Amazon ~ Barnes
& Noble ~ Kobo
Books
Excerpt:
One
bright, moonlit night, dreams of a golden-haired sireling disturbed Grit’s
slumber. He was chasing her to the sea. She dove into the water, but it was
warm, not cold.
She
woke in a sweat. Throwing aside her blanket, she walked into the clear air
outside the cave. She sat on a log before the fire, stoking the flames till
they rose and crackled in the quiet night. As she watched the dancing flames,
Grit forced her mind to empty of all her past experiences. She willed her
memories into the middle of the fire and imagined the flames consuming them,
one by one, until every last memory of Thresh wafted away in the fire’s
smoke. There went Turf and his taunting sneer, Dame Dara with her unjustified
disdain, Sage Brakken, Sires Pierce and Swot. Sire Stone struggled to remain in
her memory, circling her with an approving eye during her last training
session. Slate, Seal, Oath, Talon... All of them into the fire and gone. Grit
clenched her teeth and drew her dagger.
There
was Dame Berth, easing her dagger from its sheath and placing it in Grit’s
hands after her Twelfth Branding. “Use it honorably. This weapon wasn’t meant for spineless babes.”
Grit
twirled the dagger between her fingers and aimed for the fire. Her arm swung to
rid herself of Dame Berth, but at the last moment, her hand wrapped tightly
around the dagger. It’s my dagger, not
hers. I won’t throw away
what’s rightfully mine. She sheathed her
dagger and willed Dame Berth into the fire.
Yet
there were some memories that refused her attempts to cast them into the
flames, and no amount of screaming, “To Grit!” would compel them into the fire.
Coil would not abdicate his place in her memory, and all Grit’s
efforts to dethrone him served only to reinforce his position.
Coil
waited in the meetinghouse, among the throng gathered for her Sixth Branding.
He scowled over Dame Berth’s fence, telling
Grit she’d
planted the potatoes all wrong. He laughed on the training field, raising a
sword too large for his thirteen-year-old frame and daring her to nick him with
the dagger she’d
just inherited. He lingered in every corner of Thresh, challenging her to race
him to the Western Sea. And he was in the Western Sea, his jubilant face turned
toward the sun, his arms stretched out, his body unguarded.
“To
Grit! To Grit! To Grit!” Her throat burned from the refrain, but still Coil was
in her tree, his hands inches from her feet.
In
a rage, Grit threw her stick against a tree, dumped the contents of her pack,
and ran to the creek that passed near her cave. Her knuckles scraped against
the rocky creek bed as she pulled the pack through the water.
“To
Grit, to Grit, to Grit...” she muttered as she doused her fire.
Her
fingers bleeding, she crammed her blanket into the still dripping bag and
stomped into the moonlit night.
1 comments:
Love this book, can't wait to read what other people think :-)
Post a Comment