In fifteen days, on his twentieth birthday, Prince Ronan Aldrea will die at the hands of a god. His path was set long before his birth by hands worlds away from his, unbiased and unyielding in their actions, and had been written into prophecy by seers of ages past. The hands of Fate had called for his death, but Ronan did not plan to sit idly by and let them claim him. The prophecy did not rest on Ronan's shoulders alone; it worked through a member of the Pantheon of Seven, the god Aevar, the one meant to kill him. With Aevar's arrival in the mortal realm comes a fierce reminder that his days are numbered, and with each pawn Fate puts into play, Ronan becomes more determined to defy it. In all of history, be it mortal or godly, Fate has reigned superior. It has never lost, never faltered, least of all fallen before a frightened mortal prince. But Ronan Aldrea intends to change those odds-no matter the cost.

The House of the Heron has long stood on the hills of Old Providence, a structure of unknown origin, a watchtower to a sprawling land, a grave to gods of old and monsters of myth. In the land of Meiying, fable and gods once meant life: but now there is plague in the air, famine in streets, and the spirit of the people is dying. Poisoned by the venom of the Yan dynasty and a prohibition of storytelling, the fledgling Emperor of Yan, Huang Lei makes his ascent to the throne - his corrupt eyes set on the House of the Heron, and the ailing Empress who guards it. Intending to quash the last hallmark of fable from Meiying and absorb Old Providence into the new Meiying, the Emperor begins his march towards the House: but the House will not give in that easily to the rapacity of men - and the choices made by a guard, an Emperor and a scroll-smuggling scribe could cost Meiying it all.

❝ beware of those who enter the forest. ❞ They are creatures that born from the sublime and haunt those who wrongs them. It was the written rule the Nascherein was built upon, but to Leon Kiesinger, it was much greater than the imperial soldiers could hold. Sheltered away from the war and its decaying matter, he finds himself unable to avoid death, his haunting dreams told him to follow it, to see where it would lead him to. But it comes with a price, something that calls for a ghost among trees. © arden reni 2017 ― Featured as 'Hot Off the Press' | 04.18.18 ― Wattys Longlist | 08.31.18

"and then it all went still." copyright © 2020 by aveirell

Prithika Singh would have told you that her love life was going great. After all, who could argue that the pretty cheerleader and the handsome quarterback with their sweet year-long relationship were anything less than a dream couple? But Prithika is startled awake when she sees her boyfriend, Carter Hale, kissing Julia Hart, one of the supposedly average girls, in the middle of the hallway on the first day of school. Suddenly, her vision for her junior year is totally derailed, and she's left feeling uncertain about her sense of trust and relationships. And then along comes Jackson Rains, Julia's ex-boyfriend, notorious at Poppy Hills High for his (crappy) motorcycle, tousled dark hair, black leather boots, and two very public fistfights. In an attempt to save their past relationships, Jackson and Prithika hatch a probably terrible plan: make everyone think they're dating. Prithika will try to show Carter she can be a more low-maintenance girlfriend, Jackson will try to show Julia that he can be a more attentive boyfriend, and then Carter and Julia will get jealous and return to the partners they were supposed to be with in the first place, and it'll all go back to normal. But it seems the more Prithika tries to make things fit the picture-perfect path her life was on, the more things fly off the rails: she's trapped in trying to be someone she's not, she's lying to her best friends Laila and Aurora, she can tell Aurora's keeping secrets, she realizes how little she actually knows Carter, and she's getting more invested in Jackson's personal life than expected. Can she get her life back under control? Or will trying to fix things make a bigger mess?