Iridesce by Cordia Pearson

SPFBO10

Two fathers, two countries and no place to call home. When your skin’s the wrong color, and eyes a hated shade of blue, life is one wretched battle after another. All that’s kept me alive is the birthmark for which I was abandoned the night of my birth. A Luna moth, symbol of the Mother Goddess, with a terrifying potential for magic.

I worship the fierce warrior who found, then named me Thea. In a moon, I turn seventeen and will join his forces if he deems me worthy. Service alone will grant me citizenship, and deflect the hate heaped upon me daily. Yet I’m troubled by our mission to deny my desert people access to this country’s many resources.

A warrior mage I’ve never trusted swears we’ve known each other in many lifetimes. He sees a different path for me—one in which I embrace the mystical destiny my birthmark portends.

Faced by this alarming possibility, I ask: can I kill my own kind? Or will this mage, to whom I’m inexplicably drawn, convince me to give up a life of honor, for one of magic?

Be swept away by this captivating adventure of love, honor, bias, and destiny.