A Bitter Brew(2017)

Greg Curtis

It's not easy as one of the afflicted. You can never hold any sort of station, enter a council chamber or the capitol, or use your spells to earn any sort of income. And of course nearly everyone will shun you when they spot your markings. For Hendrick though, it's worse. Born a prince, he can never inherit the throne or return to his childhood home. He cannot live with his family.

But Hendrick has overcome these troubles. He has a trade as a brewer. Grudging acceptance and even friends in his home town. He has a good life for one of the afflicted.

Until the day the mercenaries show up at his door with a Royal warrant for his execution.

That leads to a desperate journey to find out why his own father wants him dead. A journey to a city he's not allowed to enter, to see his mother who abandoned him as a child when he became afflicted, in the hope that she will persuade his father – a man he's seen only half a dozen times in his life – to rescind the warrant.

But as he travels little does he know that his journey will lead him directly into a war between the afflicted and the normals. Reveal the true history of magic in Styrion. And ultimately lead to a showdown with an enemy bent on the complete destruction of the realm. An enemy that only magic can battle and which according to legend, none can defeat.