The sequel to Daughter of Light is now available!
I am cold. Ruthless. I always get the job done.
I am the left hand of the Lord of Temanin. I have murdered countless, doing away with those who would obstruct the Empire. I live in the shadows, and I am never found.
Until now.
I heard of the Eldarans, words spoken on my mother’s deathbed. A race of beings left in the Lands to protect mankind. Her words I dismissed as the ramblings of a dying woman. There were no such beings. Only myth, or distant legend.
Yet now I stand before one.
The woman’s hand glows as if she were holding a sliver of sunlight. I see the light, and I fear it. My mother’s words haunt me. I know the moment the woman touches me, I will be undone.
I cannot run, I cannot move. Her hand touches my cheek and fire sears my soul.
Everything I have done plays before my eyes: the women I have used, the lies I have spoken, the way I abused others, my disdain and arrogance.
And the deaths. All those deaths.
I feel her horror as she watches every act of murder. I try to hide what I have done, pull my past back into the shadows. But I cannot. It is now laid bare in the light.
The woman disappears. All is silent. I look at my hands. They are covered in blood. I try to wipe away the evidence of my darkness, but the blood remains.
A shadow appears before me and I look up.
A deformed and scarred man stands there. He looks upon me with dark, fathomless eyes. This is no ordinary man. He is more. And he is here to deal with the blood on my hands.
He is my judge.
I bow, my heart full of fear. The time of my reckoning has come.
And I know it will cost me my life.
***
The war in the north is over, but the war for all the Lands has just begun. As the Shadonae solidify their hold on the city of Thyra, Rowen Mar, the last Eldaran and savior of the White City, awakens to find herself hunted by those she has saved.
Meanwhile, the assassin Caleb Tala finds himself in the presence of the Word. The time of reckoning has come, and he must pay the price for all the lives he has taken. But in his moment of judgment, Caleb is given a second chance to change his life.
These two hold the power to save the Lands from the Shadonae. One must escape slavery, and one must choose to forsake everything before the world is consumed in darkness.
Morgan L. Busse 