Page 15 of The Bloodstone Oath

“Doesn’t stop the mountain from rumbling,” he muttered, pushing his way towards the door and out into the forest surrounding Bloomrest.

The path wound downward towards the massive tree in the distance, its red leaves glistening in the morning sun. He frowned. It looked like blood. Solthorn, the God-plant that required blood sacrifices to remain strong, ensuring Rootborn fertility, crop growth, and protective wards for the Rootborn.

A lifetime of border skirmishes had taught Kaelor that the best vantage was seldom the ground. He slipped off the path with Renna and Zaria close at his heels. When he found a young ironwood whose lower limbs forked like rungs, he climbed until the leaves turned the dawn light green-gold around him.

Kaelor crouched on a broad limb and for the first time he truly saw Solthorn. Not a mere tree, but a titanic lattice of living sinew, bark the color of dried blood, ridged and glossy like obsidian glass; leaves shaped like daggers, dark crimson at the tips and shot through with pulsing capillaries that ferried ichor instead of sap. Vast anchor-roots as thick as ballroom columns plunged into the earth and then arched back up again, knitting beneath walkways and houses. In shock he realized all Bloomrest perched upon a web of throbbing arteries. Each slow heartbeat of the god-plant drew the coppery scent of spilled life deeper into its core, he could hear it, a wet, subterranean slurp that made his stomach clench. Lichen-bright runes shimmered along the trunk, flaring whenever a breath of wind rattled the leaves, and in those blood-crimson flashes he understood. Solthorn was not protected by the Rootborn; the city itself was grafted upon this carnivorous titan, a living shrine fed daily so its blood might flow back through the streets in the form of magic, harvests, and fragile safety.

Elders cloaked in white hind pelts and acolytes stripped to simple loin clothes circled the base of the god-tree. One of the acolytes held the tether of a pure white young goat, timid and quiet beneath the throbbing tree. Selara, achingly vivid inher moss-green robe, the Bloodstone smoldering at her throat, approached the altar, carved into the massive roots of the tree.

The rite began. At the first cut of her palm Kaelor felt his own skin prickle, cold fear sliding beneath his breastplate.What if the god-plant senses she is no longer the untouched vessel they swore it required?The thought hammered in time with the chant that rose from the circle. When she tipped her bleeding hand over the obsidian bowl the gem flared, and Selara’s knees momentarily buckled. Crimson streaked the glass like molten ore; the goat shifted, sensing doom. Kaelor’s breath caught as Selara’s shoulders trembled. It was as if the tree pulled life straight from her veins. He saw again the welts along her ribs from the night before, the exhaustion she tried to hide, and knew with forge-bright certainty that the Bloodstone, bound to the tree, was devouring her.

A twig snapped behind him. He whirled to find two Rootborn archers balanced on a neighboring branch, thorn-barbed arrows aimed at his heart. Storm-gray cloaks hid their faces, but their warning was clear. Kaelor raised empty hands and descended. Renna and Zaria, at the base of the tree, both tried to speak at once but stopped when Kaelor gave them a brief, sickened shake of his head.

Silent as shadows, the archers escorted him back to the moss-lined trail where a junior ward-keeper waited. He bowed deeply. “We bid you, Prince Kaelor, to please be patient and wait in the hall until the rite is complete.”

Kaelor forced a nod, yet the image of Selara’s blood sliding into that greedy bowl burned hotter than any ember as he followed his guards through the trees. Whatever vows he had to break, whatever healers he had to drag from their laboratories, he would not let the Bloodstone, or the blood hungry god-plant, claim her.

Chapter 9 – Selara

Mist clung to Bloomrest like a half-remembered dream as Selara, heart hammering beneath the Bloodstone, made her way with the elders and acolytes to Solthorn. The moon-white welts the gem had branded along her collar the night before still ached, and her stomach roiled as she wondered if Solthorn would accept her blood offering. She was no longer a virgin, no longer the untouched vessel Solthorn required. Tradition said a Priestess who broke her vow would find the god-plant mute, its sprawling roots refusing her blood.

Yet the city expected her to stand before the carnivorous altar and bargain for the coming season’s fertility with her own flesh and that of an innocent animal. If the rite failed, crops would wither, infants would sicken, and every Rootborn eye would land on her in fury. Worse, Veyla would have proof that the treaty, and her sister’s betrothal, were built on a hollow stem.

Selara sucked in a shaky breath. Regardless of the outcome, Selara did not regret her one night with Kaelor. Even if it meant Solthorn would reject her and the elders would select a new priestess, ensuring the first sacrifice would be her. There were stories of that happening in the distant past. Today, perhaps, it would happen again.

She knew what lay beneath her modest robe. The wounds caused by the Bloodstone when she united with Kaelor were now asingle dark scab on her chest, shaped like the Bloodstone’s central facet. She mentally traced it, half expecting it to burn.

Nothing.

The gem lay cool against her sternum, as if it, too, was waiting for the feast of goat’s blood. A traitorous thought whispered:It might not care who she lay with as long as it kept feeding.

Her ritual robe, forest green silk so dark it was almost black, embroidered at cuffs and collar with thread that shimmered copper in certain angles, an echo of dried blood, was covered with an extra cloak. Ostensibly to keep her warm, but only she knew it was to hide the marks the Bloodstone was making on her body. Across her shoulders the garment fitted like ivy, flattering her height and slender grace that Thorne once likened to a willow’s sway. Her thick dark hair was tied in a single braid, leaving one tendril to soften her profile. No amount of careful braiding, though, could hide the faint red flush high on her cheeks, the warmth that bloomed whenever images of last night’s passion with Kaelor slipped through her discipline.

Talia walked beside her, keen eyes raking Selara from braid to boots. “You should still be in bed.” The scout’s raven-wing braids were damp with fog; her fitted leathers smelled of crushed mint. “The whole city is whispering about the Bloodstone Priestess traveling to Emberhold.”

“Let them whisper.” Selara forced a smile she scarcely felt. “By sunset they will feast.”

Talia motioned toward where she knew the gem rested and then back to Selara’s face. “You’re sure it will answer?” She didn’t add after breaking your vow; she didn’t have to.

And Selara didn’t have to ask what she meant. She had sensed Talia in the darkness as she and Kaelor had left their secludedgrove. “No.” The honesty tasted of bitter iron. “But fear has never fed Solthorn. Only resolve.”

Talia’s lips drew down into a thin line. “Then I’ll stand where your resolve can borrow mine.”

Thorne waited at Solthorn, armor half-buckled, spear in hand. When he saw Selara his storm-gray eyes softened but then darkened with something she could not name.

“Your escort, Priestess.” He bowed with just enough formality, yet the way his stern gaze glared at her made him seem a stranger.

Her pulse faltered. Scenes from the vine-shrouded alcove, Kaelor’s hands mapping her body, her own moans swallowed by night-bloom petals, flashed in treacherous detail. Thorne could not know, but guilt pricked, nonetheless. She had always thought if she was not a priestess, she would be Thorne’s, but now she knew to the center of her being, she belonged to Kaelor. Thorne’s cold expression made it clear, he knew as well.

“Thank you,” she said, schooling her expression.

Together they descended the winding ramp toward the root-circle that held Solthorn’s altar. Already elders gathered, bark-brown robes cinched tight. Veyla stood at their center, regal in gold-threaded emerald, Cassian at her shoulder, all wiry vigilance, blond coiled hair gleaming like brass wire. When Selara approached, Veyla’s gaze swept over her, lingered a heartbeat on the flush at her throat, then flicked away.

“Solthorn hungers,” the regent commanded. “See it done.”

Cassian stepped forward, offering a freshly honed volcanic-glass blade. His eyes, sharp as broken glass, held no accusation, only calculation. Selara accepted the knife, afraid her sweaty palm would slip.

The crowd parted. Solthorn’s altar rose before her, an immense knot of black-veined wood whose surface throbbed faintly with an internal pulse. Veined leaves unfurled at her arrival, releasing a metallic tang into the air. Tiny drip points dotted the wood, sap that could dissolve steel, gifts from past sacrifices.

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