Blog Tour ~ A Noble's Path - An Enchanted Isles Novel by I. L. Cruz

A Noble’s Path: An Enchanted Isles Novel (Enchanted Path Series, Book 2)

By I.L. Cruz

Book Blurb:

Divided loyalties test Inez Garza.

The infamous incident at the Academy of Natural Studies has forced her to work for the King’s Men while continuing to serve the hidden market.

Supporting Birthright furthers the cause of Magical Return, but the cost may be the fall of the royal house and losing Zavier forever.

And the strongest pull of all is her growing and erratic magic, which demands everything and offers only destruction in return.

Inez must decide where her loyalties lie—saving Canto or saving herself.

Buy Links:

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Series Tagline: Noble by birth. Smuggler by trade. Mage by destiny.

Publisher: Bosky Flame Press
Author: I.L. Cruz
Cover Artist: Jack Baker
Page Count: 236
Word Count: 69,000

ISBN (Digital): 9781732547131
ISBN (Print): 9781732547148
Release Date: January 31, 2020

Additional Media:

Website: https://booksbyilcruz.com/

Blog: https://fairytalefeminista.wordpress.com/

Twitter: @ILCruzWrites

Excerpt:

   

I ducked down behind a thorny bush. The barbs grazed my coat, but couldn’t penetrate. Another advantage with the cooling temperatures—coats and crunchy leaves. With every move the KMs made, I knew where they were. A third set of footsteps came crashing through the forest. Unlike the KM tread, the steps were panicky, turning in one direction and then another, stopping and starting.

I realized then, it wasn’t me the KM were hunting, it was someone else—I’d unwittingly found myself in their snare.

I couldn’t see who the person was, but I knew the KM were getting close to their prey. Patrols had stepped up since the Academy incident with KM rounding up suspected magic users. The looming threat of Mythos wanting to take part in law enforcement activities had given the royal family the incentive to police their subjects more thoroughly.

It didn’t feel right—four to one. I had to even the odds… But how could I intervene without giving away my position? And this was exactly what Áliz was worried about—my involvement with the KM, leading them right to her and the hidden market. Still, I couldn’t callously hide in my bramble bush and let them catch whoever they were hunting. The KM were moving slowly, but with taunts and banging clubs.

The menace they intended was real. Maybe they were part of the Magical Detection Unit. Their methods weren’t exactly by the book, but Podkin and the royal family were willing to look the other way if it meant keeping overbearing Mythos out of Canti affairs.

I left the safety of my bush to follow their path. Their circle was getting smaller and with just a few less feet between us I heard their conversation.

“Come on out. We know you’re there,” sneered one.

“Yeah, we can practically smell the magic reek all over you,” offered another.

“Come peacefully and you can keep three of your four limbs,” laughed another.

“Aw, don’t say that. If she’s so magical, who needs limbs?”

I was disgusted with what I heard. I imagined my treatment would be no better, if it were ever discovered that I had magic. Worse, I was a Ternion, possessed of all three magical disciplines—Martial, Custodial and Abstract Powers—in theory. I felt my hands tingling with it.

Controlling my powers when I was angry or frustrated was becoming a greater challenge. The magic in the shells sang against my skin. I shoved my hands into my pockets hoping to avoid a scene.

“I’m tired of this! Come out now and maybe you can avoid the Heart Render. Keep us looking and I make no promises,” taunted the KM closest to me. His heavy boots were inches from me. I followed the line of his leg with my eyes to a powerful frame. His hand casually rested on his club which was different than the one usually issued by the KM. The glint of metal against the leather grip interfered with my line of sight. The head of the club was pear-shaped although comparing it to a pear made it sound friendlier than it looked. The weapon had barbed edges.

“The Heart Render? I—I thought this was just a regular enchanted search and seizure. You mean she really has magic?” whispered his companion. Even from my obstructed vantage point I saw the color drain from his face. I’m sure my color mirrored his. The Heart Render was a thing of legend and hadn’t been mentioned in a least a century.

It was used back then when magical prisoners were considered too dangerous to transport to Mythos for trial. Instead the authorities used a Heart Render, which ripped the heart from the accused, stopping the flow of blood that was thought to carry magic. But it kept you alive, or only just. It was painful and irreversible, leaving the victim as a Rended—alive yet not.

Canto must be desperate if they were thinking to revive such a cruel practice. Would that be my fate? The thought made my blood run cold.

“We’re not taking any chances. If they’re carrying magical contraband, who’s to say they aren’t magical, too? Perhaps if we ship enough Rendeds to Mythos, they’ll leave us alone,” replied the first.

The other three KM stayed silent, digesting this new information. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and clearly neither could my magic.

My hands grew agonizingly hot, and I had to take them out of my pockets. The shells pulse built and hummed against my skin. With a blast from my fingertips I knocked down the KM patrolmen and a few trees for good measure.

The largest KM was momentarily pinned beneath one of the felled trees, but he was already wriggling free. I heard the footsteps of the fugitive run from the forest in another direction. Panic washed over me as the magic receded from my fingertips.

Without intending to, I’d done it again. I was horrified by the thought they could have been killed. With reckless abandon and a temper, I could have killed them. I was glad she got away, but a bigger problem lay before me. How would I control my powers when I worked at KM headquarters?

Was anyone safe around me?

Author Information:

 I.L. Cruz decided to make writing her full-time career during the economic downturn in 2008. Since then she’s used her BA in International Relations to sow political intrigue in her fantasy worlds and her MA in history to strive for the perfect prologue. When she’s not engaged in this mad profession she indulges her wanderlust as often as possible, watches too much sci-fi and reads until her eyes cross. She lives in Maryland with her husband, daughter and a sun-seeking supermutt named Dipper.

Guest Post:

I’ve always been practical.

When my friends in elementary school talked about wanting to be astronauts and ballerinas I doggedly said, “I want to be a lawyer when I grow up.” I vaguely knew what that meant from the myriad police procedurals and courtroom dramas my mother watched on TV. It seemed a useful sort of thing and I liked the idea of being useful.

In junior high I enrolled in a magnet school for the arts. I had taken ballet for years and piano as well, but I was now in vocal music. My classmates would muse about their debuts on Broadway, or the album they would create, but I still talked about being a lawyer. I enjoyed the arts, but I knew it for what it was—a hobby I would never pursue professionally. This made my enrollment in a performing arts high school even more suspect. The amazing artist that surrounded me daily were now auditioning and applying for conservatories and I had gotten an early decision acceptance at American University for international relations. My practicality had made the law too vague for me. International law sounded more than useful. It sounded exciting and useful.

The funny thing was I would have been free to pursue something more “ethereal” as I saw it. My mother was always supportive of my dancing and music, but I would continually roll my eyes and say, “Oh mom, no one makes a living doing that.” So, I went on to get my Bachelors in international relations and began my graduate career in international politics.

Then the change came. It was a gradual thing, but it all started with an elective course in Victorian Britain. I’ve always been an anglophile (odd for a Latina from Brooklyn), and it looked like an interesting course to take with an otherwise heavy course load. The professor was good, but not memorable. But his stories of working on his doctorate in London had me enthralled. What would it be like to follow a passion instead of a practicality? Did it make sense to change my outlook?

It was too big a step for me, but I compromised on a half-step. After a year of international politics and a safe future, I decided to apply to another university for a degree in history. And not just any history, my degree was brand new—Religion and Society in the Late Medieval and Early Modern World. After having mocked people studying arts and science as being the “undecided and undeclared”, I was now embracing a degree I could barely think of a use for.

I comforted myself by knowing I would continue on and get a doctorate and teach at a university. It helped with the raised eyebrows and gentle comments ranging from, “how interesting,” to “and what do you do with that?” I would teach and instill in someone else the love of learning I’ve always had. Two years of fascinating classes, excellent professors, and a short stint learning how to docent at the Folger Shakespeare Library and I had my new MA in history. And no clue what I would do next. But practicality ensured that I would have a job and after working part-time while I studied, I was ready for a real job. I applied and was hired to be a study abroad adviser at a state university. My time there was brief after I realized crazy people were allowed to be directors of programs. By then I was married and my husband was feeling less than enthused by his job. So, throwing caution to the wind I said, “Let’s move to Boston,” assuming I could find a job easily in study abroad with the tons of colleges and universities on offer.

My husband easily found a job with his (practical) skill set in computer engineering. I, however, had chosen the worst possible time to leave my job. It was right before the bubble burst on everything and thousands of people found themselves without a work. I felt terrible. Was this my punishment for choosing passion over practicality? No one ever said I had to be happy all the time. I had stern talks with myself that started with the phrase, “Suck it up—just get a job.”

And I did. I started working from home as an on-line tutor helping kids from 3^rd to 12^th grade with their history homework. Finally, a use for my useless degree! And it was miserable. The hours were so variable my paycheck would have been more if I donated blood on a regular basis. The kids ran the gamut from those who really did want help to ones who cursed me out for not giving them the answers. A particularly poignant moment—when a student used colorful four-letter words and I ended the session abruptly telling him he was rude—ended my career as an on-line tutor. My mentor told me I shouldn’t have corrected his behavior. I replied I would correct mine and quit.

Now worry really started to set in. Was I one of those people who could never hold down a job, much less a career? I would be branded by employers as the woman without stick-to-itiveness. I was a product of the “find your bliss” generation the older generations jeered at and called lazy

Throughout the ordeal, I started to write. It was something I’d always done on and off, but never with any purpose. Then something clicked. While on vacation with my husband I told him about a book I had started writing. It came about because my feminist sensibilities were appalled by the fairy tales I was reading to my daughter. Then I dug deeper and realized what I wanted was to know more about these two-dimensional characters. My husband, bless him, said I should keep writing. It was my epiphany given to me by a man who I love, but who isn’t a reader. How dense was I that it hadn’t occurred to me sooner?

I got down to it and wrote, and wrote, and wrote. I picked up how-to books and read articles on-line. I gave my first draft to friends and family and asked for brutal feedback. After attending my first writer’s conference and being told my idea was good, I buckled down for rewrites. It was challenging and fun and for the first time in a long time I felt fulfilled.

I still have moments when practicality wakes me up in a sweat in the middle of the night asking all the questions I dread. What if you fail? Why are you wasting time? Is this practical? But now I can silence them by saying practicality is overrated. 

Find her on Twitter @ILCruzWrites

or her blog, Fairytale Feminista at https://fairytalefeminista.wordpress.com

And her website www.booksbyilcruz.com