Lonen's War Blog Hop and Excerpt
Lonen's War
Sorcerous Moons – Book 1
By Jeffe Kennedy
An
Unquiet Heart
Alone in her tower, Princess Oria
has spent too long studying her people’s barbarian enemies, the Destrye—and
neglected the search for calm that will control her magic and release her to
society. Her restlessness makes meditation hopeless and her fragility renders
human companionship unbearable. Oria is near giving up. Then the Destrye
attack, and her people’s lives depend on her handling of their prince…
A Fight Without Hope
When the cornered Destrye decided to
strike back, Lonen never thought he’d live through the battle, let alone demand
justice as a conqueror. And yet he must keep up his guard against the sorceress
who speaks for the city. Oria’s people are devious, her claims of ignorance
absurd. The frank honesty her eyes promise could be just one more layer of
deception.
A Savage Bargain
Fighting for time and trust, Oria
and Lonen have one final sacrifice to choose… before an even greater threat
consumes them all.
Available at Amazon, Kobo, B&N, Smashwords on July 19,
2016
Buy links will be added to the website once available
~ Chapter 1
excerpt ~
Oria squinted into the heat shimmer
rising in the distance beyond the high walls of the city. Maybe if she looked
long and hard enough, the weapons of the clashing armies would give off a
telltale glitter or the shouts of the men would echo back. But, even though her
high tower gave her one of the longest views in Bára, she remained blind and
deaf, stuck in her chambers, remote from the battle underway.
Just as she’d
lived most of her life isolated from the rest of the world.
Despite the lack
of other evidence of war, the hot wind seemed to carry an unfamiliar smell to
her rooftop garden. Layered among the scents of sand, the brackish bay, and
distant ocean came something new. Something like roasting meat, redolent of
rage, despair, and determination. An unsettling combination unlike anything
she’d ever experienced. But until this, no one had attempted to attack Bára in
her lifetime. Not for a long time before that either, according to the
histories.
She paced the
gilded balcony as Chuffta, perched on the rail, watched her without moving,
green eyes sliding back and forth as if he were watching a xola match.
“You realize you walk much and get nowhere,” he said in her head.
“Yes, yes—the
story of my life,” she snapped at her Familiar. “Besides, it’s not as if I need
to conserve my energy just to hide in my rooms while the city falls.”
“Bára will not
fall,” Queen Rhianna said in a mild tone. Her nimble fingers never faltered as
they wove seven needles threaded with different colors in an intricate embroidery,
a casually powerful exhibition of her magical skill, her the golden metal mask
that covered her face without eye holes demonstrating her ability to see in
other ways. “It has not these many years and there’s no reason to believe it
will now. Don’t put attention on a result you do not want. You know better than
to articulate such thoughts, lest they manifest in truth.”
Oria frowned at
her mother. “I don’t know any such thing, but let’s try it out. Everything is
fine! The Destrye army has vanished into thin air and we’re no longer under
attack.”
Queen Rhianna
sighed, leaking the barest hint of exasperation through her carefully
cultivated calm. “Your casual attitude toward powerful forces beyond your ken
will be your undoing, daughter. You should know better than that, too, by now.”
“If they’re beyond
my ken, how can I respect them?” she grumbled.
“You’ve never met a Destrye and you fear
them, so your logic is faulty,” Chuffta pointed out.
She did—and fear
of their ancient barbarian enemy drove her to rudeness, as Chuffta obliquely
noted. Sometimes her Familiar’s wisdom grated on her. Okay, a lot of the time,
but he offered sincere advice and helped her when no one else could. True growth is uncomfortable, even painful,
the temple taught. She made herself stop and stroke the winged lizard’s soft
white scales between his eyes. “You’re right. I apologize, to both of you,” she
added to her mother.
“What is Chuffta
right about?” her mother asked.
“That I’m afraid
of the Destrye without knowing any, so my logic is bad. Though there are plenty
of stories and illustrations to inform that
opinion.” Oria’s longtime morbid fascination with the warrior race that shared
their continent had led her to ignore the texts she was meant to study in order
to linger over the vivid drawings of the Destrye with their big bodies, darkly
gnarled hair, black-furred garments, eyes wild in their cruel faces. So unlike
the Bárans.
“As there are
similarly many stories, diagrams, demonstrations, and lessons on how magic works,” her mother was saying in a placid yet
pointed tone. “You may not yet have access to all of the temple’s knowledge,
but you know the basic laws. If you paid as much attention to those as to the
gory histories, you might be making more progress than you are.”
“Yes, but they
never really explain anything. Like
‘you’ll understand hwil only when you
master hwil.’ How in Sgatha is that
remotely helpful?”
“Some things may
only be understood through experience. You know that we would tell you if it
could be put into words.”
Oria did know
that, not that it helped. “None of this has anything to do with my original
question. How can you sit and sew not
knowing what’s going on out there?” She flung an impotent hand at the desert
beyond the city walls.
Her mother raised
her featureless mask toward Oria. “Is pacing about like a wild thing giving you
information on how the battle goes?”
“Maybe not, but it
makes me feel better than sitting still does.”
“I know it’s
difficult for you now, but once you master hwil,
all will become clear. You’ll understand that there’s infinite motion in
stillness, and you’ll be able to channel the energy that makes you so restless
into its intended purpose. You will find great relief in channeling your sgath
to the common pool And, following that, you can begin to seek your perfect
partner and perhaps find a temple-blessed marriage. Once connected to him, you
will be able to express your magic to its greatest extent, as Sgatha intended.”
Oria turned to
stare into the distance again, choking back her impatience. Queen Rhianna, like
the other sorcerers and sorceresses of Bára who wore the masks of their office,
exemplified hwil, the art of
peacefulness under duress. Sgath only
flows through a calm mind, Oria’s teachers explained again and again.
Though they never said it out loud, in the last years their featureless golden
masks seemed to hold disapproval—and the resignation of those who’d given up on
her.
Oria could never
sit through a full meditation session. Her body unfailingly thrummed with
restlessness to get up, to do something. Her mind dashed from thought to
thought, like the jewelbirds in the garden, pausing in its mad flight only to
hover over the worry that she’d never find the key, never qualify to receive a
mask of her own. Never realize her mother’s patient hopes.
If course, the
possibility that she ever would grew less likely with each passing day since
she’d never even glimpsed this perfect state of hwil where all became clear. Of them all, only her mother remained
confident that she could.
Would it be so
terrible if she didn’t, beyond disappointing her mother’s unshakeable belief?
Her three brothers had all passed the final testing, each possessing enough
power and control to succeed their father, needing only marriages to solidify
their positions as heirs. They’d all taken their masks before they were
twenty—including her baby brother Yar the year before, a prodigy at
sixteen—while Oria trailed miserably far behind, facing her twenty-second
birthday within weeks.
Truly, the blow to
her pride rankled. And in her secret heart, more than a little unbecoming
jealousy, nursed all those years as her brothers practiced the showy battle
magics below her tower, so she could at least watch. They’d meant to entertain
her, not deepen her envy.
Oh, her teachers
could go on about how the male grien magic
was easier to learn; that it burgeoned in young men, pushing up from the ground
below Bára like the sap in the trees in springtime. How they only had to
practice restraint, focus, and release, and that such things came naturally to
men, while women’s magic worked in the reverse. Instead of exploding outward,
sgath drew in and received.
Thus the emphasis
on meditation, calmness, and peacefulness. A woman should be like a serene
lake, always refilling from those deep wells, so she could nurture with her
magic. The sacred blessing of creation belonged to women, a divine obligation
that provided Bára and her sister cities with the blessing of fruits, greens,
and grains in the desert.
In the most
exalted partnership, a sgath sorceress and a grien sorcerer married with temple
blessing, their magics complementing and enhancing each other in a perfectly
balanced flow. She to receive and grow magical energy, he to focus and release
it. For this reason, the temple frowned on same-sex partnerships as not ideal,
though they weren’t strictly forbidden. Many settled for lesser marriages, not
temple-blessed, and every person regardless of gender possessed some sgath and
some grien, in different measures. Even the purest and strongest sgath carried
a seed of grien, just as their parent moons, Sgatha and Grienon, waxed and
waned, one around the other’s orbit. Diligent study led a sorcerer or sorceress
to develop his or her best self, all the better to serve Bára.
And that best self
would be reflected in a temple-blessed marriage, such as her parents enjoyed.
An ideal none of Oria’s brothers had yet achieved. Something she could be first
in, if only she could find a way to be still long enough to grasp the essence
of hwil.
If only.
As the partnered
sorceresses of the city did their half of the work of defense, the halcyon
shimmer of women’s magic pooled below Oria’s tower, radiating from their
stations on the walls, flowing out like a reverse bore tide. Queen Rhianna
would have been with them if she hadn’t elected to keep her daughter company.
As it was, between the immense power of her sgath and her temple-blessed
marriage with the king, she could be anywhere and feed him magic, a constant
vital flow Oria sensed but could no more access than she could the battle
taking place leagues away.
Thus it remained
the sorceresses’ job to stay within the protective circle of Bára while the men
went forth to battle the Destrye with their powerful grien, fueled by sgath.
“This system has worked for centuries,” Chuffta told her. “In this way the cities have survived many onslaughts.”
“Like you’ve been
around for any more of them than I have,” Oria retorted in a dry tone, but
scratched Chuffta’s wing joints where he couldn’t easily reach them. He arched
his neck, purring as she relieved an itch.
Her mother had no
trouble following that thought. “Chuffta may be young, as you are, but the
derkesthai have stood by and advised many a queen and princess of our line
while our armies fought in the distance. I know you’d fret less if you could be
directing your energy to feeding power to our sorcerers, but your time will
come. The women in our family are like—”
“Like the fruit
that ripens in the dry season, long after the rains have passed,” Oria chimed
along with the familiar adage. “I know, I know. Unless they don’t bloom at
all.” Like her various aunts, exiled to live in other walled cities, far from
the temple and the source of all magic.
Queen Rhianna
tilted her face up, as if looking at her daughter, though she wouldn’t be
literally. The smooth golden mask of the sorceress gazed at her with eyeless
serenity. “Or all the more powerful for the slow ripening. I would not have
made the journey to invite Chuffta to be your Familiar and guide for when you
take your mask unless I believed you would find your magic. Nor would you be
able to hear him if you were mind-dead.”
“Nor would I have agreed to put up with you
for any other reason,” Chuffta teased in his dry mind-voice.
“I know you love
me. You think I’m charming, brilliant—and funny.” She stroked the winged
lizard’s softly scaled hide, always soothing with its sueded texture. Of all
her fears, the possibility of losing Chuffta worried her most. They’d been
together since her seventh birthday. He was the greatest gift she’d ever
received. If she failed to take her mask, he’d have no reason to stay with her.
She could deal with a life without being a sorceress, even with a mind-dead
half-marriage without magical completion—though what an unhappy life that would
be—but living without the rustle of Chuffta’s thoughts in her head? A desolate
prospect, indeed.
“What people believe becomes real.”
Chuffta echoed her mother’s advice.
If only it were
that easy. Like a jewelbird going to the wrong blossoms, Oria’s thoughts seemed
to forever return to the worst-case scenario. The dreadful potential outcomes
of any situation filled her head far more readily than any other. Unbidden,
they sprang to life in her mind. So much so that she diligently hid the extent
of them from Chuffta, her teachers, and especially her mother. A woman’s sgath
magic could turn toxic, undermining as easily as it nurtured. If they knew how
poisonous her thoughts could be, they’d stop training her altogether. The
techniques they taught were far too potent to chance in irresponsible hands.
Another warning
repeated far too often for comfort.
It all came down
to this: She must learn to calm and quiet her mind. To be like her mother and
live serenely behind the mask of a priestess, with no desire to pace in
restless agitation, only happy thoughts running through her mind, not dread of
the future.
Focusing on
positive images, she determinedly rehearsed them in her head. The Destrye would
go back to their sterile and magicless land. The battle would be won, perhaps
so soundly that the fierce warrior people would never come after hers again.
Bára would be safe and her father would peacefully hold his throne for many
joyful years to come. Her brothers would continue the elaborate courtship and
testing rituals to find their ideal wives among the priestesses of the temple,
which she wanted for them with all her heart. (Never mind that little corner
blackened with jealousy—she’d excise it.) Focus
on the result you want. And she, herself, a paragon of peaceful maturity
with vast powers of concentration, would find her hwil and receive her mask. Somewhere out there, her perfect match
awaited, too. Perhaps she already knew him, and he only needed her to grow just
a bit more so they could join in a blissful, eternal union.
A fine hope.
Though more unlikely with every passing day. Especially with the Destrye
attacking.
“When will they
send news?” she muttered at the horizon.
This time, no one
answered her.
Jeffe Kennedy is an award-winning author whose works include
non-fiction, poetry, short fiction, and novels. She has been a Ucross
Foundation Fellow, received the Wyoming Arts Council Fellowship for Poetry, and
was awarded a Frank Nelson Doubleday Memorial Award. Her essays have appeared
in many publications, including Redbook.
Her most recent works include a number of fiction series: the
fantasy romance novels of A Covenant of Thorns; the
contemporary BDSM novellas of the Facets of Passion, and an erotic
contemporary serial novel, Master of the Opera. A fourth
series, the fantasy trilogy The Twelve Kingdoms, hit the shelves
starting in May 2014 and book 1, The Mark of the Tala, received a starred Library Journal review
was nominated for the RT Book of the Year
while the sequel, The Tears of the Rose was nominated
for the RT
Reviewers’ Choice Best Fantasy Romance of 2014
and the third book, The
Talon of the Hawk, won the
RT Reviewers’ Choice Best Fantasy Romance of 2015. Two more books will
follow in this world, beginning with The Pages of the Mind
May 2016. A fifth series, the erotic romance trilogy, Falling Under, started with Going Under, and was followed by Under His Touch and Under Contract.
She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with two Maine coon cats,
plentiful free-range lizards and a very handsome Doctor of Oriental Medicine.
Jeffe can be found online at her website: JeffeKennedy.com, every Sunday at the
popular SFF Seven blog, on Facebook, on Goodreads
and pretty much constantly on Twitter @jeffekennedy.
She is represented by Connor Goldsmith of Fuse
Literary.
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