The Heartfrost Demon Book 1

Paul is twelve years old when slavers raid their small, mountain village, killing everyone except women and children. He is brought across the ocean, to Kahlain, the capital city of the slaver nation, and sold on the open market to the performers guild.

As a slave in the performers guild Paul learns acrobatics, tightrope walking, knife-throwing, and slight-of-hand magic tricks. His natural talent, his speed at learning new skills, and his ability to earn the trust of others allows him more freedoms than most slaves.

As the guild gradually becomes his new family, and as he begins to find happiness again despite being a slave, his relationship with Hannah, the performers guild leaders daughter, begins to blossom into something more. Then, when he is fourteen years old, the leader catches him kissing Hannah.

It is completely forbidden for slaves to fall in love with a free person, and it brings the utmost shame of the nation down on the family of the free person. The leader of the performers guild feels betrayed by both his daughter, and Paul, who he had begun to view as something like a son. In his mindless rage he kills Hanna. He blames Paul for her death, and for the resulting unbearable shame, and orders Paul whipped to death.

Paul is publicly whipped to the edge of death, but he escapes and goes into hiding deep in the city. In the months of healing and hiding, his grief for Hannah and all that the slavers have taken from him turns into steel-hard hatred. He sneaks back to the performers guild and swears a blood vow before the other performer slaves.

A blood vow of ultimate vengeance.

This blood vow begins to change him. It begins to carve away at his humanity, yet Paul does not care. He will kill all slavers, or die trying.