Cam Jackson
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campbersand.bsky.social
Cam Jackson
@campbersand.bsky.social
56 followers 67 following 48 posts
I write books. I am unsupervised.

#amquerying NEVER BEFORE, my trapped in disguises/unstoppable sword/second-chance love fantasy novel
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campbersand.bsky.social
Royce has been forcibly disguised as a princess but impersonating one long enough to kill a king... is much harder than he thought.

From NEVER BEFORE, my trapped in disguises/unstoppable sword/second-chance love novel, #amquerying
Endry poured in milk and honey and tea in a cup, then stirred and held it out to him. Royce eyed the cup as if it might attack him. He was a farmer’s son from the rocky north and even he knew milk in tea was an abomination. The Fae might turn someone’s feet backwards so they couldn’t walk or turn them to stone but still alive or make them into voiceless shadows that had to watch their families grow old and die, but even they wouldn’t put milk in tea. “Are you ill?” “I meant, could you call a page, or take a letter to someone?” Royce took the cup from Endry and was not prepared for her to coolly lay the back of her hand over his forehead. “Endry?” Endry looked at him as if he’d said something truly foolish. “Maybe have something to drink, ma’am, shake the cobwebs out of your eyes.”
November 2, 2025 at 4:04 PM
campbersand.bsky.social
Royce is trapped in the pettiest dress that ever swished. It’s jealous of other dresses. It’s jealous of spiderwebs, of tablecloths, of flower arrangements, and here...of a painting of a fatal duel.

From NEVER BEFORE, my trapped in disguises/unstoppable sword/second-chance love novel, #amquerying
They turned again and entered the Promenade, right under an enormous painting of two men killing each other on a plain at sunset. They had taken the absolute longest way around and still wound up on the Promenade. One of the fighters had put a spear so far through his opponent’s back that the dripping triangular point was clearly visible, and the other had made do with a knife, with only the hilt showing. The man with the knife in him seemed more upset, his mouth in an O. The other one just looked furious. Two soldiers passed, in the insignia of the First Brigade. Royce jerked his eyes away from them. “What?” Amys’s eyes flicked down his body. The dress had noticed the stupid painting and transformed again. He glanced behind him. The dress kept the enormous dragging skirt but now it had a simpler neck. It bled from black at the hem to grey to orange-pink-red all the way up to his neck, and little wispy things drifted from the shoulders that were probably meant to be clouds. Royce sighed. At least he could see over his shoulder.
October 24, 2025 at 2:25 PM
campbersand.bsky.social
Amys has uncovered Royce’s plot to kill the king by taking her niece’s place. But that leaves Elys in his - surrounded by traitors, at the head of a revolution that can’t be allowed to succeed.

From NEVER BEFORE, my trapped in disguises/unstoppable sword/second-chance love WIP #amquerying
It was odd, beyond odd, to see Elys shrug with Royce’s body, and turn away with her hand on Royce’s sword. She hadn’t raised Elys to be easy to sway. Amys herself could never demonstrate it as a virtue. Could she ape her own way through a lie so elaborate? She had been torn so many times, watching Elys's guarded expression as dinner guests advanced quick-retreat hints of uprising and war before riding away to their estates and their petty, survivable intrigues: a grain field here, a marriage match there. But watching Elys calmly shoulder this dissembling, she wondered all over again, had she done right? What sort of life had she prepared Elys for?
October 20, 2025 at 3:50 PM
campbersand.bsky.social
Trust begins when you show up for each other. But first there's the hard part where you don't.

From my trapped in disguises/unstoppable sword/second-chance love WIP #amquerying
“Do you know the word `unstoppable,’ highborn?” Cinna stood in the boat, head cocked a little. “You have to be careful with it because –“ Her eyes went wide in a satisfying way when Elys knocked her into the water.
October 15, 2025 at 1:09 PM
campbersand.bsky.social
#WIPSnips ultimate/last

The beginning of yesterday's #WIPSnips

Cinna's hunting a sly tactician hungry for power - and keeps finding annoyance, annoyance, a few clues, and more annoyance

From my trapped in disguises/unstoppable sword/second-chance love WIP #amquerying
Cinna sneezed in another wave of dust and laid the book open atop the stack of the others. She waved the cloud away and paged through the hand-written dates. Then a movement at the corner of her vision made her hand snap to the knife on her belt. One of the awful dogs stood in the doorway, slowly waving its hairy tail. It trotted over to her, nosed at her pockets, sneezed, and set off to explore the stacks and crates of books behind her. Another of the dogs came in, nearly identical, and then Not-Royce with her straight-backed princess posture that looked pained on Royce’s body, and the last awful dog casually trotting behind. “What are you doing here? This is the royal library.” “What are you doing here? It’s a library.” Elysandra answered, looking around the small workroom, the cracking paint on the walls, the dusty crates, the small worktable crowded with books, the one tiny window. Her gaze flicked over Cinna’s hand on her knife and went back to the books. “I bribed an archivist. Are you going to take those dogs everywhere? And where is your escort?” “You bribed a capital official?” “I don’t know, Your Graciousness, they seem to like money.”
October 14, 2025 at 2:01 PM
campbersand.bsky.social
The #WIPSnips for 10 13 is "push"

Cinna's tracking the person who can wish away the revolution. The disguised princess wants to know who wished away her family. Where are secrets hidden in a city made with magic?

From my trapped in disguises/unstoppable sword/second-chance love WIP #amquerying
Not-Royce pushed empty air beside her ear back over her shoulder like a handful of hair. “I’m saying, the books can’t be taken from the library. So there’s another library.” She looked at Cinna expectantly. “Because the books can’t be taken from the library. The castle’s grown up over time. There has to be another library.” “This is the logic of fevered brains,” Cinna sighed. “You think there were libraries in the old castle. That long ago. Just look under the old ones.” Not-Royce gently lifted a book so faded that the binding and pages were nearly the same color. “This book was bound long before this room was made. It was enchanted then so that it could not be removed from the library. Sometime later, this workroom, this library was wished into existence. Tell me, Colonel, how did this book arrive here?”
October 13, 2025 at 2:19 PM
campbersand.bsky.social
Since the murder of their family, her niece’s survival is the only thing keeping Amys in check. Here's when a powerful pissed off captive trickster puts it all together.

From my trapped in disguises/unstoppable sword/second-chance love WIP

#WIPSnips #WriteSky #WritingCommunity #amquerying
“You think I’m a different–“ The Fae gestured and the plinths shivered and collapsed into dark mounds of ash and blew away, leaving only unbroken snow. “Welcome.” Amys raised her chin and looked it in the eye as she sank slowly into a curtsey that would have offended king and empress alike. She did not shiver as she rose.
October 11, 2025 at 2:06 PM
campbersand.bsky.social
This little sign from the ruins of a castle this summer cracked me up.

If you tell Americans the well is 91 feet deep they might think "I could die."

If you tell them it's 27 meters they might think about swim meets or track and field.
The well is 91 feet deep Visitors are warned not to climb the railings
October 10, 2025 at 4:48 AM
campbersand.bsky.social
A battery is a power source, power sources are powerful, and that reminds me: it's time to argue.

From my trapped in disguises/unstoppable sword/second-chance love WIP #amquerying
“Don’t even consider it,” Royce said immediately, staring out the window. “To whom are you speaking?” Amys asked his back. They were alone in the large room. “It’s powerful protection, Amys.” “It’s awful. No one could wear this all day.” “I am sure Lewllen slept in it.” “I will not sleep in the thing. I will have it off in my own tower.” Royce opened his mouth, considered, closed it, and then opened it again, struck by a thought. “No,” said Amys, settling into both the chair and another silly argument. “My guards hang on your littlest word, and this pinches at my neck.” Her guards were outside the door, probably glaring at passers-by, Royce-like. “All this magic, and it’s a torment.”
October 9, 2025 at 2:32 PM
campbersand.bsky.social
Third part of the prophecy moving into place

From my trapped in disguises/unstoppable sword/second-chance love WIP #amquerying
“Come on!” she shouted back as they ran. Ahead of them, the path split into two high, tight, wavering staircases, one steeper than the other. Sofia dashed to one and he followed her, pulling up the skirt. He had a stitch in his side and his bad elbow ached, but he forced himself to climb the stairs right behind her. Sofia had a destiny, she wouldn’t die down here in this poisoned magic dungeon, and as long as he stuck close, he’d live too. Sofia threw a hand behind her and he caught himself and overbalanced. He nearly fell as a spider dropped out of the dark nearly right in front of them. Royce backed down the stairs, slipped on the skirt, and then turned around to run. He’d made it several steps before he realized Sofia wasn’t behind him. He whirled just in time to watch her draw back her arm and pitch her shoe right into the spider’s huge eye. And not run. “SOFIA!” She still didn’t run. She yanked off her other shoe and threw that one too. The spider made a horrible shrieking sound and came for her, clacking its jaws together. “Run!” She shouted. “Run!” Royce dashed back up, two stairs at a time, his legs like lead, just in time to watch Sofia jam her fist down on the leg nearest her. He caught a flash of metal as she did it again and again as the spider shrieked. Then it drew back as if to launch some attack. Sofia screamed at it, a wordless battle cry of complete fury, fist cocked up in the air, ready for it. She’d stolen a breakfast knife, the kind that Amys said was correct for sausages.
October 8, 2025 at 1:09 PM
campbersand.bsky.social
A disguise is not a disguise if it doesn't disguise you: it's just a dress

From my trapped in disguises/unstoppable sword/second-chance love WIP #amquerying
Royce had made clear he thought her own word was nothing. Why couldn’t the time have made him lazy? Self-satisfied? It had done twice as much for whole swaths of people. Ordinary people. He barreled into the room in his gown, arms pumping. Tonight, the dress twinkled like the night sky: a deep midnight blue falling to black at the hem, with tiny stones set in random patterns all over, which was the best way to disguise the fact that he tromped through the room as if he was late to clean a stable. He pulled at the long gloves that came above his elbows and slapped at the long dark feathers at the top. She hoped they tickled him ferociously. “Hello,” he said carefully, stopping a safe distance away from the couch. She supposed she looked odd, so far from the fire, but she had no strength to care. “Endry thought you might be in here reading. It’s pretty.” The feathers in his gloves waved as he indicated her dress. “You’re always so-” “What is it you’re slowly winding up to asking me to do for you and your traitorous cause?” “You’ll say no without listening?” He bent forward at the waist, undaunted, eyebrows raised. “Oh dear, I’ve lost all my secrets,” she said, and turned back to her book. “It’s about the ball. Tonight.” Amys thoughtfully turned the page. “I –“ He cleared his throat and she still didn’t look up. “I need your help. With the dancing. Please.”
October 7, 2025 at 1:10 PM
campbersand.bsky.social
First part of the prophecy moving into place

From my trapped in disguises/unstoppable sword/second-chance love WIP #amquerying
When the voices had passed, she said to Elys urgently, “Be mindful of the end. He’ll be hung as a traitor. Do not pull anyone innocent into this. These are desperate people. Do not stay with them a moment longer than necessary.” “Do you think he plans to involve Sofia? Sofia d’Avencourt. You remember her, we met her on the balcony, the day we arrived.” Amys forced a neutral smile as the cursed girl and Elys’s doomed attraction cemented themselves together in her mind. “Ah. I did not know her name at the time.” At the time she’d thought her a sweet-faced girl, wide-eyed and overwhelmed by meeting her future Queen. Elys had completely forgotten herself when she looked at Sofia, as if nothing else existed. A disaster arriving in pieces required only time to assemble. Maybe Sofia would be repellant or if the gods loved them, uninterested in women. Curses were never kind. “I will try to find out what he has planned. And keep him contained. You must work quickly, dearest, the wedding is approaching. But be careful. None of this is worth your life. None of it.” Elys would make a wise queen, if only she could gain the throne and survive. She did not miss the shadow that passed over Elys’s face.
October 6, 2025 at 4:49 PM
campbersand.bsky.social
Second-chance love AND second-chance arguing

From my trapped in disguises/unstoppable sword/second-chance love WIP
Endry had forgiven Royce with suspicious speed for the poker incident, and the fire incident, and the blood on the carpet, and the gruesome discovery of several bodies in the storeroom. Amys was not quite sure what he had told her. Elysandra was, surprisingly, a little late for her first Council meeting, but so were several of the Council. Amys would not worry yet. The biggest menace to peace seemed determined to keep her under his nose. “I left you alone for a few moments and you killed several people and set the storeroom on fire. Will you sit down?” “I only did a few of those things,” Royce said, pacing. “I’ve said two things.” “Well, maybe you should stop leaving me.” He stopped. “Unless it’s a fight. Then you could leave a little more quickly, Amys.” He shook his head and went back to pacing. “Immediately would be best.”
October 5, 2025 at 8:54 PM
campbersand.bsky.social
First step on the trail of a decade-old murder
From my trapped in disguises/unstoppable sword/second-chance love WIP
“Why don’t you like nobles?” “Do you know what they fight about all day? Who gets to talk first. Who gets to walk in the room first. Who sits at the end of the table, because there’s a better place and a worse place. There’s a better chair and a worse chair. And if you’re sitting in the worse chair, and still enjoying yourself, you must be trying to piss someone off.” “What if...” Elysandra began. Cinna swore silently. “...you put all this time into looking at odd things and nothing comes of it?” One of the dogs lay down in the doorway and the other two dropped to the floor near Elysandra’s foot. Cinna moved a hairy tail with her foot. It flopped back over her toe. “Arguing.” She paged forward several years. “Is not helping.” “Just pointing things out.” “It’ll be like watching my soldiers die for nothing. I can drink. I can philosophize. Or I can hunt.” She skipped another decade. “I caught you, didn’t I?”
October 4, 2025 at 1:52 PM
campbersand.bsky.social
Dance practice/royal ball murder preparations from my trapped in disguises/unstoppable sword/second-chance love WIP #amquerying
Royce abandoned his curtsey in alarm, grabbed the seam at the shoulder and yanked with all his might. “NO! No! Why is this sleeve -?” “It's leg o'mutton. Bend your wrist. Let your arm fall...like a leaf.” She demonstrated. Royce sank into his curtsey again. “Is it made of sheep?” He grabbed at his waist. “Why is this so tight? Stop it!” “No. Focus on my words. A leaf. Falling. No, more graceful. No. Watch.” He waved his arm wildly. “It's like a dress for just my arm. And here’s another.” As long as she kept rising and falling, he sank and straightened with her, no matter the complaining, no matter that he was beginning to tire. “How did you command soldiers?” she asked with little interest. “You worry too much.” Amys quickened her motions, let her arms rise and fall more languidly, more dance than greeting, and watched him frown and attempt it. His hair was damp at the temples. “I swam a swollen river in winter, caught a mounted man on foot, and killed him with my bare hands,” he muttered as he bobbled his way into a squat. “Did you dislike him?” she asked politely, though she knew the story very well. People seemed to talk about it, or the other, every time his name came up. “He knew our battle plans. I can manage a simple curtsey, Amys. This isn’t dancing.” “You've never done it before so it must be simple.” Another facet to the plan began to build in her imagination.
October 1, 2025 at 11:14 PM
campbersand.bsky.social
tfw your crush tries to kill you bc she thinks you're someone else

From my trapped in disguises/unstoppable sword/second-chance love WIP #amquerying
Elys’s eyes flashed wide as she swung the sword back above her head to keep it away from Sofia. It cut easily through two legs of a chair, part of a curtain, and slid through the stone wall like a knife through butter. The chair clunked to the floor in pieces as Sofia pulled herself atop Elys, grabbing for her throat. Elys yanked the sword free, eyes wild. She rolled with Sofia and then yelped as the sword flew overhead in an arc toward Sofia’s leg. “Stop, Sofia!” Elys shouted. “Stop!” Sofia smacked Elys’s hand out of the way and scrambled to get back atop her, fire in her eyes. One of the dogs began to growl. Sofia hissed, showing her teeth. The dog picked up a paw, hesitated, and put it down. Amys blinked and remembered she could shout. “Stop!” she shouted. “Sofia, stop! Don’t hurt her!” “I’m not going to hurt her!” Elys gritted out, trying to roll away. “Sofia!” Sofia feinted with a finger straight at Elys’s eye, and as Elys threw an arm up to protect her shocked face, Sofia seized her by the throat with both hands. Elys flailed and then flung the sword away from Sofia with such force it cut through the carpet and slid into the wooden floor. Sofia squeezed. “Stop!” Amys shouted.
September 30, 2025 at 8:41 PM
campbersand.bsky.social
Another snip from my trapped in disguises/unstoppable sword/second-chance love WIP
“You’ll die undiscovered down here if you kill me. Slowly. The smell of my rotting body won’t finish you off, more’s the pity. What was your threat, to carve my face onto my face? I thought you were a tactician.” Elysandra paused, then added, “You might at least move us out of this puddle while I sort through all my fears.” “Brave, Not-Royce, or more like stupid. Why did you come back? Too lonely at your grand estate?” The only sound in the dark was the slow dripping sound of water finding new and patient ways through rock. “There’re some dead rats by the wall worth meeting.” “At least you are not polite in your threats,” Elysandra remarked politely. “I do appreciate it. Egdar will have me be the model of decorum and obedience or they may kill my aunt, who is worth some fifty of his best. I will dance like a bear on a chain if he likes. I will do any damned thing he tells me to do.” “Tell me what you want for him.” “I would trade Egdar for a dead rat. You said you had some?”
September 29, 2025 at 11:48 PM
campbersand.bsky.social
From my trapped in disguises/unstoppable sword/second- chance love WIP
“This is the man who took the Tribet Fort from Cerelan with fifteen men.” “Fifteen? I thought it was fifty.” “Mm, I’m sure it was fifteen.” He’d smuggled a letter to Amys then, a surprise after some years. She had not replied. It would not have been proper. Or safe. He evaded the queen’s jealous eye to write to her as if they’d just spoken. His familiar distracted scrabble of letters. He had held the paper in his hands where she did, folded it, sealed it, written her name. A smudge of a few letters at the margin; he’d flicked something away while the ink was drying. His little finger, just catching the paper. His words to her held tight in his fist. The letter had left her unable to speak or think all afternoon. It almost seemed that at any moment he might walk into the room with his familiar step, his delighted smile. The next morning, she put it in the fire and breathed and did not blink until it spilled down her cheeks. Elys was just thirteen, with weary eyes and a practiced smile. She would not speak to Amys about that night. Some other Amys had been young once. She could not remember it.
September 28, 2025 at 11:44 PM