Mylia is Maira's cousin in Caelthys' Awakening, and one of the very few people in this book who was allowed to grow up untouched by the weight the Blackstone name usually demands. At first glance, she is refreshingly ordinary. She runs a small flower shop in town. She writes cheerful letters. She remembers that hyacinths are Maira's favorite and shows up with an armful of them, for no reason beyond wanting to. Next to a family built on military legacy and inherited violence,

Maia Blackstone is Maira's mother in Caelthys' Awakening, and the woman whose reputation walks into every room several steps ahead of her. At first glance, she is precisely what her rank suggests. Disciplined. Controlled. A woman who reached the pinnacle of military strength through pure, unyielding capability, and who carries that capability into an interrogation room the way other people carry a title. When she spends five hours unleashing the full weight of it on a bound p

Shaelor is the advisor who has guided the throne of Caelthys for centuries in Caelthys' Awakening, and the steadiest presence in a book built almost entirely around people who have stopped believing hope is possible. At first glance, he is exactly what a century of service should look like. Composed. Watchful. The one fae in that cell whose grief runs so deep that even perception sharpened over centuries mistakes it for background noise. Selanor spends a hundred years assumin

Hadvyon Kollston is a high-ranking official of the Moonstone Prison in Caelthys' Awakening, and one of the few characters in this book carrying a legacy he never asked for. At first glance, he feels like every other senior, with sharp eyes that watch longer than they should and an almost obsessive attention to detail. Nearly half a century of unrelenting service has taught him how to look like a man with no opinion of his own about anything he sees. He has an opinion. A stron

Synvar is a mer-fae, the now untethered mate of the previous High Chair of Caelthys, Selena, and one of the quietest characters in Caelthys' Awakening, until he isn't. At first glance, he is easily dismissed. Adopted by Shaelor in near-infancy and raised out of the public eye, coming from two different worlds and being claimed by neither, he has spent his entire life carrying the burden of being conditionally accepted. In the cell he is imprisoned in, he does not move. For a

Selanor is the High Chair of Caelthys, imprisoned for a century at the beginning of Caelthys' Awakening, and the main protagonist of the book. He embodies stillness, a characteristic that was hammered into him from the grief and imprisonment. His eyes have not opened. His body has learned not to move at all, mistaken for defeat rather than the burden of a grief so deep and complete it has rendered him incapable of doing anything more than living with that grief. His own peopl

Maira Blackstone is the human official tasked with interrogating Selanor in Caelthys' Awakening, and the first half of a story I have been working on for a long time. At first glance, she is just another prison official, wearing the same uniform, a more composed expression, and eyes sharper than most others. She cycles through interrogation tactics on him with practiced ease, authority, softness, and the quiet threat of what she could take from him, testing each approach the

Tomorrow, Caelthys' Awakening, which is the first book in the Shards of the Void series, will finally be out in the world. Before it does, let's look into where this book came from. Maybe the most surprising thing about this book is its title. Caelthys is not a person. It is an oceanic fae realm filled with magic, and the homeland of the fae in this book. The "Awakening" in the title is referring to both the realm, which has been cut off, isolated, and defenseless for a cent