EVIL IS NOT UGLY. IT IS ALLURING, BEAUTIFUL, AND SEDUTIVE. ELSE WHY WOULD MEN BE DRAWN TO IT?
On the cusp of his First Night, the rite of passage that will make him a man, Jan Unwin is sent to the nearby village of Miller's Down to settle his father's debt with their blacksmith. Excited to be given a man's responsibility, Jan celebrates his independence with some of the other boys of the village and takes a few tentative steps into the world of adulthood, flirting with a pretty girl, sharing a heady drink with other boys, and accepting a dare to expose himself to the ominous, seductive power of the Beckoning, which only comes out at night and seduces men to their deaths.
The next day, exhausted from the previous night's revelry, Jan sets out to return to his home village, but stops on the way to take an ill-fated nap. When he wakes, the sun has already set, it's fading light still lingering in the sky, but he can already feel the seductive pull of the Beckoning, and he knows that without wards he will be found and slain by nohetka, creatures of the Beckoning, who are drawn to the living and filled with an erotic allure that is impossible to resist.
Desperate, alone, and afraid, Jan finds shelter in a tree just as the seductive and deadly nohetka find him. He lashes himself to the tree just as the Beckoning overwhelms his senses, nearly causing him to fall to the hordes that hunt him, when suddenly, without warning, they leave. Jan is left to ponder the mysterious circumstances of his respite when he realizes he has survived his First Night and has done so with none of the wards and protections usually associated with the ritual.
But Jan's passage into manhood comes at a terrible price. One that will forever change him and endanger the lives of everyone in the land.
The Rune that Binds is the first book in the Sommerstone Chronicles, a dark fantasy where starlight is synonymous with death, and the dead walk the night filled with an irresistible, erotic allure, and wear the faces of the people you love.
"When God made the world, he did it with a whisper. Thus it is with all great works, they are begun and finished in silence..." From the Book of Sumis Three thousand years ago the Virtues abandoned the world when mankind turned their backs on them to worship their fallen brother, Malasephus, who grants power to the ambitious, glory to the vain, and pleasure to the hedonist. Only a few scattered people cling to the old ways of the Sumis and rune magic. They ward their homes and villages with the sacred symbols that protect them from the dead who wander the night. When Jan's village of Sommerstone is destroyed and everyone he knows is murdered he sets out on a quest to avenge their deaths by joining the Tair, nomadic warriors who hunt the servants of Malasephus. What he doesn't know is the Virtues have returned, and they have chosen him to be the Whisper of God, and his quest for vengeance will change him in ways he can't imagine. www.sommerstone.com
