Heart of the Hunter

  HEART OF THE

  HUNTER

  Dragon Chalice Series

  ~ Book 1 ~

  by

  Lara Adrian

  (writing as Tina St. John)

  Heart of the Hunter: Dragon Chalice Series - Book 1

  Author’s Edition eBook

  (c) 2012 by Lara Adrian, LLC

  First published June 2004 by Ballantine/Ivy Books, a division of Random House

  Original Print Copyright 2004 by Tina St. John

  Reissue Copyright 2012 by Lara Adrian, LLC

  eBook Published by Lara Adrian, LLC, 2012

  eBook Cover Art Copyright by Hot Damn Designs

  All rights reserved. No part of this work may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Author.

  www.LaraAdrian.com

  Contents

  Cover Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  A note from the author

  Heart of the Flame

  Heart of the Dove

  Bibliography

  Prologue

  In a time long ago, before man knew what it was to keep time, there existed a place where light, faith, peace, and prosperity reigned. That place was called Anavrin, a kingdom of mist and magic. A secret world that thrived for untold centuries, it remained hidden away from the mortal plane that surrounded it like so much shifting sand. Anavrin's people knew nothing of what lay on the other side of the veil that separated their secret kingdom from the world Outside. They lived in perpetual summer, knowing no pain or fear or vice. They knew nothing of human frailty or wickedness...that is, until an Anavrin princess made the tragic mistake of falling in love with a mortal man.

  Her brother was King, and his Queen and lady wife had just given birth to their first child, beginning a strong new branch of Anavrin royalty. As was tradition, the babe's arrival would be sanctified with a drink from the sacred cup of Anavrin: the Dragon Chalice, wrought of gold and bejeweled with four enchanted stones. The princess was honored to be the maiden chosen to fill the cup from the virgin well, a holy spring that flowed from a woodland waterfall marking the space between Anavrin and the Outside like a curtain of dark glass.

  Alone at the well, the princess heard a strange sound carrying over the rush of the falls. It was the sound of a man--a mortal man, wounded and moaning on the other side of the water. The princess knew no fright or anguish, but she knew compassion, and she wanted to help ease this man's suffering. She called to him, and was surprised to find that he heard her. Indeed, he could hear her, but the sheltering wall of the waterfall concealed her from his sight, as it had concealed all of Anavrin through the ages. He beseeched her to come out of hiding and help him, assuring her that he meant her no harm. The princess knew it was forbidden to interact with folk from the Outside; unthinkable to pass the barrier of the falls. But the man's pain caused a peculiar ache in her breast that was too great to ignore.

  Setting the sacred Chalice beside the well, she approached the rushing waterfall and stepped to the Outside. To her dismay, the man's injury was worse than she could have imagined. He was dying; she could see it in his fierce, but dulling, blue gaze. She wiped a shock of sweat-soaked golden hair from his brow, unveiling a face of breathtaking appeal. He was beautiful, and she fell in love with him at once. She had to help him, but she knew not what to do. He begged her for water, but the scant handfuls she drew from the falls' pool did little to quench his thirst.

  The princess recalled the Dragon Chalice, filled with water from the sacred well and now sitting some half-dozen paces past Anavrin's threshold. There was power in that jewel-encrusted cup, power enough, perhaps, to help the man who lay bleeding in her arms. She could not bring the Chalice to him, for well was it known that a terrible ill would befall Anavrin if ever the cup was lost. Indeed, it was said that a black and dangerous dragon would be unleashed upon the kingdom should they ever lose the cup and its protective powers. In order to save the man as she so desperately wanted to do, the princess would have to bring him to the Chalice. She would have to bring him into Anavrin itself.

  Certain it was the right thing to do--the only thing to do--the princess urged the man to his feet and helped him toward the falls. He was too weak to question her purpose, too weak to understand the extraordinary gift she meant to give him. The princess fed him from the Chalice and the man drank as if he had gone a lifetime without water. He drank until the color returned to his face, until the wound that tore him open ceased to bleed, then, at last, began to heal. His strength returned, the man started to draw himself to his feet. It was then that the King and half of Anavrin came thundering into the glade.

  They saw the Outsider standing there, embracing the princess in his tattered, bloodstained clothes, and knew at once what she had done. The man was brought back to the royal castle and made to feel a guest in the lavish royal chambers, but behind closed doors, the King searched for a means to be rid of him. Anavrin's wise old mage brought an answer. The Outsider would be given a second drink from the Chalice, this time containing a potion that would erase all memory of the day's events. He would recall nothing of Anavrin, nothing of the princess or how she had spared his life. While the man dozed, he could be returned to the Outside none the wiser.

  Upon hearing of the King's intention, the princess pleaded with him to allow the man to stay at Anavrin. She begged him as her brother to bind the man to her, pleading that he allow her to wed the Outsider. But the King would not hear of it. He warned her that she knew nothing of this man, that to permit him to stay was to put all of Anavrin in jeopardy. As planned, the King arranged to have the Dragon Chalice waiting for the man that evening at table.

  What he did not expect was that his obedient sister would defy him.

  Unable to bear the thought that she would lose her beloved, the princess had warned the man not to drink from the Chalice that night. She told him that she would wait for him in secret, and together they would flee Anavrin to be together on the Outside. Her beloved did not keep her waiting for long. With a mad ruckus of shouts and boot falls following on his heels, the man burst from the castle's great hall and swept her along as they ran out to the yard and on, into the darkening woods. The princess knew the way to the well, and, within a few breathless moments, they stood hand in hand in the mist of the falls. With scarcely a backward glance, the princess leapt with the man through the waterfall, leaving behind all that she knew of Anavrin.

  Nay, not all, she realized but a heartbeat later.

  For bundled neatly under the man's arm was the sacred Dragon Chal
ice. The bejeweled vessel that had been forged for the first King of Anavrin an eon before, its four vibrant stones said to ensure the very life of Anavrin itself. Now those stones glowed with unholy fire beneath the rag that concealed the cup. The princess knew a jolt of unfamiliar alarm as she watched the Outsider unwrap the Chalice. For the first time in all of her interminable existence, she knew fear. She tasted regret, but alas, too late.

  The cup seemed to hum with a peculiar pulsing power, causing the man's hand to tremble as he fought to keep hold of his stolen prize. Violently, the cup shook and tumbled out of his grasp to hang suspended before him. The four stones glowed more fiercely. A shot of light seemed to grow out of the center of the Chalice, so strong it fractured the treasure apart at its core. No longer a single cup, but four--each bearing one of the glowing stones--now twined together in a halo of blinding light, twisting and climbing high above the heads of the princess and the Outsider. The man tried to grab them back, but their light was too pure, too fiery. In a sudden flash, the treasure burst into vapor and simply vanished.

  For the rest of his days, the Outsider lamented the loss of the Chalice. He blamed the princess for the trick that stole it away from him, but she knew nothing of the magic that had occurred. A brigand and a scoundrel, the Outsider did not believe her. Nor did he wed her, but he bred his mortal whelps on her and drove himself to madness with tales told over too much wine of a kingdom spun of gold and a jeweled cup that gave him life renewed when he was as good as dead.

  Over time, his drunken ramblings grew legs of their own, feeding rumors that the Dragon Chalice and its four mystical stones did, in fact, exist--if scattered to opposite corners of the realm. It was suggested that the man who reunited the Chalice, bringing the four parts to the whole, would be granted immortality. Indeed, legend stated that he would have wealth and happiness beyond imagining, for to claim the Dragon Chalice was to win the key to Anavrin itself.

  For some, the legend was nothing more than a fairy story, the fantastic delusion of a penniless sot who was not worth his own spittle. Others believed the Chalice to be the possible salvation of mankind, a gift to be recovered and cherished as the holiest of relics. For still others, the Dragon Chalice and its secrets were very real...and there were those among that number who would stop at nothing to have it for their own.

  Chapter 1

  February, 1275

  Winter bore down on London like a great winged beast. Howling and angry, it darkened the midday sky as it swooped in off the sea, clawing at the town with ice-sharp talons of frigid cold, and spitting a heavy, wet rain. Lady Ariana of Clairmont clutched the edge of her hooded fur mantle and drew it close to her face as she and her riding companion urged their mounts toward one of several snow-drifted dockside taverns. Clouds of gray wood smoke belched out of a stone chimney that braced the side of the squat establishment, indicating the warmth to be had inside, but there was little else to recommend the place from what Ariana could see.

  The tavern's sole window had been shuttered and nailed tight in an effort to combat the cold; the wet, weather-beaten boards rattled in weak protest as another blustery gale blew down to assail them. The winter storm had driven everyone of sense to seek shelter until the worst of it passed. Now the street and its surrounding shops and buildings seemed all but deserted, save a few ragged souls who looked to have nowhere else to go. Ariana wished to be out of the cold, too, but her appointment here was of the utmost importance and she could not let a little wind and sleet keep her from her meeting.

  Her brother's life depended on it.

  She pivoted in her saddle to address the knight who rode beside her, speaking at nearly a shout to be heard over the swirling winds and stinging rain. "Are you certain this is the place, James?"

  "Aye, my lady. The Cock and Cup, above Queenhithe, just like he said." The Clairmont guard lifted his leather-gauntleted hand and pointed to a snow-spattered, icicle-fringed sign that banged and creaked over the tavern door. "Our Monsieur Ferrand seemed a merchant of some means. Would that he'd chosen a more suitable location for this final meeting. This place looks more a stew than public house."

  "Never mind what it looks like," Ariana replied, despite that she shared James's misgiving. "We won't be long delayed here, after all. Just time enough to deliver our passage fee and accompany the Monsieur to his ship at the docks below."

  James grunted, then led her toward a small stable adjacent to the tavern. They would leave their horses there while they met with the Paris merchantman who had agreed, for a not insignificant price, to transport them across the Channel to France on the morrow. As they left the covered shelter and dashed for the tavern, James issued a fatherly warning. "Stay well near me once we're inside, my lady. I don't know what that beady-eyed Frenchman is scheming, but methinks 'tis beginning to smack of treachery."

  Her gloved hands under her cloak for warmth, Ariana felt for the small purse affixed to her girdle. Their passage fee to France--indeed, all of the coin she could scrape together for this sudden, clandestine trip--jingled in the bottom of that modest pouch as she followed close behind James, her booted feet sloshing through the snow and mud. Slung over her shoulder on a thick leather strap and knocking against her hip as she ran was a different purse, this one larger, heavier, the contents far more valuable. For this second satchel contained the sole purpose for her risky, unseasonable travel. The reason she left Clairmont to brave the arduous ride to London and now found herself willing to put her fate in the hands of a man like Monsieur Ferrand de Paris.

  Simply put, she had no choice.

  Her brother, Kenrick, had not returned from an autumn trip to the Continent, but it was not until a ransom demand arrived at Clairmont just a sennight ago that Ariana understood the reason for his delay. He was being held captive by enemies she knew nothing about, powerful enemies who had taken an interest in something Kenrick had been studying. Ariana had but a mere month's time to assemble and deliver his ransom in secret, or her beloved brother would be killed. Meeting these considerable demands would be a difficult task enough in fair weather, next to impossible when winter was full upon the realm.

  But she would not fail him. Kenrick had always been there for her, from the time she was a child. Her best ally, dearest friend. She would not fail him now. God help her, she could not.

  Ariana silently intoned the vow as James paused at the tavern door. "Stay close," he repeated, then clutched the iron latch in his gloved fist and pushed the thick panel open with his shoulder to let her past.

  A gust of wind all but blew Ariana into the lamplit gloom of the tavern. The whistling gale seized the hem of her mantle as she crossed the threshold, whipping it about like an unlashed sail. Slick, wet snow swirled in at her feet, adding to a muddy puddle of water that had collected on the tread-worn dip in the floor just beyond the door--a puddle she did not see until she stood in it, her sodden boots taking on even more water in the long moment it took for her toes to feel the added cold. She dared not cry out as she stepped aside of the chilly puddle, perhaps because she was too tired. Perhaps because she was loath to call more attention to her arrival in the smoky, surprisingly crowded tavern.

  As it was, a good number of heads were already raised from their cups, too many pairs of eyes rooting on the young noblewoman in the fox-lined cloak who no doubt looked as though she ought to know better than to wander this far down into the docklands of the city. Ariana removed her hood and swallowed her sudden trepidation. She squared her shoulders in a pose she hoped conveyed confidence, but she was very grateful for James's solid bulk at her back as he pulled the door closed behind him, then came to stand protectively beside her. From the corner of her eye, she saw him hook his mantle around the hilt of his sheathed sword, a clear statement that anyone with designs on her would have to first get through him.

  James nodded a curt greeting to the tavern keeper. "Ferrand de Paris?"

  "Aye. Over there, sir," came the reply, accompanied by a jerk of the old man's grizzl
ed chin.

  Ariana followed the gesture with her gaze, toward a table in the corner of the room. The rotund, greasy-faced French merchant was engaged in conversation with another man who was seated on a bench across from him, a broad shouldered giant with wind-tousled, overlong hair that gleamed as dark and glossy as the richest sable against the pale gray wool of his tunic.

  His back was to her, but even without seeing his face, Ariana could plainly tell that his proud carriage and demeanor marked him as a man of some consequence. He was no mere knight, for there were no spurs riding at the heels of his tall leather boots, and although he wore a sword at his hip, the center of the pommel glowed with the milky iridescence of mother-of-pearl. A nobleman, she guessed, perhaps bargaining over one of the merchant's fine treasures from abroad--or, rather, arguing, she amended, as she and James drew near enough to hear the stranger's deep growling voice.

  "Don't insult me, Ferrand. This is a simple matter. You hired me to deliver the silks and I did it. Over a month ago. Now, I want what you owe me, or I'll take it out of your vermin hide."

  The man spoke the Norman French of England's noble classes, his cultured accent as smooth as a polished stone even if his threat bore the harsh and naked edge of a jagged blade. Monsieur Ferrand evidently understood the danger he provoked, for his nose twitched, and the cup he raised to his lips wobbled in his shaky hand. He set it down without drinking.