{"product_id":"the-dark-roads-of-kharzug","title":"The Dark Roads of Kharzug, The Veilborn Throne Book 2","description":"\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cb id=\"docs-internal-guid-702f573b-7fff-b4c8-ec18-9f59a403da2e\"\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eMy mother was most dangerous when she said my name gently.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eA shouted order could be survived. A cracked storm rod. A fist on a table. A command barked across the training yard with soldiers watching and dust in their teeth. Those things had edges I understood.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eGentleness had no edge.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIt slid in clean.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe army thought I was blessed. Veyra Talspar’s chosen son. Ironroot’s bright weapon. The boy who could hold storm in split palms and not make a sound. They saw her hand settle on my shoulder and called it pride.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThey did not feel her fingers dig.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThey did not see Pell watching from the fence, one brace strap loose, jaw tight enough to crack. He saw what they missed. He always had. He knew the difference between being loved and being shaped.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“Don’t let her make a banner out of you,” he told me once.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eI laughed because I was twelve and afraid.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThat was before the pillar.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eVeyra had put me in the center of the yard with no rod, no salt line, no rest. Break the stone, she ordered. Break it clean.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eI tried.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eStorm crawled under my skin and found nowhere to go. My palms split. Blood ran down my wrists. The soldiers shifted in the heat thrown off my body, but no one stepped forward.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNo one but Pell.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHe limped into the ring like he was late to supper, hair stuck to his damp forehead, one hand raised in that stupid way he had, as if he could charm a blade into turning blunt.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“Auren needs rest,” he said.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNine words.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe whole yard tightened.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eVeyra looked at him, then at me. Her face did not change. That was how I knew.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“Auren,” she said, soft as a kiss.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eMy chest locked. The storm answered before I chose. It burst out of me white-blue and wrong. Pell shoved me backward. Stone split with a sound like a bone breaking in a giant’s mouth.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThen the pillar came down.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eDust filled my nose. Blood flooded my tongue where my teeth had cut it. I heard men yelling, felt grit under my nails, smelled hot stone and burned leather, tasted iron as I pushed myself up.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePell lay under the broken half of the pillar.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHis leg was turned the wrong way. His brace had snapped. One buckle spun slowly on the ground beside him, bright in the dust. He stared at it like he could not understand how such a small thing had betrayed him.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThen he made one thin sound.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eMy throat closed around his name.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAfterward, they called it an accident. A training surge. A child’s power misjudged. Veyra signed the report. The officers repeated it. The yard was swept clean before supper.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePell learned to walk with pain.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eI learned to obey faster.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eYears passed in iron pieces. Rod drills. Border maps. Orders folded into sealed dispatches. Pell’s laugh getting louder whenever his leg hurt. My body turning into something the army could aim. Veyra’s hand on my shoulder in front of men who still mistook ownership for pride.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eI became her commander. Her finest work. Her answer to every wall.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAnd some ruined part of me still wanted her to mean my name kindly.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThat was what I hated most. Not the fear. Not even the obedience. The wanting. The small, starving hope that one day she would say Auren and not be reaching for a knife.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePell saw that too.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePell stayed anyway.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThen he died beneath Kharzug, driving his broken brace into the altar built to cut me open. He died in storm-fire and forge heat so I could choose with no command inside my skull. His blood slicked the stone beneath me. My child breathed against my chest, silent and warm, while every Veilwall in Vaelthyr went dark.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAcross the forge-heart, Veyra stepped over the cooling blood of her son.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eShe looked at Eidren in my arms.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThen she said my name gently.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cb id=\"docs-internal-guid-e6b66e11-7fff-c1b4-00ae-116adf1f03c7\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"August Publishing House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46146064384057,"sku":null,"price":5.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0789\/4774\/5849\/files\/TheDarkRoads.jpg?v=1783031284","url":"https:\/\/augustpublishinghouse.com\/products\/the-dark-roads-of-kharzug","provider":"August Publishing House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}