THE CROOKED, THE NECROMANCER / wip reintroduction by @perditism
“Can you tell me,” Ophelia swallowed against her scratchy throat. She didn’t know if she wanted the answer, didn’t know why she cared. “Tell me if you are like Isobel. If you’ve killed.”
Ophelia thought the Morningstar would laugh it off and avoid the question, the way she envisioned in her head, but it made him pause, as if she had robbed him of his breath. His hood slid over his eyes as he, like on the cusp of sharing a secret, lowered his head.
“Is that what you think of me?”
Ophelia answered truthfully, “I don’t know what to think of you.”
The Morningstar seemed like someone who valued secrecy above all else, but at that moment, it felt as if his mystery had disappointed him. His shoulders drooped a little, a secret defeat. An unexpected, dull ache pulled at Ophelia.
“I have never killed,” the Morningstar said. Before Ophelia could feel her heart soar in relief, his chin tipped, and she could see his jaw clenched painfully tight. “But I’ve done bad things. Did you expect any different?”
→ themes and tropes:
belligerent sexual tension to lovers , family tension , privilege and entitlement , POC and LGBTQ+ characters , female villains , forbidden magic , prophecies , action , romance , fantasy , adventure
→ synopsis:
A princess of a magic-reviled kingdom, Ophelia’s fate was the greatest irony. As the only hope to rescue the prince of Gishea’s bitterest enemy, she set out to get to the bottom of his kidnapping with the help of a wanted outlaw, the Morningstar. What she ended up uncovering was an ancient prophecy that may have fortold her role in unleashing a new age of magic, one her kingdom won’t be powerful enough to curtail. Racing against the threat of a fatal war looming ahead, Ophelia and the Morningstar are forced to confront the grave consequences of Ophelia’s family’s tyrannical rule, thrusted into a world of magic that she should not have belonged to.
→ characters:
Ophelia Wu
a reluctant princess with an unexpected destiny, ladened with choices
The Morningstar
a thief at large, bearing a guilt too heavy to withstand
Perdita Chaudry-Rosi
the young daughter of a secretive innkeeper, knows too much and yet so little
Johen
a mage once trapped in stone, their loyalty lies nowhere but to the magic that courses through their veins
Helena Delvaux
the leader of the Order of the Lodestar, she must bring about the new age of magic where her kind can thrive again, unshackled
