Even Changelings Get The Blues: Meet Holds-the-Fire and Ember · 6:22am July 29th
(horizon's new novel will launch on August 1. Enjoy these sneak peeks in the meantime!)
In our last sneak peek, our protagonist Chester had stumbled across telepathic werewolves out in the world of Equestria Girls. I promised an explanation, as well as an introduction to the two other characters who drive the story's central arc. But first, let's look at Evelili's gorgeous cover art again:
From left: Holds-the-Fire, Chester, Ember
This is the first time we've seen them (visually), but regular horizon readers should recognize the characters. They are Equestria's best princess, Dragon Lord Ember, and her mirror-world counterpart, last seen in an epic high-stakes duel in Fang and Flame!
Yes, this technically makes the new novel a sequel. If you'd like to warm up for Blues by reading its predecessor, stop here and luxuriate in 14,000 words of high-octane instinct vs. intellect. (It won a contest and has gotten a solid wall of reviewer recommendations, so it's well worth your time.)
If you'd like a quicker route into the new novel, here's the Cliff's Notes version. (Spoilers follow!)
Fact: Holds-the-Fire is a wolf.
This might seem a bit odd against the cover art; she sure looks like a human. Some people might call her one. But she has lived with a wolfpack since birth, in the forests of Pedestria, using the instinct-enhancing power of an Equestrian artifact to substitute for her lack of claw and fang, and identifies fully as a wolf.
Why wolves? The short answer is: we have seen exactly one dragon visit Pedestria in canon, when Spike joined Twilight in Equestria Girls. He became a talking dog. Spike is admittedly rather domesticated for a dragon; it stands to reason that other, more primal dragons would have wolf equivalents. Fang and Flame ran with this and made a wolfpack the mirror of dragon society; all Pedestrian dragons are fundamentally canine.
So what makes Holds-the-Fire different? As I've noted before, the Doylist explanation is that I was trying to make her a thematic parallel of Ember, who is equally a fish out of water among her own kind. As for the Watsonian explanation ... well, that's part of what I cover in Even Changelings Get The Blues. 
Fact: The aforementioned artifact is part of a set.
Ember's Bloodstone Scepter should be familiar ground; it was introduced in "Gauntlet of Fire" as the symbol of the Dragon Lord's leadership. It has power over dragons' minds, and is capable of inserting compulsions into their thoughts.
For Fang and Flame, I envisioned it as having a partner which was lost in the human world long ago. The Bloodstone Crown offers the instinct counterpart to the Bloodstone Scepter's control of mind. Ember's search for the missing crown is that story's inciting incident — Holds-the-Fire discovers her and Spike visiting the human world, and follows their tracks to a portal to Equestria.
Fact: The bloodstones are now broken.
In the (literally) explosive climax of Fang and Flame, Ember sacrifices the scepter to destroy the crown, in order to prevent Holds-the-Fire from dominating dragonkind and unleashing a reign of terror on Equestria. This left both artifacts inert hunks of rock. And yet, some piece of the bloodstones' power still influences the pair.
Holds-the-Fire always relied on the Crown's power for communication; that's what let her interpret the speech of other sapient beings, as well as project her own thoughts and commands into their hearts. With the bloodstones broken, she can no longer dominate the minds of sapient beings, but she can still touch their minds and telepathically speak.
In Fang and Flame's aftermath, we saw the same thing happen to Ember: her broken bloodstone no longer can issue commands, but meeting Holds-the-Fire taught her a bit about telepathy, and she learned how to use some remnant of her shattered scepter to perform a similar trick.
Therefore, telepathic werewolves! And perhaps something deeper and more ominous:
a gleaming red figure sears into Chester's memory—not flesh but living crystal, a frail mockery of form not human and not wolf, the color of blood and fury—
fix me
—the ruby gemstone figure vibrates, radiating dark orange desperation to blast apart his screams of vivid orange terror, and he writhes and flails and its tenuous hold on him snaps —
Once he meets both Ember and Holds-the-Fire, uncovering the truth behind the bloodstones' lingering influence becomes one of the most urgent of Chester's tasks. Especially since Holds-the-Fire and Ember both hold a deep grudge over how the loss of their stone upended their lives, and are more than eager to continue their previous fight — with the broken bloodstones apparently egging them on to turn their duel into a death match...
Can I just say:
That I'm looking forward to this?
Mike
5795152
It feels great to have written a full-length novel and it's been a bit of a passion project.
Me too!