Loss for the Prince: Light of Adua, #5

By Brien Feathers

Loss of Two for the Prince of Fire

Elder Souleymane's treachery may have been justified all along. Conveying an offer of peace from the Dark Queen, he seeks salvation in this strange land. Nearing Chesnue by night, however, he makes a fatal mistake.

Meanwhile, Healer Dalila loses herself in memories of Elder War—recollections provoked by Shen's request for a letter of intent. Alas, before challenging Constantine, she first must remember the man.

Elsewhere, Giselle harbors a secret, and Ana finds herself hopelessly tricked. As unseen events stack the odds against Drake, the young commander struggles with the darkness in his soul and missteps.

Now, as the final hour approaches, the prophecy hinges upon the Guardian, and soon, the fate of all may be sealed if the realm is lost to permanent night.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brien Feathers
• Release date: Sep 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9789919985455

Brien Feathers

Dark fantasy author, poet, screenwriter, and cat enthusiast living in the land of Mongols.

Book preview

Loss for the Prince

Light of Adua, Book 5

Brien Feathers

image-placeholder

Brien Feathers

Copyright © 2022 by Brien Feathers

All rights reserved.

No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

This is a work of fiction. Any names or characters, businesses or places, events or incidents, are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Contents

Houses of the Realms

Elders of High Council

So It Ends

1. Names of the Dead

Son of the Sands

2. God

3. Love

4. Man

5. Pain

Healer of Tanzania

6. Memory Lane

7. Sakura Bloom

8. Dignity

9. Foolish Roman

10. Silver Star

11. Takhar Guide Us

Lost Daughter of Zhai

12. Kuma

13. Contingency

14. Oblivion

15. City of Dunes

16. Servant of the Realm

The Stack

17. Tribulations

18. Darkness Itself

19. True Colors

20. That Was Stupid

21. Sethos

The Draw

22. Affection

23. Mirror Reflection

24. Unfit to Command

25. God’s Faucet

26. Damn, Son

The Fall

27. In Another Life

28. Archangel

29. Soul of Darkness

30. Kingdom of God

31. I See

32. Warriors of the Realm

So It Begins

33. Together

Death of the Guarian, Book 6

Captain of Light

From the Author

Houses of the Realms

House of Mind, Ka- telepaths and telekinetics both belong here.

House of Strength, Djed- are shifters.

House of Death, Osairi- are necromancers, and are called Puppet Masters.

House of Soul, Suns- are empaths who read and evoke emotions.

House of Realm, Zhai- realm benders are teleporters.

House of Fire, Ignis- has an ability to ignite and manipulate fire.

House of Air, Aeria- can control airflow.

House of Mirrors, Kage- can cloak (make an object invisible), and project illusions.

House of Light, Hikari- a fallen House of healers and spell masters.

Elders of High Council

Ayasu Sasuke, a Creator from House of Mind, he’s a telepath with the ability to construct a telepathic arena to host a consciousness of another. Such a space is called a Cellar.

Giselle Lavigne, a teleporter from House of Realm. She’s the wife of Ayasu Sasuke.

Ayasu Drake, telekinetic from House of Mind, is the soul of the fire prince Lucretius Ignis.

Ayka Lenkov, a Whisperer from House of Mind, can issue a telepathic command to override human free will.

Souleymane son of Khan, also known as Souley, is a werewolf shifter of House of Strength.

Shen Zhao, the record keeper of the Council, is a shifter from House of Strength.

Dalila Sauda, an empath from House of Soul, can manipulate emotions in humans and Elders alike.

Marcus Annius Verus, House of Air, is the most powerful Aerian of the realm.

Kostya Kowalczyk of House of Mirrors is deceased, killed by Ayka Lenkov

Crawford of House of Mirrors is deceased, killed by Ayasu Sasuke.

Nailah of House of Soul is deceased, killed by Ayasu Sasuke

So It Ends

Chapter one

Names of the Dead

Shen landed home and saw his garden still bare. The beginning of March may still be a winter month in the Alaskan north, but his garden in Qufu should have greened. Spring is late this year, he thought; it would delay the blossom of the magnolias as well.

Wrapped in a brightly patterned quilt too heavy and large for her graceful young body, his Ying Yue came out to greet him; her delicate ears had heard him flap around, flaking the Arctic chill of his wings. Yin Yue’s long black hair flowed down freely, framing her porcelain face as she smiled—her expression languid, he’d woken her.

Was your trip fruitful, Laoshi? asked Yin Yue, her voice a caress on his tired soul.

It was, Shen answered, walking to the entryway of his home, carrying his satchel and many scrolls in his front talons.

I shall draw a bath for you then. Laoshi must be weary from his prolonged visit to such brutish places. Yin Yue did not like the United States or any other western nations, but she liked Japan, therefore Sasuke, the least of all. War stories from her grandmother had imbued Yin Yue with scorn for the group of islands taking the shape of a crescent moon hanging east off the Eurasian landmass. But if one loathed each enemy of the past, the heart would fill with hate, for history was full of war. The girl being young, and human lifespan short, Shen wouldn’t bother fostering in her a mindset taking centuries to form. The same as he wouldn’t tell her the world may be coming to an end. He let her be herself. He loved her as she was—determined and feisty, despite the gentle appearance.

I shall bathe later for I have much work to do, said Shen.

I shall put on a tea for you then.

I would like that, he said as they entered their home, leaving the chilly draft outside.

image-placeholder

Shen’s old bones ached for warmth after gliding for three days in the layer where the air was the coldest.

He soaked in a hot bath, had tea with his wives, and only after then did the scribe sit down in his study and empty his satchel. Unfolding one letter at a time, he wrote into the Elder Chronicle the intentions of the members of the High Council left behind in the Arctic, where devastation loomed and a prophecy of doom awaited to fulfill, bringing time to its complete end.

Shen, having made the mistake of unfolding Marcus’s letter first, hissed.

Balls and cock. Also, clitoris, the Roman had written. Now scribble that into your official records, you prude cunt.

Honor and valor, Shen wrote instead as the words of Marcus Annius Verus, House of Air, and the warrior of Rome.

Takhar guide us. Dalila had written a single sentence referencing the old god of justice and vengeance. Shen entered her words into the records as they were.

The next letter he opened was from Collette Sugarbaker and aghast, Shen exclaimed, Hah! Unable to form meaningful words, he frantically tore into the rest of the letters. He’d forgotten about Collette when he counted the letters, and now he was sure to be missing one.

Drake! was the next thing Shen exclaimed. He didn’t have a letter from Drake.

What would the boy say? Shen tried to fathom it but could not. No longer the light-hearted familiar soul, the prince was an entity yet to be known. And as such, the scribe could not assume what the fire child would say his intention was riding to war. With great disappointment, Shen read the words of Collette Sugarbaker, House of Mirrors.

"My parents were dead, and I was poor. I was collecting trinkets to sell from the campground when filthy Djed Souleymane found me. He tried to kill me for taking a scrap of metal, but the Commander said no.

I can’t call him father because the ginger bitches have already claimed him, but that is what the Commander is to me, a father. I ride against Constantine, yet another time, for the same reason as the first: because the Commander says it’s the right thing to do. Other than that, who cares, humans are crappy, and their world is too. Elders are crappy also, especially Djeds. That includes you, Shen.

Bending light, Collette had been stealing supplies and weapons from the campground during Elder War, not ‘collecting trinkets’ as she said. Her letter would need a refining touch, so he set it aside for the time being.

Souleymane, that name left a lingering sour taste on Shen’s palate, but the fellow Djed hadn’t had a fair trial. The truth is yet to be known, Shen decided and wrote no ill words on the account of Souleymane son of Khan, House of Strength.

Ayka’s thoughts were in kanji. Even with a fountain pen calligraphy was an art form, but whoever wrote for her hadn’t understood that; it was either Drake or the courtesan Asher—not Sasuke.

I shall live with my brother in warm weather and plentiful food where the cherry blossoms forever.

Not always warm, Japan had bone-chilling winters, especially on the northern islands, and once blossomed, the Sakura chrysanthemum wilted within days. Shen corrected the calligraphy when he entered Ayka Lenkov, House of Mind, into the chronicle as a sitting member of the High Council, omitting her current troubles.

Giselle had written a strange thing that befuddled Shen: All I do, I do to honor My Lord’s sacrifice. It’d be the first time she referred to Sasuke as her lord, but if she was cryptic, it’d been intentional. Giselle Lavigne, House of Realm, had never been unclear in her intention or wanting in purpose; without speculating further, Shen copied her words.

Whilst counting the letters, Shen had seen Sasuke had written a haiku, but upon reading it Shen realized the poem wasn’t his.

These summer grasses.

All that remains

Of brave warriors’ dreams.

Although Shen knew him to be capable, Sasuke hadn’t composed his own haiku, but quoted from Matsuo Basho’s The Narrow Road to Deep North.

Perhaps his mind is full, Shen thought. Yet, as truthful as the poem may be, scrivening another’s words into the chronicle of time as Ayasu Sasuke’s last entry didn’t seem befitting of his legacy. A full eclipse of the crescent moon the guardian had seen, and even as the scribe hoped the prophecy wouldn’t come to fruition, he decided to memorialize the story of the warlord of Aki.

And he’d start with the day they met.

image-placeholder

In the year of the yellow earth rooster, after the death of the ninth Emperor of the Ming dynasty, the court of the crowned prince tasked an old man plagued by gout with traveling to the hostile islands of Japan. Shen had tried to reason, citing his ailment as a cause for consideration, but that was precisely why he had been chosen—an old cripple, he was disposable.

Two full decades into the period in Japanese history that would later be called the Sengoku Jidai, or the warring states era, the warlords were at the apex of their power. Their cruelty well known, Shen wasn’t expected to return but to simply deliver a message at the cost of his life.

The Wokou—Japanese pirates, continued to torment Chinese coastlines, and Shen was sent to plead the case to the warlord of Aki, who having invaded his neighboring provinces, possessed a long coastal line and a sizeable navy. Shen was to appease the warlord—an old man, he’d been told—who appreciated Chinese gold and ceramic.

After sailing the Yellow Sea for too lengthy a time in a violently listing wooden ship in ill weather, Envoy Shen’s entourage started the journey to Aki with seventy men and a caravan of gifts. But on the way they were robbed, and the guards slain.

Only the four old farts: two attaches, an interpreter who was also the local guide, and Shen himself were spared their lives, and this pitiful company rode in a single carriage, all weary of one another.

Shen hadn’t required an interpreter to speak with a Japanese warlord, but formalities dictated that the envoy speak the language of the court he represented, so he endured the company of the guide who strayed them lost, the same loquacious one whose shrill voice rang in the cramped wooden box about Japanese customs regarding the reception of official guests—but none of it would matter.

Shen was peering out the small window and remarking to himself on the early spring terrain—green already and smelling of wet earth, the Hinoki cypress along the road could have been thought pleasant had the circumstances been more favorable. The carriage stopped suddenly, and the interpreter said, We’ve arrived, but Shen saw they were very much still in the forest.

Perhaps there was trouble with the carriage wheels, these roads are treacherous, said the interpreter when he along with the two others two noticed the same Shen had: they were in the middle of nowhere. The Japanese were brutes, but surely a warlord didn’t nest on the trees like a bush warbler.

There was trouble, but not with the wheels, a fact plainly understood as they saw through the back window the driver galloping off with one of the horses, abandoning the carriage and the useless fools inside.

Shen sighed; the other three gasped. The interpreter cried after the running man about duty far after he was beyond earshot. Songbirds chirped at the stop of the rain and some awful insects called off, but the sound most noticeable to Shen was the strum of the collective hooves approaching at a leisurely rate. The voices of the riders laughing and having a hilarious time penetrated the carriage from right outside; there was no longer sense in staying cooped inside, and Shen got up, motioning for the two attaches and the interpreter to follow.

So as not to brush the hem of his delicate silk robe on the mud, Shen hiked up his attire when he stepped out, and was immediately greeted by a samurai on a horse, pointing a riding crop in his face, but his neck twisted back, speaking to someone else. It’s a box of old crones, my Lord.

I say we seal and burn it, my Lord. We can barely manage the shrews we have, sounded another, continuing the hilarity.

They’d been speaking Japanese, of course, and the interpreter hadn’t said a squawk, but Shen, upon hearing, ‘my Lord’, exhaled with relief—too soon. They’d been robbed and the guards butchered by ronin, masterless samurai roaming the lands, or so he thought at the time and had been glad to finally come across someone resembling civility.

Shen and his pitiful group walked around the carriage to find a group of samurai, not more than seven, on their horses. In a manner far less than civil, never mind noble, the men remained mounted even after the interpreter explained their business.

He’s dead, spoke a samurai, catching Shen’s attention with the informality of his address. The crescent moon prominent on the forefront of the helmet proclaimed him to be Sasuke, the new daimyo of Aki, but no introductions were made. The red mask covering the lower half of Sasuke's face was crafted to appear with a half-open mouth boasting canine teeth, but the eyes above it twinkled with playful glee.

The interpreter asked again for the warlord, Motonari, explaining their official business.

Motonari is dead, said Sasuke.

How unfortunate, said the interpreter, continuing with the formality before finally coming to, … then the envoy beseeches an audience with the heir apparent, may we kindly request—

Keep naming the dead, old man, and I’ll oblige by sending you to them, said Sasuke, then turning to the man next to him continued, Minamoto, when I received notice of esteemed guests arriving at my humble home, what did I do?

You made a great fuss of it, my Lord. We’ve readied for days, as is customary, and Kenshi over there even shrunk with worry. He pointed at the biggest one of the lot. His wife in private tells me he’s lost size everywhere. All with concern for these honored guests, of course. You’ve even come out all this way, my Lord, in a display of excellent hospitality.

The leud informality was unprecedented, and Shen, familiar with diplomacy, was aghast, unable to close his gaping mouth or bring his widened eyes to normal measures.

And what do I get in return for my troubles, Minamoto? asked Sasuke.

Nothing but insults, my Lord. At first, they come empty-handed, plainly stating my lord’s time is worth nothing. Then, this one, he added, pointing at the interpreter, claims our lands are ill-managed, harboring vagabonds bold enough to attack an Imperial caravan. Then to top it off, they address my lord improperly and brazenly speak as if to a common soldier. I’d say these foreigners are atrocious, my Lord, and if you take such insult without reprisal, others might see my lord as having lost honor.

I see, said Sasuke. Then I have no other recourse. Take the horses and burn the carriage with them inside.

The interpreter cried out loud but hadn’t translated the exchange for the attaches, they three remained in place but Shen found himself backing away with a sudden improvement in his knee health.

But it’s raining, my Lord, said the chatty one regarding the burning of the carriage.

What do you propose then, Minamoto? asked Sasuke, and in response, the samurai who’d been bantering with him hopped off his horse, not bothering to charge mounted at such a short distance, and hardly wasted a movement slicing through two attaches and an interpreter.

He said casually as he flicked the blood off his blade, Can I keep the box, my Lord? I’d like to present it to Kenshi’s wife to lift her mood about the diminished size… He turned, with horns on his helmet, mask on his face, and strode toward Shen. The scribe sprinted as if he was twenty years old, sliding down the embankment of the road, not minding his silk robe being ruined.

Unbeknownst to Shen at the time, Lord Motonari had died of natural causes. But Sasuke, the old lord’s most revered samurai who was already wed to the lord’s daughter Tomiko, had accused the rightful heir, his son, of poisoning the daimyo. To defend his honor, the foolish boy had called Sasuke to a death duel. And now it was Sasuke who ruled over Aki—a proven warrior possessing all the men’s loyalty, no one had challenged his claim. Lady Tomiko would not forget this, but that was another story, already told.

Centuries later, Sasuke would bring terrible tea to Shen’s home and laugh about the incident; but what didn’t amuse the scribe then, didn’t humor him now, either. It was Sasuke’s men, not random ronin, who had robbed the caravan after they left the ship. As a new warlord, Sasuke’s ambition had been toward the heartland of the crescent moon shaped islands—not outward. Had the envoy arrived with generous gifts, Sasuke would have to hear Shen as was tradition, but he didn’t want a quarrel with the pirate warlord and chose instead to lessen the caravan, to save face.

Then, when Shen arrived with nothing, he feigned being insulted and shot arrows after the scribe, aiming with his eyes shut to entertain his men.

To the left, my Lord! The other left! The samurais rolled over in laughter each time Sasuke missed.

Now to the right!

Watch how he runs like a young maiden!

Look, he’s thrown his cane! You’ve healed his ailment, my Lord!

Running for his life hadn’t been a hysterical event as Sasuke seemed to think. But since then, Shen had seen Sasuke hit a light bender in cloak by hearing alone.

‘Why did you miss?’ Shen asked Sasuke centuries later. ‘Was your aim faulty due to the wind and the rain?’

‘I didn’t miss, Shen,’ he’d said haughtily. ‘You were pitifully old and exerting yourself impressively. I thought the effort alone merited mercy.’

Shen remembered panting, collapsing face up on the muddy earth, and seeing a pair of red-crowned cranes fly over. How free they must feel in flight, he had thought, but this was not the day he died. Imprisoned in failing health, he’d live for two more decades: long enough to outlive Sasuke and think ‘good riddance’, upon hearing of his fate at the Fortress of the Sun. But that was then; since then, the scribe learned neither death nor flight turned a man into a bird free of earthly qualms.

Since then, Sasuke served the realm for half a millennium, binding himself to the cause he’d taken on as duty. Death, loss, time, and war, same as peace, had made them friends, and Shen hadn’t written a single word for his friend when Yin Yue’s otherwise elegant voice shrieked at his door in frenzy.

War, Laoshi! At her voice, Shen glanced up from the blank page to see Yin Yue weeping. War! All his wives were behind her, piled up unruly in the hallway.

Is it nuclear even in the United States? asked Shen calmly. Namely, the state of Alaska?

Yes, Laoshi! Yin Yue trembled. World War, they say! Is it true? Is the world coming to an end?

Humans would recover from the calamity of their own weapons, but the stars had fallen out of the sky, an event worth celebrating, as it should mark the destruction of the Queen’s Champion and therefore, the end of the dark wars.

Everything is fine, said Shen, not feeling the celebratory mood. Go away, he said to his wives.

After a moment of grief, Shen got up with a heavy sigh and went to collect a different book—the one that kept records of the dead. He’d start with the names of the fallen Elders of High Council.

The young commander Drake, Shen wasn’t sure of, so he’d start with the names he was certain of; Ayasu Sasuke, Giselle Lavigne, Marcus Annius Verus, Dalila Sauda, Collette Sugarba—it flickered.

Shen paused, thinking it was his sight, but it wasn’t. His hand, pen, paper, mind—all had winked. Then existence blinked again, and again—each time the darkness lasting longer. Dropping his pen and letting the ink bleed, Shen gasped.

It felt like an earthquake, a tremor across the world, but that wasn’t it either. Like a lightbulb with an unsteady fuse, the realm itself was turning on and off.

Ancient letters fluttered up the walls, each a whisper in a language unknown to Shen—they too were breaking. The boundaries of the realms are tearing, Shen thought. A singularity event of anti-creation had manifested in the realm of creation. This was truly the end.

In the book of the dead, he furiously wrote down the names of all those he could remember, then finally finding the hilarity of it all, he laughed, falling off his chair. Who’s going to read this? He laughed over the cries inside the home, sirens outside, and the loudness of the wailing panic in a dying world.

Then, remembering the young girl from Courtesy, Maine, Shen got up to write Ana Deacon but the realm blinked a final time and its eyes shut in permanence before the scribe of time could reach for his pen.

Son of the Sands

Chapter two

God

Freezing at night and scorching during the day, the beast treaded the endless sand. Dunes shifted with the wind, but the landscape remained unchanged—sand. Everywhere he saw, there was only sand. Purgatory was a desert, and a beast in search of hell journeyed through it.

Thirsty, hungry, shivering in the dark and sweltering under the sun, for many days—more than he could count—the beast had looked for hell but was yet to find it. Perhaps he’d already died, and this was hell. If so, what a lonesome place hell was. Was there no one else sinful? Was he to never see another’s face, never to hear another’s voice?

In the rising heat from the sand, a mirage of an oasis shimmered on the horizon. The beast imagined he saw men there, watering their camels and smoking pipes. They told jokes and chuckled. He was so lonely that he wept with the imagined sound of laughter.

Night came; he walked through it. Sun rose and he marched. He marched till his legs were made of stone, then crawled till he collapsed. He lay looking up at the glistening ball of fire straight overhead. High noon, he thought; whether it was high noon in Sahara or high noon in hell, he didn’t know.

His lips too parched to speak, he thought, God. Please let me die. It’d been too many days without food or water, yet he hadn’t died. Each time he thought he was free, forgiven, a warm light washed over, briefly alleviating his troubles but prolonging his misery. God, for how long shall I remain cursed? Is there no salvation for me?

God was silent; that was His answer. The beast didn’t die, and that was also an answer.

Unable to move, the beast lay in the sand, watching the sun arc through the sky over and over. God, please let me die, he would ask each day. God was silent.

Until He spoke.

You know. The beast heard a voice other than his own. "Men usually ask the gods to let