#TeaserTuesday continues. The excerpt below resolves the ‘cliffhanger’ from last week. It also completes chapter 2. Next Tuesday I’ll remove/delete the first two chapters and move to a random scene, shorter excerpt format moving forward. I have the rest of April (and into the first 15 days of May) blocked off for writing, writing, writing. And I’m sure you will all be happier if I focus on getting the book(s) edited and published!
Please see the first chapter for more info and content notes. 😁
My completely pissed rescuer continues swearing, not allowing me to get my own feet under me as he hauls me back through the fence. Pausing only long enough to shut the gate, he shoves me back the final few steps until he’s pinning me against the rough side of the stables.
He’s not rescuing me.
He’s protecting the horse still dancing and snorting in the ring from me.
My energy is so volatile that a stranger thinks that I would harm —
Shifting his hands from my upper arms, he presses his forearm across my chest, leaning into me and finally switching to slightly accented English. “What the fuck were you thinking? Trying to ride him in the dark? Do you want to die? Do you want him to kill you? Do you want to be responsible for his death when he breaks a fucking leg?”
That’s too many questions to answer.
Even if I had the answers.
“Look at him! The ears, the eyes!” he spits madly. “He’s scared of whatever the fuck you’re trying to do in the middle of the fucking of the night.”
Realizing that my arms are actually free to move and the ground is actually once again solid under my feet — as if my mind is still checked out, still expecting the death blow I saw coming and did nothing to thwart — I finally shove my hair out of my face.
I look at Perseus in the ring.
I look and see everything I’ve willfully ignored.
My rescuer eases back, slowly removing his arm from across my upper chest and muttering a disconcerted, “fuck, fuck,” under his breath.
I stay pressed up against the side of the stable, knowing I’ve fucked up and not really wanting to face it. Cowardly, yes. Except …
I’m no longer coming out of my skin.
As stupid and reckless as it might be, I feel invigorated for the first time in months.
So I meet the stranger’s gaze.
He’s fucking gorgeous.
In that way that only a pretty boy transitioning into being a grown man can be. Sharp jawed, wide green eyes, slashes of prominent cheekbones, medium brown skin flushed with health. Full lips. Straight teeth. A shifter of some sort.
He’s holding his hands up now, gaze flicking between my eyes and my left shoulder.
Because he can’t remember if it is okay to look royalty in the eye? Or he’s noticed the purple tint to my eyes?
His palms face forward placatingly. No, pleadingly.
He’s just realized who I am.
Who he’s pinned up against the side of a stable.
Putting unwanted hands on me is actually, technically, punishable by death. As in an actual, though archaic, law still logged in some ancient tome in my father’s study.
“Your Highness …” he murmurs, tone gentle as if just waiting for me to bite back. To lash out with whatever my purple eyes declare I can do.
I am, however, not my father’s child in essence. Not like Armin was.
“Have I …” he continues. “I didn’t know … I would never hurt …”
A slow wide grin spreads across my face. I’m all riled up, but invigorated rather than desperate now, and I’m not sure I’ve ever been so struck by someone in my life. Attraction is usually a slow sort of burn for me.
Confusion mars his fucking perfect brow, and he swallows hard.
Maybe he’ll be less pretty in the daylight, but as inappropriate as the impulse is, I’m moments away from asking him to press me against the side of the stable again. Even if it doesn’t go anywhere sexual, just being … dominated? No, that isn’t the right word, not the right feeling. Just being out of control of my own body, my own choices, even for just a moment was … freeing? Not in a destructive way.
His hands and guidance forceful but not —
A soft smile finally overtakes his confusion, possibly because he’s noticed I’m still just staring at him and still smiling myself. As if I’m shocked dumb by his beauty, by our abrupt … introduction.
And maybe I am.
I playfully blow a lingering piece of my sure to be crazy hair out of my face. “Thank you,” I whisper. “I’ve … not been myself.”
That wipes the smile from his face. He nods, hands falling to his sides. “Understandably.”
The chasm of grief instantly tries to crack through the thrum of heady anticipation I’m luxuriating in. I shut it down, roughly. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
He glances over his shoulder to check on Perseus.
The stallion has stilled but is still watching me. Warily? Regret etches itself through my chest, taking the same path that the grief tried to break through.
“How do you prefer to be addressed?” I ask, all formal because apparently I default to my protocol training when confronted with such male beauty. At least while also trying to behave as if I’m still capable of functioning.
I don’t know him by sight, but I know who he must be. I would recognize any of the other staff. He’s the horse breeder that triggered the bidding war my father won. I know his actual name.
And I’m achingly aware of the strange coincidence unfolding before me.
I just inked that name on a list.
Or I hallucinated it.
“Rian,” he says, pronouncing it with the Irish intonation. Ree-ann.
“I needed to ride,” I say, still acting like an idiot because that much is likely more than obvious to him.
He bobs his head, a bit of his smile easing back. “We can go the moment the sun rises, your highness. I can accompany you. If you’ll be so kind as to show me the trails?”
I don’t offer him my name. Because my birth name is just too much, right now. And my common name is fucking exploded landmine on top of another landmine on top of another landmine.
I grab hold of the playful energy I can sense he’s trying to suppress — and yes, that little bit of talent is something that actually comes naturally to me. Though usually not with near strangers and not when my own senses are overwhelmed with grief and anger. “Are you trying to manage me, Rian?”
“How am I doing?”
“You are delightfully distracting.”
“Do you need to be distracted, your highness?”
Oh good, he’s ignoring my pitiful, and inappropriate, attempt to flirt and going with it.
“Just … just … highness is fine.” That’s better than princess which most people default to, because — again technically — commoners aren’t supposed to use my name unless invited.
“Highness,” he murmurs thoughtfully.
I look him dead in the eye and ask, “does my energy bother you?”
He clears his throat, swallowing again. “No, highness. The opposite.”
I step away from the stable, momentarily feeling unmoored without it holding me up. I step close enough that I have to tilt my head back, expose my neck, to keep looking him in the eye.
His gaze rakes up my bare neck.
I swear I can actually feel his intent and it spurs me forward. I don’t want this moment, this feeling to end. It’s selfish, and rash, and I’ve never ever been intimate with anyone I didn’t already know well, but the words, the request just spills past my lips. “Do you … do you want to continue to distract me, Rian?”
He shivers as I utter his name. It’s more of a shift in energy than a shudder. But I’m so focused on him that catch it.
An answering warmth I haven’t felt even a hint of in months, maybe even a year, ignites between my legs.
“Yes,” he says, biting his lower lip and glancing over at Perseus, who is now watching us quizzically from the ring.
“He’s calmed down enough to follow me into his stall,” I say, momentarily struggling to ignore an intense desire to lift up on my toes and take that lower lip for myself.
“Has he?” Rian asks, mildly amused.
Grinning, I step into him, close enough to feel his heat. It’s possible I’m just exceedingly cold, but being a shifter he might run hot. I’ve never actually been skin-to-skin with a shifter. Not in the way I suddenly need to be touching Rian, at least. It’s as if all my grief and anger has refocused on this moment, this energy, this warmth building between us, instead of just radiating from me unhindered and helpless.
“Please tell me you’re at least eighteen.”
“Well, I’d have to be to legally enter into a contract, wouldn’t I?” he asks, arch but playful. Also not directly answering my question.
“With my father? Who the fuck knows what laws he’d bend to get you on his payroll.”
Rian laughs, low and husky. “What would my age matter to you in this moment, highness?”
Slightly stymied, I don’t answer him for long enough that I actually feel the moment slipping away from us.
I don’t do this sort of thing.
I don’t indulge.
I don’t play.
Not like this.
He’s too young. I’m too … I’m in too much pain.
Rian reaches up, slowly, slowly, as I track his hand. He threads his fingers through the elastic barely holding half my mess of hair back and he tugs it free. The rest of my hair tumbles around my upturned face.
He tilts his head, still holding my gaze, but now close enough for me to feel his breath across my lips. “Do you still need a ride?”
My heart thunders in my chest. For all the right reasons now. I have to quietly clear my throat to speak. “Are you offering?”
“Yes.”
“Then … yes, please.”
I expect him to kiss me.
He doesn’t. He simply straightens then gestures toward Perseus. He watches me with an intense focus that only a shifter can pull off without coming off as creepy as I lead the horse back into the stables and tuck him in his stall with an apology apple to chew on.
Then I turn back to Rian questioningly, contemplating leading him into a free stall and onto a pile of fresh hay.
I don’t mind the idea at all, actually.
I catch the white of Rian’s teeth in the filtered moonlight as he flashes me a knowing grin, along with the shift in his essence.
“I took the upstairs apartment,” he says. “To be near the horses, rather than one of the outer cottages.”
“Convenient,” I murmur. And also how he noticed me trying to saddle Perseus in the middle of the night.
I lead the way to the apartment instead, pausing at the base of the interior stairs as he resets the alarm, then walking slowly even though I want to dash up the stairs. Because Rian is watching my ass intently. No one has ever looked at me as if they want me naked and underneath them. And I suddenly want to savor the moment.
I want my brain this empty, yet completely focused, for as long as I can maintain it.
I leave the twins to sleep, trying to drag the feeling of the heavy, contented comfort that cloaks their room into my own bed.
Unsuccessfully.
I toss and turn. Then I force myself to lay utterly still. But even though I’m exhausted — mind, body, and soul — the utter silence presses in on me, slowly but exponentially suffocating me.
I’m moving, tugging on a sweater, riding pants, and boots before I even make the decision. I brought Armin’s prize race stallion with me on the trip from London. I can’t keep a horse near me at the apartments and I also can’t bring myself to visit the stables to visit and ride Perseus regularly. He needs more than simple exercise, and I can’t give it to him.
Outbidding pretty much every noble and business mogul with a sideline in breeding for his services, my father recently installed a new head trainer and horse breeder in the castle stables. Perseus deserves to be babied, raced, and yes, put out to stud. I’ve arranged for the mare and the two younglings that Armin purchased before his death to be transported here as well. Granting permission to enter the grounds, even just the stables, is a stupidly arduous task. So it was actually easier to simply bring Perseus with me.
Now, I need to run. Now, I need to burn off this excess, this useless energy already building under my skin again, threading through my veins. I already know that I’ll be facing my father tomorrow. He’ll only give me until midmorning at most. And I can’t meltdown in front of him. I can’t weather more of those stiff necked nods, those pointed, soul searing purple-eyed gazes unless I get this grief, and anger, completely under control.
But I’m not a fast enough runner, or fit enough, to get as far as I already know I need to go, far enough to sleep a couple of hours at least. I need to get away from the castle itself so that the pressure of sleeping over the intersection point doesn’t feel as if I’m constantly on the verge of coming out of my skin.
It’s never been, never felt, this intense before. Not even when … not even at fifteen … in the aftermath of kissing —
I shove the thought away, mostly because it lends too much credence to my father’s unflattering assessment, and pointed assertions, about my abilities being tied to my emotional and mental state. Or rather, my lack of true ability.
I sweep my unruly mess of hair back into a high ponytail that’s doomed to fail the moment I get on Perseus’s back and we make a break for the nearest trail.
The fucked up chosen mate matching event my father is proposing absolutely cannot happen on these grounds. Normally that wouldn’t be an issue, because my father doesn’t invite relative strangers to his seat of power. But I’m concerned his need to protect what is his — namely me — will sway his resolve to minimize the contact others have with the intersection point.
The early morning is dark, with tiny flakes of snow filtering down from the cloud shrouded, starless sky. Not even a hint of the pending sunrise tinges the horizon as I slip out a side door. I immediately dart across the short yard to half-jog down the narrow stone stairway that twists down from the cliff on which the massive castle is perched.
The few castle guards, both mages and shifters, patrolling the various ramparts and posted in the towers ignore me. Not that I look back.
My breath comes out in chilled puffs.
Tiny mage lights trigger as I descend, situated at ankle height so not to comprise my sight. If I were a null, without the ability to actively wield essence, I’d be stumbling around in the dark.
Despite my light sensitivity, I’ve never been much of a fan of the dark. Though curling up on a winter’s eve next to a fire with a book, sipping a hot chocolate, and reading by candlelight is a hazy memory …
Or an even more unrequited dream.
Before that stupid kiss. Before he shoved me away, pain etched across his face as if I … as if my touch was … is …
I need to tear up that stupid list the moment I get back. I wasn’t thinking … I’m still not certain I moved the pen of my own volition. I never would have rationally chosen to put his name on it.
He belongs to Armin more than me, anyway.
Belonged.
Past-tense.
And I can’t remember the last time I actually managed to maintain any level of rationality, not even for a full day. Was it the day before I felt my chest crack open and soul sunder? While I attended some fucking charity event, commenting on the pretty fucking flowers and smiling at children, even as I wondered why my chest was hurting and my texts were going unanswered? Assuming the entire time that Armin had gone on a bender or was romancing someone new for the weekend instead of checking in with me? A rare but occasional occurrence when he needed … when he needed to run — just as I now practically ran, tripping down the stone stairs, through the early snowy morning.
Was I even still rational as I raced to [extreme skiing location] to identify my brother? Before I found him so … empty, and still. So silent.
Armin. Armin was even more trapped than I am.
Or rather more trapped than I used to be.
Because my father never would have forced Armin to choose bond mates only six months after my death. Armin would have been granted more time.
My heart pounds almost painfully against my ribcage, my face completely flushed, as I finally reach the lower valley. Or at least the first of many lower valleys. A tiny town is situated across the next valley down. The airport is situated on the next. And so forth.
The castle stables, barns, fields, greenhouses, and gardens — all still winter fallow — stretch out across this wide ledge. Enough soil has been cultivated here to sustain the castle’s need for produce and fruit year round. Sheep, goats, and cows occupy farther fields. And there is a smaller chicken coop that services the staff quarters beyond the stables. For the staff who don’t live in the castle itself.
I don’t care about, or really see, any of that, continuing my now heart punishing jog to the stables. I easily disengage the alarm on the side door with a casual swipe of my hand across the palm reader — it reads my essence, which useless as it is, is still impossible to truly mimic.
I’m hit by a tension-melting warmth along with the scent of hay, feed, and horses as I yank open the door. Clean, but still musky. I slow my pace, gently shutting the door behind me. I pad through the now comforting dark, helped along by the intermittent washes of moonlight filtering through the high windows as well as some low yellow-tinted lighting that triggers as I traverse the space.
Perseus is waiting in his stall, flicking his dark brown ears thoughtfully at my approach. He has an intricate starburst of white in the center of his forehead.
I don’t pause to think about how little he and I know each other. I’ve ridden him a few times in the last six months, but not in the deep dark of the night.
Riding any horse at night is ridiculous, let alone a still half wild stallion.
But I don’t think about it.
Instead, I just think about the freedom I’ll find astride him. I anticipate molding myself to his big body, borrowing the power of his back, of his legs, until I too feel whole and capable. Even if just for those few moments.
I’ve never been thrown.
My essence — that tiny bit I passively allow myself to wield, at least — might be near worthless when compared to the power my father commands. But it means that, without even trying, when I open his pen, Perseus follows me out of the stables and into the night.
I guide him to the nearest ring, so I can step back to grab the most basic tack I can manage safely.
Perseus tosses his head at the sight of the saddle, dancing away from me playfully. Though his big ears flick and flick again. I set the saddle down over the rail, settling on just using a bridle. But Perseus tosses his head and shies sideways as I slip into the ring while holding it.
I pause, turning my back on him and gazing up at the cloud shrouded half moon overhead. I never know whether it is waxing or waning unless I look it up. Never forced myself to cement the difference in my head. I left my phone in my rooms though, so I couldn’t do that even if I wanted to.
I breathe, willing myself to focus on nothing more than the frozen ground underfoot and the crisp air filling my lungs. I’m lightly sweaty from my jog, and cooling fast. Normally I hate being cold but I embrace the numbness slowly being forced upon me.
Perseus huffs into the hair at my neck, nosing the back of my head gently. I reach up and gently caress his long, broad nose.
I don’t try to set the bit in yet. I just loosely loop the reins over his neck. That won’t give me much control even when I get sorted, but I can ride bareback. Then using his mane for handholds, I twist around in a fluid motion that I’ve been able to do — with horses twice as tall as me — since I was seven. I get a leg over his shoulders. Feeling the muscles of his back reacting, shifting, bunching under me, I shift my handholds so I can get fully upright.
I don’t make it.
Perseus bucks, viciously and without warning, nearly throwing me.
I try to compensate.
But, tossing his head hard enough to rip free of my hold, leaving handfuls of his gorgeous dark mane twined through my fingers, he lunges forward for the fence.
I’m half hanging off him, barely holding on.
He’s going to drive me into the fucking fence.
I’ve got time to throw myself free.
I might even have time to tuck my face into his neck, so he only manages to swipe my leg against the rail.
But I don’t.
No matter how stupid it is to come out at night and ride a horse who barely knows me, the fact that he doesn’t accept me just reflects how my essence has twisted and —
Someone shouts from the direction of the stables, loud enough to startle Perseus off course.
Then rough hands are hauling me off the horse’s back. My hair is more than half out of my ponytail, falling in my face. My sweater bunched in those unrelenting hands while a blisteringly delivered litany of Old Gaelic curses box my ears.
Caveats: this is an unedited, unproofed second draft. For further context, all of my books usually get five drafts, including two rounds of editing and one round of proofing before publishing.
The Mirth duology is set in the Conduit World (see Awry), a secondary world that shares many common traits with our own. The divergences in language, governing bodies and countries, technology, and geography are all intentional choices by the author.
Content warnings: language, death of a family member/grief, and sexually suggestive conversation or situations (eventually). Eventual why choose/polyamory.
Anything in [brackets] is still being developed/decided/not quite the right word, etc.
I finish the last invitation to my upcoming literacy event, setting it aside so my signature rose-gold ink dries. I skipped dinner. I should eat. I should go for a walk. I should open my laptop and address the hundreds of emails piling up, mostly unread, in my inbox. I should continue at least pretending that the so-called work I do even matters.
But, without the meticulously crafted lettering, the deliberate dip of my pen into the pot of ink, the comforting scratch of the nib across the thick linen paper, the anger ignites in my low belly again. That anger is now at war with the smothering despair I know I’ve been wallowing in since some part of my soul, my inner core, was torn asunder at the moment of Armin’s death.
I can’t settle.
It’s the fucking castle. And all the energy that underpins it. Taunting me while remaining perpetually out of reach of my control. My father once explained that I need to push through that feeling, to demand what inherently belongs to me. But I always knew it was his, his energy to command, to harness, to hold. To bear the responsibility of.
Twenty-six years old. A supposed adult. Educated at the finest institutes but always happy mingling in the middle. Content to be perpetually tucked just behind my brother. And I still fucking hate it here.
I push away from the writing desk to pace before it. The delicate antique suits me even less than everything else in these ornately, lushly decorated rooms. Rooms that have never felt like mine. But I never spent enough time here for that to matter. As long as my bed was always big enough for Armin to sleep along the far edge without disturbing me, it never really mattered where I laid my head at night.
That wasn’t true for Armin though. He’d slipped in and out of my room in the early morning hours since we were young. Just so he could get some sleep, just the couple of hours he needed to —
He had no worries of sleepless nights now. That hyperactive, overachieving brain that my father always praised is silent now.
So silent.
Even more silent than this fucking room.
I’m unraveling again, just a few stitches but I can feel the snag.
I was better on my own. In my own space, even with Armin’s empty apartments occupying the other half of the converted [townhome] with our home offices and staff quarters on the ground floor. I’d been quietly working through my grief.
But now, now …
I grab a gold brocade pillow off the desk chair, shove it against my face, and scream. Smothering the noise and myself in the process, I let go of everything I’m holding so tightly and scream and scream. Essence streams out of me — I can literally feel it flooding through the crack in my soul right in the center of my chest — and long dormant protection runes spark around the doorway and windows. Runes that haven’t activated, as far as I know, since I was fifteen, but are meant to stop me, stop my essence, from reaching beyond these rooms.
Ironically, I’ve known I could always reach beyond even those runes.
But I don’t.
I don’t because that’s not who I am. Even floundering from Armin’s death, even swamped in despair, and struggling through spikes of rage. I will not be sending anyone into the After, laughing their way there or not.
Releasing enough of that malignant essence, and likely damaging the pillow in the process, I sway on my feet. My body is finally as exhausted as my beleaguered mind.
Then for some odd reason, in that half-aware state, completely empty, I sit back down at the desk, pull out another thick sheet of linen writing paper from the narrow front drawer, and dip my pen in my still-open pot of rose gold ink. Six more dips to scrawl six names across the blank sheet of paper.
I don’t know where these names have come from, but they’re now scrawled across the cream-colored paper in vicious slashes of pinkish-gold ink. With none of my typical perfectly curled and curated penmanship evident.
I cap the pen. I spin the lid closed on the ink. Watching the ink sink fully into the paper as it dries.
I know each of the names, of course.
One I’ve never met. Two are near strangers and older than me, so it was unlikely we even crossed paths at school. One I’d count among my best friends. The second to last I’ve been in love with for most of my life, but he doesn’t want me back.
It’s the sixth name on the list that truly snags my attention, Armin Nikolas Wilhelm.
Is this … why have I written these names? Do I think this is a list I can give to my father to add to his matching event invitation list? Then why is my brother’s name included?
I uncap the pen, and with the remaining ink, I slowly and deliberately cross out my brother’s name.
I sit there empty, hollowed out, and weak-limbed, blinking down at the list. Is it possible that I’ve drained myself, my essence, so far that I’m hallucinating? Or … for all I hate the energy of the intersection point have I somehow managed to insert myself into the flow of it? If just for this moment. Is this list … is this list a gift from the universe?
It can’t be.
Not only would my father never consider my bonding, chosen or not, with three of the five names on this list, my brother is dead.
Also the energy of the universe isn’t mine to command. Or even unwittingly channel.
Maybe Armin was my soul bonded, half-sibling or not. It’s not unheard of with family members, and it would explain … well, our entire lives together. We balanced each other — him adventurous and a little wild, me steady and purposeful. We never really needed anyone else, except in the moments we couldn’t be together.
But my brother is dead.
He’s taken the chunk of my soul that resided within him with him, while also ripping my own asunder.
I stand because I can’t continue sitting here and wondering if I’ve lost my mind. I can’t just float within the nothingness until it fully absorbs me.
Because soul-deep grief aside, I am still alive.
I cross through the room, then traverse the halls, until I find myself carefully opening the door to the twins’ bedroom. It’s late enough that they’re sleeping, of course. But, currently stuck in this always ridiculously cool, stupidly quiet, fucking castle that only seems to mimic my deadened state of mind, I need … I need some connection. Some reason. Even if that’s just indulging in listening to them breathe.
Breathe and dream.
Dark-haired and pale-skinned like me but with sky-blue eyes like his mother, Levi, who I call Twinkle, has abandoned his bed and crawled in with his sister, Nina. My Tinsel. The low beds, instead of cribs, are new since I’ve seen them last. The dark blond, curly-haired, creamy-skinned twin is sucking her thumb with her arm curled around the cashmere teddy I got for her last Christmas.
The twins have each other.
For now.
And maybe … just maybe? Maybe I’ll find my path all the way back into inhabiting all the empty space in my soul? Find somehow to be content, if not happy, with the small amount of joy I filter into the world, both through my charity work and the trickle of practically benign essence I allow free rein? Maybe if I focus on making sure neither of the twins ever has to live without the other?
Maybe.
But the only way to do that?
To take my father’s place when he needs me.
To hold. To stay.
To survive, if nothing else.
No skills required, nothing more than I already have. Just to do my duty.
Accept my place.
Accept the chosen bonds my father deems powerful enough to anchor me.
Teaser Tuesday will continue tomorrow with the beginning of the second chapter of Mirth, part one.
On Thursday, I drop my monthly newsletter in subscribers’ inboxes with four time-sensitive massive book treats. And those treats aren’t just from me (though I will take all the praise for coordinating it all)(okay, well, I sent a couple of emails and Brittany did all the heavy lifting. 😜). You don’t want to miss this, so make sure you’re subscribed and that you’re actually receiving my newsletters.
Click on this link for an older but still relevant newsletter troubleshooting post. Spoiler alert: it is not the same as being subscribed to the blog.
ETA: I hit publish on this post and forgot the third thing I needed to add. 😂 I’m focusing on getting all my outstanding packages (including the annotated copies of Dowser 1) finished and possibly shipped this week, so I’ll be closing sales on the slightly damaged exclusive editions of Dowser 1 – paperback and hardcover – in the next couple of days.
How is it Tuesday again already??!! I’m still so behind! But, thankfully, not so behind that I’ve forgotten #TeaserTuesday!
Caveats: this is an unedited, unproofed second draft. For further context, all of my books usually get five drafts, including two rounds of editing and one round of proofing before publishing.
The Mirth duology is set in the Conduit World (See Awry), a secondary world that shares many common traits with our own. The divergences in language, governing bodies and countries, technology, and geography are all intentional choices by the author.
Content warnings: language, death of a family member/grief, and sexually suggestive conversation or situations (eventually). Eventual why choose/polyamory.
Anything in [brackets] is still being developed/decided/not quite the right word, etc.
I’d put the pieces together in my head. I just hadn’t taken a good look at the picture.
The fissure of grief that had cracked open in my chest five months, seventeen days, eight hours, and three minutes ago yawns wide in my chest.
Eleanor’s hand tightens on my father’s shoulder, and she squares her shoulders, letting me know that I’m projecting. Projecting all the stupid, fundamentally useless, energy — unless I want to just go around subverting or even slaughtering all the people I’m supposed to represent, even leading — that comes with the purple eyes that match Armin’s, only a shade darker than my father’s orbs.
No. My eyes had matched Armin’s eyes.
He’d dead.
Just a pile of ash in an ornate urn on my father’s mantel.
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to reign it all in.
How Eleanor fucks my father but can’t stand to be in the same room as me … I shove the thought away, understanding without it being articulated by anyone else that it’s my lack of discipline that makes my energy so off-putting.
Though it’s currently … twisted tenor is new —
I find a rational thought within my overwhelmed mind and shove it like a possible lifeline into the stilted conversation. “But Tinsel and Twinkle …”
Eleanor sighs affectedly over my use of the three-year-old twins’ nicknames.
I ignore her, grabbing hold of the spark of relief that blooms at the idea and barreling forward. “They could manifest. So, father, unless you plan on dying at least half a century before —”
“Anyone can die,” he chides.
He chides me. As if I wasn’t the one to identify Armin as he lay cold and stiff on that metal gurney. Surrounded by his useless guards, my own detail, and all the hospital staff. So that I couldn’t react. Other than to nod, then stand as witness to his cremation. Just to protect the family. Standing there and watching my brother burn down to nothing but ash even while finally understanding the utter, abrupt despair that had brought me to my knees earlier that morning.
Anne and Eleanor shift uncomfortably. Anne actually slaps a hand over her mouth as if to stop herself from laughing.
My essence is leaking. Again.
And the most cruel thing about it? Other than the fact that my father is immune and I cannot hurt him the way he sits across his desk hurting me.
I make people happy.
Happier and happier until their brains melt.
“Anyone can die,” my father snaps, testily. Not only does he hate repeating himself but he doesn’t like my affecting Anne and Eleanor. “I’m not an immortal being, Euphrosyne.”
He hits every syllable of my given name, Yoo-FRO-si-nee, pointedly. Not Mirth. Because I flinched earlier. And the less upset, or easily triggered I am, the easier he can guide me through this conversation until it reaches a point of satisfaction. For him, at least. Since that satisfaction demands my acquiescence.
Euphrosyne isn’t an odd nickname, nor a term of endearment. Mirth is actually my more commonly, among family and friends, used name. A name bequeathed to me by my brother because even to another a toddler Euphrosyne is a stupid name for a baby.
Ironically, not even my father is arrogant enough to have named his daughter after one of the Ancient Greek Charities, or one of the so-called Ancient Roman Graces. Euphrosyne is courtesy of my absentee birth mother and a clause she insisted on adding to her own breeding contract. My breeding contract?
Before I can sarcastically snark back at my father about him acting like a god when it suits him to do so, because he is actually as near immortal as a human can be, he repeats, “the twins will not manifest,” then gently pats Eleanor’s hand.
Eleanor doesn’t take her gaze off me, but she does remove her hand from my father’s shoulder. Eleanor is the twins’ biological mother. She’s also my father’s chosen mate, one of three. The twins were a surprise. A so-called late-in-life pregnancy. An utterly joyful addition to the family that has now been overshadowed by my brother’s death.
I choke on another of those extreme wells of grief. They still hit me regularly, if randomly. It’s worse here. In this castle. In this company. With the land, the mountainside, literally seething energy under every one of my steps. Literally reminding me that I will never be enough with every footfall.
I felt that way even when I had Armin.
Now he’s left me.
And he chose … ultimately, he chose to leave me. Though I know anyone, everyone, would think me a terrible person if I ever uttered that thought out loud. The fundamental belief that has grown alongside all the grief and despair. Armin chose to ski alone. He chose a [unplowed, unmarked back mountain? route]. He chose to sneak off without his guard. He chose to leave me.
We’d been inseparable for most of our childhood, through adulthood. Excepting for those six months after my awry nature asserted itself and I failed … I tried and failed … failed to be what I should have been.
I meet my father’s eyes.
Purple-hued eyes.
Slightly brighter than my own.
Brighter than my brother’s had been.
I never met my deceased eldest half-sibling. My father, who is now in his late nineties, lost his first child and his only soul bound mate years before I was born. Not that I ever heard a word about either of them directly from him.
That’s what grandmothers are for — purveyors of family gossip. Were for, at least. My father’s mother passed seven years ago.
My brother’s mother, Julianna, left him and my father after an attempted kidnapping. They both survived, but Julianna was badly hurt protecting Armin. She tried to take Armin back to her own family in France. But no one said no to my father. I attended Julianna’s funeral three years ago, just to hold Armin’s hand. He hadn’t cried. But he didn’t know her very well.
Maybe it would have been better if he cried?
Maybe it would have been better if he had more than just me to hold his hand?
Maybe he wouldn’t have felt the need to fling himself — alone — off the side of a mountain in unstable snow conditions?
My birth mother, Daphne, had been little more than a surrogate. She’d known she would eventually leave me and had been paid well for it. Not that she needs the cash. Her family is as almost as filthy rich as mine.
The difference between those women — the mothers of my father’s first three children — and my father’s actual chosen Eleanor and Anne?
The purple eyes.
Or, at least, an ancestral history of having true-blooded awry manifest in their progeny. As with my mother, whose eyes are dark blue without even a hint of purple.
“The intersection point,” I mumble, surfacing above the grief just long enough to articulate what all my random thoughts have been circling. When Armin was alive there’d been two of us, him the elder and the more powerful.
Now there was only me.
I couldn’t hold all the power of the intersection point on my own.
Not even my father could, really. He needed chosen, whether or not they were also sexual partners — I don’t think he and Raoul are lovers, though they share Eleanor and Anne. But even with their essence only entwined by intent, they share the responsibility of holding the intersection point currently seething away under my bare feet.
One of seven intersection points through which the essence that fuels the world radiates. There were nine points centuries ago, but two fell. Those collapses created massive upheavals in the world. Some historians say that there was an entire civilization with technology to rival our own that was wiped out when the first of the nine intersections was compromised. With humanity driven back into the dark ages.
The entire political and demographical landscape of North America fractured and still hasn’t completely recovered — according to my father — due to what he called ‘an attempt at a hostile takeover’ of their intersection point over a century ago.
If my father died — taking his own chosen with him — with only me as his essence heir an untended, untethered intersection point would draw those of power. World wars have been fought over less.
But there is more than one problem with me being the only heir.
“I’m a dud,” I say hollowly.
My father huffs. But he doesn’t refute my disparaging assessment of my abilities.
“You’re not a dud!” Anne exclaims, glancing between me and my father then dropping his hand. “And I don’t want to hear you say anything of the sort again.”
Anne raised Armin and me. As much as she was allowed to do so, at least. Mostly for about a year — if I’m remembering correctly — before we were shipped off to school, then during any breaks we spent with our father. Or rather, in proximity of our father.
I don’t drop my father’s gaze. Absolute derision — for myself — drips from my next words. “A dud but at least I blooded true, right?”
He nods stiffly.
The argument about my supposed unwillingness to embrace the truth of my twisted essence, of my manipulative, destructive abilities, and how that holds me back from fully Becoming hovers between us for a breath.
Even though he was the one to walk away from my training. He was the one who — once I had it all stoppered up and refused to unstopper it again — just sent me back to school.
I stand, stiffly, head held high even in my borrowed sweats and tangled hair. “Good for breeding if nothing else,” I say pertly, flippantly.
I’m almost out of the door before my father calls to me.
“When you are capable of being more rational,” he says, all cool-toned and arrogantly detached. “We’ll discuss this and your new role further. I won’t wait for those names.”
I keep walking, out the door and into the stonewalled corridor.
Names.
Of those few I would, that I even could, consider as chosen mates. Even better if they come with their own ancestral history of purple eyes, but not the eyes themselves, because that would mark them as potentially dangerous, even volatile. In all the same ways I internally balked at any destruction I might potentially wrought if I allowed myself to just admit I am more, more than a few empathic tricks and … simple mirth.
But I’m not more.
I’m so much less. So much less that even mirth and joy have abandoned me.
Those names … those few that my father will ask me to whittle down into an acceptable number, or even more likely, he’ll do it himself, will be plucked from those in the best political and financial positions. And all with robust essence-wielding abilities. Their strength is needed to balance my inherent weakness.
My life partners will be chosen, not soul bound, not fated nor destined. Even if such bonds exist for me, my freedom to find them ran out the moment my brother shed his mortal coil.
My chest constricts so tightly that I’m forced to dart into a niche off the hall. I squeeze my eyes shut against the pointed overhead lighting and press myself against a fucking marble statue as I struggle to breathe. I might not have the practical, useful power that typically comes with these purple eyes but I got all the light sensitivity. And the collection of vintage designer sunglasses, of course.
My father frowns upon both admitting the sensitivity and shielding others from the sight of purple orbs.
I manage to keep breathing even as I allow myself to cry. Quiet, stifled sobs threaded with all my thwarted love and fortified with all my ever-growing anger.
Maybe this is what it feels like to lose one of your soul bound? Armin and I might not have been brought into this world together but we never liked being apart. Maybe my brother belonged to me through more than just blood? Maybe our souls were pulled into these mortal coils from the same [fabric of the universe].
And he still chose to leave me. Armin’s need to feel, to thwart danger, to be … thrilled? All of those needs were stronger than his love for me.
I know … I know it was just a terrible, senseless accident, but I can’t, I can’t … so so selfishly … I’m so so morally weak that I can’t … I can’t forgive him.
And now this … this utter ridiculous chosen mate matching event.
Armin is dead.
He’s taken my life as I’d known it with him.
That bright, hot anger finally wins over the disabling despair.
I straighten, pushing away from the marble statue that’s been the only thing holding me on my feet. I manage a few deep, full breaths.
The castle guard left after escorting me at my father’s behest, but the few staff still traversing the halls even this deep into the evening ignore me, my reddened eyes, and tear-stained cheeks as I slink back to my rooms.
I distract my churning mind with a hot shower, then settle behind my desk to deal with some of the paperwork for my next charity event. Invitations mostly, to the celebrity guests, painstakingly handwritten in an ornate script that I’ve practiced to perfection for over half of my twenty-six years.
One of the rarest of rare purple-eyed awry or not. One of the most favored by the old gods, or one of the essence twisted, according to some of the factions that actively hunt the purple-orbed in other parts of the world, this is all a princess is good for anyway, right?
Good for breeding. Good for giving away money to more worthy people, more worthy causes … more.
A face, a practiced smile, to represent the so-called royal family, to mitigate the fear my father’s power evokes.
This #TeaserTuesday excerpt is from my current WIP, the second draft of the Mirth duology, part 1. In early December 2023, I came up with an idea for what I thought would be a fun Why Choose palate cleanser set in the Conduit World – yes, apparently all the series set in the Conduit World are going to be Why Choose.
I had every intent of dashing off a fun, quick standalone book.
Well, ahem, the ‘standalone’ is now a duology. And the first book is now 100K (and counting).
So yeah, palate cleanser it may be, this is not, apparently, a short story. I haven’t set a release date yet, because I’m thinking about releasing both books back-to-back (maybe thirty days apart?). I need to get book 2 written and confirm the editor’s schedule for two books in a row before I get the preorder for Mirth 1 up. And yes, duologies traditionally end on a cliffhanger.
The Mirth duology series is set in a secondary world that shares many common traits with our own. The divergences in language, governing bodies and countries, technology, and geography are all intentional choices by the author.
[overall] Content warnings: language, death of a family member/grief, and sexual situations.
Anything in [brackets] is still being developed/decided/not quite the right word, etc.
MIRTH
“A chosen mate matching event,” I echo stupidity, swaying slightly on my bare feet. “For me.”
“You’re welcome to add names to the invitation list,” my father says, getting as pissy as he will allow himself to be even when dealing with his least favorite child.
I remember to shut my mouth at least. Gaping like a fish in his presence hasn’t been tolerated since I was two. I don’t, however, manage to uncurl my hands from the fists clenched at my sides. My perfectly French-manicured nails dig into my perfectly soft and creamy skin. I’m moments away from drawing my own blood.
Not because I’m a shifter. I might be one of the most privileged people on the planet but even I’m not lucky enough to be able to manifest claws to rend my way through the centuries of royal history suffocatingly stuffed alongside me in my father’s study.
“Add names …” I finally say through clenched teeth, scanning the leather-bound tomes and dark wood shelves spanning easily twelve feet up to the ludicrously landscape-painted ceiling. I could take two steps to the fucking window and see one of the most breathtaking mountain views in the entire world. That landscape has weathered the centuries without a constant need for weekly dusting and a special fucking varnish that only a fabricator mage is skilled enough to apply.
I’m struggling to hold onto the moment.
To hold the energy, the practically useless essence, within me. If I self-destruct here maybe I will finally do something significant with all the untapped power that resides under my skin. Maybe I’ll wipe this castle off the side of the mountain and significantly improve the vista.
Of course, that would also slaughter dozens of innocent people, and not doing so is the primary reason I hold my essence so tightly. So tightly, I barely have access to my lesser abilities. Barely have any significance in the —
My nails bite into my skin.
A chosen mate matching event.
It’s not … it’s only been five months, seventeen days, and … I glance at the ostentatious grandfather clock to my left. It towers next to the heavy dark wood door. Five months, seventeen days, and eight hours, since … since …
My father clears his throat, almost gently.
My father is not gentle. Fair-minded? Yes. Forthright? Yes. Focused, precise, and epically-powerful? Yes. Gentle? No.
I want him to yell.
I want him to break, as I’m breaking. As I’ve been breaking for almost six months.
He summoned me. I’ve been holed up in my apartments in London barely surfacing most days. But he summoned and I’m here. And I thought …
My brother’s ashes sit in a pristinely white marble urn on the mantel over the unlit fireplace just offset from my father’s huge burnished gold oak antique desk. But that’s not the prestigious placement it seems to be.
Armin wouldn’t have wanted to be trapped inside a —
I stuff my hands in the pockets of the sweatpants that I snuck out of Armin’s rooms. Not that either of us has lived at my father’s seat of power in years. The school’s logo is emblazoned across the ass. From the depths of the pockets, I grasp my abandoned earbuds in my palms. And, for a moment, I consider pulling them out, shoving them in my ears, and blasting all the thoughts out of the forefront of my mind.
Which is my go-to response to practically anything requiring any engagement from me these days. That and audiobooks. There is nothing like an unhinged thriller to remind me how ridiculously cloistered and —
“Mirth …” my father sighs.
I flinch at being so named, only just checking stumbling back from it.
He pinches his lips so tightly that they go white against his tanned skin. Under that tan, he’s just as naturally pale as I am. He’s just been skiing. And apparently, it’s been sunny enough to lightly streak his hair as well. Normally it’s as dark as my own. And why wouldn’t he ski? He resides in a castle in the middle of the fucking Alps and owns everything as far as an essence-enhanced eye can see.
His Royal Highness, Chancellor Bastian Wilhelm, hereditary emperor of the United European Nation, leader of the World Council. One of the most powerful awry in the world.
It’s not as if his eldest son, his fucking beloved heir with whom he shared the same epically powerful abilities, is dead.
I grab onto the anger that flashes through me, warming me finally from within, at his lack of obvious grief. Such bright and utterly vicious ire is a completely uncharacteristic emotion for me. And with it, the bottomless well of useless essence I usually keep smothered deeply within my core, within my soul, sleepily uncurls. I struggle to get it under control so I can function, and speak, through the onslaught.
But then — finally — I’m unhinging my jaw and spitting vitriol in his direction. “Add names? To the list of assholes that you want to line up? To fuck and breed me?”
The cut crystal tumbler in my father’s hand cracks but doesn’t shatter. And not because his grip tightened. I’ve managed to get his own power to slip its own leash.
But I don’t feel any relief. I, in fact, feel even more helpless, even more out of control, now that I’ve triggered him so easily.
Standing to my father’s right, as she always is when he calls me in for one of his delightful chats, Eleanor plucks the glass from his hand before it spills a drop. Anne, on his left, instantly replaces it with her barely sipped-from, amber-liquid-filled, tumbler.
Apparently, it’s more important to make sure that nary a single drop of mage-brewed whisky hits the thousand-fucking-year-old oak desk than it is to —
“It’s time,” my father says, deliberately setting down his replacement drink instead of throwing it back.
Maybe he has the urge to drink and drink and lose himself just for a little while? Lose himself for just long enough to forget why I’ve been called home? To forget why he’s suddenly demanding that I find a match?
My brother — my father’s true heir, true in all the ways that truly mattered in this world — is dead.
All that power. All that … love and comfort, just snuffed out, stripped away by a fucking avalanche. An [epic], even unprecedented, event, yes. But what telekinetic dies while skiing, so remotely or not?
“Six months is all I get?” I say, the circumstances of my beloved brother’s death pinging around in my head along with all the unanswered questions. No, not unanswered. All the unsatisfactorily resolved questions.
The bright anger drains from me, leaving my voice sounding weak, pathetic, even to my own ears. If I could just hold on to that anger, if I could just focus it, I might be able to use it to drag myself from this abyss of grief. “Not even six months.”
My father scrubs his hand across his face in an uncharacteristic display of vivid emotion, then compounding that oddly human-like behavior he reaches up for Anne’s hand. The light blond, dark amber-eyed, tanned shifter instantly closes the slight space, slipping her bejeweled fingers into his open palm. They just hold each other lightly. Eleanor, a pale-skinned combat-grade mage with her long medium brown hair uncharacteristically loose around her shoulders, settles her hand on his shoulder.
Their combined gazes settle on me. Three against one. Pure pity etched across Anne’s face. Eleanor’s strain shows in the deepening lines across her brow and on the edges of her remarkable sky-blue eyes.
My father … my father looks … I haven’t actually shared the same space with him for over a month. We’ve barely exchanged a half dozen words since Armin’s death. He hasn’t shaved. He’s lost weight, enough for it to show in his face. The gray is deepening at his temples. But power, so much power, undeniable and everlasting, radiates from him, from his eyes. As it always does.
The violet eyes that also match my own.
Anchored on either side by his chosen mates or not, I’m looking at His Royal Highness, Chancellor Bastian Wilhelm, emperor of the European Nation and head of the World Council.
I can count the number of times he’s just been Bast in my presence on a single hand and not use my thumb — a nickname I heard murmured by Anne in an intimate moment many, many years ago.
And then I put it all together.
The abrupt, but formal, summons from my loft in London where I’ve been holed up to my father’s literal seat to power.
The informal gathering in his study.
They’d all been drinking even before I’d been escorted by a castle guard from my rooms.
The chosen mate matching event.
Only six months …
I sway, lightheaded as the realization sweeps through me viscerally. I step sideways, then practically drop into the chair that had been offered — and refused — when I entered. I always need to be on my feet for these conversations, for any conversation with my father in which I’m the sole focus. An exceedingly rare event. Even more so after my awry nature truly exerted itself at age fifteen and it became clear it wasn’t … manageable. Armin usually mitigated as much as he could between my father and me.
I’m never able to actually run, flee, of course, but I’m always primed to do so.
Even that possibility is about to be stripped from me.
And it’s not that I’m not ready.
It’s that I’m incapable.
“You’re true blooded,” my father says. “You will need multiple mates to hold the intersection point. We can find ways around the other duties if you cannot manage them as well.”
Duties. All the things that he trained Armin to do, to eventually take over. Over a decade of training just to stand at our father’s side. All the things I don’t have the intelligence, or the fortitude, or the power to —
My father clears his throat. “When the time comes.”
When the time comes.
To hold the intersection point.
– Mirth, part one (Conduit World), chapter one, part one
FYI. Awry (Conduit 1) is the first book set in the Conduit World. It is now available in eBook, paperback, and audiobook. [In case you haven’t had a chance to pick it up yet 😉 ].
As some of you may or may not have seen, my lovely new PA Brittany is swooping in to help take over some of the more online social aspects of my job. And now I will have no excuse but to adhere to my self-imposed social media blackouts in the morning because Brittany WILL KNOW IF I CHEAT. 😂
As a part of building (and maintaining) a core online community, Brittany has decided to launch a dedicated Discord (MCD’s Adepts)* alongside a Dowser Series Buddy read. I’m sharing the invitation here (below) on my blog so you don’t miss out (if you are so inclined to join us) but it will not be hosted here or by me specifically.
If you haven’t met Brittany yet, here is her intro post on Instagram.
Why a Discord? As I’m sure you’ve noticed, social media reach has only worsened over the last few years. Even just recently my Instagram engagement levels have seriously tanked. This is not only frustrating to me but also to readers who are actually interested in seeing posts from me! Hence the Discord. With Discord, you’re the one to log in whenever you like and poke around to read or participate in the topics that interest you. Nothing gets hidden by the social media platform and nothing gets dropped into spam/promo/junk folders.
The MCD’s Adepts discord will be run by Brittany (in conversation with me, of course). I will pop in to chat daily (in the afternoons 😉). If you’d like to be a moderator, please message Brittany (she is @Britt|MCD’sPA) via the discord. I’m not sure she is looking for anyone but she’d be happy to know you are available if she needs you.
Right now Brittany and I are the only ones over there chatting. So please join us! Brittany has set up some specific channels already, and I’m sure she would be happy to set up more if you have requests.
What is Discord?Via Wikipedia: Discord is an instant messaging and social platform, which allows communication through voice calls, video calls, text messaging, and media and files. Communication can be private or take place in virtual communities called “servers”.
Brittany hasn’t read the Dowser Series yet! So she thought it would be fun to invite other readers to read along with her. She is spearheading this and there will be ‘share graphics’ and other fun things going on on my socials. But if you would like to really dig in with her and discuss then you can also join MCD’s Adepts* (discord).
I have an idea for an MCD’s Fav Things: Book Club that will also implemented through the discord server (but only once I feel like I have the time to devote to it).
Note: the Discord links expire in seven days, but just let me know if you need a new invitation.
Just a quick note for anyone who missed the Kickstarter (Jan 2023), I’ve made the last remaining* tenth-anniversary editions of Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic (Dowser 1) available for purchase.
Only 12 paperbacks (some slight foil damage on all) and 13 hardcovers (8 have some minor damage to the cover) are available. Please see the listings for more info and pictures.
Prices in Canadian funds (as always). I hope to ship the second week in March along with the annotated copies (my highlighters ran out, so I only have four of the ten of those done right now).
*I still haven’t heard from all backers so I’m holding back a few copies in case they finally contact me.
You might be seeing posts all over social media from your fav authors and audiobook narrators about the new Terms of Use that Findaway (aka Spotify) attempted to implement (with thirty days notice) yesterday. I, among many other authors, immediately sent emails indicating that we’d be pulling our audiobooks off Findaway/Spotify if they insisted on pushing through the new terms as written (the issues are numerous so I won’t bother getting into the details here). About eleven hours later, they issued a statement that they were looking into clarifying the wording.
I’m not immediately pulling my audiobooks off Findaway/Spotify but I will remove them if they force me to do so. That will mean that my audiobooks will be pulled from all the retailers that Findaway distributes to, including Nook, Google Play, Hoopla, Spotify, etc.
And, yes, this will impact my sales. Producing audiobooks is expensive. A long-term investment. So obviously making them available to the widest range of readers is ideal. My audiobooks have brought in a significant amount of money in 2023 (though not more than I spent in 2023 😂) – from multiple channels, yes, but losing the ability to reach smaller retailers and libraries via Findaway will be unfortunate.
I will keep you all updated.
With that all said, buying audiobooks directly from me (or other authors) is the least expensive option for you that also pays me the most. Yes! It’s nice that it works out like that! Also, you own the audiobooks (and ebooks for that matter) you buy from me. If you cancel your Audible (etc) account, you can lose your audiobooks (there are ways around this, but you are technically ‘renting’ audiobooks through subscription services).
I’ve pinned a post with links to all my available audiobooks to the top of my blog (because I’m way behind in keeping my links updated on my book pages, sigh) so they are easier to find. Click here to see the list of audiobooks.
Also, in case I don’t say it enough, you all freaking rock, every book you buy from me directly or from any retailer or get at a library directly equates to me being able to make a living doing what I love to do – storytelling!! 😘 Thank you!
A shot stolen from my social media, taken Monday when I dropped off the L.E.’s of Awry at the shipping depot. Posted here because I really, really wouldn’t mind having that hot fudge milkshake to suck on right now. 😜
I usually write a ‘day after a new release’ post and then a ‘week after a release’ post, but alas I have done neither after the release of Awry (Conduit 1). And not because the release wasn’t a success – it really was! Thank you all so, so much. At one point, likely for a very brief moment, Awry was nestled lovingly between Yarros (Fourth Wing) and Mass (Crescent City, A Court of Thorns and Roses, etc) on the sci-fi/fantasy bestseller list on Apple Books.
Let me find the screenshot I shared on my socials.
So thank you, thank you for following me into a new universe and a slightly new format (present tense) and a slightly different tenor (the present tense comes with a certain natural intensity) and slightly new structure (an ongoing story where the overall plot is continued through several books).
[side note] And yes, the Conduit Series is a slooooow burn why choose urban fantasy romance. This means that Zaya will eventually have multiple partners/fated mates. There are REASONS (plot and story) for this choice. Yes, actual overall universe reasons. Some of you might have already figured it out. 😊
Since the release, I’m getting the sense that it is slightly disconcerting to some of my lovely readers that I appear to not be actively writing Conduit 2 (or Archivist 3, for that matter).
Yes, I’m currently deep into writing a why choose duology set in the same universe as the Conduit (not a slow burn! 😜), which I’m referring to as Mirth or Mirth 1 in my updates on Facebook and Instagram.
If you’ve been reading me since Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic (Dowser 1) (or even before) then you’ve been on this journey with me before – aka the expansion of a universe.
Opening up a new universe takes time. I’m sorry, it just does. Plus, the books that make up that universe aren’t wholly independent of each other.
For example, (as some of you have already picked up) Reconstructionist 1 was supposed to fall after Dowser 4. Yes, I already knew the entire story arc (at least in brief) of the Reconstructionist trilogy BEFORE writing Dowser 4 (in which, spoiler alert, Kett is already stalking Wisteria). And AT THE SAME TIME, I already knew the entire arc of the second Dower trilogy (Dowser 4, 5, and 6).
That’s a minimum of six books in my head at once. At least six. With each of them informing the other in some way, then – in that particular case – calling back (and forward) to the Oracle.
So … the universe of the Conduit and Mirth (so far) is the same. A slow build of slightly (in this case) entwined stories.
I’m almost finished writing the first Mirth book. And I know exactly what occurs in the second book (it’s two parts of an overarching story).
I also know all the major plot points of the next three (or four?) Conduit books. And this morning, I sharpened the structure of each of those books in a major way. A breakthrough, if you will.
[side note: I also know the plot of Archivist 3, including two major reveals that bookend that story. I also know the plot of the next three ebooks in the Misfit series and the plot of Jasmine’s first book].
BUT IT TAKES TIME TO WRITE A BOOK. Before my drug-resistant chronic daily migraine (of almost four and half years now), I might have been able to write four (average length) books a year. Now I just do my best.
[FYI I deleted a large section of this post because it went places I didn’t want to go].
I just really want to thank you for embarking on this new journey with me and to assure my lovely readers I’m working, slowly and steadily on all the books. And I promise to release them as quickly as I am able (though I might hold back Mirth 1 until I can make sure Mirth 2 is available very quickly after).
I’m dedicated to writing all through 2024 and taking better care of myself, which means there won’t be as many extras and freebies, and I will be less personally present on social media, etc, but hopefully, there will be more books!
As always, ‘shares’ and reviews are welcomed and appreciated.
[Final side note 😂] if you’ve been waiting to use a credit or your subscription to grab Awry in audio, it’s slowly appearing on all the retailers (not just direct from me) including Audible and Spotify, etc. I’ll update the links on the main page when I get a chance.
