Book Title: BLOOD FOR THE UNDYING THRONE
Character Name: Eldred
Note: Read in Jeremy Irons’s voice.
How would you describe your family or your childhood?
My childhood happened so long ago. The closest thing to family that I still remember is my master, who taught me magic for centuries then threw me out of her land over a perceived slight. She was cruel in her tutelage, but I understood even then it was necessary. Our talents and studies remove us from the world we are born to. It is inevitable that we live differently from mere men, as birds live differently from rats.
What was your greatest talent?
I excelled at mind and memory magic. The art of awakening memories in dead things was invented by the first grandmaster of our school but perfected by me. My own body is now a corpse that remembers who it used to be, my thoughts mere memories folding into and overlapping itself.
It’s pretty neat.
Significant other?
Nothing earthly is significant to me. However, in my long life I have come to regard a few as more than grass in the wind. Yuma, the insolent Chief Herder of Danras, is one.
Biggest challenge in relationships?
That I don’t need one but want one.
Where do you live?
My home used to be a castle of ice and snow. In Merseh where it never snows enough, I had to make do with basalt and obsidian dug out from deep under the earth. It’s something of a magnificence in this impoverished world, though it pales in comparison to my master’s ice pyramids in the north. I wonder if they are still there, or lost to time or my master’s caprice.
Do you have any enemies?
I don’t, but there are plenty who consider me their enemy. Lysandros, an Inquisitor of the Empire is one. He is determined to defeat me and end my reign over Merseh so that he would take the steppe in his Empire’s name.
Yuma also considers me her enemy, on account of my being a tyrant in her eyes.
The Host of Danras is one of the few things that has the power to stop me from just doing anything I want. I have a deep respect for their talent and a boundless derision for the things they do with it, like herding cattle.
How do you feel about the place where you are now? Is there something you are particularly attached to, or particularly repelled by, in this place?
Merseh is a quaint little backward country, but nonetheless it is mine. I wish it were more remote, but it sits at the center of this continent, a fact that has suddenly become salient as the Empire began expanding eastward.
The land of Merseh is beautiful all year around. My unruly and uncivilized subjects repel me, but I fear I would feel the same about any other group of people. Still, in their savagery and unruliness my subjects have certain charms going for them. I am especially fond of the Danrasian horsemen and the Iorcan poets.
Do you have children, pets, both, or neither?
I have an army of the undead. That should be good enough for anyone, even me.
What do you do for a living?
I defend Merseh from foreign interference. True, I do this for my own benefit, but the people should feel grateful for all the things that I do! I expect them to express their gratitude in tributes, but they are resentful even for the barest minimum that I ask of them.
Greatest disappointment?
That the world at large has accepted as its master the Empire, that seeks to enslave sorcerers and use their powers for such mundane things as war and industry. We sorcerers must be respected, worshipped even, for our power and knowledge, not put into some metal box for the benefit of the little people.
Greatest source of joy?
My studies and projects. For instance, I have something in a corner of my vast mind. A great weapon of war that the likes of which the world has never seen. In about thirty years it will be complete, and I may have a chance against the Empire’s inevitable incursion into my lands.
What do you do to entertain yourself or have fun?
Again, my studies and projects.
What is your greatest personal failing, in your view?
If I had more interest in the mundane things I might be greedier and tempted to enthuse myself to grab more. which would do wonders for my position in this world. But I am too content with what I have. That is my greatest failing.
What keeps you awake at night?
I don’t sleep. But my greatest fear is this: I never felt the need for a legacy because I am deathless. But if an end should come, and it will, all my knowledge will end with me. I need to find an apprentice, but there is a prophecy that my apprentice will be the one to kill me.
What is the most pressing problem you have at the moment?
Lysandros is getting very close with Yuma. If they join forces my reign will end sooner than later.
Is there something that you need or want that you don’t have? For yourself or for someone important to you?
To survive in this age I must build an empire of my own. I must conquer the surrounding nations and bend them to my will. I must impose my vision of the world that should be to the world that is. I must raise a great army and a legion of bureaucrats and lords to do my bidding.
Why don’t you have it? What is in the way?
Because I don’t want to build an empire. That’s the most disgusting thing I can think of.
Bleeding Empire #2
Blood for the Undying Throne, the sequel to Blood of the Old Kings, from award-winning Korean author Sung-il Kim and translated by the world-renowned Anton Hur, is an epic fantasy adventure where the corpses of sorcerers power an empire and ordinary people rise up to tear it down.
Nothing can stop the Empire’s insatiable conquest.
Not gods, not dragons, not armies.
But heroes still rise.
The Empire continues to enforce its so-called peace with massive war machines that destroy anything that opposes their might. Though the conquered are wholly at the mercy of the Empire, desperate odds such as these can be fertile soil for heroic resistance.
Last seen rallying under Loran’s banner, Emere is now a powerless politician in the Imperial Capital. But when an assassination attempt is made on his life, he discovers that he may just be at the center of sinister plots brewing in the highest levels of the Empire.
Arienne has crossed the continent on a mission to learn more about the Star of Mersia, the infamous yet mysterious weapon that decimated the country of Mersia in a single day. But when she arrives at the supposedly lifeless land, Arienne is shocked to find much more than ruins.
One hundred and seventy years ago, before the Empire laid waste to its plains and its people, Mersia suffers under the whims of the ruthless Grim King Eldred. When Yuma, the chief cattle herder, meets an emissary from the Empire, she dares to hope that this foreign nation might have the power to overthrow the Grim King and end his reign of terror. But Yuma will learn, only once it’s too late, that aligning with the Empire will have consequences that reverberate through the ages.
Sacrifices must be made in the fight against tyranny, but some sacrifices may be too great.
Fiction Adventure | Action | Fantasy Epic [ Tor, On Sale: October 28, 2025, Hardcover / e-Book, ISBN: 9781250895363 / eISBN: 9781250895370 ]
SUNG-IL KIM was born in Seoul in 1974. Despite his lifelong dream of writing fiction, he only got around to it in his forties. He writes science fiction, fantasy, horror, or some blend of those. In South Korea, he is known for Blood of the Old Kings, I Will Go to Earth to See You, and “The Knight of La Mancha,” the last of which earned him an Excellence Award at the Korean SF Awards in 2018. He spends most of his time in his downtown Seoul apartment with his wife and two cats.
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