OF THE ARBOUR is finished, but is in the process of being rewritten. Keep an eye out for teasers and updates as time goes on.

Synopsis

Orphan. Bastard.

These were among the nicer names Sage grew up hearing. Accepted by default into the Arbour, the country’s most prestigious centre of learning, because his father was a former student and his mother a servant, he lives a life reviled by others whose families had to work for them to get into the Arbour. After a youth spent dodging insults from his peers and ghosts seen by none but himself,  Sage leaves the Arbour at twenty to spend nearly three years working as a sword-for-hire, and another two alone in the wilderness. It is a lifestyle that suits a man reminded of his place.

But the years of peaceful seclusion end when he encounters the sister of a former friend, and circumstance forces him to come face-to-face with old friends in a time of sudden turmoil: the High Lord of the Wastes has been found dead, eyes cut out of a head disembodied, eerily similar to a botched execution twenty years ago. A copycat killer is on the loose, and Sage finds himself thrust into a whirlwind investigation, where he learns that sometimes a man’s fate isn’t his own, and even one who hates being a hero often doesn’t have a choice.

Abbreviations

You’ll see in my posts that I shorten the titles of the three works in the series. Writing out their full titles can be tedious, and since they each start with a preposition  it can be awkward typing it out to make sense. Therefore, they are shortened.

• Of the Arbour: OtArb