The Warden’s Son Book 4:
Throne of Vanris

by Nikki McCormack

Kasiel and his unit have become heroes in Vanris. Unfortunately, hero status makes them targets on the front lines and is no help at all with affairs of the heart. Vanris’s leaders have differing opinions on what role the unit should have in the war and how Kasiel’s exceptional Feral ability should be utilized.

With his romantic relationship a mess and his life constantly in danger, Kasiel hopes he can at least protect those he cares about, though his mind-crafting seems destined to put them in harm’s way. But the stakes change when he learns the dark secret behind his childhood abduction and his mother’s murder. He will have to take a pivotal role in the complicated politics of war and leadership if he wants to gain control of his future and try to end the war.

More than ever, he must rely on his chosen family and beasts, but the secrets he carries could tear them apart.

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Information:

Title: Throne of Vanris, The Warden’s Son Book Four
Author: Nikki McCormack
Cover Art: Robert Crescenzio
Publisher: Elysium Books
Genre: Epic Fantasy
Length: 434 pages
Release Date: October 2024
ISBN: 979-8-9903922-5-0

Excerpt from Throne of Vanris: The Warden’s Son Book Four

by Nikki McCormack

Copyright © 2024 by Nikki McCormack. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

CHAPTER ONE

Kasiel soared high over the Crimson Break, using his Feral ability to look out through the eyes of a sandhawk. It was one of two raptors he had started working with consistently over the last couple of months. He finished investigating Sarket’s military company from above. They had gathered on the far side of a plateau south of an enormous black Vanrian watchtower, preparing for an attack. The same watchtower the company Kasiel had arrived with was now camped alongside. With the sandhawk’s superior distance vision, he could scout out the Sarketi force’s numbers and armaments while keeping the raptor out of range of their arrows. The enemy knew he could use birds this way now, which made the blameless creatures popular targets for their archers.

With the scouting run complete, he turned the raptor out over the plateau, coasting on wind currents. The war-torn desert landscape glowed with rich reds and golds in the late afternoon sunshine. This place, an area typically associated with conflict and death, became beautiful in that light.

“We need to talk about my cousin.” Jethan’s voice startled him from his musing.

Falling back behind his own eyes, Kasiel encouraged the raptor to return to him and glanced over at his tehnaak. “Is now really the time for this conversation?”

“Why not? You weren’t scouting anymore. I could tell by that contented smile you always get when you’re just flying along for fun. And we’re well away from Etrion and the source of the problem. Seems like the perfect time.”

Kasiel held up his arm, giving the returning raptor a perch upon which to land. He frowned at Jethan as the bird’s talons dug into the leather gauntlet he wore for that purpose. “Velara isn’t a problem.”

“Isn’t she? If my aunt finds out that you two are sleeping together on a somewhat regular basis, she might just have you beheaded.” He gave a meaningful glance toward Kasiel’s groin. “Or be-something-elsed.”

Kasiel chuckled. “You always have a way with words, tehnaak.”

He launched the raptor again, sending it toward camp while he walked to where his kanodrak, Niskenya, waited near Jethan’s carefully controlled mount. The horse was getting used to the massive, vaguely feline predator, given how often they rode together, but it was easy enough to keep a light mental leash on the animal as a precaution.

Jethan walked with him. “Kas, I don’t want to see either of you hurt.”

Kasiel blew out a heavy exhale, his elation from the flight fading. “Does it matter that we love each other?”

Jethan swung up into the saddle, the unwanted sympathy of his gaze falling on Kasiel once he settled in the seat. “Not to the khevarin or any of the suitors lining up to try for Vel’s hand.”

“We can talk about this later.”

Jethan frowned at him. “A succinct way of saying you’re going to ignore my concerns and keep doing what you’re doing.”

Kasiel swung up on Niskenya, her silver-gray scaled hide smooth under the hand he placed on her shoulder. The kanodrak’s view on the subject was simple. She was an alpha of her species. As the Feral bonded to her, he should have similar privileges, at least as far as she was concerned. That meant his choice of mates and the freedom to pursue whatever he wanted to do, among other things. The finer details of human social structure were inconsequential to her. The more time he spent connected to her, the harder it was to remember what rules he was supposed to be following and why.

“We’ll talk about it later,” he restated.

“Sure, we will.” The roll of Jethan’s eyes said he didn’t believe that. “What are your thoughts on our new friends from Sarket hiding behind that plateau?”

Kasiel gave his tehnaak an appreciative glance before answering. “I think I have an idea of how to welcome them.”

*

As dusk started sinking over the Break, Darro woke Kasiel and Jethan from a quick nap. They grabbed some food before heading out again. The entire unit came with them this time, setting up a small camp with no fire on the plateau. Niskenya settled on ground that still radiated warmth from the day, curling around Kasiel to give him something to lean against. Jethan sat cross-legged close by in case he needed anything. The rest of the unit took shifts standing watch, most in their spirit sibling pairings; Kince and Darro, Merrin and Avris, and newly bonded Tath and Nerith. Wedro and Etris remained unpaired and Kasiel wasn’t sure if they ever would be, at least with one another. They had their similarities, but those were all things they somehow seemed to find annoying in each other. Their differences, like Etris’s Speaker ability, also led to friction between them.

In truth, Merrin seemed to be the only one Wedro really connected with since his tehnaak’s death, though there didn’t appear to be a romantic element there, as with Darro and Tath.

Kasiel’s gaze drifted to Nerith, recalling in vivid detail the intimate moments they had shared. How often did romance blossom within units like this one? Given all the time they spent together and how stressful missions could be, he suspected it happened with some regularity.

Nerith met his eyes, and Kasiel realized he had been staring at her for at least a minute, noticing how light from the sliver of moon gave a soft glow to her silvery hair. He pulled his gaze away. He had made his choice. It wasn’t fair to Nerith or Velara to let his mind wander.

Closing his eyes, Kasiel turned his focus to his beasts and the creatures of the desert, where it belonged. He started by moving a few small songbirds into the Sarketi camp near the command tent while there was still enough light for them to be seen. Then he waited, watching and listening. As expected, it wasn’t long before someone came asking after the general.

Once summoned, the general, a stern-looking man with chestnut hair and a well-trimmed beard that showed hints of gray, emerged and scanned the area. The soldier who asked for him had barely started speaking when the general’s dark eyes lit upon the songbird perched on a rack of weapons, demonstrating that he at least had perceptiveness worthy of his rank. He snapped a hand up to silence the other man.

“How long has that bird been there?”

“What bird, General?” The soldier and the two guards standing outside the tent followed the direction of the general’s gaze.

“You thrice-cursed idiots! I told you to keep this place clear of wildlife. That includes the avian variety.” The general produced a dagger from somewhere, throwing it with shocking speed, but the bird was faster, flitting quickly up out of the way.

Kasiel grinned.

Next to his physical self, Jethan asked, “How’s it going?”

“Just saying hello,” Kasiel answered.

While continuing to watch through the eyes of the bird, he reached out to a pack of desert dogs, drawing them toward the Sarketi camp. When the dogs were close enough, he set them to howling. The general fell silent, him and the men he had been reprimanding turning to stare out into the deepening darkness. Throughout the camp, conversations faltered.

“Look at the horses,” a soldier next to the general whispered.

Kasiel had reached out to their horses, making them all turn and stare at the central tent, rather than out toward the noise of the predators as they normally would.

“Shit,” the general muttered under his breath.

“It’s him, isn’t it?” one guard asked. “The Warden’s son is here.”

The general turned on the men with him. “Are you soldiers or children?” he shouted. “If you’re soldiers, I expect you to get back to your duties or get some sleep. We march on the tower at dawn.”

Kasiel moved the wild dogs to the southern edge of the enemy camp to continue their chorus. Then he brought some of his tethdraks out as full dark fell over the landscape, guiding them to different points around the enemy camp and encouraging them to call out to each other periodically with their distinctive shrieks and clicks. Soon the Sarketi soldiers were all staring out at the darkness, meals and conversations forgotten, many of them flinching whenever a shriek broke through the night. They whispered to each other. Some kept their volumes up, trying to sound brave, but he could hear the tremor in their voices through the ears of his beasts.

Kasiel smiled and settled in for a long night of tormenting their enemies. Laying her naturally armored head on her paws next to him, Niskenya purred.

After a few hours of strategically moving beasts around the camp, getting them to make noise whenever the enemy soldiers started to relax again, Kasiel felt Niskenya perk up. His cliff cat Irith did as well, letting out a low growl where he lay stretched at Kasiel’s feet, one front paw draped possessively over Jethan’s leg. Kasiel drew back some of his ability, investing in Irith to hear what had gotten his and Niskenya’s attention. A few seconds later, he caught the faint sound of something moving at the edge of the cliff near where they were sitting.

At his prompting, Irith extended his claws, getting Jethan’s attention with a slight prick of those sharp points against his leg. Jethan opened his eyes, looking into the cliff cat’s bright blue ones. He sat silent for a few seconds until the faint sound of something shifting caught his attention, then gave a slight nod.

Irith stood, padding silently into the stunted, thorny brush nearby. Jethan, his movements careful and quiet, took his sword and went around in the opposite direction. He gave a subtle gesture toward the cliff with one finger by his leg to Merrin, who stood watch a short distance away. Kasiel lost track of them after that, turning his efforts back to managing his psychological assault on the company from Sarket. It wasn’t until a few minutes later, when he heard the soft creak of a bow being drawn, that he pulled his attention back to his current location again.

Someone cried out. An arrow whizzed past a few feet in front of Kasiel, making his heart jump in his chest. He glanced toward the bushes at the cliff’s edge. Jethan and Merrin emerged after a few seconds, alternately leading and dragging a Sarketi scout between them. The young man had blood running from a split lip and a minor cut above one eye. Jethan was holding a Sarketi shortbow in his free hand. Irith came out of the brush behind them, ears perked and looking quite pleased.

Niskenya raised her head, snarling as they shoved the scout to his knees in front of Kasiel. The youth cringed away from the big predator, his breath coming in quick, panicked gasps.

Jethan gestured to their captive. “What would you like done with him?”

Kasiel struggled to maintain his awareness of the many beasts he was controlling while dealing with the current situation, but he succeeded at faking a reasonable level of composure. “You were after me?”

“Who else would I be after? Mind-crafter freak,” the man hissed, showing some courage until Niskenya growled again, at which point he almost fell into Merrin trying to shy away from the kanodrak.

“Kill him?” Jethan asked, his tone deceptively casual.

“Oh, can we please?” Merrin infused convincing enthusiasm into her voice.

The Sarketi scout twisted away from her now, then from Jethan, looking every bit like a cornered animal about to panic. Irith stepped close behind him and growled. The youth tried to lunge to his feet, catching himself on his hands inches from Niskenya’s face when Jethan swept his legs out from under him. He froze, trembling as the kanodrak stood and snarled, her nose nearly touching his head.

“Tie him up and keep him quiet for now. We’ll decide what to do with him in the morning. Maybe Niske can eat him.” Kasiel closed his eyes, returning to the collection of beasts he had gathered almost before he finished speaking. Some part of him was distantly aware of the protests of the frightened youth as they took him away.

When the first hints of dawn crept over the desert, Kasiel watched several groups of Sarketi soldiers sneak away toward the south. He let them leave, struggling to hold on to his focus through a rapidly worsening headache. When there was adequate light for them to be seen, he urged his tethdraks and the other beasts back from the camp, silencing the noise that had plagued the enemy soldiers through the night.

A few other units in the Vanrian company joined them on the plateau. Darro and the rest of Kasiel’s unit mounted up and rode back down with them, heading out around the plateau. They took the Sarketi scout, throwing a cloak over him to keep his presence hidden in their ranks. Irith and Niskenya stayed with Kasiel. As the others departed, he and the two beasts moved closer to the southern edge of the plateau. Using only a raptor now, he watched the slightly reduced Sarketi company pull together to make their march north. They had barely gotten into formation when a warning blared from a horn one of the Sarketi scouts carried.

The Vanrian force, with Darro and Kince in the lead, came into view along the side of the plateau. Sarket’s general, his mouth set in a grim line, led his company out to meet them. The two sides stopped about ten yards apart. Sarket still had a greater number of soldiers, even after some defections, but that only gave them the advantage if they didn’t count the combat ability of the tethdraks now emerging from the surrounding landscape, their reddish-brown scales allowing them to remain hidden until Kasiel was ready for them to be seen. As he guided them out around the enemy company, he had the raptor shriek a warning to Kince, then landed on the arm the man held out. The perch gave him a nice vantage through which to watch the rising fear in the eyes of the Sarketi soldiers as the tethdraks made their presence known.

“It looks as if your company shrank in the night, General,” Darro called out.

The man’s eyes narrowed. “Where’s your captain?”

“Our ahninveth?” Darro corrected with a bitter smile. “He is exactly where he needs to be. Out of your reach, but close enough to manage these beasts.”

Kasiel drew two packs of wild dogs out into the open on the flanks of the Sarketi company. As he did so, he moved through the enemy horses, making them stand statue still, heads lifting to look toward the top of the plateau. Then he urged Niskenya to the cliff’s edge, having her stand where they could see the kanodrak with him on her back, well out of range of their arrows. Several enemy soldiers started trying to pull their horse’s heads down, but the animals wouldn’t respond.

Through the raptor, Kasiel could see fear in the general’s hazel eyes as he stared up at the distant figure on the plateau. Now to see if his plan worked and all that effort throughout the night was worth it.

“I have orders to allow you and your soldiers to leave here unharmed if you agree to ride directly south out of the Break,” Darro said, a cutting edge in his tone. “An extremely generous offer, considering our tethdraks alone could decimate your company.”

“There are other fronts we can attack on.” The general glowered up at Kasiel when he couldn’t get his horse to lower its head. “The Warden’s son can’t be everywhere at once.”

From the raptor’s vantage on Kince’s arm, Kasiel could see the wicked smirk that curved Darro’s lips. “Is that your final answer?”

Was this the right thing to do? The Vanrian company was primed to fight. The tethdraks wanted it too, bloodlust resonating through them. But just because combat was what they were all trained for – what they expected – didn’t make it the best option. How would more killing bring them any closer to ending the war? His unit was his family. He would rather see them struggling to find their place in a peaceful Vanris than lying dead on a battlefield.

The Sarketi general’s hand moved toward his blade. Kasiel’s answering rise in tension sent a ripple of growls through the tethdraks and desert dogs. He felt Niskenya’s muscles tighten as she prepared to move. The man’s gaze swept over the snarling beasts partially surrounding his company. His hand sank away from the weapon.

“Tell your ahninveth we accept his offer... this time.”

Kince smirked at the raptor. “He already knows.”

Proving the point, Kasiel urged the tethdraks and desert dogs to back away, giving the Sarketi company room to retreat. Then he relinquished control of their horses.

“Until next time.” Darro inclined his head to the general.

“Oh, General,” Avris called out, reaching down to cut the bonds off the youth she and Merrin had kept obscured with their horses. “I think this is yours.” The Sarketi scout wove his way quickly through the Vanrian force back to his company. “Gutsy little calloch. You might want to promote him.”

The general only scowled at them while one of his soldiers gave the scout a hand up on the back of his mount.

Kasiel gripped Niskenya’s saddle. Pain speared through his head now, making his stomach turn. When the Sarketi general ordered his company to retreat, Kasiel moved the desert dogs out and set them free. He held the tethdraks in place until after the enemy soldiers were on their way and the Vanrian company began pulling back. Then he called the reptilian beasts to him and urged Niskenya away from the cliff face to where he could dismount and throw up in privacy.

The pain got worse, continuing to spike out of control. By the time his unit reached him, he was kneeling in the dirt next to his own vomit, clinging to the stirrup of his distressed kanodrak’s saddle to keep from falling over. Nerith and Tath rushed to his side, helping him to his feet and moving him away from the rejected contents of his stomach.

“You overdid it, didn’t you?” Tath asked, going to dig through her packs after Jethan took her place, helping Nerith guide him to a seat on a nearby rock.

Kasiel closed his eyes to the pain, straining to maintain a visual link with the raptor he had watching the enemy company to be sure they departed as expected. “I didn’t know that was possible.”

“It depends on how strong your ability is.” Nerith rested a hand on his arm as she reached out to accept the flask Tath brought over. She opened it and held it up to his lips. “Drink this. It should take the edge off and ease some of the nausea.”

When he squinted his eyes open, Tath was scowling at him, her hands on her hips. “You’ve been running a substantial number of beasts for over twenty-four hours without a break. You need to rest, Kas. You aren’t invincible.”

Irith pushed between Nerith and Jethan, coming up to headbutt Kasiel affectionately in the face hard enough that it almost knocked him down. He wrapped an arm over the big cliff cat’s shoulders to steady himself.

“Thanks, Break-blasted brute,” he muttered, grimacing at the persistent ache in his head.

Niskenya came up behind Tath, one of her elongated upper canines almost touching the healer’s shoulder. She made a distressed grumble deep in her throat.

Tath startled and stepped to the side. She gestured to the massive predator. “See, Niske agrees with me. Kenna’s at the watchtower. She can manage the tethdraks while they’re idle and give you a chance for some proper sleep.”

He shook his head, keeping the motion slow and small to avoid aggravating the pounding in his skull. “That isn’t necessary.”

Nerith’s lavender eyes flashed. “Do you want to keep this headache?”

Kasiel considered her. She was always the most beautiful when her fierce side came out.

Nerith averted her gaze, and he cringed inwardly. They weren’t a couple anymore. He couldn’t keep looking at her that way. This was what he had been afraid might happen when he agreed to have her stay in the unit as Tath’s tehnaak, but she was someone he trusted and an excellent healer. He was going to have to adjust to the idea that their relationship was different now. Preferably before he drove her out of his unit with his inappropriate glances.

His head throbbed. Turning away from Nerith, he found Jethan staring at him with a look that would accept no more arguments. “All right. Let’s go find Kenna.”

Jethan nodded approval and came to help Kasiel to his feet.