The Dappled Dread (The Storyweaver Saga Book 4), page 1
The Dappled Dread
THE STORYWEAVER SAGA: BOOK 4
D.K. HOLMBERG
Copyright © 2023 by D.K. Holmberg
Cover by Damonza.com
All rights reserved.
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 a book review.
Want a free book and to be notified when D.K. Holmberg’s next novel is released, along with other news and freebies? Sign up for his mailing list by going here. Your email address will never be shared and you can unsubscribe at any time.
www.dkholmberg.com
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 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Author’s Note
Series by D.K. Holmberg
Chapter 1
SOPHIE
Sophie lifted the pastry to her lips, breathing slowly as she inhaled its sweet aroma. This one was blueberry, and while it wasn’t her favorite flavor, it was certainly one she didn’t mind. It had nothing on Oleda’s rhubarb pastries, but then again, she had not managed to convince the Karell woman to make pastries for her ever since she had been resurrected from the dead, as Sophie continued to call it. She took a bite, savoring the sweetness, and chewed slowly.
Nevarn laughed near her.
She looked over at him. “What?” she snapped and continued to chew her pastry. Couldn’t a woman eat in peace around him? He found it all too amusing to tease her about her choice in desserts, as if his cakes weren’t just as sweet as her pastries.
“It’s you. You got a little blueberry there on your chin.”
She grabbed a napkin off the counter and wiped it across her cheek. It came away stained with blueberry. And here she had just thought he was laughing at her choice in pastry.
“You don’t have to laugh,” Sophie said.
“Why not? You give me such fun.”
Nevarn was frustratingly handsome, with dark hair, a strong chin, and one dimple that she wanted nothing more than to fill with custard and kiss. She glowered at him and resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at him, which wasn’t going to do anything other than motivate him to laugh more.
“Are you about done? We are supposed to meet my mother soon, and considering you’ve been out of the kingdom for quite a while, I think you don’t want to keep the Raven Queen waiting any longer than necessary.”
Sophie glanced over at the counter where Bryn was working. She hadn’t seen the woman for several months. The time she’d spent away from the city had been well spent, time in which she had been working in the palace with Dannith, trying to get a sense of how much Ridaln needed to learn from her—which was less and less with each passing day, as Ridaln had proven to be an adept student, something Sophie still found amusing considering he was the one to have first taught her—before deciding it was for the best that she return. Unfortunately, her time in the palace with Dannith had involved a measure of work, as well. Not only helping Ridaln, though that had been a part of it, but also helping Dannith clear the dangers that Darius had left behind.
“I’m not intentionally keeping your mother waiting,” she said, shifting in her seat near the hearth. The bakery was quaint, cozy, and the comfortable warmth from the fire was all that Sophie needed to help her feel almost as if she were at home.
“Well, she knows that we’re back, so I think that the longer we keep her waiting, the more personally she’s going to take it. And I also know that you don’t intend it to be any sort of personal slight, but that’s not how my mother might view it.”
Sophie stuck her tongue out at him this time. “You just like to make this all about you, don’t you?”
Nevarn sat back, and he started to laugh. “How is this at all about me? I thought I was trying to help you here.”
“You are trying to help me, but you are trying to help yourself as well.”
He snorted. “Whatever you need to tell yourself. Now. Are you about done?”
“No,” Sophie said. She took another bite of her pastry and chewed slowly and deliberately, ignoring Nevarn’s irritated glance.
She took a sadistic pleasure in it, though maybe she shouldn’t. He really was just trying to get back to see his mother.
“She knew where we were,” Sophie said. “And your mother was not at all concerned about us being with Dannith.”
“Of course she wasn’t. She knows that the more we all communicate, including you and him, the better off we all are going to be. I agree with her, you know.”
“Oh, do you now?”
“Don’t be like that,” he said.
“Be like what?”
“Like that. Making snide comments. We are just trying to get along here.”
Sophie knew she needed to be better here. She didn’t want to irritate Nevarn, especially as he was not really the one she was frustrated with. She was mostly frustrated with her brother.
She had been so looking forward to returning to the city, having an opportunity to spend some time with Lan, and he was gone. He had been fixated on the Shavln, much more so than Sophie had been, especially lately. She knew she should have paid more attention to his concerns than she had.
“I’m sorry,” she said in between bites. “It’s just that Bryn’s pastries really are quite delicious. I’ve been away so long, and I have missed them.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“About my love for pastries? I thought that was what I was doing.”
“Do you want to talk about your brother? I can see what the Taihg say about what he’s been doing. I’m sure they would give me a report.”
“A more detailed report than they would give me?”
He looked at her, holding her gaze for a moment.
“No. Don’t answer that,” she said.
It irritated her that Nevarn would get more information than she would, even if maybe it should not. He was the queen’s son and next in line for the throne, whatever that meant. Just because he was the queen’s son didn’t necessarily mean he would actually take the throne. Considering what they knew about the Raven Queen and her god-touched ability, it was possible Nevarn would never see the throne. They had no idea how long she would live.
For that matter, Sophie no longer knew how long she would live. She was god-touched as well.
Not nearly as god-touched as Lan.
That thought flickered through her mind, and it was one that left her a little more troubled than maybe it should. It was one that reminded her that regardless of what she had done, and what she knew, there was still so much that she didn’t know, and perhaps so much that she couldn’t.
Her brother was different than her. God-touched, the same way Sophie was, or maybe not the same way. He was powerful. Sophie had no idea what it might, but she had been hoping she would be able to return to the kingdom and have an opportunity to work with him. Before she’d gone with Nevarn to stay with Dannith, she had attempted to see if Lan had any sorcery potential, but had not really managed to make any progress. She had tried telling her brother that he could learn to hold specific poses, and given his mastery of sword forms, Sophie actually thought it wouldn’t take much for him to gain a measure of skill with them. But Lan had been disinterested.
Or maybe that wasn’t exactly the truth. It wasn’t so much that Lan wasn’t interested as he didn’t feel as if it would make that much of a difference for the kind of power he possessed. Most of his power involved using his blade. The Heart of the Grove, the new god who had gifted Lan with the power that had changed him, had shown him how to use that power.
At least, that was what Sophie had believed.
“I could go to Jalyn,” Sophie said. “I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to, but maybe I should.”
“Why would you hope you wouldn’t have to do that?”
“I just don’t like to have to use that connection.”
He started to smile. “She’s going to want to hear about your time with Ridaln, anyway.”
“I think you’re giving him a bit more of an attachment than truly exists.”
“Am I?”
“Maybe not,” she said softly.
Ridaln had used Jalyn to serve a purpose at one point. She was to be the Pale Princess. But then… Then it had changed. It had become something else. It had become something dangerous, complicated, and perhaps impossible.
Sophie finished her pastry.
“Don’t look like that,” Nevarn said.
“Now I’m not supposed to look like myself?”
“Not if you’re going to be so irritable,” he said and shrugged. “Or maybe if you are. I don’t know. You get to decide.” He flashed a smile.
She hated that it made him look so charming. He had thick hair like his mother, but he had a much stronger jawline, making Sophie wonder what his father would’ve looked like. Nevarn never spoke of his father, and neither did the Raven Queen talk about her long-dead husband, so all Sophie knew from the stories was that he had been lost during the war long ago. She wondered about that, wondering what had happened and what truth existed, but there were certain stories that should not be told, at least not involuntarily.
“Let’s see my mother, and then you can go talk to Jalyn. I’m sure she would be more than happy to tell you what she knows of your brother. He may not be serving the Taihg quite as directly as he once did, but that isn’t to say that he is still not serving. Besides, don’t you think that if there was some danger he’d gotten into, he would have sent word to you?”
“How?”
“I don’t know. You’re all…”
She glowered at him and Nevarn sat back in the chair, grabbing a pastry off the plate and taking a quick bite, chewing slowly.
“We are all what?”
“I just figured that with your connection and your power, it really shouldn’t be all that much of a problem for you to figure out a way to talk to each other,” Nevarn said in between bites. “But then again, I suppose I have my own sort of connection and I’m not magically able to talk to anybody.”
She snorted. “It’s about time you acknowledge that.”
“What?” he said. “It’s not like I’ve denied it.”
“Not denied, but you like to make it sound like I’m the only one who has this connection. You are the Raven Queen’s son, after all, which means that you have…” Well, Sophie wasn’t exactly sure what it meant he had. He wasn’t a sorcerer, not the way that she was. He wasn’t Karell, at least as far as either of them knew, but he was supposedly god-touched, and if that were the case, then it meant he had a connection to power, even if he didn’t reach for it yet.
Could he find a way to connect to it?
After having learned of the various layers of gods, Sophie had hoped to dig into the stories behind them a little bit more, thinking to find more information about the different connections to the gods themselves and what those connections might mean for her. She simply had not had the time.
“Well, I keep hoping you would offer to teach me.”
She started to laugh.
“What?”
“You really want to learn to be a sorcerer?”
She said it louder than she probably intended and immediately clamped her mouth shut. It would be much easier to do so with a mouthful of pastry, but she wasn’t going to do anything to irritate Nevarn. She forced herself to eat more pastry just to avoid talking to him.
“I wouldn’t be opposed to it,” he said. “To be honest, I think my mother has tried over the years, but I haven’t had the necessary potential, at least according to her.” He grinned. “I was thinking that maybe you might have better luck with me.”
Sophie glowered at him. “And why might I have better luck than your mother, Prince Nevarn?”
He leaned forward and took her hands, squeezing them. She didn’t pull away. They had come a long way since she had fought Darius, and a longer way since she had fought him.
“Come on, Sophie. I just figured that you might enjoy teaching me. I think I’ve taught you more than my share of things.”
With that, she jerked her hands free and actually tossed the pastry at him. He caught it out of the air, and his grin spread. Worse, she hated the flush that worked through her cheeks.
That only caused his grin to spread even more.
Getting to her feet, Sophie grabbed the last few remaining pastries, scooped a napkin off the table, and wrapped them up. She marched toward the door, glancing over at Bryn, who locked eyes with her. The short-haired woman grinned at Sophie, a knowing look in her eyes. “Will I be seeing you around?”
“We should be in the city for a little while,” Sophie said. She glanced over her shoulder. “At least, I will be. I don’t know what Prince Nevarn will be doing.”
“No?” Bryn asked, and then she chuckled. “And here I thought that you two were…”
“What?” Nevarn asked, striding toward Sophie.
She turned and shot him a warning look, but Nevarn promptly ignored it.
“Oh,” Bryn said, and then she started to laugh. “Quite the feisty relationship here.”
“My mother warned me about her,” Nevarn said, and it irritated Sophie that the smile still had not faded from his face. “But I can’t help it. I have a soft spot for such troublesome women.”
“And how many troublesome women have you known?” Sophie asked.
This time, the smile faltered, if only a little.
Bryn stifled a laugh. “I could tell you stories, Sophie, if you’d like. When he was younger, he used to come through the city, and there are all sorts of stories of the young prince chasing women twice his age. It’s good that he finally found a taste for someone closer in age to him.”
“He’s nearly two years older than me,” Sophie said, straightening.
“So he went the other way,” Bryn said, nodding. “Probably for the best, but I think that you still have a little bit more… Well, maybe experience. Perhaps not the kind of experience that he has, but worldly experience.” She grinned and glanced at the prince for a moment, then turned her attention back to Sophie, chuckling again. “It’s good to have you back.”
Sophie stepped out of the bakery. She was already at the street when Nevarn caught up to her.
“What took you so long?”
“I had to put in an order,” he said.
“An order?”
He shrugged. “Well, I figure that if we are going to be back in the city for a while, I wouldn’t want my poor Sophie to not have her sweet treats. Considering we don’t know what kind of baker my mother has employed, we should make sure you have all the delightful options that you want.”
She was irritated with him, but she was often irritated with him, and decided that rather than getting upset, she would give him this. “Thank you.”
“I actually get a thanks?”
“You don’t want one?”
He raised his hands briefly. “Oh, I most definitely do. It’s just that I wasn’t expecting that you would actually give me any.”
They were quiet for a while as they walked through the city, passing by the children’s library where Sophie had spent so much time when she had last been in the city.
“We’ll find what happened to him,” Nevarn said.
“I know,” Sophie said.
“And I’m sure he’ll be fine.”
She bit back the first retort that came to mind, wanting to tell him that he couldn’t know, that they couldn’t know whether Lan would be safe. They had dealt with their own dangers in their journey, so it was entirely possible that Lan would deal with his own. Then again, Lan was just as capable. In some ways, he might be even more capable than her. He might not have full control over his magic—and Sophie didn’t even know if there ever would be a time when he would have full control over his magic—but that didn’t mean he wasn’t skilled and didn’t have a way of defending himself. He was a Taihg soldier, after all, and that alone meant he didn’t have to fear the same things the average person would have to fear while journeying.
