He broke his chains expecting freedom. Instead, the blood in his veins bound him to a prophecy and made him the prize in a world at war.
Theo fled the Nine Lands with a death sentence and giants at his heels. Now he's trapped in a strange, shadowy land that won't let him go until he buries his friends. Avira is missing. Heâs alone. The slaves he swore to free are still behind the barrier.
But Theo carries elfblood in his veins. It pulls at him, twists his mind, and draws the eyes of dark forces hungry for conquest. He is the first of his kind, and they will use him to tear the world apart.
To fight back, Theo must cross the dying lands and reach the stronghold of Ormyndryth. Only there can he rally the Old Dwarven to free the Nine Lands.
Far across the broken kingdoms, the great sorcerer Modius watches, weighing a decision that could change everything. Is Theo worthy of the power to shatter worlds?
Guided by his drunken elven father and the spirit of his human mother, Theo must choose between unbearable fates: servitude, becoming a weapon, or the hero of a losing battle.
He broke his chains expecting freedom. Instead, the blood in his veins bound him to a prophecy and made him the prize in a world at war.
Theo fled the Nine Lands with a death sentence and giants at his heels. Now he's trapped in a strange, shadowy land that won't let him go until he buries his friends. Avira is missing. Heâs alone. The slaves he swore to free are still behind the barrier.
But Theo carries elfblood in his veins. It pulls at him, twists his mind, and draws the eyes of dark forces hungry for conquest. He is the first of his kind, and they will use him to tear the world apart.
To fight back, Theo must cross the dying lands and reach the stronghold of Ormyndryth. Only there can he rally the Old Dwarven to free the Nine Lands.
Far across the broken kingdoms, the great sorcerer Modius watches, weighing a decision that could change everything. Is Theo worthy of the power to shatter worlds?
Guided by his drunken elven father and the spirit of his human mother, Theo must choose between unbearable fates: servitude, becoming a weapon, or the hero of a losing battle.
Elfblood
Part 1
Chapter 1
The swirling, sickly rush of the orbâs teleportation spell took a moment to settle in his mind and body. His eyes were watering; he could barely see. Something didnât feel right. Something beyond the sickness from the teleportation magic. A rush of nausea overcame him and he puked the servantsâ slop, with bits of grape and cold meats, all over the ground. He wiped his mouth and eyes, and saw the hut was nothing like the one the elf had planted in his mind â the image meant to guide them when they teleported out of the Nine Lands, beyond the barrier.
The wood was dark, as if burned, and rotting. Strange soggy growths covered it â brown, green, and whiteish yellow like pus-filled infections â and mould. There were swarming patches of maggots, worms, and other wriggling creatures. He closed his eyes and shook his head, thinking it must be a dream. He opened them. It wasnât a dream. He looked at his hands and clenched them. The tension, the sensation, all were real. He was there, his consciousness lucid and senses keen enough to grasp that.
Avira! Looking around him frantically, he saw still, shadowy forms. Toarer, Pika, and Tico. No! He scrambled over to the stiff, grey giant and the two dwarves next to him. Their bodies lay in awkward positions, as if theyâd fallen from the sky and never moved again.
Toarerâs skin looked soaked in a pale, grey ash â so dry, so stiff. Theoâs fingers caught the ashen roughness as he brushed them gently over the giantâs face. Toarer, you canât be dead.
Avira had warned that teleportation spells could kill them. But heâd never really expected it. If the spell went wrong for anyone, it should have been me. He felt in his pocket for the protection stone, and pulled out dust.
Fear took hold. He began to cry. He trembled, sweating, unable to stop the tears. He was alone.
Whereâs Avira? Heâd done all of this for her, escaped the Nine Lands for her. Where is she? If sheâs not here, she might not be dead. A glimmer of hope.
The forest stood black and bare, mist drifting with specks of ash. The world beyond the barrier was worse than heâd feared â dark, lifeless, wrong. And yet there he was, on his knees, weeping beside his friendsâ bodies.
The good giant, Toarer â possibly one of the only good giants in the entire Nine Lands â was dead. Pika, so knowledgeable, and likely the only dwarf in the Nine Lands who could read, was dead. Tico, who always cut through nonsense with his straight talk, was dead. What do I do now? I canât survive beyond the barrier. Not without them.
Pika asked us to help free the Nine Lands, but I canât do it on my own. A sense of guilt overwhelmed him. What if I did something wrong with the spell? What if I killed them?
He felt compelled to find Avira. She was his only hope. Together, they could figure it out. âIâm sorry.â He turned from his friendsâ bodies and walked away.
âDonât leave us.â Toarerâs voice echoed softly, almost lost in the mist. It felt more like a memory than a plea, yet it stirred something inside Theo, as if calling him back to their bodies.
âTheo⌠donât⌠abandon us.â Ticoâs harsh voice whooshed past, swirling the ashen mist around him. Turning, he could have sworn he saw Ticoâs mouth and eyes move. He rushed back to him.
The dwarfâs body was as stiff as stone. The mist drifted past them calmly. It must have been a hallucination.
He shook his head and breathed deeply, trying to ground himself. Sickly sweet and sour scents of rotting wood assaulted his nostrils. The world beyond the barrier is horrid. I wish weâd never left. At least we had food and shelter, and everything was alive. He remembered how the giants had insisted theyâd given humans and dwarves employment, food, and shelter, that the punies and wimples wouldnât have survived on their own, and he hated himself for feeling as if that were true.
Yet Iâm no ordinary human. The drunken elf, Nilinriall, had claimed to be his father. A rush of fear and excitement pulsed through him.
Still, he didnât want to believe it. It only deepened the confusion and doubt churning inside him. It was too much to take in. But deep down he knew it was true. He could feel it. A heavy, uncomfortable feeling in his gut he wished he could ignore.
He took a final look at his dead friends, with tears running down his face. âI wonât let your deaths be for nothing. Iâll find Avira and figure out how to free the Nine Lands. We wonât let you down.â Turning his back on them felt twice as hard this time. It seemed to carry a heavier finality than before.
âNo, Theo, donât leave us.â Toarerâs strong yet calm voice surrounded him. He froze, not wanting to look back. His friends were dead. He had to move on. He had to find somewhere less shadowy and evil than this place.
A memory of their final moments in the Nine Lands suddenly hit him with startling lucidity. Kirakai, the taskmaster, seizing Avira for a private dance in his room. Toarer blocking him. The whole wedding freezing to a halt. A brawl. Guests pressing in, eyes hungry. Kirakai shoving Toarer â straight into the magic smoke that would teleport them.
Toarer wasnât supposed to be there! He had died trying to save them. Theo couldnât face looking at him again. âI wonât let you down.â He walked on, but his steps were slow and hesitant. He had no idea where to go, no idea what to do. Avira could be anywhere.
Something unseen brushed his shoulder. He spun, but saw only the dead and the drifting mist. Something cold and supernatural whooshed through him, and the voices of Tico, Pika, and Toarer invaded his mind. âHelp⌠Come back. Donât leave⌠Be strong⌠Wake up.â Was that Avira, too? He couldnât be sure. It was all very strange. Wake up? What in the underworld did that mean?
He felt haunted. Everything was eerily silent. More silent than anything heâd ever experienced before. Panic. Am I deaf? The panic was so intense he couldnât utter a word, as if a witch had put a silencing spell on him.
He remembered Rakuul Mordaker casting a spell just before they disappeared into the teleorbâs misty smoke. It must have been what had killed his friends. Rage seethed through him. He wanted to stab Rakuul in the heart, that evil, crooked old witch. Anger made him writhe and feel so uncomfortable that he broke into a run. He had to get out of there. Had to find Avira.
âNo!â A gust of wind drove Ticoâs voice through him so loudly it stunned him.
âBury us.â Pikaâs voice â less loud, less aggressive.
Iâm just hallucinating. Dead beings canât talk. Primed to sprint â his body full of anxiety and ready to get out of there â he felt as if heâd been slapped in the face. But nothing had touched him. He stood frozen.
âBury us.â Pikaâs voice.
Theo returned to his dead friends. They looked as if carved in stone â cold and lifeless, covered in the peculiar ashy substance carried by the mist. Toarerâs fine wedding clothes were no longer fine. The edges of his silken tunic were fraying, and its colour was fading.
âHow can I bury you?â
Silence.
He crouched and dug with his hands, but the ground was firm and he barely made a dent. He groaned. âI canât bury you.â
He considered taking a piece of wood from the hut, but it was rotten and useless for digging. He pictured the hut Nilinriall had imprinted in his mind: a sturdy woodland shack covered in moss and vines, nestled among robust, flourishing pines. This hut was a similar structure, but it was in a state of festering decay.
âQuickly.â Toarerâs words roared through him, almost as if spoken by a demon.
He jumped into action, frantically searching the ground for something to dig with. One of the trees. Approaching one, he pulled at its branches. They were rough, and felt like stone, not wood. Strange. What kind of a world did we teleport to? Is this even the land beyond the barrier, or another world altogether? Toying with magic when they had no knowledge of it could have made anything happen, and now they were all paying a price. Maybe he would have been better off dead with his friends.
âBury us!â Ticoâs voice whipped past him. An echo repeated â Bury us⌠Bury us â fading into a distant whisper.
He found a stone and dug, sweating despite the cold mist sapping his warmth.
âKeep it up,â Toarer urged. He looked over to the dead giant, a tiny glimmer of hope that his friend was miraculously alive. No life.
Theo dug until his hands bled, his strength nearly gone, but the hole was too small. He collapsed, staring at the dark sky, the weight of reality crushing him. He wept.
Emotionally drained, he sighed, dragging himself to his knees to continue. He picked up the rock, his hands stinging. The ash-specked mist thickened in his throat as he dug, making it harder to breathe. The more he strained, the heavier the mist became, swallowing everything but the cold rock in his hands. But he kept digging, forcing his body through the exhaustion.
With each breach of the stubborn earth, the mist began to lift, thinning as his breath returned. Slowly, he could see more clearly, and the weight on him began to ease. Yet he was alone. He had no idea where he was, what to do, or what evils waited beyond the barrier. He only knew he had to bury his friends, and that was harrowing enough.
He continued digging, tearing away at the ground. He became angry and more aggressive as he worked, and the process was cathartic. Each thrust of the stone into the hard earth felt as if he was eroding his self-doubt, and all his inner fear, guilt, and self-loathing crumbled like the soil under his fingers. But the deeper he dug, the angrier he became â at Rakuul, at Nilinriall, and at himself, at his friends for dying and abandoning him, at Avira for not being there, at everything, especially this dark world he had ended up in. He grunted, roared, and scraped, bashing and shovelling, and despite his body being bone-weary and numb, he kept going until he was in a hole deep enough and wide enough for a giant and two dwarves to lie side by side.
Climbing out of the hole was difficult. The surface he gripped was firm, but he could barely pull himself up. There were no roots in the ground for him to get purchase â and no bugs or worms. He tried to pull with his hands and shuffle with his feet, but he lost his grip and slipped, falling onto his back with a thud. He lay looking into a grey sky tinged with red, peeking through the ash-specked mist.
He found himself feeling rather comfortable lying there in the hole. He took a deep breath and sighed. Relaxation flowed through his body. In that moment, everything felt okay.
Is that laughter? He thought he could hear something, but it was too faint and distant. Then it became louder and clearer, as if it was coming towards him. He thought he recognised the laugh, but he couldnât place it. He got up and forced himself out of the grave.
The laughing stopped abruptly. Am I insane? Is this all an illusion? He wasnât sure, though he knew that whatever was going on, he must press on.
He didnât want to drag Tico to the grave. He wanted to carry him and place him in respectfully. He squatted, worked his hands under the dwarf, struggling to push himself upright. Ticoâs dead weight refused to shift easily. His arms shook and his muscles burned. He lurched towards the grave, knees nearly buckling under the weight.
âBury me. Confront the situation.â Theo could have sworn the words had come from Tico. Itâs just an illusion. Just your mind playing tricks.
As he pondered Ticoâs words, he felt himself resonating with them. A thought struck: Burying Tico is burying my fears. Tico had an unflinching knack for confronting situations head-on and speaking plainly. Theo avoided challenges, retreating like a coward. He felt sorry for himself for a moment, and then realised how silly it was to sulk about his own weaknesses when his friends were dead.
He gently rolled the dwarf off his arms into the massive grave, the body landing with a thud. Theo climbed in, his arms so tired he almost slipped. He pulled Tico to the far end of the grave, and, with enough force, straightened his rigid body out onto his back with his arms peacefully by his side.
âFarewell, Tico.â He was overwhelmed and teary-eyed. This canât be real. But Iâve never had a dream that feels this convincing. It must be happening. Deep down, he knew it was true, despite how strange and improbable it seemed.
He panted and coughed as the ash clung to the back of his dry throat. He desperately needed water. He knew it would be impossible to lift the giant. The best he could do was shove him into the grave, and he didnât feel great about it at all.
He pushed against Toarerâs massive frame. No movement. He wiped his eyes, gritted his teeth, and shoved again. His muscles burned, his breath ragged. The giant inched towards the grave.
âThatâs it, Theo. Let go of your doubts. You are good.â Toarerâs gentle voice, soft for a giantâs, made Theo feel warm and fuzzy, as it often had. He dropped to the ground, covering his face. A violent and horrific sob tore through him. His chest heaved and his shoulders convulsed as guttural tears wracked him. He didnât want to be alone. He didnât want his friends dead. He didnât want to lose Toarerâs warmth and kindness forever.
But this isnât real. The thought confused him, stopping his tears. He clenched his fists. Everything still felt real. He scanned the shadowy mist. It was drier than fog, more like smoke, but it didnât carry the scent of burning. He sniffed hard. Maybe a faint trace of burning, but foul, not like woodsmoke. The rot from the hut clung to the air, seeping into the mist. He didnât know what it was. He didnât know where he was. A sharp sense of loneliness set in.
Even in death, the giantâs large face was kind and bore a slight smile. âFor you, Toarer.â Theo pushed and shoved the giant as gently and respectfully as he could. He panted and groaned until Toarer teetered at the graveâs edge.
âYouâre a hero, Toarer. You died helping us escape, so we could embark on our quest to free the Nine Lands. I wonât let you down.â Theo trembled and sniffled as he spoke. A sickly, horrible guilt burned in his stomach â he didnât feel as if he could stand by his promise; he felt destined to let Toarer down.
He pushed the giant into the grave, the body landing with a monstrous, horrid thud. From the distance, a strange, high-pitched wail sounded. Theo looked about, but saw nothing, only the dark trees in the mist. He shivered, worrying something had heard the giant thudding into the grave, or his crying, or him talking to himself. He hadnât been subtle. He hadnât been careful.
He struggled down into the grave. It took some time to straighten Toarer and line him up next to Tico, but he was determined to give his friends a good burial. Theyâre not friends, theyâre family. Heâd grown up parentless, and theyâd looked after him his whole life. His tears flowed freely again.
Agitation grew in him as he thought about his parents. Nilinriall â the useless, drunken elf â had claimed to be his father. Sure, heâd helped them escape, but now Theo was stranded in this forsaken place, and it was probably all that damned elfâs fault.
He must have known about Theo his whole life, and yet only some seventeen years later did he decide to appear. What a pathetic coward. But as he thought the words, a cold fear crept in. What if he too was a coward, just like his father? He tried to reason it away, blaming his father for passing down the weakness. It didnât make him feel any better.
âYou can.â Pikaâs voice wrapped around both ears as if heâd projected the sound in a supernatural fashion. âTheo⌠hurry.â The words were loud and harsh, hurting his ears. He pressed his hands to his temples, trying to relieve the pressure.
Theo slipped as he lowered Pika into the grave, his knee slamming into a jagged rock. Pain shot up his leg. He gritted his teeth and straightened Pika between Tico and Toarer. His friend, the one whoâd dared to read, whoâd dreamed of freedom â gone. He clutched Pikaâs hand, grief choking him.
âYou can.â Pikaâs voice pierced his head again and it was painful. âAre intelligent.â
Something stirred inside Theo. A murmur whispering inconceivably, âYou are intelligent. You are good. You can confront this challenge.â He focused on the whisper, and it grew just a little louder.
He climbed out of the grave, slightly more energetic than before, slightly more capable. He filled the hole, sometimes shovelling soil with the stone, and sometimes throwing it in by the handful. His hands were rough, raw, and stinging, yet he was amazed at how numb he felt; how the pain didnât bother him as much as it should.
With each shovel, he felt as if he was burying a part of himself. An abstract feeling, something he couldnât explain. Maybe Iâm just going mad. He felt trapped in a nightmare with no sense of when it might end, or how heâd make it through.
With the grave finally filled, he smoothed the dirt and patted it down. Farewell. His eyes welled up; he couldnât believe what he had just done. He wanted to deny it, to insist it couldnât be real. But it felt real enough to know it was.
Stranger still were the words his heart kept whispering. You are capable, kind, and intelligent. You can do this. He couldnât understand how such a sentiment could rise up from the act of burying his friends.
I need to find Avira. He was desperate for companionship and a sense of normality. He walked, expecting Toarer, Tico, and Pika to haunt him again, but they didnât. Everything was eerily quiet. I guess Iâll walk until I find some help, or a clue as to whatâs going on here. He walked cautiously and alert, yet with a budding sense of peace.
My friends are dead and Avira is missing. Whatâs the worst that can happen?
As though summoned, a dark, fleeting shadow floated through the mist. He forced himself to keep his nerve. He told himself he had no choice but to find Avira. Just keep going. He pressed on until the dark, thin, stone-like trees began to grow sparse, eventually leaving him surrounded by nothing but mist. He couldnât see far at all. He kept going.
In the depths of his mind, he could hear the faintest sounds of rhythmic, harmonic singing. He tried to tune into it, and as he listened, it grew louder. It seemed familiar. He paused for a moment and tried to listen outwards. No, itâs coming from inside my head. How odd.
As he focused, the melodious singing grew louder â until he recognised it. It was the voice heâd heard when heâd fainted in the woods, preparing for Toarerâs wedding. He remembered Kirakaiâs whip, and the anger heâd felt when the taskmaster taunted him by whipping Avira. He remembered hacking the growth with his blunt scythe, and then blacking out and hearing this voice. Rakuul, the dark witch servant of the High King, had said that a singing woman had been protecting him.
He tuned back in to the haunting voice â so warming and protecting.
A figure of bright, aethereal light appeared in the mist in front of him. Her form was that of a person, but looked more like a radiant spirit. âTheo, my son.â
Theo recognised the woman Nilinriall had shown him by casting a memory into his mind. He recognised her blonde hair and soft brown eyes. A dam of emotions broke, and he fell to his knees. This canât be. Itâs definitely a dream. A nightmare! I donât know. âYouâre not real!â he screamed, his head clogging with a thousand thoughts at once.
âMyâŚâ She began to fade. âNoâŚâ Fading more. âLetââ The spirit of the woman disappeared, and the grey mist hung duller than before.
Theo sprang up and ran to where the spirit had been. There was nothing, just the shadowy, ash-specked mist. âCome back!â Was that really my mother? No. Sheâs dead. Donât be so ridiculous, Theo. This place is playing tricks on you. It must be cursed, or there must be a witch playing with your mind. Itâs Rakuul, isnât it?
He resented his bewildering situation, and the resentment made him tense with anger. He scrunched himself up and roared wildly, his body shaking and the tension tightening, until every inch of his muscles burned. His head felt like it was going to explode, and it must have exploded, because he fell into blackness.
Elfblood is the 3rd installment of J.K.F. Sandhamâs thrilling Nine Lands saga. Theo and his friends have escaped the Nine Lands, but at a cost. The giants are furious, and they will stop at nothing to vanquish him in their thirst for conquest. To save those that remain enslaved, Theo will venture across strange, dying lands to find Ormyndryth. Forming an alliance with the Old Dwarven may just be the missing key needed to free the Nine Lands. Meanwhile, Theo wages another battle inside his mind. The elfblood he only recently learned flowed through his veins has given him powers in shadow magic. In the shadow realms Theo will have to master self-forgiveness, grief, and guilt if he wants to keep the shadow magic from destroying him. Some of the realms are terrible, with older, twisted versions of himself that he must defeat. Others seem perfect. As a powerful sorcerer watches from afar, a decision will need to be made on whether Theo truly deserves the power he has been given. With the spirit of his mother, Lily, and his elven father, Nilinriall, to guide him through the shadows, Theoâs fate relies on his ability to make tough choices: be a weapon utilized by others or be a hero â but lose the fight.
Elfblood picks up where A Tale of the Nine Lands leaves off. The third book of the dark fantasy series emphasizes themes of courage, self-discovery, and confronting inner demons. Theoâs warped reality as he wades through both the material world and shadow realms is disorienting, but it almost lends the book more influence because that confusion and uncertainty likely mirror what Theo feels in the book itself. To make it through the shadow realms, Theo must learn to face his own inner darkness, and forgive himself for it; recognize that his desire for a perfect, quiet life with Avira has its own flaws, such as the guilt he feels for living a happy life while so many remain enslaved; and that sometimes to survive great sacrifices are required. So, while in the material world Theo is striving to physically survive and escape his past, the shadow realms are where Theo must win the battles still raging inside himself. To succeed, heâll need to succeed in both worlds. This is a journey that readers will feel deep inside their own hearts, and connect them with Theo.
The pacing in Elfblood was a little fast for me. Especially in the beginning as I got used to figuring out what was happening in the real world versus what was happening in the shadow realm, I had to go back and re-read sections to make sure I understood everything that was happening and that I had all the context I needed.
Elfblood is a great book, also, because while it is part of a series, there is enough context given that it would be possible to be read by itself. This could widen the audience range, since sometimes readers can be hesitant to start a new series when there are already multiple installments published. Elfblood certainly follows in the footsteps of its predecessors, and the Nine Lands saga continues to pack a powerful punch.