Prince of Swords Read online

  Praise for

  the Sisters of the Sun trilogy

  and the novels of Linda Winstead Jones

  The Star Witch

  “Bewitching…A fabulous, climactic romantic fantasy…filled with fascinating twists, beguiling.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “A fantastic denouement…For an action-packed and thrilling romance, The Star Witch is just what the doctor ordered.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  The Moon Witch

  “I can hardly wait to find out how she will [entwine] all the threads she has created!…This series is just too good to miss.”

  —The Romance Reader

  “An enjoyable romantic fantasy that grips the audience…Action-packed.”

  —The Best Reviews

  “A unique and imaginative realm…Prepare to be swept away!”

  —Rendezvous

  “[W]ill enthrall…Lushly imaginative.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  The Sun Witch

  “Entertaining and imaginative, with a wonderful blend of worlds and technology and magic. The characters are different and engrossing; the villain is fascinating.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Linda Howard

  “Charming…winsome…The perfect choice when you want a lighthearted and fun, yet sensual romance…with all the magic of a fairy tale.”

  —Bookbug on the Web

  “Fabulous…the story is spectacular and this author is unforgettable.”

  —Road to Romance

  “Let the fireworks begin! This whimsical, entrancing tale will satisfy the romance fan demanding something unusual and wonderful. With a skillful blend of the fanciful and the mundane, author Linda Winstead Jones weaves a marvelous tale of love and happy-ever-after, with a twist. Remarkable in imagination.”

  —Word Weaving

  “Amazing adventures unfold…Marvelously captivating, sensuous, fast-paced.”

  —Booklist (starred review)

  “Hot.”

  —Affaire de Coeur

  Titles by Linda Winstead Jones

  THE SUN WITCH

  THE MOON WITCH

  THE STAR WITCH

  PRINCE OF MAGIC

  PRINCE OF FIRE

  PRINCE OF SWORDS

  Prince of Swords

  LINDA WINSTEAD JONES

  BERKLEY SENSATION BOOKS, NEW YORK

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

  Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Mairangi Bay, Auckland 1311, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  PRINCE OF SWORDS

  A Berkley Sensation Book/published by arrangement with the author

  Copyright © 2007 by Linda Winstead Jones.

  Cover art by Danny O’Leary.

  Cover design by Lesley Worrell.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.

  Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ISBN: 978-1-1012-0589-1

  BERKLEY SENSATION®

  Berkley Sensation Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  BERKLEY SENSATION is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  The “B” design is a trademark belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  To the absolute joys of grandchildren.

  Contents

  Prologue

  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

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  THE FIRST TWO OF THE PROPHESIED WARRIORS WHO WEREcalled to the fight against darkness—the healer Ariana and the psychic Queen Keelia—have fulfilled their destinies, but they have not given up the battle against Prince Ciro and the demon that possesses his body. All that is left is for Lyr Hern, Prince of Swords, to wield the crystal dagger. When contemplating on the dagger and the questions of where and why, the answers did not come easily, not even to a psychic as powerful as Keelia. So she allowed Joryn to take her through the fire once more, to the land in-between where spirits spoke the truth and no dark interference clouded her mind. There she discovered the secrets of the dagger. She saw the weapon’s location and its purpose.

  The crystal dagger was the only weapon in this world or any other which was powerful enough to take the life of the monster Ciro had become.

  The Prophesy of the Firstborn

  A darkness creeps beneath Columbyana and the lands beyond. This darkness grows stronger each and every day, infecting those who have an affinity for evil. As it grows stronger, it will also begin to affect those who are of weak mind, and eventually it will grow so strong no one among us will be able to defeat it. If this darkness is allowed to grow to this point, the world is doomed to eternal shadows, where evil will reign.

  Only the firstborn children of three fine women [later translated as Fyne] have the power to stop the darkness and restore the world to light. These firstborn will be the warriors who lead the fight. Our fate rests in their hands, and in the hands of the armies they will call to them.

  Of the three fine [Fyne] warriors who are called to this battle, one will find and wield the crystal dagger. One will betray love in the name of victory. And one, the eldest, will die at the hands of a monster who will hurtle a weary soul into the Land of the Dead.

  Many monsters will rise from among us in this unholy war, soulless monsters such as the world has never seen. Heroes will be born and heroes will die. Death and darkness will threaten all those who choose to fight for the light.

  Scribbled in the lefthand margin, in
an almost illegible hand:

  Beware Serrazone,

  and beside it,

  He who walks through fire may show the way.

  Scribbled in the righthand margin:

  Those who are called must choose between love and death, between heart and intellect, between victory of the sword and victory of the soul.

  The remainder of the prophesy is illegible scribbling and indecipherable sketches. A scraggly tree; a bird with wings too large; a flower; a heart; a dagger [The crystal dagger, perhaps?]. Do they have meaning or are they simply a dying old man’s insignificant doodles?

  1

  RAYNE HADN’T ATTEMPTED TO ESCAPE FROM HER PRISON for several weeks. In months past she’d tried everything from pleading with the old man who was on constant guard to attempting to physically yank the chains that bound her from the wall. Her jailer was deaf to her pleas, and she didn’t even make the mortar rattle with her physical attempts.

  She was doomed. Doomed to wait here in the dank cellar of her home until Prince Ciro returned to make her his bride. Doomed to helplessness. Doomed to rely on people who despised her for food, water, implements for the occasional attempt at bathing.

  Rayne hadn’t even known her father’s odd guest was a prince until after his departure. The servant whom Ciro had left in charge of her care referred to him as “prince” often, and when Rayne had challenged the ridiculous notion, it had been explained that Ciro was indeed the only son of the Emperor Arik and next in line for the throne. The man in question did not fulfill any of Rayne’s notions of what a prince should be. From a distance, he had the outward appearance of a finely bred prince, she supposed, but his eyes were alternately dead or heart-stoppingly wicked, and his actions were not at all what she considered to be majestic.

  Sitting on her cot, as she had all morning, Rayne stole a glance at the guard who kept constant watch over her. Jiri was an elderly man who had worked for her father for many years. A simple and quiet man, he’d always been pleasant enough in the past as he’d gone about his odd jobs on the grounds and in the house. She’d certainly never thought of him as threatening in any way.

  The thin old man still didn’t strike her as being at all fearsome, but he was mightily afraid of Prince Ciro. Jiri would not help her in any way, not if he thought the man who commanded him might be displeased. When Ciro had left this servant in charge of her care, he’d promised to drink his blood and eat his soul if he failed. That wasn’t possible, she was sure of it, but Jiri seemed to think that the threat was a real one.

  Jiri wasn’t frightening, but there were others…others who remained above stairs, others who were devoted to the prince. She heard them often, their boots pounding and their laughter grating. There were many loud arguments, and daily noises which sounded as if they were literally tearing her home apart. These others never ventured into the cellar where she was imprisoned. For that, Rayne was grateful. Their distant laughter caused a chill which danced in her blood and down her spine.

  Even though she was a prisoner, Ciro had gone to great pains to see that she was relatively comfortable. Her bonds were not too tight, though the shackles rubbed her wrists raw when she fought against them. There was a fairly comfortable if smallish bed, a few books, candles which were replenished as necessary, and plenty of food. In the early days of Rayne’s imprisonment, a few of the maids who’d worked in this house before Ciro had incarcerated her had remained. These female servants were always skittish, and Rayne could understand why. They’d constantly sported bruises and small cuts on their hands and faces, injuries they refused to speak of when she asked. They’d brought food, and they’d helped her with her awkward baths, but there was none of the easy banter she remembered from the days before all had changed. Like her, they were helpless. The frightened girls followed orders, and were too afraid to so much as speak to the woman who’d been their mistress for many years. They didn’t even dare to whisper.

  The maids hadn’t lasted very long, in spite of their devotion to their duties. In those early days, when Rayne still had hopes of escape, she’d sometimes heard screams from above. For many weeks past she’d heard only the soldiers. The women no longer came to her. It was now Jiri who fetched her food and water, and she saw to her own bathing with the inadequate rags and water he provided. She tried not to think of what had happened to the maids who’d done nothing to deserve their fate, but she knew in her heart that there was no one left to scream. No one but her. She was afraid her screams would bring the men from above down into the basement, so she remained quiet. Quiet and doomed.

  Rayne’s view through the one high, narrow window of the basement signaled the time that had passed. Summer was gone. She’d spent an entire season chained to the wall of her own cellar. Autumn, with its cooler winds and changing leaves, was upon them. What had become of her garden? She could not imagine that any of the coarse men above stairs would’ve bothered to tend it. Without watering and weeding and loving attention, her garden had likely perished long ago, the flowers wilting and the vegetables drying on the vine. Such a shame.

  Perhaps it was silly to think of something so meaningless as her plants, but it soothed her to think of her garden. Rayne had always loved her time outdoors. She relished digging her hands into the dirt and watching things grow. Her mother had introduced her to gardening at a very early age, and in truth Rayne could not remember a time when she had not tended a garden or two. If she cared enough, she could urge things to grow even here, where the ground was often rocky and unfriendly.

  Perhaps she’d loved her time outdoors because this house, her father’s house, had always been oppressive in a way she could not explain. It was as if the air were heavier here, as if someone were always watching, as if something was always wrong. It was a fine house with many comforts, and still…she had never cared for her home much, especially not after her mother’s death had taken all the light out of it.

  Even now she remembered vividly the hours she and her mother had spent outdoors; she remembered the flowers they had grown, the vegetables they had nurtured, and the hours of freedom away from this house.

  Being of agreeable spirit, Rayne had bided her time, taking comfort in her hours out of doors and dreaming of the day when her father would arrange a suitable marriage for her. When she had her own home, she would fill it with love and light, as her mother had tried to do here. Even if it was much smaller and plainer than this home where she’d been born and raised, she would make it agreeable.

  That simple dream had begun to fade long before she’d been imprisoned. Rayne was almost twenty years old, and her father had never mentioned marriage. In the weeks before she’d been trapped here in this cellar, she’d begun to fear that her father intended for her to marry Ciro. Those two had spent much time together, locked in her father’s study. Her father was a talented wizard who had always openly mourned the fact that his daughter, his only child, possessed no magic. Perhaps Ciro was a wizard as well as a prince, and when her father and the man who called her “beloved” were alone, they honed and practiced their magic.

  The wizard Fynnian, who grieved because his daughter had no magical gifts, might’ve been planning to demand that she produce gifted grandchildren who would follow in his footsteps.

  Rayne wanted no magic in her life. She wanted a simple marriage with an ordinary man, but that was likely a foolish desire. Her father would never allow her to marry anyone ordinary or simple.

  Since the age of fifteen, she’d more than once thought of running away, but when faced with reality, she’d always been too afraid to confront what might await her beyond the walls of this home. In all her life she’d never been forced to fend for herself, and her father had always painted a bleak picture of what existed beyond these walls. She’d been spoiled horribly. Did her father realize that making her dependent upon him and his servants would keep her tied to him? Or was she simply weak of character? Her skittish nature had never before seemed to her to be egregious, but now, trapped as she was
, she wished she’d been braver. She wished a thousand times that she’d followed her instincts and taken her chances in facing whatever awaited beyond the walls of this house.

  Rayne looked again at haggard, elderly Jiri. Though he had worked in this household for many years, he was now Ciro’s servant in a way she could not explain. She remembered the last time she’d seen Ciro, and she wished with all her heart that she’d run away from this place when she’d had the opportunity, that she’d taken a chance at discovering what lay beyond these walls.

  As if her father would’ve allowed that to happen.

  Ciro, who was young and handsome, well dressed and well spoken, had no life in his eyes. At first glance he was every young girl’s dream, with long fair hair and lovely blue eyes, but when one looked into those eyes and saw only darkness, that dream became a nightmare. She could not think of anything else but those dead eyes when she remembered him and his last words to her, words that had followed a cold kiss and a terrifying grab at her breasts.

  “We will be married,” he’d said with confidence. “There will be a priest of my choosing in attendance, and we will have a few witnesses as our guests. And if you do not happily agree in front of them all to be my wife, I will kill them one at a time until you do. I’ll start with your father, if he lives that long.”

  Her father had left this house with Prince Ciro at summer’s outset, and she could not help but wonder if he had survived. There was no goodness in the man who claimed to love her. There was nothing even remotely human in the eyes of the man who called her “beloved.” Rayne could very well imagine Ciro taking her father’s life without a moment’s regret. Perhaps if she and her father had been closer, she’d know somehow if he lived or not. More than eight years past her mother’s death, there were times when Rayne was sure she felt her mother’s spirit near her. She did not think she would sense her father’s spirit in the same way, if indeed he were dead. A daughter should know, shouldn’t she?