The Death-Made Prince

Thraga trades her deadliest secret to escape a condemned cell

Thraga has spent eight days in a Svein's Creek prison cell, nine hours from the gallows, wearing a dead man's blood in a vial around her neck.

Thraga trades her deadliest secret to escape a condemned cell

Thraga has spent eight days in a Svein's Creek prison cell, nine hours from the gallows, wearing a dead man's blood in a vial around her neck. When guards shove a tall, one-eyed stranger into her cell — all sharp angles and a carrion crow's stillness — she watches him begin picking his own shackles with a stolen pin. He's deathmade: a necromancer, the one kind of mage who could bring her dead lover Lark back from the afterlife of Niflheim. He sees no use in her until she chokes out words she's hidden her entire life. She's a runewitch. He demands proof. She curls trembling fingers into the shape of the thorn rune, and the iron shackles around her ankles snap like twigs. The stranger pauses mid-stride at the open door. Then he holds it for her.

Durlain Averre offers resurrection in exchange for a dungeon rescue

Their escape goes sideways when Thraga insists on retrieving all six of her rune-forged knives from the prison storeroom — a compulsive, time-devouring need she cannot override. Fire erupts from the stranger's scarred hands to cover their retreat, revealing curved horns beneath his hood. He's fireborn, from the royal family that killed Thraga's mother. Fleeing on horseback, she spots his signet ring and names him aloud: Durlain Averre, supposedly dead third prince, murdered alongside his younger sister Cimmura by their half-brothers. Both returned as deathmade mages. But Cimmura remains imprisoned in King Lesceron Garnot's dungeons, and Durlain cannot breach them without rune magic. His bargain is blunt: help free his sister, and he'll drag Lark back from hell.

Thraga navigates their escape through paths only she remembers

A prison guard recognizes Thraga outside their inn at Horn's End. Durlain and the innkeeper lie, swearing she's been their guest for days; every patron backs the story without hesitation. But soldiers are converging. Thraga carves runes into the saddle leather to lighten their weight — her first useful spell in Durlain's service — and the horse surges forward with uncanny speed. When he asks which way to ride, she surprises herself: proposing a route through a hidden tunnel behind a waterfall at Moon Lake, a passage she once discovered during a mission for King Aranc. The gamble works. They emerge on the far side aimed toward the city of Elenon. It's the first time she's navigated without Lark, and Durlain follows her lead without a single question.