River Running Read online

  Table of Contents

  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

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Epilogue

  Praise for Eden Reign

  “The alternate postbellum world of River Running comes to life through Reign's lush and evocative writing. Populated with characters and plot twists you won't soon forget, this novel signifies an author to watch for fans of romance, creative world-building, and strong female characters.”

  - Taryn Noelle Kloeden, author, Hex Breaker

  “Eden Reign's writing is tight, emotional, and accessible. In River Running, the characters were vibrant. I walked in their fabulous universe and cared passionately about their struggles.”

  - Mark A. King, author, Metropolitan Dreams

  “River Running is a historical romantic fantasy with all the sweeping drama of Gone With the Wind, all the fiery tortured romance of Jane Eyre, and all the magical brilliance of Avatar: The Last Airbender.”

  - Tamara Shoemaker, author, Heart of a Dragon and Guardian of the Vale trilogies

  River Running

  Indigo Elements Book One

  Eden Reign

  To Mark, the Maker of Fiction, who long ago recognized Eden's potential ...

  “Love is the water of life, and a lover is a soul of fire. The universe turns differently when fire loves water.”

  —Shams Tabrizi

  Contents

  Map of Arcana

  1. Jackson

  2. Manda

  3. Jackson

  4. Manda

  5. Jackson

  6. Manda

  7. Jackson

  8. Manda

  9. Jackson

  10. Manda

  11. Jackson

  12. Manda

  13. Jackson

  14. Manda

  15. Jackson

  16. Manda

  17. Jackson

  18. Manda

  19. Jackson

  20. Manda

  21. Jackson

  22. Manda

  23. Jackson

  24. Manda

  25. Jackson

  26. Manda

  27. Jackson

  28. Manda

  29. Jackson

  30. Manda

  Epilogue

  A Message from the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Coming Soon

  Also by Eden Reign

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Jackson

  For three long heartbeats, Jackson Coal soared through the air with water’s weightless grace. Then his body slammed into the earth, and searing fire blazed everywhere. Auburn slabs and mahogany shards ripped the silver sky.

  The mission wasn’t supposed to end like this.

  The Fullmage Brotherhood Headquarters, a red brick edifice that was the pride of Chalton City, had just exploded in one massive burst of fire and steam, orchestrated by Elijah Lake and Jackson himself.

  It was the final act of violence in a civil war lasting over five years, a war pitting the Fullmage Brotherhood, led by Jackson’s father, against Jackson’s Levelers, who had fought for mage, halfmage, and mundane rights.

  Bits of ash wafted everywhere, along with skin? Paper?

  Smoke bit Jackson’s lungs with every inhalation. Breathe. Fire centered in his torso, where Henry Coal, Jackson’s father, had thrown a vicious fire curse at him right before the Headquarters had gone up in flames. Jackson’s fists clenched against the pain. He sifted grit over his flayed flesh and his aching hand scrabbled, finding a thin chain, the metal still hot from the blast.

  Blinking through a red haze, he lifted his father’s pocket watch, the one with the four elemental signs at each quarter-hour. Henry Coal himself lay prostrate not ten feet away, with residual fire from the explosion eating through his Brotherhood uniform.

  Jackson gripped the timepiece and hauled himself toward his father—a man he’d hoped never to see again.

  The war had torn them apart; it had also, finally and brutally, brought them back together.

  “Jackson,” rasped Henry, rolling onto his side. His lungs rattled. A mosaic of ash coated his face. But Jackson could still read hatred in the flare of Henry’s nostrils, in his gritted teeth, in the pulsing vein dividing his forehead. A flat numbness chilled Jackson’s bones.

  “Jackson,” Henry repeated. Even at the brink of death, the man’s voice was a chasm of bitter loathing. “You filthy vermin! You killer! First your mother. Now me. I suppose … you joined the Levelers and championed degenerates and halfbreeds just to spite me.”

  Searing agony built inside Jackson’s chest, chasing every breath with torture that went beyond his blistered skin and flesh wounds. This was the deep soul ache of an unloved son raised by a tyrant father whose beliefs held no room for dissent. “I joined the Levelers because I believe in their cause. I believe all people are created equal and worthy of level rights, as the Articles of Arcana state. That’s not radical, Father.” Jackson detected a sweet note in the bitter air: the citrus tang of fresh magnolia blossoms. A fat white petal floated by, as incongruous as love during wartime.

  Henry’s breath labored, but Jackson found no empathy. Not when Henry had inflicted so much suffering on others. “Look around you, Jackson. Look at the death and destruction you’ve caused. Everything you touch, you ruin. You and that fool watermage, Elijah Lake. I should have known he was a Leveler traitor, too. It doesn’t matter. You’ve failed. The Levelers surrendered to the Arcanan Army not four days past. An Armistice has been negotiated.” His words garbled into a wet cough as blood lined his gray lips. Jackson waited for remorse to rise like bile in his throat, but still no feeling came.

  Jackson knew this final, mad mission had been necessary, despite the Armistice. He and Elijah—Lige—had planned it carefully in the short time they’d had. And they hadn’t failed, at least, not in this one last task. He and Lige had managed to destroy the list of Leveler spies that would have condemned over twenty men to death—including Lige himself.

  Henry slanted his dull gaze to the hazy, ash-dotted sky. “I should have kept you away from Elijah Lake. That friendship corrupted you. When Daniel Lake finds out his son is a Leveler spy, he’ll kill him, heir or no.” Smoke sweltered around them both, and Henry broke off, coughing. His face strained into a rictus of agony and strange glee while his hard, dark gaze fixed on Jackson’s bare chest. “I hope you survive this, Jackson.” Evil intent oiled his whisper. “I’ve planned a better end for you.” He pointed a trembling, charred finger at Jackson’s chest, where Henry had cast his fire curse before the explosion.

  Jackson looked down slowly, his breath, already difficult amid the smoke, tightening even more.

  His upper body was bare; his shirt, waistcoat, and jacket had entirely disintegrated in the powerful blast he and Lige had created that had destroyed the red brick building. Flaming vines, black and red, rippled and coiled, twisting like a living serpent across his chest and abdomen.

  “A magefire mark curse? Nanu spellwork, from the Tribes? But why … how do you kn
ow Nanu spellwork?” Jackson looked up at his father.

  Thick smoke obscured Henry as Death lowered her black cloak over him. But his manic laughter rang from beyond the veil. “I cursed you!” he cried. “You’ll never find a way to remove my mark from your thin Leveler skin. May you live long and suffer, Jackson. My magemark will take you with a slow, poisonous death. That’s my gift to you.” Henry’s voice faded into a rattle and then, silence. Blessed silence.

  Jackson stared at his bloody hands on his own chest. The left one was mangled, the fingers twisted, the smallest one missing entirely—fallout from the blast. The pain in his hands had been entirely obscured by the burn of the mark on his torso. His other hand still gripped his father’s timepiece. Shocked and unsteady, Jackson pushed the watch into his trouser pocket.

  His father was dead. The nightmare figure who had presided over his miserable childhood was gone. The world seemed to sigh as its burden eased.

  Jackson lifted his head.

  The magnolias lining the Chalton road were burning. Their sweet scent mixed with the ash, pungent in the hot air. The headquarters building was utterly demolished. The bomb Jackson and Lige had constructed had decimated its target beyond all expectation. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.

  “Lige,” Jackson croaked on a weak exhalation. He forced his voice louder. “Elijah! Where are you?”

  Sheer will pushed Jackson through the rubble heap, searching for his friend. He kept his injured hand tucked against his throbbing chest.

  A dust-coated figure on top of a pile of bricks lifted a wilting hand.

  Jackson crawled closer, groping at Lige’s standard-issue Brotherhood coat. Lige had served the Levelers secretly, acting as a mole in the Brotherhood’s midst.

  Lige’s entire lower half was wet, dark with blood. Jackson’s dry eyes stared in horror. The bile that had not risen for Henry now nearly choked him.

  “Jack—” Lige’s eyelids cracked, squinting against the light.

  “I’m here, Lige.” Hope gave Jackson’s limbs new fuel. He shifted a slab of splintered mahogany off Lige’s shoulder, refusing to look down, refusing to see the horrid, gaping wound in Lige’s abdomen. Panic blackened the edges of his vision.

  “Your father?” Lige rasped.

  “Dead,” Jackson replied, his voice cold.

  “I’m sorry, Jack.” Lige twisted fretfully, as though he did not realize the extent of his injuries, how his body was no longer whole.

  “I’m not,” Jackson bit out.

  “Don’t blame yourself.” Lige knew him too well.

  “I don’t,” Jackson lied. Guilt slumped his shoulders. Until this day, Jackson hadn’t spoken to Henry Coal for twelve years, since well before the War of the Rebellion in which they’d fought for opposing sides. Last time they’d spoken, Henry had castigated him for causing his mother’s death. Again.

  Some wounds never healed.

  “At—at least we destroyed the list of spies. We’ve saved my men, protected our Leveler agents. Mission accomplished,” Lige whispered.

  Indeed. The mission had been successful, destroying the list of Leveler spies the Brotherhood had acquired, saving over twenty men from execution as traitors, and striking one final, symbolic blow for the Leveler cause.

  Even so, the cost had been too great. Elijah Lake’s life was worth twenty—no, a hundred—of Henry Coal’s.

  “Jack.” Lige’s voice was so faint Jackson had to bend to hear it. “My boy, my son Grey. Look after him, will you? My father can never know he exists. You know what he’d do. Grey is in Blue Hill with Jenny’s mundane cousin—the name is Tailor. Fetch him. Keep him safe from my father and the Brotherhood.”

  “Yes,” Jackson said hollowly. Daniel Lake, Lige’s father, was known for his hatred of illegal halfmages like Lige’s hidden son.

  Jackson bit his cheek so hard it bled. Lige would never rise from this pile of ash. That knowledge burned worse than Henry Coal’s magemark rippling from his groin to his chest. “I’ll find your boy, Lige, and keep him safe. I swear it on the Sacred Wells.”

  “Thank you.” Lige awkwardly faced Jackson. His clear blue gaze raked Jackson’s chest, eyes widening as he saw the writhing magemark. “Mercy, Jack. Did your father put that mark on you? On his own son?”

  “We both know he ceased to think of me as his son long ago. Don’t worry about it, Lige.”

  “But I’m—not—coming back from this one, Jack,” Lige whispered. “I can’t help you.”

  Lige was right. Death sat behind him, unfurling her cloak of smoke over his shoulders. Jackson shivered.

  As always, Lige was not afraid. “Jack,” he repeated urgently. “Listen to me. The Blazen Family. They’ll know how to cure you. They’ve studied those Nanu magemark curses. They know things no other Arcanan knows. They’ve been—”

  “They’re fullmage supporters of the Brotherhood, Lige. Our enemies.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Lige said. “The war is over. Destroying the list of our Leveler agents was our final mission. There will be peace now.”

  “But the Brotherhood won the war,” Jackson echoed his father’s earlier taunts.

  “Only for a little while, Jack. Justice can’t be suppressed forever. We’ll rise again.”

  “We’re both dead, Lige. My father claimed this magemark would kill me. Slowly.”

  “No!” Lige crumpled, his manic energy dissipating. “No! Accept the Armistice pardon, Jack, and live. You can’t leave Grey. You have to get my boy before my father finds him. You know what Daniel will do to a halfmage child.” Short, choppy breaths punctuated Lige’s words. Jackson’s eyes burned; his throat tightened while his friend struggled.

  “I’m here, Lige,” he choked.

  Lige’s bright eyes were fading. “You promised,” he whispered. “Take care of Grey.”

  In the end, Death came silently, gracefully, wearing a friend’s smile. One moment, life moved inside the mangled remains of Lige’s body. The next, it was gone, dispersing in a single breath like ash on the wind. Another white magnolia petal, untouched by fire, drifted down and settled over Lige’s still eyes.

  Jackson bowed his head as the chill vacancy of loss crept into his bones. Downtown Chalton was a gray blur on the horizon. The visible smoke would soon bring visitors to the site.

  Lige was gone. Henry was gone.

  Jackson Coal was the sole survivor of the destruction he had caused and the last remnant of an ancient fullmage family.

  He was alone in the world. He lifted his head, and the present slammed into him like a gale wind. Visible smoke would soon bring visitors to the site. He had to get away from the explosion site if he meant to keep his word to Lige.

  “‘Memory shapes both past and future. Remember! Remember!’” The eulogist spoke with vigor, his fat face flushed and damp in the day’s heat.

  Henry Coal’s eulogy wound down with the only quote from his famous Gainstown Address that Jackson could support—in principle. But the memory of his father would do nothing to shape Jackson’s future. Indeed, Jackson had spent many years trying to forget the man. Most of the eulogy had been utter lies: celebrations of Henry Coal’s honor, odes to his stalwart fight to preserve fullmage blood purity in the recent war, commendations for his “well-run” plantation.

  Jackson’s jaw ached; he’d clenched it for the better part of an hour.

  “So let us mourn the passing of a great man, one whose memory will shape our future for generations. Purity! Power. Order!” the eulogist concluded.

  The audience echoed the hateful slogan. Jackson mouthed the words with bile burning his throat. Was this his future? Gagged by defeat, forced to spew the bigoted verbiage of Arcana’s High Families? If so, he should have died with Lige.

  Jackson shifted uncomfortably on his seat of honor—the otherwise empty bench at the front of the Capitol auditorium where Henry Coal’s remains—what could be recovered—rested in state. The other mourners gave Jackson a wide berth. His left hand rested, band
aged, on his lap. The black armband he wore as a semblance of honor for his father dug into his flesh. He checked his coat collar, turning it up to conceal any trace of the magemark that writhed over his torso and neck. Not for the first time, he wondered how his father had learned the Nanu spellwork. The magic of the Nanu, the native peoples of Arcana, was a carefully guarded secret, and Henry Coal had never been known for his kindness—or attention—to the Nanu tribes.

  Everyone stood, and Jackson led the mourners past the urn displayed beneath the statue of Jackson Oak, his namesake and the fullmage hero of the Colonial Wars a hundred years past. Henry Coal had died a hero, too, a martyr to the Brotherhood’s success.

  “I did not expect to see you here, Jackson.” A bitter voice interrupted Jackson’s dark musings. He turned to face Daniel Lake, another man of the Brotherhood, Lige’s father.

  Jackson swallowed. No one knew Lige was dead. No one except him.

  He bowed to Daniel, demonstrating a submission he did not feel. The man’s cool, grey-blue eyes gazed from a lined and severe face.

  “Henry was my father, though we had our differences.” Jackson’s spine was rigid. “The war is over. We must ... look to the future.”

  Daniel sniffed and brandished his top hat. He did not offer his hand, nor any condolences. “You took the Armistice pardon, then? You’ve returned your allegiance to Arcana?”

  Jackson nodded. “I have.” There hadn’t been any other choice. The Levelers had been pinched between the sea and the vast forces of the Arcanan Army. Their only option had been to parley with the Brotherhood and pray for clemency.