Betrayer: (The Cursed Bloodstone Book 1)

Fire blazes in the far corners of my heart, fire so fierce it threatens to sear through my veins and erupt around me. I seize control, ordering it to stay locked away. My captor, this Bloodstone barbarian, must never see my hatred, feel my hatred, burn in my hatred.

I can harbor it, though. Oh, how I harbor it.

I present a meek shell. Eyes lowered. Shoulders hunched. Everything about my appearance looks like a woman ready to submit. Thankfully, my captor doesn’t touch me. He doesn’t feel the flames hidden beneath the calm.

Flickering torchlight casts shadows over the small tent. The crude table. The rickety chairs. The wide-shouldered Bloodstone warrior sitting across from me.

With my eyes lowered, I only make out his worn boots and the hem of his dark gray surcoat. It’s enough to send trepidation rippling through me.

The air thickens, beading sweat on my brow. I lift my bound hands, wiping it away, and raise my gaze to his. Haunted green eyes stare back at me. A shroud of unease settles over me. I expected evil or cowardliness to burn behind his gaze.

The young warrior wears a marked surcoat over a combination of leather and mail armor. Fear should grip my stomach and tremble in my bones at the sight of him. Maybe if I were normal, it would.

“What is your name?” my captor asks, his dialect a crude version of my own.

“Sol,” I whisper, my tone as meek as my appearance.

“Sol.” He says my name as if he tests it out. “Do you understand why I have taken you?”

“For my magic?” I dig my nails into the palm of my left hand, sinking pain into my skin instead of my abductor.

This Bloodstone warrior is responsible for the death of Mother. His steel may not have ended her life, but men like him did. Men like him rode into my village and killed nearly every man and woman.

The edge of the man’s blade catches the light of a single torch as he rests the broad sword across his thighs. Perhaps to remind me I’m at his mercy. Maybe he thinks it will make me think twice about running. He doesn’t know I have no intention of running.

Calloused fingers wrap around the hilt of his weapon, a blade he makes no attempt to lift. “Precisely. I want you to heal someone.”

“And then?” I ask, even though I know how they treat their captives. They rarely free them.

He shrugs his shoulders. “I will weigh your worth.”

Pain sears through my palm as I dig my nails deeper into my skin. “What if I fail?”

I didn’t consider those words before speaking. They’re fragile. The army taught me to never show fragility, yet in this tent, kept away from everyone I care about, I’m unable to keep it from showing.

The man’s mouth thins as he loosens his grip on the hilt of his broad sword and straightens in his chair. “If you fail, you will never return to your people.”

Never return.

Those two words echo long after he falls silent. Down, down, down, they resonate deep within my heart—to the place where I sealed everything away.

Torchlight catches on the hissing serpent etched into his weapon belt, kindling the flame of hatred. Jagged memories pierce my thoughts. Mother falling to the enemy. Mother’s dying eyes staring into mine.

Forever open. Forever locked.

Horror had seized my chest, trembled in my bones, and kept me hidden. I whimpered and watched as the Bloodstone warriors murdered my mother and destroyed the only home I ever knew.

The moment they had ridden away, I rose, sword in hand. Heaving it to the light of the moon, I swore to the gods I would kill Roland, the man who stole Mother’s breath. At only ten summers old, the pledge had engraved itself into my skin, branding my soul in hatred.

I bury the bitterness, the memories, the contempt until all I hear is my heart beating evenly.

Meekness, Sol.

Never let them see your flame.

The man stands, seizes my arm, and pulls me up next to him. “You will show me your worth. Then, maybe you will live.”