Hands scrabbling, legs pushing, he forced himself into the moonlit hole in the ground. The fresh air was a blessed wonder, smelling of warm night and summer leaves. He took great big gulps of it. A trail of black-looking blood zig-zagged up the dirt slope to the ground above. She had retreated.
Brom knew he couldn’t fight down here on this low ground, trapped in a hole. He had to get up there—
Linza appeared at the lip of the hole, one slick claw pressed to her neck, except she looked nothing like Linza, nor like Brom. A dark stain ran down the front of her tunic. Every bit of her visible flesh—face, neck, forearms, and hands—was that sea-green color. Her face was maniacal, with a mouth that was too wide, and stretched eyes slanting upward, nearly touching in the middle and at the edge by her pointed ears. Her gritted teeth were long and pointed.
“Show yourself!” Brom growled, gripping the dagger. “Show the real you!”
This thing, whatever it was, looked like a monster impersonating a man, not Linza impersonating Brom. It was dressed like a normal person in a short-sleeved tunic with drawstring neck, breeches tucked into boots, and a brown workman’s belt around its waist.
“This is the new face of your world,” the creature said, impossibly forming words with a forked tongue the size of a snake, which licked out through that overly-wide mouth and past those pointed teeth.
With a yowl of hatred, the creature threw itself into the hole, claws first.
Instinctively, Brom reached for his magic, tried to open one of his Soulblocks....
But no lightning crackled through him. No Soulblock opened. In fact, his Soulblocks were just...gone. In their place was something hard and tiny, like the shriveled pit of a Fendiran peach, incapable of holding anything.
The creature slammed into him, slicing with its ragged fingernails and biting for Brom’s neck. Brom shouted, half in pain, half in surprise at his startling realization: he had no magic.
He was a normal. He was just like everyone else now, and it paralyzed him for one breathless moment. Claws dug into his back. Teeth came ever closer to his neck.
And then he fought. He fought like a man who’d lost everything but his life. This dirty hole was the last patch of earth he’d ever see if he didn’t win. And worse than his own death, The Four would torture his friends. Those monsters might have already done it while Brom lay here. How many hours had he lain in this grave? Had it been days?
He lashed out with his elbows. He stabbed and slashed with the knife, again and again. He shouted, his voice rising to a desperate shriek.
The claws weakened, then stopped. Brom’s assailant fell to the broken lid of the coffin.
Gasping for breath, Brom blinked down at the maniacal creature who was dying of a dozen puncture wounds. Brom felt his own wounds—burning stripes across his arms and back—but he was still standing, and the creature was down.
“Damn...” the creature gasped, tongue slithering out, its words impossibly articulate through those wide lips and pointed teeth. “Damn it...”
And then the creature died. Its chest stopped rising as its last breath leaked out. Its eyes turned glassy.
Brom waited for the illusion to fade, for it to reveal Linza beneath the disguise. But nothing changed. The monster remained the monster.
But if it wasn’t Linza…what was it? Why was this creature attacking him, and who had sent it?
Confused, in pain, scared, Brom wanted to run away from this blood-spattered hole, but he held himself still. He pushed down his terror and focused, moving slowly. Common motions brought calm, so he moved like this was a normal situation. He wiped his dagger on the dead creature’s tunic, stuck it in his own belt, then he knelt and searched the thing’s clothing for anything that might give him clues as to who, or what, it was.
The creature carried no money or food or documents. The only thing it possessed was a shiny tuning fork stuck in its thick belt. Brom took it.
He stared for a long time at that inhuman face with its needle teeth and elongated eyes, no less frightening in death than it had been in life.
He steeled himself, then knelt on the ground where the thing had ripped a hole into the coffin. He groped around, grabbed the sheath for his dagger and, attaching it to his belt, sheathing the dagger properly.
He scrambled out of the hole and looked around.
He was in the graveyard in his home village of Kyn. Tall and small headstones surrounded him. There was the twisted willow tree at the northeast corner, right next to the white-washed fence. This was the very place he’d faced Linza during the Test of Separation. But he’d bested her. He’d charged back through the portal, then jumped through Vale’s portal to a completely different place—a Lyantree forest where he had fought The Four. Where he fought the gods-be-damned Four...
And they killed me, he thought. I died, but now I’m alive again....
How was that possible? He remembered dying, remembered the reassuring whispers of the Soul of the World as everything went black in that Lyantree forest.
A chill ran up his back. The Lyantrees... Is that why he was still alive?
Legends told that those who died near Lyantrees sometimes rose from their graves, roots wrapped around necks and arms, squeezing, moving the bodies like puppets. But the spooky bedtime stories of Lyancorpses all agreed that they didn’t have the wits of a man. Lethargic and aimless, they wandered about, attacking whomever they found. They killed and killed until they were finally chopped into pieces.
Brom reflexively patted himself, seeking roots wrapped around his arms or ankles or waist, but there was nothing. He wasn’t a Lyancorpse.
He stumbled away from the grave, memory after memory flashing through his mind: The Four fighting him. Brom fighting back, opening his fourth Soulblock, tearing Arsinoe apart, wounding Wulfric, even evading Linza. He remembered almost winning...until Wulfric stabbed him through the chest.
He felt his chest, but there was no wound, nothing save the slashes the green-skinned creature had given him.
It made no sense, but he was alive. And if he was alive, he had to save his friends. He remembered the vile promises of The Four. What they were going to do to Vale, to Oriana, to Royal...
I have to get to them, he thought. I have to warn them.
Brom staggered out of the graveyard. He circled the outskirts of the town and went to his house. For a moment, he just stared at the large stone cottage next to the Kyn River. The big water wheel turned lazily in the stream next to the maple tree Brom had climbed as a child. The wounds on his arms and back burned. He needed help first, before the long journey back to the Champions Academy. He needed food, medicine, bandages for his cuts.
He ran down the trail toward his house, stomped onto the porch, up to the door, and grabbed the handle...
And he stopped.
No. What was he thinking?
The desperate child within him wanted to burst inside his house and fall into his parents’ arms, let them take care of him like they used to. But he wasn’t a ten-year-old boy anymore, running to his mother because he’d skinned a knee. A monster had just dug him out of his own grave.
He pulled his hand back from the handle like it was hot, leaving a bloody smear. What if that monster wasn’t the only one? What if there were more? He was part of a different world now, a student at the Champions Academy. He’d endured things normals couldn’t even understand, let alone handle. That creature, that spawn of some Quadron’s vile imagination, had come to destroy him. This wasn’t a childhood injury or a fear of the dark. This was real, horrific magic. His parents couldn’t protect him, not even for an instant, and if he opened that door, he was putting them at risk.
He retreated, stumbling backward off the porch just as he heard footsteps inside the house. Lamplight flickered to life in the windows, warming them with an orange glow.
Father opened the door and looked in shock at the droplets of blood on the porch. He hastily searched the dark with stern fear on his face. But Brom had a
lready hidden himself behind the maple tree. Father quickly shut the door and threw the bolt. Brom swallowed in relief.
Quietly, he broke from the maple tree’s shadow and jogged toward the road that ran close to the house. As he crested the hill at the edge of town, he turned and looked back at the little village of Kyn, nestled peacefully beneath the silver-blue moonlight of Fendra.
The last time Brom had left his hometown, he hadn’t looked back. He had practically skipped away, with dreams of becoming a Quadron filling his head.
A part of him longed to reach back to that time, to tell his younger self just how precious those innocent moments were. To be able to dream and to believe those dreams would come true just as he’d imagined them. He wanted to tell his younger self to enjoy the carefree days of climbing trees and swimming in the river, of kissing Myan the miller’s daughter in the graveyard and thinking there was nothing more horrible in the world than missing a chance to become a Kyn guardsman.
Now he lived in a world of powerful magic and horrible betrayal. Brom’s life had become a nightmare, and he couldn’t inflict that on the innocent villagers of Kyn.
No. There was only one place he belonged now: the Champions Academy. He had to reawaken his magic, to reunite with his Quad. The only question was, would he be in time?
Looking over his shoulder, Brom gave one last glance at his childhood, then banished it. He turned and started up the dark road, just like he’d done a lifetime ago, back when he thought he was walking toward his dreams and not into a deadly trap.
I’m coming for you, he thought silently to The Four. You’re liars and murderers, and I’m going to bring you to justice or I’m going to die trying.
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Tower of the Four
Episode 1 - The Quad
The Collector knocks upon Brom’s door…
...tells him he is chosen.
Is this the chance of a lifetime or a death sentence?
Being chosen means Brom can learn magic at the Champions Academy. Something only the most talented are selected to do. So Brom takes The Collector’s hand and leaves his family behind.
How could anything go wrong?
When he joins the school, he discovers the truth. He must form a Quad in order to learn magic. Bonding with three violent classmates is the key to success…
...and the only way to survive.
Can Brom bridge a decades-old feud between two mortal enemies, tame a vicious little urchin, and make them into a Quad in time?
You’ll love this epic fantasy, because what’s a little bloodshed among friends?
Episode 2 - The Tower
Brom, Oriana, Royal and Vale have formed their Quad…
…but will their success lead to their deaths?
Before graduating, every Quad must take the Test of Separation, a proving ground that no full Quad has survived except for the mysterious demigods known as The Four.
As Brom’s Quad flourishes, bringing them ever closer to the Test, a foreboding grows in his gut. There’s something rotten at the heart of the school.
Can Brom find the truth before his Quad is thrown into the meat grinder of the Test?
You’ll love this epic fantasy, because sometimes the truth hurts, and sometimes it kills you.
Episode 3 - The Test
Brom has uncovered the deadly truth about The Four, but at a terrible price…
He has released the magic in his fourth and final Soulblock, a certain death no one has ever survived.
His friends rush to save him, but can they do it without losing their own lives in the process?
In the meantime, The Four hunt for the identity of the one who invaded their tower.
Will Oriana’s cleverness, Royal’s strength, and Vale’s passion be enough to save Brom and escape the wrath of The Four?
You’ll love this epic fantasy, because sometimes friendship is the only thing that can turn the tide.
Urchin: A Tower of the Four Short Story
When a stranger heals Vale’s injured leg…
…she begins to believe in magic.
He tells her she is destined to learn it, too. But first, she must conquer her fears. She must see the magic for herself. And then, she must risk her life to take hold of it.
As she struggles to see clearly, a street thug tries to make Vale his slave. He beats her, takes her food, intimidates her into doing his bidding.
Can she find the path to magic before he kills her?
You’ll love this short story in the Tower of the Four world, because even vicious little urchins deserve a chance at magic.
Royal: A Tower of the Four Short Story
When Royal's dream turns into prophecy…
…he is determined to go to war.
Can one young man stop an entire army?
But before his village will approve someone so young to join the bloody fight, Royal must first run a deadly coming-of-age race called The Spiral.
As he fights for his life, he is interrupted by a Quadron—a powerful magic-user—who tells Royal he could become a Quadron too. But first, he must lose the race, forget the war, and spurn his society.
Will Royal throw away everything he loves for the chance to wield magic?
You'll love this Tower of the Four short story, because some people were just born to save the world.
Princess: A Tower of the Four Short Story
When a bloody disease kills Oriana’s uncle…
…she doesn’t want to be a princess anymore.
The Bloodbane only infects highborns, and it is killing them one by one. Instead of waiting to catch the Bloodbane, Oriana conspires to run away with the woman she loves, as far away as she can.
That night The Collector arrives, tells Oriana she is chosen, that she must come to the Champions Academy and learn magic that might cure The Bloodbane…
Will Oriana choose her lover…?
…or the slim chance to save the highborns of her kingdom?
You’ll love this epic fantasy short story, because when duty and desire clash, a princess’s choice will define her forever.
About The Author
Todd Fahnestock
TODD FAHNESTOCK is a writer of fantasy for all ages and winner of the New York Public Library’s Books for the Teen Age Award. Threadweavers and The Whisper Prince Trilogy are two of his bestselling epic fantasy series. His time travel novel, Charlie Fiction, was a finalist in the Colorado Authors League Best of 2019. His passions are fantasy and his quirky, fun-loving family. When he’s not writing, he teaches Taekwondo, swaps middle grade humor with his son, plays Ticket to Ride with his wife, scribes modern slang from his daughter and goes on morning runs with Galahad the Weimaraner.
Visit Todd at www.toddfahnestock.com.
Praise For Author
Praise for Tower of the Four (5 stars):
AMAZING SERIES START! HAS ME HOOKED FOR MORE.
Todd’s ability to hook you into the story with his world building and character development with wonderful dialog is superb. The story flows easily and leaves you wanting to read the next book in the series immediately right after. I highly recommend everything this brilliant author writes. You will not be disappointed!
- Jennifer H. (Amazon Reader)
Praise for Tower of the Four (5 stars):
GRAB YOUR COMFY CHAIR FOR THIS READ
Tower of Four is another slam dunk for Fahnestock. He grabs his readers with detai
led characterization and exciting story lines.
- Georgine T. (Amazon Reader)
Praise for Tower of the Four (5 stars):
THIS IS A GREAT BOOK
I really enjoyed this book. The story is great and so are the characters but the best part is that it probably the most interesting and creative magic "system" I have ever read.
Highly recommend!
- William M. (Amazon Reader)
Praise for Tower of the Four (5 stars):
A FUN READ FULL OF SURPRISES
This story drew me in to the point where I could not turn away until I was done. Watching the characters make discoveries into themselves and the universe they inhabit got me so invested in them that I was thinking about them and missing them long after I have finished reading. I am looking forward to more!
- Tracy N. (Amazon Reader)
Praise for Tower of the Four (5 stars):
GOT ME HOOKED UP
Found the cover on Reddit, it got me intrigued so I dove in.
It's safe to say I got hooked.
Anyways, into the book, but I won't spoil much :
"Motus, Mentis, Impetu, Anima". Paths to magic that I see a little less often in fantasy books. Emotional, Mental, Physical and Spiritual. Can you guess who is who on the cover?
The Test Page 12
