Bound by Blood: Heirs of War

Chapter 1 - Prologue

New Moon | September 10

Zandro POV

Location: War Bridge

Zandro unsheathed his blade, holding it high in his right hand while his left remained on the reins of his mount.

This war has been going on for too long.

He thought to himself as he rode alongside his father, leading their cavalry into what they hoped was the final battle in this centuries-long war.

They crossed the slowly deteriorating natural bridge, whose condition was the result of years of many warriors crossing over it with hopes much like theirs. That very bridge crossed over the canal that disconnected the two kingdoms and was one of the reasons that brought them here today.

They were the last of the men and women their kingdom could spare for this never-ending war, hence why Zandro and his father, Alpha Conall, had decided to physically join the fray.

From the high natural arch of the bridge, Zandro could see the war zone that had successfully encroached onto the open border fields of Avalonja.

He watched as his warriors, dressed in shades of blue, held their own against the red enemy. A wave of pride and confidence washed over him as he gave his horse more leg, increasing his speed. Closing the distance, he let out a loud howl, signaling their arrival to the battlefield. Arrows zoomed past him from the horse archers behind him, striking those in red as he heard answering howls in return.

The cavalry erupted off the natural stone arch and descended onto the wide, open plains. The battlefield was a violent sea of mud and trampled grass, miles away from the legendary stone walls of the Southern palace, but the air here bled just as thick with the bitter animosity of their peoples.

Instantly, the world dissolved into a cacophony of screeching steel, panicked horses, and the heavy thrum of longbows raining death from the ridges.

A Southern spear thrust violently from the fog of war, piercing Zandro’s stallion through the chest. The beast let out a tragic, shrill shriek, buckling beneath him.

Reacting on pure survival instinct, Zandro freed his boots from the stirrups and threw himself from the saddle just as the horse crashed into the solid earth. He hit the muddy grass hard, rolling to absorb the impact, and bolted instantly to his feet. He drew his long hunting knife, his breath coming in ragged, freezing gasps as his Lycan instincts fought against his human skin, screaming at him to let the beast take the reins.

But he held the wolf back, forcing his human muscles to endure. He could not risk exposing their shape-shifting magic to the Southern army. Not today.

Dismounted and vulnerable, Zandro ducked beneath a sweeping Southern broadsword, driving his long blade upward into the gaps of a soldier’s armor before spinning away into the chaotic blur of the melee.

The air was thick with a stench of copper, smoke, and sweat. Banners tore and men screamed for their lords in a claustrophobic rush of violence where survival was measured in fractions of a second. Zandro’s muscles burned with a blistering, crushing exhaustion as he parried another incoming blow, his vision narrowing to a desperate, breathless tunnel.

“Zandro, behind you!”

The frantic, panicked warning cry of one of his men shattered through the white noise of the fray. Zandro didn’t think; his lifelong training took over. He planted his lead foot hard into the bloody slush, violently swinging his hips and shoulders around in a tight, blind 180-degree arc. Holding his long knife close to his body for maximum leverage, he drove the blade forward and upward in a ruthless punching motion, using the momentum of his entire spinning body weight to force the steel into the space behind him.

The blade sank deep into wool and leather, slipping perfectly beneath the edge of a gilded breastplate before halting his rotation completely with the sudden, heavy resistance of flesh.

Time fractured. The roar of the battlefield receded into a dull, distant thrum.

Zandro gasped, his breath catching in his throat as he looked up, expecting to see a common foot soldier. Instead, his gaze met the wide, pale, and bleeding form of an older man wearing a crown-shaped helm.

It was King Franklin Ellington of Avalonja.

The Southern King’s heavy longsword slipped from his numb fingers, clattering uselessly against the blood-slicked stones. But he did not fall. Instead, the dying ruler brought both hands up, wrapping his fingers tightly over Zandro’s hand—which was still white-knuckled and trembling on the hilt of the embedded knife.

The King’s knees buckled.

Driven by a sudden, involuntary instinct of respect for a fallen warrior, Zandro did not let him drop rudely into the muck. He stepped forward, catching the older man by the shoulder, and gently lowered him to the frozen dirt below them.

He cradled the King’s armored torso. The heavy scent of iron and copper rising between them as the surrounding Southern soldiers froze in absolute, paralyzed horror at the sight of their fallen monarch.

The Southern King choked, blood staining his graying beard. He squeezed Zandro’s hand with terrifying, desperate strength, using the last of his fading life to pull the Northern prince close.

“Please,” the King wheezed, his voice a ragged, desperate whisper that tore through the agony of his chest. “Please... don’t hurt my deer.”

Zandro blinked, confusion washing over his face. Deer? The word made absolutely no sense amidst the banners, the mud, and the century of spilled blood.

“What?” Zandro stammered, his mind racing as he stared at his dying enemy. “Your Majesty, I don’t—”

“Promise me,” the King begged, his grip tightening until Zandro’s bones ached. A tear cut a clean path through the dirt on the old man’s cheek, his eyes wide and pleading. “Swear it to me. On your honor.”

Looking at the absolute, vulnerable desperation in the dying man’s eyes, all royal titles and wartime hatred stripped away, Zandro’s chest tightened.

He nodded numbly, bound by the sacred honor of the North. “I promise. I won’t hurt your deer. I swear it.”

The tension instantly drained from the King’s body. His fingers loosened around Zandro’s hand, sliding away to rest limply in the mud. His pale eyes fixed on the gray sky above, growing glassy, still, and entirely lifeless.

The Southern King was dead.

A suffocating stunned silence rippled across the open fields as the Southern guards dropped their swords, their morale completely shattered. Zandro sat frozen in the dirt, holding the corpse of the man who had haunted his kingdom for years, bound to a phantom promise he didn’t understand.

The centuries-long war was over, won by a panicked, instinctive reflex.