The King’s Craft
Frank Morin
The King’s Craft
Book 6 of The Petralist
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2021 by Frank Morin
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-946910-15-8
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-946910-16-5
A Whipsaw Press Original
Edited by Joshua Essoe
(http://www.joshuaessoe.com/)
Cover art by Brad Fraunfelter
(http://www.bfillustration.com/)
Illustrations by Jared Blando
(http://www.theredepic.com/)
Book design by Kate Staker
(https://katestaker.com/)
First Whipsaw printing April 2021
Contents
Acknowledgments
Maps
1. Start the Day with Terrible News, and Nothing Worse Will Happen. Probably
2. Dig Deep, Go Fracked, and Hurl
3. The Best Teachers Inspire
4. The Unexpected Fruits of Chemical Weapons
5. Never Underestimate Motivated Friends
6. Going from Bad to Worse
7. Kids Do the Darndest Things
8. The True Power of the Forgotten Sense
9. The Bigger the Challenge, the Bigger the Toys
10. True Friends Never Give Up
11. Work Hard. You’ll Earn a Bigger Dinner
12. Well-deserved Desserts
13. Old Man Schwinkendorf’s Mad Chef Skills
14. With Shona, Surprises Are Rarely Unexpected
15. Bad Hair Days Never Get Old
16. Pearls Appear in Oysters Lingering Long under the Seas, but Sunlight Reveals Truths Smothered by the Blanket of Night
17. Sculpted Scones!
18. Mind Bomb
19. Some Girls Are Downright Scary
20. A Short Reprieve
21. Nicklaus the Brave
22. Sometimes It Takes a Village
23. Rage Monsters Aren’t the Only Things with Teeth
24. Anything Can Be Broken
25. The Best Death Scene Ever
26. Dessert Magic Is the Best
27. Old Secrets and New Affinities
28. Time to Set the Board
29. Fear the Scones
30. Unintended Consequences
31. The Simple Lives of Bash Fighters
32. It’s So Hard to Find Good Help
33. Some Problems Only Get Worse with Time
34. Second Place Is Just Not Acceptable Sometimes
35. It’s Annoying to Have Motivated Enemies
36. Nothing Is Ever Easy
37. Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures
38. An Unexpected Meeting
39. The Most Dangerous Predators Are the Smart Ones
40. When the Best-laid Plans Don’t Account for a Swarm
41. A Target-rich Environment
42. Hope Is Fragile but Hard to Kill
43. Up the Creek, and It’s Burning
44. Some Days You Need a Friend with Bigger Guns
45. Time Waits for No Man
46. History Gets Twisted in Funny Ways
47. If Only We Had a Month to Plan
48. A Glimpse into the Heart of Evil
49. Make Time for the Important Things First
50. You Can’t Walk through a Closed Door
51. Usually It’s a Bad Thing for Kids to Hear Voices
52. You May Have to Fail a Hundred Times Just to Figure Out the Right Questions to Ask
53. A Glimmer of Light
54. Focus on What You Have Left, Not What You’ve Lost
55. Truths Revealed through a Well-cooked Steak
56. Mind Killers
57. An Unexpected Friend
58. Is It Bad When Imaginary Friends Talk Back?
59. Welcome to the New World
60. Simple-mental
61. Un-deadly-captain-ish Behavior
62. Something Nutty
63. Miracles
64. Bridges to Affinities
65. Everything Has a Price
66. Glutton Crafting
67. Flipping the World Coin
68. If You Could Blow Yourself to the Moon, Wouldn’t You Try It, Too?
69. Some Problems Taste Worse Than Others
70. Don’t Mope over Spilled Affinities
71. It’s One Bridge in front of Another
72. Walking the Razor’s Edge
73. A Perfect Excuse
74. A Moment Worth Waiting For
75. New Limits and New Opportunities
76. Building Bridges
77. Old Truths and New Lessons
78. If Only Problems Could Be Solved with Marshmallows
79. The Power of Thinking Food
80. Sometimes You Need to Look at Your Problems in a Different Light
81. In Order to Win, Great Sacrifices Might Be Necessary
82. Sugar-saturated Creativity
83. Bash Fighting for a Good Cause
84. The Need for Burned Cookies
85. Nothing Motivates Like the Vomit Rocket
86. The Greatest Battle Petralist of All Time
87. A Glimpse of Insanity
88. Burned Cookies
89. The Ultimate Curse Punch
90. A Monster within a Monster
91. The Worst Splitting Headache Ever
92. Too Much of a Good Thing
93. Hard Lessons
94. Some Gifts Just Keep on Giving
95. One Feast Is Not Enough
Where’s the Next Book?
Thumbs Up? Or Thumbs Down?
Author’s Note
Also by Frank Morin
About the Author
Acknowledgments
This awesome, epic book is a testament to the constant support I receive from my family and from you, my enthusiastic fans. THANK YOU!
There’s no way I could create such an intricate, in-depth story, packed with such incredible characters, without your support and encouragement.
So here we are! The King’s Craft is awesome.
And it almost never existed.
I had intended to complete the series with one final book—Blood of the Tallan—which will now be book seven. But as I worked on this book, the story kept expanding until it was clear I had more than one novel’s worth of story here. I knew you would love more story instead of less story, so I changed focus and recrafted the adventure into two huge, epic novels. You’re going to love them.
As always, thanks to my family for undying support and invaluable input. Kyle, the idea guy, helped me push the magic far deeper and far grander than I could have done alone. The girls—Jenny, Kate, and Emily—offered great opinions and insightful feedback, and Jacob helped me explore the best jokes and best recipes!
Joshua Essoe again provided an excellent edit, asking all the questions I was secretly hoping he wouldn’t, and pushing me to never take shortcuts. The story shines far brighter as a result.
Brad Fraunfelter is an artistic wizard. Every cover gets better, and this one is the best one by far. Well done.
Thanks to my beta reader team, and for all of you who have been politely but insistently asking, “When is the next book going to be ready?”
It’s done! Enjoy.
Frank
Maps
1
Start the Day with Terrible News, and Nothing Worse Will Happen. Probably
Verena kno
cked on the door to Kilian’s suite in the recently completed New Schwinkendorf grand palace, suppressing her frustration at the unexpected summons. The hallway smelled of fresh paint, and the woodwork gleamed with recent polish. Rebuilding was progressing fast, but time was so short and she had so much research to finish.
Kilian opened the door, dressed casually in linen trousers, white shirt, and a black leather vest, but his expression was serious and tiny crimson sparks danced in his eyes. His black hair, tinted to blue at the edges from his centuries-long association with water, looked wilder than usual.
Verena followed him toward his spacious sitting room and asked, “This isn’t about the appointment of the new lord, is it?”
Kilian chuckled. “No. The rumor mill is giving that topic too much attention already.”
“Then is this about your mother?”
He didn’t answer immediately, so her concern escalated sharply. Was the much-dreaded invasion from his mother, the mad Queen Dreokt, finally beginning?
They weren’t ready.
It was a miracle the queen hadn’t launched war upon Granadure already. Winter snows might slow regular armies, but not her. She alone could threaten the full might of Granadure and all of their allies combined.
They’d dealt with several of her saboteurs in recent weeks, and Student Eighteen had identified three other spies embedded in some of the research teams. Strangely, Kilian had chosen only to monitor them.
Those spies had to be reporting on how fast rebuilding of New Schwinkendorf was progressing and at least a little about the remarkable progress they had made through the winter on research and development of new mechanicals. Yet the queen still hesitated. Why? Had they overlooked something critical?
Surprisingly, Aifric was already there, sitting on the couch facing the fireplace. She wore baggy Longrunner pants and her thick, brown hair was braided for running, but she also wore a very cute cotton top. Interesting. Usually the more military personalities in her head insisted on leathers or tougher fabrics. Maybe they’d been undercover in town dealing with spies.
A glowing bed of coals in the hearth emitted an even, warm heat across the room. Plush carpeting covered the floor, and several tapestries on the walls lent the room a cozy feel. Aifric waved, and Kilian gestured Verena to sit on the couch with her, while he took a comfortable chair nearby. “I’ve sensed no new disturbances from my mother.”
Aifric’s face shivered for a second and Student Eighteen took the control position in their shared head. “This is something else entirely, although it is related to the queen, and it posed a direct threat to all of our plans.”
Verena felt a chill. They both looked grave. It had to be something bad. “Is she launching that army of summoned creatures against us instead of Merkland?”
They’d suffered sporadic incursions by deadly summoned creatures, but all of them had been discovered early and destroyed quickly. With so many mighty Petralists and such a concentration of the most advanced Builder battle mechanicals assembled around New Schwinkendorf, the occasional attacks had proven little more than good training exercises.
Another question, another inconsistent action from the dread queen. Their contacts in Obrion assured them the queen had built many more nightmare elemental creatures than she’d sent against them or Merkland, so she had to be planning a major assault soon. Verena started chewing on the question, considering all the defensive measures they’d already put into place, and how they could augment them.
Student Eighteen said, “No. This is worse.”
Verena paled. The meeting was shaping up to totally ruin her day. “Worse?”
“The threat is already among us. It’s Connor and Ivor,” Kilian declared.
“What are you talking about?” Verena demanded, suddenly wishing for that horde of summoned monsters.
Student Eighteen said, “They don’t even know they pose a threat. It dates back to when you were still in your coma, that time I took them to Donleavy to try to rescue Ivor’s fiancé, Alyth.”
Verena remembered the story. The doomed attempt had been remarkably bold and romantic, and stupid.
Student Eighteen’s features shivered again and her posture changed. Her smile widened, her shoulders adjusted, and she sat forward a little. Her voice changed to the warmer, enthusiastic tones of Aifric the Healer. She tapped the side of her head. “The queen killed me, and that trauma was severe even for my mind sisters.”
“Mind sisters? I like that,” Verena said.
“Kilian’s idea,” Aifric said with another bright smile.
“It seemed appropriate,” Kilian said.
Aifric continued. “After Connor helped resurrect me, we’ve been able to rebuild a vital memory from that encounter. Queen Dreokt implanted directives in both of their minds, ordering both Connor and Ivor to wait until the spring thaw and then murder every Builder before returning to her.”
Verena scowled. Vile beast of a woman! That was worse than she had dreaded, and exactly the kind of horrific evil she’d come to fear from the dread queen. They’d heard grim tales from Ailsa of the carnage the queen had wreaked among her own ruling classes. The cold-hearted, brutal efficiency of the queen’s efforts to secure an iron grip on Obrion terrified Verena, but also strengthened her resolve. Such a monster could not be allowed to rule Granadure and the rest of the continent.
Kilian spoke up. “My mother rarely chooses the route of subtle deception. Usually she goes with overwhelming force and simply destroys the minds of any who oppose her. In this case, it appears she thinks she can get some usefulness out of Connor and Ivor. In her twisted sense of black humor, she probably thinks killing the Builders through them is a form of poetic justice.”
“That’s why she’s been waiting to strike,” Verena realized. “She’s not just building up her army, but she’s waiting for us to tear ourselves apart. If they succeed in obeying those commands, it would throw our entire revolution into chaos and make it a simple matter for her to step in and mop up the pieces.”
Kilian nodded, and Aifric said, “That’s what we suspect.”
“How long have you known about this?” Verena asked.
“Since before the battle of Merkland,” Kilian stated.
“So long?” Verena exclaimed. They’d let Verena and the others interact with Connor and Ivor for months, when murder rages were hovering in the blackest part of their minds, waiting for a chance to spring. She whispered, “Why?”
Aifric shifted back to Student Eighteen and shrugged. “If we lost the battle of Merkland, none of us would’ve survived until springtime anyway. We’ve been monitoring them and working on a plan to try to save them.”
Kilian added, “The challenge is that we can’t just step in and remove the order. They’re like mind bombs. Even if Student Eighteen figured out how to diffuse them, there’s a risk my mother might have included alternate commands in case the original one was foiled. There’s no way to know, and it was not worth taking that chance unless we had no choice.”
Verena rubbed at her arms, suddenly feeling chilled. She was wearing a skirt and blouse instead of flying leathers, but now wished she’d worn a jacket. She sat back on the couch and considered how she would’ve reacted had she learned about the danger sooner. “That’s why you didn’t tell us. You thought one of us might somehow give away that we knew and accidentally trigger one of those secondary directives.”
Student Eighteen nodded. “Now that the spring thaw is drawing close, we need to act.”
“That’s why you’re here,” Kilian added.
As she considered the horrific position the queen had placed Connor and Ivor into, Verena wanted to scream with frustration. If the queen really could implant an order to blind Connor to his love for her, if he actually killed her and Hamish, she doubted he would be able to live with himself once he realized what he had done. That was probably part of the queen’s plan. If she couldn’t use him, the revolution would lose him too. Her hands began to tremble with h
orror and a growing rage, so she clenched them in her lap.
Kilian was watching her and seemed to read her emotions. “You need to understand the danger. We will need your help if we hope to save them.”
“Please tell me you have a plan,” Verena said as she tried to settle her mind and focus on the solution rather than the cold, stark terror of the danger. The queen couldn’t snatch Connor away from her, not now that she’d dared hope for victory, for peace if they survived the looming war.
More than once in their crazy relationship, driven by the demands of duty and the unique challenges posed by his special affinities, she had been prepared to destroy Connor. She had thought those days long past, and in recent weeks had begun dreaming very seriously about the day they could be wed.