Wyldbound volume 2, p.1
Wyldbound: Volume 2, page 1
Wyldbound
VOLUME 2
JOSEPH MCRAE PALMER
Wyldbound: Volume 2
Copyright © 2025 Joseph McRae Palmer
www.josephmcraepalmer.com
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialog are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is fictionalized or coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
ISBN (paperback) 978-1-961782-38-9
ISBN (ebook) 978-1-961782-37-2
Cover design: Donna Cunningham@BeauxArts.design
Map illustration: My Lan Khuc (LaolanArt)
Contents
Synopsis
Map of the Gloamwood
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
About the Author
Synopsis
The forest devours the weak. The crown hunts the bold. Survival means choosing what to sacrifice.
Caleb Holt never asked to be a hero. But bound to the Gloamwood as its newest Gloamwarden, he has no choice. The forest demands strength—and it will kill him if he falters. At his side is Snarla, a young firedrake still learning to fly, fierce and fragile all at once. To keep her alive, Caleb must grow stronger than the monsters stalking their path.
Tasked with escorting Prince Alaric Fenwood through predator-filled woods, Caleb soon learns the worst threats aren’t claws or fangs—but the king’s own hunters, who will stop at nothing to bring them down.
Far away, Serida Vayne is trapped among the Scarlet Brand. Traveling to the Rotmarsh in the company of zealots who would burn her alive if they guessed her true doubts, she must play the villain while uncovering the king’s darkest secret—a corruption so ancient it could consume the world.
Three paths twist toward war. The forest itself may not survive what comes next.
If you love character-driven progression fantasy with dangerous wilds, growing dragons, and ruthless intrigue, Wyldbound: Volume 2 will keep you turning pages late into the night. Perfect for fans of Cradle, The Wandering Inn, and The Iron Prince.
Return to the wild. Read now.
Prologue
One month ago…
The Loomchamber shuddered. Just once—like a muscle twitch—but Morwenna felt it.
Something had shifted.
She stilled her hands over the skein of fate she’d been monitoring for hours. The emerald strands of the Gloamwood rippled faintly in the weave above her—quivering, displaced. Unharmonized.
A chime rang.
Glyphs flared in the air, red-edged and pulsing:
[IMPORT PROTOCOL 7-B TRIGGERED]
[EMERGENCY HERO SLOT INITIATED]
[ORIGIN: CHRONOS.SCRIPT.7B]
[NO LOCAL CANDIDATES FOUND – IMPORTING EXTERNAL THREAD…]
Morwenna’s eyes widened. “No,” she whispered. “No, no, no.”
She swept the glyphs aside and yanked open the weave’s audit trail. The display shimmered into focus: a dusky forest, tall evergreens swaddled in fog. A mortal male—mid twenties, average height, soaked hoodie—jogged down a narrow path. Earbuds in. Breath ragged.
[NAME: CALEB HOLT]
[REALM OF ORIGIN: EARTH-15b]
[STATUS: TRANSIT IN PROGRESS]
Her stomach dropped. Threads of white-hot probability were already spooling from his body, hooking into the Hallow World like barbed wire.
“Chronos, you idiot.”
She lunged into the weave, seized the tether, and yanked. A burst of blue flame tore through the Loomchamber.
[OVERRIDE: DESTINATION UPDATED]
[ANCHOR LOCATION: GLOAMWOOD, MORWENNA DOMAIN]
The mortal vanished mid-stride.
Morwenna exhaled once—then spun and snapped open a divine gate.
Chronos’s domain was, as always, offensive. He lounged in a hammock between two orbiting suns, sipping an hourglass-shaped drink, bare feet swinging over a timeless ocean. The air smelled like mango and regret.
Morwenna stormed through and hurled a luminous scroll at his face. “Are you broken, or just criminally negligent?”
He blinked as the scroll bounced off his forehead. “Whoa. Morning already?”
“You triggered an interworld import without authorization!”
Chronos squinted at the glowing log unspooling before him:
if candidate_pool == []:
import_nearby_mortal(profile="resilient + lightly traumatized + statistically boring")
“See?” He tapped the script. “That’s the fallback clause. It never actually runs.”
“It ran,” Morwenna snapped. “You flaking time-leech.”
“Oh. Who’d we get?”
“Caleb Holt. From a reality with no fate harmonization. You’ve contaminated the Loom.”
His drink began to melt. “Oh.”
A tone like a blade against crystal rang out. A massive diamond glyph manifested above them:
[NOTICE: FATE THREAD DISCONTINUITY DETECTED]
[UNHARMONIZED IMPORT – AUDITOR ALERT INITIATED]
Chronos shot upright. The hammock flipped and spun into a black hole. “We’re flagged?”
“Yes,” Morwenna hissed. “Inspection inbound.”
The air chilled. A shadow-light ripple tore through the domain, and Nyx appeared—tall, severe, eyes like collapsing galaxies.
“What did you do?”
Chronos pointed at the log. “Fallback clause! No local candidates!”
“You didn’t constrain the realm domain,” Morwenna growled.
“I thought it defaulted to local cluster!”
Nyx’s gaze went to the display, where Caleb now lay unconscious in a mossy hollow of old-growth trees. “Unharmonized,” she said softly. “The fate layer’s destabilizing.”
A new glyph flashed:
[STATUS: WORLDLINE AT RISK]
[CONSEQUENCE: POSSIBLE UNIVERSE CONFISCATION]
Chronos turned pale gold. “We’re going to lose the whole world.”
“Unless we stabilize it,” Morwenna said.
Nyx’s tone was razor-flat. “With what? Divine glue?”
“I’m looking for an anchor.”
The display lit with branching probability lines. One thread shone taut—vow-bound, disciplined, scarred but unbroken.
“Serida Vayne,” Morwenna breathed. “Her fate matches his under pressure.”
“And if she dies?” Nyx asked.
Morwenna didn’t answer.
Chronos cleared his throat. “So… we still have a chance?”
“A thin one,” Nyx said. “If this fails, the auditors erase everything. You’ll be lucky if you’re reassigned to programming gravitational constants.”
“I don’t do math,” Chronos muttered.
Nyx gave him a look that could erase him without paperwork.
Morwenna’s hands trembled as she keyed the anchor into place. Caleb’s thread spasmed. Serida’s flared.
“Please,” she whispered, “hold together long enough to matter.”
Chapter
One
Present Day
The grass whispered lies.
It bent toward Caleb as he pushed through, brushing his knees with every step. A hundred soft voices seemed to hiss up from the stalks: Failed guardian. Lost one already.
Or maybe it was just the wind.
After a month in the Gloamwood, Caleb had learned not to trust his senses—or coincidences.
He kept point, eyes on the faint game trail threading through the pale morning mist. Behind him, the nobleman’s family trudged in single file: Alaric supporting his exhausted wife, the nursemaid carrying Clara, the steward Merrick guiding Thomas by the hand. All of them out of place. All of them his responsibility now.
Snarla paced their flank, copper scales dull in the muted light. She hopped in short, frantic bursts, wings straining for lift she still couldn
At the edges of his vision, faint blue wraithlights hovered just beyond focus—watching, waiting. They’d kept their distance since the night he’d burned them back. Something had shifted in him during that fight, the Gloamwarden bond flaring hot enough to make them fear him.
The plains know we’re here, he thought grimly. And they don’t want us.
The ache in his legs wasn’t just from the all-night march. Yesterday’s chaos still pressed against the back of his skull.
They’d been surrounded by darkness and whispers, two servants taken by the wraithlights before Caleb drove the rest off. When the light returned, he’d been left with four frightened nobles and two survivors of their staff—none of them fit for the hundred-mile trek to Thornhaven. Their carriage remained but the horses were gone, stolen by the escort who’d abandoned them.
“We need to move,” he’d told them flatly. “Only what we can carry.”
Lady Elenora had descended on the carriage’s luggage like a hawk, gathering silk-wrapped parcels and silver-backed mirrors. “These are irreplaceable heirlooms,” she’d insisted, voice rising. “My grandmother’s jewels—my toiletries—how am I to maintain dignity without them?”
Alaric had blocked her from reaching an ornate hatbox. “Four years in the Seventh Regiment taught me what matters in survival—food, blankets, flint, knives, coin.”
“You were a ceremonial guard in peacetime!” she’d shot back.
Caleb had stayed silent, watching Merrick try to mediate and Jenna argue for practicality. He already regretted losing his solitude; a family meant noise, arguments, chaos.
In the end, Alaric had forced the issue—practicality over sentiment, though barely. Elenora’s eyes had brimmed with furious tears as she turned away. Caleb had buried the flicker of sympathy. Sentiment was a luxury they couldn’t afford.
A hiss from Snarla snapped him back to the present. She froze, head tilted, listening to something he couldn’t hear. Caleb raised a hand, and the weary line behind him halted.
“What is it, Master Holt?” Alaric asked, his voice rasped by thirst.
Caleb crouched, tracing the fresh three-toed tracks pressed into the earth where their path crossed another. The soil was still warm. “Recent. Moving east. Keep quiet.”
They moved on. Thomas stumbled until Merrick caught his arm; Clara slept limp against Jenna’s shoulder. Even Alaric’s shoulders sagged under Elenora’s weight.
Ahead, the pale grass gave way to a dark, rising wall—the first sentinel trees of the Deepwilds. Caleb felt some of the tension in his shoulders ease. Shelter. Cover. Not safety, but better than this.
An hour later, a tug at his sleeve made him glance down. Clara stood there, eyes bright with curiosity. Thomas hovered beside her, both having slipped away from their keepers. “Can she breathe fire yet?” Clara whispered, pointing to Snarla. “Is she your dragon?” Thomas asked.
Caleb’s mouth twitched. “She’s a firedrake. Not a dragon. Dragons… I’ve never seen one.”
“But she will breathe fire?” Clara pressed. “When she’s older. Right now, she mostly makes smoke rings when she hiccups.”
Thomas grinned, but a sharp voice cut him off. “Children! Come away at once.” Elenora’s tone brooked no argument. Clara wilted, Thomas muttered that Mama’s mean about dragons, and they trudged back. Caleb noticed how Elenora never looked at Snarla—how her whole body angled away when the drake drew near. Not discomfort. Fear.
“Master Holt,” Merrick said later, approaching with careful deference, “might we rest a moment?” His glance flicked toward Elenora, pale and fanning herself.
It wasn’t the first time. Three times now, Merrick had “requested” breaks clearly meant for her. Caleb realized Elenora hadn’t spoken to him directly since the rescue. Even Alaric rarely did—messages always passed through Merrick.
“We need the treeline before midday,” Caleb said. “The plains aren’t safe.”
“Fifteen minutes?” Merrick pressed.
Caleb bit back the words in his throat. He’d fought things these people couldn’t imagine, saved their lives, and here he was—a mule with a sword. Apparently nobles don’t speak to commoners, he thought bitterly, even the kind that kills monsters for them.
Something else didn’t add up.
Earlier, at a stream, Caleb had overheard Jenna hand a waterskin to Elenora. “Your Highness, please drink—”
The silence had been instant. Elenora’s gaze had flicked to Caleb’s back; Alaric had pulled Jenna aside, murmuring about “discretion.” She’d returned pink-cheeked, mumbling apologies.
It was the second slip since last night. The first had been Merrick’s mention of “royal protocols” before Alaric shut him down.
Not just nobles, then. Royals. And cantors—both of them. Elenora’s dual cores glowed with restrained strength; Alaric’s burned like a bonfire next to Caleb’s flickering candle. Metallic freckles marked them as surely as a herald’s banner, yet they pretended to be ordinary.
Faelion, Alaric’s faerie Wyldkin, perched openly on his shoulder. But Elenora’s Wyldkin was conspicuously absent. Why hide it—especially with her children here?
Whatever they were running from, it was bad enough to drive two royal cantors into the Gloamwood.
Caleb crested a low rise. The forest loomed ahead, ancient trunks rising like pillars into the mist. Relief flickered—and died when Snarla dropped into a low glide and clicked her jaw. Movement ahead.
He knelt, scanning the treeline. A herd of deer grazed at the forest’s edge, moving with the eerie synchronicity of prey born under constant siege.
The Deepwilds promised shelter. But beyond those trees waited shifting paths, feral faerie tribes, and worse things with no names. Even for a Gloamwarden, the forest could swallow you whole. Caleb adjusted his pack straps, feeling the weight of both his gear and the people trailing behind him.
“Three more hours,” he said quietly. “We’ll make the treeline before midday.”
If the plains didn’t take them first.
Chapter
Two
The noise reached Serida before the sight did—a grinding chorus of iron wheels, braying mules, and shouted orders carrying up from the valley. She crested the ridge and stopped.
Below her sprawled a caravan vast enough to swallow a town. Wagons clogged the meadow like a siege train, horses tethered in restless knots, Scarlet Brand banners snapping red and black against the dawn. It wasn’t a resupply party. It was a moving fortress.
Mornlight tossed her head, snorting uneasily. Serida tightened the reins. “I thought we were joining a small escort,” she muttered. “That looks like half a legion.”
Thistlewick, perched on her shoulder, whistled low. His gossamer wings shimmered in the pale light. “If this is their idea of traveling light, I’d hate to see them pack for war. Do you suppose they always bring forty wagons for breakfast?”
Serida gave him a flat look. “We’re passengers, not generals. Whatever this is, it isn’t our concern.”
“Not yet,” the faery said cheerfully, leaning down to peer past her collar. “But with this many boots and blades in one place, trouble will come looking. And you, darling Serida, have the sort of face trouble never ignores.”
Serida’s lips twitched despite herself. She pressed Mornlight into motion down the slope, the thunder of the caravan swelling with every step.
Serida guided Mornlight down the hillside, surveying the caravan with increasing dismay. Supply wagons with canvas covers stretched tight over mysterious cargo. Engineering wagons loaded with timber, rope, and tools. Ammunition carts with sealed crates. Two white-painted medical wagons with the Chorus Arcanum's healing sigil emblazoned on their sides. Five quartermaster wagons piled high with provisions. A string of twenty pack mules carrying oddly-shaped bundles. Two water carts bringing up the rear.
This wasn't a resupply mission. This was an expedition.
"Whatever they're doing in the Rotmarsh, it's not a simple outpost rotation," Serida observed, her instincts prickling. "This is an operation."
