Raven Snow's Blog

Because he recognized her knock, Tristen was not surprised to open his cabin door and find Rane standing on the threshold. He was, however, grateful that she was carrying a tray of bread, cold fish, and peaches, as he was starving.

The cabin was small, the view out its round window mostly fog and darkness; but neither Tristen nor Rane had ever needed much in the way of luxuries. She put the tray down on the writing desk, next to Tristen’s freshly-mended armor, and they sat at opposite ends of...

Tristen tried to convince Uriens to come with them, but the old man refused, saying he could not abandon his surviving subjects to Rienec’s idea of justice. He seemed to think they might all end up banished to the ore mines as punishment for their lord’s defection. Tristen was worried Uriens would end up banished there, when Rienec woke to find Tristen and Rane and Isolde gone, but Uriens insisted he was not frightened of Rienec.

“I spent a good part of my life fighting pirates in Lyonesse’s...

Tristen’s brain was on fire. The flames circled the inside of his skull, licking the insides of his eyelids, crackling in his ears. The heat ran mercilessly along the ends of every nerve in his body, causing his muscles to contract helplessly against the pain. He wanted to scream, but his jaw was locked in place, his eyes refusing to open.

A voice was speaking to him. Tristen should not have known it long enough to recognize it, yet he did, all the same. He tried to hold onto it, but the burn...

“You complete idiot,” Rane began.

Tristen did not bother looking away from his reflection in the glass. Amar and Loholt had shown (shoved) him into a cloister-like chamber down a servants’ corridor – seemingly the least-grand place they could think of inside the palace. It had a bed, a washbasin, and a wardrobe. Moth-eaten curtains fluttered around an empty window frame, letting in the still-sticky late afternoon breeze.

Rane must have argued with the guards to let her in; Tristen had heard r...

Tyntagel was often spoken of in the same breath as paradise, and Tristen had to admit the city certainly seemed like one. Its outer wall was abalone; its streets were actual seashells. Buildings of sand-pink stone, arched and graceful, soared up to fluted towers and cloud-like domes, all the way down to a beach of pure white sand.

The cries of gulls competed with the roar of waves to be the dominant sound.

There were no guards at the city gate. A group of pretty, plump young women wearing col...

“Tristen. Wake up.”

With something of a groan, Tristen rolled over.

Rane was standing beside him, her boot nudging his bedroll, her eyes on the horizon. They had made camp for the night in a hollow between two rolling hills in what looked like an untended vineyard; morning mist lay heavy across those hills now, the wild grapevines swimming in a sea of...