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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

Only when her fingertips were impressively wrinkled and the water temperature had fallen onto the wrong side of lukewarm, did she rise and towel off. She glared at her destroyed shirt before grabbing it and chucking it into a dusty corner of her room. Cobwebs clung to it and a spider scurried up the wall.

“What a dump,” she said aloud. Still, something about the inn’s musty scent reminded her of home, of Farrow’s rented attic in the brothel. Why hadn’t he tried to stop her—really stop her? “If he had, would you have let him?” she asked herself. She already knew the answer, a resounding no, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t wanted him to try.

She sighed deeply, finally feeling like a version of herself again. What had happened to her in the forest? Why had a few vines tangling about her legs caused her to panic so swiftly and completely, all while dredging up old nightmares from her childhood? And why had she felt so damn cold? It was a brutal reminder that even the years of training that had made her the capable woman she was today couldn’t repair the cracks that remained deep inside her. Only the successful outcome of this mission could fill those cracks. She nodded to herself, determination replacing those feelings of helplessness and fear she’d experienced while in the throes of her panic attack.

First she wrapped up her damaged hand, hoping the out-of-sight-out-of-mind adage would apply. Then she dressed quickly in fresh clothes made for a man but tailored for a woman, knowing that she needed to leave the room as soon as possible lest her thoughts torment her with all the completeness of an entire gaggle of demons. Gaggle, she thought. I’m losing my mind.

Still, as she slammed on her boots and made short work of secreting all manner of sharp objects to hidden places beneath her clothes, she distracted herself with thoughts of the woodsman who’d saved her in the forest. She could smell a lie like a hound picked up a hare’s scent, and there was no doubt the man had been lying. Or at least not telling the full truth. He did work for the king, which was an oddity in and of itself. But he was no woodsman, and while she was certain the king commissioned surveys of his kingdom from time to time, it was not that man’s job to carry them out.

Which left her with two questions to ponder: Who was he really? And what was he doing there? Why did he lie? provided a third question, but that one was less important as it hinged on the answers to the first two.