Heart Price

by KL Richardson

They kidnapped Mikael. They kidnapped his family and killed his parents. Now, they may succeed in ending Soren's very world. It's time to stop them.

Soren's life changed the moment his cousin Katjin brought home a renegade heart-sense.  Forced to act as guardian over the wayward pair, Soren created his own mess when he bound Katjin and Mikael in a ritual so old people had forgotten its consequences: a bond between two people so strong that it kept them physically together. Soren's world has turned upside down, from the kidnapping and valiant rescue of his family, to his exile from the plains he grew up in. Now Soren's going to turn the tables on the very Empire that has been hunting him for over a year.

Partnered with Aidan, the Shahi firepower, and Aya, lost twin of an Empire 'path, Soren finally has to put the great plan to topple the Empire's hold on the Clanfolk in motion. Even with the support of his renegade uncle, Soren begins to doubt his ideas with every step. His need to save lives combines with the inner struggle that Aidan, Soren's closest friend and ally, seems to be going through, and all Soren can do is keep his act together, damn the consequences. Soren's learning that everything, from victory to love, has its price.

Sample

Nothing from the camp had been saved, so this was a new yer, from the inner, felted cover to the outer canvas. Soren noticed, as he walked in, that the wooden shangrak smelled of freshly-carved wood, its intricately-carved arms not yet stained dark by generations of smoky fires blowing out through it. The walls were bare, lacking Meke’s weavings. Not even Febe’s prized horses had survived. If he thought of the loss in terms of material things, instead of in terms of human lives—Ama, Apa—it made it a little easier to bear. It made facing his cousin, the inadvertent cause of the… the incident a lot easier.

Mikael had said, last year, that wooden walls didn’t last forever, holding in the generations of ghosts that Lowlander stone walls were reputed to contain. Soren wondered if it was the same for the felted walls of the yer. Could the spirits of the dead pass out of the woven veil to join the ancestors? Or would this new Redwind camp be haunted by more than just painful memories?

Wood fell to dust. It burned, in the same way that wool and horsehair and heavy canvas burned. It fell to flames as bodies did, in the great pyres that marked the passing of life. Wood to ash, ash to dust. Soren would always see the remains of the camp now, hoping that something would rise from its ashes.

First, though, he had to face his family, immerse himself again into the regret that he’d tried to forget, these past six moons.

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Genre: Fantasy
Age Range: 14 and up
ISBN: 978-1-60370-817-3, 1-60370-817-0

230 pages / 60000 words / 5x8 trade paperback

Booksellers and librarians, please contact Lorna Hinson at ldoone@torquerepress.com for discount and distribution information.