Heritage
The Grimoire Saga
Book Three
S. M. Boyce
S. M. Boyce
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Caffeinated Books Publishing
Date of Publication: November 5th, 2013
ISBN: 1939997100
ASIN: B00F2Y46I6
Number of pages: 260 print pages
Word Count: 83,000
Cover Artist: Heidi Sutherlin of My
Creative Pursuits
Book Description:
Heritage
is
the third novel in the epic Grimoire Saga.
Kara
Magari isn’t normal, even by Ourea’s standards—and in a world
of shape-shifters and soul stealers, that’s saying something. To
the royalty, she’s a loose cannon. To the masses, she’s a
failure. But Kara’s arrival in Ourea started a war, and she’s
going to end it.
An ancient isen named Stone takes an interest in Kara’s training, and it turns out he has more answers than he originally led her to believe. In an effort to unearth a secret that might end the bloodshed, Kara instead discovers an ugly truth about her family—and how much she has in common with an infamous mass-murderer.
Braeden Drakonin has slowly rebuilt his life after the betrayal that tore it apart. His father wants him dead, and frankly, his so-called allies wouldn’t mind that either. Private alliances are formed. Secrets are sold. Tension is driving the armies apart. A single battle will end this war, and it’s coming. Braeden may be a prince, but it will take more than that to survive. He must take the fight to his father’s door—and win.
An ancient isen named Stone takes an interest in Kara’s training, and it turns out he has more answers than he originally led her to believe. In an effort to unearth a secret that might end the bloodshed, Kara instead discovers an ugly truth about her family—and how much she has in common with an infamous mass-murderer.
Braeden Drakonin has slowly rebuilt his life after the betrayal that tore it apart. His father wants him dead, and frankly, his so-called allies wouldn’t mind that either. Private alliances are formed. Secrets are sold. Tension is driving the armies apart. A single battle will end this war, and it’s coming. Braeden may be a prince, but it will take more than that to survive. He must take the fight to his father’s door—and win.
Excerpt:
Heritage
(Grimoire
Saga #3)
EXCERPT
FROM CHAPTER ONE
A
FRESH START
A
hand reached around Kara’s waist
and tugged her closer. Her body shifted over cotton sheets. The hem
of her nightshirt caught and inched upward along her back. Hot breath
sailed down her neck, setting her nerves on fire. She snuggled into a
bare shoulder, her nose brushing against bumps of muscle as she
itched to get ever closer to whomever held her.
Warm skin burned her cheek.
A second, thick hand brushed hair from her face. Her blond locks fell
over her shoulder like a sheet of silk.
Kara opened her eyes. A haze
clouded the corners of her vision—the edges of a dream. She
frowned. There was no fun in knowing none of this was real. It just
meant she wouldn’t be able to
enjoy it as much.
Braeden smiled down at her.
A few dark hairs fell across his olive face, blocking her view of
those black eyes that glittered with mischief. He pulled her a little
closer with his rough hands, even though no space remained between
them. Her frown dissolved. Every bit of her crackled with energy. He
ran his fingers along the hem of her shirt, pulling it higher.
She poked his side. “I
miss you.”
He ran a hand through her
hair. “Come see me, then.”
“You know I can’t. Not
yet.”
He grinned. “Liar.”
She faltered and glanced
down at the mattress. Of course she couldn’t
leave. Not even a month ago, she discovered she was an isen—a
creature that could steal souls. Though she hadn’t even known what
an isen was before she discovered the crazy world of Ourea, she had
apparently always belonged to the hidden realm of monsters and magic.
Her mother passed the isen gene to her, and their bloodline had a
terrible curse: power and magic came easily to them. It sounded great
at first, sure, but the power came too easily. Kara couldn’t
control herself. She could kill with barely any effort.
Every day, her control
dwindled a little more. If she used the air to turn a page in a book,
she ripped out the sheet instead. If she tried to hit a target with
her favorite attack—red sparks that danced through her fingers like
lightning—she blasted the target to bits. She refused to spar with
anyone for fear of what she might accidentally do to her opponent.
After she discovered she was
an isen, she’d spent every
second of free time with her mentor, Stone. They traveled to a safe
place to train: her village, the one she inherited from the ancient
ghost who had given her the Grimoire.
Kara hadn’t
left the village yet only because she couldn’t do anything without
destroying something.
As if Braeden read her
thoughts, he wrapped her in a hug. “It’ll
be all right.”
“I’m just so lost,
Braeden. I don’t want to hurt anyone, but I don’t know how to
stop.”
He pulled away and held her
face in his hands. “You don’t
have to do it alone, you know.”
“You’re right, I guess.”
She smiled and slipped her arms around him in return, burrowing her
face into his torso. Her fingers tightened around his waist.
Something shifted in her
palms. A sharp crack
cut through the dream. The crash of breaking glass rocked her.
Braeden tensed in her arms.
Kara pulled away, trying to
figure out what was going on. Braeden studied her, his smile gone. A
fissure inched along his face as if he were porcelain and she’d
dropped him. It splintered, dividing his handsome features into
pieces. His eyebrows shifted upward, likely to question what was
going on—or worse, what she was doing to him.
Kara gasped. Oh,
Bloods! have I hurt him, too?
She reached for him, unable
to form words. Fragments of his shirt broke away like ice in her
hands. The cracks in his face widened.
His voice shook. “You’re
not alone.”
“Braeden!” she screamed.
Kara bolted upright in bed,
her scream lingering in her chest.
White light swam in her
vision, blinding her. Something crashed again, as if on replay from
her nightmare. Glass tinkled. The wall vibrated with the thump of a
heavy object ramming it with great force.
A breeze ruffled her hair.
Chills raced down her back. She shivered. Salt stung her nose, as did
the sweet tang of honeysuckle. Her fingers tensed, grabbing handfuls
of the cotton bedspread as her vision blurred.
She rubbed her eyes.
Bit by bit, her familiar
bedroom in the Vagabond’s
village shifted into focus. White walls. Wooden bed posts. Silk blue
canopy over her bed. White comforter. Cotton sheets. Two mahogany
bedside tables. A stack of paper on a desk in the corner. The pages
shifted in the breeze, and a couple drifted to the floor.
Sunlight streamed through
the windows on her left, catching on the jagged edges of a broken
window. Wind rattled the drapes, shuffling them aside as it whipped
through the room. Shards of glass littered the floor, glinting.
A red brick lay on the
carpet in the middle of the pool of broken glass, a white piece of
parchment tied around it with a string.
Kara jumped out of bed and
tiptoed across the remnants of her broken window, though it didn’t
matter if she cut herself. She knew plenty of charms to heal a cut
well enough to leave no scars.
She picked up the brick and
yanked the note from the baked clay. A few words covered the other
side of the small square of paper, written in tight handwriting.
We’re
done with the basics. Your real training starts today. Meet me in the
clearing in the forest behind the kitchens. You have much to learn.
—Stone
Kara cursed under her
breath. Her mentor threw a brick through her window to wake her up.
That dramatic son of a—
“Couldn’t he just
knock?” she muttered.
Her pulse settled.
Adrenaline dissolved in her veins. She took a deep breath to clear
her head, and the cold air swirled in her chest. Her worry hadn’t
been anything more than the panic of being woken from a dream.
She sighed. And until the
interruption, it had been a wonderful dream.
Something squeaked by her
bed. Her tiny pet Flick stretched from his place on the pillow beside
hers, his bushy tail straight up in the air. His ears—still too big
for his head, even though he was mostly grown—twitched as he shook
himself awake. No bigger than a squirrel, the furry red creature
hopped along the folds in the blanket, battling the valleys of fabric
on his way to her.
“Morning, munchkin,” she
said.
He burped in answer.
Charming thing.
Kara focused her attention
on the broken window. She hadn’t
fixed a window before, but she could manipulate the air and start a
fire with the magic coursing through her. Since the glass just needed
to be fused back into place, fixing a window couldn’t be too
terribly difficult.
She reached her fingers
toward the shards. With a deep breath, she borrowed the breeze
dancing through her room. Tension pulled on her hands, dragging her
knuckles downward. She resisted, pulling back to lift the fragments
of glass. The pieces hovered. Her palms warmed.
The shards slid through the
air, and Kara directed traffic as best she could. When bits of the
glass pushed into their neighbors, she focused the full weight of her
gaze on the seam, fusing the pieces on contact.
In a matter of seconds, her
window was once more whole. A little worse for wear, perhaps—she
hadn’t quite
gotten rid of some of the cracks in the pane—but solid nonetheless.
She smirked with satisfaction.
A dull pain throbbed in her
wrist. She scratched at it, her nails catching on leather. She sighed
and resisted the impulse to rip off the wrist guard on her right arm.
The ornate leather band on her right wrist covered spikes that dug
into her skin, helping keep her uncontrollable magic at bay. Her arm
ached when she wore the thing, but even her grandfather, Agneon, had
worn the band at one point to restrain his magic.
After Stone awoke her isen
nature, he told her to never take off the wrist band for fear she
would lose her last ounce of self-restraint. So far, she had obeyed.
She headed for her closet to
change. However good Stone’s
intentions may have been, he’d forced her into the life of an isen.
She hadn’t wanted any of this. Since he turned her, Stone was her
master and could control her. He could make her hit herself in the
face if he wanted, but she listened to him out of respect. He’d
lived for centuries.
Still, despite his vast
knowledge and experience, she would give him a piece of her mind when
she found him.
About
the Author:
S.M. Boyce is a fantasy
and paranormal fiction novelist who also dabbles in contemporary
fiction and comedy. Her B.A. in Creative Writing also qualifies her
to serve you french fries. She updates her blog (smboyce.com) a few
times each week so that you have something to wake you up in the
morning.
Website:
http://www.smboyce.com
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/thesmboyce
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/thesmboyce
Goodreads:
http://www.goodreads.com/smboyce
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