Mark of Stars (The Chronicles of Talahm Book 1) Epic Fantasy by Colleen Mitchell ➱ Book Tour with Giveaway

  

 

Mark of Stars

The Chronicles of Talahm Book 1

by Colleen Mitchell

Genre: Epic Fantasy 

The only clues to Emma Jackman’s destiny as Talahm’s Seventh Sorceress are the tesseract birthmark on her right palm and the last, precious letter from her father on her eighteenth birthday.

When she and her brother Luke arrive from Earth to reunite with their dad, Luke has a Vision bigger and more devastating than ever before… A prophecy showing the destruction of Camelot and the death of their father Tomás. Having just gotten her dad back, Emma will not lose him again, even if she has to break the rules of magic to do it.

Someone has betrayed the crown. Talahm’s two most ancient and almighty sorcerers lay in an irreversible sleep, caused by the same curse now trapping the entire population of Camelot inside the city walls. Day by day, the curse slowly moves to the center of the city, killing nearly everyone it touches.

Emma must break the curse before it reaches the citadel, because if she doesn’t… A traitor will claim the crown of Renova over the bodies of Camelot’s people.

And Luke must wake the ancients before Emma breaks the curse, because if he doesn’t… Tomás Artair will die.

Add to Bookbub

Amazon * Goodreads

Excerpt 1

Luke burst into the control room, his heart pounding louder than the combustion turbine’s whine. Cold sweat coated his neck and forehead despite the sweltering temperatures radiating from the engine room behind him.

Daniel, another operator, glanced up from Dullah Energy Center’s control screens. “All right, Jackman?” Daniel’s Scottish brogue jolted Luke from his tunnel vision. 

Luke shook his head. “Give me a minute.” The door clicked shut behind him, reducing the noise, and he pulled out his earplugs. The tense coil in his gut didn’t ease, even when he rummaged through his backpack at the cubby along the back wall to pull out his book of prophecies.

Nick’s newly dyed bright orange hair had been the first trigger for his memory. He’d laughed, uneasy, with the other men until he saw Daniel’s fall protection gear laid out beneath the catwalk in the engine room. Then he couldn’t get to the control room fast enough.

Frantically flipping to the last page written in the leatherbound notebook, Luke swore.

 

“Luke?” Daniel stood up, taking a step toward him, but Luke backed away, shaking his head.

“Dan, please. Give me a minute. I’ll . . . I’ll be right back.” He snapped the book shut, barely looking at Daniel before rushing through the hallway and into the men’s bathroom. 

Locking the door behind him, Luke turned the cold water on full blast. He ran his hands through his wavy black hair, streaks of white marking both temples. His sister Emma said he looked more distinguished this way, but in the mirror, Luke saw his father looking back at him with the same mismatched green and gold eyes. He broke his own gaze to splash water on his stubbled jaw. 

After drying his face, he found the right page in the journal again. It was Luke’s six hundred and fifth Vision since the day he began recording them several months after his eighteenth birthday. Over the past six years, he realized he’d never been able to change or stop any of his Visions from happening. Sometimes his interference caused them. 

He’d Seen death before, far removed from himself, but this time, he’d be right in the thick of it. Today.

Dullah was on the fourth day of a weeklong planned outage. The site bustled with outside contractors working on simultaneous projects to fix broken equipment, repair building damage, and install new monitoring systems while the power plant stayed “turned off” except for testing. Luke hated outages, mostly because of the number of people. Dullah normally operated with fewer than fifteen staff, but for the rest of the outage nearly a hundred would crowd the grounds every day.

Of all the days for this one to come true, why today? 

At least it was still early. He had some time to pull himself together and come up with a plan. As he traced the symbols of his self-devised code, Luke considered something. If he couldn’t stop it from happening, he wondered if he could offer comfort before the last breath. Those final moments of terror didn’t have to be so terrifying.

Once he felt in control enough to face his coworkers, Luke left the bathroom, only to bump into Daniel. 

“Luke, are you sure you’re all right?”

Luke swallowed the spike of emotion in his throat. “Yeah. Just had one of those sudden bad feelings, you know?”

Daniel barked a short laugh, reaching up with one hand to scratch at his neck. “Oh yeah. Working here? Happens to me all the time.”

For the first time, Luke saw a tattoo on Daniel’s wrist. “I feel stupid for just now noticing your tat.” 

Daniel held out his arm for Luke to examine the ink. “Check it out! INRI, with the crown of thorns wrapped around it. The missus bought it as a baptism present a few years ago.” 

Luke didn’t know what to say. Briefly, he considered telling Daniel to go home, but for all Luke knew, that would just make things worse. He forced a smile and clapped Daniel on the shoulder before heading to his locker. Slipping his hard hat back on, he returned to the engine room, the sound so loud that vibrations shook his bones. 

Daniel’s words rang in his mind. He remembered his first day on the job, walking into the plant with his new boss. An enormous combustion turbine swallowed most of the space. The moving parts, high-pressure pipes, and sheer amount of generated power promised injury. Now, Luke looked again through those naïve eyes, noting the levels of grated walkways, metal to duck under, and staircases, and realized just how dangerous his workplace was.

Excerpt 2

Emma couldn’t sleep. Exhaustion wrapped around her like a blanket, but everything from the last several days thrummed in her blood. She felt her powers building almost with every heartbeat, desperate to reach out. It scared her and excited her all at once, but in such a crowded area she couldn’t do anything about it. She wondered if she would ever sleep normally again.

As Bethany slept, the airport breathed. People came and went in waves, planes arriving and departing like clockwork. A young girl in an Elsa dress sang Let it Go as her parents and brother groaned. A newlywed couple wore leis and loud shirts. An airport employee pushed an elderly woman to her gate, an urn clutched on her lap and a wedding ring dangling from a chain around her neck. 

Watching the lives of people she’d never met and would never see again, it struck her how fragile life was and how small her own horizons had been before she read the last letter. 

This is freedom. The ability to sit at a quiet airport gate after midnight, just being present as people passed by. The stars moved with the steady pace of time, her fingers tracing the ticket for Flight 1951—the ticket to her future. Soon, she would see Luke . . . and finally get some answers.

They followed the signs to international baggage claim where Luke stood, holding up a piece of cardboard. When Emma got close enough to read it, she laughed. 

Bethany Hawkins

And Maybe Her Friend?

Whatever Her Name Is

“Oh my gosh, your brother is even funnier than I remember,” Bethany cackled.

Luke’s head snapped toward them, looking for all the world relieved to see them in the flesh. He waved with one hand, his face breaking into a grin.

Emma needed a big-brother hug, and she ran to him. Luke barely dropped the sign in time, crushing her to his chest and swinging her around to compensate for the momentum. 

“Hey Squirt,” he said. “You got big.”

“Shut up,” she told him, face squashed against his chest. “You got old.”

“You’re next,” he replied, resting his cheek on Emma’s head. “Hey Bethie.”

Bethany smiled at him, playing with the tail of her French braid. Emma and Luke were the only people who could get away with calling her that. “Hi, Luke. It’s good to see you. Do I get a hug too, since my name was on that sign?”

“Oh! Of course,” he exclaimed, releasing Emma. “It’s good to see you, too.” Behind him, bags started dropping onto the conveyor belt. Luke kept one arm around Bethany’s shoulders and looped Emma back to his side with the other. “You ready?”

“Yep. I shipped my bags to the university.”

“I stuffed everything into my backpack,” Bethany said, winking.

Luke’s muscles tensed and then relaxed, as if he’d expected this news. “Good thing. We’re cutting it close as it is.”

The rumble of steel on steel vibrated through the floor of the train carriage as it sped west across Scotland, away from the life Luke had built for the last two years. He slumped back against the seat near the rear of the train, watching the gray countryside whip past as they cut through the Scottish fields and hamlets at over a hundred miles an hour. Truth be told, he was glad to be leaving, but sad to be leaving so many good people behind. 

Emma nudged him under the table with her foot. “Hey, you okay?”

“Yeah,” he replied without looking at her, his eyes still fixed out the window. 

“You sure?”

Luke didn’t answer for a moment, closing his eyes. “Yes. I’m sure.” When he opened them, Emma and Bethany stared at him, brows furrowed in skepticism. “I’m fine.”

“You say that when you’re not fine, too,” Emma retorted. “This was your home.”

Luke felt torn, though sure of his next steps. The corner of his lip went up of its own accord. “No . . . this was a stop along the way. I’m going home right now.” Home to his father. Home to his destiny and the only future he would know. It had been a long time coming. He’d known since he first started reading the letters from his father that he was different, and that his path in life would be different, too.

Emma took his hands, and he noticed the fingerless gloves. “You’ve been there, haven’t you?” she asked, and Luke glanced up, meeting her searching gaze. Her fingers threaded through his until he felt locked in place. “You’ve seen him.”

Luke’s mouth dropped open and then closed again. “I . . . yeah. Yeah, I have.”

Emma hissed in pain and pulled her hands away, pressing her thumb hard against her right palm. 

Colleen Mitchell has been writing since age twelve. Mark of Stars is her first published novel, based on two different stories she wrote in junior high and high school.

She's a certified life coach, the host of the diabetes podcast This is Type 1, and holds a degree in mechanical engineering.

Colleen lives in Missoula, MT with her husband Tim and their cat Luna.

Website * Facebook * Twitter * Instagram * Bookbub * Amazon * Goodreads

Follow the tour HERE for special content and a giveaway!

$20 Amazon

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Join us on the #BookTour with #Giveaway

#EpicFantasy #Fantasy #Camelot #MarkOfStars #TheChroniclesOfTalahm #ColleenMitchell #SilverDaggerBookTours

@talahmbooks #OnTour with @SilverDaggerBookTours