The Heir and the Herald

Welcome to the World of Arlam! Epic Fantasy by Austin Gunderson

When Hugh Conrad picked up that jangling phone in the mud-strewn lobby of a two-bit Bangalore hotel one monsoon-slammed night in June of ’51, the last thing he’d expected to hear was the voice of the father who’d vanished off the face of the earth 24 years prior.

The second-to-last thing he’d expected to hear was that the old man really had left Earth.

Hugh considered himself a worldly man. Surviving childhood abandonment and the horrors of WWII to become a globetrotting treasure-hunter conferred some benefit, after all. But no amount of experience, skill, or raw ferocity had prepared him for the mission bequeathed by his father. Nothing in his whole world could’ve readied him for Arlam.

Arlam. A place of extremes—of both dream and nightmare. A land vast beyond imagining, ancient beyond reckoning, harsh beyond foreboding, beautiful beyond describing. A land usurped by a seemingly-invincible enemy.

It is there—through the portal, beyond the void, where a few months on Earth equates to seven alien centuries—that the last living descendant of Hugh’s father’s royal herald awaits the prophesied return of the ancient high king. Her name is Ilina Lightkeeper. She’s gorgeous, and learned, and utterly unprepared for the fulfillment of her prayers.

Her world needs a sovereign, not a brash barbarian.

It is these two individuals—the unready adventurer and the uneasy scholar, the heir and the herald—who must rally what remains of a defeated realm in order to withstand an evil beyond the scope of even their darkest fairytales. It is these two who must give up all they hold dear in service to prophesies they can’t begin to comprehend. It is these two who must reshape the face of Arlam.

Question is, can they let go of each other’s throats long enough to make it happen?

A Sea Sought in Song is a breathtaking plunge into peril and intrigue that only accelerates over time. Ferocious action, amplified by a unique magic system, unfolds against culturally-complex backdrops. This Indiana Jones-goes-to-Narnia adventure will delight fans of Tad Williams, Brandon Sanderson, and Patrick Rothfuss.