Free The Marechal Chronicles: Volume V, The Tower of the Alchemist by Aimélie Aames

St. Lucq family, even if it had not always been so.
    “So I determined to set sail for the lands described in my forefather's writings, and I spent the last of the St. Lucq fortune in the endeavor.
    “After many months at sea, I found myself brought to shores that abruptly gave way to harsh dry lands where all is in dun shades of brown and sand flows incessantly into every crack and crevice it can find.  And that is to say nothing of the relentless heat there, where no sensible person steps out of doors after midday and even then, does so while wearing voluminous robes and winding headdresses to endure the otherwise unendurable.
    “The sultanate of that faraway country welcomed me with wide arms upon my arrival following months at sea.
    “His own father had made certain that he knew as much, if not more, on the subject of the St. Lucq family than even we do.
    “As you are aware, our wealth is tied in an unbreakable knot with them and their country.  He knew it just as well and welcomed the chance to once more enrich his coffers due to our travails.
    “His people do not possess the skill that we do in the crafting of jewels, nor do they know how to locate the stones that might one day reveal themselves as heartstones once opened.
    “To aid me in my work, all the sultanate's resources were at my disposal, not the least of which was a young woman, she also a stranger from a foreign land.
    “She had traveled far from the north in search of mysteries she had encountered in her studies concerning ancient peoples, some of whom were so ancient as to be entirely forgotten by the very people who remained of their lineage.
    “The sultan knew little of that, however he sent her to me as an expert on the surrounding hills that the sands came to cover then uncover just as rapidly again.
    “With her help and my forefather's indications as to where to look, our efforts bore fruit … magnificent fruit.  And before it was over, I learned the taste of another, and it was of a sweetness to rival any strawberry upon this land.
    “Her hair was fair and her eyes cool grey, as if reflecting the long winters and grey snows of her homeland.  But her smile was bright and it shined so very often for me that I could not bear to be without her.
    “We wed, and in the following year we chartered an entire fleet of ships to bear our cargo home.  The sultan was greatly pleased to see so many stones brought to his palace only to reveal themselves as heartstones.  They were far more numerous than anything every mentioned in my forefather's accountings, and this was in great part due to your mother.
    “Her name was Arianne,” the Alchemist sighed, “Arianne.  And she and I together found the hills that were not hills at all, but an entire city that had been buried over in rock and dirt, to be in turn buried by the living sands of the dry desert generations later.
    “The stones we found had been brought there from somewhere else.  Never had the tomes in the possession of our family mentioned such a thing, but thanks to your mother and the work she had pursued so relentlessly her entire young life, we found out the truth.
    “So it was that the sultan had more than his fill for his court jewelers, with plenty left over for my own work as well as all the mineral stones of an extraordinary purity to last my entire lifetime.
    “As the ships were readied, Arianne came to me with the news that she was with child.
    “And as her belly grew riper with each passing month, I saw her face become more pale and drawn.
    “We delayed our departure due to her increasing weakness and, finally, she gave birth to a beautiful boy that she would have named for her father.
    “It pained me, but I refused my loving wife.  After all the generations of St. Lucq, who was I to fly in the face of tradition?  At one time we were redoubtable alchemists, but we are reduced from our ancient grandeur, our immortality, as for all men, lies in the simple passing of a