Author Note: This is my first time sharing on a story on RoyalRoad. This story is a first draft and my main goal is to just finish the book. I'll be updating weekly and while it's still rough around the edges, I'd love to know what sticks with you. Every read, rating, or comment helps more than you know!

  Elora awoke with a scream clawing its way up her throat, but her tongue, thick and dry and stuck fast to the roof of her mouth, smothered it down to a ragged whimper that barely escaped her battered lungs. The sound was pitiful, inappropriate, a thin, useless thing that didn’t come close to the pain tearing through her body.

  Of course it would be like this, she thought numbly. Even now, even here, she couldn’t manage something as simple as screaming.

  The pain surged anyway, unbothered by her failure. It was so vast and all-consuming it felt unreal, almost distant, until it began to localize in sharp, deliberate pulses. Her shoulder, her ribs, her wrist, her lungs. Reminders she was still trapped in a body that betrayed her in all the smallest ways. Gods, even breathing hurt. Especially breathing. It felt like she had been trying to scream for hours, trapped in a body that could no longer remember how to make sound. Only the instinct remained, the desperate and useless urge to cry out against the dark.

  She inhaled sharply, reflexively, only to suck in a mouthful of mud and blood, the taste of copper and decay flooding her senses and triggering a fit of coughing that sent fresh agony ripping through her chest. Her body buckled with it, and she gasped again, this time through her nose, desperate to control the panic building in her throat.

  She was lying on her side. Her eyes were still shut, eyelashes crusted to her cheeks, and her arms were flung out at unnatural angles, abandoned by the rest of her body. Her right arm refused to move, pulsing with a hot, bright ache that made her nauseous, but her left hand twitched when she called to it, and her fingers stretched cautiously into the earth beneath her, brushing against wet leaves, broken twigs, the grit of mud.

  The air around her was cool, not cold, and carried the faint scent of moss and pine beneath the heavier smells of earth and blood. The breeze moved gently through what she sensed were many trees, stirring the leaves, but not her hair, which was stuck to her cheeks and neck in a dried crust that crackled and pulled when she moved. She turned her head slowly, carefully, testing each muscle as if her body might shatter from too much insistence. She didn’t know where she was. Not exactly. But she knew there had obviously been terrible danger.

  She stilled again, forcing herself to listen.

  Silence. No birdsong, no insects. Just the breeze rustling leaves on the ground and overhead.

  That silence was unsettling.

  Eventually, she pried her eyes open. Light stabbed at her, and unbidden tears rushed in fast and hot. She blinked until the worst of them cleared, and her vision settled to focus on the elements in her immiedate line of sight: mud, leaves, and a single scrap of red cloth caught on a low branch. It fluttered in the breeze like a flag of surrender. Frayed at the edges. Familiar.

  A cape. Temple guard.

  She stared at it, nausea twisting her gut, and found herself hoping the bastard it belonged to was burning in the brazier at Valtren’s tomb.

  It hadn’t taken them long to find her.

  She’d barely stepped off temple grounds and into the assumed cover of the south woods when she heard the hoofbeats. She’d stopped immediately, not out of surrender, but because there had never been any point in running. She had intended to turn herself in, just not here. Not like this. Her desparate plan was to explain, calmly, that she needed to reach Caldrith, the capital city. The message she carried could not be handed to guards with blood on their boots. It had to reach none other than the Butcher of Balverin.

  But she’d known, even then, that it was hopeless.

  In remote places like this, due process was more of a rumor than a rule. Temple guards were judge and jury, and heretic oracles who fled their duties rarely made it to trial. She hadn’t expected mercy. She had, however, expected execution.

  What she got was worse.

  There had been three of them.

  Two reached her first and dismounted before she could speak a word. She saw it in their eyes. The cruel glint, the twisted hunger that had nothing to do with the arm of Queen’s justice. She turned to run, and of course they caught her. One of them grabbed her wrist and spun her violently, the force wrenching her shoulder, and the other slammed her against a tree so hard she heard the pop of her ribs, felt the breath leave her body like a scream in reverse.

  She tried to fight.

  Gods, she tried.

  But her magic was useless in the face of cruelty. It was not built for violence. She could calm a screaming child, soothe the agony of a dying elder. But her fists left no bruises, her nails drew no blood, and her voice, her only weapon, fell on deaf ears. They laughed as she kicked and flailed and cursed them.

  They were rough. One held her arms while the other shoved her skirts up. Her head cracked against the tree trunk, her vision swam, and her body felt like a puppet she couldn’t control. And then, suddenly, a third voice barked out a curse, and the man above her was dragged back. She felt cloth tear in her hand. The red cape, ripped at the shoulder.

  “You dishonor yourselves,” her murderer growled at the others. And before she had a chance to breath a sigh of relief, he drew his blade.

  She didn’t see it. She only felt the sting, hot and sharp, and then the warmth of her own blood spilling down her chest. She collapsed forward with a choked gasp, knees giving out, the world spinning.

  “You…” she tried to say, but nothing came. Her vocal cords had been severed.

  “By the Queen’s justice and the gods’ will,” the man murmured the traditional phrase as she fell, “may you find peace beyond this world.”

  Panic surged through her one last time as her vision blurred to black. She tried to reach out, toward him, toward anyone, but her body had already begun to give up. Her vision faded completely to black. Perhaps that was when she lost consciousness.

  There was simply nothing. No pain. No breath. Just a quiet waiting, like she was holding something in without knowing what.

  It would have been easy to let go in that moment, to sink into the soft, terrible quiet pressing in from every side. But something deep inside her, battered but unbroken, strained against it. Not out of fear or anger, but out of a fierce, aching refusal to be erased so easily. She tried to hold on to her breath, to her battered body, to the thin burning thread of herself but the harder she clung, the faster it slipped away, like sand through desperate fingers.

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  The darkness pressed closer, gentle and terrible all at once, and though she fought with everything she had, it made no difference. Death was not violent; it did not tear or steal. It simply waited, patient and inexorable, until she could not hold on any longer.

  When the last thread finally gave way, Elora was not afraid.

  She was simply... gone.

  But now, she was back. And it hurt.

  The memories hit her all at once, brutal and full of blood. She stared at the fluttering cloth. Her left hand trembled as she pressed it firmly to the forest floor. She needed to move.

  She forced herself upright with a groan, every joint protesting. Her hip throbbed; her side screamed. The ground beneath her was soaked with blood and rain and mud, but she was whole.

  Tentatively, she touched her throat.

  Her fingers met gummy, half-dried blood, but there was no wound. No scar. Just skin.

  She stared at her own hand for a long moment. Then slowly, painfully, turned her gaze toward the line of trees.

  And there, standing just beyond the edge of the clearing, shadow-wrapped and silent, eyes pale as winter steel, was Valren.

  She stared at him so long she realized she’d been holding her breath. How long had he been there? Had he seen? Of course he had. She could see it in his expression. Or rather, the faintest flicker beneath it. Something like pity. Quiet. Stoic. Useless.

  If he’d seen everything, and she was certain he had, why hadn’t he intervened?

  What good is a god who won’t protect his chosen vessel?

  Was that even what she was?

  When he first appeared, whispering prophecy like a dagger into her quiet life, she hadn’t asked for anything. Hadn’t bargained or begged. He had spoken, and she, the faithful, obedient, ever-honorable Elora, had listened. Mostly. She had followed. Like a proper oracle of the Conclave. Like a fool.

  And where had it gotten her?

  Her hand rose to her neck again, touching skin that should’ve been split clean open. She remembered the blade. The blood. The silence where her scream should have been. That guard had stopped a brutal rape, and then executed – no, murdered her without blinking.

  Valtren had intervened. He had saved her. A fresh horror rose inside her, cold and blistering. He had made her immortal, at least least temporarily.

  She met his eyes again, but this time there was steel in hers. She knew the myths. The fables. The poor mortals who longed for immortality, only to curse the gods when they received it. It was never a blessing. It was a chain. A sentence. A cage with no door. And what was she, to be locked inside it?

  A quiet, useless girl. A handmaid to death who could never keep anyone alive. A pious servant whose gifts amounted to soft words and weaker hands. An eternity of that would not be life. It would be punishment.

  Maybe, a dark voice inside her whispered, that was why she had not been saved. Because even when she fought kicking, clawing, screaming, nothing she did could change what was coming. Because she was made to be harmless. Small. Powerless. And deep down, some part of her had stopped believing she could ever be anything else.

  She had spent years comforting the dying, lighting candles for their unguided souls. Whispering peace to the ears of the hopeless, naming thosethe world had forgotten. She had been faithful. She had been small. She had asked for nothing. And still, it had not been enough.

  Immortality, she felt deep in her bones, was an abomination. It was never meant for humans. It was never meant for her.

  She couldn’t break her stare into those cold eyes. What kind of god brought a soul back from death just to walk her toward it again? All that waited for her in Caldrith was another cruel death.

  Maybe this meant the mission was truly holy. Maybe this was his way of proving it. He’d told her not a day ago that he wouldn’t allow her to survive if she disobeyed him, but apparently that mercy was reserved only for disobedience.

  She was alive.

  She had a promise to fulfill.

  And maybe, just maybe, if she did, Valtren would release her.

  And if not… she would endure whatever came next, as she always had.

  With effort that stole the breath from her lungs, Elora forced herself to her feet. Her legs trembled beneath her. Every step hurt. Her hip throbbed with a deep, pulsing ache, but she stayed upright. She scanned her surroundings blindly, her vision still swimming at the edges.

  A soft movement caught her eye. Valtren still stood a little ways off, half-shadowed by the trees. He lifted one hand, slow and deliberate, and pointed toward the forest beyond him. She followed the line of his hand and spotted a narrow creek just beyond the tree line, its water glinting faintly in the thin light.

  She did not thank him. She did not look back. She limped toward the water, her heart heavy with the knowledge that even now, her god still expected her to endure.

  The water was barely wide enough to soak a foot, but it was something. She knelt beside it and did her best to scrub the blood from her face, her arms, her hair. The dress was ruined, hopelessly stained. Let it be. She cleaned what she could. She didn’t need to be beautiful. She just needed to be human again.

  When she finished, she stood. Dried her hands on the hem. She picked a direction, and walked.

  She found the road a few minutes later, empty and silent, and turned her face toward the sun. West. Toward Caldrith.

  She didn’t look back.

  Valtren didn’t speak. He simply disappeared in a thick curl of gray smoke, and from that cloud a raven emerged, wings midnight black, rising above the trees and flying in the same direction as her path.

  Elora sighed.

  She was on the right road. That, at least, was something.

  Her legs wobbled as she followed the hard-packed curve of the forest road, though the worst of the pain seemed to fade with each step. Perhaps it was movement itself that dulled it. Or perhaps Valtren, in some mercy or manipulation, had mended what still ached. It didn’t matter.

  This wouldn’t be the last time someone tried to kill her.

  And the next one, most likely, would be the Butcher himself.

  Elora swallowed hard. She breathed deep through her nose, forcing back the swell of adrenaline that threatened to flood her chest.

  The Butcher of Balverin was one of the most feared men in the kingdom. As Royal Executioner, he was the Queen’s sharpened blade. The enforcer of her justice, the final hand of the law. They said his sword was longer than a full-grown man, etched with runes so old no priest could read them, but it was his hand that carried the true magic. Alric Kendral never missed. Blade, axe, spear, arrow, it didn’t matter. Whatever he chose as his weapon, the strike would land. Most believed it was his blessing from the gods. Others, a curse sharpened into flesh. Either way, it made him the most lethal man in the realm, and the most untouchable.

  And he delivered death swiftly, precisely, without mercy.

  But worse than the deaths were the stories of what came before them. The man was a master of pain. They whispered that he could keep someone alive for days on the edge of madness. Never breaking a single bone, yet unraveling a mind thread by thread. His reputation for torture was unmatched. Even the most hardened criminals were said to weep like children under his hands.

  And then there were the performances. Public executions designed not just to punish, but to inspire obedience. The wheel. The block. The boat. Ancient instruments of death, repurposed as divine spectacle.

  They whispered that he enjoyed the screams. That he kept prisoners alive longer than necessary just to hear them beg. That their pain made him stronger. That he ate their souls when he was done.

  Elora shuddered.

  She had heard the stories in the infirmary, whispered by grieving families who had no one else to listen. Mothers weeping over sons who never came home. Wives mourning husbands who had disappeared into the Queen’s dungeons. Children too young to understand the words, but old enough to repeat them.

  Tales that the older sisters dismissed as nonsense. Tales that had rooted deep in Elora anyway.

  She never thought they would apply to her.

  Now, she intended to put herself directly in his path.

  A warbled caw above broke her thoughts. She glanced up to see an inky black raven perched on a low branch, its head cocked to the side as if watching her, waiting. It looked unnervingly sentient, as though it could sense the churn of unease inside her and was daring her to speak.

  She narrowed her eyes, but held her tongue. She wasn’t sure what the protocol was for addressing a god directly. Oracles were meant to receive, not respond. In dreams. In visions. And the gods hadn’t been in the habit of speaking for centuries. No one had practiced answering back.

  The world was shaped by the will of the Pantheon, worshiped as the divine architects of order, each ruling over a sacred sphere of life. Aurelien, god of light and kingship, was the crown’s chosen patron. It was his descednents that rules Balverin by divine right and might. Calistra, goddess of sea and secrets, governed the tides and the subtle magic of omen-readers. Tharnis, god of harvest and blood, demanded sacrifice when crops failed. And Nireya, goddess of flame and artifice, lit the minds of inventors and artisans alike. Each major god, along with hundreds of minor gods of everything from luck to missing keys, bestowed their gifts to pious, honorable mortals when they came of age.

  But none of the gods had walked among mortals in generations. None had spoken, not truly, since the death of Valtren.

  He had been the quiet god. The final god. The one who watched as others ruled. And when he was murdered, something broke. Not just in the heavens, but in the world itself.

  From that day on, the Pantheon fell silent. Their voices came only in fragments: visions, riddles, dreams. No more direct speech. No more divine signs. Just absence.

  And without Valtren, death itself became unmoored.

  Lives ended without pattern. Oracles offered visions of long, blessed futures, only for those lives to be snuffed out within days. Plague bloomed without warning, wiping out entire villages. Birthing beds became graves. Small wounds festered. Mortal life lost its rhythm. Its purpose.

  In the chaos that followed, something dark bloomed in the soul of the kingdom. Violence surged. Lawlessness spread. And into that void, the monarchy rose, clinging to law and ritual as the last surviving order. The Conclave called for penance. The crown called for punishment. And so justice, no longer divine, was enforced through fear.

  The people needed to believe someone still held the blade of fate. So they gave that blade to a man.

  The Butcher of Balverin.

  Feared. Essential. Anointed by necessity if not by god.

  And now, Elora feared, the next one to test her immortality.

  She exhaled slowly, steadying herself. Terror had begun to curl like smoke in her chest, but she would not let it take root. She had a job to do. A sacred task. Valtren had chosen her not for strength, not for power, but for faith. For honor. For the quiet resolve that had carried her through every deathbed, every prayer, every goodbye whispered in candlelight.

  She would follow his lead. Even if she hated him for it.

  And maybe if she did what he asked, if she delivered his message, if she gave herself over to this calling completely, he would remove the curse of immortality. He would leave her to whatever flicker of peace she might find in that final moment, when the Butcher of Balverin inevitably severed her head from her neck.

  She lifted her chin a little higher and squared her shoulders, the pain in her body finally permanently settling into a dull, distant ache. Thus resolved, she continued along the path, ready for whatever her god had in store.