[ONGOING: New Chapters Every Sunday]
Kingsblade. Rise of the Raven Queen.
Her kingdom is in ashes.
She's supposed to save it, but there's one problem.
She doesn't remember she's the queen.
She doesn't remember anything at all.
With war looming on...
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Y E A R 1 4 , T H E F I R S T A G E
When the king who hated socks found other, more important, things to hate
King Éoran Karanor squinted away the salty sweat that dripped down his forehead and burned the corner of his eyes. He squatted over a long row of carrots, yanking up one weed at a time. It had rained the night before, and the mud had rubbed his fingers raw. He pulled at the base of a small, harmless-looking sprite of a plant, expecting to feel its tight grip on the soil pop and snap. Instead, another thorn buried itself into the soft flesh between his ring finger and pinky, and he swore.
He'd started counting early that morning, before the sliver of a friendly morning sun had transformed, burned through the thin blue veil that stood between them, and beat them down with a barbaric kind of pressure and hatred that Éoran had never experienced.
This was his one-thousandth prick, he thought as he pulled the little barb out of his finger and wondered briefly how it'd even managed to wedge itself in there. Cobblestones would have to make some room for weeds: his hatred for them had spiked with the heat of the day and made him dizzy when he stood.
One thousand thorns.
He was certain they didn't have that many carrots.
Where's the justice in that, hmm, Elindir? he asked, twisting his head to look up at the pale blue sky above them.
Éoran knew the sound of Elindir's laughter as well as he knew the stars that shone in the night sky above, and he relished as it rolled over him like a warm, ocean wave washing over his feet. He would, without a doubt, prefer to be at the beach beyond the forest and mangroves that bordered Cahlinmir than in the fields at this moment.
He lost himself in the fantasy for a moment: feeling every inch of the memory that spread out and embraced him in his mind's eye. There was the sand, squishing between his toes. Of course, they would play a good mejanga with the boys and that one fiesty little girl with the eyes that could laugh at you from afar and make the biggest warrior feel small.
The kids were from the coastal shanty town that wove in and out of the mangrove like the roots of some ancient tree: their presence there was far from an invasion but rather a beautiful harmony of the song that forest whispered to calm the angry wind that blew across the Red Sea, heavy laden with salt water and the stories of lost souls.
The hot sun bore down on them. Éoran guessed it was two past midday, and his curiosity pulled him up like a puppet. The imaginary strings held his hand up to the horizon and count the fingers that fit under the horizon.
He stood a bit longer than he needed to, staring at the forest that bordered the farmland bellow the Burrows, and watched as the wind combed through the trees.
Sonia, a young girl from the Thrab, looked up at him and blinked in surprise.
Éoran was afraid he'd offended her until a smile teased up the corners of her mouth into a smirk.
