Shadow & Crown

By E. L. Tenenbaum

Over a year ago, the Piper of HameLonn disappeared into myth and legend...

In the Kingdom of AhrenCairn, the late king’s sister watches jealously as his crown and conduit are passed to his young daughter. From now, Evalena vows, she will take what she has not been given.

Deep in the Southlands, a farmhand stumbles across a lost girl in an overgrown field and arranges shelter for her. Though she shares little about herself, Quirin knows Cal’s different from others. Unwilling to be entangled in someone else’s problems, Quirin tries to keep his distance from Cal, but as little incidents force them together, he begins to suspect she’s hiding a powerful secret.

Worse, Quirin’s pretty certain Cal knows he is too.

First of a new fantasy trilogy based on the legend of the Pied Piper.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Melange Books, LLC
• Release date: Feb 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9798886530162

E. L. Tenenbaum

E.L. Tenenbaum is fairly certain a bookstore is really the happiest place on earth. In addition to being an author, her love for stories in different shapes and sizes has led to a degree in journalism, a stint as a script reader, and a few runs as writer/director for community musical theater. When she's not reading, or writing, she enjoys speaking at middle/high schools as a visiting author.For more information about previous/current/upcoming work follow her on social media or visit her website.

Book preview

One Year Prior

The body tumbled to the ground before the last note was played, a fierce gust of wind snatching the sound away before it could linger. The corpse joined the three others without life because of a simple tune, a weaving of notes soft on the ear yet agony for its targets as its glowing strands seeped into their veins and stole the air from their blood. Modest as the melody was, no musician could quite find its measure, neither with strings nor percussion nor woodwind nor brass. Even as the refrain teased at the fingertips, its shape remained beyond form.

A green-clad leg wrapped in a worn leather boot stepped over the body, crunching quietly into the icy ground before being followed by its pair. There was no hesitation as they stepped past the bodies blocking their path, an upward winding trail leading into the jagged peaks and hair-raising howls of a perilous mountain pass.

The intent had been to leave no evidence of passage, but there was naught else for a man to do when set upon by four men up to no good. Especially a man on the run. He knew his king would sense what he’d done, but prayed he would not hunt him. The greater threat came from certain nobles of His Majesty’s court, aggrieved as they might claim to be. Though, the bodies would soon freeze to the ground and the thick snow would blanket them as it had the trail. It would be a long while until the dead were found.

As the path grew steeper, the fugitive pressed harder to meet the climb. He paused only once on the path. Paused long enough to wrest a final backward glance of the homeland he was forced to flee. The view from his vantage should have been glorious, a yawning vista of a fertile kingdom speckled with glittering lakes and etched throughout with sturdy roadways, but little was visible beyond the thick whirling snow.

The man turned to restart his trek, then stopped and stared at the instrument still clutched in his scarred hand. A weapon made without steel or stone, but even more lethal in its use. Since he’d possessed it, he’d needed neither the sharp knife in his belt nor the taut bow across his back for protection, but, faithful a friend as the musical weapon had been, he could not use it now. He couldn’t risk losing it either.

Abruptly, his hand shot to the air and viciously slashed a downward diagonal. In a spark of golden threads, a rift tore open, and he stashed the instrument in its folds. He removed his hand, and the opening vanished. Then he resumed his treacherous climb, torso near doubled over as he fought the raging winds.

The man was soon lost in the tempest that was the Tulay Mountain Pass. And with him, the much rumored about Piper of HameLonn disappeared deeper into myth and legend.

Evalena

She watched her brother expel his final breath, the last of his life leaving him when a hitch cut into his peaceful exhale. The nobles gathered for his final moments unwittingly released a collective shudder as they felt the king’s hold over their LightForce depart with him, a sinking moment into a gaping emptiness before their limited powers came flooding back in transference to his heir.

King BallaMor had been ill six months, his health rapidly deteriorating until he could no longer walk, talk, lift his head, eat. Knowing the end was imminent, those closest to him had been assembled in his rooms since early morning, so he would leave the world surrounded by family and friends.

From her designated place closest to the king’s bed, befitting her position of only sister, Evalena shifted her gaze to His Majesty’s two daughters. They were seated on either side of their father, each tightly clutching one of his hands as tears trickled down their young faces. The aunt studied her nieces as if they were not related.

The younger daughter was growing notably prettier, enough that she would be a highly sought-after pawn in the game of advantageous royal marriages. She was a sweet girl too, and young enough that her bubbly personality hadn’t yet fizzled from the malice and maneuverings that come with years and years at court.

The same could not be said of the older sister. The heir. The one who would step into the role robbed from her aunt the moment she’d been born to the now-deceased king. Her niece, young, inexperienced, and so utterly, vulgarly plain was the one who would sit on the throne and wear the crown of AhrenCairn. The one who would control the entirety of the kingdom’s LightForce as the guardian of its conduit. Her brother hadn’t even the decency to appoint his sister regent until his daughter was older and more fit to rule.

All her life, Evalena had expected to be in her niece’s place as queen and protector of the kingdom. The one to bestow extra might to its army, the one to channel blessing and prosperity to all its inhabitants. The one to direct power to whichever royal she so pleased.

She flexed her fingers, feeling the LightForce reborn in her veins. She’d never seen the conduit, only an heir ever did, but she assumed it was close, assumed her brother must have kept it near until his untimely demise. She felt the familiar, steady surge of its power, bright threads of light calling to her royal blood, which eagerly sang back, thirsting for more. She turned her palm up but kept the threads in check, opening and closing her fist so they delightedly wove across her fingers.

What she held, what she could do with it, was but a pittance of the conduit’s power. Her abilities were mere tricks and amusements compared to what the monarch could do.

But with the king’s passing, Evalena was once more made to watch as the life that should have been hers was given to someone else. All that power. All that potential. All denied her, again.

Evalena swore she would not abide the slight this time; she would not end her days frustrated and embittered over what could have been.

And so, as the trumpets sounded from the ramparts and the criers spread the word in the streets, as the turrets were draped with black flags of grief and news of the king’s death spread to every corner of the kingdom and beyond, Evalena dutifully painted her face in colors of mourning and quietly began to plan.

Quirin

Q uirin. Zorion’s voice, gruff as sand on steel, rescued him from troubled sleep. We be needing you and the mutt down and about now. One them sheep been wandering round again.

For a moment Quirin pretended not to hear, as if he wanted to sink deeper into a dry pile of hay and return to the nightmares set to the tune of a single sharp musical note plaguing his sleep. He’d worked hard to cut them off, but had only succeeded in muting most of them. Their absolute absence was only achieved on nights he tumbled into the blackness of sleep too drunk to dream.

He rolled to the ladder and hefted himself over, holding up the pants he was still putting on with one hand while keeping balance with the other. At the bottom, he buttoned them up, followed a sharp whistle with a growl of here, mutt, and stepped out into the fresh morning. Or late morning. Judging by the sun, he’d overslept, something he swore he’d never do again, and then did all the same. There was a time in Quirin’s life when anything he’d decided on was good as done. That time was now past.

The large barn where he slept sat on the uppermost corner of the farmhold. A two-story wooden house and deep-dug cellar stood directly across from it, partially visible from the road. Despite his unenviable sleeping quarters, the farm which housed the barn could be beautiful, nestled as it was in a half-natural, half-manmade clearing surrounded by a forest stocked with wildlife, a fresh stream for crop and household needs, and crisp breezes which skimmed across open fields on their descent from the border mountains.

The fields used for planting began a few hundred paces behind the buildings and stretched to one far corner of the farmhold, with the remaining parcel stretching away from it used to graze the few horses and handful of livestock. It was not unusual for a sheep to find a slat open enough to slip through its pen and wander around the farm or country road looking for new amusement. It didn’t happen too often, but in a way, it was some of the only diversion on a farm way down here in the Southlands. A land that enveloped him in a stifling, life-preserving cloak of sameness.

It floated on the air he inhaled and seeped into the land he tread upon. Every day he awoke to the same deceptively promising morning, the same unadorned wooden rafters, the same shouts, bleats, and rustles, and the same fiercely jagged view from his loft. He walked the same ground to the same well, to the same sturdy house, to the same dense forest, to the same uneventful town. He greeted the same people, heard the same conversations, and watched them do the same things they always did. He even felt the same every day, the same mixture of disgust, loathing, and futility.

There was simply no other way to describe it; the whole region was trapped in a bubble of sameness. The only thing that changed out here was the seasons, and that’s only because they had to.

It was soul-numbing, mind-dumbing, yet Quirin had learned to embrace it. Because sameness meant safety, sameness meant he hadn’t been found out, sameness meant he was still alive.

Quirin took a deep breath, which ended in an ungraceful hack from the sharp scent of seersuckle reaching to the back of his throat. He stretched and messily scratched his stomach. The dog yipped and growled at his boots, eager to be on its way. The mutt had shadowed Quirin from the day he’d arrived, and everyone had since accepted him as its master, even though it belonged to the farm.

The sun was firing over the treetops as he set off after the sheep, its ascension cutting off the long shadows its light had previously created through the leaf-heavy boughs. Even from this distance, its rays would soon be sparking off the perennially white tips of the ValDeaze Mountains, completing the artistically idyllic view at odds with such a harsh and simple region. Throughout AhrenCairn, citizens joked that the prettiest part of the Southlands was the view looking away from it.

To his relief, and hidden chagrin, Quirin determined that nothing, absolutely nothing, had changed overnight. Everything looked the same, smelled the same, was the same as any other day on the same oddly beautiful farm.

Same, same, same.

The slightly raised scar running across the knuckle of his middle finger pulsed, setting his fingers to twitching. He forced them to still, even as he itched to slash the air and remove what he had hidden between its folds. Such revelations would intrude upon his sameness, a sameness he valued much as life itself.

Over a year ago, Quirin had fled to this ignored parcel of AhrenCairn and quietly hunkered down, disappearing into a life of a hunter and farmer, sleeping in the loft of a barn above the horses and cows, living like an animal just to stay alive as a person. Every day he awoke to the sameness meant that he’d stuck to his end of the bargain, and in turn, his sovereign was sticking to his.

Here and there, he sometimes heard some misguided peer espouse a dream of living far away from farmholds, mills, and small towns, but he was usually silenced quickly.

And where you be going? was the common refrain, replete with heavy notes of derision and disbelief. You be sailing the wild winds of the Zephyrus Sea? You be draping yourself in the scales of a merula to be boasting of your adventures?

Other responses scoffed at the idea of trading working outdoors for working in an underground mine, giving up flat farmland for rocky sheepherding, or, one for which Quirin always had to hide his expression, becoming a servant and subjecting what little will he had to the whims of a noble instead of being the ruler of his own little home.

He’d learned that the people of the Southlands held a perverse pride in the harshness of their lives, the stubbornness of the soil they fought to break. Enduring the frigid cold of winter that lingered and only reluctantly made way for the unforgiving summer heat was a mark of fortitude and endurance, a testament to a man’s character if he stayed in their forsaken claim of kingdom rather than seek a better life elsewhere. Those who did were rarely welcomed back.

Quirin was one among a few who had lived elsewhere, who knew that the world held more than crops and rainfall, more than bland, hardy materials, more than rolling farmland and lowing cattle. He knew that those who dreamed of getting out shouldn’t be shut down but encouraged, emboldened to live a life different, greater, better than the one they’d been raised in. Not that he would ever say as much to the others, that he would say anything to draw attention to himself and the differences he carefully hid away.

He sighed and willed his mind to quiet, to focus on the present and the task at hand, to step away from glimpses of elsewhere.

Another sheep, another day, circumstances would most certainly not be changing any time soon.

Quirin let slip a rueful smile. The rest of him wanted to scream from the waste his life had become.

CalRaina

She stood on the path and stared at the gardens, her mind dazed, her thoughts scattered. A few paces behind, her highest-ranking lady-in-waiting tried not to fidget; a few paces beside her, a gardener’s apprentice watched, silent and solemn, perhaps thinking she’d come to offer some sort of farewell.

But CalRaina wasn’t here to let go; she was here in a last bid to hold on.

The young queen couldn’t believe her father was gone. She just couldn’t fathom the words. She’d been there when the king had passed, had seen him in his coffin, had seen it lowered into the earth, and yet it didn’t feel real. Despite how much she’d adored her father, or perhaps because of it, he’d always seemed larger than life. Assured, indomitable, impervious. All the things a good monarch should be. All the things she wasn’t.

Your Majesty? Lady Rhye questioned in a low voice, and CalRaina suppressed a cringe, unwilling to accept the title that was now hers.

She didn’t intend to be callous, but she ignored the voice as her gaze caught sight of a pair of recusa birds and precious memory overlayed morbid present.

Just a decade before, her seven-year-old self was still small enough for her father to traipse across the palace grounds with her happily perched on his shoulders, stretching her neck and calling out directions as they chased after the bright little birds.

Leave others to claim as they will, King BallaMor would proclaim, a recusa will always find its way back home to AhrenCairn!

But where was home now and what was AhrenCairn without him?

Your Majesty, Rhye was politely growing more insistent.

CalRaina sighed and half-turned. Yes, Rhye?

The fitting, the lady-in-waiting prompted, your dress for the coronation.

I’ll be right there, CalRaina assured her before turning back to the gardens, but the recusa were gone.

As the oldest female of the house, it had been CalRaina’s duty to oversee landscaping around the palace, just as it had once been the duty of her late mother. Such a task may have seemed secondary to other royal duties, but there was no question that the look of a palace, especially the king’s main residence, had to make a certain impression. Now that she was about to become queen, the task would fall to the next oldest female of the monarchical line, her sister Calithea. CalRaina’s style tended to be as plain as her features, but Calithea possessed beauty and flair enough for both.

Fortunately, the former princess never had to do much more than nod in approval over new designs, periodically request a particular color or plant, and overall make sure that those who must went about their work as they ought. Though the monarch controlled the flow of the kingdom’s LightForce, her father had once channeled an extra measure to her as practice, her first glimpse of just how powerful LightForce could be. As with everyone born with royal blood, in other words, all of the nobility made up of degrees of distant cousins, CalRaina had a sense for LightForce as far back as she could remember. Growing up, she'd learned to wield it in regular ways, mainly creating images in the air with light, coaxing a horse to run faster, or recognizing more concentrated uses of the conduit.

But all that was reduced to mere parlor tricks the moment she felt the extra channeling of LightForce. It was a heady feeling, much like when the sun first bursts over the horizon, bringing with a realization that no color is fully seen without it.

You note the difference, her father said, noticing the look of wonder on her face.

CalRaina could only nod, transfixed by the brightened threads shimmering about her fingers like woven rays of light.

Good, the king instructed, now, think of who you want to channel to. Envision his form and seek the LightForce in his blood. Then, thread this LightForce with his.

CalRaina soon learned she didn't have to reach out her hand and motion as she did when offering up the LightForce to the noble serving as head gardener. She watched in awe as the pulsating strands reached for his LightForce, shining as though she'd gifted him a sliver of sun.

Her father's health hadn't allowed many more chances to practice channeling LightForce after that, but the first time had provided a clear picture of how such things worked at the Palace of Idrise. The king would direct extra LightForce toward any noble showing a particularly desirable skillset, a boost toward achieving new levels of excellence. It created an intricate pattern of unity and pride throughout the kingdom, assuring as it did that almost every noble family had one or two children assigned to some noticeable work about the palace.

The noble chosen as the head gardener was a bit of an eccentric though, which was why just eight months before the gardeners had been experimenting with something he envisioned to be a natural growth garden. Simply, tall, bushy, and tangling plants were left to grow howsoever they pleased.

Claims it’s in vogue across the realms, Emrys the apprentice had explained to her with his usual half-grin.

The king isn’t overly keen on the first impressions of the Palace of Idrise being one of mess and disorder, CalRaina had replied. Neither am I.

Emrys had studied the untamed section they were puzzling over, more reminiscent of tumbleweeds and abandonment than carefully cultivated garden. I admit, I am a bit curious.

Emrys was curious about a host of mismatched things, and, though he didn’t usually volunteer much to others, he was always willing to explain any aspect of the gardens or the myriad other things occupying his mind to CalRaina.

She’d left the gardener to his natural growth experiment out of her curiosity, as well.

It wasn’t long before CalRaina knew she most decidedly didn’t love the new garden, but she did love the trilling birds nestled in the thick bushes it attracted, many of them bright little recusa knowable only from the way the leaves rustled after they darted through. However, the very features of the garden that brought the birds also attracted mice, which she certainly wasn’t fond of.

As suspected, her father was less than thrilled with the new design.

"Why isn’t there a soul tending to the blazed gardens? he’d thundered, coming upon her as she toured the progress two months later. To what end do I give my gardeners LightForce if not this?"

The king always thundered at his eldest daughter regarding any of the basic functionings of the palace, because she usually had the answers and temperance to relay them. If not, she was cautious enough to think and seek before making a decision.

It’s a new gardening technique, she informed him. ‘Natural growth.’

King BallaMor’s usually jovial face twisted. One thousand one condemnations on such chaos! If I wanted to see ‘natural growth’ I’d go to the woods. Have that unnaturally grown at once!

Yes, Father.

Then he’d commanded that everyone, including his personal guard leave, and, gently taking her arm, told her just how deeply the sickness was rooted in his body. That was the first time he’d revealed the secrets of the conduit, as if he knew he wouldn’t live much longer, as if some invisible force had prompted him to share this secret with his daughter even though she had yet to marry and bear a child, cementing her position as heir through the birth of her own.

If you’re to keep the throne, her father had warned. You’ll have to move quickly to marry and produce an heir.

Father, we don’t need— she’d tried, but he barreled through her protestations.

A monarch knows the truth of what’s what, he’d said firmly. Now, I’d hurry to find you a good match myself, but it’s unwise to bargain from a state of weakness. This sickness puts us at a disadvantage, and we must avoid desperation at all costs. Wait until you have the power of the Crown behind you, then force yourself to be bold and make the right choice for AhrenCairn.

Yes, Father.

That settled, he thrust the conduit into her hands.

Meet your new guardian, he pronounced.

The moment CalRaina touched the conduit for the first time, a sudden rush, a surge of concentrated power wholly unlike the usual thrum of LightForce she was used to nearly bowled her over. Flashes of an unfamiliar place filled her vision, long enough to reveal glimpses of hanging gardens and misting waterfalls, but not enough to form a complete image. The puzzling sensations fled quickly as they’d come.

She glanced at her father quizzically.

It will taper off, he explained with a smile. It’s welding to you, but the process will only be complete after I’m gone.

At that, she immediately returned the conduit to his unusually shaky hand.

As her father’s health had rapidly deteriorated, there’d been little time to train in using the conduit and learning how to direct the tremendous LightForce it channeled to anyone who could wield it, namely anyone with royal blood. Now here she was, on the cusp of her reign, unprepared and unwilling to step into her new role as monarch and guardian.

Everyone knew the general principles, but only the ruling monarch knew how to use a conduit, for himself and his kingdom. Some monarchs kept their bloodlines close, allowing their kin to only marry other powerful royals in an attempt to strengthen their LightForce and limit its use to a select few. Others insisted they marry out of the noble families to spread the potential for using LightForce as widely as possible. Still others were manipulative in the way they channeled LightForce, keeping their citizens and the workers of their landholdings in their thrall through fear of being cut off and losing the promise of abundance to come.

Her father had walked a middle path, channeling threads of prosperity and success in appropriate measure for each noble to distribute to the people and landholdings in his care. Thusly, the people of AhrenCairn remained relatively well-fed and content in their successes, as the distribution of LightForce ensured their hard work would pay off.

One thing the king had managed to teach his daughter before his passing was not to be dismayed when she finally had a chance to study the conduit.

Size does not reflect power, he’d explained sternly. When used correctly, a smaller conduit can channel more concentrated, more impactful LightForce than larger ones.

What size is ours relative to others? she’d asked, rotating it in her fingers.

Her father had merely smiled. Only the reigning monarch knows what the conduit of the kingdom is.

Has no one ever figured it out? she’d questioned. Has no one tried to steal one?

Her father’s smile widened. A conduit protects itself from being stolen, but even if it was taken somehow, it’s ineffective if not given willingly. Besides, a conduit’s power is greatly reduced to simple tricks if the previous guardian is still alive. And everyone already knows the conduit shields against assassination.

A few days after, her father was gone and CalRaina was staring at the now beautifully manicured gardens, twisting the conduit between her fingers as images of a place she didn’t know and could no longer ask about cut in and out of her vision. The orderliness before her elicited a bitter laugh, one grating, forced, harsh, because such irony had to bring on laughter whether she was in the mood for it or not. Not that she could yet see the day when she would genuinely delight in anything again anyway.

Since her father’s passing, CalRaina wore black on her body and over her face, and it hung heavy like a lost shadow in the air around her. She spent many long hours wandering these very paths wondering how the sky was still blue, the grass still green, the flowers still bursting with a rainbow of