Some oaths are sworn to protect the living. Others are made because the dead are still listening. Toma of Valea Lupului has left his village behind, but not the
By Clara Damian
Some oaths are sworn to protect the living. Others are made because the dead are still listening. Toma of Valea Lupului has left his village behind, but not the blood, fear, and debt that followed him from it. Now bound to the household of a local lord, he serves as runner, scout, and near-hostage in a land where every road, ford, and river crossing belongs to someone powerful enough to demand payment. Along the Olt, messages travel faster than armies, and a sealed word can cost more than a blade. When rival households begin trading promises, threats, and bodies, Toma is pulled into a world of oath-bound service, hostage bargains, monastery politics, and dangerous river roads. There he meets Despina, a young woman whose silence hides more strategy than obedience, and whose fate may be worth more to men in power than her life. But as the feared season of Rusalii approaches, another kind of danger rises from the margins. Fields are left untouched. Glades are avoided. Men lower their voices when they speak of the Iele. Not fairy-tale women in the woods, but taboo, affliction, punishment, and the old terror of stepping where humans are not welcome. Then a river oath is sworn. And a river oath is broken. Set in the pre-state Wallachian lands of the late 13th century, The River Oath continues The Crownless Land Trilogy with dark historical fantasy rooted in Romanian folklore, medieval frontier politics, hostage law, dangerous water, and promises that do not wash clean. For readers who enjoy gritty coming-of-age fantasy, morally complex historical fiction, old-world folklore, political danger, and stories where the supernatural is never separate from guilt, power, and survival. The river remembers what men deny.
ASIN: B0H67YQKKL
813 pages | Language: English | Published: July 8, 2026
Genre: Fantasy
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