Myridians are coming, each wielding one of Six Cataclysmic Powers that will lay waste to the world and wake the God of Neutrality. What happens when one refuses to succumb to her myridian nature and sets out to save the world instead?
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SIDRA ANATOLA will soon die a human death and be reborn as one of the myridian, beings destined to destroy the World of Aetheria. In a desperate attempt to change her dark fate, she flees home and the young man she loves to seek help from a powerful entity who has lived through all the ages. But she may not make it in time before she is killed by hunters—or by the love of her life, also a myridian, who fights every day to hold onto the emotions that made him human.
BRESEIS ERISWEN was expelled from the academy and failed her father who expected her to carry on her late mother’s profession as a myridian hunter. But Breseis never wanted to be a hunter—she refused to kill, and she never believed in myridians, to begin with. She leaves home with big dreams, lacking experience, and a broken heart, to prove that she is more than a failed hunter.
Two contrasting paths converge to become a turbulent one. A mouthy intellect with a colorful personality, and a skilled warrior with a frosty attitude, put their differences aside and travel the rest of the way together, robbing temples, angering false gods, and escaping numerous predicaments with their lives. Amid the chaos, they form a friendship despite a gut feeling that both hide dangerous secrets that can save or destroy the world and each other.
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Excerpt
I step into the head priest’s personal space; his eyes fall under wrinkles of discomfort, his trust in me diminishing. The knot in his throat bobs up and down as he swallows nervously, and instinctively, he slides both arms into opposite robe sleeves and holds them there, on the weapons hidden within them, no doubt.
Licking the dryness from my lips, I take my time. I inhale the air deep into my lungs, and my eyes shut momentarily so I can savor it, the memory of when Sidra was here. It had been only days ago, and the memory is still as fresh as if I had witnessed it with my own eyes. I see her in the temple, a white-haired girl with her; I see the priest kick Sidra in the back of the head; the poniard in his hand plunged into Sidra’s spine; she falls to her knees. Anger courses through me, finding every limb, every bone and muscle and vein in my body. Just watch, I tell myself, taking back the control. I can hear the priests gasping for air in the present, but I keep my eyes closed to focus on the not-so-distant past.
In the priest’s memory, I see the whip in the Valdanian girl’s hand, ensnaring a priest’s throat and yanking him to the floor. I watch Sidra and the girl fight their way out of the temple, the poniard still jutting from Sidra’s spine, the pain in her face, the pain I have always hated to see more than anything. My memories mingle with the priest’s, those when we were younger, and all the times Sidra should have died, but instead of death,
there was only torment; I see the tears stream down her face. “It hurts, Soren…please, tell me why I can’t die? Death would take the pain away…” I held her hand, and I brought it to my lips; my tears tracked down the bridge of my nose and onto her fingers. “I don’t know, Sidra,” I told her and kissed her hand once more, wanting only to comfort her, to make the pain stop, and hating myself because it was the one thing I couldn’t do. “But I am here. And I will always be here. I will find a way to take away your pain. Someday, Sidra. I will find a way.”
My eyes spring open to blackness. On their knees, the priests claw at their throats, desperately trying to fill their lungs with air again; choking sounds permeate the temple in a baleful timbre.
I crouch; my eyes are as black as an abyss, the truth of what I am now laid out for them to see in their final moments.
“The Sixth Age will end,” I say. “And no number of hunters will be able to stop it. The ages always come to an end. And we are here to pave the way for the God of Neutrality to awaken and put balance into life once more.” I cock my head to one side. “It is your own fault,” I say. “Your weaknesses, your malignant, infectious atrocities, that gives us life. You have only yourselves to blame for the end of all things.”
The priests’ eyes swell in the sockets, and their bloated faces turn purple and blue though the only color I can see is black. The veins in their necks bulge and throb beneath the skin; I can already detect the scent of death permeating the air, and I
wonder if Herana, Deity of Death and the Afterlife, is watching from the shadows.
I rise into a towering stand, like a giant before ants, then casually I turn and walk away. They are dead before I reach the doors.
I meet the remaining guards outside at the bottom of the steps, bladed pikes at the ready. But their confidence reduced by their fear of the man skilled in Mind Craft, one of the most powerful Crafts in the Craft of Zekrosus.
With little effort or thought, I seize control of their minds; the guards struggle to move in their armor, sweat dripping down their faces in rivulets.
“You will go to the village,” I instruct, “and kill everyone in it. After which, you will kill one another.” I step into the Imperial Guard’s face. “And then the one of you left standing will fall onto his own blade.”
The Imperial Guard blinks his one eye several times, aware of what is happening, but he can do nothing to stop it.
“Now go,” I say with the gesture of my hand.
They do as were instructed, and I leave in the direction I had seen Sidra carried away by the wagon.
Author Bio
Sonja J. Breckon is a builder of fantasy worlds and not ashamed to admit she lives in them more than in the real world. Besides writing books, she works with various programs to create her own cover art, interior art, design, formatting, and fantasy maps. She loves nature, the universe, coffee, and bookstores. Oh, and chicken potato enchiladas.
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The summary and cover are interesting too.
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