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$2.99 Ebook Sale: Crossroads of Canopy by Thoraiya Dyer

Image Placeholder of - 19The ebook edition of Crossroads of Canopy by Thoraiya Dyer is on sale now for only $2.99! This offer will only last for a limited time, so order your copy today, and start Dyer’s thrilling fantasy series before the third book, Tides of the Titans, is released on January 29!

About Crossroads of CanopyUnar dreams of greatness.

Determined but destitute, she escapes her parents’ plot to sell her into slavery. Now she serves in the Garden of the goddess Audblayin, ruler of growth and fertility.

But when Audblayin dies, Unar sees her opportunity for glory – at the risk of descending into the unknown dangers of Understorey to look for a reincarnated newborn god. In its depths, she discovers new forms of magic, lost family connections, and murmurs of a revolution that could cost Unar her chance…or grant it by destroying the home she loves.

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This sale ends January 1st.

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New Releases: 1/23/18

Happy New Release Day! Here’s what hit shelves today.

Crossroads of Canopy by Thoraiya Dyer

Poster Placeholder of - 93 Unar dreams of greatness.

But achieving greatness is more difficult than she thinks.

Her hopes rest on becoming the next bodyguard to Audblayin, the rain forest’s divine ruler of growth and fertility. But to earn that title, Unar must embark on a dangerous quest into the shadowy depths beneath the treetops.

Cutting Edge by Ward Larsen

Place holder  of - 19 Trey DeBolt is a young man at the crest of life. His role as a Coast Guard rescue swimmer in Alaska offers him a rewarding job and limitless adventure. Then a tragic accident alters his life: during a harrowing rescue, his helicopter goes down.

Severely injured, DeBolt awakens in a seaside cabin in Maine, thousands of miles from where the accident occurred. His lone nurse lets slip that he has been officially declared dead, lost in the crash. Back in Alaska, however, Coast Guard investigator Shannon Lund uncovers evidence that DeBolt might still be alive. Her search quickly becomes personal, but before she can intervene, chaos erupts outside a cabin in the wilds of Maine.

Miranda and Caliban by Jacqueline Carey

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Miranda and Caliban is bestselling fantasy author Jacqueline Carey’s gorgeous retelling of The Tempest. With hypnotic prose and a wild imagination, Carey explores the themes of twisted love and unchecked power that lie at the heart of Shakespeare’s masterpiece, while serving up a fresh take on the play’s iconic characters.

A lovely girl grows up in isolation where her father, a powerful magus, has spirited them to in order to keep them safe.

We all know the tale of Prospero’s quest for revenge, but what of Miranda? Or Caliban, the so-called savage Prospero chained to his will?

NEW FROM TOR.COM

The Only Harmless Great Thing by Brooke Bolander

Placeholder of  -17 In the early years of the 20th century, a group of female factory workers in Newark, New Jersey slowly died of radiation poisoning. Around the same time, an Indian elephant was deliberately put to death by electricity in Coney Island.

These are the facts.

Now these two tragedies are intertwined in a dark alternate history of rage, radioactivity, and injustice crying out to be righted. Prepare yourself for a wrenching journey that crosses eras, chronicling histories of cruelty both grand and petty in search of meaning and justice.

NEW IN MANGA

Golden Time Vol. 9 Story by Yuyuko Takemiya; Art by Umechazuke

Masamune-kun’s Revenge Vol. 7 Story by Takeoka Hazuki; Art by Tiv

Non Non Biyori Vol. 9 Story and art by Atto

The Testament of Sister New Devil STORM! Vol. 2 Story by Tetsuto Uesu; Art by Fumihiro Kiso

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Fantasy Firsts Sweepstakes

Welcome back to Fantasy Firsts! Our mission this year is to introduce you to some amazing fantasy series, and we’re continuing to do that today with an exciting sweepstakes. We’re offering the chance to add to your TBR stack with nine fantastic reads. Plus, we’ll be including a book dragon mug for your hot beverage of choice. Take a look at the prize:

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Sign up to receive our Tor Books newsletter to enter for your chance to win now:

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  1. To Enter: Submit your entry by fully completing the sign-up form found at https://www.torforgeblog.com/2017/03/15/fantasy-firsts-sweepstakes-7/ (the “Site”). Sweepstakes begins online at 9:00 AM Eastern Time (ET) on Wednesday, March 15, 2017 and ends at 11:59 PM ET on Wednesday, April 05, 2017. Your entry will sign you up to receive emailed news related to Tor Books as well as enter you into the sweepstakes.

    Limit one entry per person or household. The entry must be fully completed; mechanically reproduced; incomplete and/or illegible entries will not be accepted. In case of dispute with respect to online entries, entries will be declared made by the authorized account holder of the e-mail address submitted at the time of entry. “Authorized account holder” is defined as the natural person who is assigned to an e-mail address by an Internet Access Provider, on-line service provider, or other organization (e.g., business, educational institution, etc.) that is responsible for assigning e-mail addresses for the domain associated with the submitted e-mail address. Entries become property of Sponsor and will not be returned. Automated entries are prohibited, and any use of such automated devices will cause disqualification. Sponsor and its advertising and promotions agencies are not responsible for lost, late, illegible, misdirected or stolen entries or transmissions, or problems of any kind whether mechanical, human or electronic.

  1. Random Drawing: A random drawing will be held from all eligible, correctly completed entries received on a timely basis, on or about Monday, April 10, 2017, by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC, whose decisions concerning all matters related to this sweepstakes are final.
  2. Notice to Winners: Winner will be notified by e-mail. Winner may be required to sign and return an affidavit of eligibility and publicity/liability release within fifteen (15) days of notification attempt or prize may be awarded to alternate winner. Return of any prize notification as undeliverable will result in disqualification and alternate winner will be selected. If an entrant selected in the drawing is a resident of Canada, to be declared a winner he/she must correctly answer,
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  3. Prize: One (1) Grand Prize winner(s) will receive One HC each of Crossroads of Canopy, Every Heart a Doorway, & Steeplejack. One TPB each of A Darker Shade of Magic, The Emperor’s Blades, A Natural History of Dragons, Truthwitch, & The Way of Kings. Plus a mug.. Approximate Retail Value (“ARV”) of the Prize: $181.91.

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Fantasy Firsts Sweepstakes

Welcome back to Fantasy Firsts. Today we are offering we’re offering the chance to win these fantastic titles on Goodreads! For details on how to enter, please click on the cover image of the book you are interested in.

Crossroads of Canopy by Thoraiya Dyer

Crossroads of Canopy by Thoraiya DyerAt the highest level of a giant forest, thirteen kingdoms fit seamlessly together to form the great city of Canopy. Thirteen goddesses and gods rule this realm and are continuously reincarnated into human bodies. Canopy’s position in the sun, however, is not without its dark side. The nation’s opulence comes from the labor of slaves, and below its fruitful boughs are two other realms: Understorey and Floor, whose deprived citizens yearn for Canopy’s splendor.

Deadmen Walking by Sherrilyn Kenyon

Deadmen tell their tales . . .

To catch evil, it takes evil. Enter Devyl Bane—an ancient dark warlord returned to the human realm as one of the most notorious pirates in the New World. A man of many secrets, Bane makes a pact with Thorn—an immortal charged with securing the worst creations the ancient gods ever released into our world. Those powers have been imprisoned for eons behind enchanted gates . . . gates that are beginning to buckle. At Thorn’s behest, Bane takes command of a crew of Deadmen and, together, they are humanity’s last hope to restore the gates and return the damned to their hell realms.

The Guns Above by Robyn Bennis

In the tradition of Patrick O’Brian and Honor Harrington, Bennis’ The Guns Above is an adventurous military fantasy debut about a nation’s first female airship captain.

They say it’s not the fall that kills you.

For Josette Dupre, the Corps’ first female airship captain, it might just be a bullet in the back.

Riders by Veronica Rossi

For eighteen-year-old Gideon Blake, nothing but death can keep him from achieving his goal of becoming a U.S. Army Ranger. As it turns out, it does.

Recovering from the accident that most definitely killed him, Gideon finds himself with strange new powers and a bizarre cuff he can’t remove. His death has brought to life his real destiny. He has become War, one of the legendary four horsemen of the apocalypse.

Truthwitch by Susan Dennard

Truthwitch by Susan DennardOn a continent ruled by three empires, everyone is born with a “witchery,” a magical skill that sets them apart from others. Now, as the Twenty Year Truce in a centuries long war is about to end, the balance of power-and the failing health of all magic-will fall on the shoulders of a mythical pair called the Cahr Awen.

The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson

The Way of Kings by Brandon SandersonIn The Way of Kings, #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson introduces readers to the fascinating world of Roshar, a world of stone and storms.

It has been centuries since the fall of the Knights Radiant, but their mystical swords and armor remain, transforming ordinary men into near-invincible warriors. Men trade kingdoms for them. Wars are fought for them and won by them.

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New Releases: 1/31/17

Here’s what went on sale today!

Crossroads of Canopy by Thoraiya Dyer

Crossroads of Canopy by Thoraiya DyerThe highly-anticipated fantasy debut from Aurealis and Ditmar Award-winning author Thoraiya Dyer, set in a giant mythical rainforest controlled by living gods. Determined but destitute, Unar escapes her parents’ plot to sell her into slavery. Now she serves in the Garden of the goddess Audblayin, ruler of growth and fertility. But when Audblayin dies, Unar sees her opportunity for glory – at the risk of descending into the unknown dangers of Understorey to look for a reincarnated newborn god.

NEW FROM TOR.COM

Bindi: Home by Nnedi Okorafor

Binti: Home by Nnedi OkoraforThe thrilling sequel to the Hugo and Nebula-winning Binti. It’s been a year since Binti and Okwu enrolled at Oomza University. A year since Binti was declared a hero for uniting two warring planets. A year since she found friendship in the unlikeliest of places. And now she must return home to her people, with her friend Okwu by her side, to face her family and face her elders.

NEW IN MANGA

Captive Hearts of Oz Vol. 1 Story and Art by Mamenosuke Fujimaru; Story Development by Ryo Maruya

Kindred Spirits on the Roof Story & Art by Hachi Ito and Aya Fumio

Love in Hell: Death Life Vol. 2 Story and art by Reiji Suzumaru

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8 Great Forest-y Books of the Fantastic

Crossroads of Canopy by Thoraiya DyerWritten by Thoraiya Dyer

Give me your Fangorns and your Lothloriens, your Green Hearts and your Elvandars.

Evoke your Haunted Forest Beyond the Wall complete with creepy weirwoods, your Steddings and your Avendesoras. Send me pleasant dreams about Totoro’s Japanese Camphor and the Forest Spirit’s kodama-filled canopy.

Or, y’know, tree cities full of Wookiees instead of elves. I will take them all!

Here are a mere eight of my fictional favourites:

  1.  The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton. When telling people I’ve written a novel about a magical forest, the most common response so far has been: “You mean like The Magic Faraway Tree?” This staple of English-speaking childhoods was indeed beloved by my smallish self, not only for the magic tree which grew all kinds of leaves, fruit and nuts on the one plant but the vast cast of magical creatures which made the tree their home.
  2.  jungle-bookThe Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. Of course, the jungles of the subcontinent aren’t fictional. It’s just that this was the first book where I saw a wilderness treated remotely in fiction like an ally and protector, with its own languages and laws, instead of a hostile thing to be conquered. Wiser people than I have much valid criticism to heap on this book, and yet I still sometimes dream of stretching out on a rainforest limb beside Bagheera and Baloo.
  3.  Robin Hood. Ah, Sherwood Forest. Again, a real forest, populated by larger than life characters. Sherwood has been a forest since the end of the last ice age, apparently, and yet one man, the King of England, “owned” every deer in it. Hahahaha! I have my suspicions about what the druids would have had to say about that. Ancient oaks, here as elsewhere, form the heart of this forest, including the one that famously served as the archer-thief’s hideout.
  4.  The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkienhobbit-cover. The Hobbit seems to be about dwarves, elves and metaphors for sensible, down-to-earth English folk, but really, it’s all about the trees. More, it’s about how trees are good and the industrial revolution is bad.Tolkien lovingly names and describes them—oak, ash, beech, birch, rowan, willow. Tom Bombadil, a forest god, and Goldberry, a river goddess, seem the only incorruptible aspects of Middle Earth. Baddies cut trees down. Goodies, in contrast, reside in or amongst trees. Or hide in them from wargs. Galadriel’s magic sustains the Mallorn trees of Lothlorien which, instead of losing their leaves, turn golden and glitter. These trees, along with others of Mirkwood, the Old Forest and Fangorn can accumulate wisdom, act in the interests of good or evil, and are as beautiful, vital and alive as the speaking characters.
  5.  The Lorax by Dr. Seuss. “I am the Lorax, I speak for the trees!” —yes, I have been known to utter this in despair at parties when developers ask in all innocence why I don’t seem excited by the innovative architectural design. Even a toddler can grasp that when the last truffula tree is cut down, and the swomee-swans, humming fish and bar-ba-loots are gone, all the money in the world can’t save your soul, and it doesn’t matter that the glorious truffula forest is completely made up.
  6. word-for-world-is-forest The Word for World is Forest by Ursula K. LeGuin. The title says it all, really (it’s a great title, isn’t it?) With it, LeGuin reminds us that our home planet is “Earth.” In many science fiction stories, including this one, we appear as “Terrans.” We’re all about the dirt, not the ecosystems supported by it, not just because agriculture is the basis of Western civilisation but because our religions or philosophies of superiority rely on separating ourselves from “lower” forms of life.
  7.  Walking the Tree by Kaaron Warren. The title says a lot here, too. In this fantasy world, Botanica, a continent dominated by a single mammoth tree is circumnavigated by girls in a five-year-long rite of passage. Walking the Tree is a strange and beautiful book with a complicated, likeable protagonist to keep us company on our journey across the colourful patchwork of her world.
  8. broken-kingdoms The Broken Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin. Like Warren’s work, the second book of Jemisin’s Inheritance trilogy is set beneath the canopy of a single, enormous tree. I loved the transformative power of this tree, the monolithic inability to ignore it. The rustle of its leaves was part of the music of this rather musical book—the main character couldn’t see—and the roots and branches grew and disturbed the order of the city of Shadow. But also, as with the Warren, the tree was a power that divided people, as opposed to bringing them together.

Forests in speculative fiction novels have a special place in my heart. Especially tree-cities. In real life, all forests seem magical to me.

I can’t think of a culture that has not populated them with myths or religious figures. In Australia, First Nations people will tell you about ancient spirits dwelling in our forests whether tropical, temperate or dry. Proud Lebanese will tell you that their cedar forests were used for Solomon’s Temple and to build Noah’s ark.

They may not know that those same cedar forests appeared in the Epic of Gilgamesh, circa 2100 BC. Those heroes fought off monsters and cut down the trees. In contrast, the characters of Dan Simmons’ Hyperion travel on treeships beyond the stars.

Take me there. I’m with you! As long as trees are, too.

Order Your Copy

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Follow Thoraiya Dyer on Twitter and on her website.

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Thoraiya Dyer Talks about Worldbuilding, Giant Rainforests, & Crossroads of Canopy

Crossroads of Canopy by Thoraiya DyerWelcome back to Fantasy Firsts. Today we are sharing an interview with Aurealis and Ditmar Award-winning author Thoraiya Dyer about her debut novel Crossroads of Canopy. This highly-anticipated novel is set in a mythical rainforest controlled by living gods and will become available on January 31st. You can sneak a peek of it here!

Crossroads of Canopy is set in a giant, rainforest world, and you drew upon a lot of scientific research to imagine this realm. What was some cool facts about this environment you were excited to include in the book? Or, was there something you really wanted to mention but couldn’t find the right spot for?

I was excited to include monsoonal weather patterns, aka the “big wet” in northern Australia.

In the temperate south of the continent, we have cold, rainy winters and hot, dry summers. However, in the tropical top end you get something like 75% of the annual rainfall dumped all at once in the summer (although they wouldn’t necessarily call it summer; the locals observe something closer to a six-season cycle.) Between October and February, Darwin gets an average of 1267mm rain. Which is a pretty cool fact!

On a trip to Nepal, I remember using elephants to get across a river because the monsoon had just finished and jeeps were useless.

Yeah. Monsoons. Exciting!

What else. Gap-axe wood really is too hard to cut into without ruining your axe. Fish really can climb up waterfalls. Sandpaper fig leaves, while not to my knowledge recorded as being used for depilation, are pretty good for smoothing spears. Sun bears don’t hibernate in the real world, but their appetite for honey and co-evolution with the tualang tree has produced in the latter a glassy, slippery trunk which prevents bears from climbing the trees and keeps the hosted giant honey bees, Apis dorsata, happy and safe.

As for things that didn’t fit, when I first tried to convince my agent, Evan, that a rainforest setting would be a good idea for a fantasy novel, I’d just seen a brilliant exhibition at the Australian Museum on the Aztecs. The words “jaguars and sloth gods” may have flown excitedly from the keyboard.

I found a place in Canopy for jaguars and their souped-up versions, the chimera. Possibly sloths got a mention once or twice, but the sloth god itself got canned.

Sorry, sloth god.

Greek mythology has a subtle influence in this worldbuilding along, including Canopy possessing its own pantheon of gods and goddess. How did you decide on these thirteen deities and their specific ruling “specialties”?

In the Greek stories of Odysseus and Atalanta, which inspired many of my characters and their arcs, you find prominent mention of the following immortals: Artemis (wild animals), Aphrodite (love), Zeus (thunder, ruled the other gods), Rhea (mother of gods), Hermes (emissary, travel, trade), Helios (sun), Thetis (sea) and Poseidon (also the sea).

Because I wanted things to be cyclical with reincarnation, not linear with mother and father gods, Rhea was left out, and Zeus became a tamer, lightning-only type of god. Canopians didn’t travel much outside the forest, so Hermes got cut. Canopians consider the sea to be practically mythical, so Poseidon didn’t survive, either. That left wild animals, the sun, and a freshwater goddess of the monsoon.

Love was an interesting one. If you look at the religion of the Indus Valley civilization, which preceded Hinduism in Nepal, you find a mother goddess, a father god, deified animals and plants, indications of water worship, and giant stone genitalia.

No mention of love.

I combined love with the sun and kept it, because I was doing the compromise thing. If you look at the geographical half-way point between Nepal and Greece, you find Ishtar, the Babylonian goddess of fertility, love and war.

If you visit the Temple of Eshmun near Sidon, Lebanon, you find hundreds of marble statues of babies. Eshmun was a Phoenician god of healing. His origin story goes like this: He was born an eighth son in Beirut. As he grew into a young man, Ishtar/Astarte romantically pursued him, to the point where he fatally castrated himself with an axe. She then resurrected him and turned him into a god.

He was the patron deity of Sidon from about 500BC. If your child was sick, you’d have a stone replica carved and sent to the Temple in the hope that Eshmun would heal them. No matter where they are in space or time, no matter what they believe, people want to keep their children safe.

In Canopy, the god Odel, Protector of Children, holds a special place in my heart.

Many characters seem to leap from great heights in a death-defying way! How much climbing research (or hands-on experiences!) went into this book?

Here’s where I confess that I suck at rock-climbing. Once, I abseiled with my uncle into this amazing cave system in Canada. We dropped down seventy metres into pitch blackness. Waited for pumps to evacuate water from “the birth canal” before squeezing through it. Endured waterfalls in the face and having to balance in foot-width, ice-cold watercourses to avoid touching and ruining the crystal-covered walls. All that was fine…but climbing back up? Ahahahaha! Talk to my stepson. He’s good at that stuff. I’m an armchair Ninja Warrior.

My stepdaughter advised me to google the extreme climber known as the Monkey Man. So I’m confident in humankind’s ability to do the things I described. Just not me personally. Although I have stripped off a bit of bark and inadvertently grabbed a spider before. So there’s that.

The idea of one having a great destiny is what motivated Unar to start her adventure. Do you, too, believe we all have some sort of fate awaiting us?

I’m a scientist. I believe in statistical likelihoods. Which, I admit, can sometimes seem like destiny.

Crossroads of Canopy is your novel debut, but readers mostly know your award-winning short fiction. What are the challenges between writing short versus writing longform?

I think many years of writing short fantasy fiction made me not only succinct, but enamoured of the mysteriousness of my succinctness. One real challenge for me was to flesh things out in this manuscript. How did Unar and Aoun meet one another? In a short story that’s not my problem! What are they wearing? They have insects and bark, you work it out! Except, no, here it’s my job to make sure you smell the patchwork of pressed leaves, see Aoun sitting by the closed Gate of the Garden, and feel the silk as you stroll through the market.

If you could be a goddess from any mythology, who would you choose and why?

Artemis, for sure. I like deer and dogs and I wish I was better at archery.

Buy Crossroads of Canopy here:

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Don’t forget to follow Thoraiya Dyer on Twitter (@ThoraiyaDyer) or visit her website.

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Fantasy Firsts Sweepstakes

Welcome back to Fantasy Firsts. Today we are offering we’re offering the chance to win these fantastic titles on Goodreads! For details on how to enter, please click on the cover image of the book you are interested in.

Crossroads of Canopy by Thoraiya Dyer

Crossroads of Canopy by Thoraiya DyerAt the highest level of a giant forest, thirteen kingdoms fit seamlessly together to form the great city of Canopy. Thirteen goddesses and gods rule this realm and are continuously reincarnated into human bodies. Canopy’s position in the sun, however, is not without its dark side. The nation’s opulence comes from the labor of slaves, and below its fruitful boughs are two other realms: Understorey and Floor, whose deprived citizens yearn for Canopy’s splendor.

A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. SchwabKell is one of the last Travelers-magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel universes, connected by one magical city. There’s Grey London, dirty and boring, without any magic, and with one mad king-George III. Red London, where life and magic are revered-and where Kell was raised alongside Rhys Maresh, the rougish heir to a flourishing empire. White London-a place where people fight to control magic, and the magic fights back, draining the city to its very bones. And once upon a time, there was Black London. But no one speaks of that now.

The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan

The Eye of the World by Robert JordanThe Eye of the World is book one of The Wheel of Time®, Robert Jordan’s internationally bestselling fantasy series.

The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and go, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth returns again. In the Third Age, and Age of Prophecy, the World and Time themselves hang in the balance. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow.

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Sneak Peek: Crossroads of Canopy by Thoraiya Dyer

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Crossroads of Canopy by Thoraiya DyerWelcome back to Fantasy Firsts. Our program continues today with a sneak peek from a brand new fantasy series! Thoraiya Dyer’s highly-anticipated debut, Crossroads of Canopy, is set in a giant mythical rainforest controlled by living gods. It is the first book in the Titan’s Forest trilogy and will be published on January 31. Please enjoy this excerpt.

Unar dreams of greatness.

Determined but destitute, she escapes her parents’ plot to sell her into slavery. Now she serves in the Garden of the goddess Audblayin, ruler of growth and fertility.

But when Audblayin dies, Unar sees her opportunity for glory – at the risk of descending into the unknown dangers of Understorey to look for a reincarnated newborn god. In its depths, she discovers new forms of magic, lost family connections, and murmurs of a revolution that could cost Unar her chance…or grant it by destroying the home she loves.

ONE

MOONLIGHT HAD followed Unar in the hours since she’d slipped out of the Garden, and now, as a shadow on a branch resolved into a rain-silvered silhouette, she realised something else had followed her, too.

Unar wanted to ignore the crouching outline above and to the left of her. Crouching barefoot on her own broad bough in loose leaf-trousers and a red Gardener’s tunic, she was impatient to see if she could reach the thing, several body lengths below, that she’d come for. There, barely discernible in the dark, a cloth-wrapped bundle was stuck in the fork of the next lowest lateral branch, tantalising her, but half-heard myths of the Understorey kept her gaze fixed to the silhouette.

She gripped her bore-knife. It had proved useless in her descent through the mighty forest. This was a gap-axe tree and couldn’t be bored into by any means short of magic. The knife should puncture a lung easily enough, though.

“Who’s there?” she called defiantly.

“You climb well,” a man’s low, amused voice replied. “For a Gardener. But you’re trespassing. You crossed the border many minutes ago.”

“Which border?”

“Both of them.”

Unar had been aware of it even before she reached the crossroads. She’d felt the Garden’s power shrinking as she crossed horizontally from the realm of the birth goddess into the realm of the rain goddess. Then she’d felt queasy in her gut as she’d climbed lower and lower, crossing the vertical border from Canopy into Understorey.

Here, none of the Canopian gods or goddesses held sway. All the magical gifts of Unar’s mistress had faded completely. Only Unar’s physical strength and stamina mattered here.

“You’ve crossed the border, too,” she said. “Who are you?”

The man leaned forward out of the tree’s moonshadow. A lined brow suggested he’d seen at least twice as many as Unar’s sixteen years. Water dripped from his glossy, tousled hair. Raised, charcoal-rubbed scars in the shape of tears streaked down cheeks that in daylight would be dark brown, naming him neither Understorian, nor slave, but a Canopian dedicated to the rain goddess, Ehkis. The tears of her Servants were said to have terrible powers, but below the magically defended border, they could do nothing but mingle harmlessly with the rain.

Unar relaxed her grip on the bore-knife.

“I’m Edax,” he said. “Bodyguard of the Bringer of Rain. Shall I tell you her birth name while she’s sleeping?”

“You’re not her Bodyguard,” Unar said, shocked. “If you were, you’d be with her, watching her.” As if the rain goddess’s Bodyguard, her most trusted, feared, and beloved, would betray childhood secrets from a time before the nature of her soul became apparent.

“She sleeps in the bottom of a lake. Who can harm her there? Meanwhile, I’m cursed with a Bodyguard’s sleeplessness.”

“It’s a gift.”

“You think you want that gift, little adept from the garden Temple? You think you want to be a Bodyguard to the next incarnation of your goddess, when she is reborn a god? And what if she is a woman, again, and then another woman, and then a woman a third time? Mulch for brains!”

“You’re the mulch for brains if you think you can guess the next gender of the one I serve.”

The goddess that Unar served, Audblayin, the birth goddess, had been a woman for three incarnations. She was old now, so old. Surely she would take a turn at being a man. She must be a man. Then she would need a woman Bodyguard, and Unar would be waiting, ready to take the power that being a Bodyguard would bring.

To never need sleep!

“You have bigger problems than the next incarnation of Audblayin. Staying out after dark, for one thing. Will the Great Gates of the Garden not be closed to you forever, little Gardener?”

Unar raised the rain-speckled bore-knife higher as Edax came closer again. She realised as he moved along the underside of the branch, with a brazenness only a chimera should have owned, that he must be what he claimed to be. With utter certainty, she knew she couldn’t fight him and live.

But he didn’t know everything. The Great Gates were already closed, of course. Unar had climbed them. Edax eased himself down to the final branch between them. The flaps of a sodden, silver-star-embroidered, indigo jacket hung loosely over his black tunic. Also hanging were the paired hems of a calf-length skirt, split up the sides to give him freedom to climb while still appearing formal when he stood on a flat platform. She couldn’t see if he was barefooted like she was or wore boots.

“I came for that,” she said, indicating the bundle below them with her knife tip, not looking away from him.

“And what is that, exactly?” he asked.

“I felt it. When I was higher. I felt new life on the brink of being extinguished. Audblayin shares that power with all of us. So we can tend the Garden.”

He dropped suddenly, suspended by clawed toes in front of her, upside-down with his skirt hems held in one hand, loincloth and concealed throwing knives showing, grinning, making her gasp. It wasn’t right, to have feet like that. Unar had heard rumours that those who served Orin, goddess of birds and beasts, were permanently changed in size and shape, but nobody had ever mentioned to her that the Bodyguard of Ehkis had the grey toes and talons of a sooty owl.

“Shall I fetch it for you?” he asked whimsically.

“Yes,” she said at once.

“What will you give me in exchange?”

“What do you want? I have nothing but what you see, and what you see is owned already. Audblayin gives no gifts to the Servants of her rivals.”

“She owns you while you’re in Canopy,” Edax said salaciously. “Just as my oaths keep me celibate while I, one who walks in the grace of Ehkis, find myself in Canopy. This is Understorey.”

Unar cursed.

“This is Understorey,” she agreed. “Your goddess-given abilities to walk sideways and upside down won’t work here, will they? Your tears will melt neither bones nor iron bars. Why did you offer to fetch it when you can’t reach it? You’re a liar. You’re wasting my time.” His owl talons were able to encircle the smaller branch that he hung from, but they couldn’t penetrate the bark of the gap-axe tree.

New life on the brink of being extinguished. That bundle stuck in the tree fork could be the baby, Imeris, only fourteen days old. Unar had never met the baby’s father, the merchant, Epatut. Imeris had fallen some ten hours ago. Everybody was looking for that baby, though. Epatut had offered a huge food reward. He’d even paid the servants of the death god, Atwith, in order to learn that the child’s spirit had not yet passed under their master’s eye.

Unar didn’t know Epatut, but she admired him for so desperately seeking a child who was probably far out of reach and alone in the dark, with death only a matter of time.

Except that I have surely found her.

Edax continued to grin and watch in silence while Unar stubbornly roped the wet, lichen-dappled bough of the great gap-axe tree. It was slippery, dangerous work. The tree was taller than seven hundred men standing on each other’s shoulders, and falling wasn’t the only risk. Understorians could be lurking anywhere in the gloom.

Worse, the longer she stayed below the border of Canopy, the more the arcane aura faded from her skin. By morning, the unseen magical barrier she’d passed through so easily would no longer admit her back to the high stratum that was her home.

Ten hours since the baby had fallen. Perhaps Imeris’s aura was gone already, but Unar had to try. Nobody had tried to get Unar’s sister back a decade ago when Isin had fallen.

Isin.

Isin had fallen during the monsoon. Unar paused with her fists tangled in rope, remembering. The rain had seemed to hang, fixed like spider webs. Water ran off branches unpredictably. There had been dry patches in odd places. Puddles in others. A man screamed that his dried fruit storage room was flooded and his fire was out, blaming the external stair tacked on by a neighbour.

All of that fell away when Unar, six years old, saw the open door of the hovel. Lacewings filled the black hole of it like flies in a dead animal’s mouth. Her first, stupid thought: Our fire is out, too. Mother will be mad.

Father had halfheartedly called her name. That was how she knew she’d pushed ahead of him, teetering precariously on the path. The broken lock was gone. Stolen. It had contained a minuscule amount of metal. Faint light from the excuse for a window showed the empty crib.

Mother has taken Isin to the forge.

Mother had never taken either of her children to the forge.

Isin is taken, little Unar had thought, horrified. Isin is stolen, like the lock.

But, no. The ashy, wet smears on the splintered floor told the story. Isin had climbed over the railing and fallen into the wet ashes of the fire here. She’d crawled there, to get cooked grain from the cold wooden bowl with both hands, leaving ghostly, glutinous handprints here. Footprints there, where she used the bars of the crib to pull herself up. Landed on her bottom. Maybe she had cried.

She’d crawled to the open door and fallen into the dark.

Drips slowly, inexorably carried the ash and sticky grain residue over the edge. Unar had shrieked Isin’s name.

And what had Father said?

We’ll get another.

Another lock? Another child? Unar was afraid she knew which one he really meant, and when he tried to gather her, to push her inside, she bit his hand.

She didn’t run away. Not then. Not yet. Not until years later, when she heard them talking and knew they intended to make her a slave.

“Your rope is too short,” Edax observed, bringing her jarringly back to the present.

Unar wanted to cry. The man who claimed he was the Bodyguard of the rain goddess was right. She could return to the Garden for more rope, but by then it would be too late.

When she turned back to Edax, he stood beside her on the bough.

“Take my ankles,” he said. For a moment, she simply stared up into his face. He couldn’t be Ehkis’s closest and most loyal servant. Nobody with such grave responsibilities would be so rash.

Matching his impulsiveness, she wrapped her arms around his knees. Together, they toppled, face-first, the rope tied tight to Unar’s climbing harness. It jolted them as they reached the end of it. Unar’s grip on Edax’s knees slipped to his feet. She managed not to recoil from them, even as the long owl-toes flexed, keeping the sharp talon-tips turned inwards. His hands grappled with the bundle.

“I have it,” he shouted.

“What do we do now?” Unar cried as they swung in a pendulum arc, crashing into the gap-axe’s smooth, unyielding trunk. But Edax, serpentlike, doubled back on himself, scaling the rope with the cloth-wrapped burden tucked under his arm, and with both of Unar’s hands freed, she was able to climb up after him.

“Here,” he said, breathing heavily, handing the bundle to her.

When Unar unwrapped it, her hands still shaking from the chance she’d taken, she found not a baby, but a bag of half-rotten blue quandong and white satinash fruit. Some of the seeds had germinated but withered in the absence of light.

“New life,” Edax said. “Are you going to save it?”

Made mute by the deepness of her disappointment, Unar spread her hands, spilling the seeds and the wrappings into the blackness below.

Copyright © 2017 by Thoraiya Dyer

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