Page 1 of The Demon’s Collar (The Bard’s Demon #1)

Ero: The Wrong Book

Bardic Advice from Eroithiel von Dua to future generations: Learn to use your weapons…before you need them.

A s I crouched in the tattered wardrobe listening to my entire adventuring party’s gruesome slaughter, I realized I hadn’t made the best choices that morning.

Screams rent the air. Metal clashed on metal—almost as though a proper fight was afoot. But there was no question about who was winning and who was dying.

Thunk!

We really hadn’t come to fight.

Screech!

I held my breath.

Clang!

Hells, we’d barely come armed.

Of the party, I was the most armed, and I was hidden away, listening to the slaughter like a coward.

I blew out a slow, shaky exhale and sucked in a dusty breath.

A cough threatened. I swallowed it.

These caverns were supposed to have been picked over already, containing only scraps and books that hadn’t been worth the effort for the myriad bands of raiders who’d come before to haul away.

It was the books that had drawn me. I didn’t need shiny magic tomes.

Nothing that might catch a sorcerer’s eye or fetch a halfway decent price.

I needed the dull stuff—the histories of a dying land that no one but me cared to read.

The key to your legacy lies in a centuries-old book , the Temple Mother had whispered into my greedy ear nearly one year ago. And I took that challenge seriously.

I knew that the key to my legacy began with finding my father. I knew it bone deep. To do that, I needed a book of histories that could fill in the gaps my mother and my people refused to fill for me.

And so, I’d come. And so…I would probably die. Before I even got to solve the mystery.

Tragic.

The screech of battle felt like it’d been going on for hours by the time silence fell. If I had to guess, it’d only been minutes.

There was a fresh thunk on the outside of my wardrobe. Someone had leaned against it.

“Nasty cut, that,” said a gruff voice.

“It’s nothing,” said another, nearer, in a growl so dark I vowed to simply asphyxiate rather than risk another breath. “Check for stragglers. I’ll strip the corpses.”

A grunt was the only answer, followed by footsteps retreating. A soft hiss of pain gave the lie to his “ it’s nothing .” But the man couldn’t have been hurt too badly, because the next sound was that of a nearby door being wrenched off its hinges.

I swallowed, listening to the wounded man rifle through one of the other wardrobes. If it was anything like my hiding place, there wasn’t much to find. I’d jumped in at the first sign of trouble, only to discover absolutely nothing to use for cover.

A few footfalls later, I knew it was over. He stood outside my door. My heart stuttered.

I wanted to lift my crossbow. Unfortunately, I hadn’t gotten around to learning how to use it.

I felt extraordinarily stupid dying with the beautiful weapon on my lap.

I’d brought it for luck, mostly—with little thought about what kind of luck it might bring.

It was emblazoned with a black fist on silver—the seal of Haz, God of War and Peace.

At the last moment, I forsook the weapon in favor of my lute. I wrenched the instrument from my back and held it tight against my chest for comfort.

The door shattered.

Splinters rained down on me. I stared up at my angel of death. In the low cave light, the dancing shadows made him loom larger than life. Black leather hugged his cut frame, rippling with every motion. Firelight played tricks with his dark eyes, here giving them a black glint, there a fiery red.

Gods, devils, angels, and demons—at least I was going to die beautifully.

I was too transfixed even to beg for my life.

He glared down at me like I’d personally offended him by existing, because now he needed to go to the effort of lifting his knife again. He did lift it, though. And pointed it at my heart.

“I can heal you,” I heard myself say.

No. I heard myself cry it, like a child. (I was decidedly not a child. I was twenty-one. An entire adult by human standards, thank you.) I whimpered at the way his hard eyes narrowed.

Was this real? It didn’t feel real.

He reached for me. I shrank back. But I had nowhere to go. He grabbed my arm and used it to lift my wrist up into the light. His gaze fell on my leather cuff.

A fresh wave of fear sliced through me.

The gold tree emblazoned on green falsely implied that I was a sworn member of the Huntress faction. That alone would have sealed my fate, had it still been in question. The factions were merciless toward one another.

Only, I hadn’t actually joined that faction.

I’d stolen the cuff and volunteered for this party because I wanted some measure of companionship while I searched the creepy caverns.

I had proof, too—because anyone who’d truly pledged any faction had ink to show for it.

My only tattoo was the gloved fist on my forearm that matched the one on my bow.

It was temple-given, permanent ink. A religious vow.

In contrast, the tree below it was comically smeared, obviously drawn on.

My party had known, of course, but they’d allowed me to come because I really could do some small measure of healing—and every party could use that. Not that it would do them any good now.

I don’t recall saying any of this, but when I looked up, my captor held my leather cuff in his hand (I must have stripped it off in my panic), and stared at my smeared, false tattoo. I heard myself babbling words in an undignified rush.

“Stop talking,” he growled.

I stopped.

He tossed the cuff aside, lifted my trembling wrist again, and used his torn shirt to wipe away the last of the ink I’d so cleverly (or stupidly) used to win my place in this ill-fated party .

And then he lifted his knife again.

“But—” I said.

A warning grunt stopped the protest in my throat. His glare broadcast something to the tune of “Make me repeat myself and die screaming.”

He used the knife to cut a length of rope.

Then he snatched my wrist again and gave me a pointed frown.

Apparently, I was to read his mind now. I stared for a too-long beat as his eyes darkened like the sky before a storm.

Before the storm broke, I realized what he wanted.

I balanced my lute on my knees and thrust my other wrist to him.

He bound them in a single expert motion and dropped them onto my lap.

Well.

I wasn’t…dead.

Yet.

I chanced a quick glance around. The people I’d spent my morning making small talk with lie in pieces on the ground. My breakfast threatened to join them. I closed my eyes. The rough wood from the bureau’s shattered door dug into my knees.

When I looked up again, my captor stood examining my crossbow.

A twinge of anger burned in my gut. The crossbow was mine , even if I didn’t know the first thing about using it yet.

I would, just as soon as I found a worthy instructor.

The weapon was a gift from the temple. A (perhaps outsized) reward for doing the bare minimum—turning up yearly on the anniversary of my birth to tithe a drop of my blood to their altar.

I knew little about weapons, but it was a beautiful one. I knew plenty about beauty.

Speaking of which, my captor dropped the bow and lifted…my lute.

“Don’t fucking touch that,” I hissed before gods, sense, or anyone else could still my tongue .

His sharp gaze cut to me. He didn’t look as angry as I’d have expected. He looked intrigued—perhaps a bit perplexed. The interest set ice pooling in my stomach. He gripped the lute by its neck, and I saw visions of its silky wooden curves splintering against the cave floor.

“I’ll do anything,” I said quickly, pivoting in my panic. “Please.”

Half a dozen debauched ideas flashed through my mind. Offers I would never make aloud or admit to the gods.

He stared for a long moment and then gently set the instrument aside, laying it on the chest of a dead man. I supposed that was better than the grimy cavern floor, but I didn’t love it.

His hand disappeared into his cloak and emerged again holding a collar of black leather woven with fae silver, ornamented with forest green gemstones.

The air fled my lungs.

I’d heard that collar described in stark detail once, by an acolyte at the temple who’d been chased off and scolded for saying more than he ought to in my presence. Had he known this moment would come? Were our fates really set in stone?

Dark power radiated from the collar. I didn’t need to ask what it did.

Before the gemstones were added, several collars like this one were made for hounds.

They allowed the owner to compel the beasts.

Perfectly obedient hunting dogs would have been a commodity in our war-torn land, had the magic worked as intended.

It had not. Faced with losing their will, the hounds had gone mad and torn their masters apart.

The collars were supposed to have been destroyed. But as the acolyte’s gossip suggested and the collar’s presence here confirmed—one had been altered instead.

“Put it on,” he said.

That quickly, my devotion to my beloved lute failed.

Never mind that I had attuned it to my own personal brand of magic over many grueling years, never mind that I’d perfectly molded it to my touch and could now produce the sweetest sound with a mere flick of my fingers.

Technically, at great personal cost, I could replace the lute. In time. I couldn’t replace my mind.

“No,” I managed. “No, I can’t.”

He looked bored. I didn’t yet know to fear that look more than his anger, but I would learn. I expected him to smash my lute then. But I also didn’t yet know how impossible he was to predict. I would learn that too.

“Then shut your mouth,” he said. “You’ll be conveyed to the mines.”

I blinked several times, digesting those words.

The mines were full of slaves taken in the war, trapped underground, condemned to lifetimes of hard labor.

Even when a mine changed hands, there was no relief for those inside.

The factions all needed supplies. Being down there would be worse than a death sentence.

My captor had already turned away. He smashed the door of another wardrobe and pulled out a set of moth-eaten robes. A hiss of pain escaped as he withdrew. He dropped the robes and grabbed at his hip wound. His fingers came away wet with black blood.

Demon blood.

No wonder he’d been momentarily intrigued by me.

I didn’t know much about demons, but I knew they loved puzzles.

And here I was, wearing a false faction tattoo, traveling with a party I clearly didn’t belong to, holding an elite weapon I couldn’t use, and clinging to a lute I cared about more than my own life—if not my sanity.

And then I’d told him no, and he’d grown bored.

Noted .

Voices echoed on the cavern wall, moving toward us.

Grumbling and cursing. I gathered from the bits I could make out that the Fated had taken the area and these adventurers were charged with clearing the caves for their faction’s use.

They were irritated because they had found nothing shiny below to sweeten their task.

It didn’t take an oracle to see how this would play out. They would round the corner. They would find me, use me in all the ways I had always been warned bad men could, and then take what was left of me to the mines.

A tiny spark of arousal sent shame racing down my spine.

Dear gods, what was wrong with me? Sure, on long nights in the pubs, I loved to let my gaze linger on the brawny rangers and barbarians passing through—to imagine encountering them alone in the woods, putting up a bit of transparent resistance, and then giving myself to them.

But this was not that. My private fantasies didn’t involve a whole band of them at once.

They certainly didn’t involve being conscripted to the mines after.

I snapped myself out of it. This was no fantasy. It was also absolutely not how I intended to meet my end. From a purely story perspective, a bard could not endure it.

“I’ll wear it,” I said, loud enough to carry.

I didn’t beg, because I didn’t need to. If he’d wanted me moments ago, he still would.

“But don’t compel me,” I rushed on, steady now that I had the beginnings of a plan. “You wouldn’t enjoy it anyway, and I’d be less fun if I went mad.”

My words had the desired effect. His gaze conveyed quite clearly his irritation at my presumption. It also conveyed his renewed interest. One point to me. Perhaps I was playing with fire—but at least I had his attention.

The demon stalked toward me. The voices were just around the bend now. He held out the collar, his lips set in a cruel line. He wasn’t making promises. My heart raced. Would I believe him if he did? Demons weren’t exactly known for their honesty.

The moment I put the collar on, he would have the power to compel me to do whatever he wanted. And if he did, my mind would fight itself—possibly destroy itself—if I tried to refuse.

Was donning the collar my best plan?

No.

Did I see an acceptable alternative?

His silence held. The shadows of the adrenaline-riddled men grew on the cavern wall. The demon’s brow arched in silent challenge, and I was certain this time what he wanted me to understand.

Now or never.

I lifted my bound hands and snapped the collar around my neck with a decisive click .