161 - The Battle of Maʿīn I: The Plague Quarter
Disease can destroy an army more quickly than battle.
The Campaign Journals of General Aurelius, volume III
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17th Day of High Summer’s Moon, AC 297
The outskirts of Maʿīn had become a place of horror.
Before anything else could be done, Ismet had to order her men to drag hundreds of plague-ravaged corpses out from where they rotted in empty dwellings. The sold...
2025-03-15 11:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostWe have a release date! The final volume of the Faerie Knight Trilogy will release on July 1st, in all formats, including audio from Tantor! You can pre-order the ebook now, and I'll keep everyone updated as the other editions become available.
https://a.co/d/9LzrAe4
Chapter 129: The Garden of Sitia
Liv had expected Vivek Sharma to perhaps lead her up onto the walls of Akela Kila; she’d also wondered if there were, perhaps, a shrine to the trinity located somewhere in the fortress that the priest might wish to visit.
Instead, the old man led her down into the courtyard, where a cool night breeze tossed locks of their hair out behind them. Liv saw neither carriage, nor saddled horse, nor even one of immense southern hastim, painted in m...
2025-03-14 20:03:35 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 128: The Point of the Spear
General Mishra and his officers, including the man with the very thin mustache and beard, Commander Jagan, were already present in the council chamber when Liv, Wren and Isabel followed Arjun and Chandrika in through the doorway. Lower ranking soldiers had brought in trays of food from the fortress kitchens, and from the placement of the chairs, it seemed they would be eating around a map of the shaft, landing, and fourth gate that had been plac...
2025-03-13 19:10:57 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 127: Chandrika Tiwari
Liv was working her way up to ‘my name is’ in Dakruiman when General Mishra arrived with a freshly rested cohort of ksatriya to relieve the men who’d been guarding her wall of ice while it slowly melted. They were far enough underground, now, that like the mines beneath Bald Peak, these halls and stairwells maintained a nearly constant, cool temperature. The baking sun in the city around the fort would have demolished Liv’s hasty fortifi...
2025-03-12 19:22:09 +0000 UTC View Post160 - The Dragon in the Ruins
I have determined not to order the gate sealed until after I have been able to learn more of its origins. I have sent my sister back to Etalus, to see whether any record may be found in the imperial archives.
The Journal of Decimus Avitus
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17th Day of High Summer’s Moon, AC 297
Trist ducked into a ruined building, then scooted low to the ground with his back up against what was left of a...
2025-03-12 11:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostGuild Mage 321 - https://www.patreon.com/posts/guild-mage-321-145690707
Guild Mage 320 - https://www.patreon.com/posts/guild-mage-320-145615579
Guild Mage 319 - https://www.patreon.com/posts/guild-mage-319-1455...
Chapter 126: The Fourth Gate
“It’s time to wake up, m’lady.”
Liv groaned, blinking her eyes open at Thora’s touch on her shoulder. “I didn’t intend to doze off,” she admitted, sitting up on the mattress. After an odd meal of buttery flatbread, a mix of vegetables in a very spicy sauce, and something that reminded her of cream, but sour and slightly tangy, all enriched with traces of mana, she’d just closed her eyes for a moment to rest.
Fo...
2025-03-11 19:53:09 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 125: Wildheart
Linnea and Olavi followed Keri into the Sign of the Dancing Lady, each a comforting and familiar presence at his back. He didn’t have to turn around to know that his warriors would be scanning the sparse afternoon crowd for any threat. Being able to trust them with that meant that he could focus entirely on the woman behind the bar.
“Taika tär Eliel, of the Unconquered House of Asuris,” Keri greeted her, pulling his gauntlets off and layin...
2025-03-10 20:28:48 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 39: The Cotter Farm
Liv found the blood monster in the fields of a particularly dilapidated farm, just as the first stars were peaking out of the purple eastern sky, at the edge of the stormclouds. She was thankful that the last few years of riding practice had finally been enough to make her feel comfortable in the saddle, because she ended up having to go off the road and even jump a drainage ditch before she made it to the family. They were gathered around a singu...
2025-03-09 14:13:08 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 124: Tactics
Arjun was easy to find, because the wounded soldiers hobbling or being carried by their comrades up through the fortress of Akela Kila made a trail as obvious to follow as the Aspen River in flood. Liv was sorely tempted to load a few of the ksatriya up onto a floating disc of mana, to help them along. The only thing that stopped her was that she was already stewing on how to solve their mana shortage problem.
The fortress infirmary had a familiar,...
2025-03-08 14:18:09 +0000 UTC View Post159 - Ashar
Daemons do not build up; they only ever cast down. They mar the beautiful out of jealousy. They corrupt to their use what others have built before them.
The Testament of Isrāfīl
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16th Day of High Summer’s Moon, AC 297
Muddle-minded in the dark before dawn, Valeria groaned at the shifting of her bed, and threw out an arm to find only empty sheets.
“Go back to sleep, my love,” Nasir al-Ras...
2025-03-08 12:00:10 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 123: The Well of Bones
To either side of her, Liv could see the other journeymen exchanging glances. It was Isabel, however, as their appointed leader who spoke up.
“Would you mind explaining that in a bit more detail, General Mishra?” she asked. “I get the feeling there’s a story here that we don’t know.”
“He’s talking about Costia, the Lady of Bones,” Arjun said. “I don’t know how much Lucania teaches about the war in Lendh k...
2025-03-07 20:08:48 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 122: Lendh ka Dakruim
To pass from the nearly-empty peace and distance of the ways between one part of the world and another, into the crowded bustle, noise, and heat of a market day was more of a shock than Liv had been expecting. It wasn’t quite the jolt she’d experienced coming out at the Tomb of Celris, knowing that one had to be ready to fight the instant you arrived, but even that transition had eventually grown familiar.
In Freeport, the waystone had been ...
2025-03-06 20:15:41 +0000 UTC View Post158 - King’s Harbor
Hungry soldiers can’t fight.
The Campaign Journals of General Aurelius, volume IV
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16th Day of High Summer’s Moon, AC 297
The Perce-Pierre had left Rocher de la Garde with nearly empty holds: sea rations, barrels of water, and only a few chests filled with coin from the treasuries of Baron Urien. Now, dropping anchor just south of where the Avainne River spilled into King’s Har...
2025-03-05 20:19:25 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 121: East
Most of the first year students didn’t sit for the emergency examinations in the morning, though Liv noticed a few of the more promising ones filing in. Liv ended up sitting next to Arjun, at the same table as her team from the king tide. Brom, Isabel and Sawyer took seats on the opposite side, facing them.
“Bryn?” Liv asked the second years.
Sawyer shook his head. “Dressing up fancy at the coronation,” he told her. “Her ...
2025-03-05 20:16:46 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 120: The First Changes You
It was a very difficult thing, Liv reflected, to make just enough noise to be noticed, while also giving the impression that you’d done so by accident.
She’d set her trap up alongside one wall of the cavernous room that contained the Tidal Generator, tucked away behind a bank of softly humming machines which created almost a tunnel or dead end. Now, she needed to lure Karis, the Antrian war-machine, into the snare. The noise of me...
2025-03-04 20:49:09 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 119: Hammer and Knives
Wren couldn’t help but let her mouth hang open, just a bit, as she watched Liv ride off on a bird conjured from raw magic. She was pretty certain the girl had no idea just how ridiculous she was; and, to be fair, Liv had been relatively restrained all through the winter at Coral Bay. But just like when they’d encountered the massive stone-bat beneath Bald Peak, the moment you put the kid’s back up against a wall, she turned into a raging ...
2025-03-03 20:51:02 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 118: The Tidal Ruins
The first lightning strike took Karis by surprise: the Antrian engine of war didn’t even have time to raise his arm and summon a mana-shield before a blinding, forking lash reached down from the heavens above and struck him.
Liv caught only a glimpse of it, because she was busy making certain she didn’t kill herself with the attack. Even as she’d finished the incantation to summon lightning with the forbidden royal word of power...
2025-03-02 13:50:10 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 117: Karis
Many of the creatures that Jurian conjured from the dreams of the invaders were nearly formless: indistinct shapes with little more to distinguish them than sharp teeth or claws and hungry, shining eyes. Others were more defined: spiders, snakes, rats, wolves or sharks, the sort of creatures that well might kill an unwary or unlucky person.
Liv caught a glimpse of them before she pitched forward. When she opened her eyes again, the wave of exhaustion...
2025-03-01 15:09:44 +0000 UTC View Post157 - The Seal
It is a gate that leads nowhere, though it is of surprisingly fine craft, and strange material. I am certain that no Etalan hand built this, but it cannot have been the Narvonni savages.
The Journal of Decimus Avitus
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16th Day of High Summer’s Moon, AC 297
The outer neighborhoods of Vellatesia had been nearly entirely consumed by the Ardenwood. Crumbled stone foundations were overgrown with moss ...
2025-03-01 12:00:12 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 116: Nightmares
The bell was still ringing when a luminescent bubble of blue light crept down from the top of the belltower, sliding through the night sky like a soft wave, until it touched the broken stone wall that surrounded the main campus. Liv held her breath for a moment, wondering whether the enchantment she’d helped to prepare would actually work on the first attempt, but when it stopped moving and remained until the last peel of the last bell faded away, she fin...
2025-02-28 21:35:28 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 115: Coronation
“I don’t understand why the butcher was giving me such strange looks,” Liv said, as they walked back up the road toward the campus. They’d skipped dinner to get into town before sunset, on Liv’s promise they could all get something at High Hall - and that if all else failed, she’d cook something. In the end, they’d gotten three fresh chickens, with the heads and guts already removed for roasting.
“For a moment, you had me worried...
2025-02-27 20:14:22 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 114: Nautical Charts and Tea
Liv and her friends ended up having to wait until nearly the end of winter before the Annie Gallant weighed anchor in Coral Bay once again. Between the frequent rain storms, when heavy gray clouds blocked the sunlight, and the mood of anxiety that had descended on the campus like a haze, it was not a pleasant time.
Genevieve Arundell’s tantrum during the testing had evidently robbed Archmagus Jurien of any joy in his achievement. ...
2025-02-26 20:22:35 +0000 UTC View Post156 - Road’s End
I have commanded that the ancient seal be broken, to reveal what lies beyond. As the governor of the province, I cannot be expected to make decisions in ignorance.
The Journal of Decimus Avitus
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13th Day of High Summer’s Moon, AC 297
As the hooves of Cern’s faerie steeds brought them further north, and closer to Vellatesia, Trist and Acrasia found that the very land had been twisted by the evil o...
2025-02-26 12:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 113: Two Tests
Celestria looked Liv up and down. “You are not the first person to ask me that,” she admitted, brushing a lock of her raven hair back over her ear. “All of the others were boys, however. And it was pretty clear what they were actually after. I’m not interested.”
Someday, Liv resolved, her cheeks would not burn every time she was embarrassed. If she had to master a spell just to make it happen, she would. “I’m...
2025-02-25 12:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 112: Aluth
As it turned out, the master mage that was expected to come for Professor Jurian’s testing did not arrive when expected, and so Liv was brought before the archmagus while the school remained in a state of nervous excitement. Jurian - still only a master - had dragged a third chair up next to Caspian Loredan’s office desk, and slouched in it at the archmagus’ side.
“When I named you my apprentice in Whitehill,” Jurian said, “it was a legal techn...
2025-02-24 20:46:43 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 111: Letters
Over the next few weeks, the time practicing with Rosamund paid off for more than just Liv. Both Arjun and Tephania were able to test up out of their remedial armed combat course into the basic level that Liv had just left behind. Unfortunately for them, the second person that Merek Sherard had challenged was unable to hand him another defeat; as a result, Teph and Arjun had to continue to suffer through his presence.
“And if a baron offers you a...
2025-02-23 15:16:47 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 110: The First Step
Liv didn’t end up finding a chance to speak with Arjun alone until two days later, when they were both leaving Professor Annora’s healing class. One of the second-year students had been carried into the infirmary after taking a nasty knock to the head, which meant that all the advanced students had been called around to listen to the professor lecture while she drilled a small hole to relieve the swelling of the brain.
It had been thoroughly t...
2025-02-22 16:15:11 +0000 UTC View Post155 - Malik ibn Zain
Aye, I’ve gotten plenty of advice over the years - most of it wise, no doubt. Revenge won’t bring your friends back, Titus, now will it? Shit like that. And no, it won’t.
But you know what? Some bastards just have to die.
The Life and Times of Legionary Titus Nasica
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19th Day of High Summer’s Moon, AC 297
The mountain pass was little more than a press of bod...
2025-02-22 12:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post