Rebel Spring

PROLOGUE

Death cast a long shadow across the barren miles of Paelsia.

The news of Chief Basilius’s murder spread swiftly, and villages throughout the land fell into a deep mourning. They grieved a great man-a sorcerer who could touch magic and whom many in this land with no official religion thought of as a living god.

“What will we do without him?” was a constant cry in the days and weeks that followed. “We are lost!”

“Honestly,” Lysandra grumbled to her older brother, Gregor, as they snuck out of their family’s cottage at twilight. “He never showed any true magic. It was all just talk! It’s like they forget he taxed us all to death. The chief was a liar and a thief who lived high and mighty at his compound, sucking down wine and food while the rest of us starved!”

“Hush,” Gregor warned, but he was laughing. “You speak your mind far too much, little Lys.”

“I’m sure you have a point.”

“It’ll get you in trouble some day.”

“I can handle trouble.” Lysandra aimed her arrow at the target on a tree twenty paces away and let go. She hit the very center. Pride warmed her on this cool evening and she glanced at her brother for his reaction.

“Nice shot.” His grin widened and he nudged her aside to take his turn. “However, this will be nicer.”

Easily, he split her arrow in two. She couldn’t help but be impressed. They’d been practicing like this for months in secret. She’d had to beg her brother to share his knowledge of archery, but he finally relented. It was unusual for a girl to be taught how to use weapons. Most believed girls were meant to cook and clean and look after the men.

Which was ridiculous. Especially since Lysandra was a natural at this.

“Do you think they’ll be back?” she asked Gregor quietly, scanning the small village nearby, the thatched roofs, the mud and stone exteriors. Smoke wafted from the chimneys of many of the small homes.

His jaw tensed. “I don’t know.”

A week ago, important-looking representatives of the conqueror, King Gaius, visited their village, asking for volunteers to go east and begin work on a road the king wanted quickly built, one that would snake not only through Paelsia, but through the neighboring lands of Auranos and Limeros as well.

Gregor and their father had been chosen to greet the men, and the pair had stood up to the bright smiles and smooth words without allowing themselves to be intimidated or swayed. The village had declined the offer.

The King of Blood thought he now ruled them. But he was sorely mistaken. They might be poor, but they were proud. No one had the right to tell them what to do.

King Gaius’s men had left without argument.

“Idiot Basilius,” Lysandra mumbled. “He may have trusted the king, but we’re smart enough not to. Basilius deserved to be skewered. It was only a matter of time. Makes me sick to my stomach that he’d be such a fool.” Her next arrow flew off course. She needed to work harder on her concentration. “Tell me more about the rebels who plan to stand up against the king.”

“Why do you want to know? Do you want to be the one of the few girls to join their ranks?”

“Maybe I do.”

“Come, little Lys.” Gregor laughed and grabbed her wrist. “There have to be a few rabbits we can find to practice your aim on next. Why waste arrows on trees and breath on silly words? Don’t worry about the rebels. If anyone will soon be joining them in their fight against the king, it’ll be me.”

“Not silly,” she mumbled.

But he did have a point-at least when it came to their target practice. The trees were scarce here anyway. Most of the area was brown and dry with a few small greener areas in which her mother and other women tended vegetable gardens that, each year, yielded fewer and fewer vegetables, but many tears. Her mother had not stopped crying since she’d heard of Basilius’s death.

It wrenched Lysandra’s heart to see her mother so upset, so inconsolable, but she tried to reason with her. “I believe we make our own destinies, every last one of us,” she’d told her mother last night. “Who leads us makes no difference.”

This was met with a sad, weary look of patience. “You’re so naive, daughter. I pray it won’t lead you astray.”

And now her mother prayed to the dead chief about her rule-breaking daughter. This wasn’t unexpected. Lysandra had always caused her mother grief by not being an acceptable daughter who did acceptable things. Lysandra was accustomed to not fitting in with her friends, who couldn’t understand her fascination with making arrows until she got blisters on her fingers or staying outside until her nose burned so red it practically glowed in the dark.

Gregor put his arm out to halt Lysandra’s steps.

“What?” she asked.

“Look.”

They were less than a mile from the village. Before them was a small clearing, barren of any vegetation at all. It was surrounded by dry bushes and leafless trees. An old woman, one Lysandra recognized as Talia, the eldest in their village, stood in the middle of the clearing. The carcass of a red fox lay in front of her. The woman had drained the blood from the animal into a wooden cup. With this blood, she drew symbols on the parched, cracked earth with the tip of her finger.

Lysandra had never seen anything like it in her life. “What’s Talia doing? What’s she drawing?”

“Four symbols,” Gregor said, his voice hushed. “Do you know what they are?”

“No, what?”

“The symbols are of the elements: fire, air, water, and earth.” He pointed to each in turn, a triangle, a spiral, two stacked wavy lines, and a circle within a circle. His throat worked as he swallowed hard. “I had no idea. Our village elder. . she’s a witch. An Oldling.”

“Wait. You’re saying that old, simple-minded Talia’s a. . witch?” She waited for him to start grinning and tell her he was just joking. But he was serious-deadly serious.

Gregor’s brows drew together. “I had my suspicions, but this is the proof. She’s kept her secret well over all the years. You know what can happen to witches.”

In the neighboring kingdom of Limeros, they were burned. Hanged. Beheaded. Witches were considered evil, even here in Paelsia. Bad luck. A curse upon this land making it wither away and die. In Limeros, many believed that witches were what had cursed that land to turn to ice.

Lysandra remembered Talia’s unusual reaction when she’d learned the chief had been murdered by King Gaius. She’d nodded once, grimly, brushed off her dusty skirts, and said four words:

“And so it begins.”

Everyone thought the old woman was mad so they paid no attention to her ramblings, but for some reason those words had resonated with Lysandra and sent a chill down her spine.

“So what begins?” She’d caught the old woman’s arm. “What do you mean?”

Talia had turned her pale, watery eyes on Lysandra. “The end, my dear girl. The end begins.”

It took a moment for Lysandra to speak again to Gregor, her heart pounding loud in her ears. “What do you mean by Oldling?”

“It’s one who worships the elements. It’s an old religion-older than anything except elementia itself. And by the looks of this” — he nodded toward the clearing-“Talia is working blood magic tonight.”

A shiver went down Lysandra’s spine. Blood magic.

She’d heard of such things before but had never seen any proof until now. Gregor had always been more of a believer than she in that which was unseen and rarely spoken about-magic, witches, legends. Lysandra barely listened to the storytellers, interested more in tangible facts than whimsical tales. Now, she wished she’d paid more attention

“For what purpose?” she asked.

Just then, Talia’s eyes shot directly at the two of them, hawklike, picking them out in the dying light of dusk.

“It’s too late,” she said, loud enough for them to hear her. “I can’t summon enough magic to protect us, only to see the shadows of what is to come. I’m powerless to stop them.”

“Talia!” Lysandra’s voice was uncertain as she called out to the woman. “What are you doing? Come away from there, it’s not right.”

“You must do something for me, Lysandra Barbas.”

Lysandra glanced at Gregor, puzzled, before looking back at Talia. “What do you want me to do?”

Talia held her blood-covered hands out to either side of her, her eyes growing wider and wider as if she saw something horrifying all around her. Something truly evil. “Run!”

At that moment, a huge flaming arrow arched through the air and hit Talia directly in the center of her chest. She staggered backward and fell to the ground, her clothes catching fire quicker than Lysandra could comprehend.

Lysandra gripped Gregor’s arm. “She’s dead!”

He craned his head urgently to look back in the direction the arrow had come from, then yanked Lysandra to the side to avoid another arrow aimed directly at them that instead sliced into a tree trunk. “I was afraid of this.”

“Afraid of what?” Lysandra spotted a figure fifty paces away, armed with a crossbow. “He killed her! Gregor-he killed her! Who is he?”

The figure had spotted them and had begun to give chase. Gregor swore loudly and took hold of her wrist. “Come on, we need to hurry!”

She didn’t argue. Clutching each other’s hands, they ran back to the village as fast as they could.

It was on fire.

Chaos had swiftly descended upon the village. Horrified screams of fear and pain pierced the air-screams of the dying. Scores of men in red uniforms astride horses galloped through the streets, holding torches that they used ruthlessly to set each cottage ablaze. Townspeople ran from their burning homes, trying to escape a fiery death. The sharp swords in other guards’ hands fell upon many, slicing through flesh and bone.

“Gregor!” Lysandra cried as they came to a wrenching halt, hidden from the soldiers behind a stone cottage. “King Gaius-this is his doing! He’s killing everyone!”

“We told him no. He didn’t like that answer.” He turned and took her by her arms, staring fiercely into her eyes. “Lysandra. Little sister. You need to go. You need to run far away from here.”

The fire heated the air, turning dusk to nightmarish daylight all around her. “What are you talking about? I can’t go!”

“Lys-”

“I need to find Mother!” She shoved away from Gregor and raced through the village, dodging any obstacle in her path. She staggered to a halt outside their cottage, now engulfed in flame.

Her mother’s body lay halfway across the threshold. Her father’s body was only ten paces away, lying in a pool of blood.

Before she could fully register the horror, Gregor caught up. He grabbed her and threw her over his shoulder, running beyond the village limits before dropping her clumsily to the ground. He tossed her bow and a handful of arrows at her.

“They’re dead,” she whispered. Her heart felt like a stone that had dropped into her stomach.

“I was watching and listening as I ran. The king’s guards are gathering any survivors up and they will make them work the road.” His voice broke. “I must go back to help the others. Go-find the rebels. Do what you can to stop this from happening anywhere else, Lys. Do you understand me?”

She shook her head, her eyes burning from the smoke and from hateful tears. “No, I won’t leave you! You’re all I have left!”

Gregor took her chin sharply in his hand. “Follow me,” he growled, “and I’ll put an arrow through your heart myself to save you from whatever fate now lies before our friends and neighbors.”

It was the last he said before he turned and ran back to the village.

And all she could do was watch him go.