Note: So I thought it was about time I posted another one of my excerpts. The book is still the same one as I previously posting from. This one is slightly lengthy and probably a little rough in spots, but it'll be in shape soon enough! Anyway, enjoy!
The scent of roasting deer steamed from the carcass simmering on the spit. Smoke curled into the air, marring the starry, flawless presence with its black eminence. Stomach growling as he turned the juicy hunk of meat, Castor glanced through the flames at his companion. She sat, hand tucked neatly beneath her chin, leaning forward eagerly.
Slowly, the boy released his breath, rubbing his red, chaffed hands near the hearth. Casting his eyes away from hers, he concentrated absently upon a diminishing branch, watching its once-vibrant life perish completely beneath the merciless fire.
The juicy fat of the deer hissed as it simmered down its side. Jerking, Castor pricked the darkening hide with the tip of his sword. Like butter, it slipped into the innards, releasing a steady stream of smoke. The scent of fresh, sizzling meat steamed out with it, permeating the air with its mouth-watering temptation as Castor peeled back the skin. Healthy, brown flesh grinned back at him with faint glow.
Withdrawing his weapon from the animal’s side, he removed the spit from over the hearth and braced it between his legs. As he rummaged along his belt in search of his knife, he caught Arrenia’s expectant gaze. Quickly, he averted his attention.
Gahh! Cut himself on that stupid blade again!
Smearing his bloodied finger upon the hem of his shirt, he extracted the bothersome knife from around his waist and set it upon the waiting meal-to-be. Shaved hastily off the bone, chunky slices of meat tumbled one-by-one into the young hunter’s callused hand.
With a haphazard toss over the flames, he threw one to Arrenia. “Here. Eat. It might be a while before we have a good meal again.”
Sinking her teeth into the recesses of the fleshy dinner, Arrenia allowed the delicious tenderness to erupt in flavor upon her tongue, chewing mechanically. Not for a second did her eyes leave her companion. She set her portion aside. “You know, Castor, there’s no reason for us to hide anything from each other.”
He continued to saw away at the carcass. “What do you mean?”
She leaned forward. “We are on this journey together, Castor, whatever it is. I told you my dream.”
He sighed, resting the half-hacked hunk of meat gently against his leg. Slowly, the knife slipped from its cleaving grip and hung limply in the mid air, reflecting in its blood-stained sheen the spitting, cackling flames. Rising and sagging with breadth of a sigh, his body wrestled with the weariness threatening to overtake him. He ran his thumb and middle finger over his eyebrows, methodically massaging his tumultuous thoughts into order.
Why, oh why, now?! he wondered.
“Castor?” Arrenia said, her voice riddled with concern.
The boy sighed again. “Hmmm?”
“Is everything all right?”
Mustering whatever courage he could salvage from the wreckage of his mind, he dragged himself to a more erect posture. Arrenia’s lips parted slightly as she saw sleeplessness’s indelible lines encircling his eyes. For the first time in the entire night, he held her gaze. “You must understand, Arrenia, that many things have changed this night. Our future is uncertain. Nothing may ever be right again.”
He held his breath, watching her smooth, delicate face for some indication of emotion. Illumined by the fire, it surfaced softly from the dark abyss, shining in its fragile innocence yet strengthened by a courage beyond compare. No expression of happiness adorned her features, yet neither did oppression nor discouragement. The vulnerability of a woman graced her every move, yet the determination of a man palpitated in her heart. Even now, her jaw dangled slightly agape, as if she was already drinking the cup fate had placed in her hand.
He burrowed his brows. “You are not afraid?”
Running a dry tongue over her lips, she hung her head, employing her hands in the mindless caress of her food. “We must make the best of the future.”
His heart skipped a beat. Had the world ever seen a girl with so much tender resolve? With so much reserve and yet so much passion? With so much of the essence of life itself? Even enough to throw it into this journey, without even thinking twice! His arms ached to hold her. His heart longed for her own.
But sweet serenades and expressions of his growing adoration would have to wait. She was a princess of Lydacia. He, a prince of Sleyvink.
What an ironic coincidence, he beamed to himself, that we, politically sworn enemies, should here be unified by such unusual circumstances.
Bending down, he tossed another stick into the flames, trying to redeem its dwindling embers enough to warm the chill shivering within him. The night wrapped about his being like a cold blanket as a slight breeze rustled the peace of the glade. Jumping sharply back into life, the fire first embraced, then consumed the new source of life sacrificed to it.
Releasing his pent-up breath, Castor abandoned his seat. Arrenia sat up, confusion knitting her brows as she observed him. Darkness hid him as he walked farther away from the glow of the hearth, shrouding his actions in a black veil of mystery. As the seconds drew on, her pulse accelerated.
“What are you doing?”
No answer.
A small tingle tantalized her spine. Her skin prickled with premonitions as the boughs of the trees began to slowly dance in the wind’s hypnotic sway. Clamorously, half-formed hypotheses churned in her brain, each raising its vociferous cry above the others. She covered her ears, but the rain of incessant suppositions only drummed louder upon her mind.
Oh,, why am I here? Why did I come?
The mare was slumbering blissfully when Castor approached her. Inserting his hand carefully into the sack she carried, he groped his way around the vast recesses of the canvas bag, his touch alighting upon one unseen object after another. Disturbed, the creature shifted her weight around and snorted. Tenderly, Castor ran his fingers down her soft, silky neck, whispering comfortingly to her in fluent Sleyvinkian.
“Nytok sino nar, yin lint unik. Ogek ta peel.” The night is fair, my little one. Go to sleep.
Blinking, the animal stared back at him before bringing her head to rest upon her hooves once again. Castor patted her back, saying to her as he returned his attention to his previous search, “There’s my little lady.”
Moments passed by, the precious minutes of the night beginning to slip beneath his fingertips. The boy risked a glance up into the recesses of the zenith. How much longer did they have until dawn? Merrily, the starry hosts winked down at him, giggling at his imploring wonder. Flaunting their glistening, silver robes, they snickered between themselves, as if they received gratification for keeping the answer just out his reach.
Deftly, Castor yanked ajar the mouth of the bag, allowing these playful children of the sky to be of some use and cast at least one enlightening ray into the depths of his confusion. A glimmer caught his eye. Reaching into the sack once more, he followed the canvas wall downward just a bit until elation seared up his arm. He grabbed the two halves of the medallion, returned quickly to the fire, and lowered himself upon the arboreal stub.
“So?” Arrenia pestered. “What were you doing?”
He held up the separate objects, so that the light of the hearth would fall upon them. Gasping, she jumped backward, gripping her seat until caps of white hallooed her knuckles. The color drained from her countenance, turning her lovely, vibrant cheeks into gray, ashen wastelands.
Without uttering a single sound, she rose. Taking short, tentative steps, she approached her partner, the two golden objects never leaving her sight. She kneeled to the ground, bringing them at eye-level with herself. The words coherent enough to escape being snagged in her throat perished upon her tongue as her mouth dropped open. Cautiously, she stroked their shiny, flawless surfaces. She shook her head.
Two medallions, almost identical in every way. Two halves of the same medallion. Seemingly made for one another, the jagged lines corresponded directly. Where one ended, the other began.
Two halves of the same mystery, she thought, sliding the pieces into each other. A perfect Lamb. Two halves of the same puzzle.
She looked at Castor. “Where did you get this?”
“In Sleyvink, we have an annual sparring tournament. It is a rigorous test; a true test of manhood....”
“And you won?”
He nodded. “ ‘I was informed in a dream to give it to the one who conquers,’ the man told me. ‘Run and find the girl. The prophecy…is you.”
Arrenia grasped his knee. “But what does it mean?”
Slowly, he turned his head towards her. Eagerness waltzed with fear upon the radiant ballroom of her expression. Moonlight gently flooded the glade, lighting every object with a fragile glow. As if about to snap beneath the pressure of the nearing future, the whole earth seemed to tremble.
Embracing her dainty hands with his caressing grip, he looked affectionately down at her. She started slightly at his touch, but then relaxed under his gentle care. In one moment, he smiled. For this last instant in time, everything seemed perfect.
But only seemed. There were still a thousand woes to be crossed, a thousand atrocities left to tell. And all in the breadth of a single night.
His smile vanished.
Arrenia tightened her grasp around his own. “Something’s bothering you. What is it?”
He tapped his foot. Finally, he said, “Oh, Arrenia, how can I tell you this? It will change everything you’ve ever known. It-”
She laid a hand over his. “I’m ready for it, I promise.”
Gulping, he sucked the oxygen into his lungs. “It’s about the medallions. You and I are…well…fated to be together.”
Little furrows ran into her brow as she cocked her head. “What do you mean?”
The fire tossed estranged rays of light upon the boy’s countenance, his features dancing in and out of the shadows. Lapping at the air, the tongues of flame drank the atmosphere into a breathless silence. As soon as it surfaced, cold sweat tingled Arrenia’s skin, bathing her in its aroused waters. She shivered.
Dragging the precious oxygen deep into his lungs, Castor said, “Arrenia, what if we’re more than we think we are? What if someone, generations before the birth of our grandfathers, foresaw our being and foretold our futures?”
Her fingers coiled themselves around his, the cold sweat of her palms bleeding onto his own. “Castor, don’t frighten me.”
Sweeping a stray piece of hair away from her countenance, his fingers lingered, caught in the thickets of her lovely tresses. “It’s the truth, little maiden. Like it or not, someone has predicted our existence…and installed our fate.” He searched her face. “You have a thousand questions. I see them in your eyes, and I wish I could answer them…Oh, Arrenia, so much is left unsaid! It troubles me greatly. I want to protect you, yet the road is perilous, and the world is against us. I am only one man. How can I live up to the responsibility?”
Her lips vanished in a thin white line as her brain slowly gnawed upon this information. Removing her grasp from his own, she laid her hand on his cheek, wooing his gaze back into hers. “No man can stop a warrior who sets his mind to the task before him.”
The stress burdening his countenance evaporated like a veil of mist shrouding his face. Water droplets glistened in his eyes almost as quickly as he could blink them away. One or two even cut meandering paths on his soil-laden cheeks. Sniffing, he smeared them away, struggling to maintain the stability of his voice. “Thank you, Arrenia.”
Without replying, the girl took up his half of the medallion, watching the light snag different facets of it as she turned it slowly. The golden surface shone with a brazen polish; not a spot marred its beautiful complexion. The glowing illumination emanating from the hearth playfully extracted the tiniest details from the shadows of intricacy, revealing their hiding places.
She allowed her fingers to gently brush its fine mounds and valleys, tracing every element in speechless wonder. In the center, the face of a lamb stared back at her. It’s shallow, sculpted eyes stared back at her with a depth that escaped the skill of any artist she had ever seen. Certainly, they seemed to truly seek her own. To capture her with the spirit of their penetrating gaze. To draw her in and hold her fast, perhaps never letting her go. She stared at it, marveling at the mystery set before her.
“So delicate and lovely,” she said, almost to herself. Then, turning to Castor, “What do you think is the meaning of it?”
Castor braced his elbows upon his knees. Distance glazed his eyes as he stared off into the flames. Rocking slowly, he rubbed his coarse clothing gently, subconsciously trying to ward off the chill that was settling in. A breathless moment passed….
Like standing upon a precipice, about to fall, thought Arrenia. Though she had no tangible proof, the sickening knot of premonition wrenched her stomach. Already, she could feel herself falling through thin air, hurtled from the cliff by a cruel hoax of fate. Already, the water below drummed in her ears. And then…the impact. Cold liquid rushed over her, filling her mouth, her nostrils, saturating her very being as it enveloped her in the cool clutches of darkness. And rest. Rest forevermore from this world that had wronged her so. No more Lucrious, Isabel, and step-mothers. No more hurt, no more loss, no more pain. Only darkness.
Finally, Castor wedded his gaze with hers. Solemnly, he began to speak. “Arrenia, this may not be what you want to hear, but listen. The fate of our countries, the fate of the world, rests on our shoulders. You and I will be embarking on a journey. I do not know the details, but I do know that we will be hunted, perhaps even killed in the process…You tremble.”
“I’m scared.”
Her voice cracked into the deadly silence which surrounded them. Castor sighed, leaning in closer and trying to keep her steady gaze. “We can’t shy away from fate, Arrenia. Look,” he cupped his hands about hers. “These medallions bind us together, and together we will stay. I will make sure of it. On my honor as a warrior, I will make sure of it!”
For a long minute, she looked into his eyes, the words wiped from her mouth. True sincerity ran through his fingertips, electrifying her with its simple purity. She sat back, smiling to herself, content to be in his embracive presence. Suddenly, she threw her arms about his neck and felt with sheer joy his arms slowly wrapping about her.
“Thank you, Castor,” she said.
Pushing her softly away, he glanced upwards. “Ahh, but look how the sky grows light!” He rose. “We must hurry little maiden, if we are to reach our destination before sundown.”
Picking herself up, Arrenia scooped up the dirty plates. “Where are we going?”
Castor went over to the mare and gently dragged her to her feet. “To the home of an old and wise friend. If anyone will be able to tell us the full secret of the medallions, it’s him.”
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