The Heir of Ænæria Read online

  The Heir of Ænæria

  The Vault Guardian: Book 2

  Thom L. Matthews

  Contents

  Maps

  Foreword

  A Statement Regarding Structure

  Prologue

  1. Arynn

  2. Ben

  3. Rose

  4. Longinus

  5. Rose

  6. Arynn

  7. Ben

  8. Rose

  9. Longinus

  10. Ben

  11. Longinus

  12. Arynn

  13. Longinus

  14. Ben

  15. Longinus

  16. Ben

  17. Arynn

  18. Ben

  19. Rose

  20. Ben

  21. Arynn

  22. Rose

  23. Ben

  24. Rose

  25. Ben

  26. Longinus

  27. Ben

  28. Arynn

  29. Ben

  30. Rose

  31. Arynn

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book, both print and electronic, is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold, reproduced, or copied in any form.

  Copyright © 2020 Thom L. Matthews. Edited by Paul Martin. Original cover art by Lance Buckley. Maps by Thom L. Matthews using Inkarnate Pro ®. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  See https://tvgcosmicraces.blogspot.com/ for more details or contact the author at [email protected].

  Created with Vellum

  Maps

  Foreword

  What a different experience writing this book has been. I imagine writing and releasing a first book always carries with it a unique feeling that no subsequent release can match. But boy, writing this book was far more difficult. My life and motivations changed a lot during this process. I completed graduated school and started my first full-time job before finishing. I did the whole thing without my mother, too. I really think that changed my motivation. She was still alive when I started The King’s Gambit. The first edition was released a year after her death. Writing that first book was like fighting against time and grief. I wasn’t fighting during this book.

  I decided to take my time a little bit more. I used writing to continue processing everything that happened but also to cope with the stressors that life continued throwing my way. A lot has happened to me since my mother’s death. A lot has happened in the world, too.

  I think I’ve always been a cynical person to some extent, but I don’t think I had a lot to back up that worldview back then. A lot of that just built upon my years as an angsty teen. I didn’t have enough experience or maturity to really know how I felt about the world. I still don’t (nor do most people, I suspect) but do feel there are a lot more than hormones and adolescent strife driving me these days.

  We have people in power around the world who are woefully inept to lead and yet they make decisions that cost lives. Our world is like a house on fire and instead of getting out and letting the fire department do their jobs, we’re scrambling around inside for our possessions, blaming whoever started the fire, or outright denying the flames as they burn us alive.

  And I’m not just talking about climate change. Wars, plagues, famines, and death are everywhere we look. One humanitarian crisis after another. This is what the world looked like a hundred years ago. No hover-cars, miracle cures, world peace, or galactic alliances with aliens like the stories promised us.

  I’ll be frank: I have no solutions. My guess is that neither do most people. My only idea is to learn a little bit more each day. Find ways to teach and help others. Do the best we can, together. Because if something doesn’t change, our descendants may end up in a world not unlike Ben’s.

  But at least he has superpowers.

  A Statement Regarding Structure

  As you will notice, this novel differs from its predecessor in many ways. While The King’s Gambit primarily followed Ben’s point of view though his journey in Ænæria, The Heir of Ænæria takes a different approach by utilizing parallel plots. There are far too many events following the aftermath of Gambit, and solely following Ben’s journey would deprive you of the entirety of the story.

  This style wasn’t necessary in Gambit. You didn’t need an extra hundred pages of Rose sitting as a prisoner, and a sudden shift to Arynn’s viewpoint at the very end would have been strange and out of place. Nor did you need to know much about Longinus until the epilogue. Showing those viewpoints would have cheapened some of the reveals as well as Ben’s experience. He’s goes from being a loner in Freztad to a hero…and a villain in the eyes of some

  Therefore, Heir will follow four primary points of view (save for the prologue and epilogue). Four parallel plots that all center around a single overall story: the conflict brewing between Ænæria and the Penteric Alliance. The points of view alternate by chapter and move along simultaneously through time.

  There is, however, a single caveat. Arynn is one of the points of view characters. As mentioned above, it would have been out of place to suddenly drop into her head during the last fifty pages of Gambit just to explain why joined the Ænærians. Therefore, parts of her story in Heir are not strictly parallel to the other three points of view. Chronologically speaking, a large portion of her story takes place between the bulk of Gambit and start of Heir. There are markers during her chapters to indicate if they are taking place before present day—when the rest of the characters are—as well as markers in the following chapters to reorient you to the setting. I did this with Arynn’s character for a number of reasons. A series of constant flashbacks as well as four parallel plots may have been too confusing. Simply explaining her reasons for joining the Ænærians through exposition or a few lines of dialogue would have proven insufficient for such a big event at the end of Gambit.

  I anticipate the structure for the rest of the series will continue to evolve. As of now, Book 3 retains a structure very similar to Heir with the exception that all events will be chronologically parallel (except for the prologue and epilogue, of course). If many new points of view are needed, then the structure will change to accommodate that.

  For John Paul, my wonderful and ridiculous brother.

  “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.” –Frank Herbert

  Prologue

  The cold, closed-off metal room was like a box threatening to close in. It lay deep underground—how far exactly, Sam did not know. Having woken up only hours ago, her memory was still foggy. There had been a room within the deep undercroft, fashioned as if just for her with a small bed, a trunk of clothes, and a ceramic tub with glowing blue water. She had known as soon as she saw it that she was in a Vault.

  There were other Vaults that Sam had visited in the past. Not so many as to have become an expert—her time in each had been short, perhaps a day at the most. Enough time, though, to recognize the glowing blue water as a healing bath. She had thought it was some sort of weapon the first time she saw it. Then, at the last Vault, she ha
d actually been inside it and realized what it could do. It had saved her. That experience had been as unexpected as the person who put her in the bath. She had never been so thankful for something in her life.

  This place had an eerie silence to it. The others Vaults she’d visited had always been with other people. Even when they were still and silent, there was a hum that buzzed through the walls and ceiling as if the place were alive. The Vault she was in now did not have that hum. It felt dead here, and she’d only seen one other person here since she woke.

  And she hesitated to call him alive.

  When Sam awoke in this chamber hours ago and found that the scars had been erased from her skin and her right hand repaired, she immediately thought it the work of the healing bath. Apparently not. Even a healing bath of the Enochians couldn’t repair flesh that was no longer there. It could not create from nothing. Something far stranger had occurred.

  When she had left the room, Mimir had been waiting for her in an adjacent chamber. The man had asked her to sit and listen to his tale—a requirement before answering her questions, though he did assure her she and her loved ones were safe. They had met before, and he had never given her reason to mistrust his words.

  Yet still, his presence discomforted her like a gnawing chill. Even after the hours he’d spent talking, and the times they’d shared in the past, she could not find herself remaining still. She paced across the room, unable to remain seated at the table with that…thing.

  Unnatural. By the Sun, he shouldn’t exist.

  “Now that I have had more time in this form, I can understand that what you are doing is an indication of stress. Please sit down and take deep breaths.”

  Sam’s brows raised, and she tugged at her hair in distress. The strands were only a few inches from her scalp. It hadn’t been cut like this in years, and she hadn’t liked it back then either.

  “If you will not sit, then perhaps a drink will help? I understand people do that quite often. Although I have never tried it myself. I fear it may damage the changes I have undergone…”

  “Enough with the rambling!” Sam snapped. She glanced at the table—the only ‘natural’ looking thing in this Sunforsaken chamber. Nothing about these Vaults made any sense to her. The energy contained within them, the secrets of the past, and worst of all, the ability to raise the dead.

  Sam bit her lower lip and looked to the side. “I don’t drink anymore. Not since Emilia.”

  “I see. I assure you that she is in good hands. You will see her soon.”

  When all this had started, Sam had hardly trusted the man. She’d felt from the beginning that there was something was off about him. The way he spoke was off-putting. It sounded as if he were trying out his voice like a pair of trousers that didn’t quite fit. Then again, after all she’d learned, the truth wasn’t that far off.

  “Well, if you do not mind,” Mimir said, smiling, his bright green eyes widening, “I would like to continue. There is still much for you to learn.”

  Sam groaned. She approached the wooden table and pulled back the heavy metal chair at its side. Her right hand felt strong—far stronger than it had ever been in the past. It almost felt like she could tear off the back of the chair if she tugged too hard. It was not a feeling she enjoyed.

  She sat down, back hunched forward and elbows down, her chin resting in her hands. She studied the man. Mimir, he’d called himself. Once a machine. Now with the body of a man. One that looked disgustingly all too familiar.

  “When Benedict said he wanted to meet his father, he was not choosing to have his father live. You know this since Rose survived. I released the locks on Alphonse’s stasis chamber and allowed him to wake from his deep slumber. Benedict found a towel and wrapped it around his father, embracing him for the first time. A few minutes after the preservatives exited his system, Alphonse awoke.

  “In that time, Alphonse and Ben shared many stories. Together they helped Rose to the vat so she could rejuvenate from the blood loss caused by Julius. Alphonse spoke of his journeys across the land. There was only so much time for the two of them to talk, and Alphonse wanted most of all to know about his son. He was dismayed to learn that his sister had treated Benedict so horribly. Though, as I have learned from Benedict, this was not entirely her fault. The pain she too suffered was real. It seems, even, that her emotional neglect affected the development of Benedict’s powers. The absence of parental attachment led to deficiencies in his brain chemistry during development. I only learned of this recently—mostly because I have had a second test subject similar to Benedict. These Enochians still are quite a mystery to me.”

  Sam sighed. There had been so much talk of the Enochians. She’d first heard the term from the Ænærian king and later from Ben himself. She hadn’t believed the tales. She had had little reason to trust Ben back then.

  That was before the Enochians had laid waste to everything she had once loved. She had finally found happiness after a life of misery. There had been a plan for them to run away together and start a family. Take up new names and run from that dreaded war they had no business fighting in. One Enochian, in particular, took all of that away from her. Sam didn’t even realize what had happened until it was too late, and the Enochians made their move.

  Sitting in this room—stuck with this abomination—frustrated her to no end. She should be out there with the one person she still had left. But any hopes of running away again had vanished. There was no escaping the trouble their world was in. She should be out there fighting.

  “Why must you droll on like this? I already know much of Ben’s story.”

  Mimir hummed. It sounded wrong, rumbling out from his throat as it did. Everything about him was unnatural. He’s not human. Though, she’d learned recently that the word human was less and less about appearance. The reverse is true too.

  “Benedict has lost much. He needs people by his side to continue guiding him along the right path. His father died just over a day after leaving the vat. People lost to the war and treachery of those he once called friend. I had hoped his mother would be there for him. I fear even she may not be enough.”

  Sam scoffed. She wiped her unusually soft hands across her brow, feeling it empty of scars and blemishes. She hadn’t even broken a sweat after sitting through all this, learning so much from a man who was not a man; a man who breathed but was not alive.

  “He’s a pillar of righteousness,” Sam said. “Has been since I met him. Started off rather insufferable, I might add.”

  A small smile broke from Mimir. His bright green eyes stared intently, almost like they were studying her.

  “He was. He still can be, too. If he is not lost for good.”

  “How in the bloody wastes did you lose him? He’s supposed to be with Emilia! How could you let this happen?” Not only would the war be lost without Ben, but the only other family she had left—the one she loved more than she ever could have once imagined—was supposed to be with him. He promised to protect her.

  The smile faded. A look of sorrow and guilt overcame Mimir’s face.

  “No, no. He is not lost physically. He and Emilia are safe—of that, I can assure you. I mean that he has lost the flame that once burned within him. I had hoped that by sharing with you the experiences that have formed him—the memories which he cherishes—you will be able to uncover a way to reignite even just a spark inside him. Perhaps then all will not be lost.”

  Sam averted her gaze. She looked to the side, at the cold metal wall that was black and blue like the sky just after sunset. It gave the room a terrible echo. It was a good thing Mimir spoke so slowly, otherwise she’d need him to repeat every other sentence. She really did not want to listen to his voice more than necessary. Just more time kept away from Emila. Away from the fresh air and the smell of sea. Just like he used to like it before that blazing Enochian took him away from me.

  Mimir was asking a lot from Sam. Sometimes she doubted if she and Ben ever had any special connection. They ha
d lived such different lives. She in the north, he in the south. She knew her parents since birth. It took him over sixteen years. He had friends and confidants. She’d only ever had one other person she was close to. She didn’t really know the first thing about connecting with someone. Much less comforting them.

  She looked back at Mimir and groaned. “Why can’t you do this if you know literally everything about him.”

  “My understanding of people is still rather…limited.”

  Sam raised an eyebrow. That’s an understatement. “Fine. Where is he?”

  “He is above ground… mourning,” Mimir said. Few words the man said had emotion laid into them. That sentence had been full of sorrow and regret.

  He’s closer than I realized. Which means Emilia is, too. Oh, thank the Sun.

  Sam rose from her seat and made for the heavy metal door.

  “Please do not go yet,” Mimir asked. “There is more you should know.”

  Sam sighed. Her body begged her not to listen; her heart begged her to go above ground to be with Emilia again. Her chest stung with the time they’d spent away from each other. She could overpower this man. His body was weak and withered by the unnatural process that kept it animated. ‘Alive’ still seems the wrong term for him.