BVC Announces Path of Blood by Diana Pharaoh Francis
Path of Blood
The Path Series Book Three
Diana Pharaoh Francis
The fate of two worlds rests in Reisil’s hands.
During the war, the wizards cast a spell and quickly lost control. Now the fate of two worlds is at stake, and only Reisil can save them.
If she can figure out how, and if her enemies don’t kill her first.
Chaos reigns in the realm of Kodu Riik. Plague continues to ravage its populace. Armies of the power-hungry Aare are on the march, slaughtering everything in their path to place a madman on the throne. The rift between the kingdom and the land of Cemanahuatle yawns ever wider, threatening to consume both beneath waves of uncontrollable magic and destroy every living soul within them.
Only Reisil possesses enough power to breach the spellbound city of Mysane Kosk and seal the fracture. Accompanied by her goshawk, Saljane, and her lover, Yohuac, Reisil must journey across a land besieged by war and fight for a domain torn asunder by sorceries beyond imagining.
Hope will come from unexpected quarters, but so will pain, betrayal, and death. Is this the end of the world? And will the world that’s left be worth saving?
The Path series, Book Three
REVIEWS
“Francis is certainly not afraid to tell it how it is, delivery a robust, action-packed story….Whatever she writes next, I will be reading.” —MyShelf.com
“Part three of a right smart fantasy trilogy….tasty as toasted almonds.” —Speculative Romance Online
Hailed by her peers as “promising” (David Coe),“talented” (Kristin Britain), and “masterful” (Carol Berg), Diana Pharaoh Francis crafted a unique magical world and one of fantasy’s most intriguing heroines in Path of Fate and Path of Honor.
____
Diana Pharaoh Francis is the USA Today and Amazon Bestselling writer of fantastical, adventurous, and often romantic fiction. She holds a Ph.D. in Victorian literature and literary theory. She’s owned by a corgi, a mini blue heeler, and a blue-eyed corgi mix. She spends much of her time gardening, airbrush painting, herding children, and avoiding housework. She likes rocks, geocaching, horses, knotting up yarn, and has a thing for 1800s England, especially the Victorians.
Chapter One
Tapit wasn’t dead.
Reisil drove her sweat-drenched gelding across the scree, her heart thundering in her chest. She felt a sickening lurch as the rocky slope began to roll away beneath them. Ahead, Yohuac’s horse—formerly Tapit’s— bounded onto firm ground and galloped into the trees.
Indigo twisted, his haunches sliding as he scrabbled over the tumbling rocks. He neighed: a desperate, braying sound. Reisil leaned forward, catching at the rolling scree with a net of magic. She gasped at the pain of the magic flowing through her. Despite the pain, she grinned fiercely as the rocks firmed into a stony carpet. Indigo lunged to safety with a groan. Reisil reined him in and swung around.
Tapit appeared from behind an outcropping. Quickly, Reisil let the magical net unravel. The freed rocks thundered down the escarpment between them. In the same heartbeat, Reisil reached out to Saljane.
~Where are you?
The image of a glittering snow-covered peak whirled across Reisil’s mind’s eye, followed by a pastiche of blue sky, trees, and Baku’s reptilian shape.
~With Baku. Mysane Kosk is not far. Saljane paused. He comes?
The fear in Saljane’s mindvoice stung Reisil like a nettle. It was the only thing the goshawk feared: Tapit and his ilgas and losing her tie to her ahalad-kaaslane.
Reisil glared across the churning stones. The wizard wore his hood down around his shoulders. His features were sharp and austere beneath his bristle of dark hair. She felt his dour gaze on her like a coal-hot brand.
Her hands tightened on her reins. Indigo snorted and took a step back.
~He’s here.
Saljane clutched at Reisil’s mind with iron talons.
~Watch well, she urged, her voice sounding wire-thin.
~I will, beloved.
Reisil held her magic ready. Her skin prickled. She darted a glance about herself. She couldn’t let him drop an ilgas on her. If he did, she would be helpless. Infinitely worse, she’d be cut off from Saljane. The prospect was unbearable. Never again would she let Tapit do that to her. Her fist knotted. How much she would love to drive it down his throat! But she didn’t dare try. Not now. Too much was at stake, and she was too weak.
She eyed the scree. It wouldn’t hold him long. Tapit was relentless. But his horse was as tired as Indigo, and it appeared the wizard had outstripped his companions. That might give Reisil the advantage she needed.
“Don’t stop running now. I was looking forward to a better fight than this,” Tapit taunted through the dusty haze left behind by the slide.
“You haven’t caught me yet. Don’t forget I destroyed your stronghold,” Reisil retorted.
“The stronghold still stands, and only a handful of us lost. We are eager for your return.”
His gloating words sent a tremor through Reisil. The stronghold still stood? It wasn’t possible. She’d seen….
She’d seen the entry valley cave in when she’d driven a spear of pure power deep into the mountain’s core. She’d seen rubble falling over the small group of defenders as the ground leaped and buckled. The stronghold had been crushed. Hadn’t it? But then again, she’d thought she’d killed Tapit, too.
Fear slithered like a snake in her gut. She was counting on having crippled the wizards so that she wouldn’t have to deal with them plus the sorcerers and the Regent’s army.
“You’re a liar!” she shouted back, refusing to let him see her doubt.
“You shall see for yourself soon enough. You should not have run away. You belong to us. As does the property you took with you.”
“Never. I am ahalad-kaaslane. I’ll not let you take us again. And if I haven’t destroyed the stronghold, I’ll come back and do it. That much I can promise you.”
“Ah, yes. Ahalad-kaaslane.” He said it the way one would speak of a rat infestation. “Where is your bird? That was our mistake. To be one of us, you must be rid of your pet.”
“To be one of you?” Reisil repeated, her mouth dropping open.
“Of course.”
Reisil’s teeth cracked together as she snapped her mouth shut. She shook her head in disbelief. “After all of you I’ve killed? You’re howling mad.”
“We know how to muzzle your bite. You will be made to heel.”
He sounded so sure, so smug. Anger flamed in Reisil, and power crackled around her fingers. She would never succumb to them again. Her lip curled and she pulled her arm back, feeling the magic surging through her. But reason caught her. She balled her fist, forcing the power down with effort. “How do you think you’ll catch me? I know about the ilgas. I won’t walk into that trap again.”
Tapit smiled. It was the first time Reisil could ever remember seeing such an expression cross his basalt features. Fear screwed through the marrow of her bones.
“Not that trap, no.”
Reisil recoiled, then felt a small smile begin. He loved the hunt, the struggle. Don’t stop running now.… He wanted her to sweat, to fear, to fight. He relished it. So much so that he wasn’t going to even try to use his power against her in a head-on battle. That wasn’t sporting. He wanted to match wits, to finesse her, to draw this hunt out. She was happy to oblige. It gained her time.
And she’d begin right now.
~Baku?
The coal-drake’s awareness bubbled in her mind. His presence was muted, as if he had to push through a dense, fibrous mist to reach her. The effects of the magic leaching from Mysane Kosk. It was the reason he hadn’t been able to speak with their friends who camped near the destroyed city. He couldn’t tell Juhrnus they were coming, or ask for help.
It also meant that Tapit would have a harder time tracking them. The wizard had the ability to sniff out their magic footprint, but soon it would be smothered by the tide of magic rolling out of Mysane Kosk. It was the reason Reisil had sent Baku and Saljane ahead: to hide them from Tapit and to warn those gathered at Mysane Kosk that she was coming.
~I have an idea, but I need your help. Can you do it? She sent to Baku, picturing for him what she wanted him to do.
The coal-drake did not respond immediately. Reisil got the impression he was considering whether he wanted to help her. She held her breath. He had every right to resent her. If only she had learned faster, if only she could have rescued him from the wizards sooner.
But she hadn’t known what to do, and instead she’d been forced to watch silently as Kvepi Debess tortured Baku. Sometimes she had even helped. It had been the only way to discover the key to unlocking the prison spells. It wasn’t until later that she could tell Baku, and by then their delicate trust was ruined.
~Can you do it? she pressed gently.
When his answer came, he sounded hollow.
~It will be difficult. The magic thickens here.… I will try.
~Hurry.
Reisil waited, watching not Tapit, but his leggy roan mare. The horse tossed her head, ears twitching. Suddenly she leaped into the air, twisting and bucking. The wizard gave a startled yell and fell onto the scree. The hillside began to roll again. The mare came down and bolted, disappearing over the ridge. Tapit tumbled down the slope like a bundle of rags.
~She won’t soon trust him again, came Baku’s smug voice.
~Well-done, Reisil said, following Yohuac’s trail into the trees. By the time Tapit could bespell the mare to stop, he’d have a good walk to retrieve her. It gave them a little breathing room.
“A very little,” Reisil muttered.
Yohuac was waiting just inside the trees. He smiled crookedly at her scowl. His scalp gleamed through the stubble of his hair. Scars showed livid on his head and neck. There were plenty more hidden by his clothing.
“You shouldn’t have waited.”
He shrugged.
Reisil blew out a tense breath. “Come on then. We’ve still got a long way to go.”
She took the lead, angling down a steep ravine and following it up across a ridge. Clouds thickened above, and as evening approached, a heavy, solid rain began to fall. She looked back at Yohuac. He had begun to list to the right, his hands clamped around the pommel, his shoulders bowed. He couldn’t keep on much longer.
Reisil swallowed her frustration. He was doing all he could. The wizards had nearly killed him. It was a lot that he could sit a horse at all.
She scanned the wood slope, angling up along the ridge. They would have to stop and rest, and hope Tapit didn’t overtake them in the night.
As darkness fell, the two found a traveler’s pine and took shelter under its sweeping boughs, staking the horses out in a nearby clearing.
Reisil dug a hole and built a tiny fire. She set a pot over it and made a hearty soup of roots and dried meat, crumbling stale acorn cakes into it.
“I can’t wait to eat some real bread,” she said to Yohuac, who sat shivering beneath both their blankets. “And hot kohv. With nussa spice.”
“The bread I would like, but you may keep your kohv,” he said, accepting the cup of soup and wrapping both his hands around it.
“That’s right. You like that other stuff—what do you call it?”
“Xochil. It has…character.”
“Mmm. I don’t much care if my kohv has character.”
“Your kohv is like— It’s like the sun without heat, without flame. Xochil lights fire to the soul.”
“Sounds unsettling.”
“Someday you will try it and see.”
Reisil finished eating and scooted over next to him, curling close against his side. He put an arm around her shoulders and snugged the blankets around her. Soon their shared warmth permeated them both. Yohuac’s hands began to wander over her, absently at first, and then earnestly. Reisil caught them.
“You need to rest. You are still not well.”
Yohuac’s dark eyes shone like polished onyx. “I am well enough for this.”
He bent and kissed her. Reisil kissed him back. She pushed aside his clothing, grappling him close against her, his heart beating rapidly beneath her fingers. There was an urgency to their lovemaking. They hadn’t lain together since Tapit had sent them fleeing; neither knew when they’d have the chance again.
Time was running out.