Page One of Primnoire
“We need to leave,
Cole,” Anna said, drawing up her hood, hiding the burns covering half her face,
“Grandfather will beg that I campaign if we’re not quick.”
She slipped, tucked,
and buckled Cole’s lengthy saddle strap, giving the storm bison a rub between his
long silver hooked horns. She tapped two fingers to the pouch at her hip. The vial
of deer lure sloshed inside. Anna applied the storm bison bridle, hoping at
such an early hour Williamton’s people were asleep. It soothed her to walk
under the waking sun with only the wind to upset the quiet morning.
Straw crunched as
they left the dry-stone stable through a tall, aged set of doors. The final
remnants of rain clouds manifested from Cole’s nostrils and drifted out them.
Clumps of soggy straw clung to Anna’s calf-length boots. She scratched behind
the storm bison ear. Cole nuzzled her cheek with his wet black nose.
She stifled a
giggle at how cold it was against her cheek. Anna looked up, narrowing her eye
at the highest floor of her home. The doors to her grandfather’s balcony were
shut, and the window beside it closed. He hasn’t
woken yet, Anna yawned, rolling her shoulders. Her lord grandfather had
kept her up late, and all over Lamparien politics again. His passion for it
was admirable, his care for others was truly boundless, but of late, with the
need for a new prime or primnoire coming, his rants were becoming repetitive.
She took in the
homes beyond her own. Some were old and run down, built when her family founded
Lampara and made its laws. The Brightons’ had even secured binding trade
agreements with each country bordering Lampara. She brushed a fly off her
shoulder, putting aside history for the hunt ahead.
Anna and the storm
bison passed a stretch of stables lining the length of her home’s grounds.
Banners swayed from the servant’s quarters above them, displaying her family
sigil of a silver eight-pointed star on a field of red. Faint clattering and
chatter came from the closest quarters. Its chimney bellowed smoke, reminding
Anna to break her fast before leaving town.
Her eye rested upon
the town’s outer wall looming over the courtyard. Anna
ran her fingers over the pale bear brooch pinning a flowing green cloak about
her neck. She prayed that since the courtyard’s snow had melted the woods still
held some.
Page One of The Ignited Moon
“I beg you,
Non, goddess of oceans. Grant my one request. Dissolve my marriage to the Storm
King.”
Yatzil took a deep breath and opened her eyes.
T, the reflective sheen on the polished
tile floor muddied the reflection of her slender figure and ice blue skin. She rose to a kneeling position,
closing her eyes in a last desperate plea with Non. The goddess remained
silent, following the lead of those in her pantheon. Did they believe her
marriage would keep the city of Niev and her father’s kingdom safe? Yatzil shook her head and
opened her eyes to the dozens of columns supporting the pyramid above. Her
crown’s weight made the praying position she had taken difficult.
She groaned from the soreness in her neck and craned it to
look upon Non’s likeness. The statue was crafted from onyx and towered at the
far end of a grand pool. It was eye level to the dais she had been positioned
beside for hours. The pool’s salty aroma relaxed her, but to meet the ocean
goddess’s immense eyes and jade beak boiled her blood. A great hook rested
between the goddess’s eyes, sharp like the frequent cramping in her calves.
Yatzil focused her frustration upon her hands and ground her teeth.
She flared her nostrils, ice ran over her skin, crackling
over her cheeks. Her eyes ignited yellow, but then she remembered her brother
was present. His calm meditative state on display brought her patience. Yatzil
thawed her features to flesh and decided perhaps Non required more time. Her
brother opened one eye to the smooth white tile steps leading out of the
multileveled room they were in. A faint grumbling emanated from his belly.
Yatzil drew back her curiosity at how he was hungry
once again, focusing on her time with him.
It was their final ocean ritual, but she didn’t want it to
be, even if it meant just being his older sister. His calm, light brown eyes rested upon his hands. Her brother’s face
was framed by long black hair that shrouded the formation of a double chin. He
wore a snow-white lumao around
Drumbeats removed Yatzil from the storm of worry in her
mind. Without her noticing, priests and priestesses had entered from the palm-and-oak
doors to the left of Non’s likeness. Men in green silk robes stood to either
side of the sacred pool. Her focus raced from the oars in their hands, through
a growing cloud of burning incense to the grand stairs beyond.
Her parents descended them one step at a time.
Their feet garbed in sandals inlaid with jade and gold squares. She sneered at
her mother, slightly relieved for the hollowed-out frigagator skull upon the queen’s head. Six eyes lined it,
stopping before a long, cavernous skull of faded red bone. Her king father wore
a larger one, its eyes lined with gold leaves. He slouched a little, taking
away from the tall and muscled king she grew up admiring.
