Sykora struts into the cabin and drops a tablet onto the table. “And look at that. Your machinery, dove. Just had to yank some tails and shake some hands. Half from the public funds, a quarter from Marquess Shoskia at wholesaler prices on a favors-for-favors, the rest sourced from a half-score baronesses for a sweetheart deal. We’re going to need to sign some autographs and attend some func...
2025-10-03 20:55:51 +0000 UTC View PostHey folks!
I'm going to start doing a monthly update for everyone, where I give you guys stats, updates, and reflections on the way the month has gone. If next month comes around and I forget to do this again, then YELL AT ME (please don't).
Writing stats:
56,307 words written in September
536,160 words written in 2025
Updates: 2025-10-01 21:05:59 +0000 UTC View Post
“Aokan. Hey.”
Aokan grunts and rolls over, dragging his thin, pilled bedsheet over his face.
“Aokan. Wake up, man.”
“Fuck off,” Aokan mumbles.
“Dude, up. Come on.” This is Xulo, his cellmate. “I told you yesterday. Gotta get to the mess hall early before all the stekkai’s gone. I’ve been saving my tokens. I need your feet.”
Aokan groans and ...
2025-09-29 05:39:34 +0000 UTC View Post“It’s nice, not having to keep an eye on the floors and the doors.” Ipqen’s drill whines as it threads the last bolt into the shuttle’s side. “Gonna miss it when I’m back aboard the Pike.”
“Wish I could get on that thing.” The Eqtoran soldier leans against the shuttle’s flank and looks out beyond the hangar membrane at the massive tower that hangs on its side outside...
2025-09-26 04:42:16 +0000 UTC View PostA tear rolls to the edge of Kora’s nose. It drops into her lap, onto her hands where they grip her uniform. It’s so bulky in some places and too tight in other places. It doesn’t fit right. None of this does.
Miss Tala looks back from the front seat of the shuttle. “Are you crying?”
“I’m trying not to.” Kora huddles further into her fake leather seat. “I really am ...
2025-09-23 05:50:06 +0000 UTC View PostHello folks! Below is the first installment of a side-story starring Tikani, Wenzai, and Lady Lakai. It concerns how their thing started, and it takes place between volumes 2 and 3, during Wen and Tik's house arrest on Sykora's orders.
This one is going to either be two or three parts long, I'm not sure which. Once it's done I'll put out a vote for the next side story.
***
Tik...
2025-09-20 20:16:29 +0000 UTC View PostOn a silver spinning-top survey station, high over the roiling clouds of Qarnaq, the reception for the Princess and Prince of the Black Pike is in full swing.
Grant returns from the washroom down the retrofitted hall and catches a glimpse of a knot of Black Pike marines. Pentine, his Ajax replacement, is speaking with Talem, a good friend who transferred off the Pike and onto the Eqtoran ...
2025-09-20 06:25:47 +0000 UTC View PostThe big papier mâché statue of Grant Hyde’s wife stares at him with cock-eyed ridicule from across the snowy range. Robin’s-egg blue and half his height, just like the real version.
“I am not doing this,” Grant says.
“We painted the spear,” Vora says. “You have to.”
Grant holds up the spear. It’s been spray-painted his skin tone.
“Is that not what c...
2025-09-16 03:39:50 +0000 UTC View PostLordling hurms in annoyance as Helen picks him up from his carrier. Her heels click across the asphalt toward the facility’s concrete bulk.
At the first checkpoint there’s someone new. Well, that makes sense. They had a number of people to replace. A wispy mustache, a kevlar vest, an apologetic “We can’t bring animals into this facility, ma’am.”
“I’m sure you can’t...
2025-09-12 05:25:22 +0000 UTC View PostWith this chapter, volume 4 is almost done. Just a quick epilogue, then we move forth into vol 5.
“Your consort ought not to be present for matters this substantial, Majesty. Not when he’s still this insubordinate.” Hyax’s eyes flash red. “Leave, Maekyonite. Fetch us some tea.”
“Get it yourself,” he says.
“Hyax, you forget yourself.” Sykora nails her Brigad...
2025-09-11 06:34:23 +0000 UTC View PostGrant steps out of the shower. He rubs a fluffy fleece towel through his hair. “Jeez. You were right about that stuff.”
“The Breedmate’s boon?” Sykora calls over the hum of the hairdryer. Her dewy skin, still flushed from the shower, is wrapped in a slight, silky red dress. All lace and brocade and transparent tulle. It’s a twin to her wedding dress, but even lower in the neck...
2025-09-11 02:05:33 +0000 UTC View Post“Princess Sykora. Prince Grantyde.” Inadama stands in the cool light that filters in from the Imperial Palace’s high polygonal windows. “Greetings to you both.”
“Marquess Palatine.” Sykora inclines her head. Grant dutifully follows suit.
Inadama nods at the wooden statuette in Sykora’s hand. “You’ve brought the daemon.”
Sykora’s face is a mask. “I hav...
2025-09-09 04:37:36 +0000 UTC View PostGood morning campers!
Volume 4 is just about wrapping up here on Patreon, so as is tradition I'm here collecting your thoughts and requests on what we're going to do for Volume 5.
As usual, you can vote for as many of these things as you'd like to see. Nothing is binding, but I am paying attention!
In addition to this poll, I wanted to come to you folks with something of a hat...
2025-09-07 16:44:17 +0000 UTC View Post“You have my gratitude for the aid you tendered during this crisis, Majordomo Niminoa.” Sykora inclines her head to the woman in the cell. “I understand the pain of breaking an oath to a departed friend.”
“Friend.” Niminoa’s croak muffles into into the bowl of curry she’s glumly eating. “The woman I dedicated a kilocycle of my life to. The center spoke of my existence. S...
2025-09-07 06:07:10 +0000 UTC View Post
Hello campers! Volume 3's art is now finished and WHOAA is it looking fire. As my fine patrons you get our conquering Princess in HD sans type.
2025-09-05 17:02:53 +0000 UTC View Post“I could release you into the void.” Sykora rubs the textured chin she spent long and longing nights admiring. “And watch you stiffen and dessicate. Deal with you like I dealt with your coconspirators.”
Her alien is scrubbed and sultry in his new Black Pike uniform. There’s hair on his arms, she sees, where they swell so hypnotically out of his tunic. A fine dusting of hair. Eve...
2025-09-05 05:12:30 +0000 UTC View PostHey gang. PotV chapter 101 is cooking right now, and it's another Sykora PoV. There will be two more in the book; the last one is about the moment she realizes Grant's immunity.
I'm undecided about which one to do beforehand--have a little pollski to decide for yourselves!
Which should be the second-to-last Sykora flashback scene?
2025-09-02 18:42:09 +0000 UTC View PostHot off the presses now that we are done with the volume on Royal Road, here is volume 3 of PotV for my chad eBook enjoyers, or whoever else would like an offline copy!
This is the first time I've done the thing where you export an ePub from Royal Road so please let me know if it's somehow glitched or fucked up, kay?
As usual, thank you all a bunch for your patronage.
2025-09-01 23:31:16 +0000 UTC View PostHey folks!
I think I need to have a quick chat with you about some of the comments I've been getting as we've reached the climax of Volume 4.
What spurred me to write this particular post was a comment expressing frustration at the protagonists being "totally helpless," seemingly because the chapter ended with the antagonist telling them they were totally helpless.
Guys—you ...
2025-09-01 20:49:46 +0000 UTC View PostThe rattling roar of atmospheric entry wraps its burly embrace around them. Down through the jaundiced cloud cover, the Temple becomes visible, as plain and severe as it appeared on Vora’s map.
They land on a carbon-scorched pad on its periphery and reacquaint themselves with the clinging Chassak air on the walk to the temple’s bleached gate. Pointed polygonal divinities frown down at...
2025-09-01 18:29:36 +0000 UTC View PostGrant sidesteps the panicky medtechs on his way out of the clinic. A quick retinal scan and an ice pack are foisted on him before he manages to escape in Ajax’s train.
Out of the humming neon lift and a parting salute to Ajax—then he’s onto the crimson floorboards of the command deck, under its dome of stars. The command group are spread across their stations; Hyax and Vora in a mu...
2025-09-01 05:44:57 +0000 UTC View Post“Lady Ipqen.” Grant steps past the last marine checkpoint, into the outer engineering ring, and waves at the coverall-clad shark woman. “Just who I wanted to see. How’s it going?”
Ipqen looks up from her workstation, where a thicket of robotic arms code fine manipulations across a bank of circuits. She lifts her magnifying goggles. “Good, Majesty. Doing okay. Flying solo on so...
2025-08-28 06:14:00 +0000 UTC View Post“Baffler’s on.” Ajax steps from the countertop box and taps his ear. “We’re good.”
Sykora tugs her earmuffs off and tosses them onto the ornate, tea-stained table in the center of the meeting room. She climbs on the boosted women’s chair and grouses atop it. “I don’t know what that hussy at the desk was telling you. But by the smug look on her face, I commend you for res...
2025-08-27 03:27:42 +0000 UTC View Post“It’s too big a coincidence.” Grant’s stressful pacing scatters some of the debris that spilled out of the training arena.
“I know, dove.” Sykora sits cross-legged at the center of a practice-target massacre. Shredded and perforated heavy bags spill their straw innards from faux-leather skins in a ring around her. She spent the last five minutes in a screaming spear rampage, t...
2025-08-25 03:56:11 +0000 UTC View PostRevelry is the hab level’s rowdiest and most cheerful berth. A taphouse designed in the Taiikari style, all dark red wood booths and brass fastenings, with a small cool-toned crowd of off-duty crewmates chattering around the public taps—dirt-encrusted agro shifters, HAK-suited marines, slim techs and diminutive hangar grease monkeys. All trading their laminated scrip bills for endlessly ref...
2025-08-22 02:18:12 +0000 UTC View Post“I understand that Void Princess Kanori is no more,” Narika says.
“Correct,” Sykora says. “We’re investigating why.”
“As am I.” Narika digs into her vacsuit satchel.
“You needn’t waste your time, Narika. There is knowledge only I am privy to and there are avenues only I have available.”
Without breaking her crimson eye contact with her sister, Nar...
2025-08-17 20:34:04 +0000 UTC View PostThe cabin door slides open with an unobtrusive hiss. Grant creeps inside to the sleeping section, where Sykora is still snoring. At some poi
The cabin door slides open with an unobtrusive hiss. Grant creeps inside to the sleeping section, where Sykora is still snoring. At some point she got up, opened the note, poured herself a glass of water, and then fell asleep again, wrapped in the ol...
2025-08-17 02:51:54 +0000 UTC View PostHyax is on her feet and sprinting the moment Kanori hits the desk. Before she can reach the console, Sykora has recovered from the crystalli
Hyax is on her feet and sprinting the moment Kanori hits the desk. Before she can reach the console, Sykora has recovered from the crystallized moment of shock. As the voice on the other end of the connection continues its death chant, she slams the ...
2025-08-14 03:13:02 +0000 UTC View PostSykora’s wrist cramps and tingles as she undoes the vent’s second screw. She’s so cold that her legs are shivering as she lines up her heel with the edge of the vent. One kick. Two. And then the joint bursts and she drops from the frigid dark, right on top of Grantyde’s lap.
“Grantyde,” she gasps.
“Whuthafuk!” He thrashes backward with such hasty shock he ne...
2025-08-12 02:13:22 +0000 UTC View Post“Here’s Peala.” Hyax unzips the body bag and reveals a face Grant recognizes from their briefing, now pallid with decomposition. “Found her in the Governess’s manor, such as it was.” A dark star has drilled itself into the late Governess’s forehead. The visage of terror she died with has softened into a dull sightless vacancy. Grant looks away.
He refocuses his attention on ...
2025-08-09 04:37:46 +0000 UTC View Post