Prologue

Fomal glared into the darkness of her cell as footsteps echoed down the narrow stone hallway. As she had thousands of times before, she tried to shift into any animal she could think of, attempted to wriggle her way out of the ropes tying her arms and legs. As she had thousands of times before, she failed.

The door flew open, temporarily blinding Fomal to everything except the silhouettes of two giant men. As she was still blinking to adjust her eyes to the sudden light, they grabbed her by the forearms and hauled her to her feet.

Pain ignited everywhere. The men’s fingers dug into bruises from the days before, making Fomal struggle harder against them. The ropes tying her limbs rubbed her raw skin as she shifted. Welts rubbed against other welts. Her swollen lip throbbed. Her head throbbed in time with it, though the headache was caused by her magick, not her torture.

One of the men laughed at her futile struggles. “You’re just hurting yourself, woman. Putting yourself in more pain to accent the pain coming, eh?”

Fomal snarled and continued struggling. “I feel no pain,” she lied. “You can not ever harm me.”

“That’s not what your screams say.”

Fomal stopped struggling for a split second before starting again with renewed vigor. “You can’t hold me forever, cowards. And when I escape…”

By this time, they had reached a huge oaken door braced with iron bars. It swung open to show a large room with stone slab in the center, the leather ties at the four corners lying open in wait.

The table did not bother Fomal as much as it had when she had first seen it. What stilled her struggles was the man standing in one of the darkened corners. He had long blond hair that swung down to his broad shoulders. Even in the half-light, Fomal could see the glitter of blue eyes that matched her own staring at her. His body, like all of the others on this small island, was well-muscled and draped in black. The sword at his hip gleamed in the dancing firelight.

Two more huge men in black came from behind the door and helped the other two lift Fomal onto the table, untie her limp limbs, and retie them so that she was spread-eagled on the table.

Fomal kept her eyes riveted on the shadowy man in the corner. He couldn’t be…

“Hello, sister.”

Fomal jerked against the ties in an effort to reach him. “Keel? What are you doing here? Why are you wearing the clothes of a Hunter?”

Keel smirked and stepped closer to the table, drawing his sword as he did so. “I am a Hunter. I lead the Hunters.” He tapped the blood-red gem on the hilt of his sword.

“Why? What have the Free Spirits done to you?”

Keel’s smirk slid off of his face. “Father always did like you more. I have always resented you and your mother for that.”

“What? Father always liked us both the same-”

“LIAR!” Fomal flinched as Keel leapt forward and let the blade of his sword hover mere inches over Fomal’s exposed right cheek. “Now tell me. Where is your homeland?”

Fomal steeled herself for what she knew was to come. “The world is my homeland, nothing less.”

Fomal watched fury contort Keel’s face. “Wrong answer, sister.”

The blade swung down onto Fomal’s cheek, forming a bloody line that ran from her eyebrow to the corner of her lips. She screamed as the sword’s enchantments ripped through her body. She felt her insides shifting painfully, her skin boiling along with it.

Keel lifted the sword and glared down at Fomal, the smirk returning to his features. He only spoke when Fomal’s lingering scream had died down to soft whimpers. “I can go on like this forever, sister. You, however, have limits as to how much pain you can stand.”

Fomal opened her eyes and snarled at him, all love washed away on the waves of pain still shaking her body. “Go ahead and kill me, coward. You will never get the secrets out of me.”

Keel bared his teeth at her. “Unfortunately, I can not kill you. Father does not wish it.” His eyes lit with triumph. “I can, however, suppress your memories and make you a slave to the Hunters. How does that sound?”

Fomal’s eyes lit with the fear that she kept carefully trained off of her face. “You can’t do that. It’s impossible.”

Keel again tapped the red jewel on the hilt of his sword. “It’s quite simple, really. All I must do is this…”

Fomal tried to shrink away as the hilt and the jewel traveled closer to her head. When the cold jewel met her warm flesh, the pounding in her head seemed to grow until her head felt like it was going to split.

And the world went black.

Keel lifted the hilt off of her head and re-sheathed the blade. He turned to one of the men that had brought her in. “Take her to the house in the village on mainland. And make sure that no Free Spirit finds her. Any skin-to-skin contact with one of them and the enchantment will be broken.”

The man nodded and began to untie Fomal’s limp body. Keel slipped past him and made his way to the tower in the middle of the island. He had to report to his father and tell him that the job was done.