YA Fantasy
Date Published: 09-13-2023
Publisher: Shadow Spark Publishing
More than night terrors keep Kari awake at night. Ari languishes beside her, broken by the horrors Raven bestowed upon him.
She hopes he heals, and soon.
When a familiar presence and an unexplainable human with magic happen upon their doorstep, Kari and Ari make a decision: leave Raziac Village in search of answers and a new home.
But the heart eater waits for them.
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About the Author
Valerie Storm was raised in Tucson, Arizona. Growing up, she fell in love with everything fantasy. When she wasn’t playing video games, she was writing. By age ten, she began to write her own stories as a way to escape reality. When these stories became a full-length series, she considered the path to sharing with other children & children-at/heart looking for a place to call home.
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Excerpt from "Heart of the Storm"
Kari
pushed away her steak, half-eaten. “Can this place be real?”
Rathik looked up from his turkey. “Sometimes
I can’t believe it myself, and I headed the revolution.”
Ari
leaned over his plate, eyes widening. “You did? How?”
“From
within the town itself. I was on the guard. I hid myself, too.” Rathik looked
at Kari. “My commanding officer believed I had a skin disease.”
A
sudden memory pricked her attention. The day she’d run into a guard in Snow
Shade—after stealing the magic book for Kiki—she’d glimpsed scales on that man’s
face and forgotten all about it.
Guine
snorted. “Nice.”
Rathik inclined his head. “My
position enabled me to sneak demons in. I was just trying to help sickly ones
at first. Eventually my name—different than the one I used as a guard—became
infamous.” He laughed, shaking his head, and took a sip of ale.
“I…I remember your name. Rathik.”
Kari wracked her brain, remembering the first bolt of lightning she had called
down; it had been glorious, though it also represented the first time she had
felt the burning fire of the Catalyst. She’d been attacked by a demon yelling
about a Rathik.
Rathik grimaced. “I became a
rallying point for many demons in the north, and it wasn’t long until the Lord
Isaac was looking for me.”
Kari, nodded, recalling that, too.
“Lord
Isaac became frantic, especially when a man and his wife were found dead in
their homes. He ordered searches, and it wasn’t long before my friends were
found out. One died, trying to protect the others.”
Kari’s
throat tightened. Ari shifted so she could grab his arm. Guine glanced at them.
“It
was me,” she muttered in a hoarse whisper.
“What?”
Rathik asked.
“It
was my fault your friend died. I…I was the one who killed those two humans.”
She’d
had no choice, she’d told herself, yet that hadn’t been true. How many times
had Kiki tried to convince her they could run away without leaving any bodies
behind? And Kari had refused, sure that killing Anne and Joseph was the only
true way to honor her parents.
If
she’d listened, Kiki may have lived, and Rathik’s friend wouldn’t have died.
Rathik
leaned over the table. “No. Trust me, Kari. It was only a matter of time before
Lord Isaac snapped. Even Dorn, from Isaac’s council, said he was well on his
way to madness without anyone’s help.”
“He’s
right,” Ari said, rubbing her. “Even we’d heard some stories in Raziac. You
aren’t to blame for his actions.”
Kari
caught Guine’s eye, his expression indiscernible, then frowned at her plate.
Rathik nodded. “His own people saw
it. Some of them helped us, guiding our peaceful speeches to fellow humans, and
reconciling began. Now we have this.”
He waved his hand, gesturing at the
room.
“Even though I’d heard of the
revolution, I can hardly believe my eyes,” Ari said. “This place is
unimaginable.”
If you could choose any time and place in history to live for a day, where and when would it be, and why?
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