Come away with the perpetual wanderer on a journey through ice!
In defiance of her mother, Tierney runs away from the Keep. For the first time, she strikes out on a journey for self-fulfillment alone. Or else she will become a victim to her mother's machinations.
A scheme to open the borders of their isolated land is the catalyst to her meeting an exile. One who is an anathema to every rule sheâs been taught and sets her on a course no one foresees.
The pampered princess of the land has not had enough experience to know how to handle a foreigner who has already snaked across their border. He comes crashing into her life and deceives her in everything he does. On a harrowing trip across the lands, she picks up hangers-on and endures conflicts and other lands with agendas that can kill them, which forces her to rely on him against her better judgmentâall while in a body advancing with powers that she has no control over, her familyâs secrets unraveling and everything sheâs ever known changing. Tierney latches on to the foreigner as the fate of her land is thrown into her hands.
Come away with the perpetual wanderer on a journey through ice!
In defiance of her mother, Tierney runs away from the Keep. For the first time, she strikes out on a journey for self-fulfillment alone. Or else she will become a victim to her mother's machinations.
A scheme to open the borders of their isolated land is the catalyst to her meeting an exile. One who is an anathema to every rule sheâs been taught and sets her on a course no one foresees.
The pampered princess of the land has not had enough experience to know how to handle a foreigner who has already snaked across their border. He comes crashing into her life and deceives her in everything he does. On a harrowing trip across the lands, she picks up hangers-on and endures conflicts and other lands with agendas that can kill them, which forces her to rely on him against her better judgmentâall while in a body advancing with powers that she has no control over, her familyâs secrets unraveling and everything sheâs ever known changing. Tierney latches on to the foreigner as the fate of her land is thrown into her hands.
âStar up high, oh so grand
open the sky, and implant the land
Blazing to ground seeds SoonahyinâŚâÂ
The rhyme, a sweet rhyme sang in youth at a fatherâs knee, wheezed in the ears now. Croaks didnât harmonize too well with a babeâs melody. Tierney or Tierahna (well Tierney to anyone with the good sense to call her what she preferred) was having a crap of a time catching her breath as her feet sank and crunched snow deep enough that her knees broke the powder too. The crunching added beats. Rhythm to her song. Her most favored. At least I have that, she quirked and kept croakiâŚsinging. She was determined about it, after all. The distraction welcome like you wouldnât believe in the mission sheâd gotten herself into. This march in a near blizzard with nary an idea on whether what was trying to be gained was even plausible.
There was punishment for such audacity as there always was for such things; snow loosening into the tops of oneâs bootsâŚand collecting there, of course. It would never just warm and melt away. That would mean some good fortune was actually coming my way. Chuckles had her breaths rasping her throat for her efforts, and she ended up strangling on the next gulps of air.Â
Essentially, snow covered everything here, everywhere one thought to look here. Common in every corner of the land, it perpetuated cold as what will be. Uniquely, the snow had a sheen to it. As it fell and so only retained a defined amount of contact with the land, melting over time, it had a peculiarity as simply to glow. The snow held fast to the sunâs light and repeated it back. Then off a ways, the flakes of ice looked to be lit like a heat source and could guide a body in the moonlight. âI am grateful for all things favorable!â she shouted to the extent her lungs would let her, as exposed as she was to the elements this night in Telluricâs cycle. Any sign of efflorescence: greenery blooming in the prairies, meadows flowering with plants, the trees springing their foliage was celebrated in the acknowledgment of subsistence. With the season of new life came the dance of belief in renewal after the cold hadnât ended them.
Given another chanceâwhich wasnât likely, what other chance was there with everyone else wielding power over her?âTierney would endure every bit of this seasonâs usual state of being again. This slog through the snow, and pretty much everything that led up to it was worth it to be right here in this moment. To get here and take up this mission to activate her life was the whole point in the first place, right?Â
âBakârah!â As ever a devoted companion as could be, prowled as usual at her flank, panting, the poor fellow. âHaving a hard time catching your breath too, huh? You can calm it a bit now. Weâre here!â He had to be happy at the sight of their refuge. Finally appearing behind snow-draped hills, Outliersâ domed wings sprawled in a flat a ways beyond them. The lodge announced itself as a beacon of sanctuary amidst the barrens of snow. âHmmâŚâ A little of the fight went out of her with the scene of light proudly brandished around like a babe just born, and the boast of the crowd to contend with too. After nearly more than two days alone? And the impetus that pushed so hard to make this trip not the urge itâd felt like when theyâd started? Yeah, I think itâd be best that we pass on the social.
âThis is it, by the way. My break for any possibility of a life I would want.â If I canât get it started, who knows how long it is before Mother commits me to that frozen tundra sanctum against my will. I must move fast too. So that I can counteract her before she knows what Iâm doing.Â
âI am not unstable!â she shouted to the winds again as if they should have heard what waited right below her breast. The refrain that hummed in the gut and chipped away at any so-called self-assurance that had been the other catalyst to kick-start this journey. The winds did answer in return, rushing flecks of ice over her face. Except, the act of talking to the winds itself highlighted something of a contradiction in the words. A whisper on the air, âHold up there on claiming sanity. None of us are owners of it all the time.â
She bore on. Coldness escaped down her legs, a freezing trail of muck too. Regardless of the slush freezing her toes, slackening her pace, emptying her wolvien-animal-fur boots of nastiness would set her back. So what, if the muck threatened the shukka-warming mechanism inside the boots. A person whoâd lived as she did forfeited the luxury of entertaining the cold. For what had gotten her here anyway? Biding her time. Tierneyâs truest way of being. Her whole youth had been worn away within her spans of the planet, Telluricâs laps around the sun.Â
Their land Soonayah rested atop the world wiling the time in an existence beyond the lands who had more heat and more fair days than they. All twenty-four spans of her life, sheâd spent in deference to the queen in the frozen Soonayah. âYes of course, Iâll do it. Anything you sayââa going refrain everyday of her life. And at high time, forced to the point that she thought she had no choice, now she verged on breaching the queenâs rules that had bound her forever. Or losing herself to her domination.Â
Either option would end with a person choosing the catalyst that would determine the rest of their life. Her choosing, mind you. Itâd still be her who gave away her autonomy. Whether sheâd come here or did nothing sheâd have made a decision. Action or implicitly going along with someone deciding for her. In that case, I had no choice but to go with breaching the queenâs rules.
Frozen fingers and sopping fur are of little account. Mother would say, âItâs a matter of what you want, isnât it?â A bolt across the whole Soonahyin land. Her motherâŚ(the queen), none the wiser. Alone. A good start on rebellion toward living a life in some land far away from Soonayah. She would see a different place other than their frozen oasis even if it killed her.Â
âAll in-kindâplant, animal and man.â She kept forcing her lungs to squeeze the rhyme out as a comfort to herself as she marched. Alright. Just need to get through this one step at a time. Twisting backward to Bakârah enabled her to run eyes over how the snow soaked his coat through. A bit of it got into his nostrils and made him sneeze, so she asked him to distract him a bit from his discomfort, âOutliers has a full house this night, do you see? Needs must, I hope they have room for us this night.âÂ
The lodge sprawled with its lights fanned out over the domed structures and the surrounding area. Each annex attached stretched farther than the next while shapes of people, society unfortunately, danced in and out of sight of its windows. A signal to strangers who traveled through the night that emblazoned, âWelcome.â
Honestly, the people who had sought refuge here couldnât be blamed for crowding the place. They werenât betting their lives on this venture like she was. The paralyzing blizzard must have driven them to seek warmth. Even the locals would be inside. Iâm the only one foolish enough to volunteer for this drudgery. No one would have prepared for conditions this harsh this far west either. Near the boundary lines of Soonayah snow rarely fell heavy. Self-directed road clearers wouldnât have deployed to this sect yet.
Tension eased from Tierneyâs thighs as she struggled mightily to calm the contrary reactionâher bodyâs default to the weatherâhacks wheezing her throat posing as breaths. Forever grateful that at least the height of the blizzardâs destruction had passed before sheâd needed to trudge on foot. Okay, you did it. Breathe. Everything is right in front of you now.Â
Mustâve been Outliersâ attendants whoâd dug out its courtyard to the thoroughfare running perpendicular. Crude, yet effective. Skies loomedâheavy, dank, clear, no transport traveling in any direction. Those were a few of the only things to be grateful for in the moment. The main one being these same conditions sheâd met since sheâd had to leave her snowcraft covered in sparse woods off the side of the road seventeen or so parses back. For all the good itâd served, at least the blizzard had calmed. âWho could have guessed the snowcraft was a useless mechanical bust?â
 Meant just for one, the transport had been a tight fit, but itâd suited the circumstances fine. The only care was that it had speed and mobility to cut across great distances as fast as it could. She and Bakârah had been warm and dry. Then the stupid thing had quit on her. Her toes screamed at her abuse now. Having ice-blocks for feet was a joke to Tierney. Pampering accustoms the princess of the land. She snickered at the predicament sheâd pretty much brought on herself. Singing had been the support to keep going. Bobbing to the cadence, then trudging, bobbingâsheâd rest for a few momentsâthen trudging, bobbing and trudgâŚÂ
âUgh!â White Moonâs setting in the sky wanes five finger-spans before the horizon. âIâm stupid late!â So late, her contact at Outliers border lodge might not await her arrival. I canât afford to miss him with Motherâs silent threat of committing me waiting for me when I get back home. He must be here.
A few more paces tromping ice and the urge to her heart threatened to burst. Flurries showered from the wolvien pelt covering her head when she glanced back at Bakâthat, who took the position since the cliffâthrough whose bank she trekked snow up to her kneesâgave cover on one side. He traveled, his scrutiny sweeping the land back and forth, on the other. No matter the snow and the cold, sheâd miss her homeland once she discovered a way out of it. Itâs nurturing from the soil enhanced a body to carry on in this blizzard. Soonayahâs inclusive culture conditioned its people for this very subsistence. Rituals and history were passed down from one homestead to another, rondavel to rondavel, from each ancestral clan to its descendants, to survival in this moment. Ultimately, to her ploughing onward with her precious song. âStar so rich empowers everything,â she managed one last line before a sigh escaped, stinging her chest and frosting the air. âBakârah!â The wolf, his white fur was easily lost at times during their lumbering with wind swooping flakes into their eyes. He clipped forward to come even with her.
Anyone who glanced in their direction would see her as a shadow alongside the cliff. Bakârah couldnât be differentiated from the snow. They could study the building at leisure.
Tierney crouched and pushed her hand brusquely through Bakârahâs fur out of habit. Why the urge for a connection to his soul-energy? She didnât know, but laid her fingers as close to his heart as she could get. Not that she had to slouch far. Her precious wolfâs torso brushed her waist when she stood tall. He was a big one, even for his kindâas the whole Soonahyin land shaped its inhabitants and every little thing it touched, breaking down their make-ups to a level of transmutation in their cells. Enhancements that remodeled the building blocks of a being like Bakârah. It endowed birds with feathers plumped with hot air to withstand the snowy weather too. Rendered steeds with hooves of such force they were known to crack the heads of snowcats like nuts.Â
People were not excluded from these adaptations either. We being creatures of this land as well, how could we escape it? The peopleâs evolution enhanced them with what was known as gifts. Abilities in Soonayahâs populace more pronounced than all the other lands, which garnered covetous yearnings from said lands on occasion.
Tierney extended her other arm to encompass the yawn of snow leading from Outliers. âBakârah, see!â she commanded Bakârahâs use of one of his enhancements right then. Through the insulation in her mink glove, the wolfâs soul-energy kicked up. He loped a couple of paces away. âItâs okay, my boy. I understand.â His kinship with her was such that, she waited with baited breath for him to answer her back one day. It could happen. She believed it so. Point of fact, he shook his head and scanned the horizon in perfect line of sight of Outliers, right then.
Bakârahâs coat flashed as bright as the sun. Blinding! Cringing and squinting, Tierney braced herself. She couldnât see his eyes, but the orbs should now flame a golden incandescence. He was using his oculusion to see beyond what the normal eye could. She could see what he saw if she touched him, but heâd moved away.
âItâs fine, Bakârah. I know better than to siphon off the soul-energy you reserved through our long trek.â Heâd need his soul-energy, the life-sustaining power within every being, and would use it to stay on guard. They were approaching an unknown situation. When Bakârah stopped scanning, he didnât growl a warning, but looked at her, then proceeded to walk the flat toward Outliers.
No approaching threats. Perfect. Most appreciations.
She breathed and followed. My dutiful boy. Youâre always conforming yourself to just what I need. Stomping snow from her boots once on the lodgeâs stoop was a guise as she skimmed the perimeter. âWhat should we expect upon entering Outliers I wonder, my boy?â In her sub-conscious, her precious rhyme still dragged on. At the end of each stanza, she stretched out the words over and over againâŚ.dragging it out. Come on, no putting it off any longer. You can do this. Just get it started. This is what youâve always wanted, remember?Â
Although, being exposed to the cold for so long racked a body down to the sinews, numbing the bonesâthe true tremors, the panic came from within. Wasnât that the reason the decision to begin this was made in the first place? How long was a person to wait before they developed some gumption? Forever, if she hadnât known about her motherâs threat. So in a way, she had her mother to blame for this journey. Though Mother would be clueless that she was the cause.Â
âWonder who is inside on this brutal night?â A question to a pup who if looked uponâby anyone other than family and those who knew of their inseparabilityâwould not be mistakened as anyoneâs idea of a wolf in pup stage.
His flinging excess snow off was in accordance with her own intentions. She gave no thought to going in without him. Anywhere she chose he went as well and would shepherd her closely when they entered. Their connection wasnât symbiotic, but his heart beat in tune to hers and its peculiarities. This night his vigilance would be sharp. Tierneyâs pulse raced a tattoo on every footstep. If this meeting went as planned, this could set into motion leaving home forever. Bakârah had every right to be on edge, because goodness knew she was too. âWe did it, my boy. We made it here. A first real venture totally independent.âÂ
âCome now, its up to us to set its path.â With that in mind, there was only one direction for them now. Forward. And the act of rebellion, the running away from everything comfortable required her attention like nothing ever before. She scoured the courtyard. Snowcrafts overfill the place. Smaller crafts were the closest at the entrance. However, it was those on the outer edges that gave her pause. Luxury varieties with sleeping quarters for large parties. Some had similar symbolage on their sides, indicating they were a part of caravans, although, none bore the discreet but recognizable emblem like the one sheâd hidden in the woods. Good. No one from the royal house holds up in Outliers. There would be time enough to tell what she was doing out here without someone from the royal house doing the telling for her.
âBakârah!â Tierney snatched at the wolfâs coat and missed him. With his jaws snapping, heâd ripped around her. âBakârah! Come back! What do you see, youâŚwolf?â The last thing she had time for was to be lead further from her mission by a frippery that could pull a dogâs attention astray. She sprinted to catch up to him. âWhat is that?â Something sinister-looking shifted and spooked her a once steady progress. A shadow weaved in and out of the trees, though it only added to the clouds eclipsing the sky and the gloom that already hung on that side of Outliersâ property. Woods abutted the boundary on a slope. And rolling dips and rises angled the treeline like monuments alongside each other at the woodsâ divide. They competed as they blocked out the sky.
There was nothing for it. Lumbering a few more steps, she forged on after Bakârah all the way to the edge of the courtyard. If there was anything dire he could see better than she, he might need her help. And heâd get it. Already tired, her breathing hitching andâŚÂ
âOh.â There she froze. I see. Not a dogâs frippery at all. Every bit of wind inside her lungs whooshed out.
Bakârahâs growls were echoing a menace heâd spotted. A shag of matted hair and filth and viciousness in wolf form couldnât disguise a frame as emaciated as it was. Even still, the trees had hidden the scourge in a black well enough. No wonder Bakârahâs oculusion hadnât detected him sooner. The ferber treesâ effect on the mind was suspected to be just as much of a menace as a rabid wolf.
Tierney searched over her shoulder forâŚanybody, anything, a vagrantâs presence would do if he could help them. âWe are way too far out here.â
 Nobody was coming to their rescue. Several figures cresting the rise, trailing the exact path from where theyâd just come were too far away, even though theyâd started to run toward her, some of them speeding. She frowned because she hadnât noticed that people traveled the path right behind them. I guess I must have missed them with the snow falling the way that it is. In any case, that was neither here nor there given the terror in front of them now.Â
A shift got the frothing wolf back in her sights. âThis freak of an animal may well get to us before we get inside.â Those people would never make it to them in time.Â
The black wolf was stalking them. Slathering. Snapping. Tierney edged back and latched onto Bakârah, who was in a frenzy in response. âCome on, sweet pup. Shh.â Could she initiate a move fast enough to speed them back to the stoop? Her soul-energy triggered and heat ignited in her gut. âCome on.â Again she eased back, only to hit a loose tread and stagger, a tuft of uneven ground rolling under her foot.
And oh indeed, the wolf attacked!
Bakârah reared to clash with the snarling blur of black, but Tierney lurched in front of him. âNo Bakârah! He may be rabid!â Before the beasts collided, she snatched the strange wolf by his throat. For a body of bone such as he was, he was as tall as Bakârah. Subduing him was like trying to hold back his snapping jaws within a hurricane. This wolf could kill me and no one may ever know why I was here. So much for planning, Tierney. Her contact would never reveal her reasons if she hadnât had the chance to tell him to. Bakârah, fervid in his efforts to protect her, savaged the beastâs thrashing leg. I have no choice, if he kills me he will have a clear path to Bakârah. I mustâŚ
A flare of her soul-energy pulsed right from her hand. A tug from deep inside the heart of her pulled the energy up in a teal plume with alabaster tendrils and edgesâŚand exhaustion, really. An eve of snow-walking and a day and half of traveling would do that to a body. Enough energy was barely there to fight the wolf and catch him in his neck as they struggled. The menaceâŚthe terror in black shrieked in pain. Fur where sheâd struck the pulse into him withered to a sickening grey.
His howl were so haunting, she shivered even though she was the one to cause them in him. They reached them from the woods that had enveloped him as he scrambled away. âWretched dog. I had no choice.â
Starfall is a book that will appeal to a specific type of reader; huge effort was devoted to developing the world in which the story takes place, both in the environment, the technological setting, and how the characters interact with these, the various subspecies, and the cultures of the various nations. The Soonayhin culture and species gets the majority of the attention and is probably my favorite element of the book, their connection to heat and how it influences every element for their culture and significant sections of the narrative/characters. The downside to this focus is that it necessitates a lot of description, which in turn slows the pacing significantly.
The pacing is probably Starfalls greatest flaw for me. The opening third or fourth in particular is a bit of a slog because it is narratively light on meaningful conflict (in a narrative sense rather than simple 'action scenes' which are present) before we reach the first intense narrative scene. The remaining seventy percent of the book improves on it but shares the same issue of a stretch of light-narrative mixed with intense description and a bit of story set up before the primary narrative conflict occurs. When the scenes of high narrative do occur, they are excellent though; the first in particular. Another element that cause the opening of the book to drag is the style of prose; the prose is strong, with excellent vocabulary, but the style takes some acclimation. It's hard to explain exactly how it differs, but an example is that the author will sometimes use a character reaction to indicate an event of some kind occurred and skip the process of describing the event. There's other elements to the prose as well, like the syntax being just a bit unusual, that combine to make the opening chapters noticeably slower.
The characters vary from good to excellent, with the queen, Terney (our MC), and her uncle being the standouts for their emotional and motivational complexity; they're all flawed, wonderfully human, likable, and possessed of agency. The secondary characters are good as well, but less time is devoted to them and the inner workings of their personalities and motivations so there's just less of them present. (Mlai being an exception and almost as good as the three mentioned above.) The weakest element of the characters is the romance; not a whole lot of time is devoted to building it besides more or less immediate attraction and one scene of heroics. It's not that Torhvald and Terney lack chemistry, its more that they have few meaningful interactions outside of scenes of sexual attraction or one of them being in danger. It also suffers from Torhvald lacking attention put into him; he lacks personal motivation over the course of the narrative, a drive or goal to help define him, and lacks things to like or be interested in (which are present in most every other character) and as such is reduced to the outsider awed by Soonayahin/Terney's romance for most of the narrative.