Braeden Drakonin ran his thick hands over a cavern wall he’d found deep in the tunnels of some unknown mountain in Ourea. The yakona’s short black hair stuck to his olive skin, which was covered in sweat from the four days he had spent on this hunt. He was close.
He held up his hand and a gray fire erupted in the air above his palm, fueled by the magic that coursed through his body. The blaze flickered in the dark cave, casting its light across the glossy wall to give him a better view. Its white stone blocks were perfectly aligned without a single crack in the ancient mortar, and the fortification stretched across the cavern in an unnatural line that blocked off half of the cave. Its edges met the curved slope of the organic cave walls, the design bending to fill every possible gap in the rock with a white brick. Engraved into the center of the wall with thin, silver lines was a large symbol: a four-leaf clover the size of his head, made of four crescent moons that looped through each other.
This was it.
Finally, after twelve years of dead leads and the dying hope that it even still existed, he had found the Grimoire. It waited, somewhere behind this wall, for its new master. It waited for him.
He’d grown up listening to the legends of the Vagabond, as had every yakona child for the last thousand years. Most children daydreamed of finding the priceless treasures hidden in the Vagabond’s abandoned village; Braeden, however, had only ever dreamed of becoming a vagabond himself to escape having been raised to kill. He was a prince and Heir to the Stele: an evil kingdom filled with vile yakona that preferred torture todiplomatic negotiation. Becoming a vagabond was the only escape from that life. Though he’d escaped the Stele as a child twelve years ago—living another life while his kingdom thought he was dead—his luck wouldn’t last much longer. He needed to find the Grimoire before his father learned the truth.
Braeden stepped back, examining the cavern as he looked for a door. A sunken tower had fallen across two of the four entrances to the cave, but the worn stone blocks scattered on the floor were all that remained of it. Aside from the collapsed spire, the cavern was completely bare. The solid white wall didn’t have a trace of a hinge or a handle. His stomach twisted into a knot as a slow realization washed over him.
There was no door.
Dread shot through him. “No. There has to be a way in. There has to be something.”
He ran his hands along the Grimoire’s clover symbol, hunting for a clue, but his search turned up nothing.
“No.” His voice shook as he smacked the wall with his palms. The stacked bricks shuddered, and the gray fire in his hand fizzled out. The room plunged into darkness once more. He pulled on his hair and repeated the word over and over, his voice growing louder as panic bubbled in his gut.
He finally lost all sense of self-control.
"The writing is flawless. The kingdoms and surrounding landscapes breathtaking. The Grimoire is a piece of imaginative genius that bedazzles from the moment Kara falls into the land of Ourea. - Nikki Jefford, author of the Spellbound Trilogy
Spring 2013 Rankings
#6 Kindle Store | #1 Science Fiction & Fantasy | #1 Epic Fantasy | #1 Sword & Sorcery | #1 Teens
Now an international Amazon bestseller. Fans of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and Eragon will enjoy this contemporary remix of the classic epic fantasy genre.
----------------
Kara Magari is about to discover a beautiful world full of terrifying things: Ourea.
Kara, a college student still reeling from her mother's recent death, has no idea the hidden world of Ourea even exists until a freak storm traps her in a sunken library. With nothing to do, she opens an ancient book of magic called the Grimoire and unwittingly becomes its master, which means Kara now wields the cursed book's untamed power.
Discovered by Ourea's royalty, she becomes an unwilling pawn in a generations-old conflict - a war intensified by her arrival. In this world of chilling creatures and betrayal, Kara shouldn't trust anyone... but she's being hunted and can't survive on her own. She drops her guard when Braeden, a native soldier with a dark secret, vows to keep her safe. And though she doesn't know it, her growing attraction to him may just be her undoing.
For twelve years, Braeden Drakonin has lived a lie. The Grimoire is his one chance at redemption, and it lands in his lap when Kara Magari comes into his life. Though he begins to care for this human girl, there is something he wants more. He wants the Grimoire.
Welcome to Ourea, where only the cunning survive.
----------------
Novels in the Grimoire Saga:
Lichgates (#1)
Treason (#2)
Heritage (#3) - Available Fall 2013
Illusion (#4) - Available Fall 2014
Buy Now @ Amazon & Smashwords
Genre - Fantasy
Rating – PG13
More details about the author
No comments:
Post a Comment