Kelly Peasgood [Peasgood - The Forgotten Magic

The Forgotten Magic

Book 2 of The Forgotten

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Kelly Peasgood

A Kelly Peasgood Publication

Copyright 2019 by Kelly Peasgood

Ontario, Canada

All rights reserved.

Cover art made with Adobe Spark

ISBN 978- 0-9 959971-9-6

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are fictitious, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, or any events and locations, is entirely coincidental.

No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the written permission of the author. Your support of the authors rights is appreciated.

Many thanks to my beta readers: Paul, Mary Catherine, John, Mike, Laura, Willie, Evy, Hal, and Jen.

As always, deepest appreciation to the man who lets me explore and live in these other worlds yet keeps me grounded in our own. Thank you Mike!

Prologue

Dalasham, 186 years ago...

"One last spell," Constance confirmed, pushing hair the colour of pale honey from a haggard face, her visage once thought quite attractive now harshly etched by long months of strain. "Our greatest legacy."

"One that no one will know about or remember," Alfred griped, sweat plastering his own dark honey curls to his head, a habitual scowl twisting his lips, though it failed to completely overshadow the desperation lurking in his eyes. But Henri had brought them to this, the power-mad wizard who wished to rule the lands causing fear and mistrust where once stability and guidance had walked hand-in-hand, inciting rebellion in place of unity and peace.

For the kingdom to thrive again, free from the taint of Henri's delusional wizards, the brother-sister duo of Constance and Alfred had spent much of their vitality, and now would create one final spell, a Dual Great Magic that would shatter the balance of stolen power while instilling unexpected strength into the people.

For Henri and his followers had stolen from the common people they sought to oppress; they had morphed the life essence of peasants into a rejuvenating source of strength for the spell casters who followed Henri. Henri's spell didn't grant extra life or healing; it allowed the user to draw on the current of magic far beyond what a wizard could normally handle safely, providing nearly limitless power to the unscrupulous. But they directed that flow through living people, filtering it through blood and spirit, draining years, and ultimately life, from those they harvested.

Whatever Henri's original intentions for trying to take the sovereignty of Dalasham away from its rightful rulers and into his own hands, such an abuse of the natural order of the world could not go unanswered, and it fell to Constance and Alfred, once the King's most trusted wizards, to try to right his wrongs. At any cost.

"We will free Dalasham from tyranny," Constance said. "That will have to suffice as our reward. If we can move the magic to where no one will think to look, we can break Henri's hold."

"It's the irony that irks me," Alfred said, more to fill in a silence to hold fear at bay than to offer any true complaint. "If this works, the people of Dalasham will mistrust the very people who will have saved them. Wizards will shun the capital and never understand why, while everyone else will fear what they themselves unwittingly hold a piece of."

"Then we'd better do it right, brother, because if this doesn't work," Constance forced a grin that seemed more a baring of teeth than a source of levity, "we will have destroyed the very kingdom we've fought to save."

Alfred scowled again.

"Always a comfort, dear sister."

And with that, he raised hands gnarled by hard use and began to weave the first layer of the spell, Constance's fingers dancing through the complementary forms, twisting threads of magic together into finely knit skeins of power, layering and overlapping into a spell only they could see.

The brewing storm outside caused the canvas walls of the large tent to flap about them while they worked, a mere handful of kilometres from Riverbend, the capital city where Dalasmar Castle stood. Wizards Mirim, Johannas, and Tercel maintained a ward of concealment from outside the tent to hide the siblings' act from Henri, as Wulfgang's army, struggling to free Dalasham from the grip of rebellion, stood guard around them in the rain, watching and ready as Henri's troops advanced across fields growing muddy beneath the heavy tread of armoured feet. The might of those opposed to these rebels had this one last chance to break Henri's vice-like grip on the kingdom; to hesitate now would spell defeat.

Layer upon layer, Constance and Alfred built their spell against the ever increasing din of approaching battle until, sweat dripping from trembling limbs and drawn faces, the dark day stretching into deep evening, they finally reached the final layer. The ward that had shielded them broke when an arrow managed to penetrate the last of the magical barriers and found Tercel's breast, but the spell lay complete. The wizard brother and sister unleashed their might into the teeth of the storm, and the nature of magic in Dalasham changed forever.

Chapter 1

Destiny pushed past the pain throbbing at the base of her skull and opened her eyes. For a brief moment, she feared the blow to her head had robbed her of sight, but the flickering of torchlight easing past the bars covering a small window in the door of her cell quickly drew her thirsty gaze. She blinked, groaning, and levered herself gingerly to a sitting position on the stone shelf built into the wall that served as a bed, a thin blanket the only concession to comfort falling to her lap. She swung her feet to the ground, a hand searching out the lump on her head as she supported herself and tried to get her bearings. She needed to remember how she had come here, and determine where she currently sat, nursing unexpected pain.

The lady wizard closed her eyes against the dancing light and forced her thoughts back.

They had finally captured King Stefan, Destiny's magic creating a beacon out of Emily's pendantthe slight weight of the gold necklace now missing from around her neckallowing Destiny to track the little librarian's movement though the hidden tunnels of Dalasmar Castle, the young woman delivering her King unwittingly into Destiny's Sanctum. Prince Whillim had basked in his power over his brother as he had forced Stefan into the Destiny Seat that would steal the King's memories and forever alter the history of Dalasham. And then, on the cusp of success, as Whillim fingered his blade and made ready to kill Stefan to seal the spell, Destiny had sensed the presence of another wizard in a city devoid of known magic users.

In that instant of hesitation and distraction, that cursed Emily had done the unexpected. Junior Assistant to the Chief Librarian, a common nobody so many had overlooked, a mere slip of a homely girl struggling in a world ruled by men, Emily had accomplished what no one else would have thought to try. The impossible, Destiny would have thought, had she not seen and experienced the act herself.

Somehow, the librarian had retained her memory, the truth of Stefan's identity, when no one should have remembered his name. Emily had flung herself into the Destiny Seat, that traitor guard had somehow triggered itDestiny dimly recalled her own boast meant to wound the other woman, stating how to work the Focusand the world exploded back to its unaltered course.

Stefan, his memory returned, had struck out at Whillim even as the Prince's knife angled for his heart, and before Destiny could cast any spell ...

Pain had shattered her skull, rendering her unconscious and helpless. She suspected the large Captain of Stefan's guard as the likeliest source of that expertly wielded blow.

And now, those she had helped Whillim to overthrow had captured her in turn and thrust her into their dark dungeons.