I want to thank everyone for their support during the Geek & Sundry Fantasy Contest! We didn’t win, but we did fantastic! I think we finished in about 12th place out of over 400 entries!
Because of your faith in me, I asked the Inkshares folks if we could have an extension of our funding period to try and reach Quill (We’re already halfway there!) or even beyond!
And Guess what?! We now have until February 21st to get the next 124 copies sold! So share with your friends, order a copy for your family members, print flyers, Let’s get the word out even further!
Thank you all again for your support. I’m so excited to share this news with you. Let’s get Brand’s story out there! Thanksgiving is coming up, and I have so much to be thankful for!
Heya Sparks! Thanks again for all of your support! I feel blessed every day by those of you who want to read Brand’s story. For now, be sure to read what’s posted already!
Be sure and highlight sections or phrases you like, recommend chapters and comment on them! The more you talk about Flames, the more people will see that it’s out there!
Flames is at 94 Readers and 123 pre-orders as I type this. As I promised last week, Chapter 3 will be posted as soon as we reach the 100 Reader mark! So talk to your friends and family and let’s get there! That’s just six more people!
Once again Author Joey Angotti has mentioned Flames on the Forums as part of his Top Ten rundown. Here His updates really make my day. You should head on over to Amazon.com and check out his novel Soldier’s Crest! He could use a few more reviews there for their algorithm.
You can continue to follow me and the book on Facebook at my author page.
Thank you all again for your support, your curiosity and your book love! .
It finally happened. Yesterday, Flames in the Dark was bumped out of the top ten in the contest for the first time since the beginning of the campaign. I can admit I had a few teary moments before a good friend gave me some great advice. It’s not over yet! We’re only 2 readers away from 10th place, and 6 Readers from 9th, so we can still jump back in!
Flames has 116 preorders, which is a huge deal, and puts us nearly halfway to the Quill publishing goal. I need your help. We’re a team now, and we need 134 orders to reach that goal and get Flames out into the world. Quill means that you’ll all get your copies, and the book will be available through Amazon.com for purchase after that.
As previously promised, I will upload Chapter 3 for your reading pleasure when 9 more people place their pre-orders and we reached 100 unique readers. I want to remind you that if for some reason we don’t reach that 250 orders goal by Nov. 3rd all of you who have ordered will be refunded. So take a chance on me.
"If you haven’t read any of Flames in the Dark yet, you’re missing out on one of the best written stories in the Top 10!"
This is so exciting! Check out the thread on the forums, like, recommend and share. Let’s get more people talking about the book! Enjoy your Sunday. If you haven’t already, why not splurge on a pre-order or three? *wink*
Greetings to all my Sparks, Flames, Wildefires, and followers!
Well I tried setting a goal of hitting that elusive 100 Reader mark this week. We haven’t gotten there yet, but we made it to 91, so as further incentive to those of you who haven’t taken the plunge to order your own copy, I uploaded Chapter 2! I really hope you enjoy this closer look at the Wilde family as they work through the revelations from Chapter 1.
I want to thank all of you again for your support thus far. I am closer to publication every day because of you, and closer to having my dream of a story of mine being in print than ever.
Please keep giving that feedback of what I have uploaded thus far. Every time you like a section, or recommend a passage it pops up on Inkshares Buzz page which gets more publicity for the project!
I want to invite you again to follow me at
https://www.facebook.com/TRFlamesintheDark/
and on Twitter @andra_tara
Please continue to share the link to the book, talk about it with your friends and family. There are 46 days left in the funding campaign and we need 135 more copies ordered to reach the Quill publishing goal. I believe we can do it, but I need your help.
If you have any ideas for how I can market further, I’d love to hear it! You can DM me here on Inkshares, or at the links above.
Thank you all again for the support, for believing in me.
Good evening Sparks, Flames, and Wilde Fires! This is just a quick Thursday update to let you know that I uploaded a video about myself and Flames in the Dark for your viewing pleasure! Take a look when you’ve got a couple of minutes and let me know what you think!
We’re still sitting at 89 Readers tonight which bumps Flames back into 10th place after some surges from the other entries. To my followers who haven’t pre-ordered their own copies yet, there’s no time like now! The more readers, the more orders, the more likely it is that you’ll be getting your copie of the book in your hands.
As an incentive, I’ll upload Chapter 2 when we reach 100 Readers, or when we hit 125 orders, the halfway point to the Quill publishing goal. Which ever comes first. We just need 11 more people to order a copy to reach that goal of 100! Talk to your friends, share the links, call in favors. Flames in the Dark pre-orders make a great gift someone could give you.
Thank you all for your support! I hope to have another exciting update for you soon!
Hey everyone! Just a quick update to let you know that there’s a new blog post up about the contest! And this time, I got to answer the question. Check it out here:
They had to edit my original response down, so I’ll give you the whole of it here. I got a little carried away.
If you could live in any fantasy world, which would you choose? Caveat: the choice is permanent - you can’t leave!
I’ve thought about this question a lot over the years. There are so many wonderful worlds I’ve played in over the years. I’ll have to start with some favorites that I wouldn’t want to live in and narrow it down that way. My favorite current author is Brandon Sanderson, and his Stormlight Archive is just fascinating but I’m not sure I could live in a world like Roshar, with all of its stone and lack of trees. I love thunderstoms, but high storms are another thing all together. I don’t think that’s the place for me, especially since, at the moment, it seems to be breaking apart.
I’m a long time fan of Harry Potter and the Wizarding World, but really that is just the same as here, and I’d probably be a muggle. Boring and in general, safe. If I did know about wizards and magic there, I could probably get pretty good ’fiction’ stories out of that, but then I’d get Obliviated so that wouldn’t be much fun.
My favorite epic fantasy series is Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. If I could make sure it was the fourth age, then I could probably make my way there as a caregiver or even a storyteller. It would be great to play in Randland for real for a while, but since peaches are poison I couldn’t stay forever. Plus there’s the Dark One’s Touch business that didn’t work out very well for the ordinary folk.
Xanth from Piers Anthony could be a ton of fun. Butterflies that look like flying sticks of butter, sunflowers that shine as bright as the sun when they bloom... puns might stop being funny though. Not to mention the Florida aspect. That would be a great place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.
I’m going to have to stick with my oldest favorite. Tolkien, the father of the fantasy genre caught my heart as a child with The Hobbit. Middle Earth was so rich with meaning and warmth, I could fall right in. I wouldn’t need to live in the grand cities though. If I could somehow have a home in the Shire, that’s where I would want to be. The comfort of good food, good friends and a safe home would be wonderful, especially if I had to stay forever. I’d be the weird human lady down the road who wrote stories and baked cakes, but I’m okay with that. Most of the upheaval in those books never touched the Shire, so no matter what point in history I dropped into, I’d be okay. The best part would be the option to go adventuring, to see Rivendell, Rohan, or even Gondor, but still have the beauty of the Shire to come back to, with tales to tell. I always identified with Bilbo about that. Getting used to the comforts of home, but having that wanderlust tickle you in the middle of the night until you just had to go somewhere. Traveling, then writing about it at my desk, and adding a dragon or two for color would be the very best kind of fun.
The hardest adjustment would probably be the lack of modern conveniences. I have a love affair with my air conditioner, and of course modern medicine. But I have always transplanted well when I move. I’ve studied history a bit, so living without electricity would be possible. I’ve always preferred writing with pen and paper, and candle or lantern light would be soothing without the hum of fluorescent lights. Adjusting to all the manual labor required to live that way would be the rest of the hard part. But I would do it. Those little round doors and rolling hills were always comforting to me, even when the adventure tried to keep my interest elsewhere. I could make a home there. Home is where your story begins after all.
I hope you enjoyed this peek into my favorite worlds. Have a good night!
Dearest Sparks, Flames and Wildefires, we are bouncing between 9th and 10th place in the contest. Thank you all so very much for keeping us on the leaderboard! As of right now I have 110 pre-orders which is AMAZING! The gaps between the top three spots in the contest and the rest of us are growing every day, but we are well on the way to the Quill publishing goal, which will make sure that all of my backers get their copies, and distribution through Amazon.com.
So, keep sharing and talking about the book with your friends! If all of my followers convinced just one other person to order their own copy, then we’ll be published!
To make that a bit easier, I have set up a few social media outlets. An author page on Facebook, a twitter account, and an instagram. I’ll be sharing updates there as well, some concept art, and some bonus materials as they come into play. So follow, like, and share!
https://www.facebook.com/TRFlamesintheDark/
You can also follow me on Twitter @andra_tara
And Instagram @tararoquemore
Here on Inkshares one of my fellow authors have been doing their best to keep people talking about all the books on the leaderboard. Joey Angotti’s had a play-by-play of the contest posted every week on the forums. He comments with humor and kindness about each entry. He has fun with it, and it’s not something he has to do at all.
Here’s the latest entry: https://www.inkshares.com/forum_threads/g-s-contest-the-story-so-far-part-6
Parts 1-5 are posted too! Joey’s comments about my prologue in the first one made me cry tears of happiness. You can review his own book A Soldier’s Crest on Amazon.com and give him a boost there as well!
In closing, I’m polishing up Chapter two and sending it to my beta-readers this weekend. I hope to post it soon!
Thank you for all that you’ve done. I know we all know one other fantasy book reader. See if you can talk them into checking out Flames in the Dark! If you’re following, but you haven’t ordered your own copy yet, it’s just $10 for a Spark (e-book) and $20 for a Flame (paperback and e-book), a Wilde Fire option let’s you order 3 or more paperbacks plus the e-book, and you get your name printed in the back!
Hello to all my Sparks and Flames and Wilde fires! We reached a HUGE milestone today! Flames in the Dark has been pre-ordered 100 times! This is so amazing and I am forever grateful for all of you and the support that you’ve given me already. As of this writing, we are ranked 10th on the Leaderboard with 81 unique readers. That means number of people who have ordered the book, and it’s how the contest is ranked and won. So many of you have reminded me in the last few days to keep the faith. You’ve kindled the spark of my imagination mightily today! As promised, I have a surprise for you.
The world of the Wilde Family was originally born as a short story for my creative writing class in high school. We had a 10-page limit, and that first tale, Fire Flowers, was 10 pages, single-spaced, with one inch margins to stay in that limit. Edana had a lot to say. The story got an A, and every peer review asked, “Where’s the rest of the story?” At the time I didn’t know it, but a world was born. Those ten pages have grown as new cultures, new characters, and new prophecies have come to light. For other assignments I wrote a sequel and a prequel. Now, thanks to two successful runs of National Novel Writing Month or Nanowrimo over the last 15 years I have the makings of a trilogy.
The surprise I’m sharing tonight is Crystal Flowers. A prequel of Flames in the Dark and Fire Flowers, it shows how Ivy the glass artist Seer and Hayden the fire artist met and sparked the flames of Fate. It’s a short story, and while some details are fuzzy and may have changed a bit by now, this was one of the short stories that laid the foundations for Flames in the Dark. It’s long for an update, but I wanted all of my followers to get their own copy of their surprise.
Crystal Flowers
Main Street was crowded today. The whole town of Malia had turned out to attend the summer art festival. From her booth, Ivy watched as the villagers strolled past. Blonde hair hung in a thick plait down her back. Her long narrow fingers idly stroked the smooth glass of the waterfall piece at her elbow. Her green eyes shown as she smiled. Little Katharine Jameson was running towards her, blonde pigtails tied with red bows flinging out behind her. “Miss Ivy, Miss Ivy!” she called. “She skidded to a stop just short of running headlong into the waterfall. “Miss Ivy, the King is coming all the way from Tareath. He’s coming to OUR festival!”
Ivy stared down at the little girl. “What do you mean Katharine?” She stepped around the table to be eye to eye with the girl. Her cheeks were flushed a bright pink and her bright blue eyes were wide. Ivy smiled. “Where did you hear that?”
“I heard the milliner talking to Mama and Tobias. He’d heard it from the Lady Sarah when she came in to buy cloth for a new dress yesterday. He told Mama that Lady Sarah knew because her husband came home from the Fortress earlier than ever. The Lady had told him that ‘only the King himself could get that to happen.’ I don’t know what they meant by that,” Katharine cocked her head to the side, “but after the milliner said that, Mama sighed and rushed me out the door. I came straight to you.”
“Well thank you for that dear,” Ivy grinned. “You are quite the little spy aren’t you?”
“If I didn’t listen to grown-ups talking, I wouldn’t know anything. No one in town but you and Tobias even talks to me. I’m too little. “Katharine’s lower lip threatened to make and appearance in the beginning of a pout.
“You put that thing away,” Ivy chided, almost tapping her on the chin, “and come give me a hug.”
The lip disappeared. “All right.” Ivy folded the little girl in arms and closed her eyes. A scene unfolded in her mind of the Soren River. She heard a shriek and a splash. Then a red hair ribbon floated downstream past her. She looked down and saw a small crystal blue flower, a cornflower, on the bank. It was the same shade of blue as Katharine’s eyes. She picked it up. Suddenly aware that in the here and now, she was squeezing the little girl tightly, Ivy released her and leaned back. Katharine stared at her bewildered. Ivy looked down at her hands. Cradled in her cupped palm was that flower. She swallowed hard.
“What’s that Miss Ivy? It’s pretty.”
“Katharine, I want you to listen to me right this minute,” Ivy said sternly. Startled and a little reluctant, the girl tore her eyes from the flower to meet Ivy’s. “I’ll give you this flower if you do something for me.” Those sweet blue eyes promised anything. “I want you to stay in town today. No matter what happens. Even if all of your friends are going picnicking, you stay here in town. If you want, you can stay here and help me. Bu as long as you stay in town, I’m happy. Do you understand me Katharine?”
“I understand. But why do I have to stay in town? Alana was going to take me and Erin to the river for minnow catching and I wanted to go.” The lip threatened to reappear.
“Katharine promise me,” Ivy said. “Or I’ll keep the flower.”
“Katharine’s eyes widened and she held out her left hand for the flower. “I promise,” she said softly. “Ivy handed her the flower. Katharine went on, “I have to go now Miss Ivy. Mama will be missing me. Thank you for the flower.” She stepped out of the booth again and walked carefully down the street, her hands cradling the flower in front of her.
Ivy let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. She knew what the girl had said was true, shed’ never lied in her life. She also knew that unless the will to have the flower was stronger than the persuasion of Alana and Erin, then what she had seen would be true too. She hoped the flower was pretty enough. Well she’d done all she could. Nothing to do now, but wait and hope. She pushed the worry to the back of her mind and started needlessly polishing the glittering glass around her.
She was down on her knees checking the base of a piece for stress fractures when someone cleared their throat directly above her head. She jumped and knocked the piece from the table. The stranger managed to catch it before it hit the ground. Ivy glared up at him. He gently placed the glass back on the table and offered her his hand. Ignoring it, she stood, still glaring.
He cleared his throat again as he pulled back his hand. “I’m sorry to have startled you. I’m Hayden Wilde. Are you alright?”
“Ivy Evans, and I’m fine. That piece however, may not be.” She picked I up and inspected it carefully. He watched as she went over the base with her fingertips. She frowned as she touched a spot near the edge of the wide base. She piece was lovely. A weeping willow tree that looked so real, he almost expected the branches to move in the breeze. He couldn’t see anything wrong with it, but she was frowning ferociously now. She started muttering.
“It looks fine to me,” Hayden said. “In fact, I’d be willing to…”
“What? It’s fine? Can’t you see the fracture here?” She pointed to the trunk of the tree. He shook his head.
“It’s there. My fault though. I tried to hurry the annealing process so that it would be ready in time for the festival.” She shook her head. “I know better.”
“What are you talking about? I can’t see anything wrong with it. I’ll even buy it from you. It’s lovely.” He started to get out his money pouch.
“Don’t bother Mr. Wilde. Watch this.” She put the tree in a box on the ground. She picked up a small pebble. Before he could stop her, she dropped it on the sculpture. There was a light ping. Then the entire thing shattered into a thousand shimmering pieces. At his shocked expression, she grinned wryly. “The thing wouldn’t have made it across the street. No matter how well I packed it. I don’t even know how it survived the trip here.”
He was staring at her now. “I would have bought it,” he told her.
“You’d have tried. I don’t sell garbage. When you buy something from me, you know it’s perfect.” Ivy said proudly. She waved a hand at the rest of her pieces. “See anything else you like?” she smiled.
He smiled back at her, “I do.” When his gaze stayed on hers, instead of at her merchandise, Ivy flushed and looked away. “I’m doing a show across the street in a few minutes, but I will come back later this evening.”
“A show?” she asked in spite of herself.
“Yes, I’m a bit of an artist myself,” he answered.
“Perhaps I’ll come and watch,” Ivy said. Hayden smiled. “Then again, perhaps not.” It was her turn to smile.
“Well I hope to see you there,” Hayden said. He walked across the street and disappeared behind a black blanket that someone had hung between two booths. Shaking her head at herself, Ivy shoved the box with the demolished tree back under the table behind her. The glass could be re-melted and used in another piece.
A few moments later, the blanket across the street was shoved aside. There was Hayden, only now he was dressed all in black. His dark auburn hair was tied back with a bit of black leather. Even from across the street Ivy could see his golden eyes glow. She stared. Without saying a word, he pulled a torch and flint from a bag at his feet. He lit the torch and gazed into the flames. The leapt higher and higher into the air. Ivy blinked. The flames started forming a picture against the black curtain. She stared harder.
The scene in the flames was clear. It was a tree, a weeping willow, leaning precariously over the bank of a river. The townspeople started crowding around. Hayden still said nothing. He just stared into the flames. The picture started to move. It was more than just the flickering of the flames. The branches of the tree were moving in a breeze and the river was flowing. Then a girl appeared in the flames. She knelt by the river and drank. After a moment she stood and looked up into the tree. A bird flew down and landed in her palm. Murmuring to it, she left the scene. A few moments later, the picture dissolved into ordinary fire, as the flames shrank down to the torch and then went out.
Hayden closed his eyes for a moment. The villagers stared at him. Opening his eyes, he smiled. “Well folks, what did you think of that?” He was met with silence. “If you liked that I can create a fire sculpture of your very own. Guaranteed to last for an entire day and night. Still there was no reaction from the crowd. He was starting to get nervous.
“I’d like one,” Ivy called from in front of her booth. “A tree, like the one by the river in the picture.” She grinned across the street at him.
Smiling, Hayden called back, “No problem Miss Evans. Just one moment and you’ll have your piece.” He reached behind the curtain and pulled out a small, square, lidless box.
He carefully filled it from a bag of specially treated sawdust and lit it aflame. He could hear the people start to murmur around him as he stared into the fire. A tree began to form. It grew until it was an exact replica of the previous tree. It appeared to be growing out of the box, like it had been planted there. One branch of the tree swept down and burned the word ‘Wilde’ to the side of the box, like a signature on a painting.
When he looked up, Ivy was there, waiting for her tree. He handed it to her. “How much do I owe you?” She asked.
He smiled, “One of your pieces.”
“Well, thank you. I have the perfect one. Not here, but I know just the one for you. I’ll have it tomorrow,” Ivy told him. She moved quickly out of the way as people crowded forward to get their own pieces. She went back to her booth.
As the day wore on, she sold a few of her works. But not near as many as Hayden did. She was sure that the only reason she sold any was because of her new tree. Hardly any lanterns had to be lit when darkness fell because so many people were already carrying around their fire sculptures. She was getting ready to close up when Katharine ran up to her.
“Miss Ivy, I did it. I stayed in town all day long. Even when Alana promised cookies and juice at the river while we were catching minnows. ‘Course when I showed her the flower, she understood why I couldn’t go,” she gushed. “What a pretty tree! A lot of people had things like it when I walked down the street.”
“Thank you dear,” Ivy smiled. “Do you have any new information for me?”
“Oh, yes,” Katharine grinned. “Mr. Miller said to Mrs. Ackerman that His Majesty is coming to our town with the Queen, because she loves art, and she’d heard of our festival and all the fantastic pieces created here.” She looked up at Ivy. “Do you think they mean your glass?”
Ivy stared at the girl. “Well… I… I don’t know Katharine. Maybe we’ll get a chance to ask them when he gets here. Did you happen to hear when that is?”
“I think tomorrow, but I’m not sure,” she answered. “I have to go. Have a good night Miss Ivy.” She ran down the street a young man stepped in front of her and laughing scooped her into his arms.
“Goodnight Sweetie,” Ivy called out. Katharine waved back at her.
“Using a child as a spy,” said a voice beside her in the dark.
Ivy whirled around, “Stop doing that!” she shrieked. Hayden was standing there shaking his head at her. Ivy took a deep breath to regain her composure. This was made more difficult when he started laughing at her. “Mr. Wilde, I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t sneak up on me anymore.”
“I honestly didn’t mean to,” he said, “What was that about the King?”
Ivy raised an eyebrow. “You condemn my mode of gathering information, but you still want to know what I learned,” she snorted.
“I wasn’t condemning, merely stating a fact,” Hayden said.
Ivy turned back to her booth. “Why should I tell you?” She was covering up a particularly delicate fountain piece with a blanket when he put a hand on her shoulder. He said something by she didn’t hear it. All she could hear or see was crackling fire. She felt the heat, intense and terrible. She heard screams, horrible, hopeless screams. Then a face appeared in the flames. She screamed.
Ivy was lying on the hard ground. Someone was talking to her, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying. “Water,” she croaked, “I need water. Her throat felt burned, like she’d breathed fire. Someone held a bottle to her lips and she drank the water greedily.
Finally, she opened her eyes. Golden eyes looked into her own, concerned. She screamed again and waved her hands in front of her face, careful not to touch him. Confused, he backed away from her. She stood up and stepped backwards until she was up against her table. Her eyes never left his face.
“Ivy? What’s the matter?” Hayden asked. “What happened?”
“You… you just stay over there for a second,” Ivy said, shakily.
“All right, I’ll stay over here,” Hayden said. “Why’d you scream?”
“First you startled me, then you were too close. I didn’t recognize you,” she said.
“All right then why did you collapse?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” That hadn’t happened since she was a child. Her mind worked furiously as she tried to decipher what she’d seen. He just looked at her, his eyes questioning. After a long stretch of silence, she asked. “Would you walk me home?” Her right hand clutched behind her back and she realized she was holding something.
“Yes, of course,” he answered. She brought her hand out from behind her back. In her palm was another crystal flower. This time, the blossom of a fire rose. Red and orange flames swirled around each other, frozen in time. The sculpture glittered in the light from the fire tree. “That’s beautiful.”
“It’s yours,” Ivy said, “Since you’re walking me home I can give you the rest of your payment when we get there.”
“Sounds good. Are you ready to go?” He picked up the tree.
“Yes.” They left the booth. Ivy pulled a green curtain from the small roof and fastened it down. They started walking. Neither of them spoke. Ivy rubbed the glass flower between her fingers and puzzled over her vision. This one was much more difficult to decipher than the one concerning Katharine. The only way to get more clues would be to touch him again. Since she’d previously made a concerted effort not to do that, it might be hard to arrange.
“That’s it Ivy,” Hayden exclaimed suddenly, “start talking.”
“Mr. Wilde, whatever do you meant?” Ivy asked.
“Tell me what happened,” he sounded exasperated. “And call me Hayden.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not? Does it have something to do with the fact that you weren’t holding anything before you collapsed, but when you stood up, you had that flower? Or you screaming for no reason that I could see?” He stopped and moved to block her. “If you’re afraid I’ll think you’re weird, then you weren’t paying attention earlier. I can turn fire into art. Whatever it is, it can’t be much stranger than that.”
Ivy sighed and said, “Not until we get to my house.” He nodded and they kept going. Around them the night seemed alive with moving fires. Everyone was carrying home his or her Wilde sculptures. Not a single normal lantern or torch could be seen. Even the moon seemed full of a silver fire tonight.
They reached Ivy’s small cottage and she opened the door. Hayden put the tree on the table in the center of the room. It provided enough light that another lamp wasn’t needed. He sat down in a chair that she pointed to and looked around the room. It was crowded with her pieces. A deep blue crystal fountain flowed off a stool in the corner. A tall slender green birch glittered by the door. The obvious focal point of the room however, was a phoenix on the mantel. A bird crafted of Ivy’s special crystal fire, it seemed ready to spring from its perch and into the air.
Tearing his eyes from the bird, he looked at her expectantly. Ivy scooped up what he had taken for a cushion from a chair and sat down. The cushion was actually a fluffy, multicolored cat. Smiling down at it, Ivy said, “This is Crystal. No I did not name her. The little girl down the road did, after Crystal appeared on my doorstep and wouldn’t leave.” She looked at him, He waited.
Finally, she began. “Sometimes, when I touch people, I get visions of their future. It’s usually little things, like a surprise waiting for them at home, or a fight they’ll have. But occasionally it’s more serious. For example, this morning, I hugged a little girl and saw her drowning. I made her promise to stay away from the river, and so avoid making it a true vision. Sometimes, the visions are far into the future, about that person’s children before they have any. Other times it happens in the next moment. When I get a visions, something made of glass always comes with it. With the girl, it was a flower the same color as her eyes. With you, the fire rose.” She stopped.
“What did you see?” he asked, his voice calm and quiet.
“Fire. And I heard screams. There were shapes moving in the fire. I couldn’t tell what they were. And then a face.” She shuddered.
“Whose face? Mine?”
“Not yours. It was something else, something horrible. It wasn’t human.” Ivy was trembling. Crystal stretched out a paw towards her face. She smiled faintly.
“Was it burning in the fire?”
“I’m not sure. It was so horrid. I can’t remember.”
Hayden looked at the phoenix again before asking, “This thing is in my future?”
“That wasn’t clear. I didn’t see you at all. There wasn’t even anything that might represent you. This may be in the distant future, even about your children. The truth is, I just don’t know.”
“Well,” Hayden said, “This has certainly been and eventful day for you.” He laughed. “A narrowly averted drowning, a piece of your art had to be destroyed, you met me and now I’ve probably given you nightmares for the next twenty years.”
“Don’t give yourself so much credit,” Ivy said. “They’ll only last for a year or so.” She laughed. It sounded slightly hysterical.
“How do we figure this puzzle out?” he asked her after a few moments.
“I have to touch you again. Until I do whatever I’m supposed to do, every time I touch you, I’ll see something else,” her voice sounded tired.
“That shouldn’t be too hard then,” Hayden said. He stood and held out his hand to her. She looked at it like it was a snake about to bite her. He grinned at her. “Ivy, you’re safe. It’s just a vision. It can’t hurt you. Besides, I’ll be here with you, I promise.”
Crystal looked up at him, ice blue eyes huge. After a second, she jumped off Ivy’s lap and onto the table. She stared at a parchment there. Ivy ignored her and glanced up at Hayden’s face. Taking a deep breath, she gripped his hand.
It was dark, damp and smelly. Something leathery flew past her cheek, a bat. She was in a cave. There was a loud snorting and grunting all around her; a language of some sort. A sudden shriek and the thudding of feet as they rushed passed her. Her heart started pounding with fear. Then Hayden’s hand was there, clasped in hers and she was back. In her other hand was a black chunk of glass. It had once been a flower, but now the surface was so chipped and cracked that she couldn’t tell what kind. It shimmered faintly in the firelight. She put it down on the table.
He let go of her as soon as he was sure she was herself again. She told him what she’d seen, or rather heard. He shook his head and said, “It’s not enough.” He held out his hand again. Smiling a bit, she took it.
This time she was in a dusty room, full of scrolls and parchments. Men and women were running around, searching frantically for something. Then a gray-haired man unrolled a scroll and cried out. She moved to read it over his shoulder with the rest of the scholars. The words appeared on the page as she read. The scene faded, but the words glowed like fire in the blackness. Then she was back in her chair.
In her left hand was a crystal feather, a quill, like one from the phoenix on the mantel. Without saying a word, she made her way to the table and the parchment Crystal was staring at. She wrote what she had seen using the quill. Ink did not flow from it. The words were burned into the page. When she was finished. Ivy rolled up the parchment and sealed it, again using the quill.
She turned to Hayden. “Tomorrow, we give that to the queen. She’s coming to see my art, and yours. We’ll each give her a piece, on one condition. That she has this scroll added to the Records at Tareath.”
Curious, he asked, “What does it say?”
She stared at him and frowned, “I don’t remember.”
“But you just wrote it,” Hayden said. “Not more than a moment ago.” He looked into her green eyes, doubting clouding his own. She had such a strange gift.
She carefully put the quill and scroll down on the table. After patting a now putting Crystal, she said, “The phoenix is your payment, by the way.” When he just blinked at her she added, “for the tree.” He raised an eyebrow at her, but nodded.
“All right then. I’ll see you tomorrow,” Hayden went over to the mantel and carefully picked up the phoenix. “Thank you,” he said. “It’s incredible.” Without a word, Ivy fetched a padded box for it. He packed the sculpture in and then stood looking at her. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a small bag and held it out to her. “If you add a little of this, once a day to the sawdust under the tree, it will last a good long while.”
When she reached out her left hand to take it, he made sure that their hands touched. She didn’t even blink. Sighing with relief, he hefted the box with the phoenix inside and left. Alone in her house, Ivy fell back into her chair. She opened her right hand and stared down into her palm. There, cupped in the center were two perfect rings of crystal. One a ring of ruby flame, the other a twining emerald vine. It looked like the phoenix would be back on her mantel soon.
~~~
I hope you enjoyed that peek into Ivy and Hayden’s past. Please let me know what you think! Thank you again for your support as we continue in the contest! Keep reading, sharing, and talking about Flames. It’s because of all of you that we’ve come this far already. To my followers, if you haven’t ordered yet, but this sparked your interest further, order today! Thank you all again for your support, and for your faith.
All, thank you for the support! I added a more in-depth synopsis in the ’About Flames in the Dark’ section of the page! I’ll include it here as well, but please come take a look, highlight portions you like, recommend the description or comment on the book to get people talking about it. Thank you to all who are spreading the word about the contest and about this adventure.
THE SETTING
Deep in the Emerald Forest there lives a fire witch of great and terrible power. She will scorch you where you stand with only a look. Cross her temper and your skin and possessions will burn. Please her, and she’ll ensnare you with her magic and leave you trapped in flames of her making for all eternity. People enter her forest at their peril and only at great need, or if they have a desire to see her golden eyes burn before they die. Or so the legends say.
In a world where magic is rare, but accepted, the Wilde family had more than most. Fire and fate ran in their blood. Even so they live a simple life, growing smoke apples in a forest. Contrary to the nearest villager’s belief, it wasn’t Edana the fire witch they feared. She saved them from burning countless times for her power lay in controlling the fire. Brand however, had a short temper and the power of the spark to match. Trespassers, cheats, even the occasional hunter with unfortunate timing had felt the heat of Brand’s temper. Each one only noticed the slip of a girl with hair afire, eyes aglow and arms outstretched to calm Brand’s flame. They never saw the boy curled in on himself, eyes squeezed shut, breathing to calm the spark in his blood.
So the legend of the fire witch grew as years passed, and Brand’s ability remained secret.
THE STORY
“Sparks journey to mountain high, evil there will burn and die.”
So begins the prophecy that sends Brand the fire mage from his forest home and out into the world. For the first time fate calls for him to take the family’s crop of smoke apples to Minian to sell in the autumn market alone. Along the way, strangers become friends, friends become brothers, and enemies burn to ash. With only the vague lines of prophecy to guide him, and a goal of getting to the capital city of Tareath in time to save it from darkness and help his sister to meet her own fate, Brand journeys through mountains, to cities, into fortresses, and even the bowels of the earth. He searches for answers to questions in the prophecy, and for aid. As powerful as he and his sister are together, they cannot beat this evil on their own.
The Children of the Dark are coming out of the earth. Something they haven’t done in centuries. The only thing that can beat back the dark, is light. Luckily for Brand, he’s never been without a steady supply of that. This time though, it’s a different kind of darkness.
Please let me know what you think of that! Thanks again, and let’s keep this fire lit!
I want to thank everyone for their support during the Geek & Sundry Fantasy Contest! We didn’t win, but we did fantastic! I think we finished in about 12th place out of over 400 entries!
Because of your faith in me, I asked the Inkshares folks if we could have an extension of our funding period to try and reach Quill (We’re already halfway there!) or even beyond!
And Guess what?! We now have until February 21st to get the next 124 copies sold! So share with your friends, order a copy for your family members, print flyers, Let’s get the word out even further!
Thank you all again for your support. I’m so excited to share this news with you. Let’s get Brand’s story out there! Thanksgiving is coming up, and I have so much to be thankful for!
You’ll hear from me again soon!
Tara
Heya Sparks! Thanks again for all of your support! I feel blessed every day by those of you who want to read Brand’s story. For now, be sure to read what’s posted already!
The Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Be sure and highlight sections or phrases you like, recommend chapters and comment on them! The more you talk about Flames, the more people will see that it’s out there!
Flames is at 94 Readers and 123 pre-orders as I type this. As I promised last week, Chapter 3 will be posted as soon as we reach the 100 Reader mark! So talk to your friends and family and let’s get there! That’s just six more people!
Once again Author Joey Angotti has mentioned Flames on the Forums as part of his Top Ten rundown. Here His updates really make my day. You should head on over to Amazon.com and check out his novel Soldier’s Crest! He could use a few more reviews there for their algorithm.
You can continue to follow me and the book on Facebook at my author page.
Thank you all again for your support, your curiosity and your book love! .
Light and Love Always,
Tara
Good morning Sparks!
It finally happened. Yesterday, Flames in the Dark was bumped out of the top ten in the contest for the first time since the beginning of the campaign. I can admit I had a few teary moments before a good friend gave me some great advice. It’s not over yet! We’re only 2 readers away from 10th place, and 6 Readers from 9th, so we can still jump back in!
Flames has 116 preorders, which is a huge deal, and puts us nearly halfway to the Quill publishing goal. I need your help. We’re a team now, and we need 134 orders to reach that goal and get Flames out into the world. Quill means that you’ll all get your copies, and the book will be available through Amazon.com for purchase after that.
As previously promised, I will upload Chapter 3 for your reading pleasure when 9 more people place their pre-orders and we reached 100 unique readers. I want to remind you that if for some reason we don’t reach that 250 orders goal by Nov. 3rd all of you who have ordered will be refunded. So take a chance on me.
I promise, Brand’s story is worth it.
Light and Love Always,
Tara
Just a quick update for you this afternoon! Author Joey Angotti has once again done an analysis of the Top Ten in the contest.
https://www.inkshares.com/forum_threads/g-s-contest-the-story-so-far-part-7#
"If you haven’t read any of Flames in the Dark yet, you’re missing out on one of the best written stories in the Top 10!"
This is so exciting! Check out the thread on the forums, like, recommend and share. Let’s get more people talking about the book! Enjoy your Sunday. If you haven’t already, why not splurge on a pre-order or three? *wink*
Light and Love Always,
Tara
Greetings to all my Sparks, Flames, Wildefires, and followers!
Well I tried setting a goal of hitting that elusive 100 Reader mark this week. We haven’t gotten there yet, but we made it to 91, so as further incentive to those of you who haven’t taken the plunge to order your own copy, I uploaded Chapter 2! I really hope you enjoy this closer look at the Wilde family as they work through the revelations from Chapter 1.
I want to thank all of you again for your support thus far. I am closer to publication every day because of you, and closer to having my dream of a story of mine being in print than ever.
Please keep giving that feedback of what I have uploaded thus far. Every time you like a section, or recommend a passage it pops up on Inkshares Buzz page which gets more publicity for the project!
I want to invite you again to follow me at
https://www.facebook.com/TRFlamesintheDark/
and on Twitter @andra_tara
Please continue to share the link to the book, talk about it with your friends and family. There are 46 days left in the funding campaign and we need 135 more copies ordered to reach the Quill publishing goal. I believe we can do it, but I need your help.
If you have any ideas for how I can market further, I’d love to hear it! You can DM me here on Inkshares, or at the links above.
Thank you all again for the support, for believing in me.
Light and Love Always,
Tara
Good evening Sparks, Flames, and Wilde Fires! This is just a quick Thursday update to let you know that I uploaded a video about myself and Flames in the Dark for your viewing pleasure! Take a look when you’ve got a couple of minutes and let me know what you think!
We’re still sitting at 89 Readers tonight which bumps Flames back into 10th place after some surges from the other entries. To my followers who haven’t pre-ordered their own copies yet, there’s no time like now! The more readers, the more orders, the more likely it is that you’ll be getting your copie of the book in your hands.
As an incentive, I’ll upload Chapter 2 when we reach 100 Readers, or when we hit 125 orders, the halfway point to the Quill publishing goal. Which ever comes first. We just need 11 more people to order a copy to reach that goal of 100! Talk to your friends, share the links, call in favors. Flames in the Dark pre-orders make a great gift someone could give you.
Thank you all for your support! I hope to have another exciting update for you soon!
Light and Love Always,
Tara
Hey everyone! Just a quick update to let you know that there’s a new blog post up about the contest! And this time, I got to answer the question. Check it out here:
http://blog.inkshares.com/post/150368022920/top-10-authors-in-geek-sundry-fantasy-contest-on
They had to edit my original response down, so I’ll give you the whole of it here. I got a little carried away.
If you could live in any fantasy world, which would you choose? Caveat: the choice is permanent - you can’t leave!
I’ve thought about this question a lot over the years. There are so many wonderful worlds I’ve played in over the years. I’ll have to start with some favorites that I wouldn’t want to live in and narrow it down that way. My favorite current author is Brandon Sanderson, and his Stormlight Archive is just fascinating but I’m not sure I could live in a world like Roshar, with all of its stone and lack of trees. I love thunderstoms, but high storms are another thing all together. I don’t think that’s the place for me, especially since, at the moment, it seems to be breaking apart.
I’m a long time fan of Harry Potter and the Wizarding World, but really that is just the same as here, and I’d probably be a muggle. Boring and in general, safe. If I did know about wizards and magic there, I could probably get pretty good ’fiction’ stories out of that, but then I’d get Obliviated so that wouldn’t be much fun.
My favorite epic fantasy series is Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. If I could make sure it was the fourth age, then I could probably make my way there as a caregiver or even a storyteller. It would be great to play in Randland for real for a while, but since peaches are poison I couldn’t stay forever. Plus there’s the Dark One’s Touch business that didn’t work out very well for the ordinary folk.
Xanth from Piers Anthony could be a ton of fun. Butterflies that look like flying sticks of butter, sunflowers that shine as bright as the sun when they bloom... puns might stop being funny though. Not to mention the Florida aspect. That would be a great place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.
I’m going to have to stick with my oldest favorite. Tolkien, the father of the fantasy genre caught my heart as a child with The Hobbit. Middle Earth was so rich with meaning and warmth, I could fall right in. I wouldn’t need to live in the grand cities though. If I could somehow have a home in the Shire, that’s where I would want to be. The comfort of good food, good friends and a safe home would be wonderful, especially if I had to stay forever. I’d be the weird human lady down the road who wrote stories and baked cakes, but I’m okay with that. Most of the upheaval in those books never touched the Shire, so no matter what point in history I dropped into, I’d be okay. The best part would be the option to go adventuring, to see Rivendell, Rohan, or even Gondor, but still have the beauty of the Shire to come back to, with tales to tell. I always identified with Bilbo about that. Getting used to the comforts of home, but having that wanderlust tickle you in the middle of the night until you just had to go somewhere. Traveling, then writing about it at my desk, and adding a dragon or two for color would be the very best kind of fun.
The hardest adjustment would probably be the lack of modern conveniences. I have a love affair with my air conditioner, and of course modern medicine. But I have always transplanted well when I move. I’ve studied history a bit, so living without electricity would be possible. I’ve always preferred writing with pen and paper, and candle or lantern light would be soothing without the hum of fluorescent lights. Adjusting to all the manual labor required to live that way would be the rest of the hard part. But I would do it. Those little round doors and rolling hills were always comforting to me, even when the adventure tried to keep my interest elsewhere. I could make a home there. Home is where your story begins after all.
I hope you enjoyed this peek into my favorite worlds. Have a good night!
Light and love,
Tara
Dearest Sparks, Flames and Wildefires, we are bouncing between 9th and 10th place in the contest. Thank you all so very much for keeping us on the leaderboard! As of right now I have 110 pre-orders which is AMAZING! The gaps between the top three spots in the contest and the rest of us are growing every day, but we are well on the way to the Quill publishing goal, which will make sure that all of my backers get their copies, and distribution through Amazon.com.
So, keep sharing and talking about the book with your friends! If all of my followers convinced just one other person to order their own copy, then we’ll be published!
To make that a bit easier, I have set up a few social media outlets. An author page on Facebook, a twitter account, and an instagram. I’ll be sharing updates there as well, some concept art, and some bonus materials as they come into play. So follow, like, and share!
https://www.facebook.com/TRFlamesintheDark/
You can also follow me on Twitter @andra_tara
And Instagram @tararoquemore
Here on Inkshares one of my fellow authors have been doing their best to keep people talking about all the books on the leaderboard. Joey Angotti’s had a play-by-play of the contest posted every week on the forums. He comments with humor and kindness about each entry. He has fun with it, and it’s not something he has to do at all.
Here’s the latest entry: https://www.inkshares.com/forum_threads/g-s-contest-the-story-so-far-part-6
Parts 1-5 are posted too! Joey’s comments about my prologue in the first one made me cry tears of happiness. You can review his own book A Soldier’s Crest on Amazon.com and give him a boost there as well!
In closing, I’m polishing up Chapter two and sending it to my beta-readers this weekend. I hope to post it soon!
Thank you for all that you’ve done. I know we all know one other fantasy book reader. See if you can talk them into checking out Flames in the Dark! If you’re following, but you haven’t ordered your own copy yet, it’s just $10 for a Spark (e-book) and $20 for a Flame (paperback and e-book), a Wilde Fire option let’s you order 3 or more paperbacks plus the e-book, and you get your name printed in the back!
Light and Love Always,
Tara
Hello to all my Sparks and Flames and Wilde fires! We reached a HUGE milestone today! Flames in the Dark has been pre-ordered 100 times! This is so amazing and I am forever grateful for all of you and the support that you’ve given me already. As of this writing, we are ranked 10th on the Leaderboard with 81 unique readers. That means number of people who have ordered the book, and it’s how the contest is ranked and won. So many of you have reminded me in the last few days to keep the faith. You’ve kindled the spark of my imagination mightily today! As promised, I have a surprise for you.
The world of the Wilde Family was originally born as a short story for my creative writing class in high school. We had a 10-page limit, and that first tale, Fire Flowers, was 10 pages, single-spaced, with one inch margins to stay in that limit. Edana had a lot to say. The story got an A, and every peer review asked, “Where’s the rest of the story?” At the time I didn’t know it, but a world was born. Those ten pages have grown as new cultures, new characters, and new prophecies have come to light. For other assignments I wrote a sequel and a prequel. Now, thanks to two successful runs of National Novel Writing Month or Nanowrimo over the last 15 years I have the makings of a trilogy.
The surprise I’m sharing tonight is Crystal Flowers. A prequel of Flames in the Dark and Fire Flowers, it shows how Ivy the glass artist Seer and Hayden the fire artist met and sparked the flames of Fate. It’s a short story, and while some details are fuzzy and may have changed a bit by now, this was one of the short stories that laid the foundations for Flames in the Dark. It’s long for an update, but I wanted all of my followers to get their own copy of their surprise.
Crystal Flowers
Main Street was crowded today. The whole town of Malia had turned out to attend the summer art festival. From her booth, Ivy watched as the villagers strolled past. Blonde hair hung in a thick plait down her back. Her long narrow fingers idly stroked the smooth glass of the waterfall piece at her elbow. Her green eyes shown as she smiled. Little Katharine Jameson was running towards her, blonde pigtails tied with red bows flinging out behind her. “Miss Ivy, Miss Ivy!” she called. “She skidded to a stop just short of running headlong into the waterfall. “Miss Ivy, the King is coming all the way from Tareath. He’s coming to OUR festival!”
Ivy stared down at the little girl. “What do you mean Katharine?” She stepped around the table to be eye to eye with the girl. Her cheeks were flushed a bright pink and her bright blue eyes were wide. Ivy smiled. “Where did you hear that?”
“I heard the milliner talking to Mama and Tobias. He’d heard it from the Lady Sarah when she came in to buy cloth for a new dress yesterday. He told Mama that Lady Sarah knew because her husband came home from the Fortress earlier than ever. The Lady had told him that ‘only the King himself could get that to happen.’ I don’t know what they meant by that,” Katharine cocked her head to the side, “but after the milliner said that, Mama sighed and rushed me out the door. I came straight to you.”
“Well thank you for that dear,” Ivy grinned. “You are quite the little spy aren’t you?”
“If I didn’t listen to grown-ups talking, I wouldn’t know anything. No one in town but you and Tobias even talks to me. I’m too little. “Katharine’s lower lip threatened to make and appearance in the beginning of a pout.
“You put that thing away,” Ivy chided, almost tapping her on the chin, “and come give me a hug.”
The lip disappeared. “All right.” Ivy folded the little girl in arms and closed her eyes. A scene unfolded in her mind of the Soren River. She heard a shriek and a splash. Then a red hair ribbon floated downstream past her. She looked down and saw a small crystal blue flower, a cornflower, on the bank. It was the same shade of blue as Katharine’s eyes. She picked it up. Suddenly aware that in the here and now, she was squeezing the little girl tightly, Ivy released her and leaned back. Katharine stared at her bewildered. Ivy looked down at her hands. Cradled in her cupped palm was that flower. She swallowed hard.
“What’s that Miss Ivy? It’s pretty.”
“Katharine, I want you to listen to me right this minute,” Ivy said sternly. Startled and a little reluctant, the girl tore her eyes from the flower to meet Ivy’s. “I’ll give you this flower if you do something for me.” Those sweet blue eyes promised anything. “I want you to stay in town today. No matter what happens. Even if all of your friends are going picnicking, you stay here in town. If you want, you can stay here and help me. Bu as long as you stay in town, I’m happy. Do you understand me Katharine?”
“I understand. But why do I have to stay in town? Alana was going to take me and Erin to the river for minnow catching and I wanted to go.” The lip threatened to reappear.
“Katharine promise me,” Ivy said. “Or I’ll keep the flower.”
“Katharine’s eyes widened and she held out her left hand for the flower. “I promise,” she said softly. “Ivy handed her the flower. Katharine went on, “I have to go now Miss Ivy. Mama will be missing me. Thank you for the flower.” She stepped out of the booth again and walked carefully down the street, her hands cradling the flower in front of her.
Ivy let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. She knew what the girl had said was true, shed’ never lied in her life. She also knew that unless the will to have the flower was stronger than the persuasion of Alana and Erin, then what she had seen would be true too. She hoped the flower was pretty enough. Well she’d done all she could. Nothing to do now, but wait and hope. She pushed the worry to the back of her mind and started needlessly polishing the glittering glass around her.
She was down on her knees checking the base of a piece for stress fractures when someone cleared their throat directly above her head. She jumped and knocked the piece from the table. The stranger managed to catch it before it hit the ground. Ivy glared up at him. He gently placed the glass back on the table and offered her his hand. Ignoring it, she stood, still glaring.
He cleared his throat again as he pulled back his hand. “I’m sorry to have startled you. I’m Hayden Wilde. Are you alright?”
“Ivy Evans, and I’m fine. That piece however, may not be.” She picked I up and inspected it carefully. He watched as she went over the base with her fingertips. She frowned as she touched a spot near the edge of the wide base. She piece was lovely. A weeping willow tree that looked so real, he almost expected the branches to move in the breeze. He couldn’t see anything wrong with it, but she was frowning ferociously now. She started muttering.
“It looks fine to me,” Hayden said. “In fact, I’d be willing to…”
“What? It’s fine? Can’t you see the fracture here?” She pointed to the trunk of the tree. He shook his head.
“It’s there. My fault though. I tried to hurry the annealing process so that it would be ready in time for the festival.” She shook her head. “I know better.”
“What are you talking about? I can’t see anything wrong with it. I’ll even buy it from you. It’s lovely.” He started to get out his money pouch.
“Don’t bother Mr. Wilde. Watch this.” She put the tree in a box on the ground. She picked up a small pebble. Before he could stop her, she dropped it on the sculpture. There was a light ping. Then the entire thing shattered into a thousand shimmering pieces. At his shocked expression, she grinned wryly. “The thing wouldn’t have made it across the street. No matter how well I packed it. I don’t even know how it survived the trip here.”
He was staring at her now. “I would have bought it,” he told her.
“You’d have tried. I don’t sell garbage. When you buy something from me, you know it’s perfect.” Ivy said proudly. She waved a hand at the rest of her pieces. “See anything else you like?” she smiled.
He smiled back at her, “I do.” When his gaze stayed on hers, instead of at her merchandise, Ivy flushed and looked away. “I’m doing a show across the street in a few minutes, but I will come back later this evening.”
“A show?” she asked in spite of herself.
“Yes, I’m a bit of an artist myself,” he answered.
“Perhaps I’ll come and watch,” Ivy said. Hayden smiled. “Then again, perhaps not.” It was her turn to smile.
“Well I hope to see you there,” Hayden said. He walked across the street and disappeared behind a black blanket that someone had hung between two booths. Shaking her head at herself, Ivy shoved the box with the demolished tree back under the table behind her. The glass could be re-melted and used in another piece.
A few moments later, the blanket across the street was shoved aside. There was Hayden, only now he was dressed all in black. His dark auburn hair was tied back with a bit of black leather. Even from across the street Ivy could see his golden eyes glow. She stared. Without saying a word, he pulled a torch and flint from a bag at his feet. He lit the torch and gazed into the flames. The leapt higher and higher into the air. Ivy blinked. The flames started forming a picture against the black curtain. She stared harder.
The scene in the flames was clear. It was a tree, a weeping willow, leaning precariously over the bank of a river. The townspeople started crowding around. Hayden still said nothing. He just stared into the flames. The picture started to move. It was more than just the flickering of the flames. The branches of the tree were moving in a breeze and the river was flowing. Then a girl appeared in the flames. She knelt by the river and drank. After a moment she stood and looked up into the tree. A bird flew down and landed in her palm. Murmuring to it, she left the scene. A few moments later, the picture dissolved into ordinary fire, as the flames shrank down to the torch and then went out.
Hayden closed his eyes for a moment. The villagers stared at him. Opening his eyes, he smiled. “Well folks, what did you think of that?” He was met with silence. “If you liked that I can create a fire sculpture of your very own. Guaranteed to last for an entire day and night. Still there was no reaction from the crowd. He was starting to get nervous.
“I’d like one,” Ivy called from in front of her booth. “A tree, like the one by the river in the picture.” She grinned across the street at him.
Smiling, Hayden called back, “No problem Miss Evans. Just one moment and you’ll have your piece.” He reached behind the curtain and pulled out a small, square, lidless box.
He carefully filled it from a bag of specially treated sawdust and lit it aflame. He could hear the people start to murmur around him as he stared into the fire. A tree began to form. It grew until it was an exact replica of the previous tree. It appeared to be growing out of the box, like it had been planted there. One branch of the tree swept down and burned the word ‘Wilde’ to the side of the box, like a signature on a painting.
When he looked up, Ivy was there, waiting for her tree. He handed it to her. “How much do I owe you?” She asked.
He smiled, “One of your pieces.”
“Well, thank you. I have the perfect one. Not here, but I know just the one for you. I’ll have it tomorrow,” Ivy told him. She moved quickly out of the way as people crowded forward to get their own pieces. She went back to her booth.
As the day wore on, she sold a few of her works. But not near as many as Hayden did. She was sure that the only reason she sold any was because of her new tree. Hardly any lanterns had to be lit when darkness fell because so many people were already carrying around their fire sculptures. She was getting ready to close up when Katharine ran up to her.
“Miss Ivy, I did it. I stayed in town all day long. Even when Alana promised cookies and juice at the river while we were catching minnows. ‘Course when I showed her the flower, she understood why I couldn’t go,” she gushed. “What a pretty tree! A lot of people had things like it when I walked down the street.”
“Thank you dear,” Ivy smiled. “Do you have any new information for me?”
“Oh, yes,” Katharine grinned. “Mr. Miller said to Mrs. Ackerman that His Majesty is coming to our town with the Queen, because she loves art, and she’d heard of our festival and all the fantastic pieces created here.” She looked up at Ivy. “Do you think they mean your glass?”
Ivy stared at the girl. “Well… I… I don’t know Katharine. Maybe we’ll get a chance to ask them when he gets here. Did you happen to hear when that is?”
“I think tomorrow, but I’m not sure,” she answered. “I have to go. Have a good night Miss Ivy.” She ran down the street a young man stepped in front of her and laughing scooped her into his arms.
“Goodnight Sweetie,” Ivy called out. Katharine waved back at her.
“Using a child as a spy,” said a voice beside her in the dark.
Ivy whirled around, “Stop doing that!” she shrieked. Hayden was standing there shaking his head at her. Ivy took a deep breath to regain her composure. This was made more difficult when he started laughing at her. “Mr. Wilde, I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t sneak up on me anymore.”
“I honestly didn’t mean to,” he said, “What was that about the King?”
Ivy raised an eyebrow. “You condemn my mode of gathering information, but you still want to know what I learned,” she snorted.
“I wasn’t condemning, merely stating a fact,” Hayden said.
Ivy turned back to her booth. “Why should I tell you?” She was covering up a particularly delicate fountain piece with a blanket when he put a hand on her shoulder. He said something by she didn’t hear it. All she could hear or see was crackling fire. She felt the heat, intense and terrible. She heard screams, horrible, hopeless screams. Then a face appeared in the flames. She screamed.
Ivy was lying on the hard ground. Someone was talking to her, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying. “Water,” she croaked, “I need water. Her throat felt burned, like she’d breathed fire. Someone held a bottle to her lips and she drank the water greedily.
Finally, she opened her eyes. Golden eyes looked into her own, concerned. She screamed again and waved her hands in front of her face, careful not to touch him. Confused, he backed away from her. She stood up and stepped backwards until she was up against her table. Her eyes never left his face.
“Ivy? What’s the matter?” Hayden asked. “What happened?”
“You… you just stay over there for a second,” Ivy said, shakily.
“All right, I’ll stay over here,” Hayden said. “Why’d you scream?”
“First you startled me, then you were too close. I didn’t recognize you,” she said.
“All right then why did you collapse?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” That hadn’t happened since she was a child. Her mind worked furiously as she tried to decipher what she’d seen. He just looked at her, his eyes questioning. After a long stretch of silence, she asked. “Would you walk me home?” Her right hand clutched behind her back and she realized she was holding something.
“Yes, of course,” he answered. She brought her hand out from behind her back. In her palm was another crystal flower. This time, the blossom of a fire rose. Red and orange flames swirled around each other, frozen in time. The sculpture glittered in the light from the fire tree. “That’s beautiful.”
“It’s yours,” Ivy said, “Since you’re walking me home I can give you the rest of your payment when we get there.”
“Sounds good. Are you ready to go?” He picked up the tree.
“Yes.” They left the booth. Ivy pulled a green curtain from the small roof and fastened it down. They started walking. Neither of them spoke. Ivy rubbed the glass flower between her fingers and puzzled over her vision. This one was much more difficult to decipher than the one concerning Katharine. The only way to get more clues would be to touch him again. Since she’d previously made a concerted effort not to do that, it might be hard to arrange.
“That’s it Ivy,” Hayden exclaimed suddenly, “start talking.”
“Mr. Wilde, whatever do you meant?” Ivy asked.
“Tell me what happened,” he sounded exasperated. “And call me Hayden.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not? Does it have something to do with the fact that you weren’t holding anything before you collapsed, but when you stood up, you had that flower? Or you screaming for no reason that I could see?” He stopped and moved to block her. “If you’re afraid I’ll think you’re weird, then you weren’t paying attention earlier. I can turn fire into art. Whatever it is, it can’t be much stranger than that.”
Ivy sighed and said, “Not until we get to my house.” He nodded and they kept going. Around them the night seemed alive with moving fires. Everyone was carrying home his or her Wilde sculptures. Not a single normal lantern or torch could be seen. Even the moon seemed full of a silver fire tonight.
They reached Ivy’s small cottage and she opened the door. Hayden put the tree on the table in the center of the room. It provided enough light that another lamp wasn’t needed. He sat down in a chair that she pointed to and looked around the room. It was crowded with her pieces. A deep blue crystal fountain flowed off a stool in the corner. A tall slender green birch glittered by the door. The obvious focal point of the room however, was a phoenix on the mantel. A bird crafted of Ivy’s special crystal fire, it seemed ready to spring from its perch and into the air.
Tearing his eyes from the bird, he looked at her expectantly. Ivy scooped up what he had taken for a cushion from a chair and sat down. The cushion was actually a fluffy, multicolored cat. Smiling down at it, Ivy said, “This is Crystal. No I did not name her. The little girl down the road did, after Crystal appeared on my doorstep and wouldn’t leave.” She looked at him, He waited.
Finally, she began. “Sometimes, when I touch people, I get visions of their future. It’s usually little things, like a surprise waiting for them at home, or a fight they’ll have. But occasionally it’s more serious. For example, this morning, I hugged a little girl and saw her drowning. I made her promise to stay away from the river, and so avoid making it a true vision. Sometimes, the visions are far into the future, about that person’s children before they have any. Other times it happens in the next moment. When I get a visions, something made of glass always comes with it. With the girl, it was a flower the same color as her eyes. With you, the fire rose.” She stopped.
“What did you see?” he asked, his voice calm and quiet.
“Fire. And I heard screams. There were shapes moving in the fire. I couldn’t tell what they were. And then a face.” She shuddered.
“Whose face? Mine?”
“Not yours. It was something else, something horrible. It wasn’t human.” Ivy was trembling. Crystal stretched out a paw towards her face. She smiled faintly.
“Was it burning in the fire?”
“I’m not sure. It was so horrid. I can’t remember.”
Hayden looked at the phoenix again before asking, “This thing is in my future?”
“That wasn’t clear. I didn’t see you at all. There wasn’t even anything that might represent you. This may be in the distant future, even about your children. The truth is, I just don’t know.”
“Well,” Hayden said, “This has certainly been and eventful day for you.” He laughed. “A narrowly averted drowning, a piece of your art had to be destroyed, you met me and now I’ve probably given you nightmares for the next twenty years.”
“Don’t give yourself so much credit,” Ivy said. “They’ll only last for a year or so.” She laughed. It sounded slightly hysterical.
“How do we figure this puzzle out?” he asked her after a few moments.
“I have to touch you again. Until I do whatever I’m supposed to do, every time I touch you, I’ll see something else,” her voice sounded tired.
“That shouldn’t be too hard then,” Hayden said. He stood and held out his hand to her. She looked at it like it was a snake about to bite her. He grinned at her. “Ivy, you’re safe. It’s just a vision. It can’t hurt you. Besides, I’ll be here with you, I promise.”
Crystal looked up at him, ice blue eyes huge. After a second, she jumped off Ivy’s lap and onto the table. She stared at a parchment there. Ivy ignored her and glanced up at Hayden’s face. Taking a deep breath, she gripped his hand.
It was dark, damp and smelly. Something leathery flew past her cheek, a bat. She was in a cave. There was a loud snorting and grunting all around her; a language of some sort. A sudden shriek and the thudding of feet as they rushed passed her. Her heart started pounding with fear. Then Hayden’s hand was there, clasped in hers and she was back. In her other hand was a black chunk of glass. It had once been a flower, but now the surface was so chipped and cracked that she couldn’t tell what kind. It shimmered faintly in the firelight. She put it down on the table.
He let go of her as soon as he was sure she was herself again. She told him what she’d seen, or rather heard. He shook his head and said, “It’s not enough.” He held out his hand again. Smiling a bit, she took it.
This time she was in a dusty room, full of scrolls and parchments. Men and women were running around, searching frantically for something. Then a gray-haired man unrolled a scroll and cried out. She moved to read it over his shoulder with the rest of the scholars. The words appeared on the page as she read. The scene faded, but the words glowed like fire in the blackness. Then she was back in her chair.
In her left hand was a crystal feather, a quill, like one from the phoenix on the mantel. Without saying a word, she made her way to the table and the parchment Crystal was staring at. She wrote what she had seen using the quill. Ink did not flow from it. The words were burned into the page. When she was finished. Ivy rolled up the parchment and sealed it, again using the quill.
She turned to Hayden. “Tomorrow, we give that to the queen. She’s coming to see my art, and yours. We’ll each give her a piece, on one condition. That she has this scroll added to the Records at Tareath.”
Curious, he asked, “What does it say?”
She stared at him and frowned, “I don’t remember.”
“But you just wrote it,” Hayden said. “Not more than a moment ago.” He looked into her green eyes, doubting clouding his own. She had such a strange gift.
She carefully put the quill and scroll down on the table. After patting a now putting Crystal, she said, “The phoenix is your payment, by the way.” When he just blinked at her she added, “for the tree.” He raised an eyebrow at her, but nodded.
“All right then. I’ll see you tomorrow,” Hayden went over to the mantel and carefully picked up the phoenix. “Thank you,” he said. “It’s incredible.” Without a word, Ivy fetched a padded box for it. He packed the sculpture in and then stood looking at her. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a small bag and held it out to her. “If you add a little of this, once a day to the sawdust under the tree, it will last a good long while.”
When she reached out her left hand to take it, he made sure that their hands touched. She didn’t even blink. Sighing with relief, he hefted the box with the phoenix inside and left. Alone in her house, Ivy fell back into her chair. She opened her right hand and stared down into her palm. There, cupped in the center were two perfect rings of crystal. One a ring of ruby flame, the other a twining emerald vine. It looked like the phoenix would be back on her mantel soon.
~~~
I hope you enjoyed that peek into Ivy and Hayden’s past. Please let me know what you think! Thank you again for your support as we continue in the contest! Keep reading, sharing, and talking about Flames. It’s because of all of you that we’ve come this far already. To my followers, if you haven’t ordered yet, but this sparked your interest further, order today! Thank you all again for your support, and for your faith.
May you always have a light in the darkness,
Tara
All, thank you for the support! I added a more in-depth synopsis in the ’About Flames in the Dark’ section of the page! I’ll include it here as well, but please come take a look, highlight portions you like, recommend the description or comment on the book to get people talking about it. Thank you to all who are spreading the word about the contest and about this adventure.
THE SETTING
Deep in the Emerald Forest there lives a fire witch of great and terrible power. She will scorch you where you stand with only a look. Cross her temper and your skin and possessions will burn. Please her, and she’ll ensnare you with her magic and leave you trapped in flames of her making for all eternity. People enter her forest at their peril and only at great need, or if they have a desire to see her golden eyes burn before they die. Or so the legends say.
In a world where magic is rare, but accepted, the Wilde family had more than most. Fire and fate ran in their blood. Even so they live a simple life, growing smoke apples in a forest. Contrary to the nearest villager’s belief, it wasn’t Edana the fire witch they feared. She saved them from burning countless times for her power lay in controlling the fire. Brand however, had a short temper and the power of the spark to match. Trespassers, cheats, even the occasional hunter with unfortunate timing had felt the heat of Brand’s temper. Each one only noticed the slip of a girl with hair afire, eyes aglow and arms outstretched to calm Brand’s flame. They never saw the boy curled in on himself, eyes squeezed shut, breathing to calm the spark in his blood.
So the legend of the fire witch grew as years passed, and Brand’s ability remained secret.
THE STORY
“Sparks journey to mountain high, evil there will burn and die.”
So begins the prophecy that sends Brand the fire mage from his forest home and out into the world. For the first time fate calls for him to take the family’s crop of smoke apples to Minian to sell in the autumn market alone. Along the way, strangers become friends, friends become brothers, and enemies burn to ash. With only the vague lines of prophecy to guide him, and a goal of getting to the capital city of Tareath in time to save it from darkness and help his sister to meet her own fate, Brand journeys through mountains, to cities, into fortresses, and even the bowels of the earth. He searches for answers to questions in the prophecy, and for aid. As powerful as he and his sister are together, they cannot beat this evil on their own.
The Children of the Dark are coming out of the earth. Something they haven’t done in centuries. The only thing that can beat back the dark, is light. Luckily for Brand, he’s never been without a steady supply of that. This time though, it’s a different kind of darkness.
Please let me know what you think of that! Thanks again, and let’s keep this fire lit!
Tara