Scenery tour of Alaire's journey

There are three primary locations we visit in the upcoming third book, Thicker Than Blood. Two of these locations have already previously been visited in the other books, but I am excited to announce there is one realm that will be entirely new to both Alaire and his companions, as well as you, the reader. So join me as I take you on a quick tour of what we can expect to see...

Welcome back to Transylvania. Dark magicians haven spent years hiding away from a society that hates them, and it appears that is not bound to change any time soon. With the Prince still in reign he continues to order the exstinction of the Dark magicians, and a job well done pays handsomely. This is the same Transylvania you might recall from the previous books, Cursed With Power and Shadows and Embers. For Leal and Alaire they've lived a majority of their life in one of the biggest towns, Neutadt.

One of the main reasons I chose Transylvania a long time ago as the main location throughout this series is because it was a small and seemingly un-extraordinary country back in the late 1500s. I loved being able to bring my characters to life in a realistic fictional world that people could relate to. It also helped with humanizing the magicians so that you could feel more for them. So far my favorite town within Transylvania to write about has been Neutadt. It is such a large town, and since both Alaire and Leal have lived there for about twenty-some (less for Leal) years there is a lot to work with. This is the town Destin developed and grew into a huge organization.
The map pictured above is actually one I own a physical copy of (from the Library of Congress) that helped with the town names within Transylvania. As you can see, it's an extremely old map and unfortunately can be difficult to read.

However, the human world is not the only place where magicians go to hide. This leads us to Belsgar, the magical realm created by the first White magician, Arnulf. Arnulf created this realm centuries ago to ensure that future magicians would have a safe haven. Even so, in his time he also faced a dilemma with the Dark magicians, and therefore the realm was only mean for men and women with White magic. Belsgar is the largest realm with a vast variety and number of magicians and is also where the Council resides. 

Belsgar has been exciting to write about because it is entirely fictional. Anything can happen, and it feels magical when it is both mysterious and open-ended. I imagined a place where hundreds of magicians could gather together, camp out, and this was the world I ended up creating. Sometimes it surprises me with what it has to offer.

Now we come to the last destination on the tour: Wyndor. Wyndor was first created long ago to ensure the safety of foreseers and since then is where the majority of them reside. This new realm is different from any others we've seen before, and it appears the foreseers are cut off from all contact with the "outside" world. What could this place possibly offer for our magicians?

While Wyndor was a new place in this book, it was also new to me and required more work. Once again, though, this is another realm that allows me to be as creative as I like. I really enjoyed working on the backstory of why Wyndor existed and how the foreseers had changed over the years. I'm eager to hear what people think about this new realm, and if they prefer it more or less than Belsgar. There's a realm for foreseers and magicians... What will I think of next?

That concludes all the time I have tonight, but I hope you enjoyed the brief tour. If you're more interested in the places our heroes will be traveling, remember you can read all about it in the books. There's more coming up next, so please stop by when you are able to.
Lindsey R. Sablowski