Serial Saturday: "Clan of Outcasts" Season 3, Part 11

Part 11

"Happy Birthday, Zayra!"

The sun had barely peeked over the horizon when His Royal Highness Prince Beren crept softly into the bedroom of his wife. The room lay in semidarkness. It would be a few minutes more before the sun reached the north-facing windows. He smiled; after the massive upheaval of the day before, she deserved to be absolutely pampered today! He stepped into the bedroom, approaching her canopied bed on soundless feet. Grabbing one side of the curtain, he flung it wide crying, "Happy Birth--STOP, YOU DOG!"

A quick thrust with his hands and his Gift rushed out in a torrent of ice, freezing a strange man just in the act of plunging a knife into the sheet that covered Zayra. He stopped the man, but not before the knife pierced the fabric. Frantically, Beren let loose an angry roar as he felt around the sheet, looking for his invisible, intangible wife. Velora charged into the room, shifting into wolf-form as she did, snarling and snapping at the rigid, ice-bound intruder. The others followed closely--not the least of which was Queen Azelie.

"Where is she?" Beren thundered, his fear manifesting in bursts of ice blasting around the room so that no one besides Velora and her hair-trigger reflexes could safely cross the threshold. "Did he kill her? Is she dead, and we have lost all hope of reaching her and undoing the magic that prematurely took her from us? By heaven, has he murdered my wife?"

"Beren, STOP!" Azelie put the full force of her telepathic powers behind her words, and he fell still as if she had reached inside his head and physically smacked the sense into his brain. All attention focused on the queen as she pointed to a plush quilt arranged quite peculiarly on the sofa in her parlor.
"She's sitting right there," Azelie explained. "She's fine."

No one spoke for several moments; the only sound was the croak of a passing crow outside. Finally, upon trembling legs, Beren slipped off the ruined bed and staggered over to the couch. He lay a gentle hand on the blanket, forcing himself to imagine Zayra returning the gesture. "Happy birthday, love," he muttered.

Velora, meanwhile, shifted into her human form and scowled at the frozen man. He may have been incapacitated by the sudden sheet of ice, but his eyes still moved--he was alive and conscious after all that. She sniffed, trying to get his scent through the freeze. "Meanwhile," she growled, "who is this scoundrel?"

The man stood at about Beren's height, with a beard less groomed and more scruff. He wore dark clothing, and when Anahita retrieved his knife and examined it, she shook her head. "Look," she said to King Jaran, presenting the full hilt. "The knife is designed with a concealed vial in the hilt, which feeds into a small vein running down the blade of the knife."
"A poisoner's blade?" Erlis gasped from behind the royal couple. Damaris scurried in behind her.
Anahita nodded. "He was going to stab her, and the poison would have taken effect before even you could heal the wound."

"But why?" Beren bounded to his feet, his wrath boiling over and clarifying the trail of ice he'd left. He crossed the room and stuck his head out the door. "You there!" he barked at the failed guard standing watch outside Zayra's door. "Get some iron shackles, quickly!"

The soldier saluted and passed the word along. Presently, another soldier came up to the room with chains. As Beren melted the ice on the man's limbs, they clapped the shackles on him, so that by the time he could speak, the man was tightly bound and sitting in one of the chairs from the parlor. Velora used the velvet sash from the curtains to tie his neck to the high back, further ensuring he wouldn't try to escape, or risk strangling himself.

The dark eyes glared at the people surrounding him. His jaw muscles clenched, but he remained silent.
"Who are you?" Velora demanded.
"Who sent you to kill the princess?" Beren snarled.
"Tell us everything," Jaran said, flexing his fingers and letting the blue electricity arc between them, "or face immeasurable pain."
Fear flickered through the man's eyes, but it was gone in less time than it takes to blink.
The Gifted royals braced themselves, each of them wanting a fight, yet still hesitating to torture a bound man--even though that man had attempted to kill one of them.

Abruptly, the man's face twisted into an awful grimace, and he began writhing and tugging at his bonds.
Azelie stepped forward, her gaze fixed upon the man. She said nothing, her hands hung at her sides, but when she finally staggered back, she was gasping for breath as if she had actually wrestled with the man.

"His name..." she panted, "is Raedyn. He comes from a place without a name, it's very remote, across the sea."
"No more!" The man seethed. "S-stop!" He leaned forward against the gag around his throat, spluttering and rasping as he tried to obstruct his own airway.

"Edri!" Beren shouted, as Velora yanked the man's head back by his hair.
The Commander arrived at the room, having been notified by her men that the threat had been apprehended already. She bowed to the King and Queen. "Your Majesties."
Jaran pointed to the prisoner. "Take this man to the dungeons and probe him for any information as to who sent him and why he came here. I want names, motivations--everything. You have my permission to use any means necessary."

Edri stiffened at the apparent harshness--since when had Jaran gotten so brutal? Erlis met her gaze. "He would have succeeded in killing Zayra if she hadn't been out of bed already," she informed the soldier.
Edri accepted the gravity of the situation and called for assistance to lift the man to his feet and lead him down the hallway toward the dungeons.

The young commander kept her expression firm but neutral as Sir Monte entered with a couple other soldiers, the very picture of professional security--as if he hadn't been the one on duty when this cretin got in! She gestured for the soldiers to take hold of the prisoner, and led the way without speaking. As they reached the base of the tower to cross over to the dungeon gate, Edri studied the man who had breached the castle without anyone realizing it. He seemed average enough: rough-cropped hair, scruffy lines of hair along his jaw, well muscled, a couple inches taller than Monte, with all of his swagger--and yet something in the glint of his eyes, the composure of his face, the way he carried himself in spite of his shackles... this was no mere random occurrence. This man had been specially selected--and she was going to find out who had done the selecting.

There was a tree in the courtyard--Justin's tree, the one that grew out of the roots that Javira had pulled up in their fight against Troy. Edri tightened her jaw and forced herself to ignore the memories that sprang up--the way Javira had tried to use her newfound Gift to assist the Gifted ones, pulling roots through the flagstones to impede the ones Troy had so aggressively jacked... including Velora, who had suddenly gone feral for no apparent reason, and attacked--
The prisoner gave a lurch and almost bowled Edri over, jerking her from her memories.
"Get 'em away from me!" he moaned.
"Oi!" Monte barked, yanking the shackles. "Keep it moving, and quit yapping!"

Edri focused on the man's face. He'd blanched several shades, and he'd lost the keen confidence he'd displayed in the bedroom. His eyes roved wildly, and he shrank away from the shade of the tree. Edri frowned. All she could see were a couple of black birds--nothing to warrant this man's sudden onset of terror.
She shot Monte a warning look. The King had instructed her to use any means necessary--and if that meant luring a couple crows to the cell block window to give the illusion that they were haunting him somehow, so be it.
"Take him to the interrogation cell," she instructed her soldiers. "I will be there in a moment."

She veered off, toward the barracks' mess hall. A stale loaf of bread from the basket of leftover provisions suited her purpose. She returned to the tree where the crows waited. She crushed the dry crust into crumbs and scattered them on the ground. Retreating a few steps, she waited.
She didn't have to stand there long. A few minutes later, the crows descended with a series of squawks. They snapped up a few of the crumbs before flying off again, testing the limits of the area.
Edri dropped more crumbs, this time creating a trail that led away from the tree--at first, the crows just sat on their branch and croaked at her, but by and by, she had them hopping and flapping close to the ground, pecking at the trail of crumbs a fair distance from the tree. After a second handful, she tucked the remainder of the loaf under her arm, heedless of the dribbling crumbs as she walked over to the dungeons. Just outside one of the windows, she stopped and carelessly dropped the loaf right there on the ground. She could hear more squawking and croaking as she went inside the darkened room.
Monte had been venting some of the aggression he'd demonstrated upon Sir Landis the other day, in "softening" the prisoner. Edri could see the blood on his face, dribbling from his nose, the bruises already on his chin. She gave a nod to Sir Roger, stationed at the door.

"I heard that they caught him in the act of stabbing the Princess," he said quietly. His face was somber, but it wasn't seething outrage--more pity she saw. "It is good that everyone could be there to protect her, and we would be on alert... but something tells me there are other forces at play, here."
Edri snorted. "I agree," she said. "But he hasn't been forthcoming so far, so it's time for some answers."
The squawking and flapping of hungry crows feasting on bread was especially loud in the room. Edri strode inside, her eyes fixed on the man. "So, Raedyn from across the sea," she declared loudly, commanding his attention and sending Monte out of the room at a gesture. "What brings you on such a long voyage to The Realm?"

Raedyn glared at her from under a large welt forming on his forehead. "What do you think brought me?" he spat through a mouthful of blood. "I needed money, so I was hired on the black market for a job."

"By whom?" Edri pressed. "They're not going to be happy that you failed, by the way, and nobody's going to hire a deadbeat assassin who can't finish his kills, so there goes any credibility you ever had--"
"I ain't a deadbeat!" Raedyn growled, lunging forward. It was difficult to do while his arms were tied over the back of the chair. "She didn't tell me I'd be heading into a nest of crazy ice-blasters and freaky witches digging around in my own head--"

Edri called up her lion's strength as she decked him across the side of the head. "You will use respect when referring to The Queen!" she roared. She loomed over him, gripping his shoulder hard enough to evoke a groan of pain from him. "Tell me who sent you!"
Raedyn's eyes riveted in her direction and widened in terror--but she wasn't the object of his gaze. Edri cast a glance over her shoulder, and saw two curious crows sitting on the window-ledge, having consumed their fill of the bread, and now absorbed by the human interactions on display. A smile curled her lips. "You seem to be very terrified of those birds," she needled him.
Raedyn swallowed, not daring to tear his eyes away. "I've seen what they can do," he muttered under his breath.

Edri reached one hand over his shoulder to the back of the chair and pulled it around so that his back was toward the window. He still tried to twist his head around to watch the crows that had by now flown away out of boredom, but she slapped his knees with a short staff to call his attention back to her. "Believe me," she said, making herself as menacing as possible, "I've done worse than those buzzards." She called over her shoulder, "Monte!"
He rushed in, a great deal more respectful of her than he had been just a day earlier. Edri waved a dismissive hand at the man. "This man stays here till he talks. Use whatever methods you like. I need to connect with our intelligence sources, to get more info on this man."
"Please!" Raedyn burst out, shaking in his seat. His eyes were wide as he watched the young Commander. "Don't leave me in here with them! Please! Lock me in a cell if you like, put me in the deepest prison you have--just don't keep me where they can see me!"

Edri turned back to the terrified man, wondering what he meant by them... and then she saw that the crows were back. Squabbling among themselves, croaking and flapping--doing normal things that crows in close proximity sometimes did.
"If you want us to make any concessions for you," she said, "You'll need to give us the name of the person who hired you."
"I... I can't!" Raedyn hissed, hanging his head. "They'll hear!" His eyes darted from the crows to the man currently sizing up clubs and testing their weight in his meaty hands.
Edri shrugged. "Then my man here is just going to have to beat it out of you--so you'll be spilling something, whether it's blood or secrets."

She made sure to close the door securely as she left the room. Only then did she succumb to the feeling of revulsion that crawled over her. The Lion inside her was more suited to the cold-hearted commitment to justice--Edri herself was more inclined to gestures of mercy. If they weren't so pressed for time, in case the threat was still at large in The Realm, she'd be more likely to ply him with gentle treatments, comfort and kindness, to sway his loyalty to their side.

"For what it's worth," a voice rumbled from beside her, "you don't need to be hard on yourself or your men." Sir Roger leaned forward, stroking his beard. "That Raedyn could make it as far as he did is not due to any particular failure of you or your team to guard against it--and it probably won't happen again. Such a high level of skill is rare in the criminal world."

Edri sighed and let her shoulders relax. "I just thought..." she whispered. "After Troy... and once Balwyn's son was king... That we might all be past this."

The burly knight shrugged. "So did I; but someone had some very deliberate and malevolent intentions toward them, and she managed to find exactly the right man for the job, one with high standards and very few flaws."

Edri tilted her head to one side to consider this. "So the enemy is a female, one with a considerable amount of cunning... And you're wrong," she eyed Sir Roger with a small smirk. "Raedyn does have at least one flaw: he's deeply averse to crows, for some reason."

Sir Roger raised a bushy eyebrow. "Crows, eh? That reminds me... When I was but a young cadet, I heard tell of a Gifted girl once who could talk to birds. She never traveled anywhere but she had a flock of some sort hovering over her." He chuckled. "What strange forms these Gifts take, wouldn't you say?"
Edri shrugged, and walked out of the dungeon to head over to the office and see what she could dig up about Raedyn, the black market of The Realm, and any chance of a woman with a thing against established royalty.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

In the Dining Hall of the White Castle, the Seramis brothers, their spouses, and their guests tried to carry on with a normal day by having breakfast. At least, Beren, Jaran, Erlis, and Velora ate. Risyn seemed content with a foraged meal he'd gathered himself, from some forgotten corner of the grounds. Aurelle and Azelie both picked at their food, the former between tapping out little flashing illusions that fizzled on the table. Denahlia tried to eat, but the food held no taste for her. She glanced at the misshapen blanket draped on the chair beside Beren.

Queen Azelie flinched and dropped her fork, glaring across at Zayra's seat. "You don't have to shout," she grunted. "It's not my fault you can't eat." She dabbed the corner of her mouth with her table linen. "What do you want me to say?" she asked. "I do feel sorry for you, and I acknowledge that it must be miserable to feel hunger but not be able to satisfy yourself."

Risyn lifted his head, his purple eyes glinting. "Your majesty," he nodded toward the empty chair as if he could see something that the others could not. "If I may suggest, I have a spell that a Mage can use during times of famine, so that their strength does not diminish. If I can get it to attach to the magic signature of that thing you wear, perhaps it might help these hunger pains until we can find a way for you to consume food." The others were all watching Azelie to see how she would relay Zayra's words, but Risyn did not.

Azelie answered anyway. "She says she'd be willing to try anything at this point. She..." Here Azelie balked and pity overwhelmed her expression. "She hasn't eaten anything since yesterday morning."
Risyn arose to stand behind Zayra's chair.

At the same time, Denahlia gasped and jumped to her feet, gripping her right wrist in her left hand with a cry. She splayed the fingers of both hands before her, as if reading from a large parchment, and her brow furrowed deeply. "What?" she gasped. "No!" Her finger slid back and forth in a flicking motion. "Dang it, Hayden--what have you done now?"

Jaran leaned forward. "Is there a problem?" he asked the Harbor Watch.

Denahlia looked at him, and her eyes briefly flickered over to Beren, but she gave a bow in Jaran's direction. "Your Majesty, it appears I am needed immediately down at the Harbor. I wish you all the best of luck in resolving this situation."
Jaran nodded. "We are grateful to have had you here to stop the villain Raedyn from killing our noble sister. Go and resume your duties."

Denahlia departed the castle, her implants inundated with a stream of alarms from all over the region.

After she left, Velora stretched and pushed aside her empty plate. "Delicious!" She said. "I wish I knew someone who cooked that good down in the forests!" She chuckled.
Azelie patted her hand. "We're just glad to have our cook back in one piece, thanks to some quick thinking and good instinct," she said.

Velora stood from the table. "Well, as much as I'd like to stay, I think it's best if I return to the Forest and get in touch with Prince Spruce."
Beren glanced narrowly at her. "Why would you need to initiate contact?" he asked.
Velora waved her hand. "Just something that came up when Denahlia's cousin came into town. There's a small dragon flying around somewhere around here, you see, and--"
"The one who laid the egg?" Erlis interrupted, suddenly interested in the conversation for the first time.

Velora nodded. "They blame one among us for removing the dragon from their sanctuary--but the more I think about it, the more I've come to realize that perhaps Hadrian--that's the dragon--made the choice to leave Elvendom and lay her egg out here in the Realm."

Erlis nodded. "Elvish views on dragon sovereignty would allow Hadrian to voluntarily choose when she would return to the sanctuary, rather than them trying to round up and recapture a dragon with a newborn Wyrmling."
Velora snapped her fingers. "And just like that, their authority to hold Gavin is gone." She grinned. "Not to mention that I could probably use the attack on Zayra as evidence that, if there's absolutely no way Hadrian could have left on her own accord, this shady black market could have probably gotten somebody to attempt to steal a dragon from the Elvish realm. And that doesn't mean it's Markus."

Jaran shook his head. "It sounds like you've got plenty to return to. Thank you for coming here to warn us when you did. You have done very well."
Velora bowed and left.

Zayra's blanket shifted and began floating away. Risyn asked the King and his brother to follow him to discuss something privately, and the others slowly dispersed. Azelie pursued her invisible sister-in-law.
"Zayra!" She called.
The blanket stopped.
Azelie offered a reassuring smile toward what she hoped was Zayra's face. "Happy birthday," she said. "I know it wasn't anything like any of us were hoping, but we all do still care about you."
The blanket dropped, and Azelie could feel Zayra's troubled thoughts drifting further and further away, until they were out of her reach altogether.

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Serial Saturday: "Clan of Outcasts" Season 3, Part 10

Part 10

"Trouble On The Move"

Markus slouched in Denahlia’s desk chair, basking in the way it cradled his body. His cybernetics had connected with her tech easily, as if it was on the same frequency. All he had to do was wait, right? Surely the Harbormaster who all but had him arrested when he first showed up with Hadrian would be able to handle things.

Right?

Beep-Beep
“Madam Watch!”
Beeeep-Beeeep
“Madam Denahlia? Come in, please!”

Markus groaned and sat up to respond to the screaming alarm. He tapped the red triangle, and immediately, the screen filled with red flags around the dockside area.

Markus opened the audio channel. “Denahlia’s not here,” he said. “This is her cousin Markus.”

“What?” Hayden’s voice came back, accompanied by shouting in the background. Now Markus could see his marker as well, a bright spot of yellow in a sea of furious red. “Well, Markus, has she left you in charge? Or was she planning on coming back?”

Markus grinned, thinking of the lanky, pipe-smoking know-it-all throwing up alerts at the slightest provocation simply because he didn’t know how to handle angry people. “Looks like you’re left with me,” he said. “But fair warning, the only people I like to be in charge of are myself and people I care about—and right now, the one other person I care about is up at the White Castle.”
The alarms spread further, but didn’t go away.

“Well then,” came Hayden’s reply, “I suggest you start thinking about the people here as your family also, because like it or not, you’re the only one who can stop this murderous crew!”
“Murderous?” Markus snapped to attention. “What’s going on down there?”
“See for yourself!” Hayden shot back, and Markus tapped on a triangle.

Immediately, a screen popped up, showing real-time footage of the wharf. The scene of chaos ruled the streets, as members of the Brigadier’s Ransom’s crew picked fights with the Realmish citizens who lived there.

At least, from what Markus could tell, they were picking fights. There was a scrawny red-headed girl who seemed to go out of her way to swing her rapier at someone just minding their own business. She had an empty ale mug in the other hand, and she tended to whack people over the head with it when they got in her way.

He watched a young man with deeply-tanned skin and hair shaved almost all the way off except for a long rat-tail hanging down from the back of his head. This young man was far more subtle in his movements, using the distraction of his loud friends to sneak into places and come out with bulging pockets, or break away to lift something off a street-vendor’s cart without paying.
The rest of the pirates seemed content with just keeping the people at bay, frightening them off or engaging the ones that tried to fight.

Markus gave a noisy, theatrical yawn. “What do you expect me to do about it?” he asked.
“Do what she would have done!” Hayden exploded. “Deploy the Harbor Patrol!”

Markus glanced toward the spot on the map with the white dot labeled “ADMIN.” That was him, and he saw a group of green dots gathered in one area, while a few more stood scattered throughout the region, unmoved by the chaos of the docks. He flicked open the menu, and selected the “DEPLOY” option. He could choose whether to “DEPLOY ALL” or “DEPLOY ACTIVE”, and shrugged.
“Why not just get this problem sorted as soon as possible?” he said to himself, pressing the “DEPLOY ALL” command.

The green dots immediately swept through the map. He could hear the clashing of their armor as they left the garrison below him. He watched the security footage as the soldiers entered the fray, pushing the pirates back and giving the innocent citizens the chance to escape.

Once it was just pirates and soldiers, though, the balance of control shifted. At a word from the burly, hooded man whom the system identified as Goddry, the Quartermaster, these pirates took on the soldiers, fighting back.

The Rat-Tailed pirate from earlier evaded capture and began smashing doors and collapsing crates. The redhead defied capture, climbing on things and using the environment to her own advantage as she swung off rigging and used her rapier to poke and slash the vulnerable spots in the Peacekeeper armor. There was a stocky, bald man who managed to shake off anyone who touched him. The one pirate the soldiers could capture didn’t seem to be the same as this rough, dirty crew at all—she seemed too clean, and patient. Markus aimed a camera at her as she waited calmly in custody. Her close-cropped fair hair curled softly around her ears—which came to a very subtle point at the top.

Markus jumped to his feet. “Crap! She’s an Elf!” he yelled, and ran out the door, which locked behind him, to be only opened by an admin.

Down on the harbor, the Peacekeepers were hard-pressed to subdue the unruly pirates. The captains sought to mitigate the reach of these ruffians by sending a few at a time after them, but after one too many soldiers returned weaponless, they soon abandoned that idea in favor of constructing a barrier around the wharf to attempt to contain those who weren’t quite so fast.

They were at least able to free the Harbormaster from being barricaded in his own office, terrified for his life. The Admin arrived, in the form of a young man with an entire arm made of metal who vaulted the barrier easily. He walked to the middle of the stand-off between the Peacekeepers and the pirates, who had been joined by the restless ruffians who normally found themselves too outnumbered to act. Armed with clubs and ropes and knives, they glared at the interloper.

Markus held up his hands. “What seems to be the problem, here?” he asked.
The bald pirate spoke up. “We’s ain’t gettin’ our fair share in treatment, is all!”
“Yeah!” cried the short redhead, looking for all the world like a compact version of Denahlia. Markus notes that she had pointed ears too. Why weren’t these Elves staying in their own dimension, and why had they taken up with a pirate crew?

“What do you mean?” Markus asked. “What treatment do you want, that you haven’t received?”
“We want beer!” called a thug, who had obviously been drinking his fair share already.
“Yeah!” shouted the rest of the crowd.

Someone else added, “Them barkeepers won’t let us in!” As if to illustrate his own point, he swung his club and smashed the side of a vendor’s cart. “They say our coin is not welcome!”
Markus shook his head. “A simple mug of ale is certainly worth a few of any coin out there, Realmish or not.” He pointed to the captive Elf. “You, there,” he said. “What would you say you and your crewmates want?”

The Elf ducked her head, and wriggled against her bonds. “We would like to go where we want, free and unhindered, without the Harbormaster suspecting us of too many things and calling for us to be arrested over the slightest provocation.”

“Slightest?” Hayden burst out, coming to stand next to Markus. “You’ve made a mess of the tavern, and you were harassing the people on the street—“ his eye fell on Markus’ face, and recognition choked his words. “Wait, I know you!”
Markus glared a warning at him, and addressed the troublemakers, “If we let you go about your business,” he said, “would you consent to following our laws and letting our citizens be?”

“We don’t owe you consent for nothin’, lawman!” grunted one of the pirates. “We’ve come for blood!” As one the frenzied crowd raised their weapons and shouted, “WE WANT BLOOD!”

Markus raised his hand and mimed chambering a gun, hearing the rewarding click of the shotgun barrel embedded in his arm locking into place. He was going to have a riot on his hands, for sure!
Immediately, all shouting and movement stopped as a third person joined Markus and Hayden. This man had a broad, brawny build, and a billowing white beard. The pipe he smoked put Hayden’s own to shame.
“Goddry!” he barked. “Get these squealing hogs back into my ship. Coming ashore has made them soft in the head. I’ll do all the talking myself, thank you!”

The hooded man nodded in assent. “You heard the captain!” he barked at the pirates. “Back to the ship!”
Just like that, the riot was over, as the pirates went or way, toward the ships, and the ruffians went another, scurrying between buildings so they wouldn’t get caught by the Peacemakers and forced to clean up the mess that their own hands made. The Peacemakers, at a nod from Markus, released their prisoner, and she fell in with the pirate crew boarding their ship willingly enough.

The bearded man smiled at Markus and tipped his ragged tricorn hat at Hayden. “Dreadfully sorry about that. We’ve been at sea for a long time, and the more active ones tend to get more antsy and apt to trouble. I see they’ve completely disregarded the thing I sent them ashore to do.”

“What was it?” Markus asked, noting how Denahlia’s database informed him that this man, Cornelius Haggard, has an entry marked “Dangerous.” How could someone with so much control be dangerous.

The man’s gaze intensified. “First, I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced. I’ve met the Harbormaster here already. The name’s Haggard, Captain Cornelius Haggard. And you are—“

“Markus, Interim Harbor Watch,” Markus answered, shaking his rough hand. Still, he had seen nothing worth the Danger flag—perhaps that had been a hasty judgment on her part. “What can we help you with, Captain?”
“I was wondering,” Haggard mused, stroking his beard, “if you happened to know of a crewman I lost many years ago.” he gave a light chuckle. “The bugger got away from me during a storm out in the middle of the sea, and we were driven to several other ports searching for him. We heard rumors that he might be here, so we’d just like to find out if you have anybody here by that name, and then we shall be on our way.”
Markus nodded. “Seems simple enough. What’s the name?”
Haggard laughed. “He only had but one name, for as long as I knew him: Harlock.”

Markus remotely linked up to Denahlia’s files, going all the way back to when she first assumed the role of Harbor Watch—but no Harlock existed. He wagged his head. “The name doesn’t sound familiar. Perhaps the Harbormaster might have some records worth looking into?”
Hayden nodded eagerly. “Oh, of course! I record the names of everyone who comes up the docks. Right this way, sir!” He led the way to his mangled office door.

Markus sauntered back up to Denahlia’s office to await her return. Just wait till she heard about how her renegade cousins had employed diplomacy and took care of her “Very Dangerous” pirate crew all on his own!
>>>>>>>>>>>

Velora slumped against the wall, her breath creating small clouds in the night air. She held Sable's tether loosely, knowing full well that the wolf would not make a move without her say-so, but willing to comply with the requirements so that the others could feel safe around her.

 

Not being able to perceive his wife definitely took a toll on Beren. As soon as they reached the palace, he'd done his best to try and find some kind of solution for the fact that they all couldn't see or feel her, but only Azelie could hear her via her thoughts.

Then Zayra had told them about the box, and the necklace she'd found inside it. "I don't know why I put it on," she said through Azelie. "I can't see it or feel it against my neck to get it off again. That must be what's making me invisible."

Risyn had stepped forward, and held out a small glowing disc, which brightened at some angles, and dimmed at others. He nodded. "The magic signature coming from this region is strong, indeed," he said.

"I just want to touch her!" The way Beren scratched at his beard in consternation, Velora thought he might tear it out if he didn't stop. "Just to hold her, and tell her everything will be all right!"
In the end, Erlis figured out a way for this to happen. Pulling out a long bedsheet, she had Aurelle and Azelie hold it, while she asked Zayra to climb underneath it and stand.

Immediately, a shape coalesced in the middle of the sheet, the draped cloth forming a woman's figure. Through the sheet, Beren could connect with his wife's unseen form, holding her as she rested her cloth-covered head on his shoulder. Wet spots appeared on the cloth near the region of her cheeks--Zayra was crying.
They all retired to bed soon after, Beren caressing the sheet-covered shape as if he never wanted to let go. Denahlia had taken up her position in the top of the West Tower, as that would be the most inconspicuous location for her to supervise the upper reaches of the castle, while Velora and Sable helped Edri and her garrison patrol the grounds.

She had to wonder how much had changed in only a few days: from hatching a dragon's egg, to losing Gavin to the prisons of Elvendom, to finding out that Denahlia had a cousin with his own dragon, and now here they were, protecting an invisible princess from a hired attacker with an unknown objective... Sable whimpered, pulling at the leash. Velora shook her head and tried to maintain alertness in the dead hush of the night. One could only guess what fresh mysteries the morning would bring.

High up on the south side of the castle, a dark shape crept onto the balcony outside Jaran's old chambers. Nowadays the room stood empty, and indeed, much of the South Tower had not been used since the early days of King Jaran's reign.

The soldier posted in the hallway at the base of the tower happened to be the unfortunate Sir Monte. He slouched in his post, his eyes shifting from one corner to the next--but in the middle of one of his sweeps, he missed the compact form keeping just outside his periphery. Perhaps if the soldier's attention had been just a bit more engaged and less aimless, he might have caught the intruder just before the next soldier approached to relieve him. The assassin paused in the thick patch of black shadows, where no red eyes blinked out at him, and no person stayed for long. His quarry stood at the end of a long hall, and his feet moved soundlessly over the stones. The prize money was his, for sure!

The door slipped open on well-oiled hinges, and he took advantage of the parlor's tall furnishings to make his way into the room. He could barely see the vague shape upon the bed, the occupant blissfully slumbering, unaware of the fate that awaited them. He drew his knife from the leather sheath, holding it at shoulder height. He would have but one shot at this, and he needed to make it count, or he was a dead man. 

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Upstream Updates 2020: December

Life Stuff

I can't believe all that has happened this year! From buying my first car, to getting stuck at home when the pandemic shut the world down, to celebrating the arrival of TWO nephews (different sisters, one in May and one at the beginning of this month), to getting furloughed for about two months after the start of the new school year (and then getting recalled to full time after the initial "soft recall"--to say nothing of all the stuff that went down in my writing escapades! This year was absolutely full of it, let me just say!

Monthly Stats:
Words Written: 33K+
Books Read: 4/4 (I made the goal!! To bad I was already behind...)

BUT THEN....

2020 Stats:
Total Words Written: 394K (Oh my goodness, almost 400K! But at the very least, I started and maintained the habit of writing at least 30K a month, which is NOT something I had been able to do before!)
Total Books Read: 43 (not quite 50, but close!)

Writing Milestones

Blog hop of 2020: The Bookish Spring Blog Hop

For as many blog hops as I did last year, who knew that the Bookish Spring Blog Hop would be the only one? I didn't! But it was fun, anyway, and worth revisiting! Here's to next year, and hopefully the chance to do more hops!

Anthology of 2020: Myths and Monsters

The year began with a limited-run, mythology-themed anthology to which I submitted my "formerly Wattpad-exclusive" fantasy tale "The Water-Man"--greatly improved from that first draft, might I add! This was my second limited-run anthology, and it came off pretty well! (If you are interested in reading "The Water-Man" yourself, you can find a link to it under the Wattpad Works tab!)

The interesting thing about the whole anthology-submission process was the fact that for Myths and Monsters, I was going to submit "Priscilla Sum" as my story--of course, it was nowhere near where I wanted it to be by the time the deadline approached, and we all know (since it took the bulk of this year!) that there would have been no possible way I could have ever gotten it down short enough to fit within the word-count limits... so that was all well and good! The great thing, too, was that it gave me the opportunity to actually do something with a story that I originally wrote thinking it was never going to leave Wattpad till I was a seasoned author and could definitely publish it myself! I never thought of changing it up, doing it differently--but the suggestions coming from a seasoned beta-reader were so thoughtful and excellent that I am very glad I did that!

WIPs-Of-The-Year!

Back in January, of course, I was sure that The Last Inkweaver was going to be my foray into self-publishing, I'd chalked Princess of Undersea up to a "valiant first effort", but not much in the way of continuing--I just had no idea what was possible for that! I had just gotten Inkweaver back from a hired editor, after all, and her input led me to make some pretty dramatic changes (and also introduced me to a method of tracking those changes--the Notecard Method--that I found to be highly effective!) Then, also, I had really pushed myself to develop "Priscilla Sum" because I thought I was going to finish it and be ready to submit it in four months, so those were the main two projects I thought I was going to be focusing on...

2020, man... what a year for upsetting people's focus!

By February, I had begun talking with both the PR guy who offered to promote me (and my then-defunct--more or less--book) around in his vast network of indie author promoters, and also the guy who published Princess of Undersea in the first place... by March we had all decided that the best course of action was to start the ball rolling for a re-publishing, re-vamp--of course, that severely limited what Mr. PR-Guy could work with, since I was now an author without a book... But things started happening and it was at that moment that I really began to come to grips with the fact that The Last Inkweaver probably would need to be Shelved for the foreseeable future. (Note that I said "Shelved" as in "placed a bit lower in the docket of projects I want to get to at some point", not just "shelved" as in "abandoned forever"--have you seen The Shelf yet?)

This whole time, I was doing my best to get "Priscilla Sum" written, with so many plot changes and scenes morphing that what I originally thought was going to be seventeen installments of decent length ended up a thirty-three-part behemoth ranging in chapter size from "modest" to "whole entire short story"! I did finish it though... Eight months later.
But that wasn't all! In June, after the release of Myths and Monsters, I started afresh with a new short story for yet another anthology (coming early 2021, I believe!)--this time, I couldn't just "spiff up" an old tale, because the theme needed to be sci-fi, and I, as most of you know, write mostly fantasy. But thanks to the "Flashes of Inspiration" series, I actually had the start of something that I really felt like I could work with--and hence "Finding Her Niche" happened fairly quickly, and definitely in time for the deadline!

The fourth WIP this year, which is still ongoing, is "Season 3" of The Clan Of Outcasts! What, you thought they were done once Jaran and Beren were back in the castle, and they'd all sent Troy back to where he belonged in the dungeons of Justicia? So did I. But my "mental muse" was particularly antsy this year, and once I started thinking about these characters and a bunch of new characters, I couldn't stop--and so Season 3 started off with characters all over the place! This is going to be massive, people--I just hope I'm writing for a bunch of readers who really dig this kind of stuff, not just throwing all this creative energy into the massless and unfeeling void.

But anyhow, the biggest change of the year by far would have to be....

Launching The Undersea Saga

It was something that definitely bothered me about the "reviewer tribute story" I wrote a couple years after publishing--sure, there were enough "additional character slots" to invent a role for the eight people who had reviewed my book--but in the process, I did a few things and made a few changes... included a few character cameos that shouldn't have happened, with the way that Princess of Undersea came out. Well, then I started considering the idea of leaving things open to maybe have the possibility of a sequel, if I found myself in a place where I could do that sort of thing. I already knew that it would entirely be possible to use the story of "Pinocchio" as my inspiration--not a full-on re-telling like Princess of Undersea was, but more or less something similar to that. I knew it was going to be set in Crossway, hence the title could end with "of Crossway", just like the title for the first book--and that's how I ended up with Fugitive of Crossway.
Of course, then that led to me not being too incredibly excited about having a duology where the second book didn't really involve the characters from the first book... So then I started thinking about how I could bring the tale back to focusing on Ylaine and Nathan and the rest--and that's when I came up with a potential re-telling of "Snow White"--but instead of a jealous queen wanting to get rid of her stepdaughter the princess because of her beauty, I could tie it into the story I'd already established, of the proposed mermaid heir to the throne of Undersea falling under the influence of someone who had been jilted by the royal family of Undersea at sometime in the past, and getting lured into getting rid of the young Queen of Overcliff because of jealousy over her influential position, and just about everything in that idea was going to work--I just needed a third book to round out the series. Luckily, one of the side characters I had come up with for the "tribute story" introduced the potential of a fourth region, Outwest, which would be the only region named ironically on purpose. Fun Fact: "Undersea", "Overcliff", and "Crossway" were all originally intended as place-holders till I could come up with something else; "Undersea" was under the sea; "Overcliff" was over the cliff; and "Crossway" was named thus because it was across the way from the main island kingdom; but "Outwest" I envisioned as this wide expanse of sparsely-settled land, much like the Australian Outback--the ironic part was that I was calling it "Outwest" to call back to the "Wild Western" days of American history... but the region of "Outwest" is actually situated to the east of Crossway. So I had someone I could use as a main character for a fourth re-telling, I had a setting... and, lo and behold, I came across an old idea I had to write a re-telling of "Aladdin" but make it steampunk--which, as many people know, is roughly the same time period as the American Old West. So now instead of steampunk, the "Aladdin" story is going to take on a more Western feel (although I could still "steampunk" it up!) and I've got many ideas of how I'm going to pull that off!

Not the least of which is the concept of Fairies in the Undersea Saga, which was something I originally threw in to give a plausible origin for the magic that was going on, like with Ylaine's voice, and the magic spells that her godmother knows--but although I threw in a brief discussion about the fact that there were three types of fairies: Air, Water, and Land--I really only dealt with two of them. According to the way things shake down in Princess of Undersea, the Air-Fairies are the ones who can bestow magical Gifts upon either humans or Merfolk, like the Gift of Song Ylaine has; the Water-Fairy magic is more the hands-on sort of stuff, like potions, charms, and spells, and that can easily be taught and trained from one person to another; but what does that leave for the Land-Fairies?

WELL.... I had an excellent idea when I was coming up for the concepts to include in the "Aladdin" re-telling... and then I figured out a way to kind of drop even more hints in one of the tie-in short stories that I'll be including with Fugitive of Crossway--Fun fact: Just like the "Tales from Undersea" I had in Princess of Undersea, each book is going to have two or three tie-in stories that either provide background information, or is just a really fun side story set in whichever region is featured in that story. So the book Fugitive of Crossway is going to include "Tales from Crossway," and so on. So keep a weather eye out! I may or may not actually have any fairies at all in any of the books, but their influence is definitely about to get a whole lot bigger as the series moves on! Stay tuned!

Meanwhile, launching the series has given me the opportunity to turn the page originally reserved for *only* Princess of Undersea into a page where you can find links to everything to do with the whole Undersea Saga: this includes first-draft excerpts, interviews and blog posts sorted according to whether it was for the first edition, or the second one... links to read-alouds and interviews (to which I'll be adding a few more in the weeks to come, so feel free to keep that on your radar!) and even the short stories!

Wattpad

I have done quite well with adding to Wattpad this year as well! A total of seven stories completed this year, with about three of those being ones that I started near the end (or in the middle of) 2019, and the other four being ones that I started here in 2020.

The oldest one was Once Upon Love, a contemporary college romance re-telling of Edmund Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac. Ever since I studied the play back in high school, I've wanted to do an adaptation of it--if only to change the ending from a tragedy to more of a rom-com type deal. I also ended up trying to rectify the notion of Cyrano being so much older than Roxane by allowing the two characters to at least be a little closer in age (like, he's almost done with his second Master's degree, while she's still working through her second year of a Bachelor's degree). I actually abandoned it after the first couple chapters because I'd written the whole thing as a teenager with no idea what college life (or even "adult" life!) was actually like, and now-adult-me was cringing at the wild inaccuracies and assumptions that teen-me had made! I had stopped for a good long while, but then back in March, I received a notification that someone had actually commented on the story! If only for the sake of that one person, I went through the task of rewriting at least a few of the parts that were the most out-of-date, and wound up finishing it out!

A Writer's Tale #3: The Sheriff's Showdown I completed posting, intending to write and start posting the next book in the series (this was still before things went sideways and I ended up abandoning pretty much all other projects to focus on launching The Undersea Saga) but obviously that didn't happen... I don't think I even got anywhere close to returning to this series all year, in spite of still managing to write about 30K per month, after March!

Then there was the rest of The Prince And The Rose, which I started posting after the popularity of The Dragon's Mark. Once I finished that, I went ahead and started posting Red, The Wolf. 

The two fanfictions I posted this year started with The "Return" Of MacPherson, actually the first genuine fanisode I ever wrote, which involved turning a very old unpublished story of mine (It's on The Shelf, titled Fairies Under Glass, if you want to read the few excerpts I've posted on this blog!) into canon for the show Warehouse 13. 

After a whole lot of hemming and hawing, I also decided to post Poor, Unfortunate Soul, the Once Upon A Time fanfiction that became Princess of Undersea. (Talk about "first drafts"!) 

The one that I started this year that's still in progress is Priscilla Sum--the tale of a college student who goes on an archaeological field trip and finds out for certain that her adoptive parents are secretly immortal deities over an ancient Greek sect... If you want to read any of these, just follow the hyperlinks and they'll take you right to the stories!

So there you have it! A look back on my year of writing! If you want to see a recap of each month, you can click each hyperlink below:

January <> February <> March/April <> May <> June <> July <> August <> September <> October <> November

What's in store for 2021? That's coming in another post! What was your greatest accomplishment of 2020? What are you most looking forward to in 2021? Let me know in the comments! Meanwhile....

Catch You Further Upstream!