Heart and Crown chapter 1

A fairytale on an alien planet. Romance and demonslaying, oh my!

Apologies for the AI art, I haven’t had a chance to make a proper cover for this story yet.

Mark Rookson is a healer in the kingdom of New Olympus on the moon Catalonia. His life is shattered the day his best friend, Princess Sylvia Kelcaster, tells him that she is to be married to the prince of an enemy country in order to secure a peace treaty. Lacking title or land, Mark can only stand by helplessly as the princess prepares for her upcoming marriage.

But when the enemy prince is poisoned at her betrothal ball, all evidence points to Princess Sylvia. She goes on the run, and Mark pursues, both to find out what happened and to protect her from the savage fauna of the unexplored moon. Their flight carries them into the ruins of an alien civilization, where an unspeakable evil awaits their coming.

Draven Shadowmend is a warrior resurrected from the grave by magic and science. His purpose is to slay demons that no one else can face. His lack of memories leaves him wondering why he was brought back and if he can trust Lord Adolphus, who claims his fealty and orders him into battle. But when he encounters a woman bearing a mighty weapon, his memories begin to return.

Can Mark, Sylvia, and Draven join forces in time to save Catalonia from an alien invasion from the darkest void? Or will their supernatural enemy take them, heart and crown?

Introductory blog post here

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Mark

"Mark Rookson, come to the emergency ward at once."

Mark dropped his paintbrush into a cup of water and rose to his feet. His table easel occupied most of the desk in his tiny dormitory room. A small canvas sported a half-finished watercolor painting of a girl in a windblown dress gazing wistfully out a window at a city.

The speaker in the ceiling had fallen silent, but throughout the healer dorms, Mark heard other names being called. The battle mages must have returned from the front, then. He washed his hands and hurriedly changed into his scrubs. He was a tall, thin young man, his skin a comfortable medium brown from his third-generation Catalonian heritage, but his eyes were a pale, striking sky blue. His black hair tumbled in waves around his ears, softening his angular, bony face. He hastily ran a comb through it, then left his room at a half-jog.

Other healers were hurrying to work, too, some still throwing on their uniforms. Bobby Powats fell into step beside him, his round face pink with excitement. "What do you think? Battle mages?"

"It's been two days," said Mark grimly. "They can't bear their wings longer than that."

"I'm betting twenty credits that at least half of them are paralyzed," said Bobby.

"I'm betting more than half," said Mark. "You know how they fight."

Bobby swore appreciatively. "That's not something you want to see more than once."

They hurried down a long hallway with skylights in the ceiling. These afforded segmented views of the gas giant overhead, Algol, in all its blue and brown glory. The clouds of their moon Catalonia partially obscured it, and Mark frowned. "It was supposed to be clear today. What did they do to the weather?"

"They're battle mages, what do you expect?" Bobby replied.

They scanned their ID chips and entered the hospital proper. As soon as they entered, Mark smelled the odor of magic: a particular spicy smell, like burned cloves. The battle mages were being carried in on stretchers and laid beside rows of beds. Many nurses were already lifting them onto the beds or sliding them from the stretchers.

Every mage had a mechanical array screwed into his spine. This spread out above the shoulders in a series of metal points and wire webbing, resembling spreading bat wings. A little robot stabilizer flew beside each mage. This array and stabilizer allowed a mage to channel the gas giant's magnetic field at will through their spine, using each chakra to harness different forms of energy. It was devastatingly powerful and often fatal for the mage.

Many of the returning mages twisted and screamed on their stretchers, fighting the restraints. Others lay quiet, staring glassy-eyed at nothing. Magic still flickered and dripped from every wing array. The stabilizer drones were blackened and cracked, and one fell out of the air as Mark entered the room.

Mark hurried to the nearest bed not already overseen by a healer. This mage was in his early twenties, scarcely older than Mark, his face greenish-gray beneath a mop of sweaty black hair. His eyes tracked Mark, but he didn't move. He had been positioned on his stomach, exposing the terrible wings and their spinal inserts. The stabilizer hovered nearby, its digital eye shattered and no longer glowing.

"Can you hear me?" Mark asked, pulling on a pair of conductive gloves.

"Yes," whispered the mage.

"Do you have feeling anywhere below your neck?"

"I … I can feel my hands tingling," said the mage. "Nothing else." He wiggled his fingers as proof.

"That's something," said Mark, glancing at the wing array diagram above the bed. "I'm going to take these wings off, then I'm going to heal you. There may be pain."

"Nothing you could do to me would be worse than using the wings," whispered the mage. As Mark began the process of cutting into the flesh and unscrewing metal from bone, the mage went on, "We won the battle. As soon as we disembarked from the carrier, they knew they'd lost. We slaughtered them with meteors and lightning bolts. Viena hadn't expected the king to send us against him. He surrendered to save his men. But by then we were mad. You know how it is when the ecstasy takes over. You can't stop channeling the magic until you burn your spine out. I'm afraid we destroyed the whole valley."

Mark only nodded. He knew what battle mages were like, of course. He'd seen the videos and read the papers. He'd helped install these very wings two days earlier. But hearing it from the lips of a mage who had spent those two days in a trance of magic and death was a new experience. He had to stop and steady himself to keep his hands from shaking.

The wing array did not come off easily. It was screwed into every vertebrae and hooked into the ribs. The probes pierced the spinal cord at each chakra point, and each had to be removed with extreme care, then healing magic applied immediately. 

Mark bore healer tattoos, which were a weaker, less invasive form of the wings. They swirled up his own spine, wrapped around his shoulders, and curled down his arms, following the paths of his nervous system. The chair he sat on was made of Aurium, a magic-conducting metal. To draw upon the planet's magnetic field, one must sit upon something made of Aurium to place the root chakra in contact with it. Then magic could be channeled up the spine and through the body, focused by each chakra. Mark had a natural affinity for healing magic, which flowed through the heart chakra. Now he drew the magic through himself, focusing it in his chest, and sending it down to his fingertips. There the magic entered the wounds and began repairing the damaged tissue and nerves.

The battle mage had nearly burned through his own spinal cord in two places. Mark set the magic to work on them, trying to fill his heart with hope and not doubt. Hope that the magic could repair this, that the exhausted body on the bed had enough vitality left to rebuild those nerves. Doubt would only weaken his magic, and the healing wouldn't be strong enough.

A hiss of breath drew his attention to his patient. The mage's eyes were screwed shut, his fists clenched.

"Does it hurt?" Mark asked.

"Yes," gasped the mage. "I can feel the array again."

At least one of the severed spinal points had reconnected. Hope growing stronger, Mark kept working. He took the array off in all eight pieces, setting them carefully aside for cleaning and repair. As he worked, he kept up a string of little jokes. "Don't worry, I've got your back. Also, don't get your back up, but I'm sure you'll be able to walk again with a little therapy."

"Ugh, why," said the mage, but the corner of his mouth twitched in a smile.

"You’ve got some spine," said Mark. "In fact, yours is free of the array." He slowly ran his fingers up and down the mage’s poor back, closing the wounds, sensing the damage slowly mending. “The magic will take time to work. I’ll bring you a nutrient drink, and I want you to lie very still and sleep.”

When this had been accomplished, the mage immediately sank into slumber. Mark emerged from extreme concentration and looked around the emergency ward in vague surprise. All the mages were quiet now, and their wings had been removed. Most still had a healer bent over them, but some were already asleep, the curtains drawn around their beds. He gently closed the curtain around his own patient, and only belatedly remembered to check the man’s name. Efrain Bretmer. Making a note of it, Mark began to check in with the other healers, seeing if they needed any help. But every so often he circulated back to Efrain to make sure the magic was doing its work and that his condition had not deteriorated. Sometimes the magic would mend tissue improperly, and it had to be closely watched. But Efrain seemed to be healing nicely.

As Mark moved about, the piles of scorched wing array parts kept drawing his attention. They lay beside the beds in monstrous stacks of wire and metal, still smeared with blood and reeking of magic. It was so easy to imagine wearing them, himself, feeling the weight dragging at him, but channeling the magic and feeling it flow through his body like liquid power. This mental image sent a sick chill of fear through him. He was a healer–they'd never ask him to wear the wings. The war had ended, hadn't it? Plenty of mages had survived this time. They wouldn't sacrifice him to the battlefield, to wield the power of a god until he died of it. 

Please, God, don't let them do it to me.

Hours later, Mark went off shift and wearily plodded to the hospital cafeteria to find something to eat. The other healers straggled around him, all heading in the same direction. Some talked animatedly to their companions, their hearts still charged with magic. Others, like Mark, were drained and only wanted to eat while staring at the wall. He also wanted to put space between himself and those wings.

He accomplished this, shoveling soup, bread, and rice pudding into himself without noticing the taste. Then he dragged himself back to his dorm room, glanced at his half-finished painting, and collapsed onto his bed.

Mark was startled awake several hours later, thinking someone was shaking him, then groaned and pulled his phone from his pocket. This was the third time he’d slept on it and had a flash-nightmare when it vibrated. He squinted at the screen, trying to focus enough to read the text. Missed call from Princess Sylvia Kelcaster. He exhaled and dropped the phone facedown. All he had to do was wait.

Sure enough, the phone buzzed once to signal a text message. He lifted the phone again. Sylvia had written, “Hey, can you come over?”

He was too tired to deal with Sylvia at the moment. He replied with a single letter. “Y.”

“I found a kitten out on the surface and it’s hurt. I know you can heal animals in about a second. Please?”

He dropped the phone again and closed his eyes. Catalonia was a semi-terraformed moon, meaning that the early pioneers had imported thousands of earth species. But the moon had already possessed an oxygen-based atmosphere, as well as its own forests and native life. New species were still being discovered, and many of them were dangerous. Worse, some of them had unexpectedly crossbred with Terran species, creating monstrous hybrids. One of these were the savage spark cats. Once they had been leopards or something, but they had interbred with native feline species and gained the ability to use the gas giant’s magnetic field to stun prey with a high voltage charge. Since the moon had emerged from the wintery umbral months in the shadow of the gas giant, spring had begun in full force. Sylvia shouldn’t have touched a strange kitten, let alone hauled it into the compound.

He didn’t answer her, but lay there with his eyes closed, hoping he’d fall asleep again. Unfortunately, his brain was awake now, imagining what kind of kitten she’d found, wondering what she planned to do with it, imagining the mother hanging around the compound fences, waiting to attack. Blah. He’d have to deal with this. Groaning, he rolled off his bed and pulled his shoes back on. He was still dressed in his scrubs, which he left on. Who knew what a wild kitten might do to his clothes. Not bothering with his hair, he left the safety of his room and headed across the compound.

The compound had begun as a series of hab domes built by the early settlers, before mankind knew if the effects of the magnetic field were harmful. But the magnetic field had been found to be beneficial, instead, so the city grew outside of the domes, still protected from the wildlife by high walls. Every so often it overflowed beyond its walls and new walls had to be built, so the city of New Olympus was a series of concentric rings radiating outward.

The hospital was in the third ring, halfway between the fortress and the outer gates. To reach the fortress where the royal family lived, Mark took a winding route, zigzagging north, then south, to pass through the gates in the two inner walls. The route was well-traveled with both foot traffic, bicycles, and vehicles, mostly horse-drawn carriages. There were no fossil fuels on Catalonia, and cars were much too expensive for commoners, especially the new experimental models that charged batteries off the magnetic field. 

Mark walked the mile of city streets to the fortress, enjoying the mature shade trees that lined the avenues and walls. Many were in bloom, the Terran cherry and peach trees mingling with the ilifomin trees and their vivid purple blossoms. Civilians moved about on business, frequenting the shops that clustered the main streets leading to the fortress. More soldiers than usual occupied each gate, probably because of the war with Viena, but they chatted among themselves and didn't look too worried.

Mark turned a corner and the fortress spread out before him. The original hab domes had been rebuilt and reinforced, and now the fortress was a series of concrete domes hundreds of feet high, protected by walls and battlements. This was both to protect against other hostile nations as well as hostile wildlife. The dryptotitan migration in the twilight months was particularly troublesome.

He showed his identification to the guard at the castle gates, who waved him inside. Mark Rookson had grown up in the fortress, owing to his father's position as First Captain of the Guard, and the staff knew him on sight.

The halls and rooms inside the fortress were modest and somewhat cramped, owing to its beginnings as shelter against the elements. The concrete domes overhead muted his sense of the gas giant's magnetic field, giving him a faint sense of disorientation. When one had lived outside and acclimated to the energy, it felt strange to be away from it, like stepping out of warm sunlight into cold darkness.

Still, efforts had been made to improve the fortress's appearance to impress guests. Expensive carpets lined the floors, and the walls were painted in frescos by Catalonia's top artists. Mark preferred the beautiful landscapes and billowing clouds to the abstract designs. He detoured down a side hallway to admire his favorite one, a lighthouse on a floating island shining its beam across a stormy sea, the sky bright with lightning. The lighthouse seemed so brave and stalwart as it faced the storm, shining its light despite the storm’s chaos. It always cheered Mark to look at it, to think of the keeper of that light facing down the storms of life.

As he stood there taking it in, almost hearing the crash of the waves and the wind's roar, a voice said, "I knew I'd find you here."

He looked up with a smile. "Hello, Sylvia."

It was impossible not to smile at Sylvia. She was a fair girl with long red hair she kept pinned up in braids. Her faded blouse complemented her grimy pants with padding sewed into the knees for gardening work, but Mark noticed only the energy and joy radiating off her like sunbeams. 

She looked at the fresco, bouncing on her toes. "I do love this one, too. I wish they'd painted it in the front hallway instead of that stupid one with all the fruit."

"A still life implies dignity and culture," said Mark. "Where's this kitten?"

"Oh, she's locked in my lab," Sylvia said brightly. "Didn't want her roaming the fortress. She'd bite somebody and then I'd be in big trouble. Come on, I'll show you."

They set out in the direction of the laboratories. Mark said cautiously, "Is it a spark cat?"

"I'm not sure.” Sylvia tucked a stray strand of red hair behind one ear. "She doesn't quite match the photos in the naturalist files. She's either a subspecies or a progenitor. Anyway, I think she has a broken leg. Something killed her mother and almost got her. I found her up a tree near the carcass, crying like anything."

"Near town?" said Mark in alarm. 

"Oh no, back in the hills north of here," said Sylvia. "I was hunting specimens. A couple of new plants came in with medicinal potential, and I wanted to collect some with the roots intact. But instead I wound up bringing home this kitten. She was so weak she barely even fought me. I've been bottle feeding her."

They reached the door of Sylvia's lab, which long ago Mark had painted with a mural of flowering vines. The paint was a little faded and chipped now, and Mark looked at it ruefully as Sylvia unlocked it. She poked her head in cautiously, then opened the door. "Come in, she's asleep."

Mark stepped into the lab and peered around. Sylvia was ostensibly a botanist, but her interest in the flora and fauna of the largely unexplored moon extended to all fields. One whole wall was occupied by racks of plants under sun lamps, all green and flourishing. A fish tank stood beside the door, swirling with brightly-colored fish from Catalonia's salt sea. The rest of the room was divided into cubicles, each containing cabinets and some collection of plants, roots, rocks, feathers, bones, and anything else Sylvia carted home with her. One of these cubicles had been fenced off with a toddler gate, and inside slept the kitten on a pile of folded towels.

Mark stared in dismay. He had expected something the size of a house cat, maybe small enough to hold in both hands. This kitten was the size of a six-year-old child. It sprawled on the towels, a mound of fluff, its baby fur mottled brown and black. The paws were huge, the pink pads turned toward them. As they looked at it, it raised its head with a questioning trill and blinked at them, its eyes still the gray-blue of all very young mammals.

"How big was the mother?" Mark ventured.

"Oh, she was about the size of a draft horse." Sylvia stepped over the gate. "Mommy's back, widdle fwuffy kitty kitty! Say hewwo to Mark, he'll make you feel all better!"

Sylvia stroked the huge head and back. The kitten scrambled to its feet but favored the front left foreleg. It purred loudly and rubbed against Sylvia's hands and arms like any lonely cat greeting its mistress.

Mark stepped over the gate, too, and extended a hand for the kitten to sniff. It bumped its pink nose against his hand, then rubbed its head against him, too. Mark stroked it and carefully sat on the floor in the magic-weaving position. Without an Aurium chair or plate to sit on, the best he could do was sit on the floor and pull magic through his chakras that way. As the kitten purred, he drew a trickle of the dome’s muted magic up through his heart and sent it down through his tattoos to his fingertips. Some animals reacted badly to the touch of magic, but the kitten didn’t seem to notice. He slowly slid one hand down its sore leg and sensed the break. It was a fracture, as if the kitten had fallen or been thrown. Uneasily trying not to think about what sort of creature could kill a wild cat the size of a horse, he sent healing power into the bone, encouraging it to knit. With his other hand, he stroked the kitten and examined the rest of its body for injuries. He found extensive bruising along its left side, which he set the magic to healing, too.

“Was there any sign of what killed the mother?” he asked.

“Tracks,” said Sylvia. “Really big flat-footed tracks with five toes.” She held up both hands to indicate a circle a foot across. “No sign of the creature, but I took the kitten out of there as fast as I could.”

Mark glanced at the walls. “I don’t suppose we’re in danger here, but what about the farms?”

“Oh, I put an alert out on the usual nets,” said Sylvia brightly. “We have to do that when there’s signs of megafauna in the area. Most things don’t like humans, though, and they tend to avoid human areas.”

Mark kept working in silence. The kitten melted onto its side and batted at their hands with a huge, clumsy paw. The claws flashed and caught Sylvia’s sleeve, piercing the cloth like needles. Sylvia laughed and unhooked them, but Mark imagined what those claws might do to her once this animal was fully grown.

Preoccupied by these thoughts, he didn’t notice when Sylvia sobered. After a moment, without looking at him, she said, “Mark, I need to tell you something.”

“Hm?” he said, looking up.

She fondled the kitten’s ears. “You know how we’ve been at war with Viena the last few months?”

“Yes, the battlemages came back this morning. I think all of them lived, but I don’t know how many will walk again.”

She looked up, startled. “Oh, Mark, you should have said something! I didn’t know you’d already had a hard healing like that! And me with my pet …”

“It’s all right,” he reassured her. “Just a small fracture and some bruises, nothing too difficult to mend.”

She was silent a moment, her brow furrowed in thought. “If the battlemages are back, then they must have won the battle. They don’t come back unless our soldiers carry them.”

“We won,” Mark reassured her. “John Viena is apparently suing for peace.”

“Yes, about that,” she said. “So … you know how John is King Quinlan’s son from his first marriage, right?”

“Everybody knows that,” said Mark, rolling his eyes. “Their stupid feud about Quinlan not giving John his rightful position as lieutenant-general has been a political talking point for years. The queen wants her son to inherit, not John.”

“Yes, well.” Sylvia hesitated and cleared her throat. “You know how I was raised and educated here, even though my father is King Kelcaster of Kelcaster Territory?”

“Of course,” said Mark. 

“Well, they’re talking about marrying me off to John Viena to secure peace.” She spoke in a rush, as if trying to get the words out before she lost her nerve.

“Oh,” said Mark, drawing the word out. “Ohhhh.”

Silence filled the lab, broken only by the kitten’s purring and the distant bubbling of the fish tank. Mark seemed to feel the warmth from the heat lamps along the far wall, smelled the scent of moist earth and leaves. It was silent, but the peace had deserted him. His healing magic drained out of his heart and sank into his solar plexus chakra, where it swirled among his emotions, making his sudden gloom even worse. He impatiently pushed the magic out of his body and rose to his feet to break contact.

“I know it’s a lot to take in,” Sylvia said, standing up. The kitten stood, too, its tail twitching, watching her anxiously. She picked it up and held it like a baby. “Nothing’s set in stone yet. Father told me they’re considering it, just to prepare me when they officially tell me.”

Mark nodded. “But John is twenty years older than you.”

“If Quinlan would just give him his stupid position, John would settle down. But everyone knows he’s saving it until Carl comes of age. You know, the prince he had with his second wife.”

Mark rolled his eyes. “Yeah, we all know that drama. Carl’s a nice kid, but all this blew up when he was born.”

Sylvia nodded earnestly. “So I’m going to be the peace offering to try to settle John down. I’m the princess of Kelcaster Territory. We may be a frontier settlement, but we have the best mines on the moon. We’re already allied with New Olympus. Well, if I marry John, that will secure an alliance between Kelcaster and Viena, and hopefully end the fighting between Viena and New Olympus. Surely John will see the advantages of peace? We could almost unite the three kingdoms this way.”

“Are you … all right with this?” Mark ventured.

Sylvia buried her face in the kitten’s fur. After a moment she looked up with a brave smile. “That’s why I went looking for specimens. To get my head in the right place. But I’m all right with it now. Viena is on the seacoast, and there’s an incredible amount of uncatalogued flora in that area. I can put up with John for that.”

Mark didn’t voice the formless thoughts that seethed in the bottom of his mind: images of the battle mages with the wings screwed to their spines, the sweat on Efrain Bretmer's face. Memories of John at banquets, always bickering with his father and stepmother … especially his stepmother, as the child prince sat beside her, wife-eyed. Perhaps John might make a good match for Sylvia if he settled down and stopped fighting his father. On the other hand, John had already been married once, and the girl died a year later under mysterious circumstances. Mark envisioned this lab cold and empty, the lights gone dark, the plants dead and brown, the fish tank dried out.

Sylvia watched his face. "You're upset."

Mark forced a smile. "Oh, maybe a little. It's a shock, that's all."

Her lips parted, as if to say something else, but she closed them again and sighed into the kitten's fur. "Thank you for healing her. I'm going to keep her for a few weeks, let her get big enough to survive in the wild. Will you come over this weekend?"

"I will," Mark promised. "Don't let her hurt you. Wild animals have instincts, you know."

"Let me give her a snack so she doesn't try to follow me out."

When the kitten was sufficiently distracted by a plate of chopped goat meat, Sylvia slipped out of the lab with Mark. They walked in silence together, side by side. Mark felt like he had things to say, but he didn't know what they were. He had known Sylvia since childhood, when they attended the same school for nobility. Always she had been his friend, supporting him through medical school as he supported her through her apprenticeship under old Miss Trone, the head biologist of New Olympus University. Now they were adults, both working their dream jobs, and now … this. His best friend was about to be torn away from him and there was nothing he could do.

"Don't be sad," she said suddenly, laying a hand on his arm. "This will be a good thing. The hand of God and everything, right?"

"Is it?" he said, then bit his tongue. Political marriages happened all the time. He was a lesser noble, only qualifying for esquire because his father was Captain of the Guard. He had no right to speak for Sylvia, himself, not when she was a literal princess. They shouldn't be walking together, even. A distance had come between them, and he felt like he was staring across the gap at her as it widened more and more. He couldn't blame God for it, either, since it wasn't God's fault that human politics were such a mess.

They reached the entrance hall. Sylvia halted and gave him a smile. "Nothing's set in stone yet. They haven't even officially arranged anything. I might know more by the weekend. Don't forget to come over, all right?"

"I'll come," he said softly. "Goodbye, Sylvia." He left the fortress feeling like a boulder had lodged itself in his rib cage.