epic-fantasy

What are you wrapped up in?' Roan whispered. Her anger and frustration had shifted to a sympathy that grated Vhalla.'I'm simply learning where I'm meant to be.' It was the only response because it was the truth.

This is the beginning of a new time,_ Torius said, __ great moment for us. One of us has learnt the Tongue and freed a princess. I have saved him and killed the guards. No longer will we be slaves. No longer will the guards tell us what to do. No longer will we listen. We will fight till we get what we want!__ roar exploded from the children around him.__his is a revolution,_ Torius went on. __ou all remember the pain that you have felt when the guards have touched you. You all know the shame we carry within us at being treated like this. No more! We will stand!

The rhythm of fraught footsteps and fervent heartbeat orchestrated a symphony of anticipation and dread.

You have to earn it.' Vhalla didn't know what else to say. She had trusted him, to lead her, to teach her, and he broke that trust. It wasn't as though it was something she could simply start again on command.

Down they went, into the darkness. Down ancient, worn steps coated in slippery mildew. Down into the deep recesses of the earth, far beneath the corridors of Deep-Spire.

There was something severed and rough about her, something tainted and, yet, at the same time those jagged pieces were the makings of something fearsome. She'd wanted to become someone the Senate would fear, why not shatter the sky?

When his dead father touched his hand, Athson almost dropped the arrow." From The Bow of Destiny

When his dead father touched his hand, Athson almost dropped the arrow.

Being on the edge is always worse than going through

The villagers had removed their masks. They displayed their true faces. And they were dreadful, diabolic visages. Blasted skin hung from shrunken mouths and red veins burst from their skin, leaving pronounced contours akin to miniature rivers. Each throbbed and pulsed, at home on scabby foreheads.I balked. The eyes drew all attention.Silver coins replaced eyeballs. They glinted with the same alluring lustre as the ones I had coveted in the chests. Instantly, dreadfully, I knew they were one and the same _ accursed treasure used for nefarious sight, a symbol of the damned. And yet, the more I stared, the more I coveted them.

If I rolled the dice carved out of my weathered boneAnd offered of my blood the libation to the faneWhen even the reaper__ mockery forsakes me aloneMy own clangorous thoughts are the last to remain

A grim expression came over Syah__ face. __he colt you speak of lost its mother during a storm. If this stallion was that colt, it is not just wild, it is insane. That horse will break your bones._ __nd that will be a worthy end, a prince struck down by such a noble steed.__asime pushed himself off the support of the fence, but Oman grabbed his arm.__t__ not worth it, Brother.___ can tame him._ __hat will we tell Mother and Father if he kills you?_ Oman questioned.__ell them I gave my life with pride. Do not punish him if he kills me. Release him back into the wild, and my spirit will ride him into the mist.

When a mortal man breaks a people, it is always blamed on the gods.

You are blessed with a knack for sucking the wonder out of the extraordinary.

Right and wrong matters little when survival matters most.

I am going to go into this world, and I don't care if you and_your_narrow_mind cannot be a part of it.

Books are keys that open many doors.

And once upon a time I wondered: Is writing epic fantasy not somehow a betrayal? Did I not somehow do a disservice to my own reality by paying so much attention to the power fantasies of disenchanted white men?But. Epic fantasy is not merely what Tolkien made it.This genre is rooted in the epic _ and the truth is that there are plenty of epics out there which feature people like me. Sundiata__ badass mother. Dihya, warrior queen of the Amazighs. The Rain Queens. The Mino Warriors. Hatshepsut__ reign. Everything Harriet Tubman ever did. And more, so much more, just within the African components of my heritage. I haven__ even begun to explore the non-African stuff. So given all these myths, all these examinations of the possible_ how can I not imagine more? How can I not envision an epic set somewhere other than medieval England, about someone other than an awkward white boy? How can I not use every building-block of my history and heritage and imagination when I make shit up?And how dare I disrespect that history, profane all my ancestors_ suffering and struggles, by giving up the freedom to imagine that they__e won for me.