Chains of Fate

Chapter One

A/N: Hello everyone! Thank you for waiting so patiently for the next book of Seize the Day! I am VERY excited to share Lannie's next adventure with you. I implemented many of the ideas you all gave me, and, though I couldn't use all of them, they made this book ten times more interesting. So thank you for that!

I will be updating weekly on Mondays and Fridays. If you liked a chapter, click the little star to vote or comment below to tell me your thoughts on it.

So I present to you Chains of Fate! I hope you enjoy reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it.

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Chapter One

If I had known that saving the world would have been this difficult, I would have rejected my duty as a Harbinger and stowed myself away in my house for all eternity.

“Put your back into it, Lannie!”

Clarice’s screech bounced off the walls of the courtyard as I hurled the sword with all my might at the beast before me. The sun beat down on my face, making sweat trickle down my neck.

My opponent leered with devilish black eyes and a stitched mouth that seemed to grin. Straw poked out of his stomach, making the sack his other body parts were stuffed in look lumpy in all their evil.

“Come on!” Clarice hollered from the edge of the arena circle. My pupil was only sixteen, but she was somehow still capable of making my blood boil. “It’s a dummy, Lannie. If you can’t dismantle it with a sword in under twenty seconds, you’ll never be able to defeat Therin.”

I gritted my teeth and swung the sword again. I didn’t need a reminder of how useless I was with weaponry. Nor did I need a reminder of the creature who ruined my life. Therin was still out there, and after the stunt he pulled with pretending to be Duchess Odelia’s emissary, Cicero Rauch, I wasn’t putting anything past him. He ordered Queen Philippa’s death and tried to kidnap Titus. There was nothing he wouldn’t do to get what he wanted.

Philippa.

I lopped the head off the dummy and stood panting, feeling the weight of the sword in my hands. I knew that Titus still hadn’t recovered from his adoptive mother’s death. I hadn’t seen him for days now, and it was starting to weigh on me.

And ordering Philippa’s death wasn’t the only sin that Therin committed.

He ordered my mother’s death as well.

I sliced through the sack covering of the dummy’s stomach, making straw spill out.

My mother was innocent. She didn’t even want to be a Harbinger, yet that was the reason Therin sent Kasib to kill her.

I clenched my teeth, breathing hard from exertion. If training for weeks—months, even—could stop Therin, then I would do everything I could to avenge both mother and Philippa's deaths.

You seem to forget that revenge is what caused me to reject you in the first place.

“Geez!” I cried, catching my sword just in time before it slipped from my hands. It was Eden’s voice in my head again. The Water Elemental had been silent ever since I saved the castle from the shapeshifting Orandine, Kasib Tierce. “What do you want now, Eden?”

Nothing, she said. I’m just amused at how you are trying to make up for your incompetence.

“Is there anything else I can do?” I muttered, gripping the sword tighter. “We aren’t ready to leave for Nor yet to free the slaves and find the other Harbingers. Titus still has to sort everything out with finding his father—”