A Flight of Marewings Read online

  A Flight of Marewings

  Wyld Magic #1

  Kristen S. Walker

  Also by Kristen S. Walker

  Wyld Magic

  A Flight of Marewings

  A Pride of Gryphons

  “The Duke’s Daughter”

  The Voyage of the Miscreation

  Episode 1: The Voyage Begins

  Season 1: Episodes 1-6

  Divine Warriors

  Riwenne & the Mechanical Beasts

  Riwenne & the Bionic Witches

  Riwenne & the Airship Gambit (coming soon)

  Amena’s Rise to Stardom!

  “The Girl Who Talked to Birds”

  Fae of Calaveras Trilogy

  Small Town Witch

  Witch Hunt

  Witch Gate

  “Witch Test”

  To learn about future releases, join my mailing list and get a free book!

  Copyright © 2014, 2019 by Kristen S. Walker Cover Design: Daniela Marquez of MV Covers

  Edited by Charlee M. Redman ISBN-13: 978-1492989189

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  © Kristen S. Walker and kristenwalker.net Created with Vellum

  For my mother, who told me stories about horses that could fly and the girl who rode them.

  Contents

  1. Korinna I

  2. Galenos I

  3. Korinna II

  4. Galenos II

  5. Varranor I

  6. The Council I

  7. Korinna III

  8. Galenos III

  9. Herokha I

  10. Korinna IV

  11. Varranor II

  12. The Council II

  13. Aristia I

  14. Galenos IV

  15. Ameyron I

  16. The Council III

  17. Korinna V

  18. The Council IV

  19. Ameyron II

  20. Korinna VI

  21. Varranor III

  22. Korinna VII

  23. Galenos V

  24. The Council V

  25. Ameyron III

  26. Korinna VIII

  27. The Council VI

  28. Galenos VI

  29. Korinna IX

  30. The Council VII

  31. Ameyron IV

  32. Galenos VII

  33. Korinna X

  34. The Council VIII

  35. Korinna XI

  36. Ameyron V

  37. Korinna XII

  38. The Council IX

  39. Galenos VIII

  40. The Council X

  41. Korinna XIII

  42. Pelagia V

  43. Galenos IX

  44. Ameyron VI

  45. Korinna XIV

  46. Aristia II

  47. Korinna XV

  Thank You

  Free Book

  About the Author

  1

  Korinna I

  Korinna looked up from the group of farm workers she was supervising and saw her father’s ghost. He stood at the far end of the field, staring at her; she could see straight through him to the forest beyond. Dust clogged her mouth, making it difficult to breathe. She stared back at him as feelings washed over her: shock, rage, sorrow.

  Curse the gods’ timing! She had only a few days of the harvest left. The last member of her family was dead. Her father, the duke of the powerful port city Kyratia, had rarely come to visit his mistress and illegitimate daughter at the remote farm at Anoberesovo, and not at all since her mother’s death years before. Yet he had remained her protector from afar, funding her estate, and promising to arrange her a powerful marriage. Korinna had received a letter only a week prior about his illness. The ghost’s haggard appearance told her the outcome.

  Korinna closed her eyes for a moment and whispered a prayer for her father’s soul. Then she took a deep breath to steel herself; she didn’t have time to mourn, and she had been anticipating this chain of events for several years. Without another heir for her father’s title, she would marry his warlord so he could become the next duke. But she’d never met him and had no idea how he would treat her. This could be her chance to gain her freedom to the world beyond her small farm—or become a prisoner to a cruel man.

  She beckoned to a young boy helping in the field. “Run and tell the foreman that everyone must stop their work and go back to their homes. They may gather what they can quickly, but everyone must be indoors before nightfall.”

  He nodded, then spun on his heel and sprinted away. She turned without watching him leave and went up the hill to the manor.

  The four wooden walls of the courtyard closed around her, providing the safety of the home she had always known. Anoberesovo was a modest estate, encompassing enough grain fields to support fifty families, a stream to irrigate the crops from the nearby river, and grazing land for sheep. Servants and guards also lived in the manor, which was too large for Korinna alone, and she could afford a blacksmith, a healer, and a musician in residence as well. As a child, the courtyard with its out buildings and vegetable garden had felt enormous to her. At nineteen, she knew every pane of glass in the windows, every board in the walls. Putting her hand out to the worn wood reassured and steadied her.

  Her steward, Myron, rushed out of the storehouse to her side. “My lady, what is wrong? You look ill.” He put a hand on her forehead.

  Korinna brushed off his concerned touch. “I’ve called the workers from the fields. Send everyone we can spare back to their homes and tell them to stay there. We must lock the gates before nightfall, and I want all of my people safe.”

  Myron looked past her to the empty road. “Are we being attacked?”

  “I don’t know.” Korinna rubbed her hands together, trying to stay calm. “Duke Basileos is dead, and his Warlord is coming here. He will want to seal the marriage pact that my father once proposed, and we can’t be sure of his intentions. We must be prepared to defend our home if he comes in force.”

  Myron spat on the ground to avert evil. “Your father is dead? How do you know?”

  She took a deep breath. “I saw his ghost.”

  The old man’s eyes widened and he cupped his hand to his forehead, invoking Deyos. “The gods guide his soul through the Dry Lands. Oh, my poor child.”

  Korinna murmured another prayer and glanced behind her.

  The shade now stood just outside the gate, staring at her with hollow eyes. He pointed to the sun and traced a line down to the western horizon.

  She nodded and turned back to Myron. “We must prepare, quickly. The Warlord will arrive after sunset.”

  Myron bowed his balding head and shuffled off to carry out her instructions.

  She summoned the captain of her guard next and told him to prepare their defenses, but she knew even as she spoke to him that they wouldn’t be enough. Anoberesovo was not a fortress, and her guards were not war veterans. If Warlord Galenos came there with a company of his trained soldiers and tried to take her from the house by force, she would have to surrender or see her home destroyed.

  As the shadows stretched longer across the empty fields with each passing hour, Korinna was too caught up in the wave of activity to stop and fret about what could happen. Her people fled the manor for the safety of their own homes, leaving her and Myron alone to prepare a simple dinner. The guards pulled on their armor and ranged on the wall around the courtyard.

  In the kitchen, Korinna rolled out flatbread while Myron peeled garlic for the artichokes. A grate over the hearth allowed them to roast vegetables an
d lamb on skewers, which only needed to be turned on occasion. By assembling each dish in a line and keeping to simple preparations, the two of them were able to prepare a large quantity of food at once.

  At sunset, Korinna left the kitchens and went upstairs to her rooms. Her maidservant had fled, so she attended herself. She opened the windows to admit the cool evening breeze into the stuffy space. A bowl of water still stood on the table from the morning, with a folded cloth beside it. Without time for a bath, Korinna wiped away the dirt as best she could.

  The wardrobe was half-empty, holding mostly practical clothing and one red robe saved for festival days at the temple, but she looked beneath these for a small chest. Inside, she found a full-skirted linen dress, dyed a rich, dark yellow with saffron, with crimson embroidery on the hem. It was old-fashioned—once her mother’s dress, a present from her father—but her mother had shortened it to her short height, and she knew it suited her well. She changed quickly from her dirty work clothes. The fine clothes would be her armor, a proper appearance for a duke’s daughter.

  Surrounded by her mother’s things, her scent still lingering after all of these years, it felt as if Pherenia was present in the room with her. She could hear her voice echoing with advice: “The most important thing you can do is to be confident. If you act like you belong, others will accept that. But if you show fear or hesitation, they will take advantage of any weakness and tear you apart.”

  From the box, Korinna selected a sapphire-studded comb and used it to fix her hair up into a bun, the nicest arrangement she could manage on her own. She left the rest of her mother’s jewels in the box, keeping her customary ornament: a chain at her throat holding a single coin, the only one she hadn’t spent to feed her people that hard year when the harvest burned in a chimaera attack.

  Dressing up gave her no pleasure, and she kept glancing out the window to check the position of the sun on the horizon. When the Warlord arrived, she must appear in complete control, a fine lady running her estate with skill.

  Korinna examined her reflection in her small brass hand mirror. Her breath caught in her throat. Everything about her—from the clothes to the work-worn hand gripping the mirror—was the same as her mother, dressed up to see her father on one of his visits. But where her mother’s face had been lit by joyful anticipation, Korinna’s lips were pressed together to hide her anxiety. And her father would never come to visit again.

  Her eyes glistened with unwanted tears. She put the mirror face down on the table and held her head high, steeling herself. Whatever was coming, she must be prepared now.

  When she went downstairs, she paused by the alcove in the front hall and knelt at the ancestors’ shrine. She touched her mother’s death mask, a small painting, and said a prayer of remembrance. “Mama, I hope you can be with him now,” she added.

  There was no answer. Her mother’s spirit was more polite than her father’s. If she still remained to watch over her daughter, she did so without being seen.

  Myron met her in the kitchen and reported on the situation. “Everyone but the guards has left, my lady. Supper is finished and waiting on the hearth. The house has been secured and the guards are positioned on the walls by the front gate. No riders have been sighted yet.”

  Korinna nodded. “Well done. We have a little time, so take two guards with you to carry ale up from the cellars. We will need enough to serve the Warlord’s men.”

  A good steward would simply accept her orders and see them carried out, but Myron had served as the head of the household at Anoberesovo since Korinna was a young girl. He raised his thick eyebrows and grunted. “You mean to let the Warlord in? What will prevent him from simply carrying you off and letting his men raid our home?”

  She held her head high and, with as much confidence as she could manage, she said, “I hope that the warlord and I can negotiate like rational people.”

  Myron bowed his head in deference to her wishes, but he muttered, “I hope so too, my lady.”

  Korinna knew that she was taking a risk, but she wouldn’t simply cower in the corner and pray for the gods to save her. She went outside and climbed the walls to look over the gate. It was growing dark and she couldn’t see very far down the road by the light of the torches. Would Galenos carry torches, or would he swoop out of the darkness and surprise them?

  All eight of the guards turned and stared at her. Captain Aeson approached and bowed to her. With his head still down, he said, “My lady, won’t you go below? We can’t guarantee your safety if you stay up here.”

  She shook her head and strode straight up to the edge of the wall, planting herself with her back straight and her chin up. “I will watch here with you. I want to be the first to greet our guests.”

  He raised his eyes to meet hers, pleading with things left unsaid. “Are you sure you want to do this, Korinna?”

  Once, Aeson had been her friend, the one who comforted her when she lost her mother. But she’d warned him that she would leave someday, and his affection for her wasn’t enough to keep her on the little farm. She had a duty to fulfill, and while she feared what could happen if she left her home, she was also excited about the chance of a better future.

  She couldn’t make him understand, so she looked away into the darkness. “It doesn’t matter what I want. This is my fate and I won’t try to run from it.”

  The captain bowed again and moved away, but she could hear the other men talking in low voices behind her. Korinna made no outward sign that she heard them.

  A powerful wave of fear swept over her, causing her to look up. Dark shapes blotted out the moon and stars, sweeping toward them with the rustle of wings.

  Korinna gasped. The guards around her looked up and raised their spears in readiness.

  They were too late. A company of marewings—sixteen wyld monsters, captured and trained for the sole purpose of war, each one carrying a veteran soldier armed with weapons and armor worth a year of Korinna’s farming profits—came gliding over the walls and landed in the courtyard. They were bigger than she had imagined, taller than a man by half, and their wings were even larger. The wings weren’t feathered like a bird’s, but were leathery like a bat’s, with shining scales along the back. Their cloven hooves rang out strangely on the paving stones. Even at a distance, she could see their red eyes gleaming in the darkness, and one opened its mouth, baring long, sharp teeth.

  One of the mercenaries vaulted off a black marewing and looked around the courtyard with his hands on his hips. He was dressed the same as all of the other men, in tight-fitting leather dyed deep blue with the black trim of the Storm Petrels. Taller, broader than any man she’d ever met, he drew the eye by his impressive stature. But it was the way that he stood and looked around, surveying her estate as if it already belonged to him, that told her who he was.

  Korinna recovered from her shock and started to make for the stairs, then stopped. She took a torch from its holder on the wall and held it aloft. “Warlord Galenos,” she called down into the courtyard. “Welcome to Anoberesovo.”

  She smiled to herself as he looked around the courtyard and failed to find her. Then he turned and looked up. Even at a distance, she could feel the force of his gaze as their eyes met.

  “Good evening, Lady Korinna.” He smiled back, teeth glinting in the torchlight. “I must apologize for calling on you so late in the evening.”

  She handed the torch to the guard at her side, then turned and walked down the stairs to the ground. Galenos watched her approach, and she took the time to size him up, as well. His large size and well-developed muscles were all things that she would expect from a seasoned warrior. What took her by surprise was the dark color of his skin, darker even than workers burnt by the sun. He spoke Meresto without an accent, but his broad, flat features marked him as a foreigner.

  When she came to stand in front of him, she had to crane her head back to look up at his face. “I would like to extend the hospitality of my household to you and your men. We had
some warning of your coming, so there is food and drink waiting inside.”

  He blinked rapidly in surprise. “How did you know?”

  She hid her satisfaction at catching him off-guard. “When I saw my father’s ghost, I knew that you wouldn’t be far behind.”

  His brow furrowed and he scanned the courtyard with furtive glances. “Of course he did. Is he still here?”

  The superstitious reaction surprised her. Should she tell him that he lingered to make the powerful warlord nervous? “I don’t see him just now,” she said vaguely.

  Galenos shook himself, then bent and gave her the briefest of kisses on each cheek in greeting. “We will be happy to join you for dinner, once our mounts are taken care of. Do you have a pasture where they can stay for the night?”

  Korinna looked around at the beasts. Each one remained motionless in the same place where they had landed; if they weren’t breathing now, barely labored from their flight, she would have thought they were stone. Where could she put the marewings that they wouldn’t frighten her flocks? “I have a field of grain, already harvested, which is empty. There’s a stream with water…” What kind of refreshment should she offer to a creature that was half demon? “Will they need anything else?”