Caught {Balancing Magic}

The Newest Idea

Saying I'm not gonna work on Caught and seeing all of your feels about this story that I started in 2019 has made me want to work on it more.

Some things haven't changed from my last update - I have to get Merrik's out story first, and I am struggling with some carpal tunnel type pain. That stuff is no joke.

But I am working on the 3rd rewrite just the same. For this platform I will only post from where I ended - even if it some beats are missed ( like the fact that I changed the name of the hell hounds and now there are only five of them) but for the most part the story is the same as I always intended it to be. You can follow along with my rewrites on other platforms where they don't want me to share the spicy bits. ( I will let you in on that in a couple of days)

Those bits and first peeks will be through my ko-fi tiers starting October 1.

https://ko-fi.com/isoellen

Also, here's some backstory for you. If you like that sort of thing. It's not something that would be published with the book and some people might find it boring, but it is part of creating Anika and Calix's world and how that world and some of its conflicts came to be.

Caught –

Balancing Magic

A little History.

Long ago Null kind survivors arrived in ships on the shores of Irrindario leaving a dying way of life. For three generations, everything had been about survival and escape. Something catastrophic happened to them. No one knew what, but hundreds of thousands of people felt the results. Many died. The event changed them forever. Their land sank into the sea as they left it, devouring itself in rage and grief in a final, epic burst of volcanic fury. The people were left with nothing but sketchy oral records of their own history. No land to stand on. No memories to claim.

The Indarrian's are creatures of magic in magic-soaked existence. Unlike the ancient null land, where the people grouped themselves behind walls under governors, councils and leaders, the Irrindario had no big cities and only followed the heads of their families. Its native people lived scattered and independent throughout the continent. Some of them organized themselves into family houses connected to a single ancient of their land and those generations often chose to live together in one place. These houses never grew into more than small villages. The natives celebrated seasons and life in group gatherings, but they did not shop in markets or live in large, crowded clusters behind walls. Indarrians knew of their world's other lands, but they kept to themselves.

As practical minded engineers, the null built machinery. They had simple steam powered works. They had steel and gunpowder. They had black-fire energy gleaned from fragments of their homeland. But they had no magic.

Magic is the life-energy that powers and propels everything.

The native Indarrians – magicers, mage, witch and natural-born, welcomed null kind. Arriving on ships held together by sticks and steel the null gladly accepted the aid. No Indarrian had ever seen such helpless, magic-less creature. A rock of Irrindario had more magic in its make-up than a null human.

The null had traveled over oceans and past islands to get to the magic land of Irrindario, leaving disaster and all it's history behind them.

The Indarrians taught the newcomers how to find and harvest natural magic to use in their machines. They showed them how to navigate the many wonderous, but dangerous species of the continent. They taught them the importance of Balance and the stories of the Ancients.

The two peoples were different. But human. They blended. Lived. The null built cities. Many found a home in null built machine powered cities.

But null-kind had no magic. No natural power. They were earthy, muscled, beast-stock without a touch of sparkle or shine. They lived short energetic lives and birthed many babies, soon outnumbering the natural-born mage's and witches that had helped them. The blending of races birthed children called voids, who looked like a natural-born Indarrian, but lived magicless.

They wanted magic. They cried that their lack of magic went against the Balance. Everyone deserved magic. The five continents were hoarding it. Keeping it from null kind. A leader rose up, promising to bring a proper balance to the world.

A war was fought.

Anika's and Calix's story starts about 30 years after the war.

I've let this story grow into an "epic" style fantasy world, with a detailed back story protagonists and antagonists, various cultures, and races. There will be multiple points of view told in two ways – Anika is 1st person past, and everyone else is 3rd person past.

It's slow burn, age difference, dystopian government, reluctant heroine, power exchange, violent, misogynistic patriarchy, m/f omegaverse elements. The romance will be intense, and the intimate moments will be messy and raw and it ends with a happily ever after. 

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Caught - Balancing Magic Chapter one. The newest version.