Tales of the Five #2:
The Landlady

Sorceress-swordswoman Segnbora tai-Enraesi, hero of the great War against the Shadow, must finally face the one part of her life she’s successfully avoided for a decade: her day job.

Segnbora’s been preoccupied with the demands of motherhood and the continuing business of supporting her husbands King Freelorn of Arlen and Herewiss Hearn’s son in consolidating Freelorn’s hold on the Arlene throne. But now her liege and lover Eftgan of Darthen calls on Segnbora to take up her recently-earned role as Head of House tai-Enraesi and begin restoring her diminished household to its proper position among Darthen’s ruling Forty Houses.

Reviving the fortunes of a House sunk into decline over two lifetimes will be difficult work, Segnbora knows. But she doesn’t suspect how difficult until, while visiting her lands in Darthen’s rural north, she discovers that one holding of House tai-Enraesi conceals a danger unexpected enough to challenge even a companion of Dragons and a wielder of the blue Fire…

The Landlady—a 75,000-word novel set in the main character through-line of the Door Into… series—is the second of five novels and novelettes spanning the years between Book 3 of the Tale of the Five, The Door Into Sunset, and the forthcoming The Door Into Starlight.

Sorceress-swordswoman Segnbora tai-Enraesi, hero of the great War against the Shadow, must finally face the one part of her life she’s successfully avoided for a decade: her day job.

Segnbora’s been preoccupied with the demands of motherhood and the continuing business of supporting her husbands King Freelorn of Arlen and Herewiss Hearn’s son in consolidating Freelorn’s hold on the Arlene throne. But now her liege and lover Eftgan of Darthen calls on Segnbora to take up her recently-earned role as Head of House tai-Enraesi and begin restoring her diminished household to its proper position among Darthen’s ruling Forty Houses.

Reviving the fortunes of a House sunk into decline over two lifetimes will be difficult work, Segnbora knows. But she doesn’t suspect how difficult until, while visiting her lands in Darthen’s rural north, she discovers that one holding of House tai-Enraesi conceals a danger unexpected enough to challenge even a companion of Dragons and a wielder of the blue Fire…

The Landlady—a 75,000-word novel set in the main character through-line of the Door Into… series—is the second of five novels and novelettes spanning the years between Book 3 of the Tale of the Five, The Door Into Sunset, and the forthcoming The Door Into Starlight.

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