Shadowblood Heir Read online

  Shadowblood Heir

  J. S. Morin

  Magical Scrivener Press

  Copyright © 2018 J.S. Morin

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.

  Magical Scrivener Press 22 Hawkstead Hollow Nashua, NH 03063

  www.magicalscrivener.com

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Ordering Information: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address above.

  J.S. Morin — First Edition

  ISBN: 978-1-942642-22-0

  Printed in the United States of America

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Author’s Note

  Books by J. S. Morin

  Email Insiders

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  I took pills to stop shit like this from happening. Subway cars flashed past, and my shadow danced from one to the next.

  The platform at Kendall Station was packed. Diffuse light kept the whole station in a uniform gloom. It was just one crisp shadow that stood apart, and no one else showed any sign of noticing.

  With a squeal of aging brakes and a rush of barely breathable air, the train stopped and the illusion broke.

  As the doors opened, people streamed out of the cars, forcing me to angle a shoulder to keep from being swept along with them.

  Once the surge subsided, I ducked inside, grabbed hold of one of the vertical poles, and pulled out my cell to check the time. Twenty minutes to get home before the Shadowblood season finale.

  Harsh fluorescent lights inside the subway car washed away any chance of shadows, but that didn’t stop me from checking over my shoulder. The show was making me paranoid, but that was part of what made it great.

  As the car lurched and started the four-stop ride to Davis, I shot a quick text to Judy: “On my way. Be there in <20.”

  She and Tim weren’t going to pause the DVR and restart from scratch if I was late. It was run or miss the beginning.

  Just before the train reached Central Square, the Order of Vigilants theme chimed from my pocket—my favorite song from Shadowblood. Judy’s reply text: “Should have called in sick,” accompanied by a gif of Skeptical Cat tapping his foot.

  As if I could afford to turn down hours. Plus, Reggie would have known I was blowing off work for the season finale; he wasn’t an idiot. I’d arranged my schedule around the live air times all season.

  When the train stopped at Davis, I bolted. I jostled my way past a guy in a rumpled suit and skipped around a mother and daughter with a mumbled “excuse me.”

  Only the thought of MBTA security mistaking me for a thief kept me from breaking into a full run. But once topside, decorum went by the wayside.

  It was twilight, with a haze of red in the western sky and the streetlights fighting back against the onset of night. The red brick crosswalks and asphalt bike paths were uneven, but my sneakers knew them like their own soles. I ran headlong, not bothering to look at my phone. Time checked was time wasted.

  It was less than half a mile, but my lungs would have sworn it was ten.

  I paused at the stairs to catch my breath, wishing we lived on the ground floor. If my legs hadn’t been rubber, I’d have started up immediately. Instead, I hunched over to catch my breath and checked the time: it changed from 8:58 to 8:59.

  The streetlight nearest the apartment flickered out, and when I shut off the phone, the stairs vanished into darkness. I stumbled to the second floor entrance by muscle memory.

  Inside, the curtains were drawn, and the lights were off. A row of candles lined the coffee table, intermixed with sodas and open cartons of Chinese food. Wafting scents of lavender and ginger garlic sauce filled the room.

  Judy sat cross-legged and barefoot on the center cushion of the couch, wearing sweatpants and a rune circle t-shirt. “Minute to spare. Get over here.”

  Dropping my backpack by the door, I kicked off my shoes and took the end seat on the couch. “Sorry. Last delivery ran long.”

  There was a commercial for boxed sets of season 4 playing, as if anyone watching the finale hadn’t already pre-ordered. Then again, not everyone could afford the full season… I was going to be rewatching Tim and Judy’s copy.

  Tim put an arm around Judy from the far side, and she leaned in against him. “Price of freedom, am I right? Until you get Martinez-famous, you gotta earn your keep.”

  “Yeah… I’d settle for my books paying for themselves.”

  Judy sat up. “Chalkboards.”

  The commercial was winding down. Next up would be the show intro. Reaching down beside the couch, I fished out a pair of small slate boards and two pieces of chalk—one for me, one for Judy. Tim never played along.

  The screen went dark, and a low drumbeat sounded, joined two measures later by cellos. A line traced around the screen, forming first a circle, then a pair of inscribed squares offset from one another to make an eight-pointed star.

  We drew matching patterns, chalk tapping and squeaking furiously. Within each of the tiny triangles formed around the star’s edge, a rune formed one line at a ti
me.

  Each episode, the rune was different, and after the furious rote pace of the inscribed star, our chalks slowed as each of us copied. Most fans of the show just watched, same as Tim. If they were curious about the runes, they looked online after the episode.

  The ones who played at copying secretly hoped that the lore spoke true when it said that if someone destined to be an arcanist copied the runes correctly, their personal rune would come to them—the rune which, if placed at the center of the diagram, would work true magic.

  But it was a game, same as playing the lottery—the faint quixotic hope adding a thrill to the playing.

  I knew the runes. The Written Shadow, the official source book on the series’ magic, was tattooed into my brain. Every rune had a purpose and differed in precise effect based on its location and the runes around it. Of the fifty million worldwide viewers on a given night, I doubt that a thousand knew the spell without having to search the Internet. Trying to puzzle through the runes real-time slowed me down.

  Judy slapped her chalk down. “Done.”

  If I couldn’t be first, at least I could be clever. “Mind-clouding effect to mask a betrayal.”

  With five seasons at thirteen episodes each, it was the sixty-fifth time my personal rune had failed to come.

  Tim glared past Judy. “Dude… spoilers.” Usually the spell in the intro had a bearing on the episode plot, but to call a betrayal a spoiler—in Shadowblood of all shows—was a stretch.

  Judy elbowed Tim before he could build momentum for a rant. “Shut up. It’s starting.”

  The opening theme faded, and the rune circle burned away in violet flame. But the transition didn’t shift to the first scene. There was no Castle Tsarvik, no Starwatch Forest, not even a comedic beginning with the beggars of Two-Coin Alley.

  Instead, there was yet another black screen, this time with a simple, solemn message.

  In memory of Patricia R. Martinez

  May the Light guide your next journey.

  The creator of Shadowblood was dead.

  Chapter Two

  The three of us watched the Shadowblood season five finale in rapt silence. The Omnibus Network didn’t run commercials during the show, so there was no respite to discuss the shock of Patricia Martinez’s death. For the first few minutes, that surreal revelation cast a pall over the action on screen, but it couldn’t last.

  Heralds from the Order of Vigilants raced to warn Moorlane Keep that Shadowlord Krayne was planning an assault at dusk. Tabring and Rina swore the holy oaths and joined the Knights Volcanic, earning their fire swords. At some point during the cliff-top duel between Sir Denster Malcalus and the shadowblood assassin Muin of Vys, the show took over completely.

  The area beyond the television’s glow dissolved from the edges of my view. The candlelight failed. Flat images on the screen felt deeper and more real than Tim and Judy next to me on the couch.

  As the two master swordsmen clashed near the edge of a 300-foot drop, Muin drove his enchanted sword into the ground. The last thing we saw before the scene cut away was a crack spreading in the rocky ground where he and Sir Denster stood.

  As the episode drew to a close, the scene shifted to a dimly lit tower in the middle of a rundown old city of crumbling warehouses and multistory public houses.

  The camera swept over twisting, lamp-lit avenues and tile roofs in varying states of disrepair, the tower drawing ever nearer. Coming to a leaded pane of glass at the window, the view passed right through to the study of an elderly woman bent over a writing table. A pair of candles flanked her work where a quill scratched ink onto parchment and a hearth fire burned low in the fireplace, little more than embers.

  The woman was Prophetess Saliera, who hadn’t appeared on screen since a brief cameo in season two. Her anonymous missives to kings and generals throughout Corondia had thwarted Shadowlord Krayne at every turn.

  Her quill darted with frantic urgency across the page, each detour to the inkpot a mere twitch of the wrist. Over her shoulder, the camera focused on the dwindling fire’s final moment before falling dark.

  Judy gasped.

  Saliera stuck her quill in the inkpot and rolled the parchment without even waiting for her words to dry. She tied it closed with a length of red ribbon embroidered with a rune circle.

  The camera zoomed in on her signet ring, bearing the personal rune of the prophetess. When she pressed it against the center of the rune circle, the rolled parchment vanished.

  I made a mental note to review the scene frame by frame to identify the runes around the circle. Whether she had teleported the scroll across half of Corondia or simply made it invisible, I couldn’t say. Everything in the books suggested that beyond foresight, Saliera’s magic was limited, so my bet was on invisibility.

  The prophetess took a slow breath and closed her eyes.

  In the hearth, a foot stepped down, crunching the coals. The hearth’s protection had failed, and a shadowed form ducked out from beneath the stone opening.

  Saliera’s shadow, cast from her own candle, twisted into a spear in the shadowblood assassin’s hand. He took on solid form, even as his weapon remained insubstantial.

  The shadowblood bent close and whispered in her ear. “The future is ours.”

  Saliera shuddered and squeezed her eyes more tightly shut. “It was never mine to command. Kill me, and another will inherit the vision.”

  “I’ll take my chances with the next prophet.” Striking with cobra swiftness, the shadowblood thrust the spear through Saliera, and the screen went black.

  Credits rolled in silence. The ending theme that played after each episode was glaring in its absence. I could hear it in my head.

  The lights snapped on, and Tim rose from the couch, stretching. “Well, that was a fucked-up ending.”

  Judy just sat there, shaking her head. “That never happened.”

  “Yeah, but they’ve been doing that. This isn’t the first time they’ve skewed stuff from the upcoming book into an earlier season. Season three had the—”

  “You two can hash it out with your forum buddies. I’ve got work.” Tim grabbed his laptop bag from beside the couch and headed for the door. “Don’t wait up. I’m pulling back-to-back all-nighters to hit Tuesday’s beta release.”

  I pointed to catch Tim’s attention before he closed the door. “If the Incredible Realms team is looking for delivery, have them ask for Hasim. He could use the tips.”

  Tim saluted, though with his bushy beard and long ponytail, he looked anything but military. “Will do.”

  The door closed behind him.

  I watched Judy, and she stared at the closed door. “No goodbye kiss. Trouble between you two?”

  “Nothing a new job with sane hours wouldn’t cure.”

  That wasn’t the half of it. Tim had been putting in a hundred hours a week for months, sleeping at his desk as often as the apartment. But that wasn’t new. “Incredible Realms is going to be awesome. Cut him some slack; it’s his first gig as QA lead.”

  Judy pulled her phone from where it had slipped between couch cushions. “What do you think is up with Patricia Martinez being dead? I hadn’t heard anything about it.”

  If Tim had been around, I would have dodged the question or given a blank answer. But it was just Judy and me. If anyone would understand, she would. “If I had to guess, I’d bet someone killed her in her office, with all the doors locked.”

  “That’s creepy. You’d want to see her die like Saliera just did?”

  I slumped back on the couch. “Hey, you’re the forum moderator, not me. You’ve seen the theories.”

  “It’s a long way between Saliera being an author avatar and Martinez predicting her own death.”

  My phone rang. A quick glance showed an unknown number with a Connecticut area code. I sent it to voicemail.

  Judy didn’t look up from her phone. “Who was it?”

  “Who knows.”

  “Holy shit! Look at this.” She held the phone
out to him.

  It was a Boston Globe article about the murder of Patricia Martinez. Police weren’t releasing details except that her body was found by one of her TAs in her office at Harvard. The article identified her as a bestselling author as well as a visiting professor of literature. Technically, she taught creative writing and literary theory. The report included no suspects, no details of how she was killed, no motive.

  My phone buzzed. I had a voicemail.

  Judy took her phone back and nodded toward mine. “You should at least check it. It could be an agent.”

  “Wanna bet?”

  Judy frowned. “Co-op mode Kataki’s Dreamscape.”

  It was the most cloyingly cute game we had in the apartment; Tim and I could hardly stand to listen to the shrill, perky characters. The pastel palette seared the retinas of anyone over the age of eight who looked at it for too long.

  The odds were stacked in my favor, so I went easy on her. My first instinct was the alpha copy we had of Incredible Realms, but that wouldn’t have gone over well. “Dragon Racer III.”