(Book 1 in the Jahaerys series)
The land of Lysandre is at war with their former colonies in the islands of Demetria. A widowed father, a childless mother, a cursed prisoner, and a kingdom concubine must band together from the cells of Nophis prison...
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Jahaerys had left his village without a second thought, it was that act of returning to it that would make him realise he had made a big mistake. The smouldering scent of burnt wood hung in the air as his boots crunched over thick debris, catching his cane and tripping him up. The first time he stumbled he excused it for his tiredness, however the second time he knew something was wrong. He'd lived in this village for most of his adult life, each cobbled path was like a crease on his calloused hands, he knew the roads, the buildings, the people.
It was too quiet. No chittering of villagers going about their day, the only sign of life was the soft insistent buzzing of fat black flies. That buzzing scratched through his ear canal, chewing inside his mind. Flies were a sign of death, that lingering scent was not burnt bread. For the bumbling baker had been cooked alive in his own house, skin melting off like rotting cheese, peeling from the bone in a bubbling goop.
CRUNCH.
His boot crushed through something, landing in a lumpy puddle. The stench clawed through the alleviating smog, a putrid smell of rotting meat with a sweet undertone, like fresh sweat. Jahaerys could feel himself breathing in the maggots burrowing into the air around him, he slowly lifted his foot from the vomit textured puddle as viscous liquid dripped off his leather boots. Gagging was his visceral response, he heaved up the air he had swallowed, those squirming imaginary maggots spitting out his mouth like flecks of mulch.
After his body had stopped convulsing from a sickness that wouldn't rise past his throat, he allowed himself to have his first conscious thought. Reyla. Where was his daughter? The cane clattered to the ground as Jahaerys' trembling hands clenched into fists, pumping with each stride he took as his heart pounded against his ribcage. He stumbled again this time forcing his hands out to catch himself, his body collided against another, his flat palms sinking into the crumbling corpse. Blindly skimming his fingers over the face, palming each crevice in fear he would feel his daughters face. His hands only met flaked away flesh; the sight his fingers gave him held no answers to who this body belonged too. He pushed himself up and kept running, Reyla, he needed to get her out of here before...bef...
He stopped at the opening to his house, the one he left behind at dusk without hesitation. The door had been flung off its hinges and the inside of the house ransacked. Material goods didn't matter, he just needed to feel his daughter, hold her against his arms. He couldn't be like his own father, he couldn't lose a child like that. The furniture had been moved, tipped over in the chaos. Banging his hip against the turned over dining table, his foot hit a wooden bowl sending it clattering across the floor. Jahaerys hunched over in agony, his heart being torn apart by the sharpened fingernails of grief. A harrowing wail clawed up his throat, reverberating around the smouldering walls of the empty house. He sat there on his knees for a good hour, heartbreak wrapping around every fibre of his being. Jahaerys sobbed to himself for the first time in years, cradling his arms around his cloaked torso. The dried blood caked his hands into a thin peel, as his fingers clutched at his own elbows to encase his heaving body. The only sound was the pain that escaped his chapped lips, the whole town dead, all those innocent people dead, his daughter...
