“It can be when it comes to matters of power. It expects you to be respected.”

“The length of my hair can’t earn me respect.”

Merritt shrugged. “I’m just warning you.”

Magda leaned into him, smiling as she tucked her shoulder under his arm. “Thanks for the warning.”

Merritt grinned as he put his arm around her. “Sure.” He pointed. “Is that the confession flower from your box of memories?”

Magda nodded. “I wanted to wear it today. Baraccus sacrificed his life so that this course for our future could come to be. He gave his life that we all might be standing here today and have this chance. I think he would be pleased.”

“I think he would be, too,” Merritt said.

Magda twirled the little white flower between her finger and thumb, watching it spin, thinking about all that had brought her to be the Mother Confessor.

As the flower was spinning in her fingers, it began to become transparent. She could see right through it.

And then, the flower vanished.

It was gone. Simply, gone.

“Did you see that?” Magda asked in astonishment.

“I sure did.”

She looked up at Merritt’s handsome features. “What do you think it could mean?”

“I think it means whatever you want it to mean.”

Magda looked down at her empty fingers a moment.

“Everything,” she finally said. “It means everything.”

END

Manifesto

Let me say up front that I love printed books. Always have, always will. But first and foremost, I'm a storyteller. As a storyteller, I now have a better way to bring you books.

Stories have been with us since the dawn of mankind. Long before people invented writing, they told stories around the fire. Fantasy was born under the stars as parables of man's place in a mysterious universe. Later those stories were set down on clay tablets, and then scrolls and animal skins, and later yet, in the last, thin sliver of story-telling history, printed on paper. Stories in spoken form were only recently able to be recorded so people could listen to them at their convenience. Comic books and graphic novels told stories with words and drawings. When film came along, stories became movies.

The important thread through every form in which stories are told is the story itself.

Every change throughout history has brought improvements and benefits to those who are eager for the stories themselves.

I have long wanted to tell the story of Magda Searus, the First Confessor. Because this is such a special book, I wanted to bring it directly to readers myself, without the filtering middleman of a traditional publisher, the long wait, and the higher price. Now, with ebooks, I am able to bring this story I have long wanted to tell directly to readers and also be much more involved in the entire process than was ever possible before.