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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

And then she was there, shoving her hand forward into the monster’s midsection, pushing through the thick tufts of blood-soaked fur until she felt skin.

She closed her eyes.

Images flashed through her mind:

She was the bear, foraging through the undergrowth in search of something to fill its empty belly. It was hungry to the point that its abdomen ached, craving something, anything to gorge itself. Lately game had been hard to come by. Instinctively, the bear knew something had changed in this part of the forest, but its gnawing hunger dismissed such thoughts, for it had nothing to fear, not when it had spent its entire life as the apex predator in these parts.

It sniffed the air, scenting something. Soraya, as the bear, sniffed too. The aroma was sweet, alluring. Throwing caution to the wind, the bear took off at a lope, snapping anything in its path, ignoring the pricks of pain as it decimated a thornbush that had the misfortune of blocking its way forward. Thorny vines stuck stubbornly to its fur, but the bear didn’t care, not when it was so close to its quarry.

There!

The buzzing was a steady drone as tireless worker bees swept in and out of the massive hive, off to search for fresh pollen and nectar. If the bear didn’t care about the bush bearing thorns the size of its claws, it certainly wasn’t worried about tiny insects with stingers so short they couldn’t get past its outer coat of fur.

No, it tore into the hive, shredding the surface with its claws, peeling back the layers, which fell to the ground in clumps, releasing the bees inside, an angry swarm that swirled, tornadic, around the bear. Most were harmless, thwarted by its fur, while others found its less protected areas; namely, it’s unfurred snout and ears, which were stung a half-dozen times as it continued to burrow into what was left of the hive, finally finding what it was looking for: the honeycomb. The sugary sweetness of the honey exploded onto Soraya’s tongue, but what was more surprising were the larvae and eggs that spilled freely into her mouth. She swept them to the back of her mouth and swallowed them whole. Already the gnawing hunger was beginning to subside, so she took one final chomp and then retreated, shaking the bees from her fur in much the same way as she’d shed water after a bath in the river.

I’m not the bear, she reminded herself. Even as she tried to cling to that reminder, that truth, she felt herself falling deeper into the bear’s memories—her memories. It was getting more and more difficult to discern the difference between them, everything mingling together as though she and the bear had lived both lives together as one.