The Cumerian Unraveling Trilogy (Scars of Ambition, Vendetta Clause, Cycles of Power) Read online

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Map (east)

  Map (west)

  THE SCARS OF AMBITION

  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

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  THE VENDETTA CLAUSE

  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

  THE CYCLES OF POWER

  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

  About the Author

  Appendix

  Copyright Page

  THE CUMERIAN UNRAVELING

  BOOKS 1-3

  Written and translated from the original Cumerian by

  Jason Letts

  THE SCARS OF AMBITION

  PROLOGUE

  When they didn’t kill him right away, he knew he had them.

  Masked and shackled, Gort Kikkerson trudged along a suspended walkway through the underground cavern adjoining one of Bracken Energy’s gas plants. Two plant workers followed him, one who kept jabbing him in the back with a knife to move him along, while the other jabbered sarcastically about how nicely they were going to treat him.

  But Gort wasn’t worried. In fact, getting caught was usually the easiest way to go about collecting information for his bosses. Even then he was listening to the sounds of burning gas turning water into steam that would be compressed and funneled into turbines to make electricity. It created a whooping sound he measured against the beating of his heart, an alert eighty beats per minute.

  “Is it this way to the spa?” Gort chuckled.

  “Shut up!” roared the man behind him in a voice just a little too high to take seriously. But he was angry enough, that was clear, and sooner or later it’d cause him to make a mistake that would allow Gort to get free and most likely cost the two men their lives. It happened like that every time, which was why he was the best.

  Shouts in the distance from other plant workers egged on his captors, who turned him out of the cavern and into a narrow passageway. Every sound helped calculate the layout of the facility, and he’d need to remember it with pinpoint accuracy when it came time to finish the job.

  A door creaked open in front of him and some additional light filtered through the mask. The two men sat him in a wooden chair, removing the mask and dropping it on a nearby table while the door closed. Gort grinned at the short, plump man with the pockmarked cheeks.

  “I’m ready for my massage,” he said, rolling his head around his neck.

  The man’s knuckles connected with Gort’s jaw an instant later, causing him to bite down on his tongue. It wasn’t fun if he didn’t bleed a little.

  “Oh, I love it!” he gushed. In truth, he did find it far preferable to the long flight across Cumeria and hiding in ditches until he spotted a way to get in. This was what got his juices flowing, and it was all about his juices.

  “Then see how you like this,” the man growled, landing another blow. The back of Gort’s head banged off one of the pipes that lined the room. Just one more punch would shift him far enough to the right that he’d be able to reach a closed valve sealing off an auxiliary gas pipe from the combustor turbine. The extra gas would overwhelm the controlled reaction, causing the combustor to blow and the explosion to race back up the pipe, bursting it open along the way.

  The odds of a few cuts from the shrapnel were excellent, but odds of dying were slim…‌for him.

  “Not the best I’ve had, but I wasn’t expecting much,” Gort said. Blood dribbled over his lip and onto the dingy plant overalls he’d stolen.

  “I’m just getting warmed up,” the man hollered, landing another blow. When Gort’s tied hands found the valve, he almost sighed.

  “Thank you for that,” he said, but what wasn’t as calming was the taller man, gangly and unshaven, leaning against the opposite wall. Gort had chosen these men to catch him because they seemed like idiots with short tempers, but this taller man watching from the corner might just notice Gort twisting the valve and ruin the whole thing.

  “I’m sorry to say it, but looks like you’ll be having a short stay, or a long one depending on whether you count the part where you’re in the ground,” the tubby man joked, rubbing his hands.

  “I believe you would, but what about him? He looks like another coward from the ClawLands, part of Lowell Bracken’s pansy parade.” Gort spat at the taller man, putting every ounce of condescension he had in it. Even the shorter man laughed until hearing his boss’s name, but the taller man showed no sign of heeding the insults.

  “You ought not wish ill for Mr. Bracken,” the talkative one said, coming close. “Did you think there wouldn’t be any consequences for snooping around Bracken Energy’s headquarters? Do you think we don’t know who you work for? Bolt and Keize should’ve saved time and dug your grave themselves!”

  A flicker of alarm kindled within Gort when he heard the names of his bosses. He had no identification of any kind on him to give his employers away, but the tensions between the companies made them the only reasonable suspects. In a way it was flattering. Not long ago those names would’ve meant nothing, but now they stood for the only credible threat to Bracken’s energy dominance in a generation.

  “If you know who I work for, then you know they won’t hesitate to retaliate if I go missing. Everyone will find out about it, and it’ll choke the life out of your company faster than the soot you spew into the air.”

  As Gort blabbed, he reached back for the valve and gave it a gentle tug in case it spun easily. It didn’t. Gort used more and more force until any more would make his effort obvious. He had to stop and wait for a moment when he could put all his weight into it.

  A smirk spread across the short workman’s face and a glimmer grew in his black eyes.

  “Your bosses won’t say a word.” He snatched some of Gort’s ratty blond hair and yanked it back. “I’m going to let my friend Finky here zap the life out of you and then we’ll mangle you against one of those solar generators you got out there no
rth of the desert. I’ll point the papers to your body myself, along with a few questions about the safety of all this new technology.

  “Then that nice stock price from the public offering of Bolt & Keize will start to plummet, your investors will panic, and your friends back in the office will fight to cover up their own dead coworker for the simple reason that the number floating around the stock market is more important than your life.”

  Sobering at the realization that he’d sorely underestimated these grungy men both for their intellect and their cunning, Gort put to rest any question of whether they would actually kill him. The sad part about it was they were probably right: he’d be forgotten in a heartbeat, all his success and glory flushed down the pipes. For once Gort felt more than ready to leave, and he gave the valve as strong a tug as he could get away with.

  “No, Mr. Bolt would never let it play that way,” he said, trying to buy a little time. The workman offered a sympathetic squint.

  “But Keize would. Isn’t that the truth?”

  The valve wouldn’t budge, possibly because it was rusted shut, and worse, his hands were beginning to grow sweaty and lose their grip on the small metal wheel. The workman turned to his friend against the wall, who raised a long loop of wire and used a knife to cut through it. Sparks showered onto the bare cement, and when part of the wire fell to the floor, it twitched and danced.

  The tall man lumbered forward, allowing Gort to finally figure him out. He wasn’t the quiet, watchful type; he was the cold, unfeeling type, the kind of man who saw killing another man as no different from taking out the garbage or sweeping the floor. No matter what the job was, he’d do it. Gort knew because that’s how he felt about it.

  The wire continued to spit sparks, and one jolt from it would sap enough strength that Gort would never twist the valve. Out of options, he threw himself to the side, lunging against the table as all his weight went into pulling.

  “What’s he doing?” the short man barked when a screech from the pipe filled the air. Gort had time to yank the valve once more before the men pinned him against the table. The only thing he needed to do to be home free was take cover on the floor before the pipe blew.

  That shhhhhhh sound of gas rushing into the combustor would be the prelude to a symphony of explosions, but instead an unnerving glug glug came from the pipe just inches from his head.

  Gort paled.

  That wasn’t gas. It was water, which would merely flood the combustor, make the dials dip for a moment, and alert others that something was wrong. The air hanging in front of Gort’s face refused to enter his stricken lungs. The error in his memory of the schematics seemed so small and so big. When faced with his certain demise, Gort did something he promised himself he’d never do.

  “Wait! Please, there must be something I can tell you! Can’t we talk about this?”

  Gort whelped when the cord spit white hot specks onto his denim overalls and screamed when the tall workman jammed the end against the bare skin around his neck. He shook and twitched, already feeling like his body housed an uncontrollable fire.

  Bracing for the next shock, his face crinkled up and tears spilled onto his cheeks. The short workman rolled his eyes.

  “Oh, come on! Would you stop that? Don’t take it so personally.”

  Gort’s muttering continued, erupting into screams the next time the wire electrified him. A puff of smoke and the smell of burnt flesh took to the air. The workman snickered.

  “It’s just business.”

  CHAPTER 1

  Lowell Bracken cringed when the message came through to his phone.

  “Sir, we’ve got a problem,” his number two had written. Carlisle was a tireless juggernaut of an executive who didn’t know when to take a break, and Lowell found it effortless to dismiss what was surely a false alarm. On today of all days, he wanted to leave work behind and enjoy time with his family.

  “It can wait. I’m at my youngest’s Crossing,” he replied. It wasn’t every day that a father got to watch his son grow up and start his life.

  “You should really put that thing away,” Lowell’s daughter Sierra said from beside him. It was a relief when the messages ceased.

  “That’s big talk coming from you,” Lowell said, gesturing to the phone she was still typing on. She looked up just long enough to flash an endearing smile, one of the few things in the world that could put him at ease.

  They looked down at a small stage from high in the crowded stands, where Lowell could momentarily forget that every single person there would be homeless, starving, or dead if it weren’t for him. Apart from his expensive suit, he appeared to be just another parent, not the head of one of the nation’s leading energy companies and premier families. The gray had long since taken root in his well-groomed hair and goatee, but Lowell Bracken knew he was in the prime of his life, and his greatest successes were still ahead. Then, after he’d taken Bracken Energy to heights his ancestors could never have fathomed, he’d die at his desk, comforted that his family’s future was secure.

  Although Carlisle Empry couldn’t have become Chairman of the Board without the kind of ruthless ambition that would make him naturally inclined to chase the big chair after the distant departure, Lowell had always planned that Sierra, his oldest, would continue his legacy. Now a smart and smartly dressed woman in her early thirties, Sierra still didn’t have the résumé to make it more than just nepotism.

  “It seems like just yesterday I was down there waving that flag,” she mused.

  “Wasn’t it yesterday?” Lowell raised his eyebrow.

  “Is your memory failing? I’m scheduling you a doctor’s appointment now,” she said, typing, and they laughed.

  He remembered taking her to the office and getting amused looks from the staff for having daddy’s girl around, but as time passed she began getting the looks, and the amusement in their eyes had turned to something altogether more depraved. Currently, she was a junior partner at Fiori Law. Not a bad gig, and he hoped some of Mr. Fiori’s cutthroat nature would rub off on her, but in truth her position was that of a glorified intern. Perhaps if she did well enough then she could come on as a division manager, jump into the next board vacancy, and begin to resemble a qualified executive.

  “Would you two quit gabbing? You’ll miss Taylor’s Crossing,” Randall said from the seat in front of them, twisting around to give them a look. Lowell and Sierra exchanged glances and broke into a cacophony of laughter, forcing Randall back around. A hopeless gossip and cripplingly vain, Lowell’s second child, Randall, never was a good fit to lead Bracken Energy. Instead, the company had conspired to push him into the Grand Counsel seat that Lowell’s uncle had occupied until his death and the Bracken family had held for more than a hundred and twenty-five years. Politics allowed Randall to flirt and preen to his heart’s content.

  “Taylor’s almost next,” Sierra informed them, finally putting away her phone. Lowell squinted to make out his third child, who was waiting in line among his classmates to declare fealty to their nation by waving the flag of Cumeria. This act marked the start of their adult lives, their citizenship, and was known as The Crossing.

  “Taylor always had a baby face,” Lowell said, admiring his son. If the company and the council seat were safe in his sibling’s hands, Taylor was free to pursue his deepest desires. The thought made Lowell smile.

  “I’m pretty sure that’s because he is a baby,” Sierra joked. Indeed, fifteen years separated Taylor from Randall, and in that space was an ocean of memories too painful to think about.

  “Look, here comes Mom!” Randall called, and Lowell couldn’t help but stare. Lowell’s first wife, Tris, sauntered along the aisle, doubtlessly headed their way. Fully enjoying the sun, she wore a blue flower-printed dress, and appeared as nimble and healthy as ever.

  “What’s she doing here?” Lowell asked, doing his best to suppress the sudden excitement she always managed to stir up in him. He didn’t see her more than two or three times a ye
ar and never contacted her, though he always noticed her name when scrolling through his contacts.

  “She’s been more of a mother to Taylor than Melody has. Why wouldn’t she be here?” Sierra said, while Lowell took a second look at Tris. Some things were not meant to last, but the reminder of how generous she’d been to all of his children touched him. At the same time, a pang struck his heart over Sierra’s needling of Melody, and he craned his neck, trying to spot her in the audience. A strategic marriage, his relationship with Melody Hockley had never been more than cordial, and it was likely she was spending the ceremony with members of her banker family somewhere he couldn’t immediately see.

  Sierra and Randall rose to greet their mother, and Lowell added the proper amount of reluctance when he got out of his seat.

  “What a beautiful couple of kids,” she beamed, wrapping her arms around her two children and looking out from between their light brown hair. When she finally noticed Lowell, who waited patiently, she added, “And you.”

  If it were anyone else, Lowell would’ve taken it as a slight, but Tris’s voice never had a barb in it.

  “I’m certainly not a kid anymore, but beauty does grow with age,” he said, struggling to be witty.

  “If that’s the case, I must be the most beautiful of all,” Tris said, and Lowell swallowed to stop himself from agreeing.

  “But you are,” Sierra chimed in, placing her hand on her mother’s shoulder.

  “How are things at the conservatory?” he asked, reminding himself to find a way to get her some decent work.

  “Dirty, but that’s what I get for working with plants. And how are you?”

  That most obvious question had caught Lowell off guard, but before he could formulate an answer that might intrigue her, the name “Taylor Bracken” crackled over the loudspeaker, drawing all of their attention back to the stage.

  Like the others before him, the muscular young man strode forward, passing through a tall stone gate covered in carvings on the stage. A teacher in a white and gold robe handed Taylor the jade and fuchsia Cumerian flag, which he waved over his head and swung in a great arc. Though the crowd had been instructed not to clap, watching a member of the famed Bracken family emerge through the other stone gate with his scroll was too much, and a ripple of applause grew to a roar. Hoots and hollers joined in, and Taylor waved to the crowd, beaming.