The Prince of Souls (The Nine Kingdoms Book 12) Read online

  Table Of Contents

  Titles by Lynn Kurland

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Praise for the Novels of the Nine Kingdoms

  River of Dreams

  “Elegant writing…An enchanting, vibrant story that captures romance, fantasy, and adventure with intriguing detail and an epic, fairy-tale sensibility.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Aisling and Rùnach’s tender romance sweetly ratchets up as they take turns saving each other from perilous danger, and series fans will be left eager to read about their future adventures.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Fantastic…As always, the world building is rich and vivid and the characters fascinating and well-rounded, which is why Kurland’s books are truly awesome reads!”

  —RT Book Reviews (Top Pick)

  “Time after time, book after book, Lynn Kurland crafts a tale vividly alive with imagination…She weaves stories with a magic that could only be conjured from dreams.”

  —The Reading Cafe

  Dreamspinner

  “Fascinating, well-drawn characters and vibrant descriptions of magical situations and locations reinforce a vivid, enchanting narrative.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “The writing is classic Lynn Kurland—fluid and graceful.”

  —The Romance Reader

  “Awe-inspiring…The beginning of a new quest that will be filled with ample quantities of adventure, magic and peril!”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “Lyrical writing, brilliant mental imagery, richly descriptive magic, and larger than life characterization.”

  —The Reading Cafe

  Gift of Magic

  “The exciting story line is fast-paced from the onset…Lynn Kurland spins another fabulous fantasy.”

  —Genre Go Round Reviews

  “A magical combination of action, fantasy, and character exploration that is truly wonderful! A journey well worth taking!”

  —RT Book Reviews

  Spellweaver

  “One of the strongest fantasy novels welcoming in the new year.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “Kurland weaves together intricate layers of plot threads, giving this novel a rich and lyrical style.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  A Tapestry of Spells

  “Kurland deftly mixes innocent romance with adventure in a tale that will leave readers eager for the next installment.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Captured my interest from the very first page.”

  —Night Owl Reviews

  Princess of the Sword

  “Beautifully written, with an intricately detailed society born of Ms. Kurland’s remarkable imagination.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  “An intelligent, involving tale full of love and adventure.”

  —All About Romance

  The Mage’s Daughter

  “Lynn Kurland has become one of my favorite fantasy authors; I can hardly wait to see what happens next.”

  —Huntress Reviews

  “The Mage’s Daughter, like its predecessor, Star of the Morning, is the best work Lynn Kurland has ever done. I can’t recommend this book highly enough.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  Star of the Morning

  “Kurland launches a stunning, rich, and poetic new trilogy. The quest is on!”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “A superbly crafted, sweetly romantic tale of adventure and magic.”

  —Booklist

  More praise for New York Times bestselling author Lynn Kurland

  “Kurland weaves another fabulous read with just the right amounts of laughter, romance, and fantasy.”

  —Affaire de Coeur

  “Kurland…consistently delivers the kind of stories readers dream about. Don’t miss this one.”

  —The Oakland (MI) Press

  “Spellbinding and lovely, this is one story readers won’t want to miss.”

  —Romance Reader at Heart

  “Breathtaking in its magnificent scope.”

  —Night Owl Reviews

  “A pure delight.”

  —Huntress Book Reviews

  “A consummate storyteller.”

  —ParaNormal Romance Reviews

  Titles by Lynn Kurland

  Stardust of Yesterday

  A Dance Through Time

  This Is All I Ask

  The Very Thought of You

  Another Chance to Dream

  The More I See You

  If I Had You

  My Heart Stood Still

  From This Moment On

  A Garden in the Rain

  Dreams of Stardust

  Much Ado in the Moonlight

  When I Fall in Love

  With Every Breath

  Till There Was You

  One Enchanted Evening

  One Magic Moment

  All For You

  Roses in Moonlight

  Dreams of Lilacs

  Stars in Your Eyes

  Ever My Love

  The Novels of the Nine Kingdoms

  Star of the Morning

  The Mage’s Daughter

  Princess of the Sword

  A Tapestry of Spells

  Spellweaver

  Gift of Magic

  Dreamspinner

  River of Dreams

  Dreamer’s Daughter

  The White Spell

  The Dreamer’s Song

  The Prince of Souls

  Anthologies

  A KNIGHT’S VOW

  (with Patricia Potter, Deborah Simmons,

  and Glynnis Campbell)

  eSpecials

  “To Kiss in the Shadows” from Tapestry

  The Prince of Souls

  Copyright © 2019 by Kurland Book Productions, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  First Edition: 2019

  Cover Layout and Formatting: Streetlight Graphics

  Cover Art: Mélanie Delon

  Map Art: Tara Larsen Chang

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

  To my girls

  One

  When a man was facing death, his mi
nd naturally became consumed with questions of a profound and pressing nature, such as why pursuing his favorite things—murder, mischief, and mayhem—should result in the most fatal of the three being perpetrated upon his own poor self.

  Acair of Ceangail leaned his head back against the weeping stone wall of a dwarvish dungeon, ignoring the alarming rattle in his chest, and wished he’d had the wherewithal to find the answer that question deserved. Unfortunately, his strength had been spent on numerous escape attempts, his voice worn hoarse from shouting demands that someone come release him, and his hands left bruised and bloodied far past the point where they might be acceptable at even the roughest of supper tables thanks to his banging them repeatedly against the invisible door of his cell.

  He suspected he might be nearing his end.

  That he might meet that end in the very last place he’d wanted to be, a kingdom ruled by a monarch he had endured innumerable humiliations to avoid encountering lest that selfsame monarch decide the time had come for him to indeed breathe his last, was almost more than he could bear. If the cold, vermin, and lack of food didn’t finish him off, the irony of that likely would.

  Such a terrible fate should have been impossible given the charmed nature of his existence. He had spent decades cutting a gleeful swath through the Nine Kingdoms, tossing himself with abandon into situations that would have given a lesser mage pause and extricating himself from the most impenetrable of strongholds with a wink and a cheery wave. Kings had ground their teeth, mages had hidden behind tapestries, and priceless treasures had leapt out of locked cabinets to take up residence in his pockets.

  Why the course of his life had taken such a decided turn toward less desirable locales was—

  Well, honesty was, as he reluctantly admitted to those he wasn’t trying to rob or intimidate, his worst failing. If he were to be honest, he could pinpoint the exact moment when his life had veered off the smoothly paved path laid before his exquisitely shod feet and led him to a place that had been the beginning of the end for him.

  It had been, if memory served, during the previous spring as he’d been going about his usual business of toppling thrones and attempting to pilfer the world’s supply of magic. He’d been in the right place at the wrong time and found himself a reluctant witness to the sight of a very sharp blade coming directly toward a rather lovely if not perilously powerful maiden fair. His chivalry had risen like gorge, and he’d stepped in front of her to take the blade meant for her into his own black heart.

  If he’d had even the slightest inkling how that colossal piece of do-gooding would begin the unraveling of the cloth of his life, he would have nipped off into the shadows and left the wench to fend for herself. But he’d jumped into the fray and the deed had been done. That act of selflessness—and lesson learned there, to be sure—had led to a series of events that had completely derailed his plans for the making of obstreperous hay.

  Having his fine form restored to perfection by a piece of elvish rot had only been the beginning of the horrors he’d endured. Good deeds, polite smiles, fawning apologies he hadn’t meant in the slightest: the list of what had taken up the subsequent months had been endless and endlessly trying. He had submitted to the indignities, though, because his freedom had hung in the balance.

  Fate had obviously stepped in to take the helm only to set him on a collision course with the one soul before whom he had absolutely refused to bow and scrape, namely Uachdaran of Léige: maker of legendary swords, digger of priceless gems, and papa of one vexatious daughter with plans.

  ’Twas obvious to him now that he should have made an effort to clear up a few lingering misunderstandings between himself and the king of the dwarves. A rare bottle of elvish wine or an irreplaceable tapestry or two sent at just the right moment might have been the very thing to soften the king’s heart and overcome any reluctance to share one or two of the kingdom’s plentiful treasures. After all, dwarvish mines produced sparkling things he liked very much, and Durial was a place full of useful lakes and rivers.

  If he’d helped himself to a handful of gems the king might or might not have missed, then used one—or perhaps several, the details escaped him—of the king’s many rivers for his own purposes, who should have been the wiser?

  Well, obviously the king had been, which was why he was rotting belowdecks instead of taking his ease in front of a roaring fire upstairs in the great hall.

  Unfortunately for his hopes of luxuriating in fresh air again any time soon, he knew—and never mind how he knew—that not even the most creative of shapechanging would allow him past Uachdaran of Léige’s containment spells. Worse still was knowing—and on that score he was all too happy to recount the ridiculous reason why he knew—that whatever the king’s magic might leave of him after such an attempt, the fiendish spell currently sitting across his cell from him would certainly finish off.

  He looked narrowly at that nasty piece of business that was definitely the cause for his being where he was at present and decided that reminding himself of exactly why that was might at least keep him warm for a bit longer.

  There he’d been, less than a fortnight earlier, facing a formidable foe and limiting himself to a rudimentary spell of return, when things had taken a foul jog south. The words of his own spell had scarce left his lips before that damned thing presently glaring at him like a surly youth had leapt upon his mostly innocent person like a hound on a meat-covered bone and begun to chew. If it hadn’t been for the intervention of a woman he loved but didn’t deserve and the magical stylings of a prince he loathed but owed his life to, he would have definitely breathed his last.

  He’d hardly managed to scamper off to safety with his lady before he’d run afoul of the local monarch who had popped him in a truly awful little prison and promised him a one-way journey to a spot in the East where the king had pointed out quite enthusiastically that Acair wouldn’t be all that welcome.

  He sighed as deeply as he was capable of at the moment. ’Twas all too soon for the business of endings. He had mischief to make, the world to save, a red-haired stable lass to woo. If he’d had any heart to break, that noise echoing in his soul would have been the sound of it. He would gladly have gazed upon Léirsinn of Sàraichte’s lovely visage one more time, though he supposed having seen her that morning on the other side of the spell that guarded his door was the best he was going to manage.

  Or had she been there yesterday? The day before that? He frowned, reluctantly conceding that it had become increasingly difficult to mark any distinction between dreaming and lucidity. Rousing himself to put events in their proper order, never mind attempting to marshal the strength to put the world back in its proper order, was simply beyond him. A little gloss of hopelessness over any piece of mischief tended to leave him rubbing his hands together with delight, but this was something else entirely. He could feel his breath slowing with every exhale, his strength ebbing with each heartbeat, his very will to live being pulled from him with every moment of imprisonment that passed. The thumping in his ears was likely what was left of his broken heart giving its all before—

  He froze, which admittedly was done rather easily all things considered.

  Were those footsteps?

  He’d heard that sort of thing before, but usually those plodding boots belonged to some belligerent guard delivering his daily stew of things he absolutely refused to identify. A time or two the footfalls had been lighter and belonged to a spectacular woman who had come to keep him company in his hour of need.

  Now, though, he honestly couldn’t decide if he were hearing things or hearing actual things, if he could stir himself to distinguish between the two.

  Aye, those were definitely footfalls. He closed his eyes and tried to identify the number of feet making them and if the cadence were pleasant or sinister. Before he’d even begun to come to any conclusion on the matter, the spell serving as the door to his hellish jail dis
appeared.

  Before he could so much as blurt out a half-hearted, self-serving apology to whomever might have been responsible for the same, he was hauled to his feet.

  “The king wants you upstairs,” one of the two guardsmen there said curtly.

  He imagined the king did and suspected the invitation had less to do with enjoying a robust pint of ale together and more to do with swinging all on his own from the nearest beam. Given the rather rustic nature of the king’s lodgings, the old whoreson wouldn’t have any trouble finding one of those.

  Death it would be, then.

  He indulged in a brief moment of regret that his legs weren’t steadier beneath him. If he were to face the gallows, he would have preferred to have walked there with a swagger. He spared a brief nod of thanks to his spellish chaperon that appeared at his side and slung a shadowy arm around his shoulders. Enemy in life, friend in death.

  He stumbled along between a pair of dwarvish guards he would have felled without so much as a twinge of conscience not half a year earlier and found it in himself to be grateful that his execution wouldn’t happen below ground. Then again, for all he knew Uachdaran had invited several souls of note he might or might not have offended in the past to the event and didn’t want them catching a chill. He could only imagine who might be on that list.

  Please not Léirsinn. If he had to die, he didn’t want her to watch. Not after what she’d put herself through to save him.

  It took longer than it should have to make his way through the palace and out the front doors, but his guardsmen didn’t seem anxious to rush off to other tasks. He finally limped out into the courtyard, then leaned over with his hands on his shaking thighs to catch his breath for a moment or two. When he thought he could manage it, he straightened. Perhaps his usual expression of sardonic amusement was beyond him, but he would meet his fate with his head held as high as he could manage.

  The sun was inching up toward its mid-morning spot in the sky, but its pale winter light had done little to warm the air. That was no doubt why the courtyard was full of the satisfying smell of a hearty fire—

  Or, perhaps not.

  There, to his left, on the north side of the gates—he liked to keep those sorts of details straight in case the opportunity for flight presented itself—were the king’s stables. He was surprised to see them wearing scorch marks.