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.

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.