Holy Wrath

Victoria Mier

A gothic, sapphic fantasy about two women who decide they no longer want equality once they've tasted revenge.

In a city clinging to light during an age of darkness, all healer Ophelia wants is for a Saint to finally claim her and bless her with the power to work the Mysteries. When she's tasked with caring for an injured prisoner, Ophelia sees the perfect opportunity to prove she's ready for her Sainting. The prisoner is none other than the Lupa Nox—the most dangerous warrior of the Sepulchyre, her homeland's sworn enemy. If Ophelia can convert the disarmingly beautiful knight's wicked heart to the Church of the Host, then the Saints will surely fight amongst themselves to claim her.

But the Lupa Nox insists that Ophelia's beloved god is a murderous liar and her city is built on blackened bones. It's easy enough to dismiss as blasphemy—at least at first. As Lumendei's gilded secrets begin to tumble from their hiding places and Ophelia herself uncovers a conspiracy, she's forced to consider that Nyatrix might be telling the truth.

And that saving the alluring knight's soul is the least of her problems.

For fans of The Fall That Saved Us and The Foxglove King comes a searing, unforgettable standalone novel about the power of queer resilience and femme rage.

Sapphic Speculative Fiction Expands the Imagination

Many people approach queer romance through familiar frameworks. Modern settings. Recognizable social rules. Families that resemble the structures most of us grew up around. I wrote about this a week or two ago, about looking beyond contemporary romance for great sapphic stories.

Those stories matter. They reflect lived experience and present-day struggles.

Yet some of the most thought-provoking sapphic stories appear in places where the rules look completely different.

Speculative fiction offers writers a simple but radical tool. The ability to ask what happens when the world operates under different assumptions?

What happens when gender does not function the way our societies expect?
What happens when colonial hierarchies collapse or never existed in the first place?
What happens when family and community follow different structures?

Sapphic speculative fiction thrives in these questions.
What counts as speculative fiction?
Speculative fiction serves as an umbrella term for stories that imagine worlds different from our own.
Fantasy explores magic, mythology, and alternate societies.
Science fiction looks at future technology, space exploration, and evolving social systems.
Alternate history reimagines historical timelines.
Dystopian and utopian fiction examine political systems taken to extreme outcomes.
Magical realism blends ordinary life with elements that challenge reality.
All of these genres share a common feature. They build worlds where the assumptions we treat as natural begin to shift.
When those foundations move, storytelling changes.

Reimagining gender systems

Many speculative worlds question the rigid gender frameworks common in contemporary culture. Some settings include fluid understandings of gender. Others remove the strict gender hierarchy. Some societies organize identity through entirely different categories.
When gender works differently, relationships evolve as well. Characters express attraction without the scripts that dominate many romance narratives. Partnerships develop around compatibility, trust, or shared goals rather than predetermined roles.
For readers, this shift opens new ways of thinking about identity and connection.

Challenging colonial power structures

Speculative fiction often explores empire, conquest, and resistance. Many worlds center characters fighting against oppressive systems or rebuilding communities after political collapse. Some stories draw inspiration from Indigenous traditions or non-Western perspectives to imagine societies structured around different values. Within these settings, sapphic characters frequently appear as leaders, rebels, scholars, or explorers. Their relationships unfold inside larger struggles over power, survival, and cultural memory.
Love does not exist in isolation. It grows alongside questions about justice, resistance, and the future of entire communities.

Rethinking family and community

Another striking feature of speculative fiction involves how stories approach family. The nuclear family model rarely stands as the only option. Characters often live within chosen families, cooperative communities, traveling crews, or political alliances.
Romantic relationships exist inside these broader networks of care. Two people falling in love may also share responsibilities to their crew, their village, or their resistance movement. Partnership becomes part of a wider web of loyalty and support. For many readers, this structure feels both imaginative and deeply familiar.

Common tropes in sapphic speculative fiction

Speculative fiction combines romance with adventure and conflict. Certain narrative patterns recur.

• A princess guarded by a loyal warrior or knight who begins to question her duty.
• Rival soldiers from opposing factions are forced to work together.
• A scholar and a fighter navigating a dangerous quest.
• Political enemies forming uneasy alliances during a rebellion.
• Explorers encountering unfamiliar worlds and build trust through survival.

These tropes create tension, intimacy, and emotional growth while the larger story unfolds.

Why these stories expand the imagination

Speculative fiction does more than entertain. It shifts perspective. When readers step into worlds built on different assumptions, the systems shaping their own lives become visible. Gender roles, political hierarchies, and family structures reveal themselves as historical constructs rather than permanent truths. Sapphic speculative fiction takes this imaginative shift even further. Queer women appear not as side characters but as central figures in the story of the world itself. They lead revolutions. Build communities. Explore unknown territories. Fall in love while reshaping the societies around them. These stories ask readers to imagine something larger than representation. They ask us to imagine entirely different ways people live together.

An invitation to explore

If you have not spent time with sapphic speculative fiction, consider this an invitation.
Explore fantasy worlds where magic reshapes power.
Read science fiction that questions identity in future societies.
Look for stories where love grows alongside resistance, exploration, and discovery. These books stretch the imagination in ways that linger long after the final page.

Conclusion

Join the community.
Explore stories that challenge norms and expand the imagination.