My first draft is complete, and I am getting feedback and working on revisions. I'm very excited about sharing this new world I've created over the next weeks and months. I love November and the gang; don't get me wrong. But working with new characters and filling out the world I've built for them is tremendously enjoyable. I hope you'll enjoy them, too!
Today, I've got an excerpt from the first chapter, just before my two point-of-view characters meet for the first time. My protagonist, Shiloh, is a fifteen-year-old sorceress who has grown up in the poorest part of the kingdom of Bryn. She is about to journey to court, to the Royal Academy of Mages, brought there by Silas Hatch, the king's ruthless fixer. Silas is my second point-of-view character. You'll have to read the book to find out if he turns out more friend than enemy, but I do warn you: this is not a romance.
I hope this excerpt entices you to want to know more. Enjoy!
The dust betrayed them. At the end of a long, dry summer in the Teeth, the hooves of their horses stirred up a cloud that billowed like smoke as they traversed the pass. Shiloh made out a flash of blue that she reckoned must be Lord Blackmine's crest. The Lord of the Teeth's men flew a banner with a white horse on a blue field.
Not that we see it much, given his lordship’s lack of interest in defending his lands and his folk.
The spots of red up in front she supposed might be Silas Hatch's household livery: a golden hatchet on blood crimson.
At least the man embraces his infamy.
She’d been packed for weeks, waiting. She could have run. That is what Brother Edmun had urged her to do, from his deathbed . . . Edmun, who had put her in mortal peril long before he'd learned to love her like a daughter.
He had let Shiloh read all his letters to the City, the ones in which he’d begged the Hatchet to find a place for her at the Royal Academy. He had extolled Shiloh’s virtue and her gifts at length, hopeful that his favorite old pupil would have mercy on his beloved young one. But toward the end, Edmun’s fear for her safety had overcome his hopes for her future, and he'd urged the girl to fly away before Hatch’s men came stomping up their mountains.
She had considered it. As she'd wept into Edmun’s blankets after he'd finally breathed his last, she'd considered it. As she’d watched his wands crumble to dust as they died with him, she’d considered it. As she’d prepared him for burial, as she’d put him in the ground, as she had waited for weeks . . .
And, yet, here she stood, waiting patiently for an infamously ruthless stranger to spirit her away.
As she watched the cloud of dust move ever closer to her home, she considered her choice one last time. Her options were limited. No other village would ever accept a hexborn stranger, and a bastard foundling at that. Her own had only tolerated her because they’d feared to cross Edmun and her father, and because her skills had made her useful. She was surprised they hadn’t tried to drive her out of town since her men had died.
If not a village, then where? Living as a hermit in the woods lacked appeal, not least of which because her ill health turned every winter into mortal combat. Besides, the Feralfolk were not exactly fond of her. She would be easily caught if she ventured any further west, closer to the City. She had not the money to go abroad, to Estany.
Thus, she waited, and she hoped that all of her work, and all Edmun’s plotting, had not been in vain. She wondered how the soldiers would react if her village failed to produce her.
Not well, she thought.
It would serve them right.
I hope this excerpt entices you to want to know more. Enjoy!
The dust betrayed them. At the end of a long, dry summer in the Teeth, the hooves of their horses stirred up a cloud that billowed like smoke as they traversed the pass. Shiloh made out a flash of blue that she reckoned must be Lord Blackmine's crest. The Lord of the Teeth's men flew a banner with a white horse on a blue field.
Not that we see it much, given his lordship’s lack of interest in defending his lands and his folk.
The spots of red up in front she supposed might be Silas Hatch's household livery: a golden hatchet on blood crimson.
At least the man embraces his infamy.
She’d been packed for weeks, waiting. She could have run. That is what Brother Edmun had urged her to do, from his deathbed . . . Edmun, who had put her in mortal peril long before he'd learned to love her like a daughter.
He had let Shiloh read all his letters to the City, the ones in which he’d begged the Hatchet to find a place for her at the Royal Academy. He had extolled Shiloh’s virtue and her gifts at length, hopeful that his favorite old pupil would have mercy on his beloved young one. But toward the end, Edmun’s fear for her safety had overcome his hopes for her future, and he'd urged the girl to fly away before Hatch’s men came stomping up their mountains.
She had considered it. As she'd wept into Edmun’s blankets after he'd finally breathed his last, she'd considered it. As she’d watched his wands crumble to dust as they died with him, she’d considered it. As she’d prepared him for burial, as she’d put him in the ground, as she had waited for weeks . . .
And, yet, here she stood, waiting patiently for an infamously ruthless stranger to spirit her away.
As she watched the cloud of dust move ever closer to her home, she considered her choice one last time. Her options were limited. No other village would ever accept a hexborn stranger, and a bastard foundling at that. Her own had only tolerated her because they’d feared to cross Edmun and her father, and because her skills had made her useful. She was surprised they hadn’t tried to drive her out of town since her men had died.
If not a village, then where? Living as a hermit in the woods lacked appeal, not least of which because her ill health turned every winter into mortal combat. Besides, the Feralfolk were not exactly fond of her. She would be easily caught if she ventured any further west, closer to the City. She had not the money to go abroad, to Estany.
Thus, she waited, and she hoped that all of her work, and all Edmun’s plotting, had not been in vain. She wondered how the soldiers would react if her village failed to produce her.
Not well, she thought.
It would serve them right.
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