Oh, Is It Teaser Tuesday Already?

Crow's Rest is getting close to ARCs, so I think I'll wait to post any teasers from it. ;)

BUT, I'm working on the sequel, No Man's Land, and thought I'd share something from it that I wrote last week:


The Court was one of the few fixed points in Faerie, a trait I was cursing right now since it meant an actual journey instead of willing ourselves there. At least the Queen took advantage of the approach to give travelers a hint of what they could expect: the way wound between dark and thorny trees, with sinister limbs crowding the road, until sudden clearings of breathtaking beauty opened before you.

And just when you were lulled into a sense of wonder and awe, you’d come around a bend and find a gibbet bearing the corpse of a unicorn—its dazzle rotting away into tufts of felted hide. 

What the hell could a unicorn have done to deserve that? Farted a rainbow in the queen’s direction, perfuming the air like fruit candy? 
 
Not a single view on the way to the Court was straightforward—always a flash of unbearable loveliness among the dark leaves, or a touch of blight among the delicate blooms. But where her design sense really held its own was the fanciful wall of briar roses that surrounded the Palace proper—a Rococo explosion of carven figures cavorting among the crepe blossoms and thorny vines.

A closer look—which I’d only braved once—revealed those figures weren’t so much cavorting as writhing in agony, as the briar rose slowly absorbed them and made the creatures part of its barrier. Why let your enemies’ heads shrivel on a pike, when this is so much more lasting? Preserved for every one of the victim’s families to pass by on their way to Court—a reminder of what it means to displease Queen Maeve.



Thanks for stopping by to read the teaser! :)