Hello!
Considering the amount of time that's passed since Rarity came out and because Lady isn't anywhere near complete, I've decided to share a short story with you all. I wrote it back in 2014 and submitted it to a publisher to be incuded in a short story anthology-- twice. It wasn't selected either time, so it's been sitting on my laptop's hard drive. I had planned to include it as bonus content for Lady or something else (which I still will for those who don't see my rare blog posts), but I think now is a good time to release it. It's the events in and around the Arbor Cove battle from Catty's point of view. It was written many years before Rarity, so there are some inconsistencies with details of the battle and its aftermath. These will be edited to match the actual events in the version that gets published. It is, as always, my intellectual property and © 2025 by Andrea Irving and Colindrea Press. So, without further ado, here's From Embers!
Andrea.
From Embers
Andrea Irving
“The Korlisseans are here!” the crier roared.
He’d been shouting the good news for the previous hour and none at Arbor Cove
were tired of hearing it. The collective breath the keep’s defenders exhaled
could be felt each time the welcome news was repeated.
With the
arrival of his allies, King Gerald gathered his generals, wielders, and
swordwielders to strategize an offensive to not just repel, but crush the
Shaadi navy. Catty, a mere swordsplayer, was tolerated at the meeting only
because her father, Thomas of Arbor Cove, was lord of the besieged keep. She
stood behind him and listened intently.
“The
Shaadi supply lines have been cut off by the Korlisseans,” Lord Errol of Mount
Rathbone was saying. “We need to move quickly before they regroup and smash
through them in retreat. If we let them go now, the Shaadi’ll just be back in a
year or two. We must end this now.”
The king
nodded. “I agree—but I think a coordinated attack is the only way to do it. Not
just a naval engagement, like Brandon suggested.” He gestured to his chief
advisor, who was understandably frowning.
Catty
wasn’t sure whether to cover a yawn with a smile or to cover her smile with a
yawn. Brandon of James Lake was always too puffed up with his own importance
for his own good, and she liked to see him brought down a rung or two. And the
battle plans had been discussed ad nauseam. She wished they’d just get to it
already. So between showing boredom and glee, she decided it was better to
blink a couple of times and swallow to stay awake and save her snickering at
Lord Brandon for another time.
“We have
no wielders here who can speak over distances to coordinate with our allies,”
the king continued as he turned to a couple of young people. “Do either of you
swordwielders have the ability?”
Dain, Lord
Errol’s younger son, nodded. “We both do. I’ll be your go-between. Lora can act
as backup.” Lora, the mousey girl beside him, nodded enthusiastically.
“Good,”
King Gerald said. He gestured for Dain and Lora to join Lord Brandon and him.
“Come over here and let’s get started.”
Letting
out a breath, Catty felt torn between wanting to help the offensive and being
glad she couldn’t. She was jealous of anyone who could wield magic, but it was
so rare to be able to both wield and use steel weapons like her friends could
that she usually shrugged it off.
Usually.
She felt so ordinary as she
gripped the hilt of her sword. She had secretly hoped the remainder of the war
would be fought at sea, a cowardly thought for an Academy-trained swordsplayer,
but perhaps not so for a woman worried for her home and family. The Shaadi navy had blockaded Arbor Cove for
too long, and it was wishful thinking to hope that a destructive wielder battle
between shore and water wouldn’t come into play. She doubted there’d be a
raiding party that made it to shore through all the chaos the wielders would
cause, so she wouldn’t even be able fight to keep her mind off what ruin would
come to her home. She couldn’t do anything to help. She tucked a strand of nut
brown hair behind her ear in resignation and followed her father out of the
stuffy chamber.
“Promise
me you’ll stay away from the fighting, that you’ll stay away from the wielders
during the battle. They’ll be such a target. Promise me that you’ll take charge
of the women and children somewhere,” came a voice beside her ear.
Smiling,
she turned to face her suitor. “Regan, you know I won’t, so don’t bother
asking. You never balked at trying to
beat the tar out of me while we were in training. Why would you think I’d suddenly
turn tail and hide? Why don’t you
take charge of them, my prince?”
Prince
Regan’s ears turned crimson, and he shook his head. “It was worth a try.”
She stood
on her toes and boldly planted a kiss on his nose. “It was.” Their courtship
was relatively new, but they had been friends for years. It was almost expected
that they would end up together, but she had a hard time seeing herself as a
queen. It would certainly be a challenge for someone as brash as she was, but
like all the challenges she had faced thus far, she was up for it.
#
Of course,
when a group of raiders actually did make it to shore, Catty was left behind at
the keep while practically everyone else went down to the rocky beach. She was
on a parapet overlooking the small bay and just out of arrow’s range from the
beach. She was to protect the wielders from harm should the Shaadi breach the
castle. It would never happen, so she looked out to sea, bored, and wound and
rewound a lock of hair around her finger.
“Enemy
ships approaching, sire,” and elderly wielder relayed to the king. “They appear
to have broken away from their engagement with the Korlisseans and are headed
this way. They must have wielders on board—they’re closing too fast to be
overtaken.”
Catty
snapped out of her reverie in time to see the king frown. He caught sight of
her and said, “You. Girl. Tell the runners to relay that to the men on our
beach. Dain will likely be too preoccupied with the battle to take notice.”
She
curtsied as gracefully as she could in her tunic and loose trousers and
scurried away. Catty saved her frown and eye roll until she was well away, lest
the king see her impertinence. She quickly found the group of runners in the
courtyard and she had barely finished her message before they were off. She
sighed and returned to the parapet.
“I sense
two air mages,” the elderly wielder was saying as Catty emerged from the
stairwell. “There’s something else, but I can’t… it’s not clear to me.”
“Well make
it clear!” the king growled. “They’re nearly here!”
Catty’s
eyes grew wide as she saw what was happening out in the bay. The two Shaadi
ships were close enough for her to make out individual men on the decks. A puff
of fire blew out from each of them, and she turned to the king. “It’s not safe
for you out here, your majesty. I urge you to move to the keep’s interior. Rely
on the runners to be your eyes. You can still command without endangering
yourself out here.”
King
Gerald set his jaw and started to reply when the old wielder shouted, “More
flames!”
A huge
plume of flame and smoke erupted out of the side of each ship and extended
almost all the way to the castle walls. A mist of water quenched the ships as
the flames dissipated.
“Ready the
catapults!” the king cried.
“Ready,
sire.”
“Release!”
Catty
joined the king as three boulders the size of horses flew from a platform on
the cliffs below them. One splashed into the water and the other two appeared
to bounce off a ship and straight back toward them.
“Things
are about to get a lot less boring around here, girl,” the king said quietly. “I’m
not sure I’ve ever seen an air shield as big as that one. Air, fire, and water wielders on a single ship…” He shook his head. “If you
intend to be queen, Catherine, you’ll have to face down tougher stuff than
this.”
Catty
swallowed, ashamed she had been so obvious. Ashamed to have been bored at all.
“Yes, sire.” She hadn’t, in fact, known that King Gerald knew her name. She
supposed it wasn’t that much of a stretch, considering Regan’s interest in her
or their extended stay in her father’s keep.
The rocks
smashed into the cliffs below the castle, shaking it on its foundations. With
its main defense rendered useless, it was ripe for the picking.
“Ballistae
at their water lines!” the king shouted. “Now! Release!”
The two
missiles were engulfed in flames halfway to the ships, their embers scattered
on the wind. The flames were close enough for them to feel on the battlements.
Catty grabbed the king’s arm. “Please go! I fear—no!”
Another
flame burst straight toward them. Catty knocked the king aside and all she felt
was pain. Fire seared flesh. Her vision went dark. She wasn’t even sure if she
screamed.
#
White. Everything was white. The linens. The walls.
The bandages. The clothes of the healing wielders, so adept at their skill
there was no hint of red carnage anywhere. Catty awoke to the bright white and
winced. Despite the cloud of whatever she’d been given for pain relief, she
still felt on fire.
“Praise
be,” Regan breathed. “You’re awake.”
Catty gave
a hoarse chuckle. “You’re awfully clean for the middle of a battle. That brown
tunic’s a little dingy in all this sterile white though.” Her mouth felt odd,
restricted by the bandage covering the left side of her face. She sighed. “What
happened?”
Regan
closed his eyes. “We destroyed the Shaadi fleet. It will be many years before
they’re able to send even a smuggler out to sea.”
“How?”
“Water
wielders,” he explained. “It seems everything hinged on their two fireboats.
Lora and Dain destroyed them with a couple of targeted waves. I guess they had
all their naval wielders on them because after that, the other ships went down
pretty quickly.”
Catty
nodded. “How is your father?”
“Alive,
but barely,” he said. “A couple of wielders from the battlements made it. They
said you urged him to leave, but he didn’t. There was a flame burst that
injured you, and it took him as well. The healing wielders can only do so much,
so he’s in his chambers covered from head to toe in bandages. Dain… Dain was
killed. Overwhelmed by the wielders in the raiding party and cut down from
behind.” Unshed tears rimmed his bloodshot eyes. Dain had been his best friend.
“You are
king.” She tried hard to process all of the news Regan imparted on her. If the
king was injured as badly as he described, she knew he was not long for this
world.
“In all
but name.”
She took a
deep breath. “How bad am I?” she asked.
Her voice wavered, but she ignored it. “I can’t tell what’s wrong. I
just hurt everywhere. The left side of my face. My left arm and hand. They hurt…”
“Don’t
worry about that,” Regan told her. “You need to rest. You—“
“Regan
just tell me.” Catty felt like she knew, but she needed to hear it.
“Your hand
is gone,” he blurted out, his voice catching. “Your ear and eye, gone.” He
stood, turned away from her, and walked a couple of steps. She could see him
biting on his fist, his face twisted in agony.
Catty
sensed her right eye close and understood the sensation she had felt before. It
wasn’t numbness. It wasn’t compression
from bandages. Her eye, her ear, her
hand, gone. She opened her eye and stared at the bandage covering the hand that
wasn’t. Could she strap a shield to her arm? No. That was nonsense. She’d never
fight again with her other handicaps.
Forcing
tears back, she turned to Prince—no, King Regan. She might as well get used to
thinking of him that way. “I don’t know what your ultimate intentions were, my
friend, but you have to know that I can never be your queen. Not like this.”
Regan
blinked and turned back toward her. “Of course you can! Don’t be ridiculous!”
“Regan,
you’re essentially the king. I’m the deformed and presumably ugly daughter of
the Baron of Arbor Cove. The people of our country will never accept that. The
people of my own castle will never fully accept me again. If anything happened
to you, your sister, or our children, I’d be the scapegoat. Called a witch or
worse.” Catty paused. “No. I’ll not be
queen, though I thank you for thinking of me. You were always a dear friend,
and even like this, I bet I can still best you with a spear.” Her voice faltered
as she gave her pretty speech.
“We’ll
have to see,” Regan replied, his voice rough. “When you’re stronger.”
“Good. Now tell me about all the heroics you saw and
did.” She forced cheerfulness into her voice. “I want to hear all about it.”
And so Regan
began recounting things he’d seen and heard about the battle, uncomfortably
aware of the woman next to him. He made their fallen friends and family into
heroes. He did not mention what had befallen her. It didn’t need retelling when
she was living its end.
After a
while, she turned her face away from him, tears in her eye. It turned out, she
was not made of tougher stuff.
END
