Page 1 of Bound By Blood
PROLOGUE
“The stone does not speak in words, it remembers in weight, in fire, in fracture. I was carved from the bones of the world when it still wept ice. I witnessed the pact of blood and bark. And now, I call my heir. Let the healer walk with hurt. Let the bloom rise from ash.”
A lone figure, tattooed in obsidian and ash, kneels beneath a thunder-split mountain. Their hand trembles as they place a dying flower on the stone, one heartbeat away from memory.
1
EIRIAN
The soldier's fever burns through my palms like molten copper, his skin slick with sweat that reeks of infection. I press my hands harder against his chest, feeling for the rhythm beneath—weak, erratic, fading.
"Lady Eirian." Ser Mael, my assistant, hovers at my shoulder. "His pulse is?—"
"I know what his pulse is doing." The words snap out sharper than intended. Three days this boy has lingered between worlds, and conventional remedies have failed. Willowbark tea. Honey poultices. Sacred oils blessed by the temple priests.
Nothing.
My mother's voice whispers from memory, soft as silk and twice as dangerous:Sometimes mercy requires choices that others cannot stomach, little dove.
The orc remedy. Hidden in my private stores, wrapped in black cloth like a shameful secret. Crushed moonbell root and fermented giant's bane, ingredients that would see me stripped of my healer's pendant if discovered. The temple calls such knowledge heretical. Barbaric.
But this boy will die without it.
"Fetch the—" I stop. Ser Mael watches me with those eager young eyes, ready to follow any order. If I ask him to retrieve my hidden stores, I make him complicit. Guilty by association.
"Fetch more water," I finish. "And clean bandages."
He nods and hurries away. The tent flap closes behind him with a whisper of canvas, leaving me alone with my dying patient and my mother's forbidden wisdom.
The Stoneborn know the mountain's secrets, she had said, fingers grazing the burn scar on my wrist, the mark of my first failed attempt at conventional healing.Their remedies work where ours falter. Remember that, should you ever need to choose between pride and life.
I stand, legs unsteady from hours of kneeling beside cots. The field hospital stretches around me in organized chaos, thirty beds filled with border guards, merchants, refugees from the contested valleys. All bearing wounds from increased Orc aggression along the frontier.
My private stores rest hidden beneath a loose floorboard near my sleeping roll. Three steps. Four at most.
"Lady?" The boy's voice rasps like autumn leaves. His eyes flutter open, blue as the summer sky and far too young for dying. "Am I going to see my mother again?"
I sink back to my knees beside his cot, taking his fevered hand in mine.
"What's your mother's name?"
"Sarah. Sarah Millbrook. She makes the best apple tarts in three counties." A weak smile crosses his cracked lips. "Always saved me the biggest piece."
Choose, my mother's voice demands.Pride or life.
The floorboard creaks under my weight as I retrieve the wrapped bundle. Black cloth falls away to reveal two small vials of liquid amber catching the lamplight like trapped sunfire. The Orc remedy my mother died protecting.
"This might taste terrible," I warn him, uncorking the first vial. The scent hits immediately—earthy, sharp, alive in ways that temple-blessed medicines never are.
He drinks without question, trusting in my judgment completely. The fever breaks within minutes. Color returns to his cheeks. His breathing deepens, steadies.
Heretical. Barbaric.
The words feel hollow now.
A horn blast shatters the tent's quiet, three sharp notes followed by two long ones. Raiders. Close enough to threaten the outpost.
Ser Mael bursts through the tent flap, water pitcher forgotten. "Lady Eirian! Captain's calling all hands to?—"
