Exile

Betsy Dornbusch is the author of several short stories, novellas, and novels, including the Books of the Seven Eyes trilogy. In addition to speaking at numerous conventions and teaching writing classes, she has spent the past decade editing the online magazine Electric Spec and writing on her website, Sex Scenes at Starbucks (betsydornbusch.com).

Draken Vae Khellian, bastard cousin of the Monoean King, had risen far from his ignominious origins, becoming both a bowrank commander and a member of the crown's black guard. But when he is falsely condemned for the grisly murder of his beloved wife, he is banished from the kingdom and cast upon the distant shore of Akrasia, at the arse end of the world. Compared to civilized Monoea, Akrasia is a forbidding land of Moonlings, magic and restless spirits. It is also a realm on the brink of a bloody revolution, as a sinister conspiracy plots against Akrasia's embattled young queen and malevolent banes possess the bodies of the living. Consumed by grief, and branded a murderer, Draken lives only to clear his name and avenge his wife's murder. But the fates may have bigger plans for him. Alone in a strange land, he soon finds himself sharing the bed of an enigmatic necromancer and a half-breed servant girl, while pressed into the service of a foreign queen whose life and land may well depend on the divided loyalties of an exiled warrior.