The Lost Duke Read online

  Royal Blood Book III

  The Lost Duke

  Kristen Gupton

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

  Copyright © 2015 Kristen Gupton

  All rights reserved.

  Prologue

  Queen Adira Aviatrov sat alone in the courtyard of her palace. The spring weather was pleasant, but it did nothing to help her mood. She held a letter delivered earlier by her top courier, her eyes repeatedly scanning the words written upon it.

  The message was short, consisting of only a single sentence:

  Official sources have confirmed that Keiran Valis Lee Sipesh took control of Tordania in midwinter.

  With the threat of tears bearing down upon her, Adira finally lowered the note gripped in her trembling hands. She spotted her top advisor, Victri Lotain, coming toward her.

  He came to a stop, seeing the expression she wore. When the message had arrived earlier that morning, he’d taken the liberty of reading it before passing it onto the queen.

  “Well, how do you feel about that?” he asked.

  Adira’s green eyes panned up, her age looking advanced beyond her fifty-two years. She leaned back against the bench and drew in a long breath.

  “Horrid. I knew it was inevitable, and I knew that old wretch, Turis Lee, was surely near the end,” she said, giving a shake of her head. “Still, to know it has come to pass, and to think of what my poor sister would have thought about Keiran being what he is…”

  Victri almost smiled and moved to sit beside her. Though older than the queen, his blond hair had never been noticeably touched with gray, making his appearance deceptive of his true age. “But, as you said, inevitable. Now, the question is, what will you do about it? You held off with anything for over twenty years, and now a vampire has claimed control of another country—something your family long ago vowed not to allow.”

  Adira tensed her jaw, not appreciating the advisor’s dig at her previous inaction. Family vows aside, Keiran was her nephew, and she’d never been willing to order his murder. Not because she had any particular sentiments toward him, she’d never met him, but out of respect for her sister, Ilana.

  She flashed a sidelong glare at him through her graying auburn locks. “And I do not intend to allow another vampire to rule, whether it be Keiran or otherwise.”

  “So, what do you propose?” he asked, not shrinking away from her look. “He already is ruling and has been for a few months.”

  “We’ll send an envoy to Tordania and invite Keiran to come and meet his only living relatives. Once he’s here, something can be done,” Adira said.

  His curiosity was piqued. “Such as?”

  The queen stood up and crumpled the note before casting it off to the side. She was a tall woman, and when she spun back around to look at Victri, it was from a position far above him. “I will have several weeks to figure that out before his arrival.”

  Victri felt a small pang of nervousness, but his defiance lingered. He’d manipulated and pushed on the queen countless times over the years to get her to do things she didn’t honestly wish to. This was something he worried about her resolve on, though.

  If Keiran had just been a nameless vampire, he knew Adira would have possessed no qualms about having him hunted and killed. However, he wasn’t just a random stranger, he was a blood relative. While Ilana had been dead for many years, the queen still had a strong bond to her that had kept her from acting against Keiran.

  He decided not to press her on it, knowing he had ample time to help her figure out a course of action or to lead her to one he agreed with.

  If Keiran chose to take up their invitation.

  They’d never had contact with him or with Turis Lee after Ilana had married him. The only communication they’d gotten from Tordania over the years had been from the spies the Alerians had sent into the country at the time of Ilana’s marriage to the previous Tordanian king.

  As such, they didn’t know how inclined the new king would be to come to Aleria. Perhaps he’d be eager to meet his only surviving family, or perhaps he wouldn’t. If he opted not to arrive, they would have to come up with another plan. They would simply have to wait.

  “Very well,” he said, slowly standing up before the much taller woman. “Let’s go inside and organize this envoy. The longer we delay, the stronger he becomes.”

  She gave a small nod, already knowing his last statement was meant to urge her toward action, but she wasn’t willing to rush into anything. Adira was a woman of intelligence, and while she’d allowed Victri to get away with leading her down errant paths in the past, she knew he was getting out of hand.

  Nephew or not, Keiran was a vampire, and he needed to be stopped from spreading his curse.

  Chapter 1

  Father Beezle had spent the better part of the day exhuming the coffin containing Ilana Aviatrov Sipesh. He’d dreaded doing so for the pervious several weeks, and the frozen winter ground had held the task off. Now, the snow was gone, so he’d given word to Corina and Kanan that he’d retrieve the long-hidden queen.

  By early afternoon, he’d placed the coffin containing her body in the small forest chapel at the front of the graveyard, but he’d spent several hours afterward working to disassemble the scaffolding and pulleys he’d used to lift the coffin from the ground.

  With all that done, he’d set about filling the grave in again, so it wouldn’t be obvious a body had been exhumed. He didn’t know the extent of Athan Vercilla’s watch over him, but he thought it best to hide as much evidence as possible.

  Hearing something behind him, he clutched the shaft of the worn shovel he’d been using closer to his chest. His aged eyes strained out into the darkness, struggling to see anything through the falling rain.

  “Who’s there?” he called out in a forced whisper, both curious and afraid.

  If it were Keiran or someone he knew, he supposed they would have announced their presence right away as to not scare him.

  That wasn’t the case, however.

  Out of the darkness emerged a cat-sized creature. It was reptilian in appearance and walked on two legs, sporting leathery wings. It hissed and shook its wings out to its sides, displaying its intent to attack the priest.

  Randall quickly identified it for what it was—a demon.

  While he had no way of knowing where the small monster had come from, he immediately suspected it was a remnant of Peirte’s work. With the demon-summoner now gone, his former minions were loose and trying to survive on their own.

  The rot-tainted ground stirred up during the exhumation had drawn the little beast. Its preferred means for feeding since Peirte’s death had been scavenging. Though there was nothing for the creature to readily eat in the long-abandoned graveyard, its simple brain drove it to challenge the priest for territorial rights.

  Father Beezle straightened up to his full height, though he wasn’t a man of significant physical stature. As the leader of the church, fighting demons was nothing new. Generally, his contact with the beings came in the form of exorcising possessions. He’d rarely seen materialized demons in his lifetime, but this one wasn’t terribly imposing.

  He said a small prayer, preparing to do what needed to be done. He would vanquish the unholy entity before it ever had the chance to grow into something that would present any real risk to the people or animals in the region.

  The small demon took another step closer, winding its body up to lunge and attack.

  With one swift stroke, Randall smashed the demon into the ground with the head of the shovel.

  The tiny demon crumpled with a shrill yelp,
bones crunching beneath the copper blade. When the shovel was pulled away, the destroyed, folded body of the demon lay motionless.

  “Amen.”

  * * *

  Keiran had put in a long day’s work, making what he thought was great progress in getting his country back into shape. The final details of his trade negotiations with the Sadoris had been approved, giving him both the resources and capital to spur his nation’s long-dormant steel production back into gear. Only one foundry out of the eight in Tordania was still operational, but they were poised to begin exports to other countries within the year.

  Though he had been hard at work for nearly fourteen hours, he got up and moved from the throne room with a good deal of energy. Earlier, Corina and Kanan had come to tell him it was time for him to finally learn about his mother.

  While Corina had wanted to tell him a few months prior, there had been circumstances holding her and Kanan back. Though they didn’t disclose to Keiran what that complication had been, it had finally been dealt with.

  He jogged through the castle, looking for Corina. He found her near the exit to the courtyard, standing with her hands clasped together.

  She looked up at him with nervous eyes, her voice quiet. “Are you ready?”

  Keiran gave an eager nod but knit his brows. “Aye, of course I am. This is long overdue. Are you still worried about Athan finding out about this? You’re nervous.”

  The old woman gave a nod and turned toward the door. “Let’s just go and try to keep our minds blank for the moment, shall we? Remember what Kanan and I have told you about blocking out single thoughts from the view of those who can pry into your mind?”

  The vampire nodded. Both Corina and Kanan had taken the time to coach him in a technique taught to them by Ilana Sipesh decades before. They’d wanted him able to hide some of the information they needed to give him from Athan if it ever proved necessary.

  “Good, employ it with what is about to happen,” she said as she motioned for him to get going.

  Keiran did as asked without further questioning. He wasn’t even sure where they were going as he pushed the heavy door open before them.

  Rain was falling outside, the sky darkening for the evening. In the center of the courtyard was a simple wagon, Kanan sitting atop it and holding the reins. He saw the two appear and waved them over, wanting to get underway. Though he didn’t show it outwardly like Corina, he was just as nervous.

  “Come on! I’ve got an oiled tarp in the back for you two to get under to stay dry,” he said, pointing toward the wagon’s bed. He was protected from the rain by a loose rain cloak and a wide-brimmed, leather hat.

  Keiran and Corina hurried to the wagon, and he carefully helped the older woman up before climbing in behind her. He and Corina disappeared under the tarpaulin, sheltered from the wind and rain beneath.

  The anxiety coming off of both Kanan and Corina started to dig at Keiran, despite his senses being dulled. He’d only had blood provided to him by the castle’s physician for several months, and while it sustained him, it didn’t benefit him like drinking from the source had.

  His own riled emotions made him wish Jerris or Thana were coming along, but his two older companions had agreed it was best to keep the number of people involved minimal.

  The wagon started to move, and Keiran reached out to take Corina’s hand. They both remained quiet, Keiran knowing the old woman would disclose nothing until they reached their destination.

  * * *

  “Athan?”

  The vampire was just about to step into his library when the smooth female voice called out his name. Athan turned around and quirked a brow. “Yes, Sabetha? What is it?”

  While undeniably female, Sabetha wasn’t human. Though her face was vaguely human in shape, her large, black eyes, and down-like silver hair hinted at something different. Beneath her dress, the entirety of her torso was covered in something halfway between reptilian scales and feathers. Two charcoal gray wings hung from her shoulders, clawed hands hanging from the distal joints of both. From afar, there were those who mistook her for an angel, but her decidedly raptor-like legs and talon-bearing feet gave up the truth.

  Sabetha was a harpy.

  Athan had lived with her at his side for centuries, and she was one of the few beings he held any genuine sentiment for. He had a level of patience with her he never extended to anyone else.

  Sabetha was a gifted remote viewer, and she was the real reason Athan tended to miraculously arrive at appropriate times during events. He didn’t have her gifts and had come to rely on her heavily to know when he needed to travel. She was a dearly guarded secret no one outside of the castle knew about.

  Her head cocked to the side with slight jerking motions, none of her actions looking quite human. The harpy’s words were often slow to come as she suffered from some level of mental disability. It was the same thing that had gotten her kicked out of the colony of harpies she’d been born into while still an infant.

  “Keiran is traveling,” she whispered, her head snapping up.

  His expression softened, and he stepped closer to her. “Where to?”

  “Still in Tordania, I can say no more, that is all I can see,” she said, frowning at her own limitations. “With the old guard and the old nurse.”

  Sabetha was a seer and just that. She witnessed things in real time, but there was no sound to her visions nor could she read the emotions or minds of anyone she saw. That part of the equation was always left for Athan to figure out when he arrived on scene.

  He gave a nod and thought. While his normal impulse was to go and find out what was happening, it was a luxury he couldn’t presently afford. “I doubt it’s anything I need to trouble myself with. We have much greater worries at hand.”

  Sabetha gave a nod, regretting she couldn’t tell him anymore. She knew he was preoccupied with a recent development. “I will keep watch.”

  “Good,” he said, reaching out to place a hand on her shoulder. “I would go see what he was up to, but I can’t leave until I deal with whatever is happening on our border.”

  For the first time since Athan had taken over, his country’s border had been compromised. There was no one to blame for the invasion, however. A strange, unseasonal blizzard had swept across their eastern border, cutting terrestrial passage for his armies off to the rest of the known world. For the time being, his nation’s only means of travel was by sea.

  It would have been simple enough to write it off as a freak weather phenomenon, but there was more to it than that. Anyone who attempted to travel into the storm either disappeared or returned with grievous wounds that killed them later. Something, or someone, was hiding in that storm, and Athan wasn’t about to allow anyone to toy with his nation’s borders or sovereignty.

  “I will watch that, too,” she said quietly.

  He placed a light kiss onto her forehead before stepping back. “I know you will, but don’t fatigue yourself to the point of getting sick again, little bird. I cannot afford to lose you.”

  Sabetha gave a nod that caused her whole upper body to dip before she turned away from Athan to retreat to her quarters.

  Athan watched her go, hesitating in the hallway. While he’d checked in on Keiran and his dealings unseen several times since his ordeal in the Sador Empire, he’d not made an official appearance.

  Though the thought of Keiran moving around unguarded troubled him, it was energy and time he couldn’t afford to expend. He felt he’d gotten his point across to Keiran, Thana, and Corina, well enough to keep them in line for a time.

  Soon, he gave up dedicating any more time to it and went into his library, where several of his military leaders were already waiting for him.

  Talaus was at war, he just had no idea against whom.

  * * *

  Even in his superior physical state, Keiran was sore from the rough ride in the back of the wagon by the time it finally came to a stop. He could only imagine how Corina had fared. She’d never
let go of his hand during the ride.

  From the muffled sounds of the wooden wheels as they’d bounced along, he knew they’d not taken the paved road down into the town. He couldn’t figure out where they had headed off to or exactly why. The secrecy around it was hard to bear, but he’d done so in the hopes a great mystery would finally be explained to him.

  He’d felt claustrophobic beneath the tarpaulin and gladly threw it off once Kanan said it was safe to come out. The smells of the wet forest were the first thing evident to his senses as his eyes adjusted to the scene. Keiran scanned around as he offered Corina a hand to hoist her up after getting to his own feet.

  Kanan waved an arm at him, knowing the young man was about to ask questions. “Get inside.”

  Keiran turned his head after hopping down from the wagon, seeing the small, dilapidated church nearby. He frowned, not knowing where they were, disoriented after riding covered. Still, he held his tongue and turned to lift Corina down out of the wagon.

  The elder guard motioned toward the building again. “Go on, hurry it up! I’m going to secure the horse then I’ll be in.”

  Keiran nodded and started to the small stone building, Corina at his side. As he mounted the stairway leading to the door, hanging off of its top hinge, Father Beezle appeared on the stoop.

  The vampire came to an abrupt halt, not knowing the priest would be there. “Randall?”

  Father Beezle was exhausted after his long hours of work, though Kanan had come by earlier to help him out with the heavy lifting. He stepped aside and motioned toward the door. “Keiran Sipesh and Corina Yosef, I do invite you to enter.”

  Keiran quirked a brow at the strange greeting and looked back at Corina. She was relatively expressionless, waving him onward with her hands. He shook his head before facing forward and stepping over the threshold.

  Corina followed him, Father Beezle moving within as well.