The Gods of Ariel Trilogy

On a planet where gods spring from the very rock, the kingdom of Sevakand has acquired a thousand of them: ambitious, quarrelsome, and quite willing to ensnare mortal allies in their schemes. In Nemis'tak, long the desert bastion of heathen tribes who worship a single unapproachable god, a fanatic preaches holy war and begins to "purify" his people in preparation. When a Sevakandi lord makes alliance with a minor god, using the tribes for a catalyst, the whole world ends up at war. But is it all just a scheme of the goddess Fate, or the work of the Senit One, brought from across the stars with the first colonists to settle Ariel?  

Fate's Arrow

Alarion and Treleramon Aravon are happy to let their eldest brother rule Sevakand, but when Veranon is killed, the crown falls to Treleramon. Driven to war against the restless tribes, he is forced to bargain with an ambitious god to save mortally wounded Alarion. Horrified that Treleramon has agreed to raise Stoneshaker above the rest of Sevakand's pantheon, Alarion seeks among the tribes for knowledge of their god to free his brother from political suicide. The tribes see in him their long-awaited Messiah come to lead them out of their chosen exile--until they learn his real name. Suddenly Alarion and his traveling companions have much more than Stoneshaker to worry about.

The Wrath of God

Sevakand is at peace, but all is not well. Alarion's oldest friend, Fren Major, convinced that Alarion is indeed the tribes' long-awaited Messiah, returns to Nemis'tak to try and learn more. While Alarion and Treleramon laughingly search for brides at home, Fren becomes known to the tribes as the Glassmaker, and spins a patient web to bring Alarion to the destiny Fren believes that Fate--or the Senit god--wrote for him long before he was born.

The Hand of God

When word comes from Nemis'tak that kidnapped Alarion is dead, Treleramon finds himself at war against heathen fanatics defiantly screaming his brother's name. But House Aravon is tottering under a clever whispering campaign aimed at discrediting Alarion, and through him, the King. Treleramon finds himself with a shrinking roster of allies, while at home, Alarion's friends turn on each other in guilt and the new queen languishes in jealousy of a serving girl who will bear the next king--Alarion's child. Then one night, the man who supposedly murdered Alarion sees an impossible vision standing in front of him. Suddenly, the royal brothers find themselves on opposite sides in pursuit of the same goal--peace on Ariel. 

In 1692, a little girl in Massachusetts Bay Colony stumbles across a gate to another world and meets something terrible. Experience a version of history where the United States never existed, magic rules, and the rule of law is sliding slowly toward chaos. For the Dominion of Salem, ruled by the magically-talented descendants of the "afflicted" of the Salem witch trials, cannot agree on how to treat the non-magical folk among them. And the commoners do greatly outnumber the Talents...

Darkblood

The descendants of Ann Putnam are arguably first among equals, the most powerful of the First Families who rule the former English colonies in America. Seth Putnam is very glad his particular branch of the clan is not infected with the soulless manti that Ann met when the gate opened so long ago, but all around him there are signs that the Dominion is splitting between the manti-bred and other Talents. Seth's Aunt Bella is determined to win greater rights for commoners, but the manti-bred are equally determined to hold onto power. Very soon Seth, his own native abilities augmented by bonding with a powerful dashai--a creature from beyond the gate--and his untalented sister Nattie find themselves caught up in a secret rebellion aimed at the heart of manti plots to control the Dominion.

Rebel

As the Dominion fractures into civil war, Seth's family must flee Salem for the safety of the scantly-settled Shenandoah Valley. There his father Deliverance Putnam struggles to build an army even as the first clashes between the Confederation of Light and the Dominion army turn Virginia into a battleground. At the head of a picked company of commoners and Talents, Seth and his dashai companion Marley fight to keep the unscrupulous manti-bred, led by Fearnot Parris, from letting loose uncontrollable dark dashai in the rebel territories. But on one fateful day, even Parris overreaches himself, nearly destroying both armies. In the bitter aftermath, Seth hunts for a way to win a war he fears cannot be won.

Hunter 

 

In progress. The disaster in the Shenandoah has both armies reeling, but the Dominion still holds the upper hand. In desperation Seth proposes a radical idea: instead of battering at the enemy on the battlefield, let Talent hunt Darkblood in a private, ferocious war of magic. Deliverance accepts, on one condition: Seth must lead the new Hunter Corps. Though he cannot forget what happened in the Valley, Seth reluctantly agrees. His cousin Freedom Booth, his dearest companion, watches in helpless grief as Seth turns slowly from a blithe and idealistic young rebel to a grim, unsmiling hunter of his own kin. But Freedom is himself a powerfully Talented sensitive, and he vows to save the only brother he will ever have from the soul-killing oath they have all taken.

The Devil's Lieutenant 

 

Seth Putnam is tired--tired of war, tired of hunting his own kin, tired in soul. But the oath he swore will not let him rest, and so he rides west into a land previously closed to anyone of his blood--his dark blood. The American Union of Free Territories has been overrun with dashai refugees from the Darkblood War, and calls on the fabled Hunter Corps to come deal with them. But when Seth rides into Sundown, Colorado Free Territory, he finds both old enemies and new waiting for him, for neither the townsfolk nor Marshal Will Harding are overjoyed to see him. For Seth and Marley, it is a race against prejudice as well as against time, before the defeated evil begins to rise again. 

Jetta Ak'Kal is the most gifted Dancer of her generation, but even she has felt the angry touch of Old Man Fire, the elemental flame that lurks in the deeps of the earth. Scarred mentally and physically, she is both insulted and secretly relieved to be assigned to a remote mountain village that has never, until recently, known what it is to face fire. But the ancient foe has begun to act in ways the Clans cannot predict. Jetta soon finds herself facing a foe that may be starting to think... 

For Lilith Stark's neighbors, dead is dead and respectability lies in simply accepting the fact. For Lilith, death is an inconvenience that she and her husband Joab are determined to overcome after he comes home from Gettysburg a ghost. Despite Lilith's odd way of making things around her be what she wants them to be, that project turns out to be more difficult than they expect, especially when Lilith runs afoul of the two most respectable people in Brown's Corners, Virginia. They've always suspected she's "tetched" but harmless, but now both come to see her as an enemy to their collective peace. Lilith, trying hard to fit in, does not understand that for her, respectability can only come at a terrible price.

When three jealous cousins try to kill Talir Salsir, life suddenly becomes all about survival. But his cousin Ellor, horrified by his brothers' treachery, rides after his badly wounded cousin. Outlawed and exiled, their only hope is to reach the Council of the Seven Lands and survive the Council's Trial. Uneasy in each other's company, they must first settle their own differences before they can hope to ever go home again. But benevolent Hath and malicious Han, the sky-lords whose casual granting of thoughtless wishes can equally doom men or save them, put unexpected obstacles in their path, not least of which is love.

For 12 years Captain James Kirk believed his Academy roommate was killed in a shuttlecraft explosion. Instead, Derek Parker was recruited by Starfleet Intelligence for a deep-cover mission--into the Romulan Empire. Now Starfleet has received an urgent request for recall from Parker, but can they be sure the man coming out is the man they sent in? Kirk holds the key to verifying Parker's identity, but when he is badly wounded in a trap at the rendezvous, Spock and Dr. McCoy must cope with an angry undercover agent who looks and acts like a Romulan, but nevertheless delivers vital information. The Empire is in crisis, driven to the brink by the discovery of the Wine of Dreams, which lets a telepathic race bend thought to reality. Kirk and his officers must unravel the mystery of the stranger wearing an old friend's face, and quickly, before the Enterprise becomes the catalyst for war between the Federation and the Romulan Empire.