. I rode to the palace in the mansion’s second carriage. The mansion’s primary carriage was already at the Palace with Mother, of course, so Carson, Mother’s butler, drove me instead of the usual chauffeur. That, for me was a blessing. The primary carriage always carried three or four footmen, because it was fully decorated in Pendor’s livery. The second …

With Tiana Full Battle Mode no longer active, I was beginning to go back into the funk I had been in since leaving the Hero’s Party. Arken sent regular reports to the Palace, so they knew all the details, but I had a duty to report my failure in person. My mother has a small house in the capital… small …

I noticed that the riderless wyverns were following the bandit gang home. They flew as a flock. That being the case, I figured I could just attack the riders and rescue the girls after the riders were dead. Three heads later, one of the bandits got the bright idea to drop the girl mid-air and hope I went after her …

This close to the capital, I knew it couldn’t be foreign troops or demons. It could only be one thing. I needed to drop off my sack. Looking around quickly, I spotted a watchtower along the road leading to the road I had been following, and quickly descended to it. After dodging an arbalest bolt while letting out a very …

. The folk belief was that a sharpened piece of ash through the heart would kill my kind. Well, if you could manage it, most anything driven through someone’s heart would kill them, right? We learned that a pair of village kids had followed us when we went out to face the beast on the hilltop it had chosen for …

“If you continue doing this, we’ll have to stop letting you sleep without a chemise,” Melione scolded as she dug for my clothing. “Honestly! I knew we should have put one on you last night!” The girl was exactly like the writer’s description of her. She was the youngest member of the party, having just turned fifteen at the beginning …

They had tucked me in on a cot near the hearth in the village elder’s house, covered once again with Arken’s blanket. After Melione hand-fed me a simple meal which Tiana’s tastebuds told me was barley gruel, the girl kept watch until I fell asleep. I woke to find something feeling odd. It was still some time during the night, …

. Voices forced my awareness to return. “Tiana!” “Tiana!“ They were annoying, so I shut them out. I felt too tired and too cold to care about them for some reason. “MELIONE! Get over here!” I cracked my eyes open to see two men, one heavily bearded and muscled, the other slender and clean-shaven, staring down at me with worried …

She looked exactly like an interviewer studying my resume. “Based upon your character and actions, the admissions staff has identified you as a hero.” I snorted. I couldn’t help it. “Hero? I fry chicken for a living.” “Robert Stewart,” she read out loud. “25 years old. Graduated from university at age 22 with an English Lit degree. Manager of a …

Dear Readers, a quick author’s note before you begin: I began this novel as a writing exercise while recuperating from severe illness and major surgery, so I simply took a highly cliché scenario and set off from there. However, I soon found myself writing the underlying story seriously (although I admit, in the spirit of the beginning, I have continued …