by Cara Witter
But he’d be damned if he was going let Jaeme charge off and screw it up.
Footsteps approached from behind, and he turned to see Perchaya walking toward them, alone. He turned back to Sayvil and Nikaenor. “Get your things,” he said. “And get him cleaned up. Some of the guards are building us a way over the chasm. You’ll need to move out today. It’s not safe here, not while Diamis knows where we are.”
They nodded and began to move Jaeme toward the front castle doors, and miraculously, Jaeme didn’t fight them. Watching him stumble, Kenton surmised he didn’t have the will left to fight.
He turned to Perchaya. “You should stay with Hugh,” he said. “He’ll protect you. Jaeme’s going to need him to take care of the duchy in his absence, anyway.”
Perchaya stared at him for a long moment. “Hugh asked me to marry him.”
Kenton’s heart squeezed so tight it could have fit inside a walnut. He’d known this was coming but couldn’t have prepared. He held his breath, waiting to speak until he could fake confidence. “Good,” he said.
“Kenton,” Perchaya said. “You’re a very bad liar.”
Kenton closed his eyes. “You need to stay safe. That’s the most important thing. And with Greghor dead, Mortiche will be the best place—”
“If it wasn’t for me, Daniella would have killed you in Tirostaar.”
Kenton shut his mouth. He couldn’t deny that.
Perchaya went on. “And you would have been captured by Erich in Ithale. It’s not just me who needs to stay safe. You need me. I’m not abandoning you.”
Kenton looked over at her, at the way the afternoon sunlight caught in her hair. “And Hugh will allow you to continue with us?”
“Kenton,” Perchaya said again. “I told Hugh no.”
Kenton’s throat constricted, caught in a torrent of feelings, all of which he wished he could squash. Relief that he hadn’t lost her. Pride that she wanted to continue to help. Hope that this meant things he couldn’t possibly allow it to mean. Anger, because he didn’t have the guts to convince her to stay where it was safe.
“All right,” Kenton said when he could speak again. “We’re going after Daniella. We need to beat Erich to the south, find them before they board a boat to Peldenar. We can get Daniella and find the others when they meet up with Saara on the coast.”
Perchaya nodded sharply. “I’ll get my things.” She turned and walked to the doors of the castle without looking back.
Sixty
Jaeme held the reins of Horse Three as the animal carried him up the road north, toward the Jekti pass into Andronim. As they rode through the dark of night, at the fastest sustainable clip, Jaeme’s head pounded. His left eye was swollen where Kenton had hit him, the wound on his neck stitched and bandaged, and his whole body ached—from the fight, from his inability to eat, from his gaping, broken heart.
It wasn’t Daniella who’d broken it, of course. He’d done that himself.
Nikaenor and Sayvil rode on two horses that had until today belonged to his uncle. They both kept glancing back at him with worried expressions, as if questioning whether or not they should have, as Nikaenor had suggested, tied Jaeme to the horse to prevent him from falling.
Jaeme wasn’t going to fall. Horse Three grunted irritably and tossed his head a bit in protest to how short Jaeme held the reins, how tightly his knees gripped the saddle.
North to Andronim. They’d find the final stone. Hugh had agreed to watch over the duchy for him, while Kenton and Perchaya went south to find Daniella. Jaeme wondered if Daniella would be relieved that they were the ones who’d come for her, or if her heart would break further that he hadn’t gone after her himself.
Perchaya would tell her he wanted to come. But Kenton had meant it when he’d said he’d break Jaeme’s legs, Jaeme was sure of it.
More than that, he would be the last person Daniella wanted to see.
Jaeme switched the reins to one hand and rested the other on the jewel in his belt pouch. Once more, he saw in his mind’s eye the small boy who had appeared during his fight with his uncle—the little red-haired boy with Jaeme’s eyes.
Stop it, Jaeme thought at the stone, but Kotali remained silent. Kotali might have stopped Hugh from killing him, but he’d let all the rest happen. The betrayal of Jaeme’s father, the madness of Jaeme’s mother. Greghor using Jaeme as a pawn his whole life. Erich taking Daniella, having her in his grasp even now.
And Jaeme couldn’t help but feel that Kenton had been right all along. The gods were done with helping men.
Jaeme was on his own.
Daniella stood on the deck of the small riverboat, leaning against the bulwark. There was no breeze to ruffle her hair, to tug at the cotton fabric of her dress, to make her feel like she could breathe in the stifling humidity. No better than being below deck, really, closed away in the cupboard-sized room Erich had given her.
Either place, she was trapped.
At least up here, she could see the world passing by—inching by, really, since they were going upriver, and this wasn’t some luxury vessel using a fortune in wind charms to propel it against the current. This was a simple merchant transport ship, and it was being dragged up the river by a team of oxen pulling it from the path along the riverbank. Two men walked alongside, occasionally cracking whips or shouting commands.
The ropes creaked as the oxen strained against their yokes, moving ever forward.
The sound of a laugh from behind her made her shoulders tense. Erich’s laugh. She turned just enough to see that he was on the other side of the ship, talking with Ifran and one of his other men. He caught her eye and meandered over, and Daniella considered ducking down below deck to avoid him.
But he could always follow her there.
Erich stepped up beside her and looked out at the oxen. “Slow going, isn’t it? But don’t worry. We’ll get there soon enough.”
Daniella didn’t respond. They’d taken first one boat and then another, obviously trying to keep from leaving an easy trail to follow. She was shadowed by one of the men at all times, though rarely Erich himself. He’d made sure she had private quarters on each boat and hadn’t so much as touched her since they’d ridden away from Grisham.
Erich sighed. “What I wouldn’t give to hear you laugh again, Ella.”
Daniella did laugh at that, but bitterly. She couldn’t imagine how she’d ever truly laughed in his presence. Their past was entirely shadowed by deceit and manipulation and fear.
Erich smiled, though, as if she meant it sincerely, and Daniella thought of him searching out blood magic to make her come back to him, and fought back yet another bout of vomit. It would be the third that day, but she didn’t dare let Erich see.
“You’re not taking me to Peldenar,” she said. They were headed north, toward Andronim, though via the most serpentine path possible. And if Diamis was still in control of his top general, Erich would have made some effort to take Perchaya or Nikaenor as well. He easily could have.
This time Erich didn’t respond, only looked out over the river.
Daniella put a hand on her stomach, willing it to stop churning. She drew in a deep breath of stagnant air, watched the water beat against the river rocks below. She imagined jumping from the ship to land among them. Killing herself was preferable to being used by Erich. But though she’d thought about it many times over the past week, she knew now—had been certain for the last several days—that she couldn’t bring herself to do it.
Not while she was pregnant.
She removed her hand from her stomach, glancing back to make sure Erich hadn’t noticed. If he knew she was carrying Jaeme’s child—gods, she didn’t know exactly what he would do. She should have been horrified herself, not in the least because if she wasn’t human, she had no way to know what the baby would be.
But it was half of Jaeme. Jaeme who
had lied to her, had betrayed her the same as Erich. The memories of his smile and his laugh should have brought her only shivers, but instead they warmed her at night, as if some glimmer of them might have been real. She might never get the chance to know, but the child felt like a piece of a life she might have had—one she didn’t want to relinquish at any cost.
She knew one thing for certain: if she wanted to give this child any chance of survival, she had to escape before Erich found out.
Acknowledgments
The (very) humble beginning of this series was over twenty years ago, and it has gone through many re-imaginings and drafts since then. As such, we have a ton of people to thank for helping us along this journey.
Thanks to our agent Eddie Schneider, for his enthusiasm for the world of the Five Lands and its inhabitants. We’re also so grateful to all the beta readers who have been through various drafts (sooo many drafts)—including Joshua Bilmes, Greg Little, Chris Husberg, and our writing group, Accidental Erotica. We are also grateful to the fantastic people willing to wade through the mire of epic fantasy proofreading: Dantzel Cherry, Benn Liska, and Jennifer Bair. Thanks also to Isaac Stewart for the gorgeous map of the Five Lands.
And, of course, a huge thank you to our families. You each deserve your names in some Hall of Fame for Supportive Families of Stressed Writers, but hopefully this will suffice until we can make that an actual thing. Thank you to the Janes clan—Ed Janes, Cindy and Wayne Terpstra, Lindsay Janes, Leslie Hamlin, and Nancy Vitelli. Thanks also to the Olds family—Drew, Cortana, and Kenton Olds (yes, named after THAT Kenton, so look out, world!) And also to the Walkers (and Greys and Koffmans)—Glen, Ethan, and Madelyn Walker, Ken and Toni Grey, and Marilyn and Barry Koffman.
Last—but definitely not least—we thank you, our readers, for spending your time in the Five Lands with us (and our very reluctant heroes). We hope you love these characters and this world as much as we do.
About the Author
Cara Witter was born in Abram’s Brook, a small town in eastern Sevairn. As a young girl, she was first introduced to fiction by the ladies’ letter-writing circuit, and has been reading and writing tales of heroism and romance ever since. She is honored to have been chosen to write the official history of the Gathering.
Other Books in the Five Lands Saga
Godfire
Oathbreaker
Bloodborn
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Turn the page to read the beginning of book three of the Five Lands Saga, Bloodborn
Prologue
Year 1127 of the Banishment Era
Liara Diamis hoped she was going mad.
She strained at the rope that bound her wrists and ankles to the rough wood table on which she now lay, hot tears streaming down her cheeks. The rope burned against her skin, and splinters poked through her thin cotton nightdress.
“Please, Finnian . . .” she tried once more. “Please don’t do this, I don’t understand—” The words choked to a halt around another terrified sob.
He didn’t answer, hadn’t said more than a few words to her since she’d awoken here, bound to a table in the barn of his family farmhouse. She could see him, though, working at another table just within the shadows cast by the flickering lanterns hanging from the rafters. Mixing blood in different vials and pots. Flipping pages in old books. Muttering to himself in the way she’d often catch him doing when he was planning military strategy late into the night.
Those nights, she’d put her arms around his shoulders and beg him to come join her in bed. He’d chuckle and pull her in for a deep kiss, and the world was right and true because he was in it and they were together.
And now all she could do was hope she was losing her mind, because that was far preferable to her husband being a blood mage who was holding her hostage in a barn and sharpening a small, curved knife.
“No, please,” she moaned as he turned to her, the knife catching the gleam of the lantern light. She struggled more, and the heavy table shifted.
“Careful, love,” Finnian said. “You don’t want to overturn the table and hurt the baby, do you?”
She let out a fresh bout of wimpering as he mentioned their child, yet unborn. He’d been so happy when she’d told him she was pregnant. He’d picked her up and spun her around, and they’d laughed and made love and talked about the kind of world they wanted their child to grow up in. The kind of world he was working to obtain, rising rapidly in the Sevairnese military.
But blood magic? Finnian would never do something like this.
“What are you doing?” Liara pleaded. “What do you want with me, why—”
He shushed her as he drew closer, tracing along the hairline of her forehead with his fingers, gentle as he always was with her. “I know you’re confused and afraid, Lia. And I’m sorry for that, I am. But this is how it has to be.”
“How what has to be? Finnian, just let me go, and I promise I’ll be a better wife, I’ll do anything you say—”
“You’ve been the perfect wife,” he said, giving her a sad smile. “And you’ll continue to be the perfect wife after this. I’m not worried about that at all.”
She searched for anything in his expression that wasn’t him, that wasn’t the man she’d known for years. The man who’d written her long love letters from the Andronish front. The man who’d had tears in his forest-green eyes as he asked her to marry him.
There were no tears in his eyes now, but he looked to be the same man. The same handsome face, the same fiery red hair that she’d loved to run her hands through. The same strong jaw and slim nose. The same expression he wore when he was about to leave her to return to his troops. Serious and determined—always determined.
He kissed her once with lips that felt dry against the sweat of her forehead. Then he lifted the front of the cotton nightdress, pulling it up until she was entirely exposed from her swollen stomach down.
She shivered uncontrollably, though the air in the barn was stale and humid from a long, hot summer. “Please, no, Finnian, whatever this is, please don’t—”
“I’m sorry, love,” he said, “but this is going to hurt.”
And then he began cutting on her skin, just above her belly button.
Liara screamed, pain ripping through her abdomen as if she was being peeled apart. She screamed and screamed until she was hoarse, until the light in the barn began to fade to black.
She didn’t pass out, though. She wanted to, desperately, wanted to make this all go away, make herself not exist anymore, but she couldn’t. The blackness spread out again into the dim light of the barn, and Finnian was no longer at her side, cutting her stomach with the knife, but back over by the other table.
Liara gasped in choking breaths, trying to refocus her swimming vision. The baby—had he been trying to cut out the baby? But it was only five months along. The child could never survive, not at this age.
In panic, she pulled her head up enough off the table to look at her stomach, terrified of what she would see.
It was terrifying, but not what she expected.
The swell of her belly was still there, unmarked. But all around it, encircling her pregnant stomach like a pine bough wreath around a naming candle, were shapes and marks she didn’t recognize, cut shallowly into her skin. All leaking dark blood down her sides and between her legs, onto the table underneath her.
The barn door creaked open, and a wild hope surged through her. Had someone heard her screams, even as far from the nearest town as they were?
But the figure had only to step into the outer edge of the lantern light before that hope curdled and turned to fear.
The man was tall and lanky, wearing the long, formal Vorgalian robes, though his peaked ho
od hung down behind his back. His hair was dark, and his cheeks covered in swirling tattoos that crept down his jawline to his neck. He made no move to save her, no move of surprise, even. He cocked his head and studied her, like she was a mere curiosity, this woman lying half-naked and bloodied and strapped to a table.
“The child?” the man asked, his tone flat.
“I’m working on it,” Finnian snapped, not even turning around. He wiped his brow, leaving a smear of dark red—her blood? Or blood from the other vials?—across his eyebrow. “I had to prepare the womb.”
The tattooed man looked back to her, studying the carvings on her stomach that wept blood, and Liara wanted to shrink inside herself, away from those dark eyes. And yet, some small measure of hope returned, mixed as it was with horror.
Perhaps Finnian wasn’t a blood mage at all—perhaps he was being used, turned into a blood puppet by this man. If so . . .
If so, then her husband was still somewhere inside, gods willing. Her husband who loved her and loved their child and dreamt of a better world.
Finnian finished swirling around a large glass decanter filled with dark blood, then began walking towards her again. He carried the decanter in one hand, the knife in the other.
Liara’s heart pounded near to bursting in her chest. Her only chance was to reach him, to free him from his blood magic shackles.
“Finnian, it’s me,” she said. “It’s Liara, your wife. I know you’re in there. I know it. Please come back to me, my love. Please don’t let him make you do this.”
Finnian’s brow furrowed, and for the barest of moments she thought maybe it was working. But then his lip quirked up in another of his sad, fond smiles. “He’s not making me do anything, Lia. Lukos over there works for me, and both of us serve a higher power, a greater cause.”
