Curse to the Kingdom, a novelette set in the world of my Heir to the Throne Trilogy, is out now! It’s free to download exclusively at Apple Books, B&N Nook Store, and Kobo!
The cover, blurb, and the first three chapters of this story are below. If you check it out, I hope you enjoy it—it’s the first time I’m posting an excerpt of any of my books here and it might be the first time a lot of you are reading ‘my fiction’ for a change. A little nervous about what you’ll think...
“Some rituals really shouldn’t be practiced anymore, especially if someone could die by the end of it.”
Two extraordinary ceremonies are about to change 18-year-old Cyvishi’s life forever in this novelette set in the epic fantasy world of the Heir to the Throne Trilogy.
Luckily, Cyvishi has a plan, one she will execute if the Kingdom’s customs and traditions force her into a life-or-death situation.
“I will not suffer the same tragic demise of Queens from centuries past.”
Curse to the Kingdom gives fans an extra glimpse of the fantasy world of the Heir to the Throne Trilogy—and is an excellent introduction for readers that have yet to discover this royalty fantasy series. This story can be read as a standalone at any point in the series—no spoilers for the main trilogy!
Read the first three chapters now:
Some rituals really shouldn’t be practiced anymore, especially if someone could die by the end of it. The thought was disturbing enough that her arrow missed the bullseye by an inch. Cyvishi Deyati nocked another arrow in her bow and sent it soaring towards the same target. Bullseye. She plucked another arrow from her quiver and paused, sighed. Her heart just wasn’t in it today.
Archery was the Island’s favourite pastime, the skill that most people in Walsdan excelled at—it was in their blood. Blood. Would she bleed—
Stop. She wouldn’t die tonight, but why should she partake in this savage ritual, anyway? I’m not even betrothed to a King! This trial was for the women that got engaged to the man sitting on the Throne. Cyvishi’s betrothed wasn’t even sitting on King Deklin’s Council. Norhan just happens to be His Majesty’s most beloved friend.
That’s why Cyvishi’s family had been so delighted that she and Norhan, son of Lord Rothson, had stumbled upon each other in the Finding ceremony a couple of weeks ago. He was a much better suit for her than they’d been aiming for. All her life, she’d known that her family were looking to get her married to the son of some Lord or Duke, but they couldn’t have dreamt that someone so close to the King would choose her.
If the King of Walsdan had taken a liking to Cyvishi... Her parents would have died from happiness, but the dream of a Deyati marrying into the Royal Family was an impossible one. At this present time. But in the future? The Deyatis would try to move towards that reality, one generation at a time. That was the the final rung on the social ladder they were climbing.
In fact, they would have achieved their ultimate goal by now if their ancestors weren’t immigrants. Well, ancestor. Apparently, the Deyati that had emigrated to Walsdan all those years ago had been a young woman from the neighbouring Kingdom of Roshdan—and she’d come here with nothing more than the clothes on her back.
Clothes. Cyvishi should go home and start getting ready for the ritual. It would take her at least an hour to get her gaghri looking right. Her parents had probably figured out that she was no longer in her room. It was a miracle that her brother hadn’t turned up—
“Cyv!”
She sighed. Her brother had turned up.
“I’m coming, I’m coming.” She jogged up to the target to retrieve her arrows.
Though, she’d graduated from this archery school earlier this year, the teachers let her come and practice here whenever she liked. The trees lining the training ground gave the right amount of cover from the wind and the targets were already set up in the lush green field. She simply had to bring her bow and arrows. This was one of the best institutions in the Kingdom’s history and it had always felt like home.
“Mother and Father are ready to kill you.” Ryat shook his head at her when she walked up to him at the edge of the training ground.
He was three years younger than her, but he’d grown so tall this past year that he looked much older than Cyvishi. By the time winter hit, he’d probably be twice her height. A fifteen-year-old has no right to be that tall. He was in his winter cloak, his golden hair hidden under its hood. Ryat held up her jacket for her—she’d discarded it when she’d started training.
Though autumn had only just arrived—the Harvest Festival a fortnight ago had marked its beginning—it was getting rather chilly. Still, Walsdan’s weather was nowhere near as cold as some of the other Islands in the north. People said that Roshdan, which was a fortnight’s sail north from Walsdan, had only two seasons: Winter and summer. And apparently, the summers there were very short—and not very hot, either.
Thankfully, Walsdan enjoyed decent heatwaves in the hearts of its summers. Temperature-wise, there were clear distinctions between the four seasons, too. This year’s hot season had been one of the best of Cyvishi’s life.
She sighed inwardly. Marriage would mean that she couldn’t enjoy summers in the same way again.
Marriage would mean that she’d never get to explore the seas that surrounded the Kingdom—that surrounded all the Island Kingdoms of the world. She would never see what life was like in other lands...
Why had she let herself dream of sailing around the world? Sailing south? To Islands like Majdan and Adgar, where life was believed to be so different from the land where she’d grown up...
As they left the academy behind them, Ryat murmured, “I was hoping I wouldn’t find you there.”
“What? Why?”
“I was hoping—when we realised that you’d snuck out of your window—I was thinking that maybe you’d run away...” He seemed serious.
“Why would you think that, Ry?” She stopped walking and took hold of his elbow to stop him. “Why would you want that?”
Swallowing painfully, he whispered, “I don’t want you to die tonight.”
She sucked in a ragged breath. “I won’t.” She was pretty sure she’d survive tonight’s trial.
“You really don’t love anyone?” he asked, suddenly sounding like the older sibling.
Cyvishi frowned. “Ry...”
“Apart from us. You really don’t love anyone?”
“I really don’t.”
Yvala really loved him. With all that she was. She had loved Alek her entire life, but only in the last couple of years had she realised just how much. And in how many ways. It took her breath away whenever he told her that he felt the same way.
As she lay in the forbidden waters of Eena’s Lake, soaking up the last of the afternoon sunshine, Alek told her for the millionth time since their courtship began that he couldn’t wait to marry her.
“Really?” Yvala teased, kicking the water with her bare feet. “Why haven’t you asked my father for my hand, then?”
Of course, he replied with, “You ask only for things that aren’t already yours.”
He was perched on a large boulder at the edge of the Lake, his clothes still wet from when they’d... played in the water earlier. His shadow on her body felt like a cool, protective blanket.
“You and I, we’re already one, Yva.” He jumped into the Lake, splashing water all over her. She was already wet, so it didn’t matter. “Besides, we’ve already promised ourselves to each other,” he whispered as he lay down on top of her. His damp curls tickled her face. “With the Sea Goddess as our witness.”
Yes, Eena has witnessed the many things we’ve done and said to each other in her Lake. Their mouths connected and Yvala forgot where she was for several seconds.
The water in this part of the Lake was shallow, smooth rocks and boulders allowing them to lie half-submerged in the water. Use as a bed...
At last year’s Harvest Festival, a cleric had somehow realised that the holy water had been dirtied—Yvala and Alek had started coming here from the year before. Suspecting that it was children, the cleric had called for a change in the name of this most sacred landmark, from Eena’s Lake to Goddess’s Lake.
The term Goddess would supposedly instil more fear in people’s hearts than the Sea Goddess’s name itself.
Yvala and Alek harboured fear and respect for Eena, for this place, but they couldn’t be alone together anywhere else. Courtships were forbidden. Even the Royal Family were prohibited from having love affairs, both before and after marriage.
If you liked someone, you couldn’t do anything with them until you married them.
If you couldn’t marry them, and you still wanted to spend time with them, you had to be very careful when you snuck around together.
Eena’s Lake was the perfect place for them to meet. It only opened to the public once a year—on the day of the Harvest Festival, after sunset. This year’s gathering was just a few hours away. We have to leave soon. The clerics would arrive early to clean the nearby Worship House and prepare it for tonight’s ceremonies.
“And tonight,” Alek said as he broke away from her lips, “when we find each other during the—”
“If we find each other.” They hadn’t found each in the last two Finding ceremonies.
“We will,” Alek insisted.
She couldn’t see the gold flecks in his brown eyes right now, but she could imagine how they would have sparkled if his back wasn’t to the sunshine.
“Because this year will be our third Finding ceremony,” he went on. “The third year that we made our secret offerings to the Sea Goddess. And the third year of us confessing our love to one another. It will be third time lucky. When Eena blesses our love tonight, no one can stop us from getting married.”
Indeed, it was the only way that her family would allow her to marry him—if they found each other during tonight’s ceremony. Stupid really, considering how much her parents liked Alek. He just wasn’t from the right family.
Yvala’s father wasn’t hoping for her to marry a Prince or a nobleman, but as the Island’s foremost archer, running the best archery academy in Walsdan, he had a reputation to think about when he married off his eldest daughter.
“What will you do if the Goddess doesn’t bring us together tonight?” she asked as she rolled on top of him, wanting another breathless kiss. Probably the last one before they had to sneak out of the park.
Now, she marvelled at those golden streaks in his eyes as they gleamed in the light. So beautiful... Her brown eyes were simple in comparison, so dark they were almost black. Her hair was also black, but because she worked outside on a daily basis, helping her father’s students practice archery, the sun had browned it somewhat.
“Then, I will run away with you,” Alek told her quite seriously. “I don’t want to wait another day to be able to call you mine.”
Her heart thudded at the need in his voice, the want. It mirrored her own desires.
Yes, they’d been doing a lot of things with each other—Forgive us Eena, for sullying your Lake—but the ultimate act of love was something they’d vowed to save for their wedding night.
“Will you come away with me?” he asked her, desperation in his voice, longing in his stunning eyes. “With the Sea Goddess as your witness, promise me Yva, that you will come with me.”
“With the Sea Goddess as my witness, I promise you Alek, that I will.”
The gaghri was in the most hideous colour. In Cyvishi’s opinion. Most girls her age liked this colour; maybe she’d even liked it as a child. Tonight, she couldn’t help wrinkle her nose at it in distaste. It’s so bright. Looking at it hurt her eyes.
“Pink really is the wrong colour for you, Cyv,” Ryat chuckled.
They were in their front room, waiting for the carriage that would take them to Goddess’s Green, the park through which ran Goddess’s Lake. It was nearly time for her trial...
“Shh,” rebuked their mother, “it’s traditional to wear pink for the trials.” She smoothed her heavily embellished kurta suit—a knee-length tunic with matching flared trousers.
Despite the fanciness of her mother’s dark-blue outfit, Cyvishi wished she was wearing that instead—it’s what women wore to balls and family gatherings these days. The more lavish the event, the more beads and jewels were sown onto the kurta suits. The simplest version of the suit was what women wore on a daily basis.
“Gaghris are traditional for a Queen-to-be,” Cyvishi murmured to her mother. “I’m not engaged to a King.”
“Norhan is better looking than the King,” her mother pointed out. True. “He’s the dark to your light.”
“Hmm.”
In terms of looks, Norhan really was the opposite of her—dark eyes and hair, tall and wide—but he’d insisted that he was an excellent archer like her. “We have that in common,” he’d murmured during the Finding ceremony a fortnight ago. He seemed straightforward, innocent. He had to be; Lord Rothson was a very strict, traditional man.
In that regard, Cyvishi was probably the dark to his light.
“Besides, you look nice in pink—it makes your blue eyes brighter,” her mother said, admiring the gaghri and not her eldest daughter.
Cyvishi had to allow that. The gold embroidery on her outfit was very pretty, matching her gold-blonde hair perfectly. Gaghris had gone out of fashion years ago, though. The only people that wore them now were the women that got betrothed to a King of Walsdan. And only on the day of their trials.
She ran her hands over the sparkly beads and gems on the full-length skirt of her gaghri, careful not to scratch her skin on the sharp edges of the crystals. She then made sure that her stomach was hidden behind the matching shawl. It was pinned to the shoulder of her blouse and draped across her front like a curtain.
The sleeveless pink blouse was short and skimpy to say the least, tight and revealing. This was the most provocative thing she’d ever worn!
Why had a Queen from centuries ago donned such an outfit for her first Harvest Festival as Queen? People were more conservative back then. No, that Queen wasn’t responsible for Cyvishi’s current appearance; the clerics were. They insisted that the girls on trial should pay homage to the Queen that Walsdan would never forget.
End of Preview. I hope you enjoyed it.
To continue reading straightaway, download the full novelette for free from Apple Books, B&N Nook Store, or Kobo!
I talk about the inspiration behind this story in this blog post, so check it out if you’re interested :)
