Mage King Teaser

This is it!!! This completes my trilogy. I'm so excited, are you?

~~~~~

Sean leaned back against the mast. He rested his head against the cold wood and his eyes found the moons halfway down from their height. They were so still, so quiet. He reached a hand up as if he could touch them, and the sight of his hand reminded him of other things he could do to burn off his restless energy and still his mind.

The boat was too narrow for him to swing his swords unless he could be sure the deck was empty, so he left them in their sheaths. He was just getting into it, just starting to feel the rhythm, when a fierce fire lit up his back, and a moment later he felt ice cold water hit him in the face with stunning force.

Laon had been watching over Sean from the dark shadows of the stairwell leading to the lower deck. Though alert, he could not react before the sailor had launched Sean over the rail, less one money pouch. He snatched the man by the throat before he had the chance to weigh his treasure, and bent him over the rail dangerously far while at the same time looking for some sign of Sean in the dark waters.

Still clutching the man by the throat, Laon sounded the alarm. “Alert, alert!” he roared. “We have to stop! Get up everyone! Get up!” He turned his attention to the man in his grip. “Stop this thing.”

Under Laon’s grip the sailor was unable to speak, he just shook his head, frantically clawing at his grip.

The barge captain was on the deck in seconds. “What going on here?”

Laon was so furious and anxious that he could scarcely speak. “This…” As Laon shook him, the man in his grip clawed at Laon’s wrist, bringing the filched purse up to everyone’s notice. “He pushed the king over the side. We have to stop. We have to find him.”

Even though the sailor had been unable to speak under Laon’s grip, now his eyes bulged. No one had known that Sean was the king and everyone knew what kind of man the king was. No one took the time to consider that Sean and the king they all knew might be two different men.

All the shouting roused the rest of the barges in turn and lights were lit and held over the side in an effort to see something in the water.

The captain cinched the sailor to the mast and Laon promised him that if they couldn’t find Sean, he would send him into the water after him, and the captain promised to help. The purse was given to Laon.

The captain tried to explain to the frantic Laon their handicaps. They couldn’t just stop; if they threw out their anchor, the rest of the barges would run into them and even if they all were able to stop without mishap, any one of those anchors could hit their target, or the rope could catch him and tangle him. They had to look first before they risked trying to stop.

A shout went up from the second barge. Someone had spotted a red stain on a chunk of ice.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Making of a Mage King

How do the choices in out lives come about? Some children are subtly guided along the way until they start making their own decisions. Some of that guidance is not so subtle, as many choices are blatantly made, setting the child on a course firmly predetermined. In the most drastic cases, there is no subtly, only cold hard law. And sometimes a child is merely housed and clothed until such time as they take up the task on their own and move out.

Sean Moselle was gently guided through childhood in a certain direction by parents who half hoped the guidance would never be necessary, but they could not risk him not developing certain skills. He was encouraged to learn the art of fencing by stories of valiant knights, both read as well as simply recited as he sat on his father's knee. His desire to be just like King Arthur was more than indulged, but he didn't know the difference. His father was also in a position to instil in him the love and care of horses, as well as the skill to ride them.

In the first book, Prince in Hiding, Sean's happy childhood falls completely apart with the deaths of his parents under unusual circumstances. First, his mother seems to simply drop dead; no cause could ever be found. Roughly a year later, his father, a mounted police officer, was killed in the line of duty, Or was he?

Any other kid growing up in New York who lost their parents by the time they turned seventeen, would have been able to carve a place for themselves. It wouldn't be easy, but it would have been possible. 

In Sean's case, things were not so simple. You see, Sean really wasn't a native born New Yorker. Well, he was, but his parents weren't, and his parents also weren't the two people he had always called mom and dad. His real parents were the crown prince Deain Ruhin and his lady wife was Kassandra Barleduc. This left him with the unwieldy name of Seanad Éireann Barleduc-Ruhin, named by the custom of his people. His people, who were not here on this earth, nor were they even in this time. Where they were, no one has ever determined; they were just elsewhere.

There was no choice. With the deaths of both of his closest guardians, his other protectors had to take him back and teach him how to be the king he was born and bred to be.

You'd think that defeating his evil uncle and claiming the throne would be the end of the story, but in truth it was only the beginning.

Holding the throne does no good if no one knows. Sean's goal then was to go around and tell everyone. He also needed to set people in place who would be loyal to him and in general clean up his uncle's mess, but there was a deeper reason he needed to make this trek and time was wasting, and he had no idea why. For some reason he felt that he had only six months at best to complete his task. He told himself that it had to be finished by the time the snows came and locked down the mountain districts, but though that was the reason he gave, it wasn't quite right.

Once in motion, even the fastest pace his men could travel wasn't fast enough; he felt positively driven, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't cover the distance fast enough.

He took to expending vast amounts of magic, and striving to keep up the pressure on himself, but even powerful mages aren't indestructible. This is where friends proved to be invaluable. They kept him grounded and sane, and they made sure he didn't kill himself. They couldn't, however, protect him from his own dreams. As sleep turned difficult, dreams filled his nights with puzzles and premonitions, visions of possible futures, and possible pasts. Dreams that were just plain strange, and dreams of his first ancestor leading him to the fate he needed to meet, and yet still not telling him what that fate was.

Now we get to the interesting part. Pieces have been in motion since the first book. Cities have fallen and enemy forces have been helping themselves to the magical populous of Ruhin, seeking to use them for their own ends. Sean, needs to act. He needs to find the stolen and hold accountable those who took them. But that didn't relieve him of his original mission, so he had to act quickly, and brutally. He had no time to be nice, to be diplomatic, to hold court and judge war crimes.

With haste, he rounded up his armies and pointed them at their marks, and then he gathered up the closest of his uncle's nastiest warriors and led them against yet another target. War is never pretty, and Sean made no effort to try. And then he had to protect his borders, and more magic was the only answer.

The magic to protect his borders was a balm to his tortured soul after using so much magic to kill his enemies. But now that the war was over, his original task still loomed. Even though he was nearly finished, snows threatened, time was running out. He pushed on as hard as ever while still trying very hard to remain human, to stay that boy who grew up in New York, raised by a man named Moselle. It was a connection he never wanted to jeopardize, it was a memory that kept the overwhelming power of magic that coursed through his veins from turning him into something akin to his uncle.

Then at one point shortly before being able to make it to all of his districts, time ran out. Snow blanketed the landscape and Sean had to use all of the magic his land had to offer to save the world.

Yeah, I'm going to be mean and make you read the book to find out how he did that, and of course there's the bit after that - something to do with the birth of his son and dealing out a little overdue justice.

Book 3 will be available in June.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~