I’m excited to welcome fellow Story Empire Author and friend, Diana, here today to celebrate her latest release, “The Necromancer’s Daughter.” Here is my review: LINK
Today I thought I’d share a snippet from Chapter 2 when Barus makes a heartbreaking discovery:
Barus shuffled along a path bordering the rift until something blue caught his eye. Planting his staff, he stepped nearer for a better look. A piece of cloth had snagged on a root. On his hands and knees, he crawled closer, grimacing at the added discomfort of his wardrobe of sticks. He stretched out an arm and caught the cloth between two fingers. What he discovered was no patch of torn fabric, but a long silk shawl littered with pine needles.
Olma’s blue shawl, the one he’d given her as a gift.
He clasped the damp cloth against his chest and sat back on his heels. “Olma?” Shifting again to his hands and knees, he crept nearer to the edge. His heart hammered against his ribs, and his mouth went dry. “Olma, where are you? Can you hear me?”
He lowered himself to his elbows and inched forward until he peered over the lip. Ferns and rocks lined the steep bank except where tumbled dirt exposed a gnarled lattice of roots twisted like brown snakes. Ten feet below him, the brook dribbled along the streambed. Brown leaves twirled in an eddy and collected at one end of a frog-sized pool.
He’d seen enough of death to know the truth of what his eyes revealed.
Blurb
A healer and dabbler in the dark arts of life and death, Barus is as gnarled as an ancient tree. Forgotten in the chaos of the dying queen’s chamber, he spirits away her stillborn infant, and in a hovel at the meadow’s edge, he breathes life into the wisp of a child. He names her Aster for the lea’s white flowers. Raised as his daughter, she learns to heal death.
Then the day arrives when the widowed king, his own life nearing its end, defies the Red Order’s warning. He summons the necromancer’s daughter, his only heir, and for his boldness, he falls to an assassin’s blade.
While Barus hides from the Order’s soldiers, Aster leads their masters beyond the wall into the Forest of Silvern Cats, a land of dragons and barbarian tribes. She seeks her mother’s people, the powerful rulers of Blackrock, uncertain whether she will find sanctuary or face a gallows’ noose.
Unprepared for a world rife with danger, a world divided by those who practice magic and those who hunt them, she must choose whether to trust the one man offering her aid, the one man most likely to betray her—her enemy’s son.
A healer with the talent to unravel death, a child reborn, a father lusting for vengeance, and a son torn between justice, faith, and love. Caught in a chase spanning kingdoms, each must decide the nature of good and evil, the lengths they will go to survive, and what they are willing to lose.
AMAZON PURCHASE LINKS
Author Bio
A long-time reader, best-selling author D. Wallace Peach started writing later in life when years of working in business surrendered to a full-time indulgence in the imaginative world of books. She was instantly hooked.
In addition to fantasy books, Peach’s publishing career includes participation in various anthologies featuring short stories, flash fiction, and poetry. She’s an avid supporter of the arts in her local community, organizing and publishing annual anthologies of Oregon prose, poetry, and photography.
Peach lives in a log cabin amongst the tall evergreens and emerald moss of Oregon’s rainforest with her husband, two owls, a horde of bats, and the occasional family of coyotes.
Links
Amazon Author’s Page: https://www.amazon.com/D.-Wallace-Peach/e/B00CLKLXP8
Website/Blog: http://mythsofthemirror.com
Website/Books: http://dwallacepeachbooks.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Dwallacepeach
