A Prince of the Blood
рдЗрд╕ рдИ-рдмреБрдХ рдХреЗ рдмрд╛рд░реЗ рдореЗрдВ рдЬрд╛рдирдХрд╛рд░реА
A childless queen confined to the palace.
A king overly enamored of male companionship.
The kingdom desperately needs an heir.
Who will father one?
Two courtiers ask Keladon, retired battlemage and the king's bastard half-brother, to make his way in secret to the queen's bedchamber. His loyalty to the kingdom overcomes his dread of palace intrigues and his guilt in turning her, a foreign princess, into a royal captive decades ago.
Their brief encounter leads to his unrequitable love for her.
Keladon returns to the castle nine months later to celebrate the proclamation of his secret son as the king's child and heir. But within the castle's walls and the nearby city, he stumbles across a conspiracy of magic and murder. Acting alone, in the shadows, only he can save the kingdom from the ultimate treachery - and protect the one woman he would risk his life for.
рд▓реЗрдЦрдХ рдХреЗ рдмрд╛рд░реЗ рдореЗрдВ
Raymund Eich is a science fiction and fantasy writer whose middle American upbringing is a launchpad for journeys to the ends of the universe.
His most popular works are military science fiction series The Confederated Worlds (novels Take the Shilling, Operation Iago, and A Bodyguard of Lies) and the Stone Chalmers series of science fiction espionage adventures (novels The Progress of Mankind, The Greater Glory of God, To All High Emprise Consecrated, and In Public Convocation Assembled).
He has over ten other published book-length works and more than forty published short stories. His short fiction has appeared in Analog, Odyssey, Boundary Shock Quarterly, and the anthology Surviving Tomorrow, and has earned honorable mentions and a semi-finalist award in the Writers of the Future contest. His works are available worldwide in ebook, trade paperback, and audiobook editions.
After circling the world by age five, he grew up in the Ozark Mountains of southwest Missouri. He earned a B.A. and a Ph.D., both in biochemistry, from Rice University. Though heтАЩs no longer a working scientist, hundreds of papers cite his graduate research.
In addition to his writing career, he works in patent law, won a national quiz bowl championship, is a husband and father, and affirms Robert Heinlein's dictum that specialization is for insects.
He lives in Houston with his wife, son, and daughter. His last name has one syllable and is pronounced тАЬeye-sh.тАЭ He can be found online at https://raymundeich.com.
