Just a quick note today - if you’re among the Awesome Tumblr People who supported us reaching the goal, come let me know, so we can discuss bonus fic/art/other giveaways! Love you!

Hi, marvelous readers!

We’ve reached light publication (the Quill level) and joined the Quill collection here on Inkshares, so we’re moving into production! Yay! *throws confetti*

They’ve told me the timeline moving forward will be roughly ten months until readers get their copies in their hands; this has to do with time needed for a round of light copyediting, getting the back cover (design, any text, etc) done, shipping of physical copies, and so on. (I admit I was hoping it’d be a bit faster, since Inkshares is a nontraditional publisher - but I’m not complaining!) We’ll see if we can’t speed that up a small amount, though, since the cover art’s already done and it should be a fairly clean manuscript (I correct student writing for a living, after all...), but in any case: we’re into production, and I’m so excited! I’ll keep you updated as things progress...

Exciting update - Prophecy has been picked by the Write Out Loud Syndicate as their book for January! (Link here for more about Inkshares syndicates and what they do.)

This is wonderful for both more orders and for visibility and promotion, and I am so honored to be a choice - it means they thought this story was worth supporting, and that’s...well, that’s just really cool, is what that is. Thank you, on behalf of me and Oliver and Tir and everyone.  :-)

Here’s the little note I got: "Here’s why the syndicate lead chose your book: a great read and a creative and interesting premise. I also love the author’s sense of humor. I’m happy to support Prophecy for Two in January and I’m looking forward to read it."

I’m so excited - thank you again to the Write Out Loud members and everyone who’s supported Prophecy this far!

YOU GUYS YOU GUYS YOU GUYS

WE TOTALLY DID IT

Prophecy is now at 251 (yaaaay!) pre-orders!!!

*jumps up and down screaming a lot*

So, this is guaranteed ebook + print-on-demand publication, as part of the Quill collection, no matter what! (You can of course still order copies - if it gets to 750 orders they do a full print run, and more royalties and such are always nice, but I am not even going to worry about that yet!) It should be pretty quick turnaround - all the writing part is done except for the short little Epilogue, and I shall update as soon as I know the projected publication date!

And this is because of YOU and ALL THE SUPPORT AND LOVE and I love you all so much and I am so so grateful. Honestly, truly - you guys made this happen. It’s your book. For you.

I love you.  *pops champagne and gets to editing*

Hi, all! A super-quick note to say: three (3!) pre-orders to go! And 8 days left before the deadline! We’re so close, and I’m so excited and so grateful to every one of you, I don’t even have good words.

As a partial thank-you, have a preview of the new opening scene of chapter four, just written today:

##

They camped that night in a pool of emerald grass surrounded by silver-barked trees; the green was a bit too green and the trunks too silver, to Oliver’s artist’s eye. He couldn’t decide whether he wanted to paint the North or back slowly away from it. Either way he wasn’t certain he could ever do a description justice.

He handled wood-gathering and fire-building and roasting potatoes. Tir offered to help; Ollie scowled at him until he sat down meekly and got out a book. Bandages remained around slim fingers, catching light under distant stars.

They both knew enough not to go hunting or trapping, in the Northern Territories; for one thing, it was impolite, given that some fairies could shapeshift, and for another, nobody really knew what eating too much fairy game or fruit would do to a human. Tir said that the local berries and fruit that almost-but-not-entirely resembled apricots were probably safe, and anyway they were still on the human side of the border; the fruit would’ve adapted itself to less-magic conditions. Oliver considered the almost-apricot and its potential for sentience and deliberate adaptation, and did not eat it. Tirian rolled eyes, got up and picked two, and threw one at him. “You export these, you know.”

“Well…yeah, but—wait, go sit down!”

“And you make wine out of them. Expensive wine.”

“Not me personally,” Ollie said. “I have no clue how to make wine. Yes, I know, you’ve made your point, thank you.” The not-apricot was delicious. “Potatoes in a minute. Read your book.”

The fire crackled. The stars glittered. Night-birds made crystalline swooping noises in the forest. And Tirian had a book, and Ollie drew little sketches of leaping flames and many-petaled flowers and tall gleaming trees, and the night settled in, content.

He wanted to check under those bandages, but did not want to interrupt his fairy; he put aside confrontation of this conundrum for a moment.

Oh wow - we’re at just under two weeks left to the deadline, and 212 of 250 orders reached - so only 38 to go! You are all amazing and I am so excited, and I know we can get there - if you can order one or two more, or send it along to friends or family, please please do; we’re so close!

Also, as thanks, here is a piece of chapter four, as a preview:

##

The final hazard was a dragon.

Oliver, flattened against a canyon wall, hissed, “Did you expect this?”

“No!” Tir peeked around rock again. “That’s new. Not in any of my books.”

“I thought they were extinct!”

“Not at all. They don’t come across the border, though. They live on magic. Oh—of course, this is your Seeing Pool, it’s entirely magic…I wonder if it drinks from the Pool itself, or—”

“You can practice comparative magical zoology later!” He risked one more glance. The Pool itself was visible beyond the not insignificant obstacle of dragon. It formed a natural spring, welling up into a bowl shaped of smoky transparent stone, carved over eons by the drip of Fairyland-sourced water. It shimmered under the slate-and-cloud sky at the end of the skinny rock-walled trail. It lay only a few steps distant, but: dragon.

Not a cuddly faithful tamable beast as in some children’s puppet shows. Not huge, about the size of a big cart-horse, but absolutely not small as a house-pet lizard. Ugly. Black-scaled, spiky, fanged. Ochre glow down near its belly. Built to be a predator and bring death. It lashed its tail like a vicious cat, waiting. It knew they’d come.

Tir gave him a mildly annoyed glare. “If anything I’d be a writer of magical romance, and it’s research—”

“I know that!”

“Give me your sword, then.”

Oliver passed it over, no questions asked. It was a good sword; no fancy name or lineage, just plain strong steel and solid craftsmanship.

Tir closed a hand around the blade, not the hilt. Oliver almost interrupted right then, but no blood appeared; he kept an eye on Tir’s fingers, though. He’d grown up with legends about magic and the cost thereof.

Tir murmured low words and stroked his hand along bare steel, a disarmingly intimate gesture. Oliver might’ve been imagining the way the sword thrilled to his caress, a ripple passing along the surface. Might’ve been.

He had a flash of astonished wondering: was this how Tir would touch someone he loved? With strength, with coaxing, with unhurried deliberate fingers and palm?

He swallowed. He tried not to think about whether magic always moved like this for Tir: a slow sweet seduction, a pulse-beat, a swell of desire.

Everyone knew the Crown Prince’s loyal companion was a fairy. Oliver had never seen his best friend as a fairy before.

Tir blinked, shook himself, came back from whatever dreamy precipice he’d been on. “Here.”

“Was it good for you,” Oliver tossed back, a joke in the face of strange uneasiness. Tir’s hand stroking his sword, Tirian beautiful and inhuman and wrapped in invisible sorcery. The teasing landed badly.

“I put myself into it,” Tir said. No perceptible reaction to his failed joke-attempt. Only sincerity and practical focus, which of course should be the case, in the face of a dragon. “My own magic. It should work.”

“You could use it. Um. If it’s…yours?”

“You’re better with a sword than I am, and it’s your Quest.” Tir shoved the sword into his hand and pulled both long knives instead. “I don’t know if it’ll work. I’ll be your distraction. Just try to cut its head off; there’s no such thing as a mythical vulnerable spot. Ready?”

“No,” Oliver said. “Are you okay? I mean…I don’t know. Are you?”

And Tir’s eyes got less guarded, more affectionate, more familiar. “I’m fine.”

They ran into battle—for the first time ever—together. The world transformed. Became a crazy collision of black scales and lunges and scorching fire. Oliver had indeed trained with a sword, but never against a horse-sized heap of fangs and claws and spiked tail; he ducked, dodged, felt the sharp sudden sting of a tail-barb scrape one leg. A flicker of blue flowed past him: Tir, he realized belatedly, turning rock-dust into sparkling motes of magic, calling a Fairyland-beast to him.

He stumbled on a rock; the dragon’s head swung his way and snarled. Fire bubbled up: not ready yet but building. Tir threw a knife instead of magic this time. It whirled back to face him.

Hi, readers! Just dropping by to wish you a marvelous new year, and to let you know that we’re up to 200 pre-orders - 50 to go! We can totally make this happen, thanks to you, with one last push over these last two weeks before the deadline! Also, look for new and lovely cover art very soon - I’ve just gotten the final version from my fabulous artist, so that will be unveiled as soon as I get it properly uploaded - and it is gorgeous, perfect for the story and mood!

Just over two weeks left, and 59 copies to go! We can totally do this!! And thank you all for the support so far - this wouldn’t happen without you!

So this isn’t the third chapter yet (soon! I promise!) but someone asked me about this over on Tumblr, and I couldn’t resist the answer: in some sort of modern-day alternate universe, what music do Tir and Oliver listen to?

Well, I do normally write with music in mind (a lot of my story titles come from there) so...

Tir is totally a catchy pop music fan. Like, Katy Perry pop music. Like he probably knows all the words to “Teenage Dream” and dances around his bedroom singing. And when he gets caught he explains, flawlessly straight-faced, that this is part of studying humanity. (No one buys it. Not really.) (And then he’ll put on Mumford & Sons and pretend he meant to do that all along. He does actually like Mumford, mind you.) He also adores musicals, but he can’t watch Les Miserables, because he’ll cry over Eponine and Gavroche every single time, for probably obvious reasons.

Oliver is rather more conventional, or at least less prone to introspection and self-examination; he’s probably a classic rock fan: the Rolling Stones, Journey, Rick Springfield...but he’s a crown prince who’s also an artist, so he’s got some quirky independent friends too. He’s got, oh, the odd Strumbellas album, some Pansy Division, early Tegan & Sara, and Tacocat on his playlist. He tends to like most genres, or at least not mind them. He likes musicals and theater too, but he generally enjoys the comedy type of musical more. He brings the tissues if they’ve somehow ended up seeing Les Mis. (He pretends, badly, that they’re for him. They’re not.)

...and now we’ve likely all got Katy Perry’s voice in our heads. You’re welcome.