Land of Ashes

By Gizem Karavit

''Spirits of Darkness hidden between the flames and ashes—hear my call! Feel my rage! You will be born with this marid’s strength and powers, inherit his cunning and talents! You will become his nightmare, the nightmare of all the dark ones!”
A man descended of a gods-cursed woman and a demonic marid, charged as executioner to the most evil of spirits, finds his destiny in a city that hides itself from the mortal world, the legendary Land of Ashes, and tears down the walls between the ordinary and the supernatural.
Gizem Karavit, in her first published work, weaves a tale of mythic proportions, spread across millennia in the lives of Time and Earth themselves, and introduces us to the Hidden Tales.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gizem Karavit
• Release date: Sep 4, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370435050

Book preview

Hidden Tales

LAND OF ASHES

Gizem Karavit

Hidden Tales

LAND OF ASHES

First Smashwords Edition, September 2017

©2017 Gizem Karavit

All Rights Reserved

Translated from the Turkish by Berkay Babaoğlu and Gizem Karavit

English localization by Dylan Gates and Philip Athans

Cover design by Alex Athans

Cover art Lion Came by Gustav Doré via https://www.oldbookillustrations.com/illustrations/lion-came/

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Published in association with Athans & Associates Creative Consulting

to my mother

Contents

Tale of the Hidden

Sharur

Lord of the Temple

Notes

About the Author

LAND OF ASHES

TALE OF THE HIDDEN

Earth was restless and furious, sick and tired of gods and goddesses, marids, and devils freely moving about, so it asked Time for help. But Time was shrewd and had already been waiting for Earth to consult him.

Exploit humans; let them control and murder each other and themselves, Time told Earth.

But Earth didn’t want to squander humans the way she’d once squandered her fire and water. Still, Time knew things Earth did not, which is why Earth finally considered his advice.

Listen to me! said Time. Pick a girl and whisper to her soul before she is born. She will desire all your beauty and magnificence. But I will hide your gifts until one day she blooms like a dazzling flower, amazing all who behold her. You will bear witness to goddesses and gods fighting over her, and marids and jinni troubling her. Their hunger for her will be for themselves only. And in this moment, all those upon whom you exert no influence will fall into your trap.

Earth liked this idea and decided to do what Time told her. She picked an unborn girl and called out to her soul: "Wind will help you. Blow as it does. Be free and fluid. Water will help you. Like water, beguile onlookers so no one can see who you truly are.