QSFer Mia V. Moss has a new queer fantasy book out (bi, gay, gender fluid, lesbian, non-binary, trans MTF): The Heresy of Thieves.
Vael stole magic from the gods for Her people and put an end to centuries of unrest.
Now magic is gone, and the battle for the Witchlands’s soul begins
After a millennium of prosperity and magic, one catastrophic night undoes the realm of Yvaelen. Magic has fallen, and prayers to Vael the Giver go unanswered.
Jal Riago knows when it’s time to move on from a con. She can’t maintain her false refugee heiress story forever, and her benefactors grow weary of playing host. Just when she’s about to confess and cut ties, a deadly raid sets Jal’s life on a collision course with a powerful entity reckoning with its own madness.
The young, steadfast King Thealys Vorrine inherited the throne of Dynestra after her parents’ deaths at Spellfall. But sparks of unrest flare all too quickly into the unpredictable wildfire of rebellion, and King Vorrine must forge headlong into unknown territory.
Royal knight and notorious rake Ember Carrado is trying his best to get fired. Instead, when he’s paired with a judgmental paladin and sent on a mission to hunt down a rampaging mythical beast, he finds himself face-to-face with the past he’s been running from since Spellfall.
Beacon Wylda Lorcanthas wields a sharp tongue and the second-highest office in the Church of Vael. When the head of the Faith dies, Wylda must seek out a biddable successor. Unfortunately, the clergy’s clear favorite is a charismatic priest who promises the restoration of magic—for those willing to partake of a bloody cost.
The dark betrayal behind Spellfall, and the very fabric of Yvaelen’s faith, will be hidden no longer. What began with a thief’s touch will end with a reckoning. And salvation for some may be a waking nightmare for others.
Warnings: This work of epic fantasy includes large arachnids, moments of captivity, alcohol abuse, drugging, off-page sexual assault, suffering, child endangerment & harm, mental illness, and death.
Get It At Amazon | Publisher
Excerpt
It was the perfect night for a bit of grave robbery. Far above the catacombs, under the rare confluence of two full moons, Silver Bastion, the jewel of Dynestra, was a spectacle of light and music. Thousands were gathering to celebrate the crown princess’s sixteenth birthday. But down in the earthen dark, beyond the tombs of uncountable ancestors, a thief crept through a dead city out of myth.
Kait Willows had not expected to find the dead city. She had planned to use the chaos of the festivities as a cover to sneak into the catacombs and return by dawn with bagfuls of reclaimed treasure. But she was too curious by half, always wondering what the next door might conceal. So, while sifting through rusted armor and disintegrating silks to pry rings off bones and pluck coins from eyeholes, Kait noticed that there was a space in the far wall just big enough for a skin-and-bones waif like herself to slide through, and she couldn’t resist. The ragged shadow ahead was an unanswered question.
It reminded Kait of a gap left by a tooth that had been violently punched out of a mouth. The result of an earthquake, perhaps. Well, nature’s chaos was a thief’s gain, she reckoned. Reluctantly, Kait abandoned her bag of treasures on the ground just outside, unable to squeeze it through the opening. But as she tugged her tunic free from the rough edges of the rock and lifted the globe of light that swirled just above her palm, she beheld not more tombs as she had expected, but a wide, clear, neatly cut road.
Kait looked up, pushing her little ball of light into the air, where it floated serenely up, up, up into inky shadows. Up higher than even the tallest, cloud-shrouded spires of Silver Bastion. In the flickering light, she saw that the road she had stumbled upon led down into a valley which nearly mirrored the concave of the ceiling above—and there in the shadows she saw the unmistakable silhouettes of steeples and towers. That the large hill Silver Bastion had stood upon for a thousand years should be hollow was a dizzying thought. That there should be an entire city hidden beneath…
“That’s what I call an opportunity,” Kait murmured. Quick as a rockslide, her plans changed. Kait called the light ball back down and held it aloft a few paces in front of her as she crept into the city. Although she heard not so much as a rustle of bat’s wings in the cavernous dark, Kait still patted her pocket to touch the simple flip-knife she had brought along as her sole protection. She hoped she would find no cause to use it, for her skill at combat magic was practically nonexistent and she had no wish to disrupt a wild beast’s slumber deep down where none could come to her aid.
The road turned to the left and the dead city swallowed Kait up. Tall, smooth walls on either side, with indentations that suggested windows and doors but were just as solid as the rest. A mimicry of a city, maybe. An elaborate tomb meant to evoke civilization. Or had some spellcaster long ago turned an entire city to stone and buried it?
Impossible. Not even all the maestros in the Witchlands combined could pull off such a spell.
The road carried the young thief down into the valley, winding in a gradual spiraling pattern to the center. She walked for what felt like hours, but neither time nor distance had markers in the underground beyond the increased aching of her feet in their thin-soled boots. Her friends on the surface would be expecting Kait home soon, no doubt, eager to see her haul. She had promised her lover she’d meet him at dawn by the central fountain in the florist’s district. If she turned back now, she could still collect the things she’d taken from the upper catacombs and bring a new tale to the taverns besides.
Kait bit her lip, uneasy at the feeling in her gut that had so far never been wrong. The one that now urged her to flee. But no one ever got rich from being meek and safe, and the tale of this impossible city would be all the more believable if she could just find one piece of proof to take back with her.
But the dead city remained closed and unknowable, no matter how far Kait went. There were no street signs, no shop fronts, no garden beds. Not even color made a home here. Just stone that crunched beneath her feet and scraped beneath the fingernails she traced along the walls as she walked.
And then, Kait rounded one last curve and found herself at the heart of the spiral. The road opened to a circular plaza, in the center of which stood a gazebo. It was the same stone as everything else, but here at least was decoration. A winged human stood at each of the four corners of the gazebo, wingtips touching to form four arches. All of them gripped wickedly long swords in their hands, points down, pommels against their chests, heads bowed as if in prayer. Their sculpting was so lifelike that Kait might have mistaken them for living beings had they not been made of the same grey-beige stone as their surroundings.
Author Bio
Mia V. Moss (they/them) is a science fiction and fantasy author from the Pacific Northwest, now living in the SF Bay area. Their undersea sci-fi noir novella, MAI TAIS FOR THE LOST, is out now from Underland Press, and their short stories have been published in Cat Ladies of the Apocalypse, StarShipSofa, Galactic Stew, and elsewhere. When they’re not writing, they enjoy running around feral outdoors, rewilding gardens, building big art, DMing tabletop campaigns, mixing cocktails for friends, and admiring their enormous TBR pile.
| Author Website | www.magicrobotcarnival.com |
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| Author Bluesky | @magicrobotcarnival.com |