Rae D. Magdon has a new FF fantasy book out: The Blood Bride.
Valis Nyxera Aefbain, queen of the snow elves, must find a consort of magic blood as soon as possible. A dangerous secret slumbers beneath her palace and only a powerful ritual can keep her kingdom safe.
Brynn Woodwarden, a wood elf with misfiring magical abilities, hates the snow elves. They killed her brother, Darrow, while poaching unicorns. But dangerous creatures prowl her forest home – twisted, rotted things that infect anyone they bite. The wood elves can’t fend them off alone.
Only Brynn’s unique blood is suitable for Valis’ ritual. Only Valis has the soldiers and alchemists Brynn needs to stop the rotted creatures. An arranged marriage is the perfect solution… but such a union might be more than either of them bargained for.
Get It At Amazon | Publisher
Excerpt
THE STORMY, RESTLESS AURA of magic filled the cavern. That Which Dwells Beneath the Ice was closer to waking than ever before. Valis descended the spiral staircase of thick, blue ice dusted with powdery snow to prevent slippage. The magic resisted, an invisible barrier attempting to push her back. It didn’t appreciate her intrusion and it told her so with a biting blast of wind that whipped against her fur-lined robes.
She ignored the wind and continued. Down, down, down.
The daylight above faded, then disappeared. Valis’ eyes, well-used to dim light, began to fail her so deep beneath the surface. She drew Aefbain from the scabbard strapped to her outer thigh. The dagger glowed red and dim like a dying candle, providing just enough light to see. Not that there was anything to see other than the fog of her own breath and more ghostly blue ice, tinted purple by Aefbain’s light.
It stirs, Aefbain whispered in Valis’ mind. Its voice was soft but frightened, like the thrum of her own heartbeat in her ears. Don’t you feel it?
Valis scoffed. “Of course. What sort of question is that?”
Just checking. No need to get pissy.
Valis rolled her eyes and continued down the stairs. The blackness grew blacker and the cold grew colder, as though she’d dived, naked, into the deepest, darkest part of the northern ocean. Still she descended, following a path none but her bloodline had trod in centuries.
After a long time, Valis spotted a soft, white glow in the distance. She hurried down the last few steps to an enormous cavern, three times the size of her own palace on the glacier above. Huge icicles hung from the ceiling, refracting every bit of light, whose source was locked within the ground: a white orb, buried at least a hundred feet beneath the frozen floor. It too was massive, almost as large as her throne room.
Valis followed the only path, a shallow furrow that stopped just before the center of the light. At the end of the path, a frozen pillar held a much smaller orb of polished ice, three feet in diameter. At chest level, this orb looked exceptionally tiny compared to the cavern’s vastness and the giant, white glow underfoot.
“Are you ready?” Valis asked Aefbain. Her voice sounded small and lonely in the depths of the large
cavern.
Are you?
Author Bio
Rae D. Magdon writes sapphic fiction. She believes lesbians, bisexuals, trans/nonbinary folks, and people of color deserve to see themselves fall in love and become heroes in the stories they read. Rae has published fourteen fantasy and sci-fi novels with Desert Palm Press. Her sapphic cyberpunk heist novel, Lucky 7, received a “Goldie” in 2019 and a Rainbow Award that same year. In her spare time, she loves playing TTRPGS.