We Wish You A Merry Dragon
Hi! We wish you the happiest of holidays!
No matter what you celebrate, we hope your holiday season is bright and filled with joy, magic, and dragons. Hopefully, you don’t need to chase those dragons.
This is Ran, Sarn’s son from the Curse Breaker series, and if you need a holiday read, grab Stars & Angels Sing and celebrate with your favorite father-son duo as we try to save Christmas. (And we run into all kinds of unexpected problems in our quest.)
A prose version is coming, probably in 2026 since it takes place directly after the Rise of the Curse Breaker trilogy, which will be coming your way after the Riders of the Apocalypse series hits your ereader.
So consider this your official notice that Papa will get into loads of trouble when his curse breaking gift gets out of control, and we’ll finally find out why there are so many warrior statues under Mount Eredren.
Of course I’ll tag along too because what else am I going to do while Papa is in trouble? I’ll dive right into that trouble alongside him to give him practice shielding me. After all, he should play with magic more often. Everyone should!
We wanted to do an excerpt of Stars & Angels Sing since is a Christmas adventure story written in verse like the Night Before Christmas poem, but the cast couldn’t agree on an excerpt.
So I reminded them that Chasing Dragons comes out on January 6, and that broke the deadlock. Of course, this had nothing to do with the fact that the first chapter stars me. But I can’t prove that either.
So without further ado, here’s an excerpt from Chasing Dragons, book 11 in the Curse Breaker series. It picks up right where Shards For His Gift ended since they’re kind of a duology.
Chasing Dragons
by Melinda Kucsera
Chapter 1: Schemes & Stories
“Does Auntie Sovvan eat?” Ran asked again since Uncle Miren didn’t answer him the first time he asked. To be fair, his uncle’s mouth was full of the delicious cookies Inari made with his help and Furball’s too. So that might be why he didn’t answer the first time. He didn’t want the cookies to fall out of his mouth. Ran could understand that. Good cookies should never go to waste.
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask her when she comes back,” Uncle Miren finally said as he walked over to the cold box on the counter.
Blue light spilled out when he opened it because a blue lumir crystal kept the contents cold, including a jug of milk he pulled out and poured into the three glasses lined up on the counter. The black lumir crystal must not have eaten the magic in that crystal because it still glowed, and hopefully, it kept all the yummy things in there cold like Inari wanted.
“Hey, you still need to tell me how you and Furball ended up making cookies with my mom.” Nerule poked Ran when he just chewed the cookie he was eating and enjoyed its light nutty flavor.
“Well, I helped her because she asked me to, so I’d leave Papa alone. And then Furball showed up, and I asked if he could help too.” Ran bit into another cookie as he reviewed events that felt like they took place a lifetime ago rather than that morning.
“What happened next?” Nerule accepted a glass of milk from Uncle Miren, but he kept his gaze on Ran like he thought Ran would stop his story there before the interesting part.
“Then we talked about our friend Saveen. He’s a dragon, and your mom got really quiet and weird. But Furball’s grandma came to check on him and she sent us to wash up because we got flour all over us somehow.” Ran still didn’t know how that happened. We were careful, but the flour just went everywhere. I wonder why it did that.
“Then what happened?” Nerule set his empty glass down.
Ran sipped from his glass. “Then Furball’s grandma, her name’s Amal, talked to your mom about dragons. But I don’t know if that made your mom feel better about dragons living under the mountain because she ran out right after that.” Ran shrugged.
“Why did she do that?” Nerule spun his glass on the counter.
“I don’t know, but I wasn’t paying attention because the cookies were done. And we had to taste them to make sure they came out good.” Ran stuffed the remains of his cookie in his mouth since he finished his story, then drank the rest of the milk. All the questions came roaring back now that his tummy was full.
How could a crystal ornament pull Papa inside it? Ran set his empty glass down and stared at it. Uncle Miren said he wasn’t worried because a crystal wasn’t much of a threat to someone like Papa.
“I’ve seen him do amazing things with crystals over the years,” Uncle Miren said maybe an hour ago, and he was right. Ran had seen Papa do amazing things with crystals too, but his absence gnawed at him. What if this crystal was more powerful than Papa?
Ran didn’t know how to help if that was the case. I already sent Auntie Sovvan to help him. What else can I do?
“What if there’s a bad person inside the crystal?” Ran asked again since Uncle Miren didn’t answer that question earlier either. Would Papa fight the bad person?
“Then your dad will throw up a shield and run away. He’s really good at that.” Uncle Miren pulled him into a hug. “Don’t worry about him. If there are any butts that need kicking, then your aunt will kick them for your dad. Just you wait and see.”
“I don’t want to wait and see. I want Papa and Auntie Sovvan to come back right now.” Ran leaned into his uncle and hugged him back.
Could they stay with Inari and Nolo if Papa didn’t come back? Ran didn’t know, but he didn’t want to find out either, in case the answer was no. Where would we go if we can’t stay here?
***
Get Chasing Dragons now to read what happens next. Have a happy holiday and a great week!
New Podcast Episodes & Videos
Parts 1-9 are up, so you can listen to chapters 1-40 while we work on the last two parts.
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