Lyla's life is planned. In a few months, she'll be leaving her stifling small village and the vicious rumors that have marked her as unsuitable to be anyone's wife, for the endless opportunities of the large port city of Balast. There she will finish her training as a magical healer, join an adventuring team, and see the world beyond the mountainous valleys of the High Passes that she's lived in her whole life.

Then a tragedy strikes.

Lyla doesn't know the secret that the soldier who saved her life is keeping from her. Worse yet, she doesn't know that he accidentally bound himself to her when he saved her life and that without her he will slowly lose his mind. What she does know is that her parents, the village elders, and even her best friend, are falling all over themselves to marry her off to this nearly perfect stranger with far too many muscles for her to take him seriously.

Can she escape this unexpected marriage that is messing up her plans for greatness? Will she even want to? Or will this be exactly the kind of adventure she was hoping for all along?





Do you love reading about the Mages of the Empire of Man?  Try my book "Lines of Inheritance" The first of a series about the conflict between the Empire of Man, The Matriarchy, And The Priestess Isles.

Or check out my web series "Inheritance" and read about the political intrigue within The Matriarchy and the uneasy truce they have with the Orc Horde.

Empire of Man - Book 1: The First Empress

Lyla woke with a slow lassitude. It felt like drowning. Deep, deep, down under the surface. But she was swimming, struggling so hard for the surface in a deep still place of no-sound, no-light, and no-feeling. Maybe she wasn’t actually swimming. But, Lyla thought she was telling her brain to fight violently toward the surface of the endless nothing. 


Did endless nothing have a surface? No. It did, however, have an end. This place she had been to dozens of times before. This place could be exited…one way or another. Lyla was never sure if she was heading toward life or heading toward death until she reached her destination. Direction meant nothing here. Only the fight. 


Chapter 24 - I Hate Today