“Walking on Knives” preview

Yes, it’s been a while since I last posted here- but that should change. I just finished Erin Bow’s The Swan Riders, sequel to The Scorpion Rules, and will be reviewing it soon. In the meantime, have a teaser for my f/f mermaid story, “Walking on Knives.” It will be out as an ebook from Torquere in February 2017.  It will be out as an ebook from Less Than Three Press on July 26th, 2017 and can be preordered here.

Here’s a preview- the little mermaid’s first encounter with birds and the concept of flight. The other half of the f/f pair isn’t in this bit, unfortunately, though you do get to meet the prince (who quotes the ancient Greek poet Alcman on kingfishers):

“My lady, listen.” The prince held a finger to his lips. She didn’t know what she was meant to be hearing–everything here was hushed, the still air, the carpet of old twigs and leaves. Slowly patterns emerged: squeaks like the gabbling of dolphins and every now and then a long high rattle. She revolved, seeing only the trees on one side and the path to the beach, with a cottage beside it, on the other.

She could feel the prince’s gaze on her. Her eyes had widened, and her hands came up in excited gesticulation. He understood her without words.

“Look up,” he whispered, pointing at the branches that interwove above them. Something blue and impossible streaked through the air.

“A kingfisher,” he said, and sang a line or two of verse. “‘His heart fearless, the holy sea-blue bird.’ You’re not from around here, are you?”

She scarcely registered the question. Head tilted back, she scanned the obstructed sky for more of the creatures. Air suddenly took on the complexity, the bounty of the sea.

A little brown meteor flew past; it came to rest on a low branch, and she examined its squid-like beak and mysterious texture–a thousand soft, elongated scales covered its breast and its– fins? arms? A miracle, in this gravity-bound, depthless world.

 

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