off the cold, Brannon drew his cloak tighter. His shoulder-length black hair warmed his ears and neck as he walked the path about a mile from his father’s castle. He saw the rusted cemetery gate, usually chained shut after dark, swinging intermittently open and closed with the wind. With each sway, the metal protested, a high-pitched whine that carried through the sleeping forest. That same wind also lifted the steam of Brannon’s breath.

Brannon loved both night and winter. Most of all, he savored the silence the dead kept, so different than the constant useless bustle of the castle. It refreshed him to see words carved on stones rather than hearing his father’s lip service, half-truths meant to charm other nobility into believing him just and honest.

His father was neither.

Brannon stepped through the gate into the dead world, a place he came when sleep eluded him, as it often did these days. Truth be told, he much preferred nature to the castle’s gaudy artifice. His father’s decor might have cost a fortune, but it meant nothing to his son. Gold also adorned Brannon’s mother, but her jewels were of more value to King Roderick than his wife--or his son, for that matter.

He looked around the stony landscape and grimaced. He might as well live here for all the misery the future held. King Roderick constantly ignored Brannon as a future heir to the throne probably because Brannon’s conscience had more than been a minor detriment.

The inscriptions on all the graves in the first uneven rows had burned themselves into Brannon’s memory during many restless nights like this one. The spirits of the mothers, the fathers, the daughters, and the sons accompanied Brannon as he contemplated the general uselessness of his life. But one grave at the back had always struck him.

Although the earth, muddied from a week’s rain, clung to his boots, Brannon ignored the sucking weight of it and kept walking, his gaze turned heavenward as he studied the roiling clouds obscuring the moon. A storm’s coming, he surmised. As if the weather echoed his thoughts, a wet smattering of hard drops pelted him, a few stinging his face despite his hood. So much for a leisurely stroll. As the moisture dampened his cape, he quickened his steps, heading toward the back of the cemetery.

He passed a statue of a beautiful girl, the rain streaking down her face like tears. The grave beside the statue held a child who had died even before childhood had ended, and sometimes, in the night’s stillness, Brannon almost swore the statue’s arms, legs and head moved. But then again, he thought, drawing his cape even more tightly about him, my imagination runs away when given a chance.

A fallen oak blocked the path ahead, its massive trunk upended, leaving clotted roots dangling like unkempt hairs. For the most part, when the tree had fallen, it had missed most headstones. A few had been toppled by it.

What a mess, he whispered, making a mental note to report the damage. He peered ahead and spotted the grave he sought, a lone white rock standing amid a clearing where wildflowers bloomed unabashedly.

As he hurdled the tree trunk, his boots tangled in the underbrush. Lightning rent the sky with a white-hot flash that forked. Right after, blackness consumed everything. For a moment, Brannon’s steps faltered. As his sight slowly returned, so did his motion. Thunder rumbled distantly, and he waited to see if lighting would rip the heavens again.

Darkness.

Glancing up to confirm his direction, he saw in the semi-moonlight, a figure kneeling before the stone. His steps quickened. Who knelt before this grave—a mysterious port that moored the body of Taelin Hadley, a fifteen-year-old girl, in its earthen bed? Her mother perhaps? Her father? What of a brother or a sister? Why had he or she come at this hour decades years after Taelin’s death? And what had caused the young girl to die?

That question had haunted him since he’d first discovered the stone. Frowning, Brannon touched the dagger’s hilt beneath his cloak, scanning the contours of the grip, wondering if he should draw the weapon. After all, this wasn’t a private place or time, even though he’d always treated it as such before, and the world had pretty much left him to his own devices.

Until now.

You’ve no need of your dagger, a time-worn female voice said. The dead have one kind of secret and the living another—never will the two meet.

A flush crept into Brannon’s cheeks. She can read my thoughts! Do I know you? Brannon’s voice barely rose above the storm. He stepped closer, wanting to see the woman’s face.

How much do you know anyone, Brannon? the woman replied.

Brannon stopped. More hard rain splattered his cheeks. Let me see your face, he called, fingers inclined toward his blade. Not that he would use it to cut down a woman. Just the thought turned his stomach.

You’ve no need for a weapon here, she insisted. She twisted toward him. A withered hand slowly grasped her hood and let it fall, revealing a wrinkled face surrounded by silver curls matted against her forehead. Mottled spots garnished her cheeks. Time had etched its progression at the corners of her eyes and into her forehead, telling Brannon her life had been anything but kind. Unless you’re more like your father than I thought.

I am nothing like my father! he spat, lowering his hand. Nothing! He took another step toward her.

I can see that. Her eyes, a glowing lapis lazuli even in the moonlight, captivated him; he found himself swimming in their depths. He couldn’t help but stare; her eyes would not release him.

Who…are you? he asked, feeling his feet shuffle forward, drawing him closer to the woman and the grave.

I’m Adara, bearer of truth. She waited until he was within arm’s reach before she offered him something. He struggled to tear his gaze from her face to see what it was. In one closed fist, she held a bouquet of withered roses, petals hardened by time. In the other, the one stretched toward him, she offered a single dead rose.

Your flower, he struggled. His mind floated, and words escaped him. It’s dead. He could hear a sluggishness in his voice as though he’d been drugged; it matched the way his heart had slowed and its rhythm pounded in his ears like tympanic noise, drowning out the storm.

Take it, if you dare, the old woman whispered. You have such dreams, my lord. Now take the truth that goes with them.

Brannon slowly plucked the flower from her fingers. An image flashed into his mind, not of the girl being raped but another with flowing hair, clad in tan breeches and a cream tunic. Haunted eyes peered at him, her heart-shaped mouth smiling. Blue eyes.

She is your answer, Brannon—and your absolution. The woman touched the dead petals, her fingers stumbling as though reading a spell. Your rose will bloom within a day. You’ll see. The old woman turned back to the grave, and with trembling hands, she set the bouquet against the stone. Rain splattered the petals. The woman looked forlornly at the grave one last time before quietly hobbling down the path from whence Brannon had come.

The other path is kinder. Brannon pointed out a clearer, more well-trodden way to the right that stopped short of the girl’s grave by about twenty yards. A fallen tree blocks this way.

The woman nodded. Yes, perhaps it is kinder, but it does not have the nerve to come to this grave. It acts as though this girl had leprosy. This other, she pointed down at where she stood, I made this with my own journeys. I know what lies ahead.

Brannon wanted to tell her he’d often trudged this path, but instead he said, Be careful, old woman. He brushed the wet hair from his face.

A storm is coming, she said, looking at the heavens. A storm like you’ve never seen. She drew her hood over her head, her hands shaking. Your goodness is apparent in your concern for an old woman. She turned toward him, those blue eyes again arresting his attention. Never let what your father is stop you from becoming who you must. Without pause, she shuffled into the storm and night.

A branch of lightning divided the sky and the heavens opened further, dumping more furiously stinging drops, forcing Brannon to draw his own hood, not that it would do much good considering his damp hair. Although the flower in his hand was dead, it braved the stormy winds and biting rain with amazing resilience.

He kept staring at the flowers propped against that stone, wondering what was meant by the promise of dead roses blooming again. The rain soaked through his cloak, falling so hard he could no longer read the name on the stone, not that it mattered.

Some things he could not forget.

Two

The next morning, the storms raged on, lightning continually lancing the sky. Trees and bushes shuddered from winds that ripped loose smaller branches and cast them into the sky. As Brannon sat in the castle’s court area, he watched rain speckling the window, streaking the glass. He wished to be out there instead of suffocating beneath his father's judicial endeavors.

You should not have been poaching, my friend. King Roderick drummed his fingers on the throne’s armrest. Then you would not have been brought before me. The king looked past the vagrant as though she'd already been removed. The dungeon has a place for you.

It was the inflection on the word 'friend' that caused Brannon to regard the pathetic woman wearing a tattered skirt and soiled brown tunic. Mud caked her blonde hair, darkening it around her temples. Smudges colored her cheeks and chin. But my lord, I was hungry. I had nothing to eat.

Yes, well, an honest woman always finds work. She does not steal. He nodded to the guards. Get her out of here.

Two guards grabbed her, one holding each arm as they led her from the room. Trying to entrench herself, she twisted to and fro.

"Your Grace, I meant no disrespect. My family is starving. Is that not the greater crime here?"

The king did not answer. His gaze looked at the rows of empty seats, confirming that she was his last civil obligation. Brannon noted that responsibility did not leave easily or quickly as she flailed her body about, forcing the guards to pick her up and carry her outside. As they took her, she screamed freely. Once both guards had taken the prisoner out, another woman appeared, shrouded in a cape’s thick folds.

We've heard the last civil dispute for today. Roderick flicked his wrist in dismissal.

I do not have a civil dispute, she retorted, her hands slowly drawing the hood back.

At once Brannon recognized the blue eyes peering at him, her hand holding a bloody red rose. Grey curls sprang defiantly from her head.

Court business is over! Roderick declared.

Then how about your business? She walked toward him. As her feet pressed down on a loose floorboard, it groaned.

King Roderick’s dark eyes narrowed. I said that the court has been adjourned. His gaze traveled to the doors as he waited expectantly for the guards. If you do not depart, I shall have you thrown in the dungeon.

The woman peeled the leather gloves from her hands. Your guards are all busy, my lord. They won’t be back until I’ve said my peace.

A furious scarlet colored Roderick’s cheeks. You’re not only an old woman, but a fool to impune me, he snarled, jumping from his throne, striding across the room. I’ve no need of guards. I can deal with you. He began hauling her toward the door. As he jerked her, both gloves fell to the floor.

Yes, you can deal with me just as you did my daughter all those years ago. Those bright blue eyes glared at him.

Roderick stopped, his mouth gaping. Despite the astonished expression, he said, I do not know of what you speak. Perhaps your brain is addled. Grabbing her cape, he yanked her toward the door. You are no longer welcome here.

She pulled against him, trying to free herself from his grasp. I am not touched in the head. A sharp jerk to the left freed her. T’was you who stole my daughter. A girl of fifteen, a pretty one. Obedient as your kind likes. And you took her body. When you’d finished, you took my sweet Taelin’s life.

Seething, Roderick’s hand snapped out and his fingers cinched her arm, digging in so deeply, he felt the hard bone beneath. That’s it, old woman. I’ll put you in a dark hole.

Taelin, Brannon thought. In his mind, he saw the headstone. He closed his eyes. At first he could not shake the image of the grave. Then the dream flashed into his head—Taelin lying on her back, screaming as a man raped her. Her blue eyes staring at him, imploring him for her life. Instead he’d buried a dagger deep in her chest. One breath. Maybe two. Then she was gone. The killer turned toward him. Dark eyes. Dark hair. A blunt chin. So familiar.

Oh God, Brannon groaned. Roderick had killed the girl.

Brannon’s eyes snapped open. It took a minute to remember the present instead of the past, and when he came to his senses, he saw his father kneeling over the old woman, his hands cinching her throat. His clenched teeth and scarlet face indicated his rage, and his chest and shoulders tightened. The woman kicked and tried to pry his hands loose, but her aged and arthritic fingers were no match for his. His dark eyes gleamed wildly, and a mad grin spread across his face.

I knew someday you’d come here to ruin me. I’ll kill you first.

The old woman’s mouth opened wide as she gasped. Her lapis lazuli eyes bulged. Her kicking slowed. Her hands barely tugged at Roderick’s crazed grip.

He’s killing her!

Father! Stop it! Brannon rose quickly. His gaze darted to the door, but no guards reappeared, even though the scuffle must have been heard. He dashed to the woman and knocked his father to the floor, ramming his elbow against the king’s ribs. Get away from her! Brannon stood between the