Anathema (The Eating Woods, #1)

by Keri Lake

For those who feel lost in a dark and pathless wood. Believe in the magic beyond the trees.

Sablefyre.

An ancient element of the gods, forged eons ago in Aethyria’s fiery heart. A single touch could turn a body to ash, and blood to stone. And she had arrived to offer up Zevander, her second-born son, to it.

Lady Rydainn would’ve sacrificed herself right there and then, if it would spare Zevander...

A powerful protection spell against those who sought their heads, in exchange for their firstborn’s blood magic—a sampling Cadavros had claimed would be used in his studies.

His appearance was the result of having performed the Emberforge ritual on himself, the same ritual he intended for her son. A rite that only young children were believed to tolerate without any permanent disfigurement, seeing as they hadn’t yet gone through their Ascendency.

once the black flame entered the body, it destroyed all natural blood magic.

The remorse in her husband’s eyes failed to move her, the anger

slinking its way through her blood with renewed fervor. After all, it’d been his nefarious dealings on foreign Solassian land that had sealed their family’s fate.

The darkness had accepted and branded him. An eternal curse. Cadavros lifted the baby and drew his noseless face over her son’s naked chest. His mouth opened impossibly wide, and he shoved Zevander’s head inside.

It was then that Lady Rydainn realized: in his attempt to harm her son, he’d somehow suffered pain himself.

Her sweet child had survived being cast into sablefyre–a fate that would’ve left any other a pile of ashes like the poor soldiers. Yet, he had survived. By the miracle of the gods, he’d been spared.

He reached for Zevander, running his finger over the marking on his chest, a curious black swirl that’d seemed to anger Cadavros. On closer examination, there seemed to be words written in ancient Primyrian embedded in the swirl in a way that reminded Lady Rydainn of a wax seal across his heart. Branimir’s lips twisted to a snarl as he whispered the words

that stabbed her conscience. “Il captris nith reviris.” What is taken will never return.

The Eating Woods never returned what was given.

I was no more than a few days old when I’d been found abandoned before that cursed arch in a wicker basket, a single black rose upon my chest. No one knew who’d left me there, but every villager speculated that, whoever they were, they must have hoped the woods would eat me, as well.

Unwed girls without a father to protect their claim suffered one of two fates. They were either promptly forced into marriage. Or sent to serve the church as one of the Red Veils—clergy women ordered to worship obediently until death.

Emotions I was forced to keep hidden for fear of looking possessed by evil, as girls were often perceived when they felt too much.

I’d learned at too early an age that the sound of

a girl’s scream drew nothing more than apathy.

handwriting. God is Death.

never answer to your own name.

What a terrible burden to watch something die.

The men of our parish believed the birds to be an omen of death.

They believed the same of me, too, so maybe I shared a kinship with the foreboding creatures.

The whole parish had branded me as cursed ever since. The lorn.

The Crone Witch. Rumor had it, she’d murdered her husband and ate the hearts of children.

According to them, I was the harbinger of famine, a mere infant responsible for blight.

“You’re a Letalisz.” An assassin for the crown.

The brand of magic he intended to inflict on the man was forbidden in the kingdom, an ability Zevander

had managed to disguise for most of his life.

Bloodstone. Derived

from a form of demutomancy, the practice of altering blood–an outlawed magic that had cursed Zevander’s family for centuries.

“The prisoner. When he grabbed you, he spoke strangely. Some are calling it the devil’s tongue.” “He spoke … Vonkovyan. What do you mean? He said–”

“Unless he was talking in reverse, that was not Vonkovyan. It was entirely unsettling.”

Worse, how could he have possibly known what was written on the back of that letter?

How tragic that a woman’s worth equated to the depth of a man’s pockets.

The cursed Lord of Eidolon. A demon, they called him. Better that they knew him for the curse than the killings he carried out at the king’s behest.

lifted a slim leather box that he opened to show five other stones–each a varying shade of red. Every one of them a life Zevander had taken.

“The power of an entire bloodline cast in one stone,”

One he’d hoped to spare himself from by collecting the stones that would fuel the most powerful scepter in existence. The septomir–an impressive weapon that Dolion had advised was powerful enough to banish the dangerous black flame from his body.

“In order to break your curse, I require the full complement of stones. All seven bloodlines.”

“No one knows entirely what, or whom, the seventh bloodline originated from. It’s a mystery that, to this day, baffles the magehood, but the moment it is reunited with the other stones, its true power will be known. And once in hand, I will possess the most impressive scepter in all of Aethyria. Far more powerful than Sablefyre.”

“What does it feel like? The black flame? The power of Aethyria’s most dangerous element at your fingertips.”

“Imagine your cock in the hands of a pyromage, only it’s your whole fucking body.”

Still, I savored the feel of his strong hands on my most delicate flesh. No rumors between us. No scorn or crooked faces judging us. Just a curious boy and girl.

The man from The Banishing, earlier. He released my mouth, leaving behind a sticky wetness that clung to my lips,

“Go, my Darling, unto that place Where magic still exists Beyond the confines of this cruel world

As you will not be missed Instead, I’ll find you in a dream Or a wistful plea on stars Hours of suffering no more redeemed For eternity is ours.”

Though, Zevander had grown fucking weary of the attempts on his life. The constant need to look over his shoulder. While his identity remained unknown, for the most part, an occasional few managed to find him. Unfortunately for them, they never lived to carry out their vengeance.