Once upon a time (the early 1990s), before the dawn of the internet as we know it, there was a BBS (that’s “Bulletin Board System”, and we had to use actual phone lines to dial into them via modem) in which I ran a role-playing group set in a mages’ guild. My character’s name was Trivintaie, and she was a redheaded mage with a penchant for mischief.
Yes, she was THAT Triv. The same Triv that starts off the whole Mages’ Guild Trilogy.
When I decided to revive her and write the trilogy, I knew I couldn’t make her the main character. Her time had passed, and too many other people had taken part in creating her guild for it to really be mine. So I set the trilogy a thousand years in the future and gave her world a new hero.
What I didn’t expect was that I’d pack it with such a diverse set of characters, most of which reflecting some part of the rainbow. It was completely unintentional, but once I realized it was happening, I was thrilled. One of my goals was to give young adults—and adults not quite so young—characters that maybe they could identify with in a way they might not have been able to before.
So I’d like to introduce you all to some of the new characters in the second book of the trilogy, Magic Wept.
But before that, I wanted to let you all know that there is indeed a giveaway. I will be randomly generating three winners on September 30th, all of whom will receive a plush purple cat (because nothing says magic like a K’yerin plushie—Tasis’ familiar is just full of himself enough to agree with that sentiment) and an ebook copy of Magic Wept. You can enter the giveaway at
http://andivan.com/magic-wept-blog-tour/.
Also, this is the last blog post for the release tour. There’s one last stop, at the Harmony Ink Press microblog, but that will involve video, not written words. So I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of you who’ve followed along these past several days. I’m sure we’ll be meeting again sometime around March, when the final book of the trilogy is released.
Now then. For today’s post, you get to learn about Nabiha.
Nabiha comes from the same village as Tasis, though she never really had any interaction with him. And this was for a very good reason. Nabiha’s family is exactly the horrible type who degraded and bullied Tasis when he was growing up. They don’t like anyone who’s different from them.
And poor Nabiha is bisexual. (See? I told you there’d be bisexual rep.)
While I don’t get as much into her background as I’d wanted to in the book (things get cut, after all), I can tell you that she was terrified of her family finding out that she had a thing for girls as well as for boys. But she was okay with keeping that part of herself hidden and playing the part of the obedient daughter. Right up until her baby brother was threatened.
Because Nabiha is also kind of a shout out to people with toxic family. While I’m lucky enough to have a pretty awesome family, not everyone does. I have friends who have families that are so bad that I have wondered out loud how they ended up such good people with an environment like that. So I wanted to show that it was possible to survive that sort of horrible situation and come out of it intact.
Nabiha is really shy at first. She’s just looking for safety for her brother. But she ends up finding a place where she fits in. She gets her happily ever after on several levels. I mean, she ends up living someplace with a massive library, what could be better than that?
Nabiha doesn’t have as much “screen time” (for lack of a better term) in this book as she does the third one, so I was limited as to what of hers I could share without too many spoilers. So I opted to share the moment of her arrival.
***
“Sit down,” Tasis told the girl in a voice gentler than Jorget had heard him use in the short time he’d known him. “You’re Nabiha, right?”
The girl nodded, hiccupping a small sob as the bundle in her arms whimpered. Tasis reached for it, looking to the girl for permission before moving the blanket. An infant human looked back at him with wide eyes before it gave him a huge, toothless grin. “Yours?” Tasis asked.
Nabiha shook her head. “My youngest brother. He—”
The baby let out a delighted squeal and babbled as he waved one hand. Butterflies appeared above them.
“Oh,” Tasis said softly. “I think I understand now.”
“My parents will kill him if they find out,” Nabiha insisted. “They still talk about how you should have been drowned at birth. I don’t care about me, but I want my brother to be safe.”
“May I see him?” Zaree asked, holding out her arms. The girl looked at Tasis uncertainly, but he nodded and gave her a smile. After a moment more of hesitation, she handed the boy over to Zaree. “It’s been so long since I’ve held a baby,” Zaree said as she snuggled the infant close. “You’re a good boy, aren’t you? And so brave. You aren’t the least bit afraid of us, even though you’ve never seen us before.”
“He likes people,” Nabiha supplied. “Pretty much from birth. All he wants is for everyone to love him.” The girl let out a short hiccup of a sob and wiped her eyes. “He’s a baby, how could anyone hate a baby?”
“You’d be amazed,” Tasis told her with a sigh as he patted her shoulder. “People can be horrible. That’s why we have to try to be better than the people around us.”
“He’s right,” Zaree agreed. “We’ll help you, but what is it you’d like us to do? Did you have something specific in mind?”
“Can you take him with you?” Nabiha asked. “Please? I know you don’t live here anymore. I’ve been watching the house to see if you’d returned at some point, but this is the first time I’ve seen you come back. So you must live elsewhere now.”
“I do,” Tasis agreed. “I can’t guarantee your brother’s safety, but he’d certainly be safer there than with parents who’d happily hand him over to the king. But what about you? Your parents are bound to figure out that it was you who took him, and I imagine they won’t be pleased. Even if they never find out he’s a magic user, they’ll know you took him.”
Nabiha swallowed hard, and tears welled up in her eyes. “I didn’t think that far,” she admitted, wringing her hands together in her lap. “I didn’t want anything to happen to him.”
“You can come with us,” Zaree offered, turning to look at her brother as she rested her cheek gently against the baby’s head. “Can’t she?”
Blurb:
Jorget has no surname, no blood kin, and no hope of using his magical ability while he remains at Archai Castle, where the mad king reigns. With magic still outlawed, every experiment he performs could cost him his life. So when his mentor, the royal priest Denekk, is ordered to send Jorget on a journey to find a magical weapon, the young man jumps at the chance to prove himself. What he doesn’t realize is that things are never as simple as they seem.
Kelwin Tiovolk has settled into life in the Mages’ Guild of the Dragon’s Claw with his beloved, guild leader Tasis Kadara. But when word arrives that the king is searching for something to destroy the guild, he knows he has to leave behind the comfort of his new home to save what Tasis worked so hard to rebuild.
With enemies around every corner, Jorget and Kelwin need to pull off a miracle in order to save the guild. Luckily, they’re more than ready to stand strong together and keep what’s precious to them safe.
Buy links:
Andi Van is a foul-mouthed troublemaker who lives near San Diego with a baseball bat that’s forever being used for things other than baseball, and a fondness for rum and caffeine (though not necessarily together).
Andi is fluent in three languages (English, sarcasm, and profanity), and takes pride in a highly developed—if somewhat bizarre—sense of humor.
Social media info: Twitter: https://twitter.com/DefiantAndi Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/defiantandi
