I thought I was writing a book with paladins, drow, dragons, wolves, old laws, old lies, and a love story old power was never built to survive.
I was.
I also found out I was building the history of how a world learns to call a chain mercy.
That has been the work lately.
The dragons are not just dragons.
They are ancient power discovering bodies, desire, shame, consent, obedience, tenderness, greed, love, law, and civilization, then making the very dangerous mistake of thinking the parts that worked once can be turned into a system.
At first, it is beautiful.
That is the problem.
There are characters coming that I already know readers are going to argue about, defend, hate, forgive too early, refuse to forgive, and then think about days later.
Some of them are monsters.
Some of them are miracles.
Most of them are both if you stand close enough.
That is the part I keep chasing now. Why it happens. What it costs. What people do with power when they think they are using it for good. What desire looks like before shame gets its hands on it. What love can save, and what love cannot save once someone starts writing laws around it.
I can feel myself getting better at this.
That is a strange thing to say out loud, but it is true. I am learning how to stop explaining the blade and just let the reader feel it go in.
This world has teeth now.
It has history.
It has rot under the marble.
It has women who want things badly enough to change history.
I am so damn excited for you to see what has been waiting underneath the first book the whole time.
Breath, Blood & Chain is not getting smaller as I build it.
It is opening doors.
Keep exploring the world.
The books of Breath, Blood & Chain →