Literature / Symphony Of Shifting Tides

"Symphony of Shifting Tides" is the first book in the Elancia Chronicles saga. It was written by Leilani Rae Wilson, and published in 2019 through Goal Publications. Illustrations were done by NightlineZ (Cover art), and Renz (interior art).

After another successful heist, Verse and Xan are forced to abandon their piratical lives, as they find themselves in grave danger. The sea has started to die under their noses. Before the monsters can take them down into the abyss, They escape to the land of Celestion: an old-fashioned devoutly religious nation from the Basker continent, who are at war with their Dascillian neighbours. After their only hope for escape leaves them behind, they must find a way to survive, as they make all sorts of strange new friends, get stalked by bounty hunters, and are forced to enlist into military service. Meanwhile, Verse looks for answers about her missing past, and tries to resolve her inner turmoil. All while she tries to suppress a disturbing presence inside her...

In 2019, it received a Leo Literary Award for being among the best novels of the year, and was also nominated for a Coyotl Award.

It was followed up the next year by it's sequel Symphony Of Hunted Truths.

---

Symphony Of Shifting Tides contains examples of:

• Action Prologue: The story starts with Verse & Xan's sloppily executed, yet successful raid on a ship, where the two of them craftily manage to commandeer it despite being heavily outnumbered by the crew.
• And the Adventure Continues: Verse & Xan leave for Kerlynzia, with Cecelia & Basil following them on the wrong ship.
• Arboreal Abode: Zolder City in Lurafelle is full of houses carved from trees.
• Berserk Button: Verse's monserous side is unleashed after Prince Filn's botched assassination by an Aegiys mage who's fireball attack caused collateral damage to the musicians.
• Book Ends: The final sentences of Shifting Tides feature a Call-Back to the very start of the book.
  Epilogue: What began on one ship ended on another. The tides shifted, the symphony was over, and everyone had left but Karina. The world continued on unconcerned, as if it were face down in the water.
• The Chosen One: Basil & his ancestors are literally called this by the Celestionese.
• Cigar-Fuse Lighting: Stella accidentally lights a stick of dynamite when she drops her cigar, and catches it with the wrong hand...
• Cryptic Conversation: When the main five characters arrive in Fate's lair, Fate mocks everybody with cryptic riddles & confusing, ominous predictions of everyone's futures, much to all of their frustration.
• Decisive Battle: The battle of Castle Pulf results in very heavy casualties for the small remaining Aegiys Guard forces.
• The Drag-Along: Verse desperately wants to escape the war, but since Xan & Karina go off to join the Blades of light, Verse, with encouragement from Lyrikos, is reluctantly roped back in.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: After the war, Basil, Karina and Chaz get all the fame & glory for their heroicism, While Verse, Xan and Cecelia's contributions are reduced to passing mentions at the end of Basil's speech. Verse doesn't mind, but Xan is not impressed.
• Dude, Where's My Reward?: Despite being promised a lucrative reward for escorting Basil to Lurafelle, Verse, Xan & Cecelia are left empty-handed, since Regando didn't have the money Basil said he did.
• Enchanted Forest: The 'Sacred Forest' in Celestion has glowing trees, and is inhabited by the wise Chimera folk.
• Eye Scream: Fate gruesomely bisects Verse's eye with his sword in order to inject his own power into it. This results in Verse getting a Magical Eye which allows her to see disturbing visions of the future, and also gives Fate a second life in her nightmares. Verse also gets an Eyepatch of Power from this.
• Fantastic Drug: Aria's cigarettes look & smell different to Verse's. They also make it's user feel light-headed & hungry, implying that Aria smokes that dank Elancian weed.
  Verse: It makes me feel… Weird. Weird and hungry.
• False Flag Operation: Prince Filn's assassination is an Elian plot to turn the Aegiys Guard & Dascillians against eachother. Although as it turns out, The Aegiys was already plotting their own assassination attempt, as Aliester discovers.
• Fetish: In Verse's diary, she recounts how one night, she almost stepped on Cecelia while they were camping, but the fox unexpectedly learns that the young bat has a thing for feet:
  Verse: Sorry, I almost stepped on you
  Cecelia: Oh, please do.
  • Verse calls her creepy for this
• Five-Man Band: Verse, Xan, Cecelia, Basil, & Karina.
• Foreshadowing: This little gem early on: "The ocean could have a maternal quality to it, right down to its fierce temper", hints at Verse's Ocean-Goddess Ancestry.
  • The entire exchange with Verse's party, & Fate before their battle
• A Friend in Need: Despite initially being reluctant to do so, Verse & Cecelia re-join with Xan, Basil & Karina on their mission.
• The Gambling Addict: Stella, who is bad at it even WITH her cheating.
• Gay Bravado: When they first meet, Verse and Aria agressively trash talk eachother, culminating in Verse Accusing Aria of being a dick-sucker, which backfires spectacularly when Aria immediately & proudly confirms the accusation.
  Verse: You look like you spend time sucking dicks, and… h-having them in your butt! Yeah!
  Aria: [yawning] I hear I’m pretty good at those things
  Verse: [squeakily] W-What?
• Groin Attack: Xan and Verse have a game they like to play called "Confession Time" in which the two players reveal increasingly more embarrassing facts about themselves until one gives up. Loser gets punched in the dick.
• Happy Flashback: Late in the story, Verse remembers the main 5 going for a swim together during their stay at Castle Pulf, among other fun escapades.
• Hospital Epilogue: The epilogue takes place two months after the final battle with Fate, where Verse wakes up in a hospital bed next to Xan.
• I Just Shot Marvin in the Face: Aliester shooting Prince Filn was accidental, although it ended up being convenient, as an Aegiys Agent was already on the way to murder him, and Filn's death severed the alliance between the Dascillians & Aegiys.
• The Infiltration: Verse & friends working under the 'Blades of Light' all don disguises to infiltrate a wedding of a Dascillian Prince for an assassination, and to sabotage the Aegiys Cannon.
• It Sucks to Be the Chosen One: Basil's backstory reveals that he had a very lonely upbringing, where playing was forbidden, and he was fed Elian propaganda since before he could read. As such, he longs for freedom, and is the reason he picked up a habit of drowning his sorrows
• Kicking Ass in All Her Finery: Verse, after Prince Filn's botched assassination, beats up an Aegiys magician & some soldiers armed with swords, While she wears an elegant dress.
• Money Spider: While persuing Basil through the caves, Verse's group comes across some un-described dead monsters that Basil has recently slain, with undigested coins in their stomaches. The coins are left behind though, as they're covered in guts.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Fate's wings also have hands on them, thus letting him use 4 swords at once.
• My Hovercraft Is Full of Eels: Cecelia's attempts to speak Kerlynzian (which she learned in a book), leading to hilariously broken results, much to the bafflement of Verse & Karina.
  Cecelia [speaking Elian] Ooh! You guys are Kerlynzian! That’s right!
  Cecelia [speaking Kerlnzian] Thank you very much! I am wish to love you! Sword is great! Imagine intense romance!
• Never Learned to Read: The notorious pirate Captain Dark Derrik Lancaster leaves behind notes to his pursuers with very poor spelling.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: While trying to get into Lurafelle, The main 5 come accross a checkpoint. Verse goes meets the guards & makes great progress in convincing them to open the gates, but Cecelia fucks everything up disasterously by casting magic, causing the guards to attack, and subsequently, die for nothing, AFTER she was told not to.
• Nigh-Invulnerable: Fate is practically impervious to regular weaponry, and requires his own MoonSword to damage him. Wounds opened by the Moonsword are vulnerable to regular weapons, though. But even then, Fate is extremely resillient.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Verse gives one to an Aegiys mage who hurt her fellow musicians.
  • Much later, after Verse's near-death experience in the Dream-Sea, Fate gets one very satisfying beatdown from Lyrikos
• Not Good with Rejection: Verse finds Cecelia crying, and while she's trying to cheer the young bat up, Cece kisses Verse on the lips. Since she's only 16, Verse rightfully rejects her advances, and poor Cecelia runs off crying.
• No One Could Survive That!: Xan & Stella fall down into a deep ravine during a fight, where nobody can see where they landed. Both survive. Later, Verse's party falls into a fissure along with some trees, and a building during an earthquake. Somehow, nobody got any serious injuries.
• No-Sell: The result of attempting to harm Fate with regular weapons
• Old-Timey Bathing Suit: Basil wears a stripy one while the main 5 goes for a swim.
• Plot Coupon: Fate's Moonsword, which is necessary to vanquish him.
• Prematurely Grey-Haired: Karina's hair has turned white in her 20's due to her stressful life.
• Putting on the Reich: Fate's banner has a red background, with a black spiderweb in the middle, which bears a slight resemblance to the flag of a certain notorious faction from the 20th century.
• Rhetorical Request Blunder: During some negotiations between Celestion & Dascillia, Prince Filn finds Chaz's demands unreasonable, and asserts that he'd rather die than fulfil her requests. Aliester proceeds to shoot him, much to Xan & Chaz's shock.
  Filn If you want the Aegiys gone, strike me down, because I will not yield!
  Aliester I can arrange that
  Filn [clutching his bullet wound] I-I didn’t mean that literally! How could you?
• Saying Too Much: Stella loudly threatening to use magic on Verse & Xan. Amongst an enormous crowd of devout Elians, who consider magic use to be a hideous sin.
• Sdrawkcab Alias: Kiryl is Lyrikos, spelled backwards, with two letters removed.
  • Coincidentally, her "Kiryl" persona's surname- Hemana spelled backwards is "Anameh", which sounds like "Anime"
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Fate, who spends the entire story up until the final battle sealed in his temple in a cave under Mount Rukrous.
• Smoking Barrel Blowout: Aliester blows his smoking barrel after shooting Prince Filn.
• Super Weapon: The Aegiys Cannon is a giant, mountain-sized gun being developed that when complete, will be able to launch immensely-powerful magical strikes anywhere on the Basker continent. It is implied that this was once a weapon aboard an alien starship...
• Supporting Protagonist: While the story mostly follows Verse's perspective, Basil is a much more traditionally heroic character, and gets most of the credit for the success of their adventures.
• Surrounded by Idiots: Ryza's reaction to finding Verse writhing in agony on the floor after receiving a punch to the groin.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork:Verse & Xan don't get along with Cecelia, Karina & Basil for quite a long time.
• Tempting Fate: Verse has a tendency to trash-talk her captors when they have her life in their hands.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: While Verse finds Prince Filn to be quite unattractive, she is awe-struck by his wife's busty chest.
• Victorious Loser: Before Fate is killed, he injects Verse with his powers, and lives on in her nightmares, which was all part of his plan.
• War Is Hell: a prominent theme of the book. Early on, Verse & Xan travel through the charred ruins of a town called Hockenheim, which was victim of a massacre during a previous war. Later on, the two & Cecelia come accross a pile of dying bodies, among which is Karina. By the time she is healed, the rest are dead.
• Your Head A-Splode: As punishment for threatening Xan's life, Verse gruesomely blows up Ryadel's head with water magic.

---