Feral Mage Book 2: Epilogue

“That’s a sight for sore eyes,” Bryce said as he saw the mercenary guildhall sign in Witchbrook.

Two days had passed since the Red-Shield Company had attacked Baroness Julia’s towerhouse and the town of Stonewall. The journey to find Thea had been a short one, but Bryce felt more tired than he had after his month-long mission to harass the snow elves, where he first met Callie.

He sat in the back of the wagon with Vex leaning against him as Janna steered. Callie sat across from him, her gaze on the sign as well as she scratched the head of a sleeping Omelet on her lap.

“I’m going to soak in the guild’s hot baths for an entire day,” Callie groaned. “I think every muscle in my body is sore.”

The wagon rolled down the cobblestone streets of Witchbrook toward the guildhall, Bellamy’s horse trotting beside it.

“The guild has hot baths?” Bellamy asked Callie.

The snow elf swordswoman smiled and lifted the copper dog tag around her neck.

“For its members, yes, but I’ll talk with Alice and see if you can join me in the one I book. They’re fairly large.”

Bellamy smiled at Callie.

“Thank you, Callie,” Bellamy said.

The snow elf just shrugged.

Blond hair caught the sunlight as the woman riding beside Janna in the driver’s box turned to face him.

“Bryce,” Thea started to say.

Vex’s ears went flat as she leaned around him to glare at Thea.

“My—” she started to say, only for Callie to grab Vex, pull her to the other side of the wagon, and clamp a hand over her mouth.

“We know, mutt. We all know. Hells, I’m fairly sure all of Witchbrook knows by now,” Callie said as she held the struggling Vex.

When she finally released her, Vex began to rant in beastkin at Callie as she moved back to lean against him, but at least she wasn’t glaring at Thea anymore. Bryce smiled at the nervous blonde woman, whom he kept having to remind himself was a princess.

“What do you need, Lady Thea?” he asked.

She bit her lip as her eyes darted between him and Vex.

“Are you sure it will be all right for me to stay at the guildhall?” she asked.

Bryce nodded.

“I know the guild master. We can get you a room there for a time while we figure all this out,” Bryce answered. “Though, I’m afraid it’s a far cry from a castle.”

Thea smiled and nodded at him.

“Thank you, Bryce,” she said.

He kept the smile on his face, but truthfully, he was dreading the conversation with Mark. He had to convince the old berserker that this was the best plan for Thea and, probably the continent as a whole.

Janna pulled the wagon to a stop and the stable boy raced toward them to take the reins. Bryce and his party moved from the wagon, grabbed their supplies, and headed for the door of the guildhall.

“Bryce! You’re back!” Alice greeted him as soon as he walked through the door into the tavern of the guild.

The black haired and blue-eyed elven barmaid ran from behind the bar to greet him. Her steps slowed as more of his party entered the guild, and he saw Alice’s gaze shift to Thea, who was now standing beside him.

“Oh, you made a new friend,” Alice said, smiling at Thea as she came to a stop. “I’m Alice. A friend of Bryce’s.”

Thea curtsied to Alice.

“I’m Thea. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Alice,” Thea greeted.

The girls smiled warmly at each other, at least until Bryce broke Alice’s attention.

“Is Mark in his office?” he asked. “I need to talk to him.”

Alice nodded.

“He is,” she said before looking back at Thea. “Is there anything I can get you, Thea? I’m sure you’d like a meal or drink before hitting the road again.”

Thea smiled warmly at Alice.

“A meal would be wonderful. Thank you, Alice. Though I believe I’ll be staying at the guild under Bryce’s protection.”

Bryce pulled out a bottle of whiskey from one of the packs they brought in with them and made his way to Mark’s office.

The door was opened, but Bryce knocked on the frame and got the berserker's attention.

“Hey, you old bastard. Can we talk?” Bryce asked.

Mark smirked and waved him inside. Bryce walked in and closed the door as he entered.

“So is the blonde out there your newest wifey?” Mark teased as he opened the drawer where he kept the whiskey.

Bryce set the bottle on his desk, causing Mark to pause and look up at him before grabbing the bottle and looking it over.

“This is some good shit. Really good shit,” Mark said, then scowled at Bryce. “What the bloody hells happened?”

Bryce pulled out a chair and sat down in it.

“The blonde is Princess Thea Volson, and I want to ask if she can stay at the guildhall for protection, at least for a bit,” Bryce said with a heavy sigh.

Mark glared at him.

“Another Princess! What the hells, Bryce? I always thought you had a chip on your shoulder with the Nobles,” Mark growled as he pulled out two glasses and slid them to him. “Yet you keep bringing them to my guildhall!”

Bryce picked up the bottle of whiskey. As he moved to pull the cork, he saw the reflection of an elven woman with four black eyes standing in the back of Mark’s office. Bryce pulled the cork and poured the two glasses.

He already knew the woman wouldn’t be there if he turned around. He had caught a few similar glimpses of her in reflections or smelled the scent of wolfsbane and hemlock the past two days. He didn’t know what she was, but he knew she was real and watching him.

“What does she need protection from?” Mark asked, taking his whiskey.

Bryce turned the bottle so the label was facing him and he couldn’t see the reflection of the elven woman any longer.

“Her uncle, Harold Volson. She needs to stay safe as she writes letters to the King of Brook and the King of Havenport,” Bryce answered.

Mark frowned as he took another swig of his whiskey.

“You make this sound like it’s to stop a war or something,” Mark stated.

Bryce grimaced as he downed his entire glass.

“It will probably start one, actually,” he answered as he reached into his pocket.

He pulled out the wooden heart and rolled it across the desk to Mark. The old berserker picked it up and examined it.

“We pulled that out of the Commander of the Red-Shield Company. It was where his heart should have been. The thing leading and commanding an entire Mercenary Company was just a puppet that Harold Volson controlled.”

Mark swore as he carefully set the wooden heart back down on his desk. Bryce continued.

“Apparently, he has done the same thing to the Kings in the Northern Kingdoms, the whole Alliance is just a farce as he’s controlling them, and he’s trying to move South.”

Mark’s eyes hardened as he looked at Bryce.

“What happens if we kill him?” the old berserker asked.

Bryce shook his head.

“No clue, but our current theory is that when the puppeteer dies, the puppet strings are cut. So his death will take out the Northern Kings and several powerful nobles,” Bryce answered. “And who knows how many more.”

Mark grimaced.

“The girl can stay,” he said, then grabbed the wooden heart. “And I’m going to show this to some people I know, see if we can figure out what the hells Harold Volson is.”

Bryce refilled their glasses.

“Thanks, Mark,” he said.

Duchess Frozenveil

Duchess Frozenveil watched as the castle burned on the hillside as the sun set, the flames illuminating the stakes along the ridge where she had the bodies of the traitors displayed. She had picked this spot because she thought the sight would look most beautiful here, at least to her. Almost as if it were a second sun heralding her rise. The sobs of the Countess just added to the ambiance of it all.

“You bitch!” Countess Snowfall yelled.

Duchess Frozenveil turned from the beautiful scene before her to look at Countess Snowfall, the leader of the rebellion she had just ended. The Countess glared up at her from the executioner’s block, a foot pressed on her back to keep her against it. Part of her snow white hair was now stained red from a cut on her scalp, and it dripped along her hair onto the block.

“The words of a traitor are meaningless to me,” Duchess Frozenveil said as she gestured to the burning castle. “You could have avoided this. I could have even raised you to the status of Duchess in the near future. All you had to do was give it to me, Snowfall. The war. The meaningless deaths. All of it could have been avoided, and you would have lived to see the Winter Kingdom reborn.”

Countess Snowfall spat blood at her, which landed on Duchess Frozenveil’s dress. She frowned at the slight.

“I hope they kill you. I hope the human Alliance comes north and drives a stake through your body and into that frozen heart, then displays you on a hillside. I hope you live through it all, only dying as the carrion pick your body to bits!” Countess Snowfall yelled.

Duchess Frozenveil listened to the woman’s last words, a neutral expression on her face.

“Countess Snowfall, given your lineage, I will let you choose. Do you wish for your stake to be beside your husband, or your children?”

The Countess screamed as she tried to push the soldier’s foot off her back. Duchess Frozenveil waved her hand, and the executioner’s axe fell, granting her blissful silence once again.

“She never answered my question, so leave her body here for the wolves,” Duchess Frozenveil said as she turned and made her way to the waiting carriage.

“Yes, Duchess,” the soldiers responded in unison.

When the carriage door closed, Duchess Frozenveil stopped suppressing her urge to cough. She held a white handkerchief to her mouth as the fit struck her, and globs of mucus and blood spewed onto it. When the fit passed, she drew an uneasy breath, feeling her lungs struggle to expand. She only spared the handkerchief a small glance, seeing the clotted blood that clung to it, before discarding it.

She reached for the small box in the carriage. She needed to see it, to hold it. White metal greeted her as she opened the lid and gazed down at the Key of Snow. That bitch Countess had wasted months of her life hiding this away.

She had even convinced Duchess Frozenveil that the key was in the County of Brax, claiming the previous Ice Queen had made several trips there when she was alive. The now dead bitch probably believed she wouldn’t invade the Kingdom of Volpine for the item, but she would. She would burn down all the human and elven Kingdoms for the keys. Now she had them all, The Key of the Forest, The Key of the Sea and, finally, The Key of the Snow.

Her fingers ran along the metal, finding it cold to her touch. Soon she would be Queen. Soon she would no longer fear death. She just needed to visit the island now.

Harold Volson

Harold cradled the puppet of Thea in his arms as he sat in the wine cellar, his true workshop within Count Gerlad’s castle. He wept for his niece, as he had since she left, and the marionette for the Commander of the Red-Shield Company shattered.

“My poor Thea,” Harold said, stroking the carved and painted blonde hair of the puppet. “I’m sorry, my child. I should have acted sooner. Your heart would have been rosewood. A beautiful wood.”

He kissed the head of the marionette and set it aside as he stood. There was still much work for him to do. It would be a few days until his nephew and the puppet of his brother arrived with the Volpine fleet.

Harold sighed as he approached the corpse of a Count’s son to place a wooden heart in it. He looked back at the Thea marionette.

“I had a wonderful play planned, Thea. One that would have had your father arrive as a triumphant hero, whom King Bradford would graciously want to meet. The stage would have been Count Gerlad’s castle. The antagonists would be the Red-Shield Company working under the scoundrel Duchess Frozenveil, and the protagonist would have been your father. He would be reacting to my call for aid and arriving with the Volpine fleet to break the siege of Count Gerlad’s castle by the dwarven mercenary company.”

Harold shook his head as the knife cut into the corpse.

“Now our antagonist is gone, but our protagonist is soon to arrive. It’s quite the predicament for a performer, Thea,” Harold said as he plunged the wooden heart into the corpse. “But as they say. The show must go on.”

The End of Book 2