Legacy of Light

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

  Copyright © 2021 by Matthew Ward

  Excerpt from The Shadow of the Gods copyright © 2021 by John Gwynne

  Cover design by Charlotte Stroomer – LBBG

  Cover illustration by Larry Rostant

  Map by Viv Mullett, The Flying Fish Studios, based on an original illustration by Matthew Ward

  Author photograph by Photo Nottingham

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  First Edition: August 2021

  Simultaneously published in Great Britain by Orbit

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  Library of Congress Control Number: 2021933369

  ISBNs: 978-0-316-45794-1 (trade paperback), 978-0-316-45795-8 (ebook)

  E3-20210713-JV-NF-ORI

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Map

  Dramatis Personae

  One Year Ago: Jeradas, 24th Day of Witherhold

  Maladas, 26th Day of Wanetithe One

  Tzadas, 27th Day of Wanetithe Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Lunandas, 28th Day of Wanetithe: Midwintertide Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Endas, 4th Day of Dawntithe Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Maladas, 5th Day of Dawntithe Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Tzadas, 6th Day of Dawntithe Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Lunandas, 7th Day of Dawntithe Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Astridas, 9th Day of Dawntithe Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Jeradas, 10th Day of Dawntithe Forty-Six

  Forty-Seven

  Maladas, 11th Day of Dawntithe Forty-Eight

  Forty-Nine

  Fifty

  Fifty-One

  Tzadas, 12th Day of Dawntithe Fifty-Two

  Fifty-Three

  Lumendas, 14th Day of Dawntithe Fifty-Four

  Astridas, 15th Day of Dawntithe Fifty-Five

  Fifty-Six

  Jeradas, 16th Day of Dawntithe Fifty-Seven

  Fifty-Eight

  Maladas, 17th Day of Dawntithe Fifty-Nine

  Sixty

  Tzadas, 18th Day of Dawntithe Sixty-One

  Sixty-Two

  Lunandas, 19th Day of Dawntithe Sixty-Three

  Sixty-Four

  Sixty-Five

  Sixty-Six

  Sixty-Seven

  Sixty-Eight

  Jeradas, 23rd Day of Dawntithe Sixty-Nine

  Acknowledgements

  Discover More

  Extras Meet the Author

  A Preview of The Shadow of the Gods

  Also by Matthew Ward

  Praise for the Legacy Trilogy

  For you, the reader, without whom no story worth telling would ever be remembered.

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  Dramatis Personae

  IN THE CITY OF TRESSIA

  Viktor Droshna

  Lord Protector of the Tressian Republic

  Josiri Trelan

  Head of the Constabulary

  Altiris Czaron

  Lieutenant of the Stonecrest Hearthguard; a Phoenix

  Anastacia Psanneque

  Definitely not Lady Trelan

  Sidara Reveque

  Adopted daughter of Josiri and Anastacia

  Constans Droshna

  Adopted son of Viktor Droshna, brother to Sidara Reveque

  Stantin Izack

  Lord Marshal of the Tressian Army

  Vladama Kurkas

  Steward to the Trelan household

  Eldor Shalamoh

  Scholar of Antiquity

  Hawkin Darrow

  Scoundrel

  Elzar Ilnarov

  Tressian High Proctor; Master of the foundry

  Tzila

  Viktor Droshna’s seneschal and bodyguard

  Konor Zarn

  Peddler of wares and influence

  Kasvin

  A lost soul, awash on dark tides

  Viara Boronav

  Hearthguard at Stonecrest; a Phoenix

  Adbert Brass

  Hearthguard at Stonecrest; a Phoenix

  Amella Jaridav

  Hearthguard at Stonecrest; a Phoenix

  IN THE CONTESTED LANDS

  Sevaka Orova

  Governor of the Marcher Lands

  Roslava Orova

  Repentant warrior

  Zephan Tanor

  Knight of Essamere

  Silda Drenn

  Pardoned Wolf’s-head

  IN THE HADARI EMPIRE

  Melanna Saranal

  Dotha Rhaled, Empress of the Hadari

  Aeldran Andwar

  Prince of Icansae, Regent of Rhaled

  Kaila Saranal

  Daughter to Melanna and Aeldran

  Apara Rann

  Repentant rogue

  Cardivan Tirane

  King of Silsaria

  Thirava Tirane

  Prince of Silsaria, Regent of Redsigor

  Tavar Rasha

  Jasaldar of the Rhalesh Royal Guard

  Tesni Rhanaja

  Immortal of the Rhalesh Royal Guard

  Haldrane

  Spymaster; Head of the Emperor’s icularis

  Elim Jorcari

  Retired veteran, Master of Blackwind Lodge

  Sera

  Lunassera; a devoted servant of Ashana

  Aelia Andwaral

  Dotha Icansae, sister to Aeldran Andwar

  ELSEWHERE

  Arlanne Keldrov

  Governor of the Southshires

  DIVINITIES

  Lumestra

  Tressian Goddess of the Sun, known as Astarra in the Hadari Empire

  Ashana

 
; Hadari Goddess of the Moon, known as Lunastra in Tressia

  The Raven

  The God of the Dead, Keeper of Otherworld

  Jack o’ Fellhallow

  God of the Living Lands

  The Huntsman

  Ashana’s herald

  GONE, BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

  Malatriant

  Tyrant Queen of Old, known as Sceadotha in the Hadari Empire

  Kai Saran

  Former Hadari Emperor, father of Melanna Saranal

  Alfric Saran

  Former Hadari Emperor, great-great-grandfather of Melanna Saranal

  Hadon Akadra

  Former Councillor, Viktor Droshna’s father

  Calenne Trelan

  Sister to Josiri Trelan

  Calenne Akadra

  Imperfect mirror of Calenne Trelan, born of the Dark

  One Year Ago

  Jeradas, 24th Day of Witherhold

  There are those who blame the gods for our failings, but pride was ever the cause.

  from Eldor Shalamoh’s “Historica”

  The horsemen came at dusk, as they had the day before, and the day before that. Dark shapes hunched against Wintertide’s cold night, spears held high. Flickering blue-white ghostfires set to ward against weeping, unhallowed things did little to cheat the mist. The world beyond felt distant. Unreachable.

  And perhaps it was. Forbidden Places brushed the face of the divine, and none were more forbidden than this. Darkmere, ruined capital of Malatriant, the Tyrant Queen.

  Though the gate was long gone to decay and sickly black ivy clung between the parapet’s rotten teeth, the boundary wall was thick, and the gateway narrow. A dozen men could have held it. Rosa Orova had nearly as many Knights Essamere to hand, hawks glinting gold on hunter’s green shields. And on the walls, the Drazina knights of Viktor Droshna’s personal guard, black tabards drawn tight over banded leather and chamfered plate, the old Akadra swan repurposed. Named for the folk heroes of the old kingdom, they offered a rare glimpse of poetry in the Lord Protector’s sombre soul. Just as his taking of the Droshna name – one born of Hadari fears, and now wielded as a weapon against them – spoke to old wounds gone unhealed.

  A slow exhalation marked the end of Viktor’s contemplation. He stood a head taller than Rosa, a brooding mountain, dark-haired and dark-eyed. The swirling sea-gold flames etched into his armour shifted as he folded his arms.

  “How many today?”

  “Maybe fifty. Why? Are you tempted to surrender?”

  “To a mere fifty?” Viktor’s mouth twitched, pulling at the old scar on his cheek. “Time was, you’d have settled that many alone.”

  Rosa suppressed a shiver. Five years, she’d tried to leave that day behind. The day she’d become something more than human, and also far less. That cursed woman belonged to history.

  Five years ago, Viktor would have considered it poor taste to remind a friend of her failings. But neither of them were who they’d been. She was better. Not redeemed, exactly. You moved forward as best you could and hoped fresh deeds counted more than the stale. Rosa welcomed the moments of stiffness that presaged middle age. Ephemeral humanity wrested from eternity’s clutch, though not without price. Ash-white hair was only part of it.

  Yes, she was better. Viktor?

  Viktor, Rosa worried about.

  “They don’t really want any part of this miserable place,” she said. “But they can’t look the other way with the mighty Lord Protector traipsing their territory. Pride paves strange roads.”

  He scowled away the title’s formality. The air crackled with frost. It did that a lot around Viktor, lately. The shadow in his soul rising with his temper.

  The northern reaches of the Greyridge Mountains weren’t Hadari territory. Not by right. Like the rest of the Eastshires, they chafed beneath the white stag of Silsaria, one of the Empire’s many kingdoms. Redsigor, the Hadari named it. Contested Lands whose conquest Viktor had sworn to undo. A rare failure in a life thick with success.

  Pride paved strange roads.

  Friendship paved stranger ones. Rosa had gladly followed Viktor to Darkmere, though Sevaka hadn’t approved. She’d not said as much to Rosa. Not aloud. But five years of marriage eroded a wife’s secrets as surely as the wind. Anything to escape the Essamere chapterhouse; the empty chairs and faded escutcheons where once song and mirth had hammered out. Roslava Orova, who’d so nearly been the Queen of the Dead, had instead become a mistress of ghosts in an ailing fortress.

  There were others. Memoralia stones raised in every village stood stark reminder of empty houses, silent fields and borders desperate for defenders the Republic no longer possessed. Viktor had promised the expedition to Darkmere might change everything. Of the few truths Rosa yet clung to, one outweighed all: if Viktor promised a thing could be done, it would be done.

  “We’ve come a long way to be here,” she said. “Shame if it were all for nothing.”

  “My thoughts also,” Viktor replied.

  Three riders broke ranks in a muffled clatter of hooves. Steeds’ snorting breaths fed the mists. Golden scale shone as they advanced beneath the city’s wind-blasted walls and empty windows. Two Immortals trotted at the fore. One held a furled rust-coloured banner aloft. A naked blade, inverted in the tradition of parley, gleamed in the hand of the second.

  The third rider was a slender man of Rosa’s age, his armour dotted with glittering black gemstones. Where the Immortals wore close-fitting helms, he was bare-headed, his thin, olive-toned features twisted in distaste. Prince Thirava Tirane, Regent of Redsigor, seldom stirred beyond the comforts and walls of Haldravord. If he’d come so far south…? Well, the estimate of fifty Hadari looked smaller and smaller all the time.

  “They want to talk,” said Viktor.

  “Nice for them,” Rosa replied.

  “I could kill him.” Once, the words would have been a joke, the unthinkable breach of honour framed by grim smile. But after years of tending the Republic’s wounds, Viktor had little mirth to spare, and especially not for the Hadari. Nor, were she honest, did Rosa.

  “You do that, could be we’ll none of us get out of here alive.”

  “Then we’d better listen to what he has to say.”

  Viktor clapped Rosa on the back, hitched his claymore’s scabbard higher on his shoulders and strode to meet the riders.

  “You choose a strange place to partake the glory of Redsigor, Lord Droshna.” Thirava spoke the Tressian low-tongue with an easterner’s harsh accent, and measured politeness. The legend of Viktor Droshna had spread faster in the Empire than in the Republic. Tales of the dead raised, and impossible victory seized while gods warred. “Tell me, what fate would befall me, had I trespassed your land?”

  Icy air prickled Rosa’s lungs.

  “That would depend on your reason,” said Viktor.

  Thirava narrowed his eyes. “And what is your reason, Lord Droshna?”

  “My business is my own.”

  “In Redsigor, there is no business that is not also mine.” Thirava’s words hung heavy with the resentment of a man whose father clung to life and throne a little too resolutely. The captured Eastshires would never be the equal of the sprawling Silsarian heartlands. A prince in exile remained an exile, whatever titles he claimed and however many spears he commanded. “If you depart at once, you may live.”

  “And if we stay?” asked Rosa.

  “Then you will find my hospitality equal to the task.” Thirava’s tone cooled to threat. “I lost kin at Govanna. I’ve not forgotten the dead.”

  Viktor’s breath frosted the air. The ruins’ shadows crept closer, black rivulets trickling over stone. The banner bearer flinched, then stared stoically ahead.

  “Nor I,” said Viktor.

  Offering a tight nod, Thirava hauled his horse about and rode away, companions close behind, until the mist swallowed all.

  “I doubt we’ll live out the moonrise.” Rosa shook her head. “I’m not sure why he bothered to talk
at all.”

  Viktor grunted. “To show he’s not afraid. I do have a reputation.”

  A small smile accompanied the words, an old friend glimpsed beneath the Lord Protector’s dour mantle. The air lost its chill, the encroaching shadows receding as Viktor’s mood improved. Then smile and friend were gone and the Lord Protector returned, like a helm’s visor lowered for battle.

  “Maybe you should have killed him,” said Rosa.

  “Maybe.”

  Rosa followed him back to the gateway, running the tally of blades. Thirava likely had hundreds. She’d thirty knights at the gate that protected the now-ruined inner city. Another twenty deeper in. Rosa knew herself equal to three or four. Viktor was worth at least a dozen – more, with his shadow loosed.

  Not enough. But when was it ever?

  Drazina knights stiffened to attention as they passed beneath the gateway.

  “Captain Jard? Have everyone fall back to the temple.” Viktor beckoned to his left. “Constans?”

  The dark-haired boy emerged from a patch of shadow. “Father?”

  Rosa stilled a twitch. Constans Reveque had a knack for moving unnoticed, a skill learnt while breaking parental curfew. Like Viktor – like all Drazina – he wore the black surcoat and silver swan of the vanished Akadra family, though he favoured frontiersman’s dark leathers over steel plate.