The Stone of Truth… What it is about?

I’ll start with distance in the book. While reading you’ll see me use the word “pace” a lot (i.e. ten paces from A to B). A pace is not a walking step in the story’s context, it’s in fact a measurement used in Keldarra. People measure by paces. For example, if I stand twenty paces from you, I’d stand eight meters away from you.

“Snatching” is the name given by the victims of the abductions of boys by Wolf Riders. If they take you, you’re “snatched.”

I decided against introducing our own flavour of swearing or name calling in the book as it’s not Earth with humans. When a person wants to be insulting, he’s usually called “a runt.” Only Wolf Riders use this term, really.

When you are a Keeper of Truth, you do a vision rather than having one. Doing visions is a metaphysical and chemical process which alters the brain chemistry of such a person. The ability to do visions of both past and future is rare, but some, like Joharan’s grandmother, possessed the ability.

‘First Rites’ and ‘Second Rites’. Very early on I determined how the process of “coming of age” would work in my story. First Rites happens at fifteen in most places, except for Azaquina where it got altered to age twelve because of the frequent snatching that happens there, and it’s when society declares a person a young adult, and Second Rites happens at age twenty when you become a full adult. At the time you become a full adult you can make all your own decisions about a career, who you want to live with as your life partner, etc.

A ‘Life Partner’ is something also created for the book. There’s a historic significance why you choose a life partner which stems back to a period of between two and three thousand years ago when invaders from the north occupied Keldarra, known by a different name in The Old Days. You’ll learn more about this in later books…

Click this link to read more about the process of choosing a Life Partner (1)

‘The Old Days’ is the time of over three-thousand years before those northern invaders occupied Keldarra.

An ‘Elder’ is the person who resides over a Temple of Truth, which is the building occupied by the Order of Truth. Typically, each city has one Temple in it. They perverted the title into something else when the last Elder of Masharea was killed, and the Wolf Riders emerged. They took on the term “Elder Men” as an insult to the Order of Truth.

Click here for more insights to the terms used in the book (2)

Rather than languages, the book refers to various “dialects” that exist. In the Temple of Truth Marrida learns about the Six Ancient Dialects, four of which she knows or is fluent in by the time she arrives in Azaquina. The other two remain a mystery to her for a considerable time, until she hears one of them by chance. There will be more about the dialects spoken the next two books of the series, first one to be on release this summer, with the third one coming during the middle of autumn.

(1) and (2) These links will Q3 of 2019.