In The Liar’s Crown, one of the six dominions in the world of Nova is Tyndra. This is the icy dominion ruled by King Eidolon and the home of Reven’s Shadowood.
I had a blast coming up with different elements for this dominion. You’d think that with ice being the theme it would be pretty uninhabitable with very little of interest beyond the starkly beautiful topography. But not in my head!
I surrounded the dominion in icebergs–the goddess’s way of protecting the dominion from the Devourers in the ocean. The heart of the dominion has a massive mountain–Mt. Ynferno–which we’ll visit in The Shadows Rule All. We don’t get to really visit Skom, the capital city, which I pictured as black and jagged building structures like ice and mountains. Meanwhile, the only temple is the twin temple with a tower on either side of the narrow channel sepearting the larger land mass from Little Tyndra where the warm springs, Shadowood, and sacred tree can be found.
There’s so much more in my head actually. I wish I had time to just explore the world, I love that part so much, but I have to get a little plot and story in there too. 😉
EXCERPT
I turn around in the circle of Reven’s arms and gasp. He has brought me not to the temple but somewhere else. We’re outside, and I can make out silvery fields of snow, billowy with drifts.
“It looks like home,” I murmur to myself.
At night, in the moonlight, the deserts around Enora appear white, the crystals in the sand sparkling in the beams, a blanket of stars overhead. I always liked to think of them as the millions of souls who made it to Allusian and are watching over us from the heavens.
Reven’s sinful voice wraps around me and me alone. “I know,” he says, warm breath brushing against my cheek. “I’ve seen them, too.”
The next thing to hit me, and I don’t know why it didn’t sooner, is the scent of ocean—fresh and salty and windswept, curling together with the almost tangy scent of pine trees—the combination reminding me of crossing that awful, rickety excuse of a ladder and the Hollow.
I blink at the sight laid out before me.
A small, stone house with thatched roofing sits so close to the waters, the ocean is lapping at its walls. My stomach bottoms out with fear for the people who must live there. Why in the name of the mother goddess would anyone build there at all, let alone without more protection? Are they asking for a quick and terrible death?
My last time this close to monster-infested waters rises up and, without thinking, I grab Reven’s wrist, ignoring his grunt. “The Devourers,” I say quietly, carefully.
“Rarely here. This is the narrower passage separating Little Tyndra from the mainland. Most of the Devourers can’t fit past the icebergs that guard both ends.”
“Most?”
He grimaces. “The sinking of the land has widened the gap somewhat.” Then he points at the house. “That dwelling used to be a league from the shore.”
I suck in sharply. Peering closer, I can see other evidence of this. The spiking tops of trees are sticking out of the water.
Reven’s proof for me.
Tyndra is sinking. All of it. The mainland worse than Little Tyndra, but I can see hints of it around there, too. The same way Wildernyss is raising into the skies, higher with each passing year? Why?
“I don’t think I can fix this,” I whisper with a shake of my head.
“Let me worry about that,” Reven insists in a voice gone gruffer. “First, we need to get your double and get you both back here safely.”
He nods to the left, and I swivel my head to find, in the distance, the spires of two massive towers rising above the barren land, one on this side, one on the other side of the channel, barely visible against the night sky. Like the walls in Aryd, they don’t reflect moonlight, and their bulk blocks out stars. To me they appear…sinister. Like no temple I’ve ever seen. Not even the black-walled temple in Oaesys, which is dark and ornate yet somehow still welcoming.
Night shrouds the structures so that I can’t see the tops or the bridge that I know connects them up high.
“Let’s go,” Reven says. The shadows come up around us. When they clear, we’re inside the chamber with the portal.
That was… Was that different than before?
I watch him closely for any sign the Shadows are wresting control from him, but he’s not breathing hard this time. Not wanting to cling, because everything between us is…a lot, I take a deliberate step away from him. His fingers flex into my skin like he doesn’t want to release me, but he does.
I study the portal room in the Temple of Tyndra. I’ve only gotten peeks of it through other portals when Omma showed me the other side. Even Tabra, Omma, and Grandmother haven’t actually been here.
It’s incredible.
Every inch is covered in glittering jewels. The walls, the floors, everything crusted in blue and white and black jewels set in patterns that depict Tyndra itself. From the maps I memorized, I recognize Mt. Ynferno, the Cliffs of Sacrifice, and even the ruins of the ancient watchtowers from when all our dominions were, according to legend, still joined together.
“Amazing.” I whisper the word, my breath misting in the air.
No fireplace. No warmth. Realizing that, I peer closer. The jewels aren’t the only crystalized things in the room. The entire place is covered in a fine sheen of ice.
“Indeed.”
As my hands glow sunny yellow, the portal glass changes into a view I’m achingly familiar with.
Oaesys.
Home.
The opulence of that chamber is all about the bronze and gold, the brilliant colors of the paint, the obsidian walls themselves. Fires burn in golden braziers, bathing the room in a burnished red and orange radiance.
The two portal chambers couldn’t be more different. Light and dark, cold and hot.
“You should go to Enora,” I tell him. “That’s where I sent your people.”
“Hurry,” Reven warns me. “While no one is around to see.”
I pause, giving myself a single moment to look at the stark beauty of this man who has been so many things to me so fast—kidnapper, protector, lover. I’m trying to tell him with my eyes that I’ll see him again. Even though I’m not sure I will. For once, words won’t come. I can’t tell him goodbye.
So I step through.
THE LIAR’S CROWN | THE STOLEN THRONE
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