Betrayal by Blood: A Prequel (Stones of Terrene Book 0) Read online

  Betrayal by Blood

  Prequel to the Stones of Terrene

  R. J. Metcalf

  Copyright © 2019 R. J. Metcalf

  Published in Santa Clarita, California by R. J. Metcalf

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be

  reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means

  without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places,

  and incidents are either used fictitiously or are products of

  the author’s imagination. All characters are fictional, and any

  similarity to persons living or dead is coincidental.

  Printed in the United States of America

  Cover design © 2019: DogEared Designs

  Photo credit: istockphoto

  Model: Allison Burdett, photographed by Caleb Effinger

  Texture credit: Sascha Duensing

  ISBN-13: 978-1-7328546-1-1

  ISBN-10: 1-7328546-1-0

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Epilogue

  Map

  Betrayal by Blood Register

  About the Author

  To Jamie.

  Without your pushing, your coaxing, your encouragement, your neverending patience, your incredible insights, and your steadfast love, I would never have started this journey.

  Thank you for being the stubborn friend and “framily” sister that you are.

  This is for you.

  (And I’m sorry about your book boyfriend. Really.)

  Acknowledgments

  This is the first book I’ve ever written.

  When Mike and I decided (thanks to a certain insistent, aforementioned friend) that we’d start writing the Stones of Terrene Chronicles, I declared that I had to start at the very beginning. I would then be able to accurately portray characters in the series, as I would know what actually happened, versus just which memories haunted them. I’ve always enjoyed creative writing, but I knew nothing about writing a novel. But I persisted, and I wrote Betrayal by Blood.

  And then I subjected several amazing friends (who still talk to me to this day!) to the manuscript. A thousand thanks to Jamie, Keanan, Kathy, Amy Grace, Josh, Hannah, Emily, Jenny, Jason, K.J., Karen, Chris, Frank, and Scott. Y’all slogged through some seriously gnarly prose, half-baked ideas, and really bad grammar. I am so sorry. And I am so thankful.

  Then Catherine Jones Payne received the slightly better manuscript and worked her magic on it, telling me which chunks to chop, which viewpoints needed to be added, and a whole host of excellent advice that I took to heart. I fixed it up per her instructions … and then I sat on the manuscript while I wrote Scars of Time, Renegade Skyfarer, and Void Born.

  When I started reading through Betrayal by Blood again, I nearly cried at how atrocious (to me) it was. But after hours of re-writes and hard work, several passes of edits through S.D. Grimm’s patient hands, I now have a polished gem of a prequel for everyone to (finally) read!

  Many thanks to my first team. Kirk DouPonce for my amazing book cover, Catherine Jones Payne for that first editing pass on the most awful manuscript ever, Jamie Foley for working so hard to drill into my head the difference between “breath” and “breathe,” Allison Burdett for being my book cover model, and Caleb Effinger for being my photographer. I can’t imagine what this would have been like without y’all.

  And many thanks to my current team; Magpie Designs Ltd for my logo and series covers, S.D. Grimm, H.A. Titus, Janeen Ippolito, Jamie Foley, Sarah White, and Julia Busko. Y’all are the people that make epic things possible. Thank you.

  Huge shout-out to my parents for their tireless babysitting. To Sharon Lifsey for her time nannying and dissecting owl pellets with my boys. To Lizzy and Dan D’Elia for their hours of Nerf wars and video games to distract my kids long enough for me to write. The boys have loved their social life thanks to y’all.

  And the most important final two to thank: Mike and God. I would never have made it this far without Mike’s patience and understanding, for the times that I can’t talk because I need to write this very thing that’s in my head right now. And for the countless hours in the kitchen, in the car, at Disneyland, on the drive to church, around the mall, talking story ideas and writing notes on napkins or the phone or wherever we can. My dear partner, how I love you.

  And God. The Author of all creation. The one who spoke the world into being. The one who gifted salvation, wrote truth into our hearts, and gave the gift of words. May You be praised for all that has been accomplished in the few short years since this endeavor began. This is truly a miracle of Your timing and grace.

  Prologue

  Brandon

  Prince Brandon resisted the urge to sigh as Elder Sahvan steepled his gnarled fingers and looked at him over his knuckles. “What can the Crown offer that will make my people happy?”

  Brandon shifted in his chair, once again feeling unbalanced by the lack of his ceremonial sword at his hip. It was worth it to be unarmed for the negotiations, if only for the show of peace from the Crown, should they reach an accord that would result in the halt of attacks on caravans, mail, and nobles’ homes. He frowned.

  “Well, for one, we will reduce taxes. And we will start accepting recruits for our military from Selvage again.”

  Sahvan’s expression didn’t change as he considered Brandon’s words, but Brandon glanced toward the doorway in time to catch the grimace that crossed General Stevens’s weathered face. The burly general smoothed away his distaste an
d crossed his thick arms, appearing as calm as ever as he stood next to his slender lieutenant.

  Elder Sahvan’s guards didn’t have the same self-control and decorum, shuffling their steps and muttering to each other on the other side of the door that they guarded with Brandon’s men.

  Brandon’s heart sank as the elder didn’t seem appeased by Brandon’s offer. If only Sapphire were here. Brandon might be good at recognizing faces, but his wife had a way with words and diplomacy that he lacked, and his skill in it was greater than the rest of his family. No wonder this dispute had lasted so long. Everyone was too stubborn.

  “I—” Brandon hesitated, knowing that he was about to make a grand error in the ways of negotiations. “What gesture of goodwill would your city want from us?”

  He heard his aide sigh behind him, and Brandon straightened, unwilling to look any weaker than he already felt. Andre would give a word-for-word rundown of everything to Sapphire later, and she’d likely list off at least three things Brandon could’ve said differently.

  Sconce light reflected off Sahvan’s eyes, and he leaned forward, elbows pressed into the table. “Well, now that you mention it—”

  A cacophony of shouting and clanging sounded from beyond the thin wooden walls of the meeting room. Sahvan fell silent, his eyebrows raising while his countenance darkened.

  Brandon cocked his head, listening. The rebels wouldn’t attack here, now, would they? They were under a cease-fire. Things were going to improve between them. No one else had to die.

  “Your Highness. Honored Elder,” Captain Stevens strode across the room toward Brandon, hand on his hilt. The pounding of footsteps on stairs beyond the door punctuated Stevens’s order. “We need to move you. Now.”

  Brandon’s fingers scrambled along his leather belt, searching desperately for the scabbard and hilt that weren’t there. Void take us all for agreeing to unarmed negotiations. He swore under his breath as rebels poured into the quaint conference room and upended the ornate endtables by the door.

  Elder Sahvan’s guards rushed forward, taking down the first two men to reach them, but as Brandon watched, each guard fell at sword point by the flood of rebels coming in. Three rebel bandits sauntered up to the frail elder. The defenseless man glared up at them and clutched the arms of his chair with knobby fingers.

  “You fools, trying to undo everything that we work for.” Sahvan’s bald head shone in the light as he leaned forward, his words filled with venom. “You will bring death to us all!”

  “Just you and those like you, old man,” a rebel with lily-white skin replied calmly before he kicked out the back leg of the chair, splintering the wood and toppling it backward. Elder Sahvan didn’t have any opportunity to scramble away as the rebel leader raised his sword and drove it down with both hands, piercing Sahvan’s chest with such force that the sword pinned his body against the heavy chair like an insect on a study board.

  Why? Brandon froze, unable to comprehend this attack. Why would the rebels break the negotiations? Didn’t they know Brandon wanted to help them? To finally see peace happen between this erstwhile city and the Crown?

  Captain Stevens tugged on Brandon’s shoulder and snapped him out of his stupor. He blinked and followed the burly captain, all-too-aware of the soldiers fighting the rebels that encircled them. Brandon peeked over his shoulder at the scrawny man who’d killed Elder Sahvan. The rebel stood over the man’s body, looking down at him with an eerie calm. He pinned his foot against Sahvan’s shoulder and yanked his sword out of the elder’s chest. Brandon looked away, swallowing hard. If the rebels wanted to ruin the temporary peace between the Crown and Selvage by killing the town elder, then they’d likely not hesitate to kill the second prince.

  Never again am I going anywhere without my sword. Never again.

  They passed through the doorway as soon as the lanky Lieutenant Davies cleared it. Brandon stepped carefully, avoiding the slumped bodies of the men who had been guarding the door for the negotiations. Blood and body fluids swirled together on the floor, making haste treacherous. Davies slipped behind him and motioned for Brandon’s aide, Andre, to continue following Captain Stevens.

  Hustling down the stairs, relief coursed through Brandon as sunlight beckoned from just beyond the fractured open door. He followed Andre outside and threw a hand up to block the sunshine before he could see where his aide went. Something jostled into him, and dull pain sprouted from Brandon’s shoulder. His boot caught a brick, and he stumbled forward, falling to his knees before he could twist to look behind him, half expecting to discover a rebel standing over him. A spear ran from Lieutenant Davies’s shoulder down through his body, exiting his hip. Davies’s brown eyes dulled as he fell.

  Bile rose in the back of Brandon’s throat, and he scrambled to his feet, forcing himself to move through the shock and fear. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go today! He was going to return home and prove to his brother and parents that Selvage could be reasoned with! He’d prepared to show that he was better at smoothing ruffled feathers as the prince negotiator than as the crown prince that everyone would declare him to be in a few short months.

  This … this ruined all of that.

  A stocky guard directly behind the lieutenant decapitated the man who had speared Davies, his teeth bared in fury. He waved for Brandon to follow Captain Stevens. Strong fingers wrapped around Brandon’s arm in a bruising grip, and the Captain half dragged him to where Andre waited by the horses, sword in hand.

  The whole yard was full of fighting men, rebels and guards alike. Heavy boots crushed the flowers lining the walkway edges. Yelling and clanking metal rattled in Brandon’s ears. The coppery smell of blood in the air assaulted his senses. He breathed through clenched teeth as his stomach churned from the taste in his mouth and the sight of so many of his men lying on the ground. Their blood turned the dirt into mud.

  To the Void with trying to salvage any of this situation right now. The sooner he got out of here, the sooner his men could retreat.

  The thought spurred him to sprint past Captain Stevens. Brandon reached the paddock and launched himself over the wooden fence, skidding to a stop next to his horse. He yanked his sword out from under the saddle and let the sheath drop in the churned dirt at his feet. Throwing a leg up over the horse’s back, he pulled himself into the saddle.

  “Get His Highness out of here!” Captain Stevens roared over the battlefield.

  Andre didn’t reply, but ran to Brandon’s side, snatched the priceless sheath from the mud, and jammed it under the saddle. Andre gripped his own sword as he turned to survey the chaos, his crimson uniform nearly blinding Brandon in the sunlight.

  Brandon frowned as he gazed over Andre’s blond hair at the front gate of the paddock, belatedly noting how the rebels had bottlenecked them, making escape even more difficult. Andre shouted and slapped a hand against his horse’s rump, catching part of Brandon’s leg. Brandon twisted in the saddle in time to see a young rebel climb over the fence, dagger gleaming in his hand. Brandon urged his horse to sidestep, but the boy was faster, striking at the same time that Brandon’s horse moved.

  His horse bucked with a heinous scream, the dagger protruding from her shoulder. Brandon’s fingers scrambled to regain the reins. She bucked again, and he flew into the air, reaching to grasp anything. He landed on his back in a nearby horse trough with a mighty splash. Pain flooded his body.

  Something gave in his chest. He struggled to breathe. Blood flooded his mouth. He blinked as the world spun for a heartbeat. Andre appeared at his side, blue eyes wide as he probed Brandon’s chest. A burst of agony seared Brandon’s nerves.

  His hand sloshed in the water of the trough as he grasped for something to hold onto. I can’t breathe! His chest shuddered in pain. Lungs ached from reduced air. Andre’s eyes shone with an expression Brandon couldn’t recall ever seeing—panic. That sight terrified Brandon more than anything he had seen that day.

  “He’s injured!” Andre yelled over his shou
lder. Sweat gleamed on Andre’s forehead and dripped down his jaw. “We need the airship! Now!”

  Brandon watched the two fuzzy Captain Stevenses behind Andre. The captain didn’t even spare a look back as he fought a rebel in front of him, exchanging sword blows. He pushed at the man and yelled back at Andre. “Then glow the bleeding palace! We can’t move from here yet anyway!” Lunging forward, he stabbed the assailant viciously, pivoting to the side to sweep down and lop off his head. It fell to the dust with a dull thunk that echoed in Brandon’s ears.

  Andre gripped the back of Brandon’s head to rub a stone on the front of his circlet and hollered out. “Glowed them!” He grabbed Brandon’s face with slick hands and stared into his eyes. “Stay with me. Don’t you dare pass out. Stay with me!”

  Brandon blinked at his friend, lightheaded from the lack of oxygen. The memory of Sapphire kissing him goodbye and wishing him a safe mission flashed in his mind before color and chaos faded to black, sounds dropping away into silence.

  Am I going to die before I meet my child?

  Chapter One

  Brandon

  A child’s cry woke Brandon, and he wrenched himself upright, sweat-soaked sheets clinging to his chest. He rubbed at the grit in his eyes and reached out, seeking fingers finding Sapphire’s back, and then her curved belly, overdue with their firstborn. He fell back against his pillow, dropping his arm over his face. A dream. Just like all the other times, a remembrance of five months ago, followed by the brief, nightmarish cry of his unborn child’s imagined death.

  Because a collapsed lung and broken rib hadn’t been bad enough, his mind had to concoct all sorts of what-could-go-wrong scenarios to haunt him.

  But he was alive. Sapphire and their unborn babe were fine, and if they could settle the disputes with Selvage, then maybe he’d be able to sleep easy at night again.

  He absently rubbed his hand against Sapphire’s sleek, sleep-dress covered back, taking quiet comfort in her nearness. Everything would change when their child was born, and he feared it. His elder brother, Richard, was supposed to be the crown prince. Not him. And being the first to have an heir would alter that order irreparably. Not only would it rub Richard’s face in the fact that his wife and child had died in childbirth, but now the throne wouldn’t be his, unless he could remarry and have an heir.