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enchanting Asian-inspired fantasy series delivers fast-paced adventure for readers young and old.

    The Storm Dragon’s Heart
    Lair of the Deadly Twelve

Chains of a Dark Goddess

    Betrayed by friends and abandoned by his goddess …
    Back from the dead and hellbent on saving his beloved.

    In life, Knight Champion Breskaro Varenni zealously served the bright goddess Seshalla. He was a hero and a legend, the greatest knight of the age. But his most trusted friends betrayed him to the swords of infidels, and his goddess abandoned him, denying him Paradise.
    In death Breskaro refused to fade into Oblivion, like lesser lost souls.
    Instead he wandered the Shadowland for seven years until the dark goddess Harmulkot offered him the one thing only she could give, the one thing that still mattered to him... 
    A chance to save his precious Orisala from a fate worse than his own.
    Returned as a wreck of embalmed flesh animated by sorcery, with a host of the desperate and the undead under his command, Breskaro will do whatever it takes to save Orisala, no matter the odds and no matter the consequences.
    David Alastair Hayden returns to the exotic land of Pawan Kor, first seen in Wrath of the White Tigress , with this seductive epic of swords and sorcery in the tradition of Brent Weeks, Robin Hobb, Michael Moorcock, and David Gemmell.
    Reader Advisory: This book may not suitable for readers of young adult fiction.

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    Chapter 1

    The desolate ravine lay deathly quiet in the perpetual twilight of the mist-draped Shadowland, seemingly empty of the demons that preyed on the lost souls trapped there. A man shambled into the gorge. Listless eddies of dust trailed his feet. Head drooping and shoulders hunched, he moved like a sleepwalker, unaware of his surroundings. Once-fine armor hung on his tall frame limply — its bright shine lost to the teeth and claws of countless demons. The sword he drug carelessly behind him bore the nicks and scars of many pointless battles.
    A scaly shadow slithered into place behind a basalt outcrop. It flexed razor talons and flicked a ropy tongue over its rows of jagged teeth. With a hopeful spark dancing in its giant black eyes, it pounced — swift, silent, unseen...
    Expected.
    The man raised his battered shield a heartbeat before the demon landed on top of him. He twisted and deflected the blow, tossing the startled fiend onto the rocks. It scrambled to get back up. It was too slow. With a swift lunge and one smooth motion, the man sliced his blade through the creature’s corded neck. 
    The demon faded into Oblivion.
    The man’s clouded eyes cleared as they stared at the spot where the demon had been. He could do that ... let go ... fade into Oblivion. 
    No. He shook his head, trying to remember. He was waiting. He had been promised something. He had been promised ... Paradise. 
    Sighing, he scanned the charred, mist-draped landscape. His eyes turned ashen and cold again like the dead sky above. His body lost its fighting stance and he wandered deeper into the ravine.
    Hours, maybe days, passed. Time had no meaning in the Shadowland, not to him, not to anyone trapped there. A terrified scream shattered the silence. The man ambled forward without urgency. He rounded a bend and spotted the attack. 
    A young woman cowered at the back of a shallow crevice. She would have been beautiful in life. Now she was as washed out and grey as everything else here. Only her fear tied her to what she had once been.
    A demon with the body of a huge, decaying leper and the head of a wasp loomed over her. By the patterns left in the settling dust he could tell it had herded her there, playing with its prey. 
    He charged. The monster was so intent on its victim that it didn’t even notice him coming. But she did, and her eyes filled with hope. That the fiend did notice. It turned to face the man just in time for him to sink his blade deep into its chest. The demon pawed uselessly