Get your FREE NOVELLA! Crimson Spring: A Kingsmen Chronicles Prequel Novella

Hello epic fantasy fans!

I am thrilled to announce that I have an exclusive Kingsmen Chronicles prequel novella waiting for you when you sign up for the Jean Lowe Carlson Epic Fantasy mailing list!

Signing up is easy, just click below to provide your email address. You’ll soon receive Crimson Spring: A Kingsmen Chronicles Prequel Novella in your inbox, along with access to the latest info on book releases, promotions, insider news and more.

Thanks for signing up, happy reading!

Onward to glory,

Jean

 
 
 

NEW RELEASE & FLASH SALE! Dragon of the Desert is now available

Hello epic fantasy fans!

It’s launch day for Dragon of the Desert: The Khehemni Chronicles #1!

I’m so excited this book is finally here. After nearly 4 years of planning, this prequel series to the Kingsmen Chronicles is finally coming to fruition, and I couldn’t be more proud of this first book.

Set in the deserts of the Thirteen Tribes 1000 years before Blackmark, this story follows King-heir Leith Alodwine of the Khehemni as he fights to save his people and his nation from a rising evil that will challenge him to his very core.

Long before the Kingsmen, the Khehemni ruled the desert…

Get Dragon of the Desert: The Khehemni Chronicles #1 now in ebook & print!

Hope you have a wonderful weekend, and happy reading!

Onward to glory,

Jean

P.S. Haven’t read the first series, the Kingsmen Chronicles yet? Get book #1 and #2 at a discount THIS WEEKEND ONLY and start reading!

PRE-ORDER NOW! Dragon of the Desert releases April 15th

Hi fantasy fans!

I’m so excited to share with you all that Dragon of the Desert: The Khehemni Chronicles #1 is now available to pre-order!

CLICK HERE to pre-order Dragon of the Desert on Amazon!

Release date is April 15th, and there will be both ebook and paperback versions available.

I’m almost finished with the deep edits and will be moving on to final rounds of editing soon with my team.

The book is shaping up to be about 40 chapters and 180K words, about the same length as Blackmark, fast-paced with plenty of action!

And of course, all the awesome sneak-thieves and badass magic you can handle. :)

I’ll update things here as we get closer to release date.

Enjoy, and onward to glory!

Jean

NEW EXCERPT! Dragon of the Desert: The Khehemni Chronicles #1

In celebration of Earth Day and my birthday today, I have a new excerpt for you!

Read on for the new first chapter of Dragon of the Desert: The Khehemni Chronicles #1 – the first book in the upcoming Khehemni prequel series to the Kingsmen Chronicles.

In this chapter, Dhenir Leith Alodwine holds the line with Khehem’s warriors on the coast of the Thirteen Tribes, against an onslaught of raiders from the southwest.

Here, we get to meet a number of characters that will be prominent in the Khehemni series – like Leith, his aunt Jennira Alodwine in the Order of Alrahel, the Djinn Rhune, and Leith’s Berounhim daughter Alitha.

It’s still a little rough and will go through more rounds of editing, but I hope you enjoy this first chapter from Dragon of the Desert.

More info in the coming months about release date!

Onward to glory,

Jean

********

CHAPTER 1 – LEITH

Battle was life. Battle was everything. And failure was not an option for Khehem.

Standing tall on the sea-sands before the red cliffs of Drashaan, Leith Alodwine held the line. Waiting on the hard-packed ocean sands as the stiff breezes of early evening swirled around him in a fragrant sea-wind, he watched the invading army come. Of course, the cowardly Southwestrons would attack only once the sun descended from its zenith, too afraid to confront men of the Thirteen Tribes at the height of the day. For the brutal desert heat of the Tribes was too much for them; too much for any outlander, even those from the arid grasslands of Jadoun and Desh-Kar, and the spiced mountains of Perthe. Though the Southwestron nations were just across the Scorched Sea to Khehem’s west, these men were soft to the Tribes’ vicious ways. 

And it showed as they paused on the western shore before Khehem’s might.

Hesitation was evident in the way they wrapped their headgear tighter against the Tribes’ stinging winds, rather than grip their swords with readiness. Reluctance showed in the way they shuffled their feet through the ocean’s sands, rather than pick them up briskly on the vicious silica-sharp hardpack of Drashaan’s swirling sea-dunes. Uncertainty showed in the way their dark eyes shifted uneasily as they rose up the red cliffs to the ramparts of the city far above, Drashaan’s capable warriors standing silent all along the battlements to fight if Leith’s forces failed, then back down to Leith and his command of a meager five thousand spear-warriors standing before the cliffs on the long afternoon sands, their shadows stretching back to the mighty walls of the cliff-port.

Fear showed in how they scanned the far smaller force before them, thinking to themselves, Is this it? Is this all the Thirteen Tribes brought to fight us with?

An eager smile lifted Leith’s lips as his hard gold-umber eyes scanned the Southwestron horde before him with their colorful fighting-silks run through with black and gold tribal patterns, each stitch carrying native protection spells from the wyrria of those far-off shores. Khehem’s spies had counted a hundred ships passing the tip of Cennetia as they sailed across the Tourmaline Sea and into the Scorched Sea, approaching the Tribes on the fastest, most direct currents. But by the time Leith’s forces had crossed the desert from Khehem here to Drashaan, the central port of the Tribes with a long beach easily assailable by a sea-army, he’d counted a startling force of three hundred ships. Some were little more than dual-sail Jadounian merchant vessels carrying ten men, but some were massive tubs of sea-engineering from Paralia, sporting twenty masts and fifty sails and carrying a force of hundreds in their deep-keeled bellies. 

And as smaller vessels shuttled warriors in colorful battle-regalia from all three Southwestron nations of Jadoun, Perthe, and Desh-Kar in now through the crashing surf and dumped them out upon the three mile beach with their chariots and plains horses who shied at the vicious sands cutting their hooves, Leith watched their fear, facing only a force of five thousand stretched all along the beach and protecting the alabaster stone causeways that wound up into the city proper. Though Leith counted approximately fifteen thousand, a force come to break the Tribes’ central most port and take the Jewel of the Coast, he saw their wariness. It was warranted, as Leith saw this massive force suddenly recall that every warrior who protected the Tribes held in spades that which other areas of the world held little of.

Battle-magic – the furious battle-magic of the Wolf and Dragon of Khehem.

“I count twelve thousand foot soldiers, three thousand horse, and a hundred chariots, Scion.” As the Khehemni held the line, Leith’s aunt Jennira Alodwine, the King’s sister, stood to his right, watching the incoming army with grey eyes like luminous sea-pearls. A High Priestess in Khehem’s Order of Alrahel, Jennira’s long twists of black hair shone blue in the sun, flying in the sea-wind from beneath the silk hood of her white fitted robe with its geodesic gold and red borders. The robe’s cowl up today, a gold circlet with a thirteen-point star graced her brow beneath, signifying Jennira’s royal Khehemni birth, though she’d chosen a life in the Order. The King’s most trusted counselor and the only person he would listen to in the Order of Alrahel priesthood but also an accomplished battle-mage, Jennira watched the arriving army with a piercing gracefulness.

Acting as emissary for the Order today against the invaders.

Waiting like Leith for the opening parlay, Jennira absently rubbed bracers of silver and fiery sun-opals at her wrists, inset with gold-inlaid runes. Reaching up, she cast back her silk cowl to see the approaching army better, and Leith watched a subtle fire twist through the runes on her bracers, matching a crimson flame that twisted through her grey eyes. Jennira had more Werus et Khehem wyrria than anyone on this entire beach, possibly excepting Leith. But she kept it contained, honing her skills most of the time for negotiation and keeping a precarious peace between the Khehemni Kings and the Order of Alrahel.

Until battle came, and Khehem was called out to protect the Tribes.

“I count the same numbers.” Leith spoke quietly back to his aunt as he watched the invaders finally come into some semblance of organization, with horses and chariots spaced neatly through the foot soldiers and pikemen, ready to charge through the line when the battle began. Across the long expanse of hard-packed sand at low tide, Leith saw a black-clad commander approach a waiting chariot, readying to parlay with Khehem’s five thousand warriors now barring their way into the Port of Drashaan. Squinting at the man to see him better against the lowering western sun, Leith saw his black battle-leathers were of an unfamiliar sort, a strange silver-studded herringbone-weave pattern he’d not seen from Southwestron warriors before. Tall of stature and uncommonly strong with pale skin and almond eyes, he had an Unaligned look to him, though the entire army around him were the dark coffee and ebony-skinned people of the far Southwest. Frowning at their leader, Leith contemplated the man.

And heard a scoff come from the creature standing beside him to his left.

“Well. They have a Scorpion-rider with them. Figures. No one could have possibly assembled this ragtag bunch of warring Southwestron tribes without the Hakir’s support. But I wonder… is the Scorpion leading these men? Or is someone else?”

On Leith’s right, whirling in a slow sand-funnel of his own make, the creature Rhune Orodinii was already terrifying the invaders before them. Hundreds of men blanched as they looked at Rhune from across the line, basically ready to shit themselves from his disturbing otherness. Standing like a spear of darkness in the high desert day, dressed in wrapped black Berounhim battle-silks with his burly arms crossed, Rhune’s Djinnic magic dissipated him to the ocean winds, then swirled him back into being once more. As he disappeared, only Rhune’s vivid blue eyes were visible for a moment, like burning sapphires as he stared the invaders down with deadly force, before his body returned. 

As the sea-breezes blew and his own power surged and ebbed him into being then vanished him again for the oncoming battle, the Djinn Rhune was a being of the desert sands – not a creature anyone would ever have called human, though he looked like a man. As he cast his deadly desert winds around him now, teasing them ahead into the opposing line, wielding sand like blades, Southwestron men pulled back with cries of dismay. Though Leith extended a hand for the Djinn to cease taunting their opposition and the nasty little smile on the creature’s full lips died, he arched an eyebrow at Leith.

Letting his magic quiet, for now. 

“A Scorpion-rider? What’s that? And why hasn’t he got a scorpion?” From behind Leith now, his daughter Alitha Alodwine piped up, waiting for the parlay like the rest of them as a member of Khehem’s noble house. Standing proud and tall in her close-fitted charcoal-grey Berounhim silks like Rhune, Alitha fingered twin sickled allajira swords at her hips. Slender and tall like the Berounhim caravanserai of the desert interior from whence she hailed, at eighteen Alitha had Leith’s fiery auburn hair, a rarity in their country born only to the strongest Scions of the Wolf and Dragon. Her wild red waves were pulled back into a long braid today for fighting, her vicious green eyes shining like emeralds on fire in the lowering sun as she watched the herringbone armor-clad leader ready his chariot. Taking his time to check harnesses and leather straps, the man made the Tribes’ protectors wait as he gave his forces opportunity to finish assembling on the strand from their ships.

“Scorpion-riders, or the Kreth-Hakkim Beldir as they were known in times long gone,” Rhune educated now with a dark basso chuckle as he glanced back to Alitha, “were once a mighty army, Scioness. A pivotal force in the Albrenni-Giannyk Wars four thousand years ago, they helped decide the outcome of that conflict. But I thought they were extinct in recent eras, fallen from their golden age into darkness. The armor this one sports before us, however, is most certainly their classical odd herringbone-weave.” 

“Tell me of these Kreth-Hakkim Beldir, Rhune. Make it quick.” Leith ordered softly as he saw the general before them finally glance up from his chariot, piercing Leith with his gaze from across the sands. Though he had heard the name from Rhune before, the history of the Kreth-Hakkim Beldir was an obscure piece of lore about the ancient Albrenni-Giannyk Wars that Leith didn’t know yet, massive wars that had at one time devoured their entire continent. The Thirteen Tribes had once been a vast green country before the wars, Leith knew, and it had been those wars of terrible magic which had devastated it and blighted the Tribes’ land into little but oases, bare ruins, and mountains of sand. Rhune had taught him much over Leith’s lifetime, but there was still so much more he didn’t know.

Oddities of wyrria that cropped up sometimes in the vast deserts of the Tribes – affecting the outcome of battles.

“Kreth-Hakkim Beldir are traditionally possessed of deep mind-magics, and in ancient times, rode Diamanne Scorpions into war via a mind-link upon their vicious steeds.” Rhune rumbled back to Leith now as they both watched the herringbone-clad leader mount his chariot and set a long ebony spear into a bracket within, close to hand. He knew whom he was fighting soon; his spear was a Black Spear of traditional Ghellani make, ebony in the haft and obsidian for the long cruel spear-point. Golden runes flared all through the shaft and blade, flickering with a caustic violet light now that they sensed strong magic nearby. One cut from a Black Spear could render a lesser wielder of wyrria useless; a deeper thrust could paralyze the magic of a stronger opponent, even one of Leith or Jennira’s caliber. As a small smirk quirked the big man’s thick lips, he gathered the chariot’s reins in his beefy hands.

Snapping the reins now and moving the horses forward.

“Faster, Rhune. Just the essentials.” Leith admonished his pedantic protector and teacher, the Djinn often long-winded when brevity was necessary.

“This man will try to bespell your mind, Scion.” The creature chuckled with dark wit again as he lifted an eyebrow once more at Leith’s commanding tone. “Avoid eye contact at close distance. Same for you two also, Scioness Alitha and mistress Alrahemni Alodwine.”

“Noted, Rhune.” Leith’s aunt spoke shortly, her quick temper simmering up now as flickers of wyrric fire began to manifest in the air around her from her battle-tension. “Anything else?”

“Scorpions almost always serve someone else.” Rhune spoke with a subtle growl now as his winds devoured him suddenly, then returned him to being. “Question him hard to discover his master. Because if I’m right, this army is not his. But an army meant to devour the Thirteen Tribes under his commanding fist at someone else’s behest.”

But they had no more time to talk as the commander in black herringbone-weave armor slapped the reins of his chariot over his horses’s backs again and they heaved forward faster. Though the fleet, sleek Desh-Kar bred steeds were hardy in their native arid grasslands, they balked now as the Tribe’s vicious glass-rich sand sliced at their hooves on the strand. Every part of the Tribes was forbidding, even the environment resisting invaders. And though the man in the chariot stood tall, staring Leith down with prowess and dominance in his dark gaze as he came, Leith remembered Rhune’s words and dropped his gaze to the man’s lips rather than his eyes as Jennira and Alitha did also. Stepping forward with a small contingent of his top Lieutenants from Khehem at their backs, their group moved into the parlay, meeting their adversary halfway upon the beach. 

But the Scorpion-commander came alone to parlay, not a single captain or lieutenant at his back. And soon he sawed his horses to a halt before them on the strand, as both sides stared each other down in a deeply quiet tension that stretched all the way up and down the massive beach.

“Defenders of the Thirteen Tribes.” The man spoke now in an unctuous baritone as his thick lips smiled, noting that none of them were looking into his eyes – except the Djinn, who had stronger magics than any mortal. “With whom do I parlay?”

“With Leith Alodwine, Scion of Khehem, Captain of the Red Spears of Khehem, and son of the King.” Leith spoke up promptly, not caring what this man thought of his actions, if it kept his forces safe. “With whom do I parlay, mhensit?

“With Loratius of Berg, High Priest of the Kreth-Hakkir and leader of the army you see before you. Which will soon wipe you out, and take your beloved nation.” The man answered coyly but brashly, though Leith wasn’t having it.

“Whom do you serve, cur?” Leith returned coldly, though he still stared at the man’s thick, odious lips. “For as I understand, the Kreth-Hakkim Beldir, or Kreth-Hakkir as you name yourself now, are only ever hounds to better masters.”

“You speak much about what you know little, desert whelp.” The man’s pleased smile vanished now as he gripped his chariot’s reins in one solid fist. As he did, Leith suddenly felt a darkly seeking aura sigh out from the man like a rip-tide, though he hauled it neatly back. But that one touch of such a dark, convincing magic was unlike anything Leith had ever felt as he suddenly gave a deep shiver, his skin prickling into gooseflesh. “Yes, I serve a master,” the man continued, “who wishes the Thirteen Tribes taken under her yoke. But if you surrender now, you will understand that my mistress’ will is not your destruction – she seeks to unite this nation to her might, and wishes you to be a part of it. Give me your surrender now, and you will benefit from all the riches she builds – and the peace she brings to all lands.”

“Peace she’s brought to the all Southwestern nations, has she?” Leith’s aunt Jennira suddenly spoke up as a hot whirl of her Wolf and Dragon battle-magics singed Leith’s skin through the ocean breeze. Though she was a priestess in the Order of Alrahel now, this was far from Jennira’s first parlay, involved in the battles of Leith’s grandfather’s time when the raiders of Ghrec had hounded their borders for decades. Strong as steel and vicious as a blade, Jennira stared the man down with a hard presence beside Leith, though like Leith, she was staring daggers at the man’s lips and chin instead of his eyes.

“Indeed, desert mistress. Look before you and see the warring tribes and fractious city-states of Jadoun, Desh-Kar, and even the mighty Perthe united to her banner. As we speak here upon your shores, Perthe’s formidable capitol of Menekhret has already fallen to her will. And will soon enjoy her newly-arisen prosperity and joy.” The man spoke with his smarmy smile again now as he glanced at Jennira and showed an open attraction to her knife-edged, elegant beauty. Though twenty years older than Leith’s middle thirties, Jennira had the Alodwine blessing of longevity, hardly looking a day over thirty-five – a Khehemni warrioress in her prime and just as viciously beautiful as any of them.

“Prosperity and joy.” Rhune snorted now, everyone in Leith’s parlay allowed to speak freely though Leith would make the final call for battle. “Since when do despots and warlords ever bring prosperity and joy to the people they quell and conquer?”

“Since my God-Queen’s power is absolute.” The big Unaligned man spoke quietly now, with reverence. “And her mercy is almighty.”

“God-Queen?” Alitha breathed now from where she stood just behind Leith. “Do you assert that your mistress has some kind of godlike powers?”

“She does, battle-maid.” The man spoke with the same dire awe and somber honesty now as he glanced past Leith to Alitha. “And if your people wish to experience the greatest prosperity the world has ever known… you will come to her banners now. And experience the bliss of the White Goddess. A bliss unfathomable to the heart. And just as beautiful.”

In the man’s voice, Leith suddenly heard something he hadn’t expected from a conqueror – the honest passion of true conviction. He’d not expected a warlord commanding an invading army to speak from the heart, but this man had – as if this God-Queen uniting the far Southwestron continent was just as beautiful and generous as he’d insinuated right now. It startled Leith; and his sudden shock at hearing the truth of the man’s heart was his undoing. In that brief moment, his gaze flicked up to the eyes of the herringbone-clad man’s. And in that moment, the man’s dark grey eyes pierced him to the quick; heavy as a mountain of granite and thrice as immutable.

Crashing into Leith’s mind and sundering him wide open.

Leith had studied various forms of wyrric mind-invasion over the years and how to thwart them; he lived in the Thirteen Tribes, home of the most accomplished wielders of wyrria upon the entire planet. And yet, he’d felt nothing like this as the sheer brutality and conviction of this man’s will suddenly hammered though him like a fist, thrusting all thoughts of battle aside as it devoured him. It was a taking of such vicious, ungodly proportions that Leith shuddered now, pinned to the man’s gaze and shivering like a blown horse in the brisk sea-wind. It had only been a moment that the man’s tremendous mind had unlocked his.

But in that moment, visions came pouring in – and Leith couldn’t stop them.

Images came, slamming through Leith as he stared into the man’s slate-grey eyes and felt his mountainous nature; not images of battle and bloodshed as he might have thought, but images of plenty. They weren’t images of what this God-Queen might do to the Thirteen Tribes if they resisted her, they were images of the plenty that Leith’s land would experience if he bent his knee right now and stood his armies down. 

Beautiful festivals rolled through his mind, enjoyed by the people of Jadoun and Desh-Kar celebrating with copious wine and sweetmeats, heady abandon and more. Prosperity flowed like rivers as flowers and gold adorned everyone, and Leith saw a future already coming to pass of lands united, ceasing to war with one another and living in peace. As massive white wings like an elder goddess rose in his vision, stretching out to encompass the world, he felt the tremendous love of a benevolent being pour out, and saw a statuesque, graceful woman’s form reach to embrace him. Tears sprung from Leith’s eyes to feel this goddess’ benevolent joy reaching out to him like the World Shaper herself; he wanted nothing more than her vision of love and glory, pouring all through him now via her emissary’s gaze. 

But even as Leith’s heart opened to embrace that bliss, even as his body shook and shuddered, beginning to collapse to his knees to feel her miracles pour through him and wanting that not just for his countrymen but for the entire world, he felt his own internal magic open wide. Like a seething tide, the vast power of his Werus et Khehem wyrria surged open in that moment, roaring out like a thousand lions in the waning day. In a tremendous rush of living fire, the power of the Wolf and Dragon hurtled from Leith with a boom in silent day, rocking everyone around him and hammering the God-Queen’s army even as it slammed into the red cliffs behind him. Boulders crashed from the cliffs and sea-birds screamed, their nests scorched by his sudden flames even as the creature Rhune slammed up a hand to create a hard wind, thrusting that fire away from the parlay group. 

But even as Leith’s own internal conflict rioted, he understood its cause. Bending his knee to anyone was not in his nature; it was not like a Dragon to allow himself to be chained, no matter the promise. And as he resisted the God-Queen’s tremendous sending through her emissary, the power of his blast making the chariot’s horses rear as they were singed by his fire, the God-Queen’s general was thrown off his balance. It broke his tremendous gaze from Leith’s – but not before Leith saw something flash through the God-Queen’s bright eyes in his vision. Red took him in that moment, a sea of bloody crimson, pouring out from her gaze. And as Leith felt something more terrible than he had ever experienced thunder through him like a howling wind, seeking to devour him from the bright goddess’ gaze, he knew his real enemy. 

And screamed, thrusting that vision of utter destruction out of his mind – even as it took him with its red, red eyes.

Collapsing onto his spear thrust into the sand, Leith breathed hard as he gripped the weapon with both hands, shuddering hard from that last vision of crimson death. Deep inside, he felt only despair for a long moment, knowing to the foundations of his soul what those red, red eyes would cost him if he let them in, if he let them take him. 

But then battle flared up in his soul as he promised his everything to throw down that terrible darkness he’d felt. And with a massive inhalation, Leith Alodwine, Scion of Khehem, Captain of the Wolf and Dragon, and son of the King, found his steadiness once more. 

His head snapping up, Leith found his feet, strong like a mountain now as he pinned the recovering emissary with his gaze. Focusing the bright fury of his wyrria into a blazing white spear inside his mind, Leith thrust a terrible fire like a falling star down through their mind-connection, scorching deep inside the God-Queen’s emissary. As the emissary screamed in pain, his eyes burst into flame, burning white to Leith’s indomitable wyrria. As Leith roared like a lion, the man screamed, collapsing over his chariot’s edge, blind now as his horses screamed in terror. 

And then Leith raised his spear – hurling the wrath of his wyrria out and lifting the sand before him all along the line in a million razor-sharp spears of death. 

All content copyright Jean Lowe Carlson 2021. All rights reserved. No portion of this content may be reproduced without the author’s written permission.

NEW EXCERPT! After the Kingsmen Chronicles: FENTON

Hey epic fantasy fans!

I’m so excited to bring you a new excerpt today from the as-yet-untitled first book of the follow-up series to the Kingsmen Chronicles.

This second series begins where the Kingsmen Chronicles left off, with (most) of your favorite characters returning, and I have been working on it concurrently with the prequel Khehemni series.

CAUTION: CONTAINS SPOILERS! Read no further if you don’t want to know about events after the Kingsmen Chronicles (Blackmark, Bloodmark, and Goldenmark).

In this scene, we touch base with Fenton den’Kharel (Fentleith Alodwine, Last Scion of Khehem) and Thaddeus den’Lhor, and all that’s happened for them since magic was unleashed back into the world after the Rennkavi’s Ritual.

Fenton is fighting his Wolf and Dragon wyrria, and Thad is a voice of reason in his life – though they get a pretty nasty surprise at the end of the chapter!

Enjoy the preview, and let me know any comments or questions you have below! :)

Onward to glory,

Jean

CHAPTER 3 – FENTON

Sipping a sour Yegovian cider with a crisp raspberry finish, Fentleith Alodwine leafed through ancient parchments as swirling white fey-lights drifted around him. Shelves of books towered up the octagonal space of the reading-room, interspersed by racks of scrolls and codices illuminated in the comfortable light. Ferns and moss dripped down one wall into a flowing basin, this space one of hundreds of alcoves that warrened through his grandfather Leith Alodwine’s gargantuan library. Tunneling back into the roots of the Kingsmount from the Deephouse of Roushenn Palace, the opulent rat-maze had only one entrance that Fenton had found, though it immediately branched off into hordes of tunnels. 

The first alcove on the right, closest to the doors, Fenton had commandeered this particular reading-room as his study. A heavy tome sat upon the desk, which Fenton leafed through – a book of schema for the White Palace in Valenghia, yet another of Leith’s monumental works across the continent. Fenton reached out, absently taking a swig of his cider, his eyes fixed upon the tome as he came to diagrams for the highest towers – one of which he’d been a prisoner in last year due to the odious magics of the old Vhinesse. 

But as he wiped his lips with the fingers of one hand, he winced. His silver bracers practically burned upon his skin now, and as Fenton glanced at the left one, he saw the sigils standing out in high relief, searing with blue-white wyrric energy. The blisters in his skin at the edges of the metal were livid, an angry red. With a frustrated growl, Fenton set the tome down. Massaging his wrists gently, he debated pulling the silver pins in his manacles but decided against it. Glancing at the small Praoughian clockwork upon the desk, Fenton set his jaw in irritation. He’d worked too late into the evening and the Soldier’s Ball was starting in a half-hour. It didn’t give him time to go blow off magical steam in the desert ruin tonight.

He’d just have to weather his raging Wolf and Dragon wyrria until morning.

“Problem with your wyrric bracers, sir?”

The energetic, bright young voice of Thaddeus den’Lhor, Roushenn’s new Castellan and Queen’s Historian, raised Fenton’s gaze. Wearing a handsome hunter-green jerkin that complemented his eyes and tawny blonde hair, his looped silver chains of the Castellan’s office pinned to his high collar, Thad strolled in carrying a heavy pile of tomes. These he promptly heaved to his own desk on the other side of the reading-room, then set a few scrolls upon a table covered in vellums mapping Alranstones across the continent. 

Glancing to Fenton, Thad’s pleasant face had lost much of its boyishness in the past months. He’d taken up bouting at swords with Aldris, and the once-lanky scribe had shoulders now, his tall, lean frame filling out with honed muscles. He’d dumped traditional Castellan’s robes for more sporting attire; his jerkin, leather breeches, and boots reminiscent of the Palace Guard. His tawny hair was brush-cut like the Guard, no spectacles gracing his face. Like Fenton, Thad’s growing wyrria had changed him in the past months; he no longer needed spectacles, his vision now sharp as an eagle.

As was his attention. The young man missed nothing, Queen Elyasin den’Ildrian Alramir’s good right hand for every negotiation, never needing to scribe a single note as he watched and listened to proceedings with alert focus. It was a wyrria even Fenton had never heard of, but Thad’s impeccable memory was a blessing in Leith’s library as they worked night after night, deciphering dead languages and old records. One of only a few people in Roushenn that knew about Leith’s library, as per the Queen’s orders, Thaddeus often spent long evenings there with Fenton, their heads together deciphering scrolls and codices. But it had been six weeks since Thad’s appointment as Castellan, and the lad had been busy like a dog with three heads on six different scents, and Fenton found himself wondering when in Halsos the young man slept. 

“No need to call me sir, Thad. Technically, you outrank me in the palace now. What have you found?” Fenton kicked out a boot underneath the desk, pushing the chair opposite his out in invitation. Thad gave a grin and sat, unrolling a long vellum scroll upon Fenton’s ironwood desk. Fenton gave a wry smile, seeing it was covered in stark black ink. Written in Old Khehemni, the document was one Leith had scribed, with Leith’s classic hasty bent to the letters and diacritical marks – as if his mind had too much conflict behind it to slow down and chronicle properly. But for all that, it was detailed, the entire vellum covered in minuscule writing and diagrams of clockworks and machinery.

“Thought this might interest you,” Thad spoke, setting glass weights upon the edges of the scroll. “They’re explanations of how the clockworks of Roushenn were created, and how Leith used principles of wyrric resonance to bind them.”

“Anything in there that can help with these?” Fenton asked wryly, holding up one blistering wrist.

Thad sucked his teeth, his handsome young face frowning with concern. “I take it the power in the bracers to contain your magic is wearing off.”

“Not exactly. I think I’m outgrowing them.”

Silence enveloped the alcove as Thad reached out, easing long fingers delicate as a physician’s over Fenton’s blisters. Fenton’s breath heaved, high and hot, as his wyrria surged inside his body. He had the urge to roar and slap Thad’s hand away, though the pain was nothing. It was simply the overwhelming sensation of his wyrria, vicious to be freed. Slowly, Fenton retrieved his hand. Wary, Thad watched him, one hand slipping unconsciously to the brace of longknives he wore now at his hip as he sat back.

“Aren’t you going to the Soldier’s Ball tonight?” Thad asked, wariness in his jade gaze.

“So I promised Aldris.”

“You should go out to the desert instead.” Thad admonished, sitting back and crossing one boot over his knee with a level gaze. It was a commanding look, something General Theroun den’Vekir might have given once. But it was Thad’s look now, since stepping into his new position at Elyasin’s side. From a mousey, lanky scribe he’d changed into the sword-honed young lord he might have been had his Alrashemni parents not been killed ten years ago. Learning his battle-right at weapons was not the only Kingsman legacy Thad had taken up in the past months. Stark black inkings showed where his jerkin buckled up the midline, his shirt partly unlaced and displaying his centermost star. It was still red around the edges, Thad having gone through his Inking and Khemri-venom dreams only the week before to earn his Eighth Seal.

He was a full Kingsman now and it showed in his quiet, confident demeanor, his eyes flashing with intelligence in the moving lights of the fae globes.

“I know I should go to the desert to discharge my magic,” Fenton smiled wryly, “but it’s not going to make a difference soon. My wyrria’s recovering too quickly these days. I need to figure out a way to control my magic beyond these bracers, Thad. And soon.”

“Star-metal is easily imbued with wyrria,” Thad gestured to Fenton’s bracers, quoting discoveries they had read recently, “as is bluestone, various types of granite and crystal, and also rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and diamonds, but we have the distinct problem of not knowing how to imbue the objects. If we did, I’m sure Elyasin would commission a new pair of bracers from the palace smiths. Leith collected enough scraps of star-metal back in Room Forty-Three that we might use, though Aeon knows what he was going to do with it.”

They’d devised a numbering system for Leith’s warren of a library, and Fenton knew the room Thad meant. A treasure-vault of arcane artifacts, it had taken Fenton and Thad five full weeks to discover the trick of unlocking it; a combination of reciting an ancient Khehemni prayer combined with a specific series of inundations from Fenton’s Wolf and Dragon wyrria. The objects in that room were so full of wyrria they made Fenton’s hair stand on end, and Thad had immediately suggested they not touch a damn thing. Only the ironbound chest of star-metal on the floor hadn’t felt hair-raisingly awful, but that didn’t mean Fenton trusted it.

With a sigh, Fenton wiped both hands over his face. Lacing his fingers with his elbows on the desk, he met Thad’s level gaze. The lad was extremely intuitive, a natural gift rather than a wyrric one, and Fenton saw the young man’s gaze soften.

“How are you doing? Truth.” Thad spoke softly.

“Truth?” Fenton met his gaze. “Not good.”

“Tell me how I can help.” Thad’s gaze was level, his practicality and good heart showing. 

Fenton laid his left arm upon the desk, massaging around the edges of one bracer carefully. “Unless you can turn all the wyrria in the world back off again, Thad, I’m not sure there’s much anyone can do. I’m starting to think Leith’s gifts were more of a curse than I’d ever thought. That maybe wyrria is more of a curse than anyone knows.”

“And yet you rebuilt this entire palace,” Thad held Fenton’s gaze, earnest. “Single-handedly, with wyrria.”

“The Jenners did the carvings, and Morvein helped.”

“Partly.” A wry smile touched Thad’s lips now. “But you were the instigation behind it. Conflict may ride your soul, Fenton, and manifest in those magnificent hands,” Thad nodded at the bracers, “but it’s not the only thing you are. I watched Queen Elyasin and King Therel transform from the power of the Brother King’s wyrria during my time beneath the Kingsmountains, but do you know the one thing it never did?”

“What’s that?” Fenton took the bait.

“It never transformed them into different people.” Thad held Fenton’s gaze. “They were still good-hearted, regal, willing to risk everything to save their nations. I know you worry that your wyrria is cursed, but I don’t think that’s true. I’ve seen cursed wyrria; I’ve seen what it did to proud Giannyk warriors, trapped forever under the mountains because a truly cursed wyrria changed them into something terrible. Something that should never again see the light of day. And you – you’re not that. Just like Elyasin and Therel weren’t.”

Fenton took a deep breath. “But hurling off my Wolf and Dragon power is the only way I have to calm it since magic opened back up in the world, despite all our searching through this library for some other answer. My wyrria loves conflict, it wants battle – and if I don’t feed it, things get bad.” 

Thad looked at him, his gaze direct. “Don’t you think there’s something in all of this searching through Leith’s books that you’re missing, sir?”

“What do you mean?” Fenton frowned; clearly the young Castellan was getting at something and Fenton was obtuse to it.

“I mean, talking to someone who was alive when wyrria last was open on the earth. Someone like the Giannyk Bhorlen, maybe?”

“I told you, Thad, I don’t know how to get back to Bhorlen’s ice-citadel.” Fenton gave the young man a level gaze. “Otherwise I would be there now, picking his brain for answers. And no matter how I try picturing either that place or the White Tower in my mind when I step up to any Alranstone, I never wind up there. It’s like those places are protected by a deeper wyrria than the Alranstones can access. Something far older than Leith was ever party to.”

“Then maybe Morvein’s the person you need.”

Fenton took a deep breath, then let it out slow. “Morvein and I are… not speaking. Besides, she’s at the Elsthemi border, trying to contain the chaos from the Valley of Doors opening back up.”

“So why aren’t you there, sir, helping?” Thad’s gaze was penetrating. “No one knows rune and sigil-binding like Morvein. No one living, anyway, besides Bhorlen. She learned at the master’s feet, Fenton. She learned the same things Leith did.”

“Morvein wouldn’t teach me the things she knows.”

“But she might help you,” Thad spoke, his gaze all too knowing. “Old lovers and all that.”

Fenton went very still. His gaze tracked up, meeting Thad’s. “Who told you that?”

“No one had to tell me.” Thad’s gaze was gentle. “You were the only person she saved when the White Ring exploded eight hundred years ago and killed everyone else, including Theos den’Alrahel, the first Rennkavi candidate. You were the only person she saved, Fenton. Not Hahled Ferrian, not Delman. I saw her eyes upon you at Darkwinter Fest, watching you from the shadows. I put two and two together. But because Elohl twists for his lost lover Ghrenna in her body, you’ve stayed away from her rather than find her and ask for help.”

“It’s complicated.” Fenton murmured, something deep and hot coiling through him. Inhaling a breath, he closed his eyes. In his mind, he could see Morvein; a flash of dark cerulean eyes, the elegant sweep of her throat. As if she saw him from afar, he felt her turn in his mind, dark lashes lifting to watch him. Fenton let out a slow breath, banishing the vision, shutting it down inside a cocoon of fire that he used against mind-scrying.

But she had seen him, and he had seen her – as easy as it had ever been between them.

As easy as it had once been between Ghrenna and Elohl.

“I can’t go to Morvein.” Fenton spoke softly, opening his eyes. “We’ll just have to find another solution, Thad.”

“I think that’s a bad answer, sir.” Thaddeus rose to his lean-muscled height. Rubbing his fingertips over the scroll on the desk as if he might say something more, he finally gave a sad smile, then rapped the desk with his knuckles. “Up to the Soldier’s Ball? I have a few last things to prepare with the Palace staff, but I’ll be there if you’d like to continue our conversation.”

“No.” Fenton smiled. “Although I do think drinking is in order tonight. Shall we go up?”

“Indeed.” Thad stepped toward the vaulted ingress of the reading-alcove. He reached the archway and stepped through a long hall of shelves to the exit. Moving out just behind Thad, Fenton turned, setting one hand to the wall beside the vaulted library opening. Taking a deep breath, his gaze strayed to the tableau of the fighting Wolf and Dragon inside their ring of flame carved in enormous relief on the inner wall of the foyer.

Locked in their ever-battle, they seemed to mock him with their gazes – knowing he could never run from his wyrric legacy. 

The Deephouse cavern behind Fenton breathed with silence as he closed his eyes and sent a pulse of Wolf and Dragon energy through the stone, a combination of heat and lightning that ripped through his veins like wildfire. The air crackled around him, though he was able to channel most of his magics into the stone, even without removing his bracers. In a fluid wave, blue-white runes lit all along the arch, curls of wyrric vapor flowing in from the arch to the empty center. Sigils flashed and gradually the vapor condensed to a milky substance that shivered through with Fenton’s lightning, obscuring the beasts on the far wall. Gradually, that milky substance condensed to solid bluestone – the arch and door vanishing as if they had never been. 

The cavern breathed with silence; a solid, unmarked bluestone wall before Fenton now.

“So that’s how it’s done, securing Leith’s library.”

The basso growl from the natural stone bridge of the Deephouse behind them hammered a wave of shock through Fenton. He whirled fast, twin gouts of fire already in his hands, his entire body prickling with snarl and heat. He hadn’t heard them, hadn’t sensed them – and now it was too late. Thad stood to one side, longknives out in a fighting crouch, but one glance at the intruders upon the bluestone bridge in the massive cavern told Fenton Thad’s blades were useless.

Silver studs of herringbone-weave armor glinted in a vague light filtering down through the cavern as the waning day set beyond the cavern’s ceiling. Enormous longswords rode the backs of five black-clad men, hoods up and faces shrouded in the gloom. As Fenton surged with wrath, glancing down to see the ten Palace Guardsmen who protected the Deephouse bleeding out at the base of the bridge, the twin flames in his hands sparked to white surges of wyrric vapor. If Fenton’s lightning could sublimate sand, his vapor-strikes could melt a man in moments. 

And moments might be all he had, if the Kreth-Hakir Brethren decided to attack.

“Peace, Scion of Alodwine,” the man at the front spoke in his deep, boulder-cracking voice. “We’re not here to kill you, nor the Queen’s Castellan. Only to deliver a message from our lord and High Master Magnus Yesh.”

“And what words could your master ever have that might interest me?” Fenton snarled. Passion surged in his veins; fury roared in his heart to hear Magnus’ name. If there was one man he hated more in his long and varied life, he couldn’t say who. Magnus’ title grated on Fenton’s ears like fingernails on chalk, and he bristled. “Make one false move, Hakir Scorpion, and I will blast you apart from your asshole up.”

The man’s thick lips smiled. The obviously Unaligned man was taller than the others by a foot, broad like a mountain, a heavy war-axe riding his back instead of a broadsword. Lifting ungloved hands thick with muscle, he raised them slowly, showing Fenton he wasn’t going for a weapon. With a gentleness that didn’t match those enormous hands, he touched the edges of his leather hood and cast it back. And bared the one face Fenton hated more than death.

A face riven with white scars from a dragon’s raking talons.

“Hello, old friend,” High Master Magnus Yesh of the Kreth-Hakir Brethren smiled, his empty eye sockets crinkled with amusement. “Have you missed me?”

Copyright 2020 Jean Lowe Carlson LLC. All Rights Reserved. No part of this content may be reproduced or distributed without permission from the author.

NEW PREVIEW! Dragon of the Desert (The Khehemni Chronicles Book 1)

Happy new year, fantasy fans!

I’ve been writing away, getting some things together for new projects in the new year, and I’m excited to bring to you a preview today from Dragon of the Desert: The Khehemni Chronicles #1.

This book is the start of a new trilogy that occurs 1000 years prior to the Kingsmen Chronicles, and tells the story of Leith Alodwine, last King of Khehem, and all the events that caused Khehem’s ruin (and caused the Kingsmen Chronicles to begin!).

This excerpt is of Leith and Maya’s first meeting, and occurs near the start of the book. Maya is an Order of Alrahel assassin sent to watch Leith, currently Khehem’s Dhenir rather than King – and kill him if he gets out of hand.

Enjoy!

Jean

EXCERPT: DRAGON OF THE DESERT (The Khehemni Chronicles Book 1)

CHAPTER 4 – LEITH

Within the crystal pillars of his bedchamber, Leith faced off butt-ass naked with the assassin by the light of his silver filigreed lamps. A breath of night stirred the veils of his chamber as she circled the pillars in her shrouded grey Berounhim attire, watching him with pale jade eyes like a wolf in the darkness. Leith’s hands were at his sides; he was ready. But even from twenty paces away, he could feel the dark, pacing sensation within her wyrria – she was a Wolf of Khehem, born of his city and sent here to rip out his throat tonight.

But all she did was pace, watching him with her uncanny green eyes, pale like a specter yet so vivid they could have melted emeralds. Twin sickled jherra-knives graced her charcoal loa-leather gear, bound close to her slim, iron-wrought curvaceousness. Though swaddled in Berounhim silks and a weapons-harness absolutely bristling with blades, darts, and poison-phials, she was smaller than he. Almost delicately petite, as she passed the lanterns on the bower walls – all the better to get into dark alleys and whisk away just as quickly. 

Leith watched her gloved hands hover near her knives as she circled the pillars of his bed, evaluating him from all angles. Within the predator of her nature he felt hesitation, as if she wondered why he’d not yet thrown a bolt of lightning, blasting her exceptionally round, firm ass all the way to the Southern Desert.

Leith kept his arrogant yet sexy naked stance within his crystal pillars, not facing her as she circled, only moving his head to track her with his eyes. He didn’t actually need his eyes to follow her. For some reason, he could feel her like a growl in the darkness prickling along his entire body, lifting every hair on his skin – though not in a bad way. He realized a hard attraction had hit him for this unknown woman, though she’d not said or done anything yet but track him. 

“Come for me or don’t, woman. But don’t keep a man waiting all night.” Leith spoke at last, giving her a sexy eyebrow lift – on purpose.

“Raise your hands and blast me, Dhenir,” she challenged back, spreading her palms with a slight crinkle of those jade eyes, as if she was smirking beneath her face-wrap. “I’ve seen what you can do on the battlefield.”

“Tracking me into battle, Wolf of Khehem?” He chuckled, his lips quirking. “Like a camp-follower?”

“Watching from afar. Like the Wolf I am, Dragon of the Desert.” Her face sobered, those green eyes digging into him now. She wasn’t smiling anymore, giving him a fiercely deadly look – that he’d figured out the flavor of her wyrria. 

“Are you afraid to attack the Dragon, Wolf?” Leith smiled, feeling a hot tension stir inside him for a fuck or a fight, or maybe both.

“Are you afraid to challenge the Wolf, Dragon?” She growled back, a sexy, dark menace to her low alto voice that just flat did it for Leith. His veins were screaming with fire suddenly, his body hot with it. His heart hammered in his chest and his breath came deeper as he watched her. 

“Who are you?” Leith asked, truly wanting to know now. “Who sent you?”

“Perhaps I sent myself.” She spoke back, turning his wiles against him.

“No assassin plies their trade for empty gain.” Leith spoke quietly.

“What if my gain is your death?” She countered.

“If that were true, I have a feeling I’d be dead by now.” Leith spoke seriously. She had a curious power, he could feel. Something deadly that didn’t come with the regular Wolf-side of Khehem’s magics. Though she simmered deep inside with conflict, she held some extra ability he’d never felt before. Something he wasn’t about to step past the safety of his crystal pillars to face yet. 

Without seeing what she could do.

Leith had only one option; to provoke her. Raising his hands fast, he whirled into one of his classic battlefield maneuvers – a lithe motion as if scooping sand up from the desert floor to hurl at her. Anyone who had ever seen him fight knew it was a concentrated strike, summoning the earth’s tremendous friction from its ever-constant movements to make lightning. The maneuver worked as intended; the assassin had seen it before. Shock widened her jade-green eyes as her hands flashed up as she executed a counter-spin so fast Leith hardly tracked her. But as nothing left his hands – no wyrric power able to be used within the four obelisks of his bedchamber – something did leave hers.

Knives of darkness leapt from her fingertips, like she’d cast pinning-points at him. They were so fast, Leith only saw him in his memory as they tore through the wyrria-nullifying protection of the four crystal pillars around his bed. But those knives of void-shadow had been hurled with such determination that even the obelisks around Leith’s bed were not quite enough to stop them. With an instinctual twist, honed into him from decades fighting with blades, Leith slipped those daggers of night. But he didn’t slip them fast enough – one scoring a vicious rent across his chest even as those blades of dark wyrria flashed out inside the pillars.

Scoring a red line of pain right over his heart.

Breathing hard, Leith knew his eyes were wide as he turned back to face her. Stepping deeply back inside his protective barrier, his heart pounded as he saw her eyes – just as wide as his. She breathed hard through her charcoal shouf; he could see her breath puffing the thin silk in and out. He saw her glance flick to his chest, to the blood she’d drawn. Then he saw her gaze flick to the columns, realizing they were a wyrria-nullifying barrier. And then her pale jade eyes returned to him, firming with resolve.

She had tried to kill him and failed.

She wouldn’t fail again.

In a dead silence she rushed him, with the quickest flying leap through his barrier that Leith had ever seen, or practically didn’t see – kicking him down to his back upon the bed as she drew both cruelly-sickled jherra-knives at her belt. But he was already twisting her leg, flinging her down to the bed, those keenly-honed blades finding nothing but air as he tried to pin her with brute strength. But she was quick, her petite curves like rushing water beneath his hands as she rolled out, scoring behind with one blade so fast Leith had to roll backwards off the bed to avoid getting cut. 

Lunging at him in the space beside the bed now with determination in her eyes, she whipped her knives in almost-unseeable cuts, meant to disembowel him. Leith cammed her slices away with thrusts of his bare hands, though it took all his concentration to match her vicious speed. Rolling fast, swiping like a badger enraged, she came for him like a hurricane in the desert, Leith desperately countering her strikes until he was hot with sweat and hard breaths rather than thoughts of sex.

He wasn’t going to win this fight on speed, magic, or even brute strength. She was too fast; too lithe in her precise, impeccable strikes. As he saw her whip one hand to her harness, liberating a small glass phial of something burnt-orange, he slapped her hand away hard – sending the item flying across the room to dash on the floor near one wall. 

Too late, he realized the item had been a trick. His hard slap had put him off-balance and in that split-second, she swiped his feet out from under him and sent his ass crashing to the marble floor. Flashing atop him fast, she already had one sickled knife to his throat, pressing in at his artery. Leith had her other wrist pinned, his twist crushing her tendons and causing her to drop the second knife.

But only one blade was needed to kill a man.

She had him. As Leith heaved hard breaths, the assassin doing the same atop him as she held the cruel tip of her sickled blade pinned to his throat, ready to jab into his artery, Leith realized they were breathing in synch. As if some force of wyrria yoked them together, even though it was impossible within the pillars, they paused, breathing hard as their hearts pounded in a twinned rhythm.

Watching each other.

“Take it. It’s yours.” Leith spoke at last. He didn’t know if he offered her his life for the honor of besting him – or his heart, for this incredible sensation moving between them.

She blinked. Her straight dark brows narrowed, emotions cascading through her green eyes as she breathed with him. “A Werus et Khehem ne khannioc shri. Ankhi, lhem’kharnus. Ankhi, en lhentriat.

Leith blinked. It was an ancient dialect of Old Khehemni she’d spoken in, a scholar’s tongue used only by the most learned. It impressed him that an assassin would know it, and his golden brows furrowed as he responded with the more modern translation. “The Wolf and Dragon can never be one. Always, they battle. Always, in opposition.”

Slowly, he released her wrist by their sides. Reaching up, he pulled her charcoal shouf down, baring a slender nose and high cheekbones, and a luscious, full mouth in a beautiful heart-shaped face. Sliding back her hood, he revealed thick twists of curls so black they shone blue in torchlight, bound back from her face in a heavy bun at the side of her neck. She was beautiful; stunning – a creature of such incredible comeliness that it made Leith’s heart howl in the night. 

“Who are you?” He whispered, undone as he stared at her.

“I’m no one, milord.” She spoke back in that luscious alto, her green eyes blinking, almost startled that he would want to know. “Just an urchin of the night.”

It was a phrase used in Khehem’s markets, to signify a child that had been abandoned at a young age, now fending for themselves in whatever way they could. Leith knew it well, and it brought to mind the face of the filthy little girl he’d saved from a life of poverty and probably prostitution this same night. In the assassin’s face, he saw that little girl, though they were not the same. Twenty-five or perhaps thirty, this woman had lived a life of hardship the girl had been saved from today. Leith saw that knowledge shining in the woman’s pale jade eyes as they watched each other, shadows of the night flickering all around as a cool desert breeze blew through the lamps. 

“You were raised in Khehem’s markets, yet you wear Berounhim attire,” Leith spoke, feeling the strange mood of the night surrounding them now, as if all of time had paused.

“I am both, and I am none,” she countered, her blade steady at his neck, though she watched him with a curious intensity now.

“You are lovely is what you are, all dark shadow and fierce light.” Leith breathed, reaching up to stroke his fingers over her long twists of dark hair, caressing back an errant curl from her face.

She shoved the tip of the knife up under his chin now; hard. Leith inhaled, tensing, though it was a bad angle for a cut. She’d moved the knife-point from his artery up to where it would hurt if he got handsy but wouldn’t kill him. Carefully, Leith pulled his hands off her, raising them palm-open though he still lay on the floor naked, her straddling him. He was thoroughly aroused at the situation now and with a haughty eyebrow lift, she let him know she could feel it. 

“Why do the Order of Alrahel want Khehem to fall?” She spoke suddenly, her green eyes intense.

“Fall?” Leith blinked, the turn of conversation taking him by surprise. “Who says the Order want Khehem thrown down?”

“They want you dead.” The assassin responded pragmatically. “If they want you dead, they want Khehem to fall.”

Leith’s lips closed as he watched her, his golden brows furrowing. She wasn’t wrong. With his father the King no longer able to wield wyrria and his aunt Jennira sworn to the Order and wearing their manacles, there was no one that could hold the city against the Ghreccan threat, other than Leith. His mother was a formidable storm-funnel of a warrior, and his daughter was a lioness, but they didn’t have the furious abilities Leith held. If this new player, this God-Queen of Ghrec sent mages, Khehem would fall without him. 

Lowering his hands, Leith slowly pushed up to sitting and the assassin let him, sliding off his naked body and coming to crouch beside him on the balls of her feet. She made eye contact, then slid her knife back into its sheath on her harness. Taking up the second knife from the marble floor, Leith offered it hilt-first and she took it. They paused, regarding each other in a sudden moment – as Leith realized the assassin loved her city more than she loved the Order.

“Khehem will never fall.” Leith spoke quietly. “Not as long as I stand before its walls.”

Something shone in her eyes, then; some fierce readiness Leith had known all his life. It was a look of battle, a look that was unapologetic in its ferocity, and he suddenly knew that like him, there was nothing this woman wouldn’t do for the city of her birth. In some ways, Khehem was rotten, and in some ways it was a treasure, but what it was, was their home – hers and his.

And like him, there was nothing she wouldn’t do to protect it.

“The Order will have my head if I do not follow you, milord.” She spoke at last.

“Follow me then,” Leith responded with a quirk of his lips. “I’m sure I wouldn’t mind.”

“And when they ask for your head?” She countered with a lift of one dark eyebrow.

“Tell them it’s unavailable.”

“Unavailable.” Her jade eyes glowed with humor suddenly as she tried to suppress a smile and failed. It made her radiant, and Leith felt his heart smash into smithereens. But he didn’t let it show, pushing to standing as she rose. 

She was tiny. The top of her head barely reached the line she’d scored across his heart as they stood close. Leith had an irrational urge to protect her suddenly, as if with her petite stature came delicacy. But he knew the incredible strength in that body now. He knew the darkness that could flow from her fingertips – something he’d never seen nor even heard of in all his study of fight-magics.

“Tell me your name,” he breathed, gazing down at her. Though everything inside him roared at him to take her in his arms, he knew it was folly and left his hands at his sides.

“My name is Maya,” she spoke, watching him. “Maya al’Khalir.”

“Maya.” Knowledge of her name’s meaning curled his lips wryly. “It means illusion, in Old Khehemni.”

“Close your eyes and I will vanish, milord.” She breathed.

“Never.” Leith did move then. Reaching out, he corralled her with his hands; feeling her hard, strong muscles beneath his palms as he held her by the waist. She let him, falling into him gently; molding to his naked body. Sliding a hand up, he cupped the nape of her neck beneath her hair, holding her as she watched him. Slowly, he massaged his fingers into her nape and she sighed, closing her eyes as her head tilted back.

Surrender. She surrendered to him as she closed her eyes, and Leith felt something in her soften. Like wind in the night, a cool scent wafted from her skin with the curling midnight breeze. Leith found himself intoxicated by it, even as it made him heat. Bending, he did what his instinct told him to do – leaving the softest kiss upon her lips. Even as his eyes closed, she kissed him back, the barest brush of lips and tongues. And then he felt her twist out of his hands. When he opened his eyes, she was gone – vanished by her magics back to the night.

A soft smile curled Leith’s lips as his gaze took in his empty room. 

“Follow me, then. And see where I go, Maya al’Khalir.”

Turning, Leith moved around his room – blowing all the lanterns out to darkness.

Copyright Jean Lowe Carlson 2020. All rights reserved. No portion of this post may be reproduced without the author’s written permission.

Blackmark is getting a facelift!!

Hey lovely fans!

At the beginning of August, I decided Blackmark (The Kingsmen Chronicles #1) needed a serious facelift.

Since it was my first major publication back in 2016, it needed some re-editing attention for the language and pacing to be more in line with the other books in the saga now.

Please enjoy a sneak peek below of the fully re-edited first chapter.

I hope to have the rest of the book re-released on all major retailers by early September.

Onward to Glory!

Jean

*************

PROLOGUE – ELOHL

Elohl den’Alrahel darted through the night, his black cowl raised against the windswept silence of the city. Doubling his pace as he slipped through the darkness, his doeskin boots whispered over the cobblestones as choked alleys loomed around him; hushed streets in the King’s City of Lintesh. The plaque of an alehouse creaked in a snowmelt wind, the rim of the sky lightening against the glacier-shrouded mountains. Dawn was coming, and Elohl’s stomach clenched in a bilious knot as his tense heartbeat filled his ears.

He was running out of time.

His people were running out of time.

Elohl moved on, faster, blending into the shadows as he absorbed the night. With the wyrric senses that were his birthright, a spectral imprint of the city formed in a vast sphere around him as he moved. Scents of piss-pot and jasoune marked a whorehouse; the banging of a shutter spoke of an abandoned home. Dodging a barrel by a tingle to his feet, he avoided a low roofline by pressure near his face. A void at the end of the alley loomed ahead and Elohl had a sensate picture of towering stone – his destination. Approaching, his heart raced as the outer wall of Roushenn Palace coalesced before him.

The palace of the King of Alrou-Mendera.

Elohl’s fingertips touched the wall’s darkness, hacked out of the southern face of the Kingsmount. Coarse, Roushenn’s blue byrunstone granite had been carved by wind and rain, snow and ice over eons, leaving plenty of holds. Climbing by the same instinct that allowed him grace in the darkness, Elohl’s fingers and resinous tips of his boots found purchase. His fingers tingled as he ascended; an image of cracked bones lanced his consciousness and Elohl passed that hold by. His foot throbbed as he stepped to a lip – urging him toward a ledge strong enough to support his weight.

The byrunstone wall yielded its secrets until Elohl was soon up and over. Sensing no sentries inside its reaches, Elohl dropped the last length, landing in thick vegetation. The nighttime gardens were drowned in the whisper of ferns, and Elohl soon found the palace gardener’s entrance, just as Olea had prepared him. Sidling into the shadows of the stone arch, Elohl removed Elsthemi-steel picks from a pouch in his leathers. His touch was softer than featherwisp as he eased his tension tool and pick into the door’s iron lock. He was nearly done when a pair of Palace Guardsmen crunched by upon the gravel walk. Their eyes swept the darkness and Elohl froze in the shadows, fear lancing his gut.

Discovery would mean a stint in the dungeons for invading the King’s fortress tonight.

But Elohl’s charcoal garb was meant for the night, and the guards passed on. The lock clicked and Elohl sighed in through the door like a shroud, his insides tight as tripwire. Torches guttered in iron sconces, licked by ghastly currents in the hall. His breath echoed in the vaulted gables, his hands trembling as if the nightwind blew through him rather than through the vaulted hall.

Inhaling, Elohl took a measured breath to control his emotions. Only his success could halt the march that his people, the Alrashemni Kingsmen, had begun this day. For centuries, the Kingsmen had sworn loyalty to Alrou-Mendera. Elite warriors and peacekeepers for the King, they were the strength and heart of the nation. But in a few hours they would arrive here at the palace, clad for battle to show their outrage at an unfounded accusation. A King’s Summons that demanded each and every one of them re-swear fealty at Roushenn Palace.

Or get charged with High Treason and be put to death.

Received three days ago, the Summons accused the Kingsmen of unspecified crimes. It was an unprecedented edict from an untrusting King – though King Uhlas den’Ildrian had previously trusted the Kingsmen his entire reign. Charging the Kingsmen with treason was insanity, and Elohl tried not to think about what would happen if his people arrived here in a few hours, clad for war as they demanded explanation.

Or if the King ordered his Palace Guard to arrest his nation’s peacekeepers.

Bloodshed could be the only result – bloodshed that Elohl hoped to prevent by his actions tonight. As he moved down the byrunstone hall, he steadied his purpose. Down a corkscrewing stair, he twisted through the labyrinthine bowels of the palace, orchestrated to hopelessly confuse invaders. It was this part of his task his sister Olea had quizzed him on ruthlessly in the past three days, and Elohl moved swiftly through the torch-lit shadows, every turn committed to memory.

At last, he arrived at a pair of massive ironwood doors deep inside the mountain. Taking in their imposing height, he absorbed their carved tableau illuminated by a nearby torch. A stylized wolf and dragon curled around each other, locked in battle and ringed in fire. Snarling with hackles raised, the wolf’s fangs were sunk into the dragon’s neck, while the serpentine dragon pierced the wolf’s belly with its talons. Though both tore at each other, the tableau’s circle was perfectly balanced – as if neither were winning. Awed, Elohl stood a moment, his skin tingling strangely. No one knew what the wolf and dragon signified, nor why certain places in Alrou-Mendera were inscribed with the image.

An ancient sigil from a people long lost.

With a shiver, Elohl roused himself. Setting his attention to the iron lock, it clicked open to his picks, revealing a looming black maw. The Deephouse was a taproom for servants and guards, and Elohl’s nostrils caught the acrid spice of hopt-ale and the syrupy scent of mellon-blume wine as he stepped inside. But the darkness of the stone cavern wasn’t absolute. Elohl froze in the shadows, and setting his back against a stand of kegs, he peered toward the byrunstone bar. The glow of a lantern confirmed his suspicions.

Someone else was here tonight – and they shouldn’t have been.

Four figures stood around the lantern upon the polished bar, their leathers roughshod in the way of mercenaries. Cowled with their heads down, they conversed in murmurs, the edge of a knife catching the light as one gestured at a vellum spread upon the bar. Elohl cursed internally. His destination, the highwall in the furthest depths of the cavern, could only be accessed by the natural stone arch behind the bar. To get to the stair-access, he had to maneuver past the nighttime agitators. Determination snarled through him and Elohl edged along the kegs, his senses tingling. Moving out of the deepest shadows, he kept low – creeping towards the stone stairs.

“Ho, there! Halt!”

A war-roughened voice ripped the darkness and Elohl froze, his pulse thundering in his ears as heads turned. A burly man cursed and pulled a knife as a slender weasel of a fellow hurried to roll up the vellum. But the laughter of a woman came then, blonde hair shining from beneath her thieves’ hood as her leather-buckled figure rounded the bar. The dry-sour scent of cider reeked from her as she sidled close, along with a cloying jasoune perfume as she reached up and uncowled Elohl – her smile lecherous.

“Yurgas! You’ve scared the poor Penitent half to death!” Her blue eyes glimmered as she put a black glove to Elohl’s face, then slid her hand down his neck, stroking his jerkin’s high collar. “You’re built like a heron, lad! So slender and tall. And with such lovely storm-grey eyes. What a waste in a Jenner!”

Elohl blinked, realizing she thought he was of the priesthood, the Jenner Penitents that brewed the concoctions which filled the alehouse. He adopted the ruse, placing one foot behind the other and dropping into a bow, two fingers to his lips in the manner of a Jenner. “My Lords. My Lady. Blessings upon you in this late hour.”

He felt the agitators ease. But if they had ever truly looked at a Penitent, they would have known the young man before them wore no Jenner garb. Elohl’s long charcoal leather jerkin was quadrant-split for fighting, with blackened steel buckles etched with the Kingsmount and Stars. His hood was oiled leather rather than cloth, flowing seamlessly into his jerkin to keep off rain. Even though he’d not worn his sword across his back tonight, only dual longknives on his harness, to politicos his Alrashemni Kingsman garb would have been unmistakable. But Kingsmen were a rare enough sight across the nation that meeting one never happened for some folk. So these brigands believed as they wanted to believe, and saw a Jenner Penitent walking his Mercy in the early hours.

“Here lad.” The swarthy man behind the bar growled. “Have a pull and go. Bar’s closed.”

A thick glass tumbler slid across the polished stone of the bar, straight to Elohl’s fingertips. His nostrils caught the tang of distilled cider and he knew his best option was to play the ruse. With a nervous chuckle, Elohl picked up the tumbler just like a Penitent might if discovered coming down for a drink in the dead of night. “Just a taste, I suppose.”

“Not so pure after all!” The woman laughed, urging the tumbler to his lips. “Have a sip, lad.”

Elohl gazed at the amber liquid, wondering if it would be his last drink this side of Aeon’s Oblivion; or if it would be a mourning for his kin who might see oblivion today. Either way, a drink would ease his nerves. Tossing it back, Elohl clapped the tumbler to the bar with a grimace. Jeers greeted his buzzing ears as he fought to not cough from fumes screaming up his throat.

“Three whole pulls! He drinks like the High Brigade!” The man behind the bar laughed. “Jenner sure can keep his liquor.”

“Ain’t no Jenner.”

A battle-rough voice spoke again from the darkness, and the place in Elohl’s gullet where the cider had passed cooled in terror as he realized his ruse was forfeit. His gaze flicked to the shadows; to the man who had marked him. Elohl’s skin tingled, feeling the man’s predatory gaze like a war commander, and he forced himself to pin the mercenary-commander with a gaze as stern as his father’s. It was a Kingsman’s stare, and the man hesitated in the darkness. But though Elohl had his father’s strong, sinewed build, at twenty years old he was only a Seventh Seal – unfinished. He hadn’t the experience of commanding men to war; he hadn’t matched his skills against a hundred enemies yet.

The mercenary-commander saw it. Stalking into the light, the man’s bear-thick bulk tensed, roped scars upon his left cheek twisting up into a malicious snarl. “If he’s a Jenner, he won’t fight me. If he’s a Kingsman, he will.”

“Now, Yurgas! The lad couldn’t be a Kingsman!” The blonde spoke as her gaze flicked uncertainly between them.

“Oh, he’s a Kingsman.” The brute’s blue eyes were cold as iron upon Elohl. “See that pride in his gaze, that ramrod spine? Pride and training. And Kingsman Greys, even tooled with the right sigils.”

“They’s on to us?” The skinny fellow rasped urgently. “You said they got no clue what’s in for ‘em tomorrow night—!”

“Still your tongue or lose it!” The commander barked.

“I only thought—”

“You didn’t think, so shut your hole. This one’s barely of age, ain’t you boy? Just shy of your Blackmark, scared and pissing yourself.” A cruel smile twisted the commander’s lip as his iron-blue gaze perused Elohl. “Your kin would be here carving out our hearts right now if they knew you were caught in a devil’s lair listening to privileged information. But you’re alone, aren’t you? The Kingsmen don’t know what’s in store for them tomorrow. And so they’ll come to the palace in a few hours, just as you’ve come tonight, without backup. Meaning that your presence here is happenstance. And no one will ever know what happened to you.”

Suddenly, the mercenary-commander lunged – a dagger in his meaty hand. A ripping sensation seared Elohl’s neck and he twisted, the slash cutting only air where his neck had been. Launching to the wall behind the bar, Elohl scurried up as the marauders cursed. A tingle of instinct rippled Elohl and he dropped his right hand just before a knife hit the stone where his hand had been. Regaining his grip, he climbed like the eloi lizards for which he was named – as more knives went whirring upwards.

“Skewer him, dammit!” The commander rasped. “The Lothren will send us to Halsos if tomorrow’s events play wrong because of a single lad!”

Below, two mercenaries began climbing, their scrabbling peppered with grunts and oaths. Though the commander’s words chilled Elohl’s veins with ice, he missed no holds as he angled up the highwall. Cursing himself for missing critical information about the Kingsmen’s fate this day, sparks caught his attention far below and Elohl scrabbled faster, realizing what was about to happen.

“Heave! Hit him, dammit!”

With roars of glee, the mercenaries sent liquor-bottles with flaming spouts whizzing through the air. Smashing upon the highwall, blazing spirits doused the stone to Elohl’s right. Gouts of fire surged as another bottle smashed to his left. Elohl’s only option was up as a third bottle smashed below his foot. His lungs pumped air as smoke choked him, but he was above their throws now. Opening his sensate sphere, Elohl felt for the high corner where the item he’d come for was supposed to be, the item Ghrenna had seen in her vision.

A talisman that had the power to save the Kingsmen from whatever was coming.

Moving with his senses, Elohl found the gap in the wall Ghrenna had described, just below a rift that led out to the night. Anchoring with fingers and toes, Elohl tucked his nose to his shoulder so he could breathe as he reached a hand into the gap. Touching a wooden box, he fished it to the edge. Coughing as smoke burned his eyes, Elohl snugged a finger under the metal clasp and flicked the lid open. His fingers touched a moth-eaten velvet lining, then a filigreed object. Retrieving the item, he squinted at it in the cavern’s red light. An ornate metal clockwork the size of a medallion gleamed in his palm – layered with precious metals like a puzzle, with thirteen spokes like the Jenner Sun.

Elohl’s gut dropped as his chest compressed. The box was just as Ghrenna had described it, but the object was all wrong. Look for a ring of star-metal, of a dragon fighting a wolf around a drop of blood, Ghrenna had told him three days ago, her voice hollow from her trance. But this wasn’t a star-metal ring at all. And as Elohl held it, a sensation suddenly speared him like the clockwork was burning. Lancing up his arm like fire ants, it drove through his body, knifing his heart. Elohl gave a violent tremor, nearly losing his grip upon the wall as his heart clenched. His hand spasmed into a fist around the clockwork as a blistering rage surged through him. But as quickly as the feeling overpowered him, it fled.

And then, the clockwork broke.

A cry escaped Elohl, the despair of a man with all the gods against him. Quickly, he opened his hand but the damage was done; the item was in pieces. Smoke was thick and Elohl choked, his throat burning, his limbs weak from whatever the clockwork had done to him. A mercenary scrabbled for purchase beyond the flames and stuffing the clockwork into his belt pouch, Elohl lifted his chin, smelling the sweet night breeze beyond the smoke. Muscles of his torso and thighs bunching, Elohl hurried up through the rift in the top of the cavern, and emerged upon the roof of the palace.

Doubling over in the grey-opal dawn, Elohl coughed hard, eyes watering from burning vapors as his limbs trembled. Curses pursued him and Elohl hurried across the palace roof, vaulting boulders tumbled from the mountainside. Suppressing his anguish, he coughed hard as he ran. He had to return the item he’d found to Ghrenna; perhaps her vision had changed in the hours he’d been away.

Perhaps a new one had come to explain this unexpected turn.

That thought was all he had to spur him as he ran. Next to a grand dome, Elohl backed over toes first, finding rough handholds where the carving-out of the palace met the Kingsmount. It was hundreds of lengths to the ground from the Upper Tiers, but he made his way steadily down as he managed his breath and fatigue. A tingle in his foot led him left, a pulse in his other foot led him right, until he found a crevasse that got him down to the paving stones behind a weaver’s shop. Dawn blushed the eastern peaks of the Kingsmountains rose and gold.

But the lightening sky could not brighten Elohl’s despairing heart.

Picking up his feet, Elohl ran. A dark shadow melted to his side as he streaked through the dawn city, his twin sister Olea keeping easy pace. His twin was a soothing balm to his torpid emotions, entering his wyrric sphere like sunlight upon a frozen lake. Darting through alleys, Olea’s shadowy form leaped benches and ducked awnings with serenity, longknives flashing in her hands as she ran.

Elohl’s twin was as fine as her blades, her slender height honed into effortless grace as she spoke with unruffled breath, “Did you get it, Elohl? Was it there?”

“No.” Elohl didn’t break stride though his breath was ragged. “The box was there, but not the star-metal ring. This was there instead.”

Ducking into an alley that seeped with the acrid tang of a tannery, Elohl halted, unbuckling his leather pouch. Opening it quickly, Olea’s pale opal eyes narrowed upon the item, her straight dark brows forming a line. Setting her jaw, she looked up, then buckled the pouch to her own belt with fast fingers.

“We’ll discuss this later. I can hear five men following. And – something else.”

“Five? There were only two following me out the top of the cavern—” Elohl glanced back down the alley. But Olea’s wyrric hearing was keener than a wolfhound and Elohl knew better than to gainsay her. They ducked down the alley, back the way they had come tonight as rough stone workshops and taverns now abandoned their spectral nighttime forms. Elohl’s heart sank as he skimmed over the paving stones. Unbuckling his jerkin, he tugged his shirt lacings open as he ran, baring the Inking upon his chest, the black Kingsmount crowned with five stars. He rubbed the still-tender marking, illegally Inked by Ghrenna just three days ago.

Elohl didn’t deserve it; he hadn’t earned it yet.

But they might be the last marks Inked upon any Kingsman now that their task had failed.

Racing under the Watercourse Gate, Elohl found the guards still sleeping from the pith-crest Olea had slipped into their ale earlier. Speeding out into the chatter of the Elhambrian Forest, they streaked to the mossy grotto from whence they’d come. In a group of boulders burbling with a natural spring, a man-sized Alranstone stood, covered in arcane glyphs with three eyes carven into it – the Stone they had come through hours ago. The eye at the top began to open as they approached, some ancient wyrria transforming the gray-blue byrunstone to a gleaming inset of lapis. Splaying his hand towards its blue iris, Elohl called out his name and lineage as he ran.

“Elohl den’Alrahel, den’Urloel, den’Alrashesh! Blessings to the Kingsmen! Blessings to the Alrashemni—”

But before he could finish the words that would activate the Stone, Elohl felt something slide into his mind. Not the rush and tingle of the Stone, this was a smooth current of wyrria, arresting his mind like a tide’s flow takes a ship. Causing the incantation to fall from his lips as it caught him, he stumbled to a halt beside the Stone. Pulling at him, it made him turn like a nightmare; gazing toward the edge of the clearing.

There, in the grey hues of dawn, a behemoth stalked them down. Beside Elohl, Olea was captive also – held by the approaching presence. The black monstrosity chittered as it came, its massive claws clacking like language, segmented legs punching the moss. In the growing light, the scorpion’s chitinous plates glittered like stars, black with a horrible allure. Arching over its broad back, the behemoth’s tail was ready to strike, its high barb shining with a drop of poison in the sun’s first rays.

A man rode upon its back. Dressed in a herringbone-weave leather jerkin so black it ate the sun’s rays except for shining silver studs, the man’s face was hidden inside his deep hood. Maneuvering with only a touch of his hand, he rode the scorpion without a saddle, an enormous longsword with a black-wrapped handle strapped to his back. The man’s dark eyes stared Elohl down from the shadows of his hood – and a quicksilver sensation swept Elohl, rolling him. He collapsed, one knee driving into the earth, his hand upon the Alranstone the only thing keeping him upright as Olea gave a sharp cry and fell to her knees also. Horror swept Elohl as the man smiled deep within his hood – and the quicksilver sensation inside Elohl’s mind formed speech.

I can’t let you leave, boy. Not with what you have witnessed tonight. Open for me. Open your mind. Spill for me what you saw, what you heard…

Vast weaves of silver light slammed into Elohl like a tidal wave hitting a jetty. Terror gripped him as he felt his mind break, shredded open for the scorpion-rider. But suddenly, from his hand upon the Alranstone, a presence went humming through him like a thousand bees. A warming glow filled Elohl as the Stone’s massive eye came fully open, flooding the glade with blue light – and the final words of the Stone’s incantation were thrust into Elohl’s mind.

Trapping Olea’s hand beneath his, Elohl screamed out, “Open Stone of Alran, pass me free!”

Blue light dimming, the Alranstone acquiesced to his command. The black rider’s face contorted in fury as he vaulted from his scorpion, drawing his massive sword with a roar, swiping down to sever Elohl from the Stone.

But he was too late. In a flash and a clap of thunder, Elohl and Olea were threaded into the Alranstone’s core. Elohl screamed in agony as his innards contorted with a searing wrench, his body twisted into a mobius. Sunbursts flared before his eyes as emptiness filled his lungs like being rolled beneath ocean waves. But before he could focus upon any of these things, he and Olea were spat out upon the other side.

Stumbling to their knees in a clearing far from the grotto, breathless and retching.

Copyright Jean Lowe Carlson LLC 2016. No part of this content may be reproduced or shared without the author’s written permission.

NEW EXCERPT! After the Kingsmen Chronicles...

SPOILER ALERT!! READ NO FURTHER IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THE FOLLOW-UP SERIES TO THE KINGSMEN CHRONICLES YET!!!

Hi lovely fans!

I know it’s been a while since I checked in, and it’s been a busy spring! I’m bringing to life a brand-new pen name for fantasy romance, which has been occupying most of my time to get three books out this summer.

You can check all that out below if you’re interested :)

https://www.avawardromance.com/

But as ever, my heart constantly turns back to the Kingsmen Chronicles, my mind waking me up at 3am wondering “how is Elohl’s story going to go now that he’s got some space”?

Well, I’m happy to give you the start of that story today. :)

I wrote this passage right after I finished Goldenmark, thinking about how it might be if Elohl and Eleshen ever met up again. How would they feel about each other? What would they say?

Who would Eleshen be riding with, and can Elohl see her as the new, powerful person she’s become? And what would she notice about him now that he’s done being a hero?

Well, he’s not done. :)

Like a good tragic hero, Elohl will be called into the fight once more as the follow-up series takes off to fight the big, bad evil for the entire epic. And no, that wasn’t Lhaurent…

So here it is. Enjoy the first part of Elohl’s story post-Goldenmark, and I’ll check back later in the summer with more!

***********

CHAPTER 2 – ELOHL

Silence settled around Elohl den’Alrahel, blanketed by snow. Sipping a mug of elder-bloom and cinnamon tea, he sat in his chair by the open kitchen door, watching the morning. Bright with promise, sunlight glinted off every smooth mound of snow beyond the porch. A fire burned in the hearth of the small inn, another gave heat to the cheery kitchen from the cast-iron ovens, the good smell of rosemary bread wafting through the crisp morning air. Smoke eased up from the inn’s chimneys, skirling off into a cloudless blue morning.

Company had come yesterday, a trio of Elsthemi hunters passing through to the Elsee. A bawdy bunch, they’d brought Klippas-ale and sung late into the night. But they’d departed on their sledge at dawn, pulled by six stout hounds with wired-haired coats, before the sky had settled from rose into cerulean. They were on their way to the Elsee now. Elohl had gotten the latest gossip; that King Therel Alramir and Queen Elyasin den’Ildrian Alramir had commissioned a week of winter sport at the border as further celebration of their nations’ unity. 

Celebrations that had lasted – in one way or another – all winter.

Ever since Elohl had sent the Rennkavi’s Dawn through every heart on the continent.

The hunters and their sledge-mutts were the first of what Elohl expected to be a busy week for his inn. But now, the morning was calm and bright, steam curling off fresh snow as the sun lit it with diamonds. A red-crested driller fluttered to a cendarie branch above the eaves, digging in with claws and hammering the stout bark with its long beak. A chorus of peeping rose, and Elohl watched an ululi-wren flutter to her brood in a niche upon the riverstone chimney. Depositing her meal into little beaks, she fluttered off with a flash of crimson wings.

A smile touched Elohl’s lips as he sipped his tea. He rose from his porch-chair, one he’d joined together during the long months since Darkwinter, and moved in through the open kitchen door. Taking up a rag, he opened the cast-iron ovens and fetched out his morning bread with a long ashwood paddle, sliding the round loaves to the kitchen’s long trestle-table. Sprinkling the loaves with coarse salt, he moved to a stew-pot upon the stove, stirring his venison mitlass. The rest of the six-point buck he’d brought down with his yew bow yesterday was now salted and hanging in the pantry. Ready to weather the rest of the winter – or however long it would last through this week as revelers passed through.

Moving back to the porch, Elohl resumed his seat, watching the Elsee road curling with steam, the limbs of cendarie over the road bending with wet spring snow. Once, the sight of thick, draping branches like that would have made him cold inside. Back in the High Brigade, snow like that meant winter was ending and the spring thaw had come – thaws that could shift glaciers and kill men by the thousands. But only a vague darkness passed through Elohl today, watching the beauty of the white-on-white glimmer rather than a shadow of death. 

His Goldenmarks lit with a slow flare at the open collar of his shirt as Elohl allowed himself to sink into the peace of the morning. His rooms were cleaned, the laundry freshened, and food was ready. He needed to chop firewood and check that spot up under the barn’s eaves that had begun to drip, but unless company came today, he’d only need to go out hunting for snowhare or grouse today.

Even the copious ale he’d imbibed last night with his rowdy guests could not break his ease today. A plop came as a cendarie-frond shed wet snow near the porch. Elohl blew on his tea, watching the steam form patterns in the air. His Goldenmarks moved with his breath and Elohl watched them where they whispered upon the backs of his hands. Sometimes he thought he could read their curling script and flowing glyphs. But then the moment was gone – ephemeral as the steam swirling up into the chill air. 

Suddenly, his sensate sphere began to tingle. Far off, he could feel movement through the morning – a party approaching along the Elsee road. Elohl closed his eyes, expanding his senses upon the tide of his breath. His gift had become like a second set of eyes, expanded a hundredfold since he’d gone through the Rennkavi’s Ritual. Power breathed through Elohl now; a power he could never stop. In the crowd of a city it was madness, feeling every beating heart for leagues. The claustrophobia he’d experienced at Roushenn Palace during Darkwinter Fest had been overwhelming – the tingle and lance of the Goldenmarks among thousands of people deafening. But out here in the mountains it was a blessing, showing him where the buck browsed, where the doe bedded down for the day. Where the snowhares burrowed, and when sleek wild keshar-cats slid through the trees. 

And when company approached – friendly or foul.

Elohl watched ten riders moving through the early day with his gift now, his eyes closed as he breathed quietly in the sunlight. Feeling them out as they approached, he noted each person rode upon the liquid grace of keshar-cats. War bristled about them, though the party was calm. The smooth sensation of leather armor, the sharp, deadly edge of cold steel; battle-axes, polearms, and longswords. 

Elohl’s brows knit as he opened his eyes. They were Elsthemi – keshari riders, still a half-league off. Probably some of High General Merra Alramir’s riders passing through, using the Elsee road as access between their wedded nations of Alrou-Mendera and Elsthemen. He could hear them around the snowy bend now, joking with bawdy laughter and ribald songs. The keshar-cats made no sound as they padded through the fresh powder, though the Elsthemi made plenty of it. 

They rounded the bend and Elohl finally saw their motley leathers and shaggy furs. Silver pins glinted at their collars, and the sight brought Elohl to his feet. Something inside him darkened, watching that silver catch the sun. Elohl’s nerves wound tight as they approached. 

Until he heard the booming barrel-laugh of one of King Therel’s Highswords. A man he knew – Lhesher Khoum. 

Riding at the front of the column, he saw Lhesher’s lion-mane of braided red hair and his cascading braided red beard as he roared a laugh to a slighter, tall fellow with good shoulders beside him. A fellow with a half-shaved head and curling Elsthemi dragon-tattoos on his scalp, Rhennon Uhlki, a man Elohl also knew as one of General Merra’s elite war-Captains. 

A strong, beautiful alto joined their laughter. That voice curled around Elohl, jangling him, making his Goldenmarks flare under his loose shirt and laced leather breeches like the morning had caught in blue-white fire. Riding behind Lhesher upon a dappled grey keshar-cat, a slender yet curvaceous woman flicked her long sable braid back over her snowhare pelt as she laughed in charcoal battle-leathers. Her gaze found the smoke curling up from the inn’s chimneys and her laughter ceased. And then her eyes, luminous as violets in the rain, found Elohl standing on the kitchen porch. She cocked her head as an amazed smile touched her full lips, her cheekbones still high and fierce, even though her new appearance was shocking. 

Eleshen den’Fenrir.

Talk ceased. The Elsthemi halted their cats, watching Eleshen amble hers over the snow to the porch. With an incredulous smile she halted before Elohl, gazing down from her cat’s shouldered height. Her eyes roved Elohl’s Goldenmarks, watching them flare in the morning. And then she gave a throaty laugh and vaulted to the porch with her natural feistiness and a new, uncanny grace.

“Elohl den’Alrahel! I should have known you’d be here.”

“Eleshen,” Elohl breathed, amazed. 

He didn’t know what to say. All thought left him as he stared at her. Eleshen had been lovely before, but she was a dagger in the morning now, incredible. Some part of Elohl cursed himself – knowing he’d had her in his hands once and let her go. She was gone now; Ghrenna was gone, and Olea too. And though Eleshen stood before him, she was another woman now – a Kingswoman and keshari rider, wearing the silver mountain-and-stars pins of Merra’s elite forces.

Not to mention Dhepan of Quelsis, the most powerful city in the eastern reaches.

“Did you know that absolutely everyone’s been looking for you these past months, Elohl?” Eleshen laughed, pinning him with her eyes, accusatory and amused. “And here you are! Right smack under our noses, keeping my old inn like a common bartender. Or were you just pining away, waiting for me to come visit you?”

That last was said with a grin, but it held bite. Elohl didn’t think Eleshen would ever forgive him for abandoning her in Lintesh last Highsummer, even though it had been to save Queen Elyasin from assassination. Even though she’d been launched upon her journey to becoming a Kingswoman and reclaiming her birthright in Quelsis because of it.

“I wanted someplace quiet, someplace out of the way.” Elohl stated truthfully. “I’m no-one’s sword now, Eleshen. The intrigue and politics of Lintesh isn’t where I belong.” 

“And the only place you could think of to call home was my old inn.” Eleshen’s gaze softened, something sad in it as she gazed upon him. “Oh, Elohl!”

And then she was flowing forward, seizing him in her arms, hugging him fiercely. His hands went around her waist. His nose was in her hair, breathing in her honey-lavender scent. Something warming filled Elohl to be in her arms again; to be welcomed back despite what an idiot he’d been chasing after destiny. They breathed together a long moment and then she pulled back, catching his face in her hands and planting a brisk kiss upon his lips. 

You! I could just throttle you!” Eleshen shook him like a wayward puppy. Elohl laughed. Something bright rushed through him, flaring his Goldenmarks. He growled, hauling her up around the waist in his hands. His strength was far more than it had been, hefting her high off the snowy porch as Eleshen gave a breathless laugh and kicked her legs, slapping his shoulders. “Put me down, Elohl, put me down! Aeon’s stars…!”

He did, though he crushed her in his arms again before letting her go. “It’s good to see you,” he breathed into her hair. 

You have been too long in the woods alone.” Eleshen huffed, slapping his shirt, though she smiled as she gazed at him. Reaching out, she stroked his short winter beard with her gloved fingers, admiration in her eyes. Something still shone there for him and it twisted Elohl’s heart, feeling her love. Even though he’d broken it, ruined it, and she’d fallen in love with another man because of him, there was something good inside Eleshen that could never be broken. It showed in that moment as she smiled at him, unabashed and kind.

A throat cleared behind her, the big, booming sound of Lhesher Khoum. “If you’re done accostin’ the lad, step back and let the rest of us have a go, woman!”

Eleshen’s violet eyes widened, and she stepped back with a flush of embarrassment. Lhesher Khoum vaulted from his cat-saddle, barreling up the snowy steps to crush Elohl in a massive embrace. “Ho, lad! Never thought ta see ye here! But glad I am!”

“Get any fuckin’ out here worth a damn?” The purring alto of Jhonen Rebaldi came next as she vaulted off her big tawny cat. Fierce with a mane of bright orange hair done back in a crest of braids, Jhonen had an eagle’s talon pierced through one ear, raven’s feathers braided through her bright mane in the renegade Highlander way. Her corseted fighting leathers featured shaggy wolf-pelt chaps, a black wolf-pelt buckled around her broad shoulders and a massive broadsword slung across her back. The tallest, strongest woman Elohl had ever seen, she moved in, fondling Elohl’s crotch with a lurid grin. “I hear yer a free man now, lowlander, released from service to Queen and country. Enjoy it while ye can. ‘Till yer trapped between my thighs.”

Elohl laughed at her sassy bravado, so very Jhonen. He seized her in an embrace, undoing the flirtation. She laughed, slapping him on the back, then grabbed his butt. He chuckled, but they both knew it was not to be as she stepped back with a wide grin. 

Rhennon Uhlki had left his cat now and vaulted to the porch. He gripped arms with Elohl, his red-brown eyes pleased beneath his half-tattooed head, a ready smile on his lips. “Elohl. Good ta see you.”

“Rhennon,” Elohl murmured with a smile. “May Highland nights keep you warm.”

“Depends on how well a swordsman keeps an inn,” Rhennon chuckled, glancing up at the riverstone building with its stout cendarie timbers. “Not too bad, from the smell of it.”

“Breakfast?” Elohl asked, glancing around the group. 

“I smell mitlass and rosemary bread,” Eleshen gave a teasing pout. “Stealing my recipes, are we?”

“Improving them.” Elohl gave a smile, gesturing inside. “I’ve beds enough for eight, if you’d like to stay a night or two. The rest can sleep with the cats in the barn.”

“Eight beds will do for all of us. You forget that Elsthemi bunk up when it’s cold.” Eleshen shouldered past Elohl into the cheery kitchen as she flashed a teasing smile back over her shoulder. Moving to the stove, she fetched polished wooden trenchers from the shelves as if she’d never left. Elohl had kept her intuitive system, and Eleshen moved around her old kitchen with ease. 

“Aye, lads!” Lhesher gave a whistle back toward the rest of the group. “Lead the cats around ta the barn, then come in fer some breakfast!”

The keshari riders whistled their approval, then began stalking the cats off the road. Elohl turned, inviting the commanders into the kitchen with a beckon. The Elsthemi stomped their snowy boots off at the threshold and tromped inside, casting off furs as they flopped to a seat at the long trestle-table. Flasks came out and were passed around with eager sighs. 

Throwing up her boots on the table and drawing on a silver flask, Jhonen extended it to Elohl. “Whiskey?”

“What kind?” Elohl reached for the flask as Lhesher kicked Jhonen’s boots off the table. 

She glowered at Lhesher, a hot, sexy look, before answering Elohl. “Me own kind; piss an’ vinegar an’ not much else. I think ye might like it, lowlander.”

“I just might.” Elohl took a swig and the liquor burned down his throat in a searing wave, seven times stronger than the concoctions he brewed. He coughed, his eyes watering as he handed it back. “It’s good.”

“It’s just awful!” Eleshen quipped as she moved in with full trenchers of stew and butter from the crock, setting everything down. “How you drink that swill, Jhonen Rebaldi, I’ll never know! Now I have a distillery out back and some herbs—”

I have a distillery out back and some herbs,” Elohl smiled. 

You never purchased this place,” Eleshen shot back with a teasing pout.

“You didn’t either.”

I fixed it up. It was falling apart when I came here.” She spat back. “In any case, if you’ve put those long, lean muscles to use Elohl, and the few brains in your head, I hope you’ve made something nice from my carefully-kept liquor-works?”

“Indeed.” Elohl rose with a smile, fetching the glass decanter containing his best elder-bloom liquor off the top shelf. When Elohl had come here after Darkwinter, he’d discovered Eleshen’s brew-house behind the barn, full of buckets of honey chilled among piled sacks of wheat. Elohl had cleaned her fermentation barrels and distillery, and his first batch of elder-bloom honey liquor had been a drunken hit with guests. Though the Elsthemi would probably drink him out of hearth and home tonight. Taking down five crystal glasses, he filled them with honey-golden beverage. Passing them around, he lifted his glass. “To old friends.”

“And new memories.” Eleshen spoke. Elohl caught her glance, feeling everything that had passed between them this last tumultuous year. His Goldenmarks flared in a slow wave of rippling blue-white fire. Elohl felt their burn, smooth like the liquor about to go down his throat. His gaze connected to Eleshen’s and he saw her return it, fierce and sad. He could see her bad memories in that gaze; bad memories that would never die. Torture and transformation; love and loss. Elohl could feel her heart in that moment, blazing like a star in the darkness – a light that would never quit, no matter how bad things got.

“And new memories,” Elohl murmured quietly.

A rousing cheer went up from the group as all clinked glasses. The Elsthemi drank, draining their glasses and slamming them to the table with roars. 

Copyright 2019 Jean Lowe Carlson LLC. All Rights Reserved. No part of this content may be reproduced or distributed without permission from the author.

Announcing: The new JLC Reader Group!

Hey lovely epic fantasy friends!

I just wanted to share with you all that I've started a reader's group for my books. For those of you that are interested in following my work in detail, I will be posting in the group regularly about my books and their development, and all are welcome to join.

Any questions you have about characters, plot lines, etc. – post 'em! I'll be answering as much as I can with spoiler warnings if needed! 😄📔💖

Join us here ==>

https://www.facebook.com/groups/186972562223649/