New Release: The Lost Kings, a fantasy short story

The stand-alone edition of the novelette, The Lost Kings, released TODAY, and is now available for purchase. It can be found individually at any of the platforms on this Books2Read link, and it can be found as one of the stories in: A Collection of Battle and its Aftermath.

For those of you wondering what it's all about. Well...

The Short Version:

It's about secrets, intrigue and family in the fantastical world of Entalamorn.

The Longer Version:

A city under siege.
A dragon under cover.
Five kings lost to time.
And two orphans running for their lives.
Hunted by invaders, Valan races to find his sister before those seeking them. What is it about their past that has an entire army wanting them dead?
And who sent it?
Can Valan find the only family he has, and escape before the sins of their unknown fathers come to rest upon their shoulders?

How It Begins:

Valan kept his head down, keeping below the top of the low, stone wall as he moved to get closer to the docks. It wasn’t that he wanted to catch a ship, just that he had to get behind the middle warehouse and into the halls beneath the city.

The halls beneath the city. Valan shuddered. This had better be worth it.

He reached the end of the wall, and peered around it.

The guards, so prevalent in the upper reaches of the city weren’t so obvious here. Further down, close to the piers, they were back in force.

No way out, there, Valan observed. Not easily, anyway.

The idea challenged him, and he pushed it to one side. He wanted to get into the city, not escape it.

Not yet.

He lifted his gaze, taking in the multi-colored rooftops peering over the city proper’s iron-gray walls. In the pre-dawn light, it was almost foreboding. When dawn came, sunrise would lighten the stone with color and there’d be that single, magical moment, when the walls would flash silver.

But only when the full sun strikes, Valan remembered. I have to be inside, by then.

Inside…

By First Sun.

Or he’d discover if the legends were true, first hand.

Part of him hoped they were, and a large part of him really hoped they weren’t. A fight would be—

Rose tinted the upper ramparts. Rose streaked with lemon. The sight usually lifted Valan’s heart; today it made it sink.

There was so little time.

Flicking another glance at the guards, Valan gathered himself. He glanced the other way, then back, before eyeballing the distance to the back of the nearest warehouse.

It was either that or try to sneak through the front and hope it had a side door…on the other side…where he couldn’t see it. It wasn’t a risk he wanted to take.

If he got trapped inside…

It didn’t bear thinking about, so he took another look at the guards, then raced across the bare stretch of cobble to the overshadowed space between the warehouse wall and the cliff on which the city stood.

He was wrong about the door. The door wasn’t behind the center warehouse…or it was, and there was a second door behind the first. Either way, Valan heard voices raised behind him, and took the first option to the right.

If those voices were meant for him, and someone looked, he hoped—

The door slammed open, and a large form ran into him before he had time to step aside. It knocked him to his knees, scooping him up and tossing him over its shoulder before he had time to protest.

“Oh my, little one. You really shouldn’t be here.”

Valan’s reply was knocked out of him with his wind as he hit the…creature’s? shoulder.

Not good, he thought. Also, not little.

They took a turn at breakneck speed, the creature sliding a little as it hit the opposite wall, righted itself and bolted left. Behind them, the door slammed open a second time.

Valan had time to think, Very not good, before the creature ran into another wall in order to make another turn.

“Apologies,” the creature managed, scrabbling back into a run. “Almost there.”

Almost where? Valan wondered, as it pulled him from its shoulder to its chest and threw itself into a slide.

Gritting his teeth so he wouldn’t cry out, Valan turned his head to see where they were sliding.

And promptly wished he hadn’t.

The grate at the base of the wall looked plenty solid to him, and the creature’s boots were pointed straight for it.

“You know…” he began, stopping when a large hand muffled his speech.

“Hush.’

Light flared around the creature’s feet.

Magic?

Bootsteps rang in the hall behind them, but Valan thought they were at least one turn back, maybe even two.

Oh, gods, I hope it’s two. That way we might be out of sight—

The grate clanged open and the creature carried him through, covering the top of his head with its hand and pressing it down.

“Duck.”

Valan obliged. If he had to go diving down secret tunnels with monsters he didn’t know he wasn’t going to risk being knocked out before he reached the end.

Where to Find It:

That Books2 Read Link, again: https://books2read.com/u/bMnWPV