Dawn Of The Blood Sovereign

CHAPTER 2: THE BLOOD HUNT

The Whisperwood lived up to its name. The wind rustled through ancient, towering pines like a thousand dead men muttering secrets.

Kaelen rode a sturdy, brown gelding, a deliberate choice. A prince on a stallion garnered attention; a prince on a common horse faded into the backdrop of the royal hunt. Behind him moved the heavy iron-clad cavalry of Buyeo, slithering through the pines like a slow metallic serpent, their black armor glinting through the fractured light piercing the canopy above.

"The rules are simple, outcast," Crown Prince Malakor called out from the head of the procession. He was mounted on a gargantuan white warhorse draped in a wolf-pelt cloak.

"The one to return with the Shadow-Stalker’s pelt wins the King's favor for the season. All others clean the stables."

The five younger princes chortled as if on cue, testing the strings of their gilded crossbows.

"The Shadow-Stalker hasn't been seen in three winters," Logan, the veteran hunt master, muttered under his breath, loud enough for Kaelen to hear. "It's a fool's errand."

"Or a trap," Kaelen whispered back.

He didn't need to see to know they were surrounded. His bloodline, the blood of a father who commanded the sky and a mother who controlled the deep currents, thrummed under his skin. He could feel the heartbeats in the underbrush.

Not the rapid patter of startled game. These were slow, deliberate, heavy heartbeats.

Soldiers. Armed men. Lying in wait.

"Separate!" Malakor roared, lifting his mailed fist. "Each man on his own path. Let's see who the gods favor."

The hunting party fractured, melting into the dense fog. Kaelen steered his gelding down a narrow, rocky ravine, the air around them growing colder. He didn't draw his bow. Not yet.

Ten minutes of silence later, the wind stopped whispering. The air grew utterly still.

A sharp whistle cut through the fog. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.

Three heavy, black-shafted crossbolts tore through the mist, impaling Kaelen's gelding in the chest and neck. The beast let out a strangled shriek and crumpled to the earth. Kaelen rolled from the saddle before it fell, tumbling behind a massive moss-covered boulder. The third bolt lodged itself precisely where his throat had been a second prior.

"Target down!" someone yelled from the ridge above. "Check the body! The Crown Prince wants its head as proof!"

Heavy boots crunched on the dry twigs. Six men, clad not in royal uniform, but in the worn leather of outlaws, stepped into the clearing, bearing heavy broadswords and loaded crossbows.

Kaelen huddled behind the boulder. His common ashwood bow had snapped beneath his weight when the horse fell. Weaponless, trapped, he braced for the inevitable.

But for the first time in his life, Kaelen didn't need to hide.

He let out a deep breath. The golden luminescence buried deep within his irises flared, turning his dark eyes into twin pools of molten sun. The blood in his veins roared like a furnace. The oppressive, cold weight of the palace, the constant indignities of his brothers, the fear of a swift execution-all dissolved into a cold, divine fury.

He didn't need a bow. The world was his weapon.

Kaelen stepped from behind the boulder.

The bandits froze. The boy they expected to be crying or cowering was standing tall, a chilling, absolute authority radiating from him that raised the hairs on their arms.

"Shoot him!" the leader yelled, raising his crossbow.

Kaelen didn't move his feet. He simply flicked his wrist upward.

The moisture in the fog reacted instantly to his mother's divine lineage. In less than an instant, the mist condensed into jagged, razor-sharp ice shards suspended in mid-air. With a violent downward swipe of Kaelen's hand, the ice storms screamed through the clearing, impaling the bandits to the trees behind them like grotesque trophies.

The bandits did not even cry out. The ice shred their leather armor, pinning them. The leader dropped his crossbow, his knees cracking as a jagged shard grazed his throat, drawing a thin line of blood. He looked up at Kaelen, his face bone-white, his eyes wide with pure terror. "You... You're not human. You're a monster."

"I am the rightful prince of this realm," Kaelen's voice echoed, resonating like clanging steel and making the stones on the ravine walls tremble. "Who ordered this?"

"Malakor!" the bandit choked, spitting. "The Crown Prince! He said you were a threat to his reign. He has the entire eastern exit sealed. If you don't die here, the Royal Guard will execute you at the border!"

Kaelen looked down at the man. He felt no pity. Only a cold, clear path ahead.

Thwack.

An arrow, shot from a distance, pierced the bandit leader through the skull. He slumped forward, dead.

Kaelen whirled around, his hands radiating heat, ready to boil the air itself.

From the trees rode three men. They weren't dressed in Malakor's black iron, but simple, rugged traveling leathers. Their eyes, however, were sharp, intelligent, and fierce.

"My Prince," the lead rider called out, dismounting quickly. Oi, Kaelen's childhood friend and the only guard who had ever shown him genuine loyalty, knelt at his feet. Behind him stood Mari and Hyeopbo, two of the best scouts from the outer rim. "We tracked the Crown Prince's auxiliary unit. The ambush is widespread. The King is in a coma. Malakor has declared martial law. You cannot remain in Buyeo past midnight or you will be executed for treason."

Oi reached out and handed Kaelen a heavy, long object wrapped in black silk.

"We took this from the royal armory before we left," Oi explained, unwrapping the silk.

In his hands rested a massive, recurve bow crafted from black dragon-bone and celestial silver. It was the Sun-Cleaver, the weapon of Kaelen's divine father, a bow that no mortal man could bend.

Kaelen reached out. The instant his fingers grasped the black bone, a wave of golden energy exploded outwards, blowing the mist clear out of the ravine. The bow felt lighter than a feather, an extension of his own being.

"Where do we go, Kaelen?" Mari asked nervously, his horse skittering. "The north is blocked, the east belongs to Malakor."

Kaelen slung the massive bow over his shoulder, mounting one of their horses. He set his gaze upon the snow-capped, jagged peaks in the distance.

"We go south," Kaelen said, his voice as hard and cold as iron. "To the Outer Marches."

However, the merchant clans rule in the south." warned Hyeopbo. "They detest the royal line; they will murder us on sight."

Kaelen gripped the reins tighter, his eyes glinting in the cruel, dying light of the suns as it fell. "Let them try," he declared, "We have nothing left to defend. From this day, we do not flee to live. We flee to construct a fortress they can never destroy."

With an urgent kick, Kaelen pushed his mount forward into the shadows, down toward the lawless valleys below, and the decaying kingdom of his birth.