Blurb:
With Morigan growing more powerful each day, the leaders of the realm soon realize that this young woman could hold the key to their destruction. Suddenly, Morigan finds herself beset by enemies, and she must master her mysterious gifts if she is to survive.
Feast of Fates, Excerpt #2 (533 Words)
Morigan took the bracelet.
“I accept your offering.” The Wolf’s face lit and she thought that he would
leap at her. “Yet first, I have a request.”
“Anything, my Fawn.”
“I would like to see…what you are. The second body that shares your soul. Show
me your fangs and claws,” she commanded.
Perhaps it was the steadiness of her voice, how she ordered him to bare himself
as if he belonged to her, that made the Wolf’s heart roar to comply. He did not
shed his skin but for the whitest moons of the year, and even then, so far from
the city and never in front of another. In a sense, he was as much a virgin as
she. With an unaccustomed shyness, he found himself undressing before the Fawn,
confused for a speck as to who was the hunter. The flare of her nostrils, the
intensity of her stare that ate at him for once.
I
have chosen well for a mate. She is as much a Wolf as I, he
thought, kicking off his boots and then shimmying his pants down to join the
rest of his clothing. No bashful maiden was Morigan, and she did not look away
from his nakedness, but appreciated what she saw: every rough, hairy, huge bit
of him.
Blurb
As two queens plot each other's destruction, a small band of adventurers continues its quest for the knowledge needed to defeat the mad King Brutus and his unearthly parasite, the Black Queen. Their search brings Morigan and the Wolf to the perilous forests of Alabion, where they and their companions will face the darkness of their pasts-and discover equally dark destinies.
Meanwhile, far from Alabion, the queens of the East and West continue their deadly dance. One seeks a relic of great power, while the other puts her faith in a mix of military and technomagikal force. Both are aware they have a slim window of opportunity to settle their power struggle-after all, Mad Brutus's recent defeat is at best a setback. The mad king is already amassing a new army of soulless husks in the wastelands of Mor'Khul.
Unknown to the great powers struggling for control, a father and son wander those same wastelands, scavenging what they can as they weather Brutus's gathering storm. They too have a role to play in Geadhain's fate-a role which may just provide a last remnant of hope.
Meanwhile, far from Alabion, the queens of the East and West continue their deadly dance. One seeks a relic of great power, while the other puts her faith in a mix of military and technomagikal force. Both are aware they have a slim window of opportunity to settle their power struggle-after all, Mad Brutus's recent defeat is at best a setback. The mad king is already amassing a new army of soulless husks in the wastelands of Mor'Khul.
Unknown to the great powers struggling for control, a father and son wander those same wastelands, scavenging what they can as they weather Brutus's gathering storm. They too have a role to play in Geadhain's fate-a role which may just provide a last remnant of hope.
Portraying Evil by Christian A. Brown
A while ago, I had a lovely blogger review
that praised many aspects of Feast of Fates. On that list—and what stuck with
me the most—were the reader’s commendations toward some of the darker material
in my book. Life is composed of many shades and colors: passionate reds, golden
acts of kindness, and the blackest evils. I believe that stories of the scope I
wish to tell should encompass that spectrum. Therefore, while I write some
beautiful scenes, I also feel the need to balance the scales, to flesh out a
realistic environment by adding the unsavory. Neglect, depravity, racism,
murder, physical and sexual assault. None of these topics are comfortable to
discuss. None of these topics should be handled with anything but care. I deal
with each of them in my work. I choose to depict them in the raw, ugly fashion
in which they are experienced by their survivors (not victims—there is a
notable distinction). As a survivor of assault myself, I see no other way in
which these events should be portrayed. As horrific as one imagines—or
writes—these scenarios, I assure you the reality is worse. More crippling, more
haunting, and usually more violent.
I don’t write dark things because I am a
lover of the macabre or a sadist. In fact, often writing these scenes makes me
feel as repulsed as when my readers read such material. Good. If whenever
Brutus comes onto the page, your skin crawls and you are terrified of what
deplorable act he will do, then I’ve done my job. Evil should not have a
soft-touch (unless it’s the insidious kind). Evil should make you shiver. How
soon we forget in our comfortable North American lives that we live in the same
world where Malala was shot for going to school. Where the Montreal Massacre of
women seeking to better themselves happened. Where we have genocides and child
soldiers. I wish that the events that I write were less dark than those
occurring outside Geadhain. Though, they’re not. I feel it is necessary for
evil to be accurately described in order to illustrate the journey one
(character) takes toward healing.
A Feast of Fates case study, if you will.
Please stop reading if you’re spoiler averse and haven’t read the first book
yet. (And hurry up! The second book is out now!) In Feast of Fates, we meet any
number of characters who have endured trauma. Mouse, who is sold into sexual
slavery. She breaks this fate at the cost of her humanity—which she later
regains and then some. Macha, who is a displaced indigenous girl that also
suffers a reprehensible separation from her family. Kanatuk, another indigenous
person who endures a lifetime of horrific abuse—he, too, eventually finds his
humanity and strength. Vortigern, who loses his family, his memory, and lives
in a state of living-death and forgetfulness. The list goes on. I do not
discriminate between male and female, between who should be “fairly” suffering
and who shouldn’t. That’s the nasty part about life: it doesn’t give two shits
who suffers or why. I’m a sensitive person, and it hurts to write these
horrible fates for my characters. However, like the reader and like those of us
in the real world, I hold to the hope that these people will learn from their
lessons of pain. I believe in them. I believe that they have the power to heal
themselves, and to remember the good of humanity. Most of the time, my
characters do not disappoint me.
In what is a less easily perceived
emotional struggle, we have Lila. She is Queen of Eod and living a glorious and
seemingly immortal life with the Everfair King. Long ago, Magnus saved her from
a misogynistic, caste-driven society (and marriage). And for a thousand years
thereafter she and Magnus were happy together, blissfully happy. That happiness
lasts until a horrific—and again, this incident has to be ghastly to sunder a
bond of one thousand years—assault by her husband while he is under the
possession of an entropic force. A number of complex issues and questions stem
from this event. How responsible is Magnus? Can Lila forgive him for this one
grotesque incident in their thousand year marriage? He certainly feels guilty.
Lila, at the time, puts on a brave face and forgives him. After all, she is the
stoic queen of a nation of hundreds of thousands, and her country must come
before her needs. She has that mothering sense, of sacrificing her emotions and
comfort for others, even though she has not borne children from Magnus (the
Immortal king is sterile—at least with her physiology). So she buries her
trauma (as people do), and says that she forgives him for the pressing sake of
dealing with what evil took over her husband. Sadly, Lila’s story is not
unique. Most first time incidents of domestic abuse are forgiven or simply
unreported. That’s a statistical reality.
As time and progression through the novel
shows us, however, Lila neither forgives nor forgets. The scars are too deep,
and those wounds cannot possibly heal in weeks or months—not to a woman that
knows eternity. In many ways, Lila is brought back to the very situation and
oppression from which she believed herself to have escaped. She questions
everything about the brother-kings, their connection to each other and to her,
and her sense of individuality and pride. She questions who she really is, for
she has become a stranger to herself. The growth and arc of her character is
quite broad, spanning all four novels. I have to say though, she is one of my
favorite and certainly one of the most inspiring characters once she finds
herself. Lila’s journey is one to which many women can relate—regardless of
whether Lila is real or not. Being confused. Being lost in the darkness.
Forging ahead, even when all she knows is a sickening fear and agony that she
can tell no one about. Lila is a composite of all that I’ve learned and seen of
women pushing past their station, pushing to define themselves after trauma,
and discovering new limits on who and what they thought they could be.
