Release date: October 8, 2019
Subgenre: Epic Fantasy, Sword and Sorcery
About Crown of the Sundered Empire:
Only the demon in Tomas’ glass eye can save his village.
It might cost him his soul.
It might cost him his soul.
In a broken land where conquerors dream of empires, Tomas dreams of a day when the townsfolk won’t taunt him. After all, he’s the fishing village kid with a misshapen face.
Only the Rune vendor’s daughter treats him well. To win her heart, he relies on a quick wit and local superstitions to convince her he has Diviner’s Sight.
But if he did, he would’ve foreseen magic-fearing invaders plucking out his mismatched eye.
Or the demon trapped in the glass replacement. It reveals a world beyond human vision, while whispering temptations in his mind.
Now, with his village caught between the advancing armies of the Sun God’s mortal descendants and His Chosen People, Tomas must use a combination of calculation, cunning, and demonic insight to maneuver the forces of his world against each other—prince against prince, princess against princess, army against army—or see his home crushed forever beneath the wheels of war.
But to do so carries a dire risk.
Because using a demon could condemn your soul.
Get this epic fantasy now for a tale of war, intrigue, and magic, with twists layered atop twists.
Note: This is a new entry point into the Legends of Tivara. New readers will have no trouble immersing themselves in the new story line, while old readers will recognize familiar faces-- particularly a snarky half-elf spy.
Excerpt:
Each time Prince Koryn of Serikoth had tried to get himself killed
in some brazen cavalry charge, he’d not only survived—his fame as
the Lion of Serikoth had only grown. Astride his faithful chestnut
stallion, he stared at the blockwood gatehouse on the other end of
the stone bridge, certain he’d finally succeed this time. The realm
might consider him a living legend, never knowing he was living a
lie.
Several lies. All would be memorialized with his glorious death
this afternoon. He looked over his shoulder. His cavaliers sat
straight in their saddles, burnished cuirasses glinting in the
afternoon sun, crimson capes and helmet plumes fluttering in the
breeze. Victory after victory against Bovyan incursions had
inflated their sense of invulnerability, and now they thirsted for
war and glory against a different rival.
An older one.
All the fault of his accidental successes.
Instead of ending his miserable existence, Koryn had instead
deluded the realm into thinking they could defeat a sleeping giant.
He shifted his gaze to the ten dead guards in his own gatehouse,
now reverently draped in crimson cloth. Usually, the only barbs
hurled across the river were verbal in nature, but these men had
been cut down by crossbow bolts.
He’d be the next casualty. Let his death today be a cautionary tale, and hopefully smother
the realm’s zeal for reigniting a war against kin. It had ended in
treaty a century before, but still simmered in the people’s hearts.
Pain flared across his lower back, an old injury exacerbated by
weeks at sea, followed immediately by a full day in the saddle. It would all be over soon. He took several deep breaths. No one
else would need to die today. “Cavaliers of Serikoth. Hold your
position here. I will cross into Tarkoth and demand an explanation.”
The thirty men stamped their spear butts into the bridge’s
flagstones in approval, not knowing his true intention. No one ever
did, not even the secret lover he could never be with.
At his side, Damaryn crossed his fists over his chest and bowed his
head, sending his golden hair rippling in the afternoon sun. The
color was a rarity among their race; perhaps an aberrant
manifestation of elf blood flowing in Eldaeri veins from millennia
ago. He looked up, concern etched in his face. “Your Highness,
might I suggest a flag of parlay? Crossing will be seen as an act
of war.”
“Captain Damaryn, the mongrels have already unleashed the first
salvo.” He gestured at the deceased behind them, many shot in the
back.
Before Damaryn could answer, Koryn squared his shoulders and tapped
his heels twice into Bronze’s flanks. It was sad to have to
sacrifice an old friend, but the men needed to see that despite
their beliefs, a cavalier could die in the saddle. His heart squeezed as he patted Bronze’s neck.
“Good boy.”
Bronze broke into a trot. His horseshoes clopped over the bridge’s
old stones. It was one of the last bridges between what were once
one people: the Eldaeri, Solaris’ Chosen. There’d once been dozens of these
structures up and down the Valeri River, some spanning several
hundred meters long. Here in the north, this one was only twenty
meters, yet the emotional gulf might as well have been twenty
kilometers. Perhaps it was time this bridge, too, came down.
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About J.C. Kang:
JC Kang's unhealthy obsession with Fantasy and Sci-Fi began at an
early age when his brother introduced him to The Chronicles of Narnia,
The Hobbit, Star Trek and Star Wars. As an adult, he combines his geek
roots with his professional experiences as a Chinese Medicine doctor,
martial arts instructor and technical writer to pen multicultural epic
fantasy stories.
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