Publisher's Synopsis
Assorted Tales - an Eald Cearo fantasy short story collection This is an Eald Cearo collection featuring the following stories: Finding Home 'Love is where you belong, not in the hate of others. Yet first you must accept your deeds.' Outlaw, murderer, pariah: for Vess Baer they are titles earned, and now worn with regret. While outrunning his past, he has found love; a heart he can call home. All he wants is to stay there, despite the mistrust of his lover's father. When time and the king's men catch up with him, he must choose between life and love; between who he has been and who he is becoming. He learns that responsibility comes at a terrible cost, but one which must be met. Will he choose to belong or to be free? Life Of Choices 'A spark of magic - that is what life is about. If you hide away, safe, then what's it worth?' Ama Rhaldyek is a girl with little experience of life. She is thrust into a dire situation in which she must learn anew about herself and what it means to really live. The end of all she knows gives her stark choices: live to avenge and die to heal. She must choose her true purpose and the decisions she makes in a place of death will change her forever. Will her path be straight or winding? Family Creed 'I am my deeds, pure and as they are. No more and no less.' Noah Kalesso is a man who knows who he is, and what he is. As an acolyte assassin of the Nizarishin, he had seen his share of endings; his own traumatic past buried beneath the Creed. Yet on the eve of his initiation, he finds that matters of life and death are not always so easily judged. He must make decisions which could shatter his identity and call into question his whole life's meaning. Desolate Hopes 'Now I must make my heart numb or have it break a thousand times over.' Abel Balat cares nothing for life and seeks harm's way at every chance. When he becomes shipwrecked, he accepts his knight's bidding to explore the dangers of the coast, hoping to find them. Left distraught by his daughter's death, he longs to hate those lurking in the wilds as much as he loathes himself. A chance meeting gives him reason to live a little longer and brings his adventure to a bleak and gods forsaken ruin by the sea. The choices he makes there will affect the rest of his life. Will he find the end he searches for? By Evil Means 'We must wear our blessings and curses alike, for we cannot escape either.' Immin Grada will do anything for the woman he loves and cares little of consequences. When greed and arrogance lead him to the tomb of one of the ancients, he sees it as an opportunity to secure her heart. What he finds in a place of evil threatens to take away all his dreams; shows him the nature of his deeds. He finds that both hope and despair rest upon fine margins. Will he lose his love and life, or turn back the hour?