Saturday, December 7, 2019

Blog Tour: A Broken Winter by Kale Night (Exclusive Excerpt + Giveaway)

Title: A Broken Winter

Author: Kale Night

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: November 25, 2019

Heat Level: 3 - Some Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 81000

Genre: Science Fiction/Fantasy, LGBT, Fantasy, futuristic, hurt/comfort, soul mates, re-incarnation, political terrorism, prison, religious extremism, scientist

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Synopsis

General Auryn Tyrus is tired of serving an emperor who turns political dissidents into expensive steak and claims to have swallowed Ankari’s sun. He is fed up with pretending not to know Emperor Haken is buying biological weapons and collecting taxes for a war that doesn’t exist. Auryn’s role in the entire mirage leads him to drastic choices, but unexpected news halts his plans. Seven-year-old Keita Kaneko, the son of a former lover, is captured by the emperor’s special forces. Auryn secretly intervenes and spares Keita from execution.

Keita changes everything. Instead of feeling helpless and oppressed by a self-proclaimed living god, Auryn works to expose the emperor as a fraud. But he knows exactly will happen if he’s discovered, and the extent of Emperor Haken’s lies is worse than anticipated. If Auryn expects anyone to believe the truth, he’s going to need proof. And a lot of help.

Exclusive Excerpt

A Broken Winter

I’m sharing an exclusive excerpt from A Broken Winter. This scene shows Tiernan Aran, a paladin, trying to recover from the aftermath of a traumatic mission. A medical mage, Ari, takes both a personal and a professional interest in Tiernan and tries to assist as much as possible. Ari takes Tiernan fishing in an attempt to get him outside and help him feel normal again.

Tiernan awoke with a dull throb resonating between his eyes. Surges of nausea knotted his stomach into a series of intricate twists. Overnight something had nested in his chest, invoking tightness and shortness of breath, an ache his body was unable to heal. Unable or unwilling. Bits of bad dreams stood out, dark and distended in his mind, infected shadows. They slowly retreated, but the impression they left was indelible.

He laid there for a while before realising he had no idea what time it was, his clock in pieces on the floor. He got up to check the kitchen clock. 11:29. He wavered between going back to bed and spending the day hating everything and fishing with a generous Magus who’d be inconvenienced by his absence, eventually giving in to the latter. He showered and dressed before walking to the stable. Misha was neatly trimmed and primped, with small blue wooden beads woven into his mane. He climbed aboard and rode Misha to the south gate.

Ari was already there, waiting for him astride a black velver. He wore a dark blue sleeved shirt, leaving his chest partially exposed, tiny nacre buttons begging to be further undone, black leather pants hugging perfectly shaped legs. His dark hair was free-flowing and impossibly shiny.

“Hey.” He’d never seen anyone look so happy to see him. “I was afraid I was going to have to eat all this food and drink all this beer by myself.”

“Sorry to keep you waiting. I lost track of time.”

“No harm done.”

It was an hour’s ride to the western arm of the Denfold River. When they reached their destination, Misha followed Tiernan along the river bank, playfully butting his back. He grabbed Misha by the horns, wrestling with the beast in the smooth gravel, forcing the velver back a few steps. Misha put up a good fight, and Tiernan rewarded him with a handful of wild apples. Ari laughed at the faces Misha made as he chewed, the fruit barely sweet enough to enjoy.

Ari stood at the water’s edge and placed a bundle of neatly wrapped leaves on a submerged, silvery rock. “An offering to the spirits of the river.” He ran his fingers through the water, making a series of graceful clockwise swirls. “Your names may be forgotten, but your voices are still heard.”

Tiernan followed his example and removed a folded knife from his pocket, nicking his hand and spilling blood into the water. “Holy Mother, bless your children. Allow us to partake of your bounty with gratitude and humbleness.” He met Ari’s look of horrified intrigue with a shrug. “Doesn’t hurt to have a little extra assistance.”

He helped Ari unpack their gear, hoping he wouldn’t make a fool out of himself. He hadn’t gone fishing since his dad died. Tiernan threaded a fat earthworm onto his hook, feeling slightly sorry for the creature.

“How long have you worked at the hospital?” asked Tiernan.

“The Church offered me a job last year. There aren’t enough Magi in Calder to meet the demand, so they grant work permits to outsiders like me.”

His gaze lingered on Ari, only to be caught staring, quickly attempting to justify it. “You’re the youngest Magus I’ve ever seen. How old are you?”

“Nineteen. You?”

“I’ll be forty-two next month.”

“No way. You look the same age as me. Must be negligible senescence… Your healing abilities repair damaged DNA, making you age slower. That’s incredible.”

“It’s frustrating. My midlife crisis will be mistaken for teenage rebellion.”

Ari smiled at him, invoking a stab of guilt. There were so many other things he could have been doing, should have been doing, not spending time with a Magus who looked far too attractive in leather. Someone who made him forget.

“Do you live alone?” asked Ari.

“I’ve been on my own for a while.” Tiernan paused, unsure if he was willing to elaborate, but it came pouring out of him in a flood. “My dad killed himself. My mother is a wanted criminal. My grandfather died in a fire, trying to rescue his velver from a burning stable, and my grandmother remarried some asshole who I’m 90% sure molested my dad. The asshole was assassinated by a flower girl who knew as much about dissection as she did azaleas, and Grandmother drowned in a bog. I had an uncle, but he disappeared when he was a kid. Went into the forest and never came out.” Tiernan reeled his line in, unsatisfied with its position. “It was probably for the best.” He cast out again and turned the reel, snapping the bail back into place.

“You make my family sound normal, and my parents gave $2.2 million dollars’ worth of gold to a psychopath.” Ari removed his leather sandals and sat at the water’s edge, curling his toes in the wet sand.

Tiernan sat beside him. “How’d that happen?”

“They believed he was a god. Thought he was telling the truth when he said he’d make the afterlife a more comfortable place for them.”

“How do you convince someone you’re a god?”

“Helps if you’re able to predict the future, or at least create the illusion of doing so. Knowing things about people they’d never say out loud is a plus, along with performing so-called miracles. Feeding your followers lots of psychotropic plants also goes a long way.” Ari grinned crookedly. “Never underestimate the power of mass hysteria. Hey, you’ve got a bite.”

A sharp tug bent the end of his rod. He set the hook and reeled wildly. The fish resisted, thrashing and stripping line, but the hook held. It wasn’t long before the fish was flopping on shore, around 50 cm long, rainbow-tinted scales gleaming. They bled the fish and put it on ice.

“Do you like smoked trout?” asked Ari.

“Love it. Haven’t had it in a while.”

“If we catch a few more, I can fix that.”

Ari caught the next one and after an extended lull they sat in the shade of a gigantic uprooted tree, bleached white from the sun. They ate the sandwiches Ari made—delicious thinly sliced roasted beef with horseradish and cheese, a light dusting of flour on sourdough buns, and drank slightly bitter, deeply refreshing beer. Tiernan was grateful Ari refrained from asking him anything about where he’d been for the last four months or what happened to him, happy to learn more about Ari instead.

“You must deal with a lot of weird stuff at the hospital, huh?”

“Oh, yeah. You think you’ve seen everything, then you’re treating a guy with potatoes stuck up his ass.” They both laughed. “People feel compelled to insert all kinds of things into their rectum.”

“I try to stick to the basics.”

“That’s very wise.”

“Sadly, a potato isn’t the most unusual thing I’ve pulled out of someone.”

“What is?” asked Tiernan.

“Horse teeth.”

“That’s… Wow, yeah.” Laughter filled him again, turning his stomach, making him queasy, as if he’d eaten something unfamiliar.

By the time it got dark, they accumulated a dozen rainbow trout, more than enough for Ari to smoke. They rode back to Ainsley, stopping after the gate before going their separate ways.

“Thanks for coming with me.” Ari shifted in his saddle, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear. “I enjoy your company.”

Tiernan wasn’t sure what to say, an uncomfortable heat rising in his cheeks. “Likewise.”

“Stop by the hospital in a few days—I’ll give you your share of the trout.”

“Sure. See you then.” He rode off, relieved to put some distance between them, tension mounting in his chest, heart racing. He didn’t look back, returning Misha to the stable and wandering home, the streets quiet and illuminated with white lanterns.

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Meet the Author

Kale currently resides outside a small town in northern Alberta, where she works in a library. She’s an avid reader with an English degree from the University of Calgary. In her spare time Kale loves playing video games, making chain maille, watching anime, and cultivating a steadily expanding bonsai collection.