“Beat it, stranger, if you value your neck.” Shade’s father shrugged and went back to coddling his harlots. He flirted and laughed with the whores, unaccustomed to the possibility that this stranger might linger.
Shade did not move.
“Not sure this one is much on brains,” a blonde whore said still staring at him.
Shade’s father glared back in annoyance. His thugs’ hands went to their weapons, but they did not rise. “I said beat it, loafer!” Shadowfinger growled. He cast a goblet of wine Shade’s direction. The goblet hit the floor and splashed onto the assassin’s cloak. The red liquid soaked into the dark cloth like blood.
Shade pulled back his hood and allowed them to lay eyes on his face. His razor-sharp yellow eyes pierced the obscurity of the tavern. The glow of his eyes was far more pointed than his father’s, like daggers, sharpened over years of hard use.
The band of thieves gasped.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve coming here, boy,” one of them said.
Shadowfinger looked up once again. He recognized the knowing tone in his lackey’s voice. His eyes shot wide open. “Drell?” He turned and rose. “It’s you, isn’t it?
Shade made no reply. He no longer answered to that name. That boy was long dead. He died at his mother’s bedside many years ago.
Shadowfinger stalked around him, studying him. His father’s hand went to his own dagger, but he hesitated. Something about the way Shade looked at him made him tremble.
“My how you have grown, you just haven’t grown smarter, eh, coming here?”
Shade wordlessly unbuckled his cloak and let it drop to the floor. His father and his ruffians held their breath. The entire tavern went dead quiet. He relished the shock and sudden fear that ghosted across the thieves’ hard-edged faces. They stared at the arsenal of knives sheathed into his embroidered soft leather armor. They stared at the crest on his chest emblazoned with the all too recognizable symbol of a gleaming eye hovering in the branches of a black tree.
“An Unseen?” his father stammered, “My bastard son, an Unseen?”
Shade watched with satisfaction as the goons’ hands shied off their weapons.
Shadowfinger reeled too hard to notice. He ran his finger across the crest on his son’s chest that identified him to be of a secret order of Unseen only breathed in legend. “The Sada’odan,” his father mused, “but how? You are not noble-born.”
Silence.
“You must’ve lied. HA!” Shadowfinger laughed and clapped him on the back, “Learned a trick or two from your old relic, did ye now?”
Still silence.
“Good, made me eat crow, did ye?” he actually smiled, ‘You’re a survivor and now that I see the grown Faelin you’ve become I can’t help but feel a burning sense of pride. We could use a Faelin with talents such as you. Put er’ there, Son.” He extended his hand, at long last an offer of acceptance.
Shade plunged a dagger into his father’s heart so fast the thieves blinked. The harlots screamed, but his father’s cronies did not even raise a finger to save him. Shadowfinger slumped up against his son and slid to the floor. He stared up at his killer who watched him die with the same cold indifference he had shown Shade’s mother. Shade studied his father’s morbid, betrayed expression. He waited until the death throes stole over Shadowfinger and the glow of his father’s eyes faded out.
‘Some king,’ Shade thought in disgust. He turned coldly and strode away. The entire tavern stared at him as he walked out. They all remembered him…that foolish boy who used to fill the tavern with the reek of his own urine. Their perception of him was forever altered. They recognized death itself reflected in the face of the boy they once knew. He would forever walk into their darkest nightmares.
Shade smirked darkly. It had not been what he expected. No one stopped him. No one cared. None dared try. He would grow quite accustomed to that feeling. He would go out west and make a name for himself. Not some ballooned mantle that could be passed on from one spineless brigand to the next, but a name of his own invention. He would birth a dark legend the world would not soon forget…
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Other Tales
The Shade Chronicles:
Kingsblood—Available Now
The Weeping Grounds—Coming Soon
The Adventure Series:
Path of the Magi—Coming Soon
Two young mages set out from Phendyrimoth’s tower, the most infamous magic school of all Covent, and tumble into an adventure all their own. The wife of a giant warrior has been kidnapped. A Faun is their only link to her disappearance. And so begins their tale in search of the fabled Enchanted Wood through the trackless Karus Forest and beyond to the black fiery mountains of Doruggdoom.
The Elf Wars Trilogy:
The Last Field of Honor—Coming Soon
General Ka-ling leads the Elves of Jui-Rae in their struggle against the widely feared Dark Elves of Jui-Sae. He faces his lifelong adversary, General Sien, on the last field of honor in the ravaged Elven forests. But secret whisperers of both Elvish houses have other plans to abandon all quarter and usher in a new age of cold-blooded genocide.
About the Authors
J. L. Ficks graduated from Illinois State University with a degree in English Studies. He worked as a freelance writer and ghostwriter for six years. He now works as an adjuster and spends his spare time working on his own writing. He is married and has one son.
J. E. Dugue currently resides in Chicago with his wife, Lindsey and their cat, Diesel. He is a professional musician, a coffee and beer connoisseur, and spends most hours writing stories and music.
A Word from the Authors:
We hope that this tale speaks for the quality of our work. In many ways we are no longer writing a single story, but a world. A world we have cultivated and groomed in a labor of love. This book and the many to follow are our realization of a dream imagined by two friends over fifteen years ago.
So what’s the Triloriad™? The Triloriad™ is slatted to be our masterwork. All buildup tales you read now are feeding into this grand epic saga. The Triloriad™ is planned to be five novels each over five-hundred pages in length. Many characters you encounter now will play their part, whether for good or for evil, in the Triloriad™. We invite you to come along and experience the full journey with us.
So why not just release the Triloriad™ first? Most authors tell their best story first. Readers are left increasingly disappointed as prequels and spinoff tales never again reach that full epic scale and depth found in the original trilogy or saga. Every buildup tale is laying the groundwork for the Triloriad™ just as the Hobbit laid the groundwork for the Lord of the Rings. Now imagine there were dozens of Hobbit tales. One about Gandolf. One about Strider. Now you’re beginning to understand the depths of our vision.