DREAMWIELDER Book 1 of The Dreamwielder Chronicles

Book 2 Preview: SOULDRIFTER

ENTER DARKNESS

Khal-Aband, the underground prison, was four hundred miles south of Sol Valaróz, shrouded in the broad-leafed rainforest that clung to the jagged, mountainous terrain of the Spine. There was no path, no gate marking the entrance, only a spire of rock known as the Finger to find one's way, and even then it was only visible in the waning hours of the evening, when the setting sun over the Ocean Gloaming backlit the angular, straight lines of the Finger in stark contrast to the undulating silhouette of the forest. It was no wonder it had taken Makarria so long to discover it.

It was nearly a year since Makarria's coronation, and Emperor Guderian's fallen empire still cast a shadow over her every action as Queen of Valaróz. Don Bricio, the usurper Guderian had placed on the Valarion throne, had turned Valarion politics into a knot of corruption, and even with Don Bricio and Guderian both dead and gone, their reign of terror had scarred Makarria's people. More than anything, they were apprehensive about sorcery. Guderian had all but exterminated sorcerers in the Five Kingdoms, so what were people to think of Makarria, a dreamwielder, when the only sorcerer they had ever known was Guderian's shape-changing monster Wulfram? At best, they were grateful to Makarria for having liberated them from tyranny, but distrustful of the changes she tried to bring about. At worst, they openly questioned her ability, saying sorcerers couldn't be trusted and that a fourteen-year-old girl didn't have the strength to rule.

That's why this trip to Khal-Aband was so important.

Inside—locked away in the secret prison where Emperor Guderian and Don Bricio had sent the enemies they hated too much to kill—was a man who could make the people of Valaróz trust the throne again. Assuming he was still alive.

Makarria tore her gaze away from the Finger and glanced to the far side of her encampment where four scouts emerged from the forest, having returned at last. "Well?" she asked, striding forward to meet them in the middle of the encampment. "Is the perimeter clear?" Patience was something she was working on, but not today, not when she was so close to her goal. Not when Caile was off searching the prison without her.

"Yes, Your Majesty, the perimeter is clear," the lead scout said. "My team searched the forest a mile to the north and south, across the entirety of the Spine. There is no evidence anyone has been here in months. All we found was an abandoned skiff in a cove along the western shoreline."

"Abandoned?"

"Yes, Your Majesty. It appears someone tried to sink it. The hull was shattered and someone filled it with rocks. If the tide hadn't been out, we wouldn't have noticed it at all. By my estimation, it's been there a year or more. There's not much left of it."

Makarria frowned, not liking the sound of someone purposefully sinking a boat. "Don't be so sure it's been there as long as that. The sea is harsh to sunken vessels, particularly on rocky shores. What do you think, Lorentz?"

Captain Lorentz—her advisor, friend, and personal bodyguard at Prince Caile's insistence—stood up from where he had been sitting on a rock, gazing up at the Finger. His face still bore the scars of the torture he had endured as Emperor Guderian's prisoner: part of one ear gone and three of his front teeth missing, in addition to the crosshatch of thin pink scars on his forehead from knife wounds. "A year sounds about right," he said, his words tinged with a slight lisp due to his missing teeth. "That would have been the last time Don Bricio could have sent anyone here."

"But why on the western shore?" Makarria asked. It didn't make any sense. "If he were sending word from Sol Valaróz, the vessel would have landed on the eastern shore, the same as us."

Lorentz shrugged. "Perhaps he sent word from one of the western cities. Or perhaps Guderian sent someone from Col Sargoth."

It was possible, but Makarria didn't buy it. A skiff was too small for transporting prisoners, and even if Don Bricio or Guderian had merely sent a messenger, they wouldn't have risked sending a message in such small vessel. Makarria knew all too well how dangerous it was sailing the open sea in a skiff. She and her grandfather had nearly died in one fleeing from Guderian when a storm came upon them. It seemed so long ago now, but Makarria still recalled how small she had felt in the skiff, a toy against the fury of the sea.