The Way of Unity

Velspar Elegies: Book #1

…The fire hardened her heart to stone. Now the people she has wronged must come to break it.

The Seven Lands of Velspar put their faith in the Intercessors, a psychic priesthood responsible for the purification of the spirit. Where passion flares, they soothe its intent. Those who cannot be soothed, are cast out, their spirits destroyed by fire.

The Intercessors are mystics of the highest order, but Velspar’s ruling Skalens believe their power has grown too great.

Surviving the Intercessor’s murder plot against her family, Sybilla Ladain rises to power. The Skalens come together under the banner of her grief, bringing the practice of Intercession to its brutal, bloody end.  

Yet victory brings Sybilla no peace. In time, she will have to face the people of Velspar, forced to live in a psychically alienated world, and a band of rebels led by an escaped Intercessor set on her annihilation.

Illustrations by: Andy Paciorek

Booklife (Publisher’s Weekly) Editor’s Pick

SPFBO9 Semi-Finalist

Richard Swan’s Top 5 Books of 2023, author of Empire of the Wolf

Killer Nashville Claymore Award Finalist for Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Nominated for Second Annual FanFiAddict Awards’ Best Debut

Now Available on Audiobook!

Black Stream

Velspar Elegies: Book #2

In the days of the Purge the tides of death swallowed all that was holy, but now Velspar is on the verge of revival.

Sybilla Ladain survived her judgement and is now caught between her duty as Skalen and her growing entanglement with the rebels she once considered her enemies. Voirrey takes Sybilla to a little village in the mountains where they plan to start a religious community based on the old rites. In Avishae, Intercessor Maeryn is working with the Elshenders to do the same.

But with the rise of the Guard and its factions, traditional seats of power cease to hold their value. The revival depends upon the will of the Skalens but without the Guard at their side, no Skalen is safe.

"Sarah K. Balstrup writes like she is daimonically possessed. Black Stream's feverish prose will transport you to a realm of psychic synesthesia that is at once fantastical but also a mirror of our own world: full of dark secrets and emotional phenomena. Her characters are deeply developed, her world so tangible you can taste the sacrificial blood, and her narrative set on an arc of spiritually epic proportions. This is fantasy of transcendental scope and exquisite execution."

- Joseph Sale, author of The Book of Thrice Dead and Virtue's End

On the seventh night, after breathing of the Alma, Skalen Karasek of Brivia had a vision.  

He saw the great winged Kshidol birth a baby boy, that fell from the sky, into the sea. Beneath the waves he watched the serpent, Siatka, consume the bodies of the battle dead. And when he took his dagger to her belly, a baby girl emerged, rising to the surface.

The next morning, Skalen called upon his people to bring the bodies of their kinfolk down from Jokvour. He brought them to the Holy Ones, for he understood that Siatka would be as their Mother, and Kshidol would be as their Father. That they alone could shepherd the spirits of the slain.

They would draw the silver threads from dead flesh, salvaging spirit from the hunger of earth.

The Karaseks gave of their dead, and prayed. With the passage of the moon, the women among them felt the spark of life in their bellies, and Skalen gave thanks. For he saw in the little children, the look of the ones who had perished. Those that had been gifted to the Holy Ones were given back, anew.  

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