Today, I'm sharing with you an excerpt of an up and coming fantasy novel. Please give Aurora a big welcome."As a fantasy writer, I want to take people into a unique world. In my novella, Child of the Loch, we are transported into the mythical land of the Loch and follow Josephina McDonnell on her journey to become Queen. She faces love, betray and magic.
Excerpt:
Prologue
As the King, lay wheezing his last
breaths, he contemplated his kingdom’s future. His fastest messenger had just
been sent to the far west and would be riding past the borders of the Lochoan
lands. The journey would take the messenger further than anyone had ridden in
the last years of King’s rule. Only one
had made the arduous trek that had traveled through all the lands of his
allies, leaving a trail of tears and sadness to a destination far beyond the
pale, pink, rising sun and the blue rain clouds of the Loch.
The King squeezed his almond shaped eyes tight
against the physical pain. He was so ravaged by the illness that no one would
recognize the King, a ghost of his former self. Now, only his amber eyes were a
distinguishable sign of his royal line.
The King had once been the handsomest man in
the kingdom but now his pale, lined face contorted again and again as tremors
took him. Clumps of salt and pepper hair fell from his inflamed pink scalp
whilst fever blisters popped oozing water and lymph into jaundiced eyes, shut
tight; flakes of pasty skin peeled from his dry lips like dried corn
husks.
The King’s endured every moment of the physical
pain of his illness without complaint, but it was the heartache that was
unbearable and made him cry out to the God of his forefathers. He longed for the days when he ruled with his
beloved Queen and his son, the Prince, a shadow of them both.
The King could not escape the thoughts of his
beloved son, a mirror of himself when he was healthy. Both men were
hard-headed, amber-eyed and so unforgiving of each other, that it seemed that
there never could be reconciliation. What transpired could not be undone and
the now exiled Prince was far away in presence, mind and spirit. For this, the King waited, begged, and prayed
for death to come and sweetly end his pain. He needed it to release him from
his bonds, but not before bringing the Prince home to the Loch.
The many years since the Prince had been
banished passed with prejudice. The slow, steady decline of the once strong
King was unexpected in the view of the long lives of his predecessors. Many
believed that his illness came from mourning the loss of the Loch’s only heir.
They knew that the King’s broken heart still bore the weight of the Queen’s
death at the hands of a rival years earlier. However, not one person could
begin to fathom the true reasons of the King’s illness. Test after test drew
the answers and confirmations needed from the royal physicians. It was not
grief that had stolen the spry King’s health but poison from magic of darkness
or herb of the vine that took its hateful vengeance upon his body.
There was no antidote of herb or spell. The
cure for one could cause another to slaughter him more rapidly and
excruciatingly. The priests and apothecaries knew that the long list of poisons
or black magics in the Loch that caused the King’s symptoms would all end
horribly with the much-loved King cold and maimed in his grave. He would be
unrecognizable to all who knew him and no hope of recovery. The King’s death
warrant was signed, sealed and awaiting its hour of designation. The King was a
slave in his own body, mastered by the unnamed venom that flowed throughout his
skeletal body.
Imminent death has a way of boomeranging the
thoughts of a life once lived and regrets harp like old women. The King again
reflected on the hard truths that brought him here. He dwelled on the
perpetrator of this horrific act of treason that would leave his kingdom
heirless and without a future in its wake.
“My heir is gone and I’m to blame,” galloped
through his departing mind.
Where had the time gone? It had been far too
long since he last saw his boy, a man now, with a grown child of his own. A
grandchild he had never seen face to face or held in his arms. How much had he
missed in his arrogance and how could he get the rightful heir home in time to
take the crown?
He stole a hard look outside his door
that was flanked by relatives already fighting amongst themselves for their
piece of what the King would leave behind.
The King laughed bitterly at their pettiness, knowing in heart that only
the true heir could rule the Loch with the love and justice that she
deserved.
He fingered
the photos in his ashen right hand and stroked the cheek of the young, dark-haired
woman with his thumb. Another spasm grabbed him rigidly. In his left hand, his grip tightened on the
scroll marked in the family seal pressed into black wax crushing and crinkling
the paper written in a shaky hand. The King was fading and he felt the last of
himself disappearing into obscurity, soon he would see his ancestors and his
God. No magic good or bad could touch him in the Land of Light.
The King called for another page, one
who would go to his most trusted and truest friend, Chian, the Sovereign of the
Ogres in the Western Wood. There was no
time for one page to make the journey alone, though they would both travel
through the Western Wood; the King knew his time was ticking down and nearly
gone. Death waited by his beside, as a constant companion.
The King pressed the photo and the scroll into
the page’s solid, strong hand and his grasp fell weakly from the page’s
wrist. The young man gathered his
bounty, bowed low and ran for the door.
He mounted the waiting horse and set off for the Western Wood at a dash.
Barely conscious the King urged himself on,
garnering the final bits of his strength.
He only needed to be strong enough for his son and the hope he carried
with him to make it back to the Loch. The King would set it right, even if he
never lived to see the outcome. The race for the crown was on.
“Come
quickly, my son, for you hold the key to the future of the Loch,” he thought as
he faded into the black, praying for his trusted pages’ safe journey and quick
return. The King’s gurgling breaths could be heard throughout the castle and
every subject loyal to the kingdom wept for the King’s impending death."
Author Bio:
I
have always been a writer. When I first learned to write in Kindergarten, I
wrote about pigs that "groo" wings and became "butterfys."
I knew way back then that I would have a love affair with writing. Over 20
years later, that love flows over into writing novels, blogs, reviews and
poetry. Come visit me on my blog.
Sounds good! Best of luck, Aurora!
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