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  Halfax

  A Book of Deacon Novella

  Joseph R. Lallo

  2019 © Joseph R. Lallo

  Cover by Fable-paint

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Foreword

  I cannot tell you how many times people have asked me if I’m going to write a sequel to Jade. It was literally the second book I’d written, and I really didn’t know if I was going to be able to keep writing, so I had no plans. But I absolutely had hopes for the character of Halfax. When my Patreon came around, it gave me a way to justify shorter stories. Then, in accordance with ancient law, I ended up writing things that were seldom as short as I expected. That, combined with the enthusiasm of Jade readers and an absolutely killer cover by Fable Siegel, convinced me to release this.

  This story takes place several years after the events of Jade. If you’ve read that story, you’re ready for this one. However, it doesn’t hurt to have read the entire Book of Deacon series. Things have a way of echoing back and forth within the setting.

  I hope you enjoy the story!

  Halfax

  Rare was a noble who took an active role in the raising of her child. The duties of a monarch are many even in the healthiest of kingdoms and the most prosperous of times. Vulcrest was a land of struggle and confusion. Generations of willful ignorance and abandonment of the lessons of old had weakened it terribly. Under her own guidance and that of her husband, the current king was reluctantly making changes. Things were taking their first tentative steps into the brilliant dawn following a very dark age. It was a precarious and sensitive time that required a deft touch and constant attention. It was only reasonable that the palace staff be left with the task of caring for her young daughter.

  Jade was a rare noble indeed. Her child, just a few years old, wept softly on the knee of the monarch. Though handmaids and nannies stood like soldiers at the ready, she patted the crying girl on the back and spoke soothingly.

  “It is all right. It is all right. These things happen. You are all right,” she said.

  “No!” said Myn, her little girl and also a princess. “It hurts.”

  “Of course it hurts, little Myn. You bumped your head.”

  “My princess, again. A thousand apologies. It is unacceptable that this happened while I was watching the child. Any punishment would be more than just.”

  “A bowl fell from the shelf. It was no one’s fault,” Jade said.

  “But I am responsible for the child’s safety.”

  Jade gave the distraught caretaker a pointed look. “Do you want me to set my daughter down so that I can pat you on your head and tell you all will be well? These things happen. If you can’t pull yourself together, then off with you for the time being. Seeing you fret isn’t doing little Myn any favors. In fact, all of you give us a bit of time alone.”

  “As you wish, Your Majesty.”

  The nanny and the others left, shutting the door to the nursery behind them. Jade set Myn down on the ground. The little girl toddled a bit, then held tight to the princess’s skirt.

  “Do you think you can show me where the bowl fell from?” Jade asked.

  Myn nodded and wiped her nose on the sleeve of a dress that cost a small fortune. She waddled over to a display shelf and pointed. Sure enough. There was a single space on the uppermost shelf without its ornament. Jade had to stand on her tip toes to see the shelf itself. She fetched a lamp and held it up to shed some light where the bowl had been.

  Though her servants kept everything dutifully clean, she could still faintly make out the trail in the dust where the bowl had slid. The shelf was built into the stone wall of the palace. It wasn’t as though someone could have simply bumped into it to dislodge the bowl. And as high up as it was, one couldn’t have accidentally knocked the bowl down directly.

  Jade took a seat again and pulled Myn to her lap while she inspected the bowl itself. It was a heavy wooden thing. It must have hurt terribly when it struck the girl.

  “I can understand why Margaret would be so concerned. It’s difficult to imagine this fell of its own accord. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to suppose that she knocked it down herself, or even on purpose.” She leaned down to Myn. “Did she?”

  The little girl sniffled and shook her head.

  “She was there,” she pointed to a chair on the far side of the room. “I was going to hide.”

  “And you didn’t climb?”

  Myn shook her head again. Jade glanced at the shelf once more. Again, it would have been simple enough, and reasonable enough, to suppose the child was lying. But to climb so far without knocking down anything on any of the lower shelves would have been a genuine achievement for the little girl. To do it without disturbing what little dust there was would have been impossible.

  In any other situation, negligence and incompetence would be the only answer. But Jade could trace her linage back to a family called the Celestes. They had an unfortunate distinction which could easily explain an event such as this, and a half-dozen more that had happened over the last few months.

  “Tell me, Myn. What about your hand? Did you feel anything in your hand when it happened?”

  The little girl wiped her eye again and held out her left hand.

  “It tickled a little. Right here.” She jabbed her palm with her other hand.

  Jade supported her daughter with one arm and stood, once again approaching the shelf.

  “Do you remember where these things came from, Myn?” she said.

  Myn sniffled and nodded.

  “Where is this chalice from?” she said, picking up a silver cup.

  “That’s from Ul… Ul… Ulvard.”

  “That’s right. A gift celebrating your birth. And this book?”

  “That’s from Kenvard.”

  “Very good. An anniversary gift for your father and me.” She set it down and opened a wooden case beside it. “And what about this?”

  Myn blinked at the contents. “You never said.”

  The interior of the box was lined with green velvet. Nestled within was a single, gleaming gold coin. It was in terrible condition, all things considered. Scrapes and divots covered its surface, but it was flat, it was clean, and it still proudly showed a simple and ancient crest. The shape was a curving line with a point centered above it. The other side showed the beautiful, dignified face of an ancient queen of a neighboring land.

  “I’ve never told anyone. It is a gift from… No. No I suppose it wasn’t a gift. More of a keepsake. But it comes from an old friend of mine. Someone very important to me. And to you too. This coin was a secret for when you were old enough.”

  “Am I old enough?”

  “Old enough for the first part of the secret,” Jade said with a nod.

  She set Myn down on the thick rug and handed the coin to her.

  “Myn, I want you to flip this coin. Just send it into the air, flipping end over end, and let it fall on the rug. Can you do that?”

  Her daughter nodded and took the shining disk. She fumbled with it a bit, then tossed it. The coin took a few lazy flips and thumped to a rest on the rug. The crest was up. The face was down.

  Jade took a breath and plucked up the coin.

  “Again,” she said.

  Myn giggled and obliged. Again it was face down.
Again and again she tossed the coin. Over a dozen times. Sometimes the coin bounced and rolled. Sometimes it spun. But always it settled with its face down.

  Jade nodded and gathered the coin. “A downside…”

  “What’s that, mother?” Myn asked.

  “Watch how the coin lands when I flip it.”

  The princess flipped the coin in a high arc. When it landed, the face of the ancient monarch was showing. Jade flipped the coin again. She rolled it, spun it, and wobbled it. Just as when Myn did so, the result was always the same, though in her case, the face was up.

  “What does it mean?” Myn asked.

  “It means fate sometimes takes a greater interest in the lives very special people. You are one of them. So am I. My coin lands face up, which means luck favors me. Yours lands face down. Luck… Luck won’t be so kind to you.”

  “That’s bad…” Myn said.

  “No,” Jade looked her daughter in the eye. “No, it doesn’t matter one bit. And do you know why?”

  Myn shook her head. Jade held up the coin.

  “Because this coin means something very important. This coin means that there is someone watching over you. Even at the worst of times. You know that me, and your father, and Margaret and Natasha and everyone in the palace and the city will protect you. This coin means that even when you’re alone, you’ve got a protector. Even if you are far from us all, he won’t let anything happen to you.”

  She stood and looked over the nursery.

  “It does mean we’ll need to be a bit more careful with you from now on.”

  #

  Thirteen Years Later…

  A carriage rumbled along the icy roads of the north. The weather outside was frigid, as was perpetually the case in Vulcrest and its neighbors to the east and west. Heavy clothes and hot tea kept the interior of the carriage quite comfortable, as did the company. Jade, her husband Terrilius, and their daughter Myn indulged the rare bit of privacy within the luxurious carriage. Their lives had become a whirlwind of diplomacy and affairs of state ever since the passing of Terrilius’s father elevated them both from Prince and Princess to King and Queen. Even now, their moment of respite came only at the conclusion of a lengthy trip to foster better relations with their neighbors in Kenvard.

  The king flipped through some notes taken by the royal scribe. “I tell you, we simply must see if we can send some of our sages for training at the New Kenvard Academy. Can you believe it? Magic. New magic is being taught. I didn’t think I would see it in my lifetime.”

  “We should treat this gently, Terry,” Jade said. “You know how I feel about magic. In its proper place, it performs literal miracles. But our subjects aren’t so sunny in their outlook.”

  “That’s precisely why we must lead them!” He set down the notes and rubbed his hands together eagerly. “What do you think, my dearest? Do you think the time has come to embrace the mystic arts?”

  “I don’t know…” Myn said. “It seems dangerous.”

  Myn lowered her head and looked away, shrinking into herself a bit. She was fifteen years old now. While the resemblance to her mother was uncanny, her features were nonetheless heavily flavored by the dash of elven heritage in her father. Her hair was the same golden blonde, and even at this age she was nearly a match for her mother’s height. When she was finished growing, she would be as tall and slender as an elven queen.

  Her hair hung over her face as she slouched. It didn’t take much to send a wave of anxiety through her. The lengthy trip away from home was more than enough. The fateful day so many years ago had finally revealed that the girl was less than favored by fate. Since then, she’d grappled with the consequences with heartbreaking frequency. The whole of her life had been a tenuous balance. Fate batted her about like a toy, perpetually contriving threats. Great pains were taken to keep her from harm. But at the same time, she was the only child of the King and Queen. There would come a time when she would need to rule. A kingdom would be poorly served by a monarch who did not know her world. Thus, they had done their very best to educate her and show the considerable width and breadth of their kingdom. She could not be coddled and locked away, no matter how sensible such a thing would be. Thus, she’d been surrounded by protectors. Every possible source of risk or mishap was treated as though it were an assassin waiting for the chance to strike her down. Through diligence and dedication, she’d been kept largely from harm, but close calls were frequent and sometimes traumatic. Falling trees narrowly missed her. Well-maintained staircases rattled and loosened beneath her feet. Fortune itself was like a predator, and it was constantly on her scent.

  Such a life takes a toll on a young mind. Myn was a skittish and anxious girl.

  King Terrilius leaned forward and gripped the shoulder of his teenage daughter lightly.

  “Sometimes life hides its greatest treasures behind dangers.” He smiled at Jade. “Isn’t that right?”

  Jade smiled wryly, then raised her eyebrows. “Now that you mention it.”

  She pulled the heavy drapes from the window and opened the shutter. A rush of cold wind whisked through the carriage.

  “Ah. We haven’t passed it. You see there? That’s one of only a handful of paths that lead near the center of Ravenwood. That’s where I used to live, remember?”

  The king reached forward to clutch Jade’s hand. “The greatest treasure I could have ever hoped to find.”

  “Terry…” Jade said with a grin.

  “Myn, when I first met your mother, she wasn’t much older than you are now. I was a young fool myself. We believed that Ravenwood held a terrible darkness. But what it held was the light that has guided us all. And I know that the academy is the way forward. We need to learn from Kenvard. We need to start our own. A true one.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Jade said.

  “The chancellor won’t like it,” Myn said.

  “The chancellor doesn’t like anything that permits any but himself to learn,” the king said.

  “He is the last bastion of the old ways. If he had his way, knowledge and wisdom would be locked in vaults and left to molder as they had been for too many generations,” Jade said.

  “The old ways can only hold out for so long,” the king said.

  “But Margaret says that we can never really be sure that the old wisdom can be trusted,” Myn said. “She says trusting the old wisdom is what allowed the D’Karon to rise.”

  Jade sighed. “Margaret means well, Myn, but like any of us, she only knows what she has seen and has been told. Wisdom is wisdom. It can do good and it can do harm. Our purpose is to learn all that we can and use it properly.”

  “But what if we make mistakes?” Myn asked.

  “There are few better things to learn from than mistakes,” the king said. “But enough about that. Too soon we’ll be back at the palace and duties will pull us apart. Tell me, Myn. What did you see in Kenvard that you would like to see back home? Someday this kingdom will be yours. How would you change it?”

  “Well… The clockwork things were very interesting,” Myn said, brushing her hair aside. “There was that great tower with all of the swinging pendulums and clicking gears. Do you think we could build one of those? So everyone will know the time?”

  “Of course! What else…”

  #

  The royal procession arrived at Castle Verril a few days later. It had been slow, but gradually the king and queen had drawn Myn’s enthusiasm to the surface. As mother, father, and daughter climbed the steps to the royal chambers, the young princess was buzzing with wonder. Her excitement continued all through dinner, and did not relent as they retired to their chambers.

  “I wonder if things are different in Tressor?” Myn mused, visibly struggling with her own concern. “Nothing bad happened on this trip. We weren’t very far from the border while we were in New Kenvard. There are so few books about Tressor, because of the old war. It might… It might be worth risking anot
her long trip if it meant seeing it with my own eyes…”

  “If that is what the princess wants, then that is what she shall have,” the king said.

  As they marched through the palace, a small crowd of servants gathered around them, including the Chancellor. The silver-haired old man, like several members of the palace staff, had a trace of elven in his features. It was diluted enough that time had made him frail and wizened. The plump older woman who had formerly been Myn’s nanny joined them as well. Her official title was now the personal tutor to the princess, though the queen herself was far more responsible for the princess’s education. A half-dozen other servants trailed behind. In another palace they might have been faceless and interchangeable as far as the nobility was concerned, but not here.

  “Gustov, when we left you felt certain your little boy would be taking his first steps,” Jade said to one of the uniformed keepers of the palace. “Has he?”

  “He did, Your Majesty. Just this morning,” the man said, attempting to mask his fatherly pride to maintain some semblance of decorum.

  “Congratulations!” Myn said. “You’ll be chasing him through the halls in no time.”

  They came to Myn’s door. The king wished his daughter good night and kissed her on the forehead. He and the queen left her in the care of her attendants as they continued up the steps to their own bedroom.

  “Your Majesties, a word if I may? Now that the princess has retired for the evening.”

  “In a moment,” Jade said pleasantly. “A trip to Tressor? Terry, you spoil her.”

  “Myn has too good a head on her shoulders to be spoiled,” he said proudly.

  “I’m sure Duke Prondiss feels the same way about his girl, and she refuses to leave her bedroom without fresh rose petals sprinkled on her floor every morning.”

  “Jade, Myn dreads each new trip from the palace grounds. It breaks my heart to see her practically tremble when she passes beyond the walls, as though the sky will fall on her head any moment. If this is something that could motivate her to set her fears aside, then it is our duty to indulge her,” the king said. “And you saw the light in her eyes.”