Dark Fantasy LARCOUT: On Sale for A Limited Time!

 This Week's Topic: Promote My Work!

This week, my dark fantasy LARCOUT is on sale for $0.99 in eBook format. The sale ends Monday, May 6th. If you haven't picked up my story of a rock-eating, parasite-wielding, fire-warrior trapped in a nation of corrupt magicians now's your chance!

LARCOUT
Fire Born, Blood Blessed: Book 1

Blood-beings can be chattel or char.

Fire seethes through the veins of every Morsam, demanding domination and destruction. Combat is a hobby. Slaughtering the inferior blood-beings is entertainment. Life is a repetitious cycle in the prison fashioned by the gods. But mix-race abomination Vadrigyn os Harlo suspects the key to freedom lies in safeguarding the blood-beings; until her blood-born mother uses foreign magic to turn the Morsam against her. Betrayed, bound, and broken, Vadrigyn struggles against the dying of her essential fire. Yet the ebbing flames unleash the dormant magic of her mixed heritage…

The magic to destroy free will.

Seized by the gods and dumped in the desert nation of Larcout to stop history from repeating, Vadrigyn discovers her mother’s legacy of treason and slaughter still festers. To survive the intrigues of the royal court, the roiling undercurrents of civil war, and the gods themselves, Vadrigyn must unravel the conspiracy behind her mother’s banishment. But manipulating free will unleashes a torrent of consequences.

If she fails the gods, she will return to the Morsam prison, stripped of all magic and all hope.

If she succeeds, she can rule a nation.

Kasthu. Roborgu. Inarchma.

Live. Learn. Burn.

BUY IT NOW: Amazon | Kobo | iBooks | Other Leading Retailers

Favorite Hero/Heroine Part 2!

I agree with KAK, this week’s topic is too close to asking ‘what’s your favorite book’ to which the answer always takes at minimum 15 min to talk about my top ten faves. We’re supposed to talk about who is my favorite fictional hero, that’s not one I wrote, and why.

In January we picked our favorite heroines we didn’t write…but I picked a favorite hero/heroine which ended up being Kvothe from Name the Wind. So I guess I’ll do the same thing, be contradictory to the topic, and pick another favorite hero/heroine…ugh, this is so hard!

Violet.

Violet from Violet Made of Thorns by Gina Chen was the most recent hero/heroine that really gave me pause. Violet is the savior of her country, gifted with the ability to glimpse the future she is plucked from the slums and provides prophecies directly to the king. Except, her moral compass is kinked at an early age and Violet is never the same after that. She is at odds with the crown prince and activates a curse that ensnares them both. 

What I loved about Violet was that she wasn’t the antagonist, there’s a greater evil out there, but she’s also not the shining heroine who will triumph over all to save the day. She is clever. And she has crazy ideas. you should definitely check out her story if you’re in the mood for a morally gray fantasy character. 

Violet Made of Thorns

by Gina Chen

Violet is a prophet and a liar, influencing the royal court with her cleverly phrased—and not always true—divinations. Honesty is for suckers, like the oh-so-not charming Prince Cyrus, who plans to strip Violet of her official role once he’s crowned at the end of the summer—unless Violet does something about it.

But when the king asks her to falsely prophesy Cyrus’s love story for an upcoming ball, Violet awakens a dreaded curse, one that will end in either damnation or salvation for the kingdom—all depending on the prince’s choice of future bride. Violet faces her own choice: Seize an opportunity to gain control of her own destiny, no matter the cost, or give in to the ill-fated attraction that’s growing between her and Cyrus.

Violet’s wits may protect her in the cutthroat court, but they can’t change her fate. And as the boundary between hatred and love grows ever thinner with the prince, Violet must untangle a wicked web of deceit in order to save herself and the kingdom—or doom them all.

Writing What I Read

This week at the SFF Seven, we're asking: "Do you read in the genre you write?"

What's funny is that my answer is absolutely yes - but that I didn't always write in the genre I read. Does that make sense?

I have always read Fantasy and Science Fiction, since I was a little kid, and I've been reading Romance since I was old enough to walk to the used bookstore to buy my own books, as my mom wouldn't let me read "that trash." (Because she thought Romance was low-brow and anti-feminist, not because of the sex.) But when I started out as a writer, I wrote Creative Nonfiction.

Some of this was timing and coincidence. When I decided I wanted to be a writer instead of a scientist, one of the first classes I took was "Essays on Self and Place," from a visiting writer at the university. I fell easily into writing essays and had success with them. My first book was an essay collection. And, sure, I read some essays. I read a lot of essay collections and memoir. But I was always reading them as research and reciprocity.

All that time, what I read for pure enjoyment? Anything with a paranormal/SFF element and plenty of Romance.

It was only after my first book came out that a friend - a bookseller who knew my tastes and sold me hardcover releases of JD Robb, Laurell K. Hamilton, Stephenie Meyer, and Jaqueline Carey - asked me why I wasn't writing in the genres I so clearly loved to read.

Funny that. It simply hadn't occurred to me. But then I started to, I wrote this Fantasy Romance* (not a genre then, but what did I know??) that was SO MUCH FREAKING FUN TO WRITE. I couldn't believe how much more fun I had writing my crazy tale about a scientist who falls into Faerie, becomes a sorceress, and ends up in a bargain with a fae lord to bear his child. I even got a really nice rejection on the book from Stephenie Meyer's agent! (Though it took a long time for me to sell it, which is another tale.)

The rest is history. ~ Waves at catalogue of Epic Fantasy Romances ~ I haven't looked back. Writing what I love to read has absolutely been a great decision.

*The book that became ROGUE'S PAWN

 

Who Reads Me

I've gone and done it again - forgotten what day it is, what my name is, all the things. New day job started on Monday and the transition has been -- transitiony. Apparently, I don't handle that as well as I'd like to. So once again, my apology. Technically, in my time zone is still Friday. Barely. So let's go. 

What's my demographic.

SFR has a small but dedicated audience. It's a rare reader who wants me to get scifi in their romance and romance in their scifi, but like Reese's Peanut butter Cups, the two things are better together. When I contemplate where to find readers, I start with the obvious: I market to readers of other SFR writers and SF writers who write with romantic elements. Cant I say that the great bulk of my readers identify as female? Yes. But in no way do I want to say that's who my books are for - that's not for me to decide. I will claim gamers as potential audience but only RPG gamers and probably only RPG gamers who identify as female who are between 20 and dead. When I'm buying ads, I'll probably split my audience by age and do A/B testing to see what kind of click through I get from each so I can then laser in my targeting.

The great thing about science fiction and fantasy readers is that most of us will cross the streams. We usually read both. So while I might focus most of my advertising efforts on self-identified scifi readers, I won't hesitate to enter fantasy spaces in a limited way to do a little cross pollenization. I'm not spending money on ads at the moment. As I finish up a WIP, I begin working my author FB page and Instagram page and Tik Tok (if I'm going to commit to doing that) to develop engagement. No selling. Just engagement. Generate page views. Generate interaction. Start conversation if I can. That way, when I finish a book and begin promoting, my ad buys will be served to people who have already seen, heard, chatted with me. If I want to tap a PNR or fantasy audience, I tap the author coop I belong to. Newsletter swaps, blog swaps - there are plenty of options that aren't going to chew up a lot of money. 

It's not a great marketing plan yet. In part because I don't have production nailed down yet. I need something flexible but scalable over the long haul. I do still firmly believe that the best advertisement for your current book is your next book. But a plan for helping people find your books is a good and necessary thing.

Fantasy Genres - the Creepier, the Better

This is going to read rough. I'm coming down off a weird viral thing (not Covid, believe me, I tested more than once) that had me asleep for 36 hours straight. Today is the first day I've been upright without tipping over. No warranty express or implied, I'm afraid. I have the mental acuity of a lettuce.

Genre Love

How am I supposed to pick my favorite fantasy genres? I like them all. I grew up consuming mostly epic, other worldly fantasy. You know the kind. Knights, horses, swords, vast spooky forests to cross before the evil on the other side can be conquered. Sprinkled into that were the contemporary world colliding with inexplicable bits of magic. These were usually YA books.

Interestingly, there was no urban fantasy when I was reading in my youth. If a fictional world spoke of the future near or far at all, it was in terms of science. I don't know where the switch in the zeitgeist came about but I know that urban fantasy hit my radar while I was still in high school in the early 80s. Charles de Lint introduced me to the bare edges of the urban fantasy map. Then through an odd confluence of events, strange brain chemistry, and neurodivergence, I slid from my intended life path into working in technology. And I slid more firmly across the threshold into urban fantasy.

I don't know what it is about those of us who were born into a world well before personal computers and cells phones. I find a startling number of us still harbor this sneaking suspicion that our world is held aloft by  tenuous threads woven by a cabal of technowizards somewhere. More than half of us admit to talking to our technology - and I don't mean Siri. We speak to our machines as if they held some sentience. Some of us of pagan persuasion insist that all objects, animate or inanimate, contain a kind of spirit even if we wouldn't entirely call it a soul. I say this not so much so you can worry after my sanity (far too late, y'all) as to say that perhaps you can see how the world of technology melded with the fantasy world of curious magics and curiouser sprites, Fae, and spirits.

Urban fantasy seems to happen at the point where humanity risks being subsumed by everything humanity has wrought - whether it's technology or an unfeeling city that's threatening to swallow up the main character. Magic in an urban fantasy context seems to either act as a flicker of hope, or yet another dehumanizing obstacle to be overcome. I think, though, that I like urban fantasy for the experience of marking out the people who can see what lies underneath and those who can only see what's presented on the surface. There's a story Charles de Lint did called Crow Girls. One of his characters can see the young human sisters in the crows who come to the yard every day. Everyone else just sees ragged crows. Eventually, the girls shapeshift for the POV character and everyone helps solve everyone else's issues where they can. There's a story about perception being told there and it feels familiar to me.

Not to mention that I get the chance to play with creepy imagery. I might not have the chops for horror and that's fine. But I do love a good skin crawling creep out and it's in fantasy - especially urban fantasy - that I get the chance to play with giving myself the heebie jeebies.

A Fantasy Book Rec: A Psalm of Storms and Silence!

 

This week’s topic is one of my favorites: Book Recommendations!!! 

As I’ve mentioned before, I love suggesting books and the book cover above is one that is waiting on my nightstand because book one was such a fantastic fantasy ride. And, the covers are absolutely gorgeous.

If you enjoy fantasy with strong characters and a dash of mythology and romance, you should check this series out!

A Psalm of Storms and Silence

A Song of Wraiths and Ruin #2

Karina lost everything after a violent coup left her without her kingdom or her throne. Now the most wanted person in Sonande, her only hope of reclaiming what is rightfully hers lies in a divine power hidden in the long-lost city of her ancestors.

Meanwhile, the resurrection of Karina’s sister has spiraled the world into chaos, with disaster after disaster threatening the hard-won peace Malik has found as Farid’s apprentice. When they discover that Karina herself is the key to restoring balance, Malik must use his magic to lure her back to their side. But how do you regain the trust of someone you once tried to kill?

As the fabric holding Sonande together begins to tear, Malik and Karina once again find themselves torn between their duties and their desires. And when the fate of everything hangs on a single, horrifying choice, they each must decide what they value most—a power that could transform the world, or a love that could transform their lives.

Bookshop | B&N | Goodreads

If you haven’t had the chance to check out book one, the blurb is:

A Song of Wraiths and Ruin

For Malik, the Solstasia festival is a chance to escape his war-stricken home and start a new life with his sisters in the prosperous desert city of Ziran. But when a vengeful spirit abducts Malik’s younger sister, Nadia, as payment into the city, Malik strikes a fatal deal—kill Karina, Crown Princess of Ziran, for Nadia’s freedom.

But Karina has deadly aspirations of her own. Her mother, the Sultana, has been assassinated; her court threatens mutiny; and Solstasia looms like a knife over her neck. Grief-stricken, Karina decides to resurrect her mother through ancient magic . . . requiring the beating heart of a king. And she knows just how to obtain one: by offering her hand in marriage to the victor of the Solstasia competition.

When Malik rigs his way into the contest, they are set on a course to destroy each other. But as attraction flares between them and ancient evils stir, will they be able to see their tasks to the death?

The first in an fantasy duology inspired by West African folklore in which a grieving crown princess and a desperate refugee find themselves on a collision course to murder each other despite their growing attraction.

Bookshop | B&N | Goodreads

You can find Roseanne online here.

If you haven't checked out this series yet, I hope you do! Happy reading!

Death Matters

 

This week's topic is: The Necessity of Death: Do you have to kill characters for there to be enough risk? What other threats work better/just as effectively?

First, let me say that I don't preach many rules in fiction. I think writers should hone their craft (meaning you should know how to wield your writerly tools such as grammar, structure, concept, etc., and everything should be done on purpose, down to word choice). But everything else? The cans/cannots? I don't go there because a deft writer can make something that's been labeled a no-no a work of art. It doesn't necessarily mean everyone will like it, but it also doesn't mean you can't do it. I have three beautiful doggies, and I can invariably say that I don't want to read or watch anything about dog death. And yet I watched a movie where a puppy's death in the first ten minutes motivated the main character to hunt down his enemy, and I cheered for him all the while. 

Why? Because that death mattered. This is really the only rule I'll preach on this topic. I think I've said before on this blog that it's good to make things personal, and death as a motivator is as personal as it gets. The threat of death makes characters act, as can a death itself. It can send a whole series of events into motion because, ultimately, most of us want to live, and we want those we love to live. We want innocents to live. Having that desire/need tested shows us what our characters are made of. It shows their mettle and morals, how much they'll bend those morals to get revenge or set things to rights. It shows us their determination, mental state, grit, and their inner landscape of turmoil, regrets, and hopes. Death is so deeply felt, and as long as it resonates within your character/s, I like to think that, chances are, it isn't a wasted moment on the page.

But are there other options for risk/stakes? Of course. A gazillion. Threaten someone's freedom and see what they do. Threaten to take their memory. The sight or hands or... the creativity of an artist. The voice of someone whose voice is everything. Destroy the only possible route out of a dystopic city where a character, alone, is trapped. Give them plenty of food. They can live. But there's no one else left. They're faced with a very desolate future.

All sorts of things can be used to drive and test our characters. Death is only one choice. But if it matters to the writer, chances are it will filter into their writing and hopefully matter to the reader. 

_______________________

Have you added The Witch Collector to your Goodreads lists? The Witch Collector is book one in Charissa's The Witch Walker Trilogy, coming 11.02.2021. Check it out!

Plot Bunny Mob

Plot bunnies are everywhere. In everything. In everyone. In snippets of conversations overheard in what passes for public these days. There's no need to hunt them. If you're open to them, you'll stumble over them at every turn. A little like tripping over a cat who wants to be fed.

Plot bunnies carry no malice as far as I can tell. Might they be distractions wrought by a brain desperate for a bit of cognitive conservation of resources? Sure. Human brains consume a crazy high percentage of the daily calories we consume. We're designed to want to shirk heavy mental loads. So along come plot bunnies to tempt us to follow them into the weeds in a day-dreamy daze. They could also just be the delight of human brains that are designed to take a bunch of disparate data bits and combine them into new and interesting patterns.

I can't say I notice that plot bunnies strike more often while I'm supposed to be working on something else. In fact, quite the contrary. For me they mob me when I'm already doing something else - something like taking a walk, washing dishes, vacuuming the floor - anything physical that requires low cognitive input. Ideas come gamboling out of nowhere. So it pays to have a strategy for handling them. Otherwise, you end up starting twenty bijillionty things and finishing exactly zero. Don't ask how I know this.

I pat my plot bunnies on their furry little heads, smile, and say, "It takes a number, and it stands in line." The idea gets jotted down in barest form - a few sentences - just enough to spark the idea back into life at a later time. The file gets a name and gets remanded to a folder with the imaginative name of "Story Ideas." 

Have I ever mined that folder? Indeed, I have. The Nightmare Ink books were an idea languishing in "Story Ideas" folder when I hauled it out and got to serious work on it. The books and the original plot bunny bear only the slightest resemblance to one another. When a bunny graduates from the "Story Idea" folder, it gets a name of its own that serves as the working title for whatever it's going to become. 

It means I have plot bunnies in various stages of metamorphosis. Some are still itty-bitty things nibbling grass. Others have turned into the Vorpal Bunny of Antioch. They've got these big teeth. I have one of them chewing on me right now. It looks a lot like Frankenstein's bunny, being a mishmash of Civil War historical, fantasy, and a little horror. It doesn't know what it wants to grow up to be, so we just keep staring at one another over the pages of the SFR I'm contracted for. So yes. Sometimes, the plot bunnies start looking a little like the clown from IT.

Writing rules for your sci-fi/fantasy worlds

Rules…rules…rules were meant to be broken? 

Close, but our topic of the week is: What’s a rule of your world established in a precious book that complicated things for you later on?

And I consider myself lucky in this because so far I’ve only written books numbered one! But I’m aware of the danger of writing yourself into a tight corner because of world building/magic system, yes that came from Jeffe and her oh-so-handy posts over the years..and again this Sunday.

So I’ve used that advice…but mostly for my fantasy books because my sci-fi books I write as stand alones. Anyone out there write in different genres and treat the world building differently? 

For my fantasy books, one is Regency fantasy and the other is high fantasy.

High Fantasy: stories that take place in a completely fictional world with its own rules.

Regency fantasy is basically a historical with some magic thrown in. That meant I had to trade world building with historical research. Rabbit hole alert! Then the magic came into play and it was fantastic! Difficult physical challenges, magic! Weapons that met their mark as long as you’re close, magic! Clandestine meetings cracked by eavesdropping wind, magic! 

But all the while I already knew what would happen in book two and mostly in book three. Since I knew the future (ha! if only) I could work in hints and abilities/restrictions that I needed for book two. 

I used the same guidelines when world building my high fantasy. The magic system for this series took a year to formulate and over that year it morphed, like it was alive. Which it is, in the books. And like the Regency fantasy I already knew what would happen for my heroes and villains in book two so some of the secondary character’s magical abilities are the basis for the various main characters to come. 

After thinking about all of this I’m wondering what would happen if I wrote a book one without knowing anything about book two! I listened to Jeffe’s June 5th First Cup of Coffee where she interviewed author Grace Draven. During their coffee date Grace mentioned she wrote Phoenix Unbound without knowing what book two, Dragon Unleashed, would be. 

That blew my mind. I don’t—I don’t know if my brain could handle writing like that. Thank goodness for the beauty of this craft, that each of our paths are different and how we go about writing is different. And who knows, I could find myself in that predicament someday…and then I might have to borrow Jeffe’s tactic and lie my way out.

Too bad I’m not a proficient lier.

Finding Inspiration

pic from my hiking adventures

If you’re a writer, you’ve undoubtedly been asked where do you get your ideas from? About a thousand times. And the topic of the week might give you an easy way to answer: what other media inspires you? 

I write sci-fi and fantasy. And for me, it’s almost a right brain left brain kind of thing. So it makes sense that I’m inspired to write the different genres in different ways.

When I’m writing the future and coming up with all sorts of made-up tech I thrive off other science fiction media. Anyone watch Altered Carbon? Fan-freaking-tastic! The character journeys were fun to watch unfold, but it was the world and all those small details—how the characters interacted with and used that world that fired off hundreds of ideas. 

When I’m writing fantasy I need nature. When I’m dreaming up completely new worlds and magic I need to walk under the trees and step to the cliff’s edge. If I really can’t get out, or my imagination needs to travel to the type of local I’ve never been to, photography saves me. Beautiful images, vivid or faded, breath taking scenery.

#Ullrthehuskypup

Yes, I know the act of writing stems from the same brain location, but activating the scientific part of me is a completely different function than painting worlds with words. 

I should really remember this for when I’m feeling stuck in my writing. I sort of do consciously think this way, I frequently take the husky pup (I still miss my Loki dog) for walks to get the mind going, and I’ll binge on sci-fi movies/shows for ideas. 

But if I actively try to kickstart the part of my brain I need…sooner, maybe my sticky spots will be shorter lived! 

How about you? I envy the people that get inspired by music. So, do you use a certain type of media to inspire you? 

Naming Fantasy Characters, Places, and Things

The upside of me not being in San Diego on June 1 is that my event at Mysterious Galaxy will be available to all of you via Zoom! Would love if you all joined in!

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is Names: What's your favorite source/method for naming your characters, places, etc?

I have several go-to naming sources that I have bookmarked for fast and easy access. My first stop is always BehindtheName.com, the etymology and history of first names. The advanced search allows you find names by gender (or lack thereof), meaning, usage (including mythological, biblical, archaic, etc.), and keyword. I love to start with a name meaning and triangulate from there. It's also meticulously cross-linked, so you can find associated names and roots.

There is also a Surname version of the site, http://surnames.behindthename.com/, which works the same way and is a great resource for building family trees and genealogies. Both of these work great to name places as well.

Once I settle on a general language group that I'm drawing from for a particular world, or place within a world, I find and bookmark an online dictionary for that language. I love to find the ones that index the old versions of the language too. ::The Vikings of Bjornstad :: Old Norse Dictionary is a great example. I can search for English concepts, find an old Norse version of the word, and then add a bit of drift to the spelling to make it my own.

Finally, I often resort to good old basic etymology to build new words. I look up the etymology of a word that embodies the concept of the person, place, or thing I want - then I break it down into component roots. Sometimes I search for related roots in other languages. Then I piece the concepts together again, maybe add some spelling drift and there it is! New word.

Now you guys know all of my secrets and can no doubt reverse engineer names from my books!

Do I see my book as a musical?

Hmmm….which one of my books would I turn into a musical? Tough topic this week, SFF Seveners! 

It shouldn’t be difficult though, right? I mean, I’ve never been to a live musical. The closest I’ve been would be South Dakota State’s production of Capers and I don’t remember there being music other than some background stuff…I’d label it comedy satire, excellent comedy-satire.

No live stuff, though I am a fan of some classic movie-musicals: My Fair Lady, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, The Greatest Showman, and about every Disney movie ever. 

But turning one of my books into a musical? I think I’m in Vivien Jackson’s camp on this one…I don’t see it. 

Sci-fi thrillers just don’t make good musicals. When I write sci-fi I definitely see what I’m writing, exactly like a movie. Sometimes when I’m writing I even lean back in my chair and enjoy the show…I just need to remember to make some popcorn when I do that.  

On the other hand...my fantasy writing could be turned into musicals. Awakening the Blades would be equated to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a lot of parallels there. But that movie ended up being a horror/action flick, which I’m totally down for! My second fantasy could be compared to the Lord of the Rings, very epic, large cast of characters, and the balance of the world depends on a single choice. So, I guess if you can picture Gandalf the White belting out tunes then we’ve got somethin’. 

Personally, I’d rather stick to imagining my writing as blockbuster movies. They already play out that way in my head and the music I listen to as I work is 99% instrumental. 

Wait…instrumental…that’s big in musicals too, right? I mean, there’s music everywhere in a musical. It’s happening when the curtain’s shut. It’s chiming when you’re supposed to be sitting down! It’s crescendoing as the scenes are being changed over!! Nooooooo!!! My books could be musicals one day!!!

My panic aside, do you have a favorite read or book that you’d LOVE to see as a musical?  

Things We Make Up...Like Holidays

I’ve made up a lot of stuff in my day, my sister can attest to that. Gum that alters the composition of your saliva so when you spit on the sidewalk it changes colors, slobbering beasts that prowl the barnyards, fairies that would come and eat mud pies when you weren’t looking.

From the Dead Letter File

As I am on limited computer time while recovering from a concussion, I'll just give you more story excerpt to read and spare you the commentary.

This is from what had been intended to be a half steampunk, half fantasy that no one wanted.

“Madam?”

            Voice. Male. Speaking one of the millions of tongues encoded on the language chip implanted in her brain, which, judging from the excruciating throb at her temples, was about to explode.

            “Madam,” the voice sounded impatient and what? Unsettled? “I must insist you shake off Anubis’s hold and wake. This instant. Can you hear me? Can you tell me your name?”

            What was her name this time? She wouldn’t have been sent in without cover. With a sickening lurch, her mind stumbled into habit and she mentally tripped the program interface that should provide an entire lifetime’s worth of names, dates, and places, memories of people, events and things she’d never actually known.

            Nothing happened. She forced her eyes open but saw only darkness. Fear caught in her throat. Uncertain how to proceed, she gave him the only name rolling around the splitting pain in her head. “Dainan.” It came out a bare thread of sound.

            Smell hit her. Dank, musty soil that hadn’t been sweetened by any touch of sun and which supported no living thing. An acrid, metallic scent bit the back of her throat. She flinched. Did blood always have to smell like that? Whose was it? Above the background odors, a warm hint of pine combined with exotic spice tempted her to turn and burrow into the scent.

            “Dainan?” he repeated, jolting her out of reverie. “Is that your first or last name?”

“Loewe!” another male voice, raspy as a behlour cloud-cat tongue, shouted.

“Never mind,” the man beside her said. “Peter Loewe, at your service. What happened here?”

Too many questions. No answers. “Where?” she whispered.

“Where?” He laughed. It sounded forced. “We are short a meter from where that maniac murdered his last victim. Were you attacked? You don’t seem . . .that is to say, did you witness anything? Or were you, perhaps, a friend of the victim?”

“Attacked?” She nodded. Yes. That felt right, somehow. Attacked. Why?

“I – I apologize,” she murmured, automatically struggling to match his speech patterns, to fit in. “My memory is hazy.”

“Loewe,” rasp-voice growled. “Ma’at’s priestess and the police commissioner may be impressed by your magic tricks, but all I see is someone holding up my investigation. Leave the strumpet. She’ll sleep it off.”

Strumpet? Dainan frowned. What backward culture had Aeone sent her to this time? On what mission? And why did she not have cover memories?

“On the contrary, Inspector Cooper,” Loewe replied, the barest current of anger under his level tone, “I believe you have a witness on your hands.  The lady claims to have been attacked.”

“Attacked? What happened?” the inspector demanded of her.

She turned automatically toward the man addressing her. He reeked of stale smoke and moldering onions. The jagged ache in her head sharpened and she gasped.

“She is still dazed, Inspector, possibly injured, though the only outward sign I see is a scorch mark on her clothing there at the pocket.”

Scorch mark? Dainan frowned and cursed the fact that she still couldn’t coax her eyes to function to spec. Or at all. She shivered as anxiety spiked through her middle. She couldn’t do a proper damage assessment, much less attempt to initiate any kind of field repair. Not here. Not with witnesses.

“Injured,” the inspector huffed. “An addict, like as not. Won’t get a single useful fact out of her. Bundle her off, then. Just be sure to get an address so we can collect a statement later. Least you can do to be useful.”

The inspector stomped away, muttering.

Dainan sucked an angry breath between her teeth.

“That’s all very well,” Loewe said, his voice tight.

“No, it isn’t,” Dainan grumbled. “I do not like bullies.”

“You do not like - ” he broke off, drew a slow, audible breath and said, “I will endeavor to remember that. Allow me to have you escorted home and a doctor called. We may have questions once you are feeling more yourself. Where do you live?”

            Dainan closed her eyes and swallowed a sudden surge of nausea. “The River.”

           “The River.” He swore. “I have been educated in several of the finest universities the Empire of the Pyramids has to offer. I’ll be damned if I go on parroting a streetwalker like a schoolboy.”

“River Walker,” she corrected automatically.

“River – No. I’ll not do it again,” he cleared his throat. “Madam, where is your home?”

            “The River is my home,” she muttered, annoyance at his lack of comprehension speeding her heart rate. What was so difficult about understanding she didn’t belong in his world? Wait. Wasn’t there a rule against divulging her extra-planar origin? Had she just broken in? “My place of . . . birth doesn’t matter.”

            “Madam . . .”

            “My name is Dainan,” she said. Her voice sounded stronger. The hurt in her skull had subsided, but she still couldn’t feel her body. She cracked one eye open again and swore in her own, long dead, language.

            “I beg your pardon?”

            “I can’t see,” she said. “Your hypothesis regarding an attack is accurate. I’ve sustained damage. More to the point, however, I will be pursued.”

            “By whom? And why?” From the sharpening of his tone, she gathered that her companion had settled into his own investigation.

            “I don’t know,” Dainan hedged, confused by the flood of images that spilled through her head, none of which made any sense.

            He swore again.

            Dainan heard the rustle of fabric and the creak of leather as he shifted closer.

He dropped his voice so she had to strain to understand him. “You’re a tech or an inventor. Aren’t you? You said ‘your hypothesis’ and you aren’t touching anything.”