Hello and welcome to this Behind the Scene post here on Track of Words, where today I’m joined by the excellent James Logan for an annotated excerpt from his second novel, The Blackfire Blade – which is published on the 6th November by Arcadia in hardback, audio and ebook. Book two in the Last Legacy series, and sequel to The Silverblood Promise (which was fantastic – and you can read my interview with James about it), this promises to expand the setting of the series beyond what readers have seen before, and that’s very much the focus of this post. I’m always curious to see what writers choose for a Behind the Scene excerpt, and I hope you find this as interesting as I did!
First, let’s take a look at the publisher’s synopsis for The Blackfire Blade.
Winter has come early to Korslakov, City of Spires, and Lukan Gardova has arrived with it. Most visitors to this famous city of artifice seek technological marvels, or alchemical ingenuity. Lukan only desires the unknown legacy his father has left for him, in the vaults of the Blackfire Bank.
But when Lukan’s key to the vault is stolen by a mysterious thief known as the Rook, he and his friends find themselves trapped in a deadly web of murder and deceit. In desperation, Lukan seeks help from Lady Marni Volkova, scion to Korslakov’s most powerful family.
Yet Lady Marni has secrets of her own. Worse, she has plans for Lukan and his friends. Plans that involve a journey into Korslakov’s dark past, in search of a long-lost alchemical formula that could prove to be the city’s greatest discovery…or its destruction.
And now, over to James.
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James Logan: This is the second chapter in The Blackfire Blade – the first from Ashra’s POV – and it serves two purposes.
The first is to give the reader a clear sense of the city of Korslakov. When I was planning the Last Legacy series, I decided early on that I wanted to set each book in a new location, mainly to keep things interesting for readers, but also to prevent fatigue setting in for me during the writing process (an author friend of mine, who wrote a four-book series set in a city beset by an encroaching ice age, once lamented how there’s only so many different ways you can describe snow – a comment that always stayed with me).
However, the challenge with this approach is that you must develop the setting anew each time, in a way that feels natural and not forced. This is why I decided to have Ashra exploring Korslakov in her first chapter; it means we get to see the city through her eyes – those of someone who is a newcomer. Someone familiar with the city’s architecture and general vibe wouldn’t fixate on these things, but Ashra is a stranger in Korslakov, and as such every detail holds some sort of interest to her. This made it easy for me to highlight the elements that I felt were important to make clear to readers, like the style of buildings and the atmosphere. I love settings that almost feel like characters in their own right, and this approach – where the character and reader explore the place for the first time together – really helps you get under the skin of a new location and present it in a way that feels immersive.
Ashra’s exploration of the city allows me to in turn explore her own feelings and misgivings about finding herself in an unfamiliar place, which is the second purpose of the chapter. In Saphrona, the sun-drenched setting of The Silverblood Promise, Ashra is a master thief – someone who is completely comfortable in her environment, and who knows every alley and rooftop. But Korslakov is a very different place; it’s dark, it’s cold, and – most significantly – it’s completely unknown to her. Subsequently, a major part of Ashra’s emotional arc in this novel is whether she can adapt to this unfamiliar, intimidating new environment. Can she still be the master thief she was in Saphrona? This is why I decided to have Ashra explore the city rather than Lukan – the story’s primary protagonist – because it was important to show the reader how the city unsettles her and makes her question her own abilities. The way she nearly slips as she disembarks the ship is quite telling; it’s almost as if Korslakov is taunting her. Her resulting defiance and determination to get to grips with this strange new city sets the tone for the rest of the chapter, and her entire emotional arc in the novel.
2
First Impressions
Ashra’s first step into Korslakov had been inauspicious.
As she’d stepped off the Sunfish’s gangplank, she’d slipped on a patch of ice. A gust of wind had knifed her as she struggled to keep her balance, and it felt as if the dark city that loomed around her was saying, you don’t belong here. Taunting her.
Let it try, she’d thought.
Swiftly she’d regained both balance and breath. As she’d followed Flea and Lukan across the lamplit wharves, she recovered something else too: the elation that had been growing inside her ever since they’d sighted the distant lights of Korslakov earlier that evening. Elation at being free of the ship’s narrow confines, Lukan’s grating company, and the seasickness that had tormented her. But most of all, elation at placing an entire continent between her and the Twice-Crowned King.
It would take more than a little cold and darkness to steal that feeling from her.
The Sunfish’s captain, Graziano Grabulli, had given them directions to what he claimed was a reputable inn, but the man was a rogue through and through (it took one to know one) and, while the inn was just as close as he’d promised, Ashra was unsurprised to find it was nowhere near as refined. Perhaps it was a matter of taste. Regardless, the room they rented would do for one night. Lukan managed to light a fire in the small hearth before passing out. Flea was content to sit on her own bed and fuss with her crossbow, but Ashra felt restless. She was keen to explore this strange new city, despite the frosty welcome it had given her. She’d never left Saphrona until deciding to take her chances with Flea and Lukan on the Sunfish, and she could feel the lure of Korslakov’s unfamiliar streets calling to her. It wouldn’t hurt to familiarise herself with their immediate surroundings. Preparation was a thief’s greatest tool, after all. So, after extracting a promise from Flea that the girl wouldn’t leave the room, Ashra had slipped back out into the darkened streets on her own.
An hour later, she felt she had the full measure of the City of Spires.
If Saphrona was like the sun, bright and warm and full of promise, then Korslakov mirrored the moon: austere, cold and shrouded in secrecy. The two cities stood at opposite ends of the Old Empire, after all, Saphrona at its sun-kissed southern tip and Korslakov at its bitter northern point. Yet the startling difference still managed to surprise her. As she traversed the darkened streets, Ashra felt as if she’d entered a different world entirely. Saphrona never truly slept; music and laughter and shouts and screams all carried across the red-tiled roofs well into the small hours. Her home city had a restless spirit, a vibrant energy that felt like it might tear loose at any moment.
Korslakov felt different.
It wasn’t just the cold. It was the silence, which was broken only by the odd burst of music or snatch of laughter that carried through open doors only to be snuffed out again. It was the way the streets were almost deserted, long before midnight. It was the way those citizens who were abroad held themselves: hooded heads bowed, cloaked shoulders hunched, as if trying to pass unnoticed. It was in the way the tall buildings of granite loomed, austere in the darkness, their high-gabled roofs frowning down at her.
Korslakov felt like a city holding its breath, as if scared to draw the attention of the Wolfclaw Mountains that encircled it. The Sunfish had arrived on the evening tide, so Ashra hadn’t properly seen the mountains themselves, but she could sense their immensity by how they blocked out the stars. They made the mountains that rose behind Saphrona seem like mere hills. Their vastness stole the breath from her lungs. Or perhaps that was the cold.
If Saphrona’s identity was light and the clamour of life, Korslakov’s was the darkness and the quiet of the grave.
Ashra hated it already.
But she hated how it made her feel even more.
With every twisting, darkened street, she could sense her elation of an hour before fading. A nervousness grew in its place; a creeping fear. She could guess at its origin. Ashra knew Saphrona like the back of her hand. After three weeks on the Sunfish, she could say the same of the ship, and that had lessened the uncertainty she’d felt at leaving the only home she’d ever known. But Korslakov was a mystery to her, as unfathomable as the depths of the ocean they’d just sailed on. And that made her anxious. She felt unsure and unprepared. Worse, she felt vulnerable in a way she hadn’t felt since her mother’s accident had forced her into a life of thievery.
She hated that feeling more than anything – more than the heavy coat that weighed her down, more than the brooding, unfamiliar city that threatened to swallow her.
Ashra paused by a tavern, took a deep breath of the cold air. Tried to take some comfort from the faint laughter and thump of a drum within. Signs of life in this dark place.
The wind gusted again, icy fingers tugging at her coat. Probing. Invasive.
She considered heading back to their room. Told herself the city would look different in the morning. That she would feel better.
But that felt like defeat.
And Ashra hated losing as much as she hated feeling vulnerable.
No. There was only one option.
To conquer the fear that was growing inside her, she would have to unmask the city’s face and reveal its secrets. Which meant walking its streets and squares and alleys and thoroughfares until she knew them as well as those of Saphrona.
And she would start right now.
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James Logan was born in the southeast of England and grew up on a steady diet of classic 80s cartoons and Commodore 64 computer games. The impulse purchase of a Fighting Fantasy gamebook forged a love of all things fantastical, which later led to a career in genre publishing. James lives and works in London. He was recently shortlisted for the Glass Bell Award.
Find out more at James’ website.
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Thanks so much to James for contributing this excerpt and commentary, and also to Ayo from Arcadia Books for organising everything. Hopefully that’s given you a sense of what to expect from The Blackfire Blade, and whetted your appetite to get hold of a copy!
And if you haven’t yet read book one in the Last Legacy series, The Silverblood Promise, have a read of my interview with James to find out more about it.
The Blackfire Blade is published by Arcadia in hardback, audio and ebook on 6th November 2025. Check out the link below to order* your copy:
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