Rocky Top ReVOLution Excerpt #1

Author's note: I'm doing something really different with this book. Obviously, there will be a lot of books released in the coming years by sports media guys who'll do an outstanding job of breaking down the sequence of events that resulted in the Rocky Top ReVOLution from a journalist's point of view. But to me, the big names of decision-makers or influencers aren't the real story embedded within the six day revolt that saw the UT fanbase came together with loal media, former players, alumni, boosters, students, and state officials to stop the hire of Greg Schiano as the new head football coach and the day that Coach Phillip Fulmer was hired as the athletic director. The real story is the fans' story, and that's what this book is about. So have a look at the foreword and the first chapter. Drop me a comment either here or on social media and let me know what you think. I'll be announcing the release date next week.Big shout out to Spencer Barnett for the cover design!  

Rocky Top Revolution

Foreword

Where were you on November 26, 2017?

That’s a question people who love the University of Tennessee will probably be able to answer for the rest of their lives. Not because they were all in the same place physically, but because they were all in the same place mentally and emotionally.

November 26, 2017 was the day a fan base revolted against the hiring of a football coach. Six days later, the athletic director who’d tried to sneak that hire past everyone—fans, boosters, players, and alumni alike—was fired and left UT in an absolute shambles after the worst-conducted head football coach hiring search in the history of the NCAA.

On the same day, former Tennessee head football coach Phillip Fulmer was named as the athletic director for the foreseeable future. Six days later, he hired Alabama defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt, one of the top assistants in the country, to the head coach position after a calm, methodical, and thorough evaluation process.

On the face of it, this is exactly what happened. The Cliff notes version.

But there’s so much more to the story than that.

The events of that day were\unprecedented in the world of big-name universities and big-money athletics. The people who loved Tennessee united in a remarkably short time—students, alumni, former players, local media, boosters, and just regular fans—and with their unity forced the university to change the ways decisions were made and influenced in the athletic department. The astonishing uproar, the Rocky Top ReVOLution, was thoroughly lambasted by national sports media. The protesters were called “trailer park Bubbas from Pidgeon (sp) Forge”, a “lynch mob” that was “completely ignorant” of what football was all about. That media narrative portrayed UT fans as ignorant, uneducated, and stupid as those famous sports personalities tried to force Ohio State Defensive Coordinator and former head coach of Rutgers University and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Greg Schiano down their throats as a great hire for UT.

But these events weren’t about a coaching hire. Not really. Hidden behind the rhetoric was a slew of sobering facts. A football coach whose association with a national scandal had painted him, fairly or unfairly, with the same brush. An athletic director, who was telling boosters one thing while working to bring Schiano through the back door. A mega booster, who was controlling the whole show and determined to foist Schiano upon Tennessee regardless of what anyone thought. A civil war was instigated among the top tier of millionaire donors to a university whose prestige in college football had declined since the glory days just two decades ago when Tennessee won the first BCS National Championship game.

The characters on the main stage are fascinating. A desperate athletic director who went AWOL in an attempt to save his job. A former Tennessee head coach, ousted unfairly and in humiliating fashion nine years before, returning to right the Volunteer ship. A vampire in the shadows, determined to suck more power over the university and their hiring practices in the athletic department. A suddenly vivid and blatant divide within the sports media, which demonstrated which journalist’s foot was in which camp.

And out front, vocal and angry and exasperated, were tens of thousands of UT fans who exploded in a spontaneous protest that shocked the sports world…and against the odds, won.

That’s where the real story is. The ones who were the real impetus behind an incredibly visible and public drive to take control away from the power brokers in the shadows and give it to the countless people who are the backbone of UT athletics aren’t mega boosters. They don’t have buildings named after them on campus, or spend tens of thousands of dollars annually for sky boxes in Neyland Stadium. Some are season ticket holders, some only get to a few games a year. Some don’t get to any. Few are wealthy, but they’re all rich with a shared passion for the University of Tennessee.

The fans.

I was part of that protest. This is the only place for an “I” in this story, which is so patently about so many different people. I was at home on that Sunday morning when everyone got blindsided by the news that Greg Schiano had been offered and accepted the Tennessee head football job. I bore witness to the exponential swelling of that “lynch  mob”. As a sports op ed contributor to the Orange and White Report, which covers UT athletics, I joined in the local media’s drive to get news of the protested hiring out. I was part of the “deplorable” social media mob that refused to accept the hire. I listened to live streams of local radio and TV broadcasts as people showed up on campus and gathered in front of the athletic department, chanting “Hell no Schiano!” with signs and bullhorns.

So I am a part of this story. A very small part that had to get a new phone the following week since I'd texted and retweeted the poor thing to death. 

But then, all Tennessee fans are a part of this story. Anyone who knows every word to Rocky Top can pick up this book, read the story, and immediately recognize the fact that it’s basically part of their biography. Their memoirs. Because every Tennessee fan knows that they, too, were part of the Rocky Top ReVOLution and so they, too, share in the victory.

Don’t let anyone fool you. There was no one person who began this protest, no shock jock leading the charge for truth and justice on a white horse. No one was more important than anyone else. What’s remarkable about the Rocky Top ReVOLution is that everyone was instantly unified, to the point where Tennessee government officials joined the “uneducated idiots” on Twitter to voice their displeasure with the Schiano hire. Even White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders spoke out against the hire.

So the media narrative that the folks from the trailer park were mad because Schiano wasn’t a good football coach isn’t even remotely accurate. Those claims were part of an agenda that national sports media has maintained regarding the University of Tennessee and its fans for years. But what also happened as a result of that day was that people started to come to me with their stories of what was happening behind the scenes. As a result, I began to piece together a tale that didn’t match up at all with what the major sports networks and websites were saying.

I promised at the end of that tumultuous week that I would write the real story of what happened around the University of Tennessee. You may think this is a story about ten days, but it’s not.

This is the story of two decades in Knoxville, and the people who remained loyal to the Tennessee Volunteers no matter what was going on.

This is the story of an unprecedented event in sports, where the fans took back their program from the fat cats who were systemically destroying it from within.

This is the story of the Rocky Top ReVOLution and the people who made it happen…a blueprint for fan bases everywhere that face similar problems with their beloved school. A blueprint that every major university’s athletic department now dreads and fears because none of them want to see a fan movement take over their campus, their public relations, and their until-now unaffected hiring processes where the opinions of the little people hold no sway.

This is a story of humiliation and revenge, exile and vindication, fury and triumph. But ultimately, it is a story of the passion people have for the University of Tennessee.

This is the story of Volunteer Nation, and the way they put an end to the most tumultuous and humiliating era in the University of Tennessee's proud history, and no matter what anyone else may tell you this is the real story. This story shouldn't be told in just one voice, but in the voices of the real heroes of this modern-day revolution.

This is the story of the fans and their shared passion for the University of Tennessee.

Chapter One--Vol Nation

Being a Tennessee fan has never been easy. 

For the fans who grew up, like I did, learning about college football when Johnny Majors or Phillip Fulmer was the head coach, the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s were a constant roller coaster ride. Although UT was growing into a powerhouse program, the fan base was isolated...condescended to by the national sports media and all those people who knew everything about the game. 

Let's be honest: the national media never had much respect for the Vols. Only the Lady Vols under beloved and iconic basketball coach Pat Summitt was acknowledged by the media as a powerhouse team. What they failed to realize was that over in the football section on Rocky Top, things were starting to change. 

But for the fans? Not so much. 

Back in the days before social media, the fans' opinions didn't matter. There wasn't an avenue that a sprawling group of people could utilize to make those opinions known aside from talk radio on the local level. ESPN was a growing monster, and UT fans quickly learned to tune them out. 

Make no mistake: ESPN has never liked the University of Tennessee.

That all changed drastically when personal computers created a platform everyone could use. Suddenly, fans from all over the world and all walks of life could take about what they loved online. They could respond instantly to games...or the latest snide remark from some sports analyst who thought it was funny to broadcast the generalization of UT fans as uneducated, stupid, and incapable of understanding big money sports.During the last four or five years, the UT fan base has taken over social media, and hundreds of thousands of people came together under on unifying brand. When Lyle "Butch" Jones was hired to replace the woeful Derek Dooley as the head football coach, the Vol Nation platform was firmly entrenched in Tennessee culture. Jones had to learn to deal with this new aspect of his job and how best to utilize the immediacy of online interaction with the fans.

But coinciding with the beginning of the Butch Jones era as head coach for the football program at UT, a major power player arrived on the field.

Vol Twitter--Still Undefeated

Anyone who’s waded into the shark pool known as Vol Twitter quickly learns the value of social media in today’s society.

Social media is a dog eat dog world anyway, but when you add in the volatile emotions of college sports it can get downright scary. Vol Twitter is the most outrageous, aggressive, keen-edged fan base on social media. 

Period.

Vol Twitter quickly became very powerful. It drove public opinion about everything UT. Watching a game while on Vol Twitter was almost ridiculous because they miss nothing.

Nothing.

Every call is analyzed and argued. Every misstep is under the immediate glare of the fan base’s spotlight. Every snafu is dissected. Vol Twitter is so practiced at breaking down game film that some members can do it in real time. They immediately interact with local media, and the younger journalists who cover the UT beat became expert at working with and within Vol Twitter. This extraordinary relationship changed the way that Tennessee sports were reported, and turned journalists into friends. Or enemies, depending on the journalist. 

Vol Twitter was also very in tune with what’s going on with every sport on Rocky Top. And while UT fans congregated on other mediums, like Facebook, Vol Twitter became the online face of the fan base. Vol Twitter and Vol Facebook groups, like the immense Vol For Life group, also exemplified a major divide within Tennessee fans. The Facebook-connected fans were more forgiving of Jones's missteps initially; Vol Twitter, on the other hand, savaged the coach for them. 

As with any large group of people, there were spats and cliques within Vol Twitter that made for some very interesting off-season nights. But since the beginning of the 2016-2017 football season, Vol Twitter was fairly united on one thing they thoroughly disliked about Tennessee football.

Butch Jones

Before the 2017-18 football season, there was a strong sense that it was the last gasp chance for head football coach Butch Jones. In 2016, Tennessee fans had watched in horror as the most talented team to run through the T in twenty years had crashed and burned. Instead of the college football playoffs or a major bowl game, the Volunteers had gone 9-4 and subsequently played Nebraska in the Music City Bowl on December 30 while much of its roster watched from the sidelines or from home. For the second season in a row, a baffling rash of injuries had deep-sixed the season with more than twenty-five players out of commission by the end of October.

Now the Vols were facing a new football season, and the matriculation of talent had created a great deal of uncertainty about what the season ahead had in store. The Vols were picked to finish third in the East division at SEC Media Days, with most prognosticators predicting a seven or eight win season as the pinnacle of what UT could hope to accomplish.

The 2017-18 season was the fifth year of the Butch Jones era. Every player on the roster was one he’d recruited and coached exclusively while at UT. And while everyone was aware this was a rebuilding year, the success of the team would decide once and for all if Jones really was the coach Vols fans had been waiting for.

Butch Jones needed a legendary season.

He got one.

The first eight-loss season in school history, leaving Ohio State University as the only D1 program never to lose eight games in the same year. The first winless season in SEC play, going 0-8 with humiliating losses to Missouri, Kentucky, Vanderbilt, and Florida along the way. A 41-0 pounding by Georgia, the worst loss in Neyland Stadium history.

No doubt about it. The season was legendary, but for all the wrong reasons. 

After that embarrassing Georgia loss on September 30, everyone knew that Jones would be gone. I, for one, expected him to be fired almost immediately. After all, Athletic Director John Currie obviously didn’t have a problem with firing coaches mid-season, considering that he was implicated up to his eyebrows in orchestrating the Fulmer dismissal nine years earlier. But what emerged from the UT athletic department was…nothing. 

For a month and a half, through a woeful October and half of a disastrous November, John Currie took no action, made no comment, and didn't seem to care that the Tennessee football program, the pride of the university for decades, was being utterly destroyed. For a month and a half, Currie smirked his way through a Volunteer nightmare, while Vol Nation boiled online, local sports media crucified Currie and UT for its inaction, and the rest of the college sports world turned UT into a laughing stock. 

Not until November 16, when Missouri massacred a woefully undermanned UT roster—with only fifty-five players available…a loss of thirty players from the team—50-17 while dropping 659 yards of total offense on the Vols, did John Currie finally take the step everyone knew was coming. During that month and a half of inaction, the Vol Twitter beast was seething, fans were blacking out their avatars--which made their timelines look like targets at a shooting range. And at last, frustration and rage brought all the scattered elements of the Tennessee fan base together. The groups on Twitter and Facebook, the people who called in to local and national radio shows, the local media, the alumni and students, and the former players were all in agreement that the status quo of Tennessee athletics was no longer acceptable.

And while all these elements were stewing together, a recipe for a fiasco was created. At the end of the day, the debacle of a John Currie-run coaching hire was inevitable. There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in Hell that concoction wouldn’t boil over.

The Rocky Top ReVOLution had begun. 

First Excerpt-- The Black Dream Book One: Servant of Dis

After the Ilian War, Tamsen Ka’antira settled into ruling the Elven Realm with her husband, Brial at her side. But when a diplomatic crisis occurs between Ansienne and Hippolytos, Tamsen and Brial are lured out of Leselle into the treacherous currents of human politics.

Tamsen realizes these escalating events are driven by something inimical—something determined to bring the Elven Queen from behind the magical barrier that protects her realm. Whispers of new sorcerers and upheaval among the gods soon coalesce into a single frightening truth. The peace the gods had granted to Tamsen is over, and the rising threat will turn erstwhile enemies into allies.

Only the greatest danger could persuade the Elven Queen to serve the god that once threatened the existence of her entire race. If Tamsen becomes the servant of Dis, the peril overshadows not just the mortal realm, but the realms of the gods.

  

“Your Majesty?”

I looked up from the pile of parchment that had been baffling me for hours. Bryse hovered in the doorway.

“Yes? What is it?”

“The scouts have sent word that a visitor is approaching Leselle,” she said.

“Who is it?”

“They didn’t say. They said that whoever it is, he is human and riding his horse hard for the city.”

“That can’t be good.” I sighed. “Are the children in bed?”

“Barely,” she replied, her eyes twinkling.

I grimaced. Although the twins were reasonably obedient for eight-year-old boys, Tamarisk was a handful.

“I’d best go down and see who it is.” I stood from my mother’s writing desk and reaching for my cloak.

“Of course.” Bryse curtseyed.

I pulled the hood over my head as I descended the stairs from my little study to the warm central room of our house. As I donned my gloves, I passed the nursery where our children slept, the telltale sounds of regular breathing reassured me that they were truly asleep. I laid a hand on the guardians who warded our home. Instantly, they slid aside, rearranging the disguising trunk of the colossal tree, and I ducked outside into the swirling whiteness of the storm.

The streets of Leselle were silent and empty, due not only to the lateness of the hour but also to the bitter wind that accompanied this early winter storm. I kept my head low as I negotiated the broad snow-covered branches that served as streets in this ancient city. Only in the Elven forest could trees grow to such a size as to support an entire city.

Leselle was built within the protective limbs of six towering oaks, trees so ancient their origins were lost in the dim beginnings of myth. Once, this lovely city had been leveled—razed by Elven mages to prevent its despoiling by my so-not-mourned uncle, the Duke de Spesialle. At my crowning, the Virgin Huntress had resurrected Leselle to stand as the jewel of the Elven Realm once more.

The only bad thing about it was trying to descend icy tree branches at night.

I slid the final few feet to the city gates where Malvern, one of our most experienced scouts, saluted. Behind him, a shadowed form stood next to a steaming horse whose head was lowered.

“What is it?” A tingle of premonition suddenly raced across my mouth.

The cloaked man lifted his head. I looked into the tired face of Mylan de Phoclydies. Although we were nearly the same age, his face had aged. He wasn’t much older than thirty-five, but deep creases lined his stern face, creases, I knew, that were placed there by the death of Anner de Ceolliune on the Ilian flood plain over a decade earlier.

“Mylan!” I rushed forward to embrace my old friend. I threw my arms around his neck and hugged him hard. He was smiling when I pulled back, but shadows lingered behind his eyes.

“We’ll go up to the house,” I said quietly. “Malvern, find Prince Ka’breona and my uncle. I think they’re down here somewhere. Send them up immediately.”

“At once, your Majesty.”

I linked my arm through Mylan’s, and we began the climb through the thoroughfares of Leselle. “It’s good to see you, old friend,” I said.

The young scouts behind us led Mylan’s exhausted horse to the stables Brial had built on the lower outskirts of the city.

“What in the world possessed you to come to Leselle in this weather, and nearly riding a horse to death in the process?”

“We’ll wait,” he said.

His voice was much deeper and more resonant than I remembered. I hadn’t seen Mylan for three years, not since the funeral of Hyagrem de Silenos in Geochon.

We hurried through the snowy streets, and I opened the guardians to escort my guest into the warmth of our home.

We preferred to live simply in Leselle. Nothing really indicated that this home was the residence of the royal family, save perhaps the shelves full of books that few Elves would own. I removed Mylan’s heavy fur cloak and pushed him onto a couch before the heaped Elfstones glowing on the hearth. I added cinnamon and nutmeg to a tankard of wine and heated it with a thought. One of our servitors appeared with a tray of cheese, bread, and fruit as I handed the hot drink to him. I dismissed her for the evening and served the Earl myself.

His green eyes were dulled with fatigue as he thanked me. I sat on the couch opposite after pouring myself a glass of wine. The guardians slid aside, and Brial strode into the room. A wide grin split his face as he walked toward his friend, arms outstretched. Mylan rose and the two men embraced, Brial almost dwarfed by the greater bulk of the human knight. Behind them, Wilden Ka’antira, my uncle and the last male of the Ka’antira line, smiled. When Brial pulled away with a hearty slap on Mylan’s back, Wilden stepped in and clapped Mylan’s shoulder.

Brial came to my side, and his smile faded as he looked into my face. “What is it, cariad?”

“I’m waiting for Mylan to tell us.” I turned my attention back to the man who had fallen back into the cushions of the couch.

“I came to fetch you two,” Mylan said gruffly. “You are needed in Geochon.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

“There’s trouble over the Spesialle succession.”

“Why didn’t Mariol come to tell us, then?” I asked, puzzled.

“Mariol sent me to you. Dantel de Tizand is doing everything he possibly can, but—” Mylan spread his hands. “There are complications. If Dantel knew I was here, he’d probably throw me into a dungeon. The Council is divided.” Mylan’s voice hoarsened. “I have come, not for the Elven Queen, but for the Countess of Asphodel. Dantel needs friends, and you are probably the only two that can help.”

“Naturally, we’ll come,” I said. “But what could be the problem with the Spesialle succession? Rontil has held the duchy for over ten years.”

“Rontil has finally chosen a wife.” Mylan spoke carefully, as he always had when he was concerned about my reaction.

Of all the dear friends I’d made while on the Huntress’s game, he was the one whose good humor and high spirits had remained intact. Whatever he’d come to tell me, he was worried about how I’d take it.

“Well, that’s good isn’t it?”

“Not necessarily,” he said. “The wife he’s chosen is Alcmene, the sister of Queen Antiope.”

I sat back in my seat, thinking quickly. Thirteen years ago, Alcmene and her sister, Admete, had been sweet-faced little girls. They would be fully-grown warriors now who stood in line to the Hippolyte crown behind their older sister, Antiope. Antiope was still without an heir; the only child she’d borne was the posthumous son of Anner de Ceolliune who could not inherit the throne of a fabled race of female warriors. The political ramifications were obvious—and threatening to those who didn’t understand the terms of the Geochon accords as well as I did.

Brial let out a long whistle. “That’s an awfully big army for an Ansienne Prince to lay claim to. At least, that’s what the courtiers probably think, isn’t it?”

“You’ve got it,” Mylan said. “It doesn’t matter how many times we tell them that men are just a convenience to Hippolytes, the stupid Council doesn’t listen. All they can think of is Rontil sitting in Spesialle and his wife’s sister controlling the legendary legions of Hippolytos and what a huge military power that alliance forges.”

“How did they meet?” I asked.

“They met when Antiope paid a visit to her son,” Mylan wrapped his big hands around the tankard, as if he was trying to warm himself. “She and Mariol agreed to meet in Spesialle, so Mariol took Anteros down to Rontil’s palace. Antiope brought her sisters along and, well, you know Rontil. One thing led to another, and the two became betrothed.”

“How did Antiope take it?” Brial asked.

“She seemed to be all for it at first, but when word of the Council’s uproar reached her, I guess she forbade the whole thing. As a result, the girl took off and now is lodged firmly in Geochon while the whole thing plays out.”

That premonition was back again. I rubbed the back of my newly tense neck. “Where?”

I was afraid I already knew the answer.

“Alcmene is staying with your cousin,” Mylan said blandly. “For some reason, Cetenne thinks this whole thing is funny.”

So without my knowledge, Cetenne has involved the Elven Realm. No wonder Mylan is being so cautious.

I rolled my eyes to the heavens and let out a long-drawn sigh. “By the gods! Why didn’t Mariol come to tell us sooner? We could have headed this whole thing off weeks ago.”

Mylan’s expression darkened. “Mariol couldn’t come, Tamsen. He’s dying.”

EXCERPT--The Asphodel Cycle 4: The Apostle of Asphodel

I jumped in front of Mariol, using my blade to keep the ferocious bird-women away while the mage muttered behind me. Before long, several of the Harpies deduced that I had the shortest reach of any of the attackers and converged on Mariol and I, their talons clicking together as they hefted the long spears to their shoulders.

“Any ideas?” I threw back over my shoulder, swiping at a grasping claw.

The Harpy screamed and fell back, blood dripping from her scaly leg. Another soon took her place. Mariol didn’t answer me, mumbling under his breath instead.

“An idea would be really good right about now!” I said more urgently, blocking a thrusting spear with my sword and reversing the blade, snapping the shaft in two so that the obsidian point fell to the floor at my feet.

Mariol grabbed my arm and pushed me aside. Surprised by the unexpected shove, I crashed to the floor with an indignant yell. Before I could clamber to my feet, a ripple of energy detonated over my head. With ragged screams and terrified shrieks, the Harpies tumbled across the chamber to fly against the obsidian walls, falling down heavily to the floor.    

“What did you do?” I asked in amazement.

Instead of answering me, Mariol hauled me to my feet and shoved me toward the nearest Harpy, who was struggling to rise while her wings fluttered around her shoulders. “Go...kill...Harpies!”

The effects of Mariol’s spell, whatever it was, were temporary. As the Harpies flapped around trying to regain their footing, Brial, Wilden, and I attacked them while they were on the ground and presumably weaker. I discovered that their speed of attack was undiminished, although their agility was hampered upon the ground. The first Harpy I confronted hissed at me and I barely avoided the slashing swing of one taloned foot as she lunged for me. Their handicaps lay in the fact that their wings were befouled and tangled, the feathers bent the wrong way and some missing.

But even on her back a Harpy is a formidable foe.

I was able to get close enough to the Harpy to penetrate the frenzied swipes of her claws. Watching the talons carefully and jumping over her flailing wings, I leapt upon her torso and sank my sword to the hilt in her breast. Instead of screaming like a human foe, the Harpy’s eyes dulled and she fell limply off my blade. A second later, I was knocked off my feet as a second Harpy screeched in anguish and launched herself at me.

She hit me hard in the back and I flew several feet through the air with her on me. We landed in the clearing, barely missing the stone bench. As soon as I felt the ground behind my back, I pushed up hard with my legs and the heavy body of the Harpy rolled from my feet and fell some feet away. Without stopping to think, I coiled back up to my feet and went after her.

Somehow, she’d managed to grab one of the spears, and I narrowly avoided being skewered as she thrust it at my mid-section. Sidestepping the spear, I swung the blade and it connected with the soft tissue on the inside of her upper arm. Screaming, she dropped the spear, rolling to her side and pushing herself up with her good hand. More agilely than I would have thought possible, she rose to her clawed feet, one arm dangling at her side, with her wings twisted behind her.

Another detonation sounded behind me, but I had no time to look. The Harpy leapt at me, snarling, one talon extended before her for my throat. I dove to one side, rolled up to my feet and planted my sword in her back between the crippled wings. As with the first, she slid silently to the floor, where she lay face down in the ashes.

I turned back to Mariol. He was under attack by two of the vicious creatures, who clawed ineffectually at the shield he’d erected around himself. I darted back toward him, stooping to pick up a fallen spear. Using it like a javelin, I hurled it at one of the Harpies. The spear struck her side and she screeched in pain, twisting this way and that as she tried to remove it from her flesh. Her companion swung to face me, and for a moment our eyes met.

There was nothing resembling humanity in her stare. She had the same intense glare of any other bird of prey, and it fell unblinkingly on me as I approached her, my sword held before me. I circled around the flailing body of the Harpy I’d felled, who thrashed upon the floor with the spear vibrating as she screamed.

Her attack, when it came, was swift and silent. The only warning I had was the abrupt narrowing of those emotionless golden eyes, then she launched herself into the air. Amazingly, her wings righted themselves and with a single hard flap she hovered above me. Those eyes never left me as the wings furled and she hurtled straight toward me.

A couple of feet away from my unprotected face, however, her headlong dive stopped as if she’d run into a wall. The impact jarred her head back with an audible snap, and the Harpy tumbled to the floor, where she lay dead and sightless at my feet. I turned to look at Mariol. He was pale and sweating, his hand extended toward me still resonating with the power of the shield that he’d shot between us.

Wilden dispatched the still-screeching Harpy I’d speared with an arrow to the throat. When she, too, fell silent, the room echoed with the sudden cessation of noise. I whirled around to look for Brial, and saw him wiping the blade of his sword clean on the feathers of another fallen Harpy. As he straightened, I sagged in relief. He was safe.

To my complete disgust, he grinned at me. “That was fun.”

Wilden snorted, whether in distaste or humor I couldn’t tell, but Mariol’s reaction was spectacular. “

Fun?” he repeated incredulously. “Fun! What would you have called it if we’d had to fight a dragon? Or maybe a tribe of cannibals?”

Brial shrugged. “Entertaining?”

Despite myself, and the carnage around us, I began to laugh weakly. Wilden joined in, his deep chuckle resonating against the obsidian walls with a comforting rumble. We fell against each other, laughing helplessly as we wiped tears from our streaming eyes. Mariol was hyperventilating, his nostrils flaring as he drew in deep breaths in an attempt to calm himself.

Then, the greenish-red flames of the huge, smokeless fire sputtered and went out, and our merriment disappeared with it.

First Excerpt up from The Redemption of Asphodel!

The second book in The Asphodel Cycle, The Redemption of Asphodel, will be available for pre-order on May 30 on Amazon, and will go on sale June 6. Check out my website and Amazon author's page for more details!

Chapter One (partial)

Two hours later, I joined the men in the library, freshly clad in a warm, loose woolen gown and with my damp hair hanging down my back. As I walked in, Mariol saluted me with his glass. “Today was beautifully done, Tamsen.”

“I don’t see what was so beautiful about it,” I said irritably. “I got stuck in the middle of this entire mess, which is precisely where I didn’t want to be.”

“I think that at this point, you need to be right in the middle of it,” Mariol corrected me. “You don’t need to be some center of activity away from the Court now. Let’s keep you as the mediator and above the messy politics. That will serve us better in the long run.”

I gave him a steady look. “Mariol, if I were away from the Court, the last thing I would be is a center of activity. I need to rest, as you well know, and this will not help matters much. We can’t afford for me to collapse, especially since we have no idea where Spesialle is or what he’s planning.”

“Is your health still that bad?” Mylan asked with a frown.

I sighed, toying with the glass of wine Anner had handed me. “Magic takes a great deal of strength. Even when doing normal magic, it takes days for a mage to recover from a huge output of power. The weakness caused by the greater magics is debilitating, which is why you don’t have people blasting their way magically through the kingdom. Do you follow me so far?”

After he nodded, I continued. “During the battle of Asphodel, I performed a magical act that should have killed me. The control of the weather is a power that is normally beyond mortal ability, except for me apparently. In order to accomplish something as immense as a cyclone, I had to borrow power from somewhere. In the attempt to control what I’d borrowed, I destroyed a great deal of my strength. To this day, I have not regained it entirely. The—” I paused, swallowing the repressed lump of sorrow in my throat. “The miscarriage I had took even more of my strength, and my little trek through the forest didn’t help my situation. Kaldarte thinks I will improve, and perhaps even reach my normal strength again, but only if I rest. Any time I use magic, or I am up and active for extended periods, it causes a setback that I think we can ill afford right now. Spesialle has taken the time to heal and recuperate. He will not remain dormant for long.”

Anner frowned, first at me then at Brial. “Why are you here then? You should have remained in Asphodel while we came here.”

“It is necessary,” I said simply.

“Don’t think I haven’t tried,” Brial said, a defensive gleam in his eyes as he met Anner’s frown. “If you think you’ll have better success in restraining her, my friend, by all means: be my guest.”

Once again, the latent tension between the two men hovered in the room as they stared at each other. Mylan’s sudden laugh broke the uneasy silence.

“If Kaldarte can’t control her, there is no way either one of you two could,” he pointed out. The wary tightness of his face, however, suggested that Anner’s private confrontation with my husband was not as discreet as once it was.

Mariol turned back to me. “I had no idea it was this bad, Tamsen. If the Seer is that concerned, then you are endangering yourself by even being here.”

I waved this away with a grimace. “I’ll be very careful, Mariol. We’ll just need to regulate the Council meetings. Our herald friend is coming by tomorrow with a list of legitimate claimants to the throne. If we have our mind set on only a few of the candidates, then perhaps we can lead the Council to consider only those men.”

“Perhaps we can find somewhere a bit less formal to convene the Council,” Brial suggested, his voice still cool. “If we are someplace warm and comfortable, then the strain will less affect my wife.”

“That’s a good idea,” Mariol approved, ignoring the worded gauntlet Brial had tossed to the floor. “Several of the larger drawing rooms might be appropriate. I will contact a friend of mine in the city as well. He is an herbalist and physician, and if he attends you in Council, Tamsen, it will be a simple matter to use your health as an excuse to dismiss it early.”

“We can’t do that,” I disagreed, shaking my head. “If any word of my illness reaches Spesialle’s ears, we can expect a visit from him in short order. I don’t know how he can get from one place to another magically, Mariol. Do you?”

“No,” the mage admitted, scratching his head with a frown. “It must have something to do with visualization, but I can’t grasp the idea behind it. I know Hyagrem is looking into it.”

“We don’t know who we can trust at Court, so no one must suspect I am this weak. With any luck, I can keep the meetings short. Call your physician if you like. Perhaps he has options for me that Kaldarte didn’t.”

“Brial will be there,” Mariol said. “He’ll know if you’ve had enough, and can get word to one of us so that we can make the suggestion. With all of us working together, we’ll be able to keep your secret.”

A servant announced dinner, and we followed Mariol into the familiar dining room. We had spent several enjoyable evenings lingering over the polished mahogany table in happier times. On this night, however, we ate the delicately seasoned shellfish and game birds the newly returned kitchen staff sent for our consumption without much conversation. Brial sat at my side, eating little and speaking less.

Inwardly, I sighed. The situation with Anner and Brial was reaching the point where I must address the issue. Obviously, I didn’t want them addressing anything in private with sharp objects, so it would be up to me to see that this crisis was resolved.

Just another thing to worry about.

We were silent when we reached our rooms. I curled up in a chair with a book on Court procedure while Brial honed the edge of his sword. The repetitive shrill of the whetstone running along the blade set my teeth on edge and banged against my throbbing temples with every scrape of the sword.

“Brial,” I said finally. “Put that sword down and let’s talk about this.”

“Talk about what, cariad?”

“We need to discuss this situation you have with Anner.”

Brial set the sword and whetstone on the floor. “I would say he has a situation with me,” he replied as the shutters dropped down over his face.

I winced, but plowed forward anyway. “Anner has been a good friend to us, beloved. We should be past these petty distractions.”

“I do not require the criticisms of another man on how I protect my wife,” he said haughtily, and for the first time anger snapped into his eyes. “Nor do I need that same wife to lecture me on how to behave.”

“I’m not trying to tell you how to act,” I said as my own temper began to stir. “I am concerned for you both. Anner has a problem, yes, and I will address that with him if I must. But your response to him today only encouraged him to continue his foolishness.”

“That is not my concern.”

“Maybe not, but it is mine!”

He snatched up his sword, ramming it into the sheath at his side. As we glared at each other, he strode to the door.

“Where are you going?” I demanded.

He did not turn back to me, only hesitated with his hand on the doorknob. Then, he squared his shoulders and stalked from the room.

Damn him! In all the years I had heard about the Elves and then lived among them, I had never heard of such a foul-tempered Elf. I threw a warm mantle over my nightdress and slammed my feet into slippers.

When Brial was in a temper, there was no telling what he would do. He could either be saddling his horse or searching the library for a book. I would have to go find him.

As I stepped out into the hall, I didn’t hear any shouting or sword fighting. That was encouraging. I closed our door and sped down the dimly lit hall. My slippers made no sound on the marble floors as I hurried in search of my irate husband. As I slipped down the huge, central staircase, I heard the others in the study. The doors were ajar, and I crept to them.

“You’re acting like an ass,” Mylan’s firm voice floated out to me. “They are married. Brial is our friend, Anner. You’re treating him like he’s beaten her.”

“If he were as protective of her health as he is his own pride, she would not be here right now,” Anner growled. I rolled my eyes.

“If she were not here,” Mariol pointed out quietly, “we would not have the advantages that we do. Tamsen knows her importance in the scheme of things, and if you think that husband of hers isn’t kept involved in the decision making processes, you are a fool. Brial Ka’breona has the unenviable chore of guarding his wife, and acquits himself admirably. He is the only one who can manage her with any form of success. All he has to do is suggest an outrageous restriction upon her, and then when she protests—usually at the top of her voice –he lets her suggest a compromise. Then he agrees and places her exactly where he wanted her in the first place. No one else, save possibly Kaldarte or Hyagrem, exercises that kind of control over our young lady from Asphodel.”

My mouth dropped open. All of the arguments and struggles we had over my participation in events flashed through my head. All of the “you leave at sunsets” and the “I forbid its” were nothing but opening gambits in a game I did not even know he was playing?

“If she is so ill, she should be at home under the Seer’s care,” Anner said stubbornly.

“Anner, my friend,” Glaucon interrupted, a definite chill in his voice. “You need to get past this. She doesn’t love you.  She is married to an Elflord, and among the Elves that is permanent. You can never have her, Anner. You need to move on.”

Glaucon’s blunt comment fell into the room with a crash, and Mylan added. ”I have followed you through many things, mate, but I will not follow you on this. You are jeopardizing everything we have worked for a year to build with this ridiculous attitude of yours. It’s time, Anner. Give it up.”

I hurried away. I didn’t want to hear any more. As I sped through the drawing room, I saw Wilden. He jerked his head at the music room door, and disappeared into the darkened corridor. I stopped to catch my breath, and went to stand in the door.

Brial sat with a small harp nestled upon his lap. His long, slender fingers were brushing over the strings, checking the tone of the instrument as he turned the tiny wooden knobs that tuned it.

“I didn’t know you could play,” I observed.

He didn’t look up, which meant he had heard me coming. One of the worst things about being married to an Elven scout was the difficulty in surprising them.

“I learned when I was very young,” he replied after a moment. “My mother taught me. As I grew older, I put it aside when I began to study warfare.”

I drifted through the door. As I hovered there, uncertain of what to do next, Brial looked up at me with a wry smile. “Go ahead and sit; I won’t shout at you.”

I lowered myself into a chair as he bent his head back to the little harp. Finally, he seemed satisfied, and began to play a sweet, haunting little melody that drifted through the room.

“What is this song?” I asked. “I think I’ve heard it before.”

“Oh, you have,” he assured me. “You heard it at our vialigatis.”

“That’s right,” I agreed, remembering the harps playing as the Ka’breona maidens tucked their blossoms into my hair. “What is it called?”

“It is our traditional song of courting,” he replied, unleashing those black eyes at me. “We play it to the women we love, and at the formalization of our unions, as a reminder of the early days in any lifebond where the magic and the power mingle in the growing surety that this particular woman is the one. It is, at once, a declaration and a question.”

“I see.” I relaxed in my seat. He turned his attention back to the harp.

“You thought I was leaving?”

“I thought it a possibility.”

“I will never leave you,” he replied, his voice deep and low.

We were silent for a few minutes more, caught up in the spell of the music and the new strangeness between us. I was tired and wanted nothing more than to curl up in his arms and cry. I knew I had wounded him in some way.

He finished the song with a last, tinkling spray of notes and lifted his head to stare at me. We regarded each other as the room fell back into silence.

“I have,” he began quietly, “changed many of the ways I was brought up to be since I fell in love with you. I have forced my mistrust of humans from me and learned to befriend the men that gathered around you. I have learned to bite my tongue at your ways, none of which, I might add, would be tolerated in an Elf of your age and station. I have given up convincing you to be more aware of your safety, and instead have focused my efforts into guarding you without your knowledge. Everything that I thought I was I have given up in love for you save for one vital thing: I will not endure any interference from another in the decisions I make regarding you. I don’t care who it is, this one, last thing I will not concede. Even you, cariad, tread a careful line with me in this matter. You are my wife and I think it important that we agree on things. There will come a time, however, that I will override you and you will obey me if I see fit.”

His eyes flashed into the glittering black glare of his anger. “Anner de Ceolliune, in particular, must come to respect this. Friend or no, I will not remain silent if this happens again. I know, cariad, that you will not understand this. I repeat it now only as a warning. I no longer have the patience for it.”

“Brial, I—”

“Do not question my ability to look out for your best interests again, Tamsen. I apologize for my behavior earlier; I misplaced my anger. You need to realize that I mean what I say, and I will not change my mind.”