A Kingdom of Flame and Fury (The Four Kingdoms Book 1) Read online

  

  

  Copyright © 2022 by Whitney Dean

  Midnight Tide Publishing (midnighttidepublishing.com)

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by an electronic or mechanical means, including storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, email:

  [email protected]

  This book is a work of fiction. The entirety of any names, places, characters, businesses, locations, incidents, or events are strictly products from the author’s imagination or created for fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events are purely coincidental.

  Author’s Instagram: authorwhitneydean

  Cover Design: Pavla Leitgebova (darkerstaredits)

  Proofreading: Brittany Ann

  Marketing: Peachy Keen Author Services

  Ebook ISBN: 979-8-9860118-0-6

  Paperback ISBN: 978-0-578-39102-1

  Harback ISBN: 979-8-9860118-1-3

  PLAYLIST

  CH 1: you should see me in a crown - Billie Eilish

  CH 2: Run - One Republic

  CH 3: Twisted - Missio

  CH 4: Close ft. Tove Lo - Nick Jonas

  CH 5: Death of a Bachelor - Panic! At The Disco

  CH 6: What A Time - Julia Michaels ft Niall Horan

  CH 7: one night - Christina Perri

  CH 8: Coming Back For You - Maroon 5

  CH 9: Why Don’t You Save Me? - Kan Wakan

  CH 10: Teeth - 5 Seconds of Summer

  CH 11: What’s Up Danger: Blackway & Black Caviar

  CH 12: Let Her Go - Passenger

  CH 13: Power Over Me - Dermot Kennedy

  CH 14: Way Down We Go - KALEO

  CH 15: Feel Like Shit - Tate McRae

  CH 16: Say Something - A Great Big World & Christina Aguilera

  CH 17: Smile - Maisie Peters

  CH 18: Ashes - Stellar

  CH 19: White Flag - Bishop Briggs

  CH 20: Lose You To Love Me - Selena Gomez

  CH 21: Reckless - Jaxson Gamble

  CH 22: Climb - ADONA

  CH 23: Castle - Halsey

  CH 24: Do I Wanna Know - Arctic Monkeys

  CH 25: Smells Like Teen Spirit - Malia J

  CH 26: Poor Marionette - Sarah Cothran

  CH 27: Goddess - Xana

  CH 28: Earned It - The Weekend

  CH 29: Love Me Like You Do - Ellie Goulding

  CH 30: Dangerous Woman - Rosenfeld

  CH 31: Unsteady - X Ambassadors

  CH 32: Hit Me With Your Best Shot - ADONA

  CH 33: Traitor - Olivia Rodrigo

  For M - For opening the curtains to keep the darkness away.

  And to the ones who felt like they could never be accepted for their own brand of darkness. You have a place here.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  This is Book One of a Dark Fantasy series.

  It contains sexually explicit scenes, graphic content and is intended for mature readers.

  Reader discretion is advised.

  I was coming down from a high of burning the throats of two thieves when I looked to the sky and saw the sun starting to set. I needed to go if I was going to make the beginning of the festival. I would leave their charred remains for the crows, deep within the trees of the Black Forest.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Raven

  ☽✧

  Standing in front of my giant floor length mirror, I unfastened the gold ties of my robe and it fell in a pool of velvet at my feet. I lifted my arms over my head and tilted my head back, my skin stretching taut across my throat. I clasped my hands together above my head and intertwined my fingers, rolling my head side to side. Small pops of bones sounded in my neck.

  Despite loving my kingdom and its people, it wasn’t often that I attended many of the events thrown to celebrate how much it had thrived since taking the throne. Attention didn’t sit well when it was thrusted upon me and I didn’t want to steal it away from the cause by my attendance. My people deserved to be celebrated — to drink all night and dance through the streets without worrying what their queen would think.

  But this evening was different.

  It was the Festival of Dreams and it was the one event that I loved to attend every year. No one ever recognized me, because I was nothing if not an excellent master of disguise. I never donned the same disguise twice and always dressed down and not in my day-to-day, way-too-extravagant dresses that came with being queen.

  The Festival of Dreams was started just under one-hundred years ago, when the war ended and kingdoms were recovering from the loss of life. It signified the new beginnings of Seolia and to dream that we would never be subjected to something so devastating again: to dream of a world without malice, without the power hungry royals that caused the war in the first place, and to always stand together for the kingdoms in our realm and for others who felt without a voice.

  Under my rule and our previous king, King Leonidas, and the king before him, we had managed to maintain the peace and keep the dream alive. And I would celebrate that with my subjects, only not as the queen they had come to know.

  For like all royals, I held a secret.

  Lowering my head, I focused on my naked body in the mirror. I willed my magic to the surface and slowly lowered my arms, my change following. Shifting into one of my other forms was as easy as breathing, and I was looking forward to letting one come out to play.

  Instead of my usual long, ebony hair, icy-blonde locks skimmed my shoulders. “Mm…” I pondered aloud, reaching my fingers out and touching the glass of my mirror on front of me.

  Frost was typically my most favored form for public outings and the easiest to wield. I looked downright angelic, which was a stark contrast to the demon I'd rather be.

  Summoning ice to the tips of my fingers, I drew snowflakes on the glass of my mirror and then melted them, my entire body coming to life as heat overtook it. My icy-blonde hair turned into a fiery-red bob that cut right at my jawline.

  Blaze was brought out when I felt feistiest — and angriest — and my tongue would coat with the taste of blood. Blood I wanted to draw — which lately, had been more often. But the festival was all about peace, so when I shook my head, I shifted once more into Terra. Mother Nature herself. That was who I’d be.

  My fingertips drowned the fire with a mixture of icy water and wind, cleaning the charred marks off the glass.

  I raised my fingers to my hair and flicked my pointer finger, winding my now-violet hair up to rest on top of my head in a braided bun. Wisps of hair framed my face and I took one strand and twisted it around my finger, trying to decide next on what to wear.

  I sidestepped around my mirror and meandered to my wardrobe, swinging open the heavy handcrafted cherry doors. Velvet dresses on hangers puffed out, the skirts spilling over. I sighed. So much fucking pouf. It was a miracle I didn’t topple over every day.

  I parted down the middle of the velvet dresses and reached for a hidden drawer that housed a plethora of leather fitted outfits, specifically crafted for nights when I needed to get away from my life of royalty.

  I grabbed my slickest pair of leather tights and a matching black, puffed-sleeve bustier and shut the wardrobe doors, returning to my mirror to watch myself dress.

  Most, if not all other, queens would have ladies who would help them bathe, dress, fix hair… breathe, basically. But I preferred to be alone. It was the only time
I could be. I had so many responsibilities, so many to answer to and for, that it was hard to get my thoughts straight until I was locked away in my own quarters or roaming my kingdom in disguise at night.

  After dressing, I stared at myself and blinked my eyelids in a quick flutter, transforming my irises from dark green to golden with violet specks, completing my shift to Terra.

  I pulled a tube of lipstick from my vanity beside my mirror and painted the dark-red color on my lips, licking them until they glistened. I raised one hand and brushed my lips with the tips of my fingers, drawing them slowly down my chin and neck, pausing to linger on the skin between my breasts, which were pushed higher because of my bustier.

  It had been too long since someone touched me here. Being a queen without a king was fine with me, but having a warm body next to me to keep me satisfied all through the night was preferable to release on my own.

  My own hand wasn’t quite as sweet as a man’s tongue.

  I turned my head toward the open glass doors of my balcony and strolled out onto the terrace, leaning my elbows on the rounded, waist-high clay wall that encased me. My eyes roved slowly over my kingdom. It was small in size, seeing as how it was contained on a small island. My palace was situated on a tall mountainside and sprinkled throughout the grassy knolls below was my village. I could see the red rooftops of cottages and shops.

  Surrounding us, as far as the eye could see, was water — miles and miles of pure blue aqua on every side. From my balcony, I could see the ivory sails of ships docked in my harbor and the white foam of the water as it splashed onto the sides of the vessels.

  Snug on the far side of my castle sat the Black Forest. It was winter, which meant my mountainside was covered in snow and white patches were sprinkled on the roofs in my village. The trees were bare and even their trunks looked like they were welcoming winter, borrowing the black and charcoal colors of the sky. Everything looked grayer during winter. Darker. It soothed me.

  After admiring my kingdom, I secured my coin pouch around my wrist and grabbed the black boots next to my door, sliding them on. They reached up to the middle of my thighs and were sexy as fuck to wear. My hopes were high that I could find a visiting patron and seduce him in barn somewhere. The unsuspecting men always finished and went on with their lives, never knowing that they had fucked the Queen of Seolia. There had been many, but never any that kept my attention for more than just one night. Satisfying — and a nice release — but forgettable.

  To attend the festival tonight, I couldn’t leave through my chambers like I normally would. No one could see me leave the palace and only two people in my entire kingdom knew that I would be doing so. My aunt, who was too old to attend, and one of my royal advisers: Cade.

  My aunt, Isla, was the one who introduced me to the Festival of Dreams, back when I was just a villager and assumed no one in the castle knew who I was. The festival was always at night when I felt I could hide in the shadows and practice my magic without anyone noticing.

  I liked to form into Frost when the boys would chase the other young girls around the festival, stealing their candies or just being little shits. I would blind them temporarily with tiny flecks of ice and keep them away long enough for the girls to hide.

  At the end of the night, when some of the villagers retired home or were passed out drunk in the streets, I’d beckon Blaze and light up hay bales to keep them warm, spinning dirt around them with Terra so the fire wouldn’t spread.

  Little did I know, as each year passed, I was being watched — by none other than the king himself.

  That was why, when I turned ten, I was extremely surprised when royal guards pounded on the door of Isla’s cottage to move us to the castle. Isla knew of my abilities and helped me learn to control them, but she wasn’t truly my aunt at all. My birth and entire backstory remained a complete mystery.

  Dropped off on Isla’s porch in a basket with a single blanket and my name and birthday scrawled on a ripped piece of parchment, I was crying in the dead of night when she opened her front door to see an olive-skinned baby with a full head of black hair.

  It wasn’t even a choice, Isla always said — she was going to love me as her own until her last breath. If anyone ever asked, Isla told them that my parents were two drunks from her side of the family who couldn’t afford to raise a child. No one ever questioned it and that was the story we had maintained for twenty-four years.

  When I was brought to the castle, Isla never left my side and was holding my hand when the king’s adviser, John, explained to the two of us that the fallen king, Leonidas, willed me to be the heir to his throne. No reason was ever given and there wasn’t a connection in our bloodlines that anyone could find.

  I wasn’t sure I had a bloodline. I, by all accounts, had absolutely no right to the throne. But, the king had no queen and no heirs of his own. He ruled over the kingdom by himself and left it in the hands of a ten year old girl who held deep secrets of her own.

  This turn of events was, of course, highly contested by the royal court and by the majority of the village. People knew of Isla and the orphan she took in, but aside from supplying corn leading into the harsher months of winter, we served no greater purpose. We kept to ourselves in the corner, sharing a border with the Black Forest and only socialized when we needed to sell our crops for coins. But, since the king had no nearby bloodline, I took the throne less than a year later and had a very small coronation, only attended by members of the royal court and Isla.

  Cade, one of the most recently appointed royal advisers — and the youngest — took a liking to me rather quickly with my spitfire tongue and thirst for knowledge. I had a tutor in the village as a girl, but she’d tire of my need for more: more books, more parchment, more knowledge. I wanted to know everything. I didn’t understand why, but memorizing facts about the surrounding kingdoms just seemed necessary. It came in handy when Cade would quiz me about them while trying to teach me the art of negotiation.

  Seolia was surrounded by three kingdoms: Reales, Thoya, and Perosan. Our island was situated in the middle of the three kingdoms. The three kingdoms depended on Seolia for passage through the channel to the other kingdoms and villages to trade crops and grains, while Seolia relied heavily on the kingdoms for steel, fabrics, and furnishings. Each kingdom played a vital role in the survival of the others, and it had been nearly a century since the last war when Reales had tried to take control of Perosan and fought against Seolia and Thoya for it.

  A treaty was established after thousands of lives were lost: that each kingdom would be treated as equal and they’d rely on Seolia to close passages if whispers of threats crossed any of the borders. When I was pushed onto the throne, the court was fearful that Reales would awaken their thirst for power and attack, but it had been quiet for nearly two decades.

  When the four kingdoms merged into one realm, people of every color escaped their villages and kingdoms from faraway countries to take refuge in one of the four kingdoms. The Circle of Peace was what villagers eventually named the kingdoms once memories of war started to fade, and I was determined to keep it that way for as long as I held the crown.

  As the remembrance of wars fought crossed my mind, the warmth of Blaze burned my insides and I willed it to calm with Frost, shaking the feeling of needing to destruct. The thought of anyone threatening my crown drove me to the brink of madness and sometimes it took both Frost and Terra to calm the fire that brewed deep in my belly. I knew I was dangerous and sometimes I feared the ferocity of my magic. It was deep-rooted and old. I wasn’t sure how I knew that, but I could feel it.

  My birth story and the mystery surrounding it continued to plague me and would sometimes keep me up at night, which was when I would steal off into the darkness to explore the Black Forest. The forest frightened the villagers, because of the tales from long ago.

  It was said that before my time, whispers of dark magic made their way through the four kingdoms and King Leonidas had blocked it off until his soldi
ers investigated. When some returned and the rest didn’t, the king pulled them out and never sent anyone back in. The blockages were removed, but even without them, villagers never wandered past the border.

  But, it called to me. Nothing about being in the forest frightened me. In fact, it felt more like home than any place I’d lived, even my own wing of the castle. I knew every inch of the castle from my late nights exploring with Cade, but it never truly felt like my own. To my knowledge, I hadn’t done anything to earn it. It was a gigantic structure with golden stone walls so high that on cloudy days, you couldn’t see the tops of the two towers that defined it.

  When Cade taught me the history of war, I accidentally revealed Blaze to him by charring the pages of the text in my hands out of anger. By that time, his allegiance was pledged to me and my well-being, and he’d kept my secret for almost fifteen years. Of course, as I became older, my stubbornness and need for exploration of my kingdom outside the palace walls only grew and despite him trying to keep me from going out at night alone, he knew I could take care of myself and wouldn’t fuss too much as long as I was back before breakfast the next morning.

  The Black Forest was always where I’d go, spending hours playing with my elements, pushing myself to master each one. I had never broken my promise to him, and he had remained loyal to me. Over the course of nearly fifteen years, we’d become inseparable.

  I was turning twenty-five soon and Cade was turning thirty-three. Both of our birthdays fell within a week of one another's and always toward the end of the winter months. Instead of celebrations, we would always have picnics on his balcony and relished in the fact that our kingdom was thriving. We would laugh well into the night and most of the time, fell asleep in a heap of blankets and empty wine bottles. Our yearly celebration was only three months away and I was almost as excited for that as I was for the festival.