It’s my birthday! And to celebrate, here’s a spoiler-free peek at one of my favorite scenes from book two of the Herezoth trilogy, “The Magic Council: The Fight for Home.”

I mentioned the three princes in a recent about the three powers of the human heart. Now you get to meet them!

You find out on page one of the novel that the princes have been kidnapped, so that’s not a spoiler at all–it’s the set up for the story.

They’re being held in the basement of a woman named Ursa Hincken, who lives in Carphead, one of the fishing villages on the coast. I hope you enjoy meeting the princes as much as I did!

Ursa has magic powers that allow her to control animals.

BOOK ONE IS FREE TODAY, SO PLEASE CHECK IT OUT HERE!

This scene was heavily influenced by The Once and Future King, for sure.

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Ursa Hincken’s basement was sprawling, all the more so being almost empty. Moonlight filtered through narrow windows set high in a stone wall, making shadows dance with the stiffness of a crab and the passion of a pouncing lion. No actual crabs or lions, of course, called the basement home, but a friendly mouse lived in a barrel on which spiders built their webs. The basement also housed three boys, brothers who had named the mouse Twit.

Lying beneath their blankets on mattresses of straw, the boys were farthest from the bear prowling outside—the wall opposite the windows.

Ursa’s bear frightened the youngest boy in particular. Hune had the darkest hair, brown like his mother’s, and his fear upset him greatly. He was only eight years old, but he’d never met an animal he didn’t like before this. At the palace, Valkin often explored here and there and marked the days until his fourteenth birthday, still years off, when he would visit the city of Yangerton. Neslan liked to read and to expand his stone collection; he built castles and bridges with it. Hune, in contrast, frequented the stables. He tended his pony with the stable hand’s son, who’d become his friend. Animals liked Hune as a matter of course. Even Twit preferred him to the other boys.

Ursa’s bear swatted a window and let out a deep growl. Hune opened his eyes to watch it pull back a massive paw. It had never before acted as though it wanted to get in.

Hune clutched his blanket tight, and his voice shook. “Valkin?”

The oldest at eleven, Valkin extended his arm, feeling for his spectacles. He found them and sat up. “That thing can’t hurt us,” he said.

Ten-year-old Neslan had his eyes shut tight. “Hune, the windows are so small you couldn’t fit through them.”

Valkin shook his blond head in frustration; he and Neslan were both blond and telekinetic, like their father. The latter fact prompted Valkin to observe, “If the windows were a proper size, and the blasted beast weren’t there, we could get Hune out.” Though the windows were almost in the ceiling, they could have lifted Hune up to them.

Neslan rubbed his eyes and sat up with an exasperated expression that just broke through his grogginess. “What would happen then?” he asked. “How quickly do you think Hune would find someone to help us fight these people? Darryn’s upstairs, in the mansion. He’s a sorcerer. He said everything would be all right as long as we behave, but he has a cruel look. He’d hurt us if we tried to escape. You got us into this, Valkin. Don’t make it worse than it is already. You had to find out where those squirrels were going, didn’t you? What they were up to?”

Valkin jumped to his own defense, as he’d been doing for the past month every time this argument started. “Did you ever see squirrels act that way? Run one by one, in a line, spaced a minute apart?”

“No,” retorted Neslan, “because Ursa was making them do it. Mother always told us not to go past the birches.”

Hune piped from the floor, “I wanted to follow the squirrels too, and you came with us. It wasn’t Valkin’s fault. Those people tricked us. Valkin, why do you think they did it?”

“They want something from Father, I suppose.”

Neslan nodded, and the moonlight glinted off his fair head, exposing the concern on his face. Every time Valkin proposed that motive, Neslan grew solemn. “It’s about Father,” he agreed. “But what if they want something he can’t give? What will become of us? We’ve been here for weeks.”

Valkin scowled. “Forty-one nights. I’m counting every one.”

The uncertainty that had parted Neslan’s lips and dulled his eyes turned to dread. He knew Valkin’s restlessness, and he told him, “Father will get us out of here. Don’t do anything foolish. You’ll only make things harder or get hurt. We’re uncomfortable enough. Do you want them to tie us up?”

Valkin cried, “Of course I don’t.”

Neslan crossed his arms. “What are you thinking to do? I know you’ve been thinking.”

The crown prince glanced at the wooden staircase against the eastern wall. It lacked a banister and led to a door, the basement’s sole entrance. He said, “I’ve been thinking that one time when August brings us food, you and I could pull her legs out from under her and send her down the stairs, or off the edge. Then we could take the key and get out of here.

“I figure,” Valkin continued, “that it’s not a good idea. I don’t know how to escape from the mansion, for one thing, or sneak past the bear. And then there’s August. She’s not like her sister. She says she had no idea Ursa was planning to kidnap us, and I believe her. She says she has no magic. I believe that too. Those things can happen. Look at Hune.” Hune cast down his eyes. “Well,” said Valkin, “if August has no magic, then she can’t defend herself against us, can she? Attacking her seems awfully cruel after all the time she’s spent trying to cheer us up, and the little cakes she brings, and the stories she’s read.”

Hune was thoroughly alarmed. “We can’t hurt August,” he protested.

“We could warn her, though,” said Valkin. “We could threaten to make her fall if she doesn’t hand over the key.”

Neslan raised his eyebrows. “But we wouldn’t. Don’t you think she knows that? And if she does hand us the key, what’ll happen to her afterward?” He shivered. “I don’t like Ursa one bit. I know they’re sisters, but they don’t get on the way we do. Valkin, I’m sure Ursa would harm her, or Darryn would, while we’d still have to find a way out before Darryn stops us and avoid the bear as well.”

Hune lay with his blanket pulled to his chin. He widened his eyes. “I don’t want to make Ursa angry with her sister.”

Neslan assured him, “None of us wants that. Right, Valkin?”

Valkin sighed. He hated the basement, hated everything about it. “Right.”

Neslan grabbed Valkin’s arm. “I trust August. If there were some way to escape from here, she’d help us. Don’t you see that?”

“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” Valkin admitted. “Maybe you’re right.”

Hune scratched an itch on his arm, then spoke in support of Neslan. “August doesn’t want to keep us trapped here. She just doesn’t want the bear to eat us.”

Valkin smiled at that. “The bear would eat one of us at most. It could kill us all easily enough, though.”

Hune’s voice turned pleading. “Valkin, don’t make her give us the key. I can see Ursa feeding August to the bear to pay her back.”

Valkin shook his head. “Ursa’s not that evil.”

Hune urged, “Please, don’t!”

Valkin’s forehead creased in thought. “I still say Ursa wouldn’t feed her to the bear. But Ursa would be angry, and she can hurt August other ways. Listen, I want to get away from here more than both of you.”

“I doubt that,” Neslan grumbled to the floor.

“But I don’t want to leave August in trouble,” Valkin continued. “It doesn’t seem right somehow. Darryn and Ursa are using us, right? To get something from Father. Would we be any better if we used August to get free, and she was hurt in the process?”

Neslan frowned. “All I know is my stomach aches when I think about it.”

“So we agree?” piped Hune. He finally sat up, letting his blanket settle about his waist. “None of us will take that key from August?”

“Not me,” said Neslan.

Valkin sighed. “Nor I.”

“Me neither,” said Hune, though without magic he would have found it next to impossible to steal the key. He felt comforted by his brothers being in league with him. His heart stopped beating quite so hard.

Neslan asked, “Do you think Darryn will come tomorrow? It’s been a week since he was here.”

“Five days.” Valkin’s tone grew grave. “He comes every five days. He should have come this afternoon, but I doubt he’ll return after last time.”

Neslan leaned close to the crown prince. “How’d he learn about our magic? A spell?”

Valkin said, “If that’s the case, we never saw him cast it.”

[THE KING] had taught the older boys to conceal their telekinesis, and his rare severity had impressed them. Even when ambushed by their kidnappers, Valkin and Neslan knew better than to set off a magic display. Somehow, though, Darryn had discovered their power. He’d talked about it the day of the abduction, telling all the boys their telekinesis made them special. He said they were part of a small but respectable community, one that could flourish if others listened to its problems. The magicked were suffering, but they could work good in the kingdom with their talents. He always spoke that way, with his captive audience sharing uncomfortable looks in silence. At least Darryn asked no questions and demanded no reply.

In the children’s eyes, Darryn had little but his magic to leave an impression. His hair was oily and mud-colored. His eyes were that same shade of brown, like murky water. In his mid-twenties, he still had acne on his chin and was of average height. Besides his intense air, the boys knew little about him except that he was unafraid to cast spells. During the ambush, he had bound the princes and their guards with an incantation.

Valkin, Neslan, and Hune were ignorant of their guards’ ultimate fate—leaving the men tied up, Darryn had transported the princes to Ursa’s mansion, wherever that was, and they had formed an unspoken pact not to mention the soldiers, of whom they had been fond—but they’d long since lost hope of seeing their escort again. Darryn always came to the basement alone, and the last time he’d visited, poor Hune could no longer stand the implications of his message. Staring at Darryn’s sandals, he’d argued, “My brothers aren’t more special than I am.”

The small, shaking voice took Darryn aback, but Darryn replied,  “Of course they’re not. You all have magic. The three of you move objects without touching them.”

“No,” Hune said. “I can’t, but that doesn’t mean I matter less.” Then he raised his eyes, finding courage. “Mother says it doesn’t matter whether I have magic, and she’s right. You listen to me, she’s right! I have my own gifts. I ride a pony better than they can, and the governess says I’m better with sums than Valkin was when he was eight.”

Hune could say nothing more. He’d started to cry. Neslan threw an arm around him while Valkin trembled just as much as Hune, but from anger instead of sadness. Darryn tried to salvage the situation.

“I never said people without magic have less value.”

 “Go away!” Valkin yelled, because Hune was sobbing. “Won’t you go away? Haven’t you done enough?”

Then Darryn had left—left five days ago, per Valkin’s tally. Now Hune said, “I hope Darryn doesn’t come tomorrow.” He settled as comfortably as possible beneath his blanket. His mattress wasn’t quite plush enough to take the hardness out of the stone floor.

Neslan yawned. “If he does come, he won’t speak as he used to. He didn’t mean to upset you, Hune.”

Neslan yawned again. The yawn spread to Valkin, who said, “I don’t care what he intended. He’s a beast for keeping us here, and I hate him. Ursa couldn’t have kidnapped us by herself. Hang them both! I’m tired. Don’t worry about the bear, Hune. It can’t get in.”

Hune closed his eyes, stretched his legs, and, to ignore the creature’s growls, thought about his pets, especially Moon, his pony. Valkin, and even Neslan to a point, made fun of Hune for choosing a name that rhymed with his, but what else could he call a pony with a crescent-shaped spot on its long nose? Hune missed Moon. He liked brushing him, and he missed the way Moon would brush against his shoulder after eating a carrot.

Hune missed Rock as well, the stable hand’s son. Hune would climb on his pony, and Rock would take Neslan’s—Neslan never complained because he never caught them—and they would lead their mounts to the field behind the stables. Using fallen branches as swords, they would pretend to be knights from the old days fighting dragons. Those dragons always felt real to Hune. He could picture them thirty times his size. He could see their powerful tails, smell the smoke on their breath, and glimpse their fangs as long as daggers, but the dragons never frightened him as Ursa’s bear did.

Neslan was pondering the question his brothers couldn’t answer—what would happen to them if their parents couldn’t arrange their safe return? Would they stay trapped in the basement for years? How long before Valkin acted out of frustration and got himself killed? Valkin would never harm August, but that the idea had occurred to him proved how deeply he felt the injustice against him. He couldn’t bear that burden much longer.

Valkin was thinking about Darryn and how he’d made Hune cry. The crown prince felt physically ill to see his youngest brother shake at night. More than anything, Valkin wished Hune had stayed home the day they’d been kidnapped. Neslan was made of tougher stuff. Hune himself was tough for being so small, but he was only eight.

I hate Darryn. He has no right to do this, especially not to Hune. I hate him! I wish Ursa’s bear would eat him, I really do.