Riorde

Prologue

Asena lost the baby, of course. And then nearly bled out on the sun-bleached sand and rock they deposited her on, cursing the man who did it to her, her father for his helplessness, the rider who brought her there to die. It was the healer in their midst that saved her, a small notch against the grudges against men piling up one after another.

Asena had been a sunny child and teen, growing up the great household of High Reaches Hold. Her bright smile and eager-to-please ways elevated her from a simple baker's daughter to maidservant to the Lady, and it was that same smile and earnest girlishness that attracted the eye of Lord Beradin one day when he came upon her airing out her Lady's sheets on a clear mid-morning.

Who was she to say no? She was only a girl, and hardly knew how to, let alone what was happening to her.

After several more fumbled encounters, Asena had to stammer out her suspicions of pregnancy, and in a second she went from a momentary distraction from rumours of rebellion to another problem to be dealt with.

If there wasn't a revolution brewing, rebellion on his hands, he could have laughed off her claim to be pregnant. Him, siring a bastard at his age? His first thought was that the girl was clearly having him on, trying to conceal other fooling around. But that wasn't what mattered - what mattered was if it got out, was used against him. The last thing he needed was a bastard child claiming Bloodright, or a warden claiming it for him. The girl's panicky denials of any knowledge or exchange with his conspirators only sounded like confessions in his old, suspicious ears. Beradin simply added her to the lists of those sent to trial. Problem solved.

Asena went cold and dark in the days and months and Turns that followed her exile, and even when warming herself against the body of another in the nights for solace when the isolation was too much for her, Asena never made a sound.

Background

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