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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

The old him might’ve considered finding one of the larger, fresher bones—a femur perhaps—to use as a makeshift weapon in the event one of the guards was ever foolish enough to open his door.

The new him hoped the door would never open, allowing him to serve out his penance in silent solitude, never forced to interact with anything living ever again.

A picture containing caliper, device Description automatically generated

One hundred years earlier

Lostwood

Cainan studied the woman from a distance as she knelt before the injured rabbit. The poor fluffball bled from a wound in its leg, though there was no obvious source for the injury. The woman cradled the creature, which trembled in fear and pain. Gently, carefully, she bound the wound with strips of cloth from her own shirt, stemming the flow of blood.

There was something captivating about her. Not just her beauty, though she had that in spades, her wavy, auburn hair brushing her shoulders, her bright, blue eyes always seeming to sparkle with kindness, her ivory skin sprinkled with more than her fair share of freckles. For some reason, he had the desire to count them and see how their number compared to the stars.

“You’ll stay with me for a while,” she said, her melodious voice barely audible from this distance. “I won’t let you die on my watch.”

She sat with the bunny on her lap for a long while, softly stroking the fur between its ears. Eventually, the exhausted critter fell asleep.

“Are you planning to always watch me without ever introducing yourself?” she called, making Cainan freeze where he stood. There was no way she was speaking to him. She hadn’t turned toward him, for one, and he was sure as void he hadn’t made a sound. “Suit yourself. But if you get hungry or thirsty, I’ll be preparing lunch inside. Feel free to join me. I don’t get many guests these days. Or any.”

With that, she stood, cradling the rabbit like an infant, and headed inside her small cabin without offering even a single glance in his direction.

Cainan didn’t know what to do, so he did nothing but stand in place half-hidden behind a tree as he wondered how long she’d been aware of his presence. Unbeknownst to any of the other Forsworn, he’d been coming here for the last week or so, ever since he’d discovered the cabin built on the edge of southern Lostwood. Well, he might’ve kept returning more because of the cabin’s owner than the cabin itself, but he wouldn’t have admitted as much even with a dagger held to his throat.