Once a month, a bunch of authors get together and post excerpts from published books, contracted work or works in progress, and link to each other. You don’t have to be published to participate–just a writer with an excerpt you’d like to share. For more info on how to participate, head over to the Excerpt Monday site! or click on the banner above.

I wasn’t going to post any more of RITES OF PASSAGE but since I’ve had special requests, I’ve skipped forward a bit from Part I and Part II and Part III. This month’s snippet is from the scene in which our “hero” finds out that he’s about to be the fall guy…

Taleo was an expert when it came to beauty, and the Ista Aldrik women were all beautiful. Every, single, untouchable one of them. Petrina’s lush lips. Gellina’s auburn tresses. Junia’s ice-blue eyes. Aldrissa’s enticing curves. Even little Fidelia’s impish ears had their charm. Yes, the queen’s nieces were as lovely and unique as snowflakes, but they all had one Ista Aldrik trait in common—an unflinching ability to poison your tea and smile at you across the table as you drank it.

“I’m not thirsty,” Taleo said. “But thank you for the invitation. I’ve been riding for days and I’m no fit company for noblewomen.”

The queen swirled a jeweled spoon in a golden cup. “At least allow us to offer refreshments to your entourage.”

“I came alone,” Taleo said.

That got their attention. Six pairs of lovely eyes now fell upon him. It was the icy-eyed niece who spoke first. “My lord, do you mean to say that you rode over brigand-infested roads, by yourself, all the way from Anarinuell?”

Taleo nodded to the bevy of ambitious nieces. “Had bandits been bold enough to take me hostage, I’d have returned with useful knowledge of their whereabouts and habits.” In truth, Taleo would never allow himself to be captured alive by such men, but he watched closely for the ladies’ reactions.

The curvaceous Lady Aldrissa sputtered, walking to the balcony window and pulling back the crimson draperies as if to see if Taleo were lying. Below, he knew she’d see only ocean, sand, and his horse. “What utter foolishness!”

The rest of the queen’s nieces looked equally uninspired. But just as Taleo was beginning to think that acts of reckless bravery no longer impressed noblewomen, the queen said, “It sounds like a marvelous adventure. Sit and tell us about your journey.”

Taleo dusted himself off and took a seat at a respectable distance. He smelled of horse and needed a shave. He’d have liked to have been better groomed for this appearance, but circumstances were not entirely in his control. Which he hated. “Before I do, I wonder if you might explain why you’ve summoned me for this prestigious post when you’ve so many nieces, each eager to prove herself. Are none of them up to this task?”

“How dare you question our competence?” Lady Aldrissa demanded.

So things were going to go badly.

He’d ridden all this way to be bullied and lied to by the royal family and there was nothing he could do about it. But just then, Taleo’s luck turned. With the unraveling of a lock of fair hair, the power shifted.

Taleo’s eyes dropped to the floor and he held his silence.

“Look at me when I speak to you,” Aldrissa said.

“My lady, I cannot,” Taleo said.

“Why not?” Her tone was imperious and infuriated.

“Because you’re missing a hairpin.”

This sent the ladies all atwitter. A female soldier could be forgiven for an errant strand of hair. A common maiden in the fields wouldn’t be expected to account for her hairpins. But these were Ista Aldriks, each one vying to be the most proper and most obvious heir to the throne. One niece hissed, “Loose hair, loose woman!”

Lady Aldrissa rose quickly. “Thank you for your courtly behavior, my lord. Please forgive my misconduct.”

“It’s forgiven and already forgotten,” he said, keeping his eyes averted until she had left the room.

The missing hairpin had put the ladies on the defensive. The queen even opened the balcony windows as if to air out the stink of impropriety. When she did, Taleo tasted the ocean salt on the breeze and it made him uncomfortable. The crash of the waves below the bluff made him think of the nights he spent as a slave, listening to those waves, wishing to drown.

“Very well, then my lord. We will be frank,” the queen finally said. “The matter we want you to deal with is one that the Ista Aldrik family cannot personally touch. Our problem is a rabble-rousing priest.”

Taleo was intrigued. “A priest from which temple?”

“He doesn’t say,” the queen answered. “He tells the people to look into his eyes and they’ll know which deity he serves.”

“So they look into his eyes and see what they want to see?”

“And they believe. He gives sermons that ignite all the old, silly superstitions about twins.”

Now didn’t seem like the best time to inform his sovereign that Taleo didn’t find anything silly or superstitious about the loathing of twins. Admittedly, Taleo was no theologian; he didn’t know if twins shared a soul, if one twin was soulless, or if each twin harbored within its breast a depraved half-soul. But he did know that twins historically brought ruin to families and that was enough evidence for him.

“Are you worried for your sons, Clan Leader?” Taleo asked.

“Of course,” she said. “This priest is convincing the people to adopt the old ways. Parents of twins are told to leave one infant on the cliffs. If they don’t, the villagers break into homes and kill both babes in their cradles.”

“But your twin princes are no defenseless babes in the cradle,” Taleo said. “They’re grown warriors.”

“My sons will one day be called upon to follow in their father’s footsteps and rule the Republic. I’ll not have their futures jeopardized because of this bigotry.”

“Just how influential is this priest?” Taleo asked.

“His influence grows every day. If his sermons become a popular movement my sons will be seen as monsters.”

“So you want me to arrest him?” Taleo asked.

“Heavens no! No official action should be taken against him lest we give his followers a rallying cause.”

Taleo pinched the bridge of his nose. “Then you want me to…” Was there a delicate word for it? “You want me to kill him?”

“And make him a martyr? I should think not. No, he must be destroyed. You must follow him, learn everything about him, and find a way to bring him to such disgrace that his words will never carry any weight at all.”

It was now clear to Taleo why he had been appointed. The Ista Aldriks didn’t want to be thought of as impious twin-lovers nor repressors of religion, nor even the brilliant political schemers they actually were. The task and the taint would fall to him, a lord of a distinguished, but minor house. If it all went bad, they would blame it on him. And Taleo supposed, in the scheme of things, that is what lords of minor noble houses were good for.

Once a month, a bunch of authors get together and post excerpts from published books, contracted work or works in progress, and link to each other. You don’t have to be published to participate–just a writer with an excerpt you’d like to share. For more info on how to participate, head over to the Excerpt Monday site! or click on the banner above.

I’ve skipped forward a bit from Part I and Part II. This month’s snippet is from RITES OF PASSAGE and is the first time our “hero” (and I use that term extremely lightly) meets our heroine.

CHAPTER THREE

“Have you ever seen a lovelier ass?” Taleo asked.

The maiden pretended not to hear him, swirling her red palla over one shoulder, so Taleo urged his horse to follow. It was a bright winter’s day and the spring thaw couldn’t be far away, so Taleo was in the mood for a bit of sport.

His brother rode beside him, his horse’s bridle adorned with jingling bells. “Actually,” Kester said, his breath puffing steam in the cool air. “I have seen a lovelier ass and so have you. Yasmina’s backside is legend. Her frontside, too, truth be told.”

“Don’t tell me you’re still mooning over her,” Taleo said, navigating the crowded streets of Anarinuell with the kind of authority only a mounted nobleman could bring to bear. “You’re like a lovesick cow. It’s shameful.”

“You’re one to talk.” Kester laughed. “Why not give Yasmina up? You know she loves me, so why not let me have her to myself.”

“Because Yasmina is a prostitute; you’ll never have her to yourself.” Besides, Taleo didn’t give up anything or anyone that belonged to him, even fleetingly, and his brother should know that by now. “If you’re so sure of Yasmina’s love, just ask her to refuse me.”

Kester shot him a sullen look. “For reasons that completely escape me, women don’t refuse you.”

“Probably because I give them no opportunity.” After all, he was a Firan nobleman. If he chose to press the matter, a common woman couldn’t refuse him by law nor could she invite his attention without inviting censure. The injustice of it was one of the many reasons he preferred whores, who were freer to do as they liked.

His brother, on the other hand, spoke sweet words to woo reluctant hearts, gifting common girls with jingling jewelry. Taleo saw no purpose in this kind of artifice. As was proper, he always rewarded the women upon whom he took his privilege, and even found husbands for them if need be. He wasn’t a barbarian, after all.

But when Taleo wanted a woman, he had her, and usually without sentiment. So it would be with this maiden they were stalking who glanced over her shoulder at Taleo with a flirtatious wink then hopped onto the curb, trying to blend with passersby. “She knows we’re following her, doesn’t she?” Taleo asked, listening to the clip-clop of his horse’s hooves on the paved street.

Kester nodded. “Pick up the pace or she’s going to escape to the forum.”

Well, if it was chase the maiden wanted, he was eager to oblige. Taleo laughed, wading his horse through the crowd, crop in hand. “Make way!”

They caught up with her under a fruit seller’s awning. She was holding apples, about the color of her cheeks, and about the size of her breasts, if Taleo gauged right. And he always did. Taleo met the maiden’s eyes and now she couldn’t look away.

Kester blocked off the girl’s path to the right with the bulk of his horse. When she turned to the left, Taleo used his horse to pen her in. Together, he and his brother were interrupting the flow of traffic in front of the market stalls. Merchants gave sharp stares, but didn’t dare protest the lords’ horseplay.

“You’re looking very fine today, Mes,” Taleo said to the maiden. “Did you know that red is my favorite color?”

The maiden stood silent with her apples, flashing her eyes from beneath long, alluring eyelashes. Taleo smiled at her, and the maiden bit her lower lip to keep from smiling in return. A merchant interrupted. “Ya gonna pay for those apples?”

“I’ll pay.” Taleo took a few coins from his pouch for the fruit-hawker. It was his reputation, after all.

Suddenly, with a giggle, the maiden bolted again. One of the apples fell from her hand and rolled on the ground. The girl wasn’t very fast but Taleo’s galloping horse was. He knew that this was a dangerous game in a crowded marketplace, but Taleo enjoyed dangerous games. Besides, he couldn’t disappoint the maiden. She couldn’t have run away without wanting to be caught!

People cried out with fear and leaped out of the way as his beloved mare jumped a low cart. Her back hoof clipped the side and knocked it over, but the horse easily regained her footing and rejoined the chase. So there was no reason that after a few more gallops through the street, she should so suddenly rear up.

Taleo struggled to stay mounted while his horse pawed at the air and he glimpsed the black and green of Republic armor. Taleo’s legs strained as he willed himself not to be thrown. He managed it, just barely, and calmed Daheret, who put her hooves on the ground again. Only then did Taleo see the guardsman’s spear point aimed at his horse’s heart–the same guard who obviously made her rear up in the first place.

“Halt!” the young guard cried.

“Get out of my way,” Taleo growled at the guard, keeping one eye on the fleeing form of the maiden in red, his blood hot with the thrill of pursuit. It had been a good day until now.

“You’ve smashed a cart,” the guard said with a voice that was oddly high-pitched and accented.

Why, the guard was just a girl!  He narrowed his eyes at the way she staggered under ill-fitting leather armor and noticed the smattering of freckles on her pale arms. Ticanee. A Ticanee guard? How was that possible? Knowing that the fleeing maiden was no fully away, Taleo sighed and marked the guard’s insignia. “Centurion, do you know who I am?”

“It doesn’t matter who you are,” the girl guard replied.

He heard the bells on his brother’s horse, so knew that Kester had caught up. With a smirk, Taleo leaned forward on horseback, and said, “I’m Lord Taleo Teranzik of the Bear Clan and this is my brother, Lord Kester. And if you weren’t an unschooled savage, you’d know it matters greatly who we are.”

In the middle of the marketplace, amidst the clack of the wagons and the mulling crowds, the centurion stood her ground, but her voice quavered. “You could have hurt someone playing chase in the forum. You endangered people.”

Taleo affected his best lordly glare, which he’d practiced to perfection. It usually frightened commoners, servants and miscreants alike, so it was an important skill to have. “Be that as it may, you have endangered my divine right to take Noble Privilege upon any maiden I choose.”

“My lord, that may be your right, but it doesn’t mean you can take your privilege in the forum.”

She had a point. Under other circumstances, Taleo would’ve laughed and ceded it graciously. He was generally of good humor, but this girl was arguing with him in public. A crowd had gathered around them and Taleo imagined the whispers. Has the House of Teranzik fallen so low that a savage can berate their lords without consequence? Will the Teranziks bow and scrape to a Ticanee guard, as they once bowed and scraped to the Shamibelians?

Taleo replied in what he hoped was an amused tone. “Yes, let’s speak of rights then, Centurion. What right do you have to threaten my horse? For that alone, I should thrash you.”

Someone shouted from the crowd. “Everyone knows the Teranziks love their horses . . . and their dogs.”

Someone else laughed and Taleo felt the itch of the people’s ridicule beneath his gloved hand. His fist clenched and fury bubbled up inside him. It was regrettable, but he had no choice but to take it out on the girl. “I’ll tell you what, Centurion: you can take the maiden’s place. I planned to invite her to my room, but you’re Ticanee, so a dirty alleyway will suffice for you.”

Spear in hand, the girl guard crimsoned. Not a pretty blush, like the maiden with the apples. No, this was anger. She seemed to tremble with it. “Pay the merchant for his overturned cart or…or I’ll arrest you,” she said, tilting her helmet back and staring at him with freakish blue eyes.

Taleo startled. Even his mare took three steps back. It wasn’t just the color of her eyes but her tattoos as well. A blue feathery design had been inked just above her brow, making her look like a fierce bird of prey. Yet, she held her spear as if her humanity depended upon it. Her hands, unexpectedly callused, wrapped around the wood like an overworked slave challenging an overseer with a shovel. As if he, Taleo Teranzik, was her oppressor.

It disturbed him to his very core.

Taleo took a moment regain his composure. “You’re just a little slut playing dress-up as a Republic guard. You’re not going to arrest me.”

Kester piped up with, “Taleo, just pay the fine and ride on.”

He knew he was behaving badly, but this damnable Ticanee girl had forced him into a public confrontation and he saw no room for gracious retreat now. “No, Kester. I’m going to knock that spear out of her foreign hands. She’s insolent.”

“Ticanee aren’t foreign,” the girl snapped. “And if you think you can knock my spear away, I invite you to try.”

Taleo found her hubris attractive. After all, it was always the women who issued challenges who most wanted to lose. Besides, he knew what Ticanee were like. Feral. Desperate. Filthy. He started to swing down off his horse, crop in hand, but Kester gripped his arm. “Not this one, Taleo. She’s the Oshta’s daughter.”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s the Ticanee Clan Leader’s daughter. She’s a Lady.”

Taleo snorted. “Ticanee nobility?”

It was ridiculous.

Kester shrugged and his horse jingled impatiently, as if it also hated those infernal bells. “Lady Taria is their version of nobility, anyway. Her father is on the Clan Council.”

Taleo noticed the girl’s shaky knees beneath the leather flaps of her military skirt. She didn’t look noble. “You’re the Oshta’s daughter?”

“It shouldn’t matter. I’m a Republic guard.” She kept her chin up when she spoke but he could hear a tremor in her voice and that crumbling resolve was like a siren’s call. Still, the daughter of a medallion holder was trouble Taleo didn’t need. Besides, he was already giving the commoners too much gossip, so he unlaced his money pouch from his belt and didn’t bother counting the coins. “Give this to any inconvenienced merchants and the rest to charity.”

Taleo threw the pouch to the centurion who caught it with one hand, breaking the grip on her spear. Then he rode past her and out of the forum before she could stop him.

Once a month, a bunch of authors get together and post excerpts from published books, contracted work or works in progress, and link to each other. You don’t have to be published to participate–just a writer with an excerpt you’d like to share. For more info on how to participate, head over to the Excerpt Monday site! or click on the banner above.

Last Excerpt Monday I baffled, weirded out, and possibly tantalized readers with the creepy prologue to one of my many novels-in-progress. A fantasy novel with romantic elements, this story is founded on ancient medallion magic and features a young heroine who is married to a foreign lord against her will and learns that her worst enemy may be the only man she can trust. (Or something like that. I’ve still not mastered the logline to this story.)

CHAPTER ONE

As the shamans chanted, Taria tried not to choke on the stench of burning flesh. The flames beckoned with a promise of warmth, but these fires offered no comfort against the cold. They were funeral pyres, so Taria shied away so the spirits of the Ticanee dead could escape to a better place. A much better place.

She watched her tribesmen sway in grief beneath the totem poles, closing their eyes against every gust of frigid wind. But Taria’s eyes remained open, her blue gaze following the pillar of soot up into the winter sky. Overhead, Republic pilots held their griffon mounts in tight military formation on the wind. From so far away, the wings of the great creatures looked tattered and frayed, and she could barely see the men that rode them. She could not imagine the courage it would take to climb upon such a beast’s back and take to the skies, especially since, in Taria’s experience, nothing good ever came from above.

There was little chance of another attack today, but these patrols were supposed to be reassuring in the aftermath of Shamibelian raids. Unfortunately, the spectacle of the giant screeching birds in the sky made Taria’s people feel like carrion left for vultures. To make matters worse, the funeral was nearly over and the Oshta still was not here.

If Taria wore the medallion, she would never let her people mourn alone. But the medallion was not hers. She was not the Oshta–not yet–so she said a silent prayer to the totems that her father would come see the dead rendered to ash. He had to come for the people, and he had to come for her too, because Taria had something to tell him and she wasn’t sure how much longer her courage would hold.

The shamans had finished their chanting over the pyres, and now All-Seeing Urtenia hobbled towards Taria with rattling bone beads in one hand and a walking stick in the other. The gnarled old woman was wrapped so tightly in wolf-pelts that only her three eyes were showing—the two she was born with, and the one tattooed in the middle of her forehead. “Daughter of my Oshta,” she said. “Trouble is coming in the shape of a boy.”

Taria followed the old woman’s gaze to where the dirty haffie boy crouched in the shadows of the snow-capped totem poles. He was crying and Taria knew he wept for his dead mother—a mother who had never openly acknowledged him for he was the get of a Shamibelian raider and horribly deformed.

With the boy’s orange-tinted skin and ghastly horns Samar was an outcast and, as such, banned from the tribal meeting grounds. Nonetheless, the boy’s eyes pleaded with Taria to let him approach his mother’s pyre.

“Keep him away,” Taria sighed. It wasn’t that her heart didn’t break for the boy. It wasn’t even because he was monstrous. It was because she was sure he would throw himself onto the pyre. He had the death-yearning look—a look Taria knew too well. It was in the downcast eyes of the demoralized warriors, the false smiles of the brothel girls, and the gaunt faces of starving children.

“One day, you’ll make them a brighter future,” the wind whispered.

Taria knew it was the medallion that spoke from afar, but she kept silent because the last time she admitted the wind whispered to her, her father had whipped her bloody. And as she remembered this, the longhouse door swung open.

Taria’s father emerged wearing his ceremonial loincloth, which left his legs bare to the cold. His flame-red hair stood in a topknot, secured with carved bones of creatures he’d killed. Around his neck hung the sacred clan medallion, which caught the light of the pyres, and sparkled with its ancient magic. Passed from generation to generation, the medallion held all the memories of her people. Taria worried that soon, it might be the only thing left of the Ticanee.

It was All-Seeing Urtenia who approached the Oshta first. The old woman was thick as an oak and her voice scratched like dried leaves. Everyone leaned in to hear. “Oshta, we thank you for seeing off the departing dead. The raiders stole some children, and one of our huntresses. But they came on griffon back. We couldn’t follow their trail.”

There were gaunt hollows under the Oshta’s far-away eyes and he only grunted in reply, so the old woman straightened, “Oshta, when will our Firan allies let us out of this stone cage? Our dried meat won’t last the winter.”

Taria’s father glanced at the stone wall, rock piled upon rock towards the sky, then spit in the snow. “The Firans say it’s too dangerous to leave the city walls until their soldiers drive off the raiders. In truth, they just don’t want us to hunt on their land. So much for citizenship in their precious Republic.”

Taria’s father always blamed the Firans for everything. Every time he did, it made Taria’s stomach twist because her mother was Firan; he had taken a Firan wife to cement the alliance he now condemned, so Taria knew that he condemned her too.

Without warning, the Oshta turned, and retreated back towards the longhouse from whence he’d come. Taria was startled; she thought he might offer some words of comfort, some wisdom for the Ticanee.

“Wait!” Taria fingered the beads on her dress like worry stones. Urtenia seemed to sense Taria’s unease and gave her a reassuring smile. The elders were always kind because they said her unnatural blue eyes were a mark of favor by the totems. Taria didn’t believe that, but she was grateful for their support now more than ever. “Father, I’ve something to tell you.”

The Oshta turned, glaring at Taria as she came forward. When angry, the Oshta swung the lash without mercy; Taria’s back was welted from a beating not two nights ago. But she feared some things more than she feared her father. Finding her nerve, Taria said, “Oshta, I’ve known seventeen winters and it’s time for my Rite of Passage. I’ve chosen my tattoo and vocation.”

His face was impassive. “And what have you chosen?”

“I want to join the city garrison.”

Taria hadn’t been expecting anyone to cheer her decision, but she was stunned by the silence. An elder wheezed, but no one spoke. Only the birds overhead cried. Snow began to fall.

And Taria’s heart pounded in her own ears.

Her father was angry; very angry. The scar on his neck crimsoned beneath the tattoos on his face. “You want to become a Republic Guard? A Firan soldier?”

Taria nodded. “Yes. And I want their insignia inked on me in our tradition.”

His face went hard, his mouth a mean gash. “I always knew your Firan blood would out. You’ll abandon your people for a shiny insignia and the coins that come with it.”

Taria steadied herself. “No. I’m only doing this because…since the war, our people have dwindled. I know. I’ve counted. We suffer, but in spite of facing the same enemy, the Firans prosper. We have to be more like them to survive. I’m the daughter of the Oshta. I should set the example.”

Taria knew her sentiments were deeply unpopular. The Firans, with their legions and stone cities, with their bigotry and complicated laws, were often thought more as oppressors than allies. So it was not surprising that the crowd grumbled at Taria’s words, and her father scowled. “You want to lend your spear to guarding this foreign city?”

Taria had practiced what she was going to say a hundred times, but it was so much harder now. “This is our city now too. And citizenship in the Firan Republic is a valuable thing. It gives us rights; if we make the most of it, it can give us power.”

Her father cut her off. “Firans sneer at us. They think we’re filthy refugees.”

“They do. That’s why I want to join the guard. If we fight along side of them, they’ll know we aren’t helpless beggars. When they think of us as partners, things will change for us.”

The Oshta waved a dismissive hand. “Nothing will change.”

She shouldn’t argue with her father, she knew. He was the Oshta and she was embarrassing him in front of the Ticanee, but if she didn’t speak up now, who would? “Things must change, Oshta. I want to protect our new home.”

“This is not our home!” her father shouted.

There was no avoiding confrontation now. “I’m a woman grown. You can’t keep denying me my Rite of Passage year after year.”

If the Oshta was angry before, now he was furious. He wanted to beat her, but the medallion was fighting him. She could sense it in the way he grasped the golden disc as if wrestling with it. Taria’s father was only ever truly tempered by the medallion. It was supposed to guide him and his rule, but somehow, Taria knew it protected her, so she pressed on. “So then, I ask you, Oshta, before all the people. Will you forbid me my chosen mark and vocation?”

She had him now as surely as if she’d laid a snare for a fox. He could not refuse her again with the shamans as witness—not without giving good cause why she must stay a child another year. And All-Seeing Urtenia seemed to know just the trap Taria had laid. “She’s a clever girl,” the old woman chuckled. “The wolf totem is strong in her.”

The Oshta gave Urtenia a poisonous glance and it was several moments before anyone dared to speak. “I won’t forbid it,” her father finally said. “But you need armor to join the guard.”

“I’ve saved enough for leather armor,” Taria said quickly. “If you loan me a few stenis, I’d have enough to buy bronze—”

“Not a single coin,” the Oshta interrupted.

Then he abruptly turned and slammed into the longhouse, leaving Taria standing in the snow. Recovering from the shock of it, Taria chased after him. She found the door bolted against her. “Let me in!”

But the door stayed latched. There were no windows in the longhouse, so Taria could only listen to her parents argue. Inside she heard her father kicking things in his rage. Meanwhile, freezing needles pricked her skin and Taria pounded on the door. Icy water seeped into her boots, but she dared not complain because her people went barefoot and in rags except for the shamans and the girls who sold themselves at the brothels. “Oshta, it’s starting to rain ice!”

“Then you’d best find shelter,” her father shouted. “Because you won’t sleep here tonight.”

Fear made the hairs on the back of Taria’s neck bristle.

He couldn’t mean to leave her alone out here without even a blanket. Not even her father would do that, would he? Would the medallion let him? Taria counted five of her own heartbeats before she spoke. “You’re locking me outside?”

“A dose of hardship will make you remember what it means to be Ticanee. Maybe it’ll make you grateful for your bedroll, instead of longing for the soft beds of the Firan barracks.”

“Enough.” It was her mother’s voice. “She’ll freeze to death.”

“Let this be her Rite of Passage then,” her father thundered in reply. “If she survives the night, she can have her tattoo. She says she’s an adult now. So, let her prove it!”

The fiery blood of Taria’s Ticanee heritage rushed to her face. The uncontrolled emotions took her by surprise. Fury rushed past her ears like the screech of a bird and she slammed the butt of her spear against the door. “Gods and Totems, I’ll prove it then!”

Taria bounded into the snow and strode past the dying fires, unsure of where she was going. She couldn’t stay with the Ticanee; if they sheltered her, there would be retribution from her father. So Taria cut through a stand of snow-laced trees towards the gate that enclosed her people from the rest of the city, knowing she’d have to find refuge somewhere in the sprawling mass of brick and marble that made up the Firan capital. Meanwhile, her anger would have to keep her warm, and it burned like an inner fire. Hopefully it would light a path for her too, because even without the freezing rain, it was getting dark.

Behind her someone called through the sleet. “Taria!”

Taria turned to see her little brother. His topknot bounced from side to side as he splashed through the slush to catch up, and Taria was suddenly seized by guilt and fear. “Did the Oshta lock you out too?”

“No.” Vahlon took a moment to catch his breath. “Come back to the longhouse. Mother changed his mind.”

But Taria’s temper was too high. “I haven’t changed mine.”

“Come back before he kicks you out for good,” Vahlon said.

“Let him.” Taria clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering. “I hate him.”

Vahlon’s eyes widened. “But you can’t hate him. He’s the Oshta.”

“He hates me, though, doesn’t he?” Taria began walking again. This fire that flowed through her veins was what made Ticanee warriors so brave. It also lured them to foolish mistakes like the one she was probably making now. Taria knew that, but couldn’t tamp it down.

“You shouldn’t have asked in front of the people,” Vahlon argued. “You forced him to consent!”

Taria pushed evergreen boughs out of her way as if the trees were enemy soldiers blocking her path. “I couldn’t let him refuse me again this year. We’re the last of the Ticanee and the people need to know that we don’t have to wait to die. We can do something, each of us, to change our lot.”

Vahlon shivered. “But father accepts our fate.”

“Well, I don’t accept it,” Taria said, walking faster.

Vahlon tried to keep up, but Taria’s legs were longer. “You’re really not coming back?”

Her brother sounded frightened to be alone in the longhouse with their father and Taria didn’t blame him. The Oshta might punish her brother to get back at her. That thought softened Taria’s resolve. And then of course, there was her certain knowledge that she could not willingly leave the medallion. “I won’t go back tonight, anyway. He said if I survived the night–”

“But-but,” Vahlon stuttered through chattering teeth. “It’s bitter cold. Where will you sleep? You aren’t…like the other girls.”

He meant that she was the Oshta’s daughter. She couldn’t trade her virtue for survival the way other girls did. “You’re right. I’m heir to the medallion and I can take care of myself.”

Proud talk, but the fact remained that she had nowhere to go. As her brother reluctantly left her standing there in the sleet, Taria told herself that she’d rather freeze to death than apologize to her father. Wouldn’t he be sorry when they found her lifeless body on the snow? That would show him!

She imagined the Oshta grieving beside her body on the pyre, telling her how much he regretted his unkindness…but that was the death yearning. Taria shook it off, and chastised herself for even thinking about dying from pride while her people died at the hands of enemy raiders, and from crueler killers, like hunger and sickness. Better to turn back; better to surrender her pride and ask her father’s forgiveness.

But as Taria contemplated humbling herself, she heard the fading screech of a griffon overhead—half-cat, half-bird. A giant feather floated down and landed sodden at her feet. Suddenly she knew exactly where to go. Ticanee totems lived outside, carved on ancient poles, but her mother was a priestess of the Firan bird goddess. And that goddess had a temple with a fire.

If she could find her way to the Temple, she might yet keep both her pride and her life this cold night.

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Rites of Passage is a work in progress.

PROLOGUE

It wasn’t wrong to want her, even though we were gold and she was flesh. She belonged to us, after all. When we were forged, the ancestors sprinkled their ashes into the molten metal. They opened their veins over the boiling cauldron to mix their sacred red ichor with ours.

Like the ancestors, she was blood of our blood. Bone of our bone.

In truth, Taria belonged to us from the moment she slipped from between her mother’s thighs and took her first ragged breath. The shaman laid the ruddy infant on the longhouse floor at the feet of the Oshta. Even then, from the chain around his neck, we swung above the baby girl like a sparkling pendulum, setting the rhythm of her life. We heard her first lusty cry and saw her open her bright blue eyes. Those little eyes fastened first–with all their intensity–on our glittering face.

She was only a squalling baby with a lock of red hair, miniature features screwed up in outrage at being so rudely thrust into a world of war and starvation.

The first time she reached for us, she was only a toddler, just a mop of red curls and milk-soft skin. She was sitting by the fire upon the Oshta’s lap and grasped hold with her fat little fingers. Her skin touched ours, so warm and alive against our gold, and we knew her at once. She was our child and our mother. She was our sister and our brother. She was our slave and our lover.

We didn’t give her a memory that first time; she wouldn’t have understood. Even so, she held us tight, shrieking as the Oshta pried us away from her. But he couldn’t keep us apart. She was ours. Ours.

As a girl, she came to us in the mornings, when the ashes in the fire were low and smoky and everyone else in the longhouse was still asleep. Sometimes we called to her, urging her to crawl out from beneath the furs to where we hung by the fire.

She never tried to put us around her neck, and we wouldn’t have allowed it if she had. She was too young for such intimacies. But we let her press her cheek to our stones. We let her stroke her fingers over our symbols, an erotic caress. And when she did, we whispered to her of all our faded glories.

We taught her about the plains we once ruled, though she’d never seen them for herself. We showed her the rustling grasses that spread out in a verdant expanse beyond the horizon. And we told her the Ticanee had once been as numerous as the stars.

Through our memories, we let her smell the perfume of the wildflowers that bloomed on the open prarie. We let her feel the prickle of electricity before lightning struck the land, and we let her smell the sweat on horses as they galloped wild and free. We could have shown her our fallen heroes; we could have shown her the horrors we’d seen too. But she was still so young. We didn’t want to break her.

But she isn’t a girl anymore. Soon she’ll burn with the fevered need to mate. As she sleeps fitfully in her bedroll, just a few feet from us, we sometimes catch glimpses of her slim legs, pale and creamy in the firelight. She’s grown into a lithe huntress, the embodiment of grace. Yet she isn’t dainty—her back is marked by the Oshta’s lash, scars of a childhood from which we couldn’t protect her.

You see, the Oshta wants to keep her small. He wants to keep her young. He wants to keep her from us. But he won’t succeed.

She wants us too, and soon we will take her. She’s our betrothed, and we’re her loving bridegroom. She must know it, the way she pulls her thick auburn braid over her shoulder and creeps to us. She presses us against her heart and our rune stones caress the silky skin of her breast.

It makes her sigh.

“There was another raid in the night,” she whispers, tears in her eyes. “The people were butchered in their tents.”

We aren’t surprised to see her tears, but beneath her tender nature, we know there is an older and wizened soul. She grieves not for the dead, but for her people as a whole, and we take her sorrow inside us and let it meld with the rest.

But this small comfort isn’t enough for Taria. She always wants more. “Take it all from me,” she whispers.

“But you need the pain,” we tell her. “Endure it. Learn to love sacrifice.”

“How can I learn to love it?”

“You will. Then you must take the Oshta’s place.”

In answer, she runs her fingers over our chain, tremulous fingers that betray her innocent maiden’s yearning. She thinks only of the pleasure of wearing us. Only of the release. She has ached for us as much as we ache for her, but she is still a budding flower, a beauty not quite fully bloomed.

We will have to wait, for in us, resides our people’s memories, but in her resides their hope.

CONTINUED

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