Chapter 1 (excerpt from Amber in the Hilt)

Kit of the Sehdaegr sat on his heels and stretched his neck, pulling at bones that had settled into stiffness. He needed something to chase away reality, and losing himself in movement seemed like the perfect escape.

While all the green space peppered throughout the corridors and sitting rooms of Sehdaegr House glistened with kept splendor, the rooftop Sword Master’s Garden remained wild and overrun. The unruliness was comforting because it was real, untouched by superficial hands. Long grass engulfed the uneven stones of the mosaic patio, while bushes and flowers fought for what little soil the weeds allowed. The trees strained toward the clear sky, nearing the end of their long lives.

Pushing his weight through his tanned hands, elbows, then shoulders, Kit straightened his lean body into a handstand. Fingers pressing into the mosaic tile, he cycled through the Master’s Motions, his muscles flexing and relaxing as his body twisted. 

With each movement, he tried to hone his focus, but the chill of reading his son’s letter still clung to his flesh. 

Da,

I’m going to visit your uncle in Leaeri. By the time you get this, I’ll already have left. I know you hate the place. Don’t follow. I’ll reach out once my business there is concluded.

Hope you’re well,

Kol

Kit wondered what business his son could possibly have with family he’d never met. 

When the continent’s last kingdom, Daen, had become too dangerous for them, Kol insisted he and Kit flee to a nation of the Aris Alliance and start a new life. Kit had no intention of ever returning to the nation Camdyn, the place he’d lived in briefly as a child, but he’d agreed a different nation would do. As usual, his son didn’t listen. Mere days after Kit agreed to leave Daen, he’d received that letter.

So, Kit had crossed the gulf and desert to reach the city he had sworn never to set foot in again. Exhausted and desperate, but wearing his finest clothes and legendary blades, Kit had arrived at Sehdaegr House to confront his uncle. A servant had then promptly led him to the guest chambers where a ryke—infantryman—stood guard.

After several arguments and a flash of Kit’s swords, the guard admitted that Niraem was away on business and would return soon.

That was two days ago.

According to the servants, Kol hadn’t arrived yet, which was strange because he’d left several days before him. At the time of his letter, Kol had lived several miles away, but it wasn’t that much longer of a journey. Whenever Kol did arrive, Niraem would likely shove him into the same garish room as Kit, so he would ask him about his business then.

Blood pooling in his head, Kit slowly folded in on himself until his feet touched stone.

Kit sprang backward, legs fanning through the air. When he landed in a crouch, his muscles tried to launch him forward to attack as they always did. He breathed through the urge. 

My mind controls my body, not the other way around.

For the dozenth time, Kit gazed past the house’s fence. Leaeri, the largest city in Camdyn, stretched out below him, the red and gray domes and mansard roofs like hills clustered in the desert. A tall curtain wall encircled the maze of sandstone streets, and an invisible energy sheen spread out above it all to protect against an otherwise brutal sun. 

Kit missed clouds. Something about a dour sky had excused his usual self-wallowing back home.

Just as he was about to return to his practice, he spotted Otys, lanky and dark-skinned, standing on a roof just outside the fence of Sehdaegr House, waving a long arm over his head. Light filtered through him; the orange clay-tiled roof was visible through his body, which left no shadow. Then he vanished.

The signal. The path was clear.

Sighing past his irritation, Kit retrieved his tunic from a dying bush. Unlike the thin white shirts his uncle provided, this one was dark enough to hide the tattoo on Kit’s chest. He appreciated the anonymity, but it was also maroon and bejeweled and made him look like he belonged with the fortune tellers of Destined Alley. Otys’s mysterious friend—a friend Kit had never met but hoped to someday—had risked a lot slipping it into Kit’s room, so he tried not to complain.

Grateful that the fake jewels made no noise as he moved, Kit strapped his dual black swords to his back and hopped onto the sandstone ledge. He scanned the arched windows embedded in the ashlar stone of the house. The occasional shadow moved behind the leaded glass, but no face turned outward. No ryke marched on the breezeway between wings. Kit wasn’t exactly his uncle’s prisoner, but there were eyes on him that Kit would rather avoid.

He wrapped his fingers around the branch of a small tree, waking the ancient power in his blood, dropping the mental barrier he used to bury it, and letting the power wade to the surface of his veins. He willed the power to siphon the branch’s life energy into his body, and as he did so, the bark dried and cracked under his grasp. A torrent of warm energy flooded his veins, and he guided it to his legs, whispering a brief apology as the foliage died. 

After a final glance at the garden, he leaped. Stolen strength surged through his legs, propelling him to the balcony across the courtyard. His body shook, expecting—and wanting—another leap to expel more stolen energy. The difficulty with his gift was that, like steam in a pot, it didn’t stay contained long. He wrangled his rattling breath and slammed his mental barrier over his gift to stop his muscles from vibrating. It felt like falling into thick tar. He refused to move until he regained complete control of his body. 

My mind controls my body, not the other way around.  

Once confident that a step wouldn’t send him barreling into the wall, he climbed onto the railing. Toes digging into his thin slippers, Kit dropped his gift’s barrier just a sliver more to help him clear the cornice.