M.R. is in drafting hell

@mrwritesfantasy.bsky.social

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32. she/her ⚔️aspiring fantasy author⚔️ current wip: DRAGON’S FLAME (1st draft)

I glance up into his dark eyes, so full of concern and pleading, and know that I can trust him. Magnus may work for my mother, may have originally been tasked with guarding me, but over the years, he has become my closest confidante. And shame and regret wash over me when I think about how I've taken him for granted all these years. "Flameheart," I choke out. "The Flameheart is coming."
Though we have only been in each other's minds for a few days, the loss of Vorvuth's consciousness alongside mine feels as if some vital part of me, a lung or a limb, perhaps, is missing. I had always judged Mother for her unwillingness to part from him, thinking it an overreaction or an excuse to not spend more time with her human family, but I understand now. This pain is unbearable and I curl in on myself, thankful that my bindings have been removed, as I try to hold my body together while it in turn tries to collapse in on itself.
Her hand is sun-warmed when she places it on my cheek, hot enough to burn the spot where our skin makes contact. I flinch away and Mother frowns, hurt flashing in her eyes. "You can't run from this forever, Shafira." Her voice is cold, dropping the loving mother act she had tried to put on not even a minute before. "Refusal is not running," I remind her. This is my standard line in this argument, the expected line in a play neither of us agreed to be in. "If I wanted to run, I would have done it a long time ago."
The hands holding me are firm on my body, but thin-boned and delicate. They cradle me to their chest and I'm sure it's to make sure they have a good grip on me, but it feels protective. Only one person on this ship would hold me like this. Mairi. I don't dare peek at her because I don't know if I'll find Mairi or the Flameheart staring back at me, but the tenderness in her touch gives me hope. Hope that, even if she is under the Archmarshal's influence, my best friend—my Mairi—is still in in there somewhere. That she isn't completely lost to me just yet.
I stumble my way down the road that leads to the main city square. A few people ask if I need help and more than a few give me odd looks, but I pay none of them any mind. The breeze blowing off the salt water that surrounds our island whips my hair around my face, beckoning me to its shores.
the cover of shel silverstein’s where the sidewalk ends
You won't live long enough for it to matter." "You keep saying that. And, yet, I'm still alive." He stops his pacing and plants himself directly in front of me. He crouches down, elbows resting on his thighs, hands under his chin. The hard steel of his gray-eyed stare steals the breath from my lungs and turns my already weak muscles into gelatin. All I want to do is wither and die, just so he can't look at me anymore. He's conquered so many people, I think. How many of them died with his face as the last thing they saw?
illustration of a blue and red bird with the words “the risk i took was calculated but man, am i bad at math.” above its head
Still, I flop onto a secluded stretch of sand far away from the fishing boats. The movement hurts, but soon my body relaxes into the sand. I stare up at the cloudless day, the sky a blue too brilliant for the turmoil roiling inside of me. All this trouble and nothing to show for it, I think pathetically before a laugh bubbles up in my throat. Once the first laugh breaks through, I am powerless to stop the ones that follow. None of this is funny and my aching muscles beg me to stop, but I just keep laughing. How foolish I am to think that, even for just one day, I could be Sasha again. Sasha died five years ago when she was returned home to the palace, dressed in the finest silks, and called Shafira again.
The massive dragon stands at least forty feet tall and has deadly black spikes dotting his iridescent blue scales, making him look like water in motion every time he so much as flicks his tails or shakes his head. The only one of his kind remaining, Vorvuth is equal parts feared and worshipped.
Because, where others see the protector of Ihoro, all I see is an omen of death. Vorvuth has served every Bashar queen for the last century and a half. And not a single one of them had lived long enough to see their daughters have daughters.
When I try to yank out of his grasp, he digs his thumb painfully into my cheek, forcing eye contact. "I should kill you now, daughter of Grimli." His eyes flick upwards over my shoulder to where Vorvuth is still knocked out and chained to the metal deck. "So why don't you? Then you'll have my dragon all to yourself." I taunt, hoping he can't hear how nervous I am, how deeply in my veins the fear I have while looking into his eyes runs. As if on cue, Vorvuth grumbles and groans as whatever they did to tranquilize him wears off. I smile, knowing that even if the Archmarshal kills me, he will never control Vorvuth.
When I try to yank out of his grasp, he digs his thumb painfully into my cheek, forcing eye contact. "I should kill you now, daughter of Grimli." His eyes flick upwards over my shoulder to where Vorvuth is still knocked out and chained to the metal deck. "So why don't you? Then you'll have my dragon all to yourself." I taunt, hoping he can't hear how nervous I am, how deeply in my veins the fear I have while looking into his eyes runs. As if on cue, Vorvuth grumbles and groans as whatever they did to tranquilize him wears off. I smile, knowing that even if the Archmarshal kills me, he will never control Vorvuth.
collage of images. one is a brown-ish box with the words Dragon’s Flame in white text. the others are a female figure clad entirely in black armor including the face and holding two swords, a silhouette of two girls kissing in front of a yellow moon, a black dragon’s face with a red-orange eye, and a female figure riding a black dragon into the sunset with another dragon in the background
left hand side: text reading With the help of her new dragon companion, eighteen-year-old Shafira hunts down the legendary assassin who murdered her parents in front of her. But things become complicated when she discovers the assassin in question is the best friend she was forcibly separated from five years previous...and that she may not be working of her own free will. right hand side: a picture of a grassy hill in front of a fog covered mountain overlaid with texting reading Elevator Pitch
text reading "I needed to see you." The Flameheart's voice sounds detached, as if it is coming from somewhere other than her body. With an effort I didn't know I was able to muster, I push my hair away from face to get a better look at her. Able to see her clearly, I notice the way her eyes go in and out of focus.
When she finishes with a pat to my uninjured shoulder and a muttered “Now that oughta hold for a while,” I am dizzy and nearly panting from the pain. The knuckles on my right forefinger are bruised and purpling, the indents of my own teeth deep and prominent. Uma helps me settle back onto the bed, taking care to make sure there is extra padding underneath my newly-wrapped wound. “Now, where is that boy?” she says to herself once she is satisfied that I am comfortable and safe from tearing my sutures open again. “Maddox!” she shouts to the room and I startle, wondering how it is she could both know Maddox’s name and be so familiar with him that she speaks to him as though he’s a young boy about to get a scolding from his mother.
Seventeen-year-old Zamora Rettim has always known she was destined to die young. She’s been training her entire life to compete in the Voxium — the magical contest held every by three countries to determine a victor in their centuries long war. Zamora is proficient enough in hand-to-hand combat, but she knows it’s not enough to save her life. Because Zamora doesn’t possess an ounce of magic. Once she arrives at the Voxium, however, she finds that it’s not at all what she was lead to believe that it was. There is no contest — magical or otherwise — just a smarmy lord who holds all of their fates in his hands. As she tries to uncover the secrets of the Voxium, Zamora begins to make friends — including Maddox LaCrath, the prince of one of the neighboring kingdoms. Soon, Zamora and her friends learn that there’s a bigger threat on their lives than the Voxium and its host. They set out, intent to destroy it, but how can they when the threat is none other than one of the war kings…and Maddox’s older brother?
“You aren’t as inconspicuous as you think you are, Jewel.” I turn on my heel to face the boy, to demand how it is he knows not only who I am but knows enough to call me by that Etherdamned nickname. But, he’s no longer standing behind me. In fact, he’s nowhere on the street at all. He simply vanished, as if he never existed at all. Acutely aware of the world and my place in it, I trudge back the way I came. The interaction with the strange boy has soured my desire to be in Terein a moment longer and, for once in my life, all I want is to be behind the safety of the Citadel’s walls.
Once I’ve cried myself dry and there is the dull ache of a burgeoning headache behind my eyes, I stand and stumble out from underneath the willow. I tilt my head up towards the sky, eyes closed as the crisp night air cools my overheated skin. When I open my eyes, I continue to stand at the top of the willow hill, trying and failing to count the stars. I envy their endlessness, the way they never seem to die.
His answering smile is blinding in the quiet twilight. No one else gets this smile, I think as the breath catches in my throat. No one else gets to see this side of him. Just me. “Because, my dearest Mora, whenever you’re thinking too hard about something you get this tiny crease between your eyebrows.” He touches his own forehead, laughing when I do the same to myself. I scowl because he’s right – there is indeed a small crease under my fingers, my brows knit tight. I hadn’t even realized I was doing it. “Don’t be embarrassed,” he says. Sitting up, he captures my hand in his and pulls it away from my face. “I think it’s cute.”
I ignore the barely veiled threat in her words. “My name is Zamora,” I remind her between teeth gritted against the nickname. Reko, like so many others in the Dantorian court, insists on calling me the Jewel (short for my official title of Jewel of the Jona Crown). I hate it, not only because it’s not my name and detaches me further from the family I was forcibly removed from, but because it’s a reminder of the expectations sitting on my shoulders. Expectations that I will never be able to live up to. “Your name doesn’t matter,” Reko says. There’s no malice in the words – Reko is not trying to hurt me, she’s just stating a fact. It doesn’t make it sting any less.
Terein is loud and it’s provocative and the combination of alcohol, human sweat, and waste that I hope isn’t human makes the air so foul that it’s difficult to breathe. And, yet, I keep returning. I’d live here if I could. The man who shoves past me with an obscene insult muttered under his breath doesn’t know who I am. The vendor who insists that a pretty thing like me needs the almost certainly fake diamonds and rubies she’s selling doesn’t know that within the walls of the Citadel I am the Jewel, more priceless than anything she’s shilling.