Beyond the Boundary Stones (The Chronicles of Tevenar Book 3) (68 page)

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Acknowledgements

T
hanks again to Michelle, my terrific beta reader, whose enthusiasm for these stories never stops her from telling me how to make them better.

Thanks to Lou, who made the beautiful cover.

Thanks to Louis Rosenfeld, the author of this article:
http://www.clinchem.org/content/48/12/2270.long
, a detailed, fascinating account of the discovery of insulin in our world. It was a much longer and messier process than I was able to incorporate into my story.

All the medical conditions the wizards deal with are based on real diseases, described as accurately as I could manage. Observant readers may have noticed descriptions of sickle-cell anemia and cystic fibrosis, among others. The type of malnutrition that affects the children of the Beggars’ Quarter is called marasmus, and is caused by a lack of protein. The Matriarch's difficulties with pregnancy are due to her Rh negative blood. The fact that this pregnancy was unaffected suggests that Lord Renarre is Rh negative also, or at least carries a recessive gene for the trait. His infertility was caused by a condition called varicocele.

Thanks to my family, who support my writing career even when supper is late and I can’t write words as fast as they want to read them.

And thanks to everyone who has bought or borrowed these books. I hope you're having as much fun reading them as I did writing them!

About the Author

A
ngela Holder lives in Houston, Texas, with her husband of twenty-four years. She has three children: one in high school, one in college, and one grown, married, and out on her own. She spends a lot of time in Starbucks, drinking vanilla lattes and flat whites and telling stories about her imaginary friends. She enjoys dabbling in many hobbies, including spinning, knitting, weaving, costuming, hot air ballooning, singing in her church choir, and performing in amateur musicals. For news about future releases, visit her website at
www.angelaholder.com
and join her mailing list, or like her Facebook page at
facebook.com/angelaholderauthor
.

Here’s an excerpt from Book 4 of
The Chronicles of Tevenar
:

The Wizards’ War: Chapter 1

T
enorran took a deep breath and opened the door of Captain Noshorre’s office. “You sent for me, sir?”

The captain didn’t look up from his desk. “Ah, yes, Lieutenant. Come in.”

Tenorran crushed his fear and ducked his head to enter the tiny room, one of the largest on the ship. After years at sea he was used to the cramped quarters, but at times like this the sense of confinement struck him all over again.

His pulse pounded in his ears. No matter how much he searched his memory of the last few days, he couldn’t find any transgression for which the captain would need to reprimand him. But he couldn’t think of any other reason for the summons, either.

They couldn’t have discovered his shameful secret. He’d never let even the tiniest hint slip. The consequences if he ever did were too horrible to contemplate.

But if he wasn’t about to face the exposure and punishment he dreaded, why was he here? He stood at attention before the captain’s desk, eyes straight forward, carefully not looking at the papers Noshorre was working on.

After a few moments during which the scratching of the captain’s quill was the only sound, Noshorre set down the pen and leaned back against the wall. “At ease, Lieutenant Fovarre. You’re not in trouble. Quite the opposite.”

Tenorran forced his muscles to relax. “Sir?”

Noshorre’s seamed face crinkled into a smile. “Commander Kesolla has been observing you, and he’s satisfied with what he’s seen. He and I have discussed the matter, and I concur with his judgement. He would like to offer you a place in the Secrets Division.”

Tenorran sucked in his breath as shock overrode his relief. “I—I’m honored, sir.”

Captain Noshorre looked at him sharply. “What’s the problem, Lieutenant?”

The offer must be a result of the second factor that set him apart from every other officer in the Armada. This one was no secret, though Tenorran often wished it was. “Sir, I want to advance in my career because of my own merit. Not because—not for reasons that have nothing to do with what best serves the interests of the Armada.”

“A honorable sentiment, Lieutenant Fovarre. I can assure you that your name and parentage haven’t influenced Kesolla’s decision. In fact, he considered this appointment much longer than he would have for one of lower birth. But your record over the past three years is impeccable. You display a commitment to hard work that would be admirable in a man of twice your years. And your discretion is unquestionable. That last, of course, is the most important factor.”

Tenorran nodded. He’d had plenty of practice keeping secrets. Far more than either the captain or the commander knew.

He’d dreamed, as all young Armada officers did, of someday earning a place in the most prestigious branch of Ramunna’s military, but he’d never expected to be chosen this soon. Most Secrets officers were seasoned veterans. When a young officer was chosen, it was because he was being groomed for a leadership role. Despite Noshorre’s reassurance, Tenorran found it hard to believe that his mother’s influence had nothing to do with this turn of events.

Captain Noshorre shuffled through the papers on his desk and produced a closely written document. “Read this, son. If you’re willing to be bound by what it requires, sign it. If you don’t feel you’re ready to be trusted with this responsibility, give it back to me unsigned and we won’t speak of this again. I promise, it won’t count against you. Knowing your own limits is a mark of maturity.”

Tenorran accepted the document and read the small, neat letters as the captain went back to his paperwork. It was pretty much what he’d expected from rumors he’d heard of the Secrets oath, but the sheer ruthlessness startled him. The slightest slip of the tongue was grounds for capital punishment. If even a hint of privileged information escaped, a whole ship’s complement of Secrets officers could be executed. If a Secrets officer betrayed Ramunna and went over to Marvanna or another of their enemies, the Matriarch would order his whole family exterminated.

Tenorran made a face. Somehow he doubted his mother would order her own execution. His only other family, his father, had been captain of an Armada ship lost with all hands during a minor but costly skirmish with Marvanna three years earlier.

He went back to reading. Most of the strictures would be easy to follow. He’d never had difficulty keeping quiet about details of the ship’s next posting, unlike some of his fellow lieutenants. He never got drunk and bragged to a dockside whore about their most recent exploits. He never whispered a juicy tidbit to a close friend, or listened if anyone tried to pass one to him.

The requirement in the event of capture gave him a moment’s pause. He would be expected to end his own life rather than fall into enemy hands. He’d never realized the true significance of the Secrets emblem before.

He swallowed. Death was preferable to torture or rotting in a Marvannan prison. If suicide was required, it would be an honorable fulfillment of his duty, not a cowardly escape.

He reached the end of the document and stared at the blank space at the bottom.
Was
he ready for this responsibility? He was only twenty-four. Although sometimes it seemed he’d been at sea his whole life, it had only been six years. He’d learned an immense amount in that time about self-discipline, but he still had a long way to go before he would have the kind of steadfast courage and commitment to duty he admired so much in Captain Noshorre.

If he refused, though, it would affect his career, no matter what the captain promised. He might remain on the standard command path, but he couldn’t count on this offer ever coming again. While if he accepted, he’d be on track to become one of the highest ranking officers in the Armada. Admirals were drawn from the ranks of Secrets officers. They had to be, because only a man who understood the workings of the Armada’s secret weapon could devise strategies that effectively exploited its capabilities.

This had to be because of his mother. If not a result of her influence, an attempt to win her favor. Commander Kesolla would anticipate good things as the officer who’d chosen Verinna Fovarre’s only child for rapid advancement.

For a moment the old injustice caught at the back of his throat. He squashed it reflexively before it could blossom into bitterness. In every aspect of Ramunnan society save one, being male was a huge advantage. Men made up the military, and the aristocracy, and held every other position worth aspiring to. He could dream of achieving any height he desired—except the one that should have been his birthright.

A thousand years ago, when the ancient wizards had ruled an empire that encompassed all Ravanetha, pairs of Oligarchs, one male, one female, always a married couple, held power. The last female Oligarch, Tharanirre Fovarre, lost two husbands and fellow Oligarchs before marrying her third. The holy Yashonna had been much younger than she and devoted to religion, not politics, so for many years she’d ruled alone in all but name. Upon her death, in the chaos that accompanied the fall of the Marvannan empire, her daughter had fled to Ramunna and declared herself Matriarch on the strength of her mother’s reputation. For all the centuries since, the Matriarchy had passed from mother to daughter. Occasionally a Matriarch had died without a female child, and the office had passed to her sister or niece. But never in all the history of Ramunna had a son, or even the daughter of a son, inherited the Matriarch’s power.

If Tenorran had been a girl, he would have been prepared from birth to succeed his mother. Today he would be involved in every decision she made. She might even have begun transferring some of her responsibilities to her heir. The succession would be secure, and everyone in Ramunna would look forward to an orderly transition when in due time Verinna grew old and returned to the Mother.

Instead, the question of who would succeed the current Matriarch was a huge controversy. The upheaval Ramunna was experiencing, even their current military mission, was entirely due to his mother’s lack of a suitable heir. After his birth she’d suffered loss after loss, never again giving birth to a child that lived more than a few days. If she died daughterless, her cousin Malka would inherit the Matriarchy. And Malka was a devotee of the Purifiers, a strict and ascetic sect that held sway in Marvanna, although it remained a minority in Ramunna. If she became Matriarch, she’d made it clear she would promote the Purifiers to Ramunna’s official religion and seek political unification with Marvanna. The things that made Ramunna great—the profitable trade conducted largely by the heretical Dualists, the University whose investigations into the natural world were viewed by the Purifiers as sacrilege against the Mother, the Armada that ruled the seas in unchallenged might—would be lost forever.

In desperation, his mother had chased a legend, and impossibly, caught it. Tenorran had never believed the stories that a handful of the ancient wizards had retained their powers and fled across the ocean. But the ship Verinna had sent into the Eastern Sea to seek them had returned with confirmation of their existence. Before a year had passed, two of those wizards had arrived in Ramunna and turned their healing powers to helping Verinna conceive and bear a daughter.

What had followed was a matter for wild gossip and speculation. The official account, which had accompanied the orders which sent Tenorran’s ship and many others on their mission, stated that the wizards had succeeded and Verinna had become pregnant with a healthy girl. However, they’d proven to be Marvannan agents when they tricked Verinna into believing that her child was a boy. On the basis of that lie she had ended the pregnancy. But rumor suggested she’d actually been deceived by the wizards’ foes, and the aborted child had indeed been male.

The pain that had hit Tenorran when he first heard the news stabbed him again. Whatever the truth of the child’s sex, his mother had believed it to be a boy, and she’d valued her son so little she’d discarded him. She’d viewed him as nothing but an obstacle on the path to the daughter she wanted. The child who might have been Tenorran’s little brother was dead. She’d sacrificed him for the sake of his still-nonexistent sister.