I'm wrapping up my revisions on volume three of Faerie Knight, so that I can give the manuscript to Tantor and the last audiobook of the series can be recorded.
This is going to free up the time I've been spending on revising.
While the bulk of my time will continue to be spent on Guild Mage, I've been making notes on potential other stories.
I'm not saying any of these a...
2025-01-31 23:48:03 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 88: Rosamund Lowry
Liv fell to her knees, cradling her broken arm against her chest. Her elbow felt at once unnaturally loose, and in agonizing pain. At a glance, her arm even looked fundamentally wrong, bent at an unnatural angle.
A distant, removed part of her mind catalogued the probable injuries. She could almost hear Master Cushing's voice, droning thr...
2025-01-31 20:16:24 +0000 UTC View Post148 - A Subtle Dance
A child who suffers cruelty will grow into an adult who inflicts it.
Pārsan proverb
☀
13th Day of High Summer’s Moon, AC 297
“Something is troubling you,” Valeria observed. She poured fresh qahwa into the Caliph’s cup, set the pot back on the low t...
2025-01-31 01:23:53 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 87: Blunted Blades
In the end, Liv only picked at her food.
A combination of nerves, and, though she didn’t want to say it out loud, the fact that the food simply wasn’t very appetizing caused her to finally give up and push her trencher away. “I really need to talk to someone about getting mana-enriched food,” she said, as much to herself as to either Tephania...
2025-01-30 20:13:16 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 86: Examinations
Liv jolted awake to the ringing of a great bell, far closer at hand than she was used to from living in Whitehill. While the temple bells had been audible from the castle, there was enough distance to make them easily drowned out by the noise of the kitchen, lessons with Master Grenfell, or practicing in the courtyard. There, it was the small horologue...
2025-01-29 20:25:37 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 85: The Cedar Closet
As soon as she’d grabbed a few slices of bread and cheese from the servants’ mess at the back of High Hall, Wren headed out. There were just too many people she didn’t know, all crowded around one long table and gossiping about the lords and ladies they served. She almost felt badly about leaving Thora in the nest of vipers - the maid seemed ...
2025-01-28 20:15:23 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 84: High Hall
“Wren,” Liv said, “put the knife down, please.”
The huntress’ gaze remained cold, and all around them students had stopped their comings and goings, their loadings and unloadings of luggage, to stare. Liv could already hear them whispering, and she had to fight the urge to hunch her shoulders under the weight of their attention.
“He aske...
2025-01-27 21:25:24 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 83: Coral Bay
Liv came back to herself kneeling on a wide circle of white stone, her fingers just brushing the surface of an unfamiliar sigil. Arriving on a waystone never became less bizarre a sensation, even if she knew what to expect by now. She was back in the world, but it didn’t feel quite the same - or rather, she didn’t. There remained the vague, unre...
2025-01-26 15:17:46 +0000 UTC View PostYou might be interested to listen to Max and I talk about all sorts of stuff, including Guild Mage, on the CritRPG podcast!
2025-01-25 23:37:02 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 82: A Wedding
Liv had entirely forgotten that Triss had brought her fabric for a new dress, with blue trim to match the gown the bride would wear to the ceremony. The dressmaker’s shop on The Hill had apparently been working through the eruption, however, or perhaps only in the days since. Liv couldn’t be certain, but the end result was that she, Triss’ mother, a...
2025-01-25 15:26:31 +0000 UTC View Post147 - Eayn Zarqa'
The tribes of the Provincia Iberia are a people both hardy and strange. I have encountered the raiders of the Maghreb at the southern passes, bringing their goods to market, and I cannot help but wonder what it does to a man - to live an entire life in a place where the land itself is trying to kill you.
The Campaign Journals of General A...
2025-01-25 13:01:49 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 81: The Turncloak
Two of the castle guards stood at attention outside the door to the rooms where Wren had been placed. “Master Grenfell hasn’t arrived yet, m’lady,” one of the men told her. “I’m told Mistress Trafford gave her a dose last night, but she hasn’t come since.”
Liv nodded, opened the door, and slipped inside the sitting room. Th...
2025-01-24 20:44:13 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 80: Scars
By the time the culling team had returned to Whitehill, the laughter had faded, replaced with a deep exhaustion. When Liv wasn’t clutching the reins tightly to keep herself from itching at her bandaged arms, she found she was nodding off half-asleep.
The guards who opened the west-gate gave them a cheer, but the men’s voices faltered when they realized th...
2025-01-23 20:06:56 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 79: Aluthos’o’Ea
At the beginning, Liv hadn’t even noticed the mana poisoning.
The rush of power from drawing on the chaotic energy of the rift had been enough to see her through the fight against the enormous stone-bat, and then to deal with half a dozen mana-engorged subterranean beetles on her way up into the mines. She exhaled incantations, and in...
2025-01-22 20:03:17 +0000 UTC View Post146 - The Battle of Basilea IV: The Serpent in the Snow
We have never been able to confirm to my satisfaction the veracity of certain reports that more powerful daemons might be able to appear in more than once place at the same time.
The Marian Codex
☀
5th Day of High Summer’s Moon, AC 297
<...
2025-01-22 12:00:09 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 78: The Cascades
Wren winged out of the crevasse, struggling to keep herself aloft and moving in the right direction. Shifting between human and bat forms didn’t help her to heal wounds any more quickly, and even a fresh infusion of blood wouldn’t make for a miracle. What she needed was time to rest and recover, preferably with a few jugs bought from the local butc...
2025-01-21 20:30:10 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 77: Ice Beneath the Mountain
Liv built her intent off the same mental images she’d used during her duel on the beach - except that instead of creating one rose, she made six. Mana poured out of her into elaborate construction, half a dozen rings in an instant, but she focused particularly on the bulb that surrounded her and lifted her off the cavern floor.
Years of p...
2025-01-20 13:00:05 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 76: Water Under Rock
Liv shaped the bottom of the chute to curve up into a bit of a bowl, so that the end of her slide down into darkness was not a wild, uncontrolled and bone-breaking tumble out onto the rock of the cavern floor. Then, she scrambled out of the ice and got her boots under her on solid ground, while the little bat flapped around in circles overhead.
Fro...
2025-01-19 18:33:08 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 75: Into the Abyss
Liv couldn’t remember the last time she’d wished for a big, muscular man or two. She’d done her best to make peace with the idea that she’d never be over five feet tall, and nearly all the time her magic was more than enough to make up for her physical shortcomings.
Carrying a miner with a broken leg down the mountainside was not one of those...
2025-01-18 17:55:05 +0000 UTC View Post145 - The Battle of Basilea III: Where is a Lie
When a man knows that he’s about to die, that’s when you see who he truly is.
The Life and Times of Legionary Titus Nasica
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5th Day of High Summer’s Moon, AC 297
“Can you see her?” Queen Niviène asked, with the same even and...
2025-01-18 12:00:08 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 74: Bald Peak Mine
For all the years that she’d made her home in Whitehill, Liv had never actually seen the entrance to the mines up close. Apart from the miners themselves, almost no one did, and there was a good reason for that: mining in the shoals of a rift killed you.
It might come quick, in the collapse of a tunnel, if the rocks crushed you. Or it might b...
2025-01-17 20:04:16 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 73: Defense in Depth
Lady Julianne had called Sophie into her sitting room to sign as a witness, and when Liv left to go prepare, the lady’s maid followed her into the hall.
“Keep my husband safe,” Sophie demanded, before Liv could head toward her rooms. “Please. I tried to talk him into staying here, but he wouldn’t do it.”
Piers an...
2025-01-16 15:27:36 +0000 UTC View PostI originally wrote this with the idea that it would be given to people who signed up for a mailing list, but I really haven't found the mailing list to be nearly as effective as Patreon.
As a result, I'm choosing to post it here: I hope people will enjoy it. This is a prequel to The Faerie Knight that features Yael before she met Trist.
2025-01-16 01:25:14 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 72: The Ravages of Time
The Sign of the Terrapin hadn’t changed much in the twelve years since the night that Liv and Matthew had fought off a group of drunks there. Without Matthew dragging her out to spend time at the Old Oak or the Laughing Carp, Liv didn’t feel much of an urge to be drinking in common rooms.
Someone had given the inn a new coat of paint, and fr...
2025-01-15 14:36:49 +0000 UTC View Post144 - The Battle of Basilea II: Blood and Scales
It is either arrogance or desperation, for a mortal to face a daemon - such a battle is the province of Exarchs or Angelus alone.
The Commentaries of Aram ibn Bashear
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5th Day of High Summer’s Moon, AC 297
Weeks ago, when Clarisant had ...
2025-01-15 12:00:11 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 71: Savalent
“But I don’t understand why it has to always be you,” Rika insisted. “You’ve spent twenty years running all across the north. Just once, let Sohvis deal with something.”
Keri pulled the strap of his vambrace tight, making sure the enchanted piece of armor was snug and comfortable on his forearm. “It’s my duty,” he told her, re...
2025-01-14 14:23:47 +0000 UTC View PostIf the western mountains had ever had names, Wren didn’t know them. The goddess hadn’t bothered to share, though she clearly had a destination in mind. These peaks were both more steep and more rugged than those near the coast, thrusting up into the clouds like blades. All down the summit and upper slope, the Red Shield camp spread.
Despite the difficulty of the jour...
2025-01-13 20:46:58 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 69: Dā
“For what it’s worth, I’ve imprinted the word also,” Valtteri admitted. “But I wanted you to focus on mastering Cel before you go off to Coral Bay. No distractions. And I knew the moment I mentioned Dā, it would be a distraction.”
“But how does it even work?” Liv asked, turning away from her father and leaning over the table toward ...
2025-01-12 12:50:48 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 68: Kelthelis
Liv and her father paused to clothe themselves for the cold before activating the waystone. For her, that meant donning leather gloves and a heavy wool cloak, both lined with fur. In her father’s case, however, there was a sleeved and hooded tunic of hide, also lined with thick fur, and fringed ornamentally at the edges.
“I want you in the saddl...
2025-01-11 13:26:00 +0000 UTC View Post