Hi all,

Quick happy update: Horizon Echo has gone out to all early-access backers! I’m so excited for you to spend time with Horizon and the rest of the orphans, ten years older and facing brand-new trouble.

I’m juggling a few other deadlines right now, but the next big project in this universe is Falcon’s Folly, and I’m planning to dig into that this summer.

Thank you again for all of your support—you’re the reason these stories keep going.

—Claudia

Horizon hooked her knees around the trunk and reached for the blossom that glowed between two branches. The xanthia was worth more than gold back at Wolf Haven as a healing tonic, trade stock, and survival itself, but only if she cut it just right.

Her stomach swooped when she glanced down the hundred-foot drop to the ground. She wasn’t stupid enough to look twice. She forced her gaze on the petals: pink edged in blue, shimmering with veins of liquid gold.

Knife steady, she pried away the thick green growth. One flick, and the blossom came free. She slid it into her tray, capped the extraction tube as glittering sap swirled into it, and tucked the vial against her chest to keep it warm. Conservation mattered as much as harvest. Duff, her dad, had drilled that into her. Always giving back. So she brushed pollen from a purple flower across the next blossoms, then red, then orange.

The canopy breathed with her, leaf-whisper and insect buzz settling into a rhythm. For a moment it felt like she belonged here.

Then everything stopped.

No leaves rustling. No skittering bugs. No flapping wings.

Only the faint hiss of silence. And beneath it, the pulse of distant drums and faint voices that rose in a chant.