“Pereleth,” Edric said. “The City of Water. The Old City, at the center of the Pereleth, was built on an actual island in the center of the lake. The latter portions of the city were built directly over the water.”

“An island on an island?” Katryl smiled at the irony.

“A little like the Septeru themselves,” Edric answered. “Isolation within isolation.”

Last week, I introduced you to Katryl through excerpts from my work in progress, The Seeing Queen (Book 3 of the Firewing Chronicles). This week, meet Edric, the man who has acted as her guide, protector, and guardian since Book 1. 

“I thought I had masked my accent," Katryl said.

“When you are taken off-guard, you sound far too Dashani.”

“Dragon’s teeth!”
​
“And the swearing makes you more Dashani than ever.”

Because I'm up to my eyeballs in my NaNoWriMo work-in-progress, The Seeing Queen, Book 3 of the Firewing Chronicles, I figured it'd be fun to present five juicy excerpts from the book (in addition to the one above).

What inferences do you make about Katryl's character from these excerpts? I'd love to know!

When I picked my Machine of Death card during a writers' group meeting, it said "Hot Air Balloon." Yup, that's right. I was supposed to die by hot air balloon.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the Machine of Death, it is a game in which the Machine of Death tells you how you are going to die. It's very interpretive, though. You might get "fish" and get eaten by a shark, or get poisoned by a badly-cooked fugu fish, or get stabbed by a fish-hook. The Machine of Death has inspired stories from writers all over the nation (world?) and resulted in an anthology, an ongoing podcast, and more.

I kind of cheated. This story isn't about me, per se, but it's about someone who dies by hot air balloon. Sort of. Read on and find out how Mr. Alexander Sedgewick meets his demise by hot air balloon.