Lorelle of the Dark, page 36
“I’m busy,” she said as she placed a glittering gem onto whatever lay before her.
“This won’t take long. I’m looking for someone.”
“So go look.”
“This someone is on your continent. I ask for permission to come there, to look for him.”
Deihmankos’s face soured. “You’re joking.”
“It is important.”
“You want me to let you into my realm and roam around, interrogating my people, no doubt using magic in Daemanon?”
“Yes.”
“I see no reason to help you, and even if I did, you wouldn’t pay the price I would exact. The old accords still stand, the last time I checked. Unless you wish to challenge me.” She almost purred the last.
“Do it, Deihmankos. It is in all of our benefit for you to aid me. We will need to help each other if we are to survive what is coming. Or should I be talking to Ihnassrios instead? She seems to be gaining power quickly, and right under your nose.”
“Ihnassrios does nothing that isn’t part of my design, whether she knows it or not. I don’t need your help. I never have.”
“You will.”
“Will I, now?”
“Nhevalos is moving. He is scheming. He is in your lands.”
The bitch went silent for that.
“Nhevalos is dead,” she said with icy certainty. “Harkandos hunted him after the war was lost.”
That stunned Tovos. He’d never heard that story, and a chill of fear went up his back. If Harkandos had hunted Nhevalos, and Nhevalos was still alive, then surely Harkandos was dead. But how?
Frustration rose within Tovos. Nhevalos wielded barely a fraction of the power Harkandos had. How could that weasel have bested him?
Because Nhevalos did not fight with strength. Somehow, he must have tricked Harkandos, like he had at the battle of Mallorn. Somehow…
“Nhevalos lives,” Tovos said, trying to keep his surprise from his face. “He plots again.”
Deihmankos remained silent for a long moment. Finally, she said, “How do you know?”
“His footprints are all over one of my kingdoms here. Usara.”
“I remember Usara,” she replied grimly.
Of course she did. She’d lost a hand in that battle. Tovos had seen it cut from her body by one of Nhevalos’s champions. She’d grown it back later, of course, but that was not an easy, quick, or pleasant spell to endure.
“Then let’s work together to ensure we don't face that again. Let me visit your Thuroi. Let me look for signs of Nhevalos’s passage.”
“I will do it myself,” she offered. He could see the loathing in her eyes. Her hunger for Nhevalos’s blood was almost as strong as his.
“You will never find him.”
“And you will?”
“I have been studying him and his ways for two millennia. No one knows Nhevalos like I do.”
“Then why haven’t you killed him by now?” Her smile bordered on a sneer, and he knew she was goading him… testing the rage she knew always boiled just beneath his surface.
Tovos drew in a breath, exerting all his control. He wanted to crush her throat with his bare hands, but he calmed himself.
“Ask Harkandos,” Tovos said. Her sneering smile faded.
“If you come into my realm, I will destroy you,” Deihmankos said.
“This is how we lost.”
“Your memory may be mired in the Betrayer’s War, but I remember the wars before, the wars of the Kolossoi when my father trusted yours, trusted all you slithering Noksonoi, and he died for it.”
“If you don’t let me follow him, and yours is the land where he’s chosen to hide, you’ll regret it. Nhevalos plots against all of us, not just me.”
“You’re not coming here.”
“Deihmankos—”
“I will allow you to send an agent.” She cut him off. “I will give you aid in your fruitless quest and exact a toll of my choosing when it suits me. Agreed?”
Now it was Tovos’s turn to hesitate. “That will suffice,” he finally said. “I will start in the east.”
“Hapreth’s Nuraghi, then.”
“Yes.”
“Fine.”
“Thank you, Deihmankos.”
She cut the connection.
Tovos drew a deep breath and moved his stool to the next mirror.
I am coming for you, Nhevalos, he thought. Soon, there will be nowhere you can hide from me.
The End
Of
Lorelle of the Dark
Continue your Eldros Adventure in the next book in the series:
Rhenn the Traveler
by
Todd Fahnestock
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About the Author
Todd Fahnestock is an award-winning, #1 bestselling author of fantasy for all ages and winner of the New York Public Library’s Books for the Teen Age Award. Threadweavers and The Whisper Prince Trilogy are two of his bestselling epic fantasy series. He is a winner of the 2021 Colorado Authors League Award for Writing Excellence and two-time finalist for the Colorado Book Award for Tower of the Four: The Champions Academy (2021) and Khyven the Unkillable (2022). His passions are fantasy and his quirky, fun-loving family. When he’s not writing, he teaches Taekwondo, swaps middle grade humor with his son, plays Ticket to Ride with his wife, plots creative stories with his daughter, and plays vigorously with Galahad the Weimaraner. Visit Todd at toddfahnestock.com.
Author’s Note
Lorelle of the Dark was written because I was getting too fat.
Okay, let me back up a little. I’m addicted to sugar. Like, it’s a true-blue addiction. When I’m riding high on the sugar train, I will literally talk myself into believing irrational things to convince myself to gorge on confections.
“I have to have a Coke to get me back into the writing groove. ’Cause, y’know, I read somewhere that sugar fires up the neurons. So really, I need this to do my job today.”
“It’s Easter! You’re supposed to have a chocolate bunny on Easter. It’s practically mandatory.”
“If I don't eat that Halloween candy now, it’s going to make me fall off my diet tomorrow.”
“The dog farted. I think that deserves a Chocodile!”
So, as 2021 trundled to a close, the holidays stirred up its typical flurry of friends and family activity, and I took it upon myself to add Christmas cookies to my baking resume.
I already know how to make chocolate chip cookies. I mean, I don't want to brag, but my chocolate chip cookies are legendary. Labeled “crack cookies” by my New York City crew of friends, they are everything a true connoisseur of chewy, melty, chocolatey cookies craves. In fact, they are the first thing I ever learned to bake, all in an effort, of course, to catch the attention of a super-cute actress I met in New York way back in the late 1990s. It worked, by the way. Well, sort of. But that’s a different story.
So, there I was buying cookie cutters, edible eyeballs for cookie snowmen, and the octo-compartment cookie decorators with their colored sugars (green and red, of course), and star-and-dot sprinkles. I invested in the flour and sugar (which is almost all that goes into a Christmas cookie) by the pound, stocking up our baking storage containers. With such an outlay, I think my subconscious was already hatching a plan. When my second batch actually turned out awesome (I give myself lots of room for mistakes when I undertake a new baking endeavor), I began to give some thought to what I was going to do with all these new things I’d purchased.
That’s when the plan came into focus.
At this juncture, it’s important to note: baking is the perfect mental vacation from writing. Writing is all about pulling creativity from the depths of the imagination, which is all about change and surprises, and making a truckload of decisions every day, all day, which is mentally exhausting for anyone.
For me, baking is about a proscribed rhythm that, once I’ve achieved my desired product through trial and error, just repeats and repeats. No surprises. I follow the recipe, make no new decisions, and fall into a rhythm of measuring and pouring, mixing, and dolloping, timing the flow of my operation and making sure the cookie sheets spring from the oven at that apex of chewy/crispiness (for chocolate chip cookies) and whiteness/brownness (for Christmas cookies).
All this is relaxing to my beleaguered brain.
So, as I contemplated the wealth of cookie-making resources, I decided I wasn’t just going to make cookies for me. I was going to make cookies for everyone I knew. The assembly line began. And I loved it.
Make the dough. Taste the dough. Have some more dough.
Make the cookies. Taste the cookies. Have an extra cookie. Throw some milk in a cup and drink it down. Now I need another cookie.
I think you see where I’m going.
As the manic Christmas activity settled into the big day and gave way to that restful, contemplative week between December 25 and January 1, I began to look forward. What did I want to accomplish in 2022?
Well, those of you who follow everything I write will know that I released a book called Ordinary Magic last year wherein I chronicled a 5-week, 450-mile hike over the Colorado Trail with my 14-year-old son during the summer of 2020. During that trek, I lost 25 lb. (along with sizable chunks of my ego), which proved to me that I could lose 25 pounds (true), and strangely also proved to me that I could eat anything I wanted and still lose 25 pounds (False. Unless you’re burning 7,000 calories a day because you just hiked 18 miles. Every day. For 5 weeks).
But my rebellious, irrational sugar-mind latched onto this halcyon notion that I could eat what I did on the trail while back in the posh relaxation of city life and still lose weight.
The result? I returned to civilization and within six months gained back those 25 lb.
So, as I approached the end of 2021, in the wake of my cookie-gobbling, I formed a plan to shed those 25 lb. again, this time in a sustainable way.
Here’s where writing comes into the mix. Managing my weight was not the only issue plaguing me last December. I had hit writer’s block for the first time in my life, and it was ripping me up inside. You see, I’d accrued a bunch of attention for my work early in the year.
And the positive press had paralyzed me.
I had begun working on The Slate Wizards, the third book in the Whisper Prince series, and I was so paranoid that this story wouldn’t live up to my latest, award-winning books that I second-guessed myself all over the place.
“The novel is a hot mess…”
“This steaming pile of self-indulgence can’t possibly compare to Tower of the Four…”
The anchor of expectation got heavier and heavier around my neck. I started. I stopped. I backtracked. I deleted and added. And I finally swirled to a halt in late November in utter despair. I tried to shake it off, failed. So, I chucked the half-baked novel into the trunk and made cookies instead.
But as I headed toward New Years, as my resolve to get back in shape burst forth, burning like a thousand pounds of ignited fuel, I hitched my writing woes to that same rocket.
January, I decided, was going to be a tribute to willpower. For my health, I was going to hold myself accountable for striking sugar and alcohol from my diet, eating primarily vegetables, and moderating my intake of everything else. For my profession, I was going to write an average of 1,000 words a day. (As an aside, I’m capable of writing 2,000 to 3,000 words a day, but I wanted a goal that was readily attainable so as to fend off discouragement.) I was going to build a rhythm. I was going to be relaxed, easy, and methodical. I was going create a “new normal.”
I was terrified of The Slate Wizards.
The very idea of going back to the book that had thrown me seemed like tempting fate. I mean, I supposed it was just because I’d had mental vapor-lock, but what if the novel was like quicksand? What if it pulled me back under and I spent the next six months like I’d spent the last?
I couldn’t risk it. I had to start fresh. I had to give myself a clean slate and the opportunity to “write a crappy novel.”
The sequel to Khyven the Unkillable wasn't due for nine months. It was nowhere near the top of my priority list and perhaps because of that fact, it felt safer. I mean, if I totally screwed it up, I’d have a lot of time to get it into shape, right?
So, I started.
Immediately the fears rose inside me. This was supposed to be the sequel to Khyven’s story, but Lorelle jumped forward as the lead character. She had the arc. She had the transformation that needed to happen. Khyven had come through his fire and made himself better. Now it was her turn.
In the early days of January, I struggled with this, trying to turn the book back into being Khyven’s book, but Lorelle wouldn’t let go.
January passed. I averaged 1,500 words a day and totaled 45,000 words for the month.
Finally, I gave up trying to force it to go as expected. Khyven was going to be a supporting character this time. Lorelle had the reins and I let her run. She led us deep into the noktum. She showed us the civilization of the Nox. She took us face to face with a Giant and a dragon.
So. Clearly. The right. Decision.
It was once again that same old bit of writerly wisdom. My subconscious was screaming at me to get the hell out of my own way, to let my expectations drop and let the story unfold.
February passed. I averaged 2,353 words a day, totaled 65,874 for the month, and finished the rough draft. “Khyven II” got renamed Lorelle of the Dark, and it was official. Not only did it create a better story, but it set a new direction for this collection in Legacy of Shadows.
March and half of April passed. I cut 22,000 words and added 16,000 more, and then I was done. Done and done. After telling Lara I suspected the novel sucked (to which she replied, “That’s nice, dear.”), I sent it out to my alpha readers.
The feedback came back positive, and I breathed a sigh of relief. My writer’s block was, apparently, over.
So that’s how me feeling too fat led to the production of Lorelle of the Dark. Although I suspect losing weight wasn’t exactly my main drive heading into 2022. I suspect it was a feint by my subconscious, which stepped in and helped me out, kept me from looking at my real problem head on, and crafted a “list” of things to accomplish where “oh, writing is just a part of that list…”
The subconscious can be crafty, no?
But incidentally, as of this morning, I’ve lost a total 12.5 lb. since January 1. Gonna work on the other half in May.
And probably start Rhenn the Traveler…
If You Liked…
If you enjoyed this novel and the world it’s set in, then the creators of the Eldros Legacy would like to encourage you to don thy traveling pack and journey deeper into the mysteries of the world Eldros and all the myriad adventures set therein.
The mortal world of Eldros is coming apart. The Giants, who once ruled its five continents with draconian malice have set their mighty designs on a return to power. Mortals across the globe must be victorious against insurmountable odds or die.
Come join us as the Eldros Legacy unfolds in a growing library of novels and short stories.
You can find all the novels at:
EldrosLegacy.com/books
Our website is, of course:
EldrosLegacy.com
The Books by Series
Legacy of Shadows
by Todd Fahnestock
Khyven the Unkillable
Lorelle of the Dark
Rhenn the Traveler
Legacy of Deceit
by Quincy J. Allen
Seeds of Dominion
Demons of Veynkal
Legacy of Dragons
by Mark Stallings
The Forgotten King
Knights of Drakanon (Forthcoming)
Sword of Binding (Forthcoming)
Return of the Lightbringer (Forthcoming)
Legacy of Queens
by Marie Whittaker
Embers & Ash
Cinder & Stone (Forthcoming)
The Dog Soldier’s War
by Jamie Ibson
A Murder of Wolves
Valleys of Death (Forthcoming)
Warrior Mages of Pyranon
by C.A. Farrell
Dark & Secret Paths
The Areyat Islands
by Aaron Rosenberg
Deadly Fortune
Stealing the Storm (Forthcoming)
Crimson Fang
by HY Gregor
Stonewhisper (Forthcoming)
Other Eldros Legacy Novels
The Pain Bearer by Kendra Merritt
Short Stories
Here There Be Giants by The Founders (FREE!)
Dawn of the Lightbringer by Mark Stallings
The Darkest Door by Todd Fahnestock
Electrum by Marie Whittaker
Trust Not the Trickster by Jamie Ibson
Fistful of Silver by Quincy J. Allen
What the Eye Sees by Quincy J. Allen
A Rhakha for the Tokonn by Quincy J. Allen
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