Daniel Newwyn

On Romance

I've received questions about this, and I'm actually not too sure myself since most of my writing is discovery writing. You think I have this shii planned out? I don't. I vomit words, find the similar threads, then stitch the pieces together into a coherent plot.

Now I don't have an end game yet, but from what I've hinted there are two obvious potential romantic interests. Don't worry about there being some sort of dramatic love triangle showdown; I don't like that kind of drama so I pr...

Severa Book 1 (Chapter 6)

Missus told me to sleep early or else, so I had to go to bed and write on my phone. Horrible experience, and imma have to act like I’m not sleep-deprived tomorrow. RIP.

Severa had no need to be anywhere near the Synod’s library unless it was to mess about with Kestovar, or asking him for a favor. She had been waiting for him for an hour; blearily staring at the pockets of students passing by while trying to stifle her yawns. This was an hour she could’v...

Severa Book 1 (Chapter 5)

Fabrisse Kestovar was not a very good thaumaturge. Severa had shown him how to turn the bead of fire into spinning wheels countless times, but he still couldn’t replicate it. She couldn’t understand how he’d yet to be able to copy her. Marrieh Halveth used demonstration to teach Severa new spells all the time, and not once had it not worked. But patience was to be expected with Kestovar; the young man was far from unintelligent, but his motor functions and aetheric timing were severely ...

Fabrisse Book 2 (Chapter 6)

Library work was kind of boring in the best way.

No voidspawns and no Liene leaping out from behind a stack of lexicons. People whispered here. If you did your job right, nobody noticed you at all.

Fabrisse liked that.

It meant he could take twice as long cross-checking a shelf number ‘just to be sure,’ and in the process read half a page of Practical Resonances in Sedimentary Quartz. 

He slipped the book back into its slot and wandered toward the fro...

Fabrisse Book 2 (Chapter 5)

He had given Severa Montreal a set of conditions. One: she must teach him at least one spell that’s high-value for the exam; something that makes them take notice. Two: she must explain exactly what the examiners want to see, not just the syllabus version. And three: she must run him through a practice duel and tell him where he was going wrong.

She had accepted the conditions surprisingly easily, which made him briefly regret not having asked for more. Maybe he should’ve asked her ...

Fabrisse Book 2 (Chapter 4)

Don't worry. From next chapter of their books you'll see different contents again.

Fabrisse stepped onto the packed-sand floor of the training ring, scanning the other end for a spot as far as possible from Severa Montreal. Even at this distance, he recognized the way she carried herself: precise, controlled, a predator in repose. 

Maybe if he just carried on doing his thing in silence, she’d leave him be. Nine out of ten times, it worked.

He carried the gl...

Severa Book 1 (Chapter 4)

The last chapters are now labelled 2 & 3.

“Oh? Is that so?” Severa said. “Rare in what sense? That I happen to have it, or that you know something useful?” Her words lodged somewhere between incredulity and reluctant intrigue.

“Both,” Kestovar replied, without the faintest trace of irony. “It’s a glacial imprint quartz. It holds a resonance until the right thermal threshold releases it.”

He’s helping. Don’t be mean to him, Severa rem...

Fabrisse Book 2 (Chapter 3)

“There’s absolutely no problem with the Varnic pose,” said Kaldrin as he demonstrated his own take on the Varnic pose for synaptic threading. “And there’s no problem with rapid, precise micro-adjustments to get your synaptic control to where it should be, either. In fact—here—watch this.”

Before Fabrisse could ask what this was, Kaldrin’s hands darted through the threading sequence, each finger flick and wrist turn snapping into place with surgical precision. ...

Fabrisse Book 2 (Chapter 2)

“You know you have to pass Basic Thaumaturgy II before registering for any new elective, right?” Said Liene as she stuffed Fabrisse’s face with a slice of pie.

The familiar scent of cinnamon and baked merryberry curled around them as Fabrisse, Liene, and Tommaso settled onto the worn wooden bench outside the little pie shop they’d claimed as their unofficial meeting spot. 

Fabrisse bit into the pie, the sweet filling distracting him for a moment as he chewed. He alrea...

Added this to Severa's second chapter

Thought it was kinda funny.

Severa’s first impression of Kestovar had been different. Even now, he carried an almost effeminate kind of charm about him, with an intensely focused gaze that made her think he’d be a different kind of person. Someone driven, someone serious. But that early assessment had disappointed her grandly. He had no interest in ever pushing boundaries, no fire for aetheric study, no real motivation beyond getting through each day.

His only passion i...

Severa Book 1 - Chapter 2 & 3

The Aetherweld Silversteel gates of the Montreal estate caught the dying sunset, throwing spectral fragments across the carriageway like scattered jewels. 

The butler, Berrick, was already waiting for Severa as she stepped out of her carriage. He was a man so tall and immaculately pressed, with posture so precise it could have been measured with a ruler. That had been a requirement for Montreal house staff since her grandfather’s time—every spine straight enough to hold a ledge...

Fabrisse Book 2 (Chapter 1)

The water rippled.

Fabrisse stared at the ripples for a second too long, just to be sure it was him who’d done it. The ashwood shaft of the Tideshift Conduit was a little too long for comfort, so that when he’d turned to check the he’d turned to check the surface of the small training bucket Lorvan had set out, he’d accidentally swung the staff around like a menacing weather vane.

The rest of him looked like a walking supply closet: padded mitts up to the wrist; the Concor...

Advanced Thaumaturgy (Severa Book 1) - Chapter 1

No breaks for me after all :) I like writing too much. I think this is a quality introduction to Severa's book. Making it funny might be a challenge.

The wyvern fell from the sky with a burning sigil seared into its chest.

It struck the earth like a meteor: with talons curled, wings convulsing, and a scream still lodged in its throat. The sigil ignited on impact, and in the breath between heartbeats, the entire creature combusted. A cone of flame surged sky...

Short break

I’m taking a one-day break after the completion of Book I. Both Book II and Severa’s book 1 will commence after this short break. This is so I’m in the right headspace and can continue keeping up with the quality that’s been demonstrated so far 🙏

Chapter 124 & 125

Things got better and better for Fabrisse over the next three days. He’d easily gotten his rightful position as a Junior Lore Clerk after a brief interview, and aced his Basic Synaptic Control practical the day after. Min Hajin congratulated him as he entered the Wing of Stratal Studies. Even Archmagus Rolen had heard about it, and had sent him an encouraging message via private glyph upon his return. He even gained a random INT after passing the Junior Clerk interview for a second time. 2025-08-06 21:33:15 +0000 UTC View Post

Chapter 123

He caught up to her as she reached the edge of the old quad path, his footsteps ragged, breath sawing in and out like torn bellows. Fabrisse nearly tripped on the last turn and had to grab a post for balance—partly from the terrain, mostly from the fact that his lungs felt like they were boiling.

Liene slowed when she heard him, but didn’t stop. Not until he stumbled again and actually wheezed, a sharp, involuntary sound like a dying teakettle. She turned halfway, arms cros...

Chapter 122

Dry leaves stirred in lazy circles along the path as Fabrisse rounded the final corner, slowing at the sight of familiar figures clustered near the empty stone benches that edged the courtyard in front of his dorm building. The sky had darkened; the glyphlights had lit; and a faint violet haze now laced the upper air, catching where wards met weather.

Tommaso was sitting on the bench’s backrest instead of the seat, boots planted on the stone ledge. As always, gravity to him was just a...

Thank you note (And a poll)

When I first wrote this story, I wondered if I'd shot myself in the foot by going the route most other progression fantasy books don't: by making an MC so absurdly weak, lost in direction, unimpressive (maybe apart from some of his moments of deductive reasoning), overwhelmed by the colossal amount of information presented to him. A month later, it feels as though I won't regret this decision.

This book has found itself an audience, possibly one that's grown jaded of all the hyper-focu...

Chapter 121

A column rose from the center: hexagonal, clear as water, with veins of copper and iron braided through like a vascular system. From it, four arching ribs vaulted, each assembling itself from grains of stone plucked directly from a glowing leyfield clinging onto it. 

They fitted together. Silently.

He raised a giant stone structure without a sound.

When it was complete, the structure resembled a flower made of tectonic memory: layered petals of slate and agate fanned li...

Chapter 120

“This whole operation,” Draeth thundered as he paced alongside a line of whispering tomes, “has been a resounding failure.”

His voice struck the chamber’s silence like a flintstone on firewood. Draeth’s study was, as always, more theater than office—vast and cavernous, its proportions intentionally disorienting. The room descended gently into a recessed floor, steps wrapping down along the sides of the same centerpiece—a broad and shallow plinth—like the edges of a for...

Chapter 119

Varys waited until the others were out of earshot. Their panel dimmed, and the aetherglass retreated into its housing with a hush. The surface turned just translucent enough for Fabrisse to catch the shape of a face behind the mask. Feminine, he thought, though the lines were blurred by veilwork and refracted light.

“Kestovar,” they whispered. “Can you confirm that you have bound with the Eidralith?”

“Yes.”

There was a pause, long enough for Fabrisse to brace for...

Chapter 118

The voidspawns were no longer present by the time Fabrisse returned to the North pond.

What remained was the kind of mess that looked, oddly, like it had followed instructions.

The grass bore the evidence of conflict in a patchwork of blunt depressions and scorched circles; the former from kinetic spells and collapsing wards, the latter charred black from Tommaso’s rings of fire. The geometry of the destruction had a strange order to it, like someone had tried to draw a battlefi...

Chapter 117

Exceedingly difficult chapters to write, because there are lots of planning involved and it's really political. But here it is:

Rubidi’s void-cloaked form rippled, bristling, her shape barely holding to humanoid. Darkness sluiced off her like, and the air—or the lack of it—seemed to bend harder around her presence. She didn’t step forward, but the space before her bent as it shoved at Severa like a rising tide.

“You don’t want to fight me.” Rubidi snarled. “...

Book 2 and new companion book freebie

Now that the Patreon is on its way to concluding the first book, I have decided that the best way forward for Book 2 is to proceed with a parallel plotline. However, to avoid the common pitfalls of a multi-POV book (like having chapters from the POV that some could care less about), I’ve decided I will be separating the two POVs into two separate books that can be read separately. They will provide insight into each other, but one POV won’t become utterly incomprehensible if you don’t u...

Chapter 116

Longer chapter. Enjoy :)

The rod cracked against the air. Then all sound fell away.

The duo raised their hands like conductors invoking the overture of a war-symphony. Kaldrin’s left gauntlet dissolved into strings of light-incoded symbols. Golden loops unraveled from his wrist, each one forged from braided light, each link interlocking with the rod’s pattern like a clasp finding its twin.

The Fold mouth, an ugly, writhing mouth of spatial impropriety, tore.

Small Update

Since I've made some changes to the earlier chapters and added some new content in the middle, Chapter 113 is now Chapter 115; Chapter 112 is now 114, and so on. This is to avoid any potential confusion that might arise.

Chapter 86

NOTE: In setting up for the final fight, I need Fabrisse to have a couple more skills. I was stupid of me to have Rolen offering to help him and not getting him any new spells at all, so I need to take advantage of this. Now he's learning 2 new spells, Glasveil and Cindermark, that can be used in later battles.

Fabrisse exhaled slowly, eyes closed, legs folded awkwardly on the floor of Rolen’s makeshift training alcove—if you could call a place lined with sco...

Chapter 115

Rubidi came out of nowhere. There was no illusion this time, as she hurled herself straight at him like a shadow-fed spear. Her fingers were now claws, her mouth open in a voiceless snarl. 

She’s going for the kill, Fabrisse realized. He raised another Stupenstone and tried to aim, but didn’t know where to.

The purple gleam of the rod shaft shivered in the air as Lorvan stepped in the way, followed by pearl white shards. The rod writhed in his palm. From its end,...

Chapter 114

Rubidi? That’s Severa Montreal’s mentor. Fabrisse’s eyes widened. Is House Montreal actually involved? Surely Severa is smarter and more morally upright than resorting to this?

But then again, she just stole my lore clerk position.

But if Lorvan said that was Rubidi, that was Rubidi. He couldn’t argue against cold, hard facts.

Rubidi was never one to waste words. She’d never talked much before unless it was to belittle someone, and she ce...

Chapter 113

Celine adjusted her grip on the javelin forming in her hand. “Fine,” she said. “You have brighter ideas than me.”

They moved quickly, ducking beneath a collapsed arch and weaving past fractured stone. The voidspawn had thinned near the pondyard’s eastern fringe, but that wouldn’t last.

Something cracked underfoot.

A ripple bloomed across the flagstone. Fabrisse hissed, “Tremblehold.”

A void-creature erupted from the ground at the same moment, but its li...