Book Promo
If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, by clicking through and buying (anything, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. A COMMISSION IS EARNED FROM EACH PURCHASE.*Note that I haven’t read most of these books (my reading is eclectic and “craving led”,) and apply the usual cautions to buying. I reserve the right not to run any submission, if cover, blurb or anything else made me decide not to, at my sole discretion.– SAH
FROM SHANE GRIES: Ashes of Armageddon: Last World Volume 3.
In the darkness of space a battered fleet hovers over a thriving world, a lost colony intended to be the refuge of a defeated ruler. Instead of an abandoned safe haven, the refugees find a thriving world grappling in political and military intrigue. The new worlds’ tech is far inferior to that of the desperate spacefarers, but the natives have the numbers to make a hard, nasty fight. Instead of war, the fleet manipulates the indigenous population to gain leverage until a mutiny erupts within their own ranks, tearing them apart.
The schism in the fleet triggers a bloodbath, turning former comrades against one another while embroiling their adoptive world in a colossal struggle which will determine whether they live in tyranny or freedom. This epic conclusion to the “Last World” series finds entire nations and alliances planetside siding with factions of the alien interlopers, dragging them in a global conflagration that threatens to consume them all. A world war instigated by a leader in the space fleet driven by his naked quest for power.
While the only world available to them burns, a rebel officer commands an outnumbered and out-gunned squadron of warships, engaging in a cat-and-mouse game against superior forces, fighting and dying in the cold vacuum of space. His meager unit strikes out in a series of deadly raids across the solar system, leaving charred derelicts and lifeless, frozen bodies tumbling in their wake. Down below, Terry Hannigan and his team struggle in the blood and the mud, doing what they can to save their world from the usurpers in the face of impossible odds.
The side that ultimately prevails will determine the fate of a world forgotten in antiquity. A world that holds the key to survival for them all.
FROM DALE COZORT: The King’s Fifth: A Snapshot Novel
An American teenager is caught up in a hunt for treasure in the murky politics of independent conquistador kingdoms built on the ruins of Aztec cities.
In this alternate history novel, fifteen-year-old Elijah Haigh’s mom sends him to live with his army major father because he keeps getting into trouble. Bad move. His dad is stationed in New Galveston, in an alternate reality where Spanish Conquistadors set up independent kingdoms in the ruins of the Aztec empire. Apache raiders still roam nearby, while the US and a surviving Tsarist Russia come from their own realities to compete for influence and natural resources among the conquistador kingdoms and search for the fabled King’s Fifth, a lost and possibly mythical gold hoard supposedly held in trust for the King of Spain until it was lost during civil wars among the conquistadors.
Elijah goes on a joyride with Julius Butcher, a teenage Indian guide, and ends up in the middle of a scramble for that gold hoard and a high stakes competition for influence in the alternate reality between the Russians and Americans.
Please Note: This novel has no relationship with Scott O’Dell’s 1966 children’s historical novel. Different audience. Different use of a historical term in common use long before either Scott or I used it.
FROM TERRI M RUWE: Space Ranger: Down the Event Horizon
Leaving the Rangers was Eddie’s way of dealing with tragedy, but the Rangers weren’t going to leave him alone even as a regular in Space Force.
When a high tech weapons theft involves Eddie’s new ship, he has to get involved. Can he stop the transfer of the stolen goods to the Alliance’s adversaries before the whole situation devolves into war? Can he save his shipmates from becoming cannon fodder?
FROM DAVE FREER: Dog and Dragon
Lyonesse: a world formed with a magic so deep that it takes a true king to hold its parts in balance. Yet there is no king on the throne, and a dark power struggle is underway between an ancient sorceress with her shadow army of destruction and the human subjects of Lyonesse’s power-mad wizard. The only spark of hope is a prophecy that tells of a Defender who will one day come and set things to right.
Young Meb, flung from her dragon-ruled homeland in another plane of existence into Lyonesse, doesn’t think she’s been called to be any kind of Defender. And she certainly isn’t happy when she’s immediately embroiled in the deadly power plots of the local royals. But Meb also happens to be an adept at the universe-folding skill of Planomancy, trained by a world-walking troubleshooter of the multiverse, the great Dragon Fionn himself –a dragon who is desperately searching for Meb, whom he’s come to love. Accompanying Fionn is Dileas, Meb’s pet and the most loyal magic sheep dog in a thousand universes. If anyone can track Meb across time and space, Dileas can.
As the legions of Shadow Hall gather to bring down the leaderless kingdom, Meb must decide whether to use her ability to become the Defender everyone hopes for–if only to avoid becoming the plaything of tyrants. With the Dragon Fionn on the way, magical battle is joined, and the destiny of universes hangs upon the courage in one young woman’s heart.
FROM BLAKE SMITH: Lyddie Hartington: Galaxy Sleuth
Facing poverty after a childhood among the wealthy and powerful, Lyddie Hartington decamps to Ceres, a newly colonized planet on the edges of the galaxy. Armed only with a change of clothes, a letter of introduction to the directors of the Andromeda Company, and a blaster, she is determined to make her fortune.
But Ceres is nothing like Orion-14, and before she knows it, Lyddie is witness to a murder- a murder that goes to the heart of the Andromeda Company and puts her life in danger. With the help of her new friend, an entirely too handsome captain of the Galaxy Watch, she must discover the murderer and solve the mystery of her family’s downfall.
FROM CELIA HAYES: My Dear Cousin: A Novel In Letters
When Peggy Becker married Englishman Tommy Morehouse in San Antonio in the spring of 1938, her cousin and best friend Venetia “Vennie” Stoneman was her bridesmaid. After the wedding, Peg and Tommy traveled across the Pacific to Malaya, where Tommy managed his family’s rubber plantation. There they expected to raise a family and live a comfortable and rewarding life among the British expatriates in the tropics, while Vennie returned to Galveston to continue training as a nurse.
The start of the Second World War changed those comfortable, settled lives: Tommy Morehouse became a prisoner of war, Peg barely escaped the fall of Singapore with her small son, and Vennie Stoneman was a nurse in the US Army Nurse Corps, tending to battlefield casualties in North Africa, Italy, and France. In Australia, Peg waits out the war, wondering if her husband will survive brutal captivity by the Japanese, and Vennie risks her own life as an air evacuation nurse. Throughout all, the two women write to each other, of their lives, loves, of Vennie’s patients and comrades, and Peg’s children and the woes of running a wartime household among rationing and shortages of shoes for her children.
FROM HOLLY CHISM: Detritus
Nick Bryant was a junkie. Lived on the streets, and everything. And then, he saved a baby girl from drowning, and fell into the role of protector. As he, the baby, and her older brother get to know one another, he decides that maybe, there’s more left to him than the drugs, and decides to try to live again. And maybe build a family.
FROM KAREN MYERS: Tales of Annwn – A Virginian in Elfland
A Collection of Five Short Stories from The Hounds of Annwn.
The Call – A very young Rhian discovers her beast-sense and, with it, the call of a lost hound.
It’s not safe in the woods where cries for help can attract unwelcome attention, but two youngsters discover their courage in the teeth of necessity.
Under the Bough – Angharad hasn’t lived with anyone for hundreds of years, but now she is ready to tie the knot with George Talbot Traherne, the human who has entered the fae otherworld to serve as huntsman for the Wild Hunt. As soon as she can make up her mind, anyway.
George has been swept away by his new job and the people he has met, and by none more so than Angharad. But how can she value the short life of a human? And what will happen to her after he’s gone?
Night Hunt – When George Talbot Traherne goes night hunting for fox in Virginia, he learns about unworthy men from the old-timers drinking moonshine around the fire and makes his own choices.
Who could have anticipated that the same impulse that won him his old bluetick coonhound would lead him to his new wife and the hounds of Annwn? Every choice has a cost, he realizes, but never a regret.
Cariad – Luhedoc is off with his adopted nephew Benitoe to fetch horses for the Golden Cockerel Inn. He’s been reunited with his beloved Maëlys at last, but how can he fit into her capable life as an innkeeper? What use is he to her now, after all these years?
Luhedoc needs to relearn an important lesson about confidence.
The Empty Hills – George Talbot Traherne arranges a small tour of the local human world for his fae family and friends, hoping to share some of the sense of wonder he discovered when he encountered the fae otherworld.
He’s worried about discovery by other humans, but things don’t turn out quite the way he expects.
FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: The Moon Mirror
Chelsea Ayles dreamed of going to the Moon since she was a child. Now her dream job at NASA has turned into a nightmare, thanks to those many blood-sucking arachnids. Yeah, politics, as in a Senator accusing her of destroying America’s priceless heritage because she chose the moonrocks that were used to make a proof-of-concept mirror segment for a lunar telescope project. Now the mirror sits in her office like a bitter mockery of what might have been — until the day her reflection turns into a handsome stranger who calls himself the Man in the Moon and offers her visions of a world that might have been. Visions that ignite a longing of an intensity she hasn’t known since she was in grade school and watched videos of the Apollo lunar missions in science class.
Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.
So what’s a vignette? You might know them as flash fiction, or even just sketches. We will provide a prompt each Sunday that you can use directly (including it in your work) or just as an inspiration. You, in turn, will write about 50 words (yes, we are going for short shorts! Not even a Drabble 100 words, just half that!). Then post it! For an additional challenge, you can aim to make it exactly 50 words, if you like.
We recommend that if you have an original vignette, you post that as a new reply. If you are commenting on someone’s vignette, then post that as a reply to the vignette. Comments — this is writing practice, so comments should be aimed at helping someone be a better writer, not at crushing them. And since these are likely to be drafts, don’t jump up and down too hard on typos and grammar.
If you have questions, feel free to ask.
Your writing prompt this week is: HEARTBREAKING.
According To Hoyt 
It’s heartbreaking that the Promos aren’t books that I want to purchase. [Very Big Crazy Grin]
Autumn walked along, looking about occasionally. Once she glanced back at him, and he winced. For a moment, her expression was heartbreaking. He forced his breath out. Be of good cheer, he reminded himself. There will be suffering enough without moping about his death.
Especially since Autumn could die, too.
When you’re a little kid, heartbreak is not getting invited to the party at the house with the swimming pool, when it’s August and the a/c is broken. By your teens, heartbreak is your first big breakup.
But all that shrinks to insignificance compared to watching an entire world die. It was obvious in retrospect, but until it actually happened, none of us connected the dots in the intel. Sure, I’d read about that kind of attacks in stories, back before the Kitties showed up, back when we thought humanity might be alone in the universe — but when both sides have FTL drives and can fly between stars like it was London to Miami, who’d think anyone would actually try to accelerate a projectile to .9c in realspace and slam it into a planet?
Now three million settlers on land and an uncensused number of indigenous aquatic sophonts in the oceans are dead, and this planet probably won’t support anything larger than a mouse for millennia, even with all the Kitties’ cool planetary engineering tech. We’re probably lucky it just punched a hole in the mantle big enough to resurface the whole planet. Some of the projections are showing that a slightly different angle might’ve caused the entire planet to break up — although perhaps dying would’ve been a mercy for those of us in orbit.
“Heartbreaking?” Does that mean I can crank the corny pathos up to eleven? grins evilly…
Go for it.
twelve. at least.
The “Dear John” letter was heartbreaking, as had been all of that type throughout recorded history. Bill sighed and stuffed it back into his pocket. He had read it several times today, and it didn’t hurt any less each time. He would be going up again tomorrow, and the unspoken truth was that some wouldn’t return. For a brief moment the thought crossed his mind that, if anyone in his group had his number come up on the morrow, it should be him, not someone who had someone to return to. The thought passed, and Bill returned to checking his kit. Later he’d stop by and check on the ground crew, making sure all was in order.
For once, June’s and Lurie’s husbands were united on something: shock and disgust.
“This is <i>heartbreaking!</i> I can’t believe it!” Tom groaned. Doug’s head was sunk in his hands.
“What is it” – June began, but her husband was gesturing madly at the television screen.
“Would you look at that! The Raiders came back to win! 43 to 32… they must have scored two touchdowns right at the end of the game! And they turned it off for some kids’ movie?”
“But Daddy,” Susan protested, “I <i>wanted</i> to watch ‘Heidi’! And the TV Guide said it was supposed to start now, and it <i>did!</i>”
Visibly groping for self-control, her father replied, “Well, yes, honey. But it would have been nice to see the end of the football game.”
Doug patted him on the shoulder, and got up to leave.
[Note: the “Heidi Bowl” took place on November 17, 1968. NBC did indeed cut off the end of the game to start the children’s film “Heidi” on time, thus ensuring that viewers missed the Raiders’ two-touchdowns-in-one-minute comeback over the Jets. No network ever tried that again.]
Crud, sorry about the formatting.
I remember reading about that. I wonder who was unemployed the next morning?
Oh, Tom – don’t be petty. Get back with the band.
The only possible reply at this point is “Brrrrraaaaaaaiiinnnnssssss!!!!”
Or a filk of Blue Oyster Cult’s classic song “Joan Crawford.”
No, no no no, no no no no no no no no
Tom Petty has risen from the grave.
Tom Petty has risen from the grave.
Grief is a monster. And one that you can’t slay, no matter what.
I’m heartbroken, and I am stuck. Because Deborah is living with us, because I have somehow adopted a second sister in the form of Belladonna, I can’t cry when they’re around and have them ask why. So that means I have to hide out at Quu’s, or a safeouse, or Benjamin’s to deal with my tears.
The funeral for my parents is on the Saturday before midterms, and there is absolutely no reason why I can get away and justify it with anyone.
I know that Gee is handling everything going on with my parent’s will and probate and selling the property and cleaning up the remains that are left…they just aren’t my decisions and I hate feeling like this.
And Sayuri knows, far too well, that I am only smiling on the outside. But she doesn’t know why, either.
Because there isn’t a “back” to go back to anymore. Not really.
Damn, that’s sad.
Air Force
“We will bomb your ass to keep America free”
Army
“We will use our tanks and artillery to blow your asses away to Keep America free”
Marines
I am going to need a f*ck ton of bullets and maybe a boot knife”
Navy
“I need a few ships to get the Marine where he wants to go, maybe some badasses to clear the beaches before we send in the Marines and a f*ck ton of big guns and airplanes to make damn sure he gets there”
Heartbreaking to our enemies.
Heard this one years and years ago:
Each branch of the military is ordered to “secure” a building. What happens?
I flew a desk for the Air Force for many years, and at least part of the above seems accurate.
😎
Okay, corny pathos:
Whenever Cari heard the song, the melencholy came rushing back: Stumbling as Max led her around the dance floor. Max wearing too much aftershave. Embarrassing herself, crying on Max’s shoulder, realizing this was the last Sports Ball they’d ever attend. It was months ago, but it felt like last night.
More corny pathos:
Even after living in the new city for months, Max still hadn’t organized his things. Searching in his closet, he discovered a shoe box. Inside were mementos from their last Sports ball: a dried boutonniere and Cari’s silk periwinkle glove. Max closed his bedroom door so nobody would see him.
“It’s heart-breaking, sometimes, having to sit still and unravel the spell-craft while you know that harm is being done. But fools who rush in without it die themselves. And only the lesser fools among them took care that someone else should know of their deeds, and take up the fight.”
Julie was in a quandary, she just couldn’t make up her mind, it was First Year Conjuring 101 class. It was now her turn and everyone was looking at her. All the girls had produced either frogs or toads. The boys in her class had produced an assortment of reptiles, Jadhira had even produce a Komodo Dragon, albeit a baby one. Both Merlin and Munger had told her not to stand out, just do what you need to get a passing grade. ‘That shouldn’t be too hard now should it?’ Merlin had asked.
“Come on Miss Archer, this isn’t hard at all” Instructor Slagg said.
“Ya Baroness let’s see what you got’ Peter snidely said.
She knew she had to focus but she just couldn’t focus on a frog, the gods and spirits knew she was trying.
She focused and let the magic flow through her to her Staff Shirley, she whispered the spell over and over again. A ball of something seemed to coalesce in the designated cleared area of the class. Then there was the customary pop, that seemed to grow into a loud bang. There in the middle of the class was a full sized Dragon, wearing a shower cap and covered with soap suds. The dragon looked around at everyone in the class.
“Well of all the nerve conjuring me up in the middle of my shower, someone is going to compensate me or I will sue. I’ll tell you that right now” The dragon roared.
Merlin spit his coffee out when he heard that.
“Ask sages to do something simple” He said as a curse.
It was heartbreaking all the things he put up with as headmaster of Wizards University.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
“Excuse me, miss. Your dinner’s ready.” The matter-of-fact words from the young waitress jolted Carrie out of her immersion in the book, up from her depths swiftly enough to risk a case of the bends.
“Oh! Thank you,” she said brightly. “That didn’t take long at all.” She looked lingeringly, longingly, scathingly at her book, before tucking it, almost reluctantly, away in her big bag.
“Excuse me, miss,” came a pleasant voice from the next table, “and do feel free to tell me to mind my own business and all; but you looked half ready to ram a stake through the heart of that book, and half as if you’d sooner pitch it clean across the room.”
Carrie, busy arranging her plates and marshalling her condiments, did not look up. “You’re really not wrong, though I wouldn’t be so dramatic, and I oughtn’t throw it at a wall since it’s a gift. I was born on Gagarin Day, April 12, so it’s a brand-new one.”
He laughed, in his mildly deep, resonant voice. “Also known to some of us as Yuri’s Night. The first flight into orbit by anyone, ever, the dawn of manned spaceflight. Or should I ‘ve said, ‘crude spaceflight’ as fashion begs — but even those old Soviet capsules were not so crude, despite the rush. Sergei Korolyov, and company.”
Now she had to turn her head, away from a small and not-fancy but so far very good steak, and fried ham, and biscuits, and… “So I’m not alone in hearing ‘crude’ as in oil not ‘crewed’ as in people aboard, these strange days.” She found herself smiling, at one a decade or two older, but still young-ish-looking too.
Like her the only one at his table. “I do have to ask, though, if you also know how those early-model capsules of theirs made you duck out the hatch with a parachute on the way down, or likely get killed when the thing, uh, fell to Earth.”
And he laughed, really laughed, for a moment. “Yes, I do, but… you see what I mean. Hacked-up kludges, that ruin things that stayed right for so long. Even the Soviets fixed their little, ah, touchdown canyon issue.”
She looked up and over, again. “Yes, things do get ruined…” and put down her fork. “You guessed right. I liked her earlier books, this is a murder mystery on an interplanetary spaceship, pretty good characters in a decent setting; really, it is good, except for the bumps. Every time anyone says their name, it’s she/her or they/them, after it; every time it ought to be Miss or Mrs. or Mr., or Ms. for the modernists… it’s MIX??
“I mean, M-x-period! How could you even say that? It’s never explained, I keep thinking MX missile, or something. Maybe now I ‘get’ why a few of my friends fly mad if they hear ‘Lat-inks’ — nobody’ll ever call me ‘Latinx’ to my face, I’m so clearly North European, Scotch-Irish.”
And she sighed, really sighed. “It’s like trying to watch a good movie in a nice theater, with one yelling heckler in the crowd. Maybe it really is all supposed to be satirical, but… oh my dear, my oh my, trop de crazy.
“And, sorry if I’ve run away with the ball on you, just now, but I really am as annoyed as you’d guessed. And I ought to’ve told you already, I was raised better, my name is, and please do not laugh, Carrie Partridge.”
And he didn’t laugh at her name, quite. “And my name, Carrie Partridge, is Andrew Coon, spelled just like the masked varmint. So any humor will be at my expense more than yours. Now of course,” he said this only a bit less brightly, with a grin still in his voice — “our name was von Kuhn once, back in my great-grandpa’s days; but you know how sharp edges get worn off things, up here in the mountains.”
And his eyes, well, twinkled. “Thank you so much for your forthrightness, Carrie. I know up here around 3000 feet it’s a safe-ish bet to call it as you see it, but… it’s so good to hear it said right out loud, no hedging or bobbing and weaving.”
“Yeah, well, I was raised in the lowlands, but my grandparents lived most of their lives not twenty miles from where we’re sitting, and I’m really not too good at dealing the doubletalk either. I can keep my mouth shut, but… it’s hard to live a cover identity without bein’ an actual spy.”
And she found herself sighing again, even as she spread the (really good) apple butter here on a biscuit. “It’s a good book, otherwise; but the way Now Approved Crazy turns into the book’s Future SF Crazy is… eerie. It’s not like I’m truly heartbroken over it, though, I can look elsewhere or at very worst deploy the Nathaniel Hawthorne option, the H-bomb of the reading and writing world.” Taking a bite. Not like her cousins’ work, that, biscuit or filling; but still, for eating-out food… bliss.
Now Andrew looked, still interested, but also a tiny bit… intense. “And by that you mean, if this is the best Europe can do, I can do as well?”
“Right. Though I keep running into the hard-SF writer’s problem, and worse for an aspiring newbie: how can you describe a Mars colony, say, when it turns out no one knows quite how one would work? And then you stumble over a new book ‘A City on Mars’ and say ‘hooray! here it is!’ but find it’s really about why we shouldn’t go to space, yet. How before the book’s even out of its single-digit pages, they’re so afraid we’ll go to war in space or over space, so we need to regulate everything, figure it all out before we go anywhere — generations down the road, maybe… someday!
“Maybe I’m presuming on so short an acquaintance, Andrew, but here it is. If these ‘space bastards’ end up de-railing our momentum, toward going Up There for real and for good… now that we’re finally on the move, after all the frustrated optimism and the false starts and Nixon’s cancellation and all the rest…” she found herself sighing, deepest of all. Because, right then, her throat would’ve closed around any words.
“If they, the ones behind the ones writing all these mysteriously new and almost synchronized anti-space books, really do keep us all down on this rock, one more time, these few decades of the rest of my own short little life… I think it really will break my heart. Here I speak as one who’s just ended an engagement, by mutual consent, this very month; so I’m truly not lacking in perspective on all that.”
For a moment, around them, was silence.
“I’m genuinely sorry to hear it; except for all the ‘I knew it was a bad idea and did it anyway’ stories… so congratulations, also, to you both.
“And for the rest… by the Outer Space Treaty, the one everybody signed, not the Moon Treaty nobody important ever did — it’s all ‘Common Heritage of All Mankind’ up there, the whole bloody Universe save for one ‘little blue dot’ called Earth — owned by everyone, and so by no one. You catch what that-all spells out?” A mischievous smile.
“CHOAM? The uber-monopoly from the ‘Dune’ books?” Which she echoed back; a soft but huge but warm emptiness fading in her heart. “Of course, no one could ask 5 billion people what to do with anything, or get ’em to agree on anything ever. So it’d be the Bolshevik solution, a Dictatorship of the Proletariat, By the Apparatchiki, Who Know What’s Best For Them Far Better Than They Ever Could? Or a Bureau of Indian Affairs, ‘managing’ it for All Those Poor Benighted Tribesmen?” Carrie was a little surprised to find she was a bit enraged.
“Communist Hegemony Over All Matter — the biggest land grab, ever, in the history of our entire cosmos, except for all the other damnfool species to try the same idiocy of course. And that’s what passes for diplomatic space law, now, Carrie — not colonialism by nations, even, but ober-colonialism by some super-national, globalist some’n’r’other, yet To Be Announced.”
“Nuts.” She smiled, with Serenity. “In the full siege-at-Bastogne sense.”
“Illegitimi non carborundum, Carrie. Remember that’n, too.”
The card he passed her read, under his name:
Deplorable SF. “Our delicious books never glow blue in the dark.”
She smiled. “So, let’s us aim to misbehave. Less exo-Marx, more Millei.”
A little late on account of being out yesterday. 😉
“…Come again?”
“The Baldraz Army just deployed Vincent Austin and Ashleshia to Arev.” Maylis de Salerno repeated.
Her old friend’s silence after her statement spoke volumes. Carys would have expected Maylis to end with a jibe about how she shouldn’t worry and that Vincent was always up for putting down one of Mad Empress Lysandra’s incursions. It always gave him the chance to permanently settle matters with Lord Protector Edmund after all. Yet it could not be. She remembered. Oh, she remembered…
“Carys, let us return to base,” Zornitsa warned as her pilot turned her in the direction of a horrendous screech. ”Vincent has chosen his path. It would be unwise to be there when his comrades come for him.”
“Not until I am certain, Zornitsa.” the sorceress responded, urging the Amethyst Sage forward.
She returned to a horrific sight. Ashleshia, the Jade Tempest, badly damaged. As much as she hated to give the fiend credit she was sure that Anders Blomgren, and even Vincent’s fool of a cousin Bradley Carter, would have her repaired in no time. Yet the powerful machine was not her concern, the man inside of it was.
“Vincent!” she screamed when she saw the most heartbreaking thing of all. Her pilot lying in front of her damaged cockpit. She ordered Zornitsa to her knees and disembarked, rushing over to his side. She was too late. ”No… Vincent, you cannot have… NOOOO!”
“Coming from anyone other than all of you I would regard this as the cruelest of jests,” Carys said, fighting back tears. ”I held him myself. He had…”
“Indeed,” Amadeo said gently. ”Your memories aren’t failing you. Vincent Austin and the black dragon killed each other. There’s only one explanation for this.”
“He has become Undying,” Carys concurred, her sorrow hardening into rage. ”We all know exactly who’s responsible as well. Those damnable demons King Friedrich employs, Dunst and Blomgren!”
The sorceress slammed her fist on the table, unconsciously reinforcing it with wind. Jacinthe started while Amadeo and Maylis regarded her with a cool gaze. Carys leapt to her feet before she continued, “I swear on Lionel’s name that I shall make the three of them pay for their crimes against God and man! Dunst and Blomgren for carrying out this abomination and Friedrich for allowing them to do so! If all of Baldraz must burn along the way -“
“That is enough, Carys!”
The sound of Master Amadeo shouting brought snapped her out of her fury. She noted the small flame that had appeared in her left hand and quickly dismissed it, embarrassed. Her embarrassment turned to utter humiliation when she saw a preteen boy and small girl staring at her from the hallway.
“Petruccio, Claudette, we’re not finished yet,” Jacinthe admonished her younger children. ”Give us more time.”
“Sorry, mommy!” Claudette squeaked before running out of the doorway, her brother behind her.
“I-I am truly sorry, all of you.” Carys sighed, no longer fighting her tears.
“It is understandable,” Amadeo said, giving her a paternal smile. ”Remember that you control your power and you must never let it control you.”
Master Amadeo had not used his go-to example of one who is controlled by power rather than one who controls it, and for good reason, for it was none other than the damnable woman whose forces Vincent was fighting now. Lysandra Hasapis, the Mad Empress herself. So much vermin to eliminate, so little –
“I must control my power. I must never let it control me,” she repeated back to her teacher, taking several deep breaths and recomposing herself. ”Master Amadeo, is there anything…?”
“Despite Philippe’s claims to the contrary, I am no expert on necromancy or any other form of diablerie,” Amadeo responded, allowing himself a wry chuckle at his own expense. ”I wouldn’t even know where to start digging into what they might have done. I’ll do everything in my power to help you both, though.”
“Thank you, Master Amadeo,” she replied, giving him the best smile she could manage. ”That is all I can ask for.”