So on Write a Book with Me, Kirsten asked for snippets and shared an amazing one of her own. I went ahead and went out on a limb (for me, anyway) and shared the first bit of Storm, the new bit of the overhaul of my Vardin novelverse into The Rothnen Cycle.
I wasn't expecting much; I've been scared to really go where this book goes, but her response just about choked me up and told me I am finally doing this right. It's still scary, if I'm honest, but I hope that I can keep doing, reaching down into the real parts of this story that draw me and compel me and share them, no matter how much I worry that it's going to go down wrong.
She fell into sleep wearing her usual blonde braid and her long, flannel nightgown. She woke to a rocky beach with her golden hair loose and blowing in the softly singing winds and wearing a simple cream-colored dress under a dark cloak. He was there. He was always there, waiting for her. A little older than she was, maybe twelve or thirteen, and visibly too thin without his shirt. He liked to hang his bare legs in the water and let the water and wind ruffle his hair into unkempt auburn. He liked to sit just in front of her and grin when she wasn’t being serious.
But tonight—or day, the sun was glimmering softly over here through a haze of beautiful blue so intense, it seemed she could swirl her finger in it—she was serious as she settled her cloaked back against the large rock leading upward toward the cliffs. She was serious often enough to know he would not laugh or grin, but listen to her intently, like his life hung upon her words.
“What day is it?” she asked, softly, like speaking too loud would change his answer.
It was an old question between them, something worrisome and weary filling the gap between.
“The seventeenth,” he answered solemnly.
“What month is it?”
He waited a moment, dark eyes holding hers. “The second.”
The same day. She slept and awoke and it was all her own life. It bothered her.
He was all pent-up, restless energy and stepped up as if to go, but she caught his hand and held it tightly. He let her and sat beside her while she waited for the ache of confusion within her to leave her for the winds and drift away.
