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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

He was, not as a matter of duty or ritual or even honor, but because he felt his loss deep in his chest. Not just the loss of the man who’d raised him, with whom he’d spent countless hours in public and private with, but for the mother he’d never known, a mother whom, in his scant few moments of conversation with, he thought he might’ve loved as much as he had his father.

In short, he was mourning for two, and he wouldn’t trivialize either of their lives by making any of this about him, or some misplaced image he wished to portray.

Thus, he barely heard the snap of the flags in the wind, or the blare of the trumpets, or the march of the soldiers’ feet in unison, or the bards’ litany of perfectly rhymed verses. Nor did he watch as his father’s casket was lowered into the ground and swiftly covered by the dozens of shovels wielded by men who were being paid for their efforts. No, all he heard was the rush of blood in his ears and that voice cutting through the cacophony: A life for a life. All he saw was the glint of a blade being thrust into his father’s chest. A blade that was red well before his father’s blood coated it.

It was almost too obvious. Like it was a ruse concocted by someone cleverer than he. Had he been a man prone to fits of impulse, he would’ve rushed off then and there to follow the trail, his Time of Mourning be damned. But he wasn’t such a man, and he knew that sometimes one could see things more clearly after the dust had settled.

Thus, he settled in for his Time of Mourning, not in some public place so he could be seen, but kneeling in his father’s private quarters, their next game of Knights and Mages having never been played set on the table before him. Servants came and servants went, offering him water and sustenance, like evil tempters and temptresses preying on someone they thought to be weaker than he was.

He ignored them all, eyes fixed on those unmoved pieces staring at each other across the checkered battlefield. He didn’t cry or wail or sob softly. He just looked at those pieces, which had no power unless the hand of a player chose to give it to them. Almost like the player was a king, or queen. The ruler of a kingdom whose borders only extended as far as the edges of the gameboard.