A Few Updates & A Witchlight Sneak Peek
Welcome to 2024, DenNerds!
A Life Update
A Book Update
A Sneak Peek
1. A Life Update
As you all know if you follow my other newsletter, I had tough holiday and tougher start to the year. We got Covid, and then my beloved dog Leia passed away. It was a cruel punchline to a tough, tough 12 months. But I am trying so very hard to be optimistic. I mean, surely things can only go up from here, right? 😅
And I guess one silver lining is that I have been using my writing as an escape from the grief and Covid symptoms. So while the personal life might be tough and the online life nonexistent, at least my creative life is full.
You’ve likely noticed I’ve not done a #ChooseWithSooz in a while. I’m so sorry for that. The holidays came, Leia got sick, then we got sick, and then Leia died. And I just…haven’t been able to bring myself to get on social media.
I will finish the tale one day! I just need a little break for now.
Thank you for your patience.
2. A Book Update
If you’ve not yet seen via your retailer, Witchlight has been bumped to 2025. March, to be exact.
I am sad about this, but I do understand the business reasons for why it had to happen. After a lot of discussions with my publisher, and after a lot of scrutiny at my future publication schedule, they decided it would be best to move Witchlight to 2025 so we can space my upcoming releases better.
Because in case you have forgotten, we also have The Executioners Three coming!
So basically, you will be getting three books from me in the space of one year: The Whispering Night in October 2024, Witchlight in March 2025, and The Executioners Three in August 2025.
It’s going to be awesome, and I’m really excited for this. Though I am also really sad you’ll have to wait. If it’s any consolation, the people who’ve read it so far seem to love it. 😌😅😂🥳
3. A Sneak Peek
Because I feel guilty being such a Debbie Downer in the first two sections, I’m throwing you all a happy bone! Here’s a the rest of the first chapter in Witchlight.
And now here’s part 2!
“Evrane will go in your stead,” Safi said over the whip of wind through barren trees. Over the clop-clop of Dandelion’s uncrushed gait. “She will comfort the man more than you can. Her magic can at least soothe his pain.”
Iseult leaned forward to pat Cloud’s neck. The gray mare’s breath fogged. Iseult’s did too. “Maybe I can still find a solution. We haven’t left yet.”
“You said that yesterday.” Safi’s tone was sharp, her Threads fluttering with impatience. “And you said it the day before too, Iz. I don’t see how twelve hours are going to change anything. Which exactly why we’re leaving: because you know what we have to do to help people.”
Yes, Iseult did know. She and Safi must heal the final Well. They had to heal all magic in the Witchlands, and only then could this cleaving end.
And only then could she and Safi finally step away from all of the noise, all the Threads, all the expectations. They were both so tired all the time.
Safi especially, with the pressure of running an empire—not to mention the Cahr Awen souls stuck inside her. They gave her headaches, bulging her Threads to clotted thickness. Not that Safi ever complained, nor ever mentioned the pain that Iseult could see so vividly.
Ahead, the road split: one way toward the imperial hunting lodge, the other south to circle around the Solfatarra. A wagon trundled toward them; a square of Hell-Bards trotted north toward the lodge.
The girls sank into their hoods, fur-lined and drab brown. We are nothing more than standard travelers on the road. Look the other way, please. Certainly, their cloaks were finely made, their boots a supple black, and their horses too well-tended to be steeds for the road-weary. But as Mathew always taught: people saw what they wanted to see. As long as Iseult and Safi hunched with exhaustion, as long as they kept their horses moving at a shamble, they were invisible.
The wagon’s driver nodded at them. The Hell-Bards never noticed they were there. And at the fork, they ambled Cloud and Dandelion south, away from the lodge and all its demands. At this distance, it was nothing more than a lump of white blending into the snow and sky.
A quarter mile down the new road, a trail veered into thickets and trees. Safi reined Dandelion that way; Iseult followed with Cloud. Few people traveled south these days, and fewer still aimed toward the Solfatarra. Within minutes, a new lump appeared—this one a daunting, shadowy place that both locals and newcomers avoided.
Cursed, they called it, and they weren’t far wrong. This ancient, half-collapsed tower was where Iseult had broken her Threadstone and Safi’s too. Had freed all the souls and power that now thundered inside Safi’s brain.
It was also where Corlant had died, at the altar in the center. His body was gone, his blood had long since soaked into the earth. There was nothing to show he had ever been here, had ever lived at all—nor anything to show how often Iseult and Safi visited. For the snow always fell anew. It always erased their passage.
Iseult’s cheeks were cold, her toes numb as she and Safi dismounted beside the tumbled stones at the tower’s edge. Each girl removed sacks from their horse’s saddles before striding into the tower. Past the altar they strode, and into a shadowy corner beside the curved remains of a staircase. Here, a massive mound of snow awaited. The girls each grabbed a corner of a waxed tarp.
Yank. Snap. Snow flew, spraying into Iseult’s face. Flaying her cheeks like blades as she and Safi flung the tarp aside and revealed crates to the winter morning. Ten of them, each carefully organized.
“Don’t you dare put that there,” Iseult snapped as Safi moved toward a box on the left. “That’s our camping supplies, and your pack is filled with food.”
“Right, right.” Safi scowled. Her Threads flashed with russet annoyance. “Food goes…here?” She kicked at a bottom box.
Iseult gave her a flat-eyed stare.
“Here?” Safi kicked at another.
More staring from Iseult.
“Here? Here?” She kept kicking, red suffusing across the entirety of her Threads with each failed kick. “What about here? Here?”
“Oh, don’t kick that one, Safi! That’s got fire-pots inside!”
Safi flinched back. But then promptly resumed her kicking, if more gingerly now. “Here? Here? Hell-pits, Iz, what about here?” She had reached the literal last crate.
“That,” Iseult answered with a stately nod, “is the one for food. Well-done, Safi. You clearly have a knack for this.”
“Oh, shove it.” Safi stomped to the box. “It’s all going to get mixed up on pack horses anyway—”
“It absolutely will not.”
“—so who cares where I put this dried meat and wheel of cheese? Maybe it’ll taste better if it’s with the fire-pots.”
“We’ve come here at least eight times in the last week, Saf.” Iseult shuffled to the first crate Safi had kicked. “How do you still not know where things go?”
“I’m a doer. Not a planner.”
“Painfully accurate,” Iseult muttered. After wedging off the lid, she dropped her own supplies inside: a Firewitched candle that could burn even in high winds, a blanket of salamander fibers, and the newly-acquired lanolin jars.
Once it was all inside, she returned the lid, then joined Safi several paces away. It was clear from the way Safi eyed the crates that she still didn’t know what was inside them.“What else are we missing?”
“Not much,” Iseult admitted. “Just the Aetherwitched troop map, which you need to get. And then a tent…wh-which I’ll get tonight when I go to the tribe.” She now leveled her whole attention onto Safi—who pointedly avoided that gaze. “In other words, Safi: you n-need to talk to Caden. Now.”
A fresh flare of annoyance on Safi’s Threads, but this time it was tinged with mustard shame and a rusted gray dread. Because Safi knew what she had to do, and understandably, she didn’t want to do it.
Iseult could hardly blame her for that. If she’d had to do to Aeduan what Safi was about to do to Caden…
Well, there was a reason Iseult had timed their departure for when Aeduan was away.
Safi swiped a hand across her hair, brushing snowflakes off the row of short braids she’d made along the top. “Yeah, yeah. Talk to Caden. I’ll do it, Iz.”
“Now.”
“Eventually.”
“Now.”
“I’ll start with the map first.”
“Safi, if you k-keep putting this off—”
“Yeah, yeah, Iz. I know. But I promise I’ll get it done before you go to the tribe tonight. Does that satisfy you?”
Iseult grunted. It didn’t satisfy her at all, but she knew when she’d nagged enough.
Safi heaved a sigh. It was a sound so weary, it briefly veiled all her Threads in bruise-like despair. Her spine slumped, her shoulders drooped. “Why does it have to be us, Iz?”
“What do you mean?” Iseult bounced on her feet; her toes were getting numb standing here.
“Why do we have to be the Cahr Awen? Isn’t it bad enough that I’ve got to be an empress? Now I also have to heal a thrice-damend Well surrounded by raiders?” Safi opened her arms to the crates. “I mean, surely the goddess could have found better candidates than us.”
Iseult snorted, but it was a humorless sound. She didn’t like the worry twining through Safi’s Threads—and she liked even less the way the Cahr Awen souls swelled those Threads to twice their usual size.
“If you’re getting cold feet, Saf, it’s kind of l-late for that.”
“I don’t have cold feet. Well, I do literally.” Safi lifted a booted toe. “But not about our plans. We’ll leave tonight. I promise. I’m merely wondering philosophically why it has to be us? You know, it’s like asking why the sky is blue. I realize there are no easy answers.”
“The sky is blue because sunlight gets scattered by things in the atmosphere.” Iseult glared. “Goddess, Safi, didn’t you listen to any of our lessons from Mathew?”
A pause. Then a huff. “Of course, I listened. I meant blue as in sad. Why is the sky so sad?”
“Because you keep disappointing it w-with your lies.”
Safi laughed, her Threads brightening with pink, warm in a way the tower around them never could be. “Gods below, Iseult det Midenzi, it’ll be nice when it’s just the two of us again.”
“And by the Moon Mother, Safiya fon Hasstrel, I wholeheartedly agree.”
Thank you all for reading, for supporting, and for being patient as my family and I get through this sad start to our new year. I hope all of you are faring better!
💚 - Sooz
Three Sooz books in the span of a year is excellent news for readers! I'm sorry things have been so tough for you lately. Sending hugs. 💗
So sorry about your dog’s passing 🥲And getting COVID. Hoping the rest of the year has better news. I am excited for more books from you though! 🤗