Lindsay Buroker's Blog: Lindsay Buroker, page 9

Eye of Truth, Chapter 6 (a free fantasy novel)

I’m at the airport as I post this, heading back to Arizona. I had a nice trip in Bend, Oregon, where I went river rafting for the first time. And almost lost a contact to a wave in the face. That’ll teach me to volunteer to be the person paddling up front. Tomorrow, I’ll be back to my normal schedule of taking the dogs for a hike, then writing.

In case you’d like something to read this weekend, here’s the next chapter of Eye of Truth! (If you’re coming in new, start with Chapter 1.)

Chapter 6

Jev gripped his chin as he gazed down at his brother’s desk. His brother’s empty desk.

A curtain stirred, and he barely registered it until someone stepped away from one of the tall windows. Jev jumped, reaching for his sword.

“It’s me,” Lornysh said.

“You grew tired of waiting in the watchmen’s wagon?” Jev thought about pointing out that the castle had dozens, if not hundreds of doors, throughout, but he knew full well why his friend had avoided coming straight in.

“I slipped out when they weren’t paying attention. They left to go meet with another wagon carrying more watchmen onto your land.”

“Oh?”

“I jogged down to a bluff overlooking the turnoff and saw people get out of each to discuss something. How to apprehend you, perhaps. The blue-robed women came up with the new wagon.”

Jev scowled. He had expected Zenia to come after him, but he’d hoped he would have more time. He had spent the last half hour poking around his brother’s room, opening drawers and wardrobes and even looking between the mattress and bed frame and into the secret niche in the wall stones where Vastiun had kept his boyhood treasures. Logically, Jev had known Corvel wouldn’t have stored Vastiun’s belongings in any of those places, but he hadn’t known where else to search. He had expected the package he’d mailed to be left unopened on the bed or desk.

“Where’s Cutter?” Jev didn’t want his other friend to be arrested simply because he’d been with Lornysh when he’d jumped the two Order women.

“Last I saw, taking a nap in the back of the wagon we came up in.”

“He’s concerned about the company, I see.”

“I haven’t noticed that dwarves are overly concerned about the doings of humans in general.”

“Elves usually aren’t either.” Jev raised his eyebrows.

“Your people’s incursions into elven lands have made them concerned.” Irritation flashed in his pale blue eyes.

Jev wondered for the hundredth or thousandth time why Lornysh had joined the kingdom army, but he’d asked the question before and never received an answer. Others in Gryphon Company and especially in Wyvern Company had accused him of being a double spy, but Jev had never believed it. He remembered how close to death Lornysh had been when Jev had stopped what had been more torture than interrogation by his men. They’d captured the elf walking solo through the woods and not believed he did not have ill intent. Jev knew Lornysh would have integrated into the army much more smoothly if he had truly wished to be there from the start.

Pushing away the memories, Jev took another lap around the room, peering up toward the ceiling, as if he might find the package dangling from the old candelabra.

He spotted a familiar box wrapped in canvas perched atop a bookcase and snorted. “There you are.”

He had to jump to reach it, and he wondered why Corvel had chosen such an out-of-the way spot. Had he worried the maid would come in and disturb Vastiun’s things?

“This is the package I mailed back after my brother died,” Jev explained as he took it to the desk. The strings tying it were clumsily knotted, and he frowned, knowing that wasn’t the way he’d prepared it for mailing. He’d spent a summer sailing on one of his uncle’s merchant ships as a boy, and he’d learned how to tie various knots. This wasn’t his work. “It looks like Corvel or someone else opened it to see what was inside.”

“There’s nothing magical in it. I can tell you that now.”

Jev glanced at Lornysh as he untied the knots. “You’re sure?”

“Positive. I can sense magic. You should remember that. You found the ability useful on more than one occasion.”

“In finding people, yes, but I didn’t know you could sniff out magic in boxes like a hound finding jerky in his master’s pack.”

One silver eyebrow twitched. “That isn’t the precise simile I would use to describe my talents.”

The knots gave way and the canvas fell open, revealing the box. Jev hadn’t locked it, and it wasn’t locked now. His stomach knotted with the anticipation of pain, knowing he would look again upon his brother’s most treasured belongings, knowing he would dwell upon how Vastiun had been taken from the world far too soon.

As he opened the lid, shouts drifted up to their third-story window. The window Lornysh had left open when he came through it. Like many windows in the castle, it overlooked the main courtyard.

“Someone at your gate is challenging the watchmen’s wagons and the inquisitor riding on a horse beside them,” Lornysh said.

His hearing had always been superior to Jev’s. Superior to that of any human.

Jev hated that he had to rush and tried to detach himself emotionally as he sorted quickly through the box’s contents: gems, metal trinkets, and wooden carvings that had hung on leather bracers. There was also a necklace and scarf, along with the bone knife that Vastiun had inherited from their grandfather.

“No ivory,” Jev murmured.

“Is that good or bad?”

“If it had been here, I could have handed it over to the inquisitor.”

“If it never was, then it’s likely she was mistaken and neither you nor your brother ever had it in your possession.”

Jev sighed. “That’s the problem. I remember there being an ivory charm. Or what I assumed was a charm.” He closed his eyes, bringing the carving up in his memory as clearly as he could. He held up his thumb and forefinger to give an approximation of the size. “It was about that big, the tusk made to look like a tree trunk with a hole in it. The single eye peeked out of the hole. The charm—artifact?—was yellowed and seemed old.”

“I don’t recognize the description, but it sounds like something my people might have made.”

“It must have been made by the Water Order if they consider it theirs. And stolen.”

“Humans don’t make magical artifacts. You haven’t the ability to do so.”

“True. Well, perhaps the Water Order purchased it at some point. You don’t have any idea what the artifact’s power would be, do you?” Jev reminded himself he didn’t know if the charm he remembered was indeed the artifact Zenia sought.

“I would only be guessing.”

Jev was tempted to ask for his guesses, but they were short on time.

He closed the box. “Someone sorted through this during the time between when I mailed it and now, and the ivory item I remember is gone. That’s… a lot of miles and a lot of years. It could have been taken out yesterday or four years ago, here or on Taziira, but Corvel’s disappearance is odd. I’d like to talk to him. Maybe others of the staff know more than my father about where he went and where he is now. I—”

“Jevlain!” his father called in a booming voice that floated in through the window.

“Damn.” Jev curled his fingers into a fist. He needed more time.

“They’re all in the courtyard now. The women included.” Lornysh had moved from the desk to the window and looked down to the flagstones and the fountain. “The women appear healed.”

“How many watchmen are there?”

Should Jev contemplate running? If he was dragged off to a dungeon in the basement of the Water Order Temple, he wouldn’t be able to get to the bottom of this. He suspected the answers he needed were here, in this castle, among those who had lived here when this package arrived and perhaps also who had lived here just before Vastiun went off to war.

“Eighteen between the two wagons,” Lornysh said. “I don’t see Cutter.”

“Your sensitive ears can’t hear him snoring in the back of one of the wagons?” Jev wrapped up the box and returned it to its position atop the dusty bookcase.

“If he were snoring, I would hear him. It’s possible he slipped out when the wagons were traveling up and down the hill.”

“Or he might still be back there.” Jev had no trouble believing Lornysh could slip out of everything from a secured dungeon to chains and stocks in a public square, but Cutter wasn’t known for his stealth.

“Possibly.” Lornysh sounded skeptical.

His father bellowed his name again, and Jev stepped up to the window. He looked down into the courtyard and spotted Zenia right away. The inquisitor’s cool gaze locked on him, as if she’d known exactly what room he was in. Maybe she had.

“I’m coming down,” Jev called, though he still wasn’t sure he should. He wished his father would have lied for him, said he wasn’t here or that he didn’t know where he was. But Jev wasn’t surprised the old man hadn’t. His father wore his honor closer than his undershirt and never did anything that might besmirch it.

“You will go willingly with her?” Lornysh asked as Jev headed for the door.

“Yes. Don’t attack her again, please. Just…” Jev paused and met Lornysh’s eyes, tempted to ask him to lurk around the castle and see if he could suss out information. Even if it wasn’t his family or his world, he’d been an army scout for years, and he was even better at gathering intelligence than Jev. But this wasn’t Lornysh’s problem, not his fight. He’d done enough. He deserved to rest under the branches of a spring flowering tree or head off to seek that culture he’d mentioned.

“What?”

Jev shook his head and smiled. “Stay out of trouble. And out of my father’s sight for now. I’ll try to arrange a more inviting welcome for you and introduce you to my family when I return, but for now, you have my leave to enjoy the trees and rest where you will. If anyone spots you and questions you, say you’re there by my leave. I hope I’ll be back very soon.”

“Very well.” Lornysh clasped his hands behind his back, as if he meant to stay in the room, but Jev knew that if someone were to come up in five minutes, he would be gone. “But do not fear to ask me for a favor if you want one. I owe you my life.”

“A debt that you’ve repaid five times over by now.”

“Hm, no more than four, I should think. You were crucial in assisting in the defeat of that tree golem.”

“By screaming and running so it would focus on chasing me while you shot it full of arrows?” Jev asked.

“You were cursing, not screaming. And I believe you also shot a few of your bullets into it.”

“It’s good to know my actions appeared manly from the outside.”

“Indeed.”

“Anyway, you don’t owe me anything.” Jev lifted a hand as he opened the door, wanting his friend to know that he appreciated the offer even if he wouldn’t take him up on it. “Find a place to rest and relax before you head off on your next adventure. Oh, and if things haven’t changed in the last ten years, there’s a stash of elven wine in the cellar. You’re welcome to it.”

Lornysh’s ears visibly perked up. “Oh? Ryleshno’ronar? Or Synsesthilia?”

“The one I can pronounce,” Jev said, though he had no idea. He remembered quite a few varietals down there.

“Synsesthilia, then.”

“Yes, my mother acquired it. I think it’s a few decades old.”

Lornysh sniffed. “That wine isn’t even drinkable until its aged two hundred years.”

“Stick it in your backpack for later then.” Jev smiled, well aware of elven longevity. Sometimes, he wondered if his people’s tendency to loathe the elves had more to do with the greater gifts the founders had given them rather than their haughty disdain for humanity. “Just avoid my grandmother if you see her. She would pelt you with stale baked goods. She and my father are both… I’m actually not sure what the full story is, but they’ve always made it clear they don’t like your kind.”

“Few humans do.”

“Judging by the number of half elves I’ve seen in my life, I know that’s not true.”

Lornysh curled a lip in distaste. Apparently, he didn’t have his eye on any human women.

Jev left before his father could bellow his name again. As he headed for the stairs and down them, he passed a couple of servants he remembered, and they gave him friendly pats on the back. Mildrey the cook gave him a hug that left him covered in flour. What did it say about his family that the hired help greeted him with far more warmth than his own father?

When he reached the first level, the door to the courtyard coming into sight, his cousin Wyleria strode out of a side passage. She lifted a hand to stop him.

“Jev, before you go, I need to tell you something.”

He glanced toward the courtyard, wondering how long the watchmen would wait before coming in to forcefully retrieve him. Though worried, he nodded for Wyleria to speak.

“I heard you and your father talking about Vastiun.”

“Yes?” Jev leaned forward and rested a hand on her forearm. Could she be the very source of information he needed?

“I know I shouldn’t have eavesdropped, but… I was there first.” She sniffed.

Jev nodded, not concerned at all about eavesdropping. “What about Vastiun?”

“We weren’t living here when he left, so I don’t know if he had a blowup with your father, but Mother and I suspected… Well, he’d been running around with an elf woman. Dating her if his words were to be believed.”

“Elf? Or half elf?” He remembered Vastiun alluding to a woman. Pointed ears hadn’t been mentioned.

Wyleria hesitated. “I don’t know. I saw her in the distance once. She was so graceful and beautiful, I would have believed her a full-blood. But I don’t know what a full-blooded elf would have seen in him.”

Jev thought of his offhand comment to Lornysh about the existence of half elves. Pairings between the races certainly happened, but they had happened a lot more often in the past, before King Abdor turned all of Korvann against the Taziir. Jev hadn’t even seen full-blooded elves around when he’d been growing up, nor had he heard of any interracial romances. It was hard to imagine an elf wandering into the kingdom to date Vastiun while a war between their peoples was going on.

“What happened?” he asked.

“I don’t know, but many people saw them together over a space of a couple of weeks. There was some speculation that her relatives might have come looking for Vastiun, to physically convince him to leave her alone, but I don’t think anyone ever saw them. We were just trying to figure out why he left so abruptly. We had dinner with him and the rest of the family here one night, and the next day, he joined the army and caught a ship sailing to Taziir without saying goodbye to anyone.”

“Hm, I don’t suppose you ever saw Vastiun with a carved ivory charm?”

“Sorry, no. I just thought you should know that it was likely his love life that got him into trouble and had him scurrying for another continent, not anything your father said. We—my sisters and I—speculated that he got her pregnant and that her brothers wanted to kill him.”

“I…” Jev rubbed his head, having no idea what to say. What if he had some half-elf nephew out there that he didn’t know about?

“Jevlain,” his father’s booming voice came down the corridor.

“Thanks, Wyleria.” Jev released her arm and nodded, then strode out to meet Zenia, though inquisitors weren’t at the top of his mind now. He was perplexed about everything going on and had no idea how to start solving a mystery that was more than four years old.

“And here I thought I’d just get some cool beer and get drunk on a beach somewhere,” he mumbled as he walked out into the courtyard.

 

• • • •

 

When Zyndar Jevlain Dharrow walked out into the courtyard, he looked the same as he had earlier in the day. Still scruffy, still dirty, his beard and hair still in need of a barber. Whatever he’d been doing in the hours since his elf buddy jumped Zenia and Rhi, it hadn’t been bathing.

Zenia watched him as he walked across the flagstones toward her, Rhi, and the six watchmen they had brought into the courtyard. The castle’s guards had come out of the woodwork like termites when she’d tried to lead the watchmen’s two steam wagons inside, so they remained on the other side of the moat. She had envisioned a fight breaking out during which it would have been useful to have metal vehicles inside the castle to hide in and behind. Maybe the guards had envisioned that scenario too.

Fortunately, Jevlain’s father, Zyndar Prime Heber Dharrow, hadn’t rushed out wearing armor and waving weapons. The rangy white-haired man had simply asked what they wanted, then called for his son. He hadn’t appeared surprised by Zenia’s appearance, so she assumed his son had warned him.

Heber stood to the side now, forearms crossed over his chest. He wore patched and dirt-encrusted workman’s clothing, and Zenia had been surprised when he’d introduced himself. There was no sign of the silks and velvets so many of the zyndar favored.

“Jev,” a woman blurted, making Jevlain pause before he reached Zenia.

A plump, white-haired woman rushed down a set of stone stairs leading from a garden balcony overflowing with vining flowers and potted shrubs. She carried a wicker basket and hustled along remarkably quickly considering she looked to be in her eighties.

“Were you going to leave without coming to see your grammy?” she demanded. “I baked for you. We were preparing a special dinner.” She waved toward an open doorway.

The scents of cooking food had been wafting out of it since Zenia arrived, a simmering seafood stew, baking bread, and roasting eggplant. It did smell appealing.

Jevlain winced. “I’m sorry, Grandmother.”

He bent to hug her as she approached, a movement made clumsy by the basket in her arms. As soon as they broke the hug, she thrust it at him.

“You can’t leave again without snacks. You must be famished after ten years away from home.”

“We occasionally ate in Taziira.”

“Bird food, I’m sure. Worse, elf food. Look how skinny you are. You must stay for dinner so I can fatten you up. And I’ll catch you up on all the news. The Dangledorts are getting married, you know. Second cousins marrying. It’s scandalous. So is the size of the wart I’ve developed. Do you want to see it? I’ve got something growing under my toenail too. I keep telling your father to bring a healer to attend me, but I can see I’ll have to take a horse into town myself. My butt gets terribly sore, though, when I have to sit in a saddle for more than an hour.”

Zenia blinked slowly a few times at the randomness of the “news.” As the woman rattled on, Zenia decided she must have lost a few of the spokes in her wagon wheels over the years.

Jevlain patted his grandmother on the back and glanced at Zenia, his expression surprisingly apologetic, as if to say he hadn’t intended to delay her further.

Zenia folded her arms over her chest.

Next to her, Rhi fingered her bo.

“We’re not going to beat up any eighty-year-old grandmothers while we’re here,” Zenia whispered to her, though perhaps a little tap to her hip to prod her out of the way would be in order.

“Actually, I was thinking of hooking that basket by the handle and claiming it for the temple. That looks like banana bread.”

“I see something green. Everything’s probably wrapped in gort.”

“Gort is fine if it’s sautéed and doused with cinnamon and honey.”

“That sounds awful.”

“It’s delicious, I assure you. All vegetables are tastier when smothered in honey.”

“You’re an odd monk. Doesn’t one of the Codices command monks to eat healthful foods?”

“The New Codex, yes, and I eat lots of healthful foods. I had a huge steaming pile of gort and fish this morning.”

“Smothered in honey?”

“It was a glaze, and it was only on the fish. There’s nothing in the Codices about honey. Unless one counts the maxim that it’s easier to steal honey from bees once you’ve blown smoke into their hive.”

Heber Dharrow came over and helped Jevlain extricate himself from his grandmother’s attention, drawing her aside so his son could continue his walk toward Zenia.

Rhi let out a wistful sigh. Because Heber had claimed the basket and it wouldn’t be coming with them?

“I’m sorry, Inquisitor Cham,” Jevlain said, bowing when he stopped in front of her. “I hadn’t meant for our earlier conversation to be interrupted, but I see that you’re diligent in performing your duty and have located me again. Would you care to stay for dinner? My grandmother would be delighted.”

Rhi cast a hopeful look at Zenia.

“No,” Zenia said without looking at her.

“Then I won’t feel bad that I didn’t bathe and shave,” Jevlain said.

“We don’t require it for questioning sessions.”

“So happy to hear that my armpit odor won’t upset your interrogation.”

“We’re professionals.” Zenia closed her mouth, irritated that she’d allowed herself to be drawn into bantering with him. She traded jokes with Rhi, but Rhi was her friend and colleague. This man was a suspect and perhaps a criminal. Maybe even worse if he spent time with elves. “Where is your elf colleague?”

Rhi gripped her bo at this reminder, and she looked around the courtyard anew, eyeing the doors and windows.

“Elf?” Jevlain asked mildly, arching his eyebrows.

As if he didn’t know.

“What elf?” Heber left the grandmother’s side and stepped forward, his hands balling into fists. His gaze skewered Jevlain.

Zenia almost would have called the expression hostile, and that surprised her. Her father was an ass she’d only spoken with once, but she’d assumed relatives who actually lived together would have better relationships.

“Elf?” the watch sergeant Zenia and her team had met out front asked. “We captured an elf and a dwarf with Zyndar Dharrow.” He pointed to Jevlain.

Heber’s eyes grew even harsher as he glared at his son.

“Captured, Sergeant?” Jevlain asked, not looking at his father. “I must object to your verb choice. We came willingly with you. In fact, you called it an escort.”

“What were you doing with an elf?” Heber asked his son. “It had better be a prisoner you took to be your manservant.”

“I’ll show you, ma’am,” the sergeant told Zenia and hurried toward the drawbridge and the wagons parked outside.

Zenia didn’t follow him. She didn’t want to take her eyes off Jevlain. Just because he’d come out at his father’s beckoning didn’t mean he intended to come with her peacefully. His elf buddy might be waiting outside the castle walls to spring another ambush. Her temple throbbed at the memory of the last one.

“Go check,” Zenia told Rhi when the watch sergeant paused in the gateway and looked back at them.

“And leave you without a bodyguard?” Rhi protested. “You’re in hostile territory.”

Jevlain raised his brows again. “I didn’t know a discussion of armpit odor signified impending hostilities.”

“Funny,” Zenia said flatly.

He bowed.

Heber crossed his arms over his chest again, his eyes closed to slits as he watched the proceedings. He was glaring at just about everyone, but he especially looked like he wanted to drag his son aside for questioning. The grandmother had stopped speaking, but she held a concerned hand over her mouth as she listened.

“Rhi.” Zenia tilted her head toward the watch sergeant.

She didn’t like to order Rhi around, but Rhi was assigned to work for her.

“Fine, but if his armpits assail you, don’t blame me.” Rhi stalked out of the courtyard.

Jevlain lifted his arm and turned his nose. The watchmen shifted, hands twitching toward weapons. Jevlain only sniffed and lowered his arm.

“I do believe that she and her bo would be powerless to halt such an assailing,” Jevlain said.

Zenia didn’t know what to make of his humor—people didn’t joke with inquisitors—but she found it suspicious. Maybe he wanted her off guard so she wouldn’t be ready when the elf attacked.

Rhi walked back in. “They’re gone.”

“The elf and the dwarf the watch supposedly captured?” Zenia turned her flat stare on a corporal—the sergeant hadn’t come back in.

The corporal spread his arms and gave her an I-don’t-know-anything-about-it look.

“Oh, I believe they were there at one point,” Rhi said. “There are two watchmen tied up in the back of the wagon.”

Jevlain regarded the revelation blandly.

His father continued to watch his son, looking like he wanted to question him. Or throttle him.

Jevlain glanced at him but only for a second. “Shall we go, Inquisitor? I’m ready for your questions. I’m hoping you’ll be able to use your magic—or toenail-removing tools—to see that I’m innocent of your accusations.”

“If you’re innocent of the theft, then you have nothing to fear.”

Judging by Jevlain’s wry twist of the lips, he didn’t believe that.

Heber grumbled under his breath, then turned and stalked away. Zenia didn’t catch all the words, but she thought it was something about how zyndar hadn’t been accused of crimes in his day.

Well, his day was over.

“Hand your weapons to one of the watchmen, Zyndar,” Zenia said.

Jevlain’s eyebrows disappeared under his shaggy bangs. “What?”

Zenia pointed exaggeratedly at the sword and pistol on his hip—he’d left his rifle and pack somewhere since she’d seen him last—then pointed at the corporal. She had made the mistake of letting him keep his weapons before. Even though he hadn’t been the one to attack her, she had no doubt he’d conspired with the elf and commanded him to do so. And since she expected to see that elf again… she wouldn’t make it easy for Jevlain to join in against her and her team.

“You’re under arrest,” she said to the consternated expression on his face. “Prisoners don’t get to retain their weapons.”

“I thought I was just being brought in for questioning.”

“Hand over your weapons.” This time, Zenia drew upon her gem and added magical compulsion to the words.

His fingers twitched toward them but stopped. His jaw clenched.

“Corporal,” Zenia said. “Remove Zyndar Dharrow’s weapons.”

“Uh.” The watchman hesitated, looking back and forth between her and the steely-eyed Jevlain. His last glance toward her took in her long blue robe. “Yes, ma’am.”

He walked warily toward Jevlain, and Zenia felt smug satisfaction that the corporal had decided he would rather not irk her than a zyndar. She did her best to keep the emotion off her face, since inquisitors were supposed to be too wise and mature to feel smug.

Rhi watched Jevlain as the corporal stopped next to him. Would her prisoner object?

Jevlain looked like he wanted to. A hint of that arrogant zyndar indignation came through the dirt and beard growth on his face. But he lifted his arms so the corporal could remove his weapons belt.

The corporal wobbled slightly and wrinkled his nose. If those armpits were bad enough to affect a sturdy watchman, Zenia decided she wouldn’t put her nostrils anywhere near them.

As soon as the corporal backed away and Jevlain lowered his arms, Zenia said, “This way,” and strode out of the courtyard. She glanced back to make sure Jevlain did not dawdle.

He didn’t. He strode beside her, matching her pace.

His quick willingness to depart made her believe his elf friend was indeed waiting somewhere to spring a trap.

When he turned toward the back of one of the wagons, Zenia raised her hand. “Sit up front on the bench with the driver. I’ll ride beside you. So we can talk.”

She nodded toward the two horses that she and Rhi had ridden out to the castle. She hadn’t wanted to be stuck on one of the steam wagons if she needed to chase someone into the hills. The vehicles could match a horse’s speed on a flat and groomed road, but they couldn’t tear off into pastures and forests.

“So we can talk or so you can watch me?” Jevlain asked as Rhi mounted her horse.

“Given that people riding in the backs of those wagons have a propensity for being tied up, I’d think you would be glad to ride out here in the open air.” Zenia nodded toward the sky. The sun was setting, painting the sea orange below them, and she hoped they could make it back to the temple before darkness fell.

“I would have been willing to take the risk, but if you want to start our talk now, I’m willing. Perhaps you can find me innocent, and I can return to the castle tonight.” Jevlain sent a pensive look over his shoulder at the towering structure.

Zenia was surprised he was eager to return to his father’s frostiness.

“We’ll see,” she said, though she had no intention of trying to use her interrogation magic on him on the road. It took concentration, and with the dwarf and elf unaccounted for, she dared not let her attention stray for long.

As she mounted up and the two steam wagons rolled away from the castle, Zenia looked at the pond, the pastures, and the countryside that stretched away for miles, seeking places where one might set an ambush. Copses of trees dotted the land behind the castle, but the wagons wouldn’t head in that direction. There weren’t any dense forests along the road back, either, unless one counted the mangroves that lined the Jade River. The road did pass within a half mile of them later on, so she would be vigilant. It would be twilight by then, and elves reputedly had excellent night vision.

As the caravan descended toward the highway, Zenia watched Jevlain as often as she did the surrounding land. Though she didn’t want to risk being distracted, she occasionally drew on a trickle of magic to try to get a feel for his thoughts, to see if he expected his friends to jump her and the watchmen.

He seemed more resigned than anticipatory. She mulled on that. Was it possible he didn’t have anything planned? He likely could have escaped through some secret passage under the castle if he’d wanted to avoid her.

“Why did you run to your family grounds, Zyndar?” she asked. “You must have known it would be the first place I would look for you.”

Earlier, she’d assumed he would go to get help from his father, but now that she’d seen the two men interacting—or not interacting—she doubted they had a strong relationship.

“You can call me Jev.” He shifted on the hard metal bench he shared with the wagon driver. The stack puffed black smoke behind them.

She opened her mouth to tell him to answer her question but paused. She couldn’t remember a zyndar ever telling her to use his first name. Was he attempting to win leniency with the offer? And maybe he’d meant to soften her attitude toward him with his humor. She couldn’t imagine that a zyndar would otherwise invite familiarity from someone who’d grown up a lowly commoner.

“Answer my question, Zyndar Dharrow,” she said firmly to let him know that no matter what he wanted, she was not interested in developing familiarity with him. She’d only started thinking of him by first name because it had been confusing when his father, who would also be addressed as Zyndar Dharrow, had been around.

Rhi, who was riding on her other side, shook her head as she listened. No doubt, she thought Zenia should trade witty banter with the man and then invite him over for the reading of plays.

“I was looking for something.” Jevlain tilted his head and looked at her. “Your artifact, in fact.”

“The artifact you claimed to know nothing about?”

“I still know nothing about it, but I thought… I’m not sure if I’m circling the right tree at all. Can you tell me more about why your Order thinks I have it? They don’t truly think I stole it, do they?” Though he was speaking casually, his shoulders stiffened at that last question, and he sounded genuinely affronted. “Is it more that they think it may have come into my possession? Did it make its way overseas and to the Taziir continent where it might have ended up in my hands?”

He was asking reasonable questions, and Zenia was embarrassed to admit she didn’t know the answers. Archmage Sazshen had said he took the artifact and would know where it was. Zenia hadn’t had a reason to question her. It was normal for her to be assigned missions without in-depth explanations. She was typically expected to learn any extra information she needed along the way.

“I—”

“Is that smoke?” the driver next to Jevlain asked, half standing to peer into the twilight sky ahead.

“Yes,” Jevlain said.

“I see it too,” Rhi said as Zenia located the spot.

Ominous black plumes rose from one of the villages ahead and to the right of the highway, plumes far larger than those coming from the stacks of the steam wagons.

“There’s not a smelter or anything there,” Rhi added. “That looks like trouble.”

“Conveniently timed trouble.” Zenia frowned at Jevlain.

He pointed at the road ahead of them. A horse had appeared around a bend, its rider slapping its flanks with a crop to encourage greater speed. The beast was already galloping, heading straight toward the wagons.

“Rock golems!” the rider yelled, spotting the watchmen. “Two rock golems are smashing our village. We need help!”

“I knew it,” Zenia snarled, her frown turning to an outright scowl. She was tempted to yank out the pistol holstered inside her robe and jam it to Jevlain’s temple. “You’ve got the dwarf helping now too.”

“Cutter?” Jevlain shook his head. “He can carve gems and bring out natural magic, yes, but I’ve never seen him summon stone creatures.”

Zenia had to nudge her horse into a gallop to keep up, for the sergeant of the watch ordered his wagon drivers to pick up speed and race toward the village.

The rider from the village drew even with them, but he continued past instead of turning around to ride with the watchmen. He yelled again about the rock golems but didn’t want to answer any questions. He threw terrified glances over his shoulder and kept going.

Jevlain turned on the bench to watch him, then frowned over at Zenia. “Why would he have run this way?”

“What?” she asked, not grasping Jev’s question. She was too busy being suspicious of him. And watching their surroundings. The highway had turned toward the river, so they weren’t that far now from the mangroves. The perfect hiding spot for ambushers.

Rhi stood up in her stirrups, also scouring the landscape with her eyes.

“If he wanted to warn people or get help for his village,” Jevlain said, “he should have ridden toward the city.”

The driver didn’t pay attention to him. He was alternating steering and loading more coal into the firebox behind the bench. The vehicle threatened to outpace Zenia’s horse, and she was tempted to tell Jevlain to jump off. She hadn’t imagined him getting away by simply being on a watch wagon that was too fast for her to keep up with.

“I think it’s a trap,” Jevlain added, yelling to be heard over the clattering of the vehicle and hooves on the stone highway.

“Of course it’s a trap,” Zenia yelled. “Your friends set it.”

Jevlain shook his head and opened his mouth. Before he could speak, a rifle fired from off to the side of the highway.

“Get down,” Rhi barked, dropping low in her saddle.

Jevlain jerked, then tumbled off the wagon seat, right into the path of Zenia’s horse. The mare reared up with a screech of alarm, almost throwing Zenia.

Jevlain had enough presence of mind to roll away from the hooves as the wagon kept going. The driver glanced back as Zenia struggled to quiet her mare, looking like he might slow the wagon. But the sergeant in charge yelled at his man and pointed to the smoking village, saying the residents needed their help.

Zenia had always thought golems and trolls and other monsters were something explorers encountered on distant adventures in far-off lands. They certainly didn’t appear here, scant miles from the capital city in one of the most populated kingdoms in the world.

But even as she tried to calm her horse and keep an eye on Jevlain, she saw exactly what the rider had promised. Giant rock golems. Two of them.

Chapter 7 Coming Soon!

Eye of Truth, Chapter 5 (a free fantasy novel)

I’m on vacation for a few days and off to wander through a lava tube in Eastern Oregon, so I’ll just post the next installment here without comment. Hope you’re having a great week!

Eye of Truth: Chapter 5

Sun slanting through a window onto her bed made Zenia open her eyes. She squinted and turned her head, promptly aware of a dull ache from her temple. As her eyes focused on a blue gi in front of her, she grew aware of her surroundings—a hospital bay full of beds with Rhi standing next to hers, one sleeve rolled up to reveal a bandage wrapping her arm.

“What happened?” Zenia croaked.

“An elf beat us up.”

Zenia grimaced. Unfortunately, she remembered that part well. The elf’s unexpected power and preternatural speed. More than that, he’d had mental defenses that she hadn’t been able to get through. Though their fight had been depressingly brief, she’d had time to try a couple of mind attacks. He’d shrugged them off as if they had no more power to disturb him than raindrops.

“Then what happened?”

Rhi shrugged but cut the movement short and winced, touching her shoulder.

“I woke up in the bed next to you there.” Rhi pointed at wrinkled sheets. “A nurse informed me that Zyndar Dharrow and his unlikely friends brought us here and paid for our treatment. And then a very furry doctor spoke into my mind, and I got distracted.”

“Furry?”

“A unicorn.”

“Oh.” Zenia had heard of the hospital in town where a black-and-gold unicorn from Izstara used his magic to heal patients and teach doctors. That meant they were less than eight blocks from the temple where she had been taking Dharrow. But she had failed, and now he walked free.

She groaned, imagining how disappointed Archmage Sazshen would be when her star inquisitor came home empty-handed.

“It wasn’t that bad,” Rhi said, mistaking the reason for the groan. “He said I would live and that I can use my shoulder a little bit now but that it will require three days to fully regenerate. I think he treated you too. Your face was a lot bloodier when I first woke up. The nurse sponging away the blood was cute. You should thank him for his efforts by taking him out to dinner.”

Zenia groaned again, this time for a different reason. She’d gotten used to her monk colleague trying to set her up with men, but this wasn’t the time for it.

“I’m not looking for men, especially when I’m on a mission,” Zenia said. “You’ll have to thank him for me.”

“You know that the Codices of the Monk dictate that I be chaste, unwed, and fully devoted to the Order, heart, soul, and loins.”

“I know that you and your loins frequently practice chastity with company.”

Rhi smiled. “I’m positive I don’t know what you’re talking about. If I bring a pretty man to my room to entertain me by reading plays until the wee hours of the morning, there’s nothing wrong with that.”

“I’ve heard from your neighbors that the readings get noisy.”

“Since they’re plays, the various parts have to be acted out.”

“Vigorously, no doubt.”

Rhi grinned.

Zenia pushed herself gingerly up on one elbow, fearing the pain at her temple would intensify, but the dull ache remained at a constant level, one she could deal with. Good. She had a mission to complete. She had no intention of returning to the temple until she recaptured her man.

“I’m surprised the zyndar paid for our treatment,” Rhi said. “Though his pointy-eared demon of a friend was the one responsible for our injuries, so maybe it’s fair.”

“I’m certain he was hoping to win leniency from the Order.” Zenia pushed herself into a sitting position and looked for her robe. Someone had removed it, leaving her in her linen chemise. She grimaced when she spotted it hanging from the bed knob, damp and wrinkled. Had someone attempted to wash out her blood? Apparently, unicorn magic wasn’t used for laundering.

“Will it work?”

“Winning our leniency? No.”

“Are we going after them again?” Rhi looked to where her bo stood propped against the stone wall. Her words came out neutrally, without any of her typical enthusiasm for a mission.

“Don’t want to face the elf again?”

Rhi took a deep breath and let it out. “If that’s what we have to do, I’m with you, of course. But I do recommend taking reinforcements. This zyndar didn’t seem to realize your fearsome reputation was supposed to cow him into coming along quietly.”

“He came along. It was the elf who was problematic.”

“Yes, he definitely wasn’t cowed.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not foolish enough to try the same tactic more than once. We’ll assume they’re going to continue to travel together, and we’ll requisition some help. The watch will be willing to supply some men to assist an inquisitor.”

Rhi raised her eyebrows. “You don’t think going to the temple for another mage and three or four more monks would be better? The watch has low standards.”

Zenia smiled faintly, well aware of the nonviolent feud the watch and the monks of the four Orders seemed determined to continue for all eternity. She’d long suspected politicians from the kingdom and the Orders fomented that hostility, so one group could be convinced to fight the other if someone tried to claim more than their share of the pie of power.

“I think a squad of watchmen will be sufficient,” Zenia said, not wanting to explain her desire to avoid the temple and Archmage Sazshen until she could stride up the stairs with Dharrow in shackles.

“If you say so. Any idea where the zyndar and his friends will run off to hide?”

Zenia stared down at the floor. She could use her gem magic to track criminals she’d met in person if they weren’t out of her range, but she always preferred to use her mind. Though she was grateful with all her heart to the Order for awarding her a dragon tear, it was so much more satisfying when she captured men with nothing but her wits.

“Most criminals wouldn’t be foolish enough to run back to their families, since the watch would look for them there first, but Jevlain Dharrow has been away for ten years. I think he’ll go home. His father is still alive and, I believe, acting as zyndar prime for the estate. Jevlain may think the man has the power to help him out of this situation. I think he’ll also be arrogant enough to believe we won’t cross onto his family’s property to collect him.”

Long ago, a zyndar’s land had been considered almost a country unto itself with extradition papers signed by the king required to retrieve someone who’d been granted sanctuary there. Those days were gone. The king’s justice crossed all borders in the land, and no property was truly private anymore.

“But we will, right?” Rhi asked.

“I’ve never been one to bow to zyndar arrogance.”

“I’m glad to hear it. But just so you know, I’m going to let you go first.”

“Why don’t we let the watchmen go first?”

“The New Codex says its cowardly to hide behind lesser warriors.”

“But hiding behind inquisitors is acceptable?”

“I believe it’s encouraged.”

“I really must read these Codices someday. To see how accurate your interpretation is.”

“As a noncombatant, you’ll surely find them dry and boring.”

“You wouldn’t be trying to discourage my perusal, would you?”

“Not at all.” Rhi smiled benignly and reached for her bo.

“Inquisitor Cham?” a nurse asked, scurrying forward while ducking his head and wringing his hands. “I’m so sorry you were injured. Our director, the unicorn Oligonite, healed you himself. Your skull was cracked and your brain swollen. It must have been terribly uncomfortable, but all the pain should fade away by the end of the day. Our director is the best. Can I get you anything? The fees have already been covered, but even if they hadn’t, we would not be comfortable charging you.”

“I’m fine,” Zenia said as the man continued to wring his hands and avoid her eyes.

Was he nervous because of her job and her reputation? Or because of some crime he had committed?

She knew from experience that even those who hadn’t committed crimes sometimes felt guilty around inquisitors, perhaps for some long-past indiscretion that they regretted, or simply because they feared they could be dragged off to a dungeon by mistake.

As if Zenia made mistakes.

She drew upon the power of her dragon tear and funneled the magic toward his skull, gently probing to see why he was worried. Guilty thoughts floated at the surface of his mind. Thoughts of sneaking bandages, poultices, and medicinal substances home from the hospital so that his wife could use them on their six children and also the three nieces that they’d cared for since his sister had passed. He wouldn’t have taken the items, but the nurses weren’t paid much…

Zenia rubbed her head, withdrawing her mental touch.

“I’m fine,” she added again. “You said our healing was already paid for?”

“By Zyndar Dharrow, yes.”

“I see. Thank you.”

“Please let me know if you need anything,” the nurse said, backing away as he spoke. He almost tripped over his feet as he turned to leave the bay.

“It’s going to be quite the feat to find a nice man willing to go to dinner with you,” Rhi said.

“That’s not my priority right now,” Zenia said.

“From what I’ve noticed, it never is. Sometimes, I wonder if I should try to find you a nice woman, but I’ve never caught you ogling me, so I assume that’s not where your interests lie.”

“Maybe you’re not ogle-worthy.”

“I assure you, I’m terribly appealing when I’m out of this gi.”

“Uh huh.”

Zenia swung her feet to the cool stone floor so she could put on the damp robe and hunt for her shoes. It was time to retrieve a wayward thieving zyndar. Without thinking about the fact that he’d paid for her healing. She was positive he’d sought to win her favor so she would look the other way. That would not happen.

 

• • • •

 

As the wagon rolled closer to Dharrow lands, the densely packed houses and commercial dwellings of the city giving way to small farms and horse pastures, Jev alternated between listening to the watchmen talk to each other and contemplating how he’d ended up wanted by the Water Order.

Zenia’s absurdly brief description of the missing artifact wasn’t that helpful. What had she called it? The Eye of Truth?

He’d never encountered an eye carved out of ivory. He had handled all manner of dragon tears and lesser gems over the years, and his soldiers had occasionally found tools and artifacts, ivory and otherwise, among the elven camps they had managed to overrun, but he’d never pocketed any of them for himself. Per his orders, he had boxed up any loot they recovered and sent it back to the king’s castle for Abdor’s people to analyze. It had always bothered him to take such loot, even if the items might be used to humankind’s advantage, and he never would have considered pocketing interesting pieces. He’d always hoped the loot would be returned when the war ended, perhaps as part of a treaty. He doubted that had happened. In the end, there hadn’t even been a treaty. The king had died, and his people had withdrawn. He didn’t think anyone had even told the Taziir.

“You think we’ll still have jobs after the coronation?” one of the watchmen asked the other.

The two guards sat on benches across from each other, placed so they could ensure Jev, Cutter, and Lornysh didn’t jump out the open back of the wagon. As if the men could have stopped Lornysh if he was inclined to leave.

“Why wouldn’t we?”

“They say the new king was a soldier and will favor soldiers. Give the men who just came back our jobs.”

The watchmen looked over at Jev, eyeing his soldier’s uniform. As if he might even now be contemplating his application to the watch. Or captain of the watch, he supposed. One of his distant ancestors had held that job at a time when only zyndar had been considered capable of such a critical position. The captain commanded hundreds of men and had to ensure that the underworld guilds never grew too powerful or became a threat to the average citizen. Jev had no idea whether a zyndar or common man held the spot now.

“What do you know of the new king?” Jev asked, having forgotten about Targyon’s predicament while dealing with his own.

“They say he’s just a boy.”

“I heard he’s bookish. Might be he’s more likely to give librarians our jobs instead of soldiers.”

“As if librarians can be watchmen. You can’t use a book to bring in a criminal.”

“You can if it’s a big book. And you thump him over the head enough times with it.”

Jev sighed and lifted his gaze toward the canvas top of the wagon. He doubted these two intellects knew anything worth knowing. Once he had cleared his name, he would go to the Alderoth Castle and check on Targyon in person.

“How much farther to your castle?” Lornysh asked quietly from his side. He had chosen a position as far from the watchmen as possible.

Jev glanced toward the countryside out the back. They were traveling past the Groshon family’s estate now.

“About three miles until we reach Dhar-din Village and turn off the highway. It’s another mile up a side road to Dharrow Castle. It won’t take long in this.” Jev waved to indicate the vehicle with its steam-powered engine, though neither it nor the boiler and smokestack were visible from inside.

“Would it be simpler on you if I disappeared?”

“Now you ask that?” Cutter asked from the bench opposite them, not bothering to keep his voice down.

The watchmen glanced at him.

“I invited you to stay on my land for as long as you wish,” Jev said quietly, ignoring their guards, “and that invitation stands. You’ve spent years working with the army. You deserve a peaceful place to rest in our kingdom. Even if the common man doesn’t know that yet.” His father didn’t know it yet either, but he would soon. Jev held back a frown. To think, a few months ago, the only thing he’d dreaded about coming home was having to discuss the details of his brother’s death with the old man.

“He didn’t answer the question,” Cutter observed.

“I noticed that,” Lornysh said dryly.

“It would have been simpler if you’d been wearing a hood when you walked off the ship,” Jev said, “but at this point, I’d appreciate it if you stuck around. I’m not sure what’s going on, but I may need an ally or two.”

Especially if his father denied him access to the only home he’d ever known, which might happen, given his father’s feelings about elves. And if Grandmother Visha was there, she would be even worse. She would offer freshly baked cakes and cookies to Jev while screaming obscenities at Lornysh, seeing nothing odd about doing both at the same time.

“Hm,” Lornysh said.

The steam wagon turned off the main road, and Jev’s stomach flip-flopped in his belly. He watched the cottages, shops, and smithies they rolled past, the buildings leased from the Dharrow family by commoners who traded their labor and a portion of their crops or wares for reduced rent and protection from invaders. Jev thought he recognized a few familiar faces, but he didn’t call out or try to draw attention.

As they left the village, Jev did his best to muster his courage, reminding himself that he’d fought countless times and commanded two different companies during his years in the army. It wasn’t right for his knees to go weak at the idea of standing up to his father. Sometimes, he wished he had a little more of the flippancy and irreverence his brother had been known for. Vastiun had never cared if Father was angry or disappointed with them. It hadn’t bothered him at all, especially as they’d gotten older. Jev wasn’t sure why he’d always cared so much, tried so hard to do what was honorable and expected of him, to be the appropriate eldest son. To please a man who’d never been pleased by anything, or so it seemed. During Father’s tirades, Vastiun had simply rattled his luck charms and run off into town to do as he pleased. He’d—

Jev straightened and gripped the edges of the bench. “By all four dragon founders, could that be it?” he whispered.

Only Lornysh, with his fine elven hearing, looked at him.

Jev didn’t explain. He was already lost in the past, remembering the night his brother had died, the spearhead lodged in his guts, his cries of pain and Jev’s shouts for someone to find a healer. But the healer had come too late. Vastiun had died in his arms, having never fully explained why he’d joined the army so many years into the war and requested to be sent to Taziira. He’d mentioned something about a girl back home, but he’d been oddly elusive when Jev had asked him for details.

“What is it?” Lornysh asked.

“You never knew my brother,” Jev murmured, almost wishing Lornysh or Cutter had been there that night, so he would have someone else with him who could verify the memories of his death. Or rather, his memories of the next morning when they had burned Vastiun’s body in a pyre, refusing to bury it in enemy territory. Before that, Jev had removed his brother’s weapons and also the rings and luck charms he’d always worn on his wrists. Vastiun had started collecting them as a boy, and his wrists had been so loaded with them by the time of his death that he’d rattled when he walked.

Had there been an ivory one? Jev thought he remembered something like that. Not eye-shaped, as he had been imagining from Zenia’s description, but the shape of a tree trunk with an eye looking out from a hole in the side. Could it be what the Water Order was looking for? One of Vastiun’s luck charms?

It seemed a stretch, but Jev couldn’t think of anything else he’d come across that might fit the description. But why would Vastiun have stolen some artifact from one of the Orders? It was true that Vastiun had worried less about upholding the Code and obeying their father than Jev, but he had still been a good man. A moral man. Sometimes, he’d mouthed off to Father and anyone else who told him what to do, but he’d never broken the law in any serious way.

“He died the year before I joined your company, as I recall,” Lornysh said, a prompt perhaps.

Jev sat back against the frame of the wagon, the wood hard against his spine. Should he explain here? No, not with the watchmen within earshot.

“Yes. I’ll tell you what I’m thinking about later.” Jev made a point of not looking at the watchmen. They had turned away, but they had also stopped talking. He didn’t need magic to know they were listening. “After I talk to my father.”

A conversation he had been dreading but that might solve this problem. After removing Vastiun’s valuable and precious belongings from his body and his pack, Jev had mailed them home with his latest intelligence reports. He’d addressed the package to his father, certain the army would send it along to Dharrow Castle. Those charms might be hanging from a peg in his brother’s room right now.

The wagon came to a stop, the pond just visible beside the road. The nervous sensation returned to Jev’s stomach. They had arrived.

The watchmen hopped out, not stopping Jev when he followed. He was aware of Cutter and Lornysh climbing down behind him and their escorts fingering their weapons uneasily, but Jev didn’t wait for permission to leave the wagon. He strode toward the massive stone structure that had housed Dharrows for almost a thousand years.

The drawbridge was down, as it always was, water from the pond siphoned away to create a moat around the castle. A few trees swayed in the breeze wafting up from the sea a couple of miles below, but as Jev had told Lornysh, the land was mostly cleared around the castle and the pond. Cows munched grass on a slope on the far side.

Not only had little changed since Jev walked away ten years earlier, but he was fairly certain the cows had been in the same spot. He might have found comfort in returning to the home he remembered, if not for the tense relationship he’d always had with his father. He distinctly remembered being relieved when his father had informed him he would be going off to war. Even if Jev had never believed in the war, it had been an excuse—an order—to leave, and he’d been ready for that.

As he crossed the drawbridge, Jev thought of his mother for the first time in ages. He hadn’t seen her since he’d been ten and had no idea if she was still alive or, if she was, where she was. Things had been less tense between him and his father when she’d still been around, but he’d long since stopped feeling nostalgia about those times—or wishing she would return.

“Is that Jev Dharrow?” a voice cried from the courtyard ahead. Laughter rang out over the gurgle of the wyvern fountain in the center. “Dear cousin, your own father won’t recognize you. You look like an ape.”

“Because of the beard or just in general?” Jev paused, turning as Wyleria rushed toward him, holding up her skirts so they didn’t drag on the flagstone walkway.

“Can it be some of both?” She grinned at him, and he experienced a strange moment where she seemed the fifteen-year-old girl she’d been when he left instead of the twenty-five-year-old woman she was now. “You’ve gotten old,” she added. “You were just an apeling before.”

“That’s not a word.”

“Unless they trained you to be a scribe in the army, I don’t believe you’d know.” Her grin widened as she reached him, and she abandoned her skirts to wrap her arms around him.

Though he ached to find and question his father, Jev returned the hug, warmed by her enthusiastic welcome. He hadn’t expected his cousins to be around. Father had feuded with Mother’s sister for years after Mother disappeared, and for a long time, Jev’s cousins hadn’t been welcome anywhere on the land. Only Grandmother Visha had stayed from Mother’s side of the family, either because Father had no qualm with her or because she’d been made guardian of the Dharrow family’s heirloom dragon tears and it had been deemed undesirable to have her living elsewhere.

“Actually, they trained me to be a linguist,” Jev said. “I speak six languages, and apeling isn’t a word in any of them.”

“I suppose I should believe you. Vastiun was the one who always fibbed to me, not you.” She stepped back, her grin fading.

“He did do that,” Jev agreed quietly. “You look good, Wyleria. Are you and your mother living here now?”

“Yes. There were riots in the city earlier in the year. Uncle Heber, in his gruffest and surliest manner, insisted we come stay.”

“Ah. Is he around?” Jev hated to rush his reunion with his cousin, but it was possible Zenia had already been healed and was on her way out here. She had definitely seemed the determined sort.

“He should be here soon. I saw you get out of the wagon and sent one of the servants off on horseback to fetch him. He’s been cutting wood and repairing one of the barns out back.” Wyleria arched her dark eyebrows, a hint of bemusement in her eyes.

Jev merely nodded, not surprised in the least. The castle had a handful of servants, not the dozens that some zyndar families claimed, but Father did most of the work around the place himself. He was happy enough to let someone else cook and clean, but if something needed to be repaired or improved, he sprang to the task, claiming the nobility had gone soft, with so few zyndar doing anything except eating and shitting—he had a number of favorite expressions evoking that sentiment.

“By the way, Jev…” Wyleria poked him in the side. “Care to explain why a city watch wagon brought you home? You didn’t get drunk and start busting up furniture in a pub as soon as you got off that ship, did you?” Her grin returned at this image.

“There hasn’t been time. I had been dreaming of getting drunk and sunburned on a beach, but…” Jev heard hoofbeats and trailed off.

“Most people don’t dream of sunburns.”

“I was a long time in those frigid northern forests.” Jev turned as his father rode in on a great brown stallion, trailed by a servant Jev didn’t know, the man riding a gray mare.

Wiry and lean, Father never looked that intimidating at a distance, but up close, he had a presence that always made him seem tall and powerful, not a man to be angered. His short hair had gone from dark gray to white, but he still appeared hale, his gray eyes keen and bright above his trimmed beard. He dismounted with easy grace and handed the reins to the servant.

Jev snorted when he realized he’d come to a rigid attention stance, his heels together, his back straight, and his chin up, but he didn’t break it. Maybe it was appropriate. He’d always felt like a private reporting to a general when facing his father, and as odd as it seemed after ten years of being an officer himself, his feelings hadn’t changed. Maybe it had to do with the fact that his father had been a general, battling the desert nomads to the south when Chief Sirak had united them, determined to take the kingdom’s sea ports and lush agricultural valleys.

“Good to see you, boy.” Father stepped forward and lifted his hands.

For a startled moment, Jev thought the old man might hug him. But Father gripped his arms briefly, then let his hands fall. Formality was the order of the day, as it always had been.

“And you, Father.” Jev bowed slightly.

“It’s regretful that the campaign was unsuccessful.”

Father shook his head, and Jev braced himself, expecting him to talk about how successful his campaigns had been and how soldiers had been better trained and more disciplined in his day. As if those scruffy desert nomads had been anywhere the equal of the Taziir elves.

“But it’s good that you’ve returned alive,” Father said.

Jev let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. It wasn’t exactly an effusive display of warmth and affection, but it was better than he had expected.

“Thank you, Father. It’s good to be back.” Jev was tempted to ask about Naysha and whether she and her husband were doing well, but his father wouldn’t be the best source of information.

Besides, Jev would have preferred gossip to straightforward information, a sullen part of him wanting to hear about how they argued and fought often and were on the verge of breaking up. But that was too petty to put into words. He should want her to be happy. He just couldn’t help but feel… He wasn’t even sure. Bitter, yes. But if she had left her husband, would he want her back? Ten years after they’d parted?

Jev shook his head. This wasn’t what he had come home to discuss with his father.

“You’ll stay?” Father asked. “Come to dinner? Your grandmother heard your ship would land today, and she’s been driving the cook crazy by taking over the ovens for all manner of baked goods. Some of the villagers and I are working on fixing a fence in the south thousand, and I could use some help in the morning. Big storm this past winter, and there are still repairs to be done.”

“I would be happy to help,” Jev said, though cutting wood and fixing a fence sounded tediously mundane after serving as an intelligence officer on the front, “but I do have a matter I need to resolve with the Water Order before I’m entirely free to do as I wish.” Even though he was innocent, he hated bringing this up, hated the idea that his father might believe he had done something dishonorable. “You saw the watchmen out front, sir?”

“Yes.” Father’s tone chilled.

Was he annoyed that they had presumed to come onto Dharrow land? Or that Jev was in trouble? Or had Father perhaps seen Lornysh?

“I’m being accused of stealing an artifact. I never did, of course.” Jev spoke quickly, the words almost tumbling over each other as he sought to explain before his father made any assumptions. “I thought it was all some error, that I’d been mistaken for someone else, but then I remembered the charms Vastiun wore and wondered if it was possible he’d somehow acquired something magical, perhaps by accident.” The last thing Jev wanted to do was malign his dead brother or insinuate anything, especially to their father. “The Water Order, or at least an inquisitor from within the temple’s ranks, seems to believe I have it or know something about it. Her name is Zenia Cham, and she, ah, may be up to the castle later.”

“An inquisitor?” Father spat onto the flagstones. “If she dares come up here, I’ll show her the moat.”

“She’s already irked with me, so that might not be a good idea.”

“In my father’s day, no watchman, inquisitor, or other servant of the Orders would dare question a zyndar. Zyndar honor was considered above reproach. It should still be considered above reproach.” Father spat again.

Jev, knowing his father had been questioned after Mother’s disappearance, suspected that anger was directed toward his own memories rather than indicative of any affront on Jev’s behalf.

“Yes, sir,” Jev said neutrally. “But the world is what it is now, right? I want to clear my name, and I would be happy to return this artifact to the Order if I can find it.”

He wondered if that was the only way to clear his name. If he had allowed Zenia to question him while using her magic, might that have absolved him of any taint of guilt? Maybe, maybe not. She hadn’t shown any respect for his rank in society and had even seemed irked by it—or by him—so she may have chosen not to see the truth so she could take pleasure in arresting a zyndar for punishment. He also didn’t know if she truly would have used mere magic to augment her interrogation or if physical means of persuasion would have been employed.

“Describe it,” Father said.

Jev did so, making sure only to use Zenia’s description, not one based on the charm—the artifact—he remembered shipping back along with Vastiun’s other belongings. It was unfortunate that he couldn’t detect magical items himself. If he could, he would have known back then if any of those charms had been extraordinary. But he couldn’t tell the difference between a true dragon tear and a knockoff being sold by an unscrupulous vendor.

“You don’t know how large it is?” Father asked. “Is it the size of one of Vastiun’s charms or the size of a house? Why didn’t you ask for more details?”

“If the Water Order thinks I can smuggle a house off the continent in my pocket, then they’re attributing me with a lot of skills.” Jev smiled.

Father frowned. He still had less appreciation for humor than one of those fences he liked to mend.

“As for the rest, the inquisitor wasn’t forthcoming. She seemed to be under the impression that she should be questioning me and not the other way around.”

“She.” Father’s lip curled.

Jev thought he might spit again, but he only ranted.

“When I was a boy, women weren’t allowed to do anything except scrub the halls in the temples. To have some bitter vindictive bitch as an inquisitor is deplorable.” Father shook his head.

Jev thought he was generalizing until he continued on.

“I’ve heard of that Cham woman. She’s taken down a lot of heinous criminals but also a lot of men and women from the nobility. She’s known to take special pleasure in that. You better watch out.”

“I’m hoping if I can find the artifact and hand it to her, I won’t have to.”

Assuming she didn’t hold a grudge. Jev hoped that she would forgive him—or, more importantly, forgive Lornysh—for that attack.

“Do you know what made Vastiun decide to join the army years into the war?” Jev added. “He was vague about it when he showed up, but I got the impression it was about a woman or some conflict at home.”

Father’s eyes narrowed. “He was fooling around, doing nothing with his life. I told him to grow up and be a man.”

Which had driven Vastiun to join the army and get himself killed? Jev stared bleakly at his father, hoping for more of an explanation. Hoping they hadn’t truly had some fight that had prompted Vastiun to leave in a huff.

But Father had nothing more to say on the subject.

After waiting several long seconds, Jev asked, “Do you remember anything made from ivory among Vastiun’s belongings? I think at least one of his charms was, but I was distraught and frustrated by his death at the time, and I wasn’t paying that much attention to what I boxed up to mail off.”

“You’ve always had a tendency to let your emotions get in the way of rational thoughts,” Father said, an observation he’d made many times over the years.

“Yes,” Jev said, not wanting to revive the old argument by pointing out that there was nothing wrong with being emotional about the death of one’s only brother. “His belongings?”

“I never looked through them. I remember the news of his death arriving, and…”

Father frowned around the courtyard, his gaze growing distant in memory. It had been almost four years.

A green and silver banner flying the family wolf emblem hung on one of the walls, a breeze slipping in to stir it.

“I don’t believe I ever saw his belongings,” Father finally said, “though I do remember hearing that a package came while I was out working. I believe Butler Corvel would have received it. It’s probably in Vastiun’s room. Nobody has touched his belongings since he left. I’m not even sure if the maid dusts in there.”

“I’ll check with Corvel.”

“He no longer works here.”

Jev blinked in surprise. “He retired?”

Corvel had worked at the castle since before he had been born, so it was hard to imagine him gone. The quirky and eccentric man had always had time for young Jev, Vastiun, and his cousins, so they had all considered him a favorite among the staff.

“Without giving notice, yes.” Father’s jaw firmed in disapproval.

That struck Jev as odd. After spending so many years working for the family, why would Corvel take off without a word? He’d been a little distant with everyone after Jev’s mother disappeared, but he’d still seemed happy to serve here.

“Shortly after your brother’s death, I believe,” Father added. “I haven’t seen or heard of him since then, so I don’t know where he ended up.”

An uneasy sensation crawled up Jev’s spine, reminding him of the time he’d led a scouting party through the Death Morrow Swamp deep in elven territory. He’d known danger lurked all about them then. Did it also lurk now?

“Check his room. What you seek is likely there. I’ll see you at dinner.” Father nodded once, then strode out of the courtyard.

Jev realized he hadn’t mentioned the sanctuary he’d promised Cutter and Lornysh.

Later. He had a room to search.

Chapter 6 coming soon!

Eye of Truth, Chapter 4 (a free fantasy novel)

Sometimes having helpful friends only gets you in more trouble…

Coming in new? Start with Chapter 1.

Chapter 4

Jev didn’t have a gem or any magic of his own to call upon, but he didn’t need it to know Cutter and Lornysh were following them.

Oh, he didn’t catch so much as a glimpse of them as the inquisitor and her monk assistant led him along the waterfront, around a corner, and onto one of the boulevards that headed toward the ridge where the Temple of the Blue Dragon stood. But he knew his comrades as well as the men in his company. They wouldn’t amble into a bar for a beer while he was in trouble.

Jev did not yet know if he was in trouble—since he hadn’t stolen anything, he shouldn’t be—but they didn’t know that.

He stole a few glances at his escort. Even though he planned to accompany them peaceably, he couldn’t help but size them up as potential enemies. He had gotten in the habit of assessing the threat level of everyone he encountered, and he couldn’t dismiss these two because they were women. The sea-blue gi that the monk wore meant she had completed at least six years of intense training and was a full-fledged member of the Order’s elite fighting unit. And the inquisitor—neither she nor the monk had offered their names—would carry a weapon or two under that robe. A firearm, most likely. Inquisitors didn’t typically receive a great deal of combat training, but the ones he’d known had always gone to the ranges to practice shooting.

“What’s your name, Inquisitor?” Jev asked, alternating between watching the street and pedestrian traffic and her. The streets were largely as he’d remembered, especially in this older part of the city, but he spotted steam wagons and carriages with frames and engines that hadn’t existed the last time he’d walked the city. They were almost as numerous as the horse-drawn conveyances clattering along the cobblestones. “You know mine, and if we’re to spend time together with you pulling off my fingernails, it would be nice to know yours.”

She gave him a flat, unfriendly look. It seemed to be her typical facial expression. Normally, he would have considered her attractive—of course, it had been so long since he’d experienced feminine company that he was starting to consider boulders attractive—but her frosty eyes would have kept him at arm’s length even if she hadn’t been arresting him.

“Zenia Cham,” she said, her chin lifting. It did that a lot.

She watched him. Expectantly? She seemed to be waiting for a reaction. It wasn’t a noble name—he knew all the zyndar surnames in the kingdom—and he didn’t recognize it. But it wasn’t as if he’d seen an issue of the Korvann Chronicle recently.

“And your sarcastic friend?” Jev waved toward the monk, who kept glancing behind them, watching the rooftops as well as the streets.

“Her name is hers to share if she wishes,” Zenia said.

“I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me more about this artifact I supposedly stole when I was… I guess I was twenty-three the last time I was here.”

It seemed an eternity ago. Back when his father had ordered him to go off and fight for the king, as it was the family’s duty to supply a son for the war effort, Jev hadn’t guessed he would be gone for more than a year or two. So much of his life lost for something he’d never believed in. The cost for the kingdom had been ridiculous. And the cost for him? He’d lost countless friends over the years, but, as much as he hated to admit it, it was Naysha’s loss that still stung most.

She had been attractive without being frosty. And far superior to a boulder.

“Archmage Sazshen will tell you more. I’ve only been ordered to retrieve it. Your fingernails need not be in danger if you’ll tell me its location.”

“Uh huh.”

Jev had been captured and tortured four years earlier, after being appointed the leader of Gryphon Company. It had been by a human scout from another kingdom, one happy to fawn at those elves’ feet. The man had enjoyed cutting on him, on his own kind, whatever it took to please his pointy-eared employer. A cold snake of an elf who’d watched the whole thing with his face utterly impassive. Jev had been lucky to escape and survive the ordeal. Even though the elf had healed him at the end of each session, so he would last longer, Jev still had a lot of scars. Sometimes, he wondered if Naysha would even recognize him, should their paths cross again one day.

“Would you do it yourself?” he asked.

“What?”

“My fingernail removal.” Jev wouldn’t normally think a woman would have a stomach for torturing a man—physically, anyway, as they seemed to prefer emotional torment if they had a vindictive streak—but this Zenia had those frosty edges. She might like it. He definitely sensed that she was one of those people who held some bitterness toward the nobility, though she’d risen to a respected rank in society, so he didn’t know why.

“I have no need to employ such crude methods.” Zenia sounded offended. “You will answer my questions and tell me what you know.”

He grimaced, remembering the magical compulsion she’d laid on him earlier. Even now, she might be using a tendril of power on him to keep him toddling along like an obedient retriever.

“Well, that won’t take long. I don’t know much.”

“Clearly, the rumors that zyndar children receive an excellent education from private tutors are false.”

“Clearly.” Jev decided it wasn’t worth getting upset over insults. After all he’d endured, they were a petty annoyance at most. Maybe if he didn’t respond in kind, she would thaw a few degrees. He had never been questioned by an inquisitor and didn’t know how much of their interrogation magic was rumor and how much was truth, but he hated having any of the dark arts plied on him. “We mostly just got lessons on how to be appropriately haughty in the presence of commoners.”

She gave him another frosty look. So much for a thaw.

They turned down a narrow street framed by millennia-old whitewashed stone buildings.

“Look out,” the monk barked.

She lunged forward, grabbed Zenia’s arm, and pulled her to one side of the street. But not quickly enough. Few humans could match the speed of a full-blooded elf.

“No,” Jev barked, trying to step forward and stop Lornysh before he hurt either of the women—where had he come from? A rooftop?—but the end of a bo slammed into his chest before he reached the fight.

The monk.

Jev stumbled back. His chainmail blunted the attack, but he would still have a bruise tomorrow. The monk reared back to thrust the weapon again—trying to drive him away from Zenia so she could jump in to help against Lornysh.

Jev whipped his forearm across in time to block the second blow. His instincts cried out for him to follow the block with an attack, to leap in before she could bring the bo to bear again, but he made himself lift his arms, a gesture of surrender. He didn’t want to fight an inquisitor of one of the Orders, damn it. Even his title wouldn’t protect him from retribution if he hurt one of them.

A sickening crunch sounded as the monk whirled from Jev and sprang toward her comrade’s side. Once again, she was a hair too late. Lornysh slammed the inquisitor against the wall with strength one expected from dwarfs—and steam hammers—instead of slender-armed elves. The woman’s head struck stone, and she crumpled to the cobblestones.

“Stop, Lorn,” Jev ordered, waving to get his attention. He also issued the order in the elven language, in case it would more likely get through to him.

Neither worked. The monk roared and sprang at Lornysh, and he defended himself with that deadly agility his kind were known for. He hadn’t drawn a weapon. He didn’t need to. With arms and legs that blurred with the speed of his movements, he knocked the bo out of the hands of the monk, then gripped her arm and slammed her into the wall, the same as he had Zenia. Bone crunched audibly, and she cried out.

When Lornysh drew back a fist to rain more blows down upon them, Jev jumped in and grabbed his arm. Lornysh’s gaze jerked toward him, his pale eyes wild instead of their usual icy calm, as if he were living in some other moment, in some past battle.

Lornysh tried to jerk away, and Jev felt his strength, but Jev had strength of his own. He gripped that arm, using his wide stance for leverage, and didn’t let go, afraid Lornysh might continue if he did. For a moment, Jev thought Lornysh might turn on him—might not see him as a friend in whatever past hell he was reliving—but those eyes slowly calmed, awareness returning to them.

Jev, who rarely dared touch Lornysh outside of sparring practice, released him and stepped back. He looked down at the women, both of them crumpled on the street against the wall, neither moving.

“Founders,” he whispered with distress and rubbed the back of his neck. What now?

“This might be why your people lost the war,” Cutter drawled, walking in from whatever doorway he’d been hiding in farther up the street, waiting to spring the second half of the ambush. Unnecessarily. He waved dismissively at the two women, at how easily they had fallen to Lornysh.

Jev knelt beside the women to make sure they were still breathing. They were, but both were unconscious, and an alarming amount of blood streamed from Zenia’s temple.

“By the founders, Lorn,” Jev said, “these are officers from the Water Order. Law enforcers, if religious law instead of city law. There’s not much of a difference around here. You can’t just knock them out. There’ll be repercussions.”

“Your laws mean nothing to me.”

Jev rose to his feet, glowering at the blood on his hand. “While you’re walking in our lands, they had better mean something. You can’t take on the whole kingdom army or Korvann police force.”

“That one intended to imprison you.” Lornysh pointed to Zenia.

“To question me about… something. Whatever it is, it’s nothing I had anything to do with, so I would have been released.”

“That’s not what she believed,” Lornysh said with so much certainty that Jev suspected he had a magical way of knowing. “She believed you were guilty—she’d already made up her mind—and that she could wheedle some artifact’s location from you. And that you would spend the rest of your days moldering in their temple dungeon.”

Jev wanted to say that what she believed didn’t matter because it wasn’t the truth, but he paused. As an Order inquisitor, she had the power to act as judge over him, to proclaim him guilty. Her mind magic should have allowed her to see the truth in his thoughts, especially if he cooperated, but… hadn’t he sensed that she had something against him from the start? Maybe her beliefs wouldn’t have allowed her to see the truth.

“Better to be free,” Cutter said. “Leave them here, and you can go investigate on your own. Find out what’s going on, why you’re being blamed.”

“Yes,” Lornysh said. “Find evidence to show that you are innocent. Or better yet, find their missing artifact, and return it to them if that is wise.”

“You wouldn’t be able to do that if you were stuck in a dungeon, and we wouldn’t know where to start looking. This is your land. I’d be lucky if I could find my beard with my own hands here.”

Jev rubbed the back of his neck again. It bolstered him that his comrades assumed he was innocent without truly having a way to know, but he wasn’t sure this was a wise course of action. Still, they were right that he wouldn’t be able to figure out what was going on if he ended up incarcerated in the bowels of a temple. He grimaced at the idea of being stuck there until his father heard and came to bail him out. Assuming the mages would even allow that. Would they? His father had power, but the sway of the zyndar wasn’t what it once had been. Even in his youth, that had been true. And who knew how much had changed back here in the last ten years?

“Also,” Lornysh said, “you should take us somewhere where we can bathe. Especially Cutter.”

“You don’t smell any better than I do, elf,” Cutter said.

“I bathe in the ocean when I get a chance. I’m positive I’m less aromatic than you.”

“You just smell like seaweed and fish piss instead of good wholesome dirt.”

“Dirt is not what you smell like.”

Cutter growled.

Though he was more concerned about the injured women at their feet than anyone’s cleanliness, Jev bestirred himself to ask, “Will we find it easier to prove my innocence if we’re clean?”

“Undoubtedly,” Lornysh said, sounding like he meant it.

“All right,” Jev said, “but we’re not leaving a monk or inquisitor bleeding in an alley. Help me carry them to the hospital.”

He gathered the inquisitor in his arms, leaving the stockier and more muscled monk to Lornysh. He deserved the heavier load. Cutter picked up the monk’s fallen bo.

“This isn’t how I imagined my first encounter in years with a woman going,” Jev said, worried by the blood on the side of Zenia’s face.

He thought about taking the women to the hospital run by the Water Order but foresaw all manner of problems if he showed up there when he was a wanted man. Especially with an unconscious inquisitor in his arms.

Jev set a brisk pace toward a kingdom-run hospital he knew of that was only a half mile away.

“Years?” Cutter asked, walking beside him, keeping up even with his shorter legs. “There were camp followers. And those human gypsy women who risk elven ire by strolling around and exploring their continent.”

“Zyndar officers aren’t supposed to sleep with camp followers and random gypsies.”

“Oh? Did anyone tell Captain Thash that? Or Lieutenant Herringbone? Or Captain—”

“They weren’t heading Gryphon Company and in charge of gathering intelligence.” Jev glanced back to make sure Lornysh was following with the monk. He was. Good. “They wouldn’t have spewed crucial information to the enemy if they’d been drugged by some spy masquerading as a camp follower.”

“In other words, you’re horny and would already be looking for a woman if we hadn’t been detained.”

Jev felt his expression growing wistful, though not for the reasons Cutter suggested. The only woman he’d thought he would sleep with for the rest of his life had married someone else.

The narrow street opened up into a wide boulevard, and the hospital came into sight, and Jev’s shoulders loosened in relief. He just hoped the Water Order hadn’t also told the city watch that he was to be arrested.

“Elf!”

Jev tensed anew at the cry from across the street. He had expected it, but he’d vainly hoped they might drop off the women and escape the city before someone noticed Lornysh. Unfortunately, the bright afternoon sun didn’t leave many shadows for Lornysh—or his ears—to hide in.

More cries arose as men and women pointed fingers in their direction. Jev glanced at Lornysh, but as usual, his face gave away little. He strode at Jev’s side toward the hospital.

“Get the watch!” someone cried. “Hurry!”

“Doesn’t look like they’re inclined to like you, Lorn,” Cutter remarked.

“Dwarf!” someone else yelled, the alarmed cry holding the same fervor as the previous ones.

“Huh?” Cutter asked. “They can’t object to my people, can they? We cut their gems.”

Jev strode along the sidewalk opposite the yelling people, his focus on the hospital. If he could just make it inside…

“Perhaps they agree that you smell worse than dirt,” Lornysh said.

A crowd grew on the far sidewalk, people peering at them between the vendors’ wagons lining the street. Others trailed behind Jev’s little group, pointing and whispering. Weapons weren’t typical in the capital, since only zyndar, mages, watchmen, and soldiers were legally allowed to carry them within the city limits, and Jev suspected that was the only reason nobody had come forward to oppose them. His team was armed. Well-armed.

A boy of ten or twelve sprinted down an alley, yelling for the watch.

As Jev and Lornysh strode up the steps to the hospital, the doors opened, and a pair of nurses in white robes stepped out. The man and woman peered toward the increasingly loud commotion in the street. Someone grabbed an eggplant from a produce vendor and hurled it toward Lornysh.

“It’s supposed to be tomatoes,” Jev said as Lornysh ducked, the purple produce sailing over his head.

It thudded against another vendor’s wagon. The noise drew out the owner, who immediately started cursing at the crowd. Then he spotted the young man grabbing produce to hurl and turned his curses on him.

“What?” Cutter asked.

“In the children’s tales, it’s always rotten tomatoes that get thrown. Occasionally, an overly lumpy potato sprouting eyes.”

“Charming,” Lornysh said.

“We have patients for you,” Jev told the nurses, yelling over the crowd. He debated whether identifying himself would help, but he doubted the angry bystanders would quiet down enough for the nurses to hear him.

“Servants of the Water Order go to their own hospital,” the male nurse said, though he came forward, frowning when Zenia groaned in Jev’s arms. “If they’re to be treated here, the director will demand payment up front.”

“How much?” Jev pushed past them, not wanting to loiter on the landing when more vegetables were being hurled—despite the protesting vendor who was smacking the hands of anyone who grabbed something from his wagon without paying.

“Someone in a uniform is running this way,” Cutter said.

Jev stepped into the cool, dark hallway and tilted his head for the others to follow him. He also looked for somewhere to set down the women, preferably before they woke up and attempted to arrest him again. Could he simply lay them on the marble floor tiles? He didn’t see any stretchers.

“Twenty-five krons each for an initial appraisal,” the man said, waving toward a lockbox on a stand where such deposits were made. “The final cost will be assessed after treatment. Or it’s possible doctors from the Water Order hospital will be brought over to treat them.”

“I’ll cover it.” Jev thought about telling them to send the bill to his father, but he had been receiving pay as an officer in the king’s army, and it had been ages since he’d been anywhere he could spend it.

“Good, sir. Uh—” The male nurse’s eyes caught on the wolf-head clasp. “Zyndar?”

“Dharrow, yes. Where shall I put her?”

Lornysh was already laying the monk on the floor as Cutter shut the doors behind them and dropped a thick wooden bar into place. A thump sounded a second later, followed by many more thumps. The female nurse stared at the door in concern. The stout olive wood ought to hold back the crowd, but Jev hoped for a back exit.

The man rang a bell. “We’ll get stretchers out here, Zyndar. Forgive me for not recognizing you. Many apologies.”

“Just take her, please,” Jev said, pushing Zenia into his arms so he could retrieve the necessary payment.

“I, yes, Zyndar.”

“Is that Zenia Cham?” the woman blurted.

“That’s what she introduced herself as.” Jev dug out his purse and fished out coins. He dumped what he judged to be enough into the payment box as the female nurse stared at the inquisitor in slack-jawed astonishment.

Jev had a feeling his elven friend had clubbed someone more important than he’d realized. More famous, at the least.

More thumps battered the door, followed by an authoritative shout, the words muffled by the stout wood. Jev was glad, since he guessed the watchman—or men—that Cutter had seen had made it up the stairs by now.

“Did you save her from street hoodlums?” the woman asked.

“Something like that.” Jev kept himself from glancing at Lornysh, though Cutter snorted. “I’d rather not deal with the crowd. Mind if we go out the back?”

Jev pointed a thumb down the hallway. The woman was still staring at Zenia. The man seemed unaware that he held the unconscious inquisitor in his arms. His gaze had snagged on Lornysh—or maybe Lornysh’s pointed ears.

“We’ll see ourselves out,” Jev said when neither responded. “Take care of the ladies, eh?”

“Of course, Zyndar,” the woman said. “We wouldn’t dare fail Inquisitor Cham or the Water Order.”

“Good.” Jev waved for Lornysh and Cutter to follow, then took off down the hall.

He kept himself from sprinting since zyndar were stately, respectable, and didn’t run off with their tails between their legs, but he definitely set a fast pace.

They passed open bays full of beds, some occupied and some not, and corridors that led off to private rooms. The hallway opened into a central courtyard with a fountain where a few patients in nightclothes sat at tables and played dice and tile games. They looked up curiously as the trio strode through, and one accidentally dumped his tiles on the flagstones when he spotted Lornysh. Jev didn’t pause to explain.

They ran into the back half of the building, down another hallway, and to a door that led to the street behind the hospital. Jev hoped nothing but a few trash bins waited out there.

Sunlight blasted them as he shoved open the door and strode out. His stomach sank.

Four men in watchmen’s gray and white uniforms waited, sun glinting off the barrels of the rifles pointed at the doorway.

Though his instincts screamed for Jev to spring to the side and get out of their sights, he reminded himself that this was his city, not some elven encampment a thousand miles to the north.

“Gentlemen,” he said, stepping forward and spreading his arms so they could see he didn’t hold a weapon—and so they would focus on him rather than Cutter and Lornysh behind him. “I am Jevlain Dharrow, zyndar and captain in the kingdom army, leader of Gryphon Company, in charge of intelligence-gathering during the war. These are friends who worked with our people in the war.” He tilted his head to indicate Lornysh and Cutter as he introduced them. He was careful to keep his arms spread wide to partially block them from the rifles.

“Dharrow?” the sergeant in the lead asked, his rifle tip lowering.

“Dharrow,” Jev said firmly, hoping that little had changed in the last ten years and that his family was still held in high regard for its history of serving the king during peace and war times.

The sergeant looked at the cloak clasp. Jev didn’t know whether to be amused or not that everyone was skeptical when it came to identifying him. He’d left home young enough that he hadn’t truly expected anyone to remember his face, but he hadn’t expected doubt. He was unkempt and dirty and in the same uniform as the rest of the soldiers arriving, but people hadn’t had much trouble picking him out as zyndar when he’d been younger. Had the city changed that much? Or had he?

“You’re related to Heber Dharrow?” the sergeant asked.

“My father.”

The rest of the rifles shifted so they weren’t pointed at Jev’s chest. Shouts came from the direction of the hospital courtyard, and Jev feared that trouble was about to catch up to them from behind.

“It’s important that I report in to him now that I’m home from the war,” Jev added. Something he would do as soon as he figured out this artifact situation. “May we pass? I will personally vouch for the character of my companions.”

“It’s not their character that’ll have the citizens worried, Zyndar,” the sergeant said. “This isn’t a good time to be a, uhm, foreigner in Korvann.”

“A non-human, you mean?”

“A non-human foreigner. We have a wagon, Zyndar. Will you come with us? We’ll escort you to your father’s land.”

Jev didn’t want an escort. And he hadn’t planned on going home right now.

The shouts in the building behind him escalated.

Jev forced a regal smile and nodded. “That would be appreciated,” he made himself say.

“Good. This way, Zyndar. And, uh, your friends.” The sergeant headed toward a steam wagon parked at the end of the street, the metal and wood sides painted in the colors of the watch. Soft puffs of black smoke wafted from its stack.

Not feeling that he had a choice, Jev trailed the man. The other watchmen waited for Lornysh and Cutter to pass, then strode along on their heels, their weapons still in hand.

Jev told himself this was a good development. Since the wagon was covered, he, Lornysh, and Cutter could make it out of the city without being waylaid again, and he had planned to visit his father and his home. Eventually. Unfortunately, with the watch escorting them, Jev wouldn’t have a chance to sneak Lornysh out to one of the groves without mentioning him to his father.

Not his largest problem right now, he reminded himself.

“Why couldn’t you just do that at the dock?” Cutter asked as they climbed into the covered wagon and sat on one of the wood benches. “Get us a free ride and an escort?”

“I thought you’d want to get some exercise after being cooped up on the ship for the crossing,” Jev said.

“Exercise? Is that what you call battling women in robes, being chased by crowds, and having vegetables lobbed at our heads?”

“Fruit,” Lornysh said.

“What?”

“Eggplants have seeds and are thus considered fruits.”

“So are elves,” Cutter said, “but we don’t call them that to their faces.”

“Wise,” Lornysh said.

Two watchmen climbed in to ride in the back with them, and Jev’s comrades fell silent. He watched the corner of the hospital building as the wagon rumbled into motion with a hiss of releasing steam. He thought of how the nurse had recognized Zenia, and he was positive he hadn’t seen the last of her.

Chapter 5 coming soon!

Eye of Truth, Chapter 3 (a free fantasy novel)

This world came about when I was visiting my beta readers in Wisconsin (we’d all met in person by that point and become friends). I’m always encouraging them to write and publish stuff, and I said something along the lines of, “If we come up with a world together, I’ll write a novel in it too).

Mind you, I had other stuff planned to work on this summer, but once we started brainstorming world ideas, I got excited and was eager to start a novel. It didn’t take long for me to decide I might as well start a series. So, I’ll be launching the Agents of the Crown series at the end of the summer, and I hope my friends will write and publish stories in this world too.

For now, Book 1 continues…

Coming in new? Start with Chapter 1.

Chapter 3

Zenia watched the officer intently, not sure whether he would run or come calmly with her. While he gaped at her, stunned at her announcement, she glanced again at the wolf-head emblem on his cloak. She almost believed she had made a mistake, even though she had already checked the emblem twice.

Was this hairy, scruffy man truly a zyndar? One of the kingdom’s privileged landowners? And one from a very old, very powerful, and very rich family? He looked like a common soldier rather than some noble officer.

Dirt darkened his hands, a scar marked his cheek, and his black hair and beard were in need of cutting. Badly. He carried a short sword on one hip and a pistol on the other, the weapons far better cleaned and polished than he. Broad-shouldered and a head taller than she, he wore a faded gray and blue uniform under a chainmail tunic, his rolled-up jacket sleeves the only concession to the warm spring sun. The ropy muscles of his forearms promised strength, so Zenia hoped Rhi was ready for a fight.

Approaching him here with hundreds of his allies nearby had been chancy. Zenia had considered following him for a time and arresting him as he was on his way out of the city, but she was gambling that few men, even hardened soldiers, would get in the way of an inquisitor making an arrest. She also believed they would be so eager to step on home soil again that they would rush away without paying attention to what went on here.

And exactly that was happening. Though the man—Jevlain Dharrow—stood in front of the base of the gangplank, others simply hopped off behind him and jogged for the waterfront, shouts of beer and women and home rising above the voices of vendors hoping to hawk their wares to men who hadn’t had a way to spend their pay for a long time.

“What did you say?” Dharrow finally managed to ask Zenia.

He didn’t add mage, ma’am, or inquisitor, or any of the half dozen titles or honorifics that would have been appropriate—and expected. Of course not. He was zyndar. Zyndar considered themselves above everyone else, usually even other zyndar.

“You’re under arrest.” Zenia kept her chin up, staring into his eyes. “I have orders to bring you in for questioning at the Temple of the Blue Dragon.”

Actually, she had orders to acquire a carved ivory artifact he’d stolen years ago, one that was magical and extremely valuable, the archmage had said. But Zenia could, through the power of her dragon tear, sense nearby magical items, and she could tell he didn’t have such an item on him. That wasn’t that surprising, and she was more pleased than disappointed. If he had hidden it somewhere, she would have to figure out its location, and the idea of pitting her wits against his appealed to her.

“As lovely as being tortured and interrogated by mages sounds,” Dharrow said, “I’d rather pass. You have the wrong person. I haven’t set foot on kingdom land in ten years. I can’t possibly know anything useful to you unless the Water Order cares about the numbers and locations of elf encampments in Taziira.”

“Do you deny being Zyndar Jevlain Dharrow?” Zenia bristled at his suggestion that she would lead some torture-based interrogation. No doubt, he imagined fingernails being pulled off and brands being applied to his chest. As if, with her magic, she needed to be so crude to acquire answers.

“No.”

“Then you’re the right person.” She drew upon the power of the gem resting on her chest, channeling it into a compulsion command. “Come.”

His eyes widened, and she sensed that he felt her using magic on him. Few people did, but if he’d encountered elves often, he might be accustomed to the touch of magic. Recognizing it, however, did not keep him from taking a step forward.

A hand gripped his shoulder, and he stopped.

“What’s going on?” A tall man stepped off the gangplank behind Dharrow and stood at his side.

No, Zenia realized, her heart jumping. Not a man. An elf.

By the founders, he looked like a full-blood too. What was he doing here? In a human city? And why weren’t police running over to apprehend him? For that matter, why weren’t all the soldiers on and around the ship shooting at him? The ones not busy racing off to find bars and brothels.

Admittedly, that wasn’t many of them.

“It seems I’m being arrested,” Dharrow said. “For reasons that my arrestor doesn’t feel compelled to explain.”

“You’re being arrested?” a second person asked, stepping up to his other side. This one was a dwarf with flaming red hair and a matching beard. His head didn’t quite come up to Dharrow’s shoulder. The stout being’s appearance surprised Zenia almost as much as that of the elf. With the exception of the master gem crafters that were enticed to work in the major human cities, dwarves were scarce in the kingdom. “You’re the one who offered to protect us from such fates, Jev.”

“As I recall, I only offered you a bunk,” Dharrow said.

“I assumed it was at your home, not in a jail. There was talk of castles. And trees.” The dwarf glanced at the elf, but the elf’s face might have been chiseled in stone. It was cold and impossible to read.

“That offer is still open,” Dharrow said. “Whatever this is shouldn’t take long. Though it would be nice if our good inquisitor told me why she wants to detain me.” He met Zenia’s eyes, his gaze fearless, the opposite of the eyes of the thief from that morning.

For a moment, Zenia thought he might not realize what she was, but he’d identified her as an inquisitor. He just wasn’t afraid of her. Because he believed being a zyndar would protect him?

“Theft,” Zenia said.

She hadn’t intended to state his crime, figuring he would be more likely to come along if he believed he was only to be questioned on some tangential matter, but she wouldn’t lie if asked for the truth. Nor would she be evasive. He had a right to know why he was being arrested.

“Theft?” Anger flashed in his brown eyes. And indignation. “Zyndar do not steal.”

She didn’t let his outburst bother her. She’d expected it. The Zyndar Code of Honor. They all liked to claim they followed it, but from what she’d observed—and experienced firsthand—it was something that appeared more often in children’s tales than in real life.

“Theft,” Zenia said firmly.

He loosened his jaw and reined in his anger. Sort of. His tone was sarcastic when he said, “Theft from ten years ago?”

“The Order has waited a long time to get its property back.”

“What property? And why do you presume that I have it?” He stuck his hands in his trouser pockets and drew out the linings, showing he carried only a few coins and a lot of dirt in there. Not a bad acting job.

Without a deep probe, Zenia couldn’t fully read his mind, but she felt his self-assurance and his belief that he could handle the situation. Handle her.

“A magical carved ivory artifact in the shape of an eye,” Zenia said. “It’s called the Eye of Truth, and it’s of great value.”

His forehead furrowed. More acting.

“Come with me,” Zenia said, adding the compulsion again. “There is a picture of it in the temple. I will show it to you to jog your faulty memory.”

Zenia didn’t know why someone from a wealthy family would bother stealing, but such a powerful artifact could have worth that went beyond coin. There were rumors that some of the Dharrows of old had been sympathetic to the elves, lending them sanctuary when they passed through the area. If Jevlain shared that sympathy—and the elf warden standing at his side suggested the possibility—then it was possible he’d acquired the artifact because it could give the enemy some advantage. Perhaps he’d even given it to their people. He could have worked as a spy his entire time in the army.

A tingle of excitement went through Zenia as she imagined that possibility, imagined being the one to uncover ten years of heinous crimes this zyndar had perpetrated, the betrayals he might have been responsible for as he pretended to fight alongside kingdom soldiers. Didn’t his odd choice of companions hint of mixed alliances?

But, no, she shouldn’t make assumptions, even guesses, until evidence presented itself. It was dangerous to grow overfond of one’s suspicions lest the truth be overlooked or mistaken for something else.

“Come,” Zenia repeated, turning toward the head of the dock and expecting the power in the word to compel him to follow.

Once again, he started after her, but once again, his silver-haired friend gripped his shoulder.

“Stop,” the elf said, and Zenia felt magic in his word.

Did he have a dragon tear? Maybe not, since elves had innate magic of their own, but if he did possess one, that could make him a powerful and dangerous enemy. Zenia would report his presence in the city when she returned to the temple.

She was half tempted to arrest him now. Rhi was watching all this with narrowed eyes, her bo held horizontally in front of her, her stance promising she was ready to fight.

“All right, stop it.” Dharrow lifted his hands and stepped away from Zenia and also from the elf. “Nobody’s playing magical tug-of-war with me.” That anger and indignation sparked in his eyes again. He clenched his jaw, his hand twitching toward the pistol hanging from his belt.

He’d gotten used to solving his problems with violence, had he? Well, that wouldn’t work for him here.

“She is attempting to manipulate you,” the elf said coolly, doing more than twitching his hand toward his weapons. He gripped the leather-wrapped hilt of a sheathed sword.

“We can put a stop to that.” The dwarf grinned, white teeth flashing from deep within that bush of a beard, and slapped the side of a hook against his open palm. It took Zenia a second to realize the hook was attached to the stump of an arm rather than being an independent weapon.

Rhi stepped up to Zenia’s side, her bo between them and the men. Zenia wasn’t weaponless, but she did not yet reach for the pistol holstered at her hip inside her robe. She met Dharrow’s eyes. Zyndar or not, he would not likely attack an inquisitor. His odd comrades, unschooled in the ways of human cities, might, so she had to be ready. The elf, in particular, had a gaze like lake ice, and she could almost feel power radiating from him. Mage, her instincts cried, even if he wore the simple green garb of a warden.

“No.” Dharrow spread his arms to create a barrier between his allies and Zenia. “I can offer you sanctuary on my family’s land,” he told them, “but if you commit a crime, even if it’s on my behalf, I might not be able to protect you from the Orders.”

Might not? Zenia almost snorted at the notion that he could, just because he was zyndar, have people acquitted of crimes. The days when the nobility had that kind of influence were over. The laws applied to everyone. Or they should. When she made it to the position of archmage, she would fight to ensure that idea of equality was turned into a fact.

Zenia kept her disdain off her face. It looked like he was going to cooperate, so it would be better not to goad him or his unstable companions into action. Even if a part of her wouldn’t mind seeing Rhi punch that elf in the nose, she wouldn’t wish for it. He was dangerous. She could tell. As well-trained as Rhi was, it was possible she wouldn’t be a match for him. Further, Zenia would be foolish to believe she could best a veteran with ten years of combat experience. Her job was to beat criminals with her mind, not with her fists.

“If you’ll come without magical coercion, I won’t use my gem on you.” Feeling magnanimous, Zenia extended her hand toward the head of the dock. “I’m ready to escort you now.”

“The cook said those born in the season of air would be lucky today,” Dharrow said. “Who knew he was so wise?”

Zenia ignored the words. Dharrow walked in the right direction as he groused. That was all that mattered.

“Stay out of trouble,” he added over his shoulder to the dwarf and elf. “I’ll catch up with you as soon as I can.”

They didn’t reply. They exchanged looks with each other.

Zenia couldn’t read the elf, neither magically nor with mundane reasoning, but the dwarf wore a surly expression. He didn’t like what was going on, and he might do something about it.

“Trail behind,” Zenia murmured to Rhi. “Watch those two.”

“Why don’t you tell me how to do a push-up while you’re at it,” Rhi said, already walking a half step back, her alert eyes alternately watching the way ahead and behind.

“Doesn’t the Old Codex of the Monk warn its pupils not to be sarcastic to mages of the Orders?” Zenia asked.

“Nah, sarcasm isn’t covered until the New Codex.”

“I’m sure respect has been considered virtuous and proper since the founding of the temples.”

“True, but you can be respectfully sarcastic. It’s even encouraged. Otherwise, mages get uppity.” Rhi slapped Zenia on the back, then fell silent, concentrating on her duty.

Zenia caught Dharrow looking at them, his eyebrows arched, and felt embarrassed for some reason, as if it wasn’t professional to have someone witness them bantering. Maybe it wasn’t, but she didn’t like the feeling that he was judging her for it. Or dismissing her. She stared straight ahead, only watching him out of the corner of her eye to make sure he stuck to the correct path.

Soon, they would be back at the temple. She would enjoy questioning him and finding clues in what would doubtless be evasive answers. Before long, perhaps before the day’s end, she would find the artifact and return it to the temple. Then nobody would question her worthiness of the position of archmage.

Continue with Chapter 4

Eye of Truth, Chapter 2 (a free fantasy novel)

Here’s the next installment! The observant reader will notice elves, dwarves, golems, and other Tolkien/D&D-inspired creatures in this series. I grew up reading tons and tons of Forgotten Realms and DragonLance novels, and then I played MUDs, Everquest, and finally World of Warcraft. I’ve been meaning to include some of my old friends in a world for ages. Years ago, when I was querying agents, they all turned their noses up at these familiar fantasy races, but now that I’m posting on my blog and self-publishing, I can include them if I want. Muahaha!

Thanks for reading. Here’s the next chapter!

Eye of Truth: Chapter 2

Zyndar Jevlain Dharrow gripped the railing as the ship turned, knifing through the gleaming waves of the Anchor Sea, and Korvann came into sight. The war hadn’t touched these shores, and the capital was as he remembered it, the whitewashed plaster walls, the red-clay tile roofs, and the four pillars to the four founding dragons rising up from the winter, spring, summer, and fall quarters of the city. The brown waters of the Jade River delta still marked Korvann’s eastern border, with few attempting to build inland along the waterway, not with the dense mangrove swamps rising along the muddy shores for miles.

Claps, cheers, and shouts came from behind Jev as the ship sailed closer. All he felt like doing was throwing up.

He rubbed his face. The feeling in his stomach wasn’t nerves, not exactly. He didn’t know what it was, but it wasn’t what he’d expected. He’d longed for an end to the war for so long, it had become a habit, but he wasn’t sure what he was coming home to. His crusty old father? The woman who hadn’t waited?

Someone walked up from behind and thumped Jev on the shoulder. “Is the city as wondrous a sight to you as it is to me, Captain?” the cheerful voice asked.

Jev attempted to arrange his face into an expression of good cheer as Second Lieutenant Targyon joined him at the rail.

“Korvann remains beautiful,” Jev said, hoping the young officer wouldn’t notice that he didn’t quite answer the question.

Targyon, one of fallen King Abdor’s nephews, hadn’t earned a reputation as a great warrior or dauntless leader during his two years at the front, but his bookishness had lent itself toward craftiness. Despite the affable smile that made him seem simple rather than shrewd, the twenty-two-year-old man didn’t miss much.

“I was beginning to wonder if I’d ever again see a settlement that wasn’t full of death and booby traps. And I was only out there for two years. I can only imagine what this moment must be like to you after ten. That’s almost half my lifetime.” Targyon shook his head.

“Yes.” Jev lowered his voice when he added, more to himself than to his young officer, “Long enough to grow jaded to death and fear and pain and to almost forget one’s identity. But not quite long enough to forget… other things.”

Targyon’s brow furrowed.

Jev forced a smile onto his face. “I’m looking forward to getting smashing drunk and sleeping it off on the beach under one of those thatch umbrellas,” he offered, both because that was what so many of the men had expressed longing for and because it did sound appealing right now.

“That’s how you’ll celebrate? You won’t go home to see your father? Your mother has passed, hasn’t she? You never mentioned if there was anyone else.”

Jev locked that smile onto his face, though it wanted to drop off onto the deck of the ship.

Naysha, her name floated into his mind. He’d thought he had gotten over her, come to accept that she had moved on. It had been years now. But seeing the city he’d visited so often in his youth and knowing he would soon ride past the farms and vineyards of his family’s estate brought all the memories back. Too many memories.

“No,” Jev said. “There’s no one else.”

Oh, he had cousins, aunts, and uncles aplenty, but they weren’t the ones occupying his thoughts.

Since Targyon looked like he might pry, Jev hurried to add, “What will you do, Lieutenant?”

“Go back to school and finish my classes. Become a professor of the sciences, as I’d always planned. This…” Targyon extended a hand backward, encompassing the hundred-odd men out on the deck, the soldiers who had survived countless battles, fighting for a king who’d never been able to see that the war was unwinnable. “This was a startling dose of reality and something I’ll always remember, but I wasn’t a soldier two years ago when I joined you in Taziira, and in my heart, I know I’m still not. I do appreciate you letting me tag along, letting me get myself into trouble even.”

Targyon offered a lopsided grin, silently alluding to how few zyndar captains had wanted the king’s scholarly nephew in their company. But he’d fit in well with the intelligence-gathering Gryphon Company, and Jev had never minded having him along. He hadn’t been a burden.

“You’re a soldier,” Jev said. “Don’t let anyone tell you differently. You became a soldier the day you stopped hiding under the table in the mess hall and started helping me ferret out the activities of the Taziir.”

“Thought I saw the boy under the table last week,” came a deep male voice from behind them, the timber reminiscent of rocks grinding together.

“Only because I dropped my fig,” Targyon said, turning toward Cutter, the only dwarf who’d fought with the kingdom army during the war.

Red-haired, red-bearded, and barefoot, Cutter wore a belt full of weapons and tools that would have brought most men to their knees with its weight. After almost five years, Jev still didn’t know his real name. Cutter assured him it was too difficult for humans to pronounce, even though Jev spoke six languages in addition to a smattering of Preskabroton Dwarf.

“That wasn’t a prize I was willing to let go easily,” Targyon added. “Considering nothing but berries grow on the elves’ benighted continent.”

“So long as there was a reason your dusty butt was top-up like a dirt flower sprouting from a rock.”

“A dirt flower? Is that an actual plant?” Targyon arched his eyebrows at Jev.

“Maybe,” Jev said, “but dwarves have about fifty words for dirt. It’s possible there wasn’t a more apt translation.”

“I hope you’re not mocking my language, human.” Cutter pointed the hook that replaced his missing right hand up at Jev’s face. “I’d hate to have to break your nose when you’ve somehow managed to survive all these years of battles without a blow to crook it.”

Cutter’s own nose looked like a sculptor’s drunken apprentice had battered at it for years with a hammer.

“You’d better treat my nose well,” Jev said, “if you want that introduction to the city’s master gem cutter.”

“Arkura Grindmor,” Cutter said, his tone managing to take on a wistful quality without losing any of its harshness. He faced the railing and the city. Their vessel had sailed close enough that the masts and smokestacks of docked ships blocked the view of the waterfront, but meandering streets climbed up the slope from the harbor with buildings visible as they stretched up and over the ridge. “Can we see the master today? Do you know where the workshop is located?”

“I do know where his shop is, assuming it hasn’t moved in the last ten years.” Jev looked to Targyon since he’d been in the city far more recently.

“I don’t think she’s moved in ten years,” he said dryly.

“There’s plenty of moving involved in bringing out the magic in a gem,” Cutter said. “I’m sure she’s as sound as a boulder.”

“That’s a compliment, right?” Targyon asked.

Jev nodded. “For a dwarf, yes. He’s practically swooning. One wonders if his interest in our city’s master gem cutter isn’t more personal than professional. I hadn’t realized Master Grindmor is a, er, woman.” Considering he’d seen the dwarf a few times and even gone to the shop once, it was somewhat alarming that he hadn’t known that.

“She does have that appealing beard.” Targyon scraped his fingers through his own beard. It was on the clumpy and scraggly side, but Jev’s wasn’t much better. None of them had bathed, shaved, or had haircuts in he couldn’t remember how long.

“Indeed,” Jev said. “It’s fuller and fluffier than the tail of a wolfhound.”

Cutter squinted up at Jev’s face, perhaps entertaining nose-breaking fantasies again. “I’ve never met her,” was all he said. “But I’ve waited a long time to beg her to take me on and teach me.”

Cutter touched one of the many leather pouches and kits attached to his belt, one that held his jewelry tools. He had often put those tools to use while assisting the army, repairing and improving the dragon-tear gems that some of the officers wielded. They were the only source of magical power in the world that humans could draw upon and use, and they’d been imperative in surviving against the magical Taziir. Jev didn’t know what more the dwarf hoped to learn about carving, but he owed it to Cutter to help him gain an apprenticeship if he wanted one.

“King Alderoth?” a man asked as he approached Targyon. It was Lieutenant Morfan, one of the signal officers.

“What?” Targyon’s brow furrowed at the incorrect address.

Jev wondered if they had both misheard it. The earnest Lieutenant Morfan wasn’t known for telling jokes. Or laughing at the ones others told.

“Sire.” Morfan dropped to one knee and bowed his head. “You may have noticed the flag message we received a short while ago.”

Jev and Targyon glanced toward the high stone walls that stretched into the Anchor Sea, creating a protected harbor for the docks and swimming beaches. A semaphore soldier had been atop it earlier, waving his colored flags toward the Fleet Stallion. Since Jev was colorblind, he’d never tried to add the semaphore code to his repertoire of languages, but he did remember thinking the flags had been waving about more quickly than usual. More urgently?

“Uhm, yes, but whatever you think you saw must have been a mistake if…” Targyon spread a helpless hand and glanced to Jev, as if he had some idea what was going on.

He did not. As his father’s eldest—and now only—son, Jev knew how the government and the succession worked, but he couldn’t think of anything that would account for this. King Abdor was dead, but according to the last reports Jev’s company had received, his three sons were alive with Crown Prince Dazron running the kingdom.

“It’s not a mistake, Sire. I checked three times to be certain. I, too, was… surprised.” The lieutenant lifted his head but only enough to glance up at Targyon. “The three princes died of a rare disease of the blood, all within weeks of each other and all quite suddenly. This left the kingdom without a named heir. The four archmages of the Orders came together and debated the merits of the children of the king’s sisters.”

Jev scratched his bearded jaw and watched Targyon’s face as the story unfolded. His mouth hung open. No, it was frozen open. The expression stamped there held both horror and disbelief.

Horror for the deaths of the princes, Jev guessed. He didn’t know how close Targyon was with his cousins, but unlike their warmongering father, they had been well-liked among the populace. And disbelief because—

“I’m the youngest,” Targyon managed to blurt. “Of six boys. My mother is the oldest of my uncle’s sisters, yes, but Himon, Dralyn, and—four hells, all of them would be before me.”

“I don’t claim to understand, Sire.” The lieutenant was careful to use the royal honorific. Whether this proved to be a mistake or not, he wouldn’t risk failing to respect the possibility. “I just know what I read in the flags. The ship’s captain would like you to join him. We’ll be docking shortly, and he’s arranging a suitable bodyguard for you. Representatives of the Orders, including Archmage Petor, should be waiting to explain everything to you.”

“Bodyguard,” Targyon mouthed, then looked to Jev again.

“Sorry, Lieutenant,” Jev said, figuring Targyon would appreciate a familiar title right now. “I don’t know what to tell you, but I do know the oldest-is-considered-first rule is only for the king’s direct descendants. In this situation, the precedent is for the archmages to decide among themselves which of the potential heirs that put themselves forward would be best for the kingdom.”

“Put themselves forward?” Targyon brightened at this potential loophole. “I didn’t do that. That makes this a mistake. Or maybe they assumed since I volunteered to serve in the army that I would—no, this must be a mistake. And I can get out if it, right?”

“You’ll have to discuss it with the archmages,” Jev said neutrally. He couldn’t imagine young Targyon saying no or even arguing with those intimidating figures. Few did. On paper, the Orders and the kingdom government had equal power over the land, but the archmages tended to get what they wanted, especially in those rare incidents when all four Orders worked together toward a common goal.

“I will.” Targyon nodded firmly and turned, almost tripping over the lieutenant who still knelt, his head bowed. “Where’s the ship’s captain, Morfan?”

“Permission to rise, Sire?”

“Uh, yeah.”

Morfan stood. “I’ll take you to him.”

Jev felt numb as he watched them go, having a hard time envisioning Targyon as king. Even if he only dove under tables these days for figs.

How had this happened? A disease of the blood? That struck down all three princes in the prime of their lives? By the founders, that was as unlikely as a dragon cave without treasure in it. Jev hoped the Orders’ inquisitors were crawling all over the castle looking for signs of foul play. He imagined every newspaper in the city speculating that the Taziir were behind it.

But why would they be? The elves had won the war. Their archers had found the cracks in Abdor’s armor and taken him down, leaving no one else who cared to continue the assault. The kingdom was no further threat to Taziira.

“That boy is going to be a king?” Cutter asked. He’d been silent during the exchange, but he scratched his head vigorously with his hook now. If the metal appendage bit into his scalp, he didn’t notice it. “He’s barely out of diapers.”

Jev didn’t voice an objection to the observation since he was more than ten years older than Targyon and also had a tendency to think of him as a boy. What had the Orders been thinking?

A green-clad figure with pointed ears and silver hair walked toward Jev and Cutter, his pack slung over one shoulder and his longbow visible over the other. His elegant facial features were impossible to read as he glanced past them and toward the ships. The Fleet Stallion was only seconds from sliding into one of several vacant slips along the main dock—other troop transport ships trailed behind, waiting their turns.

The sailors scurrying about preparing the Stallion glanced uneasily at the elf.

“You decide to take me up on my offer, Lornysh?” Jev asked.

Lornysh arched a slender silver eyebrow, first at Jev, then at Cutter. “To share a guest room with a snoring dwarf?”

“My family has a castle. There’s more than one guest room.”

“Are there trees?” Lornysh’s ice-blue eyes shifted, his gaze sweeping across the city.

Here and there, squat olive trees rose between buildings, and one could glimpse the dark mangroves stretching up the Jade River, but to an elf accustomed to the dense northern forests across the sea, Jev supposed the foliage seemed sparse.

“There are some trees. My father’s land is fifteen miles that way.” Jev pointed up the river and past the ridge. “Outside of the city. We have fields for the cows and sheep, but there are copses here and there near the water. We have a lovely bog where we grow lots of gort leaves.”

“Hm.” The single note held disapproval, for the paucity of trees rather than for the gort bog, Jev assumed. One didn’t typically disapprove of gort until one had tasted it. Multiple times. Which didn’t take long in Korvann where it was served with almost every meal. “Your people are such… assiduous loggers.”

The pause did nothing to hide Lornysh’s distaste of all things related to humans and their proclivities. That he’d worked so many years as a scout in Gryphon Company, and occasionally even an assassin, was a marvel. He’d never shared his reason for turning on his people, but a few omissions here and there led Jev to believe Lornysh had been cast out for some reason.

“We like to clear them so we can farm and eat, but I can find you some trees on our land,” Jev said. “I would be happy to string you up a hammock outside the castle.”

It would actually be easier for Jev to fulfill his promise of sanctuary to Lornysh if he opted to sleep outside. Perhaps his father need never know an elf was on his land. Not that Jev would lie if the subject came up. His honor wouldn’t permit that.

“You going to live here among the humans, Lorn?” Cutter asked.

“For a few weeks. I wish to see some of their culture and art. I haven’t decided yet what I’ll do after that.”

Jev hadn’t either, and this was his home. Was that odd?

He was sure his father would be quick to put him to work again on the estate, which had to have been neglected since the king had required that Jev recruit eighty of their men to form up a company to join the army with him. So many women had been without their husbands for so long. And some of their husbands would never return.

Jev felt he owed something to the estate for that, especially since he hadn’t been able to keep an eye on his men once he’d been transferred to Gryphon Company, but a job overseeing Dharrow farms, dairy, and craftsmen seemed far too tame to hold his interest after the action of war. All the other men spoke of plans, of all the delightful things they would enjoy now that they were free. And Jev had no idea beyond introducing a dwarf to a bearded woman and finding a hammock for Lornysh.

A blue robe on the docks caught his eye. A woman from the Water Order stood at the base of the recently extended gangplank, a space of several feet around her clear of people, even though soldiers, sailors, and vendors hawking their wares crowded the area. Only one person stood near the robed figure, another woman, this one in a blue monk’s gi. She was as stout as a dwarf, one of their temple’s enforcers, no doubt.

Jev saw the browns, reds, and whites of the other Orders farther up the dock and assumed the temple representatives were here to talk to Targyon. Poor kid. Jev wasn’t sure what was worse. Getting stuck with the job of king or having to deal with the Orders.

“I’ve heard you have to join some kind of criminal guild if you want to be an assassin in a human city,” Cutter said.

“I will join nothing,” Lornysh said.

“So, you’re going to be as social here as you were in the company.”

“There is nothing I wish to say to humans. Or dwarves.”

“Or elves either, apparently,” Cutter said, “seeing as how you’re fine with poking them with arrows these days. Is it hard making friends when you’ll stick pointy metal in anyone you meet?”

Lornysh looked at Jev, as if Jev were Cutter’s handler and could silence him with a jerk of a leash.

“How far is the hammock tree from his room?” Lornysh asked.

“Nearly a mile,” Jev said, waving toward the gangplank. Targyon and six soldiers pressed into bodyguard duty had already descended, and other men were crowding it, eager to escape into the city. “The grounds around the castle were cleared centuries ago, back when squabbles between the zyndar were as common within the kingdom’s borders as battles with surrounding nations.”

“A mile should suffice,” Lornysh said.

“You’re sure? Cutter snores loudly.”

“Are the walls of your castle so thin?”

“The snore of a dwarf is a battering ram even thick walls cannot withstand,” Jev said.

“True.”

Jev walked down the gangplank ahead of his companions, hoping people would notice him first and not make trouble for Lornysh. Not even a half elf would be welcome in the capital these days. A full-blooded one? Jev wanted to get him past the city walls as quickly as possible.

As he walked, he made sure the gold wolf-head clasp securing his gray cloak to his shoulders was visible. The Dharrow family emblem marked him as zyndar, a noble from one of the oldest and most recognizable lines. Commoners here in Korvann, so close to where his family held their land, had always nodded or greeted him with respect.

The blue-robed woman from the Water Order still waited at the bottom of the gangplank. That surprised Jev since Targyon and his escort were moving away from the docks, the colored robes of Order representatives all around him, including someone else in a blue robe.

This woman had dark brown hair pulled back in a braid and an olive-skinned face one might have called beautiful if it had appeared less haughty and aloof. She pinned Jev with a cool green-eyed gaze and stepped forward as he reached the end of the gangplank.

He gave her a nod, recognizing the large silver clasp at her shoulder, the emblem of an inquisitor. He should have guessed from the monk standing at her side. He wondered who on the ship she had been sent to question. A sailor? All the soldiers had been gone for years, so they couldn’t be associated with any recent trouble in the city.

A chain around the woman’s neck suggested a dragon tear hung beneath her robe. For her, the gem’s power would likely manifest as the ability to read minds and tell truths from lies.

After his polite nod, Jev started to move past her, hoping her gaze wouldn’t fix on Lornysh. It was very possible one of the Orders’ law enforcers would opt to pick him up instead of letting him roam free in the city.

As Jev rehearsed the defense he would utter if the woman stopped Lornysh, she reached out a hand to stop him.

“Zyndar Jevlain Dharrow?” she asked, her voice as cool as her eyes.

“Yes?”

“You’re under arrest.”

Chapter 3: coming soon!

Eye of Truth, Chapter 1 (free fiction: a new fantasy novel)

Hey, folks! I’m working on an old series this summer and also some new stuff. Authors just can’t keep from jumping on those shiny new projects. I’ve decided to post the first book (a fantasy mystery with a hint of romance) on my blog this summer before publishing it. That way, you can try the new series and see if it’s for you before spending any money. I’m planning at least five books in it. Each one is a stand-alone story so no odious cliffhangers at the end, though there will be some ongoing plot and relationship threads and a teaser for Book 2 in the epilogue.

Want to give it a try? Jump in. I’ll post new chapters every week. They’re not quite polished yet, so if you catch a typo, feel free to let me know in the comments. Thanks!

Eye of Truth 

(Agents of the Crown, Book 1)

Chapter 1

Inquisitor Zenia Cham crouched atop a parked wagon, observing the brick square in front of the Temple of the Water Order. Observing and waiting.

Pedestrians ambled through the area, buying from vendors, ignoring beggars, and tossing pebbles into the dragon fountain for luck. Two boys waded through the water, scrambled up the statue, and giggled as they stuck their fingers into the dragon’s nostrils in an attempt to plug the streams shooting out of them.

Zenia almost yelled for them to get off the fountain—that statue represented the Blue Dragon founder of the Water Order and deserved respect—but she had a greater criminal to catch.

“He’s not going to come back here,” her colleague whispered from behind her.

“You’re doubting my ability to read a criminal’s intentions in his actions?” Zenia arched her brows and smiled over her shoulder.

Rhi Lin leaned casually against the wagon’s dormant smoke stack, but she also scrutinized the square from their elevated perch, her dark brown eyes missing little. “I’m doubting anyone would be stupid enough to return to the scene of his crime. Twenty minutes after committing it.”

“Judging by the nervous way he kept glancing over his shoulder, he knew we were following him. And his hand strayed often to his purse full of stolen coins. Those were hesitant touches. I believe he knows he won’t escape and that he’s decided to return the offering to the temple charity plate in the hope that we’ll let him go.”

“Your rock tell you that?” Rhi glanced at the front of Zenia’s robe.

Zenia’s dragon-tear gem wasn’t visible, but her colleague knew well that she kept it on a chain around her neck.

“I didn’t need magic to deduce our criminal’s motives.”

“So, you’re guessing.” Despite the skeptical curve of Rhi’s lips, she leaned forward onto the balls of her feet, her fingers curled around her bo. She was ready to spring into action.

“We’ll see.” Zenia smiled and turned her attention back to the square.

It was a guess, but after more than ten years as an inquisitor, and five years apprenticed to an inquisitor before that, she believed in her guesses. Her deductions. They typically proved correct.

One of the twin bronze-and-wood doors to the temple opened, their massive size and height making the blue-robed figure that stepped out appear diminutive. But the white-haired Archmage Sazshen was anything but diminutive, and when she yelled at the boys to get off the dragon, they leaped down and sprinted away so quickly they tripped over their own feet. Repeatedly.

Sazshen gazed calmly after them, then around the square. Her square.

Uncharacteristic nerves trotted through Zenia’s belly as she realized the temple leader, who was also her employer and mentor, might witness her failing. What if she had guessed wrong? Sazshen would think it odd to find her protégé sunning herself atop a wagon for no reason.

Rhi touched Zenia’s shoulder. “There he is.”

Before Zenia spotted their target, Rhi sprang from the top of the wagon. She landed lightly on the brick pavers, her soft shoes not making a sound as she sprinted through the pedestrians with her bo in hand. People hurried out of the way, though she wouldn’t have knocked anyone aside. Rhi was five and a half feet tall and as stocky as a dwarf, but she had the uncanny agility of an elf.

She weaved through the crowds like a dancer, the six-foot olive-wood staff a natural extension of her body rather than a clunky weapon, and if people hadn’t made exclamations of surprise as she ran past, her target never would have heard her.

But the gaunt man in tattered clothing glanced back and jumped, spotting her sprinting toward him. Rhi had been circling as she ran, perhaps hoping to herd him up the steps and into the temple’s great hall. But he took off down the street instead, heading toward the wagon where Zenia perched.

She hopped down, not with as much agility as her colleague, but she was ready when the man approached, bystanders scattering to get out of the way. Zenia lifted her arms and stepped toward him. She had no great magical attacks she could throw at him, since her gem only lent her powers that were useful in sussing out clues and tracking down criminals, but she prepared to shout a mental command into his mind, a compulsion to stop and surrender.

Before she sent it, he saw her and halted so quickly he tumbled to his knees in front of the dragon fountain. Sheer terror flashed in his eyes, making Zenia feel like some tyrannical troll that ate those who trespassed in its territory.

The man was so gaunt and clad in such tattered clothing that a part of her wished she could let him go, that she could look the other way and let him take the Order’s donation money to buy some fish and flatbread. Times had been difficult for many these last years of the war, and Zenia hadn’t forgotten what it was like to go hungry and to have hunger turn into desperation.

But she had sworn an oath long ago to do the Water Order’s bidding, to protect the interests of the temple and all it employed. If the laws were ignored for one, they might as well be ignored for a thousand. Besides, she could never let a criminal go with Archmage Sazshen looking on.

As Zenia stepped forward, believing the man would give up, he threw another terror-filled look at her and leaped to his feet. He whirled to sprint in the other direction.

By now, Rhi had caught up with him. She launched a fist at his face. His nose crunched loudly enough that Zenia heard it from several paces away, even over the rumble of a nearby steam carriage and the gurgle of the fountain. The blow dropped the man to his back.

As Zenia approached, Rhi knelt to pat down the thief. Groaning and dazed, the man brought shaky hands to his nose but did not object to the search.

Rhi produced a jangling pouch and handed it up to Zenia. A witness in the temple had seen the man slip the donation coins into the pouch, so there was no question that they belonged to the Order.

“All those hours I spend sparring with Jagarr and throwing sandbags around in the gym,” Rhi said, shaking her head, “and criminals are more terrified of you than they are of me.”

She truly sounded disgusted.

“It’s the pin that terrifies them.” Zenia accepted the pouch and pointed to the dragon claw pin attached to the front of her robe, the pin that marked her as an inquisitor. “Those with sins staining their souls get nervous when an inquisitor of any of the Orders comes around.”

“I’m not arguing that, but you’ve got a special reputation in the city. And don’t tell me you don’t know it.”

Zenia grimaced as Rhi hefted the thief to his feet, tears streaming from the man’s eyes. She was aware of her reputation and the fact that she was known as the Frost Mage—and occasionally the Frost Bitch, depending on who was listening.

She never knew how to feel about it. In the early years, she had been proud, because it had come about due to all the crimes she’d solved, all the underworld felons she’d located and brought in. She’d risen to her current level of fame—or perhaps infamy, at least in the eyes of guilty parties—three years ago after finding and defeating the elusive Dark Stalker, a man who’d raped and murdered his way up and down the kingdom coast.

She remained proud that she was good at her job, but her reputation did lead to a degree of isolation that she hadn’t anticipated. Even within the temple, she had few friends, and she wasn’t sure why that was. It had been years since a man had asked her out to dinner or for a walk on the beach. Even though she was focused on her career and told herself companionship wasn’t important, she sometimes wondered if she would die without ever marrying and having children, without finding someone she loved and who loved her.

Her gaze drifted up the long marble steps to where Archmage Sazshen still stood, now gazing down at them. Sazshen was everything Zenia longed to be, with a career and power that nobody could take from her, but she’d also never married and she had no children. By choice? Or because she, too, had been feared by men rather than loved by them?

Realizing that Rhi was almost to the top of the stairs with the prisoner, Zenia trotted up after them. She hoped the gaunt man wouldn’t be punished unduly for his crimes, especially since the money had been recovered before it could be spent.

Archmage Sazshen regarded him with cold eyes.

“Dungeon, Archmage?” Rhi asked.

“Dungeon.” Sazshen nodded firmly. “Brakkor will drop a few lashes on his back to ensure he thinks twice about stealing again.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Rhi escorted her charge into the cool temple interior.

Zenia was glad the man would receive a whipping rather than the traditional punishment for theft, having his hand cut off. Thankfully, all the Orders had grown more lenient in dispensing justice these last few years. It was anything but a time of prosperity for the kingdom, and half the city would be without hands if punishments remained as harsh as they had been historically. Even so, Zenia was glad she was usually assigned tough cases, men and women who had done far more evil than swiping a few coins from the Order’s coffers.

“How did you convince the thief to return to the temple?” Sazshen asked. “I’m sure your monk appreciates having such a short walk to the dungeon with her recalcitrant prisoner.”

Your monk. As if Archmage Sazshen didn’t know Rhi’s name. A few dozen monks lived in or worked for the temple, but that wasn’t so many that one couldn’t learn their names. And Rhi, as one of only two female monks here, was memorable.

“He convinced himself, Archmage.”

“Handy.”

“I thought so.” Zenia thought about mentioning that Rhi had wanted to head to the public market, believing the thief would rush to spend his ill-gotten coin there, and that it had been she who’d deduced the criminal’s route. She shouldn’t feel the need to brag, and it irritated her that she still had the urge to do so, to point out that she’d done something clever. She’d passed her thirty-second birthday, and she was established in her profession. Why did she still feel the need for praise?

“I sensed your approach and came out to meet you.” Sazshen touched the tear-shaped gem that she wore openly on the outside of her robe, an intricate representation of the fountain in front of the temple carved into its surface. Most people who owned the valuable gems hid them, lest they tempt the desperate and the hungry.

“Do you need something more than thieves from me?” Zenia asked.

“I wish to take you to lunch.”

“Ah.” Zenia had hoped for more interesting news, but she was always willing to spend time with her mentor. “I would be happy to dine with you.”

“I thought we would discuss my retirement.”

“Again?” Zenia smiled.

Archmage Sazshen had been threatening to retire for years. More than once, she’d hinted that she might suggest Zenia to her colleagues at the other temples as a possible replacement, but Zenia hadn’t been holding her breath. Even though she liked to think her work and dedication to the Order would make her ideal for the position, there were other mages and inquisitors who were more eligible. Older and more experienced. And from the nobility. Even though the temples supposedly promoted people equally these days, and ignored kingdom titles, the bias was there. And Zenia was… well, her father had never acknowledged her existence, so it didn’t matter that she was technically half zyndar.

“Many have watched your work and your career with interest,” Sazshen said. “Archmages are usually at least in their fifties before they’re considered wise and mature enough for the position—if Archmage Xan’s tendency to place noise-maker cushions on the chairs of his colleagues at meetings can be considered mature—but I’ve mentioned your name numerous times, and I believe they’re considering you. If you were to complete one more high-profile task for the Order, I suspect they could be swayed.”

Zenia clasped her hands behind her back. “I would certainly be honored to be chosen for the position, Archmage.”

Was it possible a high-profile task was already on the horizon? Perhaps some new crafty criminal was at work right now, harming the Order or the subjects of the kingdom.

“As it happens, I have a challenging assignment for you right now.”

“Oh?” Zenia leaned forward on her toes, not bothering to hide her eagerness. It had been weeks, if not months, since she’d had a truly demanding assignment. The capital city of Korvann had been unusually restful since news of the king’s death and the end of the war had arrived, as if its one million residents believed a period of prosperity would return now that resources would no longer be funneled across the sea to the north.

“I find it encouraging that you appear more excited about an assignment than a promotion,” Sazshen said, smiling slightly.

“You know I enjoy the challenge of my job, Archmage.”

“Indeed I do. I suspect that would have to be one of the stipulations of the promotion, that you would continue to tackle difficult assignments as an inquisitor.”

“Is that a possibility?” Zenia had dreamed often of rising all the way to archmage, not only the highest position in the Water Order Temple, but, because this temple presided over the capital city, one of the highest positions in the entire kingdom. Only the Fire, Earth, and Air Order archmages would be her equals. For a girl of her dubious origins… it was amazing to think that she might rise so far.

“You would be the boss over the whole temple. You would make the rules.”

“That sounds encouraging.”

Sazshen patted her on the shoulder. “Let’s save that talk for the future and discuss this new assignment. You wouldn’t mind arresting a zyndar, would you?”

Zenia imagined her eyes flaring with inner fire. Usually the kingdom’s nobles were untouchable, above most of the laws of the land—and they knew it—but if a crime was grievous enough, they could be brought in for an inquisition and punishment. And she loved bringing in those arrogant entitled sots. Maybe it made her petty, but she couldn’t help it. So many of them did not deserve all that they had.

“I would not mind,” Zenia said calmly, hoping her feelings didn’t show.

“Good. Good. Because an artifact was stolen from the temple several years ago. Now that the war is over, and the soldiers are returning home, we may be able to get it back. You may be able to get it back.”

“I’m ready. Who has it?”

“Zyndar Jevlain Dharrow.”

Continue to Chapter 2

Interview with Jaxi and New Dragon Blood Book (Oaths) Coming This Month

If you’re subscribed to my newsletter, you already know that a new Dragon Blood book, Oaths, is on its way. It’s been a couple of years since I published Soulblade and Shattered Past, and I hadn’t planned to write more, but… sometimes, these things just happen. I enjoyed being back in this world for the Heritage of Power series, and I realized I’d never written the story of Ridge and Sardelle’s wedding, nor had I explained how Bhrava Saruth ended up getting a temple, so… Oaths.

It releases on April 24th, and the pre-order is up now in most stores:

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Smashwords | Kobo | Apple

You can also get it early if you’re a Patreon subscriber. It’s already available there.

To warm you up for the new adventure, I’ve done another interview with everyone’s favorite sentient soulblade, Jaxi. (I’d actually forgotten all about the interview I did with her a few years ago at the end of Book 5, if you can believe it. She may be my first character to get two interviews.)

Interview with Jaxi

*interview takes place at the time of Oaths, so there’s no mention of the events in Heritage of Power (three years after Oaths)

Thank you for sitting down for an informal chat with me, Jaxi. I—

Sitting down? Is that a joke? I’m hanging on a rack in my scabbard.

Ah, yes. Just an expression. Thank you for… hanging out with me.

*silent moment* You’re not going to be one of those clever journalists, are you? Or one who thinks she’s clever? Like that dreadful woman who’s started writing articles about Sardelle again?

No, ma’am. No cleverness here. And I’m an author, not a journalist. I thought it would be nice to get your version of events for the novel I’ll be releasing soon. Sardelle, General Zirkander, and the dragon god, Bhrava Saruth, figured prominently in them, but what was your role? 

Bhrava Saruth doesn’t figure prominently in anything except his own delusions. As for myself, I spent most of my summer hanging in my rack and staring at Ridge’s dreadful couch. Do you know how much hanging is involved in being a sword? 

But you got out for the wedding. And the, ah, event with Tolemek? And the dragon blood, yes? 

True, but do you really want to tell your readership about those events before the novel is released? Will they not feel they’ve been spoiled? You do have a readership, don’t you?

A small one, certainly.

Small? That’s disappointing. One would think that everyone would want to read about the exploits of sentient soulblades. 

I’m sure more people will discover the books and learn about soulblades. But since you asked, I do have some questions from those readers. Perhaps it would be better to ask those than about the events that will be detailed in the novel. 

I should think so. 

All right, let’s do a few. Leslie asks what you think about people making soulblades again. 

While I wouldn’t mind having more worthy individuals to communicate with, I don’t think there are currently any sorcerers in the world powerful enough to make soulblades, nor any powerful enough to perform the ceremony to channel their essences into the swords. I suppose that may change if Bhrava Saruth continues his randy ways. It’s only a matter of time before some of the women “worshipping” him end up pregnant. In twenty years, we could have powerful magic users around again. They’ll probably be haughty and arrogant.

Because they’ll be powerful? Or because they’ll be Bhrava Saruth’s spawn?

Yes.

They’ll also be overly obsessed with tarts. 

I… see. The next question is from Jackie. Do you miss your family from before? Did you have a great love?

From before I became a soulblade? I do sometimes think of my parents, though it’s been a very long time now, and some of the details from the past have gotten fuzzy. They were good people, although oddly fixated on the idea of me studying hard and reaching my “full potential.” As if you’re not fully potentiated if you’re hurling fireballs and incinerating Iskandian enemies. 

I’m not sure that’s quite the right meaning for that word. 

What is this? A vocabulary test? 

No, sorry. Carry on.

Anyway, yes, I do miss my parents. As for great love, I was only sixteen when I was forced to choose between eternal death or storing my soul in the soulblade, so there hadn’t been time to fall greatly and deeply in love with anyone. Most of the boys I went to school with were dolts anyway.  Boys don’t get to be interesting until they’re at least thirty.

Or three-hundred-and-thirty?

Nah, they’re pretty wrinkly by then.

Jo asks, “As it seems to be getting fairly crowded with babies at home, do you see yourself journeying without Sardelle more in the future?”

Right now, it’s mostly crowded with animals and dragons, but I know children are on the way. I am concerned that Ridge occasionally jokes about whether soulblades can babysit or not. The answer is yes we can and no we don’t want to.

I’ve had handlers turn into mothers in the past, and I do accept that those aren’t usually the most exciting years for a soulblade. There’s a lot of that hanging around we already discussed. But babies grow up, and I have faith that Sardelle won’t be content to be ensconced in her house with Ridge’s awful couch indefinitely. We’ll have more adventures again one day. Until then, I’ll be patient. And incinerate things around the house to keep my skills honed.

That couch, perhaps?

How did you guess? Though it’s possible I may have already tried and found it surprisingly fire retardant. Do you think his pilots planned that?

I couldn’t say. Susan asks, “If you could shape shift into any creature, what would it be?”

I’d be the first non-arrogant dragon in the skies.

You, ah, don’t consider yourself arrogant? 

I’m shocked you would ask that. I am modest when you consider my vast talents and powers. 

All right. Robina asks, “Do you actually feel anything when a young man ‘polishes your blade’?”

I’m certainly able to feel it when my blade is touched, whether by a gentle hand with an oil rag or by an enemy Sardelle and I are eviscerating. The former is definitely preferable. The latter is so untidy. 

Unlike incineration?

Precisely.

For our final question, Cindy poses the deeply thoughtful and profound… “I want to know what’s the weirdest thing she ‘saw’ someone do when they thought no one was looking.”

Your readers believe I spy on people?

Well, they’ve read the books. They know all about the colonel whose office is across the hall from Ridge’s.

Ah. I might damage their young and impressionable minds if I share the weirdest things people have done. Getting unlikely objects stuck in bodily orifices. Pretending to be mythological heroes by clutching blanket-capes around their shoulders and stabbing vile enemies with broom-spears. Having long and involved arguments with their furniture. Talking to animals. Vigorously fantasizing about famous pilots, infamous dragons, and brilliant soulblades…

Er, talking to animals isn’t that weird.

What about when you believe they’re talking back? And want to have a deep and meaningful relationship with you? Let’s not even go into the iguana incident. 

The… iguana? On second thought, why don’t you finish up by telling folks what they can look forward to in your new novel? 

My new novel? I’m not the one getting married.

No, but it’s a forgone conclusion that Ridge and Sardelle never would have found happiness together without you.

That’s absolutely true. And it’s about time someone acknowledged it. All right, your readers can look forward to… no more than two scenes with that couch in it. Maybe three. Also some bonding time between Ridge and Angulus. An explosion in Tolemek’s lab. A ridiculously pompous dragon showing up often (please tell me that isn’t the shape-shifted Bhrava Saruth on the cover of the book).

Er, you saw that, did you?

I’m pretending I didn’t. Lastly, your readers can enjoy spending more time with me. What more do you need? 

Free Fantasy and Science Fiction Novels

I had grand plans to get another short story up here for Christmas, but that didn’t happen. I’ve got something else though, a list of free fantasy and science fiction novels from some of my fellow authors that you can check out over the holidays (or after). I’ll leave this list up indefinitely. Some of these may only be free for the next few weeks, but a lot of these are always free.

The ones in the first list are free for anyone and available in many stores. The ones in the second list are on Amazon only and are in Kindle Unlimited so they’re free if you have a subscription there.

There’s a mix of fantasy, science fiction, and some scifi/fantasy romance thrown in for good measure. I hope you’ll find something of interest!

Completely Free for Anyone Books

 

Renegade

How far would you go to protect your superpower?

Sixteen-year old Mathilda Brandt just discovered hers: the ability to hear, control and even kill plant life. She will face a stark choice if and when the world learns about her new ability. Either she will have to put on the blue jumpsuit and become an officially sanctioned Empowered member of the Hero Council and follow any and all orders, or instead forswear ever using her power for any reason. Mat decides to keep her power a secret, but then she meets “rogue” Empowered people like herself who are creating a hidden sanctuary. She finally has a place where she can belong and use her power freely.

But if she wants a place to belong, first she must fight to save it.

Get Renegade from your preferred store.

A Sprig of Holly

Greta lives with her grandfather in a cabin in the mountains. The winter is harsh and they are running short of wood. Their handsome neighbour Matthias would help – but he is still trying to get back from the town.

Greta and her grandfather must venture out into the snow to cut more wood or freeze to death, but when disaster strikes, who can help them? Will she ever see Matthias again?

And what is the significance of the little sprig of holly?

Get “A Sprig of Holly” from your preferred store.

 

 

Sin Eater (The Aria Knight Chronicles Book 1)

Aria Knight has an unusual set of skills: she will hold back the hounds of Hell so that you can fly toward the Pearly Gates, and she will wipe your slate clean so you don’t become karma’s bitch…for a price.

A sin eater has to make a living in today’s world somehow.

But when she’s called in the dead of night to perform her rite for a recluse billionaire, she stumbles upon a murder scene, and the evidence points to her. In an attempt to clear her name and uncover the true culprit, Aria is forced to team up with a private investigator who’s possessed by three spirits and a handsome wizard who would rather see all sin eaters like Aria go extinct.

Aria knows her job is never easy, but now, it’s become downright deadly.

Get Sin Eater at your preferred store (free until December 31st)

The Ares Weapon (Mars Ascendant Book 1)

A deadly artificial virus is missing.

The corporation that hired her to find it wants her dead.

Melanie Destin’s life is a mess.

Desperate to start over, she accepts an interplanetary salvage job that will pay her enough to start a new life on Mars. When she learns the real purpose of the mission is to recover an apocalyptic virus, everything begins to unravel.

With her life in danger and not knowing who to trust, Mel must find a way to keep the virus out of the wrong hands. If she fails, billions will die…

Get The Ares Weapon.

 

Rotten Magic (The Artifice Mage Saga Book 1)

Would you sacrifice your future to practice magic?

Artificers are the gilded princes of the Iron Empire. Mages are violent criminal outcasts. Devin competes to become the best artificer in the empire . . . but he’s secretly a mage.

All the apprentices in the Artificer’s Guild compete by building crude prototypes of powered armor for mock battles. When Devin transforms himself into a mechanical dragon to slaughter the competition, his rival Benson steps into the role of dragon slayer. But Devin’s secret grows heavier as he claws his way to the top. He’s started hearing eerie voices in his head: the stout words of the being he calls ‘the artificer’ and the oily voice of ‘the mage.’ How long can Devin be satisfied with fake dragon armor when the promise of true arcane power whispers in his ear?

Amazon: Rotten Magic

 

A Fairy Tail: and Out of the Bag

This light-hearted short story duo is sure to make you smile, chortle, and outright laugh.

“A Fairy Tail” follows the desperate adventures of Sir Craig as he works to rescue his beloved from a fiendish sorcerer. However, Boots, a ragged young man who has a habit of shapechanging into various creatures including a unicorn, is a rival for fair Gregoria’s hand. Will Craig rescue Gregoria? Will Boots get to eat apples out of Gregoria’s hand? Or will darker forces intervene to keep these lovers apart?

“Out of the Bag” is a short short story, but long on imagination. Jason the cop expects a normal day on the force, but a chance encounter on a breaking and entering call changes everything.

Get at Amazon or Smashwords: A Fairy Tail.

 

Crying Over Spilt Light: A God Complex Sci-Fi Story (Hire a Muse Book 1)

Hire A Muse, Get A Nobel Prize

Ex Machina meets A Beautiful Mind in this mind-bending sci-fi thriller.

On the verge of abandoning his life-long project, an obsessive physicist hires the innovative service of an android Muse to help him finish his work. But when things start to go missing from his life, he must learn that not all is worth sacrificing on the altar of science before he has nothing left to live for.

From ScifiSelect: ” A mind bending thriller on the very concept of inspiration.”

Get from your preferred store: Crying Over Spilt Light

 

The Crimson Claymore (Claymore of Calthoria Trilogy Book 1)

Searon wanted revenge. What he got was a snarky wizard and a quest he never expected.

When Searon loses everything he once holds dear, he begins a quest for revenge, leaving behind everything except his Crimson Claymore. He runs into something he doesn’t expect … an arrogant wizard, who won’t leave him alone unless he forms an army, an army that could fulfill his revenge, and save all of humanity in Calthoria.

The Crimson Claymore is the first book in Craig A. Price Jr.’s Claymore of Calthoria, a sword and sorcery epic fantasy adventure.

Amazon: The Crimson Claymore (Note: this should be free on Amazon soon, but if it isn’t yet when you’re visiting, you can grab it from the Instafreebie link below)

Instafreebie: The Crimson Claymore

Bypass Gemini (Big Sigma Book 1)

In a distant future, Trevor “Lex” Alexander was shaping up to be the next great race pilot until a fixed race got him banned from the sport. Reduced to making freelance deliveries, he thinks his life can’t get any worse. That’s when a package manages to get him mixed up with mobsters, a megacorp, and a mad scientist.

Now his life depends on learning what their plans are, and how he can stop them.

Get at your preferred store: Bypass Gemini

 

 

 

Among Galactic Ruins: A Phoenix Adventures Sci-fi Romance

With a secret map in hand, astro-archeologist Dr. Lexa Carter is excited for an expedition to a lawless desert planet in search of an invaluable old Earth artifact. She finally has her chance to prove herself to her disapproving family. But instead of adventure, she finds herself in the middle of treasure hunters, feral beasts, dangerous enemies and wild sandstorms. And her unwelcome protector is her museum’s mysterious–and frankly arrogant and annoying–new head of security, Damon Malik.

After years as a galactic spy, Damon Malik just wants a quiet job where no one tries to kill him. Instead of easy work in a museum full of artifacts, he finds himself on a backwater planet babysitting the most infuriating woman he’s ever met. Lexa might be smart and gorgeous, but Damon knows trouble when he sees it.

She thinks he’s arrogant. He thinks she’s a trouble-magnet. But among the desert sands and ruins, their treasure hunt–led by a young, brash treasure hunter named Dathan Phoenix–takes a dark turn. Someone doesn’t want them to find the treasure and they want Lexa and Damon dead. Damon isn’t sure if he wants to strangle Lexa or kiss her, but they will need to work together to have any chance of surviving among galactic ruins.

Get at your preferred store: Among Galactic Ruins

Free Books for Kindle Unlimited Subscribers

 

The Rose Crown

Elite soldier Marian serves and protects the royal family—a responsibility she does not take lightly. But when she thwarts an assassination attempt on the king, she unwittingly becomes a prime suspect. Worse, she is left with a terrible, pulsing wound and vile, intrusive thoughts that are not her own. Now, the mysterious cult behind the attack has targeted her, and Marian soon learns of their goal to restore a devastating relic: the legendary Rose Crown.

Former mercenary Henryk has vowed to prevent the restoration of the Rose Crown at any cost. When he encounters Marian, he discovers the terrifying truth of her involvement—and the mortal danger they both face. Drawn together by the very thing that could destroy them, Henryk and Marian must forge a bond of trust—before it’s too late…

Amazon: The Rose Crown

 

Half-Bloods Rising (Half-Elf Chronicles Book 1)

The elves have been called to war. As his parents leave, Kealin and his siblings stay behind to continue to train for the inevitable bloodshed that will reach their shores. For all of his life, he has been persecuted for being half-elf but his mother’s true lineage was a guarded secret.

She has been in hiding and he will soon discover why. A prophecy is revealed that foretells doom for all the warriors who departed. In order to avert the disaster, Kealin and his half-blood siblings embark into the frigid seas of the north aboard an enchanted ship. In a perilous journey, Kealin discovers a power that is not elven in nature. He is changing. As the blood of an ancient race surges in his veins, a power awakens within his mind tying him to a powerful and dangerous culture.

But what else is waking in the long-frozen north…

Amazon: Half-Bloods Rising

 

The Wolfegang series Volumes 1-3

Katerina Anderson and her twin brother Kris were offered an experimental cure to their cancer in the year 2017. The only catch was they had to be put into cryostasis. Having no other alternative they accepted. When Kat wakes up she’s alone and abandoned in a building falling to pieces. When she finds out she had slept through 500 years she knew the experiment did more than cure her cancer. With her twin’s cryo chamber empty and only a note telling her Kris might be alive, Kat needs answers.

She sets off to find them and ends up on a spaceship, the Wolfegang. On a course to find her brother the government gets wind of her and chase her and the crew through the stars. A handsome Captain Wolfe decides to take her on his crew despite the risk and join his band of smugglers and misfits. As the adventure continues Kat wonders what exactly she got herself into by agreeing to take the job.

Amazon: The Wolfegang series Volumes 1-3

 

Last Flight of the Acheron

Sandi and Ash never set out to be heroes.

She joined the Commonwealth Space Fleet to please her mother, a high-ranking military officer; he joined as an escape from the crushing poverty and crime of the Trans-Angeles Public Housing Blocks, and the unlikely friends envisioned boring, peacetime careers as shuttle pilots.

The Tahni Imperium had other ideas…

Caught in the desperate fury of the Battle for Mars, the two young pilots wind up the last defense against an alien armada, but their war is just beginning. Recruited to fly the Fleet’s newest weapon in this new war, they take the fight deep into the heart of the Imperium and battle not just against the enemy but against incompetent leadership and ineffectual tactics.

Can the unconventional strategies of a pair of hotshot young pilots change the course of the war?

Amazon: Last Flight of the Acheron

 

Blood Dragons (Rebel Vampires Book 1)

Light, a bad boy vampire of the Blood Lifer world, has been hiding in the shadows of paranormal London since Victorian times. His only company? A savage Elizabethan Blood lifer. And he’s keeping a secret from her that breaks every rule.

London, 1960s. When a seductive human singer tempts Light with a forbidden romance, their worlds collide. At the same time, Light discovers his ruthless family’s horrifying experiments. Now he’s torn between slaying the humans he was raised to fear, or saving them.

But an effort to play the hero could spell the end…for both species.

Blood Dragons

 

 

Magic, New Mexico: In Graves Below

Paranormal romance, magic, ghosts, demons (and not the sexy kind)…

Riya Sanobal, a mostly-human rarity in her magical family, hides her heritage and magical talent for doors in favor of her dance career. A rich arts patron likes her work, and a visiting star likes her, but she’s distracted by vivid dreams of a sexy, Native American warrior who defeats cheating demons and kisses like, well, a dream.

Time is running out for disabled veteran Idrián Odair, the last dreamwalk warrior of his hidden tribe, to protect his ancestral lands and find his partner. He met her once in the space between the demon worlds and Earth, and now his meddlesome grandfather’s ghost insists he must find her in real life before it’s too late.

Unless Riya and Idrián can find a way to trust each other and learn the secrets of dreamwalk, Denver will become an all-you-can-eat buffet for a ravenous demon horde. No pressure!

Amazon: Magic, New Mexico: In Graves Below

 

Blood and Shadow (The Mage’s Gift Book 1)

A vengeful mage. A powerful gift. A naive youth.

Sherakai never wanted to become a warrior like his father and brothers. Satisfied with being fourth in line to inherit title and responsibility, he wants only to be Master of the Horse. But on the eve of his sister’s wedding, a terrible gift arrives and Sherakai’s course changes forever. His magic is the key to secrets he does not know or understand, and he must learn to fight to escape a future he doesn’t believe in.

Now he must use what he hates to regain what he loves.

Amazon: Blood and Shadow

 

 

The Dimensions series Volumes 1-3: an epic alien romance adventure

For her, he’ll go to war with the entire galaxy.

James Bauman’s life turned upside down when he fell for Miriam, the most amazing woman he’s ever met. If only she were human, things would be a lot easier.

Miriam cannot love, but this won’t stop her from trying. She must be careful, though. Strong emotions are forbidden in the Whisar Empire. If the council discovers that she’s trying to fall in love with an earthling, they’ll pull her heart out. Literally.

Follow James and Miriam’s adventures as they defy the wrath of an ancient alien race, travel through the cosmos, and discover what love truly means.

Amazon: The Dimensions series Volumes 1-3

 

Fire in the Dawn: The Twin Skies Trilogy, Book 1

A prince in hiding. An empire in turmoil. A gathering storm.

Kyren e’Cania is the last son of a fallen House, raised in secret in the shadows of the city his family once ruled.

Trained by his father in the ways of his people, Kyren has avoided the notice of the tyrant who murdered his family by never giving anyone reason to suspect he is anything more than a nameless peasant.

But when an ambitious noble sets dangerous events in motion, Kyren must find a way to reclaim his heritage and unite his people, before everything he loves is swallowed by fire and sword once again.

Amazon: Fire in the Dawn

 

The Hood Game: Rise of the Greenwood King

“The arrow swift to wound is already drawn from the quiver ; soon will the blow be struck …”

Robin of Locksley joins the annual village games, signifying the ancient battle between the ‘Lord of the Hood,’ and The Dark. A night of good cheer turns to terror as soldiers arrive to arrest Robin’s foster father, accused of poaching and witchcraft.

During a struggle between Robin and a Norman master, the lord is killed and Robin made “wolfshead” – a term for a hunted man with a price on his head.

Joining with his cousin Scarlet, John Little and Much the Miller’s Son, they must flee across the bleak moors of Derbyshire where Robin encounters St.Anne of the Well, who reveals the real meaning of the Hood Game…

Amazon: The Hood Game

 

Salvation’s Dawn (Eve of Redemption Book 1)

An adult epic fantasy for fans of Feist, Salvatore, Le Guin, and similar authors.

The Apocalypse was supposed to be the final war against the demons. Only a few days passed before a new evil surfaced. Now, rumors have begun to circulate of a civil war, one with a demonic taint beneath it that hints at an underworld invasion. It is a situation that demands investigation by one of the world’s greatest demonhunters.

Still reeling from her unprecedented resurrection and eight years of fighting, Karian Vanador is called upon to look into the threat. Why was the remote island of Tsalbrin chosen? And who – or what – is truly behind the unrest? Assigned to an unlikely group of young heroes, Kari must learn to rely on more than just her legendary prowess. She will need their strength to battle her internal demons, just as they need hers to battle their physical foes.

Together, they must unravel an underworld plot before Citaria is plunged into worldwide war…again.

Amazon: Salvation’s Dawn

 

The Lady and the Tigershifter: Space Shifters Chronicles Christmas

Space pirates? Here? Solstice Week should be a time to celebrate. Not a time to chase a tomb raiding tigershifter through a cold alien swamp…

When librarian-guardian Seria discovers a vandal raiding the ancient site she’s charged with protecting, she pursues to bring him to justice.

Obviously, being captured by space pirates and caged with the criminal wasn’t part of the plan. Now she and the irritatingly handsome rogue must work together to free themselves or be enslaved.

Little does she know, that the tigershifter is more than he seems…and might just be a greater part of her destiny.

Amazon: The Lady and the Tigershifter

 

Sanyare: The Last Descendant (The Sanyare Chronicles Book 1)

A woman torn between honor and survival…

Raised in a realm where humans are no better than slaves, Rie Lhethannien has struggled for decades to earn a meager post in the High Court messenger service. Even training as an elite fighter isn’t enough to earn the respect she craves. Scorned by the high elves who rely on her loyalty, Rie’s closest allies are the fierce carnivorous pixies who travel by her side.

When she’s attacked on a routine delivery by assassins from the enemy Shadow Realm, Rie’s martial prowess keeps her alive…and frames her as a traitor. Facing execution at the hand of an unmerciful high elf king, Rie must forsake her oaths and flee into enemy lands to prove her innocence. The secrets she uncovers may threaten more than her honor or even her life…for war is looming in the nine faerie realms.

Sanyare: The Last Descendant is the first book in The Sanyare Chronicles, a fast-paced dark fantasy adventure. If you like kick-butt heroines and action-packed fantasy filled with mythological creatures, then you’ll love the first novel in Megan Haskell’s debut series.

Amazon: Sanyare: The Last Descendant

 

Magecraft (Magik: The Avatar Wars Book 1)

That morning, he woke up as a cook. That night, he slept as a mage.

Rook works as a cook in his uncle’s café. After ten years of searching for his long-lost sister Isabella, he accepts a unique opportunity to locate her. Realizing that he was tricked into entering a war between mages, Rook finds his life turned upside down and has no choice but to win the War to find his sister. Does Rook have what it take to survive the Avatar War?

Magecraft is Book 1 of 8 in the Magik: The Avatar Wars Saga

Amazon: Magecraft

 

 

Jeremiah Jones Cowboy Sorcerer: The Complete First Season

They call him the cowboy—but Jeremiah Jones is just an exiled wizard with an uncontrollable curse that puts everyone around him in danger.

When his truck breaks down in a failing desert town, he finds himself in the hands of 17-year-old mechanic, Jesse.

Jesse only wants to keep his dead father’s auto shop open, but Jeremiah is the first customer he’s had in weeks. Desperate, he turns to El Coyote, a local gang kingpin who grants requests in exchange for absolute obedience.

If only he knew that “absolute obedience” was literal.

Now, Jeremiah and Jesse must work together before they’re both ensnared in a world of southwestern magic, tricksters, and sorcery.

Amazon: Jeremiah Jones Cowboy Sorcerer

 

The Rain: The Government Rain Mysteries

New Hampton is bloodthirsty. The streets are a cesspool. Greed and corporate necessity rule the overcrowded city.

A mysterious doctor, his young protégé and a monstrous enforcer are playing gods, their wanton destruction going unchecked. The city’s Mayor seeks vengeance and believes the doctor’s work is the key to achieving redemption. These men will change the city forever, for better or worse remains to be seen.

Crime is rife on the streets and only a few brave, have-a-go heroes, seem willing to plunge themselves into the depths of depravity to intervene and, ultimately, save the city from forces it is seemingly oblivious to.

A handful of extraordinary individuals must decide where they fit in within the changing landscape of the indomitable city of New Hampton. Run? Hide? Fight? The ramifications of their decisions will echo throughout the city.

Amazon: The Rain

Heritage of Power Coming in Two Weeks (Today to Patreon Subscribers)

Hey, folks! Thanks to all of you who popped in to read Crazy Canyon, my latest Dragon Blood story. As I mentioned, I’m returning to this world with a new series. (I’m also starting on a new installment in the original series — watch for the preorder for Oaths to go up in the next week.)

The new series (it started as a trilogy, but I’m finishing the rough draft of Book 4 right now, so it seems to have expanded) is called Heritage of Power and takes places three years after the events of Soulblade and Shattered Past. We’ve got some old friends on the journey, but also a couple of new heroes:

Telryn “Trip” Yert, a young lieutenant with a gift for piloting fliers. He longs to follow in General Zirkander’s footsteps and become a great hero. The problem? He has amazing hunches and strange things sometimes happen when he’s around, so he’s always worried someone will suspect he has magical powers — that can get you killed in Iskandia!
Lieutenant Rysha Ravenwood, a noblewoman and a scholar who decided to defend her country by joining the king’s army. Not only that, but she’s determined to become only the second woman ever to be accepted into the elite troops, much like her role model, Captain Kaika. She just has to survive the training first…

This first two books in the series are available now (I’m uploading them later today!) for Patreon subscribers. You can get advanced copies of all my books over there, usually 1-2 weeks before they’re published, and that includes titles that will be exclusive at Amazon for the launch. (This will be the case with Heritage of Power.)

Here’s the official blurb and the cover art for the first book:

Born with a secret power he must hide…

Telryn “Trip” Yert has always been a little odd, with hunches that are too accurate to explain. Magic is feared and forbidden in Iskandia, so he’s struggled his whole life to hide his eccentricities. As a boy, he was forced to watch his mother’s execution. Her crime? Witchcraft. 

Understandably, Trip wants nothing to do with the power that lurks within him, always threatening to reveal itself. Instead, he dedicates himself to serving as an officer in the king’s army, to battling pirates and imperial conquerors. He longs to become a soldier as respected and renowned as the legendary General Zirkander. 

But his country is in need of more than a soldier. 

After disappearing for over a thousand years, dragons have returned to the world. A few of them are willing to be allies to mankind, as they were millennia before, but far more want to destroy or enslave humans and claim the world for themselves. 

There are few people left with the power to fight dragons. For reasons he doesn’t understand, Trip may be one of those people. But if he chooses to learn more about his heritage and the power he can wield, he risks losing everyone he loves and everything he longs to be.

Look for Dragon Storm on Amazon on December 26th. The second novel, Revelations, will follow shortly after on December 30th.

Or, if you’re not an Amazon fan (or you just want the books now), subscribe to my Patreon campaign, and you’ll get both of them today (December 13th). They won’t be available on Patreon indefinitely, as I need to take them down when I make them exclusive with Amazon, but you can always subscribe, and if you missed these books, you’ll get the next one that comes out.

While I’m rambling here, I’ll share the cover art for Book 2 (but not the blurb, since it would be a bit spoiler-y). Can’t have too many dragons, right?

What’s Coming Next and Where I’ve Been

A reader emailed me and asked me if I was dead. I guess that’s a sign that it’s time to update the blog?

I make fairly regular updates on Facebook and Twitter, but the blog has sadly been neglected. The last six books I published were under my pen name (science fiction romances starting with Orion), and I don’t usually announce those releases here.

There were only supposed to be three novels in the pen name series, a tidy trilogy, but as typically happens to me, the original idea expanded, and now it’s been seven months since I’ve published anything as myself. (I know, in traditional publishing, a book a year is standard, but not here, where I like to make a living from my writing.)

The good news is that I’m back. And for those who have been missing my fantasy, I’ve got some more coming.

I’ve written the first three books in what was supposed to be a trilogy (see a theme here?) set in my Dragon Blood world. It’s a spinoff, called Heritage of Power, and focuses on some new characters, but Ridge and Sardelle have small roles, and Jaxi, Captain Kaika, and Blazer from the original series are also along for the ride. And Duck. Let us not forget the noble pilot Duck. In Book 3, he finds a way to crash his flier into the only watering hole in a desert.

I’ve also been sketching ideas for a wedding book focusing on the original Dragon Blood characters. I listened to the audiobooks that Podium Publishing put out of the original series earlier this fall, and that’s what inspired me and got me excited to return to that world.

As for existing series, I do want to make some progress on them in 2018. I finally got cover art for Chains of Honor 3, and that’s going to be the next of the older series to get a new installment. Maybe two, as I believe that one will be complete with four books.

I eventually want to do a couple more books in the Sky Full of Stars series too. That might be later in 2018, as I have tentative plans for something new next summer. I’m not sure yet whether it will be scifi or fantasy, as I have ideas in both genres calling to me.

Finally, for those kind souls who have asked for more Rust & Relics books, I haven’t forgotten about the series, and I plan to write a couple more novels to satisfactorily wrap things up, but those books never sold well for me and weren’t particularly well-received by fans of my other series. (Sky Full of Stars is in the same boat, to be honest.)

I absolutely don’t want to leave things hanging indefinitely, but I basically need something else to currently be selling well to take time to work on new installments in a series that doesn’t sell well.

I’m crossing my fingers that the new Dragon Blood books will do well, especially since what was supposed to just be a trilogy has expanded once again. Many thanks to all of you who have read them (and all the other books too). Your support has been awesome and amazing!