Month: July 2019

Work-In-Progress Wednesdays #11

Ariel Paiement

For this week’s work-in-progress Wednesday, I have an excerpt from Pathway of the Moon. In this excerpt, Alrian is once again butting heads with our favorite assassin, and she strikes a little too close to home for comfort.

~~~

THE cell door slammed open. Leo bolted upright, instinct kicking. He reached for his obsidian blades, but his fingers only brushed against the loops of his pants where they should’ve hung.

“Relax. It’s just me.” A familiar voice snapped him out of his sleep-fogged state.

Leo slumped back against the wall. “Next time, knock or something.”

“I didn’t realize that was standard procedure with prisoners.” Alrian crossed her arms and leaned against the wall.

He eyed the open door then dropped his head back against the wall and shut his eyes. Escaping was pointless. Even if he hadn’t been literally shackled by the collar, he was just as shackled by those who would suffer if he left. Honor-bound to remain for their sake, he forced himself to ignore the instinct to fight free of the cell.

“Glad to see you aren’t going to run first chance you get.” Alrian kicked the door shut and went to sit on the windowsill. “If you had, you wouldn’t be going anywhere until we left.”

Leo refused to let her see that her words had grabbed his attention. He remained still and silent.

“Aren’t you the least bit curious about what I came to offer?” Her voice held an edge now.

Good. He’d gotten under her skin. A small victory, all things considered, but it was a measure of control in an out-of-control situation. He still didn’t respond.

She shifted, her uniform rustling. “Fine. Be that way.” The door opened again.

He opened his eyes, her question nagging at him. She’d come to offer something? That was outside the normal way things went around here. Normally, she was in here to demand something. He sighed. “Wait.”

Alrian turned back to face him, arms crossed. “So, you are interested. You’re just too much of a Rith-cursed jerk to let me have the satisfaction of knowing right away.” Her jaw clenched.

She’d pegged him. His cheeks heated, and he looked away. “Can you blame me for trying to find some control in this situation?”

She heaved a sigh and slammed the door shut again. Striding over to him, she settled cross-legged on the floor. Just out of reach, he noted. “Are you going to live your entire life trying to be in control? That’s a miserable existence.”

He raised a brow.

“If you’re always trying to control things, you’re constantly going to be frustrated when things invariably end up out of your control.” She shrugged. “It’s one of the few useful things I learned from my worthless father.”

Leo cleared his throat. “I don’t have to control everything.”

“Really?” She snorted. “You absolutely do. Even if it means losing your life, you refuse to cooperate with others unless it fits with what you’ve already chosen to do.”

He stared down at the floor. She was right again. Though, lately, nothing had seemed under control. Since he’d gone off script and rescued Deira, everything had been a jumbled mess. “Not anymore.”

“Then what was with the childish behavior earlier?”

He wished she’d quit making good points. Maybe then he could argue with it. “Things haven’t been under my control for quite some time, Lord Alrian.”

She crossed her arms. “And that means you have to behave like a mule?”

“No.” He ground his teeth. “I suppose it doesn’t.”

~~~

That’s it for this week’s Work-In-Progress Wednesday. Have a piece you’re working on and want to share? Feel free to leave it in the comments below. And as always, keep any feedback you choose to give respectful and constructive!

Saturday Setup: Local Mapping – City Layouts

Ariel Paiement

We’re finally to the local mapping! I know this is all a lot of groundwork and information, but I promise it does help to think about these things. But there’s only one more post on mapping before we turn our attention to other aspects of world-building and setting up the story elements.

So, let’s dive right in!

This post won’t be as long, but I’ll go over locations for cities and some ways they might be arranged.

Location

Cities are usually located near a large river or port of some sort. This makes sense if you think about it because cities are hubs of commerce, and this means they need a way to transport goods. Doing so via water makes this much easier than it is for land-locked places, especially if the infrastructure of your world is more medieval or hasn’t developed tech like trains or planes.

More importantly still, cities need a water supply. They have a lot of people who need that water too, so they have to have a large source nearby. And it can’t be saltwater, so having water from a large river, mountain streams, or unpolluted ground water means the difference between survival and extinction.

Other places cities might be located are in places along established trade routes, mineral-deposit rich land, places with lots of natural resources, or mines for precious stones and commodities. Water might be the most important resource a city’s founders look for, but they’re looking for the ways they’ll make money in the future too.

A final point to consider is defendability. Particularly for cities where warfare was or still is a major threat to their livelihoods, locating on the high ground or in a place that’s difficult to attack is a must. This includes building on top of high hills, building with two rivers or large bodies of water surrounding one or more sides of the city, and building in places where mountain ranges provide a solid defense against invasion.

Layout

Besides location, the city’s layout is also important. The way a city is organized determines a lot about the city. If you have it built with narrow streets and alleys, you may have people crowded in on top of each other, meaning more people can live there, but no one will be getting carts through those streets. But if you build it with larger spaces between houses and shops, you’ll have fewer people living in the city in exchange for more room to maneuver.

Beyond that, cities usually have some sort of divide between rich and poor. Every city, particular in a fantasy setting where it’s more medieval in nature, has its slums or poor districts and its rich districts. And when they’re all packed in on top of each other, the divide is that much clearer.

Then you have the castle, assuming the city is the capital or houses a major noble. Depending on the political structure, nobility might not live in a castle, but if it’s some sort of fief or a smaller city structure, perhaps they do. The castle would be the city-dwellers’ last line of defense if invaders broke through the outer and inner walls. So it would be located at a central point in many cases so that fleeing there would be equally convenient for everyone.

Besides building structure, you also have to consider how the city gets its water and the areas that might be weak points. These provide ways to get into the city during an attack, and if you plan on having the city under siege or assaulted, knowing these points will be important. You don’t have to know every hole in the wall and missing brick, but at least consider where the weakest points of defense are if you’re laying the city out. Things shouldn’t be easy for either side in a siege, right?

Conclusion

As promised, this is a short post. There isn’t as much to think about when mapping out a city as there is when mapping out a whole world. But the details here are just as vital because they’re going to alter and impact life just as much for characters living there.

So give it some careful thought if you know you’re going to have characters spending any significant amount of time there. It may be important to know these details later on. Solidifying them now gives you a headstart when you have to use the details later in the book.

What other things do you think about if you’re building cities for your world? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Blog Tour – An Inside Look at My Writing Process

Ariel Paiement

A few people have asked either in interviews or privately about my writing process. They’ve wanted to know about how I handled planning and writing Bane of Ashkarith. Some people were surprised by what I shared, and I thought it might be interesting to give my readers a behind-the-scenes on what I do when I’m working on a book. So let’s get started!

Setup

I’m a bit of a neat freak and have strong OCD tendencies when it comes to getting ready to write. I can’t stand working in a messy space. Things have to be organized. I can’t write until they are. I’ll just stare at the screen and the mess around me without writing anything at all.

So my first step is usually to tidy up wherever I’m writing. I need to clear at least enough space to work. So if I’m sitting on my bed, I have to have the covers straightened out even if I’m huddling under them on a cold day. If I’m at my desk, things are more cramped and cluttered because I don’t have much space for things, but stuff still has to be ordered and neat. It’s even more important at the desk because there’s more to distract me.

The last thing I always do when I’m getting ready to write is pull up the spreadsheet where I keep track of the times I’m writing and how many words I got in a session. Yes, I do this. It helps me understand what my best writing hours are and, on average, how long a writing session should be to really start rolling out word count. Besides, it’s a nice feeling to be able to look back at what I’ve accomplished in a given week.

This was the log from a few weeks ago.

Writing Log

The empty slots, by the way, are days where I wasn’t able to do any writing on my current fiction projects.

Maybe now it won’t surprise everyone as much that I was an accounting major.

Planning

So, if the writing log and weird requirements for my writing space weren’t enough to tip everyone off, I’m big on organization and planning. My books are no different. I’m a plotter all the way.

I used to be a seat-of-the-pants type of writer. I just winged it with no plan at all and hoped it worked out well. (It never did.) The method just stressed me out because I never knew anything before I started, and it sucked up so much time to edit it that I quickly realized I enjoyed the process more if I planned first. It’s not for everyone, but it is absolutely for me.

If you haven’t tried plotting before, I would highly recommend you do. I’ll explain in a second what I did for Bane of Ashkarith and what I do now for every book I write, but let me say that plotting doesn’t have to suck all the joy out of everything. There’s room for breathing. You can plot just the bare bones if that’s all you need, or you can go all out.

But not plotting leads to a lot more revisions, rough drafts, and plot holes. So if you haven’t already done so, at least give it a try.

Anyway, for Bane of Ashkarith, I employed a method I hadn’t really used much before. Like I mentioned earlier, I’m big on plotting. But I’d never really bothered plotting past a general idea of the content for each chapter. I knew the big events, but none of the details were really solid in between the events. Writing took a lot longer because I had to think about all of that as I wrote.

With Bane of Ashkarith, I chose to plot out the basic highlights of each chapter and then, in the revision stage, I took it a step further and plotted out the individual scenes in each chapter. The result was that I wrote more words in the same amount of time because I didn’t have to hem and haw about what would happen.

I did all of this on pieces of line paper while in different classes when professors weren’t looking at what I was doing (don’t follow my example, by the way. Paying attention in class is usually a good idea.). As a result, I don’t have the scenes from Bane of Ashkarith. But I’ve done it with other novels, so I’ll share the ones I did for On Anarchy’s Wings, my current work-in-progress.

Scene Planning

I apologize for the low quality of the image. I wasn’t able to get a better picture because I wrote with pencil here. I did enhance it so the text would be darker though. The basics of each scene include: listing the viewpoint character, numbering the scenes, and listing down what happens in the scene.

This might sound like a ton of work. I guess it is a little bit overwhelming if you try to do a bunch at once. But I found that I could spend maybe ten or fifteen minutes sitting down before a writing session and jotting down the highlights of every scene in the chapter or two chapters I was going to write without a problem. It didn’t take that much time, and my writing was much more focused.

Writing

Now the part most people would say is the fun part. I think all the parts of writing are fun, but I recognize that I’m not the norm. Regardless, my writing process is pretty simple. I usually pick either an amount of time or a certain length in the novel to write. With Bane of Ashkarith, I usually opted for sitting down and writing until I had finished a chapter, however long that was. But if I’m limited on time or need to work on other projects too, I’ll pick a specific time frame to write, and I’ll work until that time is up.

I’m pretty easily distracted by my phone at the beginning of a writing period or when the scenes are a struggle to write for one reason or another, so I have to keep it away from me while I write so I don’t waste time on YouTube or Facebook. Yeah, I procrastinate just like most other authors I know. I’m normal that way, if nothing else. It’s not really a point I’m proud of since it involves wasting time, but it is what it is.

Editing

With the last part of the writing process, I usually write and re-write for a set time period. Otherwise, I have a tendency to lose track of time and just keep going so I can finish just one more chapter.

Editing is something that I really love. I know… It’s weird. But, nonetheless, I do love it. I can’t decide if I like writing or editing better. When it comes to my editing habits, I go through the work once looking for places where the characters’ voices need to come through more clearly for deep point of view and places where things just seem to drag. If it doesn’t interest me, it’s a safe bet it probably isn’t going to interest the readers. After all, I should be the one most invested in my own work. So if I’m not, why would anyone else be?

After I finish cutting and tightening, adding and re-writing, then cutting and tightening again, I move on to editing for consistency, grammar, and all those little parts of a novel that slip through the cracks sometimes on us when we’re writing. If I didn’t catch it before, my goal is to catch it at this point.

Once I’ve done all that, the last thing I check for is readability and flow. I just go through and make sure everything is said in the best way possible to get the point across. Preferably without being wordy.

Conclusion

This was a bit of a lengthy post, but I hope that it’s been interesting and, even more importantly, helpful to you guys. Writers are always learning, growing, and adapting. I’m no different, and my writing process now has definitely matured from where it was even a year ago. But I’ve found a method that works well for me, so I stick with it and just tweak it to improve the process where it might still be bumpy.

So what about you guys? Do you have anything you have to do before you’re able to focus on writing? What about your writing process? Anything you do that you think others might benefit from? If so, leave a comment and tell the rest of us about it! We’d love to hear about how other writers handle the writing process.

Flash Fiction Fridays: Lost Soul

Ariel Paiement

For today’s Flash Fiction Friday, the focus is on Rith. Featured as the dark god or god of shadows in the Alcardian novels, he’s seen facing off with his sister in Rith’s Disciple, a short story set before the events of Pathway of the Moon. In this piece, the event leading to his parents’ and fiancee’s deaths is revealed.

~~~

The smell of smoke blasted him in the face as he approached the long gravel drive leading to his ancestral home. Rith frowned. Was father burning brush again? He glanced up at the darkening sky. Too late in the day. His heart squeezed, and his stomach ached. Something wasn’t right.

He broke into a run, trying to Step in the shadows. They didn’t answer. He tried again, reaching out with his mind. But still the shadows remained out of reach, refusing his request to portal to the house. His head ached with the effort, and he stopped in his tracks, grasping for his magic once more.

Why wasn’t it responding? Had the drinks he’d had with Sedra and Albrith addled him that much? He tried to reach out to his sisters, but only cold silence greeted him. He couldn’t touch their minds like he normally could either. Could he touch anyone’s? He reached for Raewen and his father. Nothing.

It didn’t matter. He forced himself to keep sprinting down the drive, ignoring the burn in his lungs. The smell of smoke strengthened, and his throat ached as it filled his nose and lungs. The heat in the air grew the closer he came to home.

Then he rounded the corner and saw it.

The entire mansion blazed, the fire angrily licking at the wood and anything else consumable. It raged through everything, flickering and leaping from the windows.

Rith froze for a minute and stared. How? How had this happened?

Where were his parents? And what about Raewen? His heart lurched. Raewen! She’d been planning to visit so they could announce their engagement. He’d been out celebrating the news with his sisters upon their insistence, but she should’ve arrived shortly before he did.

He broke into a run, rationality fleeing. Their motorized coach sat in the driveway where it should be, and he cursed, pushing himself to go faster. The heat seared his skin, but he ignored it, listening for any sign that anyone had survived.

He couldn’t call anyone for help. If they were in there, he was their only chance.

A scream lifted faintly from somewhere at the back of the house. Raewen. Were his parents with her? Why hadn’t they been able to get out? He sprinted around the side of the mansion, searching for any entrance point that wasn’t consumed with flame. The only part of the house untouched so far was the section without windows or outside doors. They must’ve been unable to break past the fire and had been forced to hide in the laundry room. But it wouldn’t be long before the flames reached them.

There wasn’t time to wait for help to come.

He called to the shadows again. They flickered in response but didn’t let him through. Sinking to his knees, he released a guttural scream and wrenched at the magic with all his might. Something inside snapped, and pain seared down every nerve in his body. He stiffened, screaming out of pain now instead of frustration. It shouldn’t feel like this. Why did it hurt so badly?

The screams inside the house grew louder before choking off. He stretched trembling fingers toward the house, his vision blurring. If he could just endure the pain, he could make the magic respond. He could save them all.

The shadows swirled around him, caressing his burning skin and whispering in agitated murmurs. They didn’t like what he was doing. The pain flared higher, and he dug his fingers into the cool grass beneath him. He would not lose them. He couldn’t.

With an agonized groan, he reached out to the magic again and screamed at it with his mind. Let me through! The shadows screamed alongside him, and then the world went dark as they sucked him in.

He was spit back out in the laundry room. Tumbling to a stop, he took in the situation, every nerve in his body still alight. Was this what it would feel like to have the fire rage inside of him? He sucked in a breath, the smoke and heat searing into his lungs. His gaze flew around the room before landing on three still forms in the back of the room. He’d found them.

Stumbling to his feet, he hurried to them. Each step cut into him as if he was walking barefoot across glass. His fingers trembled at his side, and the magic inside of him bucked against his restraint. Why was it acting like this? Why? He hadn’t been out of control like this since he was five.

He’d almost reached them when it happened.

The magic slammed into his walls of restraint and crashed through. Like a river blowing through a dam, it raged through him. The shadows in the room writhed in response, and his head felt like it was being split open. He dropped to his knees, clutching his head between his hands. Tears slid down his cheeks and evaporated as soon as they fell. Make it stop. Anyone, please, make it stop.

His vision blurred again, and he curled up in a ball on the floor, his own screams distant in his ears. Somewhere, he heard a muffled explosion. The ground trembled, and chunks of plaster from the ceiling hit him in the side. He couldn’t stay here. They couldn’t stare here.

He forced himself to his hands and knees, crawling toward his parents and fiancee. Maybe if he could reach them, he could portal them all away from here.

The wall behind them was webbed with cracks. He frowned, blinking. Was he hallucinating now too?

A groan vibrated through the floor and the walls. More chunks of plaster rained down on his back. Then the wall exploded backward, as though ripped out by an invisible hand. Rith collapsed, unable to hold his own weight. What was happening? His dazed mind couldn’t process any of it anymore. He stared at the ruined, jagged edges of the wall. Stared at the void beyond. The gloaming of dusk and his mother’s flower garden were no longer visible. Only blackness greeted him, deeper than any shadow he’d Stepped through.

Was this the end then? He lifted a trembling hand, wondering if the void could act as a portal. It was his last hope. He pushed himself back onto his hands and knees. Inch by inch, he crawled toward his parents and Raewen.

His head throbbed, and each movement was sheer torture. The magic rioting inside of him didn’t ease up. The darkness in the room deepened, swallowing up the forms of his loved ones. His limbs gave out again, and he slammed face first into the stone floor. A sob clawed from his sore throat, and he lay there, staring at the darkness. Then it swallowed him too, and the pain ceased as he gave in, letting it carry him away from the anguish in his soul.

~~~

That’s it for this week, everyone! I hope you enjoyed the piece. I’ll have a few more pieces on Flash Fiction Fridays showing more of Rith’s story if you liked this one. In the meantime, if you enjoyed this, you can learn more about his story in my novel Bane of Ashkarith, which releases at the end of July 2019.

Character Interview and Guest Post with C. Penticoff

Ariel Paiement

For today’s stop on the blog tour, I have two different blogs run by C. Penticoff. Out of Your Write Mind is a blog with writing advice and various writers’ services. The guest post here is about a new approach to dealing with writer’s block and the reasons it occurs. Read the guest post here.The second blog, cpenticoff is Cassandra’s personal blog. Here, she did a character interview with Kaidan. Check that out here.

Glossary for the Auralai Universe

Ariel Paiement

Actors – On Alcardia, actors are viewed as the lowest of the low and the greatest tricksters of them all. As such, the word is viewed as an insult. As a byword, it implies that the person is dishonest or a scoundrel.

Agharval – Meat with a venison flavor mixed with a hint of sweetness.

Airship – Newer inventions on Alcardia, air ships are just like sea-faring vessels, but they’re outfitted for flight instead and are aerodynamic to make the job of those piloting it easier.

Albrith – Sister to Sedra and Rith; revered as the goddess of light because she wielded powerful light magic.

Alcardia – A planet in the universe of Auralai. It is the main backdrop for the Legends of Alcardia series and the first novel of the Annals of Alcardia, Pathway of the Moon.

Aldhel – A sweet, light scented flower that has a scent between lilacs and daffodils.

Aleshtain – Argos’s neighboring kingdom. Aleshtain is viewed by many as barbaric for its bloody customs, sadistic rituals, and poor treatment of women.

Alithweald – One of the continents on Alcardia. The terrain is mostly desert and jungle.

Alrian Haridan – The first female High Imperial Knight, Alrian Haridan served under King Faolrian and was partially responsible for protecting Argos from Aleshtain’s undercover invasion.

Amadeira Thyrdas – A maid from Halbras Keep. She’s Leo’s love interest and becomes central to keeping him tethered as he expands his reach with his powers.

Anne Ryalin – Leo’s mother.

Arabhin – Alternate name in Common for the city of Faeridhia.

Argos – The kingdom where Leo and Deira are from.

Ashkarith – Also known as the City of the Dead, Ashkarith was once the capital of Faelkish under Rith’s leadership.

Auralai – The universe where Alcardia is located.

Banach – Queen Banach or Bane of Ashkarith was one of Sedra’s creations. She married Rith, and through their descendants the Son of Shadows will come.

Banachians – Descendants from Banach’s branch of the original six. Often employed as con artists, lawyers, card sharks, or in any other position requiring a keen mind and the ability to quickly understand others.

Bodashel – A Wyrdhan word for pathway. The word is used interchangeably with svaemal in Banach’s diary.

Brennan Dubhar – One of King Faolrian’s High Imperial Knights. Serves under Alrian Haridan and is later revealed to be her love interest.

Brythweald – One of the continents of Alcardia.

Church of Sedra – The main organized religion of most flat-land countries, with Aleshtain being the major exception.

Chyl – Headmaster Chyl was the Headmaster of the Society of the Learned in Montelishra and Argos during the time when Kaidan and Zerua were Seekers.

Controdene – An individual with some sort of psi or psychic ability.

Crown Prince Alefor – Eldest son of Queen Banach and King Rith of Ashkarith.

Dhiabhan – Also known as Eras Thilain, Dhiabhan is the eldest son of King Rabhor Thilain of Aleshtain. He is also the air captain who helped Kaidan and Zerua reach Ashkarith and return with their findings.

Draweald – Another of the continents of Alcardia.

Dubarin Hill – The hill in Argos where the last Pathway stands. Kaidan and Zerua once discovered Banach’s journal there. Now the place houses Dubarin Manor and its fief.

Eldur – One of the original six, Eldur is worshiped as the god of fire.

Eldurians – Direct descendants from Eldur’s line. Typically work as blacksmiths, horsemen, or soldiers.

Elkis Lionel – Cousin to Leo Ryalin.

Endene – Someone who can use some form of air magic.

Faelkish – The kingdom originally belonged to Rith but is now ruled by various local clan leaders or minor kings. It houses Faeridhia and Aleshtain.

Faeridhia – Also known as Arabhin, Faeridhia is the most famous city in Faelkish.

Hael – Soft-bodied, gelatinous creatures that cling to the hulls of air ships and feed off the oxidization while secreting a light way, durable slime that coats the ship and lowers air restistance.

Inherent – One with a natural energy source to fuel their power.

Ishkalt – Ishtral’s realm. It has several circles and is known for being a cold, desolate place.

Ishtral – The moon god worshiped in Aleshtain and its colonies.

Ishtralianism – The religion of Ishtral. Most places view it as a cult.

Jia – One of the first six created by Sedra. Worshiped as the goddess of earth.

Ji’ans – Direct descendants from Jia’s line. Typically found working as farmers, woodsmen, woodcarvers, hunters, or soldiers.

Kaidan Tadegan – A Searcher who discovered Banach’s diary and was responsible for freeing the ghosts of Ashkarith.

Kateshvale – Small mountain town in Montelishra where Kaidan and Zerua lived.

Kiarhsu Kashal – The main villain leading the Ishtralian faction in Argos in Pathway of the Moon.

King Aladhan – King of Argos when Kaidan and Zerua first explore Dubarin Hill.

King Eranar – King of Faeridhia when Kaidan and Zerua explore Ashkarith.

King Faolrian Eralon – King of Argos during Leo and Amadeira’s time.

King Rabhor Thilain – King of Aleshtain and Dhiabhan’s father.

Kythweald – One of Alcardia’s continents.

Leorithdhil Ryalin – An assassin turned vigilante. The main character in Pathway of the Moon, he is responsible for over thirty vigilante kills among the ranks of the nobility.

Mahala – The goddess of marriage and fertility worshiped by the Faelkishians.

Marks – Symbols of matrimony. These are used instead of rings and appear on the collarbones or the necks of couples after the ritual binding them together is complete.

Mericus – One of the original six created by Sedra. Mericus is worshiped as the god of water.

Mericusians – Direct descendants from Mericus’s line. Usually employed as merchants or sea-men.

Montelishra – A kingdom located beside Argos. Montelishra was Kaidan Tadegan’s homeland.

Mysweald – One of the continents of Alcardia.

Nadar – One of the original six. Nadar is worshiped as the god of matter.

Nadarians – Direct descendants from Nadar’s line. Usually employed as con artists, lawyers, businessmen, miners, or in other jobs requiring an ability to manipulate matter or a great deal of strength.

Nytweald – One of the continents of Alcardia.

Pathway/Gate – The Pathways or Gates are the connections between the worlds and even between universes. Some of them are open for travel without restrictions, while others, like the Pathway on Alcardia, are locked for the time being.

Phyden – Someone who can control physical things. Usually comes in the form of shape-shifting, changing one’s physical strength, or changing mass of objects and people. This is the only ability that comes with different Tiers of strength in the power.

Platiniums – A form of currency used in Alcardia. It is one of the higher denominations. Most poor families might make three platiniums for a year’s wages.

Quarfa – A herd animal with lean meat and a somewhat gamey flavor.

Rhubhian – Cousin to King Eranor of Faeridhia. She was taken as a slave during a raid on an outlying village and is now Dhiabhan’s slave.

Rith – Also known as the Dark god or god of shadows. Rith comes from Riladia and is the younger brother of Sedra and Albrith.

Rithden – Those who possess Rith’s ability to wield the shadows.

Rithians – Those who are descended from Rith and Banach’s line. This term isn’t used often as most simply refer to their descendants as Banachians, a term that Sedra preferred after she wiped her brother and most of his line out.

Rith’s Demise – Dhiabhan’s air ship.

Rithweald – A continent of Alcardia.

Searchers – Searchers are Alcardia’s version of archaeologists. They spend their time chasing down the truth behind legends and uncovering historical sites. Some may also be involved in the restoration of historical sites or dig locations.

Sedra – Rith and Albrith’s eldest sister. She created the six original beings that the rest of the Alcardians descended from. Her thirst for power eventually was her downfall, but not before she’d killed both her siblings and wreaked havoc on countless planets in different universes.

Sedra’s Week – Alcardian months are all held standard at 30 days. As a result, this leaves them with an extra five days due to the planet’s rotation. These five days are celebrated as Sedra’s Week for the five days she spent creating the first five of the six. Every four years, they celebrate six days because on the fourth year of being on Alcardia, she created the last of the six original beings.

Serdweald – A continent on Alcardia.

Svaemal – A Wyrdhan word for gateway. Kaidan was trying to figure out what Banach meant in her diary in some areas because she kept switching between using this word and bodashel, which means pathway. The confusion occurred because the context didn’t differentiate between the two words even though there is usually a differentiation between the two in Wyrdhan.

Telfie – A small flying creature with fur that changes colors to fit its mood. They enjoy eating fruit and small flying eels, and they like to chew on leather whenever they can find it.

Teobhor – The mad bard from Faeridhia who told Kaidan and Zerua not to go to Ashkarith.

The Breaking – The Breaking occurred at a point in Alcardia’s earlier history when the continents divided into smaller continents, leaving Alcardia with the land masses it has today.

The Son of Shadows – A descendant of Rith who is foretold to have his spirit and his ability. This descendant is prophesied to be the one to finally bring down what Sedra worked so hard to build and the lies she told.

Un-Inherent – Someone who doesn’t have an inherent power source to fuel their ability. They can still use magic, but they must draw on the life force and power of living things besides themselves.

Valmurith – The surname for Sedra, Rith, and Albrith.

Wyrdhan – The original language spoken by Alcardians. The language has since broken down into other languages, but Argos, Aleshtain, and several other nearby kingdoms still speak some dialect of it.

Yarkiv Krivash – One of King Faolrian’s Imperial Knights. Serves under Alrian Haridan.

Zerua – One of the original six. She is worshiped as the goddess of the air.

Zerua Tadegan – A Seeker and Kaidan Tadegan’s wife.

Zeruains – Direct descendants from Zerua’s line. Usually employed as artisans, jewelers, and weapon craftsmen.