About the Book
Author: T.L. Shreffler
Genre: YA Fantasy
Release Date: September 12, 2017
With winter solstice fast approaching, Sora and her companions are
running out of time. She must stop The Shade from awakening the Dark God, yet a
powerful force has overtaken her Cat’s-Eye necklace, rendering the stone almost
useless. To use the stone, Sora must learn to trust her instincts and embrace
her own inner strength. She joins forces with unexpected allies, Lord Gracen
Seabourne among them, to protect the City of Crowns.
As the city dissolves into chaos, she finds herself barreling toward an epic battle that will decide the fate of mankind.
As the city dissolves into chaos, she finds herself barreling toward an epic battle that will decide the fate of mankind.
At risk to his own life, Crash returns to the Hive seeking aid against
Cerastes. However, the events that led him into exile have not been forgotten.
Will the Hive offer him redemption, or will they demand he pay the ultimate price for his transgressions?
Will the Hive offer him redemption, or will they demand he pay the ultimate price for his transgressions?
Join Sora and Crash in their epic battle to save the City of Crowns!
Author Bio
Website - http://www.catseyechronicles.com
Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/catseyeauthor
Google+ - https://plus.google.com/+TLShreffler
Instagram - http://www.instagram.com/catseyeauthor
Pre-order available now!
Giveaway
Win 1 signed copy of
Krait’s Redemption, 1 Cat’s Eye Necklace or 1 free eBook copy of the book
during our giveaway!
EXCERPT
Prologue
Crash watched the bonfires in the distance.
Each day, more devotees swelled the Shade’s ranks. Shadow portals
transported them from cities, from fields and mountains—from anywhere—to this
forsaken desert. Nameless warriors pooled beneath a red plateau that towered in
the twilight, blocking the moon.
An army of the lost, Crash thought. Their burning pyres beckoned
to him like lighthouses on a foreign shore. But he had left those fires behind,
walking miles into the flat desert to sit among the sand.
The Shade’s encampment might be in the Desert of Ester, but he wasn’t
sure. His sense of certainty had fled long ago. He wondered at this unprecedented
gathering. He wondered at the royal city’s evacuation, so close to winter
solstice night.
He watched the fires glint against the darkness. He watched, and sat,
and pondered. At first, Cerastes’ army had puzzled him. He didn’t know why a
Grandmaster, typically a solitary figure concerned with martial discipline and
meditation, would want to gather so many numbers. But now, as Crash became more
firmly entrenched in the Shade’s activities, he knew what they were about. He
had thought Cerastes meant to wage war against the human kingdom, but he was
wrong.
Cerastes wanted the Hive.
Crash had realized the Grandmaster’s ambition when the assassin Cobra
had issued his last dying words. It had all become suddenly, perfectly clear. Stop
him. Cobra’s death had returned the arrow to Crash’s compass, and perhaps
for the first time, he knew true north. He knew what he had to do.
He stood and walked away from the crimson fires on the horizon, behind
an outcropping of rocks. There, he emptied a bag onto the ground. Ingredients
for his spell, including a sheaf of yellowed parchment and fresh salamander
ink, fell to the sand. He wrote the spell, then built a small fire out of
venomgrass and willow bark. He drew symbols in the sand, and the flames turned
indigo blue. Then he burned the paper with its written message. A wandering
wind brushed the top of the dunes, carrying wafts of sand and smoke up to the
stars.
He doused the fire when he was finished. Then, his black hood pulled low
over his face, he sat on his heels to wait.
Redemption. A returning, a renewal. Would the Hive help him now, or would they hold
him to his trespasses? Someone must answer, he thought. Someone must
answer his call, his message burned on the wind, and someone must answer for
his Grandmaster’s mistakes.
He thought back to Sora and the rest of his companions in the City of
Crowns, and he felt ashamed. Under the influence of Cerastes’ power, he had
wavered. His demon had sensed his Grandmaster’s dark aura, had sensed a home,
and for a while, he had lost himself. But Sora’s touch—more than that, her
words, her spirit—had brought him back.
He couldn’t fight Cerastes alone. He couldn’t trust his darker half to
resist the Shade’s pull, because he, too, was a discarded outcast of the Hive.
His Grandmaster’s demonic presence was irresistible, drawing close all those
scattered savants with nowhere to belong. Crash had felt his own will tremble.
Even now, he couldn’t quite steady his hands. He couldn’t show Sora his
weakness. More importantly, he couldn’t show it to his own kind.
Someone had to do the right thing. The right thing, he thought
ironically. Someone had to warn the Hive. Anyone who can read the Wind can
read this message, he thought. He only hoped Cerastes was too distracted to
see it.
Hours passed as he waited. The silence of the desert stretched, as
spacious and echoing as a tomb. The stars and moon circled overhead, trailing
across the heavens. He found the constellation of Kaelyn the Wanderer and
asked, begrudgingly, for luck. Then his eyes picked out other celestial
formations known to his race. He recounted their stories in his head: Sibilant,
the assassin so stealthy and quiet, she could walk between this realm and the
world of ghosts; Dartmouth, who replaced his teeth with knives; Marrow, so
cunning he outsmarted the gods and stole the Dark God’s weapons in eons past.
Crash found it ironic that, despite all that had transpired, a story could
still lend him courage. And each star was a story, a light in the dark, a dream
in the abyss.
The wind picked up without warning. A whirl of sand twisted up from the
ground, building, growing. Then a figure stepped from the dust.
Crash stood up. He didn’t know what to expect.
The sand settled. A woman dressed in black stood before him. She was
insidiously tall. Her hair fell in plaited rows down her back. He noted the
chakrams at her belt: circular blades that could remove a man’s head with a
single powerful throw. Her eyes glowed the shocking green of aloe.
Memory stirred, and he recognized her. He searched for her name. It came
to him.
“Grandmaster Natrix,” he bowed.
“Viper,” she returned, and waited for him to straighten. “I have
listened long for word of my brother. Tell me, what has Cerastes done?”
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