Legacy of Souls (The Shattered Sea Book 2)
Page 30
“We live today.” Again, the sorrow.
“Why all the trouble to meet at this place?” She tethered Morning Dove to a branch at the glade’s rim. “I ride to Angefell in eight days.”
That she’d received her grandmother’s missive at all seemed a toss left to chance, though she knew better. The old one glimpsed the endless arrays of time, how each moment unfolded like a fan with infinite future possibilities. She traveled them, followed their paths, tracked the splintering of lives, chose and chose through the moments to see where they wended and died.
“You know I bear a vision, my little one.”
Little one? Estriilde smiled. They were Edriisan, statuesque compared to the women of Aldykar, and she stood a hand taller than her grandmother. “This place is part of a path?”
Clasping her hand, the woman drew her into the glade’s light. “Every moment is a path. Yet this is the only one that will save you. The only one I could find. You have died a thousand times.”
Estriilde sighed. “Only today exists.”
“Only now exists, Estriilde. Only now, but I cannot help seeing what I see.”
“What will happen here?” She withdrew from her grandmother’s grasp and walked the edge of the grass in a slow circle, her right hand fingering the hilt of her sword.
The old one’s reply laced the air with ice, “The stranger will come when he hears you scream.”
“Am I to die today?” Estriilde slid the blade free, sunlight glinting on watery steel.
“It is the only way,” the gray woman whispered.
“You invite me to my death, Grandmother.” Estriilde gazed at the forlorn eyes, so like her own. “I will not die easily.”
“You will scream.”
Eyes closed, Estriilde raised her face to the cloudless sky. “Will you stay to see me fall?”
“I cannot, my child. But I will sing for you when you’re dead.”
The birds stilled, their calls frozen in the thick air. The debris of the forest floor rustled and snapped beneath the soft thud of approaching hooves.
“It comes now?” She cast a sideways glance through a wisp of blood red hair to find her grandmother gone.
Bearing weapons of war, the riders reined their mounts at the rim of the glade and slid from their saddles.
Then the screaming began.
Amazon Link: Sunwielder
About the Author
I am humbled and grateful to every reader who took a chance on this fantasy writer and her book. This vocation is a solitary one, a pouring out of one’s heart to an unknown audience with fingers crossed. If you found my creation worthy, a review would bring a huge smile.
About me? I began writing later in life after the kids were grown and a move left me with hours to fill. Years of working in business surrendered to a full-time indulgence in the imaginative world of books, and when I started writing, I was instantly hooked. I live in a log cabin amongst the tall evergreens and emerald moss of Oregon’s rainforest with my husband, two dogs, bats, owls, and the occasional family of coyotes.
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