Crown of One Hundred Kings (Nine Kingdoms Trilogy Book 1)

  Crown of One Hundred Kings

  Rachel Higginson

  Contents

  More Young Adult series by Rachel Higginson

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  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

  Thank You!

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  The Rush Preview

  Coming in 2021

  Copyright@ Rachel Higginson 2020

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  Any people or places are strictly fictional and not based on anything else, fictional or non-fictional.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Copy Editing by Carolyn Moon and Tamar Rydzinski

  Cover Design by Zach Higginson

  Formatting by Zach Higginson

  More Young Adult series by Rachel Higginson

  The Star-Crossed Series

  The Siren Series

  The Starbright Series

  Love and Decay

  Love and Decay: Revolution

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  To Carolyn,

  And the last book we worked on together.

  You’ll never know how much

  You’re missed on earth.

  Because where you are, you’ll

  Never miss earth again.

  1

  “Tess!” Someone shouted. “Tess!”

  Rolling over, I snuggled deeper into my wool blanket and tear-stained pillow, afraid to leave my dreams. They needed me. They needed my sword and my skill and my vengeance.

  “Tess!” the voice persisted. “I will fetch a pail of water if you insist on being difficult.” There was a pause, and then the voice said, “Last time I used water to wake you, you were peevish.”

  I peeled open my eyes and blinked my surroundings into view. The dark, wild images in my head were replaced by a plain but cozy bedroom marked by varying shades of gray. I squinted at the candlelight thrust in my face and the hand reaching out to shake my shoulder.

  “I’m awake,” I panted.

  “You had another dream.”

  I pushed up on one elbow and stared at the white-washed wall. “I had the same dream. I always have the same dream.”

  “Your family?”

  The question grated on my already raw nerves. “Oliver, if Father Garius finds you in here, he’ll cut out your tongue.” I leaned forward, glaring at the young monk in training. “Which might actually serve you well, since you’re terrible at this whole vow of silence thing.”

  Oliver straightened. He tucked the candle to his side, careful of his long gray robe, and lifted his chin. “Unfortunately for you, Tessana, my vow of silence is second fiddle to your need to speak. If I always honored my vows, you would have gone mad by now.” He snickered, “You’d still be speaking to the scarecrow and Father Garius’s bronze miniature.”

  I flopped back on my one allotted pillow and ignored the way the loosely packed straw poked at my skin. “I suppose you’re right. But now if you’ll excuse me, I am very much looking forward to the silence of sleeping.” I closed my eyes and willed the idiot to disappear.

  And when he didn’t, I tried not to wish a plague of pox on his face.

  I tried, but I wasn’t the monk in training. Therefore, I failed.

  “If only sleep were possible, my lady. But alas, morning has arrived. And you’re on chicken duty.”

  “I hate chicken duty,” I grumbled.

  “You hate every duty.”

  “On second thought, I’ll cut out your tongue myself and save Father Garius the trouble.”

  Oliver’s eyes widened as he backed away from my bed. “First you’ll have to catch me.”

  And then he was gone, scurrying down the hallway like the scared little mouse he was.

  I smiled as I sat up and stretched. Oliver was quite possibly the most annoying creature to have ever graced the realm, but he was my annoying creature and he was right.

  Without him I would have gone mad years ago.

  I gathered my courage and flung the scratchy gray blanket from my body. I quickly changed out of my nightgown and into a plain gray dress and stockings.

  I fumbled around for my shoes—also gray—in the still wakening light, ignoring the lamp next to my bed. I wasn’t ready for light. I wasn’t ready to see clearly and face reality.

  Glimpses of my horrific dream still floated in my consciousness and I desperately tried to cling to the fading, distorted images that had been so clear only moments ago. Images of my family. Memories of a family I had loved with everything I had.

  A family I still loved with everything I had left.

  But it was harder now that someone had taken them from me.

  I splashed ice cold water on my face and used it to braid my chestnut hair.

  I slipped from my room and wandered outside to feed the chickens. Hungry beasties.

  The chilled air seeped into my clothes and clung to my bones. I ignored my discomfort as I finished my chores and made my way back inside and to the kitchens. The hallways remained quiet and still, even though most of the monastery would be awake by now. The Temple of Eternal Light required its priests to take a vow of silence from the time they were small children to the moment of their death.

  Possibly beyond death. I wasn’t an expert on The Brotherhood of Silence. Even if I had called this isolated place home for the last eight years.

  It wasn’t like they could answer my questions if I asked them. Instead, they would point me toward tomes and texts and endless pages of literature on the Light. And as interesting as that sounded, I would just have to trust that my afterlife would be loud.

  Father Terosh nodded to me as I swept past him in a rush to the fireplace. He stood at the stone table kneading dough for lunch. Father Salo stood next to him, chopping vegetables for some variation of the stew served at every meal. The monks were a fastidious people. Routine was as
much a part of their religion as the light they worshiped.

  I thrust my hands toward the fire and inhaled the scent of embers and boiling oats. I closed my eyes and let the heat wash over me. I would smell like a fire pit for the rest of the day, but I didn’t care. Anything to chase away the cold.

  A tongue clucked from behind me and I took a step back. I glanced over my shoulder to see Father Terosh wiggle his finger at me. Step back. You’ll burn your dress, he silently warned with a pointed look.

  You’ll catch aflame and become a fire-breathing dragon forced to take to the skies to escape the rioting villagers.

  Admittedly, that last thought was mine.

  Father Salo clucked his tongue next. Even without looking at me, I knew he was shooing me away. I stepped back from the fire and grabbed an apple. I’d been on an oats strike for two years now. The monks were impressed with my firm stance. Or disgusted. I wasn’t sure which. But since their vow of silence spanned decades, I had a feeling they appreciated my stubborn conviction.

  I sank my teeth into the juicy flesh of the fruit and hurried from the warm kitchen back to the stark bite of the hallways, whose constant twists and turns I could navigate with my eyes shut.

  When they had first brought me here, I hadn’t been well. I couldn’t manage to sleep for more than an hour at a time. Afraid of the thoughts that swirled around my ever-active mind, I wandered the temple in search of peace and the kind of silence that escaped me even in a silence-vowed monastery.

  I never found it.

  But I did eventually settle in enough to sleep through the night.

  It had taken three years.

  Through the open library door on the top floor, light spilled into the hallway. This was my favorite space on the grounds.

  I stepped to the side of the Tenovian black cedar doors and traced the outline of a three-headed serpent wrapped around textured scrolls and elegant script I didn’t understand. I reached higher to finger the hilt of a powerful sword, the tip fashioned like a quill, and ink like blood dripping from the blade.

  The Brotherhood of Silence took great pride in the library they protected beyond these doors.

  A tongue clicked from inside the room and I stepped inside, knowing I had dallied long enough.

  Father Garius stood waiting for me with a disapproving furrow to his bushy eyebrows. His hands were clasped in front of him, giving him the façade of patience and understanding, even while I knew it took everything inside him to honor his vows and not shout at me for wasting his time. Again.

  When I first came here, Father Garius would communicate with me through scrawled notes. But after eight years, I had learned to read facial expressions and silently spoken thoughts. The monks’ expressions were not nearly as serene and stoic as they thought they were.

  “Good morning, Father Garius,” I chirped. “Did you sleep well?” I never tired of asking the countless questions that tumbled through my head. Even if I did nothing more than infuriate mute monks, I needed to speak them aloud, free my mind of their constant nagging.

  He tapped his foot in response. I pressed my lips together to keep from smiling. Oliver already sat at the scholar’s desk, writing furiously with his quill. He didn’t spare me a glance as I took my seat next to him.

  I picked up my quill and read today’s lesson to myself.

  Father Garius moved to stand in front of us. He stood silent sentry throughout our lesson, watching us intently and sending nasty scowls when we turned away from our work.

  By the time my morning lesson was finished, my fingers ached from writing, my vision blurred from staring at so many words, and my backside had numbed to the digging curves of the stool.

  Father Garius stepped back, a sign that we were allowed a break. I moved at once to the large windows that overlooked the tumbling orchards along the western side. The horizon nestled behind them, obscured by the tips of white-capped mountains and a sun shining its light on every part of Heprin.

  Heprin was the eastern most kingdom in the realm. Bordered on two sides by the tamed section of shores of the Crystal Sea and on the other two by the Tellekane Forest, it was the most isolated of the nine kingdoms.

  Heprin was populated with peaceful people, strictly dedicated to their worship and farming. The Temple of Eternal Light was just one of the many monasteries dotting this tranquil country.

  Which was possibly why this land had never felt like home.

  I wasn’t peaceful. And I was hardly religious.

  I was bloodthirsty and feral. I itched to shed this youth of mine that held me back from my true destiny. I longed for spilled blood and shrieks of terror. My skin prickled with the hope of death.

  The promise of revenge.

  “You’re doing it again.”

  I whipped my head to the side and glared at Oliver and his whispered admonition. “Doing what?”

  His wide mouth tilted into a half-grin. “Plotting.”

  I dropped my arms to my sides and forced calm. He was right. Father Garius would never complete my education if I revealed my true intentions. He would never let me free if he glimpsed the darkness inside me.

  A tongue clicked behind us and I turned to meet his cloudy gray eyes. Father Garius couldn’t be younger than the beginning of time. His skin was as leathery as a dragon’s and his patience as temperamental. And he appeared in only shades of gray. Gray hair. Gray eyebrows. Gray skin. Gray robe. He was one big splotch of colorlessness.

  He had saved my life once, but this was not my home.

  And Father Garius knew it.

  He flicked his hand toward the window with a clear command. We had been banished from the temple. It was time for our daily meditation in the gardens.

  I smiled brightly at Father Garius, a gesture he mildly returned, and left the library with a relieved sigh.

  By the time Oliver and I had stepped into the sunlight, I could feel Oliver’s pout infecting the beauty of the outdoors.

  “What is it?” I asked as I led us in the exact opposite direction of the gardens.

  We moved toward the back of the grounds instead, anxious to reach the river that wound around the stone wall. The wall protected the monastery from whatever threat could find us and separated us from the outside world.

  Oliver stooped to pick up a long stick that he used to swat at blades of lush grass and dancing butterflies. “It’s not fair that you’re his favorite when all you do is speak.”

  I nearly choked on laughter. “You think you should be his favorite when all you do is… not speak?”

  “I have been with him since I was a babe,” Oliver pointed out. “I am practically a son to him. And I do speak, thanks to you. In fact, I’ve been ordered to speak.”

  I watched a squirrel run circles around a large red oak. “I recall his poem last Harvest Moon saying that all creatures under the Great Light are his charge. He is brother to those that live and father to those that seek.”

  Oliver grunted. “But I am more of a son than most.”

  “Jealousy does not suit you,” I scolded. “I like you much better when you’re simply melancholy.”

  His foot flipped up behind me, tangling with my own and I stumbled three steps before I caught myself. When I turned, he held up his hands and motioned at his closed mouth.

  “What kind of Brother of Silence chooses when to be silent?” I demanded.

  He shrugged, letting loose a smile so charming I couldn’t help but forgive him.

  We reached the back wall a few moments later. Vines and ivy tangled from base to ledge, allowing us to easily scale the towering boundary.

  Water roared in the distance where the winding river dropped into treacherous falls. The water in front of us was no less quiet, rushing by in sparkling rapids. Birds sang in the trees. The thick canopy of green leaves overhead blotted out the sun while the coolness of the Tellekane Forest enveloped us.

  We slipped off our shoes and moved toward the muddy riverbank. “I thought my hand would fall off if
I had to write one more Barstus platitude. If the people of Barstus had any sense, they would throw their self-righteous ramblings away and begin anew.”

  Oliver grinned down at his bare toes while he hopped from rock to rock. “You should take that before their royal court. I’m sure they would appreciate your educated opinion.”

  “I might. What is the difference between offering your neighbor your coat and offering him your cloak? Why not just simply say, if your neighbor is cold, give him something so that he may be warm.”

  Oliver laughed. “Or instead of listing out all of the ways your Barstus neighbor could get hurt, such as falling down a well or falling off a roof or…”

  “Falling off a cliff,” I supplied.

  “Yes, that. How about we simply say, should your neighbor fall from any height, great or small, help him.”

  I tottered on a small, slick stone, catching my balance at the last second. “Barstus must be the most tedious country in the realm. I cannot imagine how dreadful university would be there.”

  “I highly doubt they’re allowed river breaks.”

  I looked up at him. “We’re not technically allowed river breaks either. Father Garius thinks we’re meditating.”