Forged by flames darkene.., p.1
Forged by Flames (Darkened Skies), page 1
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2023 by H.E. Bauman
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
First paperback edition June 2023
Cover design by MiblArt
Map by Cartographybird Maps
ISBN 978-1-7354553-7-2 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1-7354553-8-9 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-7354553-3-4 (ebook)
www.hebauman.com
Content Warning
Thank you for picking up Forged by Flames, the prequel to Under Darkened Skies.
This is a fantasy novel that follows Prince Varojin Auris from ages 18 to 26 as he navigates familial issues and fighting multiple wars.
The story includes themes and events that may not be suitable for some readers:
Fantasy and magical violence, including character deaths
References to parental death
Alcohol consumption
References to sex, including questioning by main character if he is asexual or allosexual
Nightmares
Grief and loss
Mildly disordered eating and exercising (not descriptive, tied to depression)
Verbal and physical abuse by authority and parental figures
Readers who may be sensitive to these elements, please take note. If you need to put the book down at any time (including now), please do so and take care of yourself.
If you have not read Under Darkened Skies (Darkened Skies #1) yet, it is highly recommended you read that read it before reading Forged by Flames.
To those just trying to survive
Contents
1. Part 1: Change
2. Chapter 1
3. Chapter 2
4. Chapter 3
5. Chapter 4
6. Chapter 5
7. Chapter 6
8. Part 2: Battle
9. Chapter 7
10. Chapter 8
11. Chapter 9
12. Chapter 10
13. Chapter 11
14. Chapter 12
15. Chapter 13
16. Chapter 14
17. Chapter 15
18. Part 3: Weapon
19. Chapter 16
20. Chapter 17
21. Chapter 18
22. Chapter 19
23. Chapter 20
24. Chapter 21
25. Chapter 22
26. Part 4: Home
27. Chapter 23
28. Chapter 24
Also by H.E. Bauman
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Part 1: Change
Chapter 1
Spring, Year 1012
Prince Varojin Auris didn’t need special treatment. He was perfectly content being treated just like every other person in all of Helosia.
But did his father have to treat him worse?
Jin’s jaw tightened as he finished packing his suitcase. He’d just turned eighteen a month ago. Twenty was, by law, the minimum age for enlistment. He was supposed to have two more years before he got sent off to his father’s skies forsaken military. But, Jin supposed, his father made the laws. That meant he could also break them whenever he wanted.
He’d been dreading this morning for a week, and it was finally here.
“Ready to go, Your Imperial Highness?” The voice was cool, removed. Oskar.
Jin slammed his suitcase shut and turned to his guard. “Can’t wait.”
Oskar didn’t react. He never reacted. “Would you like me to take your luggage, Your Imperial Highness?”
“No.”
Jin grabbed the suitcase and followed Oskar out of his apartment. He’d never needed the three rooms when he was a child, but he was going to miss this place. He’d lived at the palace since his birth, had been welcomed in despite the fact that he was the product of his father’s affair. He’d grown up here. Even if he didn’t love the bright colors—especially that Auris-family red woven into the details of the sitting room—Jin was going to miss it. After one last look over his shoulder, Jin closed the door behind him.
His half-siblings were all on this floor of the palace, safe and asleep in their own apartments. They’d all said their goodbyes the night before. His eldest brother, Apelo, had seemed appropriately sad. Kaius, older than Jin by a mere six months, hadn’t seemed sad at all. But Eliana, Jin’s younger sister, had actually been upset. He’d saved their goodbye for last, and he’d made her promise not to wake up in the morning to see him off. One tear-filled goodbye in private was enough. Another one out in the open would simply make their father angry. Emperor Aelius Auris hated tears.
The palace halls were empty, eerily quiet compared to the usual bustle of visitors and politicians. It was just Jin and Oskar this close to sunrise. Courtiers wouldn’t have yet made their way to the palace, and the palace staff had their own back corridors and stairways to use.
Even outside the palace walls, the world seemed to be waiting. The cool morning air was still. The usual faint sounds of city traffic were nonexistent. Even the seagulls, usually soaring overhead before making their way down to Tinale Bay, were absent.
It was like the stars knew what was about to happen.
A black car idled on the palace’s long drive, just a few dozen feet from the bottom of the front steps. The driver, a red-haired man whose name Jin didn’t know, stood at attention near the rear passenger door.
And at the bottom of the stairs stood Emperor Aelius Auris, watching as Jin descended. He hadn’t expected his father to look sad, but the man didn’t even look so much as worried. In fact, Jin swore Aelius’s eyes were a little brighter than normal.
Fuck you, Jin thought as he passed his father.
“I trust you have everything you need, Varojin?” Aelius asked as he fell into step with Jin.
“Yup.”
The driver opened the door for Jin, then lifted the brown suitcase from his hand. He brought it to the back of the car, opened the trunk, and set it inside.
Jin tried not to look in that direction. Truly, he did. But his traitorous eyes shifted anyway, focusing not on the driver but on the gray observatory tower peeking out from the garden’s tree line in the distance. His heart squeezed.
“I know you’re upset, Varojin,” Aelius said, drawing Jin’s attention back. “But this is for the best.”
Jin hadn’t planned on saying more than a simple goodbye to his father. He’d planned to keep this simple, swift. Cold, just like Oskar. Just like his father usually was.
Fuck plans.
“For the best?” Jin asked. “Please, Father, explain to me why this is for the best. Explain to me why you’re not sending me to university like Kaius. Explain to me why you’re breaking your own fucking laws to send me away.”
“This is your problem,” Aelius hissed. “I told you not to make a scene. You cannot follow simple orders.”
“Orders? I’m not some soldier for you to command!”
Aelius sniffed, his eyebrows raising almost imperceptibly. “You will be soon. Sergeant Koyalis might be the one to finally break you.”
“Break me?” Jin laughed, a dark sound. Behind him, the driver and Oskar both shifted on the gravel driveway. “Do you hear yourself? You want someone to break your child?”
Aelius’s jaw tightened; it was a habit Jin had picked up, too. He hated that about himself.
“Children do not speak to their parents with such disrespect.”
“Respect goes both ways.”
Jin was sure that would earn him some sort of punishment. While his father had never been an involved parent—neither with Jin nor his half-siblings—Aelius did love doling out punishments. Jin was the only one of the four Auris children who had ever been on the receiving end of their father’s magic, though. The lightning bolts of scars on the left side of his back were proof enough.
But now, his father simply stared at him. No flames. No lightning. No . . . anything.
“You are an Auris,” Aelius sneered as he inched closer to Jin. “You are a prince. You are a powerful mage. You will learn to start acting appropriately for your station.”
Jin lifted his chin. “And if I don’t?”
Aelius straightened and took a step back away from the car. “You have one year, Varojin. When you next step foot in this city, I expect you to be more like Kaius. Do not disappoint me more than you already have.”
A string of curses formed on the tip of Jin’s tongue as his father turned and walked away. Before he could shout any of them, Oskar stepped back in front of Jin, blocking the sight of Aelius’s retreat.
“You should be on your way, Your Imperial Highness,” Oskar said. “Your airship is scheduled to leave in half an hour.”
Jin looked east again, back toward the observatory tower. Should he try to convince Oskar to let him have just a few more minutes? Should he go try to wake Astrea up to somehow explain what was happening?
He’d known for weeks. He’d known this day was coming, but he hadn’t told anyone. His father hadn’t even told Jin’s siblings until just two days prior. But Jin hadn’t been able to bring himself to tell Astrea.
Astrea Sovna was his best friend.
He’d promised himself he wouldn’t try to tell her at the last minute. He’d also promised himself he wouldn’t fight with his father, and look how that had gone.
He had to keep this promise. It was for the best. It was for her.
“I’m ready,” Jin said as he finally looked back at Oskar.
His guard, the man who had been assigned to protect him when Jin was still just a small child, simply nodded. “Have a safe trip, Your Imperial Highness.”
And then Oskar, too, walked away without so much as a glance over his shoulder.
Jin slid into the backseat, flinching as the driver slammed the door shut behind him. And as the car started down the long palace driveway, Jin looked out the window facing east one more time.
Would he really make it those twelve months his father promised?
Jin wasn’t sure he would ever see this place again.
Chapter 2
Summer, Year 1012
Flames spun out from Jin’s hands in a torrent of heat and anger, consuming the bullet-sized pieces of earth headed straight for him. A water whip lashed at him from the right. Jin jumped back, skidding on the dusty floor of Fort Ironwing’s training center.
It had been almost three months since Jin left Kalama. Three months that he’d been away from his home, his family, and his friends. Being away from his family—except for Eliana—was a blessing, actually. Not seeing Kaius’s smug face every day was the best thing in the world.
But everything else was awful.
Another Fireweaver’s flames arced toward him from his left. Energy burned under Jin’s skin as he tore them from the other Fireweaver’s control and into his own. He pushed them back at the woman, the flames surging bright and hot.
“Focus!” a rough, unwelcome voice shouted.
Jin hated that voice. Sergeant Koyalis’s voice.
Koyalis advanced on Jin’s front. The Tidebacker and Fireweaver moved in from his right and left.
Jin tensed.
The water came from his right first, fire from his left half a heartbeat later. This he could handle. Jin shot his arms out to each side, fire bursting free in identical shields that protected him. The other mages didn’t relent. If he dropped his hands, his fire, he’d get hit.
And his front was fully open. Vulnerable. Focus.
Jin sucked in a deep breath as he pulled on that energy thrumming through his body. His fire roared to his right, consuming the water and heading straight for the Tidebacker. He didn’t look to see what happened. As soon as the water stopped, he angled his body toward the Fireweaver and pulled the flames from her control again. He’d practiced that thousands of times back home with his old fireweaving teachers.
Easy.
As he began redirecting the fire, something rough slammed into his shoulder. The fabric of his maroon training shirt tore. Earth ripped into his skin. Jin staggered back, flames faltering. A heavy rock struck him in the gut. Doubling over, Jin nearly vomited.
“What did I tell you about focusing?” Sergeant Koyalis sneered.
Jin glanced up at the older man. He knew that pose. The wide stance. The tight shoulders.
“Do I really need to teach you this lesson again, Private Auris?” Koyalis shouted, more earth hovering in the air in front of him. His sand-hued skin turned red with his rage. “You are an embarrassment to this camp! To your family! How many times do we have to go through this drill?”
Jin knew he shouldn’t say anything, but it didn’t matter anyway. Koyalis wasn’t done with him yet. “Fuck you.”
Koyalis punched forward. That floating rock barreled toward Jin. Despite his aching shoulder and abdomen, Jin moved, his flames roaring to life with little effort at all. They ate the rock just as something hard hit his good shoulder, then his knee.
Jin stumbled forward, pain flaring through his wrists as he caught himself before he faceplanted.
He hated this place.
You are a powerful mage. His father’s words from the morning Jin left Kalama still echoed in his mind every time he set foot in the training center. He was a powerful mage. He knew that. But as his trainers said, he lacked finesse. He lacked control and discipline and awareness. And they’d been beating that lesson into him day in and day out since he’d arrived at Fort Ironwing three months before.
Black boots stopped just in Jin’s line of sight. He looked up at Koyalis, the man’s brown eyes almost alight. That happened whenever Jin pissed him off.
“Your father will hear about this.”
Jin forced a smile. “Good.”
Koyalis’s eyes narrowed, then he barked over his shoulder, “Auris is heading to the healers. Whelan, you’re next! Come show everyone how it’s really done.”
Pushing to his feet, Jin staggered past Koyalis and out of the training ring. A group of privates stood there, their maroon uniforms identical to Jin’s. Some of them raised their eyebrows at him, while others whispered to each other.
He’d been training with these same people for months. All older than him by at least two years. All of them mages. None of them his friends. He’d hoped to at least make one friend while away from home. Just one. He hadn’t thought that was too much to hope for. But everyone else in his unit just avoided him when they could.
Almost everyone.
“Can’t handle the heat, Your Imperial Highness?” asked Whelan, a young Tempest, as he stepped toward the front of the group. “Daddy pampered you too much at the palace?”
Jin clenched his teeth as Whelan shoved past him, knocking him right in the shoulder that had just been injured.
This skies damned place. These skies damned people.
Ignoring the whispers of the others, Jin headed for the stairs that would take him to the infirmary.
This was the third time this week Jin had been sent to the healers. He winced as the Lightbringer leaning over his cot began to heal his right shoulder, the last injury that needed to be taken care of. Fucking Koyalis.
“Private Auris.” That soft, sing-song voice didn’t match the woman it belonged to. Lady Zephyrine Kanakos, also known as Colonel Kanakos to those at the camp.
“You’re good to go, Your Imperial Highness,” the Lightbringer, a middle-aged man with russet skin, said. He helped Jin sit up, fine lines forming around his purple eyes as he smiled. “Just take it easy for the rest of the day. Magic can only do so much.”
Jin nodded at the man; he didn’t know his name, though he’d seen him a couple of times this week. The healers were always rotating in and out of the camp, taking turns on the front lines. His father was still fighting the Zaikudi to the northeast, and the fighting was moving into the Macadian Mountains. Based on the few reports Jin had overheard, it was a stalemate. He didn’t know what they were fighting over. He wasn’t sure the two sides even knew what they were fighting over. Helosia and its neighbors were constantly fighting over something.
“Colonel Kanakos.” Jin rotated his shoulder, surprised when it moved without even the smallest twinge. That healer did great work. “Does Sergeant Koyalis want me back in the ring?”
“I have no idea what Koyalis wants, nor do I care.”
Zephyrine was a strange sight in this place, and it wasn’t because of her stark white hair at her young age. No, it was because she was a noblewoman and eldest child. Usually, only a family’s younger children—the less important ones—ended up here, if nobles even ended up here at all. She’d transferred in a month ago, and after the handful of run-ins he’d had with Zephyrine, Jin had decided he liked her best of all the officers. She wasn’t warm, but her reputation said she was fair.
“Then what can I help you with?” he asked.
