Showing results by author "Alec Hutson" in All Categories

A thousand years ago the Heart of the World was shattered, its fragments scattered across the lands. In the chaos that followed, martial orders arose to gather these shards, for it was found that great powers were granted when these pieces were bonded to the flesh of the chosen. These are the Sharded Few, warriors imbued with the divine energies that once coursed through the Heart, and driven to absorb enough fragments to claim godhood.

Long ago, the world fell into twilight, when the great empires of old consumed each other in sorcerous cataclysms. In the south, the Star Towers fell, swallowed by the sea, while the black glaciers descended upon the northern holdfasts, entombing the cities of Min-Ceruth in ice and sorcery. Then from the ancient empire of Menekar, the paladins of Ama came, putting every surviving sorcerer to the sword and cleansing their taint from the land. The pulse of magic slowed, fading like the heartbeat of a dying man. But after a thousand years, it has begun to quicken again.

Long ago the world fell into twilight, when the great empires of old consumed each other in sorcerous cataclysms. In the south the Star Towers fell, swallowed by the sea, while the black glaciers descended upon the northern holdfasts, entombing the cities of Min-Ceruth in ice and sorcery. Then from the ancient empire of Menekar the paladins of Ama came, putting every surviving sorcerer to the sword and cleansing their taint from the land for the radiant glory of their lord.

Scarred by what transpired on the island of the sorceress Niara, Keilan, and his companions journey north, bearing a weapon forged to end the unnatural existence of the Chosen. But the sand is trickling through the hourglass as the demon-children are laboring to bring about a second Raveling and end the age of man.... In the shattered city of Nes Vaneth, Cho Lin struggles to survive her imprisonment by the vicious Skein, while in Dymoria the Crimson Queen prepares to reveal her school of sorcerers by bringing them into the Frostlands to confront the Chosen and their allies....

Following the deadly assault on the Scholia by the kith’ketan, Keilan and Nel pursue the paladin Senacus south, hoping to catch him before he can vanish into the Gilded Cities. Nel desires vengeance for the death of her lover, while Keilan hopes to find answers about the immortal sorcerers who sought to challenge the Crimson Queen. In the Empire of Swords and Flowers, a young woman is called upon to avenge her father’s death and return honor to her family. And after a millennia-long imprisonment, the monstrous Chosen are again free to work their dark will upon the world of man.

In a ruined temple on a dying world, a man without a past promised the Red Sword of her tribe that he would protect her daughter...and then he lost her. Flung into a very different world, Talin had been forced to navigate this strange new realm as he searched for the girl Valyra. He had held true to his word, finally rescuing her from the Shriven. But after a betrayal by one of his companions, she is now in the clutches of the mysterious Contessa, and he must once again return to the City of Masks. Only now, the fate of the world hangs in the balance.

A sword of green glass. A key that opens passages between the worlds. The nameless warrior has nothing else. No allies, no armor, not even the memory of how he came to be trapped within this dying land, pursued across a red waste by the monstrous Shriven. But all hope is not lost. There are other survivors amidst the desolation, holding clues as to where he has come from and what he must do: Amara, the Red Sword of her tribe, a beautiful and fiery swordswoman obsessed with destroying the demons that plague her people, and Valyra, a young sorceress....

An age is ending. In the Frayed Lands, Salahi and Hollow refugees from Karath press on towards the ruins of the Winter Palace, hoping to claim the Light and join the ranks of the Sharded Few. But great forces are stirring in opposition: riftbeasts stalk the plains, the People of the Wind are...

The Heart of the Heart has been found. In the ruined palace of the Radiant Emperor the Light shard had been hidden for a thousand years, but now a sliver of its power has entered the flesh of Heth Su Canaav. Once Hollow, he has been reborn as one of the Sharded Few. Its discovery will shake the world . . . if anyone lives to tell of its existence.

Pursued by the cultists of the Cleansing Flame, Talin and his beautiful companions must flee the City of Masks and find refuge in the Grand and Enlightened Empire of Zim. If the rumors are to be believed, then the sorceress with whom he had fled a dying world might also be waiting for him somewhere among the endless grasslands and obsidian-sheathed peaks of the Twilight Empire. But there is great danger lurking in Zim—a half-mad demigod and the demonic Shriven also seek Talin and the key he carries that can open pathways between the worlds....

On scaled wings they crossed the trackless sea, conquerors from distant lands. None could stand before them – not the queen, surrounded by her bright legions, or the sorcerers steeped in the power of the jade moon, or even the paladins with their swords fashioned from the tears of the Silver Mother. Only one who had already lost everything would dare to challenge these invaders. And so a shepherd girl, her will forged in the same fire that consumed her heart, became the last hope of a shattered realm.

The Streams bind together the vast reaches of the stellar tributary, plied by brave streamsurfers and their telepathic starbeasts. Some of these adventurers are heroes. Some are rogues. And some just want to return from the void with their bodies and minds unbroken.... Kerin thon Talisien is the heir to a legendary name. When he was a young boy, his grandfather swooped down from the stars and rescued him from the slums of his homeworld. But with the death of the infamous old streamsurfer, Kerin and his crew have fallen on hard times.

Fourteen tales of speculative fiction from the author of The Crimson Queen. Beneath the demon-haunted ruins of Nes Vaneth a priest of the old ways confronts his darkest fears. A young hacker risks everything to rescue the mind of her friend from the clutches of a malicious AI. On a moon of Mars the guardian of humanity awakens to find the solar system in peril. And a dilettante invites a manticore to accompany him to an infamous engagement.