“Your hunt…” You slowly stand. “And where will we humans stand in regards to that hunt?”

  Wotri’s eyes narrow, and he sniffs at the smoke still rising above the damaged city. Even now, the burning of debris and pyres for corpses continues.

  “There are those among us dragon-sired that seek war. I am not among them, little Soulkeeper.” He nudges you with his nose. “I would have us be friends, if you accept us.”

  There are political implications to consider, proper channels and authorities to manage such agreements, as well as the risks of acknowledging yet another king among these non-human factions. You don’t care about any of that.

  “Of course I accept,” you say, and throw your arms around the wolf’s neck. After a momentary tenseness, Wotri relaxes, and he brushes his head against you as you hold onto his fur, smelling the scent of fallen leaves and rushing springs upon him.

  You remember the demand of the dragon come to you in your dreams, and you give him the answer you were unable to give before the dream collapsed.

  “Peace,” you say. “When given the choice, I will choose peace, and may all the world accept it.”

  Wotri’s lips peel back, his nose scrunching in what you understand to be his equivalent of a smile.

  “Then consider us your allies, friend Soulkeeper, now and forever.”

  Despite his crown, despite his regal nature, you sink deeper into his fur, holding him as you would a companion. A friend.

  “Thank you,” you whisper.

  The future is still troubled, and you fear the repercussions to come of the arrival of the dragon-sired…but Wotri has given you exactly what you needed this cold morning.

  He has given you hope.

  “Thank you.”

  A Note from the Author:

  So this was a strange little experiment, wasn’t it?

  Some of you may have played it, many not, but years ago I worked with Delight Games to create a sort of choose your own adventure of my already existing Paladins books to release on mobile platforms. And it did really well! But the thing about that game was how it was taking existing books, never written with choices in mind, and trying to add choices and outcomes to it. People liked it, but it did a lot of things weird for the specific genre. It was in third person, not second, it was in past tense, not present, and it contained multiple POVs instead of one main narrative.

  Now given you just read a book in second person present tense, you can probably figure out what this started as. When deciding what to write, there was never much question. When I wrote my Keepers Trilogy, there were aspects I had plans to touch on at some point that I just never found a way to fit into the narrative (the origin of the flamestone being one such example). And so in my spare time, I cranked out an occasional chapter, returning to this world I first visited with Soulkeeper.

  Coming home felt fantastic, honestly. The Keepers Trilogy has some of the weirdest, most enjoyable world building I’ve ever done. Getting used to second-person present tense? Way harder, but it was fun to embrace that challenge.

  Now the second most obvious thing should be is that you just read a book and didn’t play a game. Well…yeah. To keep things very short, plans fell through on creating my own standalone app, and the program I created my working demo of was not capable of handling some basic aspects it needed to handle if the app was to release for free (which was always the plan). So here I was, after about a year, with this entertaining novel revisiting one of my favorite worlds, sitting there on my hard drive. And it was killing me. There are parts of this story I absolutely adore, and Wotri in particular is one of my favorite characters I’ve ever written. The idea that no one would ever meet the King of Fur and Fanged? No, that can’t be.

  And so here we are. I went through the choices creating was is effectively a ‘canon’ storyline, named the main character, and created this novel. Was the experiment a success? Well. Only you can be the judge of that, but I pray you had fun.

  Though I will never say never, I do not expect there to be more of Robin, at least for the immediate future given the six(!) novels I currently have contracted out with Orbit Books. If you enjoyed this world, and a lot of the elements and mystery within, I highly recommend you check out the Keepers Trilogy, starting with Soulkeeper. A lot of characters within Night of Wings And Smoke were brought directly from there, either as cameos like with Devin, Tommy, and Puffy, or for more direct involvement such as with Soulkeeper Lyssa. So if you want to know more about the Dragons of Creation, King Cannac, or what’s going on with the Three Sisters, that is where your answers await you.

  As always, thank you, dear reader, for coming with me on another journey. You have given me your trust to tell you a tale, and hopefully I rewarded your time well with one you will remember.

  David Dalglish

  May 24th, 2024

 

 

  David Dalglish, Night of Wings and Smoke

 

 

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