Throne of Fury Read online

  Throne of Fury

  Kingdom of Fairytales book 3

  J. A. Armitage

  Contents

  1. 15th January

  2. 16th January

  3. 17th January

  4. 18th January

  5. 19th January

  6. 20th January

  7. 21st January

  After the Happily Ever After…

  Join us

  A note from the author

  The Kingdom of Fairytale Team

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2019 by J A Armitage

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Edited By Rose Lipscomb

  Cover by Enchanted Quill Press

  Created with Vellum

  Kingdom of Fairytales

  You all know the fairytales, the stories that always have the happy ending. But what happens after all those storybook characters get what they wanted? Is it really a happily ever after?

  In this prequel, you will find out what happens next, be transported back to those lands you fell in love with and be prepared to meet some new characters along the way.

  Kingdom of Fairytales is a new way of reading with one chapter a day and one book a week throughout the year beginning January 1st

  Lighting-fast reads you won’t be able to put down

  Read in real time as each chapter follows a day in the life of a character throughout the entire year, with each bite-sized episode representing a week in the life of our hero.

  Each character’s story wrapped up at the end of every season with a brand new character and story featured in each season.

  Fantasy has never been so epic!

  15th January

  "Your father wishes to see you. Get out of bed." Dahlia's urgent tone drifted through my dreams of children with golden rings around their irises, children that called to me but were just out of reach. Children that I knew, or at least I felt, I knew.

  They evaporated like smoke on the wind as the first tendrils of light invaded my consciousness as Dahlia cruelly opened the curtains, letting the morning in.

  I pulled the cover over my head, hoping that if I ignored her, Dahlia would leave me alone. My whole life felt like a lie, and my father was the last person I wanted to speak to. He was one of the people who perpetuated that lie. My mother was the other, but as I could hardly be mad with her right now, I was saving all my anger for my father. My father, whom I'd loved with my whole heart and respected. My father, who was the most wonderful man I knew until the beginning of the year and the return of my mother's curse. Actually, no, his spiral into awfulness had started before that with the plan of marrying me off to a stranger who was at least twice my age and was, at best, a complete jerk.

  Dahlia never did have much time for self-pity and whining. She didn't ask me again. She just pulled my covers off, leaving me on the bed, cold in only my nightgown.

  The sound of my bath running reminded me that she wouldn't let up until it got to the point where she would literally drag me out of bed and plonk me straight in the bath.

  I tried to grab back the memories of my dream, but it was too late. The children were long gone and, along with them, the warmth of wellbeing that I'd gripped to throughout the night.

  I shivered as I pulled myself from the comfort of my own bed.

  I'd barely slept a wink of sleep, and the few moments I had snatched were punctuated with dreams. Dreams of the brother or sister that I'd just found out about. Someone who looked like me. A twin.

  I loved all my brothers, but I'd never really fit in. I was the ugly duckling in a group of beautiful swans. Ok, that was taking it too far, but I didn't look like them. I pulled my nightshirt over my head and settled into the bath, my mind still whirring with the thought that I had a real sibling out there. I had so many questions and no one to ask. Olivie had told me as much as she knew, but it didn't amount to much. She didn't know if my twin was still in Draconis or was somewhere else in another kingdom.

  I remembered something Vasuki had told me a week or so earlier. He'd said that I wasn't a whole. That I was a part of something bigger. I don't think he truly understood what that meant any more than I did, but now it made sense. I wasn't a whole. I was one half of a set of twins.

  I'd always wanted a sister. Growing up with three brothers had been fun, but I'd have liked another girl to play with. Of course, my twin could easily have been a boy. I wondered if he had golden rings around his irises like I did. If I wasn't the only one.

  Rushing downstairs, taking each step two at a time and ignoring the maids who gave me dirty stares as I whipped past them, I raced to my father's office. I found him exactly where I expected to, eyebrows deep in messy paperwork with red rings around his eyes that told me he'd had yet another sleepless night. I wasn't in any mood to feel sorry for him. He'd kept a secret so huge that I was nowhere near close to forgiveness.

  He looked up when I entered, paperwork still in his hand. "Azia, you're here. I wanted to speak with you abou..."

  "I need to talk to you first," I said, butting in angrily and slamming my hand down on his desk. A few of the papers fluttered, but the huge stack held firm. I would never have done such a thing in the past, but things had changed. I was way past caring what anyone thought of me, and that included my father, the king.

  "What is it, Azia?" His voice was weary, the voice of a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders. There was no anger in it, but I could see he didn't need yet another problem to deal with. If it wasn't such a huge deal, I would have left him to his work, but it was a huge deal.

  "Why didn't tell me that I had a brother or sister?" I asked, holding him in a cold hard stare.

  He raised an eyebrow in askance."I rather thought you would have noticed on your own."

  "I'm not talking about Remy or Hollis or Ash. I'm talking about the night I was brought to the castle when I was a baby. Why did you only take me in? Why separate me from my twin?"

  He sat straight up in his chair and eyed me with surprise. "What are you talking about?"

  "I know," I replied. "There's no point hiding it from me any longer. I know I have a twin."

  He shook his head slowly. "I'll overlook the fact that someone has been filling your head with nonsense, and I'll pretend that you are not being incredibly rude right now. Sit down, and I'll tell you what happened the night you came to us." He indicated a chair for me to sit in.

  "We've never hidden anything from you, Azia. We decided right from the start that you were our daughter and that you were as important to us as if you were ours by blood. We even made the decision to pass the throne to you rather than one of our natural-born children. If that doesn't show you how much we love you, I don't know what will. We also decided to tell you right from the start that you were adopted. You've always known. I can tell you about the night you came to us if that will make you feel better."

  "So tell me," I snapped, taking a seat opposite his.

  He waited until I was completely seated and comfortable before he spoke. A frisson of excitement ran through me. I was finally about to find out where I was from. Maybe even who I was.

  "Your mother and I were newlyweds," my father began. "Your mother made it no secret that she wanted children. I would have liked to have waited and spend a little time alone with her first, but she was adamant. We adopted you very early on in our marriage. Probably too soon, though I have never regretted it. Not for an instant. You were loved as if you were our own, right from the start."

  Nice. Sentimental e
ven, but this isn't what I needed to hear. I needed facts. "I was told that when I was brought to the house, there was another baby. It was heard crying."

  He held my gaze. "I don't know of any other baby, Azia. There was never any other child. There was only ever you. Not long after you came, your mother fell pregnant with Remy. He, along with Hollis and Ash, are our biological children. Your mother always told me she was so glad we adopted you, or she'd be in a house filled with boys."

  Frustration gripped me. "So why was another baby heard crying?"

  My father rubbed his temples and sighed. "I don't know, Azia. Perhaps the adoption agency people were on their way to deliver another baby to another set of parents. It doesn't mean that the other baby was your twin. Plenty of infants are born in Zhore. Does that answer all your questions?"

  I nodded slowly. He was right. Of course, an adoption agency might very well have been carrying more than one child to more than one set of parents. Why hadn't I thought of that? I'd not thought of it, because it didn't feel right. It didn't explain the gnawing in my gut when I thought about another child. It didn't explain my dreams. It didn't explain the fact that I felt less than whole.

  "Well then," he said, going back to his paperwork. "I'll need you to finalize the plans for this ridiculous competition you've decided to stage. The Sentinel has been on my case, and all my administrative staff are busy fielding calls about what's going to happen rather than doing the job I pay them for. It really is a nuisance."

  "I'm sorry, Father," I said, standing up.

  I swirled the new information around in my mind as I walked back to my room. It was entirely plausible that Olivie had heard another baby that had nothing to do with me. Maybe it was a pipe dream, a delusion of an adopted child that there would be others out there who looked like me.

  Still, it didn't sit well in my stomach. My father had all the answers, but I didn't believe him. There was nothing he said that didn't make sense, but there was a tell in his eye as he spoke. The way he blinked a little too rapidly. The way he rubbed his fingers together as he told me that I was the only baby. Taking a detour, I headed not upwards to my bedroom, nor to the library to come up with plans for the competition, but down to the rooms beneath the castle. We had a wine cellar down there that I was sorely tempted to visit, but there was also something down there that I needed to see more. The royal vaults.

  A huge metal door hid rooms upon rooms of treasure and gifts given to the royal family for generations. My brothers and I often played hide and seek down there before Hollis accidentally knocked over and smashed a vase worth a fortune. After that, the royal children were banned, but I was no longer a child. and what was more, I didn't need a password to get in. The vault was guarded by two armed guards, plus the keeper of the vault, who was more of custodian than guard.

  Having had no reason to come down to the vault since the vase incident, five or six years before, I'd only seen the keeper of the vault in passing since then.

  Taking the steps two at a time, I came to a stop by the antique wooden desk in front of the huge metal door flanked by two guards in uniform.

  "Good morning," I said, nodding to them before turning my attention to the keeper. He eyed me suspiciously, looking up from a huge book filled with entries of all the people who had been in and out of the vault and the times, dates, and reasons for each visit. Next to it, sat a pot of ink and a well-used quill.

  He was meticulous and proud of his job. He also hated me and my brothers for bringing shame on him when we'd broken the vase. He took looking after the contents of the vault very seriously.

  "Your Highness," he said, giving me a wary smile and a small bob of the head. "How may I help you this fine day?"

  Wisps of thinning white hair covered his head, with bald patches shining through. He'd been here a long time, and it showed. His ink marked hands were covered with paper-thin skin, which showed his age. Not that he needed to be particularly fit or strong. That was the guard's job, which was just as well considering he looked like he'd throw his back out just picking up a pen.

  "I'd like to go in the vault, please, Hestor."

  Pursing his lips, he appeared to be pondering my request. I held my breath, waiting for the inevitable rejection, but it seemed he'd softened in his old age. He picked up a quill and dipped it in his ink well before writing my name in his book next to the time and date.

  I would have preferred to have no account of this, but people came into and out of the vault all the time, so it wouldn't be long before my name was hidden down the list.

  "And my I ask your reason for visiting the vault today?" he asked, raising a watery eye toward me. "I'm assuming that hide and seek is no longer on the agenda."

  My mouth twisted up at the corners. He was teasing me. Maybe he wasn't the miserable old git I'd pegged him for all those years ago.

  Not wanting to tell him the real reason, I made something up on the spot. Something I hoped sounded believable.

  "There is to be a photoshoot of me for the Royal Competition for the Draconian Sentinel. I'd like to make it an official photograph, and I believe I should look regal. I'd like to take one of my mother's necklaces."

  Licking his lips, he held the quill to the paper but paused. "And is there nothing suitable in your mother's room for you to borrow?"

  Shaking my head, I readied the lie on my lips. My mother kept a lot of jewelry in her room. She hated coming down to the vault, but some of the jewels we owned were too precious to have lying around. The more formal jewelry, along with the expensive pieces and the royal crown jewels were kept down here behind lock and key.

  "There is a piece I had in mind, and I can't find it in her room. I don't really want to be messing around in her things as she sleeps."

  I put on the saddest face I could muster, hoping to appeal to his sympathy. My mother was cursed after all.

  "I quite understand," he replied, licking the end of the quill then writing the word necklace down in the book. "As you require something of such value, I will be required to come into the vault with you and send you on your way with one of the guards until the necklace is brought back safely."

  Panic shot through me. The last thing I needed was having Hestor follow me through the vault.

  "That isn't necessary. I know where the necklace is. I can find it myself."

  "Nevertheless," he said, pulling his bony body into a standing position. "My job is to keep the vault and make sure nothing goes missing. Having a thing of such value will put your own life at risk too, Your Highness. Besides, I need to write the tag number down in my book so nothing goes missing."

  Damn. I'd forgotten that everything down there was tagged and cataloged with a number.

  He pulled a key from a chain around his neck and inserted it into a lock holding the huge vault door shut before turning a small dial with numbers on it. He shielded it from my sight as he turned it left and right. A click indicated the vault was unlocked.

  The two guards pulled it open for us with a high-pitched creak, and a wave of musty air hit me in the face, making me cough.

  Hestor shuffled in, leaving me to follow in his wake.

  The vault was separated into sections. Large items of value, such as furniture and statues, were cataloged and stored in a large room to the right. The higher up maids with clearance would often come down here to remove items to change the look of the palace at my mother's whims. I followed Hestor to a massive metal cage where he, once again, pulled the key out and unlocked the door that would take us to the most restricted part of the vault. The place where the jewelry was kept, the home of the crown jewels and paperwork of national importance. Not many had clearance for this part of the vault, and I was surprised that Hestor even contemplated letting me in. But then again, he knew as well as I did, the emotional state of my father right now, and though I'd played around down here in the past, I was an adult now and a member of the royal family. He probably thought it wise to just let me do what I wanted. Not that he trus
ted me completely. He walked right next to me the whole time, not taking his eyes off me for a second. Not wanting to arouse his suspicion, I went straight to the glass cases with necklaces in them. I didn't care which one I took. It didn't matter. I pretended to deliberate over them while trying to come up with a plan to get to the paperwork.

  I knew where the family documents were kept. On the other side of the cage was a huge office with two leather chairs, a desk, and rows upon rows of cabinets. Most were filled with documents relating to the kingdom, but one end was reserved for family matters. The problem was, how was I supposed to get the documents while Hestor was watching my every move?

  I fingered one of the necklaces. There was no way Hestor wouldn't notice me crossing the room and rifling through the documents, and if he did see me, he would run straight to my father.

  Picking the necklace up, I held it to my neck before putting it back in its case.

  I was just about to pick up the next one when a crash made me jump.

  Hestor's head swiveled quickly towards the source of the noise.

  It was a maid, trying to pick up one of the larger chairs from the other side of the main room.

  "You shouldn't be trying to carry that by yourself!" Hestor shouted before muttering under his breath, "Silly girl."

  He ran toward her, waving his arms around.

  I made use of the diversion, running silently to the desk. Reading down the cabinets, which were all labeled in the same handwriting as Hestor's book outside, I came to the cabinet that said family documents. Four drawers full of the royal family history, but they had dates on them. The top drawer was the most recent. taking a quick peek at Hestor, who was busy arguing with the girl, I pulled the top drawer open. My heart fell when I saw no documents, but a safe instead. A safe with another combination lock on it.