Blood of the Demonheart by Evan Pickering

Author:Evan Pickering [Pickering, Evan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Evan Pickering
Published: 2023-07-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 24 - Fiefland Council

Braedan was not far from Ramshorne, now. He’d reach there by daybreak, though he found his eyes kept wandering upwards to the stars. Had he paid so little attention to the stars before? He barely recognized those returned constellations that Rael spoke of that night in his cell.

That meeting, whatever it was, felt like a fever dream. Were it not for the fact that this Rael was the reason he is walking free today, he might’ve said it was only the wild imaginings of an isolated mind. After all, Braedan had never been locked in a cell before. He hoped that would be the only time, gods willing.

But in truth, Braedan had never put too much stock in the gods. He was about as devout as a soldier need be, though the death of his wife and children certainly drove him to seek solace in the church. And while he had seen plenty of spectacular things in the ways of wizards and magi, never in his life did he think he’d see something like this visitation from a divine. Magic itself seemed to be some sort of proof that gods existed, at least in the minds of common folk. But he’d also known enough mages to know that they saw magic as something less divine and more mundane.

But this, Braedan thought, this is something else entirely.

He had heard at the roadside inns along the way that some of the houses were gathering to celebrate the wedding of Lord Gaelthos of Ramshorne to the eldest daughter of Lord Rowan of Kaesterfjord. This was surely the pretext Garbrand spoke of by which the lords were gathering for the secret Fiefland Council. For better or worse, I am guided now by this Rael, whether she be demon or god or mortal, Braedan thought as he swayed with the canter of his borrowed sorrel mare. Starlight was her name, aptly named by Garbrand’s daughter Ella. The fates play heavy hands these days. It should’ve worried him, that he knew so little of the being that now guided him. But for some reason, he felt oddly at peace. A soldier yearns for orders and is lost without them. You’ve spent too much time as a soldier and not nearly enough asking why.

By the break of morning he had arrived in Ramshorne, the great sprawling cliffside city overlooking the northern Ethervale Sea. Within the surrounding countryside of farmers and shepherds, the common folk had made one thing plain: they and their lord alike made little secret of their distaste for King Idrane. The once green grasslands and farms were withered and brown from the drought, and the people looked sickly and gaunt, starved and near ready to turn violent because of their king’s disregard of their plight. This might be easier than I had hoped. The people seem damn near ready to revolt on their own.

He wanted to make his way to Ram’s Head Keep, the seat of House Gaelthos. But still,

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