Spring is Coming

Yesterday, during a lengthy walk along Tomahawk Creek, I came across these daffodils, among the first green buds to emerge this spring. The season is changing; we all can feel it, even the plants. Especially the plants. Spring is coming.

I’m celebrating this year’s spring in a special way, with the release of the second edition of Eolyn. This is deliberate timing, symbolic  in that it has to do with my protagonist’s name.

There are two stories about the origin of Eolyn’s name. One is the story of how I, the author, named her. The other is the story of how Eolyn’s mother, the Maga Warrior Kaie, brought a child into the world during the worst of times.

Friends and followers are probably aware by now that I named my protagonist after Eowyn, the shield maiden of Tolkien’s classic work, The Lord of the Rings. But The Lord of the Rings doesn’t exist in Eolyn’s world, so Kaie’s inspiration for naming her daughter had to come from somewhere else.

Kaie named her daughter after Eostar, the holiday that marks the start of spring. This was a deliberate and meaningful choice. Eolyn was born during one of the darkest periods of her people’s history. A long and difficult internal war had left the kingdom in near-ruin. The purges were gaining momentum, and as the Mage King exacted vengeance on his enemies, no maga was safe from the pyre.

Soon all women practitioners would be dead or in exile. Kaie saw what was coming. She knew the glorious tradition of her sisters in magic would soon meet a brutal and bloody end. She knew there might be no one left to teach her daughter the ways of women’s magic.

Still, even though the world as she knew it was falling apart, Kaie saw hope in her daughter. The promise of a new spring, the reflection of life’s indomitable spirit, even in the face of utter destruction. The stubborn emergence of daffodils, time and again, over a barren winter landscape.

“Your name is Eolyn,” Kaie said, the first time she held her baby daughter in her arms. Because spring is coming.

Was Kaie’s hope well-placed? In just under thirty days, you’ll have the chance to find out for yourself.