The Thief's Tempest: Unveiling the Mistral Legacy: Siblings of Stealth, #3

By Jon Kiln and Briana Snow

Previously published as Crown of Quills by Brianna Snow.

 

With his back against the wall, Drisdan faces a choice that teeters on the edge of impossibility: bow to the whims of the ruthless Lord Norgal, or place the lives of those he holds dear in dire peril.

 

The gravity of their situation leaves Tryssa and their companions reeling, none more so than Meredith, who is ensnared in a dreaded fate as the chosen bride of the so-called Lunatic Lord.

 

Yet, hope is not lost. In the heart of desperation, Drisdan and Tryssa harness their rogue expertise and cling to the slender thread of fortune. Their plan is daring and twofold: secure their freedom and return the Mistral Gifts, the kingdom's source of magic, to its rightful sovereign. Can they outwit their oppressors and see the realm restored, or will their gamble lead to ruin? The legacy of a kingdom hangs in the balance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jon Kiln
• Release date: Nov 22, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215675939

Book preview

The Thief's Tempest: Unveiling the Mistral Legacy

Siblings of Stealth: Book Three

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by Jon Kiln and Briana Snow

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2020.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in book reviews.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 

Chapter 2 

Chapter 3 

Chapter 4 

Chapter 5 

Chapter 6 

Chapter 7 

Chapter 8 

Chapter 9 

Chapter 10 

Chapter 11 

Chapter 12 

Chapter 13 

Chapter 14 

Chapter 15 

Chapter 16 

Chapter 17 

Chapter 18 

Chapter 19 

Chapter 20 

Chapter 21 

Chapter 22 

Chapter 23 

Chapter 24 

Chapter 25 

Chapter 26 

Chapter 27 

Chapter 28 

Chapter 29 

Chapter 30 

Chapter 31 

Chapter 32 

Chapter 33 

Chapter 34 

Chapter 35 

Chapter 1

You are utterly despicable, Drisdan Gimbel! Meredith’s voice was laced with barbs of venom. She meant every strident word.

Dan! What are you doing? Tryssa’s eyes stung with tears as she stared at her brother, her mind a whirl.

You’ll thank me later, Drisdan replied without any expression, vocal or facial. He glanced at his father. Bearnar stared straight ahead of him, not making eye contact with anyone.

Your brother, my dear Tryssa, has just done you all the biggest favour anyone could do for another person. Lord Norgal’s face was smug and a trifle amused. He’s right. You will thank him later. Because of his wisdom I might give you a prime position in my palace court. Alongside the Don. If he’s still alive when we get back. He chuckled at his own joke.

Tryssa glared at him, but soon looked away in exasperation when she saw that none of the venom she shot his way had any success is dampening his self satisfaction. What Drisdan had done had saved their lives, but Tryssa felt like she would rather be dead than surrendering to Lord Norgal.

Mangrado, bind this lot’s hands and feet. Just in case their fearless leader is double crossing me. Norgal nodded to the chief guard. Then he turned to Bear Man. Now, Orgauld, how soon can you get the ring up and running again? I want no more impediments postponing this wedding.

Not before three days hence, Bear Man, aka head druid Orgauld, responded in his deep bass monotone. The ring has been swallowed up by molten rock and ash by now.

Norgal’s face began to turn red, although he kept his indefatigable smirk. Norgal was very quickly getting used to being in control and the least little bit of any kind of resistance rankled him like a rattlesnake in a bedroll. It did not escape Orgauld’s notice. There is another ring we can go to, also used by our brothers in the East.

Norgal lifted his chin and tilted his head sideways. The sound of cracking bone was heard. How far away? he asked economically, peering sidelong at the head druid.

A day’s journey on horseback. Orgauld’s reply was equally curt.

Tryssa listened to the plans being made by two tyrants who ruled by fear, while the guards clapped cold, hard iron rings on her wrists. It all made no sense. Drisdan’s words still rang in her head. I’d like to agree with Meredith, but you seem to be the one the god’s favour, Norgal. I’m willing to help you get what you want, if you can ensure, as ruler of the land, that Tryssa and I can continue our work as we did in the past; without impediment. Then he had lain the Mistral Sabre on the ground in front of him and raised both hands above his head in a gesture of surrender.

Bren, confused, but trusting his cousin—and most probably too doubtful of his own fighting ability to do anything else—had followed suit and laid down the Chalice. Meredith, bless her royal soul, had stood proudly, the Mistral Crown still glittering magnificently on her chestnut locks. Her defiance, as pathetic as it might have seemed to people like Norgal, shone as a peerless example of surety and strength into Tryssa’s bewildered heart.

A tear dropped onto the heavy shackles that now linked her to the rest of their party. Shendl reached out and covered Tryssa’s hand with her own. The young woman looked up searchingly into the healer’s eyes. Still, that unshakeable quiet confidence shone. Shendl’s voice echoed in Tryssa’s head. Trust, young Tryssa, all is not yet lost. Trust.

Tryssa looked down at her fettered hands. She wanted to trust. She was sure Drisdan had not planned to surrender. He would not have tricked them all like that, especially her, his own sister; but giving up was not something she was accustomed to seeing him do. She hadn’t really had an idea of what she expected him to do, but she knew for sure that surrender was not it.

After all they had been through to get this far, to actually take the Chalice from the druids, thanks to Bearnar’s selfless actions matched so unexpectedly by those of Hedrick, and just to give it all up as soon as they were cornered. Hopelessness filled her with its leaden heaviness. Black imaginings of the decline of her beloved Rendolstor under Norgal’s evil rule paraded morosely before her internal eye.

Right, then! Norgal’s voice brought Tryssa back to the present moment. How do we get down there? He was pointing at the corrals, far below, across the river that now ran around the elevated island like a great moat around a crumbling castle.

In response, Orgauld raised his hands to the heavens and began to chant a raucous, staccato chant while his eyes rolled back dramatically in their sockets. As if on cue, one of the junior druids pulled a thin reed pipe whistle from the pocket of his robes and began to play a tuneless, repetitive refrain.

In what seemed like moments, the air was full of the beating of huge, black wings. A raucous chorus, to match Orgauld’s solo, rang out in rhythm with the flapping feathers of a myriad crows. Tryssa could have sworn they were the very same ones who had accosted them as they ascended into the Mistral Mountains. It seemed like an age ago, and yet she felt as if time had hardly passed since that day.

Instinctively, all of them shielded their eyes in the crook of their arms. Drisdan held his breath, waiting for the sting of a flinty beak and razor claws ripping at his flesh. In a flash of regret he wondered if he had done the right thing. Had he put too much store in the apparent benevolence of the Lunatic Lord?

He did not see the guards retrieve the Mistral Gifts from the ground where he and Bren had placed them in surrender. He did not see one of the great, black crows lift the Crown from Meredith’s head and drop it into the uplifted hands of Orgauld. He did feel the grasping of long claws at his clothing along his shoulders and back, and then felt himself being hoisted bodily into the air.

Peeking past his arm, Drisdan could hardly believe his eyes. The great crows were lifting all of them up into the air and flying straight for the cliff. Norgal was diagonally below him, being similarly carried, so Drisdan felt fairly secure that they were not going to be dropped to their deaths over the newly formed cliff.

He looked over at Tryssa, hoping she would not be watching him. She was. Her eyes told of her betrayal, her perplexity, her shaken faith in the brother who had never let her down. Until now. He wished he could tell her what was going on. He hoped he had read his father’s eyes correctly. It had been so long since they had last communicated that way.

Orgauld’s chanting continued. The piper continued his unearthly disjointed melody. Of the druids, only Orgauld was carried along with them. The junior druids stayed behind with the wolves, who began slinking away into the jumbled mess that was left of the forest.

Suspended between heaven and Earth, Drisdan grappled for clarity regarding the next phase of his highly spontaneous plan. He had thought none of it through. He was not accustomed to being so harebrained. That was the realm of Tryssa.

A sudden feeling of respect flooded him. He remembered times when there had been eventualities in their heists and Tryssa’s quick thinking had whisked them out of harm’s way with the margin of a whisker’s breadth. Ironically, those were the times that his methodical planning and rehearsed movements would have done nothing but decisively and very prematurely end their careers as professional thieves.

As soon as he could he must let her know that what he had done really was in the best interests of all concerned. As much as he knew she hated being in the dark about anything he did, he hoped that she would understand that this time it had really been necessary. The last time he had gone with such a plan, they had dug a deeper hole for themselves, but this time it had literally saved their lives, he comforted himself.

The sight of rapidly approaching earth, as the crows descended with their unusual burden, drew Drisdan’s thoughts back to the challenge at hand: landing without breaking a leg. The still cawing birds opened their claws just before Drisdan’s feet hit the soft earth, and flew off calling to each other in self satisfied tones as if they knew their work was done.

Falling face first into soil, grass, and dead leaves, Drisdan cursed the chains on his ankles. He would have to somehow convince Norgal that they were all on his side, and no flight risk at all. He wondered grimly how long it would take to get Meredith to play along. Definitely more than a day. He rolled his eyes as he lifted himself unsteadily up from the ground. He would have to play that one by ear, no doubt about it.

Around him, others were landing in a similar ungainly way, except for Norgal and Orgauld and two of the biggest, burliest guards from the druids’ island, who had the distinct advantage of unfettered feet. The crows had dropped them strategically right next to the corral where their horses waited patiently.

In the still dewy early morning light there was nobody around save an old man and a little boy. Both were staring at the uncommon sight with their jaws slack with disbelief. Norgal’s edgy voice set them scurrying off, hardly daring to glance back and make sure they weren’t dreaming.

What are you gawking at? Get off with you and don’t start a ruckus! I am commissioning these horses in the name of the Royal House of Rendolstor!

Chapter 2

One thing you could say about Lord Norgal was that he knew what he wanted, Tryssa thought dryly as the guards readied each of their horses. She looked over at Meredith, who had been uncharacteristically silent since her last short outburst of defiance up on the island. Both Meredith and Shendl had said not a word since Drisdan had betrayed them all. Tryssa decided to follow their example.

She looked over at Bearnar, still feeling strange about him being her father, wishing she could cut off the bush of red hair. At least then he would feel a little more like the father she remembered. Suddenly he had become even more of a stranger than he had been when he was still just Narmon, the mysterious invalid. Now he had more power over her. Not that he knew it, but Tryssa felt it.

Why had he not said anything to stop Drisdan in his crazy moment of surrender? A vision of him storming into the circle of fire at the druids’ ring flashed before her. Where had his bravado vanished to just because his son had been momentarily in charge? The questions ran round and round in her head, chasing their tails.

It was with a mild sense of surprise that Tryssa realized the guards were loosening her ankle shackles. She looked around her at the others and saw Bearnar smiling and nodding at her, showing her how to swing aboard her mare, Myrtle. She could not have done that with fetters on. For a moment she softened, realizing that either Bearnar or Drisdan must have made a deal with Norgal for them to ride with some kind of dignity and comfort.

The shackles that still weighed heavily on her wrists made it difficult to mount as she was accustomed to, but she managed and nodded her thanks to Bearnar. She remembered, now, that he and Drisdan had also communicated silently with their eyes before her brother had dropped the bombshell on them. Had her father known what Drisdan was about to do?

The horses had been well rested, unlike their riders, and so did not need much urging to clatter off into the freshness of the new day, which was largely lost on Tryssa. She held Myrtle back, sticking like a burr to the guard riding at the rear of the posse. She did not want to have to deal with looking into the eyes of either Drisdan or Bearnar.

Drisdan saw her downcast features, her deliberate avoidance of making eye-contact with him, and those two things told him more about what was going on in her head than any eloquent prose might have done if anyone was speaking. He also noticed Bren hanging back to try make contact with his female cousin. He also looked at Drisdan with suspicious befuddlement.

A terse silence had fallen on everyone except Norgal who was gleefully informing all who were listening, whether they wanted to or not, of his plans for the wedding and the kingdom.

There will be more taxes, definitely. The people are too self indulgent. They need to give more to the growth of the kingdom. And stricter rules for punishment. People who know they can get away with a slap on the wrist will not be so diligent to avoid temptations to wrong the kingdom.

Drisdan listened to his ramblings with slight disgust. He wondered what Don Arren would have to say about his great ally Norgal clamping down on criminals. Then again, only the criminals who were not on Norgal’s payroll would suffer. Drisdan dared not voice his thoughts out loud. He merely let the flood of self assertion wash over him.

Hardly noticing the beauty of the countryside around him—and Pellagria’s more central area, where they found themselves now, was truly a gem of natural beauty—Drisdan took stock of his next possible move.

The first person he would approach would be Shendl. She would listen to him. She would not chase him off before listening to reason. As much as he loved his sister, he was not sure he had her ear at this particular juncture. Bearnar seemed to be on board, although they had not had a chance to speak with words, yet.

Bren would be reachable once he had spoken with Bearnar and Shendl. Meredith? Well, Meredith was still the warrior princess, glaring at Drisdan whenever she caught his eye. She would be the last he would attempt to reel in. As crazy as it might seem to them, Drisdan knew he had done the right thing. He hoped.

Now that he had time to think, he actually wondered why he had never thought of it before. It was actually so logical. If they had just taken hands and gone along with Norgal from the beginning, they could have saved themselves so much trouble. In the end they all wanted the same thing. So why not go for it together?

The first opportunity for speaking came when Norgal announced they would be taking a lunch break at the next town. Drisdan could hardly believe they had already been riding half a day. The sun, closing in steadily on its zenith, testified to this truth. A few hills later and they spied the smoking chimneys of the town of Bandstein, according to Orgauld. Norgal led his party of willing and unwilling companions into the shade of a cluster of chestnut trees that apparently belonged to some farmer in the district, but were very loosely fenced.

You lot will stay outside the town with Reckor and Trimonn while Orgauld and I go in to get some food. Let it not be said that I am a stingy host, but you will not be given the opportunity to attempt escape. Norgal’s gaze rested gloatingly on Meredith, as if she was a prize he had won in a market raffle.

Meredith felt like she was about to vomit, but she held her pose, meeting the Lunatic Lord’s gaze with as much disdain and hatred as she could muster. Drisdan wondered if her open antagonism was in fact having the opposite effect to the one she intended. From what he had seen of Lord Norgal, he was one to relish a challenge; the more difficult, the better for him to test his stubborn mettle.

As Norgal and Orgauld rode away, Drisdan dragged his thoughts back to the task at hand. Shendl. He made a beeline for the healer as she dismounted, not caring a whit whether anyone noticed or not.