Bound by the Black Flame's Kiss

Prologue

TWENTY YEARS AGO

What is the color of retribution? Is it crimson like the blood on my hands?

Onyx like the savage flames at my fingertips?

Is it silver like the steel blade of my sword?

Or is it something else entirely? A culmination of the many shades that make up my wretched form?

Whatever hue, it lives in my very marrow and marks the borders of every thought.

I am a weapon twice-forged. First, by the old gods as an Azkari warrior for a divine war that never came to pass. Second, by the enemy I still battle in the shadows—the Silver-Tongued Deceiver—Malevron.

But I did not come here for the spectral tyrant today. I came for a name.

Dark with blood, the mud shifts under my boots as I step over the fresh corpses, smoke rising from them in the cold morning air of the Wailing Wilds.

Screaming winds sweep across the decimated camp, and from the sea of burnt and broken bodies, corruption releases outward across the plains. Like poison coursing through veins.

Such is the nature of evil; it spreads like disease.

And I will be the one to burn it out. I will be nothing if not a blight upon Morzanmyre.

Although the Reckoning ended two centuries ago, Malevron’s supporters still gather in the dark.

Around me, is the remains of one of these units, one I have destroyed.

But if I know the Deceiver at all, there is always another layer to the plan, another strategy, an endgame behind the smoke and mirrors.

Only he could design a punishment that so perfectly captured my worst fears: to be without my body, trapped in my own mind, unseen, unheard, untouched for centuries on end.

Just free enough to wander the lands and witness the seasons changing, only to be wrenched back to the otherworldly torment of the prison.

Since the final battle of the war, I have been a ghost to those who matter, my body no longer my own, barely more than a shadow but for the flames that burn dark as obsidian at my fingertips…

Decades upon decades of being invisible to the free-willed mortals and immortals alike…

No more than a whisper in the dark. It’s only in the presence of the branded that I have a form, that I can touch things, feel things.

Which means I live little more than a half-life, existing only between the enemy and those imprisoned alongside me.

But Malevron was not without mistakes of his own.

Leaving me alive—if you can call it that—was one of them. The one unintended consequence of marking me with the brand, is that I can use my magic outside of the prison in the presence of other brands. Despite my flickering form, I can still burn the enemy to ash.

I take another step, casting a long shadow through the ash, drinking in the unnatural stillness of the landscape.

Only moments before it was a blur of chaos, a symphony of suffering, a camp of men and monsters, swallowed by a black inferno.

As I scan the carnage, I can taste the metallic residue of my magic, my skin tingling with it, the air heavy.

The brand on my neck burns and I curse its existence.

A conduit that links Malevron to those who bear it, allowing him to sense us, to summon us through the Weave—the realm’s source of magic.

It’s a calling. A reminder who I am chained to.

And what I have become to fight him. A shadow in the dark.

The harbinger of ruin. A conductor of destruction.

I have survived like a ghost for all this time for one thing and one thing only—to destroy Malevron once and for all.

I have nothing to give other than violence and death.

Nothing to offer besides annihilation and ruin.

If I can cleanse the realms of his poison with my flames before I go, then I will go in peace.

I ignore the white-hot pain searing my flesh, my gaze catching a flicker of movement among the fallen lines. I have known death intimately over the ages, that bodies can twitch and jerk long after life has fled, no more than final commands from severed nerves.

I begin to turn away, but then I hear it.

The shallow rasp of labored breathing, escaping from beneath the pile of the dead—the captain I saved for last. He may not have received orders directly from Malevron, but he has liaised with his generals and his monsters.

He’ll have the information I need to know.

I feel nothing as I approach the survivor, not even a morbid sense of curiosity as I push the deceased from him with the toe of my muddied boot.

Eyes with metallic flecks, otherworldly beauty gifted by the old gods, though now marred by agony and terror. A male warrior—Azkari, one of the woven race—like me.

His body is a map of pain; flesh blackened with burns so deep I can see the pink layers of muscle and the ivory of bone.

What remains of his armor is misshapen, caved in and useless, the sigil there matching the brand on his neck, the one he accepted willingly, unlike me.

The Azkari ability of fast healing has long since failed him, and he clutches a spear to his chest in trembling hands while his eyes grow wide at the sight of me, his lips parting in a silent scream.

“There you are, Captain,” I say, my voice rough from disuse.

What little color left in his face drains completely as he croaks, “We all thought you were dead.”

The weight of his fear is familiar and the flames flicker at my fingertips, eager for release. I let a wisp of black fire curl around my fingertips—just enough. “Not dead, no,” I tell him. “You fought in the Reckoning, I take it?”

“Eternal praise upon my true king, Malevron,” he rasps the poisonous phrase I have heard countless times before.

I watch on, bored as he struggles to continue the doctrine.

“Forever, we shall defend and conquer in your name. Blessed is the one house, blessed is the one family… blessed is the mirror.”

Even now, all these years later, it’s hard to believe that Malevron inspires such loyalty, that even while he is no more than a shadow himself, struggling to regain his own strength, he still has such a hold.

“You support him even now? Moments from your demise?” I ask.

“Always. He is the one true heir. The Azkari lands are his by birthright. He had every right to start a war. Splitting a single territory into four houses to share between squabbling brothers was madness.”

“And you believe the Silver-Tongued Deceiver thinks of you as family, Captain?”

He nods, his hand drifting to the brand on the side of his neck, the one that matches my own, the one that he took out of a warped sense of loyalty, the one that was forced onto me. “The High King and Queen betrayed their eldest son,” the dying Azkari argues, blood leaking from his ears.

“I’m not here about the past.” I shrug. “I’m here for a name.”

The captain chokes. “Why should I tell you anything?”

It takes all the willpower I have not to punch through his ruined chest and rip out his spine. Instead, I press the sole of my boot to his breastbone, a moan of pain escaping him, but I don’t let up. “Tell me what I want to know, and I’ll end your pain here and now. I’ll show you mercy.”

He considers fighting. It’s the Azkari way after all.

A race woven by the gods themselves from the mighty Weave for a single purpose that never came: war among the divine.

With the creators of our kind gone and the final battle suspended, the first Azkari found themselves purposeless—a loaded weapon with no target.

It’s a trait that has filtered through many generations of our kind.

But not me.

I know my purpose. And so, I press my boot harder against the captain, feeling the weakness creak in his bones.

With a strangled sob, his body sags back into the mud. “What then? What is it you want to know?”

“I want to know who he’s been looking for.”

He blinks at me slowly, his body shuddering in the face of imminent death. Some Azkari this captain makes.

I twist the silver ring on my pinkie and press down on the captain’s broken ribs as I study his face for tells, poised to hear the silver-tongued lies. “Who has he been looking for, Captain?”

The captain’s body starts to convulse, a trail of blood now trickling from the corner of his mouth as he splutters. “A bookbinder.”

So it’s true. If Malevron seeks a bookbinder, then he also hunts the Confluence, magical tome, the master key to the Weave itself.

I trace the raised ragged skin of the brand on my neck, trying to soothe the burn from the flesh, but I am at the mercy of the Weave and its power, and it’s pulling me back towards my chains.

I clench my teeth against the pain, drawing upon my own magic to keep me grounded in this place for as long as I can, until I have what I need. “Who is this bookbinder, Captain?”

The captain’s gasp rattles in his ruined lungs, burnt from within. “The true king will find you first. You’ll be punished for this…”

“Every day’s a fucking punishment,” I tell him, ignoring his chattering teeth and whispered prayers. “I need a name. The name of this mortal bookbinder he seeks.”

A sob breaks from his cracked lips. “Please—”

“A name, Captain.”

The Azkari coughs, spraying blood everywhere. “Leofric,” he wheezes. “Leofric Bergmunn. He is the most revered in his trade, even above the masters within the Azkari houses. But he refuses the True King’s offers.”

Bold of him. “It’s unlike Malevron to show such patience. Does the binder need to be willing?”

“If he is willing, he is far more likely to do the task well. Our True King has sent emissaries, gold, gifts… but the mortal is stubborn. It won’t be long before alternative measures must be taken.”

“Abduction. Torture. Labor under duress…” I unsheathe my blade. “I am no stranger to Malevron’s preferred methods.”

The captain attempts a nod, steeling himself. “The bookbinder has been warned, threatened. It’s only a matter of time before he is taken.”

“Where to?”