Wraithbound, p.1
Wraithbound, page 1
Table of Contents
Prologue
Book One Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Book Two Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Book Three Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Epilogue
WRAITHBOUND
TIM AKERS
Wraithbound
Tim Akers
EPIC FANTASY BY A RISING STAR OF FANTASY
Since he was a boy, Rae Kelthannis has dreamed of being a stormbinder like his father, with an air elemental stitched into the fabric of his soul and the winds of heaven at his command. Those dreams died when his father, through no fault of his own, fell into disgrace and was banned by the justicars of the Iron Council. The family fled to the edge of the Ordered World, to live in fear in the shadow of encroaching Chaos.
When Rae defies his father’s orders and attempts to stitch an air elemental to his soul, he instead binds himself to a mysterious wraith. That’s when things get complicated and the world starts to fall apart around him. Literally.
BOOKS by TIM AKERS
Knight Watch
Knight Watch
Valhellions
The Horns of Ruin
The Burn Cycle
Heart of Veridon
Dead of Veridon
The Hallowed War
The Pagan Night
The Iron Hound
The Winter Vow
The Spiritbinder Saga
Wraithbound
Wraithbound
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2023 Tim Akers
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.
A Baen Books Original
Baen Publishing Enterprises
P.O. Box 1403
Riverdale, NY 10471
www.baen.com
ISBN: 978-1-9821-9255-6
eISBN: 978-1-62579-907-4
Cover art by Jeff Brown
First printing, April 2023
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Akers, Tim, 1972- author.
Title: Wraithbound / Tim Akers.
Description: Riverdale, NY : Baen Publishing Enterprises, [2023] | Series: The Spiritbinder Saga
Identifiers: LCCN 2022058005 (print) | LCCN 2022058006 (ebook) | ISBN 9781982192556 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781625799074 (ebook)
Subjects: LCGFT: Novels. | Fantasy fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3601.K48 W73 2023 (print) | LCC PS3601.K48 (ebook) | DDC 813.6—dc23/eng/20221208
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022058005
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022058006
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Electronic version by Baen Books
www.baen.com
To Jennifer
We Stand Together
Prologue
There was a storm on the horizon. Rae could feel it in his bones, and deep in the hollow spaces of his soul. Mother insisted that was nonsense, that Rae couldn’t possibly soulsense at his age. But Rae knew. The skies outside the window of their brick cottage were clear as sunlight, and the breeze that drifted through the boughs of the pear tree in the garden was as gentle as a butterfly’s kiss. Bees buzzed through the nodding heads of the stand of sunflowers that bordered the garden wall. There was no sign of weather, other than the twinge in the middle of his chest.
It was going to rain. Big. And Rae wanted to watch his father kill the storm.
He snuck out of the house while Mother was trying to put his younger sister, Lalette, down for her afternoon nap. If Rae had tried to leave earlier, La would have tried to tag along, and stormbinding wasn’t the business of six-year-olds.
Father’s station was a short, squat stone building at the top of a hill overlooking Hadroy House. To get there, Rae had to travel down the long lane of servants’ cottages, wind his way through the herb garden, then skim the stables and make his way over a short berm that shielded the main house from the working half of the manor.
It would have been more direct to go through the formal garden, but for the last six weeks the grassy fields that surrounded the garden had been occupied by soldiers. Rae was fascinated by their uniforms, and the long muskets they stacked in little pyramids, and the smell of gunpowder when they practiced their lines, but the guards had a habit of nabbing him and asking a lot of questions. Rae didn’t want to risk missing the storm because he was stuck in some officer’s tent, explaining for the hundredth time that his father worked for the baron.
Rae was skirting along the edge of the stables when a figure caught his eye. It was Yveth Maelys, another spiritbinder in the baron’s service, though Rae had no idea what the man did. None of our business, Mother always said. Just like the soldiers, and the sudden renovations to the abandoned huntsman’s tower at the edge of the property, and Rassek Brant, the strange, dark man who had been at Baron Hadroy’s side for the last six months. None of our business. But Rae couldn’t help being curious. So he ducked behind an empty trough and watched Yveth make his way across the paddock.
Yveth was a stormbinder, just like Rae’s dad, though the two men could not have been less alike. Where Tren Kelthannis was short and soft around the edges, with an academic tilt to his head and a wardrobe that ran toward silk and spots of ink, Yveth was tall and lean and severe. Though he knew Yveth was a stormbinder, he had never seen him help his father during the frequent storms, not even when the outer fields needed watering in the dry months of summer. All Yveth ever did was stalk around the manor house, scowling at everything and holding tense conversations with Rassek Brant at all hours of the day and night.
Rae waited until Yveth disappeared around the corner before continuing. The first rumble of thunder hung on the horizon like distant music. He would have to hurry. Rae set out at a run, dodging through the stables and reaching the grassy hill that led to the stormbinder’s tower. He started pounding up the hill, his little legs moving as fast as they could, his breath coming fast and hot in his lungs. He had to get to the tower before Father set out to take care of the storm, otherwise he would be left behind, left to watch from the tower, or worse, sent home with—
A scream cut through the sound of blood pounding in Rae’s head. He stumbled to a stop and looked back. Had that come from the stables? He turned around and squinted against the glare off the glass panes of the hothouse at the edge of the gardens. He couldn’t see anything or anyone of note. A little spooked, Rae ran up the hill.
His father was waiting for him. Tren Kelthannis had just stepped out of the squat tower at the top of the hill as Rae stomped up. He looked nervous, but when he turned around and saw Rae, Tren’s face split with joy.
“I should have known you would show up for this. Hard to keep you away from a storm, isn’t it?” Tren asked. He was dressed in the gray and green of House Hadroy, his scholar’s robes of finer material than the rough spun wool the soldiers wore. His wireframe glasses were smudged, and he was carrying a large sheaf of papers under one arm. Rae’s father tried to pick him up with one arm, precariously balancing the notes in his other. “Oof, you’ve grown twenty pounds in the last week, I swear.”
“I’m big now, Dad. You don’t have to pick me up every time,” Rae said, squirming to be released. Tren laughed again and kissed his son on the forehead, then set him down. “Did you . . . did you hear something a moment ago?”
“Something other than my son stomping up the path like a runaway carriage? No, why?” But Tren glanced in the direction of the stables, his eyes narrow.
“I thought I heard someone scream,” Rae said. “Down by the stables.”
“Well, it was pro
“So I’m right? About the storm?” Rae asked.
“Something is brewing, yes. A big one, if even you can feel it.” Tren wiped his glasses clean on his robe, then squinted at the horizon. A veil of dark clouds had formed and was rapidly rushing toward the estate. “Terrible timing. Or perfect . . .” He looked down at the papers in his hands, then shuffled them together and stowed them in a leather satchel at his waist. “You should go back to the house. Make sure Mother gets the shutters closed.”
“She has La to help her.” Rae folded his arms and stuck out his lip. “And maybe you’ll need my help.”
“Well, you can stay for a bit, but if things get dicey I want you in the tower. Understand?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Alright, then.” Tren gently set his glasses on his face. “Let’s see what we’re dealing with, shall we?”
Tren extended his hand as though reaching for something. Coiling fog rose from his palm and swirled outward in a tight cylinder. The mists slowly coalesced into a short sword with a wavy, iridescent blade, and a silver hilt rimed with sparkling frost. The elemental bound to Tren’s soul originated in a blizzard, and had strong ties to the realms of water and storm. The spiritblade was a conduit that opened the door between realms, protecting the spiritbinder’s soul while also allowing him to call on the zephyr and bend it to his will. With a deep breath, he gripped the spiritblade and gestured with his off hand.
The zephyr swirled around the stormbinder’s shoulders, emerging from his soul and shrouding him in a frost-tinged maelstrom. Tren’s robes swirled as the elemental buffeted him. His glasses fogged up, but Tren’s eyes glowed with a piercing blue light.
The strands of Rae’s soul sang in harmony with the drawn spirit. His father had been tutoring him for over a year in the spiritbinder’s art, but it was all he could do to sense the weave and weft of Tren’s soul and the zephyr, inextricably bound together. He could tell Tren was reaching out to the distant storm, probing its depths. Tren’s eyes narrowed.
“That’s troubling.” He reeled the zephyr back, until it was nothing more than a frosty mist clinging to his shoulders. “Rae, I need you to go home. Now.”
“But—”
The storm churned closer, the black teeth of the squall line chewing through the forests that surrounded Hadroy House. On the far edge of the manor house, the jagged splinter of the huntsman’s tower poked into the air, like a spear arrayed against the darkness. Lightning flashed across the tree line, and the thunder that followed hammered Rae’s lungs. Tren gestured hurriedly, drawing more of his zephyr into the material plane. He hovered off the ground, his face creased in concentration.
“Dad?” Rae fell back toward the shelter of the tower. He had watched his father bind dozens of storms, but never falter. “Dad?” he tried again.
“Something in there. Something not . . . normal. It can’t be a coincidence.” Tren rose higher into the air. His elemental roared around him, but the sound was nearly drowned out by the approaching front. In the manor below, people were rushing back and forth, securing shutters and gathering children. A sudden wind blew through the alleyways and lanes, knocking over potted plants and sending a cloud of loose dirt howling between the buildings. The grass on the hill flattened, and Rae’s coat billowed like a sail, knocking him backward. He went to one knee, squinting into the storm and shielding his face with the crook of his arm.
The sky overhead was pitch black and roiling with lightning-splintered clouds. Purple light flickered at the heart of the storm, and a deep malevolence thrummed in the wind, snagging at Rae’s soul. It was like nothing he had ever seen.
A skittering roar from overhead drew Rae’s attention. He and his father both turned to search for the source of the noise.
A damaged windship emerged from the cloud bank, its hull brushing the trees at the top of the hill. The twin air elementals bound to its engines growled and crackled in their bonds, barely contained. The windship’s portside sail hung limp from the forecastle, and the whole vessel listed to that side. Crewmen dangled from the rigging, desperately gathering rope and trimming sail. The crippled vessel skirted the squall line before turning hard toward the forests beyond the huntsman’s tower. It disappeared behind the trees.
“Rae! Get home and help your mother!” Tren shouted over his shoulder. “It’s not safe here!” Then he rose even higher into the sky, weaving the elemental forces at his command. The storm greeted him with cacophonous thunder and howling wind. Rae glanced at the open door of the stone tower, then took off down the hill at a full sprint. The rain started before he reached the bottom. He was soaked through in three steps.
There was no time to take the long way around. Rae ran straight through the encampment. Soldiers were boiling out of their tents, grabbing muskets and forming into lines. This surprised Rae, considering the weather, but just as he reached the edge of the field he heard a crackle of thunder.
No, not thunder. Musket shot. He skidded to a halt and looked back.
From the forest near where the windship must have gone down emerged a small group of armed men. They wore the cream and crimson of the Iron College, and deployed in a loose skirmish line, bayonets fixed. The baron’s men were forming up into firing lines, spurred on by shouting sergeants despite the storm. A few shots rang out, but the main action had yet to begin. For every College man, the baron must have had twenty muskets.
The Hadroy line fired, filling the air with gray smoke and lead. Wind and rain tore at the clouds. As it cleared, Rae expected to see carnage among the Collegians. Instead he saw a wall of shimmering light that shielded the cream-and-crimson skirmishers. Beyond it, the distinctive shape of a lawbinder, his golden sword raised high, angelic wings fluttering around his shoulders. Another dozen spiritbinders spread out behind him, manifesting various powers of the eight-fold path. Golems lifted stony fists, while a deathbinder floated on ephemeral wings, his hands and face twisted into grim, skeletal mockeries of life. They all wore the uniforms of the justicars.
“What are they doing here?” Rae whispered.
The justicars were the enforcers of the Iron College, responsible for protecting the balance of Order and Chaos in the world. They were absolute in their justice, and a terror in their execution.
Worse, when they came for a spiritbinder, it was to claim his soul.
The justicars emerged from the cloud of gunsmoke. They wore cream and silver, trimmed with precious metals to match their bound plane, kilts and tight coats, some with high collars that covered the lower half of their faces. Their spiritblades were as many and varied as imaginable: short daggers forged of moonlight, butcher’s blades of chipped stone, bludgeons of wood and molten gold, long swords held together by shimmering light, and monstrous blades of rough-formed chain, barbed and cruel. They rose over the battlefield, trailing streamers of golden light.
Hadroy’s men broke and ran. Rae turned and ran as well, the sound of dying men and roaring spirits in his ears, and the storm raging overhead.
There were soldiers in the street outside Rae’s home. They wore the crimson and cream of the Iron College houseguard, the non-magical arm of the justicars. Rae watched from the front windows as they marched down the street, splashing through the puddles left behind by the torrential rainfall. The storm had stopped shortly after Rae got home, cutting off like a curtain drawn back from a stage. Father’s work, no doubt.
That windship Rae saw crashing must have been some kind of military vessel. But if they crashed, why did they immediately attack the baron’s men? Or did they crash? Was it all some kind of trick? But why? Why were the justicars here at all? Rae pulled the curtains back further, until Mother pulled him deeper into the house and closed the shutters. La sat quietly by the fireplace, clutching a doll to her chest. The tears on her cheeks were almost dry.
