SOUL OF SWORDS excerpt

I am making good progress on SOUL OF SWORDS. So let’s have another excerpt!

“I will enter Cythraul Urdvul,” said Skalatan, “claim the power of the Demonsouled for myself, and become the new Sepharivaim.”

“Will you?” said Lucan. “Malavost tried to use the Door of Souls atop Mount Tynagis to claim the power of Sepharivaim, and look what happened to him.”

“Malavost was misinformed,” said Skalatan. “Sepharivaim is dead.”

“I see why the other San-keth consider you a heretic,” said Lucan.

“They lack vision and are enslaved to their narrow dogmas,” said Skalatan. “Sepharivaim has been dead for millennia, and my people worship the memory of a slain god. A useless folly. Instead I will become the new god and set this world to order.”

Lucan scoffed. “And you shall make yourself a tyrant as black as any of the Demonsouled.”

“Hardly,” said Skalatan. “The minds of humans are…conflicted, warring between their reason and their emotions. The mind of a San-keth is cold. Orderly. Rational. This world is a place of chaos and madness. With the power of the Demonsouled, I shall remake this world as a place of rationality and order. To the benefit of the San-keth, yes. But also to the benefit of the humans and the Elderborn and the other sapient races that live upon this world.”

“And why are you telling me this?” said Lucan. “You all but admitted that you are going to march the Aegonar south to claim Knightcastle. I assume you have a reason for explaining your entire plan to me?”

“Correct,” said Skalatan. “I wish for you to aid me.”

For a moment Lucan was not sure he had heard the San-keth correctly.

-JM