Chapter 2

Isabelle Hayes, now heavy with Thorne' s child, suddenly grew ill.

A strange sickness, she claimed, during her labor.

"It's mystical," the court physicians whispered, baffled.

Isabelle, pale and sweating on her silken sheets, pointed a trembling finger.

"Only the Hearthstone Spirit from Elara' s child can save me," she gasped. "And Thorne's heir."

Thorne, his face a mask of fear for Isabelle and his new child, stormed into Elara's desolate cabin.

"Where is its Spirit?" he demanded. "Give it to me."

Elara looked at him, her eyes hollow.

The Emberblooms were gone. Her child, in her womb, was still.

"The baby... it' s gone, Marcus," she said, her voice barely a whisper. "There is no Spirit to take."

Thorne' s face twisted. "You lie!"

He struck her, hard.

"You're hiding it. You want my child to die."

He ordered her tortured.

For every "relapse" Isabelle suffered back in the capital, for every cry of pain from the Governor's mansion, Thorne's guards increased Elara' s suffering.

They wanted the Spirit of a child that no longer lived.

With each new demand from Isabelle, Thorne's cruelty escalated.

He sent word to the makeshift prison camp where the Redwood Creek Stewards were now held.

"She refuses to save my heir," his message read. "So, her people will pay."

The executions began. One Steward for each of Isabelle' s feigned cries of agony.

Elara, bound and broken in the cabin, heard the distant shots.

She pleaded, she screamed, she told Thorne again and again her child was dead.

He did not believe her. He could not. Isabelle' s life, his heir' s life, depended on Elara' s "hoarded" Spirit.

The Stewards, her people, were dying because of a lie.