Einas ein Iteme, youngest son of the Iteme monarchy, only thought to announce to the world his true identity—that he isn’t a princess. When his declaration results in his father’s murder and a civil war fought between his necromancer mother and his elder brother Paide, the city-state of Ihrne edges further towards chaos. Peace between his surviving relatives, restitution paid to neighbouring Arsh and the support of the Convocation should go some way to restoring equilibrium. It doesn’t reckon on the politics of the court and the civilians of Ihrne when it comes to accepting an undead regent, an autistic heir and a foreign general. When the bones of civil war have been too-soon laid to rest and words go unheard, how does one survive the world for long enough to change it?
The Eagle Court is a series of introspective stories about marginalised characters trying to survive their own struggles and take on the hell of politics.
Patrons can also enjoy the subscriber-exclusive prequel series, Different in Other Ways.
One: Their Courts of Crows
The best he can find is ugly compromise.
Prince Paide ein Iteme has lost his father, his family, his people and his home to a conquering necromancer queen and her armies of the risen dead. A last horrific battle sees him forced to discuss surrender, but that conversation is no small amount complicated when said conquering necromancer is his mother. Who might not have been entirely wrong in her overthrow of Paide’s father…
Contains: A cis, pansexual, allistic prince fighting a war on which there’s no right side; a cis necromancer queen summoning the dead for her trans son; and a surrender that doesn’t exactly have a happy ending.
Two: A Prince of the Dead
Too alive to die and too dead to live.
Bones interred under the palace, gold given to field-ravaged farmers and Parliament dallying over amendments: war is ended for Prince-Regent Paide ein Iteme. Or so it should be, but returning home to Ihrne in a broken body ensorcelled by a necromancer leaves Paide struggling with politicians who ignore him and servants who condescend to him. What good is a title and purpose when his words and desires have become meaningless to those around him?
Surviving the dismissal of the Eagle Court is harder than facing an army of shambling corpses. How does a dead soldier fight it when he no longer wishes to live?
Contains: A cis, allistic, pansexual, aromantic prince occupying an unnatural position between life and death; an allistic, trans general doing her best to offer solutions and friendship; and a goodly amount of the ableism one faces as a disabled man in an ableist court.
Three: The King of Gears and Bone
In a nation of liars, an honest man cannot rule.
Einas ein Iteme knew he wasn’t a princess. That first truth provoked violence, murder and war, leaving him the heir to the throne of Ihrne—a throne he doesn’t want and can’t hold. How can he when he struggles to put words together, won’t look courtiers in the eye and avoids people on general principle? Yet the Eyrie, even Zaishne, simply assumes Ein will find a way to become the allistic ruler he can never be.
When his brother Paide invites him to a private discussion, Ein sees a chance to voice the second truth. Paide, though, keeps secrets of his own—and doesn’t seem to recognise the fate bound to him by hundreds of devouring angels.
To begin to save Paide’s soul, Ein will have to learn what the world never stirred itself to teach: trust.
Contains: A genderflux, aro-ace, autistic prince seeking to rule on his own terms; a cis, allistic prince learning to be a regent instead of an heir; an allistic, trans general working to support both brothers; and the challenge of governing a kingdom while trans and disabled.
Four: Like the Other Prince
“Be sensible,” Mama says, “or be dead.”
Harper Mitzin Seili is many things: fashionable, witty, queer. Cautious … not so much. Nonetheless, life as a tavern server on the working side of Ihrne’s dividing wall demands preparation and limitation. He obeys the rules that matter. He remembers what Mama sacrificed for his chance to live as a man. Besides: the end-of-war Proclamations, issued in the name of Ihrne’s trans crown prince, promise a new, better world. A world in which safety doesn’t require his rejecting connection, intimacy and that shifting, nebulous thing called “attraction”.
But when the Traditionalists take up violence in protest of noble-issued laws, Harper’s risky ventures and glib tongue don’t just fail to steer him out of trouble: they destroy the life he and Mama spent two years building. He can stay and suffer at the hands of his neighbours … or begin anew in another place, under another name. A place where he must now submit to every restriction Mama, in her fears for him, deems “safe” and “sensible”.
A third way exists for Harper, if only he dares break Mama’s foremost rule … and several of his own.
Contains: An abrosexual, abroromantic trans man who can’t bring himself to perform restrictive masculinity but clings to the illusion of fine amid deepest hell; a gay, quoiromantic cis man struggling to help a liar he loves in a not-a-crush way; and a world in which cishets’ violence and hatred twist even queer affection into a weapon harming their own.
Aro Worlds 