Shadow Heir: Prologue
Plus a ramble about institutional giants infected by fleshy parasites and turned to trample their own people... And what to do when you find yourself along for the ride.
Institutions are clunky. Most are designed that way—take the US government for example, or sprawling organized religions. They’re designed so that no one person can reach the top and make serious, irreparable change. But leave a system like that alone for long enough and people who want power will climb to the top. And then, one day, someone will come along with enough charisma to worm inside the sleeping mechanical giant’s brain and goad it into a rampage that crushes the very infrustructure and people it was meant to protect.
No one person is at fault for the giant’s subversion. The charismatic brain-parasite never would have made it if not for the hundreds of power-hungry supporters who formed a human ladder for him to climb. And none of those flesh-rungs were individually dispicable (or, if they were, they had to keep that enough under wraps to pass muster). These flesh-rungs were expedient—and in a system that moves like a sloth, expedience holds unmistakable allure.
Now that the giant has been subverted, no one person can stop it.
And now the institutional rust meant to prevent rapid change has all been infected with parasitic madness. Those flesh-rungs are greasing it with facism—an oil that freezes metallic joints when they bend back toward neutrality and smoothes them as they bend toward extremism. It’s a one-way system of barbs that only rips into flesh when confronted by charity, longsuffering, and empathy. The checks and balances meant to keep the machine moving slowly enough for engineers to repair any malfunctions have collapsed under pressure and are now working to keep engineers from excising the parasite that’s taken control. And the hundreds of people who’ve been climbing the giant’s shoulders in a grab for power in its inevitable rampage are pelting those same engineers with whatever loose pieces of machinery they can pry from this steampunk contraption’s metallic body. This giant is taking them places and they certainly don’t want it to stop.
Sometimes someone born into these systems of power finds themself clinging to the giant and watching their neighbors cannabalize the system for the sake of extending their joyride. Dismantling the giant meant to protect people is, of course, problematic. Without it, the people will fracture and fail. Letting the giant continue to crush auxillary systems underfoot is no better.
Then comes the choice.
Remain on the giant? Slay it to keep it from trampling innocents and consequently leave the rest of its people to subjugation by other roving robots?
Climb to the top in an attempt to supplant the parasite in control and hope that you won’t be so changed by the time you hold the reigns of power that you can return the giant to its proper duty as a guardian of the people?
Jump off, find engineers, and do your best to escort them to the infected cranium?
The problem is that the fanatics clinging to the giant’s ankles won’t let you back on once you’ve jumped off. If they can, they’ll help you break your neck in the initial fall. And yet, you can’t stay here and watch the system that raised you crush your family and friends.
But then the giant lifts one creaking, steaming leg and its shadow shifts, showing where it will step. In the center of that shadow stands a woman you loved and a newborn child. And then there is no choice.
Off flies the white coat that symbolizes your authority. You leap from the giant. Because not everyone gets time to plan their resistance.
Caylen certainly didn’t.
If you can’t tell, this story started out describing real-life systems of power, but the white-coated man clinging to this rampaging giant isn’t real. Now he no longer wears that white coat. Instead, he’s rescuing a child from the murderous clutches of the metaphorical mechanical giant he once served.
I’d tell you more about him and his plight, but that would spoil the story. So instead, here’s the prologue of Shadow Heir.
Unseelie Realm
Eliza’s dying screams rang behind him as Caylen ran across the snow-caked landscape, his precious package held close against the inside lining of his cloak.
He tried not to remember the stone cold faces surrounding her or imagine the icy bite of iron. He could do nothing for her now except this: take the babe and run.
"Don't let them kill my chil—" the scream behind him turned to gurgles, and he knew she was dead. The Order would discover that she wasn't sheltering the kid, and they would cast around for another who could have spirited her away. He had moments, maybe minutes, before their scrying revealed his trail.
Rest well, Eliza. Caylen sent the thought toward the deep forest she had so loved. There wasn't time for more than a thought in remembrance. He had to clear the valley before the Order found him.
A disturbance, acrid and hot, said that magic burned behind him, leaving a trail of speeding fire as it gave chase. Layers of ice steamed away in an instant. Light flickered, eviscerating the perpetual night of the Unseelie Realm. He dropped the scant protection of the now useless misdirection spell and bent the freed energy to speed. They knew where he was.
The line of fire passed between him and the sheer cliff to his right then veered across his path. Orange flames sprung high, cutting him off. Almost, almost he hugged his cloak to his chest and barreled through. It would burn, but he would survive.
He would.
He wasn’t alone.
A small whimper from the package in his arms brought him to a stop before the flames. Would the baby girl survive burns dealt by a fire sylph?
Inside the wall of fire stood a man wearing the same white coat Caylen had exchanged for his integrity. The white-coated man's face reflected the fire of his sylvan servant, and his hands closed around a white iron broadsword planted in the dirt between his feet.
Phillipe Pendragon. Lazy, cruel, but unimaginably powerful. Caylen had beaten him once, long ago, and won the coat Phillipe now wore. Times had changed. If he was here now, in person—if he’d somehow made it this far, this quickly—but the Phillipe Caylen had known wasn’t that fast.
Real, or illusion? Fire Sylvans were masters of bending light to their purpose. Or to the purpose of their master.
Caylen addressed the figure in white. Real or not, the man would hear. "The child has done nothing wrong. Surely you can see that."
The Mercy—and he had to be the new Mercy—didn't even blink. "It is an abomination. The Virtues have decreed that it must die."
Caylen turned to the fire sylph standing at the edge of the flames. Its form had just a fraction more substance than the fire of the wall it created. It’s eyes burned yellower than the flames that formed its face. The mouth pressed tight until the petal of fire was barely distinguishable from the rest of the vaguely humanoid body. Sylvan body language was hard to read, but this sylph made it easier with stiff flames that lacked any of the wild red joy.
"You have to know this is wrong," Caylen pleaded.
The burning figure tilted its pointed head and blinked yellow eyes. The flames restricted, stilled, bled closer to yellow than to orange. But the heat that would kill the girl Caylen cradled did not lessen. Its voice was toneless. "I am compelled to follow my master's command."
He grit his teeth and turned his attention back to Phillipe Pendragon, because the sylph was right. Phillipe was a powerful man from a powerful family and a fire sylph came from the Seelie court—more deeply bound to service with human masters than the winter folk of the Unseelie court. This sylvan could do nothing. But Phillipe… Maybe, just maybe he would find a drop of compassion.
Phillipe’s cold expression smothered that hope, but Caylen still had to try. "You are the only one who can gainsay them. Don't you know what that coat means?"
The fire sylph spiraled closer, wrapping him in flames. The colorless smoke burned his eyes and throat. He held the girl closer and prayed that the cloak would protect her delicate lungs. The image of Phillipe grew larger, so that all he could see were those pitiless eyes.
Illusion.
"Gainsay the Virtues? You've fallen farther than I thought. You disgraced your position and the Order." The Mercy spat. "Don't speak to me about what this coat means. Not when you put that thing above members of your own kind."
He tried again. "Phillipe, it's—" a flash of madness, or maybe brilliance came over him. "It's just a little boy. A half mortal boy. What could he possibly do?" He sucked in a plume of smoke that turned his last words into a splutter of coughs.
The Mercy scoffed. "That little boy will destroy everything."
Caylen grit his teeth as the flames brushed his cloak. Sweat ran down his forehead. Salt stung his eyes. The heat would kill the child long before the non-illusory Phillipe Pendragon could show up to murder them both.
He had to protect the child.
He pressed the silver gem inlaid in the cuff around his wrist. Eliza's last gift, stolen from the Unseelie King. Ice exploded from the gem, coating him and the child in layers of frost. The fire sylph screamed. Phillipe's face vanished from the flames.
He barreled through the fire and hoped the ice shield would be enough.
The ice faded as he pressed forward, and cold gave way to pain. Flames, everywhere, and still his shield thinned.
The new Mercy's voice thundered after him as he broke through the last line of fire and continued to run. "We will find you!"
What an exciting prologue! I can't wait to read more!