The Wind Weaver

Book 1: Reign of Remnants

by Julie Johnson

Genres: Fantasy; Fantasy action & adventure; Romantic Fantasy; General Fiction; Romance; Fantasy Romance

Synopsis

Magic and adventure swirl through this spellbinding romantasy where a young woman reignites the embers of an ancient prophecy, unleashing a storm that could save her realm or doom them all.

Fear of maegic plagues war-torn Anwyvn. Halflings like Rhya Fleetwood are killed on sight. But Rhya’s execution is interrupted by an unexpected savior—one far more terrifying than her would-be killers. The mysterious and mercenary Commander Scythe. In the clutches of this new enemy, Rhya finds herself fighting for her life in the barren reaches of the Northlands. Yet the farther she gets from home, the more she learns that nothing is as it seems—not her fearsome captor, not the blight that ravages her dying realm, not even herself.

For Rhya is no ordinary halfling. The strange birthmark on her chest and the wind she instinctively calls forth means she is a Remnant, one of four souls scattered across Anwyvn, fated to restore the balance of maegic…or die trying.

But mastering the power inside her is only the beginning. Desire for the Commander—a man she can never trust, a man with plans of his own—burns just as fiercely as the tempests beating against her rib cage for release. Rhya must choose: smother the flames…or let them consume her.

Release date: April 8, 2025

Publisher: Ace

Print pages: 544

Sample

Chapter
ONE

The noose chafes, a necklace of death.

I feel my pulse-steady, staccato-thudding away beneath the fragile skin at my throat. There's no fear. Not anymore. That came earlier, with the bruising hands and snarling hounds that tracked me through the wild marshland. And it fled with the sun, slipping over the horizon into crushing darkness.

What is it Eli always said?

Fear only means you have something left to lose.

I have nothing left now. Nothing but my life, and that isn't worth much of anything to anyone.

Certainly not to my captors.

"Wily little bitch, isn't she?" A gruff voice barks out a laugh somewhere to my left. "Took half our unit to track her down. A dozen men. Three days we spent in that damned bog with wasps and snakes and spiders. Knee-deep in mud and moss and all manner of shit. She nearly slipped our net when we lost the light yesterday." A gob of spit lands on my cheek. "Faery scum."

Another voice answers-this one younger, and slightly wavering. A new recruit, perhaps, not yet worn-out by this endless, bloody game of war the mortal men seem intent on playing. "She's just-she's so young."

"Don't let your eyes fool you, boy. Faery trickery, that is. They mask their true nature with pretty faces and sweet smiles, same as a poisonous flower. In the olden days, they say some of them cast such a glamour, could make you see anything they wanted. March you straight off a cliff, thinking you were skipping through a field of daisies."

The younger soldier sucks in an audible breath. His terror is palpable even through my blindfold.

"Don't worry, son. Maegic like that hasn't been seen in these parts in nigh on two centuries." The gruff voice chuckles. "The ones we hunt down, like this runt here, are halflings mostly. Leftovers from before the Cull, back when bloodline mixing wasn't outlawed. They're no more enchanted than you or me."

There's a marked pause. A cave of silence yawning wide between the two men.

"'Course, that don't make 'em helpless," the older soldier tacks on, almost defensively. "She'd gut us in our sleep given half the chance. Never doubt that."

"How did you finally catch her?"

"Ran her to ground by the Red Chasm. The ore in those rocks is enough to confuse 'em. Clouds their sense of direction, muddies their minds." He exhales a sharp breath. "No foe is invincible-not even a damned point."

I tense at the slur, binds going tight across my chest despite my attempts to keep still. Point. The soldiers who've taken me prisoner use the insult often, hissing it at me under their breath when they change watches, tossing it around in casual campfire conversation. As if reducing an entire race to our most notable physical trait-the pointed tip of an ear-somehow makes their barbarity easier to stomach. Every time I hear it, something within me snarls in silent rage. A broken beast, itching for retribution that will never be mine.

Gods above, grant me vengeance in my next life.

"Ain't so hard to kill 'em, actually. Just a matter of finding the right weapon," the older soldier boasts, brimming with sage wisdom. "Iron's best, of course. But, gods' truth, stick 'em with anything sharp and the job's done. Points bleed, same as any other beast in the forest. Didn't your pa take you hunting, son? Haven't you ever gutted a doe?"

"No . . . I . . . We . . ." The young soldier shifts from foot to foot, boots crunching dead leaves. "We're crofters, sir."

"Crofters?"

"Yes, sir. We tithe a tract by the coast. Iceberries, mostly."

The older soldier scoffs. "Well, you'll need ice in your berries for this deployment, I'll tell you that. Cold as all fuck, this close to the Cimmerians."

Behind my blindfold, I imagine the scene. An encampment of soldiers, weather beaten from weeks on the road. A crackling fire to ward off the chill-and the wolves. A simple dinner cooking over the coals.

The smell of meat carries to me on the wind, and my stomach rumbles a contemptuous response. Hare, most likely, or a steer. Maybe a wild boar, if one of them is skilled enough with a bow. For surely there are hunters among their number. Men capable of tracking down some prey besides me and my kind. Though if we were edible, they might eat us, too.

It's been an unforgiving winter.

I wonder to which kingdom they belong, to which of the warring kings they've pledged their fealty. Perhaps the very one who sent his armies into Seahaven and set the Starlight Wood aflame-and the only home I've ever known along with it.

A hand tugs at the shackles around my raw wrists. I hear the hiss an instant before the pain bolts through me. The smell of charred skin hits my nostrils.

My own flesh, burning.

It takes all my self-possession not to cry out-but I will not give these soldiers the satisfaction. Breathing deeply, I press my spine harder against the bark of the tree to which I'm lashed, trying not to lose consciousness.

Gods above, it hurts.

"See how she blisters?" the older soldier asks. "You'd think I'd taken a blazing log to her!"

"Y-yes," the youth stammers. "I see."

The irons stir a ceaseless tide of agony that never recedes-even now, after my wrists are scorched nearly to bone and sinew. Each shift of my chains sets off a fresh flow of anguish.

"When . . ." The young recruit clears his throat. "When will they . . ."

"String her up? Won't be long now. Commander Scythe will be here by midnight. Captain says we can't touch her till he signs off."

"Why?"

"Likes to be sure they're really dead, I suppose. Kick around the ashes a bit, make certain nothing stirs. Seems overboard to me, but it's on order of King Eld, so I do as I'm told. Hang 'em up, burn 'em down." There's the sound of a cork being unstoppered. A throat working to swallow the contents of a flask. A steadying breath. "Folks tend to get a touch superstitious when it comes to faery executions. You'll see, lad."

"Right . . ." The young man sounds unconvinced. "When I enlisted, I didn't think we'd be hunting halflings. I didn't know there were any left."

"Not many, these days. 'Specially this far up in the Midlands. The Southlanders have some . . . different practices. You should thank the skies you aren't stationed at the border to the Reaches. Hard to stomach, from what I've heard. And I ain't heard much."

My heart lurches. I've not been spared the rumors of what happens to halflings in the Southlands. Not in full. Eli gave me the briefest of glimpses at that darkness one night over a stiff dram of whiskey.

They might not kill you right away, Rhya, but the things they'll do to you will make you wish they had . . .

I force my thoughts from that dark path. It leads nowhere good.

"Son, just keep your head down, your hands steady, and your questions to yourself. You'll be fine. It's a job like any other-no matter what the rabble around here tells you." The older man's voice drops lower. "Swear, some men's breeches get stiff watching faeries squirm on the end of a rope. Different sort of bloodlust, you understand?"

"That's foul!"

"Aye. Don't make it any less true." He takes another deep pull from his flask. "Long while back, when I was no more than a young buck like you, points were a bit more common in these parts. My unit stumbled across a whole family one day, hidden away in the caves beneath a waterfall. Greenish skin and hair like river grass . . ."

Greenish skin?

Hair like river grass?

Wherever do they think up these ridiculous stories? From children's bedtime tales? Besides our ears, halflings are nearly indistinguishable from humankind. But then . . . I suppose it's easier to justify killing a mythological monster than a living being. Something, not someone.

The soldier's voice drops almost to a whisper. "We'd lost so many in the Avian Strait. Bloodiest battle in a hundred years. And Soren's men just kept coming. Driving us back, over and over and over. Morale was low. Our army-we needed a win. So when those faeries fell into our path . . ."

A chill of foreboding sweeps through me despite the burning agony at my wrists. I close my eyes behind the blindfold, wishing I could shut my ears as easily. I don't want to hear about the slaughter of an innocent family. I can't bear the details of a mother, a father, and their children torn apart by battle-addled soldiers. Not with my own imminent death pressing so hard against my windpipe.

A boot scuffs against the earth, and the man coughs. "Safe to say, the things I saw that day . . . well, it's the kind of scene you don't forget. Even after ten years."

There's another beat of quiet. The younger man says nothing, perhaps shocked silent by the gruesome picture his companion has painted. I'm not foolish enough to think his reticence is born of sympathy for me. More likely, he's merely doing as he's been tasked-keeping his opinions to himself.

He'll make a good soldier.

The quiet is broken by the thud of a hand slapping against a shoulder. "You're pale as a ghost, son. Go get yourself a bit of venison before it's all gone. And bring me back some, will you? I'll keep watch over the prisoner."

There's the sound of retreating footsteps, then the sigh of a body settling against a tree. In the distance, the murmur of conversation-other soldiers, wolfing down their dinner around the fire. After a moment, I pick out the faint flick of a knife against a block of wood. I allow myself to wonder what my remaining guard is carving.

A sigil for whichever god he worships? A token for the wife left behind in the land he calls home? A toy for his small daughter to play with when he finally returns from conquest?

Ten years, he said. Ten years of battles. Ten years of soldiering. Ten years of bleeding and fighting and killing.

Surely there is a life outside all this. Surely this man has a family waiting for him somewhere. Will he tell them of the faery girl he slaughtered to keep them safe? Regale them with details of the monster's mottled face and sagging tongue as she swung from the bough, a grotesque mask illuminated by torchlight?

The gallant hero who slew the beast.

Huzzah!

After the way he spoke to his young companion, I think not. He'll take no joy in his task-but he will complete it all the same, carrying out his captain's orders without question.

The branches creak overhead, a death knell.

I'm glad they plan to kill me at night, under the stars. It would somehow be worse to die with the sun shining down and a light breeze stirring the grass at my feet. Shadows paint a more fitting final scene for the snapping of my neck.

The last breath of Rhya Fleetwood.

Ward of the renowned Eli Fleetwood.

Orphan.

Faery.

Halfling.

Fugitive.

Point.

In some ways, it will be a relief. To finally rest after all these months on the run. Since they executed Eli, since they burned the Starlight Wood to ash along with our cottage, there is no refuge left for me on this earth. No strong, protective arms to rush toward when my hair snags on the brambles or my ankle twists on a rock in the riverbed. No warm bed to crawl into at the end of a crisp autumn day.

I have no idea where I am. Before they hunted me down, I'd been lost for weeks, wandering in search of solace that no longer exists, surviving on rubbery mushrooms dug from the packed earth and cold trout fished from icy streams. When I came across a village five days ago, the smell of fresh bread sitting on a stone windowsill proved too tempting to ignore.

I could curse my own stupidity. I know what Eli would say if he were here. The heart makes you soft. The stomach makes you weak. Ignore their fleeting impulses. It is your mind you must mind.

But in a moment of weakness, I abandoned his teachings. Gnawing hunger made me careless, dulled the sharpness of my senses beyond reason. I'm quick by nature, but that day I was not quick enough. As I darted from the tree line to the dilapidated house at the edge of the wood, I did not hear the click of a bootheel on the stone floor inside, nor the nocking of an arrow in the bow, until it whizzed a whisper above my head. And by then, it was too late.

Far too late.

From that moment on, life was headlong flight. Running until the breath was gone from my lungs, until the strength was stripped from my bones, until my bare feet left a trail of bloody footprints on rocks and riverbanks alike. They tracked me-first the villagers themselves, later the soldiers they had summoned. Through a forest, across a field, and finally into a boggy marshland. I nearly lost them there in that hissing, burping mire, where the air was thick as syrup and swarms of insects blacked out the midday sun.

Nearly.

I had no way of knowing I was being herded toward a deep ravine. The Red Chasm, the soldiers call it, so named for the rusty color of its plunging depths. For there, the stone runs thick with iron deposits. Thick enough to drain me on a good day-and a good day this was not.

I felt the ore sapping my strength with each step as the men closed in. My legs buckled, threatening to give out beneath me. Even if they hadn't, there was nowhere left to run once I reached the cliff side. Not unless I fancied hurling myself over the edge, plummeting to my death in the void.

In hindsight, tied to a tree with the fiery grip of iron shackling my wrists, a thick noose looped around my neck, and a pyre in my immediate future . . . I might prefer that sharp fall. At least then, my death would be at my own hands. My own choice.

My last choice.

Gods, I'm tired. The noose is so heavy I can no longer hold my head upright. I sag limply against my bindings, glad Eli is not here to see me. He raised me to fight. To be fierce. Steady of will, strong of mind, sound of heart.