Short Story: Regional Committee of Magic Re: Photo Op

Hello Champions! Thank you so much for your patience while you continue to wait for the final book in the Gate of Myth and Power series. When I picked the release date for book 3 I thought I was being generous, but I’m still working furiously on everything and it’s going to be down to the absolute wire to get it ready for you!

While you wait I thought this was a great time to give you a gift! Technically this is a re-gift because I gave this short story away as a thank you to each Champion who filled out my Reader Survey in 2022, but I decided now is a good time to re-share it with everyone!

Click here to read the short story: Regional Committee of Magic Re: Photo Op

This short story utilizes the “letters” format which I’ve done this before with a few others like Between a Queen and Her Colonel and Notes on Elves. Those were a little different since they were actual “letters” and this short story is “emails”. Another big difference is this Magiford short story has more participants so it is much more chaotic then any of the other short stories I’ve written in this style.

What was your favorite part of this short story? Have you ever had an email exchange similar to this chaotic mess with your friends or co-workers?

Character Profile: Charon

Let’s learn more about everyone’s favorite ferryman driver/butler! Important: character profile posts do contain spoilers! If you haven’t read King’s Captive or King’s Shadow, I suggest you wait to read all Gate of Myth and Power character profiles until you finish!

Charon

Loosely inspired by Charon, the ferryman of Hades in Greek Mythology who carried souls across the river Styx into the underworld. Since the Greek myth’s Charon’s appearance varies greatly, I focused more on Charon’s elven characteristics, although I did give him the traditional cloak/hood that a lot of artists today (and in the past century) typically draw on Greek myth Charon. (Our Charon also serves as the official Group Driver as another nod to his mythic counterpart. I thought I was soooo funny when I came up with that.)

Reserved, quiet, and loyal, Charon is quite strong for an elf, and is scary strong for an elf that isn’t a member of a royal line. (Good thing Chloe never realized that, or she would have been even more reluctant to practice!) Charon is so powerful because he, like Noctus, has excellent control over his emotions, and thinks things through first instead of impulsively lashing out as elven society had a tendency to do. (I mean, there’s a reason why fae learned to be so capricious.)

Unfortunately, that strength also means it’s pretty hard for him to make friends, so his only true friends are Aristide, Ker, Noctus, and–now–Chloe.

Despite his crusty exterior, Charon does have deep feelings and will act out of kindness–as Chloe experienced frequently as Ama when Charon was desperate to keep the cat happy in a bid to keep Noctus happy. You can see a similar spark at the end of King’s Shadow when Charon desperately wants to assure Noctus that Chloe is alright, but he’s so dedicated he won’t say anything unless asked.

I had a lot of fun with Charon, as he views his service to Noctus in a very different light than how Celestia of Hall of Blood and Mercy serves Killian Drake, or Skye serves Queen Leila in Court of Midnight and Deception.

So what do you think of Charon now that you know more about him? When you first read about the elves in the Magiford books were you picturing a character like Charon and the rest of the elves in the city?

Character Profile: Kerberos

Kerberos and Aristide are two of my favorite characters in the series, so I decided to start my character profile talks with them! (Aristide will be in the next post.) Important: character profile posts do contain spoilers! If you haven’t read King’s Captive or King’s Shadow, I suggest you wait to read all Gate of Myth and Power character profiles until you finish!

Kerberos

Let’s start with it. Yes, I thought I was absolutely hilarious when I decided that my version of Kerberos would be a werewolf.

Kerberos is known as the three headed dog of the underworld and serves as a guard. When I was designing Ker’s character, I first considered having three siblings serve and calling them “Ker,” “Ber” and “Os,” but I decided it was more important to flesh Kerberos out as a deep character than to make her reflect mythology, so I centralized her into one character.

Ker is the oldest living werewolf—by centuries. Given that she was around before the war with the elves and lived through it, she’s been around the block. And yet, her cheerful temperament has kept her kind and gentle when time could have easily made her jaded. Her age does create a bit of a conundrum, though, as it means she can’t exactly go strutting around in her human form, creating records of her presence, or supernaturals are going to start wondering why there’s an immortal werewolf running around, which is why she typically acts as Aristide’s guide wolf when they’re in public.

As we learned in King’s Shadow, Kerberos lost her *entire* Pack in the war against the elves. We know from Pip’s series—Pack of Dawn and Destiny—that to a werewolf, nothing is more important than Pack and family. Normally that means it’s shocking Ker survived, but the truth is she made it because Aristide is a stubborn mule who was going to keep her alive even if it killed him, and because Ker herself was determined to live and love again.

Still, despite all the years, you can see that pain has left an impact on Kerberos, she just chooses to keep on living with her friends—and with the help of her beloved affirmations! Additionally, because her friends are her new Pack, you can also see that due to her love, she is going to help them whether they want it or not–whether that means trying to cajole Noctus into taking a break from work, or to tease Aristide about being a Nostalgia vampire to keep him from becoming one. (In particular, fans of Pack of Dawn and Destiny might be able to spy additional insights on the way Ker treats her friends and how it relates to pack dynamics/hierarchies.)

And that’s our closer look at Ker! What do you think now that you know more about her? Has she inspired you to read How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie?