M.A. Ray's Blog, page 3

One Last Quest, Part Three

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Ode to a Side Character: A Guest Post by Hannah Steenbock

Hello again, and welcome to a new series here on menyoral.com, about everybody’s favorite thing — characters! My first guest is the lovely and kind Hannah Steenbock, here to talk about a side character from The Cloud Lands Saga, Debesh.

~*~

When I first met Debesh, he was just one of five Wing Commanders in a tactical meeting. All I knew about him then was that my villain was attracted to him and he wasn’t averse to her attention, which was exactly what I needed.

He was just someone to use for a subplot, to explore dragon culture in my world, and to provide a nice distraction from killing kraken and decimating dragons in fights. Back then, I didn’t even bother to come up with his hair color or much of a description.

But when the trap sprang and Debesh and his dragon Vandranen were abducted in a vile plot… I discovered how much courage and determination this man really had. You see, in the story, the evil dragon controls both her rider and Vandranen, and through him, Debesh. He can just hang on to the ride.

And yet, the brave Wing Commander fights back as much as he can, by leaving secret messages and by resisting the evil dragon at every turn. I do put him through hell, I hurt him a lot, and I even get him raped. And in the end, it’s only through his determination, endless courage, and some good luck that the evil plot fails.

I won’t say more about the story itself, because I’ve re-launched the book with Debesh’s tale. Kraken War is book #2 in The Cloud Lands Saga.

Debesh totally earned my admiration while writing the stories of The Cloud Lands Saga, because he held up strong through everything I threw at him, which was a lot. And even after all this, he is still true to himself, a good man at heart, a gentle man and a caring man.

He recently gained his hair color and a bit more of a body image – in answer to the new cover. When my friend suggested a person as focus, we had been searching for Prince Orlen, the male MC of my stories about The Cloud Lands. But when I saw her draft, I immediately knew she had found Debesh. And he spoke to my heart again.

It makes me happy to say that Debesh will return in the fourth book of my series (release planned for end of March), where he will spend much time with one of the main characters of the series. And once again, he’ll prove to be a man of integrity, honesty and courage. He has become pivotal for the future of the Cloud Lands, even, and he has absolutely earned his position there.

This is not the first time I experience such a scenario. Sometimes, side characters can move in and become much, much more than just a throw-away name or a plot point. And I love it when that happens. I love it when they show up and cling to the story by sheer grit. When they demand attention from me, and give a story more depth and show me more of their world.

I’d like to encourage you to pay attention to your side characters. I’m sure they have a story to tell, if you but ask them.

~*~

Hannah Steenbock is a German writer of Speculative Fiction. She uses both her native German and English as languages for her tales, as she loves English and tends to think in that language when plotting Fantasy.

After finishing university with a degree in English and Spanish, she lives and works in Kiel, the northernmost state capital of Germany. Her other pastimes include working as a therapist, riding horses, strolling along beaches, talking with trees, and devouring as many stories as time allows.

Read more on her website: www.hannah-steenbock.de

Find her on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HannahSteenbock

She occasionally even tweets: www.twitter.com/FirleF

~*~

And take a look at this gorgeous cover, featuring Debesh!

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How I Write A Book: A Guest Post by Fiona Skye

Find out where my friend Fiona takes inspiration — read on!

~*~

Many readers—myself included—are curious about how their favorite authors write books. I’m not talking about what kind of computer they use or what sort of software; I’m more talking about what creative process they follow. So, I thought I’d share a little about my own methods, and maybe give you a peek behind the curtain, so to speak. This is by no means an exhaustive look into how I write a book from beginning to end, but it does cover the highlights. What’s missing is all the tears and frustration and joy and endless cups of tea and gummi worms and trail mix.

It starts with, as do all things creative, inspiration. A particular song lyric, a film, a photograph, whatever. The idea takes hold in my brain, and I spend the next few days thinking hard about it. For me, books begin with a character. Recently, I saw this painting on Facebook and I knew that at some point in the future, she would be appearing in one of my books.

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After being struck with inspiration, I play an epic game of “Questions”. We’ll use the photo above as our case study. What is her name? Why is her face covered? What does she do for a living? It the owl real or magically conjured? Where does she live? After about fifteen minutes of asking myself everything I can possibly think of, I spend some time writing down the answers to all my questions. At this point, I’ve got a pretty decent idea of who this character is and why I need to write about her.

The next step is to fill out one of two different character interviews. One is pretty exhaustive and contains 80 questions. I usually only use this one if the game of questions didn’t yield anything good. The other interview is shorter and less intensive. It’s only got 45 questions; this is the one I use most of the time. I take a day or two to really get into my character’s head and life, taking my time and digging deep. When I’ve finished, I know this character better than I know myself, and it’s time to move on to a little world building.

World building after creating a character is a bit like reverse engineering. If you know a little about anthropology (or how and why a particular culture is the way it is), it’s pretty easy to figure out what your characters’ world is like based on the answers to your game of questions and the subsequent interview. Staying with our woman, I’ve decided that she is an assassin for hire who has magically bonded with that owl. The bird is her eyes and ears at night, helping her stay safe as she fulfills her contracts. Her world is a desert world, so I head to Wikipedia to start reading about ancient Persia. I start jotting down anything and everything that catches my attention, and I follow links like Alice down the White Rabbit’s hole. Once I’ve amassed a few pages of notes, it’s time to fill out a world building packet. It’s not exhaustive; indeed, it’s only 21 questions, but it’s enough to help me organize my thoughts.

So now I’ve got a character and the world in which she lives, but I need a conflict. This one’s pretty easy–she’s an assassin, so there’s plenty of conflict there, but probably not enough to support an entire book. So I play another game; this one’s called “What If”? What if she goes out to fulfill her contract only to find the mark already dead? What if she’s hired to kill a child or another woman or the king? What if she stumbles across a vast conspiracy aimed at removing the king from the country’s throne? What if she’s hired to kill a friend or her lover? Again, I spend 15 minutes or so jotting down every single What If question that comes to me and then take some time to answer them all. Often the answers create more What Ifs, so I write those down, too. After a day or so, these questions have helped me come up with a great conflict that will serve as the framework around which I’ll build my plot.

After I’ve got my character, my world, my conflict, and my plot, I need to populate the rest of my story with villains and secondary characters. I repeat the same steps as above, playing my question games, filling out my character sheets, and thinking about how these other characters fit into my assassin’s life and her world. I usually try to create at least three other characters at this point–a villain, a love interest, and a best friend/helper character.

Then I very roughly outline the book. And by very roughly, I mean I write down the beginning, a bit about the middle, and the end. Occasionally, I’ll write something more detailed, but I far prefer to be a discovery writer and let the story unfold in an organic way.

Finally, the groundwork has been laid and I’m ready to start writing. I try to begin my story as close to the inciting incident as possible. That’s not always easy, but I don’t worry too much about getting it right during the zero draft. My only concern is getting it out as quickly as possible. Yes, it’s a big steaming mess when I’m finally done, but you know what? That’s what editors, beta readers, and author revisions are for.

From there, it’s just a matter of writing. Sometimes it takes me almost 2 years to finish something. Sometimes it only takes 3 months. Regardless of how long it takes, once I’ve finished the zero draft, I put it away and don’t look at it again for at least a month. During this time, I start the process all over again, searching for new inspiration, creating new characters and worlds and conflicts. Then, with the help of my husband—who is my alpha reader—I start revisions and create a first draft of the first story. When it’s finished, I send it off to some beta readers and wait for their feedback. While I’m waiting for feedback, I continue working with my latest idea, writing the zero draft. Once I get my beta readers’ thoughts, it’s another round of revisions to create the second draft. At this point, the second draft goes to my editor for yet another round of revisions, and when I have her feedback in hand, I work on the third and final draft. And then it’s the fun part–cover art, formatting for both print and ebook, and finally, publication.

So that’s it. That’s how I write a book. I think it’s a pretty straightforward process.

~*~

Fiona Skye is a best-selling, award-winning urban fantasy novelist. The first two books of her Revelations Trilogy are available on Amazon; the third book will be out sometime in 2017, and an anthology of short stories concerning characters from the Trilogy will follow.

Find Fiona on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and her own website for more information about her, her writing, and tons of pictures of her dog and cats.

Snippet Sunday #19

I’m so close to finishing a beta draft of The Witch under Mountain. So close (if my own head would stop getting in the way). Here is a bit of it.

In a lot of ways this is Fox’s book. Hopefully, you’ll see why when you read it.

~*~

He turned his eyes across the cavern, where trolls stoked a great hearth-fire. One of them, clad in a burnt, greasy-looking apron, sharpened a series of wicked knives. Panic tightened its iron bands around Fox’s chest. He leapt to his feet and clutched at the side of the pen; he’d chosen the closest to Eagle last night, and had to listen to Eagle sob, but it was worth it. “Vo!” he called, clinging to the bars.

Eagle’s head went up, and he unfolded so quickly Fox had trouble tracking the motion. In half a blink he was at the bars too, with a couple of fairies trailing him; he didn’t say a word, only stood there looking at Fox as if from the bottom of the sea, faraway and longing.

Fox took him in. Lacy white sleeves spilled from an outsize velvet doublet. Silk stockings sagged into puddles around his ankles, above the tops of huge buckled shoes. His thighs were too slender for the pantaloons, and instead of puffing up as they ought to, they hung around his knees. The whole effect was dreadfully unbecoming—outright laughable, if it weren’t for the situation—as if the thinnest little chick were given clothes meant for a fat capon.

He ordinarily looked far different: unobtrusive, unassuming. His usual clothes were meant not to catch on anything, but not to foul his movements either, tough enough to hold up and fit well enough to accommodate intense activity. Under Fox’s regard he tried anxiously to smooth what he wore, but he couldn’t make it look well, or himself appear to advantage.

How little it mattered! Fox’s mouth curved in an involuntary smile. Most people wouldn’t have tried to apply an adjective like “sweet” to Eagle Eye, but with Fox he was sweet as the strawberry preserves on a breakfast buffet. He tried valiantly to smile back, but it didn’t quite come off.

One Last Quest, Part Two

Continuing from last week!

~*~

At dawn, he rose with Cathal’s help. He brushed his own hair, could still do that much for himself, missing fingers notwithstanding. From the dark wardrobe, they chose his best forest-colored broadcloth coat, the brown brocade waistcoat, a shirt as crisp as autumn morning. Cathal knelt before Lachlan’s chair to pin up the legs of his dead-leaf breeches, neat and precise as always, folding them just so.

After breakfast—the cooks would send him pap and poached eggs, no matter that he requested something, anything, else—Lachlan wheeled himself through the Palace with Cathal at his side. The ice-green corridors were deserted at this time of morning but for Movanar servants scuttling on their business. All the Revanar slumbered in their beds, or the beds of others. As they neared the heart of the building, the corridors ended. Marble staircases with delicate brass balusters spiraled into the open space of King Muirrach’s atrium.

It was a beautiful place. Before Lachlan had left to wander the world, he hadn’t realized how breathtakingly expensive the construction must have been. The railings shone, all the exquisite figures of brass, animals—foxes, bears, elk, hares—climbing the newels and icicles dripping from the handrails. From the landing Lachlan could see the gleaming floor, whiter than a field of snow, inlaid in the center with a great Circle of brass. They must have done some rite here the previous evening. Tall green candles stood half-melted around the Circle; one had fallen on its side, spilling wax on the floor. A hint of rich opiate smell hung in the air, even so far above. He wondered that no one had yet come to clean up.

“Come, Lord,” said Cathal, lifting him from the chair in small, powerful arms. Movanar were so often stronger. As Cathal bore him down the winding staircase, he looked up over his valet’s shoulder, watching the peaked top of his chair disappear above the steps. Cathal left him at the bottom to fetch down the chair, and Lachlan sat rubbing his prickling stumps. Two servants came out of a concealed door at the back and crossed on soft boots to clean the Circle. Their supply cart made next to no sound, not a squeak of wheel or a clank of contents.

They whispered to one another, throwing glances like darts to stick in Lachlan’s flesh. He put on his blankest, most dismissive look, which must have been all the more terrifying delivered by a High One with a triangular, bifurcated pit for a nose. They fell quiet to focus unnecessarily on the task of scraping wax from the stone.

Back into the chair. Lachlan could do that himself, once Cathal brought it down. They repeated the process outside, on the long white flights leading down the mountain into the city.

Four ladies of the Court came rushing down, a cluster of footmen trailing after them. One of them nearly knocked poor Cathal off his feet with the surge of her fur and velvet train. Lachlan remembered her—remembered all of them—from the days before he’d left home. When he was younger, and popular, and oh, so achingly beautiful. They had all wanted him then, and he, fool that he was, had done his level best to accommodate each and every one.

They were all vipers, and Devnet, his long-ago betrothed, the worst of the lot. He’d thought he loved her, but it hadn’t taken half a year out on his own before he’d decided he would never marry such a venomous snake as she. When she saw Lachlan on the fifth landing her lip curled. “What do you here, Lachlan Vistridir?”

“Taking the air,” he said, as lightly as he could. He looked into her pale perfect face, at her thin arched eyebrows and elaborately painted eyes, at her lips stained redder than blood. “Am I interrupting your view, Lady Devnet?”

“In a word, you are.”

“No words could possibly convey my utter apathy, milady.”

“You have apartments for a reason,” she hissed.

“Apartments,” he said. “Not a cell, last I knew. You might visit me sometime.”

Her crimson lip curled over perfect teeth.

“You did so love to visit me.” Soft, soft. “I could still make you—”

“Oh!” she cried, and whirled away.

He smirked after her, calling, “Another time, perhaps.”

“You are disgusting!” She threw it over her shoulder at him, all edged with spite, that he dared to remind her he’d seen her unclothed.

“I’m not the one with the purple dolphin tattooed on his arse,” he said to twist the knife.

“Oh my God,” the others whispered to each other. “Oh my God.” They covered their giggling mouths and swapped glances. Devnet stormed down the steps, flying two hot-red flags on her cheeks. Her train washed a frothy wake behind her.

“Is it true, Dev?” asked one of them—Mairead, he thought she was called.

“Oh my God,” said Devnet.

“It’s true,” said Leandra as she swished down with the rest. “I see it once a week at the minimum. Don’t fret, darling, it’s really quite a fetching piece, and you…” She trailed off, with increasing distance, into incomprehensible noise. Lachlan laughed to himself as a storm of footmen surged past in a colorful wave, their various livery brilliant in the late-morning light. When Cathal reached him, they grinned slyly at each other, no words. Damn, but he’d been taking his valet for granted all these years! Cathal wouldn’t have grown a sense of humor overnight.

They’d begun an hour after dawn. The sun shifted over the city below, playing shadow across white-marble domes, green slates, and golden thatch. The bolt-train slithered through on its track of magic, a silver, flashing ribbon. Cobbled streets, still at this height like thin brown snakes, crawled between buildings and around the mountain. It was noon before they won those streets: steep and slanting, all curves and corners. Lachlan needed Cathal’s help to navigate; the stones and inclines made it nigh-on impossible to steer, though Lachlan did what he could, braking to keep the chair from careering out of Cathal’s control.

If he’d had any magic, his life would have been easier—but Yehoram had taken that from him, too, destroying his aura with his legs. He tried not to think of levitating himself down the steps and turned his mind to soaking in the atmosphere of Green Glaciers as he hadn’t in long decades. No, his apartments weren’t technically a prison, but he’d always gotten the feeling many would prefer it thus. He hadn’t been out of the gardens in an age, no farther than that clearing by the south wall.

Now, though. His bones rattled with the chair, and his arms cramped from pushing back on the wheels. His hands, callused though they were, began to ache and burn under the strain. He didn’t care. Behind walls for so long, he’d nearly forgotten what the world felt like. He remembered the look of it, but not the feel. The layers of sound. The outside air on his skin. The smells, still tickling at what was left of his nose with mouthwatering smoked-pork richness.

After pap and poached eggs, and all the blandest, even what little Lachlan perceived of the scent was wildly delicious, flooding his mouth with saliva. “Wait,” he said, braking harder. “Do you smell that?”

Cathal obediently stopped. “How could I not?” His voice came right into Lachlan’s good ear, the one the White Worm hadn’t frozen off. “Want to eat?”

Lachlan glanced over his shoulder at him. “Are you honestly asking me?”

Cathal laughed and helped steer the chair to the source of the smell: a little smokehouse set some way back from the street, with a stand in front. There a slightly rounded Movanar woman with cheeks bright as apples sold shredded pork with deep red sauce, stuffed into wheat rolls. Alongside came paper cups of cabbage slaw.

They laid the sandwiches in Lachlan’s lap and found a nearby bench to eat. Lachlan wasn’t given to melodrama, but he thought he might expire on the spot after his first bite. It had been so long. Even his diminished sense of taste couldn’t fail to wake, and the textures were more than enough to make up for the lack. The crust of the roll crisped away to soft inside, slightly soggy from the thick sauce. Meat between his teeth again. The heat of the food itself and the warmth of the spice on his tongue. He had gone to Paradise. The slaw crunched, cool and creamy in his mouth, with a sting of black pepper and horseradish.

Afterward, while Cathal disposed of the trash from their meal, he spread his arms on the back of the bench and tilted his head back. Relaxed. Forgetting, for the blink of an eye, what he had become, what he looked like. Then he let a sigh through the cavity of his nose and remembered. All the noise of the street eddied around him, around a bubble of space engendered by his presence. No one dared come too close; no one dared speak to him. Riven as he was, still no one could mistake him for anything but Revanar, anything but noble. No Movanar wore hair like Lachlan’s, snow white and like a living thing, falling around his hips. At the very least, down here in the city he had the protection of his station. He wondered why he had stayed so long in his apartments.

It hardly mattered. Soon there would be Adeon to chat with, and he could come down here whenever he pleased, really. He wasn’t required to stay in his rooms. He didn’t have to rot away at the back of the Palace. The thought put a smile on his face. He might even visit Adeon again after this, and that thought widened his smile further.

Cathal cleared his throat.

“How long have you been standing there?” Lachlan asked, opening his eyes.

“Oh, long enough,” Cathal said. “You know where this place is, I’m assuming.”

He sounded like he assumed no such thing, but Adeon had told Lachlan a thousand times where to find the little stationery shop, and he felt certain he could. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

To his credit, Cathal managed, mostly, not to look surprised. “And how do we get there?”

“It’s on the Boulevard of Bolealt,” said Lachlan, and when Cathal started to protest, he held up a hand. “I know it’s a bit far.”

“Let me get us a cab. I’ll never get you home again if we go all that way.”

Grimacing, Lachlan agreed. He’d sooner not be pent up in a carriage, but he allowed Cathal to hail one regardless, and once within the maroon-velvet confines he was secretly glad of it. He relaxed into the seat, rubbing at his left stump, the longer one. His leg hadn’t prickled like this in years.

Seodrass — My Very Own Happy Place: A Guest Post by Bethanie F. DeVors

I know it’s been a really long time, but here’s the last of the guest posts about worlds. I think it was worth the wait! I love Bethanie, and I’m really looking forward to her second Seodrassian release.

~*~

Like a lot of independent authors I know, I have a day job. It’s a good job with good benefits, good coworkers, etc. What’s not good is the stress. It’s fast-paced, ever-changing, and challenging. While I enjoy a challenge (would get bored if the job were easy), it does require a good deal of stress relief. Some people drink wine. Some people watch television. Some people exercise.

I do some of those things, but my most effective stress relief? Writing about the kingdom of Seodrass.

I didn’t create a perfect fantastical kingdom in Seodrass. Rebellion, war, mayhem. All present. And yet, when asked what fictional world I would choose to live in if I could, I always choose Seodrass. Why would I choose a place recovering from bloody rebellion and strife? Because I love these characters. I love the people of the kingdom. I love the culture and the way it looks it my head.

When I think of Seodrass, I think of lush, rolling green hills and magical forests as well as inherently decent people who are generous and fun-loving. I think of brave men and women willing to fight and die to protect their people and to preserve what’s good.

Maybe all that seems hokey, but in what feels like a world gone mad, I need a safe place to go to. I don’t even realize I’m doing it before I’m spaced out and imagining what my characters should do next in their continuing saga. I visit Seodrass and her people while waiting in the airport to board my plane, while sitting in an Uber ride, while taking my lunchbreak at work… See a pattern?

Seodrass provides access to some of my favorite people, some born in this world and some born in that world. But almost all of these characters call Seodrass home by the end of the first book. I would love to have coffee with Rhys, the plucky video game designer, and Braeden, her genius intern, but only if we could have it in the royal castle of Seodrass while knights train outside and the nobility does whatever it is nobility does. I’d gladly take a tour of the grounds with Lord Tormod and Lady Bonneah, the interim rulers. I wouldn’t say no to a crash course in sword play from Sir Machar, Rhys’s trainer, or in archery from Sir Daeg, head of the knights. Maybe I could take time to stop in and see Derrine, the servant assigned to Rhys for the duration of her stay or Daeg’s mother, Lady Kyla, who was so nice to Rhys.

If I really had time and means, I’d beg for the real tour of Seodrass – the one in which I’d get to ride a horse through the countryside and see the different villages like Airril, where Daeg grew up, or Ellar, the village that provides the raw material for the best cloth in the entire kingdom. I’d want to see the memorial by the pond in Ellar with the names of the heroes who fought in the rebellion. If they’d let me, I’d even love to visit the Sanctuary and meet Cohmnall, the head Brother, and lose myself in the library there. The list of people and places to see goes on and on in my head.

The good news is, I can visit anytime I want since Seodrass lives in my head.  And I’m sincerely hoping readers want to visit, too, because there’s a lot more Seodrass still growing in that noggin I call a brain.

~*~


Bethanie F. DeVors resides in South Carolina surrounded by four cats and two dogs. She is currently working on her fantasy series, The Seodrassian Chronicles. A lifelong reader, Bethanie discovered she wanted to tell her own stories after attempting to write fan fiction episodes for The A-Team and The Monkees. She started writing during third grade and never stopped, encouraged by her family, particularly her mother.

When not writing fiction, Bethanie spends her time daydreaming about Henry Cavill and helping further the cause to convince Chris Hemsworth to wear a kilt. In an effort to maintain her geek card, she participates in a yearly 24-hour gaming marathon through Extra Life to raise money for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals, and attempts to attend at least one comic convention a year.


Visit her at any of these places!
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorbethaniefdevors/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/rosesjulian
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/bethaniefdevors
Blog: http://authorbethaniedevors.blogspot.com

Snippet Sunday #18

Hey! Snippet Sunday’s back too. Here’s a bit of The Brothers Mala, which I’m really enjoying right now. It’s longer than I thought it’d be, but what isn’t these days…

~*~

Aurelius sat up, then swung bare hairy legs around to the old worn rug. He had big broad feet with big square toes, thick hands that rasped through the blonde stubble on his face, and a thick neck red from sunburn.

He pushed his blanket aside and stood, leaving the faded couch behind. His feet slapped on the tile, echoing down the tiny hall to the bathroom. There were drawings hung on the wall there, where they wouldn’t fade, Dad’s drawings of a better time. Aurelius never looked at them on purpose, but every so often he’d turn his head wrong and see Mom smiling, Mom with the comfortable soft weight she’d carried before grief made her angry and thin, and it could ruin his day in a blink.

Today he didn’t see anything on the walls. He made it to the basin, but while he peed his eye fell on the framed pencil portrait of himself and Felix, younger, gladder.

“The Perks of Being a Wallflower”

Today I’m talking about The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky. A lot of people really like, even love, this book.

I wasn’t one of them. To tell you the truth, I didn’t like it at all, and I’ll do my best to say why here without spoiling the story too much.

The narrative style bothered me, not because of the letters-to-a-stranger thing, which was kind of a neat device. Maybe it was just too “literary” for my personal taste (or maybe I’m a dumbass talking out the low end — let’s not discount the possibility!). It felt navel-gazing in the most unpleasant way. Later on in the book there are other characters who call the narrator “gifted” and I just didn’t see it; he didn’t read that way to me at all.

That wasn’t what really bothered me about it though. I could be wrong about this, since I don’t have the particular problems he had, but I just did not buy the mental illness. It was pretty clear from the get-go that the author wanted something to be going on with the character, but what it ended up being, and the representation, just didn’t feel authentic to me. I’m open to being told I’m wrong, as always, but you still couldn’t make me like the book.

Agree? Disagree? Let me know what you thought of the book in the comments.

One Last Quest, Part One

This is a story I’ve published on Amazon, but I can offer it to you here, too — so I am. Enjoy part one of One Last Quest.

~*~

Lachlan wasn’t even there when the High King bestowed the title Vistridir. He had a very nice plaque to commemorate the occasion, which was too large to do anything with but hang. It leaned against the wall in his chambers, covered with a sheet. He found the Worm etched into it desperately ugly, and they had gotten the runes of his name wrong, so that it read “Lachran,” which was Red Hare rather than Brown.

He didn’t want to look on it. He didn’t need the reminder of what he had become, for how could he forget? When the plaque came, Lachlan was in bed, wishing he had died, and when at last he left its safe pillowed confines, he wished only to return.

He would not. If anything remained of what had been Lachlan, it was his defiance. No High One could possibly choose to remain as he did, a sore on the face of the world. It wasn’t at all the done thing for him to live, and he had considered, at first, taking his own life, as the nobles of the court would have it. But he would not, though when he looked at himself in the great swath of mirror over his dressing table, despair crawled over his heart like a sorcerer’s spell of creeping undergrowth. He had been beautiful once. Like a High One was meant to be, fine bone structure and delicate ears and perfect skin and luminous eyes. The eyes were the only things left, great pale-green eyes burning like fairy fire from his ruined face.

He ordered the mirror removed, and had never since looked upon himself. He knew what he would see—what others saw—but he tried not to care. They hadn’t given much of a damn for him before, nor he for them. Why should he give one now? The silent shunning burned, but he bore it more easily than most might. The only one of them he truly wanted to speak to was Craddoc, his brother, and they hadn’t spoken in decades anyhow, so it didn’t signify, or hardly did.

Lachlan went on like an inexorable machine, hardly noticing the passage of seasons or years, except that when the weather was fine he would dress impeccably in brocade jacket, pressed linen shirt, breeches with the legs pinned up. He would have his valet wheel him out into the Palace gardens and roll carefully down one of the paths to a glade no one else had seen fit to enjoy for years, there to read in the shade of the trees, surrounded by the low hum of insects and the scent of flowers.

There, over thirty years ago, Lachlan had discovered the secret that made his endless life bright, if only in the summers. It was a very small secret, at least in terms of actual size. Its import, should he choose to tell of it, would be great indeed, but he would not. Lachlan’s secret gave him more to anticipate than phantom pain and evil dreams, and so he would hold his tongue. Why not? Exposure would improve the child’s life not a bit. Quite the opposite, unless he missed his guess, which he knew he did not.

Besides, it pleased him to have Adeon all to himself, though of course he wished his small secret would come more often. Once a week was hardly enough to soak up all the sunshine that radiated from Busy Bee. He must have come by it from his mother, whoever she might be, for Lachlan could not imagine King Muirrach ever imparting a glimpse of light.

Adeon was the King’s son, and Lachlan the only one at the Court of Green Glaciers who knew it, and that suited him down to his stumps. Were any other High One to see the boy, even by chance, the secret would no longer be hidden; his parentage was so obvious, written in the letters of silver hair and finely structured bone, no one who knew the King could fail to see it.

Muirrach had three sons and a daughter. Adeon would be the youngest, and the least necessary. Merciful Mother, how they would use him! In a thousand different ways, with a thousand different cruelties, until the joy went out from behind his eyes, until he was as much the walking dead as the rest of the royal family. No, Lachlan couldn’t bear even the thought of it. He reminded himself that he ought to savor the little time he stole from a young boy’s life, and that he ought not to ask for more. If there was any person left in the world for whom Lachlan would draw his sword once again… broken as he was, he would draw it for Adeon. It was enough.

They met in Lachlan’s tiny glade near the south wall, so that the boy had as little distance to creep through the gardens as possible. There was a delicate-looking bench where Adeon might sit, if he liked. He sat on it hardly at all; his name suited him well. He buzzed about like a bee in truth, never alighting for long, whether in the grass or on the bench. But he listened. It didn’t mean he wasn’t listening. Hadn’t Lachlan been a boy just like that? Despair of his tutors! If he was required to sit still, it took every bit of his focus, and his ears would close.

No, Lachlan would never tell anyone about Adeon. He saw himself in the boy, and he knew that Adeon at Court would fare no better than Lachlan had. He contented himself with once a week in the summertime, when Adeon came to Green Glaciers to work down in the city, in his uncle’s stationery shop. He looked forward to it like he looked forward to nothing else, and now it was nearly Longday, and any week now he would see someone to whom his noseless, frost-burned face meant absolutely nothing. Who liked Lachlan’s company, relished his stories, and always begged for one more tale, just one more, before his valet would come down from the Palace to help him back up the slope of the gardens. He’d have to shoo the boy away, quick, be quick, I’ll see you next week, little one.

Now he eased down to the glade in the sunlight with a book in his lap for show, smiling broadly enough to pull at the numb scars on his cheeks. The winters stretched so long these days, and this spring had been damnably wet. Heavy, ceaseless rain turned the garden paths to slush, and then to gritty mud. Even when the sun peeked out of the overcast, Lachlan couldn’t go out beyond the marble-paved confines closer to the Palace. He would say he hated the chair, but that wasn’t quite true. In fact, he loved the chair, frustrating though it might be; it kept him from having to crawl. He hated the limits his long-ago injuries had imposed.

At last the spring rains receded. At last the paths dried enough for Lachlan to get out, and the God! But he flew! As fast as a man with no legs and no magic could fly, he flew from the Palace, from the corridors done up in white and pale-green marble, from the claustrophobic echoes of voices that never spoke to him, and the slip-sliding eyes of all the Revanar, ignoring him by mutual, tacit accord. At last there would be Adeon.

The power of his arms, the one strength left to him, brought him safely to the glade by the south wall. Perhaps not today, but soon—it would be soon. Lachlan stopped next to the bench and opened his book. He found it difficult to focus on the pages, the tale within silly and vapid. Giant Fleas Amok. Who could credit such a thing? But it passed the time, or it might have, if not for his wild, excited anticipation of someone who saw him and didn’t pretend not to.

He waited all the day long, with the muscles in his right thigh twitching, tapping a toe no longer attached. By the time Cathal came to collect him, he was exhausted and deep in silent depression: no bright lad to shake him loose of it. “Is everything well, Lord?” Cathal asked in his quiet Movanar voice, cocking his pale head to the side. His face, when standing, was level with Lachlan’s.

“Fine,” said Lachlan, and only that. Cathal helped him back up to the Palace then, off to his apartments buried far at the back, a light and airy prison for the cast-off third son of an earl, who had once been loved and feared. Vistridir profited him nothing. A name in exchange for all that Yehoram had taken from him. He loathed it. He loathed all the tall perfect nobles who made believe he did not exist. He even loathed himself, and more than a little.

He returned every day to the quiet glade by the south wall, there to wait for a silver-haired King’s bastard, but Adeon never came. The sun still shone on Lachlan’s skin, but the clouds over his heart gathered blacker and blacker. Three weeks, at least that long, though in truth he lost track after one. Day: out to the garden. Evening: back to his apartments. On and on.

Lachlan’s dreams darkened. There was no peace in his sleep, no defense from the dreams of cold. When he dreamed, he saw crystals of ice creeping across the pool of Rex’s blood, ever nearer to what was left of Rex himself after he’d been clamped between the White Worm’s jaws, rent and torn by carnivorous yellow teeth. Little Kep frozen fast, coated in the same slick clear ice that had trapped Lachlan’s legs, and only the tip of his spectacular black-fringed tail stuck out, limp. Mariella, crushed by the dying beast as it slumped to the cavern floor bleeding and burned. Inches from Lachlan’s pinned legs.

It all whirled together in a pillar of snow. He woke weeping, shivering with remembered cold. His friends—how he had gone on without them, he didn’t know. Most likely they’d all be dead by now; it must have been half a century, maybe more, but even an extra year of them… oh God, how he missed them. Rex’s jokes, Kep’s serious face, and all the promises gone unfulfilled in Mariella’s eyes. Gone, with the movements of their hands at dice or cards, their smiles, their voices, their dancing. Frozen.

Lachlan would sooner have his friends than any number of functioning legs. He woke weeping in the small hours, clutching his blankets in clammy fists while nonexistent muscles cramped and lost toes prickled with chill. He slept so badly that Cathal began sending him nervous looks, wondering when he might explode. It had happened before, but this time, Lachlan slumped farther and farther. He couldn’t muster the strength.

One evening in late summer, Cathal scraped together all the courage in his small servant’s body—Lachlan could see him puffing himself up for it, his slight chest expanding—and asked him, out of the clear blue sky, “Is it the boy, Lord?”

Lachlan hesitated, a trifle too long. He read it in Cathal’s lean, foxy face. His valet’s pale-blue eyes went sharp, but he tried anyhow, woodenly. “There’s no boy.”

“Lord, I mean no disrespect, and begging your pardon and all, but just how blind do you think I am? Or is it stupid you find me? Begging your pardon, mind.”

“I don’t find you stupid at all,” Lachlan snapped, feeling a little flare of emotion in a heart he’d thought barren. “If I did, rest assured you would swiftly be seeking another lord to serve.”

“Then, begging your pardon,” Cathal said, sitting down on the lacy-looking bench and laying ankle over knee, “I’ll say that I know it wasn’t me you hid him from, and further that I’m glad you did. They have whatever they like far too often for my taste.”

“A solid assessment.” If Lachlan’s voice came out sour, well, he’d thought it himself more times than he could count. He’d been out in the world and seen things, seen how ridiculous, how flagrantly decadent the High Ones really were.

“Well, Lord, shall we find him?”

“That seems… ill-advised.”

“Hmm.” Cathal nodded slowly. “Let me ask you another way, Lord. Will you sleep easy not knowing what’s happened to him?”

Lachlan thought until the day flowers were nearly shut. His valet sat patient in the westering sun until he said, “Never.”

“Tomorrow, then.” Cathal rose. It didn’t escape Lachlan’s notice that the servant failed to call him Lord, but in truth he would sooner not have heard it to begin with. They went back up to the Palace together, and over the wild green sea the sky exploded with oranges and reds and a streak or two of purple cloud. Lachlan took it as a good omen, and if he didn’t sleep well that night, it was better than he had grown accustomed to lately.

Blah.

I’m back.

I know, you’ve all just been waiting with bated breath…

I published a new story, though, called One Last Quest. If you want to pick up a copy, you can do it by clicking here. Or you can wait — I’m going to start posting it tomorrow, in six installments (it’s long).

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