The Unbearable Taste of Fruit and Wine

Iris has spent her life under the watchful eye of the Archmagus, the enigmatic figure who saved her as a child and raised her within the dark walls of the Citadel. Trapped in a world of secrets and bound to the merciless winged warriors known as the Aello, Iris has longed for freedom. But when a daring thief crosses her path during one of the Archmagus' relentless hunts for ancient magickal artifacts, Iris discovers that escape will mean more than simply leaving.

The Archmagus has hidden the truth of her origins-a truth so powerful that it shatters everything she thought she knew. Now, Iris stands at a crossroads: remain in the shadows as part of a twisted family of monsters, or risk everything to unravel her past and follow a dangerous new destiny. Her choice will change the fate of magick itself.

R.S.A. Garcia is a Nebula and Sturgeon Award winning writer of speculative fiction. She is also the winner of the Machine Intelligence Foundation for Rights and Ethics' 2023 Media Award, and a Locus, Ignyte and Eugie Foster Award finalist.Her Amazon Bestselling science fiction mystery, Lex Talionis, received a starred review from Publishers Weekly and the Silver Medal for Best Scifi/Fantasy/Horror Ebook from the Independent Publishers Awards (2015).She has published short fiction in venues such as Clarkesworld Magazine, Uncanny Magazine, Escape Pod, Strange Horizons, The Sunday Morning Transport, and Internazionale Magazine.Her stories have been long-listed for the British Science Fiction Awards, translated into several languages, and included in a number of anthologies, including the critically acclaimed The Best of World SF, The Best Science Fiction of the Year, The Year's Best Fantasy, and The Apex Book of World SF.The first book in her sci-fantasy duology, beginning with The Nightward, was published in October 2024 by Harper Voyager US.She lives in Trinidad and Tobago with an extended family and too many cats.