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Thursday, July 23, 2015

Special Preview: Adventures of Adam Book Two Preface

When I released "Heir of the Blood King", I wanted it to serve as an introduction to the characters of the series with a very narrow focus on the choices they made.

We get to see the world Adam lives in through his eyes as he attempts to make sense of what is happening around him.  His world is controlled by a force greater than himself and the people are assigned a destiny that they are required to fulfill. He has his perceptions of how his world operates and why things are happening, but he doesn't have all of the facts.  He is left with a choice to either adapt to surive or perish when he finds himself a victim of circumstance. He has lost his home and the only family he had left in the middle of the night.  He has some basic skills, but  remains untested in the real world.  This is a very scary prospect for a 14-year-old boy who didn't know his life was about to change so drastically.  He tends to be driven by insecurity and fear of the unknown.

Two other characters also find themselves in the same predictiment, Talia and Donadeir.  Talia was made for such a task.  She was prepared to be a survivalist and a warrior for years by her father. She knows how to handle herself well and she is an analytical thinker, refusing to give into emotions that change her perceptions.  Talia is the most likely of the three characters to survive.  And then there is Donadeir who has never had any real responsibilities and doesn't seem to be in touch with reality.  He is unskilled and when faced with a great challenge, he's thinking about food.

When the three very different characters come together, we discovered that each are an asset to one another allowing the group to become stronger than each of them are individually.  This bond becomes so strong that it literally breaks the chains of destiny upon their lives, giving them Free Will (well, for the moment at least).

The choices these characters make and how they come together are the key to the series.  Now that we know their world based on their unique perspectives, it is now time to open that lens all the way so you can truly see the world they live in.  I want to share the Preface of the story with my readers. Welcome to Adventures of Adam Book Two:

The Cult of Draenar

As the city of Cindermoor below began to light up lanterns and torches for the night, Strahl’s eyes glowed beneath his lowered cowl. His hawkish features twisted with the shadows as they danced across his face and his skin appeared to be drawn taut over his elongated chin and thin pointed nose. He clutched the wrought iron railing of his balcony perch with long, skinny fingers. His tall, slender form, shrouded in black robes, gave the impression he was a bird of prey seeking a late meal. A sneer formed across his jagged expression as the door opened behind him.
“Master,” a timid voice said warily, “the king has summoned the Conclave.”
“I’ll be there shortly,” Strahl replied with a whisper which echoed across the tower’s vast upper chamber.
“Yes, Master Strahl,” the voice answered just before the door closed with a soft click.
Strahl looked to the sky to see the Blood Moon rising from the east. It trailed its path across the sky, midway to its apex. He felt the air around him come alive with anticipation as the deep-red glow of the moon’s light reflected in his piercing blue eyes, giving them an unearthly glow. Tonight, decades of planning were to come to fruition.
It was he who had chosen the location so Draenar, the Blood King, could perform his dark ritual to recharge the phylactery which extended the necromancer’s king unnatural life. The king would not suspect his plan, for Strahl had done nothing different from the last five times before. Every eleven years, the king needed to perform the ritual by the massacre of blood of the kingdom’s citizens and after sixty-six years of service, Strahl had become impatient as he waited for Draenar to share his dark secrets of longevity. The Blood King was not a lich, or any other undead thing, and Strahl wanted the living gift for himself.
Tonight, the Blood King would be at his weakest with his attention fully focused on the task at hand, Strahl thought to himself. A decade ago, he had begun his search for the heir. Five years ago strange anomalies began to surface in the kingdom, causing Draenar to lock himself away within the central laboratory deep beneath the keep’s surface to explore his magic. The king was blind to what was transpiring around him.
As he looked to the northern horizon, Strahl knew the Blood Guard was preparing their attack against the unaware village of Riverside. He suspected he had located the heir somewhere near to the village. The former adventurer, Stolice, resided there with his family. He was the only one who had not responded to Strahl’s requisition regarding the orphans of the village, heightening Strahl’s suspicions. If the heir was there in that black hole of nothing they call their home, he was confident his plan to usurp the king would be realized soon. Strahl, Master Inquisitor of the Conclave of Knowledge, second only to the Blood King himself, would become king.
The Order of the Fates Divined would be thrown into chaos, he reflected. The Order believes all peoples have a destiny, but Strahl knew only the most powerful, such as himself, were deemed worthy enough to be handed a fated path.
Strahl had spent countless hours over the last five years investigating the possibilities brought on by the anomalies and forming a plan of action. He didn’t need to find the heir at this time. He just needed to thin the herd to make the heir easier to discover. Strahl planned to locate the heir and take the power of his blood. The Conclave of Knowledge, or as the commoners refer to them, the Cult of Draenar, would be no more. The other ten members will fall into line behind him or be vanquished.
The door opened once again.
“I’m coming,” Strahl answered sternly as he walked away from his perch on the balcony toward the inner chamber door.


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