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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

And then tapped. Just three light raps of her knuckles on the wood, so soft that the sound wouldn’t carry more than a few feet in any direction. The scratching stopped suddenly, and Perfidy held her breath, though she wasn’t sure why. And then…

Tap, tap, tap.

It was like an echo of her own tapping, falling into the same timbre and cadence. But every instinct told her that it was more than just an echo.

It was a reply.

Exhaling slowly, her heart beating frantically in her chest, she tapped again, changing the rhythm slightly. Tap, tap…tap, tap.

The answer came almost immediately, mirroring her own pattern. Tap, tap…tap, tap.

Something about it brought gooseflesh to the surface of her skin and she had the sensation of a finger being drawn down her spine. Before she knew what she was doing, she was up and running, passing the sleeping quarters and crossing the distance to Lady Brenner’s house in several long strides. She scampered to the ground, clambering on all fours and then pressing her back to the wall. She stayed like that for a long while, just trying to catch her breath and slow her racing heart.

She could barely make out the edge of the ramshackle hut, and from this distance, if whatever was inside was still scratching or tapping, she couldn’t make out the sound. Her frazzled nerves were far from calm, but she stood up anyway, willing herself into action.

She stepped silently onto the small wooden porch directly in front of Lady Brenner’s house. Reached for the doorknob, which, to her relief, wasn’t locked, turning easily in her hand.

She pushed the door open without so much as a creak. Apparently Lady Brenner was an obsessive hinge oiler, a fact that didn’t really surprise Perfidy.

She stepped inside, the floorboard creaking fiercely.

She froze, half-expecting to hear the woman screaming her head off as she sprang from bed, magic stick in hand, unpinned hair flung about her face in curling tendrils resembling a nest of snakes. Instead, there was only silence as her eyes slowly adjusted to the gloom. It wasn’t fully dark, however, the plethora of windows allowing some of the plentiful moonslight to stream into the single room structure. To the right was a small kitchen that included a hearth, a wooden countertop, and an array of plants, root vegetables, and herbs hanging upside down from hooks attached to the ceiling. A round table sat beside a chair, large enough to seat two diners without jostling elbows too much.

To the left was the biggest bed Perfidy had ever seen, at least double the width of her small bunk, which was already bigger than the lumpy sleeping pad she’d used back in Northpoint. A blanket covered the bed, formed into the topography of Lady Brenner’s unmoving form.