The Cursed Guard by KJ Taylor

Author:KJ Taylor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shooting Star Press
Published: 2023-11-14T00:00:00+00:00

Caedmon spent the last moments before the fight began alone in his tent, while Shar stayed outside – keeping an eye on Ereska and preparing the Unpartnered for the first assault.

He had meant to pray, but though he managed a brief appeal to the Night God, his mind refused to stay focused on her. Instead, of all things, he found himself thinking about Laela the half-breed, the woman who had stolen his throne and murdered his entire family.

Those had been desperate days for Caedmon. His family gone, with a tiny handful of allies, he had faced odds that looked impossible. Even with the help of his mother Saeddryn, the last Shadow That Walked, he had suffered defeat after defeat, failure after failure. More than once – though he had never admitted it to anyone – he had thought of giving up. Laela had had all the advantages, and almost supernatural luck. Even Saeddryn had been unable to remove her. Somehow, the half-breed had evaded her at every turn.

But Caedmon had not given up. He had refused to turn his back on his duty to his people. While Laela betrayed them all by allying herself with Southerners and marrying an Amorani, he had seen how she would soon bring the downfall of the North, and known that he was the only one who could stop it.

Everyone else had failed. His followers had died or betrayed him, and even Saeddryn had been killed. The half-breed’s allies had captured and tortured her, and finally killed her. The woman Caedmon had loved had been slaughtered in front of him, along with his unborn child. In the end, all he had left was Shar and himself. A man and a griffin, against an entire country.

But even then he had stood firm. He was a Taranisäii, and he had refused to lie down and die. He had stood up one last time, and this time the North had stood with him, and Laela the half-breed had finally fallen.

Now, sitting alone in his tent, Caedmon thought back to his enemy’s death, and his expression turned grim.

He had wanted to take Laela alive, so she could be tried for her crimes against the North, but by the time he reached her she was already dying. Childbirth had all but killed her, and he had found her on her deathbed, with her child lying still and cold in its cradle. His last rival for the throne, dead.

In the North, when a woman died in childbirth, or gave birth to a dead child, it was sometimes referred to as “the Night God’s punishment”. She was the god of death, and if a pregnant woman betrayed her, she would punish that woman by killing her child. Caedmon had made certain that every man and woman in the North knew what had happened, and the High Priestess of the time had remarked on how fitting it was.

But that wasn’t what had killed Laela the half-breed. She had still been alive when Caedmon confronted her, and when he found her, she had spoken to him.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.