I’ve been quiet. After the election, after the creative crash due to writing a new novel with Thea Masen (the second book in the Roan Island series) along with 25K new words on the next Imogene Sol novel, add to it work and now the revision of In the Shadow of an Obsession (of which I’m 55K into), I figure I owe you some writing. The question is always: what to share? So, how about a little of it all? Here goes! There are three chapters here. The first is from The Secrets of Roan Island which publishes on Thursday (11/21). The second is from the work in progress In the Shadow of an Obsession. And the final excerpt is a chapter from the new Imogene Sol work in progress, The Cipher of Ares. I hope you enjoy them.

The Secrets of Roan Island, by Maci Aurora and Thea Masen

Ruby

Visiting a stranger’s home in the middle of nowhere, especially alone, isn’t a good idea. Not that I’m particularly known for good ideas. Outlandish ones. Unhinged ones. Miscalculated ones. Among my colleagues at Essik College, my exploits are legendary. Especially among the men, who love nothing more than to laugh at me behind my back. Do I want to shut them all up? Sure, but there’s more at stake than just my academic reputation. I’m desperate, and desperation makes people do inadvisable things. Which is why I’m alone with a boatman on the dock of Roan Island.

The narrow wooden dock is worn by age and sagging at the edges, like the smile of an unrepentant parishioner at confession. It creaks as I lift my skirts and step out of the steam-huffing metal boat onto the decrepit wood that appears as if it might disintegrate into the sloshing water below. It looks like this dock hasn’t been used in decades, which doesn’t line up well with the Roan family’s reputation of vast wealth. 

I glance back at Lake Nettor. The water we just crossed stretches to the horizon, crimson waves whipping up as the wind slices its way across the massive expanse. They say that the scarlet coloring is a result of some ancient deity who tore the island from the shore in a fit of anger and blood. True or not, the red expanse prevents me from seeing the colony on the other side, making my circumstances even more dire. Once the boatman leaves, I’ll be utterly alone here with a family I don’t know on an island that looks as if it hasn’t seen civilization in years.

“Are you sure this is the right place?” I ask.

“That’s it.” The boatman nods with a grim frown at the roof of the house that rises above the treetops. “Not the place for a pretty thing like you.” 

For a moment, I consider turning back, but quickly discard the idea. If I want to keep my job, I need to talk to Hammish Roan, so I roll back my shoulders and raise my chin, trying to exude confidence I don’t feel. I’m a fake-it-till-you-make-it kind of woman and very good at faking it. “I’ll be quite alright, thank you.” 

The older man shakes his head and huffs an incredulous noise. “Suit yourself.”  

While he means nothing to me, his doubt grates against my insides like the incessant grind of the boat’s engine as he cranks it to life with added huffs and pops of the metalwork and mechanisms putting it into motion. David used to assume that look too, as if I were nothing more than a child with whims and intellect to match. But I don’t want to think of David. Not now. Not ever. 

“You’ll be back at the end of the month, as we agreed?” I ask, shaken by the eeriness and isolation of the island as I dig into my reticule for the agreed upon sum. 

He takes the money, then glances at the woods as he pushes against the dock with his oar. “If you’re still here.” 

A chill creeps up my spine as I watch the gears shift and turn on the boat, clicking like a metronome as it disappears into the fog. The only way back now is to swim. 

Turning towards the house, I step from the dock to the rocky shoal of the island. Between the tall trees and the overgrown underbrush, the path from the dock is nearly imperceptible but for the broken cobblestone. With one hand, I squeeze my shawl tighter at my neck, and with the other the handle of my bag. Damp fog surges from the woods, curling around my boots and skirt, making me wish I’d put on my heavier stockings and an extra petticoat. The cold bites, and it’ll only get colder over the next month. 

With a shiver, I set down my satchel and pull out the parchment notice that brought me here. The dark burgundy seal of the Roan family is stark against the ivory paper staring back at me. 

Dear Professor Rose,

I received your inquiry to meet and would like to grant you access to the interview you requested for your research.

Please join my family and me on Roan Island for the Winter Solstice holiday as my family’s esteemed guest. Your housing, food, and clothing will be provided. 

We look forward to the possibility of getting to know you over the holiday month, and to discussing your inquiry. I am hopeful we can come to a fortuitous solution.

Sincerely, 

Hammish Roan

Even now, in this decrepit place, excitement courses through my blood as I reread the letter. The filthy rich family of philanthropists, whose name graces dozens of buildings and societies in New Essik Colony, received my letter and agreed to meet with me. The Hammish Roan signed it himself, inviting me to the estate for a whole month!

The Roan family is notoriously private, boarding on reclusive. Inviting me, a lowly college professor, to their estate is unprecedented. It’s the best opportunity that’s ever come my way, and the only chance I’ll have to secure my position at the university. Their library at the estate is legendary, and access to it will give my next paper the validity it needs. A grant from the Roan family will do even more. If I can secure a grant for my department, the university will have to keep me on as a professor. The alternative is… well, I don’t want to consider it.

Doubt creeps along my spine like the fog twisting around the naked trees as I glance up from the parchment, folding it once more. This place is nothing like I imagined. I’m surprised a family as wealthy as the Roans would let their land fall to such neglect. Perhaps they’ve had trouble finding a groundskeeper.

I tuck the invitation into my skirt pocket, wondering if I’ll need to present it at the door. 

The wind whines over the water as I leave the lake behind and duck onto the path. The black trees press in on every side, like a corset that’s tied too tight. They block the light, but not the heavy fog. It’s difficult to see more than a few steps forward, which is why I don’t notice the gate until I’m right in front of it. 

Thick, climbing vines partially obscure the Roan family crest at the gate’s center. A deep breath of relief fills my lungs upon seeing it. The gate looks ancient, as it should. The Roan legacy goes back a long way and their claim on the island is equally as old. The metal is rusted, a deep burnt red, and closed tight. Beyond it, the pointed tops of the trees compete with the steep roof. I can’t see the full estate from the gateway, just slivers of stone and glimmers of windows.  But from what I can see, the grounds are no better kept here than the dock. 

“What have you gotten yourself into this time, Ruby Rose?” I mutter. I’m not easily deterred, though, and I need this, so I reach up and push on the gate. It doesn’t budge. 

Finding a boatman willing to ferry me out to the island for nearly all my mint was terrifying enough, but now a locked gate when I am supposedly expected? I swallow my scream and shake the rusted bars, pushing them harder this time. “Hello? Is anyone there?” 

Besides the creaking of iron, the only answer is silence. An eerie silence. The kind that comes when a predator is near. Cold fear slides up my spine. I glance around, then pull my satchel more tightly against my side. I don’t want to stand out here in the woods longer than I have to, which means I need to get past this gate. It’s nothing more than another obstacle to what I really need: access to the Roan private library and their funding. Access to a future that has been unraveling over the past year.

There’s a saying I came across once in my graduate work and wrote down in my journal: Silent women lead silent lives. It became the motto of the CWS, Conspirators Women’s Society, of which I’m a founding member. I don’t know who said it, but the sentiment has proven a necessity. 

I need it now. 

With a deep breath, I grab the hem of my long dress. “Dammit, Ruby. Why did you have to worry about how you look?” 

Pants would have been so much easier than the socially acceptable dress I chose to make a good impression. With another fortifying breath, I tuck the fabric of my skirt firmly into my belt, sling my satchel across my chest, and start to climb. 

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In the Shadow of an Obsession, by Maci Aurora

(Be forewarned: if you haven’t read the rest of the series: SPOILERS)

Jessamine Fareview, first daughter of Scarlett and Tomas Fareview, was in between, trapped like a specter in her own body. But for all intents and purposes, she could sense everyone believed her to be asleep. Except her mind was actively awake, locked in the silent space of her body. She could hear, and smell, and think, and feel despite being as blind to the world as the world had been to her. 

Before.

Growing up in Sevens, she’d known something was different about her, about them all. To put it mildly, her mother, Scarlett, wasn’t just overprotective. She was overbearing. Strangely so and more so with her than any of the rest of her siblings. Though she couldn’t quite identify it, couldn’t put words to her thoughts as if there were a lock on her tongue. Her sweet words were often at odds with her dark thoughts. Sweet Jessamine, or so everyone said about her. Such a perfect child. Things didn’t add up, as if an elixir contained too much cruel weed poisoning the whole batch. Rarely out of her mother’s sight, Jessamine had learned the healing arts and remedies as her mother’s apprentice. And she had a knack for it which had given her a sense of pride. The question remained: was Jessamine the cruel weed or was it her mother?

The way others interacted with Jessamine when she went on a call with her mother had always been strange. Adding to her unease, it was the way they would look at her, then look away. Their eyes skimmed past as if they understood she was there, but then would immediately forget. Jessamine, herself, struggled to identify what made her unique, made her… well, her. She existed. She felt and loved. She interacted with her family, her sisters, others, only nothing remained to fill her and flesh her out into a wholly unique being. It was as though she were a living, breathing, vessel, no more filled than that of an empty vase waiting for flowers. Then once offered the flowers, they would die, wilt, and leave her empty once more.

Except for those dark thoughts coursing through her unable to latch onto her voice.

She suspected it had to do with the ribbons somehow. Hers was different. Her siblings wore red ribbons at their wrists, as did she, but her crimson ribbon was twisted up with a second ribbon, a deep shimmering opalescent pink, like that of a pearl, entwined with violet threads. Beautiful, yes, but different. Just like her. When Auri returned from the Great Nap Escapade without her ribbon and then Tarley less than a year later, both with new loves, Jessamine suspected. When her mother refused to answer questions, she wondered if magic was at work. But her suspicions felt locked inside her throat and even if she’d wanted to voice them, couldn’t, as if even though she’d been awake she’d been asleep. A living, breathing doll no more or less than the assignments she’d been given by her master—her mother.

 But something had changed.

Because now she was locked in her body. And sometimes she dreamed of Brinna.

Brinna standing at the edge of the forest waving Jessamine to come to her.

Brinna standing on the other side of a ravine calling to her. The sound and echo of her cry lost to the raging river flowing below.

Brinna trapped on the other side of a mirror, her palms hitting the glass until it cracked.

Brinna crying in the dark and Jessamine with a single candle nearly burned through to illuminate her. She wondered what would happen if the candle went out?

Then—though Jessamine slept—she cycled back to awareness with the voices of men. One was a stranger. The other was at the edge of one.

Each day—she assumed, because time was strange in this in-between where she existed moving like both the rush of a river’s current, but also the slow meander of a viscous, muddy mixture—both men would visit. The first, the stranger, would speak, the sound of his voice sat forward in his head, a thin sound like wind in the reeds along the River Grimz. Fragile somehow, but laced with condescension and rage. His touch was the skittering of spiders over her skin. She didn’t like him, unnerved and uneasy. He told her of his workshop, of his needs, of what he wanted from her which was to wake up.

They had the same goal, but she couldn’t make it happen even as much as she wished for it.

The second voice, the one that felt familiar, brought comfort. He would open the box where she lay, and take her hand. She couldn’t see the box, of course, but she’d come to believe that to be the case. Their voices were muted as if she held her hands up to cover her ears, then when he would visit, she could hear the creak and groan of something being opened, experience the sensations of new temperature rushing across her skin, then feel the gentle warmth of his calloused hand on hers, the rest of her sensations waking as well.

“I’m here, Jessamine,” he whispered each time.

His voice was deep, rich, but rough and layered with an edge of something feral as if he were a wolf hidden in the darkness watching her from the shadows. Only she didn’t feel fear, she felt protected.

Her heart bloomed at his attention.

Once, when she was small, before Mattias had been born, their parents had taken her and her sisters for a picnic into a summer’s day woods. Jessamine had been around eight at the time, remembered the vibrant green of the deciduous trees and the wildflowers as they walked toward the River Grimz. It wasn’t very often that the whole family left the confines of the hedge. 

“We’ll have an adventure.” Her father had smiled and swung Auri up onto his shoulders. Her youngest sister had squealed with delight.

Their mother’s annoyance at her father’s insistence had been a storm following them for sometime, but eventually, even Scarlett had relented, pointing out herbs and ingredients to healing elixirs along the way, her hand held protectively over her belly, an unborn Mattias growing inside her.

With Tarley’s hand in Jessamine’s on one side, and Brinna’s in the other, she’d led her sisters through the Whitling Woods following their parents. They’d stopped in a meadow and set up their picnic. Hoping to please her mother, Jessamine had ventured into the woods to go back for a special flower Scarlett had mentioned was a rare find. Only the next time she looked up, she didn’t recognize where she’d wandered, the voices of her family silent in the shadowed darkness of the forest. She’d screamed, cried out for them until her voice had grown hoarse. When her father finally found her, crushing her against his giant chest, she’d felt utterly safe and secure in his arms.

That was how this stranger’s voice made her feel. How his touch brought a surge of warmth and light to what otherwise was cold and dark.

“I’m here, Jessamine.” 

She craved these moments with him.

Today his thumb ran back and forth across the back of her hand. “I’ll be hunting today. I’m going to see how far I can go,” he said, then muttered something about the cursed spell. “But I will return for you, Jessamine. I will always return to you.” 

In the beginning—when he first began speaking to her—he told her they were in the manor of a sorcerer without a name but known as Master. He gave her the facts, not mincing the words that seemed measured and gifted, as if he weren’t one who held onto many of them. The man with the comforting voice told her of the sleeping spell, the witch, the broken hedge. He told her she’d been taken by the Master from her parent’s cottage. “I followed,” he’d said, matter-of-factly, as if there hadn’t been another choice. “I promise to get you home.” The comforting voice reminded her of her family, speaking their names. Reminding her. Keeping her connected to life when it might feel so easy to let go. 

“I’m going to get us out of here.”  His hand squeezed hers.

She strained toward his voice, longing to open her eyes to see him. As he spoke, she thought of horses and the forest. Of the sensation of strong arms encircling her and a sturdy chest. The feel of her heart’s pitter patter with the movement of a horse beneath her, of a soft exhale against her neck. Of dancing and dark eyes curled slightly at the corner. She could smell leather and pine, the crispness of an outdoor chill. But time passed and the scent of him changed to a springtime forest layered with petrichor, to the summer woods and wildflowers, to the fall forest and the depth of earthen pine, until the crispness of winter cool was on him once more. Time was passing, and she remained locked in. The voice she longed to hear, whose touch she longed to feel never waivered. But she could hear the weariness in his sigh.

“Every time I leave, I forget. I don’t know how to get past the spell.” His thumb moved back and forth over the skin of her wrist. “Gods, I hate magic.” A heat bloomed under skin each time he touched her, intensifying her desire to hear him, to open her eyes and see him. If only she could.

“I’m failing,” he said. “I’m letting everyone down.”

She wished she could comfort him. Wished she could lift her arm, place her hand on his, feel him with her own fingertips. Wished she could thank him for being with her. And if she could, she would assure him they’d figure it out together. Except she couldn’t. She was useless. Locked in the prison of her own body and some spell on her.

Nothing new had happened to change this.

“I’m afraid I might be losing my mind,” he said, his voice heavy and strained. His thumb stopped moving for a moment, then resumed its tender journey back and forth over her skin.

She wanted to touch him. 

Wanted to reciprocate the comfort he brought her with each visit, with his words, and his gentle touch.

As much as she fought against the prison of silence around her, there wasn’t a means of escape. She thrashed and cried, screamed and yelled inside her own mind. It just didn’t change anything. She was locked in just as she always had been. 

Today, after offering his words, he sat with her silently, but his thumb moved back and forth across her wrist offering comfort and connection. 

Jessamine concentrated on it. The calluses of his thumb, the warmth spreading through her as she pondered more than just this simple, innocent touch. The way his rougher skin felt against the sensitive and smooth flesh of her inner wrist. Then suddenly it hit her: her ribbon was gone.

Where this story begins:

In the Shadow of a Wish

*The Cipher of Ares By CL Walters

*title may change

Santiago Sol 

“Charlie. Come in,” Elaina hissed over Santiago’s intercom. He knew his wife’s words weren’t directed at him, but rather their caller at the station. “I need a route.”

Santiago’s heart sputtered in his chest, and he looked up from his pretend study of his reader as he walked. “What is it, Echo?” he asked, using her code name, the transmission embedded in the earpiece of the eye wear he was wearing as he moved with the crowd across the platform, the tiny chip of intel shoved into his pocket. He wore a typical uniform for a Work Force Blind construction worker—heavy blue pants, the hard hat, the tool belt and reader, the safety glasses— blending in. He tapped the nosepiece of the glasses adjusting it on his face, and his wife’s face appeared in the glasses. Her vitals bounced across a corner of the glass, elevated, but there wasn’t a reason to worry. They were undercover for their latest assignment for Legion, there to intercept the intel after a lead had come through their home office. Since they were closest, stationed on Inmara, they’d been sent to Station 452.

452—one of the busiest transfer portals in the Federation at the moment—was teaming with citizens. Moving to and from their posts, to their accommodations for the night, some traveling between stations, this station was a hub on the strand between Akros, Drand, and Hommash I in the Enoz system, it served as a jump spot between homeworlds as the final gate between Drand and Ozma in the Ngall system was built. Though a war had broken out across the United Federation of the Billenium System, or the UFB, at the unfair binding practices and the lack of resources which the original gates had been built to alleviate, the final gate had become a source of the conflict. 

He and Elaina were there because the informant had indicated there could be sanctioned Federation interference at one of the gate sites, and with evidence, the Legion could finally help push for reform. Could maybe turn the tide of this war in citizen favor.

“It should be routine,” Amrick Laos had said less than twenty-four hours ago.

“In a war zone?” Santiago had asked.

“Not a warzone.”

“But a major point of it.” Santiago had leaned forward over the table between them.

Laos had leaned forward as well, the bustle of the cantina loud and completely disinterested in three unlikely friends, his elbows on the table. His Zardish muscles had bunched under his shirt as he dropped his head, scratching at something near his eye. When he looked up, his usually golden eyes—bright in the dark ochre of his skin—were nearly black. He frowned and something strange skittered through Santiago and knew it was the normal bugs that plagued any mission. “I get your concern, Sol. It’s a credit to your abilities, but this appears routine.”

“How can anything be routine in a war?” Elaina had asked.

Laos had nodded his understanding. “Just a routine drop and pick up. The exchange isn’t hand to hand. It’s been left in a deposit unit.”

“Is there no one else who could switch with Elaina?” Santiago asked. “It’s just… with a kid and all…”

“Why me?” Elaina had asked annoyed with him. “Why not you?”

“Okay. Either of us,” Santiago had amended.

“You’re partners,” Amrick had replied. “It should be in and out. No problems.”

Now, with their orders executed and the intel secured from the unit, they had only to rendezvous and clear the station. They’d followed protocol, split-and-see, and were ready for the link-up.

“Charlie?” she asked the caller once more over the comm, her hand swiping at her forehead. “Can you get me a route?” she asked.

But there wasn’t a reply.

Santiago slowed, stopping in the current of people moving around him, bouncing against his now still form. The vibrancy of the space station lost as his focus as he homed in on his wife. His unflappable wife. “Echo?” he asked. “What is it?”

“I’m pinned down. Federation patrol,” she whispered, “on my tail.”

The purpose of the see.

“Fuck,” Santiago said and turned back toward where he’d left her. “How?”

“Do not come, Sierra. I repeat, get on that transport.”

He knew Elaina meant for him to leave her, to get to Station 430 on the next transport as planned.

“I’m coming back.” He hadn’t liked the setup from the beginning, even if it was a simple grab. He never liked that they were separated after the drop, but this was the way of things. It was why there was the split-and-see to begin with, in case they had a tail. They’d been on many missions together, many simple drops and pickups. It was a routine hustle they’d practice repeatedly as Legionnaires. Together.

“No. That’s an order, Sierra. Get on the transport,” she told him, failing to look up into the eyewear, failing to meet his gaze. “I’ll be on the next one.” She looked up then, at the glass and gave him a smile. “I will be on the next one. India is waiting.” 

He stopped moving. Their daughter. Imogene. “Yes. India.”

“Charlie? Do you copy?” she asked again.

But the hiss of silence was deafening. Their contact had gone comms silent. Santiago shouldn’t have thought much of it, considering the ease of this drop. It shouldn’t have been alarming, but there was a wympton worm inching around in his gut that told him something wasn’t quite right. Disappearing was the rule of this kind of game, but the Charlie was supposed to be there until the exit. They’d all learned the steps at Legionnaire.

“Maybe Charlie’s equipment is on the fritz,” Elaina said. “Or the comm lane has interference.”

“Maybe,” Santiago said and turned back toward the transport with indecision.

“I see you hesitating, Sierra,” she whispered. “I’m right behind you. I promise. Get a move on.” 

So he did. Inserted himself back into the crowd and started for the transport. “I’ll stay on. Link in two.”

She offered him a short smile, her eyes not on the camera in her glasses, but rather studying what he could only assume were the Federation officers. “When we get home,” she said, “I’d like to eat some noodles.”

Santiago smiled, running his fake paperwork through the reader at the checkpoint. The gate beeped his admittance. “I’m through,” he said, and crossed through a doorway into the transport ship. “You’re on the next one,” he said. “And noodles it is.”

She offered a laugh. “Right behind you.”

The ship’s doors closed and began to hum as things settled and he assumed the pilots did their final checklists. “We’re getting ready to unlock,” Santiago told her. 

“I’ll lose you in the tranfray,” she said.

“I love you, Echo” he said as the transmission warbled, the ship lurching away from the station.

“I love you too, Sierra.”

“Hurry home.”

“Right behind–”

But the tranfray cut her off, ending the transmission. 

“Fuck,” he whispered as he swiped the glasses from his head and pocketed the reader he’d been using. The ship smoothed out as it picked up speed. He moved down the aisle toward an empty seat near the window, when suddenly a rumble made the vehicle vibrate and lurch.

“Passengers. Secure yourself,” a robotic voice said over the intercom.

There was a collective vacuum of silence, followed by a rush of sound as people began talking, chattering, processing the anomaly.

Santiago turned toward the viewing room, hurrying when suddenly the ship lurched. 

“Take it easy,” someone said.

A nervous laugh.

Then someone swore as a bright blue light filled the innards of the transport and every face staring at something with slack jawed shock near the windows was washed with brilliance.

Santiago’s heart stalled, and he struggled over seats to get to a window. When he did, his gut clenched, eating itself with first terror and then denial. Station 452 was housed in a sphere of brilliant light.

“No. No. No,” he intoned, the small sound of his voice and the words nothing to the panic, and fear, and disbelief at war inside him. 

Then suddenly in a flash, the light suffused, snuffing out, and an instant later debris slammed into the transport.

Get the Prequel here:

The Trials of Imogene Sol