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 had been taken to the healer’s home. Now he paced and waited for those few who had bothered to stay and help her to finish and leave. 


The healer’s house was geared toward visitors; individuals who needed to wait. There were chairs near the fireplace, wooden puzzles on a table, and supplies of paper and charcoal for doodling. But it was clean. Cleaner than anything he’d seen outside of the capital city hospitals. The warm wood paneling fairly glowed. 


None of that interested Lan. As he felt the breath in Lyla’s lungs strengthening the ever-present demanding need to be near her returned again. Once Lyla had been settled in, even her parents had gone to see what interesting news was to be had from the company their daughter had brought. The last stragglers had wandered out long before the old healer ventured from the room where Rengard Lan knew that his beloved now peacefully slept. 


Episode 18 - Weakness