Skies of Navarys (Lodestone Tales, #1) / Lodestone Tales (ePub)

Two friends. Two opinions. One dilemma.

On fabled Navarys - the Atlantis of the North-lands - Liliyah studies energea as all thirteen-year-olds do, devoting her mornings to mastering the music that controls her magic. Afternoons, she hobnobs with the artisan crafters and shopkeepers who built the island city-state into the trade capital of the world.

Her friend Mago faces struggles unsuspected by carefree Liliyah. His father, a renowned inventor, succumbs to irrational flashes of rage. His mother holds a lethal secret close.

When the king's geomancer announces that a tidal wave threatens Navarys, every citizen on the island springs to action. Amidst the uproar, the aeromancer Palujon steals Mago's father's latest invention: unique lodestones with the potential to revolutionize life as the Navareans know it.

Mago vows to make good his father's loss. But Liliyah questions Palujon's motives. Why would a man of his stature break the law? Is he truly a dastard?

Two friends. Two answers. Life and death hang on their choices.


The Lodestone Tales

In the years that came before the ancient days of the North-lands, a brilliant inventor fabricated the lodestones - powerful artifacts that concentrate magical force.

And while men and women walk the earth but a short while, the lodestones persist through centuries and millennia. When they fall into the hands of mortals, history changes.

Follow the lodestones down through the ages as adventure follows adventure, and ordinary folk rise to meet extraordinary challenges.

(Although the Lodestone Tales form a rough history, each story stands alone. You need not read them in order.)

Skies of Navarys (1)
The Tally Master (1.5)
Resonant Bronze (2)
Rainbow's Lodestone (3)
Star-drake (4)


Excerpt from Skies of Navarys

"Energea stones are safer than they've ever been," Liliyah insisted.

"Except the ones that go untested." Did Mago sound glum?

Liliyah was tired of being patient with him. "There are no untested stones! My father sees to that!" she snapped.

"Oh, yes, there are."

"Do you just enjoy being sad and mad or something? 'Cause I don't! What's wrong with you, Mago?"

"I prefer being accurate over illusory happiness" - an unbearably superior tone - "as you clearly don't, Demoselle Lykos. Fine! Be glad and ignorant. I don't care. You're only a baby anyway. With a nurse."

Speechless, Liliyah jerked to her feet.


About the Author

J.M. Ney-Grimm lives with her husband and children in Virginia, just east of the Blue Ridge Mountains. She's learning about permaculture gardening and debunking popular myths about food. The rest of the time she reads Robin McKinley, Diana Wynne Jones, and Lois McMaster Bujold, plays boardgames like Settlers of Catan, rears her twins, and writes stories set in her troll-infested North-lands. Look for her novels and novellas at your favorite bookstore - online or on Main Street.