The Source (Creasan #1)

The climb did not get any easier the higher they went. The wind became harsher, the cold became biting, the terrain became more precarious. Three times, Thea’s fingers had slipped, and three times, Fendrel had to catch her.

They still hadn’t spoken since that night in the forest, but it almost didn’t even matter. Clearly, they had bigger problems at the moment.

They went higher and higher, until each breath became a struggle. Thea had never felt so lightheaded in her entire life. It was like that feeling one gets from getting up too fast, but multiplied by a hundred. She clenched her jaw and pushed herself to keep going.

The days they couldn’t find a place to rest, they just kept climbing. For two days straight they put one hand in front of the other. Thea’s lips had become frozen and she had to blink several times to separate her lashes enough to see.

They were exhausted, dehydrated, under-oxygenated. Thea didn’t know how much more of this they were going to be able to take.

“What’s that?” Fendrel shouted up to Thea.

With furrowed brows, she searched up ahead for what Fendrel could possibly be referring to. And then she saw it: a dark shadow against the white rocks of the mountain. Thea’s eyes widened. “A person!”

Fendrel looked stunned. “There’s someone else up here?”

“What!” Isolde did her best to hurry up beside the prince.

He repeated, “There’s someone else up here.”

Isolde blinked in surprise and then turned to relay the message to the others.

But the outline of the person wasn’t moving.

Fendrel spoke the words Thea was thinking: “Do they need help?”

Only one way to find out. “Hey!” Thea called as she headed in that person’s direction. “Are you okay?” But the wind snatched her words away almost immediately after they left her lips. She turned back to Fendrel. “Keep going. I’ll go check it out.”

Fendrel shook his head. “We stay together.”

“We don’t have time—“

“Together,” he repeated, and began working his way toward the person.

Thea didn’t have the energy or will to argue, so she simply allowed him to follow her in the direction of the person. “Hey!” she tried again. “Are you injured? Hello!”

But as she drew closer, her blood stuttered in her veins, sending a shiver down her spine that was not due to the weather. It was clear it was a man, and he hadn’t stirred at all as they approached. She yelled back to the others, “I think he’s hurt!”

Fendrel sent the message along to Isolde who hurried to catch up with the front of the line.

But then Thea pulled herself right alongside the man and her lungs stopped working altogether.

His mouth was hanging open, his eyes were nearly as pale as the snow without even a hint what color they used to be. His lips were a deep purple, the veins beneath his skin scrawling down his skin like marble. His fingers were frozen into the mountain, almost seeming as if they were part of the rocks. He had no hair left on his head, no beard on his face.

But he should have. Thea knew that he should have deep red hair on his head and framing his chin. He should have brown eyes so bright they seemed to shimmer. He should have strength in his hands, pride in his shoulders.

Thea knew this because the dead man before her was her father.

She covered her mouth with a gasp, jerking back so hard that she nearly lost her footing.

Fendrel set a hand on her back to steady her. “There’s nothing we can do for him now,” he said.

But he didn’t know who this man was. He didn’t know that Thea’s mother had held on to hope for years after he’d vanished, praying to Aestus every night that he’d come home. He didn’t know the terrible mystery that surrounds a missing person, the knowledge that they must be gone but the never-ending certainty that they must be coming back.

Fendrel gestured for Isolde to stop her climb toward them. Because there was no one to help. Because Thea’s father was dead.

It was as if something inside of her broke off and shattered into a million pieces. She had not mourned Lief or her father because, in her mind, they weren't really dead. Yes, they were gone, but not dead. That was too permanent. But there was an unmistakably dead body in front of her that was also unmistakably her father's. She knew both facts instantly, and it felt as if that knowledge was rotting her out from the inside.

She wasn’t sure why, but she needed to touch him. She needed to know that this was real, that this wasn’t some sort of hallucination that came from the altitude or extreme cold. Hesitantly, she reached out to touch his hand.

The ice crackled beneath her as she wrapped her fingers around her father’s frozen skin. He was so cold, colder than the rocks they held on to. His eerie gaze stared through her. She did her best to hold back tears, knowing they’d freeze before they hit her lashes. Thea gripped his hand harder.

The ice latching him to the mountain cracked and shattered under her touch, and her father tumbled down the mountain.

Thea’s mouthed dropped. “No!” Without even thinking, she lunged to grab hold of him. The movement was too fast for her body to process; her head swirled and she wasn’t sure which way to move to grab hold of the mountain again. Her stomach sank into her feet and she screamed as she fell.

“Thea!” Fendrel yanked hard on her rope.

She was pulled short, her head smacking against the rocks. Stars danced across her vision as she tried to find another hold.

Fendrel gritted his teeth as he tried to lift her back up, but any movement had become difficult in the cold and he could barely hold her up. Pain seared through him, a stark contrast to the frozen weather that it felt like his fingers were burning. He gazed down at where Thea hung upside down.

The wind was blowing so hard that it pushed her away from the rocks. She reached desperately, but she couldn’t catch it. The storm was engulfing her in its tornado, and it was taking every piece of strength in Fendrel to keep her from being taken.

The others stared at her with fear. They didn’t know what to do; she was too far away from them to grab and Fendrel was the only one with access to her part of the rope.

Brom called up to Peronell, “Grab my rope.”

“Why?” But his fingers instantly clutched it.

Brom bounced lightly on the balls of his feet as he eyed Thea’s thrashing form. “I’ll bring her back. Don’t let go.”

“No, Brom!” Carac shouted. “It’s too dangerous.”

Brom wasn’t listening. “Tell His Highness to hold on just a little while longer. I’ll get her.”

Peronell started, “Wait—“

But Brom had already blown out a breath and jumped off the mountain.

Peronell immediately tightened his hold on the rope, growling as it slid through his fingers and burned across his hand.

Brom cringed against the rush of the wind. His clothes whipped around him furiously and he had to squint through the air to make out Thea’s scrambling form.

As he got closer, the rope was pulled taut and Peronell’s arm shook with the effort to hold on, the hand gripping the mountain clawing into the rock.

Brom stretched his arms out as far as he could, calling, “Thea!”

Her eyes flew in his direction and she immediately reached for him. The wind was blowing so hard that her hair was splashed across her face, impeding her vision and stinging her cheeks. Their fingers inched closer and closer, Brom groaning as the rope dug into his stomach.

Then he grabbed her and pulled her to his side. “I’m going to throw you back,” he said directly into her ear so he wouldn’t have to shout.

“Then who’s going to get you?” she demanded.

“Help Perry pull me back. Ready?”

She hated the idea, a clearly not well thought out plan, but what other choice did she have? Throat dry, she nodded.

“Okay. On the count of three.”

Three breaths.

She braced herself.

“One. Two. Three!” Brom chucked her as hard as he could.

Thea went sailing toward mountain and slammed into it so hard, her bones rattled. Her fingers immediately locked on to the rocks and she blinked as she tried to clear the stars from her eyes. She gave herself only a moment to collect herself before she looked around and saw she had landed directly beside Peronell. With one hand, she stayed anchored to the mountain and with the other she grabbed hold of Brom’s rope and jerked him back.

Between the two of them, they were slowly able to fish him out of the tornado, inch by agonizing inch, they drew him back to them. As soon as he was close enough, he grabbed hold of the mountain and sank against it, panting.

Thea and Peronell released his rope with relief. Her hands were shaking so badly, it was difficult for her to cling to the mountain. “I’m sorry,” she told Brom, blinking away the tears as the reality set in. Her father was dead. She’d seen his corpse plummet to the earth. And then she’d almost gotten Brom killed too. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Hey, hey, it’s all right.” He put his hand on her shoulder.

She looked up through the wild strands of her wild hair.

He nodded encouragingly. “You’re all right. So am I. It’s okay.”

She let out a shaky breath and smiled. “Thank you,” she whispered.

He couldn’t have heard her over the loud winds but he smiled back and nodded.

Merek shouted down to them. “Are you two okay?”

“We’re fine,” Thea answered. “I’m coming back up.”She took one more moment to process what had just happened. Just one more to try and calm her racing heart beat. She wiped at her cheeks where tears would have been if she’d allowed them to fall. Then she lowered her shoulders and she forced herself to climb back to the front of the line.

“What on earth was that?” Fendrel demanded as she pulled herself up beside him, watching her with wide eyes. He was breathing as hard as the rest of them.

It did not escape Thea’s notice that this was the second time the prince had saved her life. She fixed her eyes up at the seemingly unending mountain. “That was my father,” she said, and started climbing again before he could respond.

Favian stared at the wall ahead as his thoughts sprinted around his brain. He’d suspected it before, he’d considered the possibility. But even in his disease riddled brain, he hadn’t really thought Ana would do such a thing to him.

And eight years ago! Before the disease had taken him, before the ringing in his skull had become unbearable. She’d turned away from him so long ago. Why had he granted her the privilege of his trust?

“I wonder how long it shall be before you realize just how much I have taken.”

Favian drew his knees to his chest, trying to turn away from the smug words. He had known. Before he’d been executed, he’d known. The king had become a joke in his own palace.

Favian wondered how many people were privy to his humiliation. Did Destrian know? Surely he would have told him. Did Fendrel?

An anger surged through him at that thought. Of course Fendrel must have known. It was why he had tried to take the crown from him. Fendrel knew Althalos could not inherit it. Favian’s crown would fall to his little brother. His conniving, deceitful little brother.

Perhaps he ought to be thankful he had a brother. Another Lance to take over the throne. Instead, he felt his insides recoil at the thought. The Lance family tree was a straight line back to the time of Aestus. There were no detours to younger borns, no inherited line through mothers. It was a straight line through the generations.

And Favian would be the reason that ended.

It was an overwhelming feeling, knowing he had failed his entire ancestry. It was a heavy feeling, one that pressed him down into the cushion of his bed, made him feel like he was sinking into darkness.

“That’s the thing about suffering,” he’d said. “It is contagious.”

“Stop it,” Favian mumbled into his pillow. “Just stop.” He could feel liquid trickling out of his ears again, but he didn’t care enough to touch it. He knew it would be blood. It pumped out of him in time to the pounding in his head.

“What does it feel like, Your Majesty, to execute a man?”

“You have killed people, too,” the king said, repeating the words he’d spoken long ago.

“Yes, but only when I was attacked. Only when your men attacked me. I want to know what it’s like to look at an innocent man and sentence him to death.”

“You are no innocent,” Favian hissed. “You slept with my wife.”

“Does love deserve death?”

“She was not yours to love!” The anger forced the king to sit up, staring at the wall where the voice seemed to come from. But unsurprisingly, there was no one there. The owner of the voice was nowhere to be found. The king bit his lip, squeezing his eyes shut again, and sagging into his bed. He pressed his face so tightly to the pillow that he struggled to breathe through his nose.

He did not see Althalos creep into his room until he was nearly on top of him. “Father?” the little boy whispered.

Favian jerked in surprise and turned to face his son.

Not his son. Just some boy. Someone else’s boy.

Althalos asked, “Where is Mother?”

Favian’s brows lowered and he gazed at the boy darkly. “Your mother is gone.”

“Gone where?”

Favian did not have the patience to deal with insufferable questions, especially when he owed no loyalty to this child. He rolled back over, muttering over his shoulder, “Go back to bed, Althalos.”

But Althalos did not retreat. He did not do as his father bid. Instead, he crawled onto the bed beside him. Favian rolled his eyes but didn’t turn around.

In a very small voice, he ventured, “Did you hurt Mother?”

Favian’s head pulsed again, more painfully than ever before. He growled, “I said, go back to bed.”

Althalos took several deep breaths and whispered softly to himself.

Favian half-turned. “What was that?”

“Only if attacked,” Althalos recited, and the king just barely had time to register the blade in the little boy’s hand before the prince plunged it down.

Carac paused in his climb, head tilted ever so slightly. Then he heard that same lack of noise, and he nearly fainted with relief. “Another cave!” he yelled up. “Just up ahead.”

Merek breathed, “Thank Aestus.” Then he shouted Carac’s words up to Thea.

Thea immediately picked up the pace. Her arms and legs were about two seconds away from falling off. She needed to rest as soon as humanly possible. The entirety of the group hurried with her.

“On the right!” Carac instructed.

Thea instantly veered to her right. Her fingers had begun to bleed and she was sure there were blisters on her feet and her rushed pace was doing nothing to help the situation. But she didn’t care. Once they were inside, Isolde could help her fix it. Once they were inside, they could eat and drink. She’d even treat herself to a bit of that ale Merek still had.

She reached the mouth of the cave in just a few minutes, and she was hardly inside before her arms gave out and she flopped onto her stomach. Thea’s lips were so dry that they had begun to crack and bleed, filling her mouth with a metallic taste. Yet another thing she didn’t care about. She licked it away, feeling an emptiness inside her begin to spread.

The group filtered in behind her, just as tired and spent as her. They all lay panting for several moments.

Fendrel was the first to speak. “We can’t go on like this.”

Thea should argue with him. She knew she should. But she couldn't seem to find the motivation to do so. She just laid there, with her arms splayed out beside her.

“Thea? Are you listening?” Fendrel sat up on his elbows and stared at her. “Thea, this is going to kill us before we get there.”

Like it had killed her father. She squeezed her eyes shut and did her best to steady her breathing, though she was hardly successful. Her biceps were throbbing and she decided to focus on the fatigued pain of her body.

“Have you gone mad?” The prince dragged himself upright and leaned against the wall. “You’ve literally just witnessed your father’s corpse frozen to the side of the mountain and you insist on--”

“Mate,” Merek said as he sat up too. He shook his head. “Too far.”

“Everything must be too far with your leader. Especially when she's resorted to the silent treatment.”

An image of her father's frozen body flashed behind Thea's lids and she flinched, her eyes popping open. She could feel a pressure building up behind her eyes. And it infuriated her. She did not cry, and she certainly did not cry in front of the prince. Thea clenched her jaw as she stumbled to her feet. Turning her pain into fury and aiming it at Fendrel. “You want to turn back? You want to tuck tail and flee? We’re so close—“

“You have no idea how close we are,” he burst. He stood too, facing off against her. “Is it stupidity or stubbornness that is stopping you from turning back?”

“Fendrel,” she started slowly.

“No, I do not want to hear it.” He turned to address the rest of the group. “We are going back. Rest up as much as you have to, and then we will head back home.”

If the cave had been cold before, it had now become frigid. All eyes turned to Thea. They knew Thea could appreciate assistance, that she would allow someone to pose a different option to her. But they also knew that no one went over her head to issue orders to her people.

The fatigue drained away from her body entirely, replaced with a familiar rage. She savored it; images of her father were pushed to the far edges of her mind, far enough away she could believe she hadn't seen him at all. She straightened her shoulders and fisted her bleeding hands at her sides.

Favian just barely reacted in time to catch Althalos’ wrist before the dagger sank into the king’s flesh. Althalos’ face twisted with exertion as he tried to push against his father’s strength and force the dagger into his heart.

The king threw Althalos to the floor. The boy grunted with the impact and the dagger fell out of his hand, clanging loudly in the night.

Favian was on his feet in seconds. He kicked the knife away and wrapped his fingers around the boy’s arm, yanking him to his feet. “How dare you,” Favian snarled, spittle gathering in the corners of his mouth. “How dare you, you little bastard! You thought you could kill me? Me!?” Favian started dragging him toward the door.

Althalos tried to pry his fingers off him, but it was useless. Favian was much stronger than him. “Stop,” the boy begged, “you’re hurting me.”

“Good! I should’ve done away with you as soon as I found out. No, no as soon as I suspected. Yes, as soon as I suspected, you should’ve been suffocated in your crib.” Favian stopped to scream in his face, “You are a failure and coward! Just like your father.”

Tears of confusion and terror started falling over Althalos’ cheeks. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry, Father. Ulric said—“

“Ulric is dead!” The king started moving through the palace again. “I killed him.”

“Why would you do that?” Althalos sobbed. “I loved Ulric—“
 “Yes, yes, everyone loved Ulric. Well, now Ulric is dead. And you will not be given the chance to love anyone else.” Favian turned a corner and then another, descending down stair after stair, hauling the staggering eight-year-old boy behind him. “I could have shown you kindness, Althalos. Perhaps you would not have ruled, but you would have known safety. You would have been treated as my ward. You could have remained in your rooms, wandered the halls, played in the garden. But instead, you ruined it.”

Althalos tripped and struggled to right himself as the king plunged ahead. “Where is Mother? What have you done with her?”

Favian slammed open the door to the dungeon. “You need not worry about her anymore.” He stopped in front of a cell, the cell Ulric had been held in, and jerked it open. Then he chucked Althalos inside.

Althalos fell, the filth of the floor puffing out around him as he crashed against it.

The metal of the bars clanged loudly as Favian slammed it shut. The lock echoed in the cavernous room. The king bared his teeth at the little boy. “I was willing to share her with you. For her sake. I was willing to let things continue. But you ruined it and now she is as dead to you as I will tell her you are.”

Althalos was crying in earnest now. “Father—“

“Forget about us, forget about your old life.” Favian stepped back from the door, hiding in the shadows. “I will give you more mercy than you’d given me. I will let you live. But this is your new life now.” He turned to leave, calling over his shoulder, “Get comfortable. This is where you shall remain until you die. And lucky for you, I will make sure that is a long ways away.”

Then the dungeon door shut, leaving Althalos alone in the dark. His lips trembled and his chin quivered as tears spilled out of him. He pulled his knees to his chest and buried his face in them.

“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” Fendrel prodded. “You wanted me to admit I wanted control. You wanted me to come to terms with wanting the crown. Well, what were you expecting? A meek king, like my brother?” He shook his head. “This is what that looks like, Thea. And I am ordering everyone, you included, to turn back.”

Thea laughed, a startling reaction to his words. At everyone’s questioning faces, she explained, “It’s funny that His Highness thinks you’ll actually listen to him. Perhaps more pitiful than an idiot prince is a disrespected king.”

“All right.” Isolde stood between them. “Clearly, we are all exhausted. I think we all need a nice meal and a long nap. Then we can revisit this—“

“No, I do not need to revisit this,” Fendrel interrupted, taking a threatening step closer to Thea. “Everyone knows this is a fool’s errand. Varug told you as much to your face. It was our fault for humoring the thought, but we can still rectify it before it is too late.” He looked at each of Thea’s friends. “You can all feel it, can’t you? You know I’m right.”

“Fendrel,” Isolde tried again, but this time it was Thea who cut her off.

“You traveled with us for how many days, Highness?” She matched his threatening approach with her own. “The whole while you heard about how unlikely it was, how dangerous. You knew exactly what you were walking into. But now that you’re here, you’re what? Too scared?” She snorted. “Fine. Then go. We don’t need you here.”

Carac started, “Thea, we—“

“I’m not scared,” Fendrel insisted. “I’m just using my brain. Obviously, that’s a foreign concept to you.”

“What’s foreign to me is failure,” she retorted. “Something you are all too familiar with.”

He rolled his eyes. “There you go again with the goading.”

“Oh, are you not trying to goad me?”

“I am trying to save our lives. How could you be so dense after you saw your father like that? Was that not traumatic enough for you? What is it going to take to make you under—“

“As a matter of fact, that was traumatic,” she said, digging her nails into her skin to stop herself from tearing up. If there was ever a time to hold back her tears, it was now. “Thank you for your understanding and compassion, Highness.”

“A parent’s death should push you to be better—“

“Like your mother’s did?”

A beat of silence.

Carac, Peronell, Brom, Merek, and Isolde stared at the two of them, at an utter loss for what to say.

Fendrel locked eyes with Thea, his nostrils flaring, his chest moving up and down quickly with his labored breaths. She had never seen him like this before. The rage, the fury. It was like staring into a moving inferno, one that was barreling toward her at a million miles an hour.

But Thea could hear her blood rushing through her veins and knew her own inferno was building. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that when two enormous blazes met, the results would be catastrophic.

“Fine,” he said, voice low. “Let’s handle this the only way you know how.” He backed up a few steps. “First blood loses.”

She crossed her arms. “You want me to fight you?”

The prince crouched into a ready stance. “Isn’t this what you wanted from me? No more controlled emotions. No more reasonable words. Just violence. Let’s go, then.”

Finally. Something she understood. Something at which she could succeed. Something that would distract her further from her father. “Fine.” She shirked off her coat.

The rest of the group jumped to their feet, hurrying to step in between them. “Mate, mate,” Merek said, trying to stand in Thea’s way. But she kept moving to maintain eye contact with Fendrel. “You don’t want to do this, Thea.”

“Oh, but I really do.” She smiled, feeling that familiar adrenaline seep into her bloodstream.

Brom tried to appeal to Fendrel. “This is not the way to handle this, Your Highness. Everyone just needs to take a breath—“

Thea tried to lunge around Merek. “Come on, prince! Come on!”

Isolde held out her hands in both direction. “Everyone, please—“

“Thea!” Carac shouted over the rising chaos. He stood separate from the group, facing into the cave.

No one paid him any mind.

Fendrel unsheathed his sword, and Thea did the same.

“Thea!” Carac tried again.

“First blood, you said?” Thea confirmed.

“That’s right.”

“I’m feeling sentimental,” she said. “Why not to the death? Like last time.”

Brom’s eyes bulged. “Are you mad?”

Fendrel returned her dark grin. “Deal.”

“No!” Peronell insisted. He turned to Carac. “We have to…” He trailed off when he realized he was facing the depths of the cave. “What’s wrong?”

“Mate,” Merek brought his attention to Fendrel, “if this is your attempt at ruling, you’re not making a very good first impression.”

“This is how Thea rules,” he responded, “and it seems to work rather well for you lot.”

“Get out of my way, Izzy,” Thea instructed.

“Thea!” Carac screamed again.

Finally, she heard him and turned impatiently. She demanded, “What?”

Not even a split second later, an enormous roar bellowed out of the cave, followed by a heat so searing it knocked the entirety of the group to the ground. Thea turned her back to the sound, covering her ears and shielding her head. It was so loud that her eardrums shuddered and her hair whipped up around her.

The roar stopped and two loud thumps landed at Thea’s feet. With trepidation, she dared to lift her head and gaze at the beast. Her eyes flew wide and she crawled backwards, slapping Merek beside her.

He lifted his head to see what was the matter and then his jaw dropped.

They hadn’t really stopped to take in their surroundings when they’d spilled into the cave, simply glad for the refuge. But now, Thea saw that the cave was enormous, much larger than the last one they’d been in. Its ceiling stretched way above them and its depths disappeared into darkness further than the eye could see.

And looming above them, with a mouth as large as the gates of hell, stood a dragon.

Fendrel gaped beside Thea. “Is that…?”

She gulped, her sweat chilling against her back. “Aestus.”

***END OF BOOK ONE***