Scions of Death: The Practice of Power, #3

By Marcela Carbo

An ancient force threatens to devastate the world... again.

 

Feroh hails from a feared and fugitive clan, notorious for their destructive powers. Tucked away in a remote village, he harbors a fervent desire to integrate into the empire of Azhal, and to join the cause of liberation sweeping through the Dragonlands.

 

But he is also tormented by dreams of an ashen wasteland and echoes of his clan's once-lauded past, all the while remaining ignorant of the steep toll his forebears paid for their dominion.

 

When the might of Azhal ruthlessly persecutes those like him, Feroh embarks onto a desperate path—one that leads him into the heart of the very land his father had once abandoned. Trusting his stepmother's assurance of sanctuary, he is instead captured and enslaved by those hungering for his latent power.

 

As the chains of servitude bind him and the shadow of his clan's notorious powers looms large, Feroh becomes an unwilling instrument of chaos and destruction. Yet, beneath the despair and subjugation, an unyielding spirit stirs. He pledges to not only reclaim his freedom but also to wrest control of his inherent power from those who seek to exploit it.

 

His journey carves a trail across the breadth of the land, awakening him to the specters of his past and the fate hanging over his clan. For in the Deep South, in Za'al'dum, land of a thousand tombs, a new power is rising. There, they do not shy away from their gifts. There they are ready and willing to obliterate what does not fit their plan.

 

Feroh stands at a crossroads, torn between embracing the path of destruction or harnessing his newfound knowledge as a catalyst for change. As the boundaries blur between these opposing forces, the line between salvation and ruin becomes increasingly elusive.

 

Join him as he confronts the question haunting his soul: What if knowledge and destruction are inextricably intertwined?

 

Claim your copy of this mesmerizing dark fantasy novel now. Read it as a standalone story or as a part of a trilogy of related stories.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Marcela Carbo
• Release date: Jul 31, 2023
• ISBN: 9798201567682

Book preview

Scions of Death

SCIONS OF DEATH

A PRACTICE OF POWER NOVEL

BOOK 3

MARCELA CARBO

CONTENTS

Prologue

Chapter 1

A Dream

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

A Dream

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

A Dream

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

A Dream

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

A Dream

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

A Dream

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

A Dream

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

A Dream

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

A Dream

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

A Dream

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

A Dream

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

A Dream

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Epilogue

Appendices

Thanks from the Author

PROLOGUE

Seven lanky figures wrapped in tattered cloth stood in the shadow of an immense city gate. The doors had long ago rotted away, and the stone frame bore the scratches and pockmarks of gray dust storms that ravaged the land for a thousand miles in all directions.

The expedition had never been this far into Saydolin before.

Six of them formed a hexagon around the shorter seventh member, and together they produced an enchanted light field around the group, powered by bone fragments implanted in their dead flesh. They didn’t speak, but marched through the gate into Saydolin’s third ring, keeping their positions to protect the central figure.

Wind whistled through the ruins, gathering strength and dust, a last gasp before the sun set. The figures doubled over, bracing themselves against the gust, and it pelted them, sanding down their weakening shields. One figure fell to its knee and the light-shield flickered and faded. Pellets of coalesced dust beat at them, tearing at what remained of their garments. When the storm had passed, they stood, and the dust sloughed off them in gray avalanches. As they assumed their positions once more, the light-shield flickered back to life.

The central figure raised its hands, searching for remnants of power. Fragments of bone covered its lifeless hands like armor, glowing brightly with green and white light. Gold-striated bones ringed its wrists and forearms like bracers.

Dull white light rose to the east, casting a strange shadow over the land while the sun flickered to the west and then vanished.

They stepped rhythmically through thick layers of dust, past ancient monuments and structures. Cassan’s faint light illuminated the massive ruins slicing the horizon with their jagged remains.

The receding power that had once ravaged this land still throbbed, but it had no effect on them. They were no different to it than the crumbling stone monuments or metal structures clawing at the sky. They walked unmolested past trinkets and relics, half-buried devices, and instruments of power. Iron-plated feet trampled ordinary bones sucked dry, crunching them underfoot.

A massive, covered pavilion rose ahead; hundred-foot metal columns twisted from the weight of dust on the roof. They walked the perimeter as the structure whined under its burden. The pavilion was five hundred feet across, and the surface was a lumpy terrain of dust and whatever had been there at the moment of Saydolin’s destruction.

The roof heaved as a fresh wind started up from the north. They paused, as silent as their surroundings, as if in a secret consultation about how to continue. When the wind eased, they moved as one up the three wide steps, treading carefully within as the massive ceiling creaked to the east, then west, then east again. The central figure stretched out its hand, fingers fanned out, searching for its quarry. A throb of hungering power rippled through it, but without effect, as if it were invisible. One column creaked loudly.

Undeterred, they made their way through the mounds arranged in a familiar pattern; the Alcar were predictable in their power. The enormity of their empire had fallen because of it, easily read, and picked apart by an insatiable hunger.

Three dust mounds rose in a triangle around a ten-foot pillar at the pavilion’s center. Whatever had sat upon the pillar was long gone, but magical light still rippled through the marble veins.

The central figure crouched down, brush in hand, and removed dust from one mound. Fragments of cloth fell away with the dust, and beneath it all, brilliant golden light shone from a skull.

The shield-bearers tightened the circle around the remains, creating a still space. Each of them faced inward and opened a bag for the digger to place its findings.

The digger worked diligently and patiently. Even bones with only a touch of the golden light went into a bag. It even gathered fragments of cloth which were like wire meshes now, the natural thread gone, eaten away by time or the power that throbbed through the place. It searched for pockets of finer, darker dust, and placed the miniscule amounts of this purest powder in a small bag lined with rubber.

They worked like this through the night and the next day, moving from mound to mound, but the remains were all the same: golden.

When finished, they walked around the pavilion and looked north down the wide thoroughfare, ample enough to hold a village at its widest point. A light blinked at the end. It was the next marker, a spire of the wall encircling Saydolin’s second ring. It would not be long before the tower’s light blinked one last time, and then rested for eternity under the gray.

They turned southeast and headed toward the gate through which they had entered. They’d no need of food, water, or rest. The winds tore at their garments so fiercely that when they finally stepped on living ground again, their skeletal limbs fully exposed to the elements, only their parcels remained intact, protected by enchantments embroidered into the bags.

They entered a hill cave and descended to a large grotto of haunting white pillars. In a pattern resembling the expedition’s own, men and women sat in groups of three. In the center of this arrangement, like the digger, sat three sets of three persons. All wore thin, white garments. Bones dangling from their garments and extending from their hands like claws clacked relentlessly. The boney extensions waved and tapped through the air, an intricate language without words.

The expedition stopped at the edge of the human pattern and set down their parcels. Then, as one, they stiffened. A heavy sigh escaped their forms, followed by the creaking of bone on bone as they settled into place.

A woman from the central group, small, tanned, and amber eyed, tottered toward the digger and removed the pouch of fine dust from its pile. She opened it carefully.

Life to Death, she said for all to hear.

Death to Life, her companions responded.

A small smile broke upon her cracked, bloody lips.

Map of the Dragonlands

Destroy a thing to know it perfectly.

MEROH, 13 TH VALMAS AN’XUL.

1

Empty nooses swayed from the charred gallows.

The red-robed monks of Vetru had pronounced the wood sufficiently pure. They kept a fire burning day and night in the Field of Peace where the northern revolution had begun. Thousands had died there, and the wood scorched by those sacred flames traveled the land, purging and purifying.

Feroh, a Dyers Guild apprentice, made his way through the crowded plaza toward a stone wall from which he could look out over the crowd. A woman hissed at him when he brushed her arm, rubbing it as if he’d pricked her. Her face contorted, and she rattled off a series of curses. He pulled his hood closer around his face.

He clambered atop a retaining wall, which supported the shops on the north side of the plaza. Two other men were already there. They inched further down the ledge to make room for him. Behind them was an olive oil shop, and the pungent scent filtered out through the latticed wall. Other young men followed Feroh’s example and joined him on the thin ledge. From this vantage point, they could see the entire plaza.

Gentle hills blanketed by rows of olive trees tumbled down around the town to a sandy beach. Fig trees heavy with young fruit, a local fertility symbol, lined the new plaza, too grand for a backwater town like Bokhal. Canvas tarps strung up on poles hid the unfinished Hall of Truth and the other administrative buildings erected for their new magistrates and the empire’s representatives, the masters they’d chosen for themselves. The largest building in the plaza was the district council seat, a marble building with two massive columns standing for the twin virtues of the Azhal: truth and justice. In front of it was the platform erected for the occasion. Atop it sat a row of sacred gallows, dark against the brilliant white marble.

Behind the marble buildings, the Silt Sea shone like beaten bronze in the noon sun. This time of year, the skies were clear, blue, and hot. The dense air, the close bodies, all conspired to make Feroh sweat.

At least he’d shaved his hair recently. Sweat trickled down his body beneath cool layers of Kolas cotton. People in the crowd wore traditional linens. No one was certain what Azhal thought of the Kolas since their league had made a tentative cease-fire with Ithka, the ancient overlord, only a month ago. The Azhal Empire’s war with Ithka had not ceased. The magistrates could interpret the smallest action as a sign of support for the evil Ithka perpetrated on the people of the Dragonlands.

Feroh wore the cotton because it was the best tunic he had.

He had more pressing worries than what the cloth he wore said about him. He’d not put the tincture in his breakfast porridge. It didn’t take more than half a day for his corn silk colored hair, or his pale green eyes, to break out of the brown the tincture tried to impose. The more he ate, the less it did. He’d also not shaved for days, and his sandy stubble drew attention. He shouldn’t even be at the event at all—his father had forbidden it—but he had to see for himself. It was a once in a lifetime event. Someday he’d tell his children and grandchildren that he’d seen the Hero of the Karal, the Consul of Azhal, the bearer of the Sword of Truth.

The people of Bokhal, folk from surrounding villages, trading posts, and plantations had all come for that same purpose. Feroh teemed with excitement, thrilled to see for himself the young man tasked with joining their town and the surrounding region to the Azhal Empire, the beacon of freedom for all Ithka’s enslaved peoples. Feroh had dreamed of this day, of seeing the hero who’d conquered Karal, the city-bridge between Azhal and Kopis. Because of this victory, Kopis was more inclined to side with Azhal, and the word was it would soon declare itself free from Ithka. The Consul was the youngest to preside over the senate—not that it was a very great feat to be so young. Azhal had only gained its independence thirty years ago, and its elders had died in the war of independence. It was not just a young empire, but also an empire of the young.

The crowd cheered as high-pitched silver trumpets blared.

Feroh beamed at all those around him. He baked in the heat as the sun continued its rise. The people in the plaza covered their heads and fanned themselves. All around, people laid down mats on the hot tile roofs to watch from a distance. Feroh grinned so hard his face ached. He couldn’t help it and didn’t want to.

Even though they’d not offer him citizenship initially, he hoped that someday, if he did all the right things, if he proved himself an exemplary member of the empire, Azhal might make him a citizen.

Below him, level with his knees, a woman with one child in her arms and two others grasping her skirt, turned, and muttered something to him. She patted the child’s head as it held in a cry.

The men on the ledge stared at him, frowning. Feroh bobbed his head apologetically. He plucked at a strip of striped linen about his neck—a sign of his apprenticeship to a local guild. He withered under their gaze, but they turned away as the trumpets blared again. The crowd surged toward the platform and more people entered the plaza to fill the vacancy. With each blast, the people roared. Between the heat and excitement, they quickly reached a fevered state.

Feroh let out a deep, anxious breath. Vetru, let him come, he whispered to the Azhalite spirit of justice and truth.

He’ll come, said another woman below him. Her face was ecstatic, her hands clasped firmly to her breast. Her two small children hugged her thighs like she’d fly away.

Wind disturbed the nooses, and they swayed. The crowd roared their approval. Surely it was a sign of favor.

Yes! Feroh cried out, shaking his fists in the air.

Folk nearby glanced at him, but then turned back to the stage.

"Vitreyin zhal!" cried a lone, shrieking voice. The spirit wills it.

Voices called out until they united, rising like the ocean waves battering the outer islands.

The spirit wills it, Feroh yelled. Yes, he wills it.

The woman below glanced at him, shielding her eyes. Did she see something in him? She turned away, and he shivered. He didn’t know if any spirit or god willed it, but the energy of the crowd was too much, and he wanted to be counted a good Azhalite citizen even though he was just a migrant like so many in Bokhal, not the member of a clan invited to make the oath of citizenship. Not yet.

A flurry of movement at the far side of the plaza set aside any doubt about the consul’s coming. Large banners appeared, their long tails snaking through the wind, carried lazily over the crowd as elite guards marched through them, forcing them to split to either side.

Cheers rose again, screams of delight. All seemed enraptured. They wept.

Feroh touched his eyes and smeared his own tears on his cheeks. He’d never felt so much in so little time, and he’d not even seen him yet.

A stream of maidens dressed in white gowns, their bare arms twined with jasmine, tossed petals to the ground. The crowd fell silent.

Two red-robed monks, one each for Vetru’s faces, flung censors at their sides. A strange smell wafted to Feroh. The censors held the ashes of their fallen soldiers. The Azhal no longer buried their dead in the mountain tombs awaiting the Day of Ash.

He bowed his head and whispered the only prayer for the dead he knew. They were the secret words of his own clan.

An’ka’ish suralim, he whispered, with all the feeling trapped in his chest. I clothe myself in life. The prayer meant little to him, and when he opened his eyes, the child below him was staring at him. A toddler only but frowning as if Feroh had uttered a curse. Feroh feigned not seeing the boy and looked out over the crowd to the sea.

The trumpets blared again. Hands rose, palms facing where the young Consul must be standing.

Sparks of gold flashed between arms and banners.

Then he appeared, and Feroh held his breath.

The Consul mounted the platform, standing at the edge, dressed in a simple apricot-colored toga over knee-length britches. Gold flaked laurel crowned his glossy, black-curled head, rising from his temples like eagle’s wings, pointed to the heavens, to his father, the sun.

Sunlight makes all things clean, was the saying. And fire.

A band of gold paste ran down the center of his face, over the bridge of his nose and full lips, down his chin and neck to his breastbone, where, like a lance, it pierced his bare chest, bursting like a sun into beams of light rather than blood. He was tall for an Azhal, slim and muscular. His dark eyes did not smile, but looked over the crowd in judgment.

Because that was why he’d come. The crowd was there to pay homage to the one virtue none dared deny: justice. The Disciples of Vetru must redress the wrongs perpetrated on the people of the empire. The empire must expunge every threat, every ancient heresy, every foreign power, and every form of witchcraft if it was to have any chance against the might of Ithka. Enemies surrounded Azhal. They pressed on it, challenged it, stole from it the hard-won bounty of its abundant lands.

Migrants in the crowd beat their left shoulders with a braided twine cord, punishing themselves for whatever wrongs they’d committed.

Feroh should do the same.

Two young Bokhal men, apprentices of two guilds, stood beside the Consul, one bearing a glass jar filled with lime-green olive oil, and the other bearing a bundle of various fruiting branches. At their feet were baskets with fish and shells and other produce. This was the wealth of the empire. They proudly displayed their vetru-red citizen ribbons over their right breast. How he longed to be one of them!

The Consul raised his right hand to the people, like a father to his family, to bless them, but more than anything to proclaim his dominion over them. The crowd swelled and swooned with each gesture.

Feroh’s breath, heart, and guts crammed into his throat. He croaked and tears streamed down his face. People around him wept for joy. It was like nothing he’d ever known. Love for the Consul filled him. Love for the empire. Love for all they tried to achieve. Feroh wanted to scream it, to let all know, but before he could open his mouth to release it, a man in the row ahead screamed it. The man fainted, and the people carried him over the heads to the plaza's edge.

Feroh’s own scream swelled in his chest, and he squashed his eyes closed. Fierce tears poured down his face. And why not? The Consul was everything an Azhalite should be to face the wickedness of the age.

Feroh considered his own failings and let out an irresistible, gasping cry. He wanted nothing more than to declare the truths he knew. The secrets.

The Consul raised his hand higher, and the crowd quieted.

Today, he said. His voice boomed effortlessly across the plaza, like he was just speaking to himself. "I bring you justice."

The words struck Feroh like a lance.

Two soldiers approached the Consul and stood behind him to the right and left. The one to his right bore a gold sword with a milk-white blade. The other bore a bright-shining buckler, all gold with inlay of the white metal. They were both relics recovered from the ruins dotting the Silt Sea.

Fifty years ago, during an extreme tide, the waters of the bay had receded, revealing ancient structures. Within one of them, peasants found weapons, armors, and relics. In Azhal, the statue of a two-faced head took on more importance than any other. The relic spoke to them, teaching them the way to freedom. He called himself Vetru. They also found weapons and armor. With these artifacts and Vetru’s teaching, the peasants of Azhal threw off the shackles of Ithka and founded their own empire.

I will not use these weapons, the Consul said, which so recently defeated our enemies.

The crowd bubbled with the occasional shout.

No, today the power on display is yours, he said, sounding almost motherly. "Today, I will exact the justice you demand of me."

He lowered his right hand and raised his chin. His left hand opened at his side like a beggar. Lovely, like the rising sun, he was majesty incarnate. The crowd dissolved into cheers, cries, and tears. He was magnificent. Feroh could barely breathe. He sobbed into the crook of his arm. A low roar made him look up.

Soldiers led a train of criminals, enemies of the empire, to the gallows. The criminals all had shaved heads and burlap tunics, so that, from a distance, he could not tell them apart.

Guilty! cried a voice. A hush fell over them all until another voice concurred. Soon they were all yelling it. Feroh clamped his mouth shut tight.

These people are guilty of something weapons cannot defeat, the Consul said. No matter how ancient or powerful they are. His eyes widened, the whites blazing in his dark face. They drew Feroh in.

A magistrate wearing a vetru-red sash across his chest stepped forward and read aloud the criminals’ names along with their crimes. The crowd roared in response to each transgression.

Feroh could not hear the charges from where he stood. In his heart, he feared to, lest he find the same crime in himself.

A man near the stage screamed and the people near him moved away.

The Consul smiled tenderly, and he nodded toward the man. Soldiers pushed through the crowd to seize the newly confessed criminal.

You, see? the Consul asked the crowd. His voice carried over the din, suppressing it. Truth will free us all.

The soldiers hauled the man up to the stage and a mob of monks held him down, stripped him, and, with a curved knife, shaved his head. Feroh shivered as they sliced his scalp. Then they presented the man to the crowd.

Like a field bursting with buds, others cried out, proclaiming their sins.

Suck out the wickedness, said the woman below Feroh. Again, she glanced at him, and he cringed.

Men wearing masks shaped like vulture heads and black feathered mantles arranged the criminals, both new and previously judged.

Five veiled women, the Daughters of Nur, all widows of fallen soldiers, appeared, bearing bowls of sacrificial blood which they offered to the Consul. Nur was an ancient spirit of the hearth, and the people of Azhal hadn’t been able to set her aside. They called her Vetru’s wife.

The Consul dipped each finger of his right hand into each bowl and held up his blood-stained skin to the crowd. I will bear the burden.

The crowd sighed as more of their number proclaimed their sins and soldiers hauled them away.

I see you, the Consul said. I am pleased. Vetru’s fire will purify us.

The toddler, wriggling in his mother’s arms, was staring at Feroh. Feroh gripped the lattice as the urge to confess overwhelmed him. But what had he done, though? Was it a crime to take an herb to change his coloring to fit in better? Was it a crime to be from another place?

The crowd, wild with the desire for justice, grabbed a woman, and then a man holding a child, and forcibly carried them forward like a tide purging itself of rotted seaweed.

Feroh’s tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, throat dry, sweat beading his face and body. He inched away, swapping places with the young man next to him on the ledge. The surrounding folk turned to look at him, all with the same piercing eyes, like they could see through him.

His pale hair must be showing. He berated himself for not taking the tincture that morning and squinted to hide his green eyes. The people turned back to face the stage as, one by one, they hanged the criminals. Dropping from the ledge, he melted into the crowd.

A strangled cry gurgled in his throat as a heavy hand grabbed him and hauled him back through the crowd. It was his uncle, Joruh.

Fortunately, no one paid them any attention. The people were all too focused on what was happening on the stage. Their eyes were wide, awe-struck.

Feroh struggled to regain his balance. They continued in silence, pushing through to an alley, and then another, until they were alone. His uncle shoved him against the wall.

Fool! he yelled through gritted teeth. Where are your plugs?

Feroh fished them out of his tunic’s breast pocket. They were just bits of cotton sewn in a wad, but it was the special oil suffusing them that buffered his mind from the Consul’s magic, that kept it from being controlling his mind. He looked down, embarrassed. He trembled as the power of the Consul’s voice, the call to confession, still found a home in him.

I should box your ears to a pulp, his uncle said, turning away. Let’s get home. Your father will hear of this.

Feroh retched, fell to all fours, and vomited. His legs trembled, and he felt weak, his strength leached away. He gripped the cobblestones, nails cracking painfully. The crowd roared as they executed another criminal.

The enchantment seeped out, freeing him to think for himself, to remember the man and his child plucked out of the crowd. They’d confessed nothing out loud. The crowd had chosen them. As his mind freed itself, he recalled two of the men on the stage with shaved heads and burlap sacks.

Those men he knew. Those had the pale green eyes his people tried so hard to hide, the pale-yellow, almost white hair. All traits they masked with dyes and herbal remedies.

The Consul’s voice surged in him again, like a powerful hand gripping his heart. A nonsensical confession burbled out of him. People walked past, and he panicked, scrambled to his feet, and chased after his uncle, stuffing his ears with the plugs as he ran.

But the damage was done.

A DREAM

My mouth hangs open, sucking in a dust so dry and fine it grinds my insides to the bone. Every gaping gust tears at me like I’m not wanted there. Dust plasters me, layer upon layer. Piled upon me, a mountain moving slowly and denied.

A vast land, featureless and gray, slides beneath me.

I dig a fine line so deep, over and over, in huge loops, circling a scent like a hunting dog. I’m so deep the sun doesn’t reach me. What hope is there for nourishment? The skies are empty. The rivers are dry except for pockets of rebellion where trickles gather into pools and life erupts.

A faint, sweet—and wet—scent reaches me. Life is wet, damp with the energy of the living. I hunger for it.

The winds moan, frustrated.

Things take shape, as they do in dreams, but awkwardly, following the logic of dreams. This place is dust and hard ground, no matter how deep I plunge or how high I climb.

A new sensation fills me this time: guilt. Is it my own? I walk in another man’s shoes. A raging, tearful, gnashing, creaking guilt.

It bears me, mercilessly, searching, searching for even a morsel. A rivulet teaming with life; a raindrop even.

But it is dead as far as the eye can see, as far as my senses reach, even the deepest sense which hungers like a thousand raving beasts that can never die.

I shovel inert dust into my mouth like a worm.

This is all there is.

I have made it so.

2

The scent of rosemary hung heavy in the air. Mother Tadra, Feroh’s stepmother, stirred the cauldron holding the clan’s porridge. A dense mix of milled wheat and olive oil, with goat’s cheese sprinkled on it, the porridge sustained them throughout the workday until the evening meal, which would not be much different.

As Feroh approached, she took a steaming bowl and added drops of the tincture the clan used to mask their traits. It held the essences of plants, barks, roots, and the leaves of the sadu