book release day! more character bleed!
Dec. 9th, 2020 12:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luninosityIt's book release day! "Cinnamon and Strawberries" is here!
It's a bonus novella for Jason & Colby from the Character Bleed trilogy! And it's full of low-angst first-holidays-together domestic romance, and breakfast in bed, and picking out perfect gifts, and some interesting uses for holiday ribbon...
Book release
Date: 2020-12-10 01:43 am (UTC)Re: Book release
Date: 2020-12-10 07:09 pm (UTC)It actually feels like my writing brain has been...if not tired, unfocused, perhaps, lately! *sighs* I end up re-reading WIPs and then not adding words...or having random ideas about older WIPs and then writing a new opening...also trying to see if I can get 'Frost & Raine' to be 40k (it's around 32k now) because at 40k print publication is a possibility (JMS contract terms: anything over 60k will get a print run, 40-60k *might* depending on ebook sales in the first 6 months). I don't think I can add enough to make it 60k (effectively doubling it!) but I feel like 40k is possible, just with little additions here and there, or a new scene or two...of course that's due by the end of the year, too...
One of those older WIPs is actually the sequel story for Sorceress, which was my first-ever pro story sale, years ago! I always knew what the other two stories in the sequence would be, but kind of lost momentum after the original publisher closed. But then JMS wanted Sorceress, so...perhaps we'll get back to them! Story two is essentially a redemption arc, and the one I wrote a new opening for...
#
The world’s greatest living magician, lying on his back on a rocky ledge halfway up a cliff and bathed in sunshine, felt the boat’s arrival on the shore below like an uninvited knock at a private door. He did not enjoy it.
He did not move for a moment. He did not feel like it, and there’d be no rush. Nobody’d get past his wards.
He kept both eyes closed. Sun streaked red behind his eyelids; gold warmed his skin, his hair. His body soaked in the sensations of strong heated stone, sank into stone, became stone: learning how the rock felt when bathed in lush late-morning light. His edges blurred, softened: time slowed, thrummed, grew earthen and deep, salt-lapped and wind-etched. He might’ve been here for centuries, unhurried. Equilibrium and erosion, solidity and reshaping: a balance.
He had needed balance. Something he’d thought he’d known, once. Something he no longer understood.
He’d thought the island might help. Being rock for a while, or the wind, or the seaspray: being suspended amid them all. Being alone, because he was not sure he recalled how to be human, not well enough.
The island was warm—Lorre had always shamelessly adored being warm—and far enough from the mainland that he’d been mostly undisturbed, and close enough to trade routes that he could occasionally walk on water out to a boat and barter some repairs or some healing for some news of the Middle Lands and King Henry’s court and the Grand Sorceress Liliana. Lorre had promised not to magically check in on Lily or their daughter; he was attempting to keep that promise.
Equilibrium. Difficult. Sunlight was easier. Sunbeams were weightless. Stones did not have to think about human promises. Human perceptions.
The knock came again. It was not physical, or not entirely. It was a presence, an unexpected intruder standing below, shuffling feet in the sand and no doubt wondering where precisely a magician could be found, being faced with a towering blank cliff and no visible habitation.
Lorre sighed, pulled himself back from frayed edges and heavy sleepy light, and sat up, pulling a robe on in an unfussy tumble of blue and gold, mostly just because he liked the caress of silky fabric on bare skin. His senses shifted, dwindled: more human, though not entirely. He’d been a magician too long to not feel the threads of brilliance—cliff, vines, fish, grains of sand, sea-glass polished by waves—all around.
He peeked over the side of the ledge. Behind him the cave yawned lazily, reminding him of sanctuary: he could simply walk back inside, the way he had for several years now, and ignore the new arrival. That generally worked.
He was rather surprised someone’d found him at all. He wasn’t exactly hiding—oh yes you are, said a tart little voice in his head, one that sounded like Lily’s—but the island, after a bit of work on his part, nearly always concealed itself from maps and navigation charts. At the beginning a few enterprising adventurers had managed to track it down, young heroes on quests or proving their worth by daring an enchanter’s lair or begging for Lorre’s assistance in some revenge or inheritance or magical artifact retrieval scheme.
He’d ignored all but two of them. The illusion-wall kept everyone out, simple and baffling; the island had fresh water but little in the way of food. Mostly the adventurers’d given up and gone home, years ago; he couldn’t in fact recall the face of the last one. Two had become nuisances, loud and shouting; one of those had actually threatened to drink poison, melodramatically demanding Lorre’s assistance in collecting a promised bride from a glass mountain, claiming he’d die without her.
The young man currently standing on his beach was neither loud nor melodramatic. In fact, he was calmly considering the sheer cliff-face, which revealed nothing; he stepped back across the small curve of beach, shaded his eyes, seemed to be measuring. After a second he put a hand up, obviously checking the edge of the cliff: having noticed the very slight discrepancy where sea-birds dropped behind the illusion-wall a fraction sooner than they should vanish behind the reality.
Intelligent, this one. Lorre dangled himself over the ledge at an angle which would’ve been dangerous for anyone else, and watched.
The young man had dark reddish-brown hair, the color of autumn; he wore it tied back, though a few wisps were escaping. He’d dressed for travel, not in shiny armor the way some knights and princes had: sturdy boots and comfortable trousers, a shirt in nicely woven but also practical fabric, a well-worn pack which he’d swung down to the sand. He wasn’t particularly tall, but not short: average, with nicely shaped shoulders and an air of straightforward competence, not trying for impressive or intimidating.
Lorre, despite annoyance about the interruption, couldn’t help but approve. At least this one had some sense, and didn’t walk around clanking in metal under the shimmering sun.
Re: Book release
Date: 2020-12-10 07:14 pm (UTC)Lorre mentally snorted. He didn’t have a proper title, not any longer; if anyone did, it’d be Lily. His former lover, now wife of the brother of the King of Averene, was by default the last Grand Sorceress of the Middle Lands; she’d started up the old magician’s school again, welcoming and training apprentices. Lily always had been better with people. Lorre was not precisely welcome in Averene.
The young man said mildly, “I expect this is a test; I thought you would do that, you know,” as if he thought that Lorre might answer, as if they were having a conversation; and looked around. “I’m meant to find you, is that it?”
That was the opposite of it. Lorre on a good day barely recalled how to be human, and certainly wasn’t fit to interact with them. He’d lost his temper with the melodramatic poison-carrying prince, strolled invisibly onto the shore, asked the poison to turn itself into a sleeping draught, and then poured it into the idiot’s water flask. Then he’d found a passing ship and dumped the snoring body onto its deck. He hadn’t known the destination, and hadn’t bothered to find out.
His current young man was looking at driftwood. Lorre wondered why. He was getting a bit dizzy from leaning nearly upside down; he considered the sensation with some surprise. A swoop of gold swung into his eyes, distracting and momentarily baffling; he pushed the strands of his hair back with magic.
The young man found a stick, one that evidently met his standards for length and strength. He kept it in front of himself; he walked deliberately toward the cliff, and the illusion.
Oh. Clever. Avoiding traps. Testing a theory. Lorre found himself impressed, particularly when the young man watched the tip of the driftwood vanish and nodded to himself and then set rocks down to neatly mark the spot.
The island was not large, and the beach even smaller: a jut of cliff, a tangle of vines, a small lagoon and a trickle of water down to the shore. The illusion hid the cave-opening, but there wasn’t really anywhere else for someone to be; the young man figured that out within an hour or so of methodical exploration, and returned to the shore, and looked thoughtfully at the cliffs. He’d rolled up his sleeves and undone the ties of his shirt, given the heat; he had a vine-leaf in his hair, along with a hint of sweat.
Lorre, in some ways still very much human, couldn’t not stare. Something about those forearms under the rolled-up sleeves. That hint of well-muscled chest. The casual ripple of motion, broad shoulders, heroic thighs.
“I suppose,” the young man said, very wry, still looking at the cliff as if perfectly aware Lorre was watching, “I should introduce myself. I think I forgot to, earlier.”
I suppose you should, Lorre agreed silently. Since you’re here. Disrupting my life.
He ignored the fact that he’d had no real plans. Meditation. Quiet. A hope for calm.
A hint of dragon-fire slid through his veins, under his skin. A memory. Restless. Beckoning. Dangerous.
“My name is Gareth,” the young man said, “Prince of the Mountain Marches, Lord of Honeywood, if the titles matter to you. King Ardan is my older brother. And we need your help. Desperately.”
Lorre found himself obscurely disappointed by this ordinariness. So small. So human. Just like all the rest.
He flipped himself back up onto the ledge, getting up. He had spiced wine in the small pantry, and a book on the theory of sea-witches, magic-users hidden in the ocean, which no one had ever verified, but which might be possible, down in the deeps.
“The mountain bandits have a mage,” the young man—Gareth—told the air. “This year. They’ve always come—but it’s worse, it’s so much worse—and the villages need us, and we’ve never had a good army, we’re a small kingdom and we mostly have a lot of goats—and they have magic now, and then my uncle betrayed us, and—” He stopped, voice exhausted, defeated. “You’re here. You must be here. Are you listening?”
No, Lorre nearly said. I’ve been an ancient oak, a speaking raven, the bones of the earth. I’ve nearly killed a king and then saved him again, mostly because my former lover asked and I felt generous. I’ve turned myself into a dragon to see whether I could, and I could, though I got lost in the doing of it. I’ve watched rulers come and go, and magic’s still been here, and I’ve still been here. Why should I care about you and your goats?
But he thought suddenly of sunlight on his skin, and the way he liked sensation, the whisper of silk on his legs or the taste of strawberries.
He thought of Lily’s voice, and his daughter’s face. He’d been younger then, and so had Lily; they’d thought they were, if not in love, at least made for each other, the strongest two magicians in the world. They’d made Merlyn—Merry, Lily called her now—and Lorre had complicated feelings about that too.
He wasn’t sure he’d ever been meant to be a father. He had not thought about the reality of a baby, and he had not known what would be expected of him; he had not, in all his long life, spent much time with uninteresting small babbling humans.
He had been disappointed, back then, when Merry had not shown any magical ability at all; he’d only cared about the power, or at least the person he’d been then had only cared about power.
But he’d thought he’d been fighting for them all: magic, magicians, their welcome at Court, in the face of growing Church opposition. He’d burned with it: righteous anger, a cause, his own temper.
Which had, he reflected ruefully, ended in banishment. Not that he’d cared; he’d simply lost himself in the magic, in testing himself, in explorations. More and further and deeper. Seeing what he could do, what he could become, simply because he could.
Lily—and Merry—had saved him, then. Reminders of this self, this person: someone who liked summer and sweetness and satin, who might be a terrible parent but would never, even in dragon’s form, harm his daughter. He’d found a way back.
And he’d left again, because he was not entirely human, and he was reckless, and he was single-minded and self-indulgent, and he knew all that. He could not be someone else, someone like the ridiculously beautiful king’s brother Lily had fallen in love with, fiercely loyal and burningly devoted to family and country. He could only be himself, and so that self was probably best far away from anyone he might harm. He’d been trying.
He thought, the pinprick of it sleeting in like autumn rain: I like goat’s milk cheese. And honey. And pleasure. Little things that this body enjoys. Perhaps Prince Gareth enjoys his goats. And doesn’t want them stolen.
He peeked down again. The prince had sat down, disconsolate, on a large rock. His shoulders slumped.
Lorre considered options. He did not help people, famously so. If he did so once, others would expect it. If he reappeared, he’d disturb the world: a power reemerging. If he took sides in a ridiculous tiny Northern border conflict—
He was actually considering it. He’d spent too long with rocks for company.
Gareth got up. Lorre blinked, startled, and paid attention.
The prince spent some time gathering stones. Setting them out. Making a message on the sand: PLEASE HELP US.
That was also fairly clever. A constant reminder, not as obnoxious as hurling stones at the barrier, but visible.
The day had become afternoon, all gold and green and blue and white, sun and sea and sky and sand. Lorre, sitting on his rock balcony, one leg swinging, listened to the leap of distant dolphins and felt the purr of the world under his hand, resting on stone. The waves coiled and crashed, steady as tides.
Gareth was making a shelter out of branches and fronds, building a small firepit, evidently having decided to settle in. Lorre had had heroes attempt to outwait him before; it never worked.
Gareth, once satisfied with the shelter, added a new rock-message. This one said: I CAN WAIT.
He meant it, too: he pulled out a book, and sat back down on the big sun-warmed rock. After a few minutes he took off his boots, and wiggled toes in hot sand.
Lorre caught himself wanting to laugh. He’d done the exact same thing upon first finding this island: boots off, bare skin, luxuriating in the feel.
And the prince had even brought a book. So well prepared. And so literary. Lorre could count on about three fingers the number of mighty-thewed questing heroes who’d done that.
He rather wanted to know what book it was.
Gareth said, after a few moments, “I see why you like it here, you know.” Once again he sounded utterly at ease with addressing the air, as if they were having a conversation. “I do too. It’s warm, and peaceful, and there’s not a world out there, waiting…you can be alone. And I expect magicians need to be alone. I feel like I would. I imagine it’s like being a prince, everybody asking you for help, for solutions…”
Well. Yes. And no. Lorre stopped swinging his leg and leaned in again, halfway up a cliff.
“Or it’s not like that at all. I wouldn’t know. Not being magical. But the problem is…I am part of the world. I can’t not be. And so are you. You must be.” Gareth glanced around. “It is lovely here. And you haven’t thrown me out yet, like you did with the Prince of Thistlemare, so you are listening.”
“I am not,” Lorre said, half irritated and half fascinated; and then he realized that of course emotions became deed for him half the time, and the prince had definitely heard his voice.
“I thought so,” Gareth announced, somehow managing to be smug without being too obnoxious about it. “Of course you care. You’re only seeing if I’m determined enough to be worth helping, right?”
Lorre, properly horrified, retorted, “Not at all. I’m waiting for you to give up and go away. What book are you reading?”
The Sorcerer
Date: 2020-12-10 10:19 pm (UTC)Re: The Sorcerer
Date: 2020-12-12 12:27 am (UTC)Lorre is so fascinating to write (and, you know, I'm not sure I could've done it as well, five years ago)...he was sort of, if not an antagonist, at least the problem, in the first story, and he's grown up a little, of course...recognizing the power of compassion, becoming less self-centered...but he's also very aware that he genuinely is the most powerful person on earth, as well as maybe sort of immortal (he can get hurt, but he also heals, and he doesn't quite age the same as ordinary humans, mostly because he's good at...shaping things...and a bit vain)...the slightly younger him was very singleminded and passionate about magic as The Most Important Thing Ever, and he's not quite that person anymore, and he's a bit tired, and really the best thing to do is to remove the potentially explosive playing piece from the chessboard, right? and anyway he's never had much patience for boring people and little human quests (they're all the same, aren't they?) and trivial Court small talk, and that hasn't changed: he'd rather read a book under sunshine, thanks. (He's not lonely. Really. He isn't. He can be a rock for a while. That's not lonely, right?)
(It's interesting to write, as far as magic! He has to be immensely powerful - but casually so. Some things happen almost unconsciously, thoughts bleeding over and shaping the world or himself.)
And poor Gareth expected...not that it'd be easy...but a standard Quest, at least: proving one's worth, fair enough, and then the magician will agree to help, because that's what happens...except this magician very much does not want to be disturbed (in part because he doesn't trust himself), and is not at all Wise And Comforting, and in fact is about to turn out to be the single most attractive person Gareth's ever seen...
(I'm fairly sure Gareth is...hmm, not quite a virgin, but there's only been, oh, maybe one other person. He's very much a Nice Young Man who wants to protect people, very earnest, wanting things (like sex) to Mean Something, even if not True Love. He also knows how to milk a goat and bake an apple-spice cake. It's not a large or wealthy kingdom, and their parents were very insistent about both their sons learning practical skills, helping re-thatch village roofs, and so on. He's not ambitious but he is fiercely loyal, and cheerfully patient about most things, including possible magical tests and capricious magicians...)
#
“This?” The prince held it up, turned it about. The gilt letters on the scarlet binding flashed in sun. “Come out and I’ll tell you. Do magicians like being bribed with books?”
“I’m not a kitten and you’re not dangling a fish.” And this was now easily the strangest conversation he’d had in literal years, not counting attempts to wrap his head around being a rock. “I could simply take it.”
“But you won’t.”
“What makes you think I won’t?”
“You haven’t yet.”
“I’ve decided I ought to dislike you.”
“I’m very sorry about that,” the prince said, and he even sounded genuinely apologetic. “Will that matter? If I’m asking for your help?”
Lorre slid down from the ledge. The fall would’ve hurt if he’d been someone else, including his younger self once upon a time. This afternoon he merely stepped down through air, let himself become air fleetingly, let the impact dissolve and fade. He left his illusion-barrier up, and kept himself unseen, walking over.
Now that they stood on the same ground, he noticed that the prince was a fraction shorter than his own height. Good. “Why should I help you?”
“It’s a worthy cause—”
“They always are.”
“Our home is—”
“In peril. Those always are, too. Or if not your home, your beloved betrothed. Or your enchanted sword. Or your favorite horse. Something.”
Gareth’s cheeks had gone pink with embarrassment or anger; he had such fair skin that emotion showed readily. But he managed to keep his voice even. “My home. My brother. Our people. Is there anything you care about? Anything you’d fight to save?”
“Not necessarily,” Lorre said. “I’ve found it depends on the circumstances and the context. Why did you think I might help you? I don’t help anyone.”
“You wouldn’t—” Gareth stopped. His eyes changed. “Not even yourself?”
Lorre couldn’t help it: he had to laugh. “A threat? Honestly?”
“It’s not a threat. You wouldn’t even fight to protect yourself?”
“I’m capable of great and terrible things,” Lorre told him. “It’s always possible the world would be better off without me in it. There are other magicians you could’ve found. I’m not the only one.”
“You’re not. But you’re the most powerful.”
“And you need the most powerful.” The words hurt. He had not expected them to. They were true: he was indeed, without exaggeration, the most powerful magician that he knew of. He had said as much himself, both with and without arrogance, on many occasions.
He did not think, these days, that most powerful meant best.
He crossed both arms, hastily scooped some falling robe back onto a bare shoulder, felt warm creamy sand under his toes. He did not know what his hair might be doing; he’d run fingers through it that morning and told it to behave. It mostly did.
Perhaps his appearance would inspire a lack of confidence. And this disconcerting young prince would go away.
He did not entirely make a decision, but part of the concealing shield-barrier faded anyway: present, faintly shining, now more transparent.
Gareth’s breath caught.
The Sorcerer
Date: 2020-12-12 02:24 am (UTC)