Silver & Blood (Silver & Blood #1)

Chapter One Riela

Chapter One

Riela

The flickering torchlight twisted my fellow villagers’ faces into furious masks, but it was the sanguine glisten of blood

that caused my stomach to knot. I wasn’t a healer, so there was no reason for them to bring the wounded huntsman to my door

in the middle of the night.

Hector moaned in pain, and Mirra, his wife, glared at me with righteous fury. “This is your fault!” she screamed.

I’d forgotten to wind the clock again, but a pale sliver of the Protectress—the larger of Edea’s two moons—still hovered above

the trees and the Hunter had yet to rise, so it had to be closer to midnight than dawn. Anxiety tightened its grip.

“I was asleep,” I murmured, trying to regain the calm that had shattered along with my door. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Exactly!” Mirra crowed. “Your magic draws the monsters here, then you do nothing to protect us.”

“My magic saved your life,” I reminded her sharply. I glared at the mob. “All of your lives were spared because of me. The entire village was saved.”

Half of the crowd looked uneasy, but the other half scowled back, undaunted. Based on the size, nearly two-thirds of the villagers

were here, and I knew every single person. Each one was a knife in the back.

I’d barely had time to drag a robe over my nightgown before the mob had broken down my door, and my bare toes curled against

the cool floor. I did have magic, but it was untrained and unreliable. If they tried to force me from my home, they would succeed.

“What would you have me do?” I asked at last, bitterness and betrayal heavy in my heart.

“You will kill the monster that attacked Hector in the forest, and you will protect us from another attack.” Mirra’s eyes narrowed. “Then you will continue to protect us, as you should’ve been doing this entire time.”

My patience snapped. “So Hector was in the Forsaken Forest at night? What was he doing? Even children know to give the forest a wide berth at night.”

Officially named the Kilishlan Conservancy Area, the Forsaken Forest had been off-limits for at least two decades. The decree

was meant to protect the people living on its borders rather than to protect the woods themselves, but the king was far away

and people were hungry. Those brave enough to enter the trees usually came out with a deer or two—when they came out at all.

Hector was lucky to have escaped with just a bloodied arm.

Mirra’s face flushed furious red. “He was hunting!”

He was certainly hunting something, but I very much doubted it was deer he was after. I sighed with quiet resignation. It didn’t matter. Mirra had hated me

ever since I’d embarrassed Hector by pushing him into a pig trough when he’d tried to give me a drunken kiss at the spring

festival a few years ago.

If he hadn’t cornered me, it wouldn’t have been a problem, but that didn’t seem to matter.

Now Hector’s foolishness was once again my fault. I whispered a quiet blasphemy against Saint Dama, the so-called saint of

justice. If justice truly existed, then Hector would be hunting his own monster and I’d still be safe in bed.

But as much as I hated being coerced instead of asked, I couldn’t ignore the danger. A monster bold enough to attack a huntsman would have no qualms attacking someone less able

to defend themself.

I raised my chin and stared down the mob. “I will leave in the morning.”

“You will leave now,” Mirra snarled.

“I will leave in the morning,” I repeated firmly even as the crowd grumbled in dissent. I glared at them. “Sending the one person in the village with magic into the forest at night is a good way to end up with no people with magic left to fight the monster.”

The village baker stepped forward. “Very well,” he said, and despite his place in the crowd, his face was creased with worry.

“You can leave at first light. We will prepare a pack for you.”

More grumbles arose, but Hadwin was well liked, and soon he had them convinced. The crowd dispersed until only he remained.

“I’m sorry, Riela,” he murmured. “I tried to sway them before we arrived, but Mirra had already whipped them into a frenzy.

You know how she can be. There was no talking to them.”

He glanced around to ensure we were alone, then dropped his voice to a whisper. “You should leave now. I will give you supplies.

If you go to Obrik, surely the king will allow—”

“I’m not running to the capital or the king,” I disagreed quietly. There was a reason I hadn’t sought any formal training after my magic had unexpectedly manifested

last year. Mages were becoming increasingly rare, so the king had started to conscript those who refused to volunteer.

And royal mages were always on the front lines of whatever pointless war King Antwon wanted to wage. If I went to the capital,

I would never see my cottage or my land again.

I rubbed my hands over my face with a sigh. There was only one option. “I will find the monster, and I will kill it,” I said

with more confidence than I felt.

The baker frowned, then gestured helplessly at my broken door. “You shouldn’t risk it. People fear what they don’t understand.”

“I know. But the gods or the saints or whoever saw fit to give me magic, and this is my home. I will not abandon it just because

Hector was foolish enough to try to have an affair in the woods.”

The cottage wasn’t much, but the land was precious. My mother was buried here. My father, too. I wouldn’t be driven away by people I’d thought of as friends and neighbors. And I couldn’t let a monster roam free when I had the power to stop it—maybe had the power to stop it.

The next time it might snatch a child, and then I would never forgive myself.

“Your father would be proud of you,” Hadwin murmured.

I could only hope that remained true once I found the monster.

Unease rippled up my spine as I stared at the long line of trees that marked the edge of the forest. In the dim morning light,

each massive trunk loomed like a silent sentinel, shadowy and far too close.

I’d lived next to the vast, dangerous wood my entire life, but I’d only entered it once, at the earliest edge of my memory.

It had scared my father so badly that he’d cried when he found me, and after he’d assured himself I was okay, he’d made me

promise never to return.

I hadn’t set foot in the forest since.

I knew nothing about killing monsters, but Father would’ve understood why I had to try. He would’ve understood the poisoned

bitterness creeping through my chest, too.

I was useful to the village as long as I could be used. I knew it and they knew it, though we all pretended otherwise. At least, we had until last night. An angry mob armed with

torches was going to be difficult to forgive and forget.

Most of that mob had followed me to the forest’s edge this morning, as if to ensure I wasn’t going to run away. I was twenty-eight,

unmarried, and without a powerful family to protect me. Without anyone to protect me—except me.

And based on what I was about to do, I was doing a poor job of it.

Next to me, the blacksmith shifted anxiously and cleared her throat. When I turned, she handed me a dagger and a sword with

matching silver hilts and black leather grips. “I sharpened them this morning.”

“Thank you.” I belted the sheaths around my waist with what I hoped looked like confident ease. Telling her I didn’t know how to use either weapon would just worry her, and having a blade was better than facing the monster with only my unreliable magic and insufficient information.

Hector had been all but useless. He’d seen nothing of the beast in the dark and couldn’t tell me more than it had growled

at him and clawed deep gouges into his arm before he’d driven it off. Any number of beasts growled and clawed, and it would’ve

been nice to narrow down the options before I had to fight one.

It would’ve been nice if I didn’t have to fight at all.

I picked up my pack and shook off the bitterness. Some of the villagers still cared, and they were the reason I was going.

Hadwin had convinced those in the crowd to give me supplies, though the expense was an additional burden in an already difficult

year.

Now I had a sword and a dagger, a mat to sleep on, and a tarp to keep the rain off. Hadwin had given me enough travel biscuits

for two weeks, maybe three if I foraged to stretch the supply. He’d also given me a significant look as he’d handed them over.

Two weeks was enough time to make it to the capital—not that I would try.

Last, and perhaps most foolishly, I’d brought two of my most prized possessions: a pair of books left to me by my parents—fairy

tales from my father, and poetry from my mother.

I wasn’t sure how books would help me fight a monster, but I hadn’t been able to bear leaving them behind when a mob had already

threatened my cottage. Facing the forest now, I was glad for their comforting weight, though I might not be by the time the

journey was done.

I firmed my spine and gathered my courage. Beside me, the blacksmith murmured, “Saints protect you.” There was a long pause,

then she added, very quietly, “And may you safely pass unnoticed by the sovereigns.”

The old blessing was unexpected from someone who hadn’t been able to hold my gaze since my magic had manifested. When I slanted a questioning glance at her, she dipped her chin with something like regret, then she turned toward her wagon and the waiting crowd without a backward glance.

I blew out a slow breath and stepped into the cool shadow of the trees. A shiver lifted the hair on my arms. I’d just crossed

an invisible boundary, and a silent bolt of awareness raced through the forest.

The monster knew I was here.

Despite a lifetime of reading and a year of sporadic research, I could only reliably do two things with my power: create a

light and sense magic at a distance. Neither would help me fight a monster, but they would at least help me find it.

I called my magic and pushed it out in front of me, mentally speeding through the forest on gossamer waves of power. A few