BooksChatter: ☀ The Healer's Rune: Ceryn Roh Saga [1]

Thank you for joining us on the Virtual Book Tour for The Healer's Rune, a Young Adult Fantasy by Lauricia Matuška (18 January 2016, Brimstone Fiction, 311 pages).

This is the first book in the Ceryn Roh Saga series.

PREVIEW: Check out the book's synopsis and excerpt below. Read the first three chapters with Amazon Look Inside.

The Healer's Rune is FREE on Kindle Unlimited and Kindle Owner's Lending Library.

Author Lauricia Matuška will be awarding a $20 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour. Please do take part: comment on our post and follow the tour where you will be able to read other excerpts (☀), and reviews (✍).

Synopsis | Teaser | About the Author | Giveaway & Tour Stops

Synopsis

Three hundred years after a great war shattered the Council of Races, the warriors of Rüddan have all but eradicated their cousins, the faerie Aethel. In so doing, they decimated the Dryht sages and enslaved mortal Humanity. Now a voice rises above the chaos and calls her people to rebel.

Young Sabine, one of the Human slaves, must learn to overcome centuries of lies and prejudice to forge an alliance between four enemy races. But what chance does she stand to overthrow the Rüddan with her dangerous secret, a secret that threatens not only her own life but the existence of all the races on the planet?

Teaser: Excerpt

CHAPTER ONE

     Sabine huddled in a window niche, her knees pulled up to her chin and her teary gaze not quite focused on the dark ruins around her. She knew it was time to go— lingering would certainly mean capture— but she could not force herself to rush to her friend’s death.
      A stone’s throw in front of her, a shower of brick dust rained onto the floor. Sabine started, her muscles tensing as her thoughts ratcheted from mourning to high alert.
      Straining to hear beyond the thump of her pulse, she concentrated on identifying the sounds that surrounded her. Crickets and frogs chirped in the grass … an occasional bird chittered drowsily overhead … a breeze rustled leaves nearby … all normal sounds, characteristic of the forest just before dawn.
      She pulled her cloak closed around her.
      Probably a mouse, she reasoned as she scanned the shadows for a safe explanation. Or a night-cat stalking one last meal. Still …
      The air felt heavier, as if another presence stood close by.
      But that was silly. The Dryht castle was long abandoned and was not haunted by its former inhabitants. Sabine stood to leave. Whatever had just happened, she didn’t appear to be in immediate danger. That would change, however, if she were late to the execution.
      Before she took a step, a quiet noise scraped the darkness across from her.
      She peered into what was left of the ancient Dryht temple. The moon was still high enough to illuminate small patches between the oak and cedar saplings that grew among the grass-lined floor stones, but it wasn’t full enough to show what moved among their needles and leaves.
      Sabine tried to swallow, her mouth suddenly dry, and to reason through her fear. Although it was possible she had been discovered breaking curfew, it was not likely. All of the Rüddan stationed in her village were busy preparing for the execution.
      Sabine shifted her weight, angling for a better view. An explosion of snapping twigs and flapping wings made her jump, a surprised shout catching in her throat. She flinched as a raven the size of a large cat landed nearby.
      Sabine relaxed.
      Just a bird.
      Still … why did she feel as if she was not alone?
      Cocking its head, the raven focused on Sabine. Intelligence gleamed in the blue depths of its eye. The directness of its avian inspection felt sinister, somehow, as if confirming local rumors that the birds were used as Dryht spies.
      Stop it! Sabine chided herself. Just because her neighbors mistrusted the birds, that did not make the rumors true. The villagers of Khapor told many stories of hauntings in the woods, but Sabine had yet to experience one.
      The raven stared, showing no signs of moving.
      “Whoever you are looking for,” Sabine said to the bird, “is not here. No one has been here for a few years, since the plague that wiped out most of the Dryht race. Well, no one except me.”
      As if pondering her inconceivable flaunting of the law, the bird cocked its head to the other side, leveling a green eye at her this time.
      This difference in eye color unsettled her.
      “I am pleased to have met you, I’m sure,” she stammered, attempting to mask a growing sense of trepidation with a show of wit and bravado. “However, the sun is rising, and I am expected in the village.”
      A sudden vision of ravens feasting on her friend’s body after the execution silenced her. Turning away from the bird, she hurried out of the temple.
      ...

The Healer's Rune
Available NOW!

About the Author

Lauricia Matuška has taught high school literature and creative writing classes for more than ten years.

She first discovered the realm of fantasy by traveling with Lucy through the wardrobe to Narnia. Since then, she has established dual-residency between that world and this one, and she currently serves as an ambassador to contemporary youth and young adults. The Healer’s Rune is the first novel in her Ceryn Roh trilogy.

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