
Jeremiah Cain has a new MM fantasy romance out: Thorns of Chaos. And there’s a giveaway.
“Cain crafts a vivid world ⌠rich with detail and myth-lore that traipses brightly through the darker themes of oppression and suffering.” –BookLife Reviews
Queer Grimdark Fantasy: Finn is no hero, chosen born, or noble. Despite escalating tensions from the Dayigan soldier’s occupation of Feah lands, the happy-go-lucky twenty-five-year-old is content to spend his days fishing and flirting with the other men in his Celtic-like village. But everything changes at their midyear’s eve festival when an angry Dayigan commander catches Finn in the arms of another man. Suddenly framed for murder, he must flee his village or face death.
However, Finn isn’t the Dayigans’ only target. They believe all Feahs are wicked and intend to destroy them by any means necessary. The Feahs’ one hope of stopping the reign of terror is to find a relic forged by dark faeries and able to control chaos magic-and claim it to protect themselves. With the fate of the Feah lands resting on his shoulders, Finn seeks out sorcerers who practice ancient, forbidden magic.
Instead, he finds love with the handsome but fierce head of the sorcerers–and a power he never knew he could possess.
But when the Dayigans strike, can Finn harness the perilous magic to save his people without losing himself in the process?
Warnings: violence, sexual content, harsh language, homophobia, major character death
Universal Buy Link
Giveaway
Jeremiah is giving away a $20 Amazon gift card with this tour:
a Rafflecopter giveawayDirect Link: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/b60e8d47278/?
Excerpt
Finn jumped up from the shore and spread his wings before pushing them down to gain lift.
He kept a low flight of about thirty feet and could see their village as he passed.
A dozen rowboatsâwicker frames covered in skinsâlay inverted in a line on the shore. Just past where sand turned to grass, but before turning to forest, a small cluster of homes stood within a fence of long, thin branches woven horizontally between rough posts. Each of the houses had low mud walls and tall conical roofs of thatch.
Finn saw that all the villagers had gathered outside around the houses. Many held torches. A few children chased each other just above the roofs in aerial frolics.
Down the shoreline, Finn continued flying toward the Dayigan fort.
Ominous walls of thick logs, standing two stories high and sharpened, surrounded the roughly square fortress at a hundred and fifty feet across.
When the Dayigans had first arrived four years ago and built their walls, Finnâs people were aghast that they would rip down so much of their forest for such a pointless thing. The structures inside the walls were wooden too, with roofs shingled with green-painted wood. Wooden docks extended from the fort out into the river. Three large sailing shipsânot built from these forests but from some forest somewhereârocked within the tide.
At each corner of the fort, a tower extended higher, and from the center of each, a mast held a smaller horizontal pole at its peak. From each, an emerald green banner hung like a warning in the wind. In gold thread, it bore the sun and both moons in an upward-pointing triangle. A downward-pointing triangle, below the first, represented the distant island city of Dayigo. It screamed, âThis is ours now, not yours,â a sentiment echoed by the fortâs inhabitants.
Finn knew better than to enter the fort. Instead, he landed on the shore just outside the wall.
There, the ground was planked over in a level boardwalk. Stalls ran along the edges. The area should have been bursting with goods from all across the continent, but it was empty.
Holding his salmon like a smelly newborn, Finn stared, disappointed and unsure what to do.
Lann landed beside him. âWonât get much trading done here.â
ââTis market day, is it not?â
âAye, it were market day when it were day,â Lann said. âBut âtis not day no more. Come on then, letâs go back. Chief Kaie will have enough gifts without yours, so.â
âIâve come this far, though, havenât I,â Finn said. âMight as well see if someoneâs about.â
Finn walked forward and stepped up on the boardwalk. He stopped and gasped, clutching his fish to his chest.
A Dayigan soldier stood guard. He was Humanâa race like the Terovae, but without wings. They had hairy faces, and though some were thin, like Terovaes, others could grow wider with either muscle or fat. This soldier was larger in the muscular variety, and a suit of chainmail, covered by a green tabard, armored him.
The soldier eyed Finn but didnât turn his way.
Finn had also found Humans to be a little angry all the time.
âGo on then,â Lann prompted behind Finn. ââTwill be midnight âfore youâre done.â
Finn breathed deeply and approached.
âGood evening to you, Dayigan friend,â Finn said. âHate to be a bother, sir, but Iâve come for a quick trade, and Iâll pop off.â
Maintaining his rigid posture and staring forward, the Human replied gruffly. âThe marketâs shut for the month.â
âAye, that be true,â Finn said. âAnd I hate I missed it, but âtis a special night, this. Tonight, my peopleâthe Feah, well, all the Five Tribes reallyâcelebrate Midyearâs Eve. Thatâs the end of the dark season and the start of the light season. Iâm sure your God DĂŠagar would have a special place in his heart for that, right? Light season, like. And you see, thereâs this tradition where we all get a gift for the chief druidess, and I, fool I am, forgot. And to make things worse, me brotherâs a temple guardian and his wifeâmy sister by marriageâsheâs not only a druidess, herself, but no less the second-in-command of our whole fecking tribe.â He breathed. âSo, âtwill go well noticed if I show up with naught but empty hands and shrugged shoulders, wonât it now?â
The soldier said nothing.
âRight,â Finn said. âWhat can I get for this then?â He held up the salmon. âA basket of eggs would be lovely. The druidesses use them for the beernog.â
âThereâs plenty of fish in the river. We can get our own.â
âThat be true, yes. But this fish isnât in the river, is it? No, this fish is ready and waiting for yourself. And that saves you all the bother of fishing it out.â
The Human turned his head toward Finn and glared a moment. He snatched the fish by its tail. He held it, looked at it, and threw it.
The salmon flew a limp and uneventful flight to hit the boardwalkâs edge, head slapping wood with a spray of blood. It fell to splat on the beach at the waterâs edge.
The Human chuckled. âLooks like âtis in the river to me.â
âFucking Human!â Lann charged forward to fight.
The soldier drew his sword. âYou want to fight me, savage? Iâll gut the both of you before you canââ
âNo call for that,â Finn said. âWeâre all friends having a chat like.â
Lann stopped but glared.
Finn walked to Lann and patted his chest, now flexed along with the rest of his tense body.
âI donât think he wants to trade at all,â Finn said. Turning back to the soldier, he added, âWeâll be on our way then. Good night to you.â
The soldier didnât lower his sword, and Lann didnât relax.
âThe villageâll be waiting for us now,â Finn insisted.
Lann spit on the plank-covered ground.
Finn pushed Lannâs shoulder to turn him.
The Terovaes flew away.
Author Bio
Jeremiah Cain is a dark epic fantasy writer of a vivid world that BookLife Reviews called, ârich with detail and myth-lore that traipses brightly through the darker themes.â He served as an army medic and has a BA in Communication with a minor in English. In addition to reading and writing, he loves video games, particularly RPGs.
Author Website: https://jeremiahcain.com
Author Facebook (Author Page): https://www.facebook.com/jeremiahcain.novelist/
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