143 - The Battle of Basilea I: The Host of Winter
Even the Etalan legions feared to push north through the mountains of Raetia. It is a harsh land, with little there to eat - at least, little for any mortal.
François du Lutetia, A History of Narvonne
☀
5th Day of High Summer’s Moon, AC 297
Clouds boiled south, flowing around the mountain peaks and through the pass, and fro...
2025-01-11 12:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 67: Adamant Ice
After Emma’s wedding, Liv once again found herself feeling very alone. The one friend she had in Whitehill, who had been something approaching her own age in spirit, if not in years, had now begun an adventure that left the two women with less and less in common.
Liv was happy for her friend, but she also felt it would be selfish to intrude too much on Emma’s new life as a married woman. She hunted less and less often, instead he...
2025-01-10 20:13:25 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 66: A Wand of Bone
Learning to make adamant ice, as her father called it, proved to be an exercise in frustration for Liv. She had been warned that learning new words of power wouldn’t come as easily to her as Cel had, ever since that day on the frozen river. Now, she found that even magic which had seemed so instinctual for most of her life could balk her like a stubborn horse.
Liv spent every spare moment trying to compress even the smallest shard of ice, b...
2025-01-09 13:03:26 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 65: The Cottage Beneath the Willow
For all that Liv’s father had promised not to be gone long, and to hurry back to Whitehill, the first truly heavy snow of winter arrived before Valtteri Ka Auris did. Three days after she and Duchess Julianne had made their trip to the bank, the morning sun found the slopes of the mountains painted white.
Bald Peak was nearly blinding, above the tree line. Deer Peak, where she’d practiced making chutes of ice years b...
2025-01-08 20:40:55 +0000 UTC View Post142 - An Unhappy Family
They say that the ink wasn’t even dry on Emperor Sevrus’ last decree before everything went utterly and completely to shit.
The Life and Times of Legionary Titus Nasica
☀
4th Day of High Summer’s Moon, AC 297
“We’re leaving, Trist,” Margaret said. Once, he would have opened his eyes, but there was little point to that now. He’d seen her a...
2025-01-08 12:00:11 +0000 UTC View Post
Sarah finished this tonight - while the version with the title and all is on RR, here's the full art with no lettering as a Patreon Treat :)
2025-01-08 02:39:04 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 64: Visions
Liv tumbled, bodiless, west into the mountains that enclosed the Aspen Valley on all sides. Flecks of snow escorted her for a moment, then were left behind to whirl in the wake of her passage, and the wind that carried her gusted north into the lands of the Eld.
When she swept down out of the high passes in the mountains, she glimpsed a manor that sprawled across mountain slopes, beneath the dark boughs of northern pines. There was a watchtower, and...
2025-01-07 20:51:55 +0000 UTC View PostFor those wondering, the buck is inspired by Irish Elk, which are extinct. You may recognize what Valtteri is doing at the end from chapter 13.
----------------------------
Chapter 63: Shoals
Lonely flakes of snow drifted down from the morning sky as Liv stepped out into the courtyard of Castle Whitehill. Emma was already there waiting for her, the young hunter clad in her doeskin breeches and hunting boots, along with a fur-lined winter cloak of thick wool. 2025-01-06 14:25:32 +0000 UTC View Post
With this chapter, we're four ahead of Royal Road! Time for a bit of the 'slow burn' in our description to come back, before we ramp up into the last arc of volume one.
------------------------
Chapter 62: Return
It was just about time for luncheon when the carriages made their way up the cobblestone streets of The Hill to the gate of Castle Whitehill. The procession’s passage brought a crowd of children running along beside them, and Liv found that she and her fathe...
2025-01-05 15:01:02 +0000 UTC View PostThis ran about 200 words longer than usual, so enjoy the (slightly) long chapter. For those wondering about Steria's breed, the inspiration is the real world Yakutian horse, from Siberia.
This puts us three chapters ahead of RR!
-------------------------------------------------------
Chapter 61: Steria
When the Talbots’ back door swung open, it did not reveal either Cade or his...
2025-01-04 13:46:09 +0000 UTC View Post141 - The Winter Queen
We do not honor the ghūls who haunt the Maghreb with titles such as king or queen - but then, the Narvonnians once worshiped the monster, and burned sacrifices to them in cages of wicker.
The Commentaries of Aram ibn Bashear
☀
4th Day of High Summer’s Moon, AC 297
Claire had seen Acrasia several times, and the experience always left her mind in dark places. ...
2025-01-04 12:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostTwo quick notes! This is about the timing of when I can get home and upload on Patreon with all the files, on a work day.
Note two is a very minor trigger warning. Nothing graphic, but there is some reference to HOW the Eld got Vaedic blood, and it's about what you'd expect from a relationship between slavers and the people they have enslaved.
-------------
Chapter 60: The House of Syvä
“He didn’t seem very upset to be imprisoning his mother,” Liv observed, ...
2025-01-03 20:15:16 +0000 UTC View Post“May I make a suggestion?” Master Grenfell spoke up. “I understand and sympathize with the urge to kick the doors of the palace down and drag someone into the streets for justice,” he said. “But if we are truly seeking a resolution that does not pull the entire kingdom into civil war, it might benefit us to have someone there powerful and respected enough for both sides to listen to.”
“You have someone in mind,” Baron Henry said.
“Archmagus Loredan.”
Th...
2025-01-02 15:15:44 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 58: Morning
Liv was hardly aware of being carried away through the city. Her head hurt from the chunk of ice that had fallen on her, and she felt untethered, as if she might pass out at any moment. Her father held her cradled in her arms, and she thought of little more than how soft the white fur of his cloak was. Her right arm was held awkwardly to one side, and her hand burned painfully.
The storm overhead broke, and rain came down in sheets...
2025-01-01 15:06:06 +0000 UTC View PostHappy New Year, everyone! This is one of two chapters released today - one for Faerie Knight, and one for Guild Mage.
For those of you who prefer audiobooks, the first volume of Faerie Knight is now available on 2025-01-01 12:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
Privately, Liv had always thought that much of the physical exercise she’d been put through, by the castle guards at Whitehill, had been a waste of time. She was never going to be strong enough to wrestle a soldier to the ground, and she had no intention of wearing around jack of plate and carrying a polearm. But what they had taught her to do was run.
All those afternoons of running around the walls with Piers at her heels, or of chasing down a wounded buck next to Emma a...
2024-12-31 19:55:44 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 56: The Masque
Liv’s hands tightened out of reflex, one on her staff, and the other on Cade’s arm.
“We were just on our way to greet some friends,” Cade told Princess Milisant, and Liv recognized the carefully controlled voice he used when addressing his father. What she’d learned about his life over the course of a single afternoon made her feel as if she was part of a shared secret, separating the two of them from the crowd.
“My father want...
2024-12-30 13:12:23 +0000 UTC View PostTwo chapters ahead!
Now I need to run off to borrow a battery charger and try and get my car started - the battery has, predictably, died. I tried to run it a bit to prevent this, but we mostly use my wife's (newer and nicer) car when we're both home on vacation, and it's been a cold week in new england.
2024-12-29 13:18:25 +0000 UTC View PostAs promised, our first advance chapter in the new posting schedule! This one is from Keri's point of view, which I believe I mentioned was coming in the notes a few chapters back. I think it worked pretty well. The only alternative I could see to provide a view inside the politics of the great council was to make someone like Julianne or Matthew or even Cade or Triss a pov character, but I think this works better since we already knew Keri.
Enjoy! This will hit RR Monday.
Three days until the audiobook of Faerie Knight releases, which is very exciting! In the meanwhile, Guild Mage has finished its Rising Stars run, which means I'll be shifting to a more sustainable pace for that fiction, and that those of you with Patreon subscriptions will begin seeing advance chapters for both books now.
2024-12-28 12:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostHappy Holidays, everyone!
Hope you enjoy the chapter - we'll be back with more Saturday.
2024-12-25 12:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostHere we go - this is what will be set to post automatically on RR tomorrow morning at 7est. I'll then be taking Christmas off of writing, and coming back on the 26th with chapter 52.
2024-12-24 14:43:22 +0000 UTC View PostI wrote this as part of getting ahead for Christmas; it'll post tomorrow morning on RR, and the chapter I write tomorrow morning will post on Christmas day, while I'm taking a holiday break.
Once our schedule adjusts after the Rising Stars run, we will have a pile of advance chapters here, but for now, enjoy the early access and happy holidays!
2024-12-23 23:17:34 +0000 UTC View PostWelcome to Pall Eymundsson, Keira Wulfe, Almighty Nubs, Maxim, Ryan Silveira, Shou Farn Chung, Ana Jantz, and Froyo Baggins, our newest Patreon subscribers!
Our next chapter will drop on Christmas day, but it will be scheduled in advance and automated. Until then, enjoy your weekend, happy holidays!
2024-12-21 12:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostWelcome to Justin Tit, Stormclouds101, Excesssafe, Edmij Nashon, Luna, Alan Torres, Thomas, and Meanoldmathman, our newest Patreon subscribers!
The next big date on the horizon for Faerie Knight remains 12/31, when the audiobook will release on Amazon, Spotify, Audible, etc. In the meantime, revision on book three continues.
We have a chapter scheduled to drop christmas day, and another one new year's day. I'll be getting thos scheduled well in advance :)
2024-12-18 12:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostWelcome to Anthony, Sleeping Shadow, Mason, Ienkite, Branson, Eb, and Michael Maor, our newest Patreon Subscribers!
With the release of the Graal Knight on Amazon, our next big upcoming date is the Audiobook release of the Faerie Knight, on December 31st. The Graal Knight was recorded right after, so the audio version of that will be coming in the new year.
2024-12-14 12:00:07 +0000 UTC View PostWelcome to Geronimo0o92, Flying Goat, George R, Drew Gilmour, Joaquim, Arkzs, and dylan penlington, our newest Patreon subscribers!
Graal Knight is doing well on Amazon; it's early in December, and while we haven't passed the June that volume one released yet, I think we very well might. In the meantime, I continue writing a chapter a day of Guild Mage, which is hovering in the 6-8 range on Rising Stars.
All in all, a very exciting time.
2024-12-11 12:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostThank you to Alpenmann, Leendert Kortlever, Dan, Aehs, Mike, Connor, Krosh, Melting Sky, Henri PINEAU and Ethan Munday, our newest Patreon subscribers!
Graal Knight released yesterday, which we've been looking forward to for some time. The next date to look out for is the audiobook release, at the end of the month.
In the meanwhile, Writathon is over, which means that I've got a month of premium on RR. The analytics are interesting; I need to dig into the data further ...
2024-12-07 12:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostWelcome to EverP, Gmi, Poly Gets Cracker, iucounu, James, Brody Miller, and Philipp Ziehe, our newest Patreon subscribers!
You may have noticed that The Graal Knight has officially been stubbed; it will be releasing on Amazon this Friday, and I'll make an announcement then.
In the meanwhile, Guild Mage has been hovering between 7th and 8th place on Rising Stars the past couple days, which is amazing. I'm still writing a chapter a day, while continuing to revise the current v...
2024-12-04 12:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostWelcome to our newest Patreon subscribers, Deltaalpha, Ambigravity, and Thomas Stewart!
As a reminder, we'll be stubbing volume 2, The Graal Knight, on Sunday, in advance of the December 6th release of the book on Amazon. That includes taking down most of the book here, as well as on Royal Road. There will be a slight gap, covering Monday to Thursday, where it won't be available anywhere as a result, but after that you can get it on KU or purchase a copy.
2024-11-30 12:00:09 +0000 UTC View Post