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#WIPSnips The word for September 28 is PRIME In NOMARA "prime" is used for several things: real estate, excitement, and, as in this snip, top notch. As she becomes more deeply enmeshed with nomari and humans, Kate has become increasingly valuable... and dangerous. #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #SFF

Text excerpt from NOMARA, a science fiction WIP by L.L. Stephens. Snip shows Kate with the native human Troya, with whom she has a prickly relationship:

Twice, as Kate hid among the reeds, she detected the stirring of predators, creatures that burrowed in the soft earth of riverbanks and emerged at night to feast on the mud wasps and rush beetles that nested near the water. Enormous hunting spiders also prowled the dense vegetation, intent on surprising unwary food. Although no higher than her knee, the creatures were venomous and Kate kept a wary watch, having heard that spiders sometimes took human prey. “Small children,” Troya said matter-of-factly. “We, of course, would have to be bitten several times to succumb to their webbing.”
Spiders, fortunately, were solitary hunters unlikely to attack large prey.
“Wouldn’t it be safer to camp for the night?” Kate asked. They had passed several camps of refugees where groups had banded together in the darkness. She had watched their fires blinking from the road, promising warmth and the prospect of sleep.
Moonlight played upon Troya’s dark hair so that it looked like links of silver. “No. The more distance we put between ourselves and the nom, the safer we will be. You and I would make prime captives, and Yuvan could face worse.” She glanced at Kate solemnly. “I fear for you most of all. Yuvan and I at least have the protection of our kumbh; there are queens who would be loath to transgress upon that kinship. In such uncertain times as these, queens court the kumbhs. But none will court the Terrans. I am glad you have your weapon.”

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#Septopolis 28: Relationships with neighboring settlements Eshuun is an important center of nomari power and has established relationships with other noms. Most of these relationships are territorial, centered on securing resources. Wars may occur. These happen for various reasons.

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#FantasyIndiesSeptember 28: My thoughts on DNFing books I once wanted to DNF a Hemingway book and forced myself to finish (for a class). Very much the opposite of reading for pleasure. If a book becomes a chore, put it aside. Pick up and read a book that makes you happy.

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#Septopolis 27: Law enforcement In Eshuun, nomari order rules. Order... not law. The only law is that the strongest Queen rules. She decides what is good for the nom. Warriors serve as a defense force but can be used to police the Queen's will. They will seize enemies or harmful individuals.

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#Septopolis 26: Government structure I'm a day behind but this is an important aspect of Eshuun and the nomari. Each nom has but one Queen. The Queen is not elected or chosen. She chooses herself. When the ruling Queen dies or is killed by a rival, the queen with the most dominant pheromones wins.

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#WIPSnips The word for September 27 is DELAY In this flashback from NOMARA, Oandah capitalizes on the Terrans delaying Arasend, Eshuun's Queen. Oandah preys on Arasend's dominance chips, in this case Kharys. Arasend has also delayed: she hasn't yet possessed him. #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #SFF

Text excerpt from NOMARA, a science fiction WIP by L.L. Stephens. Snip shows Oandah in a flashback, making her move against Arasend by poaching Arasend's chosen human consort, Kharys, who Arasend has waited long to possess.

“Kharys, no,” she said.
He tried to pull away, but there was something in Oandah’s touch, a thrilling, velvet urgency, that commanded him. His whole body trembled in her grasp, though it was only his arm she held captive.
“What, silence?” she said, stroking his arm, the pearl-pale skin beneath her hand, the pulsing rose warmth within. “Has she taught you nothing, not even speech?”
Abruptly, fear set his tongue free. “Do not hold me. She will come—” He spoke the pronoun in the superlative, the only form in which he had ever heard it.
“Not soon.” Oandah’s queenly voice, soft like the twilight that had fallen upon the garden, promised something other than darkness. “And maybe late. This night the Terrans delay Her. The Terrans, and other things. After tonight it will not matter if I come into your garden.”

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L.L. Stephens @triempery.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

#FantasyIndiesSeptember 27: What research do you do for your writing? Depends on the books. For the Triempery books I researched philosophy, physics, bitheism, river floods, and psychopathy. For the Ibis books I researched biology, genetics, hive minds and invertebrates.

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#WIPSnips The word for September 26 is OBSERVE In NOMARA Terran pilot Kate is abducted by Oandah, a nomari queen, who is fleeing to the planet they're orbiting. At this point, both MCs are observing each other. #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #SFF

Text excerpt from NOMARA, a science fiction WIP by L.L. Stephens. Snip shows one of Kate and Oandah's earliest encounters.

Oandah again took Kate’s elbow and guided her to the cockpit. Once inside, Oandah pointed to the pilot’s chair. Kate took the seat and simply sat there, calculating her options while listening to the two neuters moving around, one behind her, the other in the transport’s rear compartments. Oandah leaned with deceptive casualness against the curved edge of the console, the cloak she had affected on ship hanging open, the hood flung defiantly back. Her hair hung down past her shoulders in a disordered, golden cascade. The metallic sheen in the Ibisian’s eyes held an amused, and icy, determination.
“You were so easily misled, so easily captured,” Oandah observed. “You lack enemies. Therefore, you are careless. Did the Terrans truly think I would simply follow orders?”
“Why would we think that?” Kate measured Oandah’s alien stare for signs of weakness. “After all, this is your home world. You were only too willing to let us provide you with a free ride halfway across the galaxy to get here.”
“Word games. And the ride was unpleasant.”

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L.L. Stephens @triempery.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

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L.L. Stephens @triempery.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

#FantasyIndiesSeptember 26: Saturday Snippet The Triempery series can be read as one character's journey into, and being shaped by, the power he can summon. If he wants and also if he really should.

Left side of image is a prompt meme with a month's worth of daily writing prompts for authors of fantasy fiction.

Right side of image is a text excerpt from THE KHELD KING, second book of the Triempery Revelations series by L.L. Stephens. Snip has Dorilian testing his newly mastered power.

Raising the hand armed with the Rill Stone’s verdant gleam, Dorilian cast a blade of power at the gallery ceiling. Blue energy slashed across the space between, struck the vault and webbed its surface. The heavy stone creaked, then cracked and caved with a roar of dust and ruin. His companions dragged him into the safety of the arched doorway as chunks of plaster and stone rained down.
“Gsch!” Legon gaped.
“Now that wasn’t necessary,” Tiflan chided. “You had proven your point.”
“Not to anyone that matters.”
Tutto jutted his chin at Tiflan. “See what I mean? He’s intuitive. The powerful ones often are. It’s what kills them in the end. Remember Delos? What he was like after he broke the Aqueduct? Sebbord worried the same might happen to this one.”
“I am standing right here.” Dorilian frowned through the dust-filled air.

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Victoria Strauss @victoriastrauss.com · 25/09/2026

New #WriterBeware blog post: If you're a writer, you've probably gotten one (or more) of those AI-generated scam marketing emails or book club invites that make it seem like the sender really read your book. Here's a little peek at how it's done. writerbeware.blog/2026/09/25/h...

writerbeware.blog

How Those Personalized Generative AI Scam Emails Are Built - Writer Beware

One of the things I often hear from writers whose inboxes are crammed with incredibly personalized marketing or book club or editor impersonation emails–you know, the ones that make it seem the sender...

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#WIPSnips The word for September 25th is NATION The nomari don't refer to their lands as nations but they do use the word "domain." This word works with the nomari mindset of "land over which a nom has dominance." In this snip, Kate sees Eshuun for the first time. #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #SFF

Text excerpt from NOMARA, a science fiction WIP by L.L. Stephens. Snip shows Kate, who along with Oandah is being escorted to Eshunn, seeing that nom for the first time:

Two days later they reached Eshuun. Long before twilight on the second day, they stopped on the banks of a great river and went no farther. The warriors staked out ground while workers pitched tents for the night. But Jorii allowed Kate to cross the river and climb the great earthworks on the other side. From the top of an earthen levee constructed to restrain the floods of its lifeblood river, Eshuun could be seen, a rising ziggurat surrounded by other structures less tall. An Ibisian city. In its gargantuan sprawl could be seen the wealth and power of a domain. Kate stared for a long time.
Jorii, who had accompanied her, watched her response. “What is this, sahk’hya,” Jorii asked, “have you never seen a nom before?”
“Not one like that,” Kate answered, and said no more. She could not say that she had seen Eshuun before, on holotube, on a ship that probably still orbited beyond the moons.

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#Septopolis 25: Citizenship and belonging Citizenship is not a nomari concept. The nomari belong to their noms, to their queen/Queen, whether this is by birth or acquisition. Adherence to a queen is a warrior's membership. All workers adhere to the nom as a social structure.

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Indie Book Spotlight @bookspotlight.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

#FantasyIndiesSeptember 25: Free Friday I have self-published ONE book. A novelette, to see if I wanted to self-publish my stories. Self-publishing is a lot of work, so I never did it again. But MOON BLOOD royalties have been trickling in and I think some people are finding it. #WritingCommunity

Left side is the book cover of the novelette MOON BLOOD AND SALT FLOWERS by L.L. Stephens. Cover is moody black and reds showing mountains and the silhouette of an Andean girl.

Right side is text of the first page of MOON BLOOD AND SALT FLOWERS:

1576, Viceroyalty of Peru

The llamas stood in a half circle, their hums ruckling across the morning silence. Amaya had been walking the hills in search of the herd sire and his harem since the first thin light of dawn. Morning now painted the high plain with long, pink fingers while serrated mountains marched in the distance, their snowy crowns aglow.
When she drew near, she saw why the llamas hummed. A party of Spanish soldiers had camped for the night in a hollow where late winter rivulets had pooled. Between dark boulders that glittered with threads of ice, the soldiers had sought relief from cold winds. Their puna grass fire had died and the men, most still wrapped in blankets, sprawled and twitched upon the stony ground in the last throes of dying. Trickles of blood ran from staring eyes while swords and harquebuses lay unused near their hands. Weapons would not have helped them.
Their enemy, luminous ghostly stalks sprouting from the hard earth, had come upon them while they slept and now overarched the prostrate men. Mottled pods, swollen like melons, wove above two of the unfortunates and were in the midst of feeding, tendrils drawing the souls from their mouths and eyes in soft, gauzy tatters. The souls looked like alpaca fleece being pulled apart for spinning. Tiny spangles of light, bright as stars, flashed on that fabric as the bloated flowers drew it into black throats surrounded by translucent white petals.
Moved by instinct that overrode the headman’s warnings about how the Viceroy’s soldiers brought only trouble to their village, Amaya ran to the soldier nearest her and kicked him.
“Wake up!” she shouted. If he woke up, he might escape, because salt flowers moved very sl…

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Oh my gosh!!! I now have the full Triempery Revelations series! 😍🥰🥳 This is one of my FAVOURITE book series right now! Everyone should go pick up Sordaneon! I can’t recommend it enough! If you like Lord of the Rings and Dune, you’ll love this! I am SO EXCITED @triempery.bsky.social 🫶🫶🫶

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L.L. Stephens @triempery.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

#WIPSnips The word for September 24 is MEDDLE I went with "interfere" on this one, though I might edit in a "meddle." Because Kate definitely ends up meddling with nomari-human relations. In this snip, the nomari acknowledge the danger she presents. #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #SFF

Text excerpt from NOMARA, a science fiction WIP by L.L. Stephens. Snip shows Kate and Kharys standing together to face some consequences:

Kate squeezed Kharys’s hand. It was icy cold. He remembered other audiences within this shining hall. His fingers squeezed back, lending tentative strength, holding her back that one moment.
“Play into her dominance,” he whispered. “She will play upon yours.”
But there was no time. Already they were walking, together yet very alone, into the center of that great hall of arching light and darkness, drawing all eyes into the silence they created. Kate tossed back her hood so that Jorii, and all, could see her face. A buzz of comment rose and was quickly silenced by Jorii’s voice.
“These two present themselves to me apart from any kumbh,” the new Queen said. “No kumbh will claim them, for the kumbhs say, rightly, that to do so would interfere in the nom’s business. Look closely, for these two you see before you are products of the nom. We have shaped them as we shape ourselves. And, like all who have served the nom, they can claim the nom’s protection.” Jorii turned to Kate. “Do you wonder, still, what became of Oandah?”

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L.L. Stephens @triempery.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

#FantasyIndiesSeptember 24: Interesting fact(s) from your WIP's world history I mentioned before that NOMARA has a loose tie to the Triempery. The novel's deep roots involve some Aryati spacefarers and the civilization they left behind. First Creation story. Art by @hajima7.bsky.social

Art by Mara. Illustration shows three moons and a honeycomb design in the background of two women. One woman and blonde and distant. The dark-haired woman is defiant and wears a Terran weapon.

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Stephanie Burgis @stephanieburgis.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

#WIPSnips The word for September 23 is TUMBLE Such a fun word! It implies such casual movement. In this snip from NOMARA, Kate takes a "tumble." In fact, she tumbles in more ways than one. #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #SFF

Text excerpt from NOMARA, a science fiction WIP by L.L. Stephens. Snip shows Kate find Kharys in a pool. He says he will teach her to swim, something she as a space faring Terran has never done.

He probably could teach her to swim. From what she’d already seen, Kharys swam as well as a highly trained aquatic specialist and he did so without gear. “Later,” Kate said. “I’m wearing good clothes. I visited the kumbhs today.” She grinned at his look of interest. He didn’t need her to explain about her business with the buckle and the broker. “I have coin now. See?” She pulled out her heavy silk purse and bounced it in her hand. “Tomorrow I will buy Ben a fancy headband.”
Kharys reached forward, congratulations perhaps, or maybe wanting to touch it, but the movement sent a surge of water sloshing over the edge. Feeling wetness, Kate startled. Her new boots! The bounding purse hit the side of her hand, then tumbled toward the water. “Oh damn!” Twisting, she grabbed for it, off-balance, and fell over the edge.
Cold water closed over her head. Not just her foot was wet now. Her clothing billowed and floated and clung. Water entered her mouth and eyes.
Then something strong, an arm, encircled her waist and lifted her to the surface. She was free, her face above water again, gasping and dripping. “Kharys!” she cried, then found him, and threw her arms about him for dear life.

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It's Book Quote Wednesday! This week's word is 'knew,' and with exactly 3 weeks until A Waltz of Sinister Import arrives, here's a snippet from Lady & Lord Riven's first evening in Vienna... Preorder here: books2read.com/waltzSinister #romancelandia #bookqw

As he sank into his seat with rather less than his usual grace, Lord Riven knocked back a hasty sip of his glass of blood—and then winced.
“Not quite so fresh as promised?” Margaret inquired.
Strain tightened his expression as he closed his eyes against her. “It...is as fresh as could be hoped when served in this way. It only suffers by comparison.”
...Comparison to her, he meant. The warmth in Margaret’s stomach gave an answering throb at that, and she ran her tongue over her upper lip. Having published an internationally renowned article on the physical effects of a lover’s vampiric bite, she knew exactly how marvelous that would feel.
Their curtains were so very tightly closed...

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Juliet E McKenna @julietemckenna.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Book Quote Wednesday's word is 'knew' #BookQW #BookSky Dan Mackmain knows the value of doing his homework. But how much reading will be enough to avoid the trap of thinking he knows more than he does? For a wide range of UK and international purchase options - wizardstowerpress.com/books-2/book...

Cover art by Ben Baldwin for The Green Man's Debt by Juliet E McKenna. A grey wolf with pale eyes stands in the shadows of a derelict building with a black and white tiled floor. The wolf is looking straight at you. Its snarl reveals blood on its teeth and jaw.
Book extract reads: Blithehurst House has a fine collection of books on folklore. They range from seventeenth-century antiquarians’ speculations to thick volumes written by earnest Victorians and Edwardians who had enough money and time to search for supposedly lost ancient wisdom hidden in fairy tales. I concentrated on those, rather than reading anything later which started with the assumption that none of the stories could be true. We knew better.
I ignored the frankly bonkers chapters where those books tried to trace every tale and mythical figure back to some grand unified theory of forgotten gods from Mesopotamia whose rites had spread through prehistoric Europe. I was interested in local myths and superstitions which might help me deal with whatever we met in Ireland. Thankfully, the folklorists had written down pretty much everything they were told by ordinary people at their firesides or over a pint of beer in a tavern. Even when I was certain the locals in the countryside had been taking the piss out of the posh and patronising townies.

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Joanne Guidoccio @joanneguidoccio.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

It's Book Quote Wednesday! Today's word: KNOW/KNEW. #Excerpt is from my #cozymystery, A SEASON FOR KILLING BLONDES #bookqw

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It's Book Quote Wednesday and the word is KNOW This is from NOMARA, one of my science fiction novels. Action. Adventure. A loose tie to the Triempery novels. I've been putting snips up on another site but now I have cool art to share! Art by Mara, @hajima7.bsky.social #bookqw #WritingCommunity

Left side of image is an illustration by Mara of two characters from the novel NOMARA. Novel by L.L. Stephens. Illustration shows a proud red clothed nomari queen in the background and a defiant, stubborn dark haired Terran woman in the foreground.

Right side has a text excerpt from NOMARA, a science fiction novel by L.L. Stephens:

“Do you know what you stand upon, Terran?” Oandah asked. As she stepped into the light, her face drew the glow. “Knowledge is gained more often by loss than acquisition. I spent seven years among your kind; I walked a hundred soaring cities and spinning metal wheels, I have seen a hundred suns, some natural, some made by Terrans, all real, and never once did I set foot upon true earth. Just spinning satellites in space, and cities rising from dead stones without air, and big ships such as that one up there, that brought you here.”
Reflexively, Kate looked up. Clouds obscured the stars, cut her off from the familiar sights of space, as if she stood beneath, rather than upon, the surface of the planet. Layers of density, she reminded herself. She stood at the bottom of a gas sea.

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#Septopolis 23: Museums, theaters, etc. The nomari don't showcase performative arts. Singing is performed for occasions, such a victory celebrations, held in the Hall of Ancestresses. Such events are dominance showcases though they also display art. The Queen's collection of artifacts is private.

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L.L. Stephens @triempery.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

#FantasyIndiesSeptember 23: What grammar rules do I struggle with? All of them. None of them. I write the way I want to write and then go back and fix anything editors flag as being off. There's usually not a lot. Must have had good teachers. I don't spend much time thinking about grammar rules.

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#WIPSnips The word for September 22 is MELTDOWN No "meltdowns" in NOMARA, but the word "breakdown" occurs in a similar context, so I used that. The greatest danger the nomari present to humans is when they go to war. When warriors mass... and swarm and kill. #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #SFF

L.L. Stephens @triempery.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

L.L. Stephens @triempery.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

#FantasyIndiesSeptember 22: My autumn TBR I don't really have an autumn TBR. But every autumn/winter I curl on the sofa with coffee or tea and read NIGHT WOMAN by Nancy Price. It's my comfort book. This week I pulled it and another book aside for rereads.

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#WIPSnips The word for September 21 is STREAM There are water streams and liquid streams and air streams. And then there are metaphorical "streams" like the one in this passage where Kate watches the nomari swarm to battle. #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #SFF

Text excerpt from NOMARA, a science fiction WIP by L.L. Stephens. Snip shows a nomari queen going to war.

At Jorii’s signal, Troya dropped the curtain. The sahk’hya and her queen both disappeared behind heavy folds of silvered wormskin. The hundred warriors in the courtyard surged forward, mingling with those at the gate, then forged on, the shadowy palanquin melting back into the night, lost in a sea of movement.
The hillside swarmed. The troops Jorii had kept in reserve, that had massed in the caverns below Belurgad, now poured forth from cave mouths and concealed gates. Minutes later, from the parapets overlooking the valley, Kate shivered, wrapped in Kharys’s robe and arms, and watched with Kurvinda and the gathered people of the Kaldarim as warriors spilled down the hill road toward the fords before bursting across the Hiranya in a black stream that flowed toward Eshuun.

#Septopolis 21: Dominant industries Eshuun is not industrial. It is a resource-based totalitarian system geared toward reproduction and survival. Eshuun's main industry is itself: producing and furthering nomari. It's main service/product is protection. Food. Shelter. Humans, though... 🧵

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Tru Skies @trudieskies.readindiefantasy.com · 20/09/2026

#FantasyIndiesSeptember 21: Power hungry character in WIP In the Triempery series, Dorilian pursues power in the early books. He doesn't yet realize the ramifications. Nammuor seeks power, of course, and of a most deadly kind. And Stefan's hunger for power gets twisted.

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It's your last chance to win a signed paperback and a sticker sheet! 👀

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#WIPSnips The word for September 20 is SIGNAL Nomari communication is often subtle and relies on "signals" of dominance. Kate must learn this system is she is to survive within its rules. Fortunately, Kharys has been an excellent student of all things nomari. #WritingCommunity #WriteSky #SFF

Text excerpt from NOMARA, a science fiction WIP by L.L. Stephens. Snip shows Kate learning some of the ins and outs of nomari dominance signaling from Kharys:

She looked relieved. “What does Oandah’s dominance move mean?”
“To you?”
“Yes. Blow. . . Kate. What does it mean?”
Taking a deep breath, Kharys answered as succinctly he could. “It means that she has set your status in the relationship. She is your superior, and you obey her commands.”
“Is that all?”
“No,” he admitted, “In nomari terms, it also means you can be made to subject yourself to her sexually.” He saw Kath’aren blink at the definition. But he also saw that she understood.
“Dominance is a sexual thing, then? Humiliation?” Kath’aren, too, was being careful with definitions.
“Not always, although it can be. A queen’s dominance move against a man is almost always sexual, but not always humiliating. With women, the signal is almost always political, with the symbolism being humiliating. Sexual subtext governs the entire nomari social dynamic.”
Her smile became openly wondering. “Where did you learn to talk like that?”
Kharys again dropped his gaze and studied the pattern on his robe, shocked that she could be pleased. He could see by Kath’aren’s expression that she had not understood all the words. “I read a great deal and I listen more. At least I used to. Arasend encouraged my education.”
“Blast, I wish I had known her better. So give me the non-sexual translation.”

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#Septopolis 20: Goods and services Eshuun produces protection: warriors by the thousands. While a form of oppression also, these warrior provide an element of security to the humans living near the nom and to all of the queens residing within the nom. Are warriors commodified? To a degree, yes.🧵

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