I’ve had a lot of fun including songs in my stories, and my upcoming novel, The Dark Forest of Aneth, is no exception.
The Dark Forest of Aneth is book nine of my Legends of Cirena series, but you only need to have read The Restless Sands of Neel and The Dragons of the Mist for it to make sense. Dark Forest is the cross-over of those two short stories, with characters from each having been summoned to find and rescue an overly powerful child in the foreboding forest of Aneth.
I knew I wanted Dark Forest to have a song tied into it, same as how The Restless Sands of Neel had a song from it that related to the culture of the Darden Isles. But, while writing The Dark Forest of Aneth, I originally only had bits and pieces of the song, and an idea of how the tale would go. It was only after I finished the final major set of revisions on the story itself that I also finished the full draft of the ballad… which has a few parallels to events in the story.
Here’s a snippet from The Ballad of the Little Dragon Child:
Little dragon child wandered through the wood
though the sun passed low through the green needle veil.
Come little dragon child,
turn back home.
When the fog rolls in so does a wicked gale.
But the little dragon child was a curious one
saw the mist curling low over pond and fern.
Little dragon child waited out the night to see
what forms this time the mist would be.
*Vocalizing* Oh…
Oh little dragon child…
Turn back home…
*Vocalizing*
Those are the first couple sections of several. Like I said, it’s a ballad.
I have a rough idea of how to sing it (from my very un-nuanced perspective of music writing), but haven’t quite nailed down the rhythm yet without tripping over myself in some of the later verses.
I’ll have another post about the ballad in a later week, but speaking of The Dark Forest of Aneth…
Expect a cover reveal soon! 😃
If you’re on the Wishing Blade Universe newsletter, you’ve already seen the new cover. But if not, I’ll be revealing that cover right here on the blog sometime next week. (Click here if you want to sign up for Wishing Blade Universe news! You’ll also get an ebook copy of Stone and String, as thanks. 😊)
Later this month on the blog, I’ll do a breakdown of the process the cover went through in order to get it to its current state. I’ll have a few other Dark Forest themed posts, too.
Why?
Well, it’s almost ready to release! As in, it’s coming before the end of the month! *Happy dance.*
I’m on the final proofread right now, and once that’s done, I’ll start the upload process and get the pre-order links set up. Which means the Legends of Cirena series will have its conclusion!
Well… first conclusion.
The Dark Forest of Aneth wraps up the very loose plot thread running throughout the Legends series, and ties directly into Magic’s Stealing from the Wishing Blade series.
But I’ve already written a couple more short stories that come after this one, and I’m working on an in-progress novel that takes place around the same time. But those will be spin-off series, rather than continuing as Legends of Cirena #10.
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Prepare for The Dark Forest of Aneth… by reading the prequel short stories following two of the main characters!
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Happy reading and writing!
