The Chronicles of Articia; Children of the Dead. K.D. Enos

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СКАЧАТЬ commemorated that occasion. It was the first sword the dwarves had ever created to kill another dwarf, thus its name of Silver Bane.

      Ghost Touch, Dominic's sword, had an unusual history. It was the first dwarven sword given to a royal family member not forged specifically for royal use. One of the dwarven weapon masters named Garn had forged the sword as a way to commune with the dead. He had lost his beloved daughter in an accident in the silver mines and was so distraught that he neglected all else to forge the sword so he could speak to her again. He did not succeed in getting the magic to commune but managed to forge a sword that drew energy out of those it struck and transferred that energy back into the wielder, making him stronger. In his despair for his failure to forge a sword to commune with the dead, Garn neglected his other children. Because of this, his remaining children had to fend for themselves.

      One early summer day one of those children, Grenden, encountered danger while returning from foraging in the forest. A mountain bear attacked this child of Garn and as he tried to flee the beast, he became trapped in a gorge. High Prince Hilgar, son of Eric the Gold, was out hunting and came upon the distressed dwarf. The prince fought the mountain bear off with his sword, rescued the son of Garn, and escorted the boy to his home. When Grenden returned, Garn was so troubled over the possibility of losing another child that he snapped out of his grief and recommitted himself to taking care of the remaining members of his family. To show gratitude, he gave Hilgar Ghost Touch as a gift.

      Last Kiss was a special sword because it was the only sword forged for and specifically wielded by a warrior queen. In the northern reaches, beyond the kingdom of Mildanar was a band of nomads. They lived a hard life. In the nomadic society, women as well as men fought and trained out of necessity. Arianna was one of the strongest willed of the women of her tribe. In the winter of her fifteenth year, she had a vision dream from the goddess Adara that she was to journey east to the land of the dwarves to receive a gift. On this journey, she met and fell in love with Prince E'ward, son of King Telnard of the Articia territories. The two continued to the dwarven lands only to find the dwarves in battle with the goblins of Coal Mountain. Arianna could not resist participating in the battle and Prince E'ward joined the fray, not willing to let the remarkable warrior woman, of whom he had grown fond, fight alone.

      In gratitude to this remarkable pair, the dwarves forged two swords. Last Kiss, the first sword forged specifically for a woman, and First Touch, the sword that King Henry now wields. When the pair returned to the territory of Articia, they raised quite the stir. Young girls and women came out of their dwellings to witness the sword-bearing warrior woman whose reputation had preceded her into the kingdom. Prince E'ward and Arianna were married soon after and none in court or in the entire kingdom dared to question her breaking the tradition against women carrying weapons. To this day, they do not know if the gift the goddess spoke to Arianna was the sword or Prince E'ward.

      King Henry rubbed his hands, which were now a little numb from handling Last Kiss, and turned to his youngest children. Alec and Ava looked at each other with trepidation. "Um, I have been training with Alec for a couple of years now" Ava stated.

      Dominic and Tristan broke into laughter as they saw the look on the faces of their younger brother and sister. The queen smiled at both of them and turned to the King "I will be heading down to the infirmary now to see if I can help the healers comfort and heal some of our brave warriors who were wounded in the fray."

      The king nodded to his aide, who stood and called out to the elite guard to provide an escort for the queen. He then looked over at his younger children. "Why do you two look surprised? Did you really think anything would happen in my castle that I did not know about?"

      Ava looked at her brother and started to smile. "So you are not mad that I broke tradition and that I am training in the martial arts?"

      The king looked at her and said, "Since you were two years old, we all knew you would have it no other way. With your stubbornness and your athleticism, many of the court commented on how much you resembled your ancestor, Queen Arianna, in both spirit and attitude. But I knew you were destined to be a warrior princess when you, as a toddler, sneaked behind me into the sword chamber and Last Kiss lit up like faerie fire."

      The king then turned to his aide. "We have to get back to our duty and secure the castle. We still have many frightened guests in the hall below that we need to attend. Arrange for escorts so they may all return to the safety of their quarters." As he headed to the door of Ava and Alec's rooms, the king stated, "I think under the current circumstances we should arrange for the nobles to return to their respective estates until we finish investigating the culprit of tonight's action."

      The aide called out to the hallway to members of the elite guard, "Leave a small contingent to guard the royal quarters. The rest of you come with me to secure the rest of the castle and grounds."

      The king turned back to the twins, "Later we will have a discussion about the carnage in this room." The king moved swiftly down the hall with his elite guard to the lower sections of the castle, as two stewards came in to remove the body of the assassin. Once the body was removed, the royal chambermaids arrived to clean the "carnage" that the twins had wrought in their residence.

      "Ava, let's retire to our own rooms while this area is cleaned. Mother has ordered me to rest and recover from my wound. By the way, I really liked that tapestry you destroyed. I hope you plan to get me a new one on our birthday." He smiled back to her as he walked toward his room.

      Ava entered her private bedroom and sat on her bed. She again reflected on the skirmish that had just occurred. She had not realized how much it would bother her to take a life, even though it was necessary in some situations, and this was one of them. The words of Last Kiss entered her thoughts again.

      "The time will come when we will draw our first drink of

      blood, and that will be the day of sorrows."

      Ava thought of the men she had sent to the abyss.

      Chapter 5

      History Class

      After one particularly tough training session with the weapon master, Alec was rather sore and did not envy that his sister still had to attend additional classes. After Ava cleaned up, she was going to be heading right up to Brendan's tower with Tristan to train in the magical arts. "Are you sure you have enough energy left to go to class today, Ava?" he asked.

      "I am actually very excited about class today, Alec. We are not specifically learning anything about the magical arts today. We are talking about the history of magic and where it began," Ava exclaimed, "I can't wait to get started!"

      "You are obsessed, Ava," Alec retorted. Ava just smiled shrugged she ran off to her room to clean up for class.

      …

      Dominic and Tristan ran into Ava at the bottom of the tower stairs. "Dom, are you coming to class today?" Ava asked.

      "Yes, father suggested that it was important for the future king of Articia to understand its history," Dominic responded as he rolled his eyes, "especially after the events of this year's festival. Anyways, I have never been in Brendan's tower before and I am curious."

      "Hey, wait for me!" Alec called. Ava looked back and smiled. "I thought you hated classes, Alec."

      Alec caught his breath and responded, "Well, you made it sound so interesting, and with Dom and Tris here, I didn't have anything else to do for the next couple of hours."

      They climbed up the tower stairs into the main chamber of Brendan's study. The round room had four windows СКАЧАТЬ