Fate's Bane

Agnir has grown up among a rival clan as both ward and hostage, her presence helping maintain an uneasy peace. Loving the chieftain's daughter changes that arrangement in ways neither young woman can predict. At a hidden spring, they awaken a power that lets them work intention and misfortune into leather, echoing an old and dangerous legend. Their fathers see possibilities in the magic, while grudges within the clans and opportunists beyond them threaten renewed violence. This sapphic fantasy novella follows a relationship caught between private devotion and public ambition, asking what two people can protect when their new power becomes something everyone else wants to use.