I’m excited to share a few details with you today about my latest fiction project. This original epic fantasy follows the struggles of a witch with a hazy presentiment of apocalypse as she tries to unite a band of heroes who don’t like each other. It has everything you expect when you hear epic and fantasy — battles and magic, ancient mysteries, a secret cabal, embittered siblings feuding for an empire’s throne — and hopefully a few things you haven’t seen before!
The first installment in the series, We Gather, will be released later this year.
The witch Ha’ere is a long way from home. The women in her coven have settled on a course of action that has heavy consequences, which they know going in. A time of great possibility is upon them, a crux in history beyond which dwindling magic might continue to fade until it vanishes. Or come back with a vengeance.
All they have to do is help the empire next door get its mojo back.
They know there will be costs to pay — nothing is to be had for nothing, in this world or any other — but it’s only as the project succeeds that Ha’ere begins to understand. How bad it might get. How immediate the connection between her actions and the bad that’s coming.
This is when she hits on the scheme that will control the shape of the narrative for the first few novels: she has a band of heroes to corral, picked out by Ha’ere herself and the Dragon of Seeing, the frog-rupati who grants her visions. Problem is, they’re scattered across 2 continents. Oh, and did I mention that they hate each other? She can only convince them to work together if she makes them understand each other.
The reader rides along with the witch’s feuding champions while they live each other’s memories, learning how each of them reached the place where it started to fall apart. I’ve introduced these characters in a unique manner, with a freeze-frame snapshot description that isn’t seeded organically into the text, to give the reader the feeling that they’re looking at the person. I wanted to share some of these with you, and I decided to give you the emperor first for no particular reason. Enjoy, and check back for further updates and teasers!
“NECAVOS GLORY SUNRISE: He sits in a studied pose, feet carefully spaced, arms poised just so upon the throne. You can see nothing of his face, because he wears his mask of office, the Barrachite equivalent of a crown. The mask is made from jade and gold and lapis lazuli; wearing it must be an agony. The visage it shows you is human-like, but not human, not only too calm, but too flat and symmetrical, without the knobs and bumps of bones that make a face a face. He wears a scaled corselet of bronze above a cotton skirt his brother would disapprove: it reaches to the knee. Having seen Sathriel, you’re startled by how slight he is. The longer you look at him, the more certain you are that you’re missing something, but it’s hard to put your finger on it. From within the mask, you can feel his gaze on you, picking you apart like forceps, cold and meticulous.”
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