QSFer Nicola Zhang has a new queer fantasy book out (gay), Celestial Trilogy book 3: Queen of Blood.
The epic conclusion to the LGBTQ fantasy series.
King Anden of Vindra stands against High Queen Telmaine, a clash of crowns that will determine the fate of the continent. The Berossian Empire launches its forces in a great crusade, but an unexpected voice rises in the form of a barefoot priestess, whose messages of peace spread like wildfire, threatening to derail the empire’s war effort and shake its very foundations.
Cities will burn. Generals will fall. History repeats itself as Anden finds himself at sea, torn between saving his kingdom and the man he loves.
The final book of the CELESTIA trilogy is a breathtaking tale of love and sacrifice, choices and destiny. When Celestia is drawn for the last time, who will shape the world to come?
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Excerpt
The Berossian Sea in summer was as serene as the Goddess and as tender as a babe at the breast.
A war galley glided over waves as smooth as polished plate. There was a fair wind behind it, so it had shipped its oars, letting its sails fill. Its black banners flapped in the brisk breeze, furling and unfurling to reveal the rampant double lions of Vindra in glittering gold.
Forty feet above the main deck, the little lookout tucked himself into the crow’s nest and yawned. When he turned his gaze northward, he could just make out the top of the fortress tower on Stonemere Island. But he wasn’t assigned to watch the north; his duty lay to the south, where there was never anything but the open sea.
He had been doing this for moons now, he and others like him. Galleys of the royal fleet patrolled the long coastline of the continent, from Tideford to the capital, from Lyra to Flavian Corsi, and no one had seen anything. Anything that wasn’t the occasional smuggler trying to ship goods and people to Berossus, that was. Still, the King of Vindra wanted eyes all along the coast, and what the King of Vindra wanted, he got.
So here the boy was, basking in the breeze, burnt by the sun and bored out of his mind.
It wasn’t a bad life, all things considered. He got two coppers a day, only a little less than the rowers, and two decent meals on top of that. This Sun Festival just gone, Lord Fox of Asterion – who was overseeing the fortifications on Stonemere – had even sent down a feast from his own table, wine and all. Everyone had liked that.
Good man, Lord Fox. The idle chatter among the sailors was that he was too young for a lordship, that he had only gained the title because of his favour with the king, the word said with a cocked eyebrow and a meaningful look.
The boy sighed and patted his belly. What did he care whether Lord Fox had got everything he had for sleeping with the king? Lords came and went; kings came and went. Meanwhile, the commons stayed where they were and did what they could to get by. Their thoughts were occupied with how to get enough money to keep a roof over their heads, how to fill their bellies for supper and how to make life a little better tomorrow.
He had saved up a small clay jar of coppers now and planned to present it to his mother the next time the ship docked at Tideford. His father had the blacklung from smithing, and the apothecary wife down the Alley of Pearls had a potion that she swore would cure it for good, but it cost more than the family’s combined wage for three moons. They had just about saved up enough. Mother would be glad for his contribution.
He yawned again and squinted against the horizon. Under the sun’s unrelenting glare, the sky met sea in a haze of blue, the paler joining the darker with a distinct azure line in between. But for once, there seemed to be something else. A dark speck, no larger than a mote of dust.
Most likely it was nothing. His mind played tricks when he spent too much time up here. The boy wiped his eyes with a dirty sleeve and looked again.
The speck grew a little larger.
Author Bio
Nicola Zhang is the author of the Celestia trilogy, an epic LGBTQ coming-of-age fantasy adventure. A lover of ancient military history, she once appeared on the BBC’s Mastermind with Alexander the Great as her specialist subject. She lives in Melbourne with her husband, a ginger cat, and a fluffy white dog determined to keep the cat’s mischief in check.
| Author Website | www.nicolazhang.com |
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