Chapter ONE - Weebly

killed a rat behind the hovel and ate it raw, but it made
him violently ill and he never tried that again. He prayed
for rainy days, not because they offered a respite from
the labor—they didn’t—but because working in the rain
was so much less onerous than working under the sun.
Harvests were the worst: backbreaking work,
endless days. One year, a stray blow from an old man
wielding a cane knife left a bloody gash on Ethan’s left
foot. At this time, he had forsworn conjuring the way a
reformed drunk rejects spirits. Spells, he decided, had
robbed him of his reason, and thus of his freedom and
his love. But even had he still been casting, he would
not have dared attempt to heal himself while living in
such close proximity with his guards and fellow
prisoners. Within two days, the wound was infected.
Within four, Ethan’s entire leg from the knee down was
bloated and hot to the touch. The overseers managed to
save the leg, but they had to cut off three of his toes to
do it.
Memories of the plantation pounded at him. Ethan
didn’t know why Greenleaf had come for him, but he
decided in that moment that he would die before he