Title:
Warrior’s Watchtower
Author:
Aedan
Byrnes
Blurb:
Her heroes
are gone, taken together in a flash by a vengeful God leaving Jondre to find
her way alone. Befriended by a woman who knows more than she’s telling, she
makes a choice to try to help what’s left of her family and finds herself at
the seat of power but also the center of the expanding abyss. Her world is
nothing that it seemed.
A Eupion
raid near the boundary delivers a surprise to High House, a new tragedy to deal
with and the catalyst for an even more difficult future to come. Just when she
thinks there cannot be more, she sees the most fearsome immortal she’s ever
encountered, and as match-mates are revealed, this one is hers. Nothing is
simple anymore.
There is no
simple description for Aedan Byrnes. Obsessive, dreamer, reclusive, compulsive,
outdoorsman and wordsmith would be among the list if one were started. The
displaced Gael lives in the upper Midwest with family between jaunts wherever
the road goes. A frequent traveler, Aedan is as likely to be found rock
climbing, spelunking, sitting fireside dreaming or aimlessly floating away as
hiding with pen and paper working on the next
tale.
A lifelong
lover of words and writing, Aedan claims a diverse reading appetite and the
writing reflects the myriad influences. A self-proclaimed ‘reader’s writer’,
the emotional and sensory results of word combinations outweigh the visceral
comprehension of phrases for the stories and drives the prose. The original
'Eclectic Bard' enjoys the special magick of storytelling, those who embrace
the challenge of writing, and the dreamers who get whisked away by the words
making the journey worth
taking.
Author
Links:
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/AedanByrnes
Facebook -
Fan Page: http://www.facebook.com/AedanByrnes
Facebook -
Personal Page: https://www.facebook.com/aedan.byrnes.7
Café Press:
http://www.cafepress.com/authoraedanbyrnes
Buy Links:
●●Foreword●●
They jumped.
If I would have blinked I would have missed it. It was
that fast. For every breath of every moment of my life one or more of them were
there and yet in the span of time between breaths every one of them had
disappeared.
Playing it back in my head, it was just too fast. I didn’t
see it coming until the moment it happened, and then I couldn’t believe it
happened.
“What have you learned Vengelys?”
“We have learned we are at war.”
“What else have you learned? You should have known we were
at war.”
“We have learned that our adversary is wily and cunning
and we have been, but should not underappreciate his tenacity in the war he is
waging.”
“Do you infer that the strength of the enemy has been
misrepresented to you Vengelys?”
“No.”
“Do you believe then that the complexities of the war we
wage are beyond our abilities?”
“No.”
Tynan reached up to tap him out and take over. Rigor would
never allow that I’m sure, but Tynan had tried anyway. I’m not the only one who
noticed. Amaranos seemed to launch at the action as Rigor refocused fully on the
God.
“Do you act in union or from a divided front? Perhaps it
is not the war that was the problem with your ability to deal with the
situation you discovered.”
“We stand as one, Amaranos.”
“Do you? It would seem that your kin believes they have
the ability to stand before me with a calmer presence. Perhaps you should let
them try.”
“We stand as one, and I speak for us all. My brother was
reminding me to remember my place. It is his job to protect me as it would be
mine to protect any of the others of us here before you.”
“Do you need reminding of where you stand? Is my presence
before you not reminder enough?”
“No, I do not need reminding, though I appreciate his
reminder just the same.”
I had never seen my father sit so still. His eyes were the
only things that changed. They grew larger and larger as the comments flew
between Rigor and Amaranos. My mother’s hands were red from ringing them and
shaking in her lap. As I watched, Asmodai started to twitch and shake in the
line behind Rigor. Tynan and Mastema traded worried eye glances. They were all
showing the nervousness and fear I was feeling and I wasn’t standing there so I
imagine it was multiplied for them. Kyrna’s forehead wept a large shiny sweat
tear. I watched it splat on the stone floor before I looked back to Rigor again
as Amaranos continued his verbal siege of my
brothers.
“Do you supposition then that the task you were charged
with was beyond you and your brother’s abilities? Is that why you flinch and
fidget before me?”
“No my liege. I believe, as we all do, that we will become
better with more training and that we completed the charge given to the best of
our abilities.”
“So you instead infer that you were sent out ill equipped
for the battle you were asked to take on. To read between the lines of your answer,
you are yet unskilled and need training to become that which Amarine believed
you had already evolved to. Perhaps my other face had seen something that I
myself cannot, as I see a group of brothers with far to
go.”
Rigor shook. He looked like he was going to explode apart
he was shaking so hard.
“Stand. Down. Vengelys. I will not say it
again.”
Rigor stood, but barely. My father grabbed the arms of the
chair, but his whitened knuckles betrayed the energy he was fighting to stay
put. My mother dropped her head to look down and I could hear her muttering
something to herself. All I caught of it was ‘Please...’ I could only look on
in disbelief.
These were my brothers. These were the heroes of my waking
and dreaming times. The sight of them fidgeting and failing in front of the God
and the people was breaking my heart. Rigor turned to the line behind him and
turned back on a rough growl at Dom who had lifted a foot toward him. What that
was about I had no idea, but Rigor was having none of it. When he turned back
to face us, he was different. His face was a mask of rage and his eyes had a
fire in them I had never seen before. I loved every one of my brothers, but the
idea of facing any of them as Rigor appeared right then had me torn between
tears and screams.
“No Amaranos I would not stand down, and I am evolved. We
took on a charge from Amarine and completed it. We have brought forward four
Eupion, three males and a female found on this side of the portals and
demonstrated by the items they had with them that they were here establishing
an operation on our lands. We did this because we believed Amarine wished us to
do so. It was not simple. It was not without confusion, and it was not without
knowledge that we could have been better prepared, but in an effort to honor
the charge, we did as we were told. Could we have done better? Perhaps. Could
other warriors of longer tenure done better? Perhaps. Will we know one way or
another for certain? No, because we did as we were tasked without stopping to
question if we should or should not. We sealed into purpose for the throne and
the throne bid us proceed.”
The collective gasp was so loud it hurt my ears, or maybe
that was just me. Amaranos was visibly angry…red. faced. angry. The air in the
room changed and any in the gallery who had been whispering, went
silent.
“What
did you say to me?”
“With respect, I said...”
With a gesture of his hand Amaranos silenced Rigor,
freezing him in place.
“No Vengelys, as you have not respected, you will not
proceed. Let all who are herein know that this impudence and blatant disrespect
is not tolerated in the high house of Amaranth.”
A flash of light sparked between Rigor and my brothers in
line behind him. As we watched it grew fatter and deeper between them. Rigor
had no idea. I wanted to shout, knowing that would lump me in with them, but I
could not find my voice. The six of them in line behind Rigor looked at each
other, but that was the only movement before I watched them slide together. As
the gaping hole got closer to Rigor, though he couldn’t see it, he must have
known. His frozen form did not change, but his eyes grew larger and the fire in
them blazed. He seemed to get bigger before my eyes too, but I think it was me
feeling smaller and smaller as I knew I couldn’t help
him.
It was all over but the jump and I nearly missed that. As
Rigor began to tip over backwards, the rest of them grabbed on and they were
gone. Replaying it in my mind changes nothing. I still cannot believe
it.
I cannot breathe. I cannot cry. I cannot fathom the
implications of this. I want to rub my eyes and see them there, that their
disappearance through the now perfect floor was just an illusion. It
isn’t.
I’ve never seen my father weep until this moment. My
mother is caught in a vortex of rage, grief and denial that mimics the emotions
I cannot summon to the surface.
They’re gone.
Before I know or notice, everyone else is gone too. The
gallery, full to bursting earlier, is now empty. The court high seat, where
Amaranos waved them off to no one knows where, is also void. All that remain
are my parents and I; all numb, all shocked, all stilled in our
disbelief.
Amaranos had raged all through the high light rise to peak
and pitch before my brother’s arrival. For the neutral between the faces of the
God, he was ruthless in his rule of the people. News of raids, open portals,
and reports of missing emgur, durab and mataur from near the boundary had
soured the day before the seven men I loved best after my father had walked in
to stand at court center.
I imagine they were blind-sided. Given the notoriety they
had gained in the war, I think everyone in the room was. I had expected their
strides against the Eupion advancements to have been met with praise, not
disdain. How wrong we had all been.
“They’re gone.”
Saying it out loud, even as a whisper does nothing to make
the obvious more real. The echo of those two little words around the now empty
court chamber only serves to lance the wound in my chest to a deeper cavern of
empty. It can’t be, but I know it is.
They’re gone.
~Jondre
Thank you so much for participating in the Warrior's Watchtower Book Blitz, Kristina!
ReplyDeleteAnd thank you for hosting, Lady Amber.
Aedan, is unavailable today but hopes to catch up later this week. btw, I'm one of his street teamers helping out today. Thanks again!
p.s. such a pretty blog! *love*
ReplyDelete