Realm of the Witch Queen

“The depth of the characters and the world building were incredible . . .
I loved how mythology and spirituality weaved in throughout the novel.”
– Voracious Readers Only Reviewer

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READ AN EXCERPT
Favourable winds drew them on, and the sky held yet the morning star in the shifting colours of its dawn as they set the longboat to anchor in the shallows and readied themselves to approach the shore. Wading in bare feet to the land, each person carried their boots slung across their shoulders – all watching as they moved, scanning their surroundings.

Beyond the narrow beach, the land rose to high cliffs covered with a formidable expanse of forest: deep greens and thick shadows weaving through the tall, twisted gathering of the pines. Locating a walkable embankment from the beach, they assembled themselves into a tight formation. Those out front and to the sides with hands readied for their weapons. Those towards the centre hefting upon their backs the packed supplies – all alert and attentive to each echo of sound and movement of shadows. Lahana drew the hood of her deep-grey cloak lower across her forehead, her trousers tucked into her high, dark leather boots.

They entered into the forest, pushing through the thicket and, when necessary, climbing over fallen logs and wide barriers of rock. All around them the birdlife was uninhibited, calling to one another, alighting from one tree branch to another, and pitching up through the forest canopy towards the pockets of blue sky overhead. A pair of small foxes watched the human party, holding their sharp eyes upon the strangers before darting back and away into the shadows. Other noises travelled beyond their vision: those of hoofbeats, light and dashing, a herd in quick migration.

At nightfall, they set up camp in the shelter of a mighty oaken giant. They lit no fire, yet the sky was bright over the trees, with a clear Moon only just beginning to wane. The armed took turns at the watch, listening to the crystal clarity of wolf calls amplified across the distance by the chilled night air.

They rose at the glimpse of dawn, setting out once again over the rise and fall of the forest floor. Hours of trekking until finally setting up another camp and resting through the night.

At the edge of noon on the third day, the forest abruptly gave way to a wide clearing of land. The sheer brightness of the light, of both the turquoise blue sky and the dust-gold land, forcing each traveller to at first shield their eyes.

As their eyes adjusted, they moved forward with caution, scanning the expanse of silent barrenness. In the distance, at the heart of the clearing, a huddled bulk of grey stones came into sight. As they approached the monument, it revealed a complex grid of stone pillars, the tallest set on the outer boundary as a perfect circle. While at the heart sat a flat plinth with altar-like smoothness.

While the others stood guard, Sha’han and Lahana walked into the circle, passing beneath the shadows cast by the tallest pillars as they sought the centre. There, Lahana knelt to the ground before the altar, placing her hand upon its formidable starkness. Its surface crumbled at her touch. A parched, thick coating of earth loosened as rubble, dry and unsettled, catching on the slight breeze and scattering into dust.

Lahana held her hand over her mouth, holding back a choking cough as she wiped away the remaining coating from the altar stone. The noise seeming abhorrently wrong within the pervading silence of the monument. The silence of one who watches all the small things come and go without concern. Lahana could sense it spreading out to the surrounding land. Silence like a glacier of dust, gradual and untraceable, slow as time itself moving beyond the cycle of a woman or man’s life.

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Praise for the LUNAR FIRE Saga