Normagaell Saga ~ book 1
Divine Prey is a new epic fantasy series filled with action, adventure, hope and magic. It’s perfect for fans of Raymond E Feist, Anne McCaffrey, David Eddings, and more.
Download a Kindle, ePub or PDF copy of the first seven chapters, or read the first chapter below.
Overview
After spending a winter hidden away in a convent to give birth to her illegitimate child, Caroline wants nothing more than to return home and continue with her life as if her indiscretion had never happened.
The Goddess of Healing has other plans for her, however.
For thousands of years the Gods have been trying to outwit each other in the ultimate war for supremacy. Only two Gods remain in the contest; the God of War and the Goddess of Healing. The stakes are high. The prize: the universe itself. The winner will be decided by pitting two empires against each other, each led by a single Champion. The gamble sets an immortal warlord with vast armies against an untried young princess… and an empire she is destined to create.
Called to Divine Service, Caroline has no idea how drastically her life is about to change, or why.
A signal to the other Gods that the Goddess of Healing has finally chosen her Champion, Caroline defies the offer in the mistaken belief she is being punished for her indiscretion, and in doing marks she herself as a target.
She’s become the quarry in a Divine Game.
Unless Caroline accepts her role as Champion her life will remain in danger, but Caroline has no intentions of doing what she’s told. Ever. Her defiance sees the God of War’s assassins seeking her death before she can even begin her path to destiny.
Worse, Caroline’s Gods-granted destiny comes with a heavy price – she cannot ascend the throne unless her father and siblings are dead. As the Gods play their games and the stakes rise, Caroline is forced to rely on the trust she places in her friends, and a curse that’s slowly destroying her humanity.
For Caroline, she’s not fighting for a world, but herself and the people she cares about. To succeed, she will have to outwit her family, her enemies and even the Gods.
Chapter 1
Three millennia, seven centuries,
and seventy-one years after the Seism.
The Season of New Life.
Prime Year of the Divine Lady Marnier du Shae,
Mistress of Healing, Goddess of Purpose.
Caroline stretched, ignoring the abbey’s dawn bells for the first time in half a year. Although grateful to the Divine Servants for their care and discretion, she’d never had any desire to enter their ranks. Even so, her stomach knotted at the thought of returning home today. The Divine Servants were experts at healing bodies, but did not console hearts well. She needed friends for that, not religion, yet her friends could never know her shame.
Daughter, join with me.
Caroline stiffened and sat up, hoping she’d failed to notice someone enter her room. She gasped as warm light filled her, bringing with it a desperate need to join with divinity. She cried aloud, her fingers clutching the sheets as she broke out in a sweat. She couldn’t breathe and didn’t want to.
As divine light settled into her flesh she collapsed to the bed, every muscle aching and her skin coated with perspiration.
“My Lady, please don’t ask this of me,” she gasped despite wishing to feel the Goddess’s light rush through her again. She lifted her bare arms. The outline of a luminous bell-shaped alimoth flower marked each wrist like an artist’s sketch ready to be filled in. The flowers were the symbol of Marnier du Shae, Goddess of Healing. “I beg you,” she whispered. “I didn’t engineer this deception in your house. Please take your light back.”
What else could it be but a punishment for her temerity? She’d come to the abbey under the guise of piety to hide an unexpected pregnancy and childbirth, and now she’d been marked as if she had truly sought Divine Service.
“Please,” she whispered again, unable to take her eyes from the luminous markings. “Your abbey…” Was what? A convenience? She’d even lied to her best friends. If Caroline denied the Lady of Healing now she’d be denied the Higher Realm’s graces her entire life. Yet if she accepted, the outlines would fill in and she’d be bound to serve the Goddess forever.
A blessing to anyone else, she couldn’t imagine a worse rebuke, not even death. The luminous outlines were a punishment almost as harsh as the loss of her child. Fortunately, the King’s Guard had arrived with orders to return her to Fandelyon City. She could be mounted and out the gates before a Divine Servant noticed her markings and forced her to confront her calling.
Her hands trembling, she threw her heavy covers aside. The cold hardwood floor felt smooth under her bare feet. She removed her yellow nightgown, pulled on her warm grey riding dress and boots and threw her royal-blue travel cloak around her shoulders.
Her clothes were tight, but there was no time to get them altered. She’d worn only the order’s pale yellow robes since last autumn and she’d grown an inch taller in that time. Wider too, thanks to her child.
Footsteps approached along the corridor as she tied her curly red hair back. She tried to show only but the grace of a princess as the novice Bharise stopped at her open doorway, the young woman’s olive skin and dark curly hair setting off her pale robes.
Caroline caught her breath when she noticed the shimmering alimoth flowers on the insides of the young Servant’s wrists, something she’d never been able to see before. A nightmare. It had to be.
“Everything’s prepared, Your Highness,” Bharise said, staring up at Caroline’s face as if she noticed something different.
Caroline felt her cheeks flush. The girl knew somehow. “Thank you Bharise. I’ll be down in a moment.” As the acolyte’s footsteps retreated, Caroline buried her face in her spare riding dress to smother her growing distress. She needed someone to talk to; the closeness of her sisters.
“It’s ironic, don’t you think?”
Caroline jumped, a loose strand of her curly red hair drooping over her face. She dropped the dress on her bed as the abbey’s High Priestess entered her room in a swish of richly embroidered golden robes. Easily a foot shorter than Caroline and perhaps half her weight, Tarine’s presence nevertheless intimidated despite her years. Her grey hair and carved staff of office made her even more imposing, as if she were looking for an excuse to it as a weapon on someone.
With her mother’s clan heritage Caroline had always been tall. Now she stood a head above almost everyone, even most men, yet still felt like a child as she confronted Tarine. “Ironic?” Caroline almost stammered as she stuffed the heavy dress in her travel pack, making certain her sleeves didn’t slip and expose her wrists.
“How you came here under the pretext of finding your calling?” Tarine glanced pointedly at Caroline’s wrists, her expression suggesting Caroline was no more worthy of Divine Service today than she’d been half a year ago. “Did you even pray to our Goddess while you were here, guile aside?”
Our Goddess. The words felt like a slap. “Of course. Devoutly.” What woman wouldn’t beg the Goddess’s blessing while pregnant?
Tarine showed her own wrists. Like Bharise, a single bell-shaped alimoth flower glowed with divine light on the insides of each.
Caroline kept her eyes on the swarthy woman’s face. Only three Servants knew why she was here, and Tarine was one. “I’ve imposed upon you too long, High Priestess.”
Tarine’s eyes narrowed. “You’re ready for your journey?” The words were cold. Precise. Angry even.
Caroline felt her cheeks flush with shame, but was grateful the woman didn’t force the issue. “Yes High Priestess. Thank you for your patience and the kindness you’ve shown me.”
Tarine produced a tight smile, her skin crinkling at the sides of her mouth if not her eyes. “Unlike some Gods, our Divine Lady isn’t biased toward age, station or gender when offering Service, but neither does she grant her favours lightly.”
It was another opening, a chance to acknowledge her divine marks without being called out. “High Priestess, please understand that this abbey only holds bitter heartache for me.” Humiliated, she revealed her luminous alimoth outlines. “I’m not prepared to accept these. They’re a punishment.”
“They’re never a punishment!” Tarine said with the harshness of a slap, but quickly composed herself. “I’ll pray to our Divine Lady. Perhaps she’ll give you the time you need to accept her offer.” She sounded as if the words were forced.
“I shall pray for the same,” Caroline whispered. She’d always assumed that if she were ever called to Service it would be the Divine Lady Kindra du Erim, Protector of Warriors, or perhaps one of the Elemental Gods such as Haram du Heth, Lord of Fire. She couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t loved watching fire dance in a fireplace.
“Before you depart you should know that Lady Rhonda duPrey also discovered the healing flowers on her wrists this morning. She has accepted her calling and expects to return to begin her training this summer. Her flowers are fully formed, not outlines like yours.”
Caroline dropped her eyes. “Rhonda will make a wonderful priestess.” And she would. She had a gentle nature, as did her younger sister Kirsty. She would be well suited to the Goddess of Healing.
Tarine stared as if measuring Caroline’s words, but finally seemed to accept them as intended. “Rhonda’s loyalties run deep. She’s only leaving because she was asked to remain with you.”
“I made no such request. Who asked?”
“Our Goddess.”
Our. “But…”
“The Divine Lady speaks to all of us at the moment of our choosing. You’ll eventually have to make a choice; walk the Divine Lady’s path or step from it forever.”
The choice was easy then. “High Priestess-”
Tarine threw her staff on the bed and grasped Caroline’s hands, squeezing painfully. Although there was conflict in the priestess’s expression, Caroline had never seen her shirk her duties to her Goddess. “I understand your doubts, but She won’t give you another chance if you deny Her.”
For a heartbeat Caroline considered refusing anyway. The woman clearly wanted Caroline to refuse Service despite the words, yet to deny the Goddess in her own temple… She couldn’t do it. “As you wish, High Priestess. May peace and health always be yours.” Caroline’s alimoth outlines flared warmly at the ritual blessing, divine light passing through her to the High Priestess. Caroline gasped and pulled her hands free as Tarine’s eyes widened. Only devoted Servants could invoke the Divine Lady’s blessing.
Taine backed a step, confusion and doubt in her expression. “I… I must pray for understanding. Perhaps you’re being called to greater things than this abbey.”
With her body still flushed with divine warmth from the invocation, Caroline picked up her pack and swept out of the room, wishing she could leave her fears with Tarine’s shocked stare.
Within the hour she was a mile along the road toward Fandelyon City in the company of her friends Rhonda and Kirsty duPrey, all three escorted by the King’s Guard. Behind them rode two maids, a hefty Servant devoted to Kindra du Erim, and the duPrey brothers sent to chaperone them. Overcast and gloomy for the most part, Caroline suspected it might rain despite the occasional patches of sunlight. The clouds were certainly getting heavier.
“How are you?” asked Kirsty, the younger duPrey sister and Caroline’s best friend. Although pale-skinned like most nobles, she had dark hair like a commoner, but straight. Almost blue-black. Little Raven, her siblings called her when they wanted to tease. They hadn’t seen each other in months due to Caroline’s illness.
She kept her eyes forward as she didn’t how to reply without revealing her heartache over giving up her child, but tried a hesitant smile. No doubt she’d have similar trouble keeping the secret from her sisters when she got home. The number of nights she’d woken up crying, a phantom baby in her arms… She took a calming breath, slowly releasing it. “I’m fine, Kirsty. Fully recovered. Truly.” She’d wanted to die, at first, but only cowardly izzen chose that path. She reached out and took Kirsty’s hand. “Your presence helps.”
Her baby would be long gone from these parts, a month old now. For the first couple of weeks Caroline had fantasised about seeking out the child and running away with him or her, perhaps to live among the clans. She was sure to have kin there if she could find them, but after watching Tarine swear an oath of secrecy to her Goddess, Caroline was certain the priestess would neither divulge the child’s location nor Caroline’s indiscretion.
Caroline stared ahead, blinking to keep tears at bay. Best not to think about it. Obsessing would only lead to more heartache.
“But you were sick for so long. The High Priestess said you only began to recover a few weeks ago. Are you sure you’re well enough to travel?”
Lying to her friend didn’t come as easily as she wished. “High Priestess Tarine is cautious. She probably made it seem a worse illness than it actually was.” She’d almost died, certainly, and for days afterward had muffled her sobs under her sheets, wishing she had. It shouldn’t hurt so much to lose something she’d never held.
Wind caught Rhonda’s long honey-coloured hair, but the older girl didn’t pull her hood up to protect herself. She had a distant look, as if she’d rather be somewhere else. Back at the abbey, no doubt.
“High Priestess Tarine said you plan to return,” Caroline said, hoping to change the subject. “That the Divine Lady marked you?”
Something like fear passed across Rhonda’s features, but it was gone in an instant. Rhonda held up her wrists and her sleeves fell back a little. She stared at her alimoth flowers as if she wasn’t sure she’d made the right decision. The fully formed flowers were clear to Caroline, and very lifelike.
Kirsty frowned. “I wish I’d been called,” she murmured, staring at Rhonda’s wrists as if wishing she could see the divine marks too.
Despite the wistfulness, Caroline heard the hurt in Kirsty’s voice. Rhonda was tall, graceful and confident, and now she’d been called into Divine Service. Kirsty, prettier except for her raven hair, was small, timid, and awkward, younger than Rhonda by more than a year.
“You’re expected to make a sacrifice when entering a Divine Lord or Lady’s Service to show your dedication. What was yours?” Caroline asked.
Rhonda paled, her posture stiffening. “Nothing I wouldn’t give a thousand times over.”
Lightning flashed bright and thunder pealed across the sky like a God crying out in anguish.
~
Elias watched the valley from the edge of a cliff, turning his ears back and forth as he listened for anything out of place. The final leg of his journey had taken him into the mountainous lands between three small human kingdoms, reason enough to concern any izzat. Humans weren’t the cause of his unease, however.
Something was wrong. Something of magic.
Storm winds swayed the tree tops like wind-swept grass as his cloak whipped about his legs and threatened to push him over the edge. He backed a step as the wingbuds on his shoulder-blades tightened in anticipation of a flight he couldn’t take.
He caught movement a mile away; a group of mounted humans travelling through the forest. About fifty in all, most wore chain shirts and carried lances. Soldiers meant nobility, possibly even royalty in these parts. The coincidence was intriguing. He cast a near-sight spell to make the air before him work like convex glass and picked out five nobles and a small entourage among the soldiers, including a rather hefty warrior-priest judging by his dark grey robes. Half the soldiers rode ahead, lances resting in stirrups. The rest followed the nobles.
Elias’s sense of foreboding grew as he watched, although nothing suggested the humans were responsible for it. He crouched and placed his longbow behind him, the wind blowing under his cloak. It left him cold, reflecting a chill in his spirit he’d been fighting since leaving his homeland.
The very air seemed to resonate with anticipation. It was nothing obvious, nothing aggressive, but it made him restless.
Distant thunder echoed across the valley while dark clouds on the northern ranges shed heavy rain. The humans turned north again toward the lowlands of Fandelyon, but nothing in that direction pulled at him either. He reworked the near-sight spell to gain more detail. Four of the nobles wore a standing bear embroidered in white, while one of three girls bore a crimson wyvern embroidered in golden thread.
As he watched the wind whipped her hood back, revealing the red hair of a clanswoman, though curly like a lowland peasant. His wingbuds tightened with a chill of recognition. He would have staggered if he’d been standing. Her soul resonated in tune with his own. It was instant recognition on a near-divine level.
“Princess Caroline,” Allyn said.
Elias almost jumped. He stood up to cover his embarrassment. He hadn’t heard his teacher approach. Why did his soul recognise hers? Had they met in a previous life?
Allyn’s emerald eyes reflected his amusement at catching his student off guard, his angular face softening. Elias wasn’t sure how old his teacher was, but he was rumoured to have been there when the unicorn was slain by the faspane two hundred millennia ago. Only one unicorn remained now, his people it’s guardian. If it was killed magic would fade from the world.
If Allyn really was as old as everyone said, the years should have bought wisdom, yet most of the time he acted like a curious teenager.
“She bears a royal wyvern on her cloak,” said Allyn.
“So does every soldier and both maids. She could be a noble come to marry one of Fandelyon’s princes.” His wingbuds tightened as he watched her. “I recognise her soul Allyn. There’s no attraction,” he added a little too quickly. The girl was human, after all. “Merely recognition.”
Allyn raised an eyebrow as if he’d heard the lie. “Perhaps she was once born an izzen? If so, she’s fallen a long way. Whatever relationship you had must have resolved itself in a previous lifetime if it’s mere recognition you feel.”
Elias wasn’t sure he wanted to voice his next concern. “Yet still, could we be… soulmates? I wouldn’t know what that feels like.”
“If I were to guess, I’d say your soul is very new, so it’s unlikely. Most soulmates know each other for many lifetimes before taking the eternal commitment.”
“You think my soul’s new? Aren’t new souls usually born among mortal creatures?”
“Most people are born with a history. It’s as if they’ve come to their new lives knowing they should be doing something, but clueless about what that might be. You’re waiting for something, not chasing something, which suggests newness.”
“My grandparents are soulmates. Could that have something to do with it?”
“Like?”
“Resonance from them? I don’t know. Did they tell you how they came to bind themselves to each other?”
Allyn’s narrow eyes watched the valley. “No, but their souls are old. Ancient. They were soulmates in previous lifetimes.”
“I thought they were newly bound in this lifetime?”
“Queen Sellendria once told me she knew your grandfather was her soulmate the moment they saw each other in their youth. Their souls have history.”
That didn’t help. “Despite my apparent newness, is it still possible I could have a soulmate from a previous life? I must have been born before to be izzen in this life.”
“When the Gods create a new soul, they create it from the essence of life itself, drawn from the Void. Sometimes though they create twin souls – a single soul divided into two. Perhaps you’ve seen your soul’s twin?”
“Twins?” Elias pushed hair back from his face. The Gods had a sense of irony if his soul’s twin was human. Best to change the subject. “Perhaps the girl down there’s not Princess Caroline. Maybe she’s clan born and on her way to marry one of the King’s sons? A treaty of some sort?”
“Fandelyon’s heirs are barely fifteen. They won’t be marrying for a few years yet. That’s got to be their older sister.”
“But-”
“Most nobles this side of the Temern Straight are blonde, the descendants of the invasion thousands of years ago. The clans arrived from the same sinking continent, but they took to the mountains and stayed apart, fighting fiercely for their independence. You know the King married a woman of clannish descent. Queen Lynn. That has be their eldest daughter.”
“If our souls are twinned, the Gods have a wicked sense of humour. I can feel the connection pulling at me, even at this distance.”
“Then you should avoid her. If you bind yourselves together, you’ll die when she dies.”
He’d already considered that. It scared him more than anything else ever had, even the prospect of his upcoming test. Shifting forces touched him again, teasing him toward the valley. Like earlier, it felt magical. “Something’s not right.”
“Really?” Allyn asked with feigned innocence. “If you figure it out, come and tell me. I’m going to finish my meal.”
“You know? What is it?”
The wind pushed Allyn’s long pale hair back, revealing high cheekbones and a sharp jawline. He grinned, acting the teenager again. “You need the practice. Don’t forget your wards.”
“Why not just tell me?”
Allyn gave the question serious consideration before answering. “I suspect the Gods are paying close attention to events here, most likely manipulating our Realm to deliver new elements into their game. I can sense Quala Umitha stirring against the edges of our Realm as our reality bends under their influence.”
“The course of the future is being altered? Now? Could it be Noramgaell?” The thought made his heart start pounding. Fear or anticipation?
“Perhaps. The final battle between the Gods is closing in. Only Marnier du Shae and Marak du Tren remain in the contest, though the others will be attempting to exert influence and gain concessions for their followers.”
“So it’s not a coincidence that I’ve just found my soul’s twin?”
Allyn shrugged. “Seek your own answers. I have none.”
As Allyn left, Elias sent his magical senses questing so fast it made him giddy. He paused to re-orientate himself, before forming a magical net over the entire area and sending his Sight into it. When his vision adjusted he saw magic, life itself, illuminating the world. Wherever it pooled, magical creatures congregated like animals around a waterhole.
Elias adjusted the net to screen out the natural magics, looking for subtler energies. Human auras glowed dully, while further back along the road heavy patches of magical energy clung to the ground like mist.
Were the faspane up to something? He and Allyn had seen far too many signs of their mortal cousins. He searched again, but each time he came close to pinpointing the magic’s source, it slipped away as if never there.
Curious, he reworked the net to resonate against directed energy. Between one breath and the next, his net illuminated with power. He stiffened and cried out as sparks showered the air around him and his chest cramped. He fell gasping to his knees, the icy wind blowing his cloak over his head. He gulped for air and fought down the initial power flow, but another surge tore control from his grasp.
Like mist before the wind, the barriers between this world and the Higher Realm wavered. His vision twisted in nauseating slowness as he beheld the edges of Quala Umitha, a vision of eternity only a God’s mind could fully encompass and influence. To Elias, it was a revelation of infinite possibilities bound within the Fey Realm.
Billions of probabilities hit his overextended mind, each a potential future. He tried to force the visions away, but they changed again and again until he could barely tell them apart; an unbearable wall of pain.
A single vision cut through the others; a man standing beside a pool of rippling silver – the Silver Well containing the Power of Ages. Phoenix, Marak du Tren’s Champion, held a ball of liquid power from the pool.
This was a prophecy. If today’s events failed to lay a new course Phoenix would gain dominance over the Silver Well. The prospect was even more terrifying than the faspane invading his homeland.
Drawing on all his strength, Elias desperately constructed a ward to act as a block between his mind and Quala Umitha. Although the pain eased and his senses cleared he could feel the power mounting on the other side.
He opened his eyes, shoulders tight with tension. He had to survive and warn Allyn. Trembling as power trickled through his ward, he yelled and slashed at the link with all his remaining power, crossing his forearms as he invoked a desperate warding.
Lightning born of twisted magic struck and threw him hard against a tree. Energies arced about him, and then dissipated into the ground.
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