Page 1 of The Lionheart’s Bond (Bonds of Dusk and Dawn #1)

J udel was still fastening the cuffs of his shirt on his way to his older brother’s rooms. Neisha and he were looking forward to a day of hunting on the king’s lands. Walking past Brin’s bedroom, he considered asking their younger brother to join them but thought better of it before even slowing down. All he would get for his trouble was a rude rebuke. Brin didn’t do early. As for the others, Nel and Hina would not be interested. Kan would rather train with Gasper than spend any time with his own brothers, and the rest were too young accompany them. He loved them, but they were noisy and tended to get in trouble too easily, and the royal masters would not be happy with their pupils missing lessons.

The sun began its slow, grey climb, not visible yet through the windows, barely kissing the roofs of the city below. Inside the castle, the air clung to his skin, chilly and humid. Were the fires not lit yet?

The lower floors were visible over the baluster, but he couldn’t see any of the servants. Shouldn’t they be getting ready for breakfast?

Something was wrong. The castle was unnaturally still. A frigid gust swept through the gallery and the icy stone of the baluster bit at his hand.

The building seemed to swell, and time stopped. His breath shaped like a cloud as it launched from his lips. He couldn’t move.

It lasted only for a second. Something heavy and metallic fell somewhere ahead, the sound echoing within the inert corridors, and life resumed, only for chaos to unleash.

A scream from the king’s apartments cracked the cold morning air, shrill like a ghost in the night. Heart racing, he ran, reaching for a sword he wasn’t carrying. He cussed between his teeth.

Neisha burst out of his own room just as Judel reached it, covering the distance to the source of the scream in a few strides.

The white nightgown made her look like a wraith under the big, arched double door that led to the Royal Chamber. Nahel covered her mouth with her hands, her eyes teary and her red hair a mess of tangles. Neisha pushed their sister out of the way and froze. Judel had to step to the side at the last second to avoid running into them.

The floor dropped, and the world swayed under his feet.

Had Judel had his sword, like he wished a moment ago, he would have found it useless. It was too late.

Their parents lied unnaturally still on the bed. Eyes wide, skin pale, lips blue, the red of their blood contrasting starkly against that canvas. They were buried under a blanket of their own flesh. The gore blended in a single sheet of red. Guts, skin, hair. An indistinguishable pulp soaking into the once pristine bedclothes.

They were dead, the king and queen, brutally murdered. It was obvious, yet the words continued repeating in his mind, as if he needed convincing.

But by who?

The question remained unasked.

He was drowning in air. His lungs strained for oxygen. His body seized, rendering him unable to move. Neither the sight, nor Neisha’s huge fingers digging into his shoulder, nor Nahel’s loud sobs freed him from the shock shackling him to the spot.

His eyes filled with tears and his stomach upended. Somewhere in town, the temple rang the morning bells and the sun shone over the horizon.

Overwhelmed, that first pull he would soon become familiar with went unnoticed. The sensation at the pit of his stomach he would feel every dawn and every sunset from that day forward, foretelling what was about to happen to him, was only a distant distraction in the backdrop of his despair. He didn’t feel the stretching and lengthening of his flesh either. His stomach’s violent reaction to the scene in front of him had hidden the signs of their impending curse.

The taste of the hot, acrid paste spewing out of his mouth was his last memory. The undigested lumps of porridge and meat hit the intricately woven rug, accompanied by the distinct thought that his mother would kill him for it. It was an Eldoran rug from Queen Kinya’s dowry, when she came to marry their grandfather. Their mother had drilled that information and committed it to their memories, least they dirtied it with the mud they carried in from their day-long adventures outside.

Only later would he realize none of that mattered anymore, but he was unable to reason.

A sharp pain, like claws digging into his body, erased the world. Not the shock of his parents’ horrible end, nor his sister’s broken heart, still desperately spasming next to him, but actual, physical pain.

It twisted him and broke his bones, screams pushing to his lips remained frozen there by the sensation of having his limbs pulled apart. Tears burnt at his eyes, and heat turned his skin to ash. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t scream, he couldn’t cry. Enduring wasn’t possible.

How long did it last? It was hard to tell right from left, or up from down, what was real from what wasn’t. It all must be a nightmare.

When the fog of the aftermath cleared, he was small. Much shorter, his line of sight lower than it was only moments ago. Had he collapsed to his knees? A heavy sense of anger blossomed in his core and distracted him from such practical concerns. His ability to reason, to make decisions, faded further, making way for a more primal self. The real world lost focus until his consciousness vanished and he passed out.

Several bells must have gone by before he regained a shred of awareness, and he had no memory of any of them. His surroundings were unfamiliar at first and were no help making sense of his feelings and sensations.

The warm lump under him made him uncomfortable. A sticky and thick substance lingered in his mouth, a metallic taste that coated his tongue.

Looking down was a mistake.

What once had been a man lied under him, now a corpse, the cheekbone white under shreds of flesh peeling off it, the livery on his tabard soaked in blood. Ilystra’s deep blue and silver tunic was muddied by dark red and brown stains, impregnated with the stench of death.

Alarmed, he jumped off the body, only to find himself on all fours. Judel couldn’t stand up on his feet.

The prince instinctively raised a hand to his eyes, yet no hand appeared. Instead, a large, brown paw, the fur matted with blood, entered his field of vision. His heart raced in his chest as he walked clumsily, catching all four of his legs into each other, looking for something, a looking glass, anything, until a reflection of light caught his eye.

The windows mirrored neatly on a puddle gathered between the gaps of the stone floors.

Judel approached it, his heart in his throat, until a creature looked back at him from its glossy surface.

The image lacked his brown eyes, or his straight nose, or his dark hair. Instead, it returned glowing eyes and the sharp teeth of a mountain lion.

The scream that burst out of his lips turned into a roar that made the castle walls tremble.

The people of Ilystead, who had heard the hollow, terrifying sound from outside the walls, would remember that day as the time the castle screamed in pain, marking the tragic beginning of the kingdom’s demise.