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    Winter Solstice
    Winter Solstice
    Winter Solstice
    Ebook52 pages49 minutes

    Winter Solstice

    By A.C. Ellas

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    About this ebook

    Rak, newly come to Okyro and the novitiate, isn’t finding life as a free man as easy as he’d thought it would be. On top of his struggles with his studies, he’s lonely. His dragon had abandoned the love of his life, the bard Tafflynn, during their escape from Zoth. When Rak discovers that his bard isn’t whom he thought, he feels betrayed. The bard had lied to him about who and what he was for years. Is their relationship over, or is their love strong enough to survive the honesty necessary to create a lasting partnership?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublishereXtasy Books Inc
    Release dateFeb 15, 2014
    ISBN9781771117739
    Winter Solstice

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      Book preview

      Winter Solstice - A.C. Ellas

      The best winter solstice ever.

      Rak, newly come to Okyro and the novitiate, isn’t finding life as a free man as easy as he’d thought it would be. On top of his struggles with his studies, he’s lonely. His dragon had abandoned the love of his life, the bard Tafflynn, during their escape from Zoth. When Rak discovers that his bard isn’t whom he thought, he feels betrayed. The bard had lied to him about who and what he was for years. Is their relationship over, or is their love strong enough to survive the honesty necessary to create a lasting partnership?

      The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

      Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

      This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

      Winter Solstice

      Copyright © 2013 A.C. Ellas

      ISBN: 978-1-77111-773-9

      Cover art by Angela Waters

      All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

      Published by eXtasy Books

      Look for us online at:

      www.eXtasybooks.com

      Smashwords Edition

      Winter Solstice

      Set in The Dark Servant World

      By

      A.C. Ellas

      Dedication

      For all those who dwell in the land of the lizard people.

      Winter Solstice

      The leaden clouds filled the bowl of the sky, making a pleasant change from the heat of summer, a heat that had seemed unending, until downright comfortable temperatures and clouds had abruptly replaced it. The dragons were delighted by this and had taken to flying through the cloud cover in tight formations, lighting the clouds from within with streaks of light as they magically converted the cloud-stuff into the gas they used to fly and fight.

      Rak wished he could share in their delight and in the joy he sensed about him as the nights lengthened toward the ultimate of holy days—the winter solstice.

      But Rak felt like…well, he wasn’t sure what he felt, other than outcast. It wasn’t that his fellow novices were trying to exclude him, quite the opposite, in fact; it was that he wasn’t even properly a novice. He’d arrived in early summer, and now, it was nearly midwinter, and he was still struggling with remedial lessons. Lessons usually offered to children in their first decade. And he was failing them. He’d never considered himself smart, but to have his nose rubbed in exactly how stupid he was, night after night…he was close to breaking.

      The only classes he was doing well in were physical—arms instruction, equitation, gymnastics. In arms, he excelled, to the point where he was already considered an assistant armsmaster. Equitation was no more difficult. He’d ridden racehorses in his youth, and after dealing with those neurotic, frequently psychotic beasts, avtappi were no challenge at all. As for gymnastics—the basis of dance was in gymnastics. In fact, the basis of all athletic endeavors was to be found in gymnastics. And Rak had been a royal dancer. Here, too, he was called upon to assist the gymnasium coaches.

      All I’m good for is fucking an’ fighting, he thought, still framing his thoughts in his native Zafirin as opposed to the far more difficult Okyran. He stared out across the barren landscape from his vantage point at the very edge of the great Okyran plateau. Three hundred lengths below his seat, the badlands of A’filozenoi stretched out to the horizon—a rumpled, tumbled sea of rock

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