City of Shards

Enter the world of Spellgiver, where power arises from the moon’s phases, and the language of magic is assembled from the ruins of a long-dead race. A world where the creatures are divided between the familiar four-legged kind, and the six-legged “indigen.”

The Wormpile district is the official canker on the capital’s bottom, a place where the people boil under the sway of a monstrous god. There, 16-year-old Larin suffers from violent and random outbursts, shouting his nonsense words into the decaying alleyways. Protected from the gangs by his drug-addicted warrior uncle Akul, Larin’s only friends are an outcast thief and an alcoholic priestess looking for excuses not to arrest him.

But when Larin learns that his outbursts come from Haraf, Lord of Demons, all other worries shrink to nothing. For the Demon Lord is in permanent war with the Six-Legged Gods, whose priests now slink through the Wormpile, masking their terrifying agenda with good deeds and cries for social justice. As Larin and his uncle find themselves surrounded by enemies, their only allies are a permanently drunk priestess and a high-born wizardress, who must hold her nose and work with the street rabble she despises. And Larin will either follow his master Haraf, or watch his city slide into a far greater evil—one that will turn mankind’s soul to ash.

At its heart, Spellgiver is a story of redemption. Redemption for an outcast boy coming into burgeoning power, who must choose a third path between two evils. Redemption for an emotionally-scarred warrior who makes peace with a decision that has haunted his dreams. And redemption for a scaly, six-limbed general who fights his gods and his people to live alongside the two-armed creatures who have invaded his world. “City of Shards” is the first book of the Spellgiver series.