5 days and counting - and a teaser!
It's less than a week to the launch date of SEEDS OF INHERITANCE, and I can't wait to share it with all of you. It's been a long process, and everything's finally coming together. If you still need to preorder the book, click here to find your preferred retailer.
To thank you for being a follower of my newsletter, I'm including the first scene of the novel here. I hope you like it half as much as I do!
Chapter One
A captor becomes complacent, but the captive elf watches. And waits.
~ Empress Pur the Younger
The hands lie and the eyes lie, but the shoulders and hips are truer.
~ Ansellema, adept of the Fingertip Order
*
Berenike stood at the back of the emperor’s study with her eyes closed, teasing apart the voices in the room while the mages set up the holo array. At her shoulder, her mentor-turned-jailer Theodora muttered reminders into Emperor Leontios’ ear for the upcoming broadcast. On the other side of the desk, two guards gossiping in low tones.
“It’s safe,” one insisted, “even if she weren’t oath-bound, the spymaster taught her everything she knows. Theodora could probably kill her with one red-tipped finger.”
It was flattering when the guards worried about her. After ten years as a slave, most of the denizens of the palacetree barely thought of Berenike at all. Her near-invisibility had become a worn cloak that itched what was left of her sore ego.
The second guard chuckled. “The Fingertip Order is more spies than assassins these days, I guess. And you’re right - it’s been a decade. She would have moved by now if she could.”
She would have. She would have burned the palacetree down around the emperor’s pointed, be-ringed ears, even if she burned with him. The fantasy weighed heavy in her mind like possession, trying to curl her scarred hands into fists against her near-century of Order training. Her muscles didn’t so much as twitch; she had more control than that. Besides, even if Leontios deserved a miserable death, most of his subjects weren’t her enemies. And the palacetree -
If the palacetree burned, so would the empire.
The palacetree of Foss-Karan was the root of all space travel, after all. And despite the failed spacer rebellion she’d helped lead, she wished the palacetree themself no harm.
A dull warmth kindled in her chest at the thought. Even chained and degraded, she still cared for others. Berenike had to cling to that, or she might as well throw herself down the recycler someday.
The dark thought was familiar, almost comforting. She had an option, even though it was one she refused to take. She could do something.
“Berenike!”
Internally, she cringed, though she made sure none of the reaction showed in her face or body. She opened her eyes and went to her knees. “Yes, your Eminence.”
Her gaze was at the floor, so all she saw of Theodora was the puddle of black robes covering her bare feet. “If I catch you woolgathering again, slave, you’ll regret it.”
Another internal cringe. Berenike’s attention strayed to her hands where they lay in her lap. She could just see the edges of the scar tissue that gloved all her fingertips, where the Order’s tattoos had been burned off ten years ago. “Yes, your Eminence.” Some days, those were the only words she uttered outside her head. Loneliness ached in her bones on those days, colder than the ice deserts of Avernus.
“Go get your daughter and bring her to us.”
What? Tension sprang into being within her, tightening Berenike’s shoulders. “May I tell her why, your Eminence?” Evrim had at one time been Leontios’ favorite prop, especially for how her presence tweaked the noses of the rebels, but he hadn’t summoned her for one of these speeches in years.
“No. She’s in the back with the princess.” Berenike risked a glance up at Theodora. The old elf was pointing over Berenike’s head toward the scroll cabinets. Her wizened index finger was tipped in blood red, skin and nail both. “The emperor wants her at his side for this announcement.”
Any more questioning would result in the regret Theodora had threatened earlier. Berenike bowed her head to the mossy floor and, when Theodora sniffed and turned away, she got to her feet and threaded her way through the press of people. They all treated her with the same lack of awareness they would show to a page or messenger. Her invisibility was in full force with this crowd.
That guards’ conversation had burrowed beneath Berenike’s skin - normally, the invisibility would be a fact she noted and dismissed. But what he’d said had planted a seed in her. If no one pays attention to me anymore, then maybe -
The mere whisper of treasonous intention drew a red curtain of pain across her vision - the blood oath, tightening about her like a snare. She missed a step and stumbled, half-blind, against a warm body.
Hands tightened on her upper arms. “Mother?” There was surprise in the familiar voice, enough to shame Berenike into acting.
Three quick breaths, an exertion of will, and the bodywork spell fell into place. The pain ebbed away and her vision sharpened. She would pay for it later - the Fingertip Order’s bodywork spells only delayed the effects they dispelled, usually compounded - but the thought of letting Evrim see her weakness was worse. She disconnected herself with a twitch of her shoulders.
Evrim snorted, the concern at the corners of her eyes vanishing. “Getting clumsy in your old age?”
It hurt, even though her century and twenty-five was barely midway through middle age. Her child always saw the knife in her heart, even if no one else could.
Evrim stood hip-shot beside the circular doorway, crossed arms rumpling the silver embroidery of her soft gray tunic. Her short black hair shifted in a breeze from the window smelling of greenery and spice, and the single silver hoop in her left earlobe glinted in the morning sunslight. Beside her, one hand on Evrim’s hip, stood the emperor’s daughter, Hypatia, in green and gold, her hennaed hair a red riot down her back.
Seeing Evrim and Hypatia together always clawed at Berenike’s throat. That the child of a revolution and the heir of an emperor had fallen in love would make for an excellent children’s story. In reality, it meant that Evrim’s motives and loyalties must always be in question. Another knife, another piece of her heart bleeding.
Packing these thoughts away for later examination - or perhaps just for the recycler - Berenike bent her knee to Hypatia and dismissed her. “Evrim, the emperor calls for you at his side.”
That caught Evrim’s attention. Frowning, she glanced toward Leontios. “That’s unexpected.” She caught Hypatia’s golden-skinned hand. “The anniversary, do you think?”
Hypatia pursed her lush lips, painted an orange red to match the hair that framed her soft face. “I think so. The announcement is about the Lilypad, and I know Father means to celebrate it on-station.”
The anniversary. They meant the anniversary of the death of the rebellion. The death of her son, and so many others. Berenike should have made that connection herself. Frustration heated her cheeks, enough that she called on bodywork again. Her flesh and mind cooled.
Tonight would not be pleasant. But no night had been, for years.
“We should go to him, daughter.” Before Theodora becomes impatient and uses the implant in my brain to bring my to my knees. There were two swords over Berenike’s head - one magical, one biological - and Theodora used her weapon indiscriminately.
As if she’d heard Berenike’s thought, Evrim’s face twisted. “Fine. He can trot out this show pony for a few minutes.” She leaned back against Hypatia and kissed her deeply. The muscles in her twisted neck stood out like vines. “I’ll be right back.”
“Greet my father for me, would you?” Hypatia’s voice was light, but there was an undercurrent of bitterness in it, laid bare by Berenike’s training. The rumor that Leontios was ignoring his heir for some reason might be true, after all. He’d always said he wanted a male heir, despite the fact that his preference was at best considered a quirk of personality, at worst, an indication of madness. But emperors could be mad with few consequences, and so his ridiculous belief that males were better rulers continued with no challenge. It burned hot in her chest, another coal for the fire of her hatred.
Three breaths. Suffer that in silence as well. She had no choice.
And yet still, a voice inside her whispered, You do have a choice. Be ready for it, when it presents itself.