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Matthias looked up as Karen and Kyle approached. “You two look worried. What’s up?”

“Do we know why the Aylmers aren’t here?” Karen asked.

“Ah, you noticed.” He shook his head. “No, last we heard they accepted the invitation. I’ve sent a couple of the cousins to check on them because being this late to a meeting is very out of character for them.”

“Yes, we thought you’d have noticed,” Karen said. “But we’d thought we’d better mention it.” Read the rest of this entry »

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The evening reception was being held in Brierthorne’s main dining hall, though the tables had mostly been cleared to one side. It made sense: the dining hall was the only room other than the gym big enough to contain everyone who had come and was closer to the kitchens.

Karen negotiated the crowd carefully, trying to avoid anyone who might snark at her for having pretended to be a wild or gush at how wonderful it was that she and her siblings were alive while singling out astrals from other families who would be uncertain about how to respond to the current crisis but amenable to persuasion about not panicking. It wasn’t proving easy as no one wanted to discuss what was happening outside the walls of the school at the moment. There was a definite air of people desperately pretending their world wasn’t ending and that things would soon be back to normal. Read the rest of this entry »

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“Have you told Dan and Drew?” Lydia asked as she followed her mother down the stairs. Sonia looked back at her and smiled.

“They were there when Dad brought the blocks over anyway,” she said. “So we let the two of them go first.”

“Ah,” Lydia said. “So will they explain about your father’s name?” Read the rest of this entry »

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“Well, that was interesting,” Matthias said after Adrian had left. “That young man is actually pleasant when he’s not pretending to be a monster.”

“He was horrible at school,” Hannah said. “I was glad when he left.”

“He’s always been like that at home,” Tara said. “I think he was putting up a bluff in public because he expected people to hate him anyway.” Read the rest of this entry »

Return of the questions!

MJKJ asks:

Ok, I think any of the dragons might be able to answer.

So, how does draconic sound and look like? (…and where can I learn it?)

 

Kadoran replies:

“As I told Andrew-idan our language is unique in being a spoken language which is only comprehensible if you’re a telepath. This is because it is inflected telepathically (mostly anyway – gender and pluralisation are both verbal -a, -an and -ri) and it has a very free word order so unless you’re a telepath you’ll be able to pick up the meaning of words but the grammar will be virtually impossible for you.

As to sound the most notable thing is the l’s are very liquid and r’s are trills, lots of stops and nasals. It’s close relative Lova is a tonal language and draconic retains the tone changes as an aesthetic feature though it’s lost any lexical or grammatical meaning. It would in theory be possible for you to learn Lova but you’d need a dragon or one of the Kithreiri to teach you.”

A/N:  For a little more information on draconic from the author’s perspective see this guest post I did last year. Conlanging is one of my hobbies but Draconic would be a nightmare to conlang in detail but if enough people are interested I would be willing to try and conlang Lova publically.

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“He does have some ideas about that,” Adrian said. “They never managed to find a cure for the Lost Ones.” He glanced at Laxmi, who had accompanied them, in a way that indicated that he knew what she was. “But he did manage to find a way to stop the transformation if it hadn’t completed yet and he’s sure he could have found a cure if he’d been allowed. He’s willing to share the information so you prevent any being created this time.”

“Well that would certainly be a good start,” Matthias agreed. “We’ll need to meet him on neutral territory to discuss it.” Read the rest of this entry »

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“You what?” Carl said before Hannah could respond. “Is anyone actually bloody dead?”

“Yes,” Lyrrekka said in a flat bitter tone that made him flinch back. “My husband for one.”

“Sorry.” He looked down. “That was thoughtless, but you know what I mean.” He looked pointedly not only at her, Kyle and Sonia, but also – to Hannah’s puzzlement – at Martin, who was asleep in Tara’s lap. Tara gave an amused snort in response.

“Ah, you worked that out.” Read the rest of this entry »

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Adrian spent even longer digesting what the blocks said than Collette had. When he finished, his expression was more thoughtful than angry.

“Well that was enlightening,” he said when he put the final block down. “I wonder what scared them so badly.” He took the cup of tea Sonia offered him with a murmer of thanks. “And I see what you mean by having another resonant in the family. I have no idea who that might be, but if these blocked them out then it’s worrying.” He frowned quietly at the blocks. “But to deliberately instigate the purge to cause the creation of dragons? It makes no sense – part of the story is missing.” Read the rest of this entry »

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Hannah felt her whole body stiffen when she saw that Kayleigh and Adrian were indeed walking through the trees towards them. She had to clench her fists tightly enough to hurt to avoid lashing out at her treacherous sister. She didn’t realise that she was holding her breath as well until Kyle laid a soothing hand on her shoulder.

“Breathe, Hannah. Deep breaths and try not to do anything you’ll regret later.” Read the rest of this entry »

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Lydia looked around curiously as they arrived at Brierthorne. The gate Matthias had opened for them emerged into a courtyard in front of a large red brick building at the heart of a wooded valley. Beyond the open green of the sports fields she could make out several other buildings half hidden in the woods. It had a warm, friendly feel and she was tempted to start exploring but an elderly man was waiting on the steps in front of the main entrance for them.

“Dad!” Sonia said and rushed up the steps to him. “It’s so good to see you!” Read the rest of this entry »