Twist of the Heart

By James Val'Rose

"Shadan, it falls to you to trace, seek and kill one individual..."

A simple task, Shadan thinks, when it's handed down to her by her overseer. However, when she becomes trapped in some unreality with another individual, it's not just the environment that isn't as it seems...

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Val'Rose
• Release date: Feb 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310014697

James Val'Rose

From a young age, James always dreamed of writing a book. With his love of fantasy, a prolific imagination and characters he created as a teenager, he has now finished his first book, Path of the Gods.James graduated from ArtsEd, London with a degree in acting, as well as a higher diploma in guitar playing from the ACM, Guildford.

Book preview

James Val’Rose

Twist of the Heart

The Theurgy

Revolution

Copyright © James Val’Rose

The right of James Val’Rose to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

Note from the Author

Welcome to the first Valentine Special. Thank you so very much for downloading this. Your support means the world to me.

There are just a couple of things I’d like to say. While this novelette is an extension of the novel Path of the Gods, it can be read before or after without any worry of spoilers. If you’ve already read Path of the Gods, this should serve to provide a few added hints and details. If you’re approaching this without any knowledge of the original book, hopefully it will serve as a good premise for the beginning of the Theurgy Revolution.

I have attached the opening sections and first chapter of Path of the Gods, which you’ll find at the end of Twist of the Heart.

You can stay updated on other free specials by checking in on the Facebook page here:

www.facebook.com/pathofthegodsbook

Enjoy, and Happy Valentine’s Day!

Contents

Twist of the Heart

A Library of Three Books

A Door That’s Not a Door

Tension

Path of the Gods

The War of Unity

Part I – The Calling

Chapter I – The Desire

A Library of Three Books

There was tension in the air. It was thick, even in this thin and icy atmosphere.

The area around me was empty, desolate, aside from a single bare and intrinsically lifeless tree, save for the last leaf, which was feathered away with the next gust of frozen wind.

The tree, with its gnarled and mangy branches, stood steadfast to the wind.

Meanwhile I, with my paltry clothing and hood, stood braced.

The wind howled as the currents whipped my face, clutching the tears from my watering eyes and almost freezing them. Then, its voice lowered, its power settled and I sank myself back onto my heels.

An overcast and despondent sky lurked above me, any patches of blue quickly masked by a malevolent grey cloud.

The place I found myself appeared to mark the southerly edge of a ploughed and fallow field, left as bare as the tree by which I stood.

I looked from whence I had come to the murky distance and saw, billowing from the treetops of a distant woodland, a plume of smoke that was bullied and beaten by the howling wind.

On any given day, you would find me a scout, and the reason you would find me marching the wilds of Aramyth was for exactly that – to scout someone. My guild had been tasked to track and follow the whereabouts of one nameless individual, and the task, like all tasks, had been handed down, put through administration and delegated, to me of all people.

Of course, while it was easy to complain about the weather, it was hard to complain about the job. I enjoyed the mystery and the science of tracking, hunting, scouting, learning, exploring, visiting places only few had been and maybe even treading on previously untrodden ground.

Yes, I enjoyed my job, but it was still a job and I remembered my mission:

Shadan-Ivy, my overseer had said to me, though I had long since dropped the ‘Ivy’ because, despite being a woman, it didn’t fit my line of work; but my overseer was a man of staunch formality and never deigned himself to use diminutives. It falls to you, he had continued, to trace, seek and kill one individual…

I went over the description given, every pertaining detail they had supplied. I was happy to be on this next mission, because the last one had weighed heavily on me and I needed this one to take my mind off it.

The distant woodland, though I said ‘distant’, was not so far, and its aforementioned distance was but a product of the starkness. The field was hard beneath my feet as I trudged over the tilled surface, but there were still nubbins of uneven soil that crunched flat under my weight.

I looked up to see the nearing tree line and didn’t dally in the frosty atmosphere; I pushed on and quite rapidly a mist began coiling into existence. At least, it was a mist when I first noticed it, but the more I walked on, the thicker it became, until it was a fog. Of course, I hadn’t equated my progress to its development. Indeed, who would?

Nonetheless, I crept further to the tree line and, even though I was practically on top of it, it was completely obscured by the fog, which had recently been but a few translucent veins of mist.

Maybe I should have stopped, but I felt as though heading back was a bad idea so I continued, further and further until it was as good as darkness and my eyes were useless in the pitch.

I kept my eyes open because I was still seeing quick jolts of something – maybe something – yet I was blithely unaware that the wind seemed to have dropped and it wasn’t at all cold anymore.

In the blackness, I continued; yet it wasn’t much longer before, quite suddenly, the fog was gone and not even a trace of mist remained, not even wisps of translucence.

It was remarkably strange, though, that it wasn’t a forest or woody area where I found myself, but a courtyard, with a full moon and night sky above, as twinkly and beauteous as those of a fairy tale.

My first instinct was to look from where I had come, so I turned, sharply.

But all that lurked behind me was just the rest of the courtyard, solemn and desolate; complete, yet somewhat unfinished.

I couldn’t quite understand the wrongness of it, but it was as though the buildings that surrounded me in this large square courtyard weren’t real; real but not real, as though they were just paintings of real buildings. Push me for an answer and I’d say you’d just have to see it for yourself.

At my feet was layered a combination of sand and soil, amidst a collection of shale and