Three slaves of Blackwinter wanted only freedom. To claim it, they must bleed for it.
Brothers Vael and Rhyne Rex’Vayne have known nothing but chains, their lives spent spilling blood in the pits for the pleasure of a dying throne. Beside them stands Sera, healer and lover, her light scarred but unbroken. Together they dream of escape, of leaving the sand and the lash behind.
But the Hollow King Drizak and his veiled corpse-queen Lierith see more than defiance in them. They see a vessel for power. To claim it, the heroes must be broken, not with blades, but with temptation. With sin.
All Vael, Rhyne, and Sera must do is stay true to themselves and to one another. But in Blackwinter, truth is fragile, love is a weapon, and even the purest hearts can be turned.
Sins have weight. And in a world where gods have fallen silent, even the broken may yet decide its fate.
Souls of Blackwinter is the first book in the Sinbound series, a tale of blood, chains, and defiance, perfect for readers of dark, merciless fantasy who know hope shines brightest on the edge of ruin.
Three slaves of Blackwinter wanted only freedom. To claim it, they must bleed for it.
Brothers Vael and Rhyne Rex’Vayne have known nothing but chains, their lives spent spilling blood in the pits for the pleasure of a dying throne. Beside them stands Sera, healer and lover, her light scarred but unbroken. Together they dream of escape, of leaving the sand and the lash behind.
But the Hollow King Drizak and his veiled corpse-queen Lierith see more than defiance in them. They see a vessel for power. To claim it, the heroes must be broken, not with blades, but with temptation. With sin.
All Vael, Rhyne, and Sera must do is stay true to themselves and to one another. But in Blackwinter, truth is fragile, love is a weapon, and even the purest hearts can be turned.
Sins have weight. And in a world where gods have fallen silent, even the broken may yet decide its fate.
Souls of Blackwinter is the first book in the Sinbound series, a tale of blood, chains, and defiance, perfect for readers of dark, merciless fantasy who know hope shines brightest on the edge of ruin.
He didn’t know how long he’d been hanging, only that his arms no longer belonged to him.
The fire had died hours ago. The screaming had not.
Under the ruined roof, time was nothing but the drip of blood and the crackle of dying embers. The air choked with smoldering timber, clotting smoke, and a sour rot.
He couldn’t feel his legs. Couldn’t feel much at all, except the cold iron hooks speared through his wrists, dragging his arms behind him, pinning him like a broken marionette against the blackened spine of what had once been his hearth.
The house moaned with voices. Low, gurgling, impossible.
Outside, they moved again.
He knew their rhythm now: the slow drag of splintered bone across stone, the wet cough of lungs long past breath. Sometimes they wept. Sometimes they whispered. Once, one had even laughed.
The village had voiced its agony for hours, or days. The sounds blurred, stitched together by the threadbare cadence of death.
Something shuffled past the ruins beyond the threshold. Heavy. Patient.
Not hunting. Just spreading, the way rot seeps into silence.
Everything worth killing had already been found.
We never had a chance. One breath, we were laughing. The next, silence. Not peace. The silence that waits for the knife. And then, the screaming began.
His jaw ached, broken, dried blood crusting at the corners of his mouth. His chest rose and fell, driven only by the will to survive.
He blinked. His wife’s embroidery still clung to the wall, curling at the edges. Her favorite blanket had burned straight through.
A shadow slid across the doorway.
The door sighed open on aching hinges, grieving its own burden.
His breath caught, chest tightening. His broken arms twitched with instinct, but the hooks in his wrists kept him still.
A voice rose from the ruin. “You told us to hide.” The words crept in like fog, slow, cold, and far too familiar. “You said we’d be safe.”
He turned, dread rising with the motion. He already knew the face he’d see.
She stepped into the wreckage, burned and blackened. His wife, or what was left of her. Her braid still hung long, but now it dragged like a noose. The shawl still clung to her shoulders, smoldering at the edges, trailing threads of fire that marked her steps without burning her.
Her pale, cloudy eyes fixed on him. “We did everything you said,” she whispered, her voice heavy with betrayal. “You were supposed to keep us safe.”
He shook his head, pain lancing through him, every muscle screaming. “I tried,” he rasped. “I locked the cellar. I told you to be quiet. I thought…”
“You thought that was enough?” she asked, tilting her head. “You thought shutting a door would stop them?”
His mouth worked around the answer like it was made of glass.
“I didn’t know… I didn’t know they’d come so fast…”
“You always said you’d protect us,” she murmured. “You said that’s what men do.”
Her hand lifted toward him. Gentle. Slow. Not a strike, but a caress. Fingers brushed his cheek, leaving trails of soot and salt where tears had dried.
He broke. Not in body; his shackled frame couldn’t. He broke inside. The weight of false hope, the pretense of denial, split open like rotten fruit.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Gods, I’m so sorry. Please…”
Her thumb traced the line of his face, catching a tear before it fell. And for a heartbeat, she looked as she once had, the woman who hummed by the fire, who kissed his scars, who told him he was enough.
But then the tear touched her skin.
Her smile died. Her hand tightened. Nails dragged across his face twisted by undeath and will. The cut was shallow, but it bled.
“You let us burn,” she hissed, all poetry stripped from her voice. “You let him take us. You let them make me this.”
A scream tore out of him, hollow and shamed.
A sound stirred behind her.
Another set of footsteps. Smaller. Softer. Slower. His eyes widened, tears smearing into the blood that slid down his jaw.
“No…”
He knew that sound. Those footsteps. Light, hesitant, familiar in the way of dreams, distorted by time, but never forgotten. Too soft to be death. Too slow to be mercy.
A word slipped through the ruin. “Father…”
A boy stood in the doorway. Not a monster, but a memory in torn flesh, shaped like the son he once held.
The frame was slight. A dirty nightshirt clung to him, bare feet streaked with soot. Hair hung in matted clumps over a face drained white. His eyes did not blaze like the others; they glimmered faintly, as if some last spark of the child still flickered behind the fog.
He looked at his father, truly looked, and tilted his head. “Why?” His voice broke. “Why didn’t you stop them?”
The man choked back a sob, jaw trembling at a sound he was never meant to hear again. “I tried; I did everything I could!”
“You let them take us. You watched us burn.” The boy paused, voice softening. “You said the cellar was safe. You said you’d come back.” His voice shrank to a whisper. “I was quiet, just like you told me. It didn’t help.”
The man’s body buckled beneath the weight of the boy’s voice. He shook his head, tears running hot over ruined skin.
“I would’ve died for you,” he whispered. “I would’ve, if it had mattered.”
The boy stepped closer. “You can still save us,” he said softly. “Tell them what they want to know, and they’ll let us go. We’ll be a family again.”
The man froze. Pain dulled beneath those words, words that smelled of memory, but reeked of a lie.
His wife crawled nearer across the blackened floor, moving with the tenderness of a lover. She pressed her head to his chest. The boy folded down beside his father’s leg, curling into him the way he had a hundred times before.
“Please,” he whispered. “Just tell them.”
His breath hitched, not from the wounds but from the choice tightening inside his chest. His lips trembled.
“Protect that which is most precious.”
The words were not his. They belonged to another moment, when the burden was passed. Owned by the robed man with shaking hands, hope bleeding through fear. To the oath sealed in blood, secrecy, trembling faith.
And as the words left him, the room changed.
His wife went still. The boy stiffened against his leg. Together their heads lifted, eyes widening as if he had spoken the unforgivable.
“That should have been us.”
The boy’s voice split, not the voice of a child, but the sound of ice breaking over a grave.
“We were your blood. We were your world.”
His wife’s hands gripped his chest, possession, not love.
“We screamed for you.”
“And you guarded that instead.”
They bit him in silence. Horrifying, calm.
Like a family sharing a meal.
Her mouth pressed to his collarbone, lips parting for the flesh beneath. The boy clung tighter to his leg, teeth sinking just above the knee as if nursing.
The man wailed, a sound born of the unbearable wrongness of being held by those you love while they devour you. Flesh tore in ribbons, savored, each shred a soul being reaped.
“Please,” he sobbed. “Please don’t…”
But they didn’t answer. Their mouths were too full.
“I should’ve hidden you better,” he whispered. “Should’ve drawn it away. Should’ve never let my sins find you.” His breath shuddered. More teeth. “This wasn’t supposed to reach you. I kept the door shut, I swear I did.”
Bone cracked. He gasped. “It was my secret that brought this horror to our family. To you. And I’m sorry.”
But apologies meant nothing. They only ate.
His cries broke into wet gasps, throat raw, body sagging as far as the chains would allow. His wife’s jaw worked slowly at his chest, eyes fluttering shut. The boy’s fingers dug into his calf, nails piercing deeper than the teeth.
From the dark came a voice. Soft. Feminine. Unseen. Unnatural.
It slipped into the room like a perfume, like a thought he didn’t know was his.
“It can be over, little whisper,” she breathed, words curling through the cracks in the scorched stone. “All you must do, is speak.”
He froze, like a child meeting eyes in the dark.
Something is watching me.
“You owe this world nothing,” the voice cooed. “Where were your heroes when the sky burned? When your neighbors screamed? Where were the gods when your boy begged?”
He sobbed. “No, I can’t.”
“They left you to the dark,” she said, sweet as honey curdling. “But you don’t have to stay in it. Give us what we came for, and you will find peace.”
His family did not stop. They only slowed, like dancers awaiting the next cue, mouths still pressed to his skin, blood slicking their lips, eyes lifted to watch, to listen.
“You can save them,” the voice sang. “You can still be the man they remember.”
His scream broke loose like a rope snapping. “No! I can’t, I won’t!”
The woman raised her face from his chest. The boy unlatched from his leg. Together they looked at him, still, silent, smiling. Crimson ran from their chins like spilled wine, their eyes filled with hunger.
And the voice whispered again. “Look at them. Look into the hungry eyes of those who will peel you apart slowly, without mercy. Hours will bleed into days. Perhaps weeks, if they choose to savor what’s left. You are no more than a feast to them now.”
The far wall rippled, moving like a curtain of water as the firelight dimmed.
Out of the shifting wall came four figures. Silent. Absolute.
The first was impossibly tall, encased in bone-laced armor that throbbed beneath a living cloak. His helm was grown, not forged, its jagged ridges splitting upward like a broken crown, pale fire burning in the hollow where eyes should be. In his hand rested a massive axe, its edge glowing faintly, hungry, as though it still fed on the souls it had taken.
The Bone Requiem.
The man had never seen it, yet he knew its name. That was no weapon. It was death and only one man carried it.
Drizak Darkreaver. The Carrion Crown.
Behind him came a woman veiled in shadow. She glided forward, frost blooming across the stone with every step. The air clung to her with the scent of black roses and ash.
The tales whispered her name like a funeral prayer.
Lierith, the resurrected queen.
The third figure emerged, a walking ruin.
Tall, but wrong, joints bending with slow disorder. Robes clung like wet parchment as runes writhed in the torchlight. Skin stretched over bone, veins glowing violet. Hair hung in limp, patchy strands.
Kelzak. The dead prince, who wears the dried coil of his umbilical cord around his neck to remind them he was born, not made.
The man pinned to the hearth struggled to look away.
No armor. No blade. Only a book drifting at his side, its gray leather cover twitching as if alive.
The commander of the necromancer order. The boy born from a corpse’s womb.
Behind him came breathing that wasn’t human.
It crawled. Stalked. Hissed. Limbs moving wrong. A creature of ruin, three heads: one grinning, one snarling, one whispering ceaselessly into the stone. Chains dragged behind it, some woven into its flesh, others clattering loose across the floor.
The hooks in his wrists were nothing. He could not move because he understood there was no running. Monsters were real. Storied horrors in flesh. Names once whispered like curses, now standing before him.
Warmth spilled beneath him, loud enough to drown the sound of his shame.
Lierith turned her head with delicate poise, her veils shifting like silk caught in a grave-breeze. She smiled, her voice a sweet hum laced with decay.
“Looks like a little extra flavor for your meal.”
The boy licked his lips, playful, eager for his next bite.
Lierith stepped forward, she cupped his face, tender as betrayal. Her thumb traced blood and salt across his cheek.
“You’ve done well,” she whispered, smiling. “Truly. You lasted longer than most.”
Her other hand settled below his sternum.
“But secrets,” she breathed, “rot when buried too long.”
Cold light shimmered in her palm, a blade so thin it looked like ribbon. It sang as it opened him. The cut was delicate, gliding up his chest.
His scream was quiet, the sound of resolve spilling away.
She leaned closer, her veil brushing his cheek like a mother’s breath.
“Look.”
Her grip caught his jaw, twisting his gaze toward the creatures wrapped around him, his wife and son, mouths wet, eyes gleaming with false warmth.
“That is what your silence bought. That is what your loyalty gave them. You tried to protect the world, and in doing so, you handed us your family.”
His mouth opened, empty of words, heavy with failure.
“They belong to us now,” she purred into his ear. “We can make them do anything.” The word lingered long after her voice was gone.
He shook his head weakly, and she smiled. “Speak the truth,” she said, “and it ends. Or don’t…” Her finger brushed his lips, tender, sealing the vow. “…and I’ll keep these two as my pets for eternity. You will be their chew toy.”
Behind her, Drizak stood still as stone, his gaze burning pale fire through the room, his silence the loudest voice there.
The man trembled. All that mattered was already claimed. His head lowered, the final surrender.
“It’s in the Waste,” he whispered. “Near the Fracture.”
Her body bent toward him, a queen giving ear to confession.
“The temple is old. Forgotten. Carved in an age of despair, before the gods abandoned us,” he said, words pulled like teeth. “They called it the Crypt of the Weeping Gods.”
“The door,” his breath hitched. “It bears a black tear carved into the stone.”
A shudder rolled through him. “The air there eats skin. The earth howls, poisoned by something unholy. Mortals cannot endure it. Not for long.”
“Oh, sweet thing,” she cooed, leaning closer. “Do we look like mortals to you?”
Her smile sharpened. “But that does explain why we couldn’t sense its power. Buried too near the Fracture. Hidden in its shadow.”
His eyes closed. For a heartbeat something crossed his face, a flicker of defiance, the threadbare thought that he might have endured longer.
But it passed. His family had suffered enough. If surrender meant peace for them, he would pay it.
He sagged, shuddering, and she caught him, fingers curling beneath his chin, lifting his face like a lover.
“There now,” she whispered. “Doesn’t that feel better?”
Then she let go, as though he was no longer worth the weight. His head dropped, limp, undone.
They turned away, already finished with him. Drizak spoke to Lierith in a tongue older than fire, and she laughed, tilting her head back like a girl savoring wicked gossip. Kelzak stood wordless. The hound circled once, then lay still, three heads bowed, tails gone heavy.
“We must inform him,” Lierith purred, brushing a fingertip across Drizak’s arm. “Let the God of Chains know that we found it.”
The man’s breath caught, blood stinging his eyes as he blinked, uncertain he had heard her right. The God of Chains? A chill slid down his spine, cold and ancient.
No. A myth. A tale priests whispered to frighten the arrogant, the god who sought to bind the world in his voice, whose fall tore the land apart. Yet the thought dug into him, and his eyes widened.
“Xal’Karrak?” he rasped, the name bleeding out like confession. No one looked at him as he tried to lift his head.
“The God of Chains? That’s a myth. A bedtime story to frighten children!”
He remembered the sermons, the warnings he’d once dismissed. How Xal’Karrak had been a god, tyrant, judge, who named free will a flaw and sought to bind the world in chains. How he forged an army not born but twisted, waging war across the planet.
How his fall tore the world open. How the land itself rebelled against the weight of him. The Fracture was not a scar. It was his tomb. And worse, a wound that never healed, bleeding into the world like poison through a vein.
It knew only hunger, cold and endless, feeding on the sins of mankind, with the righteous as its delicacy.
It was the source of all magic, all monsters. A gift to some, a curse to most. Proof that evil still breathed beneath the world, ripening it for harvest.
“No,” he whispered. “Please, he’ll unmake everything.”
His voice cracked but they were already walking toward the exit.
“You don’t understand!” he cried, panic tearing his throat. “He’s not a god; he’s the end of choice! The world will burn and kneel!”
“He brings no salvation. Only obedience. He will bind every voice, every will, every soul. And when it’s done, you won’t even remember you once stood.”
“Even you! Xal’Karrak has no equals. You are nothing: tools to be used, then broken!”
Only Kelzak turned to him, gaze steady, weighing whether his corpse was worth raising.
As the door shut, darkness swallowed the room. In that silence, his wife moved, quick, hungry, stripped of love, and his son followed.
The last thing he saw, before teeth closed on his throat, was their faces. Still his, still familiar, still smiling.
In a world where gods have long stopped listening to prayers, the undead king Drizak and queen Lierith rule over the brutal landscape of Blackwinter with a merciless, bony fist. The realm knows nothing but frost, hunger and pain, and life is cheap, whether it's lost in the fighting pits for the entertainment of the masses or extinguished in hopeless military campaigns.
Three slaves refuse to let the brutality of the world around them break them. Brothers Rhyne and Vael have lived in chains for longer than they have lived free, vowing to protect one another and kill any threat their twisted masters throw at them, in the arena or on the battlefield. The third of the group is Sera, whose powerful magic can call forth holy fire that can smite her enemies and heal her loved ones. Together, the three unbroken slaves do their best to survive the bloody trials Drizak and Lierith organize on a whim, and with each victory become an even greater symbol of hope and pride for the enslaved of Blackwinter.
The hollow king and his rotting queen have a sinister agenda beyond feeding on the suffering of the souls in their realm: they aim to bring back the most horrifying of the absent gods, the god of chains, whose cruelty and hunger eclipse even theirs. They zero in on Rhyne, Vael and Sera as potential vessels for the second coming of their macabre deity, but first they have to corrupt the three noble souls. The bonds of friendship and love between the three warriors have helped them survive each battle and have given them purpose and meaning - somebody to care about, somebody to protect, somebody to live for. Drizak and Lierith prey on those bonds and emotions to try to tempt the three into darkness and sin, paving the way for the cruel god to feast on their fall and the loss of hope for all souls of Blackwinter.
The darkness and brutality of the story are exceptionally compelling, with heroes and villains alike coming to life (loosely speaking in the case of the undead Drizak and Lierith) in atmospheric, polished detail. The ghoulish king and queen are unforgettable antagonists as they glide through their palace of bone and shadow, especially given Lierith's stomach-churning backstory. The characterization of Rhyne, Vael and Sera is vivid, and they are fleshed out wonderfully both as individuals and in their relationships to one another. Rhyne and Vael's brotherhood is all the more striking given how different they are, and the love Vael and Sera share is so pure and full of a tenderness and respect that belies the fact they are both slaves and seen as less than human by everybody else. The way the three try to teach the next generation of slaves to survive in the arena and instill values in them shows how brightly the hope of freedom burns within them.
When Lia, a beautiful and powerful mage, joins the group, the dynamics between the three shift in a way that could prove to be dangerous and destabilizing for their survival.
Masterfully balancing darkness and light, hope and decay, the story follows both sides through cunning schemes, nauseating necromancy, stunning swordplay, despicable torture, brutal fights outlined with cinematic precision, noble vows and bitter betrayal as Rhyne, Vael and Sera lock antlers with the forces of corruption and learn the cost of freedom.