The first woman ever admitted to a prestigious order of mages unravels a secret conspiracy that could change the practice of magic forever, in this standalone dark fantasy from the author of The Sword of Kaigen.

For twenty years, Sciona has devoted every waking moment to the study of magic, fuelled by a mad desire to achieve the impossible: to become the first woman ever admitted to the High Magistry at the University of Magics and Industry.

When Sciona finally achieves her ambition and becomes a highmage, she finds her challenges have just begun. Her new colleagues are determined to make her feel unwelcome – and, instead of a qualified lab assistant, they give her a janitor.

What neither Sciona nor her peers realise is that her taciturn assistant was not always a janitor. Ten years ago, he was a nomadic hunter who lost his family on their perilous journey from the wild plains to the city. But now he sees the opportunity to understand the forces that decimated his tribe, drove him from his homeland, and keep the privileged in power.

At first, mage and outsider have a fractious relationship. But working together, they uncover an ancient secret that could change the course of magic forever – if it doesn’t get them killed first.

Blood Over Bright Haven is due for release 29th October – you can pre-order your copy on Bookshop.org

from Chapter 2, ‘A Woman Wanting’

The train was racing across the highest bridge above the city just as the sky blushed with the promise of sun over the eastern hills. Even after a thousand train rides along these tracks, there was nothing quite like watching the greatest civilization in the world waking with the dawn.

Tiran’s holy forty- sector energy grid ran all night but only lit up in the early morning, and this was the perfect time of year to appreciate the sight. With the midnight sun of summer long gone and the lightless winter still to come, the sun rose at the same hour as the industrious Tiranish people. Electric lights blinked on in the windows of the work districts first, then in the mansions beyond, creating a sea of sparks that trailed off into the blue- black expanse of the farmlands to the north. Spells fl ashed like lightning across the skyline as alchemists siphoned ore for the day’s steel production. Below the train tracks, cars bearing morning milk and fruit deliveries for the wealthy trundled along the roads like a procession of bright- shelled beetles. With Archmage Duris’s new rubber compounds for their wheels and smooth alchemical cement replacing the cobblestones of most major streets, vehicles moved faster now than ever, but the “magic- drawn carriages” still seemed slow and small from the train.

Sciona liked the city best from up here, all its technical marvels on display without the mess of its human inhabitants, no one to bother her with their chatter or attempts at eye contact— well, no one except the excitable woman in the seat next to her.

“Praise Feryn, what a view!” Alba hung on Sciona’s arm as the train climbed. The clock and radio repair shop where Alba worked was only two blocks from their apartment, so she had little occasion to see the wider city of Tiran. “I can’t believe this is your commute!”

“Possibly for the last time.” Sciona had promised Aunt Winny that if the exam didn’t work out, she would get a real job teaching magic to children at one of the local schools. No more university, no more research, no chance at a real legacy, just hordes of snot- nosed schoolboys like the ones who had made her childhood hell.

“Don’t say that, Sciona! You’re going to do amazing.”

“Nobody does amazing on the High Magistry exam,” Sciona said, determined not to torment herself with hope. “They just pass, or they don’t.”

By the time the train slowed at the University of Magics and Industry, the sun had crested the hills to sparkle off the dome that protected Tiran from Blight and insulated it through the dark winter.

A few people eyed Sciona’s dark plum robes in surprise as she picked her way down the train aisle and stepped onto the platform. It wasn’t that women never reached Sciona’s level of study; it just wasn’t common. And of the few women who did make it to a graduate degree in magic, most donned green robes and went into teaching. Why pursue research, after all, when its highest levels were inaccessible to you? Better for a lady mage to employ her talents training the next generation of great male innovators— unless she was a perpetually unsatisfied monster like Sciona, always after what wasn’t hers.

While Alba marveled at the bustle and majesty of the University train station, Sciona’s appreciation landed where it always did—  on the sheer magical power of the train itself. She never tired of watching the masterfully designed pressure conduits glow along each of the doors, pushing them closed. As those conduits dimmed, the engine at the front of the train blazed, siphoning energy from the Reserve to turn those great wheels on the tracks.

Sciona felt the train shudder with the massive energy intake— like a thrill down a spine— before it continued west with its remaining passengers. Years ago, she had tugged on Aunt Winny’s worn, lacy sleeve and asked what made the trains move. What had the power to animate a machine the size of a dragon?

“The mages make the trains move, dear,” Aunt Winny had said and, when she saw that the answer hadn’t satisfied her niece, clarified, “Clever men who study very, very hard.”

Sciona remembered the shock as she absorbed this revelation: mages were just men . . . men who had been boys once. She remembered thinking that she was cleverer than any boy in her primary school. She studied harder than any of them. So, why not her?

Why not her?

Blood Over Bright Haven is due for release 29th October – you can pre-order your copy on Bookshop.org