Books like The Cygnet and the Firebird

Patricia McKillip is known for writing mostly stand-alone novels, creating original fairytale realms for each new story. Probably the setting of the Cygnet book was too good to let go and so we get to spend more time in the company of Nyx Ro and her family and friends in a sequel. Nyx is the heir of the Ro Holding, the ancient and respect seat of power in a realm infused with subtle yet powerful magics. At the end of the first book, Nyx returns to the ancient fortress ruled by her mother and protected by the astral constellation known as the Cygnet, abandoning her far journeys and her wild experiments with spells and curses. A 'happy-ever-after' is implied as the sorceress Nyx seems ready to accept her adult role as heir to the Holding. A pastoral peace should be on the menu, but he nexus of power surrounding the Keep built by the fabled wizard Chrysom attracts some uninvited guests. The winds of change blow with a mixture of menace and promise from a distant shore: Meguet heard a snore from one of the back tables. She stifled a yawn. A sudden wind tugged at her light mantle. The air was a heady mix of brine and sun-steeped roses on the tower vines; it seemed to blow from everywhere at once: from past and future, from unexplored countries where wooden flowers opened on tree boughs to reveal strange, rich spices, and sheep the colors of autumn leaves wandered through the hills ... First, a wizard who apparently can control the flow of time breaks into the tower, looking for a secret key fashioned by Chrysom. A few hours later, a glorious firebird alights in the castle's inner court, crying in despair and shedding tears made of precious gems, transmuting people, animals and objects into multicolored crystals wherever its wild gaze settles or its harsh cry echoes. Nyx Ro is thrilled by the chance to fight back against the intruders and to solve the riddles left behind by her mentor Chrysom. With the help of her cousin Meguet she is ready to follow the silver threads of magic and time, wherever they may lead. Well, she said, and met the bird's intent golden stare. Better sorry than safe. The destination is even more fascinating than the swamps and mountain fastnesses from the first book, with more powerful magics and a serious threat to the very existence of Ro Holding : Saphier. Here Be Dragons. How many of us have seen the old medieval maps, carefully inked on pergament, with godlike figures blowing winds from the corners, fantastic beasts swimming in oceans and chimaeras straddling the landmasses, unexplored white spots inscribed with the warning that has set so many ships sailing into the unknown. The magic of the warrior wizards of Saphier has its source in the shifting, red hot sands of the Luxour desert, a place where it is impossible to distinguish between mirage and reality, where powerful beasts loath to be disturbed from their millenial slumber and weave layer after layer of illusion to protect heir nests: They get into your blood. They call you in some secret language spoken by stones. They show you a shadow, they leave a bone behind. And so you spend your life searching for them ... Stay here until you have seen the dragons fly. Until I draw them out of stars and stone, until bone and blood cast shadows instead of dreams. Stay until you have seen the dragons' fire. Nyx and Meguet are both caught up in this dance with dragons, both convinced they fight for the defense of their Hold, both unsuspecting there is an even more subtle assault being launched against their hearts. A different kind of fire is kindled in the bossoms of the young women, and romance might trump the political and military maneuvers. Which brings me to the third reason I love the books of Patricia McKillip: second to her original fairytale worldbuilding and her inimitable lyrical prose("Meguet watched the dawn unfurl like a wing of fire across the Delta."), I believe McKillip writes some of the best love stories in the genre. In the first volume we had the gipsy man ready to walk through fire and blizzard to rescue his sweetheart, and we had a powerful, respected warrior-knight falling in love with a taciturn, low-born servant of the castle (view spoiler)[ Meguet and the Gatekeeper (hide spoiler)]