This secret valley stays in a perpetual state of Spring and hosts the thousands of Fae who live there. The Heart Tree's magic sustains the boundaries that protect them all and their lush forest, but the hoar witch has poisoned its roots. Queen Corydalis needs a certain shard to cast a beckoning so that the emerald eyed champion of lore might come and save them all, for he is the only one who can end the hoar witch, and if they hope to save the Heart Tree that deed has to be done. Join Thorn, Bristle, and Barb, the Pixie Queens fiercest, smartest and most loyal elves as they take a thrilling journey out of their protected world into true Overland, where danger hides around every corner and everything they ever loved is at stake. A note from the author about the timeline of this story: This tale starts at about the same time The Legend of Vanx Malic Book Two - Dragon Isle, does. It can be read at any time during the series, but will serve readers best if they read it before they read book four, That Frigid Fargin Witch, which is due for release Jan. 9th 2014. This story is not part of the main Vanx Malic tale, but the character Foxwise Posy-Thorn is destined to become relevant, if he can survive this ordeal. Thank you and enjoy, M. R. Mathias

    But when a series of seemly unrelated jobs pull Zane and Lily into a conflict between nations, Zane is forced to confront secrets from his past. Welcome to a morally ambiguous world of magic, mystery, and political intrigue. It’s an epic sword and sorcery tale told in novella-sized chunks. This omnibus edition includes: Thorns and Tangles Assassin Zane Halloway has been hired to kill Irving Farns, a reclusive genius whose innovations brought about a golden age of magic. Zane and his apprentice Lily will need to infiltrate the mysterious Abditus Society and find a way to assassinate the world’s leading expert in protective magic. Swords and Shadows After a run-in with one of the pirate Longstrain's deadly widows, an injured Zane Halloway is enlisted for a special assignment. The nation is on the brink of war, and the king hopes a daring assassination of his enemy's enemy will prevent things from escalating. To complete the job, Zane and Lily will have to join forces with the King's Shadow, the only man in the kingdom with access to the royal armory of magical devices. His name is Jacob Von Ridden. Long ago, he altered the course of Zane's life, and Zane has been waiting for the chance to kill him ever since. Lightning and Thrones Several months ago, Zane Halloway was hired to kill magical genius Irving Farns. Now he has a new client, Irving's daughter. Beth Farns hires Zane and Lily to locate her father's greatest creation, a new type of magical device, neither thorn nor tangle. She believes it's hidden beyond the Blue Wall. To complete the job, Zane and Lily will need to infiltrate restricted elvish territory, face off against a charismatic, young leader, and unravel the mystery of why the elves surrendered from a war they were winning and allowed themselves to subjugated by the people of Opel. Flames and Water Zane Halloway is hired to find the pirate he killed twelve years ago, and Zane and Lily soon find themselves on opposite sides of a pirate war. They'll soon learn that everything is a game for the Longstrains. Even revenge. Lies and Crossroads Zane and Lily search for a dangerous traitor hiding in the mysterious nation of the Crags. Zane will have to steal a family heirloom from the nation's most powerful warrior, and Lily will have to learn what magical secrets are hidden in the mountain palace of the High Prince of the Crags. Crowns and Dead Men War between Opel and Tavel has been brewing for years, and now it has finally come. While Zane is hunted by three of his own, Lily must shoulder the burden of saving her nation from the consequences of her past mistakes.

    She learns quickly from the faces of the others that this is no paradise she has been transported to; it is a prison. Unable to escape, Tana soon discovers that a dark and malignant force is dragging her and the other prisoners, one-by-one, to unreachable higher rooms of the tower from which they never return. If she is to ever escape from there then she will need to use all the guile and strength she has within her. Does one of the others hold the key? Or is it something else within the prison that she needs to study? As the darkness comes nearer, a strange voice whispers;“Look and be free… You have to let go of what you know.” Should she trust the voice? Should she trust the others? Does she even have a choice? As despair and terror closes in around them all, only one person can discover the truth and save them... Note from the author: This is a stand alone story that is set in between 'Call Off The Search' Book One and 'Children Of The Sun' Book Two of the Comyenti Series.

    Someone has brutally killed a young woman and dumped her body in an empty warehouse. The only real clue left at the scene points to one of the elite – the Ageless – as being involved.The Watch might ignore one anonymous woman’s death, but when more bodies appear, killed in the same way, the deaths attract the attention of the ruling elite, and Mage Niath is assigned to work with Thea to hunt down the killer.Thea dislikes the Mage on sight, but she and Niath have to work together and her dislike grows into a grudging respect.They will have to depend on each other, and all the skills at their disposal, to hunt down and stop the killer.Deadly Night is the first book in a new series by Vanessa Nelson.

     After struggling with the death of her lifemate of over a century, Tara spends what the leaders of her clan considers an unreasonable amount of time in finding another. The clan needs offspring, they insist. While soaring over a meadow, Tara sees a dragon intruder attack a shepherd. Outraged, she intervenes and saves the young man from certain death. Breaking a two hundred year old pact between man and dragon forbidding any contact between the two, a powerful yet dangerous bond slowly grows between the dragon and her boy. This is a fun short story, at 5300 words. Stories two and three are already written. They continue the series and will be available shortly! I hope you enjoy them all.

    He is horrified by his ghastly appearance and unstable magical powers. The world is overrun by evil that originated in Delmar not long after Aidan's death. With the help of a time-traveling wizard apprentice, Aidan must travel back to his own time and set things right.But after his bitter exile, does he really want to?

    Our insatiable desire for greatness is shadowed only by our overwhelming hatred for complacency. Whether for fame or fortune, aware of it or not, we strive for the highest rung only for our grasp to instantly crave the next ladder. Yet still we reach, for the void must always be filled. Seventeen-year-old Alrin Turner lives in a place where power is everything, and pursuing it is the only thing that seems to ebb the burning desire. Each person is born with three numbers on their hand that show the might of their strength, magic and intellect, so seeing the full extent of one’s power is as simple as glancing in the mirror. In a world teeming with such illustrious competition, qualities like kindness and humility are in short supply, and Alrin knows it all too well. He cares nothing of power and holds firm to the belief that there is more to life than what is found on your hand, despite the relentless insults he receives for it. While hunting in the woods with his brother, a selfless act forces Alrin off the edge of a cliff only for him to stop feet above the ground by a flash of brilliant light and a mysterious symbol that appears over his hand. The source of this power intrigues a sudden benefactor, who takes Alrin under his wing to train him in his magic guild—an honor never before given to someone so insignificant. When mighty warriors start to appear in his town, Alrin not only learns that the power that saved him has been sought out for thousands of years, but like it or not, he has fallen into a story much larger than himself. Everyone he loves is either taken or cursed and Alrin is faced with an impossible task: delve deeper into the realm of power to unlock the riddle of the void and save his family, yet somehow cling to the part of himself that was worthy of power at the start.

    Stay away from the woods on the other side of the river. Never speak of magic. Be wary of associating with young men who might only be seeking her father's political power. She'd followed the rules -- mostly. In return, she was supposed to have some small freedoms -- like choosing her own partner. Or, at least, that was what she'd thought. But when her father changes the rules on her at the same time a strange young man appears in the woods, Ellarowan discovers that maybe nothing is what she thought it was. From the author of the bestselling Dusk Gate Chronicles comes a new story of adventure, love, and hope in a new world.

    There he meets the Dwelvin-Mites; a community of Imps whom he’d always been fascinated by through story. His fascination soon wanes when their beautiful guide, Anun the Creator, explains to him how they are in hiding from an evil tyrant - a Wrythunn warrior and Pooka named Drevol Briggun - who has seized their subterranean home of Lythiann and how it is up to William to assassinate him, being the reincarnation of the only other Wrythunn in existence who has the potential to confront Briggun's power. What's more, a curse has been placed on William's home, and the only way for it to be reversed is upon Briggun's death. With little choice in the matter, William takes to the seemingly empty world of Lythiann to carry out this frightening task, only to discover that it's not as uninhabited as he first believed. Singly joined by a friendly rabble, he learns more about himself, his past, his future, and how his transformation into the great Wrythunn warrior, Mysun Margyle, will not hold true without the Symphogram; a gramophone-like device which performs Mysun’s mighty theme. A composition known as the Banádh. For this to happen, he needs to truly understand his cause, which isn't as easy as he once thought...

    Embarking upon a secret mission for justice, they uncover the hidden history that led to the fall of a whole world—one in which they must find their place and determine their fate. Navigating through foreign lands, they discover things are seldom as they seem—and that some legends may be better left unexplored…Shadowborne is the thrilling debut novel from Matthew Callahan’s second-world fantasy series, The Relics of Antiquity.

    Towers of wizards rise high into the air, shrouded in the mists of magical smog. Poor sleep in the alleyways, becoming deformed by pollution. Life is short for many.Throughout all of it, the cunning and dangerous members of the City Guard do their best to keep evil and crime from destroying the citizens of Dralin. Trained to fight in streets that make no sense, they keep wickedness from taking over completely.A young woman fleeing her past makes Dralin her destination. A young Guardsman with his own dark history hopes to make a difference in a city that is without hope. Are sorrow and despair their only destiny, or can love redeem them? Two young girls raised in this city learn life's hard lessons early. Will they be defeated by its evil?Underneath the city lie hidden dangers even more terrible than those that lurk in its dark streets. Ancient ruins of civilizations past still hold onto the memories of how grand they once were, while menacing creatures hope for a tasty meal to venture into their domain.The Dralin Trilogy is a dark, swords-and-sorcery fantasy series following the lives of a few unusual individuals as they desperately try to survive in the sinister city of Dralin.Dralin is a full-length novel of approximately 96,000 words, which would be about 400 printed pages.

    Scared out of his wits, he soon discovers that the aliens, Simon and Leonidas, aren’t planning to probe him… huge relief. Instead, after injecting Luke with nano-translators so he can understand them, they tell him that his parents, both astronauts who were pronounced dead during a failed mission to Mars, are still alive... and they need his help to rescue them from an evil spider-alien dictator named Drac Moor. There’s just one itsy bitsy catch. Luke will first need to be “reconditioned” so that he can withstand the harsh alien atmospheres that he’ll be subjected to. Oh… and it’s probably going to hurt a little. Follow along as Luke stumbles through one disaster after another, in an attempt to pull off a daring prison break and free his parents before it’s too late.

    It’s the last place you should be. Gabriel doesn't know how it began. Nobody does, not even Kane, and he was President. Gabriel was on a tour of the White House with Mags and the rest of Miss Kimble’s first-graders when it happened. They fled in helicopters to a long-abandoned mountain bunker, even as the first of the missiles found their targets.Ten years have passed, and Gabriel still lives deep inside the mountain, waiting for the world to thaw. But outside the ash-storms continue to rage, and supplies are running low. The President says it will be okay, but Gabriel isn’t so sure. He’s their scavenger; he’s seen what it’s like out there.Then one day Gabriel finds a bloodstained map. The blood’s not a problem, nor are the frozen remains of the person it once belonged to. Gabriel’s used to seeing dead bodies; there's far worse to be found in any Walmart or Piggly Wiggly you care to wander into. Except this one he recognizes, and it shouldn’t be here. Now all Gabriel can think is how he's going to make it back to the bunker to let the President know what he's found.But the map Gabriel has found is the key to a secret, one that has been buried for a decade. Gabriel's about to learn that inside the mountain things are not as they seem. And to get Mags and the others out he will need to face the thing that terrifies him most.

    Three stories of hope, sorrow, and sacrifice. Three groups of heroes, whose personal quests lead them to discover that a fourth kingdom, long forgotten, lies dormant. But no more. Unless these heroes, bitter enemies of each other, can put aside their enmity, then Cithria will rise again, and everyone else will fall into the abyss.

     CITY OF ROGUES: Book I of The Kobalos Trilogy Kron Darkbow seeks vengeance, and he plans to have it no matter the costs. Returning to the city of his birth after 15 years, he hunts down the wizard responsible for the deaths of those he loved only to find out another was responsible for the murders. That other is Belgad the Liar, a former barbarian chieftain who is now boss of the city's underworld.  ROAD TO WRATH: Book II of The Kobalos Trilogy Kron Darkbow has fled the city of Bond, along with healer mage Randall Tendbones and professional duelist Adara Corvus. Everywhere they turn are enemies. Even the goal of their travels offers no peace, for the group rides to the land of Kobalos where Randall must face that nation’s Lord Verkain, the alleged Dark King of the North.  DARK KING OF THE NORTH: Book III of The Kobalos Trilogy Kron Darkbow and companions have survived the mean streets of the city of Bond and the dangers of the Prison Lands, but now they dare to journey into Kobalos, a dark northern land ruled by King Verkain, a powerful mage rumored to be immortal and mad.  Always on their trail is underworld crime boss Belgad the Liar and his crew of deadly killers. Not only does Belgad seek vengeance against Kron, but he also wants to capture Kron's friend, the healer Randall Tendbones, the last of Verkain's children whom the king wants dead.  It is in Kobalos, in the darkest of hours, alone with enemies all around, Darkbow becomes the last hope for all. But to defeat his foes, first he must learn to defeat his own rage. GHOSTS OF THE ASYLUM: Book I of The Horrors of Bond Trilogy The streets of the city of Bond boil with discontent.  Political struggles within a power vacuum bring dreams of dominance to some among the lower levels of the city’s underbelly. Common thugs and guild bosses alike conspire together, their goal to eliminate the figure of Kron Darkbow.  Permanently.  Kron has become a symbol on the streets, and his removal would not only clear the way for others, but also would be a sign of who has the real power in Bond.  Amidst the chaos, buildings burn, riots go nearly unchecked, and even the city guard find themselves forced to retreat.  DEMON CHAINS: Book II of The Horrors of Bond Trilogy A sick murderer stalks the streets of the city of Bond.  The killer leaves behind tortured and twisted bodies sliced and ripped apart, often after the most horrible of violations. It falls upon Kron Darkbow to hunt this killer preying upon the weak and the strong alike, but he soon realizes there is more than one culprit involved in these horrible crimes. A dark mage and his demon partner are at fault, and with each death they grow more and more powerful.  THE COMPANY OF SEVEN: Book III of The Horrors of Bond Trilogy An undead mage thousands of years old slinks through the city of Bond.  Rising up from beneath the soil, he soon finds himself allied with escaped fugitives from the Prisonlands, a former knight, a pair of assassins and the chief of thieves.  Each has their own wants, their own goals, but the wizard's are the most deadly to the citizens of Bond, and he refuses to be denied his destiny.