Official Synopsis of Point of Fate  

Spring has come to the northern kingdom of Torel. No longer a fugitive, Aidan Gairden has claimed Heritage, the ancestral blade of his royal bloodline, and rules as Crown as the North. But even as the snows of winter thaw, darkness spreads across the continent of Crotaria, threatening its four realms with eternal night.

In the north, Torel's capital sits vulnerable as the Ward marches west to fight a misguided war, leaving Daniel Shirey scrambling to fortify the city against the undead gathering outside its walls. In the east, Edmund Calderon petitions Leaston's ruling guild to add their ships and steel to Torel's cause even as grief and inner demons overwhelm him.

In the south, Christine Lorden struggles to unite the Touched under Aidan's banner while her people, the oppressed Sallnerians, entreat her to lead an uprising against Torel. In the west, Aidan works to convince Nichel of the Wolf, now war chief of the Darinian tribes, of the plot to turn Torel and Darinia against each other. Torn between vengeance and love, Nichel wrestles with an ancient and malevolent magic that has awakened within her, stoking a bloodlust she fears will never be sated.

At the heart of every conflict, Tyrnen Symorne—one-time friend and counselor—pulls strings as the Point of Fate that will decide the fate of the realms draws near.

Learn More About David L. Craddock 

 Partial Excerpt from Chapter One of Point of Fate  

The following excerpt comes from Chapter 1 of Point of Fate: Book Two of the Gairden Chronicles by David L. Craddock. Point of Fate will be published in paperback and electronic formats by Tyche Books on August 28, 2018, and is available for pre-order on Amazon and Kobo. Heritage: Book One of the Gairden Chronicles was published in 2014.

Chapter 1: Doom of the Wild

The road to the Father’s Vanguard is paved with hot coals and sharp stones.

Romen of the Wolf had spoken those words to Nichel after a hardship. The meshia, the climb, the attempt on her life by an assassin of the Blood. Never before had the words rang truer. Hot coals and sharp stones were as nothing to the man looming over her.

  

With one hand, Guyde of the Bear removed his helm and tossed it casually over the side of Janleah Keep. It scraped and bounced against stone. The man staring back at her had a hard face carved with scars. His eyes were bright, passionate, pleading.

“Do not do this,” he said. “I will avenge your father. Aidan Gairden will pay for—”

At that name, her fear vanished. Nichel darted forward. Silk spun in her right hand as Sand jabbed at Guyde’s exposed throat. His eyes went wide, and he backpedaled, giving ground and raising the axe, his paw, before him—one hand gripping the black shaft near the base, the other choking it beneath its smooth, polished blade—to deflect Nichel’s flurry of blows.

Guyde’s shock lasted as long as rainfall. He planted his feet and swatted at her with the butt of his axe. Nichel raised Sand out of instinct. She may as well have tried to stop a mountain from stampeding over her. The wooden haft, as thick as both her legs, cracked against Sand, sending tremors up her arm. She grunted and stumbled to one side, off balance. Bellowing like his namesake, Guyde threw himself at her, reclaiming ground, cleaving the air with his axe in wide, two-handed strokes. Far below, bears roared. His clansmen were with him.

Guyde feinted left, swinging his axe back so far he twisted at the waist. Nichel read his movements. He was preparing to deliver a wide horizontal slice. The maneuver made sense. Given the length of his arms and that of his weapon, such swings covered nearly half the platform. She tensed, appearing indecisive, unsure of which way to go. When he began to swing she would duck under him and—

Without warning Guyde brought his axe up instead of around. He raised it high over his head for a split second and then brought it whistling down. Nichel’s grim determination shattered, replaced by fear. The Bear’s Paw. It was Guyde’s fabled attack, responsible for splitting countless enemies from skull to groin.

Instinctively, she threw herself back. The stone platform shuddered as Guyde’s paw crashed down atop it, kicking up sparks. His body shook with the force of the blow. His roar cut off as his teeth clicked together hard enough that Nichel heard it over the tumult of shouts and cheers below. He was slow to lift his axe. The shock of the blow must have been great enough for him to lose all feeling, if only for a moment. A moment was all Nichel needed.

She launched herself forward, not at his throat, but at his legs, where the hinges on his greaves met. Two swipes from Sand, one for each leg, was all it took. The hinges snapped. His greaves fell loosely, exposing dark flesh. In the same breath in which she had swung Sand, Nichel darted in with Silk, stabbing and cutting at hamstrings.

Guyde howled and swung his paw behind him. Nichel rolled and came up hacking and slashing, targeting more weak spots. She was dissecting him, cutting him open and exposing flesh and sinew and bone. Guyde’s roars grew more frenzied, anger mingling with pain as blood ran from wounds. He kicked wildly, first with one leg than the other, like a frightened horse.

His right leg gave out first. One moment he was standing upright, and the next he fell to one knee. Fear painted his features. Gripping the handle of his axe, he held the weapon across his chest like an oar, crawling backward.

Nichel did not just see his fear. She could smell it. It filled her nostrils, a mixture of sweat and blood and cold radiating from him in waves. She leaped at him and thrust her knives down.

In an instant, Guyde’s expression changed from sheer terror to triumph. He brought his paw up and Sand and Silk bit into wood and held firm. She was wrenching before her feet hit the ground, snarling and trying to rip them free. They were stuck, buried up to their hilts in ebony wood cut from forests in the forbidden realm.

Guyde heaved forward. The shaft smashed into her ribs and sent her flailing. Her feet left the stone and her back crashed against it. Breath left her lungs in a whoosh. Guyde rose, tottering until he achieved balance, snarling as he tried to put weight on his left leg. He ripped Sand and Silk free and hurled them at her feet hard enough that they bounced before skittering out of reach.

Bright colors flashed across Nichel’s vision. When they cleared, two Guydes stood over her, blurry as specters through a haze of tears and blood. Blackness threatened to close in. It took all her willpower to cling to consciousness.

Guyde of the Bear stumbled, favoring his right leg. Blood ran down it in a curtain, but Guyde paid it no mind. His mountainous form glared down at the assemblage like some ancient deity descended from the clouds, his expression twisted more by anger than pain. They cried out for him, weapons rattling and fists shaking. They cried out for blood. For sacrifice to the Father.

“This battle is over,” he called. “Nichel of the Wolf fought with honor. She...”

Guyde’s words faded to indistinct mumbling. The world receded. The aches and bruises forming over her body, the fire racing through her broken arm—everything faded. His words were as frilly as the silk of her mother’s dresses. For all his talk of honor in combat, there was no way any war chief would let a challenger live. She would be considered a threat to his reign, mercy a sign of weakness.

Guyde of the Bear’s droning reached a crescendo. The roars of his people, of her people, rose to a pitch. They sounded mad, feverish with bloodlust. Turning, she saw Guyde’s enormous hand reach down and heft his paw, dragging the steel head against the stone. With his other hand he hauled her from her back and turned her over so that she knelt, head lolling, left arm dangling, her neck exposed.

Nichel closed her eyes, but tears still squeezed through her eyelids. “It’s not fair,” she whispered through bloody lips already beginning to swell. Anger and grief bubbled up.

Guyde must have heard her. His voice grew piteous. “You fought well, Nichel of the Wolf. The Father’s Vanguard lit your path and will welcome you home.”

Nichel managed a wet snort. She was not afraid. She was ashamed and heartbroken. Her parents had been slain. It was her duty to avenge them, and she had failed in spectacular fashion. All the while, their killer walked free. Aidan Gairden. The man she had been promised to marry, their union tying unbreakable bonds between Crotaria’s northern and western realms. That union would never be. Torel and Darinia would go to war. Hundreds of thousands would die. Aidan would be one of them. She should be the one to spill his blood. To taste it.

Anger festered, becoming blind fury. Grief rotted into despair. She closed her eyes tighter, bracing for Guyde’s axe and hoping the blackness of her eyelids would soon turn to the bright expanse of the Vanguard. Her parents waited for her there.

Red eyes opened in her mind. They stared at her, through her, saw inside her. Her thoughts were sluggish, clouded by pain and anguish and wrath so hot her blood boiled.

What are you? The whispered voice was her own, distant and hazy.

The red eyes became the shade of molten fire.

Nichel was there, yet not there. Outside herself. She gazed into the eyes. They were mirrors, reflecting her pain back at her. Not physical pain. Broken bones and bloodied lips did not exist in this place. Those eyes were mirrors that magnified her wrath and hopelessness tenfold. Those eyes brightened, blinding her, burning her up, filling her, consuming her and the world and everything.

—Free me. That voice rumbled, a growl emanating up from the depths of a deep, dark hole.

Nichel opened her eyes.

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