Song of the Week

Darby DeVon, “The Knight at Dublin Castle”

Hello! It’s Monday again.

First and most importantly: on Sunday (the 16th), I’ll be accompanying Brooke and her Figuratively Speaking Tarot to the What the Hex Summer Witches’ Market! It will be at Dresden Castle: 3775 E Underwood Ave, Cudahy, WI. Admission is free, and the doors will be open from noon until 6, and there will be mermaids. Here’s a link to the Facebook event if that’s where you like to keep track of things. I have been moving HEAVEN and EARTH to get enough copies of Beyond the Frost-Cold Sea in time for you! I hope to see you there!

In the meantime, I’ll have a new chapter of Journey to the Water up on Patreon tomorrow, and the latest chapter of The Book of the New Moon Door will be here Wednesday. Also, I am halfway through the Great Reread of New Moon Door. I’m hoping to finish that before the end of the month and make some structural changes in preparation for a Great Rewrite in August.

Thanks for being here! Have an excellent week.

Journey to the Water Chapter XXXVII: Within the Illusion

Journey to the Water cover image: three evergreen trees stand on a hillside, shrouded in bluish fog. Subtitle reads: the sequel to Beyond the Frost-Cold Sea.

Table of Contents

I had been warned of this. At the temple of the dragon, the warrior Jin had told me of the devious spirits that haunted the world beyond death, luring the unwary into certain doom. He had described them as less than gods, but what was a god to a man who lived in the shadow of an ancient dragon who refused all those who would worship her? A god, to Jin, would have been something beyond imagining. The thing calling itself Svilsara’s god was far beneath his acknowledgement.

And what was a god to one such as me? The Ascended, hungry for blood and willing to destroy their thousand-year reign to obtain it? Their master, who could not prevent the destruction of the city, and yet thought it right to rule over it afterward? The gods of my people were hunters and wanderers, warriors and magic-workers, and the great beasts that roamed the vast icy plains of the world beyond. I could not imagine any of them here in the desert, so far from the place of my birth.

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New Patreon Post/ The Book of the New Moon Door: Part Three, Chapter Six

“After everything, and considering the end of the world, you might as well call me Berend.”

Isabel takes this into consideration and decides that she won’t.
The Book of the New Moon Door

We’re 3/4ths of the way through the book, and our protagonists just might be becoming friends. You can read this latest chapter on Patreon.

Song of the Week

Tuvaband, “Everything We Do Is Wrong”

Happy Monday!

I’m finally back on my regular posting schedule. There will be a new chapter of The Book of the New Moon Door on Patreon tomorrow, if you’ve got some downtime during the holiday, and the latest chapter of Journey to the Water will be here on Wednesday.

Also, mark your calendars: Brooke and I will be returning to What the Hex Witches Market! The Summer Market will take place on Sunday, July 16, at Dresden Castle in Cudahy, WI. Admission is free, and the market is open from noon until 6. Here’s a link to the Facebook event for more information. I’ll be signing books, and Brooke will have her new mermaid-themed cards available!

Thanks for stopping by! Be safe and have an excellent week.

New Patreon Post/ Journey to the Water Chapter XXXVII

“Do you promise me that?” I asked, more to the shimmering air than to the figure beside me. “A home in the city, and my love exactly as I remember him?”
Chapter XXXVII: Within the Illusion

As promised, there is a shiny new chapter of Journey to the Water available on Patreon. If you have a spare $3, consider subscribing! If not, this chapter will be available to read here on the blog next week.

The Book of the New Moon Door: Part Three, Chapter Five

Choices

The Book of the New Moon Door cover image: A book with yellowing, wrinkled pages lies open on an old wooden desk, with a sprig of lavender lying in the center.

Table of Contents

“I’m sorry,” Isabel mutters, her eyes sliding from his face down to the mist-shrouded earth between her feet. “I’m glad you’re alive.”

It looks bad, Berend admits—a whole swathe of the city is gone, swallowed up in dense gray fog streaked bloody with the strange red sunlight. The sun should have set by now, he’s fairly certain, but the light lingers dim and cold over the wet landscape. He can just make out the sharp, flickering shapes of broken ghosts, gathered at the edge of what’s left of the cemetery. The solid, heavy shape of the Temple of Ondir stands firm and untouched at his back, but it doesn’t offer much reassurance. It doesn’t have Isabel in it. She’s out here, instead, which means she has already been inside. It’s the first place she would go—church folk are predictable like that, and Isabel is a particularly churchy sort of church folk. And she’s not still inside where it’s safe and dry and relatively warm, and where there are a few people nominally devoted to the safety of the city and the maintenance of the terribly abused order of the world, so something must have made her leave.

Whatever it was, it doesn’t bode well for Berend’s immediate future. As bad as things look, here at the edge of the familiar world, he’s sure they’re actually much worse.

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Song of the Week

Rhiannon Giddens, “O Love Is Teasin'” (Traditional)

Hello! Happy Monday! I hope you’re well on this fine morning.

ETA: Happy Juneteenth! I didn’t realize what day it was.

I regret to inform you that there will be a minor disruption to the normal posting schedule. Between travel and recovery from travel, last week got away from me, and this week looks similarly busy between my cats’ annual checkups and several home improvement projects. There won’t be a new chapter of Journey to the Water this week, but the latest chapter of The Book of the New Moon Door will be up here on Wednesday. I should have a new Journey chapter ready by next week, so your regularly scheduled nonsense will resume shortly. I’ll also have an update on New Moon Door‘s editing progress soon.

As always, thanks for being here, and have an excellent week.

Journey to the Water Chapter XXXVI: The Sacrificial Stone

Table of Contents

I had been tied to the iron ring in the stone more securely than Fenin had been. Though Svilsara’s priests had accepted my repentance all too easily, having never encountered an outsider with no faith in their serpent, some suspicion as to my motives remained. In a way, I was grateful for the rope chafing my wrists. The people of Svilsara were like children, naive, trusting, and unable to imagine that another person might not share their belief in the benevolence of their god. If they could doubt me, then perhaps they had within them the capacity to break free of the serpent’s hold.

That, however, was a concern for later. The blinding desert sun bore down upon my head, its heat like a burning iron weighing down on my face and the exposed skin of my arms. My thin traveler’s robe did little to protect me, and I could feel my flesh redden and burn.

“Come on, you foul creature,” I shouted into the burning expanse. “I’m waiting.”

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New Patreon Post/ The Book of the New Moon Door: Part Three, Chapter Five

This is a problem for theologians, nether-world researchers, and the high church fathers in their southern palaces, not some washed-up mercenary and a disgraced, low-ranking Sentinel. He’d much rather let more qualified minds handle it, and wait out the apocalypse in Lady Breckenridge’s feather bed. He’d be happy no matter which way the end of the world turns out, and that seems to be the best outcome he can hope for.
The Book of the New Moon Door

Things are bad and only getting worse in the latest chapter of The Book of the New Moon Door, which you can read now on Patreon. If you need to catch up, all the previous chapters are available for free under the Stories tab above (under the Menu if you’re on mobile).

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