Chapter 1
VANN
Avague awareness of hands on my body rouses me next. Unclear shapes and shadows move in and out of the center of my vision, just out of reach. They are cold, and large. All wrong for my perfect flame-haired soulmate.
“Firelocks,” I groan.
The word passes through my mind and crosses my lips without my awareness, bringing pain in its stead.
Soulmate.
Mate.
Mine.
Not anymore.
The blackness is replaced with an explosion of red. Hot pain cleaves its way through the darkness, gripping my soul as the object from my chest is removed. I fight against the pain, the inescapability of it, with whatever is left in my soul.
“Stop!” I bellow, to no response.
I am peeled away from where my blood has stuck to the ground beneath me, which elicits another deep, guttural sound, tearing through my dry throat.
The red-hot agony washes over me in sharp, unbearable waves, as unrelenting as the deep sea. I choke, spitting out the bile that fills my mouth as every part of me is consumed by the sharp death.
I wish I could die faster. A great many soldiers and warriors before me greeted death like an old friend, and maybe, just maybe, I will join them today.
Then the sunshine siren darts back across my vision.
And I remember that she has not just left me, she has been taken. She was stolen by Arion. No, she left because I lied to her. And the cursed witches on this island and I are the only ones who know that.
If I do not come for her, my woman will bind herself to that piece of living shit.
As I am roughly dragged away from the place where I was sure I would die, the images of the witches around me grow clearer and clearer. I see the top of a cave, not unlike the one where they took Arlet shortly after our arrival.
A stone slab is cold under my torn back. A familiar-aged face appears in my vision.
I would know this woman anywhere—the one who lived outside of Iravida. The witch who accepted my deal and took my heart in exchange for gold.
“You,” I barely manage to choke out.
“My name is Elanina. And it has been a long time, troll,” she says. “And you do not look much better than the last time we met.”
“You were the one who told her about our deal,” I growl. Because of those careless words, Arlet decided to leave. She is risking her life thanks to this woman.
“Because you did not tell her that you’d given me your heart.
Every woman deserves truth from her lover,” she responds simply, and the words sting my already raw flesh.
She’s right. The one to blame is me. It was my choice to go through the ritual, my choice to withhold the information from everyone around me. If I had been honest…
“Do you really wish to spend your last few moments alive drowning in grief and bickering over meaningless actions?” she asks.
“Is there nothing to be done?” I say, aware that I have no gold or anything else valuable on hand to give away. That it will be the end, and I will leave the world a worse place because of my hubris.
Silence meets my question for a long moment. Then another of the witches reaches out her hand, using her long, black, stained fingers to wrap around the entirety of my upper face.
“What would you give us?” she asks simply. “To save your life, what would you give?”
“You promised her that you would rid us of the curse! You already told me that you would save her life, and then they came for her! Have you no honor? Does your word mean nothing?” I demand, desperate. Feral. Dying.
I’m too distraught to watch their expressions, but I note the long pause before the same one speaks again.
“We told you that we would try. We failed, and for that I am…sorry.”
“Then heal me, and I will forgive you.”
“We need more than that.”
I grind my teeth. Loathing chills my body even more. “I have riches back in my home.”
“We have no need of wealth,” one of the witches responds.
“I have the ear of the king of trolls. Of his human queen, as well. They could be your allies if you proved yourself honorable.” I remember that Arlet got them to admit guilt over not playing a more active role in the fate of the humans.
Perhaps, if I continue to mount the guilt, I will find a solution.
They lived on this island, mostly safe, while their kin were sold as chattel.
The fingers covering my face, the ones that squeeze ever so lightly, twitch.
“You would give us an audience with your king and queen? Do you truly have such power?”
“I am the personal advisor to the king. I will be able to make it a reality with ease.”
“Duerme,” she commands in her language.
“Will that be suffi—” My mouth goes slack. My body has no choice but to respond, leaving me in this limbo.