1. Sintu – The ability to hold one’s soul steady, making it flow evenly. It stops soul from leaking, creates a nimbus. The nimbus is sort of a container and a shield and helps protect against mental attacks, but not physical. Only those strong in soul can see another person’s nimbus or sintu. It appears in a wavy, white haze like mist.
2. Koren – The ability to stop one’s soul energy, thus hiding it. Helps with aging and fatigue.
3. Tern – The ability to take soul energy from one part and apply it to another, creating less or more soul. When combined with sintu, it can help protect against physical attacks but not mental.
4. Sera – The ability to mentally project one’s soul energy onto another person. Can influence a person’s mind if the user’s will is strong enough.
5. Hyzen – The ability to move all of the soul to a specific body part.
6. Shi – The ability to create a physical or mental effect by distributing one’s soul outwardly. This gives a person a unique skill or a melding. Can also be used to determine if what another person is doing is a meld or simply an effect of a cycle.
7. Lumni – The ability to expel the majority of one’s soul from one’s body.
8. Entope – The ability to steal someone else’s soul energy.
9. Baltus – The ability to take soul energy from something dead.
10. Jin – A combination of sintu, sera, and lumni that allows a person to stretch sintu to incredible distances.
Many of the cycles can be combined in different forms to bring about unique skills. The full extent of this is unknown and relies on a person’s individual emotional state, persona, and bloodline.
To go along with the cycles are the types of melders. Often a person’s type is discovered through a plethora of vigorous and at times dangerous exercises. Since soul becomes active for a normal person only when faced with an extreme situation, such exercises are used to bring about a faster reaction. A person’s strongest cycles dictates their type.
In essence, there are five main types of melders:
Casters – They can project their soul and expel it from their bodies over short distances. They often carry minor Alchemist abilities, which allow them to apply a property to their essence, like fire, ice, lightning, or almost anything else that exists.
Magnifiers – As the name might suggest, magnifiers have the ability to change the substance of their souls and apply it physically to their bodies or to increase the natural state of an item, depending on what the situation requires.
Manifestor – Manifestors can recreate any physical item they have ever possessed, giving it similar or better properties. They are able to change their soul into the actual item. However the manifested item is restricted by a life span of anywhere from two days to a week.
Mesmer – These are to be feared. They are adept at mind control. Ever thought to do something and suddenly decide otherwise? There might be a Mesmer in your midst. A Mesmer usually has to have some type of physical contact with their victim. Rumor has it that some can project their thoughts for communication or even influence another mind without touch.
Alchemist – Alchemists are the most diverse among normal melders. They can copy properties of anything and apply it to their soul. They generally have incredible control over tern, to the extent that they can take a piece of their soul and attach it to inanimate or animate objects and still have control over it at short distances. Alchemists usually make the best trackers.
Having the use of two types is a common trait. Restrictions apply depending on strength and weaknesses in the corresponding cycles. Having three types at once is rare. This brings us to the special half-breeds and the actual original melders. Their ability to combine various cycles and possibly use cycles not known to us, makes them the most dangerous and coveted of creatures.
Philodar – They possess three types at once, and have mastered 7 cycles.
Aladar – These have four types and eight cycles.
Finally, we have the Dracodar, a race unto themselves. They possess all types, and known cycles. The effect of this is reported to be a shortened life span and stunted reproduction. Some remain in a perpetual combination of sintu and koren, which can extend their lives. During the Thousand Year War, it was discovered that ingesting anything from a Dracodar increased a human melder’s powers by incredible amounts. Since then, Dracodar have been hunted almost into extinction.
I believe some original Dracodar still live, hidden behind the Pillars of Dissolution and the magical barrier that protects the legends of the Ten Purgatories. I have made up my mind to find a way beyond the Pillars. My answers to bypassing the barrier lies with the Dracodar remnants enslaved in the Farlands. I leave in two weeks.
Words from the Author
Hey, there!!
I’m happy that you made it this far and have taken the time to read this bit from dull old me. I hope this means that you enjoyed the book, and I hope it was all you expected and more. My passion for reading and writing goes hand in hand with my love for MMORPGS. It’s a combination of living in all these worlds that makes me dream and write.
As I strive to create bigger and better worlds and greater stories filled with characters and places you can lose yourself in, I would love your input. If you enjoyed the book, drop a review or rating over on Amazon or whichever ebook retailer you use. Such things are the lifeblood for authors, and help us to shape our future work. (At least it does so for me.)
If you’d like to contact me, you can find me at www.terrycsimpson.com or on www.facebook.com/AuthorTCSimpson or just sign up to my newsletter for new releases, giveaways, and contests www.terrycsimpson.com/newsletter.
Again, thanks for reading!
Dedication
To Kai,
You are the reason I do this. My inspiration comes from watching you grow every day.
Books by T.C. Simpson
Aegis of the Gods Series
Etchings of Power
A legendary killer without a memory, a gifted student who has lost his way, a vengeful assassin on an impossible mission, an old mentor whose only wish is to save her people. Kingdoms separate them but their fates are intertwined.
The opening stanza in a new epic fantasy series that delves into the themes of war, corruptible power, love, betrayal, and absolution in the world of Denestia.
Ryne Waldron, a living legend at the edge of madness is haunted by a murderous past and the voices of his power that whisper in his head. Hunted, he strives to defend a village he swore to protect. But his enemies might be closer than he could ever suspect.
Ancel Dorn, a gifted student, struggles with rejection and must accept who he is or perish to the creatures that stalk him and his parents. When he discovers he’s targeted for death by beings that seemed to have stepped from the history of an ancient war, his only choice is to flee.
Irmina Nagel, Ancel’s former lover, and an assassin sent to find Ryne, is mired in her quest for revenge on Ancel’s parents, and must set aside her emotions or fail her final test. What she discovers may not only change her life but the world as a whole.
Caught between warring nations, vengeful leaders, magic and steel, myth and men, the fate of millions hang in the balance. Who can unite the kingdoms against a common threat? Who shall bring the power that drives the world to heel? Who will walk the knife’s edge of harmony? If none can, then Denestia is doomed.
Buy on Amazon
The Shadowbearer
It’s recommended to read the Shadowbearer after reading Etchings of Power, although it can be considered a stand alone.
In a world where magic corrupts and kingdoms constantly war, the power that drives the world stirs. It whispers promises of greatness in the heads of the men and women that wield it. Now, it has spoken to the mind of a king.
Knight Commander Stefan Dorn, leader of the Unvanquished, has known only war, death and, victory. All in the name of his loyalty to King Nerian the Lightbearer, a man he idolized.
Until now.
Everything he thought he knew about the King, his people, and his world is coming to an end. At a time when there should be peace, he’s once again called to war. Torn between shocking changes at home, his family, loyalty to his men and his King, Stefan wishes only to enjoy life away from the battlefield. But with the new campaign comes a rabid, unforgiving enemy and a potential cataclysm.
Follow him as he fights to save his family, his people, his honor, and his birthright from the grips of the shade. Can he save them all? If not, which will he choose, which will he lose?
The Shadowbearer is a rousing and engaging prequel to Etchings of Power and a worthy addition to the Aegis of the Gods series.
Buy on Amazon
Ashes and Blood
The epic continuation of the Aegis of the Gods series.
Ancel Dorn has gained the first of his power. And now he’s a wanted man.
Ryne Waldron wants to teach him. The Nine want him to be taught before they kill him. Galiana Calestis wants him to live, and learn, and hopefully accomplish what she never was able to do: save their people. Irmina Nagel wants to love him again. Stefan Dorn, his father, wants him to lead and pave his own path.
The Tribunal and the shade want him dead.
All he wishes is to save his mother if she lives; rescue his father from the Tribunal’s clutches; find love again; help his people. And to learn how to harness his power before it drives him mad or kills him.
Cities will burn. The innocent will die. The dead shall rise. Nightmares will stalk the land. Guardians will wreak havoc.
Can he, Irmina, Galiana, and Ryne help to stem the tide? If so, at what cost?
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Embers of a Broken Throne
The fourth volume of Terry C. Simpson’s epic series, Aegis of the Gods:
In the aftermath of a titanic battle, Ancel and the remnants of his people are fleeing to Benez, a city reviled by the world. Hunted by Tribunal assassins and shadelings, he must fight to see them survive even as corruption creeps across the land, and his father battles for sanity.
Ryne continues to hold fast to his secrets, but suspicious of those around him, he makes a shocking discovery of his own, one he dare not reveal.
Still struggling with the loss of her parents, her feelings for Ancel, and her hate for Ryne, Irmina comes into her power as a Beasttamer, and is exposed to knowledge that could kill them all if the enemy sees through her act.
Meanwhile, the Nine continue to pull strings, and the armies of the Tribunal and Amuni’s Children march, their ultimate goal to see an end to Ancel and the Eztezians, and to breach the prisons of the gods.
But true to form in Denestia, many things are not what they seem.
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The Quintessence Cycle Series
Game of Souls
Your soul is your magic. The nobility will stop at nothing to steal it.
Keedar Giorin still remembers the night when soldiers killed his mother. The Night of Blades. He was three, but the memories are written in his mind in blood, flames, scales, and his mother’s mad cackles.
Assigned by his father to save two young noblemen or risk a repeat of the massacre on his home in the Smear, Kasandar’s most lawless district, Keedar dives headlong into the mission. He uses his most secret skill, a magic that could bring the King’s Blades hunting him, a magic that could be a death sentence if reported to the wrong ears.
But even that risk is part of his father’s calculated plan. A plot to determine who was behind his mother’s death, while securing a new ally for their guild, and seeing their people rise from squalor and oppression to strive for the identity and power they have all but forgotten.
Plans, however, do not always follow the path drawn out. What will Keedar do when a count takes interest in his magic? Where will he run to when the hunt begins? Can a young man now growing into his power find a way to defeat the most ruthless of assassins?
Buy on Amazon
The Arcanus Archives
Shadeborn
If Death had a child, it would be Shadeborn.
Mike’s a misguided thug haunted by bad luck, tragedy, and a psychopathic brother. Darius sits atop a world he’s ready to abandon. Sheila is just looking to make a meal of the magically gifted.
What do they have in common?
A slew of supernatural creatures, the Arcane Police, and the N.Y.P.D who all want them either dead or captured.
Oh, there’s also Phil. But when Phil’s around, people die. Lots of them.
So what’s to be done when death or worse comes a calling, and immortals decide to shape the life of men?
Learn to accept what you are or die. Then again, death isn’t what it used to be.
Buy on Amazon
Fantasy works from APG
By Valerie Douglas
Song of the Fairy Queen
The Coming Storm Series
Setting Boundaries
Not Magic Enough
The Coming Storm
A Convocation of Kings
By Paul Kater
Hilda the Wicked Witch series
Hilda the wicked witch
Hilda – Snow White revisited
Hilda – The Challenge
Hilda and Zelda
Hilda – Cats
Hilda – Lycadea
Hilda – Back to School
Hilda – Dragon Master
Find out more about the APG and its authors at
AlexandriaPublishingGroup.com
Copyright
Soulbreaker is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Golden Arm Press
Copyright © June 2014 Terry C. Simpson All rights reserved
Mapwork by Terry C. Simpson
The right of Terry C. Simpson to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the publisher. You must not circulate this book in any format.
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to author and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Find out more about the author and upcoming books online at terrycsimpson.com or @TeeSimps, TCSimpson on Facebook or Alexandria Publishing Group
ISBN: 978-1-939172-14-3
Kindle Edition
Table of Contents
Welcome
Maps
1. Hunting
2. Dance of Death
3. Test of Soul
4. Signs
5. A Temple of Plans
6. Lessons in Lethality
7. The Thing
8. Schemes
9. A Search for Answers
10. A Living Sky
11. Death of a Boy
12. A Message
13. An A
ncient Game
14. Out of the Trees
15. Wenches and Blades
16. Queen’s Doom
17. An Old Legend
18. A Gathering
19. Price of Arrogance
20. Sorrows
21. Reports
22. Fertile
23. Hard Decisions
24. News in Shalgere
25. Old Knowledge
26. The Avenue
27. A Meeting
28. A Ride
29. Semblance of Truth
30. Firebreathers
31. In the Dreadwood
32. Debt of Blood
33. A Plan
34. Two Gold Bits
35. Dracodarian Steel
36. A Tale
37. Orders
38. Wedded to Soul
39. Almost Dead
40. The Wrath Blade
41. Ripples in a Pond
42. The Wind Blade
43. In a Dark Pit
44. A Stolen Prize
45. Grand Chantry Revisited
Into the Farlands
Musings on Soul
A Few Words from the Author
Books by T.C Simpson
Dedication
Fantasy Books by APG
Copyright
Soulbreaker Page 34
