Dragon of Akari: Sun War Trilogy, #2

By Brien Feathers

Darkness may come and it may be long.

The civil war between the Court of White Rose and the revolutionist Reds has raged on for a decade, leaving the throne bankrupt and the tsardom on its last legs. Prince Alexander, the youngest in the family of royal white witches, is only nineteen and infatuated with a danseur of the Grand Theater. He yearns for peace and dreams of freedom from obligations to his father. But when the tsar is assassinated and the Razumov stronghold falls to alchemist weapons, Alexander is plunged into a world of dark magic, treachery, and brutality. Through trials that test his soul, he becomes the Warlock of Muscovy, Alexander the Cruel, all the while falling in love with a foreign prince who saved his life.

Twenty years later, his daughter Marina faces tribulations of her own. Taken hostage by the Federation and imprisoned on foreign lands, she must reconcile with her alchemist lineage, face off with an old enemy of her family, and escape in time to save the warlock bent on a perilous mission. On the way, she unearths a lie that has been told for two decades. But what can she do with such a secret if all ears are deaf to the truth?

The second installment in the Sun War Trilogy, this intensely dark tale of magic and mayhem is full of grey characters that blur the line between good and evil.

Content warning for strong language, graphic violence, and intimate situations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brien Feathers
• Release date: May 13, 2023
• ISBN: 9789919900120

Brien Feathers

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

Book preview

Dragon of Akari

Book Two

Brien Feathers

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Brien Feathers

Copyright © 2023 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.

Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblances to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Cover designed by JV ARTS.

Contents

Content Warning

Part One

1.Swan

2.Winter

3.Mad

4.Debt

5.Lie

6.Red

7.Victory

8.Royal

9.Hunters

10.Love

11.Dreamcatcher

12.Hostage

13.Voyage

14.Enough

15.Spring

16.Beautiful

17.Goodbye

Part Two

18.Kill

19.Crow

20.Witch

21.Faith

22.Brother

23.Warlock

24.Outro

25.Loss

26.Promise

27.Rainmaker

Part Three

28.Bad

29.Worse

30.Worst

31.Awful

32.Cursed

From the Author

Also by Brien Feathers

Content Warning

This book contains strong language, graphic violence, and intimate situations.

Reader discretion is advised.

Part One

one

Swan

Gold and red, the Grand Theater had tiers upon tiers like a velvet cake. The chandelier hanging from the domed ceiling of painted gods was larger than a minor noble’s home and Alexander, glancing up, wondered how it never dropped on anyone’s head. The tsar’s box, three tiers up and directly opposite the stage was empty—his father didn’t care for ballet, and Alexander hadn’t arrived as a prince. The conflict with the Reds worsening each day, Alexander’s presence at the performance would have mandated for the theater to be emptied and he hadn’t wanted to ruin Demitri’s premier night. So, as Alexander sat among the crowd, he wore a miraj disguising himself as the stablemaster. He would have preferred the likeness of someone younger and better looking, such as the Lord of Lyskova with his strong thighs, but his options were limited to who he could snip a lock of hair from—the spell required it.

Ludya had accompanied him to the theater, disguised as the girl who sold kvas down the street, and Victor appearing as himself made it his business to be by Alexander’s side, always—they were friends. Well, as equal as a prince and a volg could be.

The acoustics and the orchestra were phenomenal, of course, but the piece was beautiful as well. The harmony of violins I and II, the violas, violoncellos, double basses, harps, woodwinds, percussions, and the brass spoke the truth of all emotions without a single word said. Alexander could live at the theater and call it home, for his real home, the White Citadel, was the opposite—everyone spoke without saying a single truth.

On stage, the white swan, the cursed princess, was dying of a broken heart. Whom she loved did not love her back. Or rather, the prince had been tricked. For Alexander, it wasn’t a dramatization for he believed one could die from a broken heart.

Ludya nudged him, breaking him out of the trance, and spoke harshly. "Excuse me, did that prude ublyudok just kill a sorcerer? she asked about Prince Siegfried, the protagonist on the stage, killing Rothbart, the antagonist of the ballet. In this political atmosphere? I suppose the dance master found his head excessive and wished to be rid of it," she concluded.

Victor, who’d been snuffling, snorted awake and wiped the drool from his mouth at hearing ‘kill a sorcerer.’ He reached for his saber, remembered he wasn’t carrying one, then low-key growled. What’s happening? he muttered.

Nothing, said Alexander. Go back to sleep but snore quietly.

Who killed what sorcerer? Victor scanned around suspiciously but found time enough to inspect the bosom of a nearby duchess fanning herself with a feather.

Alexander ignored the volg and spoke to his sister. "The ublyudok is a prince, and it’s only a ballet."

Prince and sorcerer are not separate as magic and throne are indivisible, said Ludya. She dampened Alexander’s good mood by bringing politics into arts, but then, she smirked. I’m only joking. You’re too easy, brother.

Joking? Alexander raised an eyebrow. "In this political atmosphere?"

An aristocrat Alexander didn’t recognize turned to him and Ludya to shush. The man had been looking through an opera-glass despite being five rows from the stage.

Shush yourself, said Ludya.

The man cleared his throat, and Ludya coughed louder. The back and forth continued for some time till a standing ovation, thunderous claps that began with Alexander, interrupted them.

After the performance, Alexander stood in line with Ludya and Victor and tossed silver coins on the concession stand to get them a bottle of chilled white wine. The server behind the bar, in a red vest and black bowtie, sneered at their peasant faces but pocketed the handsome tip with a constipated smile.

Salut. Ludya raised her glass, disapprovingly glancing at the nobility of Muscovy leaving the Grand Theater.

Salut. Alexander raised his glass.

Salut, said the volg drinking on duty. Resting his elbow on the wooden bar, Victor was dressed as a minor nobleman. The volg referred to the aristocrats as ‘douches’.

‘I don’t know what that is,’ Alexander had said.

‘It’s a bag of concoctions women wash the interior of their privates with,’ Victor had explained.

Alexander had shuddered both at the existence of such a bag and the image of female privates.

Oy, look at that one. Ludya elbowed Alexander and pointed at a woman with a long white mink coat and a lynx hat, gold on each of her ten fingers.

Quit pointing at people. Alexander pressed her hand down. They giggled like children when the woman turned and eyed them. I’m sorry. My sister has never seen someone so fashionable before.

They’ll let anyone into the Grand Theater these days, she complained to her lord who ended up being a crummy old man half a century her senior.

This begot louder laughter and meaner judgment from Ludya. She was Alexander’s favorite sister, and when she wasn’t wearing a miraj of a merchant girl, she had strawberry blonde curls and green eyes, very much a Razumov. She was as thin as a hanger, and their mother claimed that if she didn’t put some meat on her bones she couldn’t hope to wed well.

‘You look like a shriveling peasant,’ the queen would say. ‘You need wide hips for a healthy birth.’

Good, Alexander had thought. No one was fine enough for Ludya. Whatever ‘douche’ was picked as her husband, Alexander was sure to loathe him. Besides, the size of Ludya’s hips wasn’t the cause of her broken engagement. The reason all the Razumov ‘children’, including the Crown Prince Nikita at thirty years of age, were still unwed had to do with the decade-long civil unrest, and rules of magic set forth by the Court of White Rose a full century ago.

The Court of White Rose had a deep-rooted history of dark magic, and after an era of civil war between the boyars consumed Muscovy, the tsar had issued a royal mandate banning black magic and offerings to the dark gods. The Heartbreaker became a relic in a display case at the tsar’s museum, and peace had reigned… until the civil unrest.

Some people, foreign courts namely, gossiped that the Razumov bloodline had been weakened by a century of white magic, and those same people had broken off their engagements to the Razumovs when their concern was proven right by the throne's inability to quash a mundane uprising.

Alexander had never been betrothed and neither did he wish to be. He was content at the concession stand of the Grand Theater sharing a drink with his favorite sister and most loyal volg. They were on their fifth bottle of wine when the last of the patrons, a woman with foxskin draped over a single shoulder, left, and they three were kicked out. Ludya exchanged choice words with the doorman, but as she caught up to Alexander and looped her arm through his, she was laughing.

It’s much fun getting into shenanigans with you, Lexi.

Love you too. He kissed her hand. Victor, take my sister to the citadel.

Victor at first grumbled unintelligibly. He didn’t want to leave Alexander but couldn’t risk Ludya traveling alone. All right, he finally said. Let’s take you home, Princess, before you get into all sorts of trouble with the queen. He took Ludya’s arm as a nobleman would, then asked Alexander, Where will you be?

Here. Alexander winked, turning the corner into the back alley of the theater.

I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Stay out of trouble, Prince.

I’ll try.

They parted ways as Ludya and Victor walked to the hired carriage waiting for them and Alexander continued down the narrow alley with broken bottles and day-old garbage left out by the dumpsters. Following the alley, he reached the Grand Theater’s back entryway, an unmarked and unlit door. He dissipated the miraj and strummed his fingers on the wood.

A shirtless bald man with a handlebar mustache and a dagger strapped to his right hip answered the door. He’d first peeked out but saw Alexander and swung the door wide open.

Prince. He nodded.

Alexander tossed a gold coin to him and stepped inside, the molasses-thick aroma of dream herb greeting him. Demitri? he asked.

The bald man gestured at the corridor with his chin. Changing room, with the girls.

Thank you.

The hallway became dim as the door closed behind Alexander, but laughter rang loudly from the open rooms with candles lit inside. He walked to the dancers’ changing room and knocked on the frame of the open door.

The swans had changed from their dance attire to their cotton garments and a few of them had their robes open at the front. The blond danseur who danced Prince Siegfried gave a courtly bow when he saw Alexander, and the girls giggled.

The black feathered costume of the dark sorcerer lay underneath Demitri’s stool where he sat wiping off stage paint, checking his face in the mirror. Alexander exchanged glances with his reflection.

Faina, a famous ballerina but in her thirties and past her prime, threw her head back, elongating her swan-like neck. She came to greet Alexander without bothering to close her robe. She’d been Odette, the main swan.

Lexi darling! She gave him her hand which Alexander kissed. Did you see the performance? How was I?

Breathtaking, he said.

Despite all their glamour, the younger ballerinas were too timid to speak to him and scampered to pull him a chair, bring him a drink, and roll dream herb at Faina snapping her fingers. Alexander settled, watching Demitri in the mirror. After one of the younger dancers handed Alexander a rolled dream herb, Faina brought him a candle to light his cigarette from.

Alexander took out his tinderbox from the pouch in his cloak and stuck a flint. We don’t light cigarettes from a candle flame, he said. It’s a bad omen about sharing grief.

I’m sorry, I didn’t know. Faina set the candle on a nearby vanity.

It’s fine. Alexander smiled, his attentions still on Demitri who was yet to turn to him—Alexander liked his back.

Lexi, I’m in a bit of trouble. Faina sat across from him and leaned forward.

Alexander put his cigarette in his mouth to reach over with both hands and closed her robe and tied her belt. Lord Mazur? he asked.

Faina was caught in a scandal about accepting jewelry from an old lord and selling it to pay for a fellow danseur’s gambling debts—the blond who played the prince.

Yes, she tutted. Can you do something about it?

I can call him a traitor and have him hung. Alexander stuck his tongue out, already feeling the dizzying effect of the herb.

Can you? She flicked an eyebrow.

Ay, girl, it’s a joke. He’s a decent man, I’ll speak to him. Alexander sipped the drink Faina handed him.

Oy. Faina kissed him on the cheek. "You’re the kindest man that ever lived. My heart is broken, truly, that you’re not the crown prince. Muscovy needs peace, not this revolution nonsense."

Perhaps you should refrain from giving a Razumov political advice? Demitri turned. He had chestnut brown locks and eyes to match it. Forgive her, Prince Alexander. She’s been stressed as of late.

No trouble, smiled Alexander. The next time you need money, just ask me, he said to Faina.

But you already finance all this. She motioned around. The tsar’s box should be for you.

Think your words lest you swing by your beautiful neck. Demitri came over to pat her back, exchanging looks with Alexander.

After drinking and smoking all night in the company of dancers, hearing of private failures of old men that young women laughed at, just before the break of dawn Alexander followed Demitri down the hallway, stumbling a bit and allowing the danseur to catch him.

The girls had left, and it was just the two of them in the storage room where the theater kept their stage props. Alexander sat down on a bed with wheels under its legs, meant to be rolled on and off the stage, as Demitri plunged on top of him.

Easy, said Alexander as their lips met.

They shared a chortle as the bed kept rolling about, wandering through the room. Then they lay on the floor, underneath women’s costumes, a sky of feathery extravaganza, Alexander blowing thick smoke of dream herb into Demitri’s mouth. Demetri was on top of him, neither of them dressed but neither of them cold.

He fell asleep that way and woke when Demitri whispered in his ear, "Your friend is here."

Alexander groaned, rolling over, feeling an oncoming hangover. By friend, an accent on the word, Demitri meant Victor. No matter how many times he explained what a volg was, the danseur remained suspicious.

‘You’re always with him.’ Demitri would turn petty with jealousy.

‘Yes, he’s supposed to protect me. He’s a volg.’

‘Why always this one? Why not another? Don’t you have hundreds?’

The tsar had hundreds of volgs, but Alexander had only one who would help him sneak out of the citadel.

I’d let you sleep but it’s almost morning, Prince. Victor’s leather boots stepped in Alexander’s view as he watched Demitri’s bare feet walk out the door.

Morning. For a white witch, Alexander loathed daylight. He let Victor pull him up off the floor, and got dressed as the volg handed him his attire.

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Dawn was coming, and it was snowing as Alexander leaned against the cold wooden door panel of a closed sleigh. The city of Urlanka passed by the window in the faint grey light, colorful dachas behind wooden fences, and Muscovites in their winter coats, already out for the day and bright like gemstones spilled on a white feathery blanket. The snow sliced underneath the sleigh runners, and Igor with his black beard and volg red cloak rode up alongside the sleigh, frowning down from his white horse when his grey eyes met Alexander’s.

Sorry, said Alexander to the captain of guards about sneaking out the night prior, then twisted his neck to the volg sitting beside him in the sleigh. Did you rat me out? he mouthed to Victor, narrowing his eyes. The volg shook his head but avoided his gaze.

"You must travel with a full unit, Prince, for your own protection, Igor was saying from outside the window. At least till things settle down." Then, without waiting for an answer, the volg trotted ahead, disappearing from view.

You should have told me Igor was outside. Alexander punched Victor’s shoulder.

"And let you run off with a miraj? The captain will have my head."

What does he want? asked Alexander. It wasn’t typical for the captain of guards to look for him suddenly.

I don’t know. I suppose it’s the tsar.

You think so? Alexander was hopeful. The throne was in negotiation with the Reds, and Alexander had been begging his father to let him head the delegation. Nikita would find it beneath him to sit at a table with peasants, merchants, and minor nobles—which was why Alexander might be allowed.

The throne was bankrupt and everyone, even the Reds, wanted peace. Their ask was impossible, of course, but if Alexander could achieve armistice, somehow… well, he’d had an eye on Nikita’s inheritance ever since his brother was crowned. Alexander should be the crown prince. His brother was brutal and simple, unsuitable to rule.

Alexander closed his eyes, momentarily nodding off, exhausted from his long night, but the bell tower tolled marking the hour of the light gods, and the sound reverberated right overhead—they had arrived at the citadel gate.

The gatehouse of the towering brick walls had an entire brigade standing in front of it, red-cloaked volgs on white snow as if someone had bled on it. Security never used to be so frigid. For one, Alexander recalled being able to skate on the Urlanka River with Ludya when they were children—the citadel was built on her banks and the city was named after the river—ice spraying from their skates.

The White Citadel was a massive structure within the grand walls with twenty defensive towers. The slew of buildings inside the walls included the Temple of Perun, the armory, the treasury, the Defense Ministry, and tens more, but the grandest of them all was the palace, of course, with enough rooms that Alexander, who’d lived at the palace his entire life, hadn’t been to all of them—he didn’t even know the approximate number of them. All the buildings were connected underground through tunnels that used to be dungeons during the era of the dark gods, and the library of magic, as well as the sacrificial chamber, were below the frozen earth as well.

Inside these walls was a different world and Alexander would feel secure surrounded by defensive towers had the real enemy not already lived inside—nobles of Muscovy, venomous serpents slithering at the foot of the throne, waiting for the tsar to misstep.

As the sleigh passed the Rose Square and came to stop in front of the palace, Alexander’s door was yanked open and Milya was in his face before he could step out. He looked back for Victor but the volg had fled. Milya was a bullwhip and Alexander was about to receive a lashing.

If you want to behave like a harlot, that’s your business, began Milya. You’re old enough. But I must insist that you leave Ludya out of it, lest you ruin her reputation. What will they say? Unwed woman out at night?

Ay, grumbled Alexander, rubbing his tired face. "Pipe down, Milya. No one saw her. And do me a grand favor and not berate me in front of the volgs. I am old enough, as you say."

Old enough to fuck up. Milya spun on her heels and marched away, her long curls swaying dramatically with her gait. The oldest of his three sisters, Milya had always been this way, and they’d always been at odds. She favored Nikita because they two were so much alike.

Alexander squinted up at the three stories tall but a thousand stories wide palace and sighed. The tsar’s throne room was on the farthest wing. He didn’t regret witnessing the Swan Lake spectacle or appreciating the danseur afterward, but was beginning to question if the third bottle of vodka had been really necessary.

two

Winter

The lower floor of the palace was for servants, workers, and reception halls. Any other year and the corridors would be manic with servants preparing for the Winter Solstice ball hosting all nobles of Muscovy, but with the elevated security measures travel across the country was limited, and visitors to the citadel restricted.

Alexander, still smelling of the previous night, ascended the stairways to the third floor above ground, the tsar’s floor, the most guarded space in the palace, and dragged his heels to the furthest end of the west wing. He didn’t dread seeing his father, he was simply so hungover.

When he finally reached the door to his father’s throne room—not the public one in the gold reception hall, but the one he held a private audience in—there was a stranger outside it. Where ordinarily two volgs would be posted outside the door, now there stood his uncle Yeruslav, and the other was an Akari. Nothing in his plain black cloak would betray it, and perhaps Alexander would have mistaken him for an envoy from the southern lands, Court of Tulpar, Court of Yellow Dragon, Court of Tumen, and the like but the stranger had two swords slid through his belt on the same side, left, and such was an Akari trait. He had a winter cloak over his cotton garment, but the hilts of both swords were in plain sight with the front of his cloak open.

Good morning, Uncle, Alexander greeted the older version of the tsar.

Good morning, Prince.

The Akari did not greet him and had a sneer that lifted one side of his mouth higher than the other. He had a long scar on the right side of his face, running from his nose to the ear.

May I see the tsar? Alexander asked.

Perhaps later, Prince. The tsar is receiving visitors.

Foreign? Alexander shot a look at the Akari. He believed their warrior class was called senshi.

Cannot say, Prince. I’ll send word for you when he’s free.

Thank you, Uncle.

After one final look at the senshi, Alexander walked away. If he couldn’t change his father’s mind about which son was to inherit the crown, this was his future: standing outside Nikita’s door as a greeter. One to rule, all others to serve—that was the Razumov way. And Alexander wasn’t the serving kind.

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Alexander had managed a bath but Igor, the cursed volg, wouldn’t let him sleep and stood over his bed, disapproving.

Your combat arts teacher awaits, Prince.

Alexander knew. A servant had said as much an hour ago. He could expel a servant but not the tsar’s volg, not even from his own bedchamber, because it was the tsar’s palace after all.

Tell him I have fallen ill and died. Alexander put a pillow over his face. The combat arts teacher was Monreau, a quack with a handlebar mustache who labored to teach Alexander fencing with a rapier when every volg and every soldier of Muscovy carried a saber, a curved blade. Monreau had been one of his mother’s ill ideas. The queen had an affinity for the Court of Blue Shield, although their court was long fallen, and their monarchs beheaded. I don’t wish to be poking at another man with a blunted stick. I’ve already done enough of that last night. Alexander shooed Igor away.

Not only did Igor not leave, but he punished Alexander for disrespecting one of his teachers by missing his lesson. Run a lap, Prince, said Igor yanking Alexander out of his bed.

Around what? Sleepy, Alexander grunted.

Around the citadel. He might as well have said around Urlanka. The citadel grounds were enormous.

Or what? Alexander fell back into his bed.

Or I’m going to remove Victor from your watch and assign Kirill.

"Kirill’s Nikita’s volg. He’ll never give him up," Alexander challenged.

The crown prince does not care, but you do. Now, get up, Prince. You’re being a brat.

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Alexander pretended to jog when Igor was watching, then dashed through the palace to go hide in the courtyard. In the cold there were never any volgs or servants idling out in the courtyard, and Alexander found the company of evergreens blanketed with the white winter peaceful.

The sky was grey overhead, snow slowly falling in the still air, and a flake landed on Alexander’s lashes when he looked up. He sat under the old fir tree taller than the palace, and wrapped in his shearling cloak he’d been daydreaming of a peaceful world where Ludya could have a grand wedding ceremony when fabric flapped in the wind and the sound drew his attention. Twisting back, he looked for the source, and when he saw it, he gasped. He’d missed it because the thing had been white and sitting on the snow, but the gust revealed it.

A strange contraption like an enormous swan was sitting at the center of the courtyard, the fabric of its folded wings fluttering in the wind. Curious, Alexander approached it and saw it was an open wooden carriage with fan-like wings and a tail made of white silk. A mole-like woman popped her head from inside the vessel, blinking her large brown eyes, magnified through goggles. She had on a green uniform and a brown leather helmet with the chin straps flailing freely down her neck.

Nani ga hoshii desu ka? She blinked. Alexander recognized it as Imperial Akari, but beyond that, his childhood foreign language lessons escaped him.

Who are you? he asked in Muscovite.

Who are you? she parroted.

I’m Prince Alexander Vyacheslavovich Razumov, and you’re in my father’s courtyard.

She gargled his name on purpose and offensively, then said in pristine Muscovite, Well that’s a mouthful.

Alexander had never met anyone so uncordial, especially a woman. Having a mind to reprimand her for it, he opened his mouth to speak but his jaw dropped instead. The most gorgeous creature he’d ever seen glided toward him through the courtyard. A playful light cotton garment twirled up at the hem in the draft and two white cranes embroidered into the dark blue fabric flapped as if they were flying. He, this gorgeous creature, had a small face with a sharp nose and his eyes were wholly white with no iris or pupil, contrasting breathtakingly with the smooth tone of his skin, tanned as if he’d walked out of a summer afternoon. Two swords slid through the cotton belt wrapped around his waist marked him an Akari, and the senshi Alexander had seen outside his father’s door followed the exotic creature.

Who is he? Alexander blurted out.

"Crown Prince of Akari, Saito of House of Dragon, and his senshi Yasu of House of White Fang," said the mole girl.

The swan began spreading its tall wings and the fabric obstructed Alexander’s view of Saito. Like a moth drawn to a flame, Alexander blindly ran around the winged contraption to be beaming his brightest smile at the Akari prince.

Hello, I’m… he began but Saito walked right by him and his senshi shouldered Alexander as he passed by. Worse yet, he saw Nikita behind them, the crown prince’s face red with fury.

The courtyard became a