#fantasy-novel — Public Fediverse posts on home.social

Daily writing prompt What’s the best way to deal with negative thoughts? View all responses BRECK: Stone’s Rest — Chapter Fifteen: What the Doubt Is For In Chapter 15 of BRECK: Stone’s Rest, Breck faces an eviction notice and chooses documentation over despair — a masterclass in managing negative thoughts through purposeful action. A serialized noble dark fantasy by Chadwick Rye. Chadwick Rye 2026-07-01 2026-07-01 en Noble Dark Fantasy noble dark fantasy, BRECK series, Stone’s Rest, Chadwick Rye, serialized fiction, fantasy novel, dark fantasy, chapter 15 BRECK: Stone’s Rest Chadwick Rye

BRECK: Stone’s Rest — Chapter Fifteen

What the Doubt Is For

This is Chapter 15 of BRECK: Stone’s Rest, Book Three of the BRECK series — a serialized noble dark fantasy story by Chadwick Rye. New chapters post daily.

The Story So Far

The case file is gone, in the hands of a dispatch runner headed east toward Caine’s office. Breck is back at Frostpeak. Bren said what she’s actually asking for — to be known, not saved. Breck is choosing stillness for the first time in twenty years of running from it. Hask has been quiet since the ridge. That quiet is its own kind of information.

← Chapter Fourteen: What He Used to Run From | Chapter Sixteen →

Chapter Fifteen: What the Doubt Is For

This chapter asks what to do with negative thoughts — and answers with the only method that’s ever actually worked for a man who knows better than to pretend the thoughts are wrong.

Jenna found him at dawn on the third morning after his return to Frostpeak and told him, with the economy she brought to information that required immediate attention, that Hask had been seen at the base of the mountain’s approach path the evening before. Not with a message and a single runner the way Garrow’s formal communications moved. With six men and supply packs weighted for a stay.

“He came up last night?” Breck asked.

“No. They set camp at the base. Which means they came up this morning, or they come up soon.”

He had twenty minutes, maybe thirty, before whoever was on the path reached the terrace. He spent most of them gathering his narrow crew — Jenna already present, Tomson’s man Rell who’d been stationed on Thunderstep’s second terrace since the Council convergence and whom Breck had spent the past week quietly confirming was exactly as reliable as Tomson’s management of his own people suggested, and the two younger Peak-riders from Frostpeak’s own clan who slept on the mountain regardless of what ground-dwellers were or weren’t doing on her flanks. Five total. Against six plus Hask.

“I’m not looking for a fight,” Breck told them, before the path delivered what it was about to deliver. “I’m looking for witnesses. Whatever happens on this terrace in the next hour, it happens in front of people whose account of it goes in the case file addendum. Do nothing unless I say so or unless someone moves on one of us directly. If someone moves directly, contain it. Don’t answer it.”

Rell looked at him with the expression of a man reassessing a civilian. “You’ve done this before.”

“Different settings,” Breck said. “Same principle.”

Hask was not what he’d expected, which was always useful information in itself. Medium build, economical, with a foreman’s instinct for reading structural problems at a glance — he walked onto the terrace and assessed its layout, the positions of Breck’s five, the mountain’s fading light running in its dim irregular pulse across the stone, with the same unhurried professionalism Garrow had shown in the map room, except where Garrow’s attention had been open and deliberate, Hask’s was sealed. Whatever he was calculating, he wasn’t offering the calculation.

He stopped a careful ten feet from Breck, hands loose at his sides, six men fanning into positions that were not quite flanking and were absolutely flanking.

“Mr. Breck,” he said. “I’m here on behalf of the Garrow concession to provide notice that extraction operations on the eastern site will continue at full capacity through the end of the charter’s current authorized period. Which ends in four weeks.” He paused. “Your case file, assuming it reaches Caine’s office, will take six to eight weeks to receive an initial response under standard Magisterium procedure. I assume you’re aware of that timeline.”

“I’m aware,” Breck said.

“Then you’ll understand that by the time anyone in Lumenvale determines the appropriate response to your deposition, the extraction phase will have been completed, documented, and closed out. Whatever ruling eventually comes down would apply to future activity, not activity that’s already finished.” He said it the way a man states something he knows is true and has had some time to make his peace with knowing. “I’m not here to threaten anything. I’m here to make sure you understand the operational timeline so there are no surprises.”

Breck let that settle the way he always let true things settle — fully, without trying to push it back before it had finished arriving. Every word of it was accurate. He’d known it was accurate since page forty-seven, since Mira’s chamber, since Bren said weeks, not seasons. The negative thoughts had been there all along, not as intrusions but as structural facts he’d been managing around since the letter was sealed: you may be too late, the timeline may not hold, the machinery you’re trying to move may simply be too slow for the urgency at its other end. He’d known all of it. He’d moved anyway, because the alternative was doing nothing on the grounds that doing something might not be enough, which was a category of reasoning he’d watched cost people everything in every hard situation he’d ever stood in.

He had a specific way of dealing with thoughts like that. Not suppression — he’d tried suppression at twenty-three in a Karithian valley and it didn’t hold, it never held, it simply deferred the weight to a moment when the man carrying it was least equipped to bear it. Not argument — you couldn’t argue a fact into falsehood by wanting it to be different. What he did, and what he’d developed, through accumulated loss and accumulated patience, into something close to a reliable practice, was acknowledge the thought as what it was: information. Real information about a real possibility. And then ask, without flinching from the possibility, what the useful move was given that it might be true.

The thought you may be too late asked for a useful move. The useful move was not to be less late than he was.

“Thank you for the notice,” Breck said. “I’ll need your name and your role in the concession’s organizational structure for the case file addendum covering this visit.”

Hask looked at him for a moment that contained several recalibrations. “Davan Hask. Site Manager, Garrow Eastern Concession.”

“And the six men you brought.”

“Workers. Support staff.”

“Their names, please.”

A long pause. The six men shifted collectively in the way of people who’ve abruptly understood that a situation they were treating as the exertion of informal pressure has been reclassified, by the person on the other end of it, as a formal proceeding. Hask looked at Breck with an expression that moved through several stages quickly and arrived at something that wasn’t quite respect but was adjacent to it, in the way of a man who’d expected an easier audience.

“You’re not going to fight the timeline,” Hask said. It wasn’t quite a question.

“I’m not going to fight the timeline,” Breck agreed. “I’m going to use every day of it. Starting with this morning. Names, please.”

Hask gave them. Breck wrote them down, along with the time, the specific location, the exact wording of the notice as he’d received it, Rell and Jenna as witnessing parties, the supply packs that indicated an intended duration of stay. When he finished, he looked back up at Hask.

“The notice is received and documented. Extraction operations continuing after this point do so with the case file’s addendum noting that the concession’s site manager personally confirmed to a Magisterium courier on this date that operations would continue through the authorized period regardless of the pending deposition.” He held Hask’s eyes. “That addendum goes to Caine today, ahead of any response to the primary file.”

“That changes nothing about the timeline,” Hask said.

“It changes the record,” Breck said. “The timeline’s the timeline. The record’s something I can actually affect, which makes it the useful move.” He pocketed the dispatch sheet. “Tell Garrow the deposition covers the directive his site manager issued to the eastern crew supervisors three weeks ago under an alternative site designation that doesn’t match any permit in his charter. Garrow may want to have a conversation with someone about that before Caine’s first response arrives.”

Something moved in Hask’s face that was not the professional calibration he’d walked in with. The directive. He hadn’t known Breck had the directive. That was visible, in the small and controlled way of a man who’d made a career of not showing things and was showing something now despite himself — not panic, but the particular internal reckoning of someone who’d just discovered that the shape of a situation he thought he understood was considerably different from what he’d been working with.

He left without another word, and took his six men back down the path with him, and Breck stood at the terrace edge and watched them go with the doubt still present, still fully acknowledged, still accurately describing a real constraint on everything he was trying to do. The timeline was what it was. The machinery was what it was. He couldn’t make Caine respond faster, couldn’t extend Frostpeak’s weeks, couldn’t change the distance between where the case file was and where it needed to be.

What he could do was be less wrong, every day, about the things within his actual reach. He could document. He could witness. He could make the record as complete and as hard to argue with as a human being with a pencil and a dispatch sheet could make it.

Behind him, Bren had come to stand at the terrace edge without Breck having heard him arrive. He had Breck’s way, the boy did, of being present in a space without announcing it — the quiet of someone who’d spent his whole life listening rather than filling silence.

“What did he want,” Bren asked.

“To give me something true to worry about,” Breck said. “And I do. And I’m not going to stop.”

Bren was quiet a moment. “Is that the same as being okay?”

Breck thought about that more carefully than the boy might have expected. “It’s the closest thing I have to it,” he said. “Most days it’s enough.”

← Chapter Fourteen: What He Used to Run From | Chapter Sixteen →

BRECK: Stone’s Rest is a serialized noble dark fantasy story by Chadwick Rye — Book Three of the BRECK series, crossing from Lumenvale into Nomados. Chapter 15 of 20. New chapters post daily.

✦ Enjoyed this chapter? “What the Doubt Is For” continues Book Three of the BRECK series — a foreman who says nothing untrue, a man who knows better than to pretend the worry is wrong, and the only method for negative thoughts that’s ever actually held. Browse the full series, follow for daily chapters, or share this with a reader who’s learned that acknowledging the fear and stopping are not the same move.

#books #BRECKSeries #ChadwickRye #Chapter15 #dailyprompt #dailyprompt2809 #DarkFantasy #fantasy #FantasyFiction #FantasyNovel #FantasySeries #fiction #Frostpeak #negativeThoughts #nobleDarkFantasy #serializedFantasy #serializedFiction #shortStory #stoicFantasy #StoneSRest #writing

#books #breckseries #chadwickrye #chapter15 #dailyprompt #dailyprompt2809

Chadwick Rye @[email protected] · 2026-06-26 · 11:04 UTC

BRECK: Stone’s Rest — Chapter Ten The Story That Made Us Careful

Daily writing prompt What’s a piece of media (book, movie, song) that changed how you see the world? View all responses

BRECK: Stone’s Rest — Chapter Ten

The Story That Made Us Careful

This is Chapter 10 of BRECK: Stone’s Rest, Book Three of the BRECK series — a serialized noble dark fantasy story by Chadwick Rye. New chapters post daily.

The Story So Far

Three days in Garrow’s records found the actual problem — not the trench, but page forty-seven of the original charter, where “affected parties” was defined using a template that never knew the mountains existed. The trench is fixable. The definition is a different problem. Breck needs Mira to start building Frostpeak’s testimony into something a Lumenvale proceeding can receive. He needs the Council to hold long enough to let him try.

← Chapter Nine: The Ending No One Wrote | Chapter Eleven →

Chapter Ten: The Story That Made Us Careful

This chapter asks what changed how a person sees the world — and answers with a story that isn’t a book, but carries more weight than most books ever will.

Mira agreed to the translation work without much discussion, which told Breck she’d already been thinking about it before he asked, possibly since the chamber session, possibly longer. She laid out, with the same flat diagnostic clarity she brought to everything, what it would require and what it might cost.

“Frostpeak’s account can be rendered in a form that’s legible outside Nomados,” she said. “What I carry out of communion with her is specific enough — dates as she experiences them, locations, the progression of what she’s felt in the deep stone over the six years of the concession. I can render that into chronicle form. What I can’t guarantee is that a Lumenvale court will credit the source once they understand what it is.”

“That’s a problem for Caine’s office to solve,” Breck said. “Your job is to make the testimony. His office’s job is to argue it has standing.”

“You trust him to do that.”

“I trust him to try it. That’s all I can ask of anyone in this.”

He left her to begin and was crossing back toward the lift with Jenna when the runner found him — a girl of about twelve, Forge Clan markings on her collar, with the look of someone who’d been told to deliver a message quickly and had taken the instruction seriously. Elder Tomson’s compliments. He had something to say and would appreciate Breck coming to say it where only the two of them would hear it.

The quarters Tomson kept on Grandfather Ironheart’s lower terrace during the convergence extension were smaller than Breck expected for an elder of his standing — plain-furnished, working-warm, the walls hung with tools rather than decorations. Tomson himself stood at the window when Breck arrived, not looking out of it so much as using it to avoid the room, the way people use windows when they’ve decided to say something they haven’t fully decided they want said yet.

“I’m not your enemy,” Tomson said, without turning around.

“I know that.”

“I want to be clear about it, because I’ve been told I read as one.” He turned then, and looked at Breck the way men who’ve spent a long time in difficult work look at the people they have to trust whether they want to or not. “Daveron granted you standing. I didn’t argue against it once the vote was clear and I’m not arguing against it now. But I want you to understand something before this goes much further, and I want to say it where nobody’s deciding whether to look encouraged or worried by it.”

“I’m listening.”

Tomson moved to the table, sat heavily. “Three generations ago, when my grandfather’s grandfather held this elder seat, there were ground-dwellers who came here with a survey contract and letters from their own government expressing genuine concern about the Peak-rider clans and what they needed. The survey was honest. The letters were sincere. The men who carried them weren’t lying about their intentions.” He looked at the surface of the table as he said it, the look of a man reciting something he learned before he learned to doubt it. “They went back home. The letters made it into their own government’s records as evidence of goodwill and diplomatic engagement. The survey became the basis for a land-use agreement that granted ground-dweller caravans rights to the Shifting Plains corridor and gave the clans nothing in return, because the clans had already demonstrated, by allowing the survey, that the corridor was accessible, which meant it didn’t need to be purchased. The men who came weren’t malicious. They were simply working within a framework that always found a way to give them what they came for.” He looked up. “We tell that story in the Forge Clan the way other clans tell weather wisdom. Not as a warning against outsiders. As a caution against mistaking goodwill for outcome.”

Breck let it sit a moment. “That’s the right story to tell,” he said.

Tomson’s eyes sharpened slightly. He’d expected argument, clearly. “You don’t disagree.”

“Good intentions carried through a framework that doesn’t account for everyone in the room aren’t worth more than the paper they’re written on. I’ve spent three years watching people get hurt by things that were never designed to hurt them. The design is almost worse than malice would be, because at least malice understands what it’s doing.” He folded his hands, let Tomson take his time with the response. “I’m not asking you to trust me. I’m asking you to let me try to change the page the story keeps ending on. If it doesn’t work, you’ll have lost nothing you hadn’t already lost.”

“And if it works,” Tomson said slowly, “we’ll have let another ground-dweller come and go with something we gave him that we can’t take back.”

“Yes,” Breck said. “A ruling. That your peaks have standing. That harm done to them is harm the law is obligated to answer for.” He held Tomson’s eyes. “That’s the thing I’d be taking. If that costs you something, I want you telling me now how it costs you, because I’d rather know.”

Tomson stared at him for a long while, in the particular silence of a man stress-testing a structure he’d been expecting to find hollow. “If you fail,” he said, finally, “we’ve allowed ourselves to be documented as the party that participated in a Lumenvale process that considered the question and declined to grant us standing. That documentation can be used in future proceedings as settled precedent against us.” He said it carefully, the way a man who’s spent a lifetime reading the fine print says things. “That’s what failed petitions have given us before. I am not willing to go into another failed process blind.”

“You’re right to name that,” Breck said. “Caine’s referral isn’t a petition. It’s a case with a specific charter violation in evidence. A failed petition asks for something. A failed case, argued on the basis of documented harm, is harder to use as precedent against the party that was harmed. The question wouldn’t be whether you have standing — it would be whether this specific harm constituted harm under the existing framework. Those are different failure modes.” He paused. “But you should have a lawyer review that distinction before you tell Daveron to let me proceed. I’m a courier, not a lawyer. I believe what I just told you, and I might be wrong about the fine print.”

Something in Tomson’s expression shifted — not warmly, but honestly, the shift of a man adjusting a calibration. “You just told me you might be wrong.”

“I might be wrong about the fine print. I’m not wrong about the trench, or page forty-seven, or what Mira felt in that chamber, or what Bren read on Grandfather Ironheart’s crown.” He stood. “I’ll leave you to decide what weight to give the first of those against the rest.”

He was halfway down the switchback path from Ironheart’s lower terrace, Jenna a quiet three steps behind him, when he saw the man.

Ground-dweller, camp-worker’s clothes, standing at the junction where the switchback met the main path in the casual, unconvincing way of a man pretending to rest who hadn’t been walking hard enough to need rest. Broad through the chest, a foreman’s leather kit on his belt rather than a laborer’s. He wasn’t looking at Breck. He was very carefully not looking at Breck, which was its own kind of looking.

Breck kept his pace even, didn’t slow, didn’t glance back, and noted the exact location and the quality of the not-looking the way he noted everything that arrived sideways — without urgency, without reaction, simply filed.

“Who’s Garrow’s site manager,” he said to Jenna, quietly, once they were past.

“Hask,” Jenna said, equally quietly. “I don’t know him by sight.”

“I think I might,” Breck said, and said nothing else about it for the rest of the walk down.

He thought, going over the day’s material as he walked, about what Tomson’s story had done to the Forge Clan’s worldview, and about the question the day had put in front of it — what changed how a person sees the world. Not a book. Not a song. A thing told around fires in the Forge Clan’s particular keeping, a real event rendered into repeatable form because the real event had been too instructive to let rest in private memory. That was what certain stories did, the ones that mattered most — not entertain, not illuminate in the comfortable way of fiction that left you set down the same person who’d picked it up. The ones that mattered rewired the seeing itself. The Forge Clan looked at surveyors and letters of goodwill and saw, underneath them, the shape of the framework those things always served, because three generations ago the story had been lived first and told after, and the telling had made the pattern visible to people who’d never lived the original.

Breck thought about what story the mountains’ clans would tell three generations from now about this season, about these weeks of convergence and records and a courier from Lumenvale who’d turned up with a referral and a pencil. He thought about the two versions of that story — the one where the framework changed, even partially, even imperfectly — and the one where it didn’t.

He very much wanted the telling to land on the first.

He’d have to earn that, though, and the man at the junction who’d been so carefully not watching him suggested, with a clarity Breck trusted more than most things he could have been told directly, that whatever time he had left to earn it had just gotten shorter.

← Chapter Nine: The Ending No One Wrote | Chapter Eleven →

BRECK: Stone’s Rest is a serialized noble dark fantasy story by Chadwick Rye — Book Three of the BRECK series, crossing from Lumenvale into Nomados. Chapter 10 of 20. New chapters post daily.

✦ Enjoyed this chapter? “The Story That Made Us Careful” continues Book Three of the BRECK series — a skeptic’s honest warning, a foreman who’s started watching, and the question of which version of a story the clans will be telling three generations from now. Browse the full series, follow for daily chapters, or share this with a reader who knows that the stories we tell to survive are the ones that change us most.

#adventure #books #Breck #BRECKColdHarbor #BRECKDeadDelivery #BRECKSeries #BRECKStoneSRest #ChadwickRye #ChadwickRyeAuthor #characterDrivenFantasy #courier #dailyFantasyChapters #dailyprompt #dailyprompt2804 #DarkFantasy #darkFantasySeries #EpicFantasy #fantasy #FantasyConflict #fantasyCourierStory #FantasyFiction #FantasyNovel #FantasyPolitics #FantasyProtagonist #FantasySeries #fantasyWithMoralComplexity #fiction #Frostpeak #GRimdark #HighFantasy #legalFantasy #lowFantasy #Lumenvale #moralFantasy #nobleDarkFantasy #Nomados #onlineFiction #politicalFiction #readFantasyOnline #reading #sentientMountains #sentientWorldFantasy #serializedBook #serializedFantasy #serializedFantasyFiction #serializedFiction #shortStory #StoneSRest #storyteller #Storytelling #veteranCourierFantasy #webSerial #writing

#adventure #books #breck #breckcoldharbor #breckdeaddelivery #breckseries

N-gated Hacker News @[email protected] · 2026-06-15 · 10:46 UTC

Ben Thompson's latest 🥱 masterpiece is a rambling ode to Anthropic's so-called "safety superpower," which reads more like a 🧙‍♂️ fantasy novel than tech analysis. The only thing it has in common with Apple is the bloated self-importance and endless droning about guardrails. ⚠️💤
https://stratechery.com/2026/anthropics-safety-superpower/ #BenThompson #Anthropic #SafetySuperpower #TechAnalysis #FantasyNovel #AppleGuardrails #HackerNews #ngated

#benthompson #anthropic #safetysuperpower #techanalysis #fantasynovel #appleguardrails

anna-stephens.com @[email protected] · 2026-05-27 · 14:28 UTC

New Horizons

There has been A LOT going on in the background over the last two years.

The Dark Feather, book 3 of Songs of the Drowned, came out in March 2024 and the paperback in February 2025. I have, of course, been writing ever since, and I’m hoping that the as-yet-unannounced Exciting Project With New Publisher will in fact be soon-to-be-announced.

But before that announcement, there is this announcement:

I’m taking a dive into the world of self-publishing.

Due to the timing of the Thing We Cannot Yet Talk About, there was a good chance that if I went the traditional route with this one, it would clash with that one, so to avoid that, and because I’ve been curious about the self-publishing route for a while and I know a lot of authors who very successfully juggle trad and indie publishing, I thought I’d give it a go. It was that or sit on this one for who knows how long while I fulfilled contract obligations on New Secret Thing.

This new story is also a departure for me in terms of sub-genre. It’s very much still fantasy – hopefully, the presence of dragons in the moodboard below makes that clear – but it’s also … got lots of romance. It is not quite a romantasy, because the worldbuilding/world/events take equal billing with the romance, but it is very much a love story. A fantasy romance.

Le Vibes

So, what exactly is it all about? Don’t worry, I have a whole blurb right here:

The Sport of Wings follows the struggles and triumphs of Ogawa Ryota, disgraced son of the famous Scarlet Triple dragon-racing stable, and Keaton Merriwether, petty criminal and illegal night-race jockey.
The pair are thrown together in a risky venture, setting up a tiny, ramshackle stable to take on the sport’s greatest dragons and wealthiest owners. Over the course of their first season, they must navigate many challenges, from an untrusting, traumatised young dragon in need of love and training, to vengeful rivals and a disbelieving sporting press.
Through it all, and despite both good sense and contractual obligations, Ryota’s and Keaton’s feelings for each other at first interfere and then bolster their partnership. But can love survive the rigours of being the smallest outfit on the racing circuit, when both Ryota’s family and his ex are out for revenge?
Perfect for fans of the crossover point between sports romance and epic fantasy, The Sport of Wings is an adrenaline-fueled fantasy romance packed with yearning, misunderstandings, and zero fade to black.

If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, they stay tuned here, or sign up to my newsletter/social media. I’m excited and not a little nervous about the process and getting it right, but I’m going to be sharing more over the next few months, both about my self-publishing journey, and the characters and world.

I’ve already got the excellent Ed Crocker lined up as my editor, and you should also check out his Everlands trilogy – Lightfall and Moonfall are both now published. Once the edit’s done, I’ll be looking for ARC reviewers, so shout out early if you’re interested.

I’m sorting out the cover art as we speak, and frantically doing all I can to educate myself on the art of self-publishing.

One thing’s for sure, though: it’s going to be exciting.

#bookReview #books #dragons #fantasy #fantasyNovel #fantasyRomance #publishing #romance #romantasy #selfPublishing #Writing

#bookreview #books #dragons #fantasy #fantasynovel #fantasyromance

A BRUNETTE'S REFLECTION @[email protected] · 2026-05-16 · 02:37 UTC

Tanoria Time Jumper

#AmQuerying #MSWL #WritingCommunity #EpicFantasy #TimeTravelFantasy #FantasyWriting

Chapter One

**The caged village of the Celestari sits on the top of a massive tower centered in the Great Lake**

Through the thinning line of trees, a long yellow coat brushed the branches like a streak of sunlight. The forest near the village border had always seemed stranger than the rest, the trunks of the trees packed close together like tall guards keeping the worst of the wind from barging in. Rain had battered the village for days, hard enough to turn every path to brown soup, but the wind that followed had been fiercer still, scouring the ground and now cracked beneath Tia’s boots and stirred dust.

Sharp cracks of wooden swords striking one another snapped her out of her focus. She slowed, slipping between two narrow trunks until the clearing opened before her. A group of boys and girls were grouped in the open space in a pretend battle. They stood scattered across the dry ground, brandishing wooden swords as if the fate of Tanoria was left up to them. Dust puffed around them. One boy had a leaf stuck in his hair and appeared far too proud of it.

“One more strike and you’re finished!” a boy shouted with a lisp, lunging forward with all the confidence of a seasoned warrior and none of the skill.

Another girl ducked, spinning away with a grin. “You missed. Again!”

Tia folded her arms, watching for a moment as they clashed and stumbled over one another, their boots kicking up dust from the dry ground.

“Finished?” She asked and then teased, “that was terrifying. I’m sure every dragon in Tanoria is trembling.” She picked up a fake sword and crouched down swinging her sword in a wide circle and said, “You wouldn’t last five seconds if a real fight finds you out here.”

A few of them turned slowly, their expressions shifting from excitement to something closer to guilt. One of the younger boys lowered his stick, though he didn’t drop it completely. A few lowered their wooden swords, others tried to hide them behind their backs, which might have worked better if the swords had not been longer than their legs.

“We’re practicing,” he said, lifting his chin.

“Practicing what?” Tia asked, stepping into the clearing. “How to get bruises and how to get lost?”

A few snickers slipped through the group.

“It’s not that far,” A girl with tangled braids wrinkled her nose, pointing vaguely toward the trees to the village.

Tia glanced past them, to the barely visible line where the trees thinned.

“It’s far enough,” she said. “You know better than to be this close to the border of the cage.”

The youngest among them shifted from foot to foot. “We didn’t go past all the trees.”

“Not yet,” Tia replied. As if the cage itself had been listening, the wind stirred. A faint metallic hum trembled through the bars circling the village.

The children’s eyes widened and some of the younger ones stepped closer to the older kids.

The sound they heard was a sound that carried through the village several times a day, but here in the fading light, in the trees, the sound stirred a discord within each of the children. It made the smallest children edge toward the older ones; wooden swords clutched to their chests.

Tia stepped closer to the group, lowering her voice just enough to sound eerie, “When the light fades, things move differently out here. Sensible warriors would not want to stay and find out what those things are.”

One of the older boys glanced toward the sky through a section of the bars of the cage and said, “I think you are wrong, warriors would stay and find out. We still have time.”

Tia followed his gaze beyond the black lace of branches. The light was already thinning, the first hint of the five moons began to rise.

“Not as much time as you think,” Tia said in a whisper. Any bravado that had remained on their faces faded fast.

Finally, a girl let out a breath and nudged one of the boys with her stick. “Come on. Before she drags us back herself.”

“I would,” Tia said, earning her a few reluctant smiles.

As they began gathering themselves, one of the younger boys lingered, looking up at her coat. “If it’s scary out here, why are you wearing such a bright coat?”

Tia glanced down at the yellow fabric, brushing a bit of dust from the sleeve.

“So, I can be found,” she answered.

His forehead wrinkled but the others were already calling, so he hurried after them. They started back toward the village in a messy cluster of chatter, wooden swords and dusty boots.

“Hey,” Tia called after them. When you get back,” she said nodding toward the center of the village, “look up to the top of the cage.”

“Why?” a boy asked.

The corner of her mouth twitched, “I’ll be waving.”

A few of them brightened at that, running ahead and their voices rising rowdily again.

Tia watched until they disappeared through the trees, the quiet settling back into place around her. She then turned her focus towards her original objective.

It did not take Tia long to reach the cage border, where the iron bars split the sky into narrow strips and the five moons gleamed beyond them. She pushed the thorny vines aside with the blade of her dagger and peered through the small tear of the cage. A cage that covered her entire village. A village that was perched atop a white marble tower. That tower jutted from the center of the Great Lake and had been there for two centuries. She had always known whoever had placed her people here had to be evil.

epic fantasy, time travel fantasy, fantasy novel, am querying, writing community, manuscript wish list,

#AmQuerying #MSWL #WritingCommunity #EpicFantasy #TimeTravelFantasy #FantasyWriting #SpeculativeFiction #AGENT

#AmQueryingMSWLWritingCommunityEpicFantasyTimeTravelFantasyFantasyWritingSpeculativeFictionAGENT #amQuerying #books #EpicFantasy #fantasy #fantasyNovel #fiction #manuscriptWishList #timeTravelFantasy #Writing #writingCommunity

#amqueryingmswlwritingcommunityepicfantasytimetravelfantasyfantasywritingspeculativefictionagent #amquerying #books #epicfantasy #fantasy #fantasynovel

Wakeless River Press @[email protected] · 2026-05-08 · 12:24 UTC

Silent Orchard Rising Storm is a story about the power of our intentions and how those intentions shape not only the way we see the world, but the way that the world sees us.
https://wakelessriverpress.com/silent-orchard/
#bookstodon #WritersOfMastodon #writing #SORS #KnowYourSlayBCs #EpicFantasy #FantasyNovel #Dragons #EpicAdventure #WritingCommunity

#bookstodon #writersofmastodon #writing #sors #knowyourslaybcs #epicfantasy

Wakeless River Press @[email protected] · 2026-03-18 · 21:30 UTC

Kadara is a patient warrior who knows that her greatest weapon can never be held in her hand.
https://books2read.com/b/bOgRpW
https://wakelessriverpress.com/silent-orchard/
#bookstodon #WritersOfMastodon #writing #SORS #KnowYourSlayBCs #EpicFantasy #FantasyNovel #Dragons #EpicAdventure #WritingCommunity

#bookstodon #writersofmastodon #writing #sors #knowyourslaybcs #epicfantasy

Wakeless River Press @[email protected] · 2026-03-17 · 11:35 UTC

It's finally here! Silent Orchard Rising Storm is now available from your favorite book retailer. Join Kadara at the start of her amazing journey in book 1 of Shadows Beneath the Wings.
https://books2read.com/b/bOgRpW
https://wakelessriverpress.com/silent-orchard/
#bookstodon #WritersOfMastodon #writing #SORS #KnowYourSlayBCs #EpicFantasy #FantasyNovel #Dragons #EpicAdventure #WritingCommunity

#bookstodon #writersofmastodon #writing #sors #knowyourslaybcs #epicfantasy

Wakeless River Press @[email protected] · 2026-03-09 · 13:37 UTC

Torn from her quiet retirement of apple trees and market stalls by an awakened amulet, Dragonslayer Kadara cuts her way across Aros to face its greatest threat: the truth.
#bookstodon #WritersOfMastodon #writing #SORS #KnowYourSlayBCs #EpicFantasy #FantasyNovel #Dragons #EpicAdventure #WritingCommunity

#bookstodon #writersofmastodon #writing #sors #knowyourslaybcs #epicfantasy

Wakeless River Press @[email protected] · 2026-02-28 · 18:22 UTC

The warning is for the dragons, but, really, there's a whole world inside that box. Paperbacks are being prepped and shipping soon. Order your copy today.
https://wakelessriverpress.com/silent-orchard/
https://books2read.com/b/bOgRpW
#bookstodon #WritersOfMastodon #writing #SORS #KnowYourSlayBCs #EpicFantasy #FantasyNovel #Dragons #EpicAdventure #WritingCommunity

#bookstodon #writersofmastodon #writing #sors #knowyourslaybcs #epicfantasy

Wakeless River Press @[email protected] · 2026-02-18 · 14:06 UTC

Join Kadara's journey on March 17th from your favorite retailer

https://books2read.com/u/bOgRpW

#bookstodon #WritersOfMastodon #writing #SORS #KnowYourSlayBCs #EpicFantasy #FantasyNovel #Dragons #EpicAdventure #WritingCommunity

#bookstodon #writersofmastodon #writing #sors #knowyourslaybcs #epicfantasy

Wakeless River Press @[email protected] · 2026-01-27 · 14:04 UTC

Silent Orchard Rising Storm - March 17th
#bookstodon #WritersOfMastodon #writing #SORS #KnowYourSlayBCs #EpicFantasy #FantasyNovel #Dragons #EpicAdventure #WritingCommunity

#bookstodon #writersofmastodon #writing #sors #knowyourslaybcs #epicfantasy

MisWiredKE @[email protected] · 2026-01-22 · 05:22 UTC

#PennedPossibilities 909 -What advice would your MC give to their younger self?

Roxane would tell herself that Olympos isn't worth falling in love with. He doesn't care about her, just her status as a potential daughter of Hades. Also her dad isn't as bad as she thought

#DivineWarsAwakening #FantasyNovel #WritingCommunity

#pennedpossibilities #divinewarsawakening #fantasynovel #writingcommunity

Wakeless River Press @[email protected] · 2026-01-20 · 12:57 UTC

Add a new treasure to your book hoard on March 17th.
Silent Orchard Rising Storm - Book 1 of the Shadows Beneath the Wings series.
#bookstodon #WritersOfMastodon #writing #SORS #KnowYourSlayBCs #EpicFantasy #FantasyNovel #Dragons #EpicAdventure #WritingCommunity

#bookstodon #writersofmastodon #writing #sors #knowyourslaybcs #epicfantasy

Wakeless River Press @[email protected] · 2026-01-05 · 12:58 UTC

When her mentor’s amulet calls her back to battle, former dragonslayer Kadara is swept into a brewing storm that pits kingdoms, wizards, and dragons against each other.
Request your review copy now on NetGalley.
https://www.netgalley.com/catalog/book/778758
#SilentOrchardRisingStorm #Netgalley
#bookstodon #WritersOfMastodon #writing #SORS #KnowYourSlayBCs #EpicFantasy #FantasyNovel #Dragons #EpicAdventure #WritingCommunity

#silentorchardrisingstorm #netgalley #bookstodon #writersofmastodon #writing #sors

Wakeless River Press @[email protected] · 2026-01-01 · 14:45 UTC

The ARC for Silent Orchard Rising Storm is available on NetGalley for the month of January.
Request your review copy here: https://www.netgalley.com/catalog/book/778758

#SilentOrchardRisingStorm #NetGalley #bookstodon #WritersOfMastodon #EpicFantasy #FantasyNovel #Dragons #EpicAdventure

#silentorchardrisingstorm #netgalley #bookstodon #writersofmastodon #epicfantasy #fantasynovel

Wakeless River Press @[email protected] · 2025-12-27 · 23:32 UTC

When the day fades and the sun finds cause to lay its head on the horizon, Kadara leaves the road and starts a fire beneath a large, wide-canopied tree.

https://www.wakelessriverpress.com/silent-orchard

#bookstodon #WritersOfMastodon #writing #SORS #KnowYourSlayBCs #EpicFantasy #FantasyNovel #Dragons #EpicAdventure #WritingCommunity

#bookstodon #writersofmastodon #writing #sors #knowyourslaybcs #epicfantasy

Wakeless River Press @[email protected] · 2025-12-23 · 21:00 UTC

The Land of Aros has a rich history painted in the ebbs and flows of the torrential passage of time. Learn more at https://wakelessriverpress.com/silent-orchard/
#bookstodon #WritersOfMastodon #writing #SORS #KnowYourSlayBCs #EpicFantasy #FantasyNovel #Dragons #EpicAdventure #WritingCommunity

#bookstodon #writersofmastodon #writing #sors #knowyourslaybcs #epicfantasy

Wakeless River Press @[email protected] · 2025-12-16 · 23:34 UTC

Discover Silent Orchard Rising Storm, a sweeping fantasy where fierce magic, mythic dragons, and found-family camaraderie collide. If you love strong female leads, epic battles, and the mystery of dragons, you won’t want to miss Kadara’s story. Coming March 17, 2026.
#bookstodon #WritersOfMastodon #writing #SORS #KnowYourSlayBCs #EpicFantasy #FantasyNovel #Dragons #EpicAdventure #WritingCommunity

#bookstodon #writersofmastodon #writing #sors #knowyourslaybcs #epicfantasy

Erik Buchanan who writes stuff @[email protected] · 2025-12-02 · 15:39 UTC

Tuesday, Mastodonians, the day where we say . . .

The Stalker Chronicles are out in paperback!

Currently only on Amazon, but working on Draft2Digital and as soon as they're there, I'll let you know.

A fine Christmas gift for the fantasy reader in your life!

#newbooktuesday #buymybook #fantasynovel

Wakeless River Press @[email protected] · 2025-12-02 · 13:38 UTC

Silent Orchard Rising Storm.
Procrastination Art.
Kadara, the amulet, the blue sky dragon, and the broken sword.

#bookstodon #WritersOfMastodon #writing #SORS #KnowYourSlayBCs #EpicFantasy #FantasyNovel #Dragons #EpicAdventure #WritingCommunity

Learn more at https://www.wakelessriverpress.com/silent-orchard

#bookstodon #writersofmastodon #writing #sors #knowyourslaybcs #epicfantasy

Wakeless River Press @[email protected] · 2025-11-06 · 17:00 UTC

“As long as songs have rung from Aros, they have been the songs of battle, and the songs of battle quicken the hearts of none more than the dragons.”
https://wakelessriverpress.com/silent-orchard/
#bookstodon #WritersOfMastodon #writing #SORS #KnowYourSlayBCs #EpicFantasy #FantasyNovel #Dragons #EpicAdventure #WritingCommunity

#bookstodon #writersofmastodon #writing #sors #knowyourslaybcs #epicfantasy

Wakeless River Press @[email protected] · 2025-11-03 · 14:18 UTC

Z is for Zenith, the apex, the crown. You cut off the head and the rest will fall down.
https://wakelessriverpress.com/silent-orchard/
#bookstodon #WritersOfMastodon #writing #writingcommunity #SORS #KnowYourSlayBCs #EpicFantasy #FantasyNovel #Dragons #EpicAdventure
#WritingCommunity

#bookstodon #writersofmastodon #writing #writingcommunity #sors #knowyourslaybcs

Wakeless River Press @[email protected] · 2025-10-27 · 13:18 UTC

Y is for Yearning, a hole in your heart. The grief never ends, but the healing must start.
https://wakelessriverpress.com/silent-orchard/
#bookstodon #WritersOfMastodon #writing #writingcommunity #SORS #KnowYourSlayBCs #EpicFantasy #FantasyNovel #Dragons #EpicAdventure
#WritingCommunity

#bookstodon #writersofmastodon #writing #writingcommunity #sors #knowyourslaybcs

Wakeless River Press @[email protected] · 2025-10-22 · 12:10 UTC

There are rules, even in Aros:

Kill outside of battle only in self-defense.
Infraction means death.
A sworn knight may cross borders only with permission.
Desertion means death.
A hedge knight must complete a signed contract.
Nonfulfillment means death.
A ruler’s word is law in all their kingdom.
Transgression means death.

www.wakelessriverpress.com/silent-orchard
#bookstodon #WritersOfMastodon #writing #SORS #KnowYourSlayBCs #EpicFantasy #FantasyNovel #Dragons #EpicAdventure #WritingCommunity

#bookstodon #writersofmastodon #writing #sors #knowyourslaybcs #epicfantasy