Sneak Peek // Miller Brothers New Book // Codebearers Continuum

So D was checking the Codebearers site today {no, we are not members, and do not recommend membership to that site} and found this lovely preview for the next book! We've actually met them a couple of times and they gave us some special sneak peeks that I won't reveal here ;)

[Note: I did not write the following preview, the Miller Brothers did. Repeat, I did not write it.]

The link is here.

Please enjoy this unedited sneak peek at one of the opening scenes from Codebearers Continuum.
Thanks to all of our fans for their continued patience as we fight to finish the story that continues to grow in our hearts. For the Way of Truth and Life! -The Miller Brothers

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It wasn’t the first time Hunter had misplaced something important, but losing forty years of his life was definitely a first.

He was nearly seventy now. His skin no longer fit the way it once did. The aging man sat alone in the darkness of the Scriptorium trudging through every last memory, searching for any trace of where the lost time might have gone. He did not know how the years had vanished so quickly, or why, but he was determined to find out - even if it meant searching an eternity to find them. 

There was something there. Something important. Somewhere in the missing years was a clue - a memory that could restore things to the way they once were and potentially save the the entire Storyverse from coming unbound. 

If only he could find a way back - a way out of this curious age.

The last inch of a fat candle melted away beside him, casting its flickering spell over the broad writers-desk which had become Hunter’s home for for the past seven years. It was a simple desk, providing space for only the most basic necessities an Illuminator required; candle, books, paper, pens, ink, blood and tears. 

There were many desks like his in the great hall - all others empty at this hour.

On his desk a leather book lay spread open to a pair of unblemished pages. The empty pages appeared almost alive, breathing under the pulse of candlelight as they awaited their first mark.

It was time to do battle again.

Hunter took hold of his wooden stylus and continued his work on his current manuscript. Perhaps the process of writing would help him to remember whatever it was he had forgotten. He whispered in a low voice to himself, speaking the words he wrote as his stylus slid gracefully over the page.

“Like a paper being torn in two, the clouds pulled apart, revealing a crack of light that stretched across the sky. The rift in the sky grew wider until it was evident there was something hidden behind it…something lost in the blinding light. It looked as though it were a portal to another world entirely.”

The wood-carved device in his hand made no mark at first as it crossed the page, but moments after, as if by magic, words appeared to burn themselves into the page. They sparkled slightly before drying and fading into what seemed to be ordinary black ink.

Hunter lost his gaze in the candle’s flame, recalling the last memory he had before coming to this place. 

He was only nineteen years old at the time and was wounded and weary from a recent battle. Time was short. In his arms, he recalled clutching tightly to a curious box. The contents of the box were a mystery to him. Something he vaguely recalled he was not allowed to know until after the crossing was made. He remembered promising Trista, that he would not forget her - he would return when it was over. It was a promise he now doubted he might ever fulfill. 

They kissed. He remembered that as clear as day.

Then, he took hold of a silver strand of light and awoke, in this very room, a sixty year old man. The box was missing.

Between the two events, there was nothing to remember. Only the gnawing feeling that there was actually was something there - something he no longer controlled. In a way, he imagined it to be like the phantom pains of an amputee. The missing years an itch he could never find to scratch.

Piece by piece he had begun putting the puzzle of his life back into order. But without all the pieces, it would never make sense.

“Perhaps I’ve never lived the years between,” he wondered to himself.

He quickly dismissed the thought as folly and returned to what memories he did have.

When he first arrived the Essenes, keepers of the Scriptorium and protectors of the Sacred texts, had found him here. Somehow, they had been expecting him, and welcomed him as one of their own, teaching him the gift of Illumination - the art of writing across the realms.

Trusting that the Author had led him to this place, Hunter applied himself to learning his craft. He took on the simple white robes of an Illuminator and set his mind on becoming a Knight of the Word. His wars were no longer fought in the Veil with a sword, but with words on the pages of books. Here, in the Scriptorium, hidden in a Time Between Times, they were free to write. Free to record their memories with no concern for time in the worlds beyond.

It was a blessing, and a curse.

A palace, and a prison.

A convenient place to hide.

And that was precisely what made him believe he was here for a reason. He had come to hide something or from someone. 

But who? And why? And for how long?

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Kill me now, this is so cool! They actually have a "tear in the sky"! I have that in my book, Friends and Enemies :) *Squeal* Now how long will we hafta wait? Another year? Only time will tell! Though Hunter seems to have run out of it...

~Willow