Series Wide Sale: Every Courtlight Title is $2.99 on all retailers

Shareable Short Link: teedun.com/2020sale

The Courtlight series (all 12 titles) is now available on Barnes & Noble, Kobo, iBooks, Google Play, and Amazon. The first three titles should download for FREE and every individual title after that has been reduced to $2.99 to combat boredom this spring! Enjoy your reads by clicking on your preferred title below or going to the Courtlight series page.

Sworn To Raise: Courtlight #1

AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | KOBO | IBOOKS | GOOGLE PLAY

Seventeen-year-old Ciardis Vane grew up in a small village on the edge of the realm. But then her life changes when a strange woman appears with the key to Ciardis’s escape. Ciardis knows that this is her one opportunity to change her life. But what she does not know is that she will soon be at the heart of intrigues and power struggles, and that her new life in luxury demands a high price, perhaps even the life of a prince.

Sworn To Transfer: Courtlight #2

AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | KOBO | IBOOKS | GOOGLE PLAY

Eighteen-year-old companion trainee Ciardis Weathervane has won the friendship of the royal heir and saved his claim to the throne. Yet her interference in the inheritance rights leaves more harm done than good. The inhabitants of the forest, magic-wielding non-humans, are defiant. They have not forgotten their long struggles nor are they content to watch as the last of their lands perish. With enemies closing ranks in Sandrin, Ciardis can little afford to leave the city’s nest of vipers to take on a new task. This second novel continues the story of Ciardis Weathervane from Sworn To Raise.

Sworn To Conflict: Courtlight #3

AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | KOBO | IBOOKS | GOOGLE PLAY

A threat to all she holds dear lies in the North and her heart is not the only thing she might lose. A massive army awaits in the mountain pass, surging closer to the gates of the southern lands. As Ciardis Weathervane faces her greatest fears on the battlefields and her heart is torn between her love of Sebastian and loyalty to her family, she must choose her fate carefully. For in her path, lies the destiny of the empire. This third novel continues the story of Ciardis Weathervane from Sworn To Transfer.

Sworn To Secrecy: Courtlight #4

AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | KOBO | IBOOKS | GOOGLE PLAY

In the heart of the Imperial Court, Ciardis Weathervane knows that death is coming for the empire. She must do her best to unite kith, mages, nobles and merchants under one cause – the fight to prevent a war. Throw in a daemoni prince who is showing interest in the youngest Weathervane, a jealous prince heir, and a irritated dragon with her own designs on Ciardis, and you have an imperial court in turmoil. This fourth novel continues the story of Ciardis Weathervane from Sworn To Conflict.

Sworn To Defiance: Courtlight #5

AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | KOBO | IBOOKS | GOOGLE PLAY

Ciardis Weathervane returned to the imperial court of Sandrin to unite her foes. She never thought that before rallying an empire, she’d have to fight the emperor himself. Ciardis hasn’t survived assassination attempts, torture and really bad luck to be taken down by her own ruler.Butting heads at court isn’t Ciardis’s only problem, it is up to her small group to stop the destruction of the entire city while heading a rebellion that could foment a revolution. This fifth novel continues the story of Ciardis Weathervane from Sworn To Secrecy.

Sworn To Ascension: Courtlight #6

AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | KOBO | IBOOKS | GOOGLE PLAY

Ciardis Weathervane is officially engaged to one man and bonded to a second. She should be planning the wedding ceremony, instead she’s spending her engagement on the lawless oad to the western lands. If the unscrupulous bandits don’t make short work of them, Ciardis knows that when they return she and Sebastian will have to a face and unmask the man who has stolen the imperial throne. This sixth novel continues the story of Ciardis Weathervane from Sworn To Defiance.

Sworn To Vengeance: Courtlight #7

AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | KOBO | IBOOKS | GOOGLE PLAY

Ciardis Weathervane is nothing if not resourceful but she and her friends are running out of time and options.  In their way stands thousands of people trapped inside a walled city for half a century. Now the city and its people want retribution and the only thing they will accept is the sacrifice of the empire’s most famous son – Sebastian Athanos Algardis. It will take more than diplomacy for Ciardis to win his freedom, before a reign of fire comes down from the wyvern and the dragon to burn them all. This seventh novel continues the story of Ciardis Weathervane from Sworn to Ascension.

Sworn To Sovereignty: Courtlight #8

AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | KOBO | IBOOKS | GOOGLE PLAY

Ciardis Weathervane has one simple rule – win the first fight, then move on to the next. When she returns to the imperial capital city, she finds that nothing is as she left it. Only a week has passed and yet chaos reigns. Ciardis is faced with the predicament of saving an empire and sacrificing a revolution, all while facing down a clock that has run out of the time. The gods are here and there’s nothing that she nor anyone else can do to stop them.  This eighth novel continues the story of Ciardis Weathervane from Sworn to Vengeance.

Sworn To War: Courtlight #9

AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | KOBO | IBOOKS | GOOGLE PLAY

Ciardis Weathervane is facing a war on two fronts. One with the dragons. One with the deities. She knows that the very foundation between ruler, nobility, and commoner had fractured down to its core. But the citizens of the empire need more than a speech to believe in the rulers that betrayed them just days before. With Thanar trapped in purgatory while they fight to resurrect the city that gave them life—Ciardis and Sebastian are in a battle to the death against a god bent on living forever. This ninth novel continues the story of Ciardis Weathervane from Sworn to Sovereignty.

Sworn To Quell: Courtlight #10

AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | KOBO | IBOOKS | GOOGLE PLAY

Ciardis Weathervane must forge a new path. Through the madness and chaos. With the imperial palace in ruins, and the coalition between the nobles and the rebellion falling apart, there is no more time. Ciardis faces her most challenging assignment yet. Picking up the pieces, mending the coalition and winning the hearts and minds of Sebastian’s people. The people she could now call her own.The heavens have come to earth. It remains to be seen if the earth will fall before its might. This tenth novel continues the story of Ciardis Weathervane from Sworn to War.

Sworn To Restoration: Courtlight #11

AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | KOBO | IBOOKS | GOOGLE PLAY

Ciardis has seen the goddess for what she is  a bloodthirsty deity bent on breaking them before eliminating everyone Ciardis knows and loves. A plan in motion that will unleash a wave of magic across the land in quantities not seen since the Initiate Wars. But the battle has begun and she’ll do what she has to protect the people she cares about – her family, her friends, her empire.  In a battle between an immortal and a mortal, the humans are coming to win. This eleventh novel continues the story of Ciardis Weathervane from Sworn to Quell.

Sworn To Justice: Courtlight #12

AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | KOBO | IBOOKS | GOOGLE PLAY

Ciardis Weathervane is finally facing off with the goddess she’s been preparing to face for years. Together she, the daemoni prince, and the new Emperor of Algardis will have to use their alliance to save all those they care for…while hoping the enemies they’ve left behind don’t stab them in the back in the process.

This twelfth novel continues the story of Ciardis Weathervane from Sworn To Restoration.

Sworn To Victory: Courtlight #13 Chapters One and Two

I am very excited to reveal the first two chapters of the in-progress Sworn To Victory: Courtlight #13 manuscript. Ciardis Weathervane is B-A-C-K baby! I can’t wait to release it this winter. You can read the chapters below and please note that pre-order links are available now.

Sworn To Victory: Courtlight #13 is now up for Pre-Order on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, iBooks, and Google Play.

Keep in mind that this is pre-beta readers and pre-edits, so content may change. Without further ado, the first chapters of SWORN TO VICTORY: COURTLIGHT #13. Hope you enjoy the first look! ^.^

Ciardis stared down at the once-in-a-century maelstrom with indecision written in every line on her face.

Sebastian’s toad advisor had made it abundantly clear—there was nothing the mages could do to bring down the defensive winds, the only thing keeping the breach in their defenses sealed, for at least another few hours.

“Not that it matters much anymore,” Ciardis muttered to herself as all around her warriors and mercenaries rushed to assume their positions. Rank after rank filled all around her and with a chill down her spine, all she could see was artillery fodder lining up to be slain.

It was hard to be optimistic when she saw fear on their faces as they all looked up at the same thing—a goddess on high.

Ciardis had to give the goddess of death and destruction credit. She certainly knew how to make an entrance.

Stomach in knots, Ciardis’ eyes trailed reluctantly from the maelstrom that was keeping Thanar’s body prisoner up to the female goddess floating mid-air above them all, waiting to make her move.

The defensive winds weren’t Amani’s fault, to her credit.

For that, Ciardis could lay the blame squarely at the feet of the Emperor of Algardis and his advisors in the field. He’d ordered the weather wardens gathered from across the empire to summon a once-in-a-century storm. A maelstrom so powerful that to be caught up in it was to be caught up in a wind tunnel of death that would, and had, stripped skin from bones and flung bodies like toys into boulders.

Several of their people had died when the storm had hit without any warning.

But it had done its job. The maelstrom had plugged the backdoor hole into the defensive shield the Algardis forces had put up to protect themselves in the face of unending attacks from the sky by Amani’s creatures.

Now that hole was plugged but looking up at the sky, Ciardis had to wonder if the attempt even mattered.

The goddess stood feet up, looking down at them all with a deceiving smile on her face. Biding her time. Ciardis wasn’t sure if that was because she was waiting for their shield to fail or she just had another hour left on her time limit before she could permanently wipe them all from the face of the earth.

Either way, Ciardis felt like a bug trapped under glass. Unable to do anything but stand and stare helplessly at Thanar lying down there on the floor of the valley or up at the goddess practically smirking at them from high up on her platform above. Neither visual made the Lady Companion Weathervane very happy.

Frustrated and needing to do something, Ciardis grabbed the robes of the nearest mage she could find.

Snapping at him before he could even catch a breath, she said, “Tell me what’s going on!”

Sweat poured down the mage’s back as the man looked over at her with an intense frustration on his face and seemed ready to snarl at the woman who had grabbed him by the arm. But he straightened up when he recognized Ciardis’ golden eyes and saw the grouping of bodyguards she always had at her back.

“The shield is failing,” the man said without preamble.

Ciardis’ eyebrows raised. “I’m surprised it’s still up with the daemoni prince unconscious.”

The man responded stiffly, “The daemoni prince was a mere component in its fabrication, not its linchpin.”

Ciardis didn’t have time for magical theorems.

“Just tell what you’re saying simply,” she begged.

“He made it so it was foolproof even without him,” her other former bond-mate said from behind her.

Ciardis stiffened but she didn’t turn around. She didn’t care if it was against protocol at the moment, she didn’t have anything good to say to Sebastian on a personal level.

Trying, however, to keep her voice even and professional, she asked quietly “Then why is it failing?”

The Emperor of Algardis didn’t answer.

The mage standing in front of her did.

With a quick bow to Sebastian, he asked, “If I may, Your Imperial Majesty?”

Sebastian must have given him an indication from behind Ciardis that he could speak because the mage continued while looking over at her.

“The power behind the shield was never intended to last forever,” the stressed-out mage said flatly. “With the addition of the maelstrom sucking the reserves of not just the weather wardens but every supporting mage lending them additional power, it’s failing faster.”

“Oh,” Ciardis said softly.

That, unfortunately, made sense.

Crisply behind her, Sebastian began to give orders.

“Have you and your company redeployed to help the south wing mages with their reserves,” the Emperor said. “I’m having relief forces moved to the front with the last roster of fresh mages who can keep the overall health of the shield optimal.”

The mage in front of her looked a tiny bit relieved.

“Thank you, Your Imperial Majesty,” the mage said, as he rapidly signaled to several other mages who had stopped when he had. Then without another word, they were on their way.

Ciardis looked after them for a moment before longingly glancing over at Thanar’s distant form with regret. She knew that there was nothing she could do for the daemoni prince at the moment, so she decided to do what she could.

Without turning around, she said to Sebastian, “I’m going with them.”

“No, you’re not,” Sebastian quickly said behind her before she could move.

He said it with efficient crispness. No heart and no soul in the words. It was a tone that said this was nothing more than business.

The trouble was her remark hadn’t been a request, merely a notification.

Though she supposed anything she did was now done at the pleasure of the Emperor. The trouble was the man behind her was the person she used to know and this new individual of the state. And Ciardis had decided she didn’t like the second person at all. It wasn’t something she wanted to do, but for the good of the imperial forces, she needed to do her part. Trying not to lash out at Sebastian since it wouldn’t just be her confusion at his current denial fueling the emotions in her words, instead, Ciardis cooled her temper and then spoke.

Without turning around, she asked, “But why? I’m not doing any good here. I can help those same south wing mages by bolstering their magic when needed.”

“You’re safe here,” was all Sebastian said from behind her. He even reached out a hand and touched her shoulder as he said it.

For once his voice went soft and it was almost like they were back inside the imperial courts—alone, just the two of them. But she knew they wouldn’t ever really be alone like that again and from the way Sebastian was acting—he wanted it that way.

Too insulted to acknowledge his attempt at reconciliation, Ciardis shifted away with a small step as she said, “I’m not defenseless you know. I have my gifts and I have my guards. If I’m not safe there I won’t be anywhere.”

“Nevertheless,” Sebastian replied. “My order stands.”

Ciardis rolled her shoulders with discomfort. She wanted to argue with him. But the truth was, he was the Emperor of Algardis now. He could order anyone in the empire to do anything he desired and they would have to do it. Including her.

“Ciardis,” Sebastian said in a strained voice behind her as someone else caught his attention.

He used to listen to me, Ciardis thought. Now he hears my words and lets them float out of his ears like they don’t matter. Like I don’t matter. The only people he listens to now are that snake and toad.

Unable to justify being rude any longer and knowing those odious advisors were whispering in his ears, Ciardis reluctantly turned around to face him.

Just as I thought, she thought as she mentally strengthened herself to take whatever nasty looks and abuse the two thought to hurl at her when Sebastian couldn’t or wouldn’t see.

She, of course, was referring to Lord Miles and Lord Anurbar, who never left the Emperor’s side on the justification that he was a new ruler and needed all the guidance possible during a transition in such a turbulent time. Which was true but Ciardis would have given the world to have someone level-headed and fair standing at Sebastian’s side right now.

Like the late lamented General Barnaren, she mused.

He had been strong, fair, a mage, and a wise counsel. Unfortunately, he had died during her Patron hunt and now Sebastian had two evil imp-like courtiers hanging on his every word who hated anyone different and most certainly hated her.  Even now they eyed her virulently behind the emperor’s back although she wasn’t certain which they loathed her for more—her background, her powerful nature, or lately, her choices. The feeling was mutual. It was they who had advised Sebastian against a rescue attempt for Thanar. They’d only been whispering in Sebastian’s ear for weeks as far as she could tell, probably in those council meetings she had elected not to attend as she was busy with other things like dealing with a Kasten ship and rallying mage users for the portals, but now she regretted letting it get this far.

They were on the field of battle and she couldn’t displace them as easily as she could in the courts.

Whether she liked it or not, the Emperor of Algardis needed his advisors.

She just wished his two most prominent ones weren’t the two courtiers who hated her the most. She was surprised the engagement was still on after all they had done to sabotage her goodwill in Sebastian’s eyes. But Ciardis supposed Anurbar and Miles just hadn’t gotten around to it yet. They’d already forced her to admit the bond between herself, Sebastian, and Thanar had not just weakened—it had been broken.

Baby steps, Ciardis thought wryly. They’ll get to the wedding before I can blink. Probably whisper something about how I’m an unsuitable bride.

And it was true.

She was headstrong, powerful, and she didn’t like being messed with.

Precisely what a future Empress of Algardis shouldn’t be.

She’d grown a lot since she first joined the imperial courts of Sandrin that one, fateful day, but as she locked eyes with the new Emperor, Ciardis had to wonder if all she had accomplished would be for naught? They’d spent so much time trying to save the empire that they’d forgotten to save themselves.

Still pressing forward on the issue with teeth grinding in the process, Ciardis said, “If you don’t want me bolstering their magical reserves, at least let me do something. Even assist you if needed.”

Eyeing the courtiers who sniffed with disappointment behind him, Ciardis thought it was quite clear they didn’t want her anywhere near the Emperor.

The feelings mutual, you imps, Ciardis grumped in her head as she plastered a smile that was more barred teeth on her face.

Sebastian, however, said with relief clear in his tone, “Good, join us. We could use your analysis of the mage auras you mentioned seeing when the opening in the shield wall was briefly present.”

“Whatever my Emperor says,” Ciardis said sweetly—playing the darling Companion once again.

Sebastian eyed her mistrustfully then. He knew that this was an act. Her temperament wasn’t nearly as nice when she was being blocked from doing what she wanted but since she was agreeing with him this time, he couldn’t precisely object.

Dipping into an effective courtesy that wouldn’t have been out of place at court, Ciardis bowed her head then peeked up. Even the courtiers looked surprised, though as Ciardis stood she noted it was a happy surprise on toad and snake’s faces.

Joke’s on them, Ciardis thought gleefully. Because as soon as their backs are turned, I’m out of here.

She smoothly took her place among the jostle of courtiers and the regiment of guards solely assigned to secure the Emperor of Algardis’s presence. She was too far back at first for Sebastian to catch more than a few glimpses of her face by then. Before he could object and wave her forward, she let herself be pushed back further and further by minor courtiers eager to get closer to the advisors and the Emperor himself. Soon enough she was subsumed by the jostling crowd and she slipped out the back of the group.

No one else the wiser.

Except for her own personal bodyguards who followed her as silently as shadows, not tasked with judging her. Just in keeping her safe.

Sworn To Victory: Courtlight #13 is now up for Pre-Order on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, iBooks, and Google Play. $2.99 price is only guaranteed through the pre-order period.

 

When Ciardis finally got far enough away that she was out of sight of busybody courtiers, none of which were looking at her way anyway, she turned and looked over at the Commander of her personal guard with a raised eyebrow.

Virge looked back at her without blinking—her face composed with a neutral expression.

“Nothing to say?” Ciardis asked gaily.

“Not a thing,” Virge assured her as they set off at a rapid pace towards the southern part of Emperor’s forces—where the mages needed her most.

Ciardis’ heart thumped harshly in her chest.

Nervous that she had defied the orders of a sitting Emperor and more anxious than ever to help those who were struggling to hang on to their last line of defense. That was why she went, not to get one over on Sebastian who couldn’t seem to get his head out of his courtier’s bums this time around.

At least that’s what she silently told herself as she raced to get down the footpath the troops had dug into the grassy terrain. To either side of her, wagonloads of supplies were being redeployed to what she supposed was strategic positions. Some looked like they were heading straight to the center of their frontlines, where the goddess hovered over them all like a benevolent fairy ready to wish them well.

Ciardis glanced over her shoulder with a shudder at the idea.

There’s nothing benevolent about that goddess, Ciardis thought ruefully as she caught a glimpse of Amani far, far above them. She hovered in the sky and even from here Ciardis could see her hard, shell-like armor shimmering with an opalescence in the high noon sky.

She looked like a star brought to life with body resplendent and close-cropped hair echoing the spikes of starlight Ciardis imagined from every celestial body high above in the heavens.

Amani’s beauty was about the nicest thing Ciardis could say about her. Her personality was ruthless and conniving, and her motivations as clear as mud. She seemed to want to kill everyone before her, and she had done so when she cleaved through the inner conclave chambers like a scythe. But she also played by a strange set of rules that only she and some scholars with an interest more in esoteric knowledge than fresh air seemed to know about.

Ciardis, Sebastian, and Thanar had tried to get up to date as they could on the restrictions that bound Amani in her game with the mortal kind but every hour some new disaster awaited and the goddess’s promised fate of bloody destruction loomed ever closer to its due date.

Now they were down one powerful member of the triumvirate, another one couldn’t seem to realize that they needed to work together to succeed, and she was darting off on a side quest to do what she could to bolster the resolves of the only mages who seemed willing to work in concert in the field.

It didn’t escape Ciardis’ amusement that those same mages were doing this under the orders of the Emperor of Algardis but she couldn’t get him to step up and work with her to not only save Thanar but their plans to defeat Amani.

Ciardis didn’t think Sebastian was blocking her attempts to be effective out of malice.

Rather, she thought he thought he was doing what he had too to save his empire and the people living within it. Ciardis knew that now that Sebastian was Emperor, he had to make strategic long-term decisions for the benefit of all, but she didn’t think that meant he had to sacrifice who he was an individual and the power that came with that to do it.

In Ciardis’ opinion if anyone on this battlefield had a chance against Amani now that Thanar was down for the count it was Sebastian with his connection and ability to draw from the empire’s soul if needed to mount a defense.

But he seemed hesitant to do that and she didn’t know why.

She would bet her last shilling however that Anurbar and Miles had something to do with it.

Mouth pursed in displeasure, Ciardis put thoughts of those two aside from a moment and walked straight up to the mage who’d been sent to marshal the south wind mages in the first place.

She called in her original powers as Weathervane as she did and waited a moment as he stood there eying her in shock. When the mage didn’t seem capable of finding the words to ask her what she was doing on the edge of the battle lines closest to failing, she decided to take the conversation in hand and make her abilities clear.

Without introducing herself, since there was no need, Ciardis strongly said, “I’m here. I can help the mages who are winding down in power. Just tell me where you need me.”

There was a moment of silence as the mage and the two others with him, both wearing badges of full Adepts, weighed her words. But to her relief and surprise, there was no rancor in his tone when he answered her and he didn’t reject her desire to help—either due to knowing the Emperor had explicitly ordered her to stay behind or because of his opinions on Companions who wielded magic.

Instead, he said, “Would everywhere be too much to ask?”

Then he flashed an ironic smile and Ciardis responded with a wry chuckle.

“Let’s start with your most abused mages,” she said in reply.

“Gladly, Lady Companion Weathervane,” the mage said as he pointed off to his right. “Let’s go this way.”

Ciardis shook her head, “Now that I know where they are, I’ll be able to see who needs me the most with a glance at their auras. I just didn’t want to wander around from collective to collective to do so.”

She turned and preceded to go.

Behind her, the lead mage called out, “We need all the boosting we can get.”

Feet flying Ciardis called back over her shoulder, “And you’ll get it!”

This time as Ciardis took off there was a grim look of satisfaction on her face. She was finally going where she was needed most, not where they thought to put her until the fighting was over. It didn’t take her long to round a small hill and find the first grouping of mages that the lead mage most likely would have pointed out. She’d been able to tell with a swift dip into her own mage pool that there were a bunch of small collection points all across the hills of this area, each hiding in small dips at the base of their prospective hill.

“Maybe I should have taken him up on that offer after all,” Ciardis stated as she got to the first grouping and noted there were only five to six here when she could sense at least thirty separate mages composing the south wind band of resistance.

Before she could turn and ask for any aid, Virge said in a clipped voice behind her, “You and you, find out where the next three collectives of mages are and pace out how long it’ll take to get there.”

As they took off, Virge called out after them, “And get some of those food pouches while you’re at it. I know those mages horde rations like chipmunks—they’ll have extras.”

Two runners, attached to Ciardis’ deployment of elite bodyguards, went running past and Ciardis had never been more grateful to have been issued a team by the imperial courts even though she’d resisted it at first.

With a grateful look at Virge but no words, Ciardis walked up to the five mages who were doing their best to ignore the intrusion into their designated space and keep up the magical tasks they’d been assigned. The strain on their faces was apparent and Ciardis had wondered initially why the groupings were all separated from each other but it made sense now. The ‘nodes’ as they were could do their work individually and it would probably decrease the odds of them all being wiped out in a single attack by the goddess’ forces.

Determined to help, she barged her way into the hand locked ring of power without so much as a by your leave and immediately started to boost their reserves—going from mage to mage mentally with a touch of her power thanks to the fact that they were interlocked.

None of them whispered a word of thanks.

They didn’t have to. She could feel their subtle relief wash over her as the strain on their bodies eased and Ciardis released her hold—magically and physically—on their node. Walking away as the two mages she’d interrupted returned to grasping hands, Ciardis turned to see the runners pacing back with supplies and news.

Virge swiftly passed out rationed food in slick pouches to every guard but herself, as she clearly wanted to keep at least one person with their hands cleared for battle, and then handed the second-to-last pouch to Ciardis.

Without waiting Ciardis dug into her ration of soup that she could just gulp down with gusto and then said, “We’re clear here. We need to move on to the next.”

Virge nodded sharply as she looked to the first of the two runners.

The boy quickly relayed everything he’d found out about the positioning of each node and how many mages were in every collective. Ciardis rubbed her chin as she thought which to go to first.

“If I might suggest,” Virge asked respectfully.

Ciardis looked to her quickly.

“Go ahead,” she urged.

“There are four more nodes here, here, here, and here,” Virge said briskly as she made marks in the dirt. “It’d be best to approach them all in a pattern west to east. We’ll be able to take care of those closest to the most dangerous point nearest the shield wall first and get it done quickly.”

Seeing that she was right, Ciardis didn’t argue.

She just nodded and replied, “Looks good to me. The ones who are at least half-strength are in that western portion so it’s good to arrive there first in any case.”

“Good,” Virge said. Looking around they saw that all of Ciardis’ bodyguards were ready and had already put their pouches aside into a debris pile.

Satisfied, the Commander of Ciardis’ personal bodyguard clicked her teeth and sharply stated, “Move out.”

As they left at a quick pace, leaving the first node behind, Ciardis noted that they were all energized. It turns out she wasn’t the only person longing for a sense of purpose, not by a longshot. When the second runner quickly led them to the next node, Ciardis did an initial assessment. This grouping happened to be towards the west but farthest away from those fraught battle lines so they were weary but not flagging. She took less time topping off three of their five mages and then moved on.

By this time, Virge, the last to partake in victuals was ready to go at a fast pace as well and they took off to their third node of the hour—urgency in everyone’s footfalls as they knew the closer they came to the battle lines the more dangerous it was and the greater the chance that the mages’ reserves would fail before they got there.

“Just hold on!” Ciardis muttered to these distant individuals as they crested a hill at a brutal run and saw them.

This time they were six sheltering under a rocky overhang as they desperately tried to stay standing. Ciardis could see exhaustion written into the bodies of every mage there as a runner positioned with them desperately watched them become close to failing but wasn’t able to help as their fatigue was a product of their magic being drawn down from their core and not just a body’s inability to adapt to wartime efforts.

Ciardis, shocked at all of their conditions, quickly said, “Virge they need water. All of them. This will take longer but I need to go from mage-to-mage. I’ll start with the worst off first.”

She didn’t bother turning to see that her request was followed through, she just walked up to a man who was so tall that Ciardis had to stand on the tips of toes to reach her shoulders. Placing her hands up on either side of his neck, she muttered to herself and got to work.

Ciardis pulled out all the stops to keep him from worsening as she saw his magic had lowered to dangerous levels. It was barely a flickering flame in his core when she reached out and with a tug of her magic, planted a direct line to her core within his own.

His magic leaped up like a tiny baby starved of sustenance and latched on to her string of magic with a ferocity that startled even her, but knowing this is what was needed she allowed him to draw on her magic with no restrictions. Before long, his little flame was a cheery glowing orb within his core and Ciardis felt his back straightened as the strain on his physical presence seemed to lessen as she watched.

Knowing it wasn’t enough to get him back to full strength, but that at least he wasn’t in danger of falling flat out now, Ciardis moved on to the next person.

Then the next.

Each mage was as worse off as the first, and Ciardis Weathervane gave them all that she had.

It wasn’t everything—not by a long shot.

Now that she wasn’t feeding Sebastian and Thanar’s cores continuously in the background, she had plenty of her own gifts to spare.

And she would gladly give it to keep these mages and their forces on their feet.

 

Sworn To Victory: Courtlight #13 is now up for Pre-Order on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, iBooks, and Google Play. $2.99 price is only guaranteed through the pre-order period.

Sworn To Victory: Courtlight #13 up for pre-order, Mages By Purity: Birthright #4 on sale, & other goodies!

Hi all,

So there’s a lot going on this winter but I love being so busy! Read this blog post carefully so you don’t miss a deal!

We’ll go with the most anticipated release first! You’ve been waiting since December 2018 for a new release in the Ciardis Weathervane saga and I am happy to let you know that I am back to writing her tale full-time.

The Courtlight books will release back-to-back and I will end this series on the happiest happily-ever-after note you’ve ever seen. So buckle in your seat belts because we have Sworn To Victory: Courtlight #13, Sworn To Allegiance: Courtlight #14, and the grand finale – Sworn To Reign: Courtlight #15 coming up for you.

SWORN TO VICTORY: COURTLIGHT #13 is on PRE-ORDER for $3.99 $2.99
BARNES & NOBLE | KOBO | IBOOKS | GOOGLE PLAY

It will be available on Amazon and Patreon on release day. In addition, the Courtlight series will be fully wide on all retailers within two weeks. To celebrate that, here’s a boxed set sale.

COURTLIGHT SERIES BOXED SET: BOOKS 4-6 is on sale for $6.99 $2.99
AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | KOBO | IBOOKS | GOOGLE PLAY

Next we have the announcement that Mages By Purity: Birthright #4 is now on sale! You can grab it today.

MAGES BY PURITY: BIRTHRIGHT #4 is ON SALE for $3.99 $2.99
AMAZON |BARNES & NOBLE | KOBO | IBOOKS | GOOGLE PLAY

You can ALSO grab a free download from me to you as a thanks for being lovely supporters. This freebie is only available for a short time so get to clicking QUICKLY.

MAGES BY FORTUNE: BIRTHRIGHT #2 is $0.99 FREE
AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | KOBO | IBOOKS | GOOGLE PLAY

I think that’s everything. 😀 You can click on each individual book name or buy link to read the respective blurbs since I linked so many here, there’s no space to add a wall of text. Hope you enjoy the reads! Also don’t forget that basically everything in this post can be downloaded for $5 if you’re a Patreon subscriber by February 28th.

Enjoy some extra music from Faouzia while you’re here.

Birthright (Algardis) Books 1-3 available on all retailers, Cover Reveal, and Pre-Order live

Hi readers,

Welcome, welcome to the New Year! I’m so happy to be here in 2020 and I’ve brought with me a brand new release this month! But first a simple announcement – we had a poll in the Guild and I’ve decided to update the ‘Algardis series’ name to the Birthright series. It more accurately reflects Maeryn Darnes’ journey from locked-and-lost girl to female mage. It is still of course set in the Algardis Universe. So from now on you’ll see the ‘Mages By’ books referred to under their new series name. Okay, on to the goodies!

Mages By Purity: Birthright #4 is on pre-order!

But more importantly, we’ve opened up the Birthright series to all retailers! I’ve been getting requests for the books to be available on Barnes & Noble, Kobo, iBooks, and Google Play! I’m happy to say they are today.

Mages By Chance: Birthright #1 is FREE
AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | KOBO | IBOOKS | GOOGLE PLAY | PATREON

Mages By Fortune: Birthright #2 is $0.99
AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | KOBO | IBOOKS | GOOGLE PLAY | PATREON

Mages By Assembly: Birthright #3 is $2.99
AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | KOBO | IBOOKS | GOOGLE PLAY | PATREON

Now you can check out the brand-new cover art for Mages By Purity and grab the pre-order below! (It’ll be live on Amazon on release day.)

Pre-Order Links for Mages By Purity: Birthright #4

BARNES & NOBLE | KOBO | IBOOKS | GOOGLE PLAY

I’m working on Sworn To Victory: Courtlight #13 as well and should have a chapter preview next week. You can join my Patreon to read the first two chapters of Mages By Purity: Birthright #4 or wait til two days before release and I’ll put it up on this blog! Aside from that, the release of Mages By Purity is dedicated to a beautiful new artist I’ve discovered named Faouzia. I love her powerful vocals and fantastic lyrics.

Two new Algardis titles now live: Mages By Assembly: Algardis #3 and Books 1-3 Boxed Set

Hi all,

Wow – what an amazing winter its turned out to be.

I’m happy to announce the release of two new Algardis series titles. Mages By Assembly: Algardis #3 and the Algardis Series Boxed Set: Books 1-3 are now live! Before you start reading please note – as I told my beta and advance readers – going into 2020 I’m trying a more ‘serialized’ writing style. So the final resolutions will happen over a long arc rather than in one book or a short trilogy.

Now you can go. 😉

Amazon links here:

Mages By Chance: Algardis #1

Mages By Fortune: Algardis #2

Mages By Assembly: Algardis #3

Algardis Series Boxed Set: Books 1-3

They’re all $0.99 today as well! Perfect for you to read all weekend long.

Finally, these new books can give thanks to this rocking music video from Alexa ZB. I love her, she has such an amazing strong vibe.

Happy Black Friday – Mages By Assembly Chapter Preview & Patreon Announcement

Short-and-sweet: My Nook, Kobo, iBooks, and Google Play readers will be able to pre-order series like Algardis via Patreon starting today. All Patreon readers who sign-up by November 30th will receive a copy of Mages By Assembly: Algardis #3 on November 4th (ahead of regular release) and their copy of Sworn To Victory: Courtlight #13 ahead of regular release!

You can read Chapter One Of Mages By Assembly: Algardis #3 now!

Long version:

Hi all,

I’m moving into a brand-new exciting year of publishing (almost) exclusively to Amazon Kindle Unlimited. Starting with Books One and Two of the Algardis series available today.

Mages By Chance: Algardis #1

Mages By Fortune: Algardis #2

But I have absolutely not forgotten the readers who have supported me over the years on Barnes & Noble, Kobo, iBooks, and Google Play.

I will still be releasing some new items on those platforms (primarily the Courtlight and Crown Service series) but to make sure you have access to all my books before publication, I want to let you know that every reader on a non-Amazon platform can now sign up for my Patreon account.

How this works is simple. Every month, my new-and-existing Patreons will receive an email with a download page for the books of their choice.

For $2 Patreons you can choose one catalog book every month.

For $5 Patreons you can choose up to three catalog books every month.

For $10 Patreons you can choose one catalog book and up to two boxed sets every month.

These books will download to your eReader device through a service I am paying for called Bookfunnel. The books will auto-sync to the eReader of your choice and that’s all there is! This Patreon is such a deal for ALL my readers and a way to maintain access for readers on all platforms as a pre-order incentive.

This month in particular is important for readers of the Algardis series who want access to Mages By Assembly: Algardis #3, a sneak peek at Sworn To Victory: Courtlight #13, and the pre-order of the Algardis Series Boxed Set: Books 1-3. I hope you join us over at teedun.com/patreon!

Keep reading below for the preview of Mages By Assembly: Algardis #3!

P.S. – There’s a NSFW version of this same chapter on my Patreon and I’m taking comments on whether or not I should add more cursing (and other stuff) to my books, so sound off.

Mae had long ago lost her sense of time.

She hung upside down by her ankles from a ceiling with thick chains attached to metal stakes driven at three angles into the wall. She had become very familiar with the anchors to her chain. After she had tried for an hour unsuccessfully to yank herself free from their holds, she had even named them.

The first chain that kept her anchored to the left wall was called Headache.

The second chain that was fixed to the right wall was Miserable.

The third and final chain which went straight up to the center of the ceiling was her favorite. Accordingly its name was Pain.

Pain was a favorite because Mae didn’t haven’t to crane her head to see it. Just look up and there it was. Attached to the high arch on the second-story of a room she only sort of recognized. She knew that she was supposed to know where she was. But she had become more and more unfocused as time went on.

Still, sensing the importance of the act, Mae looked up at Pain and tried to concentrate on the design of the ceiling she was seeing. She thought she should recognize it. For some reason. But her mind had long ago turned to mush. Her head was swimming from the blood constantly rushing to her brain, her feet felt cold like she’d dipped them in a bath of ice…she supposed one more effect of blood rushing away from her limbs, and her entire body felt distant.

Like she inhabited her physical form but wasn’t really there. Just drifting. It was kind of fun until she couldn’t concentrate on important things like where she was. Mae felt lucky she knew her own name. Even that was getting more difficult by the second.

Patches of her memories were gone. Blank when she tried to recall the circumstances that had brought her here. Hanging upside down by her ankles and wondering what she’d done.

The only thing she was occasionally sure of was that whatever had brought her to these circumstances, it wasn’t normal. She wasn’t being punished for talking back to an elder or lightly thieving a grimoire from a hidden library.

No, no this is something far worse, Mae thought as her mind drifted in a swirl of ever-present confusion.

She wanted to remember but she couldn’t. The only thing that she could guess at was that it had been something horrific she’d done to deserve this. But even her family wouldn’t be this cruel.

My family, Mae thought in a bleary state.

Just thinking on them brought a pain that Mae curled away from inside. It lanced through her heart like a dagger and she was overwhelmed by emotions so strong it was hard to comprehend.

Pain.

Shame.

Fury.

For a brief moment she remembered why she was here. What she was done. Like a rose blooming in her mind, a petal slowly unfurled. It held a memory. Then many memories. But they didn’t last long. In fact as soon as she let out a scream of recognition, they were gone. All the emotions. Everything that told her who she was and how she had ended up here—suspended upside down from a ceiling she didn’t quite recognize.

The only thing left was relief. Mae’s body still felt the strain from when she’d arched up, still shackled to the ceiling, her body so tightly strung it might as well have been the bow an arrow would be loosened from.

Little by little her body relaxed. Her legs unlocked from the stiff pantomime they hung in, her back uncurved, and her jaw slackened. The fact that the only thing left after all that was relief was both perplexing and worrying.

She couldn’t remember why a moment before her whole body had been tense and her mind on fire with pain. But she knew enough to be grateful because it had felt like she was about to explode from the inside out.

Working her sore jaw, another after effect from the tension that had roiled through her, Mae tried to figure out what was going on. Why she was hung upside down. Who she could see to free her? But the room was empty of everyone else. She was alone with her rattling chains and the occasional crackle of a fire far below in lit brazier pots.

She could only see it when she angled her head back in order to look down. That hurt more than just letting her head hang. So she didn’t do it often. But in dim aloneness, the fires were her one cheery escape in a whole room which otherwise was split in half between darkness and light.

Fearing the worse and not knowing what else she could do, Mae started screaming.

Crying out for help but that brought no one to her aid and only hammered in the realization that she was on her own. As further time passed, Mae licked her dry, cracking lips and realized that if she didn’t try something to free herself soon, she’d only waste away hung upside down by her chains.

Twisting around she tried to see anything that would help her but nothing was forthcoming. Her movements also jarred something into her back.

Part of the chain, she thought. But with that pain came a brief and momentary glimpse into her past. What had brought her here. What kept her here.

Nervously Mae twisted again to feel the quick jab of the sharp piece of metal in her back and more memories loosened.

She wanted to remember. Even with the pain.

She wanted to be free. Even if it meant falling.

She wanted to be whole again and that desperation drove her to fight through the blood rushing to her head and the disorientation came with it.

For a moment there was clarity, visually and mentally, and the parts swimming in her gaze came together to form a coherent whole. Gray blocks marked with soot stains merged into a pattern she recognized. Laid stonework. Round buttresses became arches along the four corners of the slightly domed ceiling. In the center was a chandelier of mage lights that was now holding up more than just a dozen candle sticks.

It held Maeryn Darnes herself.

She recognized all the parts and the whole they made as the magical haze seemed to be doing more to cloud her mind than the dehydration and blood loss was.

“The sickroom…that’s where I am,” Mae mumbled in a daze to herself.

At least that’s where she thought she was.

Its where she had been when this horrifying ritual had begun.

Where what had once been Mae’s dream of salvation had rapidly turned her greatest nightmare.

And it all started here. Here where my siblings were confined in sickness. Here where I hang for my crimes, Mae thought in dazed blur as she tried to keep her eyes open.

She twisted again, this time lightly, just to get the sharp rush of pain in her lower back and the urgency to stay alert grew greater. The pain’s clarity didn’t last long, but it was enough to combat what was clouding her mind like a faint cloud covering every inch of her thoughts. Mae knew that it wasn’t a lack of sleep that was preventing her from keeping her focus, visual or mentally, however. It was magic.

She could see it when she blinked her eyes open and concentrated.

That was one thing she hadn’t lost in this grim imprisonment.

So she thought to counteract it. She couldn’t move much more than her wriggling but she didn’t need to physically manipulate her body to open herself up. Mae let her magic go.

The first thing that was affected was her mental acuity.

Then her eyesight and her ability to see auras.

Grateful to see that at least some things were still the same, even though the first time she’d been actually shown an aura was by the woman who her mind wanted to forget as much as it struggled to remembered everything else. She wasn’t precisely sure why it was so easy to shift into looking at those auras now but she had the feeling it had to do with the fact that her seal had been broken open.

Mae’s vision was a bit fuzzy still, especially close in but she would have been able to see the glowing script crawling up and down her chest even if she was blind. It was that bright.

Combined with the blood that had drizzled down her sides from some wounds she didn’t remember receiving and Mae might have thought her body was a living canvas for some insane court-based painter far from the capital of the kingdom of Nardes.

But she wasn’t a piece of art.

She was grateful at least that with the the cloud lifted from her mind, she could process that and more now that her magic made it possible for her to react to the present, and not just the delirium that had fogged over her thoughts. Mae realized that her whole body hurt—from the deep scratches at her hips, to the soreness of her chest that seemed to thrum with glint of the glowing scripts, to the feet shackled and enduring the weight of her body held upside down.

It was the pain that let her know this was all reality and not some dream.

It was the bitterness in her mouth that reminded her of how she had gotten here in the first place. Donna Marie’s betrayal. Hers and others. Mae’s hazy memory was coming together like puzzle pieces long ago separated and what she remembered—she didn’t like.

Every second she lingered in her mind—growing panic set in.

The kind of fear that was inescapable and overwhelming.

She sensed an ominous presence tied to not just Donna Marie thought, but now over the entire greater holding. A presence that meant evil had already been done and it made her pulse race. Mae didn’t care what was happening to her. She shivered in the dark however thinking about what had become of her family members.

The only thing she could do was hang around and hope. Hope that they had gotten away, somehow, someway.

“Enough of old worries,” Mae said to herself as she shifted her gaze around and grimaced with the liquid that drifted into her eyes—temporarily blinding her.

It wasn’t tears though. It was blood.

Hers.

Wincing, Mae tried to get wipe away the sensation of her dried blood that had slowly dripped down her face from her chin over her lips, over her nose, and over her eyes. Her hands were free so she could periodically let them fall and smear away what she could towards her hair line and on her clothes.

She didn’t do that often because she had learned that by keeping her hands looped on her belt she could shift some of the dead weight of her hanging arms onto the core of her body.

It felt better. If only for a moment.

There were so many other things wrong, that temporary relief didn’t absolve all the other issues. Like the fact that just to be able to breathe and keep her eyes clear she’d been forced to keep her eyelids and mouth closed. Now that the wound had been sealed enough that it wasn’t leaking a steady stream, she could open them again. That was no problem when it came to her mouth.

But her eyes? Well, the blood had dried over her lids until it was a thick crust she couldn’t dislodge.

It hurt.

It itched.

It was driving her crazy.

Not to mention the fact she was seeing things. Things that had nothing to do with her current position hanging upside down and everything to do with the casting Donna Marie had done to unlock Mae’s gift.

The only thing Mae remembered was that whatever had happened to her…she had brought onto herself.

The thought made her squirm inside. She couldn’t precisely remember how. Her memory was clearer but it wasn’t completely back, so whatever it was that had merited this punishment from the foreign woman and her cohort…Mae had to guess it had been something crucial. Maybe she had stumbled upon something she hadn’t. Ran into someone she shouldn’t have. But the past was the past and now she was paying for it.

Mouth wrenching in displeasure Mae realized that if she was going to get out of this she’d have to do so quickly. Before she sank back into unconsciousness aided by her dizziness and blood loss.

Twisting herself back and forth made her feet hurt but it allowed her to do pull herself by her torso enough times that she saw the chains around her feet were double-wrapped. Secure enough to keep her hanging up here but perhaps not for long.

Mae made a plan. She twisted some more and desperately reached out with her free hands to get purchase. She made it just barely. Gripping her upper thighs with desperation until she could physically climb up her legs with straining hands and reach between her feet for the chains that imprisoned her.

It was the most exhausting thing Mae had ever done but she made it, tears freely falling from the corners of her eyes as she panted in exertion and struggled to hold her body weight up by her arms and not let go.

Her eyes desperately searched the metal links she could see clearly now that she was raised up to the level of her feet. She was looking for some kind of linchpin or lock that she could loosen to free herself.

Her eyes snagged on an incongruity just as her arms began to shake from the strain.

Found it! She thought triumphantly.

There it was.

Knowing she couldn’t stay in this position for long, she lunged for the bit of metal that meant her freedom, grabbed it and yanked.

Joy went through Mae’s mind as she realized she had won. But just as quickly followed panic as she felt her back falling backward as she realized her hands were no longer anchored as well. Suddenly she was scrambling frantically as she realized she hadn’t exactly thought the next part through. Desperate not to plummet to the ground unchecked Mae clutched at anything metal she could reach.

She felt something cold and slick which might stop her fall but she’d only managed to grab onto the now loose chains that had bound her feet. That wouldn’t help.

Yet I’m not falling, Mae thought in amazement.

Panting heavily Mae peeked up, almost too afraid to look, and realized that her left hand had grabbed the loose chains but her right was snagged onto the hook that had been holding them all up.

“Thank the gods,” she whispered in fervent prayer as she smiled up at the first good thing that happened that day.

She even felt some relief sweep through her.

That is until a sheering sound whispered from above.

 

Upon release the 3rd book in the Algardis series will be live at https://www.terahedun.com/magesbyassembly

Mages By Fortune: Algardis #2 is live

Hello all,

I’ve been a busy beaver, yes I have! Mages By Fortune: Algardis #2 is live on all retailers!

I’ll say that again – MAGES BY FORTUNE IS PUBLISHED.

As mentioned in my newsletter, Mages By Fortune will be joining the 1st book in the Algardis series and the entire Courtlight series in Kindle Unlimited but in order to give my long time readers a chance to read the books on ALL platforms it has release widely first.

But it is only available on Barnes & Noble, Kobo, iBooks, and Google Play for a limited time – until TOMORROW. So hurry up and grab it!

If you haven’t read Mages By Chance: Algardis #1 I’d snatch it up quickly and give it a read too. It’s FREE until midnight tonight.

Mages By Chance: Algardis #1 Buy Links

~*~*~*~*~*

AMAZON | AMAZON UK | AMAZON INTL

~*~*~*~*~*

Now, for those who are part of my Guild facebook group (where I release covers, arcs, snippets, and discussion posts first all the time), we know the next book I’m writing is Sworn To Victory: Courtlight #13. After that I’ll be publishing Mages By Assembly: Algardis #3 and going back to the Crown Service series.  I’ll be posting more about Ciardis Weathervane and Sebastian Algardis and Prince Thanar, very soon with an interesting update in this winter that some readers will pretty much go insane for. Lastly Crown Service and Sara Fairchild – I cannot WAIT to get back to writing my battle and fight scenes. Sara is coming! Now please, enjoy the 2nd book in the Algardis series.

Reviews and Praise for the Algardis Series

“Once again Terah does not disappoint. New book. New characters. New storyline. Same great writing that captivates you from chapter one. Can’t wait to see what happens in MAGES BY FORTUNE!

-Mandy Ramey

How far would you go to save the ones you love? Would you risk it all? In Terah’s newest book that is exactly what our protagonist faces. Mae must decide just how far she’s willing to go to save her younger siblings. This book does not disappoint and left me wanting to know what happens next!”

-Emily Seals

“I just finished reading this first book in the Algardis series it is going to be a winner. Terah Edun is a great at bringing characters to life and what an ending. Loved it!!”

-Pam Hood

“How far would you go to save your family? Stealing an ancient grimoire when you have been banned from using magic? Trusting foreigners? Riveting first book in a new series with twists and turns that kept me guessing. Loved the book and can’t wait for the next one.”

-Bronwyn Kotze

Mages By Fortune: Algardis #2 Blurb and Buy Links below

~*~*~*~*~*

AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | KOBO | IBOOKS | GOOGLEPLAY

In this second book in the Algardis series, Mae is left with few choices about who to trust now that darkness within her own family has been uncovered. With children dying, Mae realizes that she must do the unthinkable in order to save them all.

After uncovering a plot to use the wasting illness to activate their own mage powers, Maeryn Darnes doesn’t trust anyone. That’s a good thing as her own family is after her now.

With her blood plotting against her, Mae must turn to the outsiders for aid. In secret, she works with them to strike the symbol of her family’s heritage from her neck—the famed tattooed collar.

But undoing the work of generations takes work. Maeryn Darnes is forced to enter into alliances with wandering mages and unscrupulous mercenaries to get the power she needs to active a ritual darker than anything she dreamed.

As she makes a pact with the unknown, Mae has to wonder—had she made a deal with an even greater evil than the one that lurks in her own family’s home?

Mages By Fortune: Algardis #2 – First Two Chapters

Time for you get an idea of where Maeryn ‘Mae’ Darnes is going on her journey and who she’s taking with her. I was excited to see Rivan step up to the plate in the book and be more open with Mae. It turns out his alliances may not be so firm as it all seems, and the foreigner he travels with should be wary—because his bite is worse than his growl.

Check out the first two chapters of Mages By Fortune: Algardis #2 below and get ready for the release of the full book in the Algardis series very soon. P.S. – Reminder these chapters haven’t been seen by my editor yet, they’re just for your viewing pleasure.

Also, if you haven’t read book one yet, what are you waiting for? It’s in Kindle Unlimited!

It wasn’t every day that someone walked up to Maeryn Darnes and told her that they could change not only her life but her entire families’. Today was that day and it felt like all of the emotions she had building up inside of her because of it would force her to burst.

Frustration at being forced to make a choice.

Temptation at the possibilities being dangled in front of her—not just for herself but for others.

Fear…because she couldn’t take back the agreement once made.

Mae wasn’t stupid. There was a lot that the foreign woman wasn’t telling her. There was a gleam of anticipation in Donna Marie’s eyes that Mae didn’t understand and made her wary to the core. But the hope she held out in its place was almost too much to bear.

Mae swiped her tongue over her suddenly dry lips and opened her mouth to speak.

“I—” Mae croaked out.

She intended to say ‘I agree’ but the words stuck in her mouth like a piece of fruit lodged down her throat. She couldn’t get it out and for a moment of panic she couldn’t even breathe. It was as if all her normal bodily functions stopped working and she was left just trying to resume speaking, breathing, and smiling, all of which naturally came as second nature to her so it was disturbing to be without.

As for Donna Marie, she looked at Mae with impatience growing on her face. As she looked down on the less tall Mae, for a moment her face transformed. Not literally but almost imperceptibly, as Mae saw something else in that moment. The tight smile on her lips didn’t reach her eyes. And the frown lines radiating from her tear ducts weren’t ones from a life of joy, but one of stress. It was as if the persona she put on for the public was a mask and if Mae waited just a minute longer the entire façade would crack into a hundred pieces to reveal the truth underneath.

So wait she would.

“I–I just need more time to think it through,” Mae stammered—looking for an excuse for why her mind froze when her heart was telling her to go ahead with the best option she had.

Realistically it was the only option she had.

Donna Marie glanced up at the sky with an exaggerated look of boredom.

“If we’re going to do this now would be the time,” the foreign woman said in a sarcastic voice.

Easy for you to say you’re getting exactly what you want, Mae thought caustically.

Meanwhile Mae was limited by her current circumstances, the fact that the children of the greater holding were violently ill, and let’s be honest—some of her own relatives might be out to kill her as she deliberated.

It was a lot to think about at the moment. She’d gain an ally by giving the foreign woman what she wanted—for however little time this played out, and more importantly she’d gain something for herself in the process. Magic.

A weapon to use both to attack and protect. It would be hers to use as she willed, just as one of her many cousins had used his wind magic to try knock her off a steep ledge so that she would plummet to her death.

That was supposition. We don’t know he meant to kill us. Maybe he would have captured us and brought our hovering bodies back through the window, she thought to herself stubbornly—trying to think the best of the events that had proceeded her being here.

But even she wasn’t that naïve. The force of his power had been deliberate and had quite the chance of being fatal if she and Ember hadn’t spied a balcony to dive down into at the last minute.

Which left more questions than answers for Mae. Who were these mysteriously murderous relatives? What was it that they had been doing to the girls? And what would they do once Richard told them just who it was they’d caught spying from the second floor?

In fact they could be torturing him for important information right now! Mae thought horrified at the prospect.

She didn’t know Richard that well. He was one of the dozens of younger generation cousins that roamed the halls of the Darnes greater holding. She saw him in passing at breakfast, and again at noon’s meal before the ‘children’ were separated from the ‘young adults’ of marriageable age for the last meal heading into the night. He didn’t share any of her studies and their parents weren’t that close. So she couldn’t say that he would keep their secrets or even try to. So instead she wondered just what he had said and what the cloaked figures would do with that information.

Hunt her down like a deer to kill? Or bring her before the elders like a recalcitrant child? Mae wondered in her head.

She was fairly sure which of those options would leave her alive for another day but neither were ones she could say she preferred.

The thought of it all made Mae’s stomach knot in turmoil and that was just one of the aspects that she had to be careful of before making her call. The others? Were both better and worse than anything else she’d ever been faced with before.

Mae bit her lip in indecision. She wasn’t going to rush into this. She just wished she had someone to discuss it over with. Someone she trusted. But she was alone in this and the choice was hers alone. Which made it even worse not better. Because make no mistake, if she did this, if she went through with what the foreign woman wanted…there would be repercussions.

Mae took a deep breath as she thought about it. Thought about what Donna Marie was asking, which on the surface wasn’t much, and if you stirred the pot…was everything.

Mae didn’t want to be one of those foolish people who leaped before they looked, but from the female mage’s own words…this was as much of a fishing expedition for her as it was a learning process for Mae.

“But to do this,” Mae whispered to herself as she clutched her right elbow and tried to think it through.

It remained to be seen why her family, her elders even, had locked away the gifts—supposing they actually were there—in the first place. What made the power of women and girls so undesirable that they were outright forbidden? Nothing justified it Mae’s head and even as she thought about what had been done to her when she was very young, Mae was simmering with rage. It was all she had wanted as a child, to be special. To be unique. And to think that these gifts were hers to claim all along but because of a decision made long before she was born—they had been cut off? She couldn’t fathom the reasoning and she didn’t think those who had made the decision long ago could understand her pain.

Not that she could ask them.

The methodical placement of the tattoos along her collarbone had been decided generations ago and was something her sister, her stepmother, her grandmother, and even her great-aunt had gone through. As far as Maeryn Darnes knew, it was something generations of the women in her family had been subjected to.

She had never learned why.

Heck, she had never asked why.

It just was.

Only brief memories of the process from her childhood flashed in her mind at any time. It was a room filled with light and female faces surrounded her on all sides. They bent down over with rings of light about their crowns like halos and she looked up at them in confusion from where she lay flat on her back with something cold and hard underneath her.

She’d been five.

Or four. She couldn’t precisely remember what age it’d been done at but she didn’t remember words…just flashes of movements and all those faces. It seemed all the women of her clan old enough to marry had been present. And from what Ember had told her the one time she’d opened up about it with her sister, she too had had the same experience. Although Ember remembered more than her…suggesting that perhaps that she had been older than Mae when it happened?

Ember had talked about smells which Mae couldn’t remember.

Scents of sandalwood, a rare and costly aroma that Mae had only smelled once…when she’d been taken to one of the city-states with her father for trade. The idea of it being present here, so far into the rural shadows of the Nardes kingdom was preposterous. One thimble was worth more than an entire season’s production of vegetables.

Which left the question of how Ember had encountered it when she was so young. But Mae didn’t know much more than that because as soon as she had started to open up her sister had closed down. It taken her years to realized that was Ember’s defensive mechanism. Only being vocal when she knew absolutely everything there was to know about the subject at hand. As a eight-year-old being snapped at by her older sister though, Mae had simple taken offense and endeavored to not speak or do her mean sister any favors for the foreseeable future. Which had lasted all of a few weeks until there was something else Mae wanted and only Ember could provide.

But now all I want is answers, so many mysteries in a family that I thought I knew like the back of my hand, Mae thought as her eyes drifted over to Ember’s still form.

As her memory was triggered, Mae struggled to remember if she had ever gone back to Ember. To insist they talk about that strange fateful day that they both had shared…if only because their recollections were so similar. But she never had. Because the look in Ember’s eyes when she had first brought it up was one Mae recognized all too well—it was one that was haunted.

Funnily enough except for this almost disturbing episode Mae had thought her childhood was idyllic. Oh, they had their struggles. With so many bodies and babies to feed in the family, they had to stretch their food to feed everyone. That meant weeks without meat as the hunters drifted further out to find something that would stretch for them all or when they did find a few hares or even a deer, it was chopped into thick finger-length bits to put into a pot of stew for everyone to partake. But no one died of starvation and everyone who was family was blood. They stood by one another. The secret that sat at the heart of them was simply unspoken of.

But then the children started dying again. In large numbers and what had once been a generational curse now seemed never-ending. Nerves were frayed and boundaries broken. Not the least of which was her own. It was how she’d started doing research into the cure in the first place and ended up breaking into her grandmother’s private sanctum to receive the grimoire.

Even just thinking of the tome that she’d risk so much for made Mae flinch.

It was gone…in the hands of people she’d rather it not be and what was worse—they’d destroyed it with fire. She hadn’t seen what they’d done with the incantation on the ripped off page itself because by that point she’d been running for her life. But Mae couldn’t imagine the group of mad cloaked individuals had done much good with it.

Without that page Mae had to wonder if they could even do what needed to be done. Which meant she had to get it back. But first things first, she had to get out of her latest scrape in one piece. So she stood up and looked around the clearing with a firm face. It was the same as it had been before. The air was a little stiller. The gloom about them all a little heavier. But it was still her, three strangers, and her sister—at once all alone in the forest and together. These strangers clearly had kidnapped them but they’d also saved them from a deathly fate. So Mae stood on the cusp of a choice, to trust them, to work with them and in the process—make a deal that would shake the very foundation of her family’s core. But also save the ones who needed help the most—the children.

It wasn’t as hard a call to make as she would have thought.

Mostly because she was on the black list for a large grouping of her closest relatives at the moment and the idea of coming to them with her idea for help was worse than foolish, it could spell the death warrants of not just the children, but herself and Ember.

For knowing too much in a time it would seem that it was best to know nothing at all.

Decided she nodded to herself, turned back and stepped forward. As she did a chill wind blew into the clearing and directly at her—leaving her cold all over. If she was all superstitious, Mae would have taken the ghost that walked over her grave at that moment for a warning.

But she wasn’t.

Instead she put on the charm as much as she could and directed a compelling gaze to the woman who held her future in her hands.

Hers and her entire family’s it seemed.

Mae just desperately hope that her faith in the foreigner wasn’t misplaced…for all their sakes.

 

Upon release the 2nd book in the Algardis series will be live at https://www.terahedun.com/magesbyfortune

“Have you made up your mind?” Donna Marie asked in a commanding tone.

“I have,” Mae replied warily.

Donna Marie raised her eyebrows and looked at her. She wasn’t going to ask a second time.

A brief smile flashed over Mae’s face. The foreign woman’s imperious nature sometimes reminded her of Ember…in her most annoying habits.

“Alright, what’s next?” Mae asked with a heavy sigh. She was going in, whether she liked it or not.

Donna Marie’s eyes brightened as she smiled.

She didn’t waste any time in replying.

“Now, I take a look at what makes you and other females like you, so very special,” Donna Marie said in an encouraging voice. “Once my study is done, I can aid you in invoking that incantation you’re so desperate to see succeed.”

Mae’s voice stiffened as she said, “It will succeed.”

It has to, she said to herself.

Donna Marie shrugged, “It will or it won’t. But you’re on a strict timetable from what I gather and I…am not. So it’d be in your best interest to cooperate promptly.”

“I already said I would!” Mae snapped—bristling. She didn’t like being threatened.

“How long will this take anyway?” Mae said as the woman just watched her. Figuring she could move this along Mae started to unlace her front and prepared to be examined.

“A few hours at minimum,” the foreign woman said in a casual voice as she inched forward with predatory eyes.

Mae paused the moment those words uttered from Donna Marie’s mouth.

“Hours?” she said with a shocked gasp. “We don’t have that.”

“This isn’t just some etching I’m going to do on your chest girl,” Donna Marie replied quickly. “I need to not only to use my gifts to study your inked collar but I need to do it with your aid.”

“Why?” Mae said uncomfortable.

“Why what?” Donna Marie asked with irritation.

Mae stopped fiddling with the buttons that held her vested overcoat tight at her waist and stared at the foreign woman.

“Why do you need my help?” Mae said in a voice that was unshakeable. “You’re just studying them right?”

“Well—” Donna Marie started to say in an uncomfortable voice.

Mae squinted at her and looked over at Rivan to see if he had anything to say about this. But his gaze was narrowly focused off in the distance and unreadable in any case. As for Dot, he was looking directly at her with what Mae could only characterize as an avaricious look that immediately made her cringe.

“Just look at it and get on with it,” Mae complained.

Donna Marie flapped her hand as if to wish away any tension in the air and prompt her to move on.

“It’s a little bit more than that,” Donna Marie said in a weasely tone. “But I promise it won’t hurt.”

That wasn’t what Mae had asked and it stalled her movements even more than their prior conversation.

When Mae didn’t make a move to continue unveiling what Donna Marie so desperately wanted, the foreign woman begrudgingly added, “There’s something about that tattoo about your collarbone. It doesn’t react to coercion—”

And how would you know that? Mae wondered to herself as her hackles raised.

Who else had this woman approached to get what she’d needed…and what had she done for the access she obviously so desperately wanted?

“—in fact, your ancestors were quite devious about it,” Donna Marie said in an envious tone that Mae didn’t like. “They made the tattoos invisible to the naked eye unless you’re a mage—”

“Well, that explains why the girls in the village never really asked about what was right in front of them,” Mae muttered.

“—and resistant to inspection without the express approval of the bearer,” Donna Marie concluded.

Mae raised a curious eyebrow, “So you just have to ask and it can be studied?”

“No,” Donna Marie grumbled. “It’s rather more complex than that.”

Donna Marie frowned as she continued, “How can I explain this to one so ignorant to the complex intricacies of a mage warding?”

“You can try by using small words,” Mae said a bit incensed at being referred to as an idiot in her viewpoint—just not in so many words.

“I didn’t say that you were—,” Donna Marie started

“It’s a binding on your body,” Rivan interjected before Donna Marie could put her foot in her mouth any more than she already had.

The foreign woman turned to him with a look of almost relief on her face and Mae obliging turned her focus to the other young man, only to notice that he was staring directly at her with an intense she was startled by. Mae almost reached up to her face just to make sure she didn’t have any mud on her cheeks but that was just silly because she knew that she was in fact dirty, one didn’t race through an attic and get logged through a forest and stay clean throughout the process, but also he wasn’t looking at her face, but at her body.

And a rather inappropriate portion of her body if anything her grandmother had taught her was right, Mae thought annoying.

He was staring directly at her chest when he said it with narrowly focused eyes. Mae almost covered her top with her hands in affront until she noticed that his look wasn’t lascivious, it was concentrated.

He was studying it, she realized as she recognized the same look that had been on her own face countless times.

But how? Mae continued to wonder. Her skin was still covered by her clothes but that didn’t seem to matter to him.

Rivan continued in a methodical voice, “That binding makes it so your flesh hides the very well written layers of the spell written within it.”

“Spell, what spell?” Mae asked genuinely shocked.

Rivan sent her scorching look. “The tattoo,” he said in a disbelieving tone.

As if she was the fool for not realizing it in the first place.

And maybe she was but he didn’t have to take that tone with her. She was new to all of this!

Apparently deciding to take pity on her Rivan explained further, “The inked tattoos on your collarbone, and I suspect this is true for all the women in your commune—”

He paused there to glance over at Ember’s prone form resting against the tree. Mae resisted the instinctive urge to step in from of her sister’s body and instead let him continue his examination from a distance, a distance of several feet away from both Ember and herself. If he could study the tattoos from that far away and while she was covered, Mae was tempted to just tell Donna Marie to let Rivan do what needed to be done.

Jolting her from her reverie, Rivan continued as he said, “—this is the same. It’s more than just a design, representative marking of your family. As Donna Marie stated it binds your powers and precludes you from using them.”

“And how does it do that?” Donna Marie asked in a smooth leading tone.

She clearly already knew she was just trying to lead his explanation back to her original path of inquiry.

“By using spellwork to do so,” Rivan said through gritted teeth.

He even briefly balled his fingers into fists. Which Mae didn’t miss although Donna Marie was assiduously looking the other way at the moment, so perhaps it was as much for himself as it was for her.

Still the foreign woman nodded in appreciation as she said, “Thank you Rivan.”

“Don’t thank me,” the young man muttered. “Her family may have done a shitty thing but that spellwork is absolutely gorgeous. It’s alive in her skin.”

And this time both Donna Marie and Rivan were staring at the hidden ink with what Mae could only characterize as want.

“Well,” Mae said while clearing her throat and trying to break up their stares. “So you want to study how they inked the design?”

“That and more,” Donna Marie said eagerly.

Rivan shrugged. “It’ll take careful unlayering to see just how they laid down the spell framework I’m guessing. Starting with a bare look at your skin and moving into the field of aural divination as we descend into the realm of strictly mage sight.”

Mae stirred but she didn’t really have any knowledge what they were planning to do and how it would affect her, and from the looks on their faces—they had done just about all the explaining either was prepared to do.

Reluctantly, she said then “Okay, let’s get going then.”

She eyed Rivan warily as she did so while wondering if she had been keeping a tense eye on the wrong person all along.

He knew far too much about this ‘warding’ when even Donna Marie couldn’t definitely state such details. So how did he know it? Mae openly wondered with a question in her eyes as she looked at him.

Of course, he was now back to being silent with an interesting gleam in his eyes, his hand folded in front of him, and no more.

Donna Marie proceeded to begin.

“Well, as my fine traveling companion has so aptly stated,” Donna Marie said. “Your tattoos are composed of more than meets the eye. I will not only have to visually study it but dive into my magic to unravel the layers that make it a composition.”

“But you’re not going to…permanently remove it or anything?” Mae nervously stated.

“What?” Donna Marie blurted out caustically. “Oh no, I don’t believe that will be necessary.”

Mae let out a slow sigh of relief.

“That’s good,” she hurriedly replied. “I mean—not that I wouldn’t want it removed, but it would make my life easier if you could just…make the tattoo bend to your will for a moment, show me how to proceed with the incantation as a third in the mage triangle and then…we’ll all be on our way.”

“I’m sure we will,” Donna Marie replied with a bit of darkness in her tone.

Mae couldn’t precisely pinpoint on what part of their conversation had tripped her up though so she let it go as just a fanciful part of her imagination as Donna Marie continued to speak.

“Now that I have your verbal permission to assess your tattoos you must do one more thing first before we begin?” Donna Marie said.

“What?” Mae asked immediately with apprehension.

To be fair Donna Marie had yet to ask something of her she couldn’t easily physically give…but there was always something more on the horizon, which Mae didn’t like. But she had to play her gains to get to the cure to win.

“You must believe inside yourself that this is the right decision,” Donna Marie said. “Or it won’t work.”

“What won’t work?” Mae asked mystified.

“I won’t be able to access your ink,” Donna Marie said in a final note.

Frustrated at the delay now that she was finally ready to move on, Mae pulled aside the top of her collar and said, “What do you mean—it’s right here!”

“If you had a mirror in front of you right this moment, what you see and what I see would be very different,” Donna Marie explained.

“But you’re a mage!” Mae complained.

“I didn’t say the ink would be invisible to me,” Donna Marie snapped. “It just convolutes my study in a way we don’t need. You can thank your bull-headed ancestors.”

Mae grumbled and then said. “Fine, I believe you should see it.”

“Not just in your head, but in your heart,” Rivan said forcefully as he interjected again. “If you don’t it won’t work.”

Mae narrowed her eyes. “This is a lot of layers of security for some pretty ink…even if it does lock away my gifts. Even the male relatives in my family don’t have naturally intense gifts, just enough to set bone or encourage crops.”

Donna Marie nodded eagerly, “Now you see my conundrum. Why work so hard to lock something away that is essentially meaningless in nature.”

“I wouldn’t call it meaningless,” Mae cried—a little offended.

“Please,” Donna Marie said wryly. “There are toddlers in my cities which display more magic than the greatest of your elders. I am not boasting, it is a fact.”

“And yet the gifts needed to do what these backwards commune-dwellers have done outstrips more than the mage adepts at your fabled school,” Rivan murmured.

What school? Mae wondered as her ears perked up—not wanting to interrupt now that they’ve told her something.

“Nevertheless,” Donna Marie said firmly. “They individually are not so gifted which begs the question what are they hiding underneath these layers of spellwork.”

“And why hasn’t anyone discovered it before?” Rivan added in an echo of Donna Marie’s interest.

Upon release the 2nd book in the Algardis series will be live at https://www.terahedun.com/magesbyfortune

Catch up to the series on Kindle Unlimited today, Mages By Chance: Algardis #1.

The entire Courtlight series is in Kindle Unlimited

Hi all,

It’s time for a MASSIVE summer sale! The entire Courtlight series has been put into Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited and if you’ve been waiting to catch-up on the adventures of your favorite heroine now’s your time! Grab all the books you want, speed read, and take them with you to the beach. ^.^

But this will not last. So if you’re looking to catch up on the series, download a copy today. Click the cover to get yours!

Seventeen-year-old Ciardis Vane grew up in a small village on the edge of the realm. But then her life changes when a strange woman appears with the key to Ciardis’s escape. Ciardis knows that this is her one opportunity to change her life. But what she does not know is that she will soon be at the heart of intrigues and power struggles, and that her new life in luxury demands a high price, perhaps even the life of a prince.

AMAZON GLOBAL LINK

Eighteen-year-old companion trainee Ciardis Weathervane has won the friendship of the royal heir and saved his claim to the throne. Yet her interference in the inheritance rights leaves more harm done than good. The inhabitants of the forest, magic-wielding non-humans, are defiant. They have not forgotten their long struggles nor are they content to watch as the last of their lands perish. With enemies closing ranks in Sandrin, Ciardis can little afford to leave the city’s nest of vipers to take on a new task. This second novel continues the story of Ciardis Weathervane from Sworn To Raise.

AMAZON GLOBAL LINK

A threat to all she holds dear lies in the North and her heart is not the only thing she might lose. A massive army awaits in the mountain pass, surging closer to the gates of the southern lands. As Ciardis Weathervane faces her greatest fears on the battlefields and her heart is torn between her love of Sebastian and loyalty to her family, she must choose her fate carefully. For in her path, lies the destiny of the empire. This third novel continues the story of Ciardis Weathervane from Sworn To Transfer.

AMAZON GLOBAL LINK

In the heart of the Imperial Court, Ciardis Weathervane knows that death is coming for the empire. She must do her best to unite kith, mages, nobles and merchants under one cause – the fight to prevent a war. Throw in a daemoni prince who is showing interest in the youngest Weathervane, a jealous prince heir, and a irritated dragon with her own designs on Ciardis, and you have an imperial court in turmoil. This fourth novel continues the story of Ciardis Weathervane from Sworn To Conflict.

AMAZON GLOBAL LINK

Ciardis Weathervane returned to the imperial court of Sandrin to unite her foes. She never thought that before rallying an empire, she’d have to fight the emperor himself. Ciardis hasn’t survived assassination attempts, torture and really bad luck to be taken down by her own ruler.Butting heads at court isn’t Ciardis’s only problem, it is up to her small group to stop the destruction of the entire city while heading a rebellion that could foment a revolution. This fifth novel continues the story of Ciardis Weathervane from Sworn To Secrecy.

AMAZON GLOBAL LINK

Ciardis Weathervane is officially engaged to one man and bonded to a second. She should be planning the wedding ceremony, instead she’s spending her engagement on the lawless oad to the western lands. If the unscrupulous bandits don’t make short work of them, Ciardis knows that when they return she and Sebastian will have to a face and unmask the man who has stolen the imperial throne. This sixth novel continues the story of Ciardis Weathervane from Sworn To Defiance.

AMAZON GLOBAL LINK

Ciardis Weathervane is nothing if not resourceful but she and her friends are running out of time and options.  In their way stands thousands of people trapped inside a walled city for half a century. Now the city and its people want retribution and the only thing they will accept is the sacrifice of the empire’s most famous son – Sebastian Athanos Algardis. It will take more than diplomacy for Ciardis to win his freedom, before a reign of fire comes down from the wyvern and the dragon to burn them all. This seventh novel continues the story of Ciardis Weathervane from Sworn to Ascension.

AMAZON GLOBAL LINK

 

Ciardis Weathervane has one simple rule – win the first fight, then move on to the next. When she returns to the imperial capital city, she finds that nothing is as she left it. Only a week has passed and yet chaos reigns. Ciardis is faced with the predicament of saving an empire and sacrificing a revolution, all while facing down a clock that has run out of the time. The gods are here and there’s nothing that she nor anyone else can do to stop them.  This eighth novel continues the story of Ciardis Weathervane from Sworn to Vengeance.

AMAZON GLOBAL LINK

 

Ciardis Weathervane is facing a war on two fronts. One with the dragons. One with the deities. She knows that the very foundation between ruler, nobility, and commoner had fractured down to its core. But the citizens of the empire need more than a speech to believe in the rulers that betrayed them just days before. With Thanar trapped in purgatory while they fight to resurrect the city that gave them life—Ciardis and Sebastian are in a battle to the death against a god bent on living forever. This ninth novel continues the story of Ciardis Weathervane from Sworn to Sovereignty.

AMAZON GLOBAL LINK

Ciardis Weathervane must forge a new path. Through the madness and chaos. With the imperial palace in ruins, and the coalition between the nobles and the rebellion falling apart, there is no more time. Ciardis faces her most challenging assignment yet. Picking up the pieces, mending the coalition and winning the hearts and minds of Sebastian’s people. The people she could now call her own.The heavens have come to earth. It remains to be seen if the earth will fall before its might. This tenth novel continues the story of Ciardis Weathervane from Sworn to War.

AMAZON GLOBAL LINK

Ciardis has seen the goddess for what she is  a bloodthirsty deity bent on breaking them before eliminating everyone Ciardis knows and loves. A plan in motion that will unleash a wave of magic across the land in quantities not seen since the Initiate Wars. But the battle has begun and she’ll do what she has to protect the people she cares about – her family, her friends, her empire.  In a battle between an immortal and a mortal, the humans are coming to win. This eleventh novel continues the story of Ciardis Weathervane from Sworn to Quell.

AMAZON GLOBAL LINK

Ciardis Weathervane is finally facing off with the goddess she’s been preparing to face for years. Together she, the daemoni prince, and the new Emperor of Algardis will have to use their alliance to save all those they care for…while hoping the enemies they’ve left behind don’t stab them in the back in the process.

This twelfth novel continues the story of Ciardis Weathervane from Sworn To Restoration.

AMAZON GLOBAL LINK

Mages By Chance: Algardis #1 on SALE! One-Day Special ^.^

I’ve been dreaming of this moment for so long, that its hard to believe its here! Mages By Chance: Algardis #1 is now live on all retailers. When I first started the Courtlight and Crown Service series there was an inkling in the back of my mind that I would eventually have THREE series which would be the main ‘tentpoles’ of the Algardis Universe. But to see it publish is just such a beautiful moment!

More on that later – since I have some exciting compilations and crossovers planned for these main characters in 2019/2020, but for now WELCOME to the eponymous Algardis Universe. These books will be mainly set at the Algardis school for mages, but as you see when you start reading Mages By Chance – it takes a long time for a young person to get to become a mage, especially when they have no magic in the first place. Enter Maeryn ‘Mae’ Darnes, wild child and spitfire of the Darnes clan.

Mae has always wanted to be a mage her whole life, but that particular honor is reserved only for the males in her family. What does she get instead? An inked tattoo on her collarbone and a lot of lectures about her place in society. Well, Mae is all for upending the status quo and if in doing so she can save her siblings and children near-and-far from an illness devastating her clan and then she’ll do that as well.

I encourage you to read the new blurb on the MAGES BY CHANCE: ALGARDIS #1 page but if you’re just eager to dive into my latest young adult fantasy release, without further ado – say a big hello to Mae, Ember, Richard, and all the characters which make this exhilarating adventure so much fun!

Buy Links

~*~*~*~*~*

AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | KOBO | IBOOKS | GOOGLEPLAY

~*~*~*~*~*

Mages By Chance Blurb and first two chapters are here!

If you are a member of the Guild you saw the original first chapter weeks ago, but today everyone gets to see the new book and series I’ve been working on! Please note that these chapters haven’t been seen by my editor yet and as always content can change between now and publication!

It’s been such a breath of fresh air to start a new series with a new main character. Maeryn Darnes is woman set apart from those who came before her. She’s feisty and surly, vulnerable and touchy-feely, she loves her huge family and would do anything for those she calls friends. She’s also an untapped mage. Untapped until now that is. Check out the blurb below for Mages By Chance: Algardis #1 and read on for Chapters One and Two. The release date may be coming sooner than you think – so keep your eyes peeled and make sure you’re signed up to get my blog and newsletter emails!

———–

The first book in a new series that follows a young woman destined to destroy every edict her people live by and the boy who would do anything to be accepted by his. Journey along in a spellbinding story of conquering fear and overcoming love as they become Mages By Chance.

Maeryn ‘Mae’ Darnes is a young woman torn between two worlds…life or death. She has watched her siblings slowly wither away just like all the others blighted by the cursed Darnes bloodline. Now its the two youngest that will be dead within days.

Desperate to find a cure Mae does the unthinkable and breaks her family’s code of honor to practice dark magic. If she can find the cure and convince a band of rogue relatives to join her cause, she might even be able to activate the most powerful casting ever seen.

But in her attempts to circumvent her elder’s powerful rulings, Mae stumbles upon a plot to prolong the suffering of the afflicted. Now she not only needs to throw off the yolk that bounds her to her family, but carve out the darkness that is hiding within.

Blood and family have always been a constant in Mae’s life, but as the wasting sickness is being masterminded for other’s desire, Mae becomes determined to risk everything to reveal the truth. No matter the cost.

 

Mae’s chest felt so tight—it was like she was going to burst from the inside-out. That was because it was decision time. And this one wasn’t a decision she could make lightly. Confront her parents or walk away. She had already broken the covenants of the commune by even considering using dark magic to save the two lives that hung in the balance. But according to the useless soothsayers they didn’t have long left to live and the little magic her family did have on its own…wasn’t enough to save them.

So dark magic would have to do.

It was a desperate ploy and uncertainty roiled through her. Even a little rage that she needed to go this far…but mostly she was filled with weariness. She had been tossing and turning over what she would do for almost a full week and now that the moment was here—Mae hesitated.

Biting her lip as she stood in the hallway, Mae was trying to pull it together, but found herself unable to put anything past a semblance of grief on her tired face. Mainly because she only had a hope and a prayer of her illicit effort working, and if it failed…not only would she be punished but they would all be heartbroken once more. She feared the latter far more than anything else. Everyone in the greater holding had already been through so much that one more failure on top of the dozens of other desperate attempts they had made over the last week was a blow she herself wasn’t sure their close-knit family could take.

Still she had to try. So she kept looking. Because even though she was nearly at peace with doing whatever it took to save them, she didn’t yet have anything in place to make it happen. So Mae sighed, tilted her head back while ignoring the misery threatening to cloud her mind, and aimlessly reached down by her side to pick up the heavy tome once more. Through weary eyes she blinked down at the grimoire of her family. One of many forbidden texts she wasn’t supposed to have her hands on—proven by the fact that the text had singed her fingertips the moment she’d touched it. She remembered like it had been yesterday, because it had been. The day she’d decided to take a leap from worried sister to defiant sibling. She was putting a lot of her own goodwill on the line. Goodwill she had meticulously stored up over the year by doing chores without being asked, running to the market whenever her older relatives needed it, and even cleaning unbidden. Which for Mae…was a minor miracle in and of itself. Of course, she hadn’t done any of those things without a goal in mind. Namely her parent’s permission to go to the midsummer’s fair with a certain someone without supervision. She had imagined winding ribbons in her hair and wearing a pretty courting dress Instead she was now sitting in a dark hallway with illicit materials in her hands while she prepared to spend all that hard-earned favor in one fell swoop and not for her own enjoyment. But right now something mattered more than that. Lives were in the balance and it was up to her.

Because if anyone else was capable of solving this death spiral, they would have stepped up already wouldn’t they? Mae thought bitterly.

It wasn’t that Mae thought anyone in her commune was holding back. Quite the opposite. Each of the families, Mae’s being the largest, which made up their collective holding had something to fear from the deaths—past and present. And they also had a vested interest in finding a cure as soon as possible. Before Mae’s siblings died. Before more lives were taken.

Because this wasn’t over, not by a long shot. Not if they didn’t end it with the two girls now. Thinking of the future risks, it made Mae sick with anger just thinking about the possibilities of others suffering the same fate that was currently meeting her sisters—draining their life forces and leaving them in agony at the same time. It was hard to watch, it was even harder to listen to as their intermittent screams bounced across the holding walls and echoed down hallways like some macabre morning bell. Even though she had to. They all did. Every day and every hour the illness kept up its scourge. Even now the howl of a distance scream rose up. Mae knew it was them even as far away as she was. It was hard to mistake the howl as anything else. The sound rose and peaked into a sharp staccato and Mae shuddered in commiseration. It was as if she could feel their pain, the pain that was carried in every harrowing gasp and cry.

Time began to slow and Mae felt the beat of her heart slow as she listened to it start up again. She thought it might be the older of the two victims this time. And as they joined together in one cry, it was as if the world stood still while she listened. Mae couldn’t escape it, it was as if she was living through it for those moments. But the strength of the cry faltered when one voice dropped out abruptly. A rest period that she knew would have the girl slumped down from where she had lain almost unnaturally arched off the bed and family members frantically reaching over to wipe off the cold sweat on her bed. Finally after what felt like eons later but was only seconds, the second of the two screams trailed off. It was sickening but also a relief.

They could rest together, just like they did everything else together.

Miserably Mae wiped away some wetness from her own eyes as she said, “Though no siblings should have to do this together.”

She wasn’t just referring to the suffering illness either. Her older sister and the rest of their family were all participating in this haunting wait, their lives on hold, and their actions strained while they hoped and some prayed.

Most cried at some point. Whether it was the beginning when they realized that the blight had struck the most innocent of them all or when they were weeks into watching the progress of the debilitation. Or just…whenever they heard a pain-filled scream that echoed in their hearts.

It could be cathartic to cry in sympathy. Like Mae was doing now.

But she refused to admit that it was an emotional response to the pain. No, it wasn’t just that.

She was crying because she furious, frustrated, and damned tired.

They all were and the physical toil was hard on a body. It didn’t help that her stomach was turning into knots as she waited to see if the two girls would pick up screaming again. Sometimes they did. Sometimes they waited, giving all of those around them a slight respite. If you could call it that. For Mae, the tense wait in-between the screams was just as horrible as listening to it in an echo.

It made her so upset she might just hurl all over the floor.

Instead she forced back her nausea and tightened her jaw. Willing back both tears and rage. Neither would help her here and screaming wasn’t something Mae did—not unless she had a damned good reason. Licking her suddenly dry lips, Mae looked down at the vellum that was creasing under the grip she had reflexively tightened when she heard the screams.

She only said one thing to the object in a voice hoarse with hurt, “You’d better work.”

But she meant that with all her heart. Because if it didn’t, she was out of options. They all were. And that didn’t sit well with Maeryn Darnes. It made her ballistic just thinking about it, a fury she was desperately trying to control so that it didn’t control her. She had the legendary Darnes’ propensity for a temper. It came out in different ways but for Mae, it had always been with fiery consequences.

As if it was reading her mind and didn’t like the anger it felt in her emotions, it heated up so hot and fast that she had barely had time to yelp before dropping the tome on her bare feet. Making her one of the only people in the commune most likely howling at the top of her lungs while hopping on one foot and sucking at her burning fingertips simultaneously.

“What did I do that has all the demi-gods in the kingdom trying to break my foot?” she howled as she leaned back against the wall clutching her abused foot.

As the pain of the heavy hit died down to a throb in her big toe Mae glared down in offense at the grimoire lying on the floor innocently as if it hadn’t just wounded her twice—once on its way up and another time on its way down.

But that wasn’t the last of her troubles by a long shot. Mae heard a step down the hall that had her hastily straightening up and hoping whoever was coming up the back stairs didn’t look too closely in the shadows.

Seconds ticked by and no one emerged.

Slight relief began to filter through Maeryn’s imagination as she said, “Maybe it was just my imagination.”

Then she heard another sound…like a step. But she wasn’t sure. Still better to be safe than sorry. So she reached down to frantically put out the candle she’d been hoping to read by with her left hand and kicked back the grimoire against the wall with her opposite foot.

She may have been hoping, but she was no fool. Besides—keeping the candle going would only attract attention not turn it away.

Not a few seconds later Maeryn’s worst possible nightmare was confirmed.

An explosion of light hit the corridor as a young woman’s voice screeched down the hallway, “What is going on here?”

Instinctively Mae willed the dropped grimoire to be silent and stay hidden behind her. She hoped it would choose to be passive seeing as she wasn’t touching it anymore. As the fiery text did nothing for the moment, she could assume it worked.

Then she let out a curse as she knew who the voice belonged to from the first word. Now the only thing she could do was wait for her odious sister to come down the hallway seeking confrontation. It was after all the family way. Fight each other like rats within the holding and tear up anyone who sent any of them an errant look outside of it.

Mae sighed deeply as the figure which came into focus through the bright light confirmed her suspicions. It was none other than her older sister and outright pain in Mae’s behind—Ember ‘Emes’ Darnes.

The only one worse person to come down the hallway would have been the grandmother Maeryn stole the grimoire from, but Ember would most assuredly tell their father’s mother of Mae’s misdeeds when she got the chance. That was part of the reason Mae didn’t like her.

The other reason?

Well, they were like oil and water. Her and Emes. If Mae liked juice, Ember liked water. If Ember loved riding, Mae loved walking. If Ember hated her family nickname—it was a diminutive form of their names assigned by their elders on their first naming day—Mae loved hers. They’d been like this since childhood and almost every conversation ended in confrontation. It was well-known that if you heard a shouting match in the Darnes household, there was a three-fourths chance it was the two oldest siblings going at it.

Mae flicked her thick braid over her shoulder and assumed a confident expression. If there was one thing Ember always sensed like a predator in the water…it was fear. And Mae did fear something—discovery. Knowing she had something to hide if she was going to have any hope of pulling off her plan, she eased herself forward—careful to hide her illicit goods behind her in the shadows and plastered a smile on her face. Maybe if she set Ember off balance from the beginning, this would go the way she wanted…for once.

So Mae grinned and waited like a fool in a dark hallway as her sister kept coming forward. Except now Ember was uncharacteristically silent. Mae wondered if it was trick to make her nervous but it wasn’t long before goosebumps had risen at the base of her neck as she wondered if it was something much more disheartening.

What if it was the worse thing she could imagine?

What if it had already happened while she stood foolishly in a hallway like a limpet?

Still Ember came on silent as a shade and Mae had to drop her smile and act.

Confidence cracking Mae quickly said, “Tell me quick—its not the girls is it?”

Ember’s approach paused for a moment before she kept going.

“No,” her sister said. “They’re the same as far as I know. I just left them an hour ago.”

Mae nodded quickly…in thanks.

They may have despised each other but neither was willing to play around with the others emotions when it came to the possibility of death in the family.

There were some things you didn’t joke about or hold back information on. And that was one of them. They all were on tether hooks about the girls’ fate anyway. Anymore drama would be like setting a tinderbox on fire with no water nearby to douse the house in flames.

And Maeryn Darnes wouldn’t be the one to see her family put through more pain than they already were. So she uncrossed her arms and held out her hand in greeting to her most odious sister.

It was up to Ember if she wanted to take it.

Stepping forward in a greeting so quickly, Mae would have missed it had she not felt the responding pressure of her arm being gripped and released by Ember as her sister met her halfway.

Mae licked suddenly dry lips but she made an effort again and said, “Morning sister.”

Ember stared at her with suspicious eyes but she gave the traditional greeting back.

“A good day’s dawn,” she replied.

Swallowing anything she wanted to say about her appearing where she wasn’t wanted, Mae instead asked “What brings you this far into the backways sister?”

Mae managed to say it with a smile on her face even though it hurt to keep it up. Dealing with her sister was already giving her a headache and they hadn’t even said more than a few words to the other.

“Passing by,” her sister replied softly with a mysterious air as she studied Mae’s face with a sharp look that belied her tone’s casualness.

Mae knew that look well. It told her that Ember had found whatever she saw particularly interesting and she pretty much would have zero desire to move on. Not without getting whatever it was she came for.

Which was just Mae’s luck. Ember’s favorite game was to hassle her and unfortunately asking her to just leave wouldn’t work. It’d just egg her big sister on. So Mae had to hope that by being as dull and uninteresting as possible that would make her move on instead.

It was going to have be a day that the stars aligned to make that work though.

As the silence stretched on too long, Mae asked “A bit out of your way though, no?”

Ember gave a soft snort and said, “Not really. I like to study the architecture of our holding when I get the chance and as you know…our home is the oldest on-site which makes it a particularly beautiful subject to wander around in.”

Mae’s mouth twitched but she couldn’t really say Ember was wrong.

That was the other disturbing reason they didn’t get along.

Ember could speak and it was like honey dripped from her mouth.

She’d be lying straight to your face but she did so matter-of-factedly and with such truths woven in that it was hard to see the lie…unless you knew her.

And Mae her knew her so well. They were only two years apart but it might as well as been a decade. Different personalities and approaches to living even though they’d been raised from the time they could walk by the same set of parents.

Mae wanted to give her sister the benefit of the doubt at times but she had learned over the years that sometimes even that was too much. Still—people in glass houses really shouldn’t throw stones and Mae certainly was in her own bit of predicament right now.

She couldn’t confront her sister about her shadiness when she herself was desperately trying to hide a forbidden tome she had lifted from their elder’s sanctum without permission. No justification in the world would work to explain away her ill-gotten gains.

Mae elected to divert attention more and perhaps get her sister to move on.

“So you’re looking at the architecture,” Mae asked nervously. “Find anything interesting?”

“Very,” chirped Ember with the beady-eyed gaze of a bird swooping down on its prey.

Meanwhile Mae’s back was still to the wall and she felt sweat begin to roll down her neck. She was still trying to project confidence but it was hard to do when your older sister was starting at you as if she could pull your secrets out of you by peeling off your skin bit-by-bit. As if noting Mae’s nervousness and reveling in it, Ember flicked her hand holding the lantern, making light momentarily flare in Mae’s eyes and throwing her off balance just a bit again.

“So sorry,” she heard her sister say as Mae quickly turned her head away to get the glare out of her eyes. When she had turned back after blinking away the spots dancing in her vision, this time Mae watched Ember warily.

It was another piece of movement that seemed like it could have been a mistake. But Mae would be a fool to think it hadn’t been intentional.

“Also,” her sister said in a too cheery voice. “I’ve got a bit of work to do myself.”

“Oh?” Mae asked weakly—knowing the trap was closing in but not quite sure how to maneuver around it.

Ember didn’t hold polite conversation for just any reason.

She had something on her mind.

As if to answer her question, Ember jiggled a basket that Mae only now noticed was on her back. The shoulder straps were cleverly hidden by the folds of her outercoat.

“Just some washing,” Ember said lightly with a false sincerity.

“Taking the shortcut through the backways to get to the old washroom?” Mae guessed.

“Yes,” Ember replied. “It’s less crowded than the new one by the sickrooms.”

Mae’s eyes flickered once more to the basket on her sister’s back. It looked barely half-full and she’d eat her shoe if dear Emes hadn’t come this way in search of her. But she couldn’t prove that. She just knew her sister’s favorite game was to hassle her and Ember’s eyes always lit up with an eagerness for trouble when Mae was around so it wouldn’t have been too farfetched to assume the worst.

But that’s all it was—an assumption.

Wanting this interrogation that to be over Mae said as meekly as she could, “Well I’ll just let you be on your way.”

“Hmm, yes,” Ember replied. “But I haven’t yet asked you…”

She trailed off—leaving her words ominously unfinished.

“Asked me what?” Mae said suspiciously.

Ember followed up with a smile, “What brings you this far off the beaten path?”

Mae looked around as she thought about an acceptable answer.

“Well?” Ember said—pressing the matter.

Finally Mae replied with a shrug, “I was just looking for some solitude…you know with all the healers in our home plus the family…its’ getting crowded out there.”

“That’s true,” Ember said slowly.

Then she began to tap her foot on the hollow wood floors and Mae practically jumped out of her skin. She had to wonder what was next.

When would she move on? Mae thought desperately.

Apparently not that soon, because Ember continued to study her with all the patience of the world and cornered Mae couldn’t stand it anymore.

Changing her tactics, Mae sucked her teeth and then said, “What do you want Ember?”

Ember cocked her head with a suspicious look in her eyes.

“I can’t just stop when I see a sister?” Ember pointedly asked.

Mae’s mouth curled in resentment.

Then she firmly said, “Drop the act. You know and I know that you’d have no time for me unless you were up to something.”

“What?” Ember asked with a politely shocked gasp.

“Spit it out,” Mae barked in a command that even she was surprised by.

Ember’s eyes narrowed into a glare as she responded, “You don’t talk to me that way you little brat.”

“Ah there’s the sister I know and love,” Mae said dryly.

Ember huffed and responded, “Well, then if you’re going to insisted on dropping pleasantries, and I was just beginning to enjoy having a civil conversation, we can do that.”

“I do,” Mae snapped. “Insist that is.”

Ember shrugged and let a smirk drop on her face.

“Fine then,” Mae’s older sister said in a sing-song tone. “I want to know why you’re standing alone in a corridor like a cockhead with your foot over a book like that will do anything to hide the fact the you’re up to something.”

“What book?” Mae instantly said as she stood as tall as she could and tried to look imposing.

That instantly brought a laugh from her sister.

“Don’t play with me Maeryn,” Ember said amused. “You’re not very good at lying and my eyesight is just fine.”

Mae felt her heart freeze and then she groaned. This was why she hated her sister.

Nothing was ever let alone. Nothing was private. And she’d dance like a chicken in a wire trap if she thought she’d caught her younger sister up to no good.

Trying for diplomacy Mae complained, “For once in your life Ember—let it go.”

Her sister just kept giving her a superior stare and Mae realized that as long as she was appearing to shrink from a confrontation, Ember would feel like she had the upper hand.

So Mae straightened up and stepped forward to glare eye-to-eye with the young woman who was practically preening in front of her. Ember, of course, was unphased by any look of ire directed at her. Instead, she smirked and stared her down. And Mae did the same.

The female tempers of the Darnes line ran hot and none more so than in the youngest women in the holding. Ember and Mae had never really gotten along, but they hadn’t come to blows either—yet. Mae was waiting for that day to come though. They fought over everything from who’s turn it was to do the laundry in the old room to who it was that had stolen the last ripe blueberry from the bowl in the cold storage.

Neither was willing to back down.

Which was why even though Mae’s back was literally to the wall, she wouldn’t give sour-faced Ember the satisfaction of an answer…or turning her in to their parents and the elders for fun. Besides all that there was a fine point between responsibility and obedience in sibling rivalry, and Ember wasn’t the boss of her.

“Oh Mae,” Ember said in a mock sympathetic voice.

“What?” Mae snapped—her temper was already high, she didn’t need any mockery from someone she despised.

Ember rolled her eyes. “Have you ever considered that I might just be trying to aid you?

“Aid me with what? I’m just standing here on my lonesome,” Mae said piteously.

“Now who’s playing the dumb one?” Ember said pointedly.

“Alright, well what do you think it is I’m up to?” Mae asked.

She wasn’t expecting Ember to guess, just hoping to run down the morning so her sister would get hungry or summoned and have to leave.

“Something that’ll get you in trouble,” Ember replied with narrowed eyes.

“I’m not always into something you know?” Mae muttered.

“Yes, you are,” Ember said simply.

Then she hesitated a brief second and added, “But if its to help the girls…this time it could be justified.”

Mae almost choked on her tongue. Ember never, ever approved of anything she did.

“Well, this is first,” Mae said with semi-amazement. “You agreeing to something I did?”

Ember waved a dismissing hand. “Let’s not go that far as I still don’t know what it is exactly that you’re doing but it has to do something with that book under your foot I’d wager and it’s illicit if you’re hiding in a back hallway to do it.”

“I’m not hiding,” Mae said indignant. “I just wanted some privacy.”

“Right,” Ember said slowly.

Slightly offended at her sister’s implications, even worse that she was right, Mae said, “Oh just piss off.”

That apparently was the wrong thing to say.

“What was that?” Ember asked sharply—her voice rising an octave into a range that irritated Mae and usually everyone else in hearing distance. It was early morning in a deserted corridor though, so there was only the two of them to hear it.

It didn’t stop Mae from changing the subject by telling Ember, “You know you’re disturbing everyone three rooms away right?”

Ember sniped in response, “Stop deflecting—I asked you a question.”

Mae wondered if she was referring to her insult or the original big inquiry as to what she was doing here.

As if reading her sister’s mind Ember added, “You may think you’re clever by pushing me away but I know you—you’re up to something. Maybe even something I would want to aid in.”

“So?” Mae said—stalling.

“So, tell me. What is it?” Ember said in a cajoling tone with an interested look.

Briefly Mae was tempted. To give in. To answer. Perhaps it would be nice to have some help after all. But it was Ember and the tone in her voice was still the objective know-it-all who thought she was better than her.

So instead of giving in, Mae double-down with a firm answer as she said, “I don’t have to tell you.”

Then Ember rolled her eyes. “You’re acting like a child.”

“Better a child than a busybody,” Mae retorted back.

For her part Ember kept staring into Mae’s face as if she could command her secrets from her with just a look.

I don’t know who she thinks she is, but that look only works with father, Mae thought to herself. Ember’s got nothing on me.

As if realizing that Mae had settled in for a fight from the beginning and nothing would budge her, Ember’s nose went into the air.

Then her voice hardened into a threat as she said, “You’ll tell me what it is you’re hiding Maeryn Darnes!”

For a moment Mae was actually impressed. Her sister was a stubborn as goat. But Mae could kick like a mule and right this moment, she was more than willing to show her sibling just how physical she could get when pressed.

Keep an eye on the Mages By Chance: Algardis #1 page for buy links!

 

New Year, New Pre-Order: 4th Courtlight Series Boxed Set is LIVE

Happy Holidays all!

I hope you had a lovely time so far over this winter season. Just a brief note that my next boxed set is now live on pre-order! If you’ve been dying to read the next chapters in the Courtlight saga and haven’t read Sworn To Quell: Courtlight #10, Sworn To Restoration: Courtlight #11, and Sworn To Justice: Courtlight #12 this is the perfect set for you!

What makes this set a brilliant new addition to the rest? As one of my beta readers said, Hi Emily *waves*:

“Each of the triumvirate is evolving in their own way to fit into the new present where they are both dependent on each other and fiercely powerful individuals in their own right.”

This set highlights the complex changes in the relationship between the three members of the triumvirate, forces them to a reckoning about not only what it means to love one but to love enough to be a unified front, and throws an empire in turmoil, a regicide, a deity bent of destruction, oh and couple of angry mobs.

One thing I love about Thanar, Sebastian, and Ciardis is that even through personal conflict eventually they always realize that the needs of the bondmates come before the needs of the individual. The Courtlight Series Boxed Set (Books 10-12) is all about the growth and divisions of the triumvirate so that nothing will stand between them.

If you’d like to see the three progress as they never have before read Pre-Order the Courtlight Series Boxed Set: Books 10-12:

AMAZON | BARNES & NOBLE | KOBO | IBOOKS | GOOGLE PLAY

 

Sworn To Justice: Courtlight #12 is LIVE!

12 Books, 1 Romance, 15 Dozen Adventures and Ciardis, Sebastian, and Thanar are continuing on strong! I hope you’re ready for the next in the Courtlight series because its here today! Merry Christmas one-and-all! My present from me to you is here: a brand-new novel in the Courtlight series launches today!

P.S. If you haven’t already read my blog post, don’t forget that I laid out all the information on how/why/when the Courtlight series was extended from 12 books to a possible 13-14! Go into Sworn To Justice with the expectation of adventure, exhilarating romance and even more books to come. 🙂

Ciardis Weathervane has come to face what she always thought was a myth. A legend. A goddess bent on destruction.

But it turns out that while the goddess wants to kill all those she loves and cares for, at least her motivations are pure. Ciardis quickly learns however that the Emperor’s conclave don’t hold to that same ethos. While Ciardis is destined to defeat Amani, she must first navigate the perils of an entrenched court balking against interlopers challenging their very existence.

The conclave will they take things further than could ever be imagined, forcing the daemoni prince, the Emperor of Algardis, and the Lady Companion to renegotiate the building blocks of their alliance. Ciardis once thought she had everything in the world – two individuals who loved her, a home in a palace, and power unlike any other. But as she learns – nothing is permanent and everything is up for grabs.

As Ciardis finds herself surrounded by traitors direct from the Imperial Court themselves, she has to wonder-if she’s fighting to save the empire, who is fighting to save her?

Enjoy Sworn To Justice: Courtlight #12 today on all retailers and remember that the series continues in Sworn To Victory: Courtlight #13!

 

The wait is over, a Courtlight series update (Spoiler: its been extended!) :)

Hello all,

I’ve been working hard on Sworn To Justice: Courtlight #12 and it’s DOOONE! OMG yay, I’ve never been more excited to type this out. We’re priming the book and checking it twice to get it ready for your eReader downloads. In the meantime, check out these awesome reader reviewers as Guild members have gotten an advanced look at the book in preparation for the launch –

“This is the best in the series yet!”

“This next chapter in the Courtlight Series has it all – action, adventure, and romance! I loved every moment of it!”

“Terah has done it again. Action packed from chapter 1 and heartache that everyone has come to expect from the Courtlight series.”

“You made my heart stop ?”

“NEVER EVER let it end!! ❤️”

“Terah I LOVE YOU!!!!!!! This has been the best news ever. I will be sleeping with the biggest cheese grin. Lucky #13!!!!! Oh wait until everyone sees this!”

Now on to all the updates on my writing. My sincere apologies for the radio silence. I can’t believe its been nine whole months since my last publication date. That is unusual for me and trust me it wasn’t deliberate. Just a factor of writing this next adventure for Ciardis & Sebastian & Thanar, wanting it to be perfect, and realizing I was cutting scenes that made me so happy.

So now that I’ve figured out the focus on Courtlight #12, I’m back to writing other books in the Algardis Universe, and ready to keep you entertained for the foreseeable future. Which means your 2019 Year is going to be delightful with fantasy, magic, romance, and adventure once more! So I hope you’re ready to buckle in and get even more excited for a hyped new year!

Courtlight #12 will be the first release, perhaps in time for a little Christmas cheer *hint, hint* ^.^, then I will be going on to more books in the Crown Service series as well as some new spin-offs about the dragons of Sahalia and the school for Mages. But I did want to give you a head’s up before you started reading Sworn To Justice because there will be surprises in store, twists & turns, heartbreak, peril and of course – the continuation of the series!

What – you say? More Courtlight books? YES! That’s right. Now, when I started writing this book nine months ago I was sure it would be a simple matter of tying up loose ends, answering all the questions readers had (who is Ciardis Weathervane’s father!?), and making it a riveting adventure.

Turns out that was a huge undertaking to include all of that in one book. So I started writing and kept writing and kept writing. I’m now staring at 150,000 words of magical goodness…and I’m nowhere near done.

Oh, we have a battle with a goddess. A wedding of epic proportions. A father introduced. But so many scenes in between and after each of those momentous occasions need their time to shine.

So here’s what I’m doing – I’m extending the Courtlight series! After you pick up Sworn To Justice: Courtlight #12, now there will be a new title forthcoming – Sworn To Victory: Courtlight #13. I haven’t titled book #14 yet but at least half of it will be filled with more dragons than you could ever ever imagine. And both will have the wedding that will put Harry & Meghan’s to shame. 🙂

So I hope you’re ready! Courtlight has just a little bit more in store for you! In the meantime, keep your eyes peeled and those one-click fingers primed! I’ll be announcing the release of Courtlight #12 quicker than you can blink.

Sworn To Justice – the final Courtlight book – Chapters 1 & 2

So I spent Saturday crying my eyes out, Sunday furiously typing, and here we are one week later with the first glimpse of the latest-and-final Courtlight novel! I am so ready to see what you all think of this next chapter in my original series. 🙂

First let me say how excited I am to be working on the final book of Ciardis, Thanar, and Sebastian’s journey. Every time I open up the manuscript I let out a little squee of delight because let’s face it – these three have been with me so long that its almost like saying goodbye to long-time friends.

As I’ve been writing Sworn To Justice: Courtlight #12 I’ve also been working together plot threads all the way back to Sworn To Raise: Courtlight #1. So you’re getting many answers about different subjects including Ciardis’s father, you’ll see a imperial wedding that I’m also still sobbing over, and a celestial battle that’s been years in the making. Among many other things.

So without further ado, I give you the first two working chapters of the last Courtlight novel. Please keep in mind that this has not been seen by my editor team and even my betas are in the dark, but I hope you enjoy and look forward to the full read!

 

Ciardis Weathervane looked up, up, and then around with wide eyes.

Her mind was trying to comprehend the screeching, howling figures descending down from the sky in massive numbers. It was almost impossible to tell how many were coming at them now. Although she had conservatively estimated the number at hundreds before, she now saw thousands. All because the sky portals weren’t closing.

Instead they were widening and the creatures falling through kept coming without ceasing in a mad dash to enter the mortal realm at their mistress’s bidding. If she wasn’t partially scared and totally infuriated, she might have been impressed. The goddess of death and destruction had found a way around the slaughter of her minions. It was simple and effective and Ciardis had to wonder how long she’d been gathering these creatures in another realm as a back-up force.

But that wasn’t necessarily what mattered at the moment. What mattered was how were they going to fight them? To do that, she had to know what they were and at the moment—she could only guess from this distance. But they looked like scraggly black dots with membrane-like wings as they fell on the winds and swept through the sky.

Beside her, Ciardis heard the daemoni prince say grimly, “This doesn’t look good.”

“Does it ever?” she heard Sebastian say right back without taking his own eyes off the sky.

Ciardis was able to tear her eyes from the teeming mass growing above her only when Thanar began to snap open his larger wings and then close them right back up with unease.

It was like a nervous tic for him but an instant attention-grabber for her.

For reasons she didn’t plan to discuss. Not ever.

For now, she simply turned to him and asked lightly, “Scared?”

She was trying to be humorous in a dark situation but it came out a little tenser than she’d like.

He snorted and said, “Just getting ready, Golden Eyes. You should do the same. They’re coming this way.”

Then he took a step back. Then another. Not in fear though. His stare up at the sky was much too fixed and much too angry. Looking back Ciardis saw that he was right. The flying black dots were gravitating to each other and as their mass of wings and claws drifted lower in the skies it did seem like they were getting closer than ever to her hillside perch.

Ciardis and the others had come up to a higher elevation because it represented a defensive advantage against any enemies. But that only worked if those enemies were on the ground. Instead the goddess seemed to be thinking ahead and her thoughts for strategy were dead on—attacks from the sky and by land.

Grimacing as her eyes swept down from the skies and across the rest of the sweeping forces on the ground, Ciardis had the realization that they sat squarely in the center of a pincer. Even after they had worked so hard to defeat the goddess’s forces with a bold-and-desperate tactic to unleash a wave of magic across the empire so strong that it wiped out the enemies of the Algardis bloodline in one fell swoop, it seemed it still wasn’t enough.

She could see both claws from the goddess’ forces in the air and on the ground coming for her head and Ciardis Weathervane didn’t like it one bit.

Feeling that anger spill over in a mental connection and meet up with Thanar’s own rage only served to stoke the fires of her resentment. Whatever the goddess had planned for a frontal attack wouldn’t work. She was resolute about that. They might have to take a side-step in their plans to face her triumvirate-to-one but Ciardis was quite sure of one thing—they could defeat this group just as they had all those who had come before them. With her lightning strikes and Thanar’s skills in battle, let alone the individuals standing around them prepared to give their own lives for the cause, there was nothing the goddess of death and destruction could do to make them lose.

Ciardis Weathervane would make damned sure of that.

Deciding now was as good a time as ever, Ciardis called up her lighting and let it play between her fingers as it jumped back-and-forth in long, tantalizing arcs.

With a smirk on his face the daemoni prince rose to the challenge as well as he took flight with a strong gust of winds and longswords appearing in both fists.

As anger disappeared from his mental haze, Ciardis instead felt joy radiating from him.

Joy for the coming kills.

Embracing his blasé attitude to loss of life, she even took some of that for herself. If she was to battle against these minions and their deity, maybe it was time that she was a little less emotional and a tad more bloodthirsty.

Just a tad—she couldn’t change who she was after all. But she could certainly show them a side of the Weathervane Companion they had never seen.

She felt Thanar’s approval radiate down even as he rose in the air and her resolve rose with it.

Meanwhile, the mass of black dots was not unaware of their preparations though, and as one the throats of the oncoming beasts let out screeches of raw anger.

It was a challenge for the daemoni prince….and for Ciardis.

Fine, let them vent their anger. She would share her own righteous fury.

They were still far enough away that their focus could be mistaken for a wider target but the chill that went down Ciardis’s spine told her differently. Told her that they didn’t see them, so much as him as their screeching anger seemed to radiate down in a tunnel of echoes that sliced through the air straight towards the daemoni prince.

Looking around Ciardis could see why Thanar would be a prime target. Not only was he a member of the Emperor’s closest circle, but he also happened to be one of the few flying members of the Algardis offensive which could take them on mid-air.

Ciardis frowned.

It didn’t look good that they too didn’t have aerial forces to field as well. That wasn’t for lack of trying though. There were kith members here eager to fight for their homeland just as much as the human contingent was prepared to fight as well. But they were mostly present below on the main battlefield in the flying squadrons, not as personal guards to the Emperor and his retinue who were hundreds of feet away on the mountaintop but might as well have been miles in the distance for all the good it would do with the speed these minions of the empress were showing.

Deciding to not let it bother her, to instead take them on as she knew only she could, Ciardis stepped cautiously to the edge of the ledge where even her weighted cloak began to flap noisily as it was beaten by the fierce winds. Something caught her eyes, not in the sky this time where Thanar took his battle to the air, but on the ground. And it didn’t look too pleasing even from this distance either.

Squinting her eyes as she took a spyglass from her pocket, Ciardis took a good long look at those human and kith mixed together in well-ordered contingents on the fields below. They were packed in tight formation and it would be almost impossible for them to coordinate with the Emperor’s forces up top in time to reverse their positions and flight paths to come to their aid, so she approved when Sebastian conferred with his second-in-command and waved off his request to redeploy forces.

It was the right move.

They were too far off to aid them and would just be gutted from behind by the goddess’s forces lying in wait. This time it would just be up to them to aid themselves.

So like game pieces on a board, she watched from afar as pike soldiers arranged next to battle-ready griffins began to march forward in unison while eager feathered drakes from Ameles took to the skies alongside them with their own bloodcurdling warning cries.

Every one of them focused on the enemy in front, assured that the Emperor and his offshoot of forces could take care of those coming from behind.

Meanwhile high above on the mountain she stiffened in dread as their own piece of the enemy kept coming for them. It took longer because for the moment they were farther away from the area the portals had appeared at, but they would be here soon enough and their offshoot couldn’t back down.

The main forces were taking on the left pincer. She, Thanar, and Sebastian’s deployment were to take on the right. And heaven help either group if the other failed. So swallowing hard and preparing herself for the fury of battle, Ciardis looked up to the skies once more as she memorized every position of the oncoming enemy in preparation.

Their positions of course would change. But it made her feel better. Just as feeling Thanar’s sharp blades cut through flesh as if it were her own arms swinging the longswords also felt invigorating.

Meanwhile she reached out again mentally for Thanar. Almost with unconscious familiarity, hoping that whatever was going through his mind would ease her worry. Maybe he had a plan. He always had a plan after all and since the thoughts currently running through her head mostly consisted of fight and don’t-die she’d take all the reassurance she could get. But instead of warmth and comfort all she got was a blank wall for her troubles.

Glancing at him in surprise, Ciardis noticed that now he wasn’t even paying her the least mind. Too far gone into bloodlust apparently. Which made sense physically, but mentally she felt like a fly swatted away in irritation. This was why even as she spiraled into darkness with Thanar, she knew she could never go all the way. He always had some block, some mental barrier—usually linked to depravity, that kept her from walking into the sunset with him.

At least that’s what she had always felt anyway even if sometimes his block was more her own and as she had learned-and-grown in the court of Maradian, someone’s darkness was someone else’s temptation.

This time she decided to push forward rather than veer away, so she went back up against his blank mental wall and gave him a piece of her mind.

Or at least she thought she did.

But if he heard her, he gave no sign of recognition, which was very unlike Thanar.

Biting her lip Ciardis noticed that maybe it hadn’t been a deliberate attempt to push her away as she thought. In fact, he seemed unconscious to the entire world. Everything except sky above and enemies that would be on them in minutes.

It gave her time to think, if not much anyway.

He seemed to be unconsciously blocking a mental stream of thought from going from his mind to hers, but that didn’t completely prevent her from feeling his emotions.

And from what Ciardis could sense the darkness was only growing in the daemoni prince’s mind. What was once an eagerness to join him as he fought turned to wariness as she felt nothing but bloodthirsty desire. In this ability she almost envied him. His drive to fight and tear apart his enemies was superseding anything else in his mind. He was almost predatory in nature and it was certainly something she she’d never been able to holistically—not naturally anyway.

But did that really matter?

A howling scream distracted her and her eyes flickered from Thanar’s form disappearing in the sky as he was surrounded by a ball of ferocious enemies while more than holding his own to the creature which seems to have locked its gaze on her.

Seeing the drool coming down off its serrated canines as he flew straight for her, Ciardis decided it didn’t matter much at all. She made not have descended into a world of nothing but blood and battle lust, but she could certainly conjure and feast on some anger of her own.

Anger at how unfair the world was—that so many would die today. That they had to battle these minions in the first place. But inside that anger was a core of certainty. Certainty that they would emerge victorious.

She managed to ignore the tendril in her mind that said that they would emerge or die trying.

It wouldn’t do any good to for her resolve to falter now.

No, they had a fight to begin and as her gaze intensified Ciardis would have been unaware that the glint of determination on her face showed in the golden glow of her eyes.

Like sunfire just before dusk.

But the others around her were more than just aware and as they prepared themselves for battle with calmness it almost felt like, to Ciardis anyway, that she embodied more than just a focus point for them.

That she was going to change the world.

She hoped she could. For all their sakes’.

Upon release the 12th book in the Courlight series will be live at https://www.terahedun.com/sworntojustice

Ciardis and her people, the Emperor’s offshoot, watched and waited.

As the intensity of the fight between Thanar and the dozen or so creatures in the air continued, their brethren seemed less committed. The one that had caught Ciardis in its sights seemed to be hesitating now and they circled in the air like vultures rather than dove towards the ground in search of prey.

Heart in her throat Ciardis realized that even if Thanar had the upper hand now that could swiftly change. It would only take one of those creatures to get close enough to lacerate his wings or—let’s face it—a lot more kills for him to tire enough to be taken down and overwhelmed by brute force.

But there were seemingly hundreds of them in the air and a few dozen of Ciardis’s side on the mountaintop to fight back if the daemoni prince fell.

Licking her suddenly dry lips, she knew they couldn’t wait until the creatures decided to attack. They had cunning eyes, but her forces had ingenuity on their side, and right now they were hovering just out of reach of her lightning or the arrows of the offshoot behind her but that could be changed.

They just needed to force them down.

Turning around to see if they had something, anything that could do that Ciardis instead realized something else. With an uneasy look she acknowledged that they were just as much sitting ducks here as they were strategists with the upper hand.

After all there was no high ground when your opponents could fly.

And at the moment the ledge they stood on was an open flat-top with nothing but pebbles for ammunition, which was great when you wanted an entire group of individuals to get a good look at the battlefield below but left them immensely vulnerable when they needed cover.

The winged creatures realized that just as soon as she did apparently because a call went up and suddenly a squadron of the beasties broke off and dove—straight for the triumvirate and the hundred or so guards who were prepared to die for their reborn loyalists.

She felt Sebastian shift into position by her side and a veritable whirlwind of dust stirred up behind her as he called on the land and air around them to defend his people.

As she watched his suddenly gale-strength winds snatch bodies out of the air and slam them into the ground with such force that their hunched bodies burst, she smiled.

It was good to be emperor, was the only thing Ciardis Weathervane thought as she heard warning shouts go up and she felt a stitch of pride swell in her heart at the composure of those around her. That is before she got a good look at one of the flying beasties faces and seeing them close up—fear overtook her instead.

It was the stuff nightmares were made of and it was coming straight for them as it dove around a hapless daemoni prince and dodged currents of living wind that were snatching the rest of its companions out of air like flies.

Tempering her emotions down she studied its face and body for a weak point. Seeing dark gray skin stretch over prominent bone ridges that erupted into jutting horns told her the face may not be the way to go.

But the caved in hairless chest with its scrawny sternum may have just been the bull’s eye target she needed and satisfied as she stared into its bulging enraged eyes coming for her Ciardis smiled and let rip with her lightning for a direct hit.

It screamed and died mid-air and she was on to the next. Catching three more as she fried them to a crisp before one was able to get close enough to land on the ledge right below her feet. For a moment she stared in horrified disgust at its void of a nose that somehow still managed to throb in time with the pulse of blood in the rest of the creature’s body.

But she wasn’t squeamish enough to be stunned into inaction so she pointed and blasted him off the rock he was standing on with enough lightning to make her hairs stand on end.

Then she looked around for more. Before long she couldn’t turn an inch without seeing a new body to scorch and if she wasn’t throwing lighting, which was rapidly tiring her by the way, she was reaching out to the Emperor of Algardis mentally and physically to check on his stores of power and make sure the winds he was calling up alongside the columns of earth used as sharp bludgeoning tools weren’t exhausting him out either.

So far, so good. At least on Sebastian’s end. The true union of ruler and land had done him good. But it wasn’t doing squat for her as she was relying on her own reserves of power while he and Thanar took out their enemies separately one by one.

As she began to pant with exertion Ciardis didn’t falter but she had to wonder just how this was going to end.

The creatures just coming just like the ones who had gathered in the chasm below the wall of Ban had before…and she had to wonder just how many their enemy had stocked away in a realm unknown to them.

The other gods might have been able to tell them but they were all a little busy to consult with the deities at the moment and surviving—of course—took precedence.

As one particularly brutal flying creature that didn’t seem to want to die even after she struck it with lightning came straight for her, Ciardis stumbled back almost uncertainly until she fell within the security of the wall of soldiers bristling around and behind her with their pikes at the ready.

They had been killing the creatures who had gotten close enough to them all along but as ground forces they were limited in their range. At least within them she could take a respite, catch her breath, and then storm back in ready with more lightning.

She hoped.

Until that is until she heard a voice.

“Scared Companion?” came a taunt from above.

Even if she was, she would have never admitted it then.

“Not a chance,” she snapped back quickly. “Just catching a breather between waves of these…these creatures.”

“They’re gremlins,” Thanar said in between killing strokes. “Not creatures. Subjects of the goddess and pretty low-level scum if we’re going to put them on a scale of things.”

Voice uncertain but trying to be game, Ciardis said, “I don’t care if they’re called sheep, they’re endless.”

“Like ants,” Thanar said suavely as he cut the head and arms off two with almost uncanny finesse. “Just snap the head off, their life winks out of existence, and you’re done with them.”

Ciardis blinked and laughed as he demonstrated just that.

She couldn’t help it. Even surrounded by the angry creatures the daemoni prince had flair. And it was his humor even amid a desperate situation that made her snap out of her horrified state.

Discovering that she wasn’t so tired after all Ciardis Weathervane stepped forward to take them all on.

As she surged up with her energy renewed and began popping wings off the creatures like flies after a while she noticed a dead zone in the air above her. Turning her gaze from one of the falling creature’s dead eyes, she saw that Thanar had decided to use his magic to float about fifteen feet in the air above her. And for once he wasn’t surrounded by bodies’ three-creatures deep.

Instead he hovered in a relatively open space of air as he used his magic to stabilize him in place, almost like a sentry above her. As she watched he casually sheathed both of his swords and called up his magic into his palms. With a dexterity she envied he turned that power into two thin cords of brightly glowing orange fire.

Then he let loose.

The magic whipped out in a high-intensity lash that decapitated every creature that came within centimeters of his little protective circle.

He did it another time and the screams that resulted were music to her ears as their burned limbs fell to the ground if they were lucky, and their headless torsos came next if they were not.

Seeing what he was doing Ciardis Weathervane was at once grateful and incensed.

“I don’t need your protection!” she snapped up at him defiant.

The daemoni prince gave her a grin which flashed his pearly white and sharp incisors as he snapped out a fiery whip with a casual flick of his wrist.

Three more died.

“I just thought you looked a little tired,” he called down.

Ciardis rolled her eyes and threw an extra-large bolt of lightning just to show him she wasn’t.

She heard him say, “That’s my girl” but she didn’t deign to respond to the patronizing, if prideful, tone in his voice.

Instead she straightened her weary shoulders and keep going just as the trained forces around her were doing. She had no choice, because Ciardis Weathervane may have been many things, but she wasn’t ready to die yet.

Not here. Not now. Hell, she had barely lived her life so far and she desperately truly wanted to.

She wanted to relax on a bright summer’s day at the beach.

She wanted to walk down the aisle in a spectacular wedding veil.

She wanted to laugh once more with her friends.

Besides all of that she had fought too long to stay alive to let these minions take her out.

So she waved her hand and tossed lightning in the air. Straight for them.

Not to be outdone Thanar kept raining down body parts from the air and a satisfied smile swept across Ciardis’s features as she backed him up with as much lightning as she could throw, ignoring the subtle creep of ache that swept up her arms as she went for what felt like her fiftieth target and endured.

Then Sebastian stepped up by her side and her concentration was thrown off.

Not fatally, but enough for several guards to have to surge forward with swords and shields to gamely take on those that had gotten around her defenses.

As she turned a head to the side and looked at Sebastian with an arched brow, Ciardis said, “Something the matter?”

He replied with aplomb as if they stood at a ceremony at court all the while.

“As a matter of fact there is,” the Emperor of Algardis replied back.

Then his tone turned grim as he said, “We can’t stay here.”

She didn’t give him time to say more because she had to hurl a blast of lightning so heavy into the air that thunder crackled when it smacked into its intended target. It was more than worth the effort—she caught five of the flying gremlins in one blow.

Panting at the exertion but quite pleased with herself Ciardis shook her head wordlessly at him and stepped forward a bit for better positioning.

As she threw more lightning with maniac glee, she told Sebastian, “It’ll take a lot more than a sore arm and a bit of weariness to get me to back down.”

She looked back at him but his attention was taken up by the captain and a top lieutenant he had turned to confer with.

When he turned back Sebastian shouted at her over the noise, “But don’t you see?”

“See what?” she shouted back as she got into the swing of things and kept up her lightning volley. Her magic was flying so fast and furious through the air now that a distant viewer might be excused for thinking this was an almighty storm bearing down on them rather than one eager and incensed woman smiting a legion of flying beasties from the skies.

The sounds of her lightning blasts becoming thunder were so loud that she couldn’t hear what he said next and to be honest – she sort of liked it that way. The energy flowing though her and out in energy blasts was invigorating. Actually doing something was all-consuming.

Apparently realizing he wasn’t getting through to her and frustrated Sebastian climbed up on to the higher perch behind her. Which distracted her just enough to pull her back from the edge mentally and physically. She had to as the rocky platform they were standing on was barely big enough for one person with wide skirts to account for, let alone a broad-shouldered young man.

But at the very least she could hear him without straining now.

So she listened as he laid out his concerns.

“They’re baiting us,” he said grimly as he too fought off diving attacks from the gremlins who managed to evade Ciardis’s lightning based attacks and the lash of Thanar’s fiery whip.

Ciardis turned shocked eyes on him as her hair blew around her face with the force of the heavy winds.

“What do you mean?” she shouted back as she gestured wildly as the teeming field of soldiers fighting below.

“We’re fighting a ten-to-one battle here Emperor,” she reminded him. “And if we don’t take to the field offensive fast we may not be around much longer.”

He shook his head. “You don’t think I know that? But—“

“But what?” she said back in irritation as she turned back and hurled an almighty ball of lightning at a flying gremlin that got much too close for comfort.

Past Thanar’s defensive lines and almost zooming in so fast that she didn’t have time to kill it.

Listen to me,” Sebastian snarled while motioning to his archers to cover their front.

Gripping her shoulders and turning her to him so that she had no choice, Ciardis was shocked enough to drag her eyes away from the battle in the sky and focus on the irate Emperor of Algardis instead.

Upon release the 12th book in the Courlight series will be live at https://www.terahedun.com/sworntojustice

Algardis Universe Giveaway – Personalized Gifts!

Congrats on winning the Algardis Universe prize DAWN ROBERTO! Your package is on the way!


I can’t believe I’m saying it – but the end of the Courtlight series is coming very soon! It’s really hard to imagine but I’ve been writing this particular set of books for five years and now to see it close is just a tad tear-jerking. But it couldn’t have come at a better time as I’m full-throttle into the Crown Service series and opening up a third series in the Algardis Universe that I’ll hope you love this summer as well.

So now – the point of this post. In sincere thanks to you the readers for staying with me so long I’ve partnered with a beautiful merchandiser, Personalized Gifts, to bring a great giveaway to you! You can see the gifts I have for you below and I’m pretty sure every fan of Courtlight can find a use for one item or the other. So enjoy!

 

An Algardis Universe Monogram Necklace and Wine Glass are yours for the taking. Easy entry and the contest is open internationally. Winner is chosen randomly.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Blades Of Destiny is Available Now!

It’s release day! Blades Of Destiny: Crown Service #4 is now live across all retailers! Grab the latest book in the Sara Fairchild series and meet the mysterious Kade who is fighting against everything she stands for.

~~~~

Sara Fairchild was sure of two things when she killed that Kade invasion leader. The first? That it was a righteous kill. The second? That she would always be haunted by it.

Now she’s shouldering the responsibilities of being a leader, not a follower, in the imperial armed forces while trying to figure out exactly what the Empress’s Representative has planned for her. Whatever the blood of the crown wants, Sara knows that she will suffer for it.

As she launches a mission to re-capture Nissa Sardonien, Sara finds out that she’s not the only one playing a cat-and-mouse game. Apparently the Kades have been keeping a closer eye on her than even she knew, and when Sara meets Gabriel—their enigmatic leader with amethyst eyes—all bets are off.

Blades Of Destiny: Crown Service #4 – First and Second Chapters

Hello readers,

I am so happy to see the chronicles of Sara Fairchild progressing so smoothly in the Crown Service series! I also love the reviews and comments I’ve received from readers saying they love her spunk and drive and I plan to continue writing this amazing woman’s adventures through 2018. Though fans of Courtlight do not despair! I’ve got something for you next. 😉

In the meantime, ahead of the release of Blades Of Destiny: Crown Service #4, here are the first two chapters that I can share with you TODAY! It’s been read only by me and my crack assistant Rachel, so I hope you enjoy this sneak peek into the newest book in the Algardis Universe!

Please keep in mind that this has not been seen by my editor team, but I hope you enjoy and look forward to the full read!

Also please think about grabbing the first three books in the Crown Service series BEFORE book four releases. I promise you will have a heck of a time gobbling down over 300,000 words in a single day otherwise.

Blades Of Magic: Crown Service #1

Blades Of Illusion: Crown Service #2

Blades Of Sorcery: Crown Service #3

Feel free to grab this banner below for your Facebook and Twitter feeds!

Sara Fairchild took a deep breath. One that was intended to be calming. Because calming herself down was about the only thing she could do at the moment to prevent her hands from wrapping around Matteas Hillan’s throat.

Again.

Face slack with disbelief as her emotions sidled into disgust, Sara looked at the mercenary her father had entrusted with the very secrets that had cost him his life. It was hard to believe this was his choice. As she stared at the man that she could barely believe was a mercenary, let alone a competent one, there was nothing she could say at this moment that wouldn’t turn this situation from bad to worse, so Sara elected for silence.

Ezekiel Crane however was done with silence.

As they all kept wary ears piqued for the signs of close fighting outside her tent entrance, he questioned the man with rapid-fire intensity.

“What do you remember about the layout of the building?” the scholar in a tightly controlled voice. She approved. The tension that echoed in his tones gave her pause, but by keeping his face clear and his hands from doing anything physical, the scholar was showing them both that he had control.

Control that she lacked. Control of her emotions. Control of her actions.

It wasn’t just the darkness rising up that she feared. It was the subtle whispers, the pushes that made her think the transition to becoming a Berserker wasn’t just a sudden change…but rather instead it was a series of cracks in the glass. Too many cracks and the entire panel holding back her darkness would shatter and with it she would lose more than her own control. Instead Sara feared that she would lose the thing that made her who she was as she fell, she would lose her psyche.

As she thought of that it sent a mild shiver down her spine.

But focusing outward on what was important, Sara watched as her friend stepped forward and took control of the situation when she could not. That was what friends were for after all, threatening others when you yourself were close to doing something that would only dig you deeper into the hole you had made.

Though to be honest it was more of a hole that she had inherited.

She’d only begun this quest due to familial obligation. They’d killed both of her parents after all and the least she could do was find out why. Whether it was the imperial representatives of the court or the unsanctioned actions of the mercenary guild was left to be determined and Sara had the feeling that this journal had all the answers. That her father had all the answers.

Her fist bunched tensely at her side as she thought of all he’d accomplished in his sterling career as an imperial officer lastly and as a brilliant gladiator at the beginning. To see it all stripped down to one heinous word, treason, was to feel like her whole life had been a lie. That her father was darkness and she was too, and that their gifts were merely a manifestation of that darkness in their psyche brought to life.

She wished she could brush away those thoughts. Perceptions that she was more worthless than even those who had spit at her feet in the streets of Sandrin had thought, but it was hard to do when the entire empire knew what your bloodline had done.

So she waited and she quietly hoped, that the man who Ezekiel was calmly coaxing answers out of had some for her. Answers that would quiet the ache in her soul and maybe finally allow her to push back the darkness once-and-for-all. Because Sara might have been most combative against the darkness while on the battlefield, but she knew it was always there. Waiting. Watching. Lurking.

And it always had been.

Turning her head slightly from the distant point of the tent corner which had held her focused gaze, Sara’s eyes flicked over to meet another’s who was watching her intensely. So intensely that her hand flexed on the weapon’s hilt whose blade she had managed to start cleaning methodically as they waited in these tense confines.

There wasn’t much better to do and besides…if there were Kades out there and they were coming for her, a ready weapon at her side would do more good than anything else she could get her hands on.

But as she snapped out of her reverie to find Ezekiel looking back at her with concern in his eyes, Sara had the feeling that he didn’t see a warrior preparing for another battle, so much as a friend in dire need of some help.

Not used to that. Not used to anyone coddling her, Sara did what she did best.

She raised a sure eyebrow and barked at the scholar, “What? Has he finally said something of use?”

She wasn’t really upset at Ezekiel. But rather it was this whole scenario, her whole life really. Starting with the memories that kept appearing like grim flashes in her mind—her abrupt-but-necessary beating of the Kade invasion leader into a pulp not even an hour before foremost among them, but she couldn’t tell him that.

However judging by the concerned way Ezekiel was looking her up-and-down he could tell that while she had washed away the blood, the wounds that had been left behind—emotional this time—still lingered.

Still he knew better to bring it up…especially now in front of a stranger.

Sara had always been one to internalize her emotions and feelings first. Muddle them around a bit and only then speak her mind. Her hot springs bath post-execution of the Kade invasion leader had been the first step in that process but it wasn’t the only step. The other part of the process had involved her getting some shuteye…even briefly before Captain Barthis came looking for her, or she had been forced to go to him.

In either case, it was a moot point now as the captain certainly had his hands full and as she looked at Matteas Hillan who gazed back at her with a piteous expression….she had her hands full too.

He didn’t want her to turn him over to the people who had been chasing him.

Which was fair, she didn’t want him going over to them. That however didn’t mean that she was going to protect him without getting some needed answers first.

“What have you given us except some shut out?” She finally spit out furious as she took a step towards the man she finally knew as her father’s confidante and the camp’s, particular the Red Lion guard’s, logistics aide.

He didn’t answer and Ezekiel stood up to shield him a bit with his body as he walked over to her and said in a soothing voice, “He can’t give us anything if we don’t make him at ease first.”

Sara looked at the scholar with her jaw agape, “Do you see the arrows buried in our floor? Do you hear the sounds of people dying outside? We don’t have time to coddle him!”

“Fine, but snapping at him gives us very few results,” Ezekiel said while gesturing at the man behind them. “And he’s—“

“He’s not simple and he doesn’t need your protection,” Sara Fairchild argued with a snarl.

“That’s true,” Ezekiel replied dryly. “But your pacing isn’t helping either. Maybe you should lie down.”

Sara shot him an ironic look, she knew what he was doing.

“To get me out of the way or to get me down?” Sara said slowly while twirling her sword. Not in a threatening manner, more like a habit that was so ingrained that sometimes she didn’t even know she was doing it.

“Now would I ever say that?” he said with a flash of his teeth in a smile—even as he flinched with the sound of weapons clashing grew closer.

Sara shifted her feet and prepared to move.

Ezekiel said in glumness, “I don’t know what you were doing earlier today or with who Sara Fairchild, but you’re too tired to do this now.”

Sara didn’t disagree with him, she felt her very bones aching with the weariness of a woman who had won her fight but at the cost of her own soul, and all she wanted to do was sleep. But she wasn’t wired that way. She couldn’t just back down when it was clear they were all going to be in imminent-and-present danger. Besides, who could sleep over the ringing of shields and clash of swords they all heard outside anyway? Not her.

All she said to him was, “Not now Ezekiel Crane. We can’t afford to falter. Get the information. Get ready to move.”

He didn’t protest, instead he just sighed as he shot a dark look of his own at the tent entrance. They were both like caged animals waiting for an enemy to tumble through the vulnerable flap doors. There was nothing they could do about that however, none of the furniture present was enough to properly blockade a tent entrance and besides, she didn’t want to get stuck inside if a smart opponent decided to burn the damned fabric walls down around them.

So she waited and paced as she watched Ezekiel do what he did best. Question. Discern. Analyze. And even if the answers were more evasive than useful, he at least could keep his anger from showing through when all Sara wanted to do was light up the small tent space with blistering threats.

Threats which would do no good.

The man who was three times as wide as she was, while still being a mercenary somehow, would only quiver and quail as he withdrew into himself more. Though she did note he managed to be as evasive as a snake while doing so. The only other reason she hadn’t gone over there to shake some sense into him was…she saw something in his eyes and it wasn’t cunning. It was fear.

As her hand stilled the sword that she’d been using to put herself through her formalized paces in the small space, Sara thought she recognized that fear. It was the fear of doing the wrong thing, saying the wrong thing. It was the fear of scaring them off.

While it was true that Matteas Hillan didn’t fear losing the bonds of friendship as she often did, she did see that it was clear he feared for his life and although his eyes jerked towards her every so often it wasn’t her sword his gaze landed on but her face.

He wanted her protection. He might even beg for it. But Sara Fairchild had never been known to back down in front of challenge and this man certainly was one. Not necessarily one she needed but he had fallen into her lap nevertheless. Thinking of how he’d managed to connive his way into the service of the Red Lions—one of the most elite mercenary companies in the empire—she had to admit that what he lacked in courage he most assuredly made up in his ability to be the person everyone needed.

From her father to her father’s enemies and now…her father’s daughter.

Briefly amused as she eyed him askance and Ezekiel continued to question him, Sara had the thought, Matteas must be damned good at his position.

She was very firm in her belief that there was no other way that someone who was both a close ally of her father—accused of treason and executed—as well as a quivering lump of flesh useless on the battlefield would be here otherwise.

Still he seemed to have answers. Answers to questions that Ezekiel was patiently pulling out of him strand by coaxing strand. Questions she would have had asked herself, again had she not been so caught up in her desire to kill the man slumped before them both.

To be fair, he deserved her recrimination. There was no worse place on land or at sea right now for a member of the vaunted imperial armed forces to go, let alone the Empress’s mercenary’s guild, and that was the Madrassa. Fabled as the greatest school for mages ever built in this empire, it only accepted the highest candidates for magical instruction. Those like the weather warden who had died getting their impromptu projectile through Kade defenses and those like the line mage, Arcnus, who had given up his life force alongside him.

The Madrassa didn’t accept fools gladly nor did it take on anything less than the best.

Which was why Ezekiel and Sara were staring at the cringing logistics officer on the floor so balefully.

He’d put those journals in a place no one could reach. No one on their side anyway.

Because the Madrassa was more than just an education institution for mages, by dint of being the best gathering places for magical practice, it also was the home of the Kade’s first uprising.

Although the imperial family had not condemned the whole of the institution for the infractions of one—in their eyes minor, uprising—they had made sure the entire empire was aware that treachery had been first fomented within those hallowed halls.

But just because it was minor didn’t mean it stayed inconsequential forever as the entire empire was learning now. And even if it had, the immediate repercussions of the uprising weren’t something that wasn’t so easy to forget.

Not for anyone Sara knew or for Sara herself. Especially because of what had had happened after the edict from the imperial family had come down.

An edict that no one spoke of. Not because they didn’t know this time, but because they all knew too much. After several more than terse confrontations, the Kades had taken over the institution which had formally belonged to the empire and was a shining example of the exalted progress a former backwater colony of Sahalia had made.

Sara had to admit, losing the Madrassa and it all it represented was like a black eye upon the Empress herself. She had to think the Kades knew that and they also had to know that as such their ruling family wouldn’t rest until it was returned to them.

But that was neither here nor there for Sara Fairchild.

She wasn’t a part of the deployment force assigned to camp outside the Madrassa’s mage-enforced walls night-and-day, waiting for an opening in her defenses.

What she was, was a desperate mercenary who needed to get through those defenses when even the imperial armed forces had failed.

Upon release the 4th book in the Crown Service series will be live at https://www.terahedun.com/bladesofdestiny

Eyes shuttered as she rubbed her forehead in deep thought, Sara groaned aloud as she imagined the impossibility of getting through her own forces, here and there, past Kade defenses, and to the journal.

When she opened her eyes even Ezekiel Crane looked glum.

The scholar was crouched down clearly trying to think of a simple solution to their problem and she saw him visually discard each idea that he came up with as he searched for another. He had either given up on questioning Matteas directly or was taking a breather.

Either way Sara knew what Matteas was requiring of them would be impossible. They  had to retrieve the journals from inside the Madrassa’s hallowed halls. It just couldn’t be done now that the Madrassa was walled off behind Kade protection spells the likes of which the world had never seen. That was on top of the fact that it was supposedly where the eight foremost mages of the Kade rebellion— the ones who had actually caused this civil war—planned their assaults from, which meant even more people to be watchful for.

Maybe they would have had a chance when the school had been just that…a school. But not now when it was the lair of a uprising.

He might as well have just given those journals to the Red Lions, Sara thought in distress.

Their only goal had been to keep them out of her hands, which this did just as well as them burning them.

With a deep sigh, Sara rubbed agitated hands through her head of tangled curls and paced—for once thinking as deeply as Ezekiel Crane. This, after all, wasn’t a situation she could fight her way out of with swinging swords. Not yet anyway. As she turned on the thinly carpeted floor of the tent, Sara thought about what she knew for facts and what she didn’t know…which was a lot.

A boom sounded not too far off and her entire body tensed at the sound of the blast and the screams that followed. But it was a singular boom, not multiple so she unstuck her feet from their stiff stance in the rug on the tent floor and resumed pacing.

The Kades obviously had specific targets in mind, and running outside like a hen with her head chopped off without knowing where to go would have been foolish. After all if they wanted to attack the commander’s tents further after the hail of arrows they would have done so. No, for now they were finished here which gave Sara Fairchild the desperate few minutes she needed to sort out the strands of deception running through her head.

She couldn’t prove that the journals were in fact what the Red Lions had been after when they’d slaughtered her mother, but they hadn’t come over for tea either and she and her mother had owned nothing of value otherwise. For them to kill an innocent woman and use a necromancer to raise her dead body in her own kitchen was just overkill…or a sign of desperation.

So thinking of those journals sitting right under Kade noses was just irony. But only so much. Because she’d much rather they’d be in her eager hands. She fought so hard for them. Shed so much blood.

Which was why she wasn’t giving up. Not yet anyway.

Pushing away her pensive thoughts, Sara tuned her inner turmoil out and struggled to focus on Ezekiel Crane’s words.

“When you say you left the journals at the Madrassa?” she heard Ezekiel question quietly. “Are you sure you meant the Madrassa?”

Matteas peeked up from where he crouched down on the floor trying to make himself as small as possible. A poor attempt considering there was so much of him and so little floor space to disappear into. If the arrows came through the tent walls again, they’d find their target easily and Sara wasn’t feeling charitable enough to drag him to safety again.

“Is there another?” squeaked the man from between his hands covering as much of his head as he could.

Ezekiel frowned and looked away before he spoke in the far-off tone that Sara had come to recognize as his ‘scholar voice’. The one that said he was mentally diving into the research library he stored in his brain and searching the archives for the answer as he spoke.

Aloud Ezekiel Crane said, “No, this is the only one and damn it all to hell that you chose the Kade enclave to store them there.”

His words were scorching with censure and yet…Sara heard something else in his tone. Hope maybe? Wonder even. Sara almost groaned. That was the scholar in him. The scholar itching to get through the doors of the fabled institution and feast his eyes on the all the texts and scrolls the Madrassa had managed to gather within its vaults in the decades since its foundation.

That wasn’t why they were going.

Feeling fed up with both of the men, Sara stepped forward with folded arms as she said harshly, “Don’t tell me you admire his tactic.”

Ezekiel glanced up at her briefly before going back to staring into the air at nothing as he said, “Admire? Maybe a bit. You have to admit it was a brilliant move to store them there. The empress’s traitorous courtiers may have gotten to your father through whatever defenses he was able to muster, but they’d never get through the Kades.”
“Let’s not forget that neither can we,” she shot back.

Ezekiel shrugged helplessly, “Hence our current predicament.”

“So,” Sara said darkly as she kept a keen ear out for more thumps. Thumps that meant explosives were incoming. They couldn’t stay here forever but she’d be damned if she’d run out onto another battlefield without a plan.

“So?” Ezekiel said pointedly.

She rolled her eyes at him but she answered, “So we need a way through the defenses.”

Ezekiel nodded, “Unfortunately I don’t see how an hour’s ruminations is going to solve the problem that we’ve been trying to find a solution to for ages.”

“No, not we,” Sara said softly as she tapped her fingers on the hilt of her sword in a rhythm.

“What was that?” Ezekiel said while looking over at her.

“I said not we,” Sara replied with emphasis, “The empire has been trying to find out how to get into the Kade’s fortress for ages but we haven’t.”

Ezekiel frowned, “Not to be snippy here but does it really make a difference? We’re still screwed if we think we can find out something that has eluded the finest minds this empire has seen yet.”

Sara snorted, “That would be true except for the fact that the finest minds aren’t at court are they? They’re in the Madrassa.”

“And so?” Matteas Hillan actually interrupted and said this time in an odd echo of Ezekiel’s earlier query.

But Sara didn’t mind, instead she mused.

“And who do we have that counts as among those minds?” she said.

It didn’t take long for at least one of the men to get where she was going with this.

Shaking his head Ezekiel quickly replied, “Not to demean your epiphany or anything but I do think you mean had. The rumors strongly suggest that Nissa Sardonien escaped when the Kades attacked.”

Briefly Sara deflated but she wasn’t through yet, she could still get to Nissa. As she thought about how she heard Matteas speak up again.

“Rumors, what rumors?” Matteas Hillan said in a high-note voice that was rapidly getting on her nerves.

Pinning him with a derisive look Ezekiel still explained, “The whispers going about camp before the attack. I spoke to a bath attendant personally who said we’re on high alert. But they wouldn’t say why.”

“Maybe they were just being overzealous,” Matteas Hillan said with a dark look at the tent walls surrounding him. It looked like he wanted to leave the confines just as much as Sara wanted to stay inside. Too bad, he’d snuck into her tent and now he was along for the ride—come hell or high water.

Ezekiel continued unbothered by the interruption as he said, “Not likely. In fact, it doesn’t take intelligence to figure out that the leadership of the imperial armed forces were either expecting another attack soon or they had other problems up their sleeves. Put that together with the fact that all of Nissa’s prison guards were discovered dead but no Sun Mage was trotted out for a whipping in retribution and you have a fact that’s hard to deny.”

Ezekiel may have been speaking to Matteas Hillan but his voice rose the end in a direct challenge to Sara.

She snorted. She wasn’t going to get in a fight over the fact that the scholar knew what she had already found out herself, if only just a few hours ago, and she wasn’t going to deny it either. The mercenaries weren’t fools and none of them having seen Nissa Sardonien in more than three days and nights meant something was up. Captain Simon Barthis, if he was still alive, was a fool to think otherwise.

Shrugging Sara said, “It’s true. She’s gone.”

Ezekiel pursed his mouth grimly and said, “I thought so. The Kades are strategic and they didn’t trap us and fight us to death for nothing. They wanted an important member of their leadership back.”

Sara raised a cocky eyebrow, this wasn’t news to her, however something else was.

“Listen to the outside,” she said softly.

Ezekiel’s eyes flickered between her and the tent entrance but to his credit he immediately did what he asked. She listened as well.

Soon they heard the thumping blast of another projectile hitting its target.

Then silence except for screams.

A minute, maybe three later. Another thump.

“The Kades are attacking,” Ezekiel said with a nervous shrug. “We’ve known that for the past half-hour.”

“Yes, that’s true but listen to how they’re attacking!” said Sara triumphantly with gleaming eyes.

Ezekiel’s eyebrows rose. “You lost me there.”

Hillan spoke up, “Individual projectiles with light, targeted strikes.”

Sara looked over at him in surprise—pleased. Maybe he wouldn’t be as useless as she thought.

She nodded firmly. “They aren’t doing the massive aerial bombardment from before. They could literally wipe us off the map with a single, well-coordinated strike. But they’re not. Instead they’re flushing out individual sections.”

“For what purpose?” Ezekiel demanded.

“I don’t know,” Sara said with a shrug. “Not as long as I’m stuck in here.”
“But you have a guess,” Ezekiel demanded.

She smiled. “I do.”

The scholar blinked warily. “Okay, so will you be sharing it with us?”

Sara turned hard eyes on the one person holding her back from being forthcoming.

“I would,” she said slowly as she eyed Hillan. “But it doesn’t matter what I think. It only matters if our friend here can do his part.”

The focus of her gaze eyed her back and squeaked, “My part? What part?”

Sara knelt down on her haunches and said honestly, “If I can get us through the Kade defensive lines to the Madrassa, can you get us through its walls and to where you hid those journals?”

Matteas Hillan opened his mouth to speak and she held up a halting hand. “The cold, honest truth if you please.”

He shut his mouth and chewed the inside of his cheek slowly as he thought.

Finally Hillan let out a deep breath and said, “I can but I can’t tell you where it is. I’ll have to show you.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

Finally, Matteas Hillan sat up and looked her dead in the eye, for a moment he shed the quivering exterior and she was finally looking at a man with some spine.

He said quietly, “Won’t. I don’t care if you kill me, I’m dead anyway. This way I have leverage. You need me.”
“Ahh, the mouse has teeth,” Sara said finally in a cutting a voice.

“I won’t be a sacrifice,” Matteas Hillan said as the strength in his voice faded to bluster. “I won’t end up left adrift.”

She laughed as another strike hit. This one no closer than the one before, but bigger. The force of the blast was so large that this time shrapnel came whizzing through their tent walls, cutting through the fabric like it was as thin as silk.

They all ducked to avoid the heated metal that passed inched from her cheek in a blur but as she stood up again hesitantly and stared down at the sharpened thin edge of a blown-off axle embedded in her table, she knew that they had lost all time to continue debating.

The Kades were escalating and it was now or never.

“We’ll get you through in one piece,” Sara snapped darkly. “You do the same for us. Do we have a deal?”

Hillan’s gaze was frozen solid on the shrapnel that was currently embedded in his arm. It wasn’t very deep, just a flesh wound as far as she could tell but all the blood had drained from his usually florid face.

He muttered something. Sara didn’t move closer, she didn’t have time to baby them if they were going to be on the move soon.

“Speak up!” Ezekiel said harshly this time. “Or we’ll throw you outside to the wolves were either the Kade armament will tear you to pieces—“

“—or your pursuers will wring your neck,” Sara said while finishing Ezekiel’s sentence coolly.

Matteas Hillan looked up with a pale and whey face as he swallowed deeply, “Protect me and I’ll get you to those journals, I swear on my family’s graves.”

Sara grunted as she pulled him up and he wailed, “Your word will do.”

Then she focused on the wound and ripped the cloth from his arm a bit to see better.

“Ezekiel?” Sara said in a calm tone. “You have any medical tonics on you?”

“Nope,” the scholar said while whistling softly as he poked at the jagged metal in the archivist’s flesh. It was soot-covered and warped from a hot fire. She couldn’t tell what its original purpose had been before but it didn’t matter much anyway, they just had to get it out of him and get moving.

As Matteas Hillan whined, “You do know what you’re doing don’t you?” Sara rolled her eyes and told Ezekiel casually, “Warehouse maneuver?”

He caught her eye and nodded with a remembering grin. “Am I still the flame?”

“Not this time,” she said with a smirk. “This time you get to pull.”

“Warehouse? Flame? Pull-pull what?” said Matteas Hillan in an increasingly frantic voice as he began to stutter as he backed away. That is before Sara grabbed him firmly, then he began sobbing.

“Stay still,” she snapped. “Ezekiel do it before he tears a freaking artery. That’s all we need right about now.”

Ezekiel, quick as a snake, didn’t hesitate. His hand flashed out, grabbed hold of the tip of the metal stuck in Matteas’ arm and yank back. A small yelp from the inflicted patient and a louder scream as Sara didn’t waste any time calling up her mage fire and sealing the wounds seconds later, was all the man had time to process before he slumped over in a faint.

As Ezekiel held the metal in his hand and Sara held the flame in her hand, they both looked down in disgust at the man who had passed out on her floor.

They were at war, no one had time for sleep at the moment, least all the person it seemed that everyone at the moment had reason to kill or capture.

Upon release the 4th book in the Crown Service series will be live at https://www.terahedun.com/bladesofdestiny

Black Narratives Storybundle + Black Panther Pass Giveaway

For those of you looking for a bundle of binge-worthy goodness, look no further. I’m proud to be the curator for a new collection of narratives that I can’t believe I get to even be a part of. Authors like Nalo Hopkinson, Steven Barnes, and T. Thorn Coyle are here to help you soar through a diversity of stories you may not have discovered before. But only for a limited time!

The titles in the Black Narratives bundle will be available for just three short weeks, and feature Nebula, Hugo, and Crawford award-winning authors, including Nnedi Okorafor—author of HBO’s ‘Who Fears Death‘ series.

StoryBundle is proud to present the Black Narratives bundle, a twelve-book speculative fiction bundle that features an unforgettable and unique collection of authors who bring alive lush fantasies and science fiction stories set in assorted time periods and with thematic backgrounds that draw from American, West African, Caribbean, and black cultural heritages around the globe.

The Authors:

T. Thorn CoyleNalo Hopkinson| L. Penelope | Alicia Wright Brewster

Steven BarnesTerah Edun | Nnedi Okorafor |

L.L. Farmer | Karen Lord

A great perk of the Storybundle format is that it’s pay what you want.

That’s right. You can go to Storybundle.com/blacknarratives and set any amount for all 12 of these fabulous narratives.

In addition, EVERY purchase of this bonus will receive an entry into a showing of Black Panther on Saturday, March 3rd (time and location of your choice).

So go ahead, choose your price, grab a bundle, AND enter to win a Black Panther showing ($35 maximum) while you’re at it.

Remember you only have three weeks to grab this bundle and then it’s gone forever!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blades Of Sorcery: Crown Service #3 is LIVE for $2.99 and Blades Of Magic is FREE!

Oh man, I am absolutely horrible at keeping secrets but I managed to keep THIS one. So as the title above states, Blades Of Magic: Crown Service #1 and the first book in Sara Fairchild’s amazing series is FREE. Zero Dollars. You can download it today on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, iBooks, and Google Play for $0.00. Let me say that again –

Now that that’s out of the way, there is one more announcement pertaining to Blades Of Magic: Crown Service #1. I’m having a giveaway to announce the once-in-a-lifetime news (seriously its never been on sale since I published it in 2014) with a simple, easy entry. All you have to do is like and share the Facebook post.

Alright, ready to move on to the pièce de résistance? Then let’s get to the news on the release of Blades Of Sorcery: Crown Service #3! This book is now LIVE.  Yes, you read that right, its waiting for you to gobble down on your ereader, but not only is it live, but for 36 HOURS ONLY – through 01/25 5:00PM EST Blades Of Sorcery will be only $2.99 (or the international equivalent).

I can’t say this without hyperventilating, so I hope you are hearing me, it is live and it is only $2.99 for a day and a half. So I’d grab it up if I were you and tell your friends too.

They need to get Blades Of Magic: Crown Service #1, Blades Of Illusion: Crown Service #2, and Blades Of Sorcery #3 TODAY. There is absolutely no reason not to. 😉