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@cjmann3.bsky.socialOct 14, 2026, 3:21 PM

Even a dark tragedy needs a moment of joy here or there. Otherwise, there is nothing worth grieving when the ruin comes to fruition.

Before a crown can drown, a realm must believe in the future it promises.

#SnipTober revelry
From QUEEN FOR A DAY
#BookSky #DarkFantasy #MythicFantasy #QueerFantasy

“Taliah,” said The Water Thief, and silence took the room, save for The Ninad’s soft babble. “Do you accept this mantle of your own free will, under no compulsion nor coercion of any kind?” “With an open heart that yearns to serve all Chantarans, everywhere,” Taliah replied. Sun-darkened from youth spent outside, her umber face shone with pride and light. “It has been spoken,” The Water Thief said, lifting his arms to the heavens. “Let it be written in the annals of our history. Note the time in the royal water clock.” “Not a drop past the twenty-fourth ring,” Disaya said from the throne. “I have spoken as the Lunar Realm ascends the far horizon. Taliah, you are now queen-in-waiting. The Clepsydra will refill the water clocks throughout the realm, and the next twenty-four rings are given as holiday in The Mother’s honor and the Sisters Twain’s grace bestowed upon you.” “For Taliah,” the audience roared, drowning the last of Disaya’s words. “For The Mother,” The Water Thief said, joining the cries of elation. “And the Sisters Twain.” It seemed the entire realm bellowed the final words as Chantarans tipped back borrelglass after borrelglass, drinking deep in their revelry.
@cjmann3.bsky.socialOct 13, 2026, 5:24 PM

In Chantara, the old blood remembers the sea.

It shows in the flesh.

Today’s #WIPSnip is from QUEEN FOR A DAY, a finished fantasy novel.

#BookSky #DarkFantasy #MythicFantasy #QueerFantasy

As carefully as her trembling arms allowed, Cobeah straightened Disaya’s body upon the soaked stone floor. Golden braids, loosened in their struggle, spread across the finger-deep water like kelp caught in a tidal surge. Even in bloodied death, she was the most beautiful woman Cobeah had ever seen. Her snow-pale face still seemed to hold its own light. Half-submerged, and with the striking cerulean cast of her skin, Disaya appeared more a Nereid or Naiad than mortal. The blood of those watery beings still marked Chantaran flesh in faint, indelible blue, blooming across skin and gathering at the tips of fingers and ears like remnants of distant tidewater. Long ago, they had guided Chantarans from the abyss left in the wake of the primordials and into the moonlit grace of the Goddesses above.
@cjmann3.bsky.socialOct 12, 2026, 6:28 PM

Admiral Calder knows the pulse of a ship and that dry land has none. He would rather face squalls and storms at sea than answer a new queen’s summons at the palace.

From QUEEN FOR A DAY, a finished fantasy novel.

#WIPSnip #BookSky #QueerFantasy #DarkFantasy #MythicFantasy #WriteSky

Chapter 6 Eighteenth Ring (Noontime - The Day After Queen Disaya’s Death) Calder detested dry land. It lacked rhythm and held no sense of flow. Yes, it offered vistas that could steal a man’s breath: cliffs and forests and sky enough to make poets of sailors, yet it remained resolute. Unmoving. A beautiful kind of wrong. Nothing compared to the ocean’s rocking, the familiar argument between hull and wave. Nothing beat the feel of waterlogged timbers beneath his bare feet at sea, boards breathing up through his soles as if the ship itself had a pulse. Like countless seafarers before him, Admiral Calder had always been enamored with the stars glittering overhead, indifferent beacons to those upon land who kept their gaze transfixed on one foot in front of the other. Now here he was, dragged ashore and summoned to meet with the queen no less. As much as he admired Cobeah, enough to feel a private pride in her rise, he wanted nothing more than to turn around and chase salt wind back to open water. Even sailors, who’ve weathered the worst the world can imagine, know there’s no good reason to remain upon the shore.
@wdkilpackiii.bsky.socialOct 12, 2026, 5:14 PM

Such great support from the international writing community! | Tap 4 More! tinyurl.com/NewBlBk2
Or Tap www.Kilpack.net/Shop

#Amazon #KindleUnlimited #josefnodar #EpicFantasy #FantasyReaders #BookTokFantasy #MythicFantasy #Kilpack #Author #NewBloodSaga #WritersLift

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@aziryte.bsky.socialOct 5, 2026, 4:14 PM

Tomorrow, my supernatural mythic thriller releases! As a bonus, I am running a FREE kindle Ebook promo for Aziryte (book 1) Oct 6-10!
#Booksky #Thrillerreads #Metalmusic #Scifi #Mythicfantasy #Scifireaders

@mikekmusicartgeek.bsky.socialOct 5, 2026, 4:14 PM

Tomorrow, my supernatural mythic thriller releases! As a bonus, I am running a FREE kindle Ebook promo for Aziryte (book 1) Oct 6-10!
#Booksky #Thrillerreads #Metalmusic #Scifi #Mythicfantasy #Scifireaders

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@rkvarden.bsky.socialOct 5, 2026, 2:10 PM

An ancient wolf-titan bound to hold the collapsing sky. A scarred hind carrying the weight of decay. A thousand-year debt that has to break.

My debut mythic novella, THE WOLF WHO HELD THE SKY, is officially live on Amazon & Kindle Unlimited: amazon.com/dp/B0HLWXJM14

#MythicFantasy #Xenofiction

The Wolf Who Held The Sky, by R.K. Varden, a Hidden Gods Novel
@cjmann3.bsky.socialOct 4, 2026, 5:03 PM

In Chantara, queens are not buried to rest. They are prepared to guide those who inherit the coming tides. Even in death, an anointed monarch has duties. She does not leave the world empty-handed.

From QUEEN FOR A DAY

#MythicFantasy #DarkFantasy #FantasyBooks #BookSky #WriteSky

The Clepsydra had readied Disaya’s body for eternity. A breathtaking slab of water-smoothed stone to bear her. Her body wrapped head to toe in fabric cut from an ancient corsair sail and tied with dozens of seawater-preserved sailor’s ropes. A replica of The Mother’s Crown resting on her sail-shrouded brow. Ancient coins and cut gems scattered across her body and the slab beneath. A preserved leather scroll fastened to her right hand, naming every monarch they knew of before her. In her left, they had secured a book containing brief accounts of Chantaran history and its hardest lessons. In death, Disaya held everything she needed to guide the rulers who came after. Mourners sobbed as the Clepsydra carried Disaya through the room and past the throne. The sound of the entire crowd dropping to their knees at once was a single, thunderous impact, like the last hammering beats of a racing heart. It cracked something in Cobeah’s chest. Even in doing what she must, she still despised herself for killing Disaya. From the throne, Cobeah dipped her head in acknowledgement, one monarch to another. The only time she could ever bow to another as queen.
@cjmann3.bsky.socialOct 3, 2026, 8:05 PM

In Chantara, a crown can make a queen, but it cannot make The Water Thief kneel.

Highest among the Clepsydra, he wears the remnants of drowned ships as his mantle and meets Cobeah’s gaze with disappointment in his eyes.

From QUEEN FOR A DAY.
#DarkFantasy #MythicFantasy #FantasyBooks #BookSky

The natural stone throne waited ahead, water-hewn by centuries of rushing rivers and bubbling streams. Its surface glistened with a perpetual dampness, a cold, continuous reminder of all the ages that came before. Cobeah sat where the queen had ruled for decades as the most cherished monarch in Chantaran history. The lunar crown rested upon Cobeah’s head. Stillness held the chamber. Murmurs rose in little eddies of grief, fear, and anger as the crowd knelt as one into the shallow current. Holy waters soaked their garments from the knee down. The Water Thief alone remained standing. His face held no grief. Only disappointment. Highest among the Clepsydra, he slipped along the crowd’s edge without once looking away from Cobeah. His stout body parted the silent supplicants like water. The sailcloth robes, stained by sea brine, hung heavy upon him. Ancient ropes bound them, once belonging to a vessel long vanished beneath the waves. His cloak of fishnet and kelp trailed through the shallows, a relic of older seas. He moved without haste, but with the quiet certainty of a man convinced the Goddesses themselves favored his cause.
@cjmann3.bsky.socialSep 30, 2026, 6:14 PM

If you’ve enjoyed my #Sustember posts, QUEEN FOR A DAY begins its weekly release in January 2027.

After a lawful killing makes Cobeah queen, she has one day before moonrise to keep Chantara from breaking apart.

The first 3 chapters will be free.

#BookSky #DarkFantasy #MythicFantasy #AmWriting

Chapter 1 Twenty-Second Ring (Two hours before Moonrise) Blood sprayed from the slice across the queen’s throat as Cobeah’s round-bladed quoit completed its arc. The circular weapons were common throughout the Chantaran realm, but Cobeah’s were ancient, honed through generations of warfare at sea. Queen Disaya staggered. Her knees folded. Liquid crimson drenched the pale silk of her combat raiment, ceremonial garb that mirrored, with bitter cruelty, the gown she had once worn to her wedding. The distant memories refused to sink. Neither did the emotions rising with them. The queen’s body fell to the water-covered stone floor with a splash that sounded far too loud in the throne room’s hush. She betrayed Disaya. By rite and law, the act was just, but Cobeah couldn’t shake how wrong it felt. To the watching realm, to the Goddesses above, it could only look like high treason. With her magickal abilities, Queen Disaya held an absolute advantage over her. She could have boiled Cobeah’s blood before the fight ever started or used the very waters in her body to drown her while standing in place. Offensive magicks were punishable crimes but Cobeah had expected Disaya to break those laws to preserve her life. She hadn’t. In the face of death, she kept her hands clean of forbidden magicks. For reasons lost with her death the queen had refused to turn them against Cobeah. The trial by combat had ended with an outcome no one in Chantara could have predicted.
@cjmann3.bsky.socialSep 27, 2026, 5:56 PM

Cobeah is too haunted by the blood she spilled to sleep. It will never feel necessary, even though it was. Tomorrow will show her what winning the crown has already cost: the realm, her family, and most of all, herself.

#WIPSnip from QUEEN FOR A DAY
#AmWriting #DarkFantasy #WriteSky #MythicFantasy

Now alone before the doors of the royal suite, Cobeah laid her umber hands, cerulean-hued at the edges, upon the silver handles. Her body resisted, as though her own limbs remembered The Water Thief’s defiance an hour past. Yet even he had bent, in the end. Together, they had borne Disaya’s corpse to the inner Royal Sanctum beneath the throne. Come the morrow, the Clepsydra would consecrate her in glory, even if they hated Cobeah for forcing the rite before moonrise. Disaya had known the cost of that too. I have laid my dark deeds bare. Storms without end will come, but we must keep rowing onward, and I can only continue forward. Her dour thoughts circled like sharks sniffing for blood in the shallows. She pushed the doors wide and stepped inside. The palace staff had already scoured the chamber clean since the last time she had seen it. The massive four-post bed, built piece by piece inside the suite, loomed like a throne of rest, and drew her toward sleep. Never had a day stretched so long, nor seemed so dark. Not even her years at sea chasing Shione Lahiri aboard her infamous Tanim, nor the bloody eradication of corsairs from the Chantaran coast, had felt as long or as dark as this one. Her mind craved respite, and her body ached for a hot bath, but she forwent both and fell upon the bed still in her light seafaring armor. The miniature water clock beside the bed dripped on. Each drop represented a precious second of rest she needed, but sleep would not come easy, not tonight. For tomorrow would decide Chantara’s fate. Tomorrow will show me if Disaya’s last request, her final wish, was ever within reach. ---
@silverdaggertours.bsky.socialSep 26, 2026, 12:39 AM

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#TempusUnbound #SacredBand
@Perseid_Press

link.amazon/B03WAmLpt

www.silverdaggerbooktours.com/tempusunbound

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@cjmann3.bsky.socialSep 23, 2026, 8:40 PM

Brishon is fighting to avenge the queen he called mother. His opponent is fighting the queen’s nightmares that refuse to stay buried. As rain turns the courtyard to mud, neither can find a way past grief.

#WIPSnip Tumble. #AmWriting #DarkFantasy #MythicFantasy #BookSky

She was dismantling him; piece by piece. Brishon couldn’t let her. He launched himself into a wild, desperate tackle. They tumbled through mud and blood. Weapons clattered across the courtyard at their sides. Fists hammered open new wounds. They were too close for honed techniques. Just two grieving, furious creatures clawing for their own causes. “I won’t let you kill me again. Not in life nor in my dreams,” she hissed in his ear as she climbed onto his back. He had no time to parse the words. Pain ripped up his spine as she drove a quoit beneath the edge of his armor. He elbowed backward, smashing her face. She rolled away. Blood poured from the fresh gash across his back. “It ends here, Brishon,” she said, swaying on her feet in the pouring rain. “Even if the mud takes us both.”
@dmdealwis.bsky.socialSep 23, 2026, 12:31 AM

What it's like to be an Indie Author doing the job out of passion and not for profit (yet). The numbers. Note, I am my cover designer, and copy editor. Publisher costs are for illustrators and my editor. 5 Books. Break even is years away. #MythicFantasy #BIPOCAuthor #CanadianAuthor

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@cjmann3.bsky.socialSep 21, 2026, 5:22 PM

After a lawful killing puts Cobeah on the throne, Brodny refuses to accept that the law can justify their beloved queen’s death. Premier Derya warns him that some truths are best kept to himself.

#WIPSnip with “stream” from QUEEN FOR A DAY

#AmWriting #DarkFantasy #MythicFantasy #WriteSky

Brodny grunted. “Cobeah has never been one for pomp, always preferring action over talk. Still, she might have considered all the good Disaya did before murdering her in cold blood.” “Meter your words,” Derya said, hissing while closing the distance and glaring with their sharp green eyes. “By the letter of the law, Cobeah’s act was just. She has always had an even-keeled head on her shoulders. Do not provoke her into making an example of you because you cannot tame your tongue.” “Subjects should not live in fear of the crown, but the crown should fear its subjects.” “You of all people know sharp philosophy makes a poor shield against sharper steel,” Derya said. “Cobeah is a soldier. She’s pragmatic. She will not waste time debating your ethics.” “Disaya would.” “Disaya is dead, Brodny.” Derya’s words came flat, as if spoken to a child. “Get that through your skull. If you want to dream of improbable outcomes, then hope Aulay descends those water-hewn stairs to announce Cobeah abdicated over breakfast.” “She should abdicate.” Derya’s eyes narrowed. “Why do I get the sense you think you are the one to make her?” “Someone must try—” “Listen, old man,” Derya said, eyebrows angled, lips sneering as they brought their face close to his. “You and I can stand here agreeing on everything until hatchlings find their way downstream, but once Cobeah’s bony arse is on that throne and I am standing beside her, I cannot help you.”
@cjmann3.bsky.socialSep 17, 2026, 8:23 PM

Absolutely. In QUEEN FOR A DAY, most Chantarans believe their realm lost the craft of forging magickal Water Gates centuries ago. Admiral Calder suspects the crown only lets that rumor survive, because no nation would misplace a power like that.

#Sustember #AmWriting #DarkFantasy #MythicFantasy

Calder detested dry land. It lacked rhythm and held no sense of flow. It remained resolute. Unmoving. A beautiful kind of wrong. Nothing compared to the ocean’s rocking, the familiar argument between hull and wave. Nothing beat the feel of waterlogged timbers beneath his bare feet at sea, boards breathing up through his soles as if the ship itself had a pulse. Like countless seafarers before him, Admiral Calder had always been enamored with the stars glittering overhead, indifferent beacons to those upon land who kept their gaze transfixed on one foot in front of the other. Now here he was, dragged ashore and summoned to meet with the queen no less. He wanted nothing more than to turn around and chase salt wind back to open water. Even sailors, who’ve weathered the worst the world can imagine, know there’s no good reason to remain upon the shore. He had come through Chantara’s Water Gates in haste, less than a full ring from the coast to the palace. He emerged with cold spray still on his skin and the taste of minerals on his tongue. The Gates were miracles of ingenuity and magickal power, allowing travel from one point in the realm to another, so long as a continuous flow of water bound the path between. Rumor claimed Chantara had lost the craft of forging new Gates long ago. No one, neither the Royal Alchemist nor the late Queen Disaya herself, knew how to build them anymore. Calder had always suspected that was a story the crown allowed to breathe, the sort of lie told to discourage sabotage and vandalism. A nation would not misplace a power like that. Not if it intended to survive.
@cjmann3.bsky.socialSep 17, 2026, 8:07 PM

As head of the Royal Guard, Leola serves the crown, not whoever wears it. When danger floods the throne room, they rush into it rather than let it reach Cobeah on the throne behind them.

A #WIPSnip from QUEEN FOR A DAY

#AmWriting #DarkFantasy #MythicFantasy #BookSky #IndieAuthor

An attacker’s sudden shout stole Leila’s attention. The oncoming man saw what remained of his dying companion, but didn’t make it far. One of Cobeah’s quoits sank into his shoulder and spun him sideways. He staggered to his knees, then forced himself upright. Magickal fire poured from his uninjured hand in a searing sheet, driving Leola back towards the throne. With the other hand, he created a small, focused shield and knocked aside a second quoit from Cobeah that would have found his head. Sweat ran down the man’s face. Not from the fire heating his skin, but the effort of maintaining such magicks in quick succession. Leola knew any weak user of offensive magicks could unleash powerful acts with the quickest of outbursts, thoughts, and emotions. However, even the strongest of mages needed time, intention, and focus to form durable defensive magicks. “For Disaya!” Resignation burned in the man’s eyes as he screamed. He knew he was almost spent and meant to take everyone with him. Leola leapt through the wall of flame. Heat clawed at their armor and slipped through in waves, cooking their body within. Their short hair fused to their helm. Leola squeezed their eyes shut against the blast. Sight no longer mattered; Mother Altalune guided them now. They burst out of the flames and brought the scimitar around in one savage stroke, taking the man’s head mid-incantation. The half-formed spell detonated. Fire erupted in all directions. Leola crashed down, smothering the worst of the blast with their body. Agony tore through them, every nerve alight. It still paled beside the pain they would have carried if they had failed to protect the crown, no matter who wore it.
@cjmann3.bsky.socialSep 14, 2026, 8:49 PM

QUEEN FOR A DAY opens with Queen Disaya’s death at Cobeah’s hands. Between its chapters, Requiems return to the years before: the responsibilities, compromises, and choices made that led to the first-page tragedy.

#WIPSnip #AmWriting #DarkFantasy #MythicFantasy #WriteSky

Requiem Five (Four years before Cobeah’s act of High Treason) In her study, Disaya watched the blazing sun begin its descent through one window, while another on the far wall framed the crescent of Luna breaking the horizon. This time of year, the lunar realm was eager, pressing into the day’s last light. In other months it lingered, letting the sun die fully before showing its moonlit face. Beyond the glass, Pelagica prepared for night the way it always did. Doors opened. Voices rose. Meals were shared, bread broken, cups filled again and again with wine, water, and ale. The city’s joy reached her as muffled sound, softened by distance, a celebration heard through stone-thick walls. As much as she took pride in her work, it left her with a familiar irritation when duty pinned her to the desk well after moonrise. The burden came with her mantle, and she had accepted it with an open heart. Still, she would rather have been at a table with her children, and sometimes even Aulay, laughing over food while the night cooled the house. Not tonight. Tonight required another hour, maybe two. Seals waited. Signatures. Documents that could not be delayed simply because the moon had risen. Calder’s promotion to Admiral. Revisions to the Fishers’ Guild charter. Schedules for court and ceremony, all of them threaded around the Clepsydra’s lunar rites, because the holy calendars did not bend for mortal convenience. Disputes needed judgment. Legislation needed shaping. Qualms with neighboring realms needed addressing before they became raids and corpses. The pile on her desk had the quiet weight of a flood.
@cjmann3.bsky.socialSep 13, 2026, 4:57 PM

History can make a fine distraction until you realize you’re about to become part of it.

From QUEEN FOR A DAY, a finished dark fantasy novel.

#WIPSnip #AmWriting #DarkFantasy #MythicFantasy

Cobeah walked the stone halls, her grief locked below deck. Each hollow step pressed her closer to losing control, but promises bound her. So she held strong. Ready to retire to the royal chambers for the night, she turned her gaze to the walls at her side and let their welcome distractions take her. The stone was older than any throne, its first shapes carved not by human hand, but by water’s patience. Settlers had later squared the halls and hewn their mark into what had once been wild, yet the bones of those ancient water-flows remained, if one knew where to look. Countless monarchs had roamed these halls. Queens, kings, and rulers unbound by gender. Before them all, Chantara had been corsair water, lawless and greedy, until one woman rose from plunder and bent the realm toward order. From her fleet came Pelagica. From Pelagica came empire. The Naiads and Nereids guided her sail and Mother Altalune sanctified her course. Now Cobeah, in her own turn, threatened to bring it all toppling down. Her foul actions would be written in the same water-hewn stone as the monarchs of old. She had no choice, not that anyone would care. Their belief in her wasn’t necessary. She only needed the crown long enough to finish what Disaya’s death had begun. Long enough to protect her bloodline, her grandchild, and the future of the throne.
@cjmann3.bsky.socialSep 12, 2026, 3:14 PM

After poison, an assassination attempt, political confrontations at every hour, and no sleep, Cobeah wanders the palace alone. Its halls have become too large, and every echo belongs to someone she has failed.

From QUEEN FOR A DAY.

#Sustember #AmWriting #DarkFantasy #MythicFantasy

For the first time in her life, Cobeah felt alone. Even in her adolescent years, sailing coastal shoals and open seas, there had always been a crew at her back, ship-timbers creaking in rough harmony with her orders. In the years that followed, as Admiral, she had a support system to brace her. Now there was nothing. One of the last souls she could trust without question was her daughter, Taliah. The most recent reports claimed the queen-to-be still struggled through labor, and it would be weeks before Cobeah could rely on Taliah again. Her daughter was suffering in the palace halls above, and Cobeah wasn’t there for her. What kind of mother leaves her child to labor alone? Yet how can I be there? Disaya had asked her to endure. So Cobeah wandered the water-hewn halls, lost, searching for her daughter, whom she could no longer reach, and the single other person she could trust. “Leola?” she called as she stumbled down an empty corridor. “Are you here? Where is everyone? Aulay? Do you have news of Taliah? Where has she gone? I can’t find her.” The ghosts of those she had failed answered from the darkness behind her, but Cobeah refused to look back into the shadowed passage. Her footsteps splashed through thin sheets of water that veiled the floor; the echoes behind her did not always match her stride as they clamored for justice and their chance at restitution.
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