Silverblood Raven Book 1:
A Path of Blood and Amber

by Nikki McCormack

Raven was eight when her parents were murdered. Now it’s happened again. Her guardian dead. Their home destroyed. She can hunt and fight, but life in isolation hasn’t prepared her for survival outside the forest.

The magic within her makes her a target for execution by the Silverblood Brotherhood, an institution that regulates such powers with an iron fist. Having never spoken to a stranger before, how can she hope to navigate a world where anyone might turn her in for that magic?

Her guardian dreamed of living someplace where Raven would be safe and accepted. Is there a chance she can find that on her own, or will the Brotherhood find her first?

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Information:

Title: A Path of Blood and Amber, Silverblood Raven Book One
Author: Nikki McCormack
Cover Art: Robert Crescenzio
Publisher: Elysium Books
Genre: Epic Fantasy
Length: 337 pages
Release Date: June 2022
ISBN: 978-1-7367938-2-4

Excerpt from A Path of Blood and Amber: Silverblood Raven Book One

by Nikki McCormack

Copyright © 2022 by Nikki McCormack. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

CHAPTER ONE

Raven froze, standing as still as the tree next to her. Her breathing was soft and steady. Her Silverblood enhanced eyesight quickly picked a hare out of the underbrush despite the changing light of approaching dusk. Slowly, smoothly, she raised her bow, nocking an arrow in the same motion.

She focused on her breathing and waited a few seconds, watching the unsuspecting animal. The brush next to it shifted, and another hare hopped cautiously out into the open to join the first. Raven drew the string back until the end of the arrow was alongside her cheek, in front of one pointed ear. The bow had belonged to her father. It was too long for her, but she adapted her style to it. These days, she rarely missed. That mattered because the animal wouldn’t suffer as long as her aim was true.

Drawing in a steadying breath, she let the arrow fly. The hare went down with a slight squeal. The second animal had an instant to react, spinning to leap away. Another arrow sank into its side, dropping it a few inches away from the first. The poor creature was no match for half-elven reflexes enhanced by Silverblood magic and years of rigorous training.

The dense canopy of leaves overhead cast flickering shadows on the ground as the sun sank on the horizon. Raven worked quickly, putting away her bow and going to collect the hares. They were healthy animals. A good kill. She tied the hind feet of each hare to either end of a leather strap.

For a few seconds, she remained crouched there, listening for the sounds of predators lured by the cry of the hare and the scent of death. Hearing nothing, she stood, lifting her kill with her. The two animals swung from the leather strap. That lifeless weight made something uncomfortable stir in the dark recesses of her mind.

How could the memory still be so vivid? It had happened such a long time ago. She had been a child. Yet, somehow, every creature she killed to keep food on the table, no matter the size, had the same dead weight when she first went to pick it up as her mother’s lifeless arm clutched in her eight-year-old hands.

•

The stenches of charred flesh and fresh blood filled her nose. Her mother’s eyes turned black, then silver blossomed from the pupil, filling them to the edges. Blood trickled from her mouth as she murmured her last words—an apology and strange words in a language she didn’t recognize—before her hand went limp in Raven’s grasp. No declaration of love. No goodbye. Raven screamed at her to stay, but it did no good. Her father’s burned body lay silent behind her. Her parents were gone.

Then heat filled Raven, burning through her as if her blood had caught fire. Not with the same literal flames that killed her father. This was something different. It raced through every part of her: muscle, bone, and sinew. All of her burned as she was agonizingly remade with magic. Silverblood magic.

A mother’s act of magic to protect her daughter. An act of love. A curse that would mark Raven forever.

•

She shook herself and blinked back tears, her hand closing into a tight fist around the leather strap. Deft fingers tied it to her belt alongside a pouch full of mushrooms she had collected that would add a musky flavor to the gamy meat.

A hawk lit in the tree above her, cocking its head to the side to consider her kills.

“Would you steal my hunt from me, hawk?” She gave the bird a challenging look.

It tilted its head to eye her now, assessing the threat she posed.

Raven grinned at it, pleased to have a diversion from memories it seemed would plague her all her life. “Not today, my friend. Although, should you follow me home, you might find scraps out in the midden heap by morning.”

The bird tilted its head the other way, the intensity of its gaze giving her the sense that it was trying to understand her. She often fancied, foolish as the notion was, that she should be able to communicate with the creatures of these woods. She had grown up her entire life among them. They were much less peculiar to her than the rare human or elf she spotted if she wandered closer to the wagon tracks. Jaecar scolded her when she ventured near those places where someone might see her. When she was younger, it was something of a game trying to sneak out there without getting caught. Now that he watched her less closely, she itched to go even farther. He could not intend for her to spend her entire life in these woods with only a cranky old warrior for company.

Raven turned toward the keep. A steady, tireless jog had the crumbling heights of the old west tower visible through the treetops within twenty minutes. The tower itself was no longer safe, though she remembered playing in it as a child, practicing sword forms up and down the now-collapsed staircase. At twelve, Jaecar assured her she was faster with a blade than he had ever been. Nowadays, he insisted she was a better warrior and hunter than any student he had trained before her. He probably exaggerated, though his praise still made her beam now as much as it had when she was a child.

She passed over the rubble of the courtyard wall, leaping from one block of stone to another with a sure-footedness Jaecar spent endless hours drilling into her. What else was there for them to do here, living alone in an abandoned keep in the woods? Jaecar had been a soldier somewhere before coming here. He never told her what army he fought for or where, but he did say that he had been a combat instructor for many years. He had no experience raising children, only soldiers. So that was how he raised her after her parents died, more like a recruit than a child. Not that she minded much. She was a Silverblood. Those magic enhancements were of little use without the proper training.

Raven smiled at the flicker of light from the study window, one of five usable rooms in the keep. He was rarely in there at this time of day, so the light would be a candle he had forgotten again. Jaecar taught her to read all the books he kept there. Books he had collected on war, weapons, and history, along with practical books on subjects like herbology and alchemy that had belonged to her parents. Her favorites were a small batch of made-up stories. Tales of love, adventure, and distant places she would never see. Stories about things she would never experience because her mother remade her.

Her gaze flickered toward the hillside that flanked the keep. Her parents were buried on that hillside, a tree planted between them where its roots could claim them and make them part of its life. That tree was now tall, healthy, and strong. Memory and emotion granted physical form.

The familiar sound of stone on metal greeted her when she opened the front door. Shadows hid dust and cobwebs in the high corners of the big room. Massive threadbare rugs that whispered of former glory lay in the entry and before the large fireplace. Jaecar, becoming himself another relic of the past, sat before a crackling fire with his back to the door. The muscles in his broad shoulders worked as he ran a sharpening stone along whatever blade—a sword judging from the length of the strokes—rested in his lap. He wore his grey hair bound into a loose tail at the nape of his neck, wayward strands escaping and twisting away in myriad directions.

Raven kicked her boots off alongside the door before tugging each of her socks off by pinning the toes to the ground with the other foot. A childhood behavior she never outgrew. Her bow and quiver, she leaned against the wall before padding over. Where the aging rugs didn’t cover, cool, timeworn stone soothed her tired feet.

When she moved between Jaecar and the fire, he finally looked up. There were more lines on his face now. Most of the time, she didn’t notice, but something in the way he regarded her today made him seem much older. A twist of icy anxiety sparked in her, contrasted by the comforting warmth of the fire at her back.

What would she do when he was gone?

“What are you working on?” she asked, pushing down her fear.

His dark-eyed gaze drifted first to the hares she still carried, then sank to her bare feet, lingering a moment as a hint of a smirk curved his lips. After a few seconds, he met her eyes, his hazel ones staring deep into her. He made no room for timidity in his world, and his stern gaze was the initiation into that domain.

“You need a blade that better suits your size.”

Excitement sparked in her. She stepped closer to look at the weapon resting across his legs. The slender blade had a gentle curve, inscribed near the top with elven writing. She could make out about half of it. Her mother had been teaching her elvish. That early education in the language might have faded if Jaecar had not asked her to teach him. He also insisted that she read her mother’s elven books. Most unfamiliar words she managed to puzzle out through context. A few, she still had to skip.

“What does it say?” She asked.

His silence and stern gaze said he wouldn’t tell her until she tried to figure it out herself.

Raven set her jaw and pointed to the finely etched script. “That’s justice. And that’s mercy.” Jaecar nodded as she considered the whole. “So this says ‘Wield in justice.’ I’m not sure about the second part. ‘Don’t in mercy’?”

“Withhold in mercy,” he offered.

“Wield in justice. Withhold in mercy.” As she said the words, the weight of them sank over her.

He nodded. “This is a weapon meant for killing. How you use it matters.” He gestured to a smaller blade resting on the end of the bench, as elegant and refined as the sword. “There’s a matching dagger. You know why I’m giving you these?”

Raven swallowed, fighting the tightening in her throat. Her lungs squeezed tight as well, making it hard to breathe normally.

“It’s my birthday tomorrow,” she managed.

It wasn’t her actual birthday. Neither of them knew when that was. Tomorrow was the anniversary of her parents’ deaths. The fourteenth anniversary. Her day of rebirth, as Jaecar called it. The day her world fell apart.

Raven put her back to him, staring into the fire. Jaecar stood behind her, his presence commanding even now, as age began to pick at him with cruel fingers.

“Look at me, Raven.”

“No.” A tear ran down her cheek.

Jaecar took her shoulder and turned her. She let him do so. He was still holding the blade, and she the hares. This wasn’t the right time for a show of defiance. She stared at the place where his collarbones came together, at an old scar there. Fourteen years, and she still didn’t know how he’d gotten that scar.

“Look at me.”

She made herself look up into that stony gaze. It wasn’t so stern today, though. His eyes softened like this on occasion. The kindness that crept into them only made the pain of her memories more intense. Another tear slipped free. Jaecar nodded as if he expected as much. He tucked a lock of her silvery-black hair behind one pointed ear and held her gaze.

“I could not be more proud of you if you were my child. You are a remarkable warrior. These blades will be as lethal as your father’s bow is in your hands. I trust you to wield them responsibly.”

He cupped her face in one rough hand and leaned down to place a kiss on her forehead. She had told him several times that she was too old for such gestures, but, at this moment, she appreciated that he ignored her protests.

He took the hares, pressing the sword’s hilt in her hand in their place. Her fingers curled around it. The weight of the blade was balanced and comfortable in her grip. She yearned to move through her forms with it. Perhaps after supper.

He turned toward the kitchen.

“Wait.” She grabbed his muscular arm. “Something’s bothering you.”

Jaecar faced her again. He always looked her in the eyes when he had anything important to say. The tightening at the corners of his eyes told her she was right. He had something on his mind.

“We both know I won’t always be here, Raven. I regret not preparing you better for that.”

She shifted her feet, fighting the inclination to look away. “Are you ill?”

“No.” His sorrowful smile wasn’t reassuring. “No. It’s just… I think it’s time we left this place. The world isn’t safe for you, but you need more in your life than me and these woods. I own the deed to some lands to the north that are going to waste. Perhaps we should visit and see if we can make something worthwhile out of them. If we went about it right, we might build a small community there that would accept and protect you, so you don’t have to be alone when I’m gone.”

The surge of emotion was chaos. Raven couldn’t tell what was more potent, the dread of someday losing him, the fear of going out into the world, or the bubbling excitement of experiencing something new. To leave this place. She had never left these woods. She sometimes spied on travelers passing through when she wandered farther afield around the wagon track that led to Andel. She would watch their camps and collect occasional items they left behind to add to her hidden treasure trove in the old, listing stable in the keep courtyard.

The travelers fascinated her, but she didn’t dare approach. She was marked by her mother’s magic. One look in her eyes, at the bright silver irises bordered with a jagged line of black, would tell them what she was.

There was only one way to make a Silverblood. The magic’s user had to harness the power of someone’s death to change and enhance themselves or, as in her case, someone else. It was forbidden for anyone other than a Silverblood Brotherhood priest to create another Silverblood. Since the Brotherhood consisted entirely of human men, Raven could never pass herself off as legitimate. She hadn’t chosen this, but, as Jaecar often reminded her, she would be judged on sight, and that judgment was unlikely to be kind. Being half-elven and a female was challenging enough without that working against her.

She swallowed the sour taste of fear. “I don’t know anything about the world outside of this place. I don’t know how to talk to…” She trailed off when he gave her arm a reassuring squeeze.

“You won’t be out there alone.” His tone promised her protection. “I have some documents hidden in an old chest under stones at the bottom of the tower. We’ll go over them after your birthday and begin planning our departure. You should be familiar with their contents in case anything happens to me on the road.”

That cautious wave of giddy excitement that started to rise at the idea of taking on this adventure with him crashed against a rocky shore of reality. If something happened to him? Then she would be alone out there. How could she hope to survive alone?

She focused on the less scary part of what he had said. “What kind of documents?”

Sorrow lingered in his eyes, but he forced a smile. “One is the deed to the lands I mentioned. Don’t worry about the rest tonight. Let’s dress these hares and have some supper.”

She answered with a firm nod, determined to push away the ill-feeling spreading in her gut. “I picked mushrooms too.”

This time, his smile came easier. He put an arm around her shoulders and steered her toward the kitchen. “You take good care of us.”