A Bond of Broken Things: The Silvery Drop & The Eldritch Seed, #1

By Ed D. McKeehan

The world as you knew it is gone, shattered in a monstrous echo of a hunger not of this earth. From the ashes rises a symphony of chaos, where monstrous transformations are the only law, and survival lies not in purity, but in adaptation.

 

You won't find heroes here. Anya, driven by a protective rage warped into monstrous defiance, and Bran, fueled by an ambition echoing the very corruption he battles, are bound by monstrous necessity. They are the disruptors, their monstrous forms wielding the ancient hunger and the corrupted power of their enemy, turning disharmony into their weapon.

 

Within their fractured haven, a monstrous sanctuary in a corrupted forest, fragile echoes of a lost humanity cling to life. Every touch, every act of fragmented healing, is a defiant note in a discordant song. Yet, the Unseen's influence lingers, and from the depths of their broken world, shadows emerge - echoes of an older, crueler power.

 

This is a war fought not on battlefields, but within the monstrous forms they've become. Every defiance, every monstrous transformation, is an echo that ripples outward, fueling their desperate symphony of survival against cosmic hunger and the chilling whispers of forgotten horrors.

 

Are you ready to enter a world where monsters aren't born, but made, and the line between savior and destroyer lies in the dissonant echo of your own monstrous heart?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rawl Hardial
• Release date: Apr 21, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224401178

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Copyright in 2024 by © Ed D. McKeehan. All Rights Reserved.

In no way, it is legal to produce, duplicate or transmit any part of this book in electronic, digital, or printed format without the proper and express consent of the author or copyright owner. The recording of this publication is strictly prohibited. Storage and republication of this book are also prohibited without the express consent of the author or publisher.

All copyrights are held by the author/ owner.

Chapter 1: The Shattering

...F ury, hot and blinding , surged through Anya. Elara, who'd made her first cradle blanket... these men, twisting her kindness into a weapon... it was unbearable.

Her hand, without conscious thought, curled around a smooth stone at her feet. Not for throwing, her aim was poor. But as a sob tore from her throat, the stone thrummed against her skin, echoing her rage and the rising desperation in the clearing.

It wasn't a plea anymore, but a defiant roar given form. The scarred warrior, gloating over Morwen and Elara, suddenly jerked as if an unseen hand had yanked him back. He stumbled, and Elara slipped from his grasp, scrambling away like a startled hare.

Anya's heart hammered against her ribs. She hadn't willed this, but her fury had answered the earth's own cry of distress. It was heady, dangerous, and mixed with a desperate hope.

The other warriors froze, then turned, not towards her, but to the forest's edge. An unnatural silence had fallen. Even the birds had ceased their startled cries.

Morwen's hand landed on Anya's shoulder, the touch surprisingly steadying. Go, she murmured, the gentleness gone from her voice. Now, while you can.

The scarred warrior barked out an order, and as his men converged on the tree line, he glared at Anya with a chilling promise in his eyes. This is not over, girl. The Warmonger will have those relics, and he will have your head.

Anya didn't need another warning. Slipping into the shadows, her heart pounded a frantic rhythm. She didn't look back at her devastated home, at Morwen standing defiant amidst the chaos. All that mattered was running, carrying with her the echoes of Morwen's words, the weight of the smooth stone in her clenched fist, and the cold certainty that their peaceful life was irrevocably shattered.

1:1 Flight of the Doe

Then, the ground gave way under her feet, and she tumbled into a shallow ravine. Leaves and loose earth cushioned her fall, but the sharp pain in her ankle was impossible to ignore. Frantically, she scrambled to her feet, but already she could hear the pursuers drawing closer.

A disturbing movement was heard above her. Not a bird, but a shape woven of shadow and mist. Fear, sharp as an icicle, pierced Anya. Had the warriors found a new kind of weapon, some creature summoned from the darkest places? Her heart hammered against her ribs, a panicked drumbeat beneath the rough rasp of her breath.

Then she heard it – a wordless hiss, barely more than a whisper, yet it seemed to echo inside her skull. Hide.

The ravine wall offered a narrow crevice, barely concealed by rotting leaves. Anya squeezed into it with a gasp, her injured ankle throbbing in protest. Rough rock scraped against her cheek, the smell of damp and decay filled her nostrils. It was a suffocating, desperate sanctuary.

Footsteps thundered overhead, voices barking commands. Each thudding tread hammered against her temples. They were so close. Would the flimsy screen of leaves hold? Would her pounding heart betray her?

The chilling hiss came again, a thread in her mind. Still. Quiet. And something within her, an instinct forged from years of listening to the rhythm of the forest, obeyed. She slowed her breathing, forced her frantic muscles to relax.

The footsteps lingered. A rough voice snarled something about tracking her scent, and a shiver of dread rippled through Anya. Did these men have hunting dogs, keen-nosed beasts that could find their prey no matter how well she hid?

A pebble dislodged, clattering down into the ravine with heart-stopping clarity. Time seemed to freeze. Silence descended, thick and heavy. Every nerve in Anya's body screamed at her to run, to keep moving, but instinct – and that strange whispering voice – urged her to stay utterly motionless.

Then, finally, the sounds began to recede. Shouts from further away, the fading crunch of boots against leaves. They were giving up, moving on, convinced she'd gone deeper into the twisted trees. A sob of ragged relief choked from Anya's throat, mixing with the rasping pain of her held-back breaths. She was alive, but the strange, whispering voice lingered in her mind, along with words she had not thought of for years: Old Magic.

Anya didn't dare move for what felt like an eternity. Muscles screamed as she held the cramped position, fear, a bitter taste on her tongue. Only when the very air seemed to grow still, the faintest whisper of the warriors gone, did she finally push away the flimsy veil of leaves and cautiously emerge.

The sun's descent transformed the forest. Shadows pooled like spilled ink, giving familiar trees claws and twisted faces. There were no trails here, but Anya chose a direction based on a desperate instinct for deeper cover. Every rustle of leaves, each snapping twig beneath her feet, rekindled the terror, sending her stumbling as if chased by unseen foes.

As dusk painted the sky in streaks of purple and gray, something shifted. The buzzing wrongness that had clung to the forest since the warriors came now pulsed with a new intensity. A sharp gasp escaped Anya's lips as she stumbled over a root, her palm slamming into the damp earth. The buzz spiked, turning into a throb that seemed to rise from the ground itself.

The world tilted, dizziness threatening to send her crashing against a rough-barked trunk. Snatching her hand back, she blinked, spots of light dancing before her eyes like a swarm of twilight insects. And underneath the thrum, something else...a voice, barely a whisper, yet pushing past the roar of panic in her ears.

Remember... remember... The words were as familiar as they were impossible. Morwen! The Place of Power. Her purpose rushed back, not simply fleeing, but a desperate mission rooted in her grandmother's last words. Heart pounding, she closed her eyes, focused on that wordless plea to the earth she'd blindly cried out in the clearing.

As light flickered against her lids, she felt a strange warmth on her palm. Opening her eyes, she gasped. The dancing lights spiraled, coalescing into a shimmering trail, hovering just above the ground. It wound between the trees and beacon in the encroaching darkness.

Fear and a desperate, fragile hope warred within her. If this was Morwen's doing, a distant guiding hand, it was her only lifeline. Yet, what if it wasn't? What if the very forest had turned, touched by the same corruption as the warriors, luring her deeper into its grasp?

The shivering trail of light pulsed as if in impatience. Anya had no other choice. Teeth gritted against the sting in her ankle, she limped after it. The path was uncertain, the destination hidden, and the power waking within her felt as dangerous as the enemies she fled. But somewhere ahead lay a place, a sliver of hope, or perhaps a different kind of doom.

The trail led Anya on a twisting path through the shadowed forest. The thrum of wrongness in the earth intensified with each step, leaving her skin prickling with unease. Yet the luminescent trail never wavered, urging her forward.

Hunger gnawed at her, and exhaustion threatened to buckle her injured ankle. But to stop, to stumble in the dark, felt even more perilous. She found meager sustenance in bitter berries and a handful of fallen acorns that tasted of desperation. Her nights were fragmented snatches of restless sleep curled beneath the indifferent roots of ancient trees.

On the third night, she dreamed. Not of her home, not of her people, but of a landscape impossibly vast and barren. Stone monoliths rose like skeletal fingers against a starless sky, and a raw wind whipped across empty plains. She woke shivering, the dream's emptiness clinging to her.

And in the waking world, a shift. The forest's familiar sounds seemed muffled, replaced by an uncanny silence. She paused on the verge of panic, then noticed the trail had changed. It no longer hovered, but clung to the bark of trees, leaving a faint, pulsing glow as she passed her hand over it.

Is this a trick? she whispered, voice trembling.

No answer, only the throbbing of the earth beneath her feet, and the relentless beckoning of the trail. It was no simple path now, but a pattern, a series of crude symbols glowing on moss-covered boulders and withered branches.

The symbols were unsettling. Not the carvings of her tribe, but jagged, harsh, and filled with a hungry emptiness that mirrored her dream. Had the Unseen, the dark whispers Morwen warned of, left this mark? Was she walking blindly into their trap?

Then, a spark of defiant memory. Her grandmother, by the dying hearth on the coldest of nights, recounting tales of a time before the forests offered sanctuary. An age of barren wastes and ancient wars, and those who fought back with the defiant power of the earth...

Could these symbols be remnants of that power, not tainted, but forgotten? It was a thread of hope she clung to desperately.

As the days bled into an endless blur, something shifted within her. Fear remained, a constant companion, but mingled with it now was a fierce resolve. She wasn't just a hunted prey, but the carrier of her people's last hope, no matter how impossibly small it might be.

Chapter 2: Tracks in the Blood

The stench of the victory feast was almost as oppressive as the Warmonger's booming voice. Bran hunched over his meager share of roasted boar, more focused on not being noticed than the burnt, greasy meat. The flickering fire revealed the exultant faces of his fellow warriors, smeared with blood and ale.

Their laughter was a harsh echo of his own, not long ago. But the raid on the forest-dwellers had left a foul taste in his mouth that no amount of strong drink could wash away. Not just the violence – that was the old, familiar way – but the wrongness woven into it. The Warmonger called it power, but Bran felt it as a gnawing emptiness.

He caught a flicker of movement across the fire. Old Elka, the seer, usually drunk and muttering by this hour, watched him with narrowed eyes. Fear snaked through him. Had she guessed at his unspoken doubts, sensed the necklace tucked beneath his tunic, it’s cool silver a secret burden against his skin?

The forest witch, did she squeal like a piglet? A burly warrior beside Bran nudged him with an elbow, a leer on his face. They have secrets, those soft ones. Secrets ripe for taking.

The forest witch, that's how they'd dismiss Morwen. Yet, as the warriors hauled her away, her gaze had met Bran's and for an instant, something passed between them. Not a plea, not anger, but a chilling certainty, a promise that lingered in his nightmares.

Bran forced a laugh, raising his cup to avoid further questions. The necklace pressed against his chest like a hot ember. It was proof of his disobedience, a reminder of the flicker of humanity he dared not show. But it was also, perhaps, the only thing he held that the Warmonger hadn't yet tainted.

He finished his ale, the bitter dregs mixing with the churn of unease in his stomach. He would sleep the sleep of the dead tonight, haunted by the girl with the wide brown eyes. Yet as he slipped away from the firelight, a new thought pierced the drunken haze: The forest-dwellers had their secrets. Perhaps it was time he started searching for his own.

2:1 Bran's Conflicted Thoughts

Slipping into his tent, Bran didn't bother with light. The darkness was just as thick with unease. He fumbled for the furs that served as his bed, then stilled, a prickle of awareness down his spine. He wasn't alone.

So, the Warmonger's favored pup has grown soft. Old Elka's voice rasped from the darkness, reeking of sour spirits. The forest witch bewitched you with her eyes, did she?

Bran's fingers tightened around the necklace beneath his tunic. I saw nothing special, he lied, forcing a gruff indifference into his voice.

Elka cackled, a dry, hacking sound. She lurched out of the shadows, a skeletal figure hunched beneath a tattered cloak. Your eyes, boy, they're not blind. But they don't see what they should.

She hobbled closer, her gaze unnervingly keen. He thought of her reputation for visions, mumbled in drunken boasts – did she truly know? Or was this simply the ramblings of a mind, long-pickled in cheap liquor?

Old Magic, she rasped, it sleeps, but it stirs. The Warmonger hungers for it, the forest witch, knows its scent too... A gnarled finger jabbed towards his chest. And something flickers within you.

I serve the Warmonger, Bran said, the words tight in his throat.

Elka tilted her head, wisps of greasy hair framing her creased face. For now. But which way will you turn, little wolf, when the winds of change blow strong? Will you howl with the pack, even as they tear themselves apart? She thrust something at him – a shard of bone, etched with crude symbols. Heed the old tales, or your bones will join them.

Before he could answer, she shuffled out, leaving him in chilling silence. Bran stared at the bone shard, its symbols mirroring those of the glowing trail Anya followed. A foolish coincidence, or a sign? He longed to toss it aside, but a cold certainty settled over him: this wasn't an accident.

His doubts, once flickering embers deep within, were catching fire. The Warmonger, the victories, the relics he sought – it was all built on a foundation as rotten as Elka's prophecies. Bran wasn't like the others, blinded by ambition.