Cynus

In a small garden between the world and the not-world, Ghayle entertained her guests. Prism, her most recent guest, had spent a day processing memories from his youth. Memories Ghayle had shown him, hoping to bring him to an understanding of the role she'd assumed for eons. But he hadn't fully come to understand. In fact, no matter how many times she went over it, Prism just wouldn't accept that Ghayle's decision to summon the demons had been the right move. And so, she let him deliberate, w

Days after an attempt to unleash demons upon the world has failed, three young men find themselves in the midst of new challenges. One must determine what it means to lead. One must face his past. One must discover who he really is. But there are forces still at play in the world which could undermine everything they hope to build and discover. Is the demon threat truly over? This is Book 3 of The Trial. You can find book 1 "Shadow Honor" here:

I'm so sorry I missed this. Thank you for commenting and reading. I appreciate your words on this. I wish I had more to add than that, but I agree with all your points above. Your first paragraph reminded me of this: I'm sorry I don't have much constructive to add, but thank you so much for your comments. They have lifted my spirits. You actually responded to it back then, heh.

Thankfully, I keep an eye on things and get to come back and respond to comments. I'll admit, I'm not really that close to this story anymore, and that does make it more difficult to comment on specific parts of it. This story, as you'll see at the end (this isn't a spoiler) was about a specific kind of release for me. Now that it has been released, I don't have much connection to it. It was a painful thing to write in a lot of ways, but... well, to put it simply, I've healed. But all of your commentaries have been a breath of fresh air. You're welcome to message or email me if you'd like to go over any technical or editorial details on any of my stories if you'd like. Fair warning, I am very bad at maintaining regular correspondence, though I do tend to reply. I hope you enjoy this story. It was very important for me to write at the time, and there's a lot of me that went into it. Thank you for reading it. Thank you. I had forgotten that line, and I'm glad to have had an opportunity to read it and relive it.

Thank you! I love all these insights into the writing, and I appreciate all of them. It's always good to see my characters from a new perspective. I appreciate your continued commentary. Unfortunately, like many things, the illegality doesn't seem to change its frequency much.

Hopefully, we'll keep you hooked in this one as we did in "Fearless". I definitely took a different turn here, and approached it in a new voice for Zane as opposed to Clint, so will it hold up? I guess we'll see.

I suppose you'll just have to read and find out.

WOOHOO! 7LB CLUB! I am honored by your compliments and thank you for them. It was a nice pick-me-up today, and one I definitely needed. I appreciate all of your points, and I'm grateful to count you among my readers.

Thank you!

Amen! Misleads are my favorite thing to read, so I try to write them as well. I don't know that I've accomplished it as often as I'd like, but I'm glad that they work on occasion. The scene between Clint and his Dad is one of my absolute favorite in the story. Thank you.

It's certainly a logical guess. (No free spoilers )

I like to think that, if a family dynamic is already healthy when one parent dies, that death can force people closer together in an "all we have now is each other" sense. This is what I was going for here, anyway. I've seen the dynamic occur like that, though it's definitely rarer than the alternative. But I'm also pretty certain this is the only time I've written a family with this type of close bond, heh.

I'm glad I've been able to keep you on your toes. Though I would've enjoyed the ploy you mentioned as well, XD.

Sweet! Just don't get a brain freeze, okay? I'm glad you're enjoying it this much!

I agree with your perspective on themes, and I appreciate the compliments. I especially like what you say about how stories can help us deal with the heavy things we face in life, because that has definitely happened a lot with me.

I'm glad you're enjoying it! Thank you for the kudos.

Creating Clint's Dad was one of the simple pleasures of this story. He's one of my favorite parent characters in all my works.

Thank you so much for the comment! I'm sorry I didn't respond to this earlier, I must've missed the notification. Ethan was directly inspired by someone in my life, and he always had a hard time making friends, so I can't say I entirely blame you. :-) I'm afraid I'm not quite cool enough to be @Cia, but that sounds like quite a fun story.

I appreciate the kudos! While this story was released after "Rivers of the Dead", it was written much earlier. "Shadow Honor" is actually the third novel I ever wrote. It was always intended to be a series, and in my younger hubris at the time I thought I could get it published the traditional way. Once I was rejected, however, I shelved it and its series to work on other things. I finally decided to revisit it, and ended up with it attracting enough attention that I decided to pursue the rest of the series (which is what I'm working on right now). Book 3 should release pretty soon once I get a chance to finish applying all the edits I'm behind on. I have thankfully been blessed with some great editors who have taught me a lot over the years, is how I've managed to avoid having as many mistakes as I could have my writing. Only "Shadow Honor" was written years ago, while book 2 was written earlier this year. Hopefully you'll enjoy the series!

Thank you for the comment! I am glad that he has interested you.

The tattoos were actually the original inspiration for the story. Chapter 2 was the first chapter I wrote, because the scene of Styx gliding around the cavern was the scene I really wanted to write.

Yeah, my dad wasn't to keen on my fifteen-year-old gay hormones leading me around by the balls either. XD

As it should be, when faced with death. I was having a conversation with a dear friend just the other day about the ways we approach death in our modern society. We fear the inevitable so much that we often fail to embrace that our loved ones are simply on their next adventure, wherever it may be. It's better to embrace change with an open heart and a smile whenever we can, and what greater change is there than death? Though my characters do not always follow that philosophy, and indeed if they did I wouldn't have a few of my stories at all.

I'm sure Caleb appreciates your empathy on his behalf.

This is really useful information! I'll have to take that into account if I ever approach this subject again.