ADVANCED SEARCH  

Support WWEnd

WWEnd Blog

WWEnd BookTrackr™

Synopsis

A HERO TO SOME. A VILLAIN TO MANY. THE TRUTH FOREVER BURIED.

The man who became known as Esrahaddon is reported to have destroyed the world's greatest empire -- but there are those who believe he saved it. Few individuals are as divisive, but all agree on three facts: He was exiled to the wilderness, hunted by a goblin priestess, and sentenced to death by a god -- all before the age of eight. How he managed to survive and why people continued to fear his name a thousand years later has always been a mystery... until now.

Excerpt

Rappaport breathed in the steam from her coffee, drinking in the view. She and Wardley sat at an outdoor café with a fantastic panorama of the Shahabad harbor below. Ships and fishing boats, all painted bright colors, bobbed with the rhythm of the sea.

They don't call them café s here, she reminded herself.

In Calynia, these open-air coffee shops were known as jaffes, which was a variation on the word café--or vice versa, she supposed, given that coffee was an import. Using the proper term was important, as getting it wrong had been known to cause fights.

Culture, she mused, is like a drop of ink on a wet page. It splatters and bleeds, but never far. What does spread isn't the original black, but some form of gray, as the native paper absorbs the black but never surrenders to it. The ink despises the loss of true color, and the paper hates the change forced upon it.

Rappaport saw something different. She did not focus on the loss, but on the gain. The blending of cultures was not less of each but more of something wholly new. The merger was a flood plain inundated by muddy water. The land might loathe the deluge that left it covered in silt, but such fertile banks brought forth blossoms.

"Everyone here appears to wear linen, with a sheer muslin being the choice of the more well-to-do," she said. "Not a whole lot you can really do with such flimsy material, but I can certainly see the benefits, given the weather. Does it get cold here?"

"What does that have to do with anything?" Wardley replied.

"I'm interested in clothing. You must know that by now. I designed this dress-coat myself. Usually I have a vest on beneath it, but the heat and humidity here..." She fluttered the lapels of her jacket. "I really am starting to see the benefit of the sheer muslin and light linen. Alas, this is my sacrifice for fashion."

Rappaport slouched as she placed her feet up on the neighboring chair, the ceramic cup held on her chest by both hands. Beside her, Wardley sat upright, both feet on the floor, chin up. Stiff posture aside, at least he looks like he belongs here. With weathered features, dark beard, and that intense look in his eyes, Wardley might have been a native. His clothes gave him away.

Neither of them was making any attempt to blend. This wasn't that sort of assignment. So while not as distinct a statement as hers, Wardley stood out by wearing his uniform.

"Well?" he asked, cracking another one of those big nuts from the complimentary basket on the table.

"I'm thinking."

"About fashion?" He spat shells onto the floor. The fieldstone patio was strewn with yellowing hulls, the accumulated refuse of a dozen tables.

"I can do two things at once. Part of the training, actually." She sipped her coffee that was ridiculously strong--practically soup. "You probably want to kill him, right?"

"Why would you say that?"

"You have three swords. Carrying those around all the time must give you an itch, if only to justify the effort of hauling them."

His brooding expression slipped into a scowl. "I thought you were smarter than that. There's a rumor you were third in your class."

Her time to scowl. "There were only three in my class."

"Oh, right." He smiled. "Now tell me what we should do--and show your work. Dazzle me, my dear."

Copyright © 2023 by Michael J. Sullivan

Reviews

There are currently no reviews for this novel. Be the first to submit one! You must be logged in to submit a review in the BookTrackr section above.

Images

No alternate cover images currently exist for this novel.