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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

She tried to shove forward, to defeat him with the strength she knew she had inside her, but his grip was steel and hers was faltering, the sickness that had assailed her ever since she’d set foot inside Lostwood finally rising to finish the job, sapping her arms and legs of all vigor.

Her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed, seeing nothing but a great black expanse littered with exploding stars.

Worried voices crowded around the darkness. Look at her hair, one of them said. Hurry, said another. There’s not much time.

But even they eventually faded too.

And then she heard nothing.

Thirty-One

Tomas

Marchessault, Finfalla

With every waking moment, Tomas felt the weight of two dead parents on his shoulders. His father had been right when he’d accused him of caging his own emotions deep inside himself. It was how he’d learned to survive all his life, how he’d been able to ensure he could complete his duties with a rational mind, uncluttered and unaffected by desires of the heart. On the other hand, his father had worn his heart on his sleeve, but, as Tomas had recently realized, it had always been an act, one expertly used to keep his enemies off-balance and underestimating his intellect while simultaneously instilling fear in those who would otherwise seek to outwardly oppose him.

The burial ceremony was everything his father would have wanted. Grand bordering on gaudy, with trumpets blaring his casket’s arrival on the promenade, the royal funeral parade led by a hundred flag bearers, ten full platoons of soldiers clad in pristine armor, silver-plated knights astride prancing white horses, and seven bards singing in perfect harmony, their pitch-perfect notes intermingling to tell tales of their deceased monarch’s most impressive accomplishments, the most noteworthy of which boasted decades of peace on all borders and the stamping out of all things magical and profane from even the wildest corners of Finfalla.

On his own black stallion and garbed in his perfectly tailored clothes of mourning, Tomas didn’t so much as glance at his citizens, even as they offered their wails and threw themselves dramatically to the ground. For he’d already begun his Time of Mourning, a time where he wouldn’t speak, wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t drink, and wouldn’t engage with a single soul outside of himself. It was a ritual that had been performed amongst the royal line for centuries, and it was part of his duty. He’d studied the way this ritual had been performed over the years by his ancestors, all of whom had obviously done so as a formality, giving up after a day, maybe two at the most by those princes and princesses looking for attention.

From what he could tell, none of them were sincere.