Blog Tour: The Fire Mages by Pauline M. Ross (Promo and Excerpts)

About The Book

Title: The Fire Mages

Author: Pauline M. Ross

Genre: Epic Fantasy Adventure / Romance

Kyra has always been drawn to the magic of spellpages. She is determined to leave her small village far behind and become a scribe, wielding the power of magic through her pen. Halfway through her training, she has a mage as patron and her ambitions are within her grasp. But a simple favour for her sister goes disastrously awry, destroying Kyra's dreams in an instant.

Devastated, she accepts an offer from a stranger to help her find out what went wrong. The young man sees growing power within Kyra, potentially stronger than spellpages or any living mage. The answers to unlocking that power may lie within the glowing walls of the Imperial City, but its magic is strong and the unwary vanish without trace on its streets. Thirsty for knowledge and desperate to avoid another accident, she feels compelled to risk it.

While she focuses on controlling her abilities, a storm of greed and ambition boils up around her. Kyra is a pawn in the struggle for dominance between unscrupulous factions vying for rule of her country. Trusting the wrong side could get her killed--or worse, the potent magic she barely understands could be put to unthinkable evil.

Author Bio

Pauline lives in the beautiful Highlands of Scotland with her husband, her grown up daughter and a mad cat. She likes chocolate, whisky, her Kindle, massed pipe bands, long leisurely lunches, watching TV with her daughter, chocolate, going places in her campervan, eating pizza in Italy, summer nights that never get dark, wood fires in winter, chocolate, the view from the study window looking out over the Moray Firth and the Black Isle to the mountains beyond. And chocolate. She dislikes driving on motorways, cooking, shopping, hospitals. ‘The Fire Mages’ is her second published work. ‘The Plains of Kallanash’ was published in September 2014.

Links

http://paulinemross.co.uk/

Book Excerpts

Excerpt #1

The highway was lined three or four deep in honour of the Kellon’s arrival, despite a misty rain. I was there with my whole family - Mother, Father, three sisters, two brothers, and my eldest sister’s husband and children. The procession arrived an hour or two later than expected. A long train of horsemen in the local colours preceded several fine carriages, wagons of luggage and finally the open carts for the servants. The Kellon and most of his retainers would stay at the village guest house, with the overflow squeezed into the inn.

The Kellon himself rode near the front, his armour loose enough to accommodate his belly. Guards surrounded him, and behind came several men in leather riding trousers and long coats, the full skirts trailing over their horses’ rumps. I spotted the bulk of the Kellon’s Steward, and one man was recognisable as a mage by the tattoo on his forehead. The others were indistinguishable older men with serious faces looking straight ahead, either uninterested in the village peasantry or with their thoughts fixed on weightier matters. Or perhaps focused on their stomachs, since they were late for the noon board.

One man was different. He was younger than the others, only a few years older than me, and since he wore no riding scarf, his dark hair jumped out of the array of blond heads around him. Odder still, as he passed by, he turned towards me and stared directly into my eyes, as if, somehow, he knew me and had picked me out from the sea of identical women. Yet I had never seen him before.

“Well, that was peculiar,” said Alita, my next oldest sister. “I’ve not seen him here before. Why did he look at you in that way?”

I could only shrug. I shivered, suddenly chilled from standing so long in the drizzle.

Excerpt #2

“Kyra, I’ve found a spell to prevent pregnancy, and if you were to write it out…”

“Deyria, I’m not allowed to! Even if I had the proper paper and ink, it’s absolutely forbidden. I’d be thrown out of the scribery. Besides, I’ve never written a true spellpage.”

“Oh, it doesn’t need to be real,” she said airily, “but everyone knows that writing out the spell and then burning it in a crucible - well, it isn’t guaranteed to work, like the real thing, but it increases the chances.”

“Even a true spellpage isn’t guaranteed to work,” I said acidly. “This is just superstition, Deyria. Without the proper paper, ink and quill, it can’t possibly have any effect. There’s no magic in the words themselves, the power is all in the paper and ink. It’s a waste of time.”

“But it would make me feel better about all this,” she said softly.

It was quite illogical, but many people believed such things and paid a little to have someone write out a spell when they couldn’t afford the silver for a true spellpage. It would do no harm, I reasoned, and perhaps it would bring her some comfort, even if it couldn’t possibly prevent her getting pregnant. It was clear that she was as good as committed to the Kellon already - she even called him by his given name.

So, despite my misgivings, I wrote out the spell on Mother’s regular paper, and watched the letters jump and shimmer as they settled onto the page. Then I gave it to Deyria, and her face lit up with pleasure. She hugged me and thanked me over and over.

“We’ll go to Ginzia’s house tonight. She won’t mind us using her crucible.”

“Not me, no. I’m a scribe, Deyria, I don’t like to watch ordinary pages burned in the crucible. It seems wrong somehow. The crucible is only for true spellpages.”

So she went alone and came back smiling. But that night, I dreamt of flames and ash.

Excerpt #3

The ritual of renewal took place at the very top of the Scribes’ Tower, and a whole tribe of silent servants accompanied us up the many steps, carrying boxes of equipment.

There was a single closed door on the landing, but I could feel the power emanating from the room beyond, thrumming like the low growl in the throat of a big cat stalking its prey. My whole body throbbed in response. While Cal was rummaging in the boxes, I was drawn towards the door. Slowly, slowly, I stepped nearer. I rested my hand very gently on it and felt a warmth run up my arm.

With a soft snick it popped open. I dropped my hand in alarm.

“I’ll open the door in a minute,” Cal said, glancing up at me.

“It’s open.”

“No, it’s locked. Or it should be.” He came to stand beside me. “That’s odd. Did you turn the handle?”

“No, I just touched the door and it moved.”

“Hmm. Someone must have left it open.” He pushed it wide with one foot, and began to carry through an armful of blankets from the boxes.

I walked into the room. It was round, although smaller than the spellarium, and windowless.

Right in the centre a green marble pillar many paces round rose from floor to arched roof. All the power emanated from there. I’d thought the mirror room a furnace of power but there was vastly more in this simple column of marble. If I closed my eyes, I would still know where it was, for it burned in my mind, bright and warm and tingling. I lifted my face to it like a flower to the sun and drifted closer, mesmerised by so much energy.

As I drew nearer, I could feel increasing warmth from it, and perhaps it was my imagination but I thought it shimmered like the letters on a spellpage. I couldn’t resist; I laid both hands on it.

Something spat through my body, sizzling and vivid like lightning. I jumped back, and I must have cried out, for Cal came rushing over. I’d forgotten he was there.

“What are you doing! Don’t touch anything, all right? Everything has to be done properly, so don’t mess about. This is serious. Just go and stand over there, and don’t move.”