Of Plains and Fire: An Epic Fantasy Adventure (Selah Book 2), page 1
Of Plains and Fire
Ella Walker Henderson
Copyright © September 2022 Ella Walker Henderson
All rights reserved
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Cover design and map by: Wonderburg Creations
for my mom, who started my love of books
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
For the Song of the Wind Qinnowr
Land of Legends Map
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
CHAPTER FIFTY
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
CHAPTER SIXTY
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
CHAPTER SEVENTY
Of Ice and Storms
Before the Wind
Find Me Here
About The Author
For the Song of the Wind Qinnowr
After the metal stronger than steel,
The bright and the shadow one
Set in motion the rise and fall of nations.
The stars and wind will be your guide.
By day and by night,
They will lead you to the keys.
After the song of wind and the map of darkness,
Gather the water that sheds
And the fire that does not burn.
With these, you will see the dark.
To open the door to the room that has none,
Find the berries that will not die,
The gold that sings,
And the glass that will not wet.
All for the wind lyre inside.
The Qinnowr’s song brings greater riches than gold
From keeper to keeper this key will pass until the shadow one comes to claim it.
This is the age when the song will prosper,
The age of fruitfulness in the land.
The shadow and bright one together bearing peace once more.
Land of Legends Map
CHAPTER ONE
The rough stone dug into Selah’s back. A scurry of feet scratched across the floor. Her shoulder blades ached from hours in the same position, but the ledge and its aches were better than rats across her feet.
Rusted hinges wailed in echo down the corridor of cells. Selah drew her head up as torchlight streamed new shadows through the bars.
The outline of Gavin’s features gazed from the cell across. “Don’t get your hopes up. Who would come to your defense?”
Footsteps sounded down the corridor. “As likely for me as for a traitor,” Selah said.
Gavin’s earlier words haunted her. He had said he would rot in his cell before he betrayed a brother, and something in the words, in his tone, had rung true. As untrustworthy and biased as she had found him, he may not be the traitor she had assumed. If that was true, then his other words were likely true as well. He knew who the traitor was.
“That’s not how it works,” Gavin said. “My family has been trusted for generations. But everyone will distrust you on sight. Not even William can help you.”
A dungeon guard approached Gavin’s cell and found a key on a large ring. He slid the key into the lock of the cell’s grate. “Lord William sent orders for your release, Sir Gavin.”
William’s orders. After all they had gone through, she was sure the orders would extend to her.
Gavin’s lips tilted into a smirk at Selah as the door swung open. “Thank you, Ronan.”
The guard stepped back. “Yes, sir. Sorry for the terrible business at all. I saw you in the fighting and your defense of the king. Lord William said his majesty sends his apologies.”
The guard left Gavin’s door ajar and walked away from Selah’s cell without a word. The silence of her pride did not last. “Has Lord William sent any message?”
The guard drew back as if surprised she would address him, then frowned as he made out her form in the shadows of the bars. He heightened the torch and peered at her. His voice was rough. “Likely they’ve forgotten you. Complain to the morning guard if you like, but it won’t do you any good.”
Gavin flashed her a smile. “If you fall asleep, don’t let the rats nibble your fingers.”
The giant creaking door echoed again. The guard laughed as the door slammed. Only silence followed.
Darkness cloaked her once more. Selah covered her face with her hands. The hour would be late. Midnight at least. The guard could have lied. William would say something, an apology that she must hold tight until daybreak. He wouldn’t only send word to Gavin from the king. One of the Eleven would come for her. If not William, then Derric or Fenmore. Unless Fenmore’s parting promise to help her had been empty words.
If she was released, she doubted the king would readily send her after the Mirandans. More likely, if she left, she would be accused of joining their side. And William wouldn’t follow without the king’s permission.
In the morning, if nothing had changed, she would be all too tempted to take matters into her own hands and attack whatever fool guard brought her another hard biscuit.
* * *
A brush of matted fur above her ankle woke Selah. She kicked the rat off the shelf and swept around with her foot to ensure no others lingered with her.
The scratching of other rats drew closer, but they did not climb up. She had no way of telling the time, but she guessed it was not yet dawn.
She must have drifted off. The fatigue of battle had finally caught her. Tiredness coated her limbs, but her mind was too alert to fall back asleep.
As she tilted her head, her neck screamed in pain. She dug her fingers hard against the muscles and fought to loosen them. The task of massaging her neck and upper shoulders kept her occupied, bearing up against the cramped pain, as the remaining hours of night slipped away.
Her brain slushed through how she came to this place. For a brief flicker of time, after facing Shule, she had felt reassurance for the strength of an ally. Now it felt as much a liability as ever. Without an ally, she would never have allowed herself to be captured and locked into a dungeon.
She couldn’t sense William anymore, not since he had abandoned her in this dungeon. It was as if their connection had never been. They probably weren’t the bright and shadow ones of legend. There was nothing fabled about a partner who would let her languish overnight in the company of rats.
She should have followed Shule. Then she would have seen whatever map Jessamine had found. It could be the map of the Qinnowr. Selah felt the pulsing fear that she should not wait. If others found the Qinnowr before her, they would use it to control her. The map would be the next important step in finding the Qinnowr, now that she had the myth.
The creak of the doorway broke her numb movements and thoughts. Her hands twitched for knives that weren’t there.
Torchlight moved quickly down the passage. She stood as a voice called out, “Selah!”
From the open door, the cool relief of a light wind brushed her skin. “Derric, tell me you’ve come to get me out of here.”
He stopped in front of the bars, key already heading into the lock. “I came as soon as the king allowed. Forgive me that I even waited that long. You didn’t deserve this.”
She kicked her feet as she walked, wary of the rats. “Many suns of thanks.”
Derric pushed the door open and held it wide for her. “You saved my life yesterday, along with countless men. Without your help, there would not have been a victory.” His gaze snagged on the scurrying rats before he followed her out. “Did they not have the decency to leave a torchlight down here? Or even a guard to monitor?”
She rolled and stretched her neck, glad for the movement of walking, even with the severe tightness of her limbs. “I believe my friends the rats were enough.”
He walked at her side down the passage, then opened the door. “Did you catch any of the guards’ names? They will be punished for their treatment of you.”
The large metal door screeched open one last time then slammed shut behind them as they rose through the stone passage of stairs. “One named Ronan came to release Gavin.”
“William worked hard to get both of you released. He was angry when the king chose to release Gavin ahead of you.”
She paused at the top of the second flight of stairs as Derric drew open the large wooden door. The light blinded her. She steadied herself against the wall as her sight adjusted. A note of reassurance from William could have helped, or sands forbid, a visit to check her state. “Where is William now?”
The dirty blond of his loose curls was hazy in the dawn light from the windowed corridor beyond. “The king ordered that he immediately begin training to replace the members of the Eleven we lost on the journey and in battle. William will host a competition to select four new men in only two weeks’ time.”
“Four?” On the journey, Germaine had died in the desert, Preston on their final push to reach the Alethian army, and Brumley was a later loss of that same night. She hadn’t thought more of the overwhelming grief William must still feel for the loss of a man who had been his closest mentor. She lifted herself from the wall, steady now. “Who was lost in battle?”
They moved together into the corridor as he answered, “Langdon.”
She had met him only briefly.
They turned into a longer corridor with higher ceilings and tapestries along the walls. The echoes of their footfalls were muted with the woodland hill scenes of hunting.
“They will all be hard men to replace,” Derric said, “but the king wants it done quickly, not trusting that whatever has happened with the Mirandans is truly over.”
“The king is not alone in that thought.” Whoever Shule worked for and whatever they were planning, seemed in its early stages yet. The Mirandans were a part of that greater puzzle.
“And the king wants his brother back. He won’t stop until Prince Henric is rescued from the Mirandans.”
Rescued indeed. A more willing captive she had never seen.
A group of guards entered the corridor. Derric matched her silence at their approach. Hands on swords at their waists, they walked in twos. Their heads gave a sketch of a bow to Derric, but the lead man sneered as he looked Selah up and down. Someone else near the middle muttered, “Concubine.”
Derric bristled next to her. Selah stilled him with her hand, then drew back at the touch she had initiated. Casual contact with any man would not help her case.
“Sorry about that,” Derric said as they moved on. “None of these men saw you fight like I did. William will see that the rumors end.”
William’s support in the Alethian army had changed nothing so far. “I doubt he has the power to end gossip, especially gossip about himself.”
“The location of your rooms will help.”
She hadn’t thought of lodging beyond getting out of the dungeon. “My rooms?”
“Of course. That’s where we’re headed now. The king has placed you in the central holdings of the castle. It’s a place where visitors lodge, though not noble visitors.”
They climbed up two levels of stairs to a corridor that matched the one below. The bare echo of the stone gave an emptiness to the chill of the morning air. The doors along the hall were nondescript, bare planks of wood, though the locks and handles were brass.
“You mean a place where noble visitors’ servants lodge?” Selah asked.
Derric stopped outside of the next door marked with a seven and slid a key into the lock. “Actually, no, they lodge in the servants’ quarters. These are where common visitors stay. Like my own family if they ever have the need.”
The door creaked open to a bare room. Nothing cluttered the space. A wood-framed bed lay in the corner with a small dressing table and mirror beside it. A writing desk occupied the far wall, complete with a candle and writing paper with ink for ready use. A door led to a small bathing room with a tap for running water and a large basin.
“I’m impressed at the piping,” Selah said.
Derric followed her but did not step beyond the door. He gave way as she passed back through. “The water works, but it’s not heated. Only the noble rooms have that luxury.”
“Are you given noble rooms though you are common born?”
“My title with the Eleven will always give me and my descendants a place in the nobility. However, my parents, they will never be elevated in station, no matter their close ties to me.”
“It is strange to me. In Sulyan, bloodlines do not matter.”
He glanced through her one small window that faced the open valley and Legare River. Derric was not pretty in the way that Gavin was, but he had a rugged youthfulness that made his face handsome. “Well, here, they are everything.” A furrow formed in the middle of his forehead. “I have more to explain about your status.”
She doubted she would like his words. “Yes?”
“William showed the king the tunnel that led from his majesty’s rooms.”
Selah nodded. William must not have mentioned Shule. If the king knew another Sulyanese warrior had escaped with the Mirandans, she doubted the king would have let her out of the dungeon. William still didn’t know that Shule was her brother. She hadn’t trusted him with that knowledge, not yet. It was one less risk, and she was glad she hadn’t taken it.
Derric glanced back out the window. “The king believed William about Princess Jessamine’s treachery and that Henric is in her power.”
Selah crossed her arms. “And?”
“The king believed William’s story, but he also believes what Gavin said, that you aren’t to be fully trusted, that William’s been taken in by you.” A slight flush crept up Derric’s neck. “The concubine rumors haven’t helped.”
“Is that why I was left to linger in the dungeon?”
“I’m not sure why the king released Gavin before you. It was more likely a fear of upsetting Gavin’s noble family. Gavin’s family didn’t petition the king, but they didn’t have to. They say Gavin fought well yesterday also, that he fought near the king. The other soldiers were shocked that the king had arrested Gavin at all, though I heard he spoke grossly out of turn.”
Selah rolled her shoulders and loosened the cramps in her neck again. “All in all, it does not help William clear my name if the soldiers saw Gavin fight well and no one witnessed anything I accomplished.”
He glanced at her uneasily again. “No.”
“There is more?”
“The short of it is the king has placed you under house arrest.”
She scoffed in surprise, though she should have expected this. “What will that mean?”
“William volunteered to be your guard. You’re never to leave the castle premises, and William or someone he assigns must be by your side at all times.”
Her mouth sagged. “By my side at all times?”
He nodded slowly.
She eyed the key still in the door. “Will you lock me in this room when you leave?”
Derric dipped his head. “No, William fought the king on that. You won’t be under lock and key.”
Selah had no intention of sitting in her room. She wanted William’s information on the Qinnowr. She needed that map. “Where is William right now?”
Hesitation filled Derric’s words. “The royal practice yards.”
She stopped short of giving Derric a direct order. “Will you take me to him?”
“Don’t you need rest?” Derric glanced down. “Should you wash first?”
