Exile of the Seas by Jeffe Kennedy Book Tour and Giveaway :)
Exile of the Seas
Chronicles
of Dasnaria #2
by
Jeffe Kennedy
Genre:
Dark Fantasy
Pub
Date: 9/4/18
Around
the shifting borders of the Twelve Kingdoms, trade and conflict,
danger and adventure put every traveler on guard . . . but some have
everything to lose.
ESCAPED
Once
she was known as Jenna, Imperial Princess of Dasnaria, schooled in
graceful dance and comely submission. Until the man her parents
married her off to almost killed her with his brutality.
Now,
all she knows is that the ship she’s boarded is bound away from her
vicious homeland. The warrior woman aboard says Jenna’s skill in
dancing might translate into a more lethal ability. Danu’s fighter
priestesses will take her in, disguise her as one of their own—and
allow her to keep her silence.
But
it’s only a matter of time until Jenna’s monster of a husband
hunts her down. Her best chance to stay hidden is to hire out as
bodyguard to a caravan traveling to a far-off land, home to beasts
and people so unfamiliar they seem like part of a fairy tale. But her
supposed prowess in combat is a fraud. And sooner or later, Jenna’s
flight will end in battle—or betrayal . . .
Chapter 1
I crept up to the Valeria’s deck
in the predawn dark to watch the sun rise. Though I felt safer, and
smarter, keeping to the confines of my cabin, this one excursion had
become a sort of habit. I clung to the small rituals, the basic
routine I’d been able to establish. Otherwise, I was as unmoored
and unanchored as the Valeria on her long ocean journey,
sailing over unfathomable depths to unimaginable lands. Perhaps this was the nature of exile:
that all the thrust was in the escape, the moving away. After that,
what did you have? If I am any example—and I’m the only example I
had—then the answer was not much at all. I did have my habits, though. The Valeria was powerful in a
way I wasn’t and would likely never be. Ideally suited to her
environment, an extension of the waves and master of them, she
possessed a singular direction and purpose. The very things I lacked.
Thus, I’d become oddly grateful and attached to the ship, inanimate
though she was. As long as I was aboard the Valeria, she
provided purpose and direction for me. I clung to her the way an
infant burrowed into her mother’s breast, murmuring fervent prayers
of thankfulness that she hadn’t shrugged me off to drown in the
cold, uncaring sea. Mostly I kept to my cabin. The servant
boys and girls brought my meals and fresh water, took away my waste,
and otherwise left me alone. It had been easy to adjust to being
waited on, as I had been my whole life, and I would’ve been at a
loss to put together more than the most basic meal for myself. I
wouldn’t let them come in otherwise, which was a new freedom and
power I enjoyed flexing. No servants in the walls here, listening to
my every movement. And I felt better with the door barred, even
though it was only one thin, wooden thing against the world. A world
of a sailing ship on a vast, unknowable ocean. I slept a lot. Which was good because
my body began to heal more. And I danced, to relieve the boredom and
to encourage flexibility, so I’d heal strong. Dancing felt
familiar, too. Something I could do alone in the dim cabin, one of
the few things left that remind me of who I’d been. No matter how much I slept, though, I
always awoke early. Well before they brought my breakfast at the
seventh bell. In the darkness of my cabin, I marked time by the
watch’s bells, practicing the simple count from the longest toll at
midnight to the dawn call. I woke. Listened for the six bells. Then
unbarred my door, made sure the passage remained empty, and slipped
out. A sort of daily exercise in escape. Moving silently down the passageway of
closed doors, I allowed myself to exult in that ability, one I’d
never expected to be what saved my life. All those years I practiced
the traditional dances, particularly the ducerse, which required
utmost skill to keep the many bells from making sound until the
precisely timed moment. I’d thought I was preparing to dazzle my
husband and make my emperor proud. Not teaching myself stealth. But stealth had turned out to be far
more useful. It let me keep to the shadows, unnoticed. In my brother
Harlan’s too-big clothes, my hair shorn into a short fluff, I
looked nothing like Her Imperial Highness Princess Jenna of Dasnaria.
If anyone on this foreign ship had ever heard of that doomed girl.
Nevertheless, I wrapped myself in the thick wool cloak, pulling the
cowl deep around my face. It made me feel safer, for no good reason,
and I needed it for the chill. After a lifetime in the cloistered
warmth of the seraglio, it seemed I’d never be warm again. On deck, the sky shone with incipient
day. I hadn’t understood this before, that the sky lightens in
color before the sun appears. The paintings never show it that way.
They depict night or day, sometimes sunrise or sunset, but never
those moments before or after. But predawn is different than night,
and in its soft in-between-ness, I could see well enough. Keeping to the edges like a cat might,
I skirted the main paths the sailors traveled as they did their jobs.
It meant I picked my way through the ropes, barrels, and other
supplies lashed to the deck, but I viewed that as another way to
improve my dexterity, especially in the clunky boots I couldn’t
seem to get used to. In my cabin, I went barefoot, which felt natural
and right, but going on deck, I put on shoes like I wore the cloak.
The more covering, the better. It had been nearly a week, but I
harbored no illusions about my ignorance of the world outside. I had
no idea how long I would have to run, or how far I’d have to travel
to escape my pursuers. I’d been unforgivably stupid about this in
the past, so it seemed the only wise choice would be to assume that
no amount of time or distance would be enough. At least that gave me a guideline.
Never and nowhere might be places without finite boundaries, but I
could understand them. The goats mewed at me from their pen
next to the chickens as I passed, making the sounds so oddly like the
newborn kittens in the seraglio of the Imperial Palace, where I grew
up. I stopped to scratch the little horns on their heads, their fur
soft and scraggly against my fingers. We’d become friends on this
journey. Goats and the Valeria—they kept me alive and kept
my secrets.
Prisoner of the Crown
Chronicles
of Dasnaria #1
She
was raised to be beautiful, nothing more. And then the rules changed
. . .
In
icy Dasnaria, rival realm to the Twelve Kingdoms, a woman’s role is
to give pleasure, produce heirs, and question nothing. But a plot to
overthrow the emperor depends on the fate of his eldest daughter. And
the treachery at its heart will change more than one carefully
limited life . . .
The
Gilded Cage
Princess
Jenna has been raised in supreme luxury—and ignorance. Within the
sweet-scented, golden confines of the palace seraglio, she’s never
seen the sun, or a man, or even learned her numbers. But she’s been
schooled enough in the paths to a woman’s power. When her betrothal
is announced, she’s ready to begin the machinations that her mother
promises will take Jenna from ornament to queen.
But
the man named as Jenna’s husband is no innocent to be cozened or
prince to charm. He’s a monster in human form, and the horrors of
life under his thumb are clear within moments of her wedding vows. If
Jenna is to live, she must somehow break free—and for one born to a
soft prison, the way to cold, hard freedom will be a dangerous path
indeed…
I
grew up in paradise. Tropically
warm, lushly beautiful, replete with luxury, my childhood world was
without flaw. My least whim was met with immediate indulgence, served
instantly and with smiles of delight. I swam in crystal clear waters,
then napped on silk. I chased gorgeously ornamental fish and birds,
and enjoyed dozens of perfectly behaved pets of unusual coloring and
pedigrees. My siblings and I spent our days in play, nothing ever
asked or expected of us. Until
the day everything was demanded—and taken—from me. Only
then did I finally see our paradise for what it was, how deliberately
designed to mold and shape us. A breeding ground for luxurious
accessories. To create a work of art, you grow her in an environment
of elegance and beauty. To make her soft and lusciously
accommodating, you surround her with delicacies and everything
delightful. And you don’t educate her in anything but being
pleasing. Education
leads to critical thinking, not a desirable trait in a princess of
Dasnaria, thus I was protected from anything that might taint the
virginity of my mind, as well as my body. Because
I’d understood so little of the world outside, when my time came to
be plucked from the garden, when the snip of the shears severed me
from all I’d known, the injury came as a shock so devastating that
I had no ability to even understand what it meant, much less summon
the will to resist and overcome. Which, I’ve also come to realize
over time, was also a part of the deliberate design. But
I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me go back to the beginning. I
grew up in paradise. And
it was all you’d imagine paradise to be. A soft palace of lagoons
and lush gardens, of silk bowers and laughter. With little else to
do, our mothers and the other ladies played with us, games both
simple and extravagantly layered. When we tired, we napped on the
velvet soft grass of the banks of the pools, or on the silk pillows
scattered everywhere. We’d sleep until we awoke, eat the tidbits
served us by watchful servant girls, then play more. Hestar
and I had our own secret games and language. All the ladies called us
the royal pair, as we were the emperor’s firstborns and we’d been
born less than a month apart. My
mother, first wife, the Empress Hulda, and the most highly ranked
woman in the empire, spent much of her day at court. When she was
home in the seraglio, she preferred to relax without noisy children
to bother her. Hestar’s mother, Jilliya, was second wife and kept
getting pregnant, forever having and sometimes losing the babies. So,
by unspoken agreement, we kept clear of her apartments, too.
Something else I understood much later, that the miasma of misery has
its own brand of contagion—and that those who fear contracting the
deadly disease stay far away. Saira,
on the other hand, third wife and mother of our half-sister Inga, had
a kindness and sweetness to her, so we kids often played in her
apartments when we grew bored of games like climbing the palm trees
to see who could pluck the most dates while a servant counted the
time. Inga, along with my full brother, Kral, were the second oldest
pair—the second-borns,
also arriving in the same month, to my mother and Saira. Less than a
year younger than Hestar and me, they completed our set of four. Our
six other brothers and sisters played with us, too, but they were
babies still, needing to be watched all the time. Whenever we could,
the four of us ditched the babies, exploring the far corners of our
world, then making hideouts where no one could find us. Though,
of course, when the least desire took our fancy, someone always
appeared instantaneously to satisfy us. Another of the many illusions
of my childhood. Hestar
and I, we had a cave we’d made under a clump of ferns. He’d
stocked it with a box of sweetmeats and I’d stolen one of my
mother’s silk throws for a carpet. Embroidered with fabulous
animals, it told tales of a world beyond our corner of paradise. We
loved it best of all our purloined treasures, and made up stories
about the scenes and creatures, giving them names and convoluted
histories. One
day—the kind that stands out with crystalline clarity, each detail
incised in my memory—we played as usual. Hestar had been
mysteriously gone for a while the day before, or perhaps several days
before or for several days in a row. That part fogs in with the
timelessness of those days that never ended, but blended one into the
next. What I remember is the elephant. “And
the miskagiggle flapped its face tail, saying nooo—” “It’s
called an elephant,” Hestar interrupted me. “What
is?” “It’s
not a miskagiggle. It’s an elephant, and the face tail is a trunk.” Hestar
beamed with pride at knowing something I didn’t. “You’re
making that up.” “No,
I’m not! My tutor told me.” “What’s
that?” “A
teacher. My tutor is named Ser Llornsby.” “Is
that where you went?” Hestar and Kral had been whisked off by
servants, and no one would tell me or Inga where they were, just that
we’d see them again soon. Hestar’s
blue eyes went wide and he looked around to see if anyone was
listening. “Want to know a secret?” Oh,
did I. Even then I understood that secrets were the carefully hoarded
and counted currency of the seraglio. “Yes!” We
pulled the silk throw over our heads to make a tent. It was the usual
grass beneath, so we didn’t really need the carpet. Having it just
made our hideaway more special—and the throw became a blanket,
excellent for exchanging secrets. “We
went through the doors!” Hestar told me, whispering but much too
loudly. I
hushed him. I didn’t question how I knew, but this secret held
power. Most of our secrets had been silly, frivolous things, like how
Inga kept candied dates under her pillow. Or ones everyone already
knew, like that Jilliya was pregnant again. With the unabashed
enthusiasm of children, we absorbed all the murmured gossip and
repeated it with equal relish. This, though—I recognized
immediately how important it was. No
wonder no one would tell us where they’d gone. Children didn’t go
through the doors. Only my mother and some of the women. The
rekjabrel and other servants, they went in and out all the time. But
a lot of times they came back crying or hurt, so we understood the
doors led to a terrible place. And yet Hestar had gone and returned,
beaming. “Was
it terrible? Were you scared? Did Kral go, too?” Hestar
nodded, solemnly. “We were brave boys though. And it’s not like
here. There aren’t the lagoons and it’s not as warm. They took us
to a library and we met Ser Llornsby. We looked at pictures and
learned animal names.” I
couldn’t bring myself to ask what a library might be. I wanted to
look at pictures and learn animal names. Though I didn’t know the
emotion to name it at the time, a jab of envy lanced through my
heart. Hestar and I always had everything the same, only I had the
better mother, because she was first wife. It wasn’t fair that
Hestar got to go through the doors and learn things without me. An
elephant. I whispered the exotic word to myself. “Elephants
are huge and people ride on their backs, and the elephants carry
things for them in their trunks.” Hestar continued, full of smug
pride. “Ser Llornsby is going to teach me everything I need to know
to be emperor someday.” “Why
do you get to be emperor? My mother is first wife. Yours is only
second wife. Besides, I’m older.” Hestar
wrinkled his nose at me. “Because you’re a girl. Girls can’t be
emperor. Only empress.” That
was true. It was the way of things. “Well then you can be emperor
and I can be empress like Mother.” “All
right!” Hestar grinned. “We’ll rule the whole empire and have
lots of elephants. Kral and Inga can be our servants.” For
the rest of the day we played emperor and empress. Kral and Inga got
mad and decided they would be emperor and empress, too, not listening
when we said there could only be one of each and we were firstborn so
they had to be our servants. They went off to play their own game,
but we got Helva to be in our court, and also her little brothers,
Leo and Loke. The boys were identical twins and liked any game they
could play together. Baby Harlan could barely toddle, so he stayed
with his nurse. Ban went off with Inga, of course, as he followed her
everywhere, but her full brother, Mykal came to our side. We
didn’t care, because our court was the biggest. Besides, everyone
knew the emperor gets to pick his own empress, and Hestar already
promised me I’d be first wife and I could pick his other wives,
just like Mother did. Which meant Inga wouldn’t get to be one.
Maybe not Helva, either, though I told her she would be. Mother
didn’t much care for Saira and Jilliya, so maybe I wouldn’t have
other wives at all. I didn’t need them to be empress. Playing
emperor and empress turned out to be terribly fun. Hestar made me a
crown of orchids and we took over one of the small eating salons,
getting the servants to clear out the table and pillows, instead
setting up two big chairs to be our thrones. His Imperial Majesty
Emperor Einarr Konyngrr, our father, had a throne. So we’d heard.
And we badgered one of the rekjabrel who’d served in the court to
tell us what it looked like. “Huge,
Your Imperial Highnesses,” she said, keeping her eyes averted. “It
towers above, all platinum and crystal, so bright you can’t look
upon it. I can’t say more.” “What
about the Empress’s throne?” I persisted. “Just
the one throne, Your Imperial Highness Princess Jenna.” “That
can’t be right,” I told Hestar, when we let the rekjabrel go.
“She must not have seen properly.” “We
don’t have platinum anyway,” he replied. So
we decorated the two big chairs, which ended up taking a long time.
They needed to be sparkling, which meant we needed jewels. Leo and
Loke were good at persuading bangles off the ladies, but then didn’t
like to give them up. By the time we chased them down and got
everything decorated, we had only a little time to have actual court.
When my nurse, Kaia, came to get me for my bath, we made all the
servants promise to leave everything as it was. “Kaia?”
I asked, splashing at the warmed milk water as she poured the jasmine
rinse through my hair. “Yes,
Princess?” “Have
you seen an elephant?” She
laughed. “No, Princess. I’ve never heard of such a thing. Is this
one of your games?” “No—they’re
real. Their face-tails are called trunks.” “If
you say so, Princess.” I
fumed a little. How could I find out more about elephants when no one
even believed they were real? “When do I get to go through the
doors and look at pictures of animals and learn their names?” Kaia
dropped the pitcher of jasmine water, breaking it on the tiles. I
would have scolded her for clumsiness, but she had such an odd look
on her face that I stopped mid-word. “Where
have you heard of such a thing, Princess?” She had her head bowed,
but with her scalp shorn, she couldn’t hide her face. She’d gone
white, her eyes squinched up like she hurt. Just like that time
Mother accused her of drinking from her special teapot, and had Kaia
lashed until she confessed. Kaia had cried and cried, not wanting to
play with me for days afterward. But this time she didn’t have any
blood, so I didn’t understand why she went all pale like that. “Hestar
got to go. And Kral, too, and he’s younger. I want to go. I command
you to take me tomorrow.” “Your
Imperial Highness, I cannot.” “You
will or I’ll tell Mother.” “Up
and out, Princess,” she replied, dumping the shards into a waste
bin, then holding out a towel. “We must address this with Her
Imperial Majesty. You can ask her in person.” She
dried me off, too briskly, and I almost reprimanded her, but she
still looked so scared and I didn’t want her to not play with me
for days again. “I already said goodnight to Mother.” Mother
didn’t like to be disturbed after goodnights, and the prospect
began to make me a little afraid, too. Kaia
wrapped my hair in a towel, then rubbed me all over with jasmine
scented unguent. She worked as thoroughly as always, but wouldn’t
answer any more questions, simply saying that I could ask my mother
momentarily. She
pulled my nightgown over my head and had me put on a robe, too, which
wasn’t usual. And we went with my hair still damp, not carefully
combed dry before the fire while she told me stories. I
didn’t want to miss my stories and I began to be afraid I’d said
something terribly wrong. I’d known this was an important secret.
How could I have been so careless? It was the elephant. “Let’s
not go see Mother,” I said. Kaia
shook her head, pressing her lips together. “I apologize, Princess,
but I’m afraid we must.” “I
don’t want to. Tell me my stories. My hair is still wet.” But
she didn’t bend, which scared me even more. Kaia always did what I
told her. Almost always. She took my hand in a grip so firm it nearly
hurt and practically dragged me to Mother’s private salon. I
resisted, and would have thrown a fit, but Mother wouldn’t like
that. An imperial princess gives commands in a firm and gentle voice,
never shrill, and tears
are unacceptable. Still,
when Kaia called out through the closed yellow silk curtains, and my
mother snapped out a reply, I nearly did cry. And Kaia didn’t
relent in her grip, which made me think she was angry with me and
Kaia was never angry, even when I refused to eat my supper and
demanded dessert instead. She parted the curtains and slipped me
inside, kneeling beside me and bowing her head to the plush
tapestried carpet. I lowered my eyes, too, though I didn’t have to
kneel. “Well?”
the empress demanded in a cold tone. “What is the meaning of this,
child?” “My
humble apologies, Your Imperial Majesty,” Kaia said, though Mother
had clearly asked me. Her voice shook and her hand had gone all cold
and sweaty. I yanked mine away and she let me. “Her Imperial
Highness Princess Jenna has asked me questions I cannot answer. I
thought it best to bring her to you immediately.” “It’s
not your responsibility to think,” Mother replied. A hissing sound
as she breathed in her relaxing smoke. “You are to keep the
princess well groomed, as she most certainly is not at the moment.
Your hair is wet, Jenna.” A
tear slipped down my cheek, making me glad that I was to keep my eyes
averted unless given permission. Maybe she wouldn’t see. “I’m
sorry, Mother,”
I whispered. “As
well you should be. Interrupting my quiet time. Going about like a
rekjabrel with wild hair. Are you a princess of Dasnaria?” “Yes,
Your Imperial Majesty.” She
hmphed in derision. “You don’t look like one. What question did
you ask to upset your nurse so?” Kaia
had gone silent, quaking on the carpet beside me. No help at all. I
considered lying, saying Kaia had made it up. But Mother wouldn’t
believe that. Kaia would never so recklessly attract punishment. I
happened to know she hadn’t snuck the tea—one of the rekjabrel
had taken it for her sister, but Kaia had never said. “Jenna,”
Mother said, voice like ice. “Look at me.” I
did, feeling defiant, for no good reason. Mother reclined on her
pillows, her embroidered silk gown a river of blues over their ruby
reds. Her unbound hair flowed over it all, a pale blond almost ivory,
like mine. In contrast, her eyes looked black as ebony, darker even
than the artful shadows outlining them. She’d removed most of her
jewelry, wearing only the wedding bracelets that never came off. She
held her glass pipe in her jeweled nails. The scarlet of her lip
paint left a waxy mark on the end of it, scented smoke coiling from
the bowl. “Tears?”
Her voice dripped contempt and disbelief. “What could you possibly
have said to have your nurse in a puddle and an imperial princess in
tears, simply in anticipation?” “I
didn’t say anything!” I answered. “Your
nurse is lying then,” the empress cooed. “I shall have to punish
her.” Kaia
let out this noise, like the one Inga’s kitten had made when Ban
kicked it. The ladies had taken it to a better home and Inga had
cried for days until they gave her five new kittens just like it. “I
only asked about the elephants,” I said, very quietly. “Excuse
me?” The arch of her darkened brows perfectly echoed her tone. “Elephants!”
I yelled at her, and burst into full-fledged sobbing. If you’d
asked me then, what made me break all those rules, raising my voice,
defying my mother, losing the composure expected of an imperial
princess, firstborn daughter of Emperor Einarr, I likely could only
have explained that I wanted to know about elephants so badly that it
felt like a physical
ache. Something extraordinary for a girl who’d rarely experienced
pain of any sort. Once
I’d had a pet, an emerald lizard with bright yellow eyes. Its
scales felt like cool water against my skin, and it would wrap its
tail tightly around my wrist. I’d only had it a day when it bit me.
Astonished by the bright pain, the
blood flowing from my finger, I’d barely registered that I’d been
hurt before the servants descended, wrapping the wound in bandages
soaked in sweet smelling salve that took sensation away. They
also took the lizard away and wouldn’t give it back, despite my
demands and pleas. When the salve wore off, my finger throbbed. And
when they took the bandages off, the skin around the bite had turned
a fascinating purple and gray. They tried to keep me from looking,
but I caught glimpses before they made it numb again, then wrapped it
up and I couldn’t see it anymore. I’d tap my finger against
things, trying to feel it again. My finger and the lizard, both gone. I
felt like that, full of purple bruising and soft pain, as if I’d
been bitten inside, and somehow numb on the outside. I wondered what
might disappear this time. “Elephants,”
my mother pronounced the word softly, almost in wonder. Then
she laughed, not at all nicely. “Leave us,” she snapped, making
Kaia scurry backwards. “It’s apparently time for me to have a
conversation about life with my daughter.”
Jeffe Kennedy is an award-winning author with a writing career that spans decades. She lives in Santa Fe, with two Maine Coon cats, a border collie, plentiful free-range lizards and a Doctor of Oriental Medicine. Jeffe can be found online at JeffeKennedy.com, or every Sunday at the popular Word Whores blog.
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