Prologue

Prologue

The Miracle

Edgar, the Count of Derryman

Hawkvale

LancestorSanatorium

Oxblood Region

The Parallel

“She’s no better,” he sniped irately, glaring at the pretty young woman with the masses of blonde, lustrous hair curled into herself on the bed.

She was studying him with terrified amber eyes.

“Please, my lord, modulate your voice,” the doctor murmured.

Edgar Dawes, the seventh Count of Derryman, Lord of Posey Park Manor (and several other properties besides), located in the green, gentle, fertile valleys of the Oxblood region of north central Hawkvale, turned to the doctor.

“You said you could affect improvements,” he reminded the man.

“She is improved,” the doctor asserted.

Edgar flung a hand toward the silent, fearful woman rocking rhythmically on her bed, staring at him in terror.

“She doesn’t appear improved to me, sir.”

The man got closer and said quietly, “With respect, my lord, this is due to your demeanor. Maxine…” He paused a pause that held great weight and took that further as he emphasized, “your daughter, needs calm. She’s far more content with the familiar.” Another weighty pause. “And she hasn’t seen you in over three years.”

Edgar refused to respond to the rebuke.

Instead, he retorted, “The world is not calm, as you well know. At any moment, a witch can bring a curse on the land. A Beast of ancient times can resurface to the Earth and cause havoc. You know this because these things have happened. And they have in our lifetimes.” His tone grew all-knowing and imperious, a tone he adopted in some incarnation to the point it was his standard. “Every life is in jeopardy at every moment.”

“That’s a pessimistic outlook,” the physician muttered to himself.

“It is nevertheless true,” Edgar sniffed. “And she must be able to handle that.”

And she must.

She must.

Imminently.

Time was running out!

As such…

“I’ll be taking her to another facility,” Edgar announced. “We’ll see if a different staff can cure her.”

The doctor immediately grew alarmed.

“Sir, please, don’t. Maxine responds to routine. A habitual schedule. Staff around her who she’s grown accustomed to. Familiar surroundings. Her paintings. Her strolls along the river with her nurses. Her reading. We’ve made progress, and if you move her”—and again there was a censorious pause—“as you have, throughout her life, hoping for results she simply cannot attain, she will digress, and that progress will have to be regained.”

Edgar gazed around the room at his daughter’s “paintings.” As he did, his eyes fell on the “books” that sat on the table beside her bed.

He returned his attention to her physician. “A five-year-old could paint a better bird and she reads children’s books.”

“Before she came here, she was twenty-three, and she didn’t read at all,” the man returned.

“I—”

The doctor squared his shoulders. “My lord, I’m sure I don’t have to remind you, your daughter…your lovely, sweet daughter, sustained a significant head injury at the age of six.”

Edgar drew in an affronted breath at being reminded of something he expended quite a bit of effort to forget.

The doctor persevered, “It was an injury of such magnitude, at the time, the physicians you called in, all four of them, told you not only that you were very lucky she was alive, but that it would take a miracle for her to live what is considered a ‘normal’ life. However, in all her notes, throughout her life, every physician who has had charge of her care has recorded that they’ve repeatedly shared with you that she could lead a happy life. However, only if she receives the proper care. She needs stability. She needs patience. She needs predictability. And she needs…”—the man held Edgar’s gaze—“care and love.”

Edgar stared at him, thinking, No, what I need is a miracle.

He lifted his nose. “I’ll be researching other facilities and will inform you by missive if she will be moved and where.”

“She has a name, milord. It’s the one you gave her. It’s Maxine,” the doctor retorted coldly.

Edgar glared at him, turned on his foot, and with his cloak snapping out behind him, such was the velocity of his departure, he left the room.

And he did so not sparing another glance to his daughter.

* * * *

Derryman~

Forgive that I offer no polite preamble. However, I do not for this is the sixth such missive I have sent in as many months.

Therefore, I will not delay before I remind you of clause 12b of the betrothal contract we two hold between my son and your daughter.

To refresh your memory, clause 12b states that if the Marquess of Remington should attain the age of thirty-five without you offering Lady Maxine’s hand in marriage, and that hand isn’t legally bound to my son and heir in order that they can pursue the efforts of continuing my line, he is no longer bound to the contract. As such, he will be free to choose who he wishes to take to wife.

It is time my son takes a woman to wife.

We shall be celebrating Loren’s 35th birthday six months hence.

I do hope we’ll be celebrating a wedding sometime before.

I daresay I will hear from you very soon.

Yours in loyalty to Hawkvale,

~Ansley Copeland

12th Duke of Dalton

Edgar tossed the letter on his desk in frustration.

He then stared across the room at the portrait of his very beautiful but very dead wife.

“I once was a titan,” he proclaimed.

This was not pride speaking.

He was.

He was known as The Dealmaker.

So renowned for his intuition of the markets, any investment, people from as high as Lunwyn and as low as Fleuridia sought his counsel.

So renowned, the great Duke of Dalton sought an alliance between their families.

The Duke of Dalton!

King Ludlum’s top general—the man credited with saving Hawkvale from total ruination when Baldur of Middleland invaded its sunny dales. A man revered, almost as much as Ludlum was (and he would have been more, if such wasn’t considered treason).

It was, of course, Ludlum’s son (and now their king), who eventually wrested the lands Baldur managed to conquer from that despot.

However, it was known by all that if it wasn’t for Dalton, the whole of Hawkvale would have fallen to Baldur.

And it was that Dalton who sought an alliance with the House of Derryman twenty-six years ago.

But even Edgar could not foresee that horrible accident (and it was an accident—any father would wish to teach his daughter how to ride a horse, it wasn’t his fault she couldn’t control the damned thing).

He focused again on the image of his wife.

She had hidden from him her weakness of character, a flaw that ran deep. In fact, in the end, she brayed of it so incessantly, it had to stop.

Of course, as she obviously took great pains to do this, he could never predict how she would react to the accident.

But that was done, and she was now gone, his daughter (mostly) out of sight and mind in order that he could get on with his life.

However, that life did take a turn for the better.

Clearly no one could foresee what would happen to the markets when a curse hit the land.

With the fantastical things that occurred, not even his stable of rats could assist him.

And then some time later, when he was finally digging himself out from under the variety of fiascos he, and the men he advised, found himself in, some Beast across the Green Sea rears up and panics the entire planet. Only for the result of the vanquishing of that creature to be trade routes opening that no one ever imagined would clear, and Firenz, Airenzian, Dellish and Marish goods flooding the market.

There were opportunities everywhere.

He couldn’t stay on top of it, no matter how many rats he recruited.

Edgar, of course, had contingencies in place, and he may not have advised his clients to do the same (for if they held money back, he would have less of their money to invest in his schemes, and in turn would make less himself).

But any man knew to protect his estate. It wasn’t Edgar’s fault they listened to him when he advised all in (and perhaps sometimes his advice could better be described as coercion, but he didn’t regard it that way).

Many of his clients had been ruined.

He was called The Dealmaker no longer.

Once, every door was open to him. He’d arrive, a cheer would rise, and a glass of the best whisky was placed in his hand. They’d be falling all over themselves to pat him on the back, sit close to his side and be warmed by his brilliant, unfailing light.

Now, he hadn’t had a dinner invitation in two years. Balls that were often held in his honor happened without him even knowing they’d been scheduled. Conferences that he’d keynote he was blacklisted from attending.

He was rich. He had more than enough money, he’d never be poor.

But he was a pariah.

And you couldn’t make more money unless people would accept your investments.

They wouldn’t even accept his letters.

He needed this alliance with the House of Dalton.

He needed his name linked with someone of such impeccable pedigree and reputation as Lord Ansley Copeland.

The doors would open to the father of a duchess, the grandfather of a future duke.

From the moment Edgar completed the flourish on his signature on that betrothal contract, he knew that was the next step to greatness.

Thatwould be his legacy.

His blood would run through the veins of all future Daltons.

His daughter would sleep beside the Marquess of Remington.

She’d stand at his side when his father passed, and he inherited the Duchy.

She would first be called marchioness.

She would then be called duchess.

The only greater title was princess.

The only greater title than that was Queen.

And her first son, and every first son after—his grandson, would be Duke.

But now, no.

Simply because a useless six-year-old girl could not sit a horse.

For the last two years, he’d had his rats out scavenging in every corner in every city in Hawkvale, Bellebryn, Fleuridia, even all the way up to the frosty northern shores of Lunwyn and across the Green Sea to the continent of Triton.

There was no witch.

There was no sorcerer.

There was no cure.

There was no miracle.

Maxine, with her mother’s leonine hair and eyes, would be six years old…

Forever.

And Edgar would never regain his standing. He’d never enter a parlor to smiles and cheers.

He’d never leave this Earth, his legacy being his vast wealth.

And the incorporation of Derryman into a Duchy.

* * * *

“Milord, sir…sir…sir!”

Edgar snorted, turned, and blinked through the curtains of his bed where his servant, Carling, had leant through, holding a candle.

“What the demon?” Edgar groused.

“At the back door…one of your…”—Carling made a face—“associates. He says he has something urgent to tell you. I told him to come at a decent hour, but he said you wouldn’t thank me to make you wait.”

Edgar made to turn his back on the man and resume sleep, murmuring, “Repeat he should come at a decent hour.”

“Sir, milord, he says it’s about your…”

He didn’t finish, and the manner in which he was speaking made Edgar return his attention to the retainer.

“My what?” he prompted.

“Your daughter,” Carling whispered, blame in his eyes, judgment in his tone.

Insufferable man.

It was rather a shame he was so very good at his job.

Edgar was still for but a moment, thinking on this, before he pulled the candle from the man’s hand. Wax dripped on his bedclothes, but he paid it no mind as he threw his legs over the side, shoving his feet in his slippers.

He shrugged on his dressing gown as he hurried, ignoring the fact that in the last few years, due to his life narrowing rather drastically, his bulk had become somewhat…ungainly.

He descended the stairs and took a trek he rarely took, into his servant’s domain, the kitchens at the back of the house.

There, in the opened door, thankfully not having strode over the threshold (he made a note to remember to offer a rare (very rare) commendation to Carling on seeing to that, and then immediately forgot that note) stood the filthy, unkempt person of Buttersnatch, one of his best little rats.

He felt his dressing gown billowing out behind him as he barked, “This better be good to pull me from my bed.”

“A word, master,” Buttersnatch begged, although it wasn’t a plea, that was simply how Buttersnatch always spoke.

The rodent glanced behind him to the servants’ alley before he looked back at Edgar.

“In private.”

Edgar examined Buttersnatch’s expression.

He had not been The Dealmaker solely due to his brilliant understanding of all things financial.

He’d been The Dealmaker because he could read people.

Mostly (he would admit only to himself), it was because of his rats.

What he read was that Buttersnatch had, at long last, succeeded.

Edgar felt his heart jump.

There was hope!

Likely, knowing this particular pest, it was a witch.

He didn’t care what it was.

Just as long as it meant success.

Therefore, Edgar did not hesitate to step into the dark, moonlit, unoccupied alley and firmly close the door behind him.

He led Buttersnatch, whose rags rustled about him as he moved, well away from the door.

Only then, holding the light of his candle up so he could clearly see the man’s face, did he command, “Speak to me.”

“There is a witch…”

Of course there was.

“…she is powerful.”

Of course she was.

“She’s been ‘idin’ her accumulation of magic for years.”

As she would need to do.

King Noctorno made things very clear after the last debacle nearly brought low all of the Northlands. No witch gathered magicks of any magnitude without the government’s permission.

“You’ll be needin’ to bring your diamonds, you will,” Buttersnatch went on.

Edgar’s eyes narrowed at that.

His diamonds?

He did, of course, have a healthy cache of Sjofn ice diamonds. Rare. Flawless. Coveted.

Most of the foundation of his wealth was in such things.

This was because they never lost value. No matter what foul play was at hand in this land or any other, an ice diamond, an Ulfr fur, a Korwahkian jewel remained rare, remained flawless, and remained coveted.

“And why would I do that?” Edgar asked dubiously.

“Because”—Buttersnatch smiled, exposing yellowed teeth that were dark and rotted in places—“there’s another world, milord. A world she can access. And on that world, master, each and every one of us…”

His pause was long, his smile got broader, and then he finished.

“’As a twin.”

Edgar recoiled.

Dear gods.

There it was.

A miracle.