Liz Cultivates | L.M. Fern

Storytime!

The basic storyline of my novel is predicated on several important questions:

What if, after saving the world, the chosen one simply… gave up? What if he became so jaded and sorrowful because of what he had to sacrifice that he would do anything, anything, to have that thing back? What if he regretted saving the world?

What would he do?

A thousand years ago, the world was in turmoil. Magic was wrong — the elements in disarray, not reacting properly to the proper pushes and causing widespread illness among magic-users. The Line between the two planes, Ylpha and Omega, grew thin, waned, nearly cracked — the danger of the two planes merging ever present. Then… the world was set right by this erstwhile chosen one.

But now, a millennium later, magic starts to act oddly again, and darkness murmurs along the horizon. The Line, according those who can feel it, has been weakening. Dranna Qorin, an ice-elf sorceress who sequestered herself willingly in her home for several decades, has emerged to find that Shade, the darkest element, the one she has an affinity for, feels wrong. Her brother, Dazh, left a cryptic note about going to study the issues with the Shade. That was ten years ago. She hasn’t heard from him since.

So Dranna sets out to find her brother, accompanied by Felthar, a man born from wind who has been… we’ll say… considerably more than a friend to her during her self-imposed quarantine. They travel to the Great Library of Torryn, where they hope to find some kind of clue to Dazh’s whereabouts — the letter mentioned studying with dragons of all things — but instead, they find trouble in the form of a slobbering, yellow-eyed, humanoid creature — humanoid except for the jutting elbows, the shoulder blades ripping from the flesh of its back like false wings, the eyes hungering for their death — roaring through the stacks, hunting them.

A young girl appears, a long, slender flute to her lips. She plays several loud, harried, beautiful musical notes. The demon screams in protest, but vanishes.

However, Felthar, too, disappears as the music fades. Dranna is alone.

And with that, the royal guard appears, demanding to know why a demon was in the library and who is responsible. Someone has to pay. They arrest Dranna and the young girl.

… And so the story starts!