Dive into Spellmonger: Legacy and Secrets Book 3

 

Spring has arrived early on my mountain, filling the air with birdsongs, butterflies, and twenty tons of pollen per acre.  It’s a relief for me to see winter behind us, this year, though I usually love the season.  We got no snow to speak of, and I had a string of personal tragedies and misfortunes that challenged my delight in the cold winter months this year. But on to more hopeful things.

The third volume of the Legacy & Secrets trilogy is out now!  This YA trilogy, featuring Gatina, was co-authored by my long-time editor and friend Emily Burch Harris, and we had a great time putting these three books together.  We wanted to explore the backstory of one of my most popular secondary characters, Gatina, Kitten of Night. When Gatina first appears in Shadowmage, she appears to be a half-crazed, incredibly determined young woman who is a scion of an ancient and prestigious house of magical thieves, House Furtius.  Emily and I wanted to explore the unique history of this character and explain how Gatina got to be who she is when we meet her, providing some much-needed context.  Mild spoilers for the first two books ahead. In Book 1, Shadowplay, we learn how Gatina emerges from childhood in the middle of serious civil strife following the assassination of the Duke and Duchess of Alshar.  Her father was not just a supporter of Duke Lenguin, she discovers; he was also a personal (although secret) friend of the Duke.  In the power vacuum that results, Duke Lenguin’s hereditary rival, Count Vichetral of Rhemes, seizes power in the capital ostensibly to rule until Lenguin’s heir, Anguin, returns from exile.  In actuality, Vichetral plans on ruling Alshar himself.  House Furtius is steadfast in its opposition to the Count and his cronies, particularly his policy of legalizing slavery once again and pitting the people of Alshar against each other. Shadowplay examines what it is like to grow up in a chaotic political environment.  Gatina and her family are partisans and decide to orchestrate an underground resistance movement against the unpopular usurper, Vichetral.  In the process, she learns the ancient arts of stealth, disguise, and misdirection from her family and masquerades an unassuming street urchin to help the cause—a pretty big step for a ten-year-old.   In Book 2, Shadowheist, Gatina and her brother Atopol are sent to an abbey school for training and safekeeping while her parents continue to organize opposition to the Council of Counts.  The abbey is the strange but prestigious Palomar Abbey, of the Saganite Order, a temple devoted to the study of the stars and the night’s sky.  The temple has been around since the Colonial Period and has many strange secrets, but it has also been the traditional school for House Furtius to educate the next generation of shadowthieves in both magic and larceny.  Unfortunately, Count Vichetral has attracted the support of the exiled Censorate of Magic, a ruthless group of warmagi once in charge of regulating the affairs of the magi but who now act as thugs for the Count.   Gatina contends with many existential issues while at the temple, disguised as a nun, and also has the challenge of her emerging rajira, the magical Talent that allows her people to cast spells.  During the course of her scholarship, she uncovers a plot against the resistance that could put hundreds of their agents in danger—including some of her favorite cousins.   By the third book, Gatina is on the cusp of womanhood.  She has genuine questions about both her future and the future of the seemingly hopeless clandestine organization she and her family have put together, as Vichetral shows no signs of losing power.  Indeed, he seems near to declaring himself Duke and holding on to the throne.  The only way to counter his moves, it is decided, is to form an alliance with certain elements of the Sea Lord culture who control most of the duchy’s maritime enterprises in the Great Bay of Enultramar.  Gatina goes to sea with her family in pursuit of that goal. That’s as much as I want to tell you about Shadowblade, the third and final story in the trilogy.  A lot happens as Gatina and Atopol learn about the family yacht, the Daydream, some of her black-sheep cousins, and most importantly, the strange culture of the Sea Lords.  There’s a decent amount of action, a goodly amount of world-building, and a lot of character development as the Cats of Enultramar begin to confront the reality of their situation.  The story takes us right up to the point where we meet Gatina for the first time in Shadowmage. To some readers and listeners, this might seem an unnecessary indulgence in a “minor” character that departs from the narrative of the main storyline.  Indeed, Minalan doesn’t appear at all in the book, and when he is mentioned, it is with suspicion and distaste.  But Calidore is a big world with many cultures in it, and a lot more was happening while Min & Co. were building Sevendor. I thought it was important for my audience to get to know this part of the world and its people better. The Sea Lords are important to the history of Calidore, after all.  Descended primarily from colonists from the Catalan region of the Iberian peninsula, this odd maritime culture is entirely focused on the importance of life at sea.  The six great cults of the Sea Lords provide great context for how they developed and what their values are.  Their emphasis on trade and commerce is religious in nature, and their often-fatalistic culture is filled with superstitious customs and strange practices that are a sharp contrast to the more sedate Coastlord culture Gatina is used to.   But is it important to the overall story?  Here’s a hint: every book I write is important to the overall story; you just might not see it at first.  While the Legacy & Secrets trilogy was designed to stand on its own as a YA adventure with a unique character’s coming-of-age as its main purpose, there are reasons beyond mere entertainment for indulging in it.  Certainly, you could skip the trilogy (and the Cadet trilogy featuring Dara) and still enjoy the main storyline, but why would you want to?  These secondary works provide context and meaning for some of the seemingly random elements of the main story and explain the motives and motivations for the characters.  Certainly, they are a side dish compared to the meaty entrée of the Spellmonger Series as a whole, but most people enjoy a good side dish. Did I write this just for the money, as some suggest?  Not even close.  I wrote it for the story, to take a character that doesn’t make sense to some and give the reader a good explanation for why Gatina is the way she is.   Because Gatina is not a normal girl.  Beyond her magical heritage and her legacy of being a shadowthief, Gatina was put into some horrific situations at a very early age, and these shaped who she was as much as Farise shaped Minalan or the Siege of Boval Castle shaped Tyndal and Rondal.  Just as Dara was drafted as a child warrior to defend her homeland, Gatina wasn’t merely drafted into a cause—she was born into it.  Having a powerful legacy is a great burden to her as much as it is a guide. Finally, the other goal we wanted to take with Gatina is to explore a plucky, precocious, adventurous young female character who actually has a living mother who is active in her life.  Emily and I were discussing this at the outset of the series—how all the great female heroines of literature usually are missing their moms: Nancy Drew, all the Disney princesses, Heidi, Pippy Longstocking, Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird, Matilda, Emma, et al.  Only Laura Ingalls escaped this fate, but she wasn’t exactly fighting Indians on the frontier.  The normal narrative for girls’ YA adventure fiction almost always involved a girl without proper maternal supervision. But not Gatina.  Indeed, her mother is not only present in the story, but one of the most important characters as she introduces Gatina to her family’s legacy, the craft of shadowmagic and the art of thievery.  Far from discouraging Gatina from indulging in her daring ways, Gatina’s mother encourages her while chiding her for not being careful enough in her execution.  That was a very interesting thing perspective to write this trilogy from. More, her brother isn’t a foil, an annoyance, or a one-dimensional villain.  Atopol and Gatina share a strong bond only strengthened by the joint training they have to endure and the ancient legacy they share.  They are partners, not antagonists, and while the relationship isn’t always smooth, they know they can depend on each other.  Considering they’re participating as children in a bloody insurgency against a tyrant, that’s probably a good thing. If there is one important theme to the Legacy & Secrets trilogy, it is that family matters most of all in a world beset by chaos and confusion.  In our society, that’s a realization that some people don’t make until late adulthood, but in a pre-industrial world where life is short and cheap, the importance of family looms large in the minds of people who must depend on someone to survive and thrive.  In Gatina’s case, that family comes with a lot of baggage—white hair and purple eyes are just the beginning.  But her legacy sustains her, even as it constrains her in the choices she will have to make about her adult life. I hope you enjoy Shadowblade and the rest of the trilogy.  Emily and I put a lot of thought and work into the project, and while it is over, the Gatina character remains strong in the main series.  No doubt we will see echoes of her upbringing in Gatina moving forward. Will this be the last of my YA books?  Not a chance.  While the next two Spellmonger novels after Book 17, Practical Adept, are not YA, there is already a third YA Spellmonger trilogy in the works.  This time, the protagonist is male: Nattia’s brother Travid, a Kasari lad who comes of age during the Goblin Invasion of the Wilderlands.  In that trilogy, we will explore the Kasari culture and its relation with the Wilderlords and the gurvani. In any case, Shadowblade’s release marks a kind of watershed in my career, and I hope you enjoy it as much as we did writing it.  There will be ample opportunity to discuss it with the authors on Discord and other venues to answer your questions.  And there will be plenty more action from Gatina in the future.

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I just wanted to mention that the hardcover edition of the anthology When Swords Fall Silent is now up for sale at Wraithmark’s website!  I contributed the short story “Mission of Mercy,” the last story in the book.  Having received the special Kickstarter hardback copy, I can assure you that the quality of the print copy is exceptional, and the art is perfect.  This anthology is focused on the topic of assassination, and some of the proceeds will go to St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, a cause near and dear to my heart.  Check it out, and experience some of the best up-and-coming fantasy writers in the genre!

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That’s about all.  Time to get back to Practical Adept.  It’s a beast, but it’s going very well at this point.  See you next month! - Terry