Seeds of dominion, p.1
Seeds of Dominion, page 1
part #2 of Eldros Legacy Series
Book Description
Unholy evil lurks in the shadow of a magical kingdom.
When a duke and his family are butchered in their sleep, a beleaguered king commands his brother Rellen to uncover not only who committed the heinous murders but why. Was it sedition? Political assassination? Or is it the gruesome machinations of a blood-hungry demon goddess and her cult?
Like fighting a hydra, every riddle Rellen solves exposes two more. The investigation quickly mutates into something far more sinister. As ancient artifacts, secret organizations, and hidden mysteries creep in at every turn, he sinks deeper and deeper into a foreboding conspiracy that threatens everything he knows.
Always one step behind, Rellen desperately chases one clue after another. To his growing horror, he realizes the duke’s murder was only the latest piece of a far-reaching legacy of deceit spanning centuries—perhaps even millennia—and the entire kingdom has been taken in by lies.
Once exposed, the terrible truth will be far more than anyone bargained for.
Contents
Book Description
Copyright Page
Free Fiction
Dedication
What is Eldros Legacy?
The Chronicler
Maps
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
Epilogue
Interlude
About the Author
If You Liked…
Copyright Page
SEEDS OF DOMINION
Copyright © 2022 by Eldros Legacy
Digital Edition
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.
Eldros Legacy Press
P.O. Box 292
Englewood, Colorado 80151
EldrosLegacyPress.com
License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Publisher’s Note
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Cover Art by:
Jake Caleb
Cover Design by:
Jake Caleb, Sean Olsen, Melissa Gay & Quincy J. Allen
Map Design by:
Sean Stallings
Seeds of Dominion / Quincy J. Allen — 1st ed.
ISBN: 978-1-959994-09-1
Free Fiction
Get the free Eldros Legacy teaser collection:
Here There Be Giants
Dedication
First and foremost, this book is dedicated to my wife, Victoria, without whom none of this would be possible.
It is also dedicated to the Eldros Legacy founders, the rest of the Eldros Legacy team, and specifically, Todd Fahnestock, who has been cobalt to my plutonium for some time now.
What is Eldros Legacy?
The Eldros Legacy is a multi-author, shared-world, mega-epic fantasy project managed by four Founders who share the vision of a new, expansive, epic fantasy world. In the coming years the Founders committed themselves to creating multiple storylines where they and many others will explore and write about a world once ruled by tyrannical giants.
The Founders are working on four different primary storylines on four different continents. Over the coming years, those four storylines will merge into a single meta story where fates of all races on Eldros will be decided.
In addition, a growing list of guest authors, short story writers, and other contributors will delve into virtually every corner of each continent. It’s a grand design, and the Founders have high hopes that readers will delight in exploring every nook and cranny of the Eldros Legacy.
So, please join us and explore the world of Eldros and the epic tales that will be told by great story tellers, for Here There Be Giants!
We encourage you to follow us at www.eldroslegacy.com to keep up with everything going on. If you sign up there, you’ll get our newsletter and announcements of new book releases. You can also follow up on FaceBook at facebook.com/groups/eldroslegacy.
Sincerely,
Todd, Marie, Mark, and Quincy
(The Founders)
The Chronicler
Seeds of Dominion
The man in the stocks had been there for longer than anyone could guess.
He stood on a rise before a valley that contained broken buildings, collapsed walls, and a single metal tower. The ancient city behind him had been abandoned in another age, but the man remained, bent over, gnarled hands and gray-haired head stuffed through the holes of his forever prison.
He was a storyteller, and since he’d first begun telling his tales a year ago, the crowds had thinned, but there was one who stayed. A young man with blond hair and a tanned face. He wore a cowl pulled low over his head to protect himself from the summer sun. No matter how many times the old man told the same story, the young man remained in rapt attention:
“Do you know the story of the Second War of the Giants…?” the old man asked for the thousandth time. “I have told you about Khyven the Unkillable, how he discovered his magic. I have told you about Lorelle and her alliance with the Dark. I have told you about Rhenn and her journey without end…
“But I have not told you about Rellen, the one who sacrificed himself at the ultimate moment of the war. Khyven the Unkillable was the sword of destiny in that final battle, but Rellen’s cut was deepest.
“How do I know? Oh, I know, young man. I know because I was there.
“I was there the day the blood goddess Nissra was loosed upon Daemanon. I was there when Abissar the Defiler received the Seeds of Dominion. And I was there when the Guardian Rellen ascended to the heavens…
“The heir to the throne of Pelinon, Rellen chose to guard the kingdom with his sword and his magic instead. He did not seek power, only justice. Abissar the Defiler tried to bind Rellen in machinations. Nhevalos the Betrayer tried to steal Khyven’s victory, but it was Rellen who turned the tables and saved his brother. And because he did, Eldros endured.
“I’m going to tell you his story, the true story of the Guardian Rellen who held the demon armies at bay….”
Maps
Chapter One
The Suspect
Mygal’s time was up. The clocktower rang twelve bells, each gong reminding him the murdered duke and his family remained unavenged. It had been six days. The Guardian’s Conclave loomed, ready to judge Mygal’s progress. His only suspect—handed to him by a cocky information broker he didn’t trust.
“Are you sure he’s going to show up?” he asked Tavyn. He eyed his informant as he sipped a tankard of dreadfully flat ale. He hated flat ale. He hated waiting even more. They’d been waiting two hours, and there was still no sign of the suspect. The Drunken Unger tavern was only half full—a mix of thugs and merchants—and none of them was the man Mygal wanted. He needed answers. He needed to stand before the king with more than empty hands and unsolved mysteries. He shifted his gaze to the informant he’d roped in two days earlier.
“I guarantee it,” Tavyn replied. He was a lithe rogue of a man in his late twenties, with long, blond hair, a close-cut goatee, and keen, blue eyes that missed little. His leather jerkin and pants were a matching indigo, his light oilskin cloak the color of a stormy sea. He wore high, black boots and a matching black leather belt. The matching grips of a slim fencing dagger and a basket-hilted rapier poked up from his belt. The grips on both were worn from use, but well-maintained. “Like I said, my contact told me Dancer was bragging about burgling a noble, and neither the noble nor his family would ever mi
It fits, Mygal thought, but the more he sat here, the more something didn’t feel right. He took another sip and traced a small, seemingly random pattern in a splash of ale on the table. The pattern, a sort of mnemonic device, helped him focus his mind. As he did, he reached out lightly with his ermajea, touching Tavyn’s mind with what most people called Love Magic. Mygal was an accomplished erkurios, or “heartbender,” in common parlance. It was one of the main reasons he’d been tasked for this mission. As he sifted delicately through Tavyn’s emotions, he found only certainty with not even a glimmer of deceit. He did this sort of thing with all of the informants he worked with, which was one of the reasons he was still alive.
“That does narrow it down,” Mygal replied, “but rumors are just rumors.”
“You should trust me,” Tavyn said with a mischievous grin. “Everyone else does.”
“I don’t trust anyone.” Mygal met Tavyn’s gaze with a raised eyebrow.
“Wisdom or cynicism?”
“Bit of both, actually.” Mygal glanced at the front doors.
“He’ll be here,” Tavyn insisted. He took a swig from his own tankard and frowned. “He collects in this area on this night of the week, every week.”
Mygal let out an impatient breath. “I hate to wait.”
“Maybe you’re in the wrong business.”
“I like what I do. Waiting is just one of the few downsides.”
“Is the bounty high?”
“For killing a duke and his entire family?” Mygal put on the show of a greedy smile. “A thousand dakkaris, my friend. Assuming…”
“Assuming what?”
“That I get the right man—the killer will be compelled to truthfulness by the magistrates—and assuming this is the only thing he’s responsible for. If there are other bounties on his head, then I get those too. It’s not unheard of.”
“What will you do with a thousand gold dakkaris?”
Mygal smiled again. “Answer only the questions I feel like answering.”
“You planning on just grabbing him tonight and taking him in?”
“On your say-so alone?” Mygal raised an eyebrow. “It doesn’t work that way. I need to follow him and see what evidence I can gather—tangible evidence. Search his quarters, maybe… see if he’s got any of the duke’s possessions, anything taken from the manor house.”
Tavyn nodded. “I suppose that makes sense.”
Mygal took another sip. “There are consequences—severe ones—when bounty hunters grab innocent people off the street and drag them in.”
“He is part of a protection racket,” Tavyn offered.
“Not my concern. The authorities only get involved—I only get involved—when there’s a valid bounty or it involves the nobility. Protection rackets are part of the status quo.”
“Charming.”
“That’s the world we live in.”
“True enough.” Tavyn looked at Mygal. “I guess I’d be out of a job too, if the king and magistrates looked too deep into the shadows of the city. There wouldn’t be as much underworld information for me to broker.”
“I don’t know about that.” Mygal shrugged. “Seems to me the underworld would just go deeper… you might even be able to charge more… less low-hanging fruit, so to speak.”
“You talk like a merchant.”
“My father was a merchant. Grains and stakka fruit, mostly.”
Mygal considered his next question carefully. He wasn’t sure he wanted to broach the subject, but Tavyn might be able to confirm some of the things he’d heard on the docks that afternoon. Finally, he decided it couldn’t hurt.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Mygal started slowly. “Maybe you’ve heard something. Maybe not. And it may or may not be part of this.”
“What’s that?”
“I’ve heard about two minor nobles here in the duchy… something about taxes being too stiff and demanding a change… Barons Umar and Gorven. Heard anything about them?”
“Not much,” Tavyn replied evenly. Mygal didn’t sense any deceit in the man, but that didn’t necessarily mean there wasn’t any. Even heartbenders could be fooled. “Why do you ask?”
“Well, if they were plotting sedition, the best place to foment it would be from the ducal seat. I’ve heard both of them would be considered to replace Duke Belvenim if he were to be removed.” Mygal had made that part up, but he wasn’t worried about being caught up on so tenuous a rumor… even one he started.
Tavyn looked thoughtful. “Those two? Their lands are to the south, right?”
Mygal nodded. “I checked. They were both far from here when the murders took place… although one or both of them could have hired people like Dancer to commit the crime. Do you think one of them could put a price on Duke Belvenim’s head?”
“Have Dancer kill the duke and then play the odds that they got selected?”
“That’s the theory,” Mygal replied.
“Highly unlikely.” Tavyn sounded confident. “I don’t know much about those barons, but I know they have more bark than bite.”
Mygal let out a long, thoughtful breath. “Killing nobles is a long-established tradition. People have been doing it since before Pelinon was even a kingdom. What I don’t understand is why the duke and his entire family were killed the way they were…” He thoughtfully traced another circle in the puddle of ale on the table. “I mean, they were butchered. It would have taken one person a long time to kill an entire family like that. It would have to have been one at a time, and only a kurios could have subdued them… unless they were drugged. Odds are it was more than one person in the manor that night.”
“Hey, more murderers means more bounties, yes?” Tavyn offered. “Especially if they’re involved in sedition.”
“True enough, but I’m not sure I want to tangle with an entire nest of traitors. I can’t spend dakkaris if I’m face down in an alley somewhere.”
Tavyn nodded. “You could just gather evidence and then turn the whole group over to a magistrate.”
“And get just a percentage of the bounty?” Mygal shrugged. “I’m not a fan of that either… although, something is better than nothing, I suppose. What I can’t figure—either way—is why not just kill the duke? Why slaughter the entire family?”
“Maybe someone just likes killing?” Tavyn offered.
“Maybe.”
The barmaid, a pretty lass with delicate features and red curls down to her waist, stepped up to the table.
“Another round, milords?” She gave Tavyn a wink, as if she knew him, and then gave Mygal a friendly smile.
“Only if you’re the one who brings them,” Mygal said. He had to admit, she really was attractive. He reached out with his majea and discovered a hint of attraction toward him, enough that he figured he could probably arrange a tryst with her. He’d always had a good sense for such things. Only a few years earlier, he might have used his majea to increase his chances—just a little bump to up the attraction that was already there—but he’d left such abuses of his gift in the past where they belonged. He was a Guardian now and had vowed to set a much higher standard. Besides, tracking Dancer took priority.
She blushed and flashed him a lovely smile. “I promise it will be me.”
“Then two more ales it is,” Mygal replied. “Make sure the innkeeper puts a head on them.”
Then, with a swirl of her dress, she was gone. Mygal glanced at Tavyn and found him watching her retreat, a knowing look in his eyes. It was a perfect opportunity for Mygal to test Tavyn.
“Ahh…” He put a grin on his face. “You’ve had her?”
Tavyn looked surprised. “A gentleman doesn’t speak of such things.” But there was a lascivious glint in his eye.
Mygal tapped gently into his majea and sent a filament into Tavyn’s emotions. At first there was a hint of resistance, which surprised Mygal. Only heartbenders and certain individuals trained to control their emotions were capable of such things. A moment later, his tendril flowed into Tavyn’s mind, and Mygal pushed ever so gently.
“I think gentleman is a strong word,” he said, “and besides, she’s a beauty.”
He felt Tavyn’s natural resistance. The informant truly didn’t want to speak about it. Mygal pushed just a little harder, and the resistance gave way like the parting of a curtain.
