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Blood of the Mountains

Blood of the Mountains

Book 5 of the award-winning series "The Aldoran Chronicles" by bestselling epic fantasy author Michael Wisehart.
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Book Synopsis

The award-winning epic fantasy series continues with this fifth volume of The Aldoran Chronicles saga.

ADARRA
Entangled in Tallosian feuds and fragile negotiations, Adarra’s path takes a deadly turn when an ancient power stirs from its slumber. Unnatural monsters sweep across the Isle of Tallos, leaving carnage in their wake. To protect both friend and foe, she must risk everything—finding an unexpected ally in the enigmatic Talarin, and becoming the shield for those she never meant to save.

AYRION
Burdened by the truth of his Upakan blood, Ayrion is sent to broker peace with Aldwick, only to find every door barred and every plea rejected. With winter’s grip upon them, his people face a stark choice—return to the shadows of their assassin past by raiding the cities that spurn them, or watch their families starve and freeze in the wilds.

TY
In Easthaven, Ty plunges deeper into a labyrinth of forbidden magic. Guided by two of the most unexpected instructors, he unearths dangerous secrets surrounding Aerodyne and the Nethriall. But each revelation brings him closer to a power that could save his friends—or destroy them.

FERRIN
Parting ways with Ayrion and the Tanveer, Ferrin turns east to honor a promise to his friend, Azriel—to find his family in Easthaven and tell them he yet lives. But getting there is no simple task. Forced to flee from one city to the next, the group finds their salvation in the most unexpected of places.

Chapter Excerpt

Chapter 1 | Valtor

I’VE CAUGHT WIND OF a bungled attempt to abduct Overlord Barl’s daughter,” Valtor declared, his voice slicing through the stillness with an edge of accusation he didn’t bother to blunt. His fingers tightened around the wolf-head staff, the carved wood creaking faintly as his knuckles whitened. In his mind’s eye, it wasn’t the staff he gripped but the plump, pulsing throat of Overlord Meyrose, quivering beneath his barely restrained fury. “You wouldn’t happen to know something about that, would you?”

Meyrose’s ruddy face drained to a pallid grey. At least Valtor imagined it to be, as he stared at the emerald flames licking the pyre in his scrying chamber, their dance casting eerie shadows across the rough-hewn stone. The image wavered, less vivid than the black incantus crystals might have wrought, but clear enough for his needs. The chamber itself was a cavernous relic, its walls etched with runes as old as the Tower, their meanings lost to time yet humming with latent power.

The overlord’s lips parted slightly in a feeble gasp. “How could you possibly—”

Valtor’s eyebrow lifted, a subtle arc of disdain sharper than any blade. “My watchers are a legion unseen, Overlord. Their eyes pierce every shadow, from the lowest tavern to the highest spire. They see all.”

The goblet in Meyrose’s hand quivered, wine sloshing over the rim as he darted nervous glances around his opulent chamber. The room, nestled within his sprawling estate on the fringes of Duport, Briston’s bustling, smog-wreathed capital, was one Valtor knew well from prior scryings. Gilded tapestries draped the stone walls, their threads dulled by time, while the air hung heavy with the cloying scent of melted wax and overripe fruit. A massive hearth crackled in the corner, casting flickering shadows that danced like specters across the overlord’s florid features. Each communion through the scrying stones had only deepened Valtor’s contempt—Meyrose’s ineptitude was a wellspring of folly, fathomless and unrelenting.

“You overreached, Meyrose,” Valtor said, his tone hardening to flint. “Your blunder has roused Easthaven to double their vigilance over Sidara, shackling me with scant options. I must either hasten my carefully laid plans—years in the weaving—or let the tempest you’ve unleashed settle before striking anew. Either way, you’ve backed me into a corner.” His features sharpened, eyes narrowing to slits as a predatory snarl slithered across his lips. “I despise being caged.”

Meyrose swallowed audibly, his jowls trembling, flushed from more than the wine he clutched like a drowning man to driftwood. “But . . . but they’re legalizing sorcery! Granting sanctuary to the ven’ae!” His voice rose, cracking with desperation as he leaned forward, the heavy velvet of his robe rustling against the carved arms of his chair. “I thought you, of all people, archchancellor of the White Tower, would see the madness of it. We cannot suffer wielders to roam Aldor unchecked, sowing chaos and ruin in their wake. If they dig their claws into Sidara, where does it stop? Will it be Briston next?” His anger surged, briefly drowning his fear, and he flung a splash of wine from his goblet, the crimson droplets spattering the polished floor like blood on marble. “Not while I breathe! Barl’s lost his wits, welcoming those filthy creatures into his realm, but I’ll not let his lunacy shatter my kingdom. Briston’s people will die fighting before they bow to such filth!”

“Barl is many things,” Valtor replied, his voice a low rumble, deliberate and unyielding, “but a fool he is not. You, however, have all but declared war on a neighboring kingdom and couldn’t even muster the competence to see it through. Tell me, what was your grand design had you actually been competent enough to seize his daughter? More pressing still—how does one botch a scheme so spectacularly?”

Meyrose’s face reddened, defiance flickering in his watery eyes as he straightened in his seat. “Much as you twice bungled snaring that white-haired brat, I’d wager.”

Valtor’s lips parted in a feral snarl, teeth bared as a surge of fury flared within him, hot and bright as forge fire. Meyrose’s bravado withered under that glare, his face slackening as terror reclaimed its throne. He gulped, stammering, “What . . . what I meant was, I entrusted the task to the wrong hands. Inadequate men, unworthy of the charge.”

A slow, deliberate breath steadied Valtor, though inwardly he cursed letting this dolt rattle him so visibly. Such a lapse was unbecoming, a crack in the poised mask he wore—especially before a lackey as pitiful as Meyrose. Yet the overlord’s barb struck true. Twice, Mangora had pursued the faeling, and twice she’d returned with naught but excuses. His corax spies, those sleek, black-winged harbingers, had murmured of her retreat from Wellhollow, her bulradoer ranks thinned to a ragged remnant—hardly a banner of victory. He exhaled bitterly. One thorn at a time, he reminded himself, tamping down the ember of frustration. Her arrival loomed near; he could feel it in the air, a tightening in his chest like the prelude to a storm.

His gaze had drifted to the scrying stone cradled in his palm, its faint glow pulsing like a heartbeat trapped in amber. He wrenched his focus back to Meyrose, studying the man anew. Sweat beaded on the overlord’s broad brow, glistening trails racing to nest in the tangled thicket of his eyebrows—a trivial competition that amused Valtor in its absurdity. In the Tower’s dour confines, one seized entertainment where it could be found, even in the quiver of a fool’s fear.

“Did you truly think to bend Barl to your will once you held her?” he asked, his voice cool and probing as the tip of a blade testing a seam. “Order him to round up Sidara’s wielders like cattle?” Secretly, he conceded it wasn’t the most deplorable plan, crude though it was.

“I’d have demanded he hand them over to you—to the White Tower,” Meyrose said, his tone faltering yet defiant, as if clinging to the scraps of his dignity.

“And if he spat in your face? Could you muster a war against Sidara? Face wielders turned upon you in battle? Could you stand victorious?”

Meyrose’s eyes flitted about his chamber, seeking wisdom from the silent walls adorned with faded heraldry and the stern portraits of ancestors long returned to dust. “Aye . . . with your strength at my back, yes. Wasn’t that your aim? A clash like Cylmar’s?”

“Cylmar’s ruin was a weave years in the threading, its harvest only now ripening. I moved pieces across the board—kings and pawns alike—until the moment was ripe. You hear Barl shelters wielders, and your first thought is to snatch his daughter, heedless of the storm you’d reap.” His staff creaked as he squeezed it, channeling his ire into the wood rather than unleashing it where it truly belonged. “Know what we call leaders who act without foresight?”

Meyrose stared, mute and expectant, his breath shallow.

“Dead men walking.”

The overlord’s eye twitched, a faint shudder rippling through his bulky frame.

“If I were in your boots,” Valtor pressed, his tone unrelenting, “I’d scribe a missive this instant. Express your horror at Barl’s plight and the vile whispers tying Briston to it. Swear to scour your realm for truth, sparing no resource—men, gold, or blood.”

“He’ll never swallow such a blatant lie,” Meyrose grumbled, his voice thick with doubt as he slumped back in his chair.

“Of course not. He’s no simpleton. But it might temper his fury enough to buy us time. Barl hungers for war no more than you—offer him a path to retreat. A feigned regret, guilt unconfessed, could grant him that grace, for now.”

Meyrose’s scowl deepened, reluctance etched in every line of his fleshy face as he swirled the wine in his goblet, staring into its depths. “If you think it’ll serve.”

“I don’t waste breath on idle fancies.” Valtor’s teeth ground together, patience fraying like a worn rope stretched to snapping. This buffoon rivaled Dakaran for his sheer exasperation—a parade of weak-willed fools seemed his eternal burden. Why did the capable always stand against him? Perhaps competence bred defiance; the pliable were ever easier to mold, their spines bending like reeds in the wind.

A question stirred in his mind, one he’d meant to pose earlier, nagging at the edges of his thoughts. “Your men who limped back—did they speak of the wielders who bested them? The white-haired boy—what powers did he exercise?”

“It wasn’t just wielders,” Meyrose said, his tone shifting to unease as he set his goblet aside, the clink of metal on wood sharp in the stillness. “They spoke of a beast in their company.”

“A beast?” Valtor’s head lifted, his frame leaning forward with sudden intensity, the stool creaking beneath him. “Describe it.”

“They swore it was a hulking thing—razorback sized, with teeth like honed daggers and eyes aglow with fire.” Meyrose’s voice dipped as though reluctant to recount the tale.

Valtor exhaled sharply through his nose, irritation shimmering like an ember beneath ash. “Go on.”

“They claimed it nearly devoured them whole,” Meyrose added, his eyes flickering with a mix of doubt and reluctant awe. “Said it roared like thunder trapped in flesh.”

“And you believed such nonsense? It reeks of fishermen’s tales of sea serpents and storm wraiths spun over too much ale. What else?”

“Red scales, they said,” Meyrose offered, shrugging as if to distance himself from the claim. “Gleaming like spilled blood reflected in the sun.”

“So not a razorback, then,” Valtor snapped, waving a dismissive hand, though a sliver of curiosity lingered. “Enough of their fevered imaginings. The other wielder—with the boy. Was it Nyalis?”

“No. A woman, dark-skinned—an islander, perhaps, from one of the southern tribes on the Blue Isles. They say she turned the river to ice, trapping their ship in its grip like a fly in fresh pitch.”

Valtor shifted on his stool, the numbness creeping up his spine, a dull ache he dismissed. A voda wielder, then, and one of rare skill to freeze a rushing river solid enough to ensnare a vessel mid-flight. Did the Blue Isles breed such talents, their blood steeped in the sea’s ancient magics? He didn’t know of such things. “And the boy? What of him?”

“Blue fire at his beckoning, conjured from thin air. Steps upon the wind itself, as though the sky bent to his will. Shields no arrow can rend, invisible yet unbreakable.” Meyrose shook his head, despair seeping into his words. “How do we stand against such might?”

“Not by meeting it head-on,” Valtor said, his voice steady as bedrock. “You don’t topple a keep by shoving its walls—you gnaw at its roots until it crumbles under its own weight. Patience and precision, not brute force.”

Meyrose’s brow furrowed, confusion plain as he refilled his goblet with a trembling hand. “I’m no siege master, but swords and shields won’t suffice against this. You weren’t there at the Sidaran Assembly when he nearly buried us all beneath those gilded arches. Had Easthaven’s wielders not stepped in, we’d be food for the crows.”

“And if that was their design?” Valtor murmured, planting the seed of doubt with a velvet touch.

Meyrose froze, wine halting halfway to his lips, droplets trembling on the rim. “What do you mean?”

“Did it never cross your mind that Barl and his wielders orchestrated it? A charade to sway the overlords, to paint themselves as indispensable?”

“To what end?” Meyrose’s voice was a hoarse whisper, his grip tightening on the goblet.

“To worm their way into your trust by posing as saviors. A grand performance—danger conjured, then dispelled, all to bind the kingdoms to their cause.”

Meyrose lowered his cup, his brows knitting as doubt took root, shadows lengthening across his face in the firelight. “I hadn’t considered that. Not once.”

“Or perhaps,” Valtor added, stoking the fire with a silken thread of suggestion, “Barl’s will isn’t his own. What if the wielders pull his strings, a puppet dancing to their tune?”

Meyrose’s eyes widened, a spark of clarity igniting within them, banishing the haze of wine and fear. “You might be right. Barl’s no pawn by nature—he’s kept wielders at bay, never embraced them like kin. Now he flings open Sidara’s gates like a doting father, demanding his people kneel to the ven’ae? It stinks of compulsion. Your words cast a new light on this tangle—I’ll need to chew on it a while.”

Valtor’s lips curved in a faint congratulatory smile, satisfaction curling within him. So easily bent, this one—like clay in a sculptor’s grasp. “Ponder it well, Overlord. And while you do, draft that letter and dispatch it with haste. Seal it with your crest, let it fly on swift wings.” Barl’s wrath needed reining in—war would come, but on Valtor’s time, when the board was set to his liking.

Meyrose nodded absently, lost in the mire of his thoughts, his fingers tracing the rim of his goblet as if seeking answers in its curves.

“If there’s nothing more, I bid you good day.”

“Yes, yes,” Meyrose muttered, barely glancing up from his reverie. “It’ll be sent. Sworn on my name.”

The overlord’s image faded as Valtor tucked the scrying stone into the folds of his crimson robes, the green flames atop the pyre flickering into darkness. A marvel, those stones—bridging wielder and jun’ri alike once their runes flared awake, a pulse of power thrumming through their cores. Few relics bent so willingly to the ungifted, a rarity gleaned from long-forgotten hands. He drew a deep breath, the air sharp with the tang of smoke and old stone, and stepped from the dais, his boots echoing in the chamber as he strode through the arched doorway.

“Master.” Rowen awaited him in the corridor, bowing low, his misshapen cheek turned aside with practiced care. The growth had worsened, a cruel blight dimming his eye despite countless healers’ hands—some whispered it was a curse, though none dared say it to Valtor’s face. “Did the overlord quench Your Grace’s curiosity?”

“It shed some light,” Valtor said with a curt nod, his voice clipped. “Leave it there.”

He raised the ward sealing the scrying chamber—a shimmer of silver light rippling across the threshold—and then swept down the shadowed passage toward the Tower’s throat, Rowen’s steps a soft echo behind. Mangora’s return loomed near—his corax had spied her band threading the mountain passes at dawn, their black wings cutting the sky with lethal precision. Yet they’d not whispered whether the faeling or Aero’set’s key rode with them.

That fabled school, its traveling mirrors and lost magics, had haunted his dreams since Nyalis spun tales of it in his youth—tales of wonder that had turned to ash when the wizard barred him from its halls. His pace quickened at the faint hope she’d claimed it, though her presence suggested otherwise. If Aero’set lay within reach, Mangora would have lingered to secure it, not trudged back to grovel at his feet.

They reached the landing’s edge, and Valtor gripped the marble rail, peering down into the Tower’s vast gullet—a spiraling abyss ringed by tiers of shadowed corridors, their mouths sealed by wards he’d yet to unravel. The air hummed with echoes of ancient power, a low thrum that set his teeth on edge. The Tower’s depths were a labyrinth of secrets, its upper reaches cloaked in dust and mystery, many chambers untouched since Aerodyne’s fall. The Chamber of Purging’s tomes had unveiled dark, potent arts—spells to rend flesh and soul alike—but no key to the Tower’s many riddles.

He’d resigned himself that some enigmas might await Aerodyne’s return—a day he longed to witness, though doubts gnawed like rats at the edges of his faith. Their last link had seared him, a lash of agony from a prison beyond reach—Taerin Nu’Cyllian, the Tomb of the Abandoned, forged by fallen wizards and soul-bound chains in the Pits of Aran’gal. If Aerodyne broke free, Valtor would stand at his right hand, a shadow to his flame. Nyalis would surely falter before that storm, his sanctimonious light snuffed out.

Yet Valtor’s heart craved more: the ven’ae exalted, not merely tolerated as Barl vowed in his hollow promises, but crowned as Aldor’s true heirs, their power unshackled. Aerodyne would see the jun’ri kneel, their pride ground to dust beneath the wielders’ ascendancy. Unfortunately, there were those of his own kind who opposed him—blind to his vision, deaf to the destiny he chased. But he would not falter now, so close to the prize he could taste its bitter sweetness on his tongue.

Valtor steadied himself, the cold marble biting into his palm as he began the grueling descent down through the central core of the tower, his staff clicking against the steps in a steady rhythm. “Any word of the bulradoer?”

“Not yet, Your Grace,” Rowen replied, scurrying to match his stride, his robes whispering against the stone. “They may have slipped through a rear tunnel, avoiding the main gates.”

“And the excavations?” Valtor’s voice carried a faint edge of curiosity, his mind drifting to the hidden passages uncovered months ago, their depths still yielding to pick and torch.

“Slow, Your Grace. More than one cave-in has got the workers afraid to continue.”

Valtor pressed a thumb to his temple, scowling as a dull ache pulsed behind his eyes. “Then make them dread their masters more than the stone. Fear is a fine motivator.”

“How do you suggest they best go about this?” Rowen’s tone was eager, a glint of anticipation in his voice.

“Cull the boldest. Then make a spectacle of their deaths so grotesque the rest would rather choke on their tongues than speak.” Valtor’s lips twitched, a shadow of a smile. “Let their blood grease the wheels of progress.”

Rowen’s grin flashed, sharp and eager, a mirror to Valtor’s own dark delight. “I’m adept at that, Your Grace. A lesson well taught.”

Valtor clapped his apprentice’s shoulder, the gesture firm and possessive. “I know.”

From a waif thieving in Ecrin’s gutters to this, Rowen had thrived under his tutelage—a warped reflection of Valtor’s own youth, both savoring the art of bending wills, of turning men into pieces on a grand batmyth board. He had found the boy picking pockets in Cylmar’s fallen capital, his deft hands snagging Valtor’s purse—yet it was the defiance in those mismatched eyes that had stayed Valtor’s wrath. A kindred spirit, abandoned and hungry for more.

They reached the second landing, housing the bulradoer hall and his private sanctum, when the groan of the main doors below drew Valtor to the rail. His breath was ragged from the descent as he gazed down at the procession of grey-and-black robes trudging up the front steps and into the tower, their stride a dirge of defeat, boots scuffing the ancient tiles of the grand foyer. His staff tightened in his grip, pulse thundering in his ears, and not from exertion alone. Mangora’s hunched form led from atop her monstrous spider, its chitinous legs clicking a staccato rhythm, her cowl hanging draped as a shroud to cover her failure’s reek. No faeling walked among them. There was no glint of triumph in their bowed heads.

He struck his staff against the marble, the crack ringing out like a thunderclap through the Tower’s hollow core. Heads jerked up, eyes wide with dread. “One hour,” he snarled, his voice a whip leaving no room for defiance. “And wash yourselves first—I can smell the stench of defeat from here.” He turned, robes billowing in a crimson tide, and marched toward the meeting hall, the corridor swallowing him in shadow. The night loomed long and bitter ahead, a crucible for the reckoning to come.