Page 2 of The Bloodstone Oath

“Forgive me,” she whispered as she stroked the smooth hair on the goat’s neck. With a swift, decisive stroke, she ended its life, watching in silent horror as its bright red blood, still steaming, slid down the channel of ironwood and pooled in the obsidian vessel. A hush fell; even the night insects stilled. Somewhere overhead a branch cracked, sharp as bone snapping, and Selara’s breath lodged in her throat.

Sensing her sister’s distaste, Veyla stepped forward, her voice smooth as lacquer. “Solthorn finds us worthy. Let the wards endure.” Leaves rustled in wordless applause, though no wind stirred. Selara bowed her head to hide her shame and show acquiescence.Why must it always be blood?

Veyla led the others away, motioning for the sacrifice to be taken to the feasting hall. The moment the goat’s body was carried away and torches guttered lower, Selara’s legs wobbled. She handed the blade to the acolyte and, with practiced dignity, stepped away from the altar, only to feel the world spin sideways.

Heat flashed behind her eyes. Copper flooded her tongue. She managed three steps before her stomach seized; she bent double, retching thin bile into the roots. The cut across her palm stung sharper than any prior sacrifice, as if the blade’s edge still gnawed at her skin. Tiny blisters, no larger than pepper grains, bloomed around the fresh slice, angry and white against blood-slick flesh. A tremor rattled her elbow up to her shoulder, knocking loose the composure she had clung to all night.

Vines overhead twisted with sympathetic creaks. If Solthorn ever failed to receive its due, those vines would gray, the leaves would blacken, and Rootborn fertility would falter in a season. Bloomrest lived or died by the rhythm of this blood exchange, and Selara felt the awful symmetry of her own heartbeat answering the plant’s slow throb.

Selara forced herself upright, but the Bloodstone pulsed harder, heat radiating until her sternum felt seared. She pressed her uninjured hand to the gem; the throbbing eased, yet a faint scorch-pattern of three crimson lines, lingered on her palm. If drawing a goat’s lifeblood scalds me like this, she thought, nausea swirling, what would happen if I ever tried to sever the gem from my own chest?

The notion struck like cold iron: pain beyond bearing, perhaps permanent injury, or worse, an empty hollowness where her life-thread should be. A bead of sweat traced her spine. She inhaled through her nose, exhaled through parted lips, and waited until Solthorn’s vines ceased their tremor. Only then did she turnback toward the elder path, spine straight, each step a silent vow never to let lingering witnesses see such weakness.

At the first shadowed opportunity, Selara slipped away along a lesser path. Bridges grown from living branches arched over quiet pools, mushroom lamps cast indigo halos, but beauty could not quiet the unease coiling in her gut. Beside a shell-lined fountain she paused, the sunrise on the water mirrored her face and the Bloodstone’s ember glow. It drinks blood, a traitorous thought whispered. What will it thirst for next?

“Child.”

Elder Eidrian Thornweaver, the most respected of the Rootborn elders, appeared, eyes sorrow-soft. “The ceremony troubles you.” His dark green robes murmured as he gently reached out and took her sliced palm in his ancient hand.

She gestured to the welts. “The tree…it hungers.”

Elder Eidrian’s brow furrowed. “Changes will come sooner than you imagine.”

Selara’s gaze drifted to the distant clearing, where Veyla conversed with merchants, laughter light, eyes predatory. “What does she have planned?"

Elder Eidrian’s sigh rustled like old pages of a well-worn book. “Beware the hand that takes with one palm while offering with the other.”

He bowed and departed, leaving Selara alone with the sound of the fountain’s soothing water and her own roiling thoughts.

It was midday when Selara stood on the eastern balcony of the royal residence watching gray smoke ribboned across the horizon, another Fireforged raid, if rumors were true. Their ancient enemy would never relent, Selara thought, regardless of what sacrifices were made to Solthorn. The Bloodstone pressedcold against tender skin and the blister-dots on her palm ached each time she clenched the railing.

Veyla appeared at Selara's side, her presence as sudden and sharp as a winter's breath.

Selara, startled from her reverie, turned to face her sister, her gaze sliding to Cassian, who carried parchment reports of night skirmishes along the northern ridge where Fireforged patrols pressed ever closer to Rootborn orchards. “King Dragan’s absence emboldens their war bands,” he murmured to Veyla, voice as cool as the steel quill in his hand. “Prince Kaelor fans these incursions to showcase his resolve to rule.”

Selara caught the words, a fresh thorn of worry pricking her ribs.

Veyla’s voice, a deceptive caress of silk over polished oak, cut through Selara's concern. "You were absent after the rejuvenation of Solthorn," Veyla began, her words weighted with unspoken judgment, "the people notice such absences."

The familiar tension, a coil of resentment and old wounds, immediately tightened between them. "Absences?" Selara’s voice was a low growl, barely masking her exasperation. "I have been tirelessly preparing for the ritual, Veyla. I tend to the wounded. I do my duty, especially in the absence of our parents. My sacrifices are no less than anyone else’s."

Veyla's gaze was unyielding. "Sacrifice, Selara, is not merely about what one gives, but what one is willing to lose. Your doubt, it pollutes the very air of the Solthorn."

"Doubt?" A bitter laugh escaped Selara’s lips. "Is it doubt to question the cost? To see the toll this 'faith' takes on our kin?" She gestured at the forest that surrounded their lofty terrace. It bore witness to the Rootborn’s silent suffering. "We starve, Veyla. Our children die. And for what? More empty promises?"

Veyla's expression hardened, her eyes narrowing to obsidian chips. "Those are the words of a coward, Selara, not a leader. Our strength lies in unity, in unwavering belief. To falter now is to betray all we have fought for, all those who have fallen."

The crushing weight of their traditions rested on the Bloodstone Priestess, the relentless demands of the elders, and the fear that gnawed at the heart of their people. But the first-born daughter of the royal house was born with fierce conviction, believing in Selara’s sacred duty, the ancient pacts, and the dire consequences of dissent, regardless of the cost to her own sister.

With an abruptness that signaled the end of her patience, Veyla cut through Selara’s troubled thoughts. Her voice, though still calm, held an edge of finality that brooked no argument.

"A courier arrives from Hawthorn Ridge," Veyla announced, her eyes fixed on Selara’s as she named the Rootborn town that bordered Fireforged territory. "Be prepared, Selara. Be prepared, heart and blade. We cannot afford you to waver."

With that chilling pronouncement, Veyla left, Cassian close on her heels. Selara stared across the forest to where Solthorn pulsed in its sacred grove, the weight of Veyla's warning settling over her like a shroud.

Chapter 2 - Kaelor

Embers jittered in the newborn daylight, red motes snatched up by a desert wind as Kaelor Flamewright surveyed the raid from a ridge of basalt. Below, orderly ranks of Fireforged soldiers advanced, torches and curved flame-blade glaives turning neat furrows of farmland into smoking scars. Dawn’s first light should have felt triumphant; instead, it stained the horizon the color of old blood, and the smell of scorched grain tightened Kaelor’s throat.

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