The Varsian Kingdom Series: Arise to Fall (Book 1)
Arise to Fall is a medieval novel by fantasy author Jason P. Hein and is the first of 4 medieval fantasy books in the series.
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Eighteen year old Leila, who lives as a serf on King Goldwin's manor, finds her world turned upside down when she begins having visions of angels. The angel Shasia, known to mortals as the Queen of the Light Fairies, appears to the young woman with a simple message. "You are the Specter."
Could this be?
Against the advice of the village council and the will of the King himself, Leila sets out on a trek across the Varsian Kingdom with little more than her parents' blessing and the grace of an angel.
Join this young heroine as she discovers just how much it costs to become the "Chosen Hero" of her generation!
Excerpt:
Leila turned to the valley and began the long walk down the steep side, fog enveloping her as she walked into the cool air that was still shielded from the low rising sun. Large marble tombstones began appearing out of the haze. “What am I supposed to be doing here?” she wondered. She kept walking, something drawing her further in, deeper into the valley. Volian’s warning didn’t seem to frighten her anymore. She knew there was something here she was meant to find.
“Who is it that dares enter my domain?” the creature growled in a low gravelly voice, baring gnarly teeth that jutted from his beak-like muzzle as he spoke.
Leila’s heart skipped a beat, but it was as if something inside of her was strengthening her, she felt almost no fear. “My name is Leila, and I am the specter, Malock,” Leila answered, the wyvern’s name coming out of her mouth involuntarily.
The creature growled and continued circling her, all four limbs in motion. The creature, unlike a dragon which had four legs and wings on its back, had two legs and wings attached to its front limbs. “You speak to me in my birth name!” the wyvern’s beak-like mouth snarled. “How do you know my true identity human?”
The fog swirled mystically around the wyvern’s feat as he circled, crouching low to the ground in a threatening manner. Leila stared the creature in the eye as it circled around in front of her. “Let me pass and your name is safe,” she assured the creature.
The wyvern only laughed sinisterly. “You think me a fool human? With the true birth name of a soul all you have to do is travel to the Lageriat swamps and in your dreams my greatest weakness will be revealed to you,” the creature stopped and stepped closer. “So why would I let you live when you pose such a danger, and foolishly come here without any weapons?”
“Perhaps, I come here without any weapons because I have already been to the swamps and have seen your greatest weakness,” Leila suggested.
The wyvern’s eyes glared more sinister now only a thin dark yellow strip showing between his dark blue and black eyelids. He stepped back in uncertainty. “If you knew my weakness you would kill me.”
“If you let me pass within your domain and allow me to leave safely I will keep your secret to my grave,” Leila assured him. “I have no interest in killing you.”
“The word of a human?” the wyvern spit his words out with disgust.
“No,” Leila objected. “The word of the specter.”
The wyvern crouched down and spread it's wings over the ground, it's face thoughtful. Folding his wings the creature stood straight up on his two legs, towering over Leila by twice her height. “Enter... but I will watch your every step. One wrong move and we will see if you truly do know my weakness, trickster.”
“Thank you,” Leila walked calmly past the fierce looking beast, passing inches from it's eagle-like talons.