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joshuaorrizonte · 2 years

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Find the Word Tag!

Thank you, @ashen-crest for the tag! They gave me seek, no, decline, and floor. If you feel like doing this, consider yourself tagged! Your words are love, passion, winter, and soothe.

All of these passages come from Infinity's Daylight, final draft.

Seek:

"Anna woke me after a handful of hours to take over the watch for her, and I sat thinking about everything as I watched our campfire burn. It was colder than I thought it would be. The cold never bothered me - indeed, I had once wanted to run away to Mytre, and part of me still wanted that. Maybe after things were settled with Dad, if he didn't believe me and I couldn't go home, I would go to Mytre on my own. I had always felt drawn to that region of the world, almost called to it. I had assumed it was because I was an ice mage, something very few light dragons could claim.

That made little sense to me anymore, but the thought of my magical abilities sent my ruminations in an entirely different direction. Light Dragons rarely had the capacity to manipulate cold and ice like I did, but Dark Dragons had no problem with that. And wasn't it just a strange coincidence that Dad had a Dark Dragon half-brother? I had never met the man before, but I was led to believe that he'd stayed in Sylpheed for quite some time after Dad fought the goddess Mariah and saved the city.

Dad would always be my Dad, even if my father was that nameless Dark Dragon brother. It was a possibility I'd thought of in the past, but never as seriously as I was considering it now. Maybe now that I was free of Sylpheed, if Dad didn't want me back, I could go to Draeger, seek this Dark Dragon uncle and see what he had to say about this musing of mine.

If I could find him. I didn't even know the man's name."

No:

"Vanessa laughed merrily at my expression. "Close your mouth, child," she teased. "You're going to start catching flies!"

"But - but there's so much of - of everything!"

This time Anna laughed, and Vanessa said, "You'd think the same of the merchant district of Sylpheed City, if you hadn't grown up there. Come now, hurry. I don't know when the next boat to Elysium is going to depart. We need to get our fare taken care of and get some supplies while we're at it. Things are much more expensive in Elysium."

She led us right to the ticket office by the docks, and the porter peered at us curiously, almost suspiciously, as Vanessa ordered our tickets. "So why are you three headed to Elysium?" he asked.

Vanessa seemed to be taken aback by his question. "We - these two are disciples I recruited while in Sylpheed City. I'm taking them back to the Ferrarai monastery in Sunrise-"

"You sure about that, miss? Because that young man looks awfully like the one in the wanted posters that went up around the city yesterday."

Our guardian went pale at that, and she stared at him for a second before I chimed in: "Oh, you mean the missing Dragesrod boy. Yes, we had a hard time getting out of the city because of that. Apparently I look a lot like him. I'm guessing we're distant cousins."

Now he peered at me. "So you're telling me you're not him?"

"No, sir. My name is - is Thomas Orrizontei, sir." I ignored Anna's sharp look and plowed on: "Word was in Sylpheed that someone had kidnapped him. Isn't that what's being said here?"

"Aye, lad. A priestess of Kyrios had kidnapped him -."

"I can assure you I have not been kidnapped. I am really going to Sunrise Beach to be a priest. I'll even recite any of the Kyrian scripture you want me to."

The man considered this for a moment, then shook his head, not quite convinced, but unwilling to press further. "No, no, that won't be necessary, I believe you. You might run into trouble in the city, though."

Decline:

Not in this novel.

Floor:

"Rae opened his mouth to answer me. But whatever he had been prepared to say next was cut off by the sound of Circe screaming my name. I reacted automatically, rushing to her aid, Rae following on my heels. The hallway around me was chaos, people running back and forth and shouting at each other. I pushed through them to reach Circe. "The throne room!" she shouted at me, and Rae and I moved to obey her.

The scene I saw before me could only be described as chaotic. Serra's throne was empty, and a tight formation of soldiers from the Queen's Guard stood in a circle around the dais. I pushed my way through the guards with Circe and Rae, and knelt next to Serra and the soldier whose head she cradled in her lap. "Help him!" Serra begged me, and I examined the wound. It was a gunshot to be sure, right in the center of his belly. There was a racket outside of the circle, and one guard outside of it shouted, "There he is! After him!"

Circe and Rae bolted after the man the guard indicated. I watched them go, my view from the floor obfuscated by the guards protecting Serra. Then I turned my attention back to the man dying in Serra's arms. "He tried to kill me," she said, dissolving into tears. "This man wasn't even supposed to be here today! He stepped in front of me when the assassin fired on me. He was wearing Queen's Guard colors, Drake!"

I ignored her for the time being, choosing to focus entirely on the wounded man in front of me. It was too late. He had lost too much blood, and his abdomen was swelling with internal bleeding. My magic wasn't powerful enough to do much else than to numb the pain and force him into a sleep that he would never wake from."

#original writing #tag game #writblr #infintiy's daylight

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infinitys-chaos · 7 years

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Infinity’s Chaos, Book One: Infinity’s Daylight

Hello! I’ll be posting a draft of the first book of my series, Infinity’s Daylight, in this blog. This is still in draft phase; I’ve done some rewriting and editing, but it’s not done. I need more feedback.

That’s where you’ll come in, I hope. Leave me comments! Let me know how I can improve this story, if it’s enjoyable, if it’s not, so on and so forth.

And now, without further ado:

Infinity’s Daylight

Prologue: The Paladin’s Tale

I had been there since they’d brought Drake back from Sylpheed City.

Prince Drake Draeger, my youngest half-brother, was now lying in his bed, clinging desperately to life. And over a misunderstanding, at worst. He had fallen from a balcony in Sylpheed palace during an argument with his betrothed. The railing he had been leaning against had splintered beneath his weight. I sighed as I ran a hand through my pitch dark hair, waiting anxiously for our healer to return. She’d seen the Princess of Sylpheed off, back to her own nation.

Back to her own nation, because my little brother refused to believe that she hadn’t betrayed him. I believed her because I understood the politics behind her choices. They loved each other, truly, but the engagement had been allowed to continue because Drake was the Prince of a redeveloping nation and she was the Princess of a nation who would be our allies. Drake had not spent his life learning proper husbandry and diplomacy. She had, and so had I. There was little to no chance that a Princess in her standing would jeopardize a political marriage of this caliber- especially one that she’d wanted. Princess Aninala knew better. The problem was that Prince Drake did not.

I sensed the healer before she entered the room. We Dragons are of the Fae races, and the ones most steeped in magic. We shared empathy with the other Fae races, but it was strongest between Dragons themselves. If a Dragon did not take care to shield themselves, they would be known to every other Dragon nearby. That psychic shielding was a skill that every Dragon learned, early and quickly. That skill could be the only thing standing between them and death, in the right circumstances.

And Valerie was no exception to this rule. She knew I could feel her long before she stepped into the room. I didn’t look at her as she quietly closed the heavy gilded oak door behind her and leaned against it. The plush midnight blue carpet swallowed her footsteps as she edged closer. Her bright, cheerful staccato voice was soft and terse as she said, “They are gone. The Prince is still unconscious, correct?”

I dropped my mental shields long enough to gently reach out to Drake’s mind. I felt a still, placid fog, like an empty pond in the dark of the night. “He is still unconscious, yes.”

“Then there is something you need to be aware of, Prince Mika.”

“Don’t call me that.” The reflexive phrase came out of my mouth before I had time to stop it. I grimaced, scolding myself for being worried about my proper title over whatever Valerie had to tell me. I forced myself to soften my voice as I asked, “What is it?”

I was intimidating when I raised my voice, and my little brother whimpered and squirmed. I put a hand on his forehead, grimacing at the heat I felt beneath my palm. “He’s developing a fever,” I murmured, using my magic to lull him back into oblivion.

Valerie was beside me in an instant, her magic in her hands. She spoke as her essence, the part of her being that could be manipulated to affect the world around her, flowed into Drake, forcing the inflammation in his broken body away once more and allowing him to sink even further into unconsciousness. “The Princess and Rae have left,” she said once she was done, turning to me. “The Princess is with child-”

“And you let her leave without telling Drake about this?”

“I did. What good would telling him about the pregnancy do, Mika? He’s convinced that his lover betrayed him. He’s not thinking rationally about anything right now. Give him a month, two months. Give him some time to come to terms with what’s happened. You must know by now that he’s never going to walk again.”

I flinched. “I do not know that,” I snapped. “Neither do you, Valerie. He defeated a goddess. How in the world could you say that he’s never going to walk again?”

Turning to me, she said, “Because I’m a physician. Marissa’s gone to Sri Zeron to try to find some lost technology that may help him, but it’s foolish to hang our hopes on that. He needs to accept his new limitations and learn to live with them. One thing at a time, Prince. We’re still not stable yet, and we don’t know if the people will accept a crippled King.”

I had another flash of regret, of sadness. I’d have volunteered to take the throne in his stead, even though I didn’t want it. But the people would accept a crippled King much faster than they’d accept a Dark Dragon one. We were less than human to the Light Dragons, for the most part, and some regarded us as savage monsters. I was the King’s grandson as much as Drake was, and so I was tolerated, but barely.

And Grandfather was dying. That was something few people knew. Not even Drake knew, not yet. Grandfather still had time- ten years, maybe twenty. In human years, that was quite a while, but for Dragons as old as he and I, it seemed a day in length. I wasn’t ready to mourn him, but now that Drake might not be able to take the throne…

“You’re worried, Prince.”

“You’re the mistress of the obvious tonight, lady.”

“He cannot hear us right now. You know you can trust me if you need to talk.”

I mulled it over for a moment. Just as I was about to take her up on her kind offer, the chambers door opened again.

An angry reprimand was on my lips. One did not walk into the Crown Prince’s personal chambers without so much as a simple knock on the door. I swallowed it back as my gaze fell on the intruder. He was Death’s Champion, and one did not scold a goddess’s Champion, whether he was one’s son or not.

And, as unlikely as it was, Joshua was one of Drake’s caregivers right now. He had worked with Valerie and Marissa to save Drake’s life. Once Drake was out of immediate danger, Joshua had gone to commune with his goddess. He had promised to return once she was finished with him.

He looked from one of us to the other, and then to Drake. Joshua was an eccentric man. While his oddities of behavior had smoothed out over his two hundred years of life, one thing he never stopped was his tendency to always be smiling vacantly.

He wasn’t smiling now. There wasn’t even a hint of amusement in his bronze eyes, and his mouth was pulled into a grim line. Even his usually light voice was grave now. “We have a much bigger problem than Prince Drake’s condition.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, bewildered by this change in my son’s demeanor.

“His communion with Death,” Valerie murmured. “There was something else we didn’t tell you immediately, Mika.”

“And if we tell you now, it must be kept quiet,” Joshua added.

“I can’t promise that,” I replied. “You know I can’t. If it relates to Drake or the King…”

“It does, but you certainly cannot tell the Prince.” Joshua crossed his arms over his chest, his black velvet shirt seeming to be mere darkness hiding his pale hands. “I… will trust your judgment with regards to His Majesty, but it is imperative that His Highness be kept out of it, for his own safety.”

His words frightened me. “I think I can live with that compromise,” I said. “What’s going on?”

After a moment of silence, Valerie answered, “Death was with us, trying to save Prince Drake. She claimed that he was not supposed to come this close to death for centuries. In fact, his Fate was not to fall from that balcony at all.”

I felt cold as she spoke. The sensation of dread only got worse as Joshua took over for her. “The communion was done with the intention of inspecting the balcony together. We watched as the Sylph architects examined the posts and railings. There was no rot in the wood that broke under Drake’s weight, no signs that it was cut, no cracks, simply no reason why it should’ve broken.”

“That’s what we feared.” Valerie put a hand over her mouth, her green eyes wide. Then she pulled it away, shaking her head. “But what does this mean? Who could be powerful enough to override a Fate?”

“Someone of Divine origin,” Joshua answered, troubled, “but we’ve accounted for all those we know are divine. The Prince would not have tried to assassinate himself, and I sure didn’t. None of the other Gods have Champions, Mariah is still sealed, and the others either couldn’t or wouldn’t do this. But to make matters worse, it seems that a different Fate has been imposed on him. And we cannot identify which God did it.”

We were silent, the gravity of the situation weighing us down like a stone. The Eldritch-powered timepiece ticked off the seconds, and I looked back to my little brother. Something of Divine origin had just tried to murder him, and we didn’t know who or what it was.

Drake stirred and moaned, pained. I put my hand on his chest, urging him to sleep again. He whimpered, but settled down, his sandy brown hair matted with sweat. I took a washcloth and dipped it in the water basin, filled with crystal clear water, water that had been enchanted with healing essence that sparkled and glittered when it moved. I watched it shimmer on the washcloth for a moment before wiping his face down. “I guess there’s a reason the Gods sent their Fated away from him,” I murmured. “Do we know what Rae plans to do?”

“He plans to remain in Sylpheed City and foster the Prince,” Valerie replied. “He made it clear that he intends to make certain the boy will know he is not his true father, and that his father is a Dragon in Draeger who cannot be there through no fault of his own. If it needs to continue that long.”

I didn’t like how she added the ‘if’ onto the end of that, as if she believed it would be that long. I wanted to say something, but that conversation could be had later, in private. When Drake was out of danger, and we needn’t include Joshua in this discussion, either.

Valerie interrupted my ruminations and the silence around us. “I gave them the Song of Sylpheed,” she said, “to give to the Prince. Mithros… came to me.” I gasped, my eyes widening. I was a Paladin of Mithros, only one rank down from Champion, and I should’ve known if my own god had come to anyone. Valerie was wringing her hands as she spoke, and she glanced at me when she heard me. Chuckling, she said, “He told me you’d do that. But he also told me that the new Prince needs that treasure. This new Fate that’s been imposed on the Fated Child has been imposed on them all, and somehow, on the child as well.”

“This just keeps getting better and better,” Joshua said. None of the lightness that would’ve been in his voice in other circumstances was there. “Nothing about this situation makes sense. Did Mithros say if this would-be assassin is continuing to target Prince Drake?”

“He doesn’t believe so. The entity intended for Drake to die when he forced him off of the balcony. The new Fate is a reaction to that, and we can’t see where it goes. That means that we can’t see where the child’s Fate goes, either.”

She folded her hands in front of her, and added, “The Song belongs to the Sylpheed dynasty anyway. If anyone has the right to have it, it’s Princess Aninala and her son. It is a valuable treasure and will be a sign of goodwill. But it is also Divine. It’s Mithros’s hope that having it in his possession will protect the young Prince from whatever Fate has been imposed on him.”

“That isn’t how Fating works,” Joshua replied through gritted teeth. “Fating is when a god or goddess marks a particular person as their agent in the world, to do something specific for them. Whoever or whatever Fated them dictates their destiny. You can’t just get out of it by hanging onto a Divine artifact!”

“No, it can’t, but what other course of action could we take?” I asked. “We don’t know the assassin’s identity. We don’t know the Fate imposed on them, and we don’t know how easily they will be able to choose their own path. Giving the child the Song is better than nothing.”

Silence reigned once more. There was nothing more to say on the subject. Giving the Song to my unborn nephew would not protect him, and we all knew it would not. But it was better than doing nothing at all, and I had no better ideas. “His Majesty needs to be told about this conversation,” I added onto my thoughts aloud. “I don’t want to leave Drake and Valerie shouldn’t have to shoulder that responsibility…”

My son reacted immediately, feigning a heavy sigh that seemed to reach from the tips of his toes and rise to the crown of his head before he exhaled. “Let me guess,” he said, the usual sass and cheek back in his demeanor, his bronze eyes glittering in amusement. “That is your round-about way of telling me that you want me to go do it for you.”

“Wow, how’d you guess? You’re psychic.”

“I’ll go,” he said, a thread of seriousness weaving into his voice, “but be aware that he’s probably going to ask for you anyway. You are the General Regent, Father.”

“I am aware of that. I’m an older brother before that.”

“And you’re a father above all else,” Joshua replied with a small, hesitant smile, “but that doesn’t make the needs of the country go away. He will call for you. And you’ll need to go to him and help, because he is a grandfather above all else, and he won’t be able to do this alone.”

“I’ll try,” I replied quietly. And then he nodded and left, the sound of his light footsteps swallowed by the plush blue carpet beneath his feet.

“We need to get his fever down,” I said gruffly. Valerie’s only answer was to infuse more of her essence into the water basin beside us and dip another cloth into it while I gently pushed my stubborn little brother back into utter unconsciousness.

#infintiy's daylight Prologue

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