The Taste of Translation

A Muslim princess learns to die to self, a Christian translator learns there are other ways to write, and a secular exile from the Bosnian War learns to open to her past in order to embrace the future. Across a shifting landscape spanning Europe and North Africa, and bridging more than six centuries, their pilgrimages to the centre of being tell a single story – of what it means to love.“I never wanted to be a killer—an assassin—a Wraith Dancer. But as a priestess of the High Serpent King, Belial, I had little choice in the matter. Still, despite my inward desire for a life of perfect peace, it must be said that I was one of the best. Blood had splattered across the front of my tunic. At my feet lay the body of an infidel called Peka; his throat sliced open from ear to ear; the bones of his left thigh and right arm shattered. He had come with a group of rebels hoping to desecrate Belial’s temple here in Babale. I could not allow that.”Gwen has only ever known life as a priestess of the High Serpent King, Belial the Glorious. Specially trained as a wraith dancer assassin, Gwen is preparing for a life dispensing justice in the name of her dragon gods when she successfully repels an attack by the Resistance upon Belial’s temple. Suddenly catapulted to a position of status, Gwen is chosen to assassinate Ezekiah, the prophet of the Resistance. But when she’s captured, Gwen is shown the dark side of the dragons and their utopian society and the unsuspected kindness of the man she was meant to kill. She wants to remain faithful to the Serpent Kings, but her doubts are growing, and her time with Ezekiah has awakened feelings within her she never thought to have. Moreover, in Gwen’s absence, something has happened to make this wraith dancer a costly liability to the dragons, and she cannot be allowed to live any longer.