Ok, so I was originally going to post something directly on New Year’s, as a gift to everyone to ring in 2017; but as is my standard, I got sidetracked and forgot about it altogether. I hope everyone had a happy holiday season and that everything went well. But back to the book; here’s a sneak peak from a part of the book that wasn’t in the FictionPress release. Let me know what you think!
“I don’t like this,” Shade said as he curled his thick goatee around his finger; a nervous habit he’d developed once the goatee had grown in.
Walking out onto the small window balcony, Pan looked out. From here he could see the majority of Terang, as well as the lake that both the castle and city surrounded. And as he watched the sun set in the south, Pan released a weary sigh. “I don’t like it, either. But I don’t have much of a choice.”
“No, it doesn’t sound like you do,” Shade agreed as he joined Pan on the balcony. “But I still think you could have put up more of a fight, resisted slightly.”
“Every single guard who saw her said that she barely looked at them and the most indescribable pain followed. She only gave pleasure to three of the fifteen men that she encountered. Pain may be your thing, I don’t want to know, but it’s not mine,” he said with a smile to his lifelong friend. “No, agreeing to help her was probably the best thing I could have done.”
“Oh, I totally agree that agreeing was the best thing you could have done. But it also made you look like the lovesick puppy you’ve always been when it came to this woman.” The smile Shade gave Pan as he said this made Pan know that while Shade meant what he said, it was meant to be a joke. “Besides, you don’t know if she would have given you pain if you resisted a little. Knowing how you feel about her, as everyone does, might have convinced her that the carrot was a more effective tactic than the stick.”
“No; she told me that she’d used the stick, and I believe the look I saw in her eyes as she told me this. Besides, I’m pretty sure that I repulse her; when she spoke of my Reckoning, the amount of contempt that came from her was palpable.”
“How did she know that the one who found the Valin Twins’ library was you? I thought you said that you took every measure to ensure that you weren’t implicated?” Shade asked, voicing one of Pan’s many concerns.
Giving his friend a grave look as this question was raised, Pan simply said, “I’d thought I had. And the fact that she knows it was me is one of the many things about this whole thing that makes me uneasy. She’s been roaming the world for nearly a thousand years; there’s no telling what she’s learned in that time.” Turning away from his friend, Pan once again looked to the setting sun as the sky started to turn the indigo of twilight. For a long time, the silence expanded between them as they took in the sunset. “You know what I’m going to ask.”
It wasn’t really a question, but Shade answered it anyway. “Yes.”
“And will you do it?”
As Shade didn’t answer immediately, Pan turned away from the sunset and looked at his best friend. “I’ve never wanted that,” he said to which Pan nodded his understanding. “But I know that you trust no one else. So yes, reluctantly, I will do it.”
Pan smiled a small smile to his friend’s acceptance to his unspoken request. Shade, however, turned and returned to the room as he headed for the door. Just as he got there, Pan said the two words he knew would stop him from leaving. “Thank you.” Shade stood with his hand on the latch to the door for a long moment before his head fell. When it came back up the next second, Pan could see the ghost of a smile on Shade’s lips. And then, Shade was gone. Slightly surprised, Pan turned back to the southern sun, as the last sliver was being swallowed by the distant horizon.