Wager's Price


G.P. Ching - 2016
     Book 1 of 3 in the Soulkeepers Reborn Trilogy Finn Wager's luck has run out. Arrested for the one crime he didn't actually commit, he's forced to finish his education at an alternative school. The Revelations Institute is an upscale, private reform school with a 100% success rate. Delinquents go in and model citizens come out. But students who don't perform to expectations disappear. And although their bodies return model citizens, their minds are hardly their own. Something evil lurks inside Revelations, and if Finn and his new friend Hope can't find a way to stop it, they'll risk more than their lives. The repercussions could cost them their souls. Soulkeepers Reborn Trilogy: Wager's Price Hope's Promise Lucifer's Pride Get the newest installment in the Soulkeepers world today!

The Emperor's Knife


Mazarkis Williams - 2011
    Geometric patterns spread across the skin, until you die in agony, or become a Carrier, doing the bidding of an evil intelligence, the Pattern Master. Anyone showing the tell-tale marks is put to death; that is Emperor Beyon's law...but now the pattern is running over the Emperor's own arms. His body servants have been executed, he ignores his wives, but he is doomed, for soon the pattern will reach his face. While Beyon's agents scour the land for a cure, Sarmin, the Emperor's only surviving brother, awaits his bride, Mesema, a windreader from the northern plains. Unused to the Imperial Court's stifling protocols and deadly intrigues, Mesema has no one to turn to but an aging imperial assassin, the Emperor's Knife. As long-planned conspiracies boil over into open violence, the invincible Pattern Master appears from the deep desert. Only three people stand in his way: a lost prince, a world-weary killer, and a young girl from the steppes who once saw a path in a pattern -- a path that might save them all.

A Blight of Mages


Karen Miller - 2011
    . .Barl is young and impulsive, but she has a power within that calls to her. In her city, however, only those of noble blood and with the right connections learn the ways of the arcane. Barl is desperate to learn-but her eagerness to use her power leads her astray and she is banned from ever learning the mystic arts.Morgan holds the key to her education. A member of the Council of Mages, he lives to maintain the status quo, preserve the mage bloodlines, and pursue his scholarly experiments. But Barl's power intrigues him-in spite of her low status.Together, he realizes they can create extraordinary new incantations. Morgan's ambition and Barl's power make a potent combination. What she does not see is the darkness in him that won't be denied. A Blight of Mages is the new novel set in the world of Karen Miller's bestselling debut The Innocent Mage.

A Cavern of Black Ice


J.V. Jones - 1999
    Jones's Sword of Shadow seriesAs a newborn Ash March was abandoned--left for dead at the foot of a frozen mountain. Found and raised by the Penthero Iss, the mighty Surlord of Spire Vanis, she has always known she is different. Terrible dreams plague her and sometimes in the darkness she hears dread voices from another world. Iss watches her as she grows to womanhood, eager to discover what powers his ward might possess. As his interest quickens, he sends his living blade, Marafice Eye, to guard her night and day.Raif Sevrance, a young man of Clan Blackhail, also knows he is different, with uncanny abilities that distance him from the clan. But when he and his brother survive an ambush that plunges the entire Northern Territories into war, he yet seeks justice for his own . . . even if means he must forsake clan and kin.Ash and Raif must learn to master their powers and accept their joint fate if they are to defeat an ancient prophecy and prevent the release of the pure evil known as the End Lords.

Red Sister


Mark Lawrence - 2017
    In some few children the old bloods show, gifting rare talents that can be honed to deadly or mystic effect. But even the mistresses of sword and shadow don't truly understand what they have purchased when Nona Grey is brought to their halls.A bloodstained child of nine falsely accused of murder, guilty of worse, Nona is stolen from the shadow of the noose. It takes ten years to educate a Red Sister in the ways of blade and fist, but under Abbess Glass's care there is much more to learn than the arts of death. Among her class Nona finds a new family—and new enemies.Despite the security and isolation of the convent, Nona's secret and violent past finds her out, drawing with it the tangled politics of a crumbling empire. Her arrival sparks old feuds to life, igniting vicious struggles within the church and even drawing the eye of the emperor himself.Beneath a dying sun, Nona Grey must master her inner demons, then loose them on those who stand in her way.

The Traveler's Gate Chronicles


Will Wight - 2015
    They have been published separately as the mini-collections Tower of Winter, Gardens of Mist, and The Lightning Wastes.These stories each follow a different Traveler on a journey through one of the mystical Territories that make up the fascinating world of the Traveler's Gate Trilogy.In Tower of Winter, Traveler Donia Sarkis comes face-to-face with the ancient powers hidden within Helgard's mysterious sixteenth floor.The Feathered Plains follows Denner Weeks of Valinhall in his attempts to avoid assassinating a fifteen-year-old Avernus Traveler who has seen the future.The Crystal Fields is a retelling of an ancient legend that Lirial Travelers have passed down for generations.In Gardens of Mist, one man finds out what happens when you trust your senses in the Mists of Asphodel.Maelstrom of Stone features an impatient young Ornheim Traveler named Chloe as she risks her life to rescue an enemy.In The Steel Labyrinth, a Damascan swordsman named Valin finds himself introduced to the treacherous clockwork maze known as Tartarus.In The Lightning Wastes, Leah hires a familiar bodyguard to help her recruit some wayward Travelers of Endross.Caverns of Flame features a young Traveler-in-training as he's faced with a rival he can't beat and a test he can't pass.In the final story, Ragnarus, the first Queen of Damasca gives her life fighting the Incarnation of Elysia.***These stories are set in the universe of the Traveler's Gate Trilogy, which begins in the novel House of Blades. If you have not read House of Blades or its sequel, The Crimson Vault, you will not understand the stories in this collection.***

The Emperor's Blades


Brian Staveley - 2014
    The stakes are high. And old truths will live again...The Emperor has been murdered, leaving the Annurian Empire in turmoil. Now his progeny must bury their grief and prepare to unmask a conspiracy.His son Valyn, training for the empire’s deadliest fighting force, hears the news an ocean away. He expected a challenge, but after several ‘accidents’ and a dying soldier’s warning, he realizes his life is also in danger. Yet before Valyn can take action, he must survive the mercenaries’ brutal final initiation.Meanwhile, the Emperor’s daughter, Minister Adare, hunts her father’s murderer in the capital itself. Court politics can be fatal, but she needs justice. And Kaden, heir to an empire, studies in a remote monastery. Here, the Blank God’s disciples teach their harsh ways – which Kaden must master to unlock their ancient powers. When an imperial delegation arrives, he’s learnt enough to perceive evil intent. But will this keep him alive, as long-hidden powers make their move?

Magician: Apprentice


Raymond E. Feist - 1982
    His courage won him a place at court and the heart of a lovely Princess, but he was ill at ease with normal wizardry. Yet his strange magic may save two worlds from dark beings who opened spacetime to renew the age-old battle between Order and Chaos.

A Time of Dread


John Gwynne - 2018
    Now they rule the Banished lands, but their peace is brutally enforced.In the south, hotheaded Riv is desperate to join the Ben-Elim's peacekeeping force, until she unearths a deadly secret.In the west, the giantess Sig investigates demon sightings and discovers signs of an uprising and black magic.And in the snowbound north, Drem, a trapper, finds mutilated corpses in the forests. The work of a predator, or something far darker?It's a time of shifting loyalties and world-changing dangers. Difficult choices need to be made. Because in the shadows, demons are gathering, waiting for their time to rise...

A Thread in the Tangle


Sabrina Flynn - 2013
    Isiilde knows this more than most. She is a nymph - a faerie in a realm of humans. Coveted by men and gods alike, she is destined to be sold when she comes of age. Threatened with imprisonment, her formidable guardian, Oenghus Saevaldr, flees with her to the Isle of Wise Ones to beseech a mad seer for refuge.A secret sways the seer, but his choice comes at a cost. A thousand wars have been fought over possession of a single nymph, and this one's mere presence proves disastrous. Isiilde's strange affinity with fire, stemming from Chaos itself, makes her a dangerous prize.As Oenghus strives to carve a future for the nymph, Isiilde trembles on a precipice, caught between the lust of men, the greed of kings, and an eternal struggle for dominance. As three powerful kingdoms vie to own her, the fire in her blood awakens, sparking a cataclysm that spirals into disaster."Storytelling at its finest.""Riveting and epic!""An extremely original tale."

Transformation


Carol Berg - 2000
    He has been a slave for sixteen years, almost half his life, and has lost everything of meaning to him: his dignity, the people and homeland he loves, and the Warden's power he used to defend an unsuspecting world from the ravages of demons. Seyonne has made peace with his fate. With strict self-discipline he forces himself to exist only in the present moment and to avoid the pain of hope or caring about anyone. But from the moment he is sold to the arrogant, careless Prince Aleksander, the heir to the Derzhi Empire, Seyonne's uneasy peace begins to crumble. And when he discovers a demon lurking in the Derzhi court, he must find hope and strength in a most unlikely place...

A Crucible of Souls


Mitchell Hogan - 2013
    With nothing to his name but a pair of mysterious heirlooms and a handful of coins, he must prove his talent to earn an apprenticeship with a guild of sorcerers.But he soon learns the world outside the monastery is a darker place than he ever imagined, and his treasured sorcery has disturbing depths.As a shadowed evil manipulates the unwary and forbidden powers are unleashed, Caldan is plunged into an age-old conflict that brings the world to the edge of destruction…

A Warden's Purpose


Jeffrey L. Kohanek - 2018
    An academy military excellence. Deadly secrets await...secrets leading to murder. Everson is brilliant and yet, he feels broken. Cursed with a disability, he dreams of nothing more than being useful. Quinn is bold, defiant, and will do anything to protect her brother. When Everson is sent to an academy of magic and engineering, Quinn joins a military school to remain near him. Hidden danger lurks within the fabled institutions. Quinn becomes embroiled in a struggle she doesn't understand, one with dire consequences as her training shifts from difficult to deadly. Her relentless determination might help her survive. If she only knew whom she could trust. Within the other school, Everson studies a dangerous magic known as Chaos. Unable to wield this magic, he melds it with science, dreaming up inventions to reshape the future. His greatest discovery will change the world...or it could destroy everything.

A Dance of Cloaks


David Dalglish - 2010
    Marshalling the thieves’ guilds under his control, he declares war against the Trifect, an allegiance of wealthy and powerful nobles.Aaron Felhorn has been groomed since birth to be Thren’s heir. Sent to kill the daughter of a priest, Aaron instead risks his own life to protect her from the wrath of his guild. In doing so, he glimpses a world beyond poison, daggers, and the iron control of his father.Guilds twist and turn, trading allegiances for survival. The Trifect weakens, its reputation broken, its money dwindling. The players take sides as the war nears its end, and Thren puts in motion a plan to execute hundreds.Only Aaron can stop the massacre and protect those he loves…Assassin or protector; every choice has its consequences.

Joust


Mercedes Lackey - 2003
    Young and slight, Vetch would have died of overwork, exposure, and starvation if not for the anger which was his only real sustenance--anger that he had lost his home and family in a war of conquest waged by the dragon-riding Jousters of Tia. Tia had usurped nearly halt of Alta's lands and enslaved or killed many of Vetch's countrymen. Sometimes it seemed that his entire cruel fate revolved around dragons and the Jousters who rode them.But his fate changed forever the day he first saw a dragon.From its narrow, golden, large-eyed head, to its pointed emerald ears, to the magnificent blue wings, the dragon was a thing of multicolored, jeweled beauty, slim and supple and quite as large as the shed it perched on. Vetch, almost failed to notice the Jouster who stood beside him. "I need a boy," the rider had said, and suddenly Vetch found himself lifted above the earth and transported by dragon-back to a different world.Vetch was to be trained as a dragon-boy, and he hardly believed his luck. The compound seemed like paradise: he could eat until he was full, and all he had to do was care for his Jouster's dragon, Kashet.It didn't take long for Vetch to realize that Kashet was special--for unlike other dragons, Kashet was gentle by nature and did not need the tranquilizing tala plant to make her tracttable. Vetch became determined to learn the secret of how Kashet had been tamed. For if Kashet could be tamed, perhaps Vetch could tame a dragon of his own. And if he could, then he might be able to escape and bring the secret of dragon-taming back to his homeland of Alta. And that secret, might prove to be the key to Alta's liberation....