Sworn to Ruin Him (The Lady and the Blade #1)

PROLOGUE

-GUIN-

Three Years Earlier

I stumbled through the Standing Stones, expecting death.

Crossing them meant a horrible ending—that your body would turn itself inside out. But staying in Logres meant burning as a witch. So I chose the unknown.

I crossed through the stones into the forbidden realm of Annwyn.

And I lived.

But now I faced a world that defied every law I knew.

Annwyn wrapped around me like velvet fog, dense and alien.

There was no sun here, no moon—only a constant dusky glow that turned everything violet and silver, as if the light had been filtered through amethyst. The sky stretched above in shades of deep purple and midnight blue, scattered with stars that seemed too bright, too close, pulsing with a strange rhythm.

Shadows stretched too far, defying the laws of light and distance.

They pooled beneath trees and rocks like spilled ink, some moving independently of their sources, writhing and shifting when I wasn't looking directly at them.

Trees appeared taller—ancient giants that soared incredibly high, their trunks wide enough to house entire families, branches disappearing into the violet-tinged mist above.

Luminescent flowers dotted their bark in spiraling patterns, glowing soft blues and greens that provided the only reliable light in this eternal dusk.

But it was the strangeness of the air that hit me the hardest—it shimmered, like heat waves rising from sun-baked stones, but cold instead of warm, leaving my skin tingling, every nerve ending alive and sensitive.

Magic. That's what this was—raw, untamed magic saturating everything, so thick I could almost taste it, something both metallic and wild.

Still, I was running. Always running.

Through the Whispering Wilds—woods that were rumored to be haunted. But I would take ghosts over the Iron Hounds any day.

You are beyond the stones, I told myself. The King's Guard can no longer reach you.

Yet my heart didn't let up. I could still hear the Iron Hounds on my heels—huge beasts with scaled hides, molten eyes, and steel-trap jaws.

Though Arthur had outlawed magic, the beasts were animated by exactly that—proof of the king's hypocrisy.

Half beast, half machine, they were built for ripping witches apart.

And I was considered a witch now, wasn’t I?

After what had happened in the marketplace? Yes.

The marketplace.

The memory hit me, making me stumble against a tree whose bark pulsed with glowing veins.

The stall.

I could still smell the dust kicked up by cartwheels, still hear the haggling voices of merchants and the bleating of livestock from the pens nearby.

That smug vendor who was trying to cheat me.

His face swam before my eyes—deeply weathered and pockmarked from years of poor living, with yellowed teeth that gleamed like old bone. I could still smell the stale ale on his breath, still recall the way he'd looked at me. The lewd things he'd said.

The heat in my chest.

It started as anger—righteous and familiar. But then something else stirred beneath it, something that made my fingertips tingle and my vision blur. The air around me grew thick, charged with an energy I didn't understand.

The water barrels erupting.

Three massive oak barrels lined up behind the man's stall exploded simultaneously, sending torrents of water across the marketplace stones. The water moved with purpose, coiling and twisting like it was alive—like it was reacting to my own outrage.

A serpent of water rearing overhead, slamming down.

Twenty feet of crystalline liquid rose into the air, taking the shape of some great wyrm from the old stories. Its scales caught the light, and its eyes seemed to burn with my own fury.

When the wyrm crashed down, the vendor was thrown backward, his head striking the stone edge of the fountain. Blood pooled beneath his skull like spilled wine.

I hadn't meant to hurt anyone.

But in Logres, intent didn't matter. Magic was death.

King Arthur's law was absolute: any display of magical ability meant immediate execution. It didn't matter if you'd saved a drowning child or accidentally lit a candle with your fingertips. Magic in the hands of anyone was considered an act of rebellion against the crown.

Then the screams.

The sound still echoed in my ears—dozens of voices raised in terror and accusation. Fingers pointed at me, faces twisted with fear and disgust. "Witch!" they'd cried. "Sorceress!" Children cowered behind their mothers' skirts, staring at me as if I'd grown horns.

The bindings.

Hemp rope, thick as my thumb and rough enough to scrape skin raw. The village constable had bound my wrists so tightly that my hands went numb. They'd forced me to my knees in the center of the square, surrounded by the wreckage of what my power had wrought.

The King's Guard.

They'd arrived within minutes—six men in gleaming gold and red armor, their horses snorting and stamping as if they could smell the lingering magic in the air.

Their leader, a man with cold gray eyes and Arthur's Pendragon crest—a black dragon—blazoned across his chest, looked at me like I was something he'd scrape off his boot.

The fear had triggered something deeper inside me—a burst of energy that summoned a fog so thick it blinded the entire village.

Panic clawed at me as they prepared the pyre, and with the panic came power I didn't know I possessed.

Mist rolled in from nowhere, dense as wool and cold as a winter morning.

Within moments, I couldn't see my own hands, couldn't hear anything but the muffled shouts and clashing of armor as the guards stumbled around blindly.

I was suddenly free of my bindings.

The ropes had simply fallen away, as if the fog itself had cut through them.

And while the fog blinded the guards, I could see and move through it as if it were clear air.

It was almost as though the mist recognized me as its creator and allowed me visibility, unlike the others.

Behind me, I could hear the guards cursing and calling for torches, their voices growing more distant with each step I took.

I'd used the fog as my cover, raising a frozen wall of water behind me.

The village well had answered my desperate call, its entire contents rising into the air like a liquid curtain. When the cold touched it—cold that came from somewhere deep inside me—it crystallized instantly into a barrier of ice twenty feet high and perfectly smooth.

The ice wall had cracked solid in an instant, halting the guards' pursuit.

Not understanding what was happening but recognizing my chance for escape, I ran. I ran harder and faster than I ever had before, all the way to my home in the hills of Eldenvale.

By the time I reached the thatched-roof cottage of the home where I was raised, the King's Guard was already there—no doubt having been informed where I lived by the people in the marketplace.

Yet, the guards hadn't spotted me where I stood, underneath the treeline of the Eldergreen Forest, frozen in place and uncertain about what to do.

From the edge of the forest, hidden among the dense overgrowth, I watched a dozen or so mounted guards circle our home like wolves around prey, the Iron Hounds barking and growling. Their armor gleamed in the late afternoon sun, the dragon crest seeming to writhe across their chests.

Then came the sound of our door splintering inward and heavy masculine voices, rough and demanding.

"Where is she?" The captain's voice carried across the clearing.

My father stepped outside, hands raised. "We don't know—"

The captain dismounted with deliberate slowness, his boots hitting the packed earth with a hollow thud that seemed to echo in the terrible silence. His sword sang as it cleared its sheath.

The blade caught the light as he raised it, and for one heartbeat—one never-ending moment—I thought he might reconsider. That some shred of mercy or humanity might stay his hand. My father stood there, defenseless, his weathered hands still raised in supplication.

The captain drove the steel through my father's chest in one fluid, practiced motion.

A scream lodged in my throat, and I had to slap my hand against my mouth to keep the sound from escaping.

My father's eyes went wide with shock, his mouth opening and closing like a fish yanked from water. A dark stain bloomed across his rough-spun tunic, spreading outward.

I bit down on my fist so hard I tasted blood—copper and salt flooding my mouth as my teeth pierced skin.

The pain was nothing compared to the agony tearing through my chest as I watched my father crumple, the captain's blade sliding free with another awful sound.

My father hit the ground with a soft thud, his body folding in on itself like a marionette with severed strings.

My mother screamed—not in fear, but in rage. She threw herself at the captain, nails clawing for his face. Another guard caught her from behind, and then there were two blades instead of one, and she crumpled beside my father in the dirt.

Something happened then that I didn't understand.

Rage.

Not the petty anger I'd felt in the marketplace, but something that roared up from a place deep inside me. It was like standing on the edge of an abyss and feeling it stare back, recognizing something in me that was dark and terrible and completely beyond my control.

My legs moved without my permission, carrying me forward from the cover of the trees. Each step felt inevitable, like water flowing downhill. I couldn't have stopped if I'd wanted to.