#nilda

N x Hilda because i decided interviews are not canon and they are very close in age so respectfully stfu ^v^b they’re 18 and 19 in this doodle

A short nicely-sized summary of my novel in progress, The Lightbringers. Tiny, one-scene-chapters to follow regularly. Hope you’ll like it =)

Story’s tags*: #eventual, slow burn F/F; #established M/GF; #background M/F; #genderfluid characters; #poc characters; #woc characters; #trans characters, #graphic depiction of violence; #no major character death; #no dubcon/noncon; #no underage sex; # work in progress

The Kingdom of Sarria is going through a veritable social revolution. Seven years after the Insurgency who almost destroyed it, things are beginning to settle in a new normal. The insurgents, who’d advocated for all supernatural people to be excluded from both politics and public life, failed. Technomagy is everywhere you look, from public transport to street lightning to the textile industry. For the ‘Sups’, whose social standing had known many ups and downs throughout history, it is a victory.

Things aren’t so rosy everywhere, however. The Special Cohort for Supernatural, Magical and Occult Crimes of the City of Montrazin Urban Cohorts is running on critically low effectives, struggling to recruit enough people to compensate for all the officers they lost during and after the Insurgency. As if that wasn’t enough, the Sups’ and general population’s trust in them is at an all time low; no wonder, when the insurgents’ leader once stood as the Special Cohort’s First Centurion. Now his daughter has taken up his office, and most people don’t see it as that much of an improvement. She’s a more than ambiguous character herself, and it’s difficult to distinguish the two figures when they bear the same surname.

Yet, the lack of vigile officers qualified to investigate and confront supernatural threats is starting to show in the resolution rates of ongoing cases.

It only gets worse when a corpse in found within a ritual circle one morning.

Then another.

And another.

All of the victims are different, with not much to link them to each other beside the manner of their deaths. For they were all found stretched in the same exact position inside perfectly identical inactive and unbroken circles, drawn on the bare ground with powdered bones and a mysterious sparkling dust. The victims were drained of their vital energy, their blood used to draw mysterious symbols all over them and the surrounding ground.

There is no scent trail to speak of, no magical signature left behind, no other clue than the symbols sketched in blood―and nobody has ever seen the likes of them.

All the while, the bodies keep turning up.

Nilda Cidonian is the First Centurion of the Special Cohort for Supernatural, Occult and Magical Crimes, operating out of the City of Montrazin Urban Cohorts. She’s been serving the city in that capacity for seven years, after fighting on both sides during the Insurgency. She thought she’d seen everything, until a strange and unsettling case lands in her cohort’s hands. She’s forced to call on a old, estranged friend to try and find some clues about the perpetrators’ identity and intentions. She did much more difficult and distasteful things for Crown and Country; what’s one more strike against her pride?

Nyarai Limbani made her public name during the Insurgency. Already known in some circles as a promising young warlock, the bravery and talent she showed while the kingdom was shaking on its foundations made a renowned hero out of her. After retiring from the Magical Auxiliary Corps, she went back to the Royal Institute for Magical Arts and Sciences, where she completed several more degrees and practical masteries in a remarkably short amount of time. Despite her relative young age, she served a rotation on the Council of Magicians of the Kingdom of Sarria, and then was granted the permission to spearhead a study program she’d created herself. She’s one of the most powerful, smart, respected and busy mages in Sarria; yet, she won’t hesitate to answer the Special Cohort’s call for assistance ― her sense of duty is in no way less developed than her heart and brains.

Munsa’didies is Nyarai’s favorite research and teaching assistant, specialized in insular languages of magic. There are not many brains brighter and faster than hers in Sarria (or in all the Green Isles, for that matter). It’s especially true of her talent for research and translation. At first, she takes the mysterious symbols as a research challenge the likes of which she’d dreamed of her whole life. Until she finds the most promising works missing from the shelves; until the urgency and reality of the situation sinks in. She then only redouble her efforts, because Munsa’didies is not one to be easily conquered by thieving, murderous morons.

Ciarán Nolamac was a prodigious, precocious young mage… once. Before the Insurgency. Before he refused a medal and a title, before he filed for divorce and sole custody of his child, before he took off from the city and disappeared in the wind. Seven years later, he now lives in a quirky little cottage on a white hill, raising his daughter and sharing their home with a colony of cats ― amongst them his familiar, Rikki. He’s quite happy with his existence as a hedge witch, thank you very much, and those weird and unsettling visions he’s been getting lately? He doesn’t like the feel of them.

At all.

* If you think other tags should be added to that list, please say!

Family walk

Nick, Nilda, Jared and Judy.