Laelyah knows how to leave a place before anyone learns too much about her. She’s less certain how to escape what Cindhaëm left inside her. In Author Lee J. Pleimelding‘s novel Ascaron: Ad Vocatus, Part 1, Laelyah’s search for a healer leads through dangerous work, an unexpected reunion, and secrets that powerful people have kept buried.
Twenty Gold Pieces and a Dangerous Secret
Seven years have passed since Cindhaëm changed Laelyah’s life. Months after escaping captivity, she travels across Ascaron using borrowed names and taking escort contracts that put her in harm’s way. She needs twenty gold pieces to reach a healer said to live deep in the Edenith forests. With every job, she measures the danger against the chance of getting closer.
The black veins spreading beneath her skin make that choice more urgent. They appeared after she removed a mark she was never meant to survive removing, and she has no dependable explanation for what they mean. In Ascaron, a person believed to be corrupted can be executed. Laelyah must earn the money for help while keeping her condition hidden from the people around her.
That gives even routine encounters a charge of uncertainty. A client may offer her work, yet a close look at her skin could end the journey. A town may promise a place to rest, though staying too long gives others time to ask questions. Lee lets those practical pressures shape Laelyah’s days. Her goal is easy to understand, and each step toward it asks something of her.
Laelyah has become resourceful through necessity. She knows how to keep moving and how to protect the identity she has built since her escape. Those skills have carried her this far. They also leave little space for a life in which she can relax, ask for help, or be known by someone who cares about her.
The Past Finds Its Way Back
Returning to Althenaum brings Laelyah into contact with Erdogan, an old friend she believed she had lost. He barely recognizes her. Their reunion carries the warmth of a familiar bond and the strain of everything that happened while they were apart. For Laelyah, being recognized may take more than hearing someone say her name.
Blaise soon becomes part of their path. A disgraced Valkh, he has begun showing signs of corruption after becoming involved with a stolen royal artifact. His situation adds another unsettling question to Laelyah’s search: how much do people understand about the changes appearing in their bodies, and who holds the answers?
Meanwhile, Cindhaëm’s network resurfaces through kidnappings and violence. Political silence allows troubling questions to linger, especially around the people who may know more about Laelyah’s disappearance than they admit. Her journey toward a healer draws her back toward the world she fled. Each new connection offers a possible source of support, along with a decision about whom she can trust.
The novel brings together adventure, dangerous magic, mystery, body horror, and political tension. Its emotional force comes from the relationships forming within that danger. Erdogan remembers an earlier Laelyah. Blaise faces a threat that may help him understand hers. As their lives intersect, loyalty and protection grow more complicated for people with good reasons to guard their freedom.
About the Author
Lee is a French author who began telling stories at a young age through personal writing and fanfiction. A deeply discouraging critique in high school led Lee to stop writing seriously for several years. The return to storytelling came gradually, with Ascaron becoming the project that made a lasting commitment to writing feel possible again.
Lee spent years developing the world’s countries, cultures, political systems, mythology, and characters. Writing and rewriting helped shape the voice of the story as well as its setting. Independently published through Amazon KDP, Ascaron: Ad Vocatus, Part 1 is available in a Kindle edition and begins a larger story within that world.
A Future Laelyah Can Choose
Laelyah sets out to find a cure, carrying far more than an unexplained affliction. She carries the effects of captivity, the memory of a lost friendship, and the hope that her life can grow beyond survival. Ascaron: Ad Vocatus, Part 1 makes that hope compelling by giving her a difficult road and letting each choice along it matter.
Knowledge grows when shared. Please Pass it on!
Discover more from Paxjones
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.