QSFer Evelyn Benvie has a new MM fantasy book out, Not Your Chosen book 2: So What If I am the Chosen One?
The stars don’t think Kell needs answers. He disagrees.
Having accepted his role as the Chosen, Kell plans to sail to Port Hull and seek answers no one seems willing to give him. Of course, the stars immediately sabotage him. They feel he’s ready to confront the allegedly evil Lich King and toss Kell and company directly into the Lich King’s territory with no way back. Instead of rushing heroically into battle, Kell retaliates by taking multiple detours on the way to his alleged adversary’s palace.
The roundabout route doesn’t end up being an easy one. With a demon tower, child ghosts, confrontations with the goddess and Ansel’s family, and serious talks about his relationship with Ansel, Kell has more than enough on his plate. But he can’t put off the destined battle with the Lich King forever, even though the odds of failure are high. Kell will need to draw on every ounce of non-traditional Chosen-ness or this might be the end of his time in Allune.
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Excerpt
Kell’s dreams were hauntingly empty. He no longer saw Her Squashness every night. He almost missed her. There were things he wanted to ask her, things he felt that only she could answer. But he had not seen her in a week, not since the night he dreamed of the Lick King and the stars.
He wanted to speak to the Lick King too.
(He didn’t want to, not really.)
But it didn’t matter. He no longer dreamed of them. Now, if he dreamed at all, he dreamed only of the stars and the void between worlds. He thought he heard them speaking to him, but he never remembered what they said. Promises, maybe. Reassurances that this would end all right. Laughter, soft and gentle, and just a little off.
Sometimes there were other things. Flashes of scenes like memories he could almost recall. Fire scorching the ground. Mountains rising. Walls crumbling. Screaming.
Screaming.
Kell woke to screaming.
It took him a moment to realize it wasn’t in his head.
Day was breaking, Nea was shouting, Fre was yelling, the stars were buzzing in the back of his head, Ansel was clutching Kell’s arm and praying, and—
—and the river in front of them was gone.
Chapter 2
Oh No, Consequences
Cartoons were a lie.
For one thing, the boat didn’t zip over the waterfall, hover in midair, and then dramatically fall downwards while remaining perfectly parallel to the river. Nor did it careen straight down the waterfall itself, ignoring most of the laws of physics and momentum to keep floating on the now-perpendicular water.
No. Reality, sadly enough, right about split the difference between the two. It wasn’t quite as fun as Kell had imagined. Not to say it wasn’t fun—or at least the most fun he’d had all week—but it didn’t live up to the nostalgia of his childhood.
Still.
It was pretty fun.
No one else seemed to share his opinion on the matter. It all happened so fast that it was hard to tell what, exactly, was happening. One minute Kell was sleeping, dreaming of something he felt he should try harder to remember. The next he was awake, and everything was noise and panic, and the rush of water and air, and that sudden, roller-coaster drop in the pit of his stomach as the world shifted too far, too fast.
Kell threw his arms up and yelled. In hindsight, it may not have been the best reaction.
In his defense, everyone else was yelling too.
Not as enthusiastically as him, but yelling.
Fre leaned over the prow of the boat, tipping them forward even more as she shouted a challenge to the river below. Nea was doing something with the sail that Kell couldn’t be bothered to try and understand, and Ansel was shaking against his shoulder, wings spread and trembling.
Oh, right. This counts as falling, doesn’t it?
Kell spared a moment to feel guilty about that.
The river below was a long way down, though growing closer with every passing second. The water looked cold and hard, spiking turbulently at the bottom of the waterfall. Rocks sprang up from the swirling waters, jagged and dangerous looking and okay, maybe this wasn’t such a great idea in real life after all.
Kell closed his eyes and braced for the impact, arms encircling Ansel as the river rushed toward them. He counted down the seconds in his head.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four …
Kell felt his feet leave the deck and opened his eyes. The boat continued to plummet to the river below, an unstoppable force rushing toward an immovable fate.
Nea and Fre were still on it.
He was not.
Kell blinked, looking around in confusion. Ansel clung to him like a limpet. A limpet with three sets of wings and an aversion to falling.
It wasn’t so much flying as floating, aimless and slow, buoyed by the wind and Ansel’s sheer, mindless determination. Kell checked. Ansel wasn’t even looking where they were going. He had his head firmly tucked against Kell’s shoulder, eyes squeezed shut.
Kell absently patted Ansel’s arm as he watched the boat crash into the rocks and foam below. Fre’s shout of challenge echoed off the cliffside behind them as she went under. Kell hoped she’d be all right. She sounded like she’d be all right.
He didn’t see Nea, but he wasn’t worried about them. If they could survive their own explosions, they could survive this.
Probably.
When the boat—or, to be more precise, shattered pieces of the boat—began to resurface downstream, bobbing violently in the rapid current, Kell started to worry.
That certainly never happened in cartoons.
Author Bio
Evelyn Benvie is the wooly jumper in a family of black sheep. Both a cynic and a romantic at heart, she writes diverse poetry and queer-positive spec-fiction with strong characters, quirky romances, and (almost always) happy endings.
Sometimes she tries to be funny, to varying results.