QSFer Michael Green Jr has a new queer fantasy out: The End of Nobility.
It’s Ender’s Game meets Children of Blood and Bone set in a world where everyone has access to food, shelter, and magic, but the children still live in fear.
The draft is in effect.
When the army attempts to draft Dre and Alaan, the first and only twins, and Rye, the son of a disgraced soldier, they know something is wrong. By the time they realize how wrong, they are running for their lives with assassins after them.
To survive, the twins will have to wield their fame as a weapon and Rye will have to dig deeper into the truth of his father’s disappearance.
Get It At Amazon | Universal Buy Link
Excerpt
The red light of a spell surrounded Mira, reflecting a soft glow off her dark body. It pulsed to the rhythm of her shifting, swollen belly, but the stubborn woman wouldn’t die. She lay sweat-drenched in a hospital bed, clenching her fiancé’s hand.
“That…that isn’t a strong heartbeat,” a protector said as he pulled his head back. The red tint washed from his white robes when he released the sphere of energy enveloping Mira. “It’s two weak ones. I will inform the head protector.” He hurried out of the room.
Slithlor jerked away from the back wall. He placed his cup of tea on a nearby counter. It was finally time to terminate this monstrous child. It had been a gift, but not every experiment would succeed and failures were dangerous. In the same way that he would question what went wrong, so would another person. The head protector would not let this oddity go unstudied, and there could be no trail back to him. His experiments on foreigners were tolerated, but he would be executed for what he did to Mira’s child. Fortunately, there was no way to study the magic of a dead baby.
The father dabbed Mira’s forehead. “First extra limbs, now two hearts?”
Mira propped herself up on her elbows. “It doesn’t matter what Alaandre looks like,” she said. She pulled his face to hers. She kissed him. “I love you.”
Invisible psychic energy leapt from Slithlor’s head. It disturbed the air in a way that only he could sense. He maneuvered it around the father and touched the woman’s belly. She fidgeted but didn’t cry out. Inside her womb, however, there weren’t only two hearts—there were two minds. Interesting. He pulled back his energy.
Several people in white entered the room. The head protector stepped to the front, wearing large blue and red earrings. “I understand that many have come to see you over the past few weeks and have told you many different things. It is normal that expecting parents are wary of new technology during pregnancy, but in your case, it is most important that we get a clear image of the baby.”
“Can’t you check with protection magic?” the father asked.
“Yes, but we are experiencing something we have never seen before. This device will give a second opinion.” She placed a hand on a shiny metal machine next to the bed. “Magic imitates the world, and this machine imitates magic. The ultrasound will not harm your child.” She tilted her head from side to side. An emblem of six overlapping circles within a seventh circle was carved into her earrings. It was the symbol of Lynit. Six people: Vous, Yordin, Cast, Pol, Palow, and Finrar, discovered six forms of magic, and Kertic, the only person ever able to wield all six as an adult, brought the desert people together under one banner. Kertic had only one law: Magic must be shared. Then, Lynit was formed. The descendants of the six became the nobles, and the descendants of Kertic became the kings and queens. The head protector was a Pol, a descendent of the creator of protection magic. The colors of her earrings, blue and red, were Pol colors. Her family was praised for being so dedicated to helping others, but their bloodline didn’t make them all-knowing.
“The ultrasound will not harm your children,” Slithlor said. He kept his face blank as the parents and protectors turned to him.
“What do you mean?” the father asked.
“There are two minds in her womb,” Slithlor said.
“Are the babies healthy?” Mira asked, straining to see him through the clump of perplexed healers.
“Two children? Human twins?” a protector said, shaking her head. “That’s impossible.”
“Who are you?” the head protector asked.
It was a tricky question. Slithlor knew Mira. They had gone to the same school for a few years as kids. It was enough of a connection that she didn’t question when he showed up in her life a year ago. But as a colleague warned him, he wasn’t close with anyone who didn’t serve a purpose and was starting to develop a reputation for that. Any answer he gave now would be scrutinized in the years to come.
The room quieted.
“A researcher,” Slithlor said. “I first identified the anomaly several months ago and have been monitoring it ever since.”
“Months?” the father said. “You’ve never said anything before.”
Slithlor kept his eyes on the head protector.
Mira grabbed the nearest arm. “Use the machine.”
Ten faces crowded around a small screen. Someone flipped a switch, and the device whistled to life. A few seconds later, the thick sound of a heartbeat filled the room. The bass rattled the machine. The head protector adjusted a few knobs, and the sound resolved into a lighter syncopated beat—two amplified heartbeats pumped in almost perfect unison. White lines traced two identical forms.
“Congratulations, you discovered the first case of human twins,” a man said. He shook the head protector’s hand.
Slithlor would have been annoyed that a noble was credited for his work, but in this instance, he didn’t want credit; he only wanted results. “Will their magic be different, more powerful?” he asked.
The head protector turned from the screen. “Unfortunately, we won’t know until they are older.”
“But are they physically healthy?” Mira asked.
“Yes,” the head protector said. She tapped the screen, then explained some medical jargon.
More protectors flooded the already-cramped room, some arriving from different hospitals, some from different cities via matter shift.
After fourteen hours of loud labor and magic, Mira gave birth to two boys, Alaan and Dre, the first twins ever. Slithlor slipped out of the hospital and returned to his office. A large metal board hung on the wall. Small magnetic blocks lined up on a grid. He grabbed the third one down and slid it over to the column labeled Pending. Then, he turned his attention to other projects.
Author Bio
Michael Green is a data scientist, writer, and founder of Lynit, a tool to wrangle your ideas into a well-structured novel. He loves reading and writing speculative fiction, singing, and learning something new every day. He grew up in Washington, DC; has lived in NYC, Paris, and Melbourne; and currently lives in Mexico City.
| Author Website | https://www.michaelgreenjr.com |
|---|---|
| Author Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/michaelgreenjr.writes |
| Author Twitter | https://twitter.com/mgj_writes |