Fractured Core (Untold Tales Book 6) Read online

  Fractured Core

  Laura Greenwood

  Contents

  Fractured Core

  Blurb

  Prologue

  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

  Epilogue

  Excerpt: Spindles And Spells

  Also by Laura Greenwood

  Co-Written Books

  About the Author

  Fractured Core

  Untold Tales: Snow White

  Laura Greenwood

  © 2019 Laura Greenwood

  All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise – without prior written permission of the published, except as provided by United States of America copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher at “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the email address; [email protected].

  Visit Laura Greenwood’s website at:

  www.authorlauragreenwood.co.uk

  Cover Design by Vampari Designs

  Fractured Core is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Blurb

  She's determined to regain her throne, no matter what it takes.

  Lucia wasn't raised to be a warrior, but it might be the only way to get her kingdom back from the sister-in-law who stole it. When a foreign prince turns up claiming he's going to marry her, and the assassination attempts from the queen increase in number, Lucia has to face that regaining her crown won't be as easy as she wanted it to be.

  -

  Fractured Core is part of the Untold Tales series of fantasy retold fairy tales and is based on Snow White.

  Prologue

  I stared at the palace, not quite understanding what had just happened. Of all the people in the world, Katya was the last person I'd expected to betray me. She'd been my best friend since we were children. She'd even gone on to marry my brother and become my sister.

  And now it was all over. Killian had barely been dead a week and she'd seized control of the palace, ordering anyone who supported me out.

  I sighed and rubbed a hand over my face. What was I supposed to do now? I didn't have any friends outside the palace. There was nowhere to go.

  A tear rolled down my cheek. I was a princess without a throne, and a woman without a home.

  "There's a cottage not far from here, Your Highness," one of the stewards said.

  "Is it going to be safe there?" I asked, lifting up a part of my skirt so it didn't scrape across the ground and ruin it. I supposed it wouldn't matter too much in the end. All I had from the palace was the dress and jewels I was already wearing.

  How could she do this? I wanted to scream at the sky and demand answers, but no one would give them.

  I watched the balcony looking out from the palace. And there she was, the wind whipping at her dark hair and dress. I wasn't close enough to see the ice in her eyes, but I could imagine it. I'd seen it when she'd made the announcement that I was banished from court and if I was spotted in the castle, I'd be put to death.

  "I'm going to get my throne back," I whispered. "You'll fall, Katya. And I'll be the one to do it."

  I turned away from the scene in front of me. It was going to take a lot of work, but somehow, I'd manage.

  I was the true Queen, and I was going to remind everyone of that.

  Chapter One

  The arrow hit the centre of a target with a loud twang. I let the satisfaction of the bullseye travel through me for a moment. But that was all. It might have taken me a couple of years, but I was finally at a place where I knew what I needed to do to get my throne back. And that I had to be more than a princess.

  But knowing I had to become a warrior and actually doing it were two very different things. And I wasn't there yet.

  I notched another arrow and prepared myself to take another shot.

  "Your Highness," one of the men said. I was fairly certain that he'd come from the palace with me, but there was no way to be completely sure about that given the time that had passed and the number of people who joined us daily. I wasn't sure what Katya was up to, but she was quickly turning the people of the kingdom against her.

  "Yes?" I relaxed my hold so I didn't accidentally point an arrow at him.

  "There's a man here, he says he's from the palace."

  I frowned. No one came from there anymore. They'd all chosen their sides when the original takeover had happened. "Who is he?"

  "I don't know. He says he'll only talk to you."

  I sighed. This happened every now and again, normally when it came to nobles who had finally seen the light.

  "Fine. Send him to the cottage and I'll be there in a moment." I had to clear my things from the archery range in case someone else wanted to use it while I was off dealing with whoever was waiting for me.

  "Very good, Your Highness. I'll prepare some refreshments for you while you do that."

  "Thank you. I appreciate your assistance." Guilt filled me about the fact I didn't remember his name. I was supposed to be these people's ruler, and instead, I was clueless about them.

  It was too late to change the past now. All I could do was be different going forward. I pulled my arrow from the target and placed it back in the sheath after a cursory examination. This was only my practice set, but I needed to make sure it lasted as long as I could make it. We didn't need to be wasting the little money and resources we had on making new weapons because I broke them. Yet another thing I'd had to learn when moving from the palace to the woods.

  The walk between the range and the cabin is only short. Though I no longer used it to sleep in, we still put the building to good use as a command centre of sorts. Now, I camped with the rest of the resistance in the clearing nearby. I worried about what would happen if Katya discovered where we were camping. Would she send her guards in one evening to slaughter us all?

  More importantly, would the guards go through with it? I wasn't so convinced.

  I shook my head, ridding myself of those kinds of thoughts. It wouldn't do me any good to keep stressing about things that I couldn't control. We had scouts posted, they'd warn us if anyone was about to attack.

  Smoke rose from the chimney of the cottage. I rubbed my hands together at the thought of the warmth I was going to find within. There were plenty of fires around the camp, but I never felt truly warm. Hopefully, things would be different when summer came.

  I pushed open the door, anxious to get inside and find out who it was that wanted to see me. I didn't get many visitors specifically for me. Most just wanted to know what they were supposed to do to be a part of the resistance against Katya.

  The warm air hit me the moment I stepped inside and I almost sagged with relief. Whoever this person was, they'd come at the right time. I needed the time away from everyone else.

  "Hello?" I called out.

  The man hunched over the table jumped, almost spilling his tea.

  "Sorry, I didn't mean to
startle you." I flashed him my best princess smile, one I'd perfected during my early court life.

  "Do you know when the princess is arriving?" the man asked, nerves flitting through his eyes.

  I could tell from the way he'd pronounced his words that he was of high birth, but that didn't reveal much. The numbers of nobles I'd had turning up here were minimal. They were more likely to send a case of coins with a servant when they wanted to support us.

  "She's here," I said in a flat tone. Did I really look so bad that he didn't think I was the princess? Maybe I should start going around with a crown on my head.

  "Will you send her in?"

  "Are you in a rush?" I snapped.

  The man chuckled. "No, but I don't want to sit around chatting with a maid."

  I laughed loudly. "You'll find I'm not a maid. I'm Lucia."

  His mouth fell open. I ignored him and dropped my sheath of arrows to the floor by the door. I went over to the kettle and poured myself a cup of tea before finally sitting down opposite him at the table.

  "Who are you?" I looked straight into him, trying to get the measure of the man without completely revealing what I was doing. No doubt he got the message though. It wasn't a tricky one to master.

  "Prince Jonathan."

  My eyebrows raised without me intending them to. The prince bit explained a lot, though not what he was doing here.

  "We don't get many princes here," I observed. I took a sip of my tea, enjoying the warmth. "How did you find us?" That was somewhat concerning. I didn't want just anyone walking into our camp unannounced, it could end up with us in a sticky situation.

  "I was given this." He laid a map down onto the table, apparently over his disbelief that I was the princess. Or he just accepted that I was his lot and he wasn't going to be able to talk to anyone else.

  I unfolded the map but couldn't see any markings on it. "There's nothing there."

  "There is. It's right here." He pointed to a clearing on the map.

  I shook my head, but didn't say anything. He could see something, I couldn't. I had to assume that it was magic. Hopefully, whoever had cast this spell had made it so that only he could see the markings on it.

  Just to be sure, I rose to my feet and grabbed the map, walking it a few swift paces over to the fire and dropping it in.

  "What did you do that for?" Jonathan asked, horror clear in his voice.

  "We can't keep something with our location on hanging around," I pointed out. "Who gave it to you?"

  "A man at the palace. I think he was a huntsman..."

  Gideon? That made no sense, he was Katya's friend, why would he help a prince make his way here?

  "Are you sure?"

  "That a huntsman helped me escape the palace? Yes. He switched clothes and horses with me and gave me the hawk that's outside."

  Wait, did he say hawk? If Gideon had sent a prince to me, had he also sent my beloved Sapphire to me? That still didn't make much sense, but I wasn't one to not take a gift like this when it was offered.

  "Are you seeking passage back to your kingdom?" I asked.

  The prince shook his head. "I went to the palace to ask Princess Lucia, er, you, to marry me."

  "And you thought I'd just say yes, just like that?" I put my hands on my hips. He wasn't doing a very good job of convincing me that I would want to be married to him.

  "I...argh, I'm making a mess of this, aren't I?" he asked.

  "Yes." I had no time to mollycoddle a prince who didn't understand that women didn't want to be told who they had to marry. "If you're not going to go back to your kingdom, you can see the steward and he'll give you instructions on where to pitch your tent and what your duties are."

  I turned to leave, done with this meeting.

  "Where are you going?" he asked, his chair scraping back loudly.

  I winced. How could he be so uncouth? I thought he was a prince. Shouldn't he have better manners?

  "I have things to do. So do you." With that, I closed the door behind me and let him stew in his annoyance.

  He deserved it. I'd worked hard to become the person I was today instead of the princess I used to be, I wasn't going to let some prince ruin that for me.

  Chapter Two

  The people swarmed around me, each wanting to talk to me about what the next phase of the rebellion was. I wished it was as easy as that, but I had no idea. I didn't have any more direction than knowing that I needed to take Katya down. She'd stolen far too much from me. My palace, my brother, and my throne.

  Whatever happened next, I wasn't going to let her keep it.

  "It's important that we keep doing what we are," I told the people gathered around me. "Keep training to fight, keep making sure the stockpiles of food grow. We can only end the Evil Queen's rule if we all work together." My voice quivered as I spoke, but I doubted any of them noticed. It was a lesson my father had taught me when I was a little girl. People heard what they wanted to hear. Right now, they wanted someone who offered them a chance. And that was me.

  "Princess, Princess!" one woman shouted. "Please bless my baby," she begged.

  I swallowed hard. People often brought their children to be blessed by royals, I shouldn't be surprised by this one.

  "Of course."

  She pushed towards me and held out the child. I placed my hand on the baby's head. "My blessings go with you," I whispered, at a loss for what else to say.

  "Thank you, Your Highness. Long live the True Queen."

  I gulped. I hated it when people called me that, even if it technically wasn't wrong. I didn't have a crown on my head, I was nothing more than an outlawed princess.

  "I have to get to a meeting," I told her.

  She nodded and let me passed. It seemed that word spread I had somewhere to be, as others moved away from my path. I made sure to smile at them like I should.

  The cabin approached, but not as quickly as I wanted it to. There were far too many people around for my liking. They hadn't been here yesterday, and I had no idea where they'd come from.

  "What's going on our there?" I asked the moment I slipped into the cabin.

  I scowled the moment my gaze landed on Prince Jonathan. What was he doing here? He hadn't been invited to this meeting.

  "Word has got out that the taxes are being raised," Brutus said. He was by far one of the greatest assets the rebellion had. Smart, resourceful, and most importantly experienced at leading troops.

  "Again?" I sighed loudly. "Didn't she raise them last month?"

  "The month before, I think," Brutus replied.

  "Even so, they should be plenty high. What can she possibly be spending her money on?" I demanded, though I knew none of them had an answer for me. Despite how much we'd tried, we hadn't gotten a spy into the palace at all.

  "We might be able to shed some light on that, finally," Rita said, handing me a stiff piece of card.

  I stared at the golden writing on it. "She's having a ball?" There was no covering the surprise in my voice.

  "I suppose it makes sense," Rita pointed out. "Things are settled, we haven't been making life difficult for her. I'm surprised she didn't do it sooner."

  I wasn't. It was just like Katya, never rushing into anything.

  "Then we need to change things," I said softly. "Perhaps it's time we started giving her some more hassle. Start with small things that are easy to ignore and then start building up."

  "To what?" Brutus asked.

  "How easy is it to creep into the palace?" Jonathan asked.

  Brutus, Rita, and I turned to look at him, none of us having expected him to say anything. I still wasn't too sure what he was doing here, but as he was from another kingdom. I needed to remember that I might need the alliance in the future.

  "It shouldn't be too difficult," I said eventually. "It's not built to withhold an attack and there'll be guards who are still loyal to me. But why? We're not ready to take the throne by force."

  "Not the throne," he said. "The crown. She'll ha
ve to appear without it at the ball, and you'll be able to wear it so people know that you've got it."

  "Hmm. Not the worst idea," I mused. "But we'll have to think about whether we can spare the resources. And it would be volunteer only. I won't risk lives for a bit of metal that can be easily replaced." But even as I said it, I could see the merit in his plan. If we were going to do it, then we needed to plan.

  "Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Brutus warned. "We have a long way to go. We're not getting enough food to the people we have at the moment, and training needs to be improved."

  I wavered for a moment, feeling a little insecure about anything I had to suggest. I swallowed my nerves and prepared to be shut down.

  "Send messengers to some of the farms further out and see if there's some kind of deal we can make for food with them. As for the training, bring several men in from each unit, train them with what we want them to know, and send them off to teach the rest. We might not get quite the same quality, but there'll be more people able to perform each skill that we need, and we can't dismiss that."

  Brutus nodded. "That has a lot of potential," he admitted. "We can also take anyone with a decent skillset and have them teach in addition to us."

  I nodded. That should at least sort some of the issue we'd been having out.

  "I'll organise the messengers," Rita added.

  "Thank you. I expect we'll get a lot of rejections, but there's a chance some of them might come through."

  "Even putting the ideas in their heads might be enough," I said. "Perhaps not for now, but in another couple of months when that woman increases the taxes again, or starts drafting their children into her army. It could really pay off to have those kinds of ideas already in people's heads." I wished I'd paid more attention when my father had been trying to teach me about ruling a country. I'd always assumed it was going to be Killian who'd inherit the throne and he was a natural.