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  Knight Chosen

  The Shackled Verities (Book One)

  Tammy Salyer

  Knight Chosen

  The Shackled Verities

  Book One

  Hello, Dear Readers, and thank you for being here! This is the beginning of an epic and, I hope, exciting journey following the Knights Corporealis and others as they embark on a saga to save themselves, their loved ones, their worlds, and ultimately the Great Cosmos. Should you enjoy the words on these pages, I encourage you to join my Reader Group, or follow me on Amazon or Bookbub, to be notified of new releases. The next to come will be Knight Redeemed in May 2020.

  At the moment, I invite you to sit back, relax, put on some warm lighting and epic music to inspire the sights and sounds of a fantastical world like Middle Earth or Westeros or Temerant, and let these words seep into your mind like a soothing smoky single-malt scotch.

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  Copyright © 2019 by Tammy Salyer

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  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

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Also by Tammy Salyer

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  It could be said that a perk of living for over a thousand turns is that it gives a person plenty of time to think. About everything from oneself to the Cosmos, and all subjects in between—a truly exceptional and marvelous range of ideas to explore. But on this warm morning in the late vernal season, Ulfric Aldinhuus wasn’t thinking of anything marvelous or exceptional. He was thinking about his very, very long life, and about whether the reasons he wasn’t dead yet were maybe the wrong ones.

  Immortal, yes, or close enough not to bother splitting hairs, but there was more to living than not dying, more to life than that. Every time his daughter Isemay smiled at him or showed him some new and clever trick or trinket she’d created, he no longer wanted to live forever. He just wanted the time he did have to be spent with his family.

  But an oath taken one thousand seven hundred and thirty-nine turns ago—by the Verities, he was old!—wasn’t easily put aside. Less easily when the one who could release you hadn’t graced Vinnr in close to four hundred turns.

  And today duty called yet again, and he would not ignore it. Despite his hopes for dismissal from this duty, or curse, he was still devoted to it. An oath was an oath, and the only honorable way to turn from it was with the consent of the one to whom it had been made.

  While lost in his thoughts, the scent of Halla-warmed dalla flower petals tickled his nose and he smiled to himself. His daughter Isemay, at sixteen turns, still couldn’t sneak up on him, though she’d been trying since she’d barely reached his knees. He let her believe it was due to a lack of stealth, keeping it his secret that her beloved scent, as familiar to him as her mum’s and his own, was what always gave her away. She was the daughter of two Knights. To not have learned stealth and secrecy by now could only have been due to stubborn resistance. She was sly, no doubt about that, but not against the ways of the Knights Corporealis, whom she aspired to be one day. Her da Ulfric was Stallari, a role he’d taken reluctantly, and Isemay loved Ulfric and her mother Symvalline as a child should love a good mum and da, but she also revered them and all they represented.

  “Come here, Crumb,” Ulfric said, standing and looking up to the overhanging walkway circling the hall.

  He heard her exasperated exhale before she stepped out from behind the thick column hiding her above. She’d dressed in an off-white tunic and wrapped a similar-colored scarf around her head, attempting but failing to hide her dark copper-tinged, slightly untidy waves of hair so she could blend in with the resplendent alabaster hall. “How do you always know, Da? And I really wish you’d stop calling me Crumb. I’ve told you.”

  “But you’re still no bigger than a crumb, and a name that fits is a name that sticks.” He waved her down. “Why aren’t you in study at the Conservatum?”

  To go with her sigh, she added an exasperated smirk, the same one she seemed to have for all her elders these days. Except for Knight Eisa Nazaria, at whom she didn’t dare smirk or do anything else that might be construed as disrespectful. “You know there’s no reason to be there today. The whole city of Asteryss will be waiting to catch sight of the entourage from Yor, and the foreigner called His Holiness. I bet even Acolyte Irrick left his lectures today to see them.”

  Though Isemay was right, it troubled Ulfric how vulnerable the city would be left with such a large part of the population gathered at Aster Keep, distracted. He changed the subject. “I have a gift for you. Quick now, before it’s time for me to go.”

  She chose the shortest route. With a short jump over the walkway banister, she wrapped her arms and legs around an ornamental tapestry hanging next to the shrine and lowered herself with the nimbleness of a creature born in trees rather than an ancient, impregnable stone fortress. The shrine bore a statue representing Vaka Aster and stood twice Ulfric’s height: a robed woman wearing a crown of stars, holding out in one hand a globe representing one of the five celestial stones she had gifted to her creations, and in the other was the hilt of a sword that pointed upward and leaned across her chest. Isemay, tapped one foot against the point of this sword on her way down to push herself into a swing over her father’s head, then released the tapestry and came to a practiced landing. She spun around flamboyantly and bowed in front of him, a playful grin painted on her face.

  “How many times have I told you not to do that, daughter of mine?” He added menace to the timbre of his voice, but it was false. She knew it, and he knew she knew it. He didn’t have the heart to fight this mor
ning, as uncertain as the future was. Besides, secretly, he was proud of her talents, as any father would be.

  “This thirty-night, or in my life?” she asked innocently.

  With a snort, he reached inside the topmost pouch of his bandolier and drew out a copper chain that matched the glints of her hair. Turning his hand over, he dangled the pendant attached to it and watched Isemay’s eyes widen as it caught the light from the many illuminate orbs dotting the hall.

  “Is it . . .” she began to ask but lost her breath in surprise.

  “Yes, a Mentalios, and more. Of course, you’re not a Knight, so you won’t be able to use it to speak to the rest of us—yet.”

  Distracted by her constant ambition to one day join the Order, she smiled broadly. “I can’t wait for that! It will be so wonderful to finally know what you and Mum are saying to each other when you don’t want me to hear.”

  “You can wait, Crumb, and you will. Besides, it doesn’t work like that. You can’t hear anyone’s thoughts at any time. And . . . well, it’s not decided yet—you’ve not decided yet if that’s the path you want to take.” Ulfric delivered these words in his familiar lecturing tone, but inwardly, what he meant was I’ve not decided yet if that’s the path I want you to take. He went on aloud, “I designed this pendant especially for you. I call it a memory keeper.” He beckoned her to take the jewel.

  She reached out slowly, her expression excited and a touch cautious. The overall pendant took the form of a dragørfly carved out of a natural eyestone, its wings just wider than Isemay’s palm. Inset beryl-colored gems comprised the creature’s eyes, and the center hole in its thorax bulged around a clear circular piece of crystal the size of a sparrow’s egg. “It’s heavy,” she said. “And beautiful.”

  His lips kinked happily at her joy. “What is the focusing phrase I taught you?”

  Without taking her eyes from the pendant, she recited easily, “Cæcra ad resrs, boromcad bea dord. Kucik kea kesrs, emsu kæ lœkra.” The words were Elder Veros and meant “cycle of light, balanced by dark, focus my sight, into my heart.”

  “Good,” Ulfric praised. “Now, think back to your fondest memory, perhaps from your childhood. Remember the bird I gave you when you were only five?”

  She nodded.

  “Think about how much you loved it and focus this memory into the lens there. Speak the phrase to still your thoughts until only that memory remains in your mind.”

  She pulled the chain free from his hand and held the pendant cupped between both of hers. Staring at the crystal lens, her lips moved soundlessly as she said the Elder Veros phrase. Ulfric, to himself, did the same beside her, wanting to share this moment and this memory with his precious daughter.

  The crystal’s clarity changed. In its center emerged the hovering image of a wooden bird, painted in bright greens and yellows. She gasped but remained still, her expression now one of pure delight. The image changed, and then Isemay herself, a version of her when she had been small, appeared from within the lens, chasing the bird. Though the vision was soundless, they could both see her as a little girl, giggling and holding the colorful toy, running among the corridors of Vigil Tower and pretending she was flying along with it.

  They watched Isemay’s memory for a few moments before she tore her eyes free. When she did, the image wavered and vanished. “Thank you, Da. It’s the most wonderful thing I’ve ever seen.”

  He smiled indulgently, as only a father can. “You’re welcome, my daughter.” His tone deepened, grew serious. “Anything you ever want to recall, you can see in the pendant. It will always help you remember.”

  He caught the way her stare lingered, his tone having unnerved her. When he didn’t meet her eyes, she lifted the chain over her head and let it fall around her neck. Though Isemay took after Ulfric and her Yorish mother in height, her head still only reached as high as the top of his chest as she wrapped her arms awkwardly around his breastplate and bandolier. He hugged her back, swallowing a knot that suddenly formed in his throat.

  From the hall’s entryway came the sound of approaching boots. Soon the smoke-roughened voice of Knight Thorvíl called to him. “The skimmer and Mylla are outside, Stallari. We await you in the foyer, we do.” He left the way he’d come.

  Ulfric released Isemay abruptly. “I will see you this evening.”

  “Please, Da, let me come to Aster Keep with you. The whole city will be there. Why shouldn’t I?”

  “For the hundredth time, no. I’m telling you as Stallari, not as your father. You stay here with Stave and Safran and your mother—”

  “But—”

  “Isemay.” Instead of rising angrily, his voice dropped to a menacing note, though it resonated nowhere near as threatening as his enemies knew it could be. “I’ve forbidden it.”

  “And so have I.” Symvalline entered the hall, dressed in her ceremonial sky-blue cloak in recognition of the day’s serious event, though she had opted to remain at Vigil Tower with the other two Knights.

  Isemay’s eyes bounced between her parents, then she frowned. “So you think I can handle a sword, but not a crowd. I see. You know I’m not a child anymore, don’t you?”

  Ulfric, sighing inwardly, reached out and gripped her shoulder, pulled her close, and planted a rough kiss on her forehead. “I’ll see you tonight, child.” He strode to the entryway, exchanging a “yes, this again” look with Symvalline, but stopped midway and turned back. “I love you, Crumb.”

  The words cracked her blustery façade, and for a moment she appeared as she had in the memory keeper, so small, so young and guileless and filled with wonder. Even her voice sounded as it had at five as she said, “I love you, too, Da.”

  Chapter 2

  Knight Mylla Evernal stood outside Vigil Tower with her sister-in-arms Knight Safran Glór at the top of the stairs leading into the tower’s main hall, fidgeting with her baldric and sword to make sure they weren’t too tight, weren’t too loose. Today’s planned summit hardly seemed exceptional, but she didn’t want to be caught off guard if the visiting dignitary calling himself His Holiness had plans to make it so.

  The summit at Aster Keep would include Arch Keeper Beatte of the kingdom of Ivoryss, Stallari Aldinhuus of the Knights Corporealis, and the foreigner coming from the kingdom of Yor, a stranger until recently. Despite the mundanity of kingdom politics, it happened to be the most exciting event she’d been part of since, well, since the day she’d taken her oath to become a Knight Corporealis. Stallari Aldinhuus had prepared them to be ready for anything and shared his suspicions regarding this Holiness Prime. Thus, her struggle to quell her excitement, and a touch of apprehension, wasn’t without reason. The other Knights never hesitated to point out that she was the novice among them, to her endless frustration, and today could be her chance to show them she was as capable of fulfilling her duties as any of them.

  Worried her fidgeting would be obvious to Safran, or worse, the Stallari when he emerged, she distracted herself while waiting for him with thoughts of Havelock Rekkr, her paramour, and their conversation the night before. On her way out of the inn they’d tarried in last night, her to return to Vigil Tower, him to his squadron of Dragør Wing Marines to prepare for today’s event, she’d warned him that her duties after the summit could call her away from the city of Asteryss for a time, depending on the outcome.

  His response, as was typical of him, had been calm and unquestionably accepting of her role. “You don’t have to explain anything, Mylla. I’ll still be here when your duty is done, whether that’s today or tomorrow or a full turn from now. Duty to our maker is your first calling, and mine is to Ivoryss. That’s what we stand for, and we stand stronger because of it.”

  He was so blargin’ honorable and reasonable it could, and frequently did, drive her crazy. Especially because he was so blargin’ right.

  Vaka Aster and each of the five Verities that had created the Cosmos, comprised two forms, one celestial and one physical, a human vessel given in service to
the makers. The duty of the Knights Corporealis was to protect and watch over this vessel. Vinnr’s was currently an alabaster statue that had long ago been flesh when its maker had still chosen to walk among them. Mylla’s term of duty, though short compared to the rest of the Order’s, had stretched over the last three hundred and forty-two turns around Halla. Havelock’s, of course, was significantly shorter, for he was a commoner and destined to live only a single life span. He and his Marines watched over the rest of the commoners. But she watched over, when it came down to it, the fabric of their world itself, for if the Verity’s vessel were destroyed, Vinnr would be as well.

  Mylla. Mylla! Safran’s voice, sent through a Mentalios lens each of them wore, pulled her from her thoughts back to the present.

  “You don’t need to shout,” she said aloud.

  Safran smirked. I do if I want to be heard through that fog you call Lock.

  “He’s spruce, he is, novice, but so young, just a babe yet,” Stave Thorvíl added as he returned from fetching the Stallari. “He needs to live a few hundred turns and acquire a few scars before he’ll be worth more than a wink and a pat on the head from a warrior like you, he does.” The ever-present scent of the lind leaves he constantly rolled and smoked clung to him and gave his voice the same roughness as his features.