Archive
Daily Archives: September 19, 2013
- by Tara Maya
19. Nothing to Lose
The Unfinished Song: Initiate
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| “Dindi” by Tara Maya |
Dindi
…but also makes you want to rage and weep because it reminds you the enemy has captured your cousins, your friends.
A strange thing happens. You’re terrified, disoriented, humiliated, helpless, panting with exhaustion, focused on trying to place one foot at a time while avoiding the switch. You’re also angry. As your hearing and sense of balance returns, your anger creeps up on you, growing fiercer, until it strangles your fear.
Despite the enemy’s precautions, your woodcraft whispers certain secrets. The brush of the air on your skin, the texture and tilt of the ground, these tell you you’re heading west, toward the ocean.
You know you will be sold as a sacrificial slave, a mariah, as soon as they leave the boarders of your clan and tribe, too far away for your kin to find or avenge you. Obedience doesn’t bake well in your oven; you’re certain you wouldn’t last long as a slave. They warn you they will kill you if you don’t do what they want, that your life is worth less to them than a fistful of seed. They call you wormbait, carion.
Their aim is to make you think you are going to die, and they succeed.
So you have nothing left to lose.
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| “Kavio” by Tara Maya |
Chapter Two
Rover
Kavio
Kavio stood on the balcony of his father’s house, back in the shadows, and the mob hadn’t seen him yet. That couldn’t last.
The mob filled the dusty streets between the blocks of adobe houses. Torches waved like luminous war banners. The throng had been gathering every evening for days before the trial, shouting for blood. Wild fae whirled around them, vicious little Red and Orange imps, unseen by most of the people in the crowd.
“Death to Kavio! Death to Kavio!” the people shouted.
Kavio inhaled the dry summer night. The decree of the Society of Societies might have been commuted to exile, but he still had to get out of the tribehold alive. Now that he faced a mob ready to rend him limb from limb, he found he preferred life in exile to death after all.
Father, still in his face paint and dance regalia, went to the edge of the balcony. Like the kiva, the adobe house had been painted white and the mud walls of the balcony rose organically out of the lower story of the house. For defensive purposes, none of the houses in the tribehold had doors on the first story. Ladders allowed access between the balcony and the street.
Father held up his arms to silence the crowd. It took some time to still their chanting.
“Your cries have been heard. Justice is served!” he shouted. “Kavio has been judged guilty. He will be exiled!”
This appeased few in the mob.
“In the Bone Whistler’s day he would have been stoned!” some- one shouted.
Thunderous rage contorted Father’s face, but he never lost his self-control. “The Bone Whistler is dead and so are his ways. The judgment is exile.”
TO BE CONTINUED
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- by Tara Maya
The Making of a Mage King: Prince in Hiding by Anna L. Walls
What would happen to you if you lost your parents at 17?
And then… what if they weren’t your parents at all?
When Sean loses his parents within a year of each other he can’t see past the tragedy… until he finds out his father isn’t really his father… and Sean isn’t who he thinks he is. Follow Sean through his journey to a magical world where he is royalty and his powers are only beginning to bloom… and family is a relative concept – evil uncles and all.
Prince in Hiding by Anna Walls is the first in The Making of a Mage King series that follows young Sean from boy to Mage King! You can download it on Amazon. Book 2 in the series, White Star, is also on Amazon.
Excerpt
Sixteen-year-old Sean stood in the queue, waiting his turn to compete with the saber. He looked up at the bleachers. He had no problem locating his dad; his parents sat in the same place every time. His dad was talking to their flat mate, Gordon; his mom couldn’t make it this time – she had to work. Every year since Sean’s first tournament, his parents gave him a choice. Since the tournament and his birthday were generally only a few days apart, Sean got to pick which event his parents would attend; it was impossible for them to get both days off from work. Sean thought of a compromise. He really wanted them to watch him compete, so as a birthday present of sorts, they could take him out for a special dinner afterwards.
When Sean, Gordon and his father returned home that evening, they were greeted by a squad car waiting out in front of their apartment building.
“Sorry sir,” said the officer as he met them at their taxi. Sean’s father was a sergeant of the mounted police. The officer looked uncomfortable about talking in front of Sean and Gordon.
“Go ahead officer. We’re family,” said Elias.
“Sorry sir,” said the man. He hastily pulled his hat off his head and gripped it in his fists. “Sir, you need to come down to the station. It’s your wife, sir. She’s…she’s dead. You need…”
Sean didn’t hear anything else. The monotone of his father’s voice and the officer’s voice no longer translated into words. He found the hood of the police car and leaned on it, his sword case hitting the pavement with an audible thump.
Gordon wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “Come on, I’ll get you inside.”
Find more from Anna on her website, blog, Facebook, Goodreads and Twitter.