This is a novel I’ve been working on slowly for about three years. I have not shared my writing with anyone for a long time. It’s a very vulnerable thing to do, and I worry a bit about others stealing my work.
But here is the prologue to this working title. The prologue is fairly dark, but the rest of the novel will have a lighter tone.
Since I have a difficult time sharing my writing with others, I’ve been using AI as my alpha reader. I asked ChatGPT to act as an alpha reader and provide feedback about character consistency, POV and voice consistency and clarity, and descriptions. But I did not ask it to write anything for me, only to review it and provide critique and feedback.
Prologue
Prologue
Fire raged through the city below the royal palace, bombs raining down from the silhouettes of airships above. The screams and cries of citizens mingled with the smoke and floated up and over the walls into the courtyard, where three young men fought their way through a cadre of imperial soldiers toward the royal chambers.
Rolan, Zekiel, and Jasper moved with fluid strength and grace, their fighting techniques perfected since childhood. A dozen soldiers already lay dead or dying around them, and only three remained between them and the corridor to the queen’s room.
Smoke blackened the night sky and made it difficult to see, let alone breathe. Jasper saw an opening and lunged, but missed by a fraction, leaving himself open. The soldier swiped toward his middle and Jasper jumped back. He was not quick enough. The blade caught the front of his abdomen and he gasped as warmth spread around the cut. He used his free hand to push the soldier’s arm forward in its arc, causing the man to lose his balance just slightly, and allowing Jasper to slice at his neck. The soldier fell.
Jasper went to one knee, clutching the open gash. He coughed through the smoke and let his sword drop to the cobblestone with a muffled clang, then slumped over.
The sounds of swords and armor clashing could not echo throughout the courtyard, softened by the billowing smoke and the bodies of enemy soldiers, palace guards, and unfortunate servants.
“Jasper!” Zekiel noticed the movement of his collapsing, despite his own current engagement. He and Rolan were still dealing with their own adversaries, unable to assist.
After a few tense moments, Zekiel finished off his combatant with a bash to the face with his elbow, then his blade through the man’s ribs.
“Jasper!” he exclaimed again, running over to his friend. Zekiel placed his hand on Jasper’s wound, then looked over through the haze toward Rolan, who was drawing his blade from a fallen soldier’s neck. “Rolan! Jasper’s injured!”
Rolan rushed over to his brother and knelt beside their friend.
“I’m fine, really,” Jasper said through clenched teeth. “I’ll be fine. It just hurts a bit.”
Zekiel picked up Jasper’s sword from the ground, and the two brothers hoisted their friend up and led him inside the corridor. Jasper walked weakly between them, trying to support himself against Zekiel’s arms, his hand still trying to staunch the bleeding.
“We need to get you somewhere safe,” Rolan said, his breathing somewhat heavy, his movement uneven as he limped from a wound on his shin. “Get bandaged up.”
They heard the clashes of swords emanating down the corridor ahead. Coming to a doorway that led into one of the guest chambers, they passed one of their own guards lying dead just inside, with three enemy soldiers strewn about him in their own blood. The body of Ambassador Treshaw was visible near the foot of the bed, his blade nearby, three holes in his chest.
“Bad timing for a diplomatic visit from Simaki,” Zekiel observed, helping Rolan carry Jasper to the guest bed. “Poor man.”
They gingerly helped Jasper onto the bed and into a comfortable position. Zekiel ran to the washroom to get some towels while Rolan examined the wound.
Removing his gloves, Rolan untied a portion of leather armor and peeled it carefully from Jasper’s abdomen. He noted how the cut was shallow and diagonal, running across two of the muscles. He let out a soft sigh that carried more with it than just relief about the wound.
“You are incredibly lucky,” Rolan said to his friend, glancing toward his face. “This cut is shallow. It appears that it missed your organs and only got some muscle.”
“‘Lucky’ is relative,” Jasper said with a smile, then winced in pain. “We have to hurry. Your mother is still in danger.”
Zekiel arrived with wetted towels and Rolan cleaned the wound. The two princes administered to Jasper, removing portions of his armor and binding his abdomen. Jasper didn’t complain, clenching his jaw and his fists through the pain of the process. Rolan took a moment to clean the slice on his leg as Zekiel tied off Jasper’s bandage.
The weight and urgency of the overall situation pressed on all of their minds, and each was staying present and engaged with what needed to be done, even Jasper. But the stress of it all threatened to overwhelm.
“Damn the Shirabali!” Rolan said angrily as he wrapped his leg. The bombs were still audible outside, explosions occasionally rattling the windows. His eyes fell on the lifeless ambassador again and he felt his anger rising in his chest, threatening to take over. He had eaten dinner with the man just the night prior. And now he was dead.
He swallowed the feelings of frustration and guilt, forced himself to look away toward his brother and his best friend, and took a few deep breaths to steady his breathing and his attention. They could grieve later.
A particularly loud boom shook the walls of the palace from one of the bombs. It wasn’t over yet. They needed to move.
“Let’s go.” Zekiel ordered, helping Jasper to his feet. “Mother’s waiting.” Rolan picked up the ambassador’s sword as they all hurried toward the door of the guest chamber.
The sounds of battle had stopped echoing through the halls, but they could still hear the screams and shouts drifting from the city and through the broken windows. The sounds lessened and softened as they ran deeper into the bowels of the palace. Turning a corner, they could see the ornate wooden doors that led to the queen’s chambers at the far end. One door was ajar. The Queensguard was nowhere to be seen, but a few palace guards and Shirabali soldiers lay in the stretch before them.
The sight of the doors brought the weight and trauma of the siege acutely to Zekiel’s mind.
“Mother!” Zekiel exclaimed with fear, dashing ahead.
Two soldiers jumped out from a side entrance, blocking his charge. His training kicked in, and Zekiel tried to dodge past them, but he had to defend as they swung at him. He parried them both in rapid succession, the metal-on-metal clashes sounding eerily like muffled death knells in the still, smoke-filled hall.
“Get to her!” he shouted at Rolan and Jasper, countering another attack. “I’ll take care of them!” He kicked one of the assailants back, causing the Shirabali to stumble back, then pivoted to block the sword of the other.
As Zekiel pushed his quarry toward the doorway from whence he had come, Jasper and Rolan tried to maneuver past the fight, but the soldier who had stumbled stepped toward them. He raised his sword, a snarl across his dark features. Rolan raised his own in defense.
“Don’t turn your back on me!” Zekiel shouted from behind the man, catching him in the back of his arm and causing him to turn again to face the prince.
Rolan and Jasper took the opportunity and ran past the dueling trio, some part of Rolan’s mind screaming at him to stop and help his brother, another part urging him on to his mother’s room.
A moment later the pair reached the end of the corridor to the open door. Jasper ran inside first, but Rolan turned to look at his brother.
Zekiel had dispatched one of the soldiers, but as Rolan watched, the enemy’s blade impaled Zekiel just below the ribs.
Rolan’s breath caught at the scene, his brother’s blood visible even from a distance.
“No!” Rolan cried in enraged anguish, the earlier anger finally boiling over. He started toward his brother. Zekiel staggered back a step, and the enemy, thinking he had the advantage, lunged forward. Zekiel parried with a swift upward strike, then countered, burying his sword deep in the man’s neck. He yanked the sword free and turned to look at Rolan.
A hand on his shoulder stopped Rolan’s advance just a few paces from the door.
“Rolan! Your mother!” Jasper said with urgency. “She’s…”
At that moment, Rolan was torn. His brother had gone to one knee, clutching his side. He started toward him again. He’d lost his father already, he wasn’t going to lose his brother, too.
“Go!” he shouted to Rolan and Jasper. “Go!”
Footfalls sounded from the far end of the corridor, and three more imperial soldiers turned the corner behind Zekiel.
“Rolan! The queen! She’s bleeding!” Jasper cried out, desperate to get his attention.
Rolan snapped out of the reverie and tore his eyes away from his brother. Even injured, Zekiel could fight. He had to trust him. He let Jasper pull him into the queen’s chamber.
The windows were lit from the fires of the city, and one of them was open, allowing the smoke and ash of the burning buildings to drift into the bedroom. Rolan’s mother was lying against the foot of her bed, her hand resting on her abdomen and her head to one side. She turned to look at them.
“He’s still here!” she cried weakly, looking past them.
The door clicked shut behind Rolan and Jasper, and they turned to see the shadow of a man leaning against the wall. He held a dagger lazily in one hand, examining it.
“Was that your brother out there fighting so valiantly against the odds?” the man rasped, the smile evident in his tone, even though the shadows obscured his face.
Jasper raised his sword toward the man, standing between him and the bed, gesturing for Rolan to go to the queen. Rolan hesitated, taking in the man’s appearance. Dark hair braided behind him, with a full beard and a noticeable scar across the bridge of his nose.
In his mind, this man suddenly became the epitome of everything Rolan hated about the empire. He became the embodiment of all its evil. His anger became white-hot and focused. He raised his sword, but Jasper’s hand upon his arm interrupted his thoughts.
“You mother, Rolan,” Jasper said softly but firmly.
Rolan held onto the carefully burning rage, but knew his friend was right. He moved away from them and toward his mother in a few swift steps.
He knelt by her, taking in the scene in the semi-darkness. The queen smiled weakly up at him as she lay on the floor, a knife protruding from her bosom. There were three other stab wounds in her torso, each bleeding profusely. Rolan sobbed, pulling his mother’s head into his arms, his earlier anger dissipating and immense grief filling the hole.
“The empire,” she whispered. Tears fell gently down her cheeks.
“Shh, mother, I know. I have you.”
The man was saying something, and Jasper replied, but Rolan had shut out everything else as he looked at his mother’s face.
“I won’t leave you, mother,” his voice was hoarse with the guilt and despair welling up inside.
“You need to run!” she whispered. Even through the smoke, the gentle scent of lilacs filled his senses, but it was tinged with the faint trace of the iron scent of blood. Her breath came in short gasps as she tried to lift an arm to his face. He held it to his own tear-stained cheek and wept.
There was sudden movement as Jasper blocked the assassin’s dagger, the scrape of the blades drawing Rolan’s attention briefly. Jasper’s blade was covered in magical white fire, a spell he had learned only recently.
“Live free and love well, my son,” the queen said, letting her head rest against his chest. Rolan turned his focus back to her.
“Mother, please don’t go,” he sobbed, his chest tightening in anxiety and fear, the reality of unfolding events making it difficult to think or breathe. “Please!”
“Where are Zekiel and Ginny?” she asked. Another clash of metal, then a bright flash of magic from Jasper.
“They’re safe,” he lied. He hoped Ginny was safe with her friends in the city. And he hoped Zekiel was still alive and fighting outside. And she didn’t need any added sorrow.
“Good,” she sighed, relief evident as her shoulders relaxed. He stroked her ash-covered hair and kissed her forehead.
Another flash of magic brought Rolan’s attention partially to his friend facing off against the assassin.
“They train the youth well in Zendtal,” the assassin said with dark amusement as the pair circled each other, “with sword and sorcery. You’d be a wonderful asset to the empire, child. Mages are well-regarded by the empress.” He stepped in toward Jasper’s right with a feint, then turned on the spot with his arm outstretched, the knife aiming for the youth’s throat.
Jasper’s rage took hold. He found his hand moving before he knew what he was casting. As he blocked the knife with his sword, he cast the spell with his free hand. It was invisible, but the effects were immediate. The assassin stopped in his tracks and started backing away, his steps unsteady and uncertain, his knife clattering to the stone floor. The immense terror was visible in the man’s panicked demeanor and frantic movements as he fled toward and out the open window.
Jasper held onto the man’s emotions for a few moments to ensure he was truly gone, his anger fueling the spell, then released the magick as he released his breath. He took a deep breath to calm his nerves, closed and locked the window, then ran to kneel at the end of the bed. Rolan stared at his friend for a moment in awe, but Jasper was avoiding his eyes.
The sounds of battle from the corridor had stopped, but Zekiel did not appear.
“I don’t know any healing magick,” Jasper said, looking over the queen’s injuries, hand hesitating over the hilt of the dagger. “I never read up on it. That’s Ginny’s thing. I’m sorry.” He looked up at last to meet Rolan’s eyes, tears now flowing freely down both of their faces.
Rolan held his mother’s hand to his own face, looking down into her eyes that flickered upward to his. Her breathing was ragged and getting more shallow.
“I love you, Rolan,” she rasped, letting the back of her hand stroke his cheeks and wipe his tears. “Go. Grow and become a good man, like your father was,” the queen whispered, her lips barely parting.
“I will, mother. I love you,” he replied. She smiled slightly and closed her eyes.
Her hand went limp, and he felt the breath leave her body. His mind went numb, falling into the darkness of his own thoughts as he tried to process so much agony, loss, pain, fear, and despair. He lost track of time as he still held her, unaware of his surroundings, until a warm hand on his shoulder brought him back to the present.
“Rolan, we must hurry.” Jasper crouched next to the prince. The bombs had stopped, the screams had stopped, but the fires still raged in the city outside the window. “They could be back soon. I’m so sorry, but we must go now.”
Rolan took a deep breath of lilacs one last time. Together with Jasper, they picked her up and placed her on her bed. Rolan sat on the bedside for a few more moments as Jasper took flowers from a nearby vase and placed them in her hands. Rolan closed her eyes and arranged her body in a form of repose. He looked away as Jasper pulled the dagger from her bosom and threw it out the window.
Picking up his sword, Rolan stood and made himself look at his friend across the bed.
“I want to check on Zekiel” he said, controlling his voice with some difficulty.
Jasper hesitated, but nodded and followed him to the double doors. They opened one and peered out into the corridor.
More imperial bodies were strewn around the area where Zekiel had been, but he was nowhere to be seen. A brief flare of warm hope blossomed in Rolan’s chest, and he wanted to go searching for his brother. He started out the door, but a grating noise from the queen’s room brought them both back inside. One of the servant doors had opened and three people had entered the queen’s chamber. Jasper drew his sword again, but Rolan held up his hand. Two were adults, but one was a child. He recognized one of them as a handmaiden to his mother.
“Ladris,” he said, walking toward her. The woman saw the pair of them and recognized his voice.
“My prince! You are safe!” Ladris curtsied. She looked him up and down, then noticed the queen lying on the bed.
“My queen!” she exclaimed, running over. “No! Oh no!” she moaned, then knelt by the bedside and sobbed. Jasper walked over be with her as Rolan tried to identify the other two new arrivals, trying to avoid letting his grief take hold again. One was a boy around age twelve, and the other a tall, lithe man.
“I’m glad to see you safe, Prince Rolan,” said the man. Rolan vaguely recognized him as one of the palace guards. Carik, he thought. He concluded that the boy must be his son.
“Forget formality,” Rolan sighed. “Now is not the time for that.”
“We should keep moving,” suggested Jasper from behind him.
The pair of friends walked across the ornate royal bedchamber to a small alcove in front of which stood a bust of the prince’s grandfather. Rolan placed his hand on the head and said softly, “Take care of her, grandfather.”
Ladris, the man, and the boy followed them, and he directed them to stand in the alcove. Then he pushed a small plate under the chin of the bust. The alcove started to spin in place, rotating to allow them access to the escape passage behind it. Rolan and Jasper went next, Rolan pressing the button then quickly stepping into the alcove before it turned.
Jasper didn’t speak much as they ran up a short flight of narrow stairs and sneaked along a passage that ran between the walls of the palace. It was an old escape route made for such a night as this. To Rolan’s memory, it had never been used for its intended purpose until tonight. To him, it felt like a seering punishment to be the first to do so, compounding the growing guilt of not reaching the queen in time.
Ladris got a hold of her emotions during the climb. The boy’s face was a mask of fear and worry. Carik showed determination, but the sorrow was plainly evident beneath the mask. Jasper’s eyes seemed distant and unfocused as he took each step up toward safety.
Soon the narrow passage became a long flight of stairs leading upward. Rolan knew this passage was carved long ago through the mountain behind his family’s palace. They spoke only a little as they went. They climbed and walked through passages for twenty minutes, stopping occasionally to catch their breath.
Rolan’s mind was on repeat, from the moment he first heard the alarm, to the sound of the first bomb hitting the city, to the dozens of fights they’d had just to reach the royal bedchambers.
Images resurfaced The ambassador’s body. Zekiel’s face and the wound in his ribs. The sight of his mother lying wounded against the bed. He knew he was in shock, the emotions being forced down as the need to flee maintained its hold.
Norian, the boy, was asking his father questions. “What were they going to do?” “Where would they go?” “What happened to the queen?” “Where was his mother?”
Rolan was silently asking himself the same questions.
At last they reached an old stone door at the top of the stairs..
“I’ve got the key,” Carik rummaged through his side satchel and pulled out a small brass orb with five prongs. “The captain handed it to me before….” He didn’t finish the sentence.
They looked around for the keyhole by candlelight.
“Up here,” said Jasper, pointing up toward an indent and five small holes at the top of the wall above the door. He took the orb and arranged it to fit. As he pushed it in and heard a click, a gentle white glow emitted from the key, and the stone door before them vanished.
They stepped into a pine forest, the night sky visible through the boughs. Carik found another keyhole in the same place on the outside of the cliff face they had just walked through. Inserting the key, the stone appeared again as though there was no door.
“I’ll hold on to it,” Jasper said to Carik, putting the key in his satchel.
They took in their surroundings for a moment, orienting themselves. The acrid smell of a city on fire rose from beyond the cliffs behind them, mingling with the fresh scent of pine trees and autumnal foliage.
“We should keep moving,” Rolan determined, starting into the forest.
“Perhaps, but we also need to talk,” said Ladris, walking swiftly to catch up. She looked up at the prince with compassion. “Not only to make a plan of where to go. I also have information you need to know, and you need to take a moment and grieve, my prince.”
Rolan stopped and faced her. He felt the emotions at the surface, and took another deep breath to control them.
“Very well,” he said, his voice steady. “We may talk. I suppose I could use a short rest after all of those stairs.”
“Look!” exclaimed Norian pointing past them. Through the trees they saw the fires raging across the kingdom, blazing not only in the city far below the cliffs, but throughout the farms of the valley. Airships dotted the midnight sky, their silhouettes like massive flying beasts of prey. The group of them approached the cliff that looked out over the city. They were too high up to hear the screams or the collapsing buildings. The palace below them was also aflame in places, but no more bombs flashed in the night.
Rolan sank to his knees and finally let the emotions flow. He wept for a few minutes, then cursed, pounding his fists on the soft dirt. Jasper couldn’t handle seeing his best friend in so much anguish. He considered trying to comfort the prince, and reached a hand out toward his shoulder, but Ladris stopped him and shook her head. One by one the group left Rolan to mourn for his fallen kingdom.
His family was dead. His people were slaughtered or taken captive. His homeland was burning. And he could do nothing. Nothing! He felt so powerless, so hopeless. He clutched at his sides and wailed in anguish into the smoky night, letting the tears release at last. They flowed for unknown minutes until he exhausted all ability to cry and found himself staring into the smoke.
Eventually he stood and walked away from the cliff overlooking his kingdom and into the pine trees. Jasper was in the middle of telling the others what had happened to him and Rolan.
Ladris approached him before he could reach the others.
“Prince Rolan, I thought you should know. I saw Princess Genevive and her friends from a window in the palace.” Rolan stayed silent, waiting for her to continue as she gathered the words. “They were bound and gagged, being carried by the enemy onto an airship. It seems they wanted them alive.”
Relief and frustration struggled inside of him. His sister was safe at least, but now in the enemy’s hands.
“I’m sorry! I had no way of helping them. I was hiding myself when I saw it,” Ladris said, staring at the ground in shame.
Rolan took her chin and raised it to meet her eyes.
“Thank you,” he said with genuine gratitude. “She’s alive, and that’s what matters. She’s smart and sly and incredibly persuasive. I’m sure she will be fine.” He figured there must be a reason for them to take her alive, but worried what that reason may be.
The two of them returned to the others.
“Zekiel stayed behind to fight them,” Jasper was retelling. “We ran as fast as we could to the queen’s bedchamber. But….”
“Do you think anyone else made it out of the palace?” asked Norian, staring at the ground, his voice quiet and dull.
“I am certain some did,” said Rolan, his own voice cracking. “But how far they made it before the empire caught them is another matter.”
“Your highness, what shall we do now?” Carik asked. He gestured to the city. “We cannot return west to the city or the valley, now that it’s conquered. But this mountain range is far too wide and dangerous to trek eastward. It would take days of travel to reach Cryshide to the north. The empire came from the north, and will surely occupy our fair kingdom for the foreseeable future. We have nowhere to go.”
Ladris stood from the log she had sat upon, stretching her legs and picking up her shoulder bag. “We shall travel incognito to the small port town, Vervane, not but a day’s journey south. There may yet be some airships available there that could take us to an allied nation. Vendtal may have fallen to Shirabali scum this night, but there are yet many strong forces making their stand against the empire. We are not without friends.”
Rolan was glad for the brave maidservant standing resolutely before him. Her young face, only a few years older than himself, showed resolve and assurance, and filled them all with courage and purpose. He took a deep breath again and nodded.
“She is right. We will find allies overskies. I wish I could do more for the remainder of my people, but acting rashly would accomplish nothing.” Rolan looked around at his companions. Jasper, his best friend since birth. Carik, a father and a guard of a fallen kingdom. Norian, a boy who had just witnessed gruesome things for someone so young. And Ladris, his mother’s most trusted maiden.
He glanced back at his burning kingdom, then turned to face the trees once more. “We will follow this canyon east for now. It should turn south soon enough. There is an old hunting trail on the other side of the ridge ahead that we can follow toward Vervane.” He adjusted the scabbard at his waist and hitched his bag further up on his back. He walked through the group and into the trees.
“One day the Shirabali Empire will fall,” said Carik, still standing and facing the city. Rolan stopped and looked back at him.
With quiet fury, the prince replied softly, “And I plan to be the cause of it.”
I hope you enjoyed this third draft of the prologue.
-Zed