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Back Forsworn
Chapters (53)
  1. Map of Kingdom of Finfalla and Surrounding Area- Western Half
  2. Map of Kingdom of Finfalla and Surrounding Area - Eastern Half
  3. Map of Kingdom of Finfalla and Surrounding Area - Full Map
  4. Important Trigger Warning
  5. Prologue
  6. PART I
  7. One
  8. Two
  9. Three
  10. Four
  11. Five
  12. Six
  13. Seven
  14. Eight
  15. Nine
  16. Ten
  17. Eleven
  18. Twelve
  19. Interlude: The River of Life
  20. PART II
  21. Thirteen
  22. Fourteen
  23. Fifteen
  24. Sixteen
  25. Seventeen
  26. Eighteen
  27. Nineteen
  28. Interlude: Fallow Fields
  29. PART III
  30. Twenty
  31. Twenty-One
  32. Twenty-Two
  33. Twenty-Three
  34. Twenty-Four
  35. Twenty-Five
  36. Interlude: Of Man and Monster
  37. PART IV
  38. Twenty-Six
  39. Twenty-Seven
  40. Twenty-Eight
  41. Twenty-Nine
  42. Thirty
  43. Thirty-One
  44. Thirty-Two
  45. Thirty-Three
  46. Thirty-Four
  47. POSTLUDES
  48. Postlude 1: Lana Vica
  49. Postlude 2: Ludo Vica
  50. Postlude 3: Cainan
  51. Acknowledgments
  52. An excerpt from Heartsworn, Volume II in The Forsworn Oath, available for preorder now!
  53. PART I

He flipped faster now, looking for anything not written in the common tongue. More battles, more death and carnage, suffering and hardship. Had anyone in the Wastelands smiled, ever? He supposed if they had it wouldn’t be written about in this particular book, whose author seemed intent on making his readers want to stab needles into their eyes just so they could join in the suffering.

He stopped suddenly, his eyes becoming the needles, stabbing into the words on the page.

Razim Omnimum. The Great Evil.

Apparently these words referred to the Wastelanders’ term for, of all things, the Blood Tide. Except their order was switched. Nouns were offered first, and, in this case, ‘Evil’ was the noun. Which meant “Razim” meant “Evil”.

He snatched up the parchment, despite not needing to see the words to remember them as clearly as he remembered his own name. Razim noth recorum. Like in the book, “Razim” was first, so it was the noun, right? The woman had been calling her would-be murderer evil? He shook his head. No, she was calling him “the evil”. It was a small distinction, but one that felt important to him. “You are the evil,” he tried. It sounded strange to his tongue, but that didn’t mean it was wrong. Perhaps Wastelander language didn’t translate into the common tongue particularly well.

He kept going, picking up bits and pieces of Wastelander over the course of the rest of the book, until, finally, hours later, when his neck and back hurt from being hunched over for so long, his eyes burning from staring at countless words, he figured it out:

Razim noth recorum.

“I see the evil that you are,” he said.

For some reason, the skin of his arms rose with gooseflesh and a shiver ran down his spine.

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King Artemus Vedran, First of His Name

Marchessault, Finfalla

“Have I done the right thing?” Artemus said, the words escaping his mouth in a ponderous sigh. It ended in a violent cough that he covered with a kerchief already flecked with bloody spit. For once, he didn’t care to hide it from his companion, a woman who seemed to know most everything already anyway.

“There is no right or wrong, only what must be done.” The strange woman he’d only seen once before—had it really been twenty years already?—refused to sit and take refreshment, seeming to float across the room on invisible feet hidden beneath her shimmering gown. Cintra con Narcissi had shown up just a few moments earlier. Her sudden appearance should’ve shocked the skin right off his body, but instead he’d not even flinched. It was almost like some inner corner of his subconscious had expected her to return after all these years.