Silverblood Read online

  Acclaim for

  Emberhawk

  Finalist for The Independent Audiobook Awards 2021: Young Adult

  Semi-finalist for The Realm Award 2021: Reader’s Choice

  “A heartfelt fantasy whose tinges of darkness don’t threaten the endearing relationship at its core.”

  —Foreword Reviews Magazine

  “Brilliant fantasy with a unique and complex world of elemental entities, political machinations, and unlikely love.”

  —Lorehaven Magazine

  “Emberhawk’s danger grips, the humor lands, and the romance smolders. Foley examines the beauties and hardships of pluralistic societies, and themes of faith, duty, and cultural expectations are skillfully woven into the narrative. Whether you’re looking for an entertaining YA fantasy romp or something a little deeper, Emberhawk delivers.”

  —Lindsay A. Franklin, Carol Award–winning author of The Story Peddler

  “Jamie Foley’s ability to worldbuild opens an easy door for you to step into her creative world. With descriptions so vivid and beautifully written, combined with a fast-paced and exciting plot, you won’t want to miss this new offering from Foley.”

  —Beth Wiseman, bestselling and award-winning author for HarperCollins Christian Publishing

  “An enthralling story about love in a world on the brink of war. Though I suppose I should warn you that her captivating world building, vivid prose, and compelling plot are certain to lead to sleepless nights and antisocial tendencies.”

  —Elizabeth Newsom, author of Captive and Crowned

  “Emberhawk has all the ingredients of a great book, tied together beautifully: heart-pounding danger, delicious romance, wonderfully complex characters, a fascinating magic system, and an explosive ending. I cannot wait to read the sequel.”

  —Catherine Jones Payne, author of Breakwater

  “Fantasy at its finest! The rich world-building and gorgeous prose pulled me deep into the story, and the fascinating characters and brilliant story kept me turning pages well into the night. Emberhawk has it all: tension-filled adventure, a slow-burn romance, and witty characters who will steal your heart and tug your emotions.”

  —S.D. Grimm, author of Scarlet Moon

  “Emberhawk weaves intrigue, romance, and vivid worldbuilding into a tapestry of a story that readers will marvel at. The unique magic system, dynamic characters, and slow-burn romance create a riveting read that can’t be missed!”

  —R.J. Metcalf, author of Renegade Skyfarer

  “Vibrant worldbuilding and rich cultures make Emberhawk sing! Add to that a spunky heroine and snarky hero (not to mention that explosive ending) . . . and when can I read Book Two?”

  —Gillian Bronte Adams, author of The Songkeeper Chronicles

  Books by Jamie Foley

  The Sentinel Trilogy

  Book 1: Sentinel

  Book 2: Arbiter

  Book 3: Sage

  Prequel: Vanguard

  The Busy Mom Guides

  The Busy Mom’s Guide to Writing

  The Busy Mom’s Guide to Indie Publishing

  The Busy Mom’s Guide to Novel Marketing

  Steampunk Fairy Tales Volume III

  The Katrosi Revolution

  Book 1: Emberhawk

  Book 2: Silverblood

  Book 3: Lotusfall

  Silverblood

  Copyright © 2021 by Jamie Foley

  EPUB Edition

  Published by Fayette Press

  Bastrop, Texas, USA.

  www.fayettepress.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, digitally stored, or transmitted in any form without written permission from Fayette Press.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-1-953419-50-7 (printed hardback)

  ISBN: 978-1-953419-49-1 (printed softcover)

  ISBN: 978-1-953419-52-1 (ebook)

  Cover design by Jamie Foley

  Editing by Sarah Grimm

  Typesetting by Jamie Foley

  Audiobook production by Brenda Scott Wlazlo

  To my grandparents:

  my namesake veteran, the one who led me to Christ,

  the gardener & historian, and the cowboy.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Acclaim for Emberhawk

  Half-Title

  Books by Jamie Foley

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Map

  Family Tree

  Glossary

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Acknowledgments

  Author Biography

  Glossary

  AEO—The creator god who formed the physical and spiritual realms and all races therein.

  AEO LEYWA AI SHEA—A farewell wish in the Ancient language meaning, ‘Aeo be with you and protect you.’

  AETHER—A spiritual energy generated by one’s soul.

  ALANI—The name of the planet on which the story takes place.

  AMOS—A semi-mortal shapeshifter who serves as the primary source of power for their element. There is one amos for each element.

  BALEMBA—A Phoeran word meaning ‘butterfly.’

  D’HAKKA—A giant tree-scorpion with an appetite for large prey.

  ELEMENTALS—Shape-shifting spirits created after angels but before humans, thus their nickname ‘second born.’ There are one amos elemental and seven trai’yeth elementals for each of the four elements: Malo (liquid), Terruth (solid), Aris (gas), and Phoera (energy).

  RUPERO—Syn-forged coin currency used by the Phoeran tribes.

  SYN—The silvery metal in a human’s blood that allows them to control their element. Elementals control syn itself as well as their element.

  TRACE CAT—An apex predator the size of a lion. They wield the Phoera element to manipulate light, disappearing without a trace.

  TRAI’YETH—Shape-shifting lesser elementals who can remove syn from humans and redistribute it. Means ‘sealing vessel’ in Ancient.

  TRIBES—The five tribes that immigrated from Illyria across the Rift Ocean hundreds of years ago: the Katrosi, Emberhawk, Roanoke, Darkwood, and Sekoiako.

  XAVI—Like feathered velociraptors with the faces of dragons, xavi are native to the tribal lands and used as mounts by the Malaano Empire.

 
ZOTH—A frigid region of the spiritual realm occupied by exiled rebel angels, said to be devoid of the creator’s light and warmth.

  Lysander drifted from sleep and wondered why Zoth felt so familiar. Surely that creator-forsaken region of the spiritual realm was where an assassin like him should end up after a fiery battle in the skies over Jadenvive. A battle he’d lost.

  He couldn’t be in heaven—the pain radiating from his gut blended with nausea in a dizzying whirl, and the air smelled of smoke and rot from a forgotten butcher’s cellar.

  But he couldn’t be alive, either, because his mother had killed him.

  He grimaced through the mental fog. No, Zamara wasn’t truly his mother—she was only an elemental shape-shifter, who fancied herself a goddess. A false goddess he’d failed to defeat.

  So why was he still breathing?

  Lysander winced at the pain and spat the taste of rust from his tongue. He blinked at letters burned into the charred wood of the ceiling, somehow written as elegantly as if with a quill forged from embers.

  You’re welcome, Oathbreaker.

  Surprise mingled with dread and sludged through his tired veins. The only one who called him “Oathbreaker” was Felix, the elemental who’d given his power to Lysander in exchange for an oath of loyalty. So Felix had saved him and placed him . . . where?

  Lysander hissed under his breath as he pushed himself to standing from a fire-scarred sofa. The charred husk of a room bore unnatural burn marks—dead coals and heat stains abruptly stopped halfway through the former living room. Ash flitted through the remains of a window frame on the left with a bright view of the treetop city and forested horizon beyond.

  Clearly the work of the Phoera element. Felix must have stopped the blaze, then surrounded the sofa with the same flame-retardant goo that stuck to Lysander’s boots.

  He unbuttoned his leather jerkin and peered down at his chest. The palette of colors smeared colors across his skin were a sure sign of internal bleeding—the result of Zamara violently ripping the elemental power from his veins. Did Felix cauterize my internal wounds?

  No wonder it felt like he’d been mauled by a gryphon.

  A curse tumbled from his chapped lips. What had become of his gryphon, Sorrel? Had she been captured? Killed? Was she still waiting in the forest for his return?

  What about Ryon? Had Felix saved him too?

  How long had he been asleep?

  Lysander ignored growling hunger as he maneuvered to the window. Far below, the wooden layers of platforms bustled with activity. Soldiers bearing the painted masks of the Katrosi tribe hauled boxes, stretchers, and unidentifiable remains.

  So Felix had placed Lysander on one of the top levels. How in the stars was he supposed to get all the way down without the Katrosi catching him? His mother’s Valinorian heritage made him stick out from tribesmen like a wild saber-tooth in a pride of royal striped trace cats.

  He wants me to get caught. Lysander took a deep breath, and his diaphragm pinched in protest. He should have let me die. Zamara would flay him for trying to assassinate her.

  Wait—if Lysander were still alive, and so was Felix, and Jadenvive hadn’t burned to the ground, did that mean the false goddess was . . . dead? Zamara wasn’t the type to surrender or retreat.

  Lysander couldn’t afford to entertain the notion. He had to get out of Katrosi territory before they executed him.

  He covered his mouth as he coughed, hopefully not making much noise—his deaf ears couldn’t tell. He reached out to the Phoera element and found it humming in his blood like a nest of ice hornets. Felix had stuffed him to the brim with elemental power.

  Lysander made a fist and rubbed soot from his thumb. If Felix was giving syn to him, and in such generous amounts, Zamara must have been slain. She would have left behind a mountain of silver dust fraught with fiery potential.

  The thought of freedom was too tempting to savor, so Lysander shoved it from his mind and summoned the Phoera element. The flows of sound energy appeared around him, flickering in different directions in his mind’s eye—not discernable in nature, but in strength, like the feel of vibrations against his skin. Those sharp, quick bursts of energy were probably someone yelling beyond the wall behind him. And the deep, distant resonance could have been carts rumbling along the ground far below.

  Lysander buttoned up his jerkin and made his way to the room’s door, grimacing as the wooden planks beneath his boots reverberated with the sound energy—either creaking boards or maybe the squishing of goo on his boots.

  His hand moved to the sheath on his right hip, then his left. Then his boot, and the hidden fold of leather underneath his cloak. All of his knives were gone.

  Bleed you, Felix!

  The door stuck in its frame and wouldn’t budge. Lysander released a steadying breath and pulled his cloak’s hood over his black hair. He wasn’t about to climb down the crumbling firewood on the other side of the room, but opening this door would probably make enough noise to attract attention.

  He kicked it open.

  Jadenvive’s main upper road stretched out before him, snaking between restaurants, shops, and taverns. Scavengers held cloths to their mouths against fading plumes of smoke that sifted through rope bridges, lower levels, and nets below.

  If anyone noticed Lysander, they didn’t approach him. He released a breath of relief, then shut the door behind him and joined the flow of the crowd as if he had a purpose of the utmost importance.

  If Ryon’s alive, he’ll be at the orphanage. Lysander kept his head down, letting his hood drape as far as it could fall over his face. The wooden street below him glistened with frost—probably kept at an icy temperature by elementalists as a preventive measure against any remaining embers. If there are any true gods out there listening, please let those kids be OK.

  He recalled the complex route to the orphanage in root-tunnels beneath the treetop city. He’d memorized the city’s layout before for an assassination or two. But how much had become damaged and impassible in the recent events?

  Sound energy vibrated before Lysander, directed at him. A hand appeared in front of his chest, forcing him to a sudden stop.

  Lysander’s pulse jump-started. He looked up into the dirty face of a middle-aged man. The man smiled and said something else, but his lips were partially covered by a bushy beard, and Lysander couldn’t determine his words.

  Great. At least the man’s eyes didn’t immediately brighten in recognition.

  Lysander pulled his hood back just enough to reveal a pointed ear—they’d been cut to identify him as one of the deaf. “I can’t hear you,” Lysander said. “Can you sign?” He repeated his question in hand-language, making a gesture for each letter in the Phoeran language with his soot-smeared fingers.

  Understanding dawned on the man’s face. He pointed back to a tent behind him, where women in healer’s garments tended to blanket-covered forms atop cots and palettes.

  Oh, he thinks I’m hurt. I must look like I’ve crawled out of a volcano. Lysander rubbed his chin and found it coated with flaking dried blood. He scratched at it and pulled his hood back over his eyes. “I’m fine, thank—”

  His words died in his throat. Beside the healer’s tent, a troop of Katrosi amber masks guarded the bridge that sloped down to a lower level. They stopped every passerby and peeked in every bag before waving people through.

  One of them was watching him. As they made eye contact, the man pointed at Lysander, and sound energy from his direction burst over all other vocal signatures.

  Lysander cursed and turned on his heel. He ducked and ran through the crowd, angling for its most dense pockets.

  At least they were only amber masks—the second-to-lowest rank. And he’d only spotted three of them at the checkpoint.

  Lysander ducked into an alley and scoured his memory for the nearest secret path. Behind the Malaano-style inn called Het’saya, but wasn’t that on a lower level?

  He dashed to the edge of the platform and lea
ped over the railing. Something in his gut stretched in an unpleasant manner as he swung down between the crossbeams.

  The thick wooden supports beneath the platform were suitable for climbing, just as Lysander remembered. He reached for one and ducked onto it as unidentified sounds rattled above him. He reached for the Phoera element and rejected the waves of sound energy around himself, making his footfalls and movements silent as death.

  Lysander clung to a wooden strut and craned his neck to look toward the underside of the bridge. Pain in his stomach warned against acrobatics. He ignored it.

  A man swung down on a braided rope ahead, hanging by a hook on the bridge’s cross-beams. Red eyes focused on Lysander through a mask painted like a scowling yellow demon.

  Lysander cursed and rushed back in the opposite direction. The amber masks might be the second-to-lowest Katrosi rank—above foot soldiers but below specialists and the chieftess’ bodyguards—but they excelled in the defense of tribal villages. He should have known they’d be equipped with climbing gear in a treetop city.

  He abandoned the Phoera element and instead focused on landing a risky jump to a metal-plated support. He glanced over his shoulder and made sure not to look down. The amber masks swung through the maze of beams with disturbing speed.

  Lysander reached the edge and pulled himself up. Darkness danced around the corners of his vision. The railing raked across his back as he ducked beneath it. Where to hide: inside a building or within the crowd?

  If only he were as skilled at Phoera invisibility as Ryon. The ability to become invisible and silent simultaneously would be great, too.

  Lysander dashed toward a tavern and rounded its corner. Maybe if he could—

  Something cracked against the back of his head, sending him down to one knee. He whipped around and planted an uppercut in his attacker’s gut.

  The man who fell wasn’t even masked. The guards got civilians involved?

  He looked up into faces of terror among the crowd, all focused on him, like he was a monster from the depths of Lake Mossu. His dulled ears picked up faint deep-pitched cries, like underwater screams.