(Rewrite is going on RoyalRoad) Every dwarven city has its Spark, one that grants life to the great artifices carved into living rock and cruel steel by the god Tek himself. A machine set in motion when the turning of the world began again, Dhuldarim has survived millennia without faltering. Until now. The Spark, it seems, is going out. Divine help is impossible: the great god Tek is silent, slumbering where none can reach. The ingenuity of dwarves is their only hope of salvation. To return the Spark, a great power is needed-power that can only be found in the Deep. To trespass so into the depths of the earth is suicide even for a dwarf, but the Heartforge has spoken: Tali Khondurahl must go, and go alone. There are things that live in the Deep, they say, that dream of the red flower wielded by the dwarves. They dream...and they hate. Aided on her journey by a golem of stone, a siren freed from eternal imprisonment in the Deep, a human mage far from home, a strange deep-dweller, and a scion of her people's most ancient foe, Tali must face an evil so powerful it has survived the millenium since the Revealing without interruption, lording over a dominion of misery and subjugation. With every leg of the journey, loyalties become increasingly divided. In the end, it is her choices that shape the future of Dhuldarim and its ancient enemies alike.

***First Five Chapters Only, Whole is Published*** The laws of the legion are eternal, handed down by the gods of the Imperium themselves. Out of the ashes left by the great cataclysm that was the end of a world, the Princes of Iron arose and forged themselves a dominion ever expanding and engulfing the lands around theirs. Called demons by the other races, the Divine Princes rule with thaumaturgy at their beck and call, unfeeling and perfect. Within the legions, dark engines of destruction and conquest, glimmers of light sometimes appear. For Tita Nautia Helva and the soldiers of Fourth Legion, such a suggestion strikes just in time to shake their world down to its foundations. The question in the aftermath is simple: who will you become?

Flynn County Sheriff Elle Ashley has spent her adult life atoning for her wild youth, but when she finds her ex, Jessie murdered two weeks before the small town's biggest social event, she comes face to face with her past and all her well-kept secrets. Not only is this her first murder investigation, it's the town's first in over fifty years. Elle must find a killer before there are any more casualties and keep her troubled little brother off the suspect list, all under the watchful eyes of a Chicago reporter. Investigative reporter Robin Oakes isn't a small-town kind of girl, and she's determined to get in and out of Flynn County as fast as possible. One look at Sheriff Ashley has her rethinking her plans. As pressure mounts to solve Jessie's murder, Elle gets help from the most unlikely source--Robin, who appears to be more interested in her than getting the story.

Sixteen-year-old Sage Greene was locked in a maximum-security asylum for the criminally insane after murdering nearly 200 civilians. It isn't her, though - it's the voices. There are two sides to Sage: the normal, self-conscious teenager, and the Voice lurking inside her head, the one that forced her to strike out and kill. Now, both parts of Sage are being sent into space, destined for a new rehabilitation program upon Mars, with a group of the most dangerous teenagers in America. Before they can reach the red planet, however, they are abducted by a strange alien race and taken away from their spaceship and everything they have ever known to compete in a sadistic set of physical and mental tests nicknamed the Trials. And so far, nobody has survived the Trials. * {Highest ranking: #5 in science fiction as of 9/3/17} [Comment threads contain spoilers at random. You have been warned.] WARNING This is a very dark book that only spirals further down. Murder is discussed and there are slightly graphic scenes.

Shal has had her future laid out for her for as long as she can remember. Cursed with vampirism and trained as a killer, she has accepted her fate as an enforcer for the Empire. Escape has never seemed possible until now, when an opportunity arises in the form of a fragile young woman chosen to die in a dark ceremony. They may make it to the woods, but it's miles of wild territory to uncertain safety, and the Imperial trackers are always following... Cover by @Silver_Chick

A listless girl who isn't quite human. A sorcerer looking for answers from a brilliant engineer. An herbalist from a time of oppression. This anthology of short tales will follow heroes and villains, scions of ancient houses and lowborn goodfolk, mortals, shifters, fey, and dragons. Whether contemporary with the adventures of a sky woman from Sandharbor or set in the distant past, Tales of the Five Kingdoms offers new lands, new cultures, lore, and the secret workings of the Continent. (Stories containing spoilers for The Empress Saga will be marked.) A/N: Full disclosure, a lot of these stories are ones I'm writing primarily as practice in different forms, subgenres, and character types. For instance, Gillwyn is in some ways a warm-up for when Jin at last becomes a viewpoint, and Obuu came from a desire to positively portray an autistic character. Tot5K is a learning experience for me, so please bear with me through the things that don't work. That said, I'll do my utmost to keep everything compliant with my own canon and not treat these as disposable. When doing something, do it sincerely, and I intend to.

"When I was born I was so small I was mistaken for a french fry. I was never an ordinary child. My best friend was a seagull. I was also illegal. Artificially intelligent people like me had been banned ever since that thing with the Twelve Elevens. Mother raised me for profit. Buyers and sellers had other plans for me, but then I grew a mind of my own. This is the story of how my brain ended up inside this box." Candles is a black-market, "artificially intelligent person" (or A.I.P., or "ape" in the colloquial sense, as in 'the planet of the'), an organic being, farm-raised on genetically engineered smoothies and destined for auction to the highest bidding criminal enterprise. Gifted with the ability to communicate with foul-mouthed seagulls and ill-tempered felines, this gender-less, age-less, race-less creature has to find its way to escape from the clutches of its mother and other assorted enemies, in this fairly exciting and ultimately utterly unexpected story.

There is no night in the Everburning City. There can never be. ***** For four hundred years the Everburning City has withstood the advance of the life-strangling fog known as the Gloam. Its walls have held back five invasions, but on the eve of the sixth, the city's inhabitants know things have changed. Golems are coming out of the mist, and the bodies of the dead are rising at the Gloam's bidding. The city's last and most desperate line of defence comes in the form of the Crafters, individuals who can channel the power of fire, though they risk their sanity each time they do. The brightest of these valiant heroes are Tabitha a'Loria and her apprentice Gerald Reath. Risking their lives, they mount their airships, determined to save the last bastion of humanity - the Everburning City. [[word count: 100,000-150,000 words]]

When May Alana's wish on a star brings a stranger to her remote island home, the pair must survive a deadly magical conflict in order to be together. ***** When May Alana, a scorned and anxiety-ridden young woman, finds a stranger on the beach of her remote island home, she wonders if this is the adventurous, accepting, and loving answer to her otherwise cloistered life. But as the pair grow closer, the stranger entrusts May with her brilliant secret: that she is half-Star in possession of otherworldly powers, and that a violent group of Star worshippers are out to destroy her. So if they want any chance of being together, they'll have to survive a deadly conflict between humans and mythological creatures first. THE STAR AND THE OCEAN is Book 1 in the Starborn Series Book 2: THE WIND AND THE HORIZON Book 3: THE FIRE AND THE SKY Cover illustration by Brittany Willows (@BrittanyMWillows) [[Watty Winner]] [[Wattpad LGBT Book of the Month]] [[word count: 70,000-80,000 words]]