“The Naming of Knots”

Sounds drifted up from the manor house below, music and laughter and the muffled thunder of feet on a ballroom floor. As Tseges eased over the roof’s edge and trusted his weight to the rope, he reminded himself to breathe. It was Apilun. Nobody would be out in the garden in the dead of winter.

A novelette set in Nadežra, some years before the events of the series. It touches on the background of several elements in the series, but that’s not why Marie wrote it: the truth is that in the game which inspired the Rook and Rose trilogy, there was a moment where her character left the Rook standing on a pressure plate like a companion cube straight out of the game Portal, and by god, she was determined to make that moment series canon, too. 😀

It was published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies #388, on August 10th, 2023!