Promo; Krait's Redemption av T. L. Shreffler
Title: Krait’s Redemption
Author: T.L. Shreffler
Genre: YA Fantasy
Release Date: September 12, 2017
With winter solstice fast approaching, Sora and her companions are
running out of time. She must stop The Shade from awakening the Dark God, yet a
powerful force has overtaken her Cat’s-Eye necklace, rendering the stone almost
useless. To use the stone, Sora must learn to trust her instincts and embrace
her own inner strength. She joins forces with unexpected allies, Lord Gracen
Seabourne among them, to protect the City of Crowns. As the city dissolves into
chaos, she finds herself barreling toward an epic battle that will decide the
fate of mankind.
At risk to his own life, Crash returns to the Hive seeking aid against
Cerastes. However, the events that led him into exile have not been forgotten.
Will the Hive offer him redemption, or will they demand he pay the ultimate
price for his transgressions?
Join Sora and Crash in their epic battle to save the City of Crowns!
Author Bio
T. L.
Shreffler is a noblewoman living in the sunny acres of San Fernando Valley,
California. She enjoys frolicking through meadows, sipping iced tea, exploring
the unknown reaches of her homeland and unearthing rare artifacts in thrift
stores. She holds a Bachelors in Eloquence (English) and writes YA Fantasy,
Paranormal Romance and poetry. She has previously been published in Eclipse: A
Literary Anthology and The Northridge Review.
Website - http://www.catseyechronicles.com
Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/catseyeauthor
Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+TLShreffler
Instagram - http://www.instagram.com/catseyeauthor
Pre-order available now!
Giveaway
Win 1
signed copy of Krait’s Redemption, 1 Cat’s Eye Necklace or 1 free eBook copy of
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EXCERPT
Prologue
Crash watched the bonfires
in the distance.
Each day, more devotees
swelled the Shade’s ranks. Shadow portals transported them from cities, from
fields and mountains—from anywhere—to this forsaken desert. Nameless warriors
pooled beneath a red plateau that towered in the twilight, blocking the moon.
An army of the lost, Crash thought. Their burning pyres beckoned to him like lighthouses on
a foreign shore. But he had left those fires behind, walking miles into the
flat desert to sit among the sand.
The Shade’s encampment
might be in the Desert of Ester, but he wasn’t sure. His sense of certainty had
fled long ago. He wondered at this unprecedented gathering. He wondered at the
royal city’s evacuation, so close to winter solstice night.
He watched the fires glint
against the darkness. He watched, and sat, and pondered. At first, Cerastes’
army had puzzled him. He didn’t know why a Grandmaster, typically a solitary
figure concerned with martial discipline and meditation, would want to gather
so many numbers. But now, as Crash became more firmly entrenched in the Shade’s
activities, he knew what they were about. He had thought Cerastes meant to wage
war against the human kingdom, but he was wrong.
Cerastes wanted the Hive.
Crash had realized the
Grandmaster’s ambition when the assassin Cobra had issued his last dying words.
It had all become suddenly, perfectly clear. Stop him. Cobra’s death had
returned the arrow to Crash’s compass, and perhaps for the first time, he knew
true north. He knew what he had to do.
He stood and walked away
from the crimson fires on the horizon, behind an outcropping of rocks. There,
he emptied a bag onto the ground. Ingredients for his spell, including a sheaf
of yellowed parchment and fresh salamander ink, fell to the sand. He wrote the
spell, then built a small fire out of venomgrass and willow bark. He drew
symbols in the sand, and the flames turned indigo blue. Then he burned the
paper with its written message. A wandering wind brushed the top of the dunes,
carrying wafts of sand and smoke up to the stars.
He doused the fire when he
was finished. Then, his black hood pulled low over his face, he sat on his
heels to wait.
Redemption. A returning, a renewal. Would the Hive help him now, or would they hold
him to his trespasses? Someone must answer, he thought. Someone must
answer his call, his message burned on the wind, and someone must answer for
his Grandmaster’s mistakes.
He thought back to Sora and
the rest of his companions in the City of Crowns, and he felt ashamed. Under
the influence of Cerastes’ power, he had wavered. His demon had sensed his
Grandmaster’s dark aura, had sensed a home, and for a while, he had lost
himself. But Sora’s touch—more than that, her words, her spirit—had brought him
back.
He couldn’t fight Cerastes
alone. He couldn’t trust his darker half to resist the Shade’s pull, because
he, too, was a discarded outcast of the Hive. His Grandmaster’s demonic
presence was irresistible, drawing close all those scattered savants with
nowhere to belong. Crash had felt his own will tremble. Even now, he couldn’t
quite steady his hands. He couldn’t show Sora his weakness. More importantly,
he couldn’t show it to his own kind.
Someone had to do the right
thing. The right thing, he thought ironically. Someone had to warn the
Hive. Anyone who can read the Wind can read this message, he thought. He
only hoped Cerastes was too distracted to see it.
Hours passed as he waited.
The silence of the desert stretched, as spacious and echoing as a tomb. The
stars and moon circled overhead, trailing across the heavens. He found the
constellation of Kaelyn the Wanderer and asked, begrudgingly, for luck. Then
his eyes picked out other celestial formations known to his race. He recounted
their stories in his head: Sibilant, the assassin so stealthy and quiet, she
could walk between this realm and the world of ghosts; Dartmouth, who replaced
his teeth with knives; Marrow, so cunning he outsmarted the gods and stole the
Dark God’s weapons in eons past. Crash found it ironic that, despite all that
had transpired, a story could still lend him courage. And each star was a
story, a light in the dark, a dream in the abyss.
The wind picked up without
warning. A whirl of sand twisted up from the ground, building, growing. Then a
figure stepped from the dust.
Crash stood up. He didn’t
know what to expect.
The sand settled. A woman
dressed in black stood before him. She was insidiously tall. Her hair fell in
plaited rows down her back. He noted the chakrams at her belt: circular blades
that could remove a man’s head with a single powerful throw. Her eyes glowed
the shocking green of aloe.
“Grandmaster Natrix,” he
bowed.
“Viper,” she returned, and
waited for him to straighten. “I have listened long for word of my brother. Tell me,
what has Cerastes done?”
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