dkstories

Creating a Gate was one of the most personal of spells. Dalen had read an ancient text on the process, supposedly from as far back as the time of his most famous ancestor Vanyel Ashkevron. Prince Dellinar had shown him the book and its ancient language had been only part of the difficulty in reading the text. The Empire of the East from which the King and most of the mages of Hardorn had originated from called them Portals and managed to do things with Gates that most Western Mages had thought

The books by Mercedes Lackey titled "Black Gryphon", "White Gryphon" and "Silver Gryphon" give a lot of background about why this war is happening and about the Haliegh. A short summmary is that Urtho was a super-powerful mage from thousands of years before this story who died after decades of war against the evil mage Ma'ar. The Haleigh are a dark-skinned race that live in the far south of this world. One of their defining characteristics is their adherence to tradition. They stick to tradition so hard it's almost impossible to get them to change unless at very specific times. Their skin color is used as a description, not from the animus that we might have as a society. It's really a description of them, nothing more. They have reasons for what they are doing - reasons that will come out later in the story and might even make a lot of sense.

This story pretty much incorporates pieces of all the Valdemar books written by Mercedes Lackey. There are many books ranging from the distant past to books set a mere generation or two before this story. I've tried to make it as stand alone as possible, although those familiar with all of the stories written by Mercedes Lackey in this world should be able to guess where part of this is going.

I have rarely met a teenager who doesn't piss people off from time to time. Dalen's no different in that respect.

Dalen does protest a bit much - but I think he's starting to explore the reasons for his feelings and protests more than ever before. As for Bart's gifts, bonding with companions will enhance what is there - but not all Heralds need strong gifts.

Mother/son talks rarely go well at Dalen's age...and that's without all the politics added in to the mix.

“When the nobles wage war, it is the commoners that pay the price in blood!” The speaker exclaimed, keeping the rapt attention of the crowd that had been listening to him for the last half-mark. Dalen had been there since the beginning, towards the back of the square, dressed in a faded pair of corduroy pants and an old shirt of a faded red color. Quinn had come into his office an hour ago, with these clothes in hand and pushed them towards him. “Gramma said you’re to put these on and go down

Dalen didn’t need to use his gift of Mindspeech to know what the man on the other side of the carriage from him was thinking. Jolan Crutchfield wasn’t a tall man, barely coming up to Dalen’s shoulders, and he was twice as round as Dalen, with a ruddy face and a tendency to sweat at the slightest exertion. He had met Dalen at the station when the locomotive from Haven arrived. From the moment he had introduced himself, Jolan Crutchfield made it plain as day that he felt Dalen wasn’t going to be

“You should have seen her face” Paet said with another giggle that made him seem even younger than Lynn who was across from him in another armchair. “I bet.” Dalen chuckled at the image their words called up. The front room of his apartments in the Mage’s Collegium was smaller than that in his mother’s apartment, but still fit his friends comfortably. “What did Herald Sorenson do after she sat on it?” Bart asked with wide eyes and a bit of a scandalized expression. For some reason, despite l

“You are alright, are you not, son?” Lofar Ashkevron’s image was in the viewer of the Teleson and Dalen sighed yet again. His father looked tired, and worn as he stood in the viewing disk of the long-range communication device. These devices were not secure, could be overheard by enemy mages, but Lofar would not settle until he was able to see his son. “I am, father.” Dalen said with a forced smile on his face. He reckoned his own appearance wasn’t much better, under the glamours he’d put on j

“Really, why we’re spending good Valdemaran blood for those barbarians down south I will never understand!” Lord Prager, a court fop who rarely visited his ancestral lands in the east of Valdemar said with contempt in his voice. “What worries me is the discussion on raising taxes.” Master Karl Tanner, one of the many Guild representatives on the Council said with a grimace as he stood next to Lord Prager. Dalen wished he could be somewhere else, doing something besides wearing court finery tha

Dalen Ashkevron was exhausted, with rings underneath his eyes and he wondered just how much longer his mother would expect him to stay on his feet before he collapsed. He’d no sooner walked into the apartments than she’d forced him to sit down and listen to her chatter with several of her ‘associates’ about the ‘situation’. The talk disturbed him, but it was little more than her playing one of her political games and he was too focused on other problems to worry about them anymore. “Any word f

We're trying to get most of them back up on the site as quickly as possible without overloading the announcements, etc. I will say though that Tests of Blood is still one of my favorites.

“Again.” The old woman’s cold voice washed over Dalen and he closed his eyes before calling up the energy from his own personal reserves. She was a skilled instructor, and would know if he ‘cheated’ by using power from the Heartstone. When he’d finished with the spell, turning the minute flows of power into the delicate strands that settled over the waiting crystal, he opened his eyes to see her response. It was as brusque as anything else he’d heard from her. A single word, no more and no less.

A great cloud of steam momentarily obscured the view from the observation level of the train’s forward car, but it cleared within moments and Dalen Ashkevron was treated to the amazing view of the capital city of Haven as they approached from the west. A few years ago, an observation dome would have been unusable on this train because the glass would have been obscured by soot from the steam boiler. Now though, a magic-fueled boiler instead of one fueled by burning wood or coal powered this loco

Prince Dalen Ashkeveron has long been weary of being compared to his famous relative. When one of the greatest challenges in the history of Valdemar rises, Dalen can't help but answer the call.

Removed at request of blog owner

Thanks for the compliments!

Early on in our dating, Trebs and I entered the hotel room and he'd spread rose petals all over the bed and put a present on the pillow. The present was an N*Sync CD in honor of the fanfiction I wrote titled "Phone Call". I'm so glad I didn't write a similar scene for this story or the wand jokes would have been endless...

Neville's sacrifice was a noble one - and was both hard and wonderful to write. I can see why JK had him stepping forward in Book 7 and letting his nobility shine. She was also much nicer in letting him live...

Silly admission here, but there's a GA technician who is actually doing the posting of the stories from the last saved version that had been up on GA before I left. He's programmed the system to update the chapters in such a way so they don't automatically knock everyone else's updates out of the system (hence the twice a day, two chapters each time updating).

Please remember that this was written many years ago - before Half-Blood Prince had been written, much less Deathly Hallows. There are a lot of things that were revealed in Books 6 & 7 that will contradict what was written and some things that are quite different than what was in those books. For instance, we didn't know after book 5 that Snape had been in love with Lily or that he even knew Petunia. Nor did we know about Horcruxes or that Dumbledor was gay. Some guesses I got right, many others I didn't even get into the quidditch pitch.

Harry Potter was done crying. Now he was sipping tea and listening to Draco tell about what happened from his point of view. Harry's anger was close to boiling over when he'd realized that Draco was bleeding. A quick check revealed the bullet had passed through Draco's arm and was not lodged inside. A few healing spells and a potion had sealed the wound and taken away the pain. As Draco finished, Harry set his tea down and stared into his lover's eyes. His emotions were running wild and it was a

The last day of Harry Potter's sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry dawned gloriously golden, with birds singing and a bout of fantastic make-up sex with the one Draco Malfoy. Draco was still upset that Harry hadn't warned him about Dumbledore's offer of a teaching position the week before. The scene in the great hall at lunch had been spectacular and started a series of arguments between the two that required make-up sex almost every day. Quite an enjoyable way of passing t

Naturally, a nice night of blissful sleep caused them to wake up late the next morning. While Draco was cursing all the known gods about his hair, Harry contemplated getting dressed in the expensive robes he now wore and went into the front room to see his daily schedule. All it took was one glance to make him groan. He sat down in one of the armchairs and put his heads in his hands. He had an absolute mess of logistical nightmares today; not only his regular classes, including two that he was