One week left until Christmas! One week before my son’s fourth birthday (I’m possibly in denial…) Above all, one week to get my ducks in a row before the holidays descend upon us once more. I’m being dramatic. Of course I love it, even the madness. For the first time in five years, I’m spending Christmas with my sister-niece. No, we’re not creepily double-related as the title implies. But she’s only nine years younger than me.
Since my siblings were all born ten + years before me, I grew up like an only child. So when my neice was born, I was overjoyed to finally have a girl to share all the things I loved with. I wanted to share the magic I saw in everything with her. From hunting fairies disguised in fireflies through the woods, to introducing beauty and magic in the mundane. So the opportunity to share the holiday with her has me especially stoked. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, family can be your best friend, even a kindred spirit.
As we approach the holys I won’t have as much time to write, but I’m still typing away. I can’t stop. It’s a welcome sickness. I hope you and your family create your own kind of magic this holiday season, no matter what or with whom you celebrate. Enjoy every little, wild and wonderful moment of your time with your loved ones. Seize your moments and spread as much love and cheer as you can. Lord knows the world needs it.
Festivities aside, here is the final 2019 #teasertuesday for Blackbriar Cove. I hope y’all enjoy! If you’re new to the story, Blackbriar is the upcoming sequel to Silver Hollow. Every week (or so) I share little snippets as I write the next chapter in the Borderlands Saga. If you already know Silver Hollow, welcome back! I hope you enjoy this week’s teaser.
This episode goes to all the kindred spirits out there. You know who you are!
*major spoilers for silver hollow below*
Blackbriar Cove
Borderlands #2 Teaser
Wenderdowne was a web of shifting threads, twisting on the verge of breaking. This happened when too much power was wielded among weaker beings.
“To hold the threads of the world in your hands, you need to be harder than steel, ulisi,” as Nanny used to say.
Decades spent hiding had taught the twins to push aside their other. Too long, they’d worn glamour’s among the children. Living for so many years as a human, it became easy to forget what made them Unseelie. Yet Jo never forgot the weaving. It had always come easily—too easily according to Faye—so when power thrummed at their feet, Jo pushed the Unseelie aside and claimed the other.
Glass shattered around the ballroom, and the pulsing power sent their guests tripping over their feet and crashing to the cracked marble floor.
To be strong enough to see the web, Jo needed to embrace the part of her spirit she feared.
James should have been at her side tonight, not running off chasing golems with Faye. Jo had had a bad feeling about Dameri’s plans from the beginning. The woman was too eager to present her daughter as a target for any lingering enemies in the Hollow.
Nothing about this has been right, not from the beginning.
Jo shuddered and flexed her hands as another wave of magic washed over the room. Her heels crunched over glass as Jo stumbled towards the garden entrance. She should have been quicker, instead of checking for threats after Grimwich Rumplekin showed up.
“Come together!” a voice she distantly recognized called out.
Jo was too lost in her need to reach the garden and to see the web. It had been too long since she fully embraced the weaving. Every effort she’d made in the past months only weakened her after. Faye feared the day would come when Jo couldn’t push it back any longer.
Jo fell to her knee, glass cutting through her skirts, and braced her fall on a vibrating stone column.
“You are strong, ulisi,” Nanny’s voice filled her head. “You are stronger than you know.”
Jo climbed to her feet again, ignoring the shouts and screams around her. She closed her eyes, shutting out the too-vivid colors and piercing sounds until there was only her uneven heartbeat.
“You were spirit first,” she whispered. “Remember…”
Jo blinked and the world turned to shades of gray.
On the second blink, a tangled web of glowing threads linked and twisted throughout the crowd.
Jo stood and the world was no longer rocking beneath her feet. She could see the pulse of silver and golden lights passing over them, charging over the ground like electricity.
Jo reached and caught a stray silver thread and felt the fury and agitation in Amie’s soul.
The thread became Jo’s link into the garden. Her hands began to glow silver as her unraveling hair.
The glowing threads raveled together at the center of the garden. Jo followed, more spirit than person as she sought the source. Faye so often chose to forget all they were capable of, but Jo never did. Should they wish it, they could unravel the tangles and weave the threads of this world as they wished it. For a moment, Jo reveled in her true potential, until Nanny’s voice spoke to her once more; an echo of a memory.
“The Creator weaves the web. We are caretakers, ulisi, never forget this.”
Gold and silver threads wove in a twisting vortex just before the arch at the center of Amie’s garden.
Jo clung to Amie’s thread and came a little more back to herself at the sight of her friend’s power. At the pulsing silver battling and testing gold, all contained between Amie and Grim’s clasped hands. They stood together, luminous as two great spirits and Jo’s grip on the thread tightened until her palms bled.
to be continued…
In a single night of madness, Amie won the battle and lost the two people she loved most. As she struggles to be the queen her people need, her family band together against the hidden threat at their borders.
Haunted by the ghosts of her past, Amie strikes a pact with an ancient being called The Storyteller. In order to see Emrys again, they must put aside their blood feud, and cross the veil to a place of spirits and monsters.
Blackbriar Cove is a land where superstition and chaos reign, and spirits plague dreams. A dark curse has twisted the Unseelie who once lived in the home the Blackbriar twins vowed never to return. But death is not the end in Silver Hollow, and the war for the Borderlands has only begun.
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Silver Hollow (Borderlands #1)
is available where eBooks are sold
Jennifer Silverwood 