Weekend Writing Warriors: Snippet 135- Luzyana
It’s time for Weekend Writing Warriors! Every Sunday, a bunch of writers post 8-10-sentence snippets from their WIPs on their blogs. There’s a lot of reading, commenting and great writing. Click on the link to see the full list.
Happy Memorial Day everyone! Hope you’re having fun this weekend. I’m writing a bunch, hoping to finish a first draft of my newest book, Shield of Kings. It’s the first in a new series, a spinoff of the Desolate Empire, so you’ll see a lot of familiar characters. Since I don’t want to be too spoilery, I’ll start with snippets from new characters, though you might spot a familiar one here.
Luzyana Inferrara (a cousin of Teodora’s, but quite a bit nicer) is the Queen of Norovaea, but as a foreigner, she has never been popular. The king has done his best to defend her, but the people of Norovaea want her out. This is still in fairly rough form, and edited to fit. Here are the book’s first lines:
“You must go,” King Arryk said, rushing into the room where Luzyana sat playing with the baby, “they’re going to kill you.”
Luzyana handed the baby to the nurse, then stood to face her husband. “Calm down, darling,” she said, taking his hands in hers, “now tell me what’s going on.”
“There’s no time,” Arryk said as a deep crease formed between his blue eyes. That was nothing new; the political situation had been deteriorating for months now and he took every setback personally. “There’s a mob coming this way.”
“A mob coming for me?” Luzyana attempted a smile even as her heart banged against her ribs.
“Yes,” Arryk’s hands tightened around hers, “The ruling council said the queen was responsible for my heresy and they’d give in to none of my demands until you were gone. They demanded I send you back to your mother, and when I refused … well, things got worse.”
Torches and pitchforks, coming right up!
by
If a king told me I must go because someone was going to kill me, I don’t think I’d stop to ask questions!
She’s used to him overreacting, though she’ll take it seriously pretty quickly!
Yikes! Of course she’s nicer than Teodora, though, that wouldn’t be hard to do! 😉 Can’t wait to see where you go with this.
Yes, nicer than Teodora isn’t a very high bar. 😊
She’s pretty calm about the whole thing.
Right now she thinks there’s still a chance her husband is being overly negative, as he tends to be.
Uh-oh! Sounds like all kinds of trouble is about to happen, and I have many questions. You’ve definitely intrigued me with this opening.
A mob coming for you – uh – time to go! Tweeted.
Uhoh. That can’t be good. Great snippet.
Thank you!
Oh dear, that is a fairly significant problem! I don’t see that either of them have all that many options. Excellent start, Christina!
It’s definitely the start of tough times for all of them.
Wow, what an intense place to start! Of course I’m on the edge of my chair now, wondering what will happen next – great snippet.
Thank you!
Good thing I’m not the Queen. I’d have grabbed the baby and ran down the all, calling back, ‘See you later!”
Haha, me too!
Is she used to this type of trouble?
She’s never experienced it, but was raised to expect it.
Glad to see Arryk again although it looks like things are going downhill for him. Luzyana seems like quite the cool character.
He’s just never been great at the king thing, poor guy.
YIKES! She may not run for the hills but I will. I’ll even take the baby and I’ve had plenty of those.You’re up to mischief, Christina. I just know it.
Moi? Mischief? Nevah! 🙂
Grab the kid and run! Or does he mean for just HER to go? That would be a very different story!
No, it’s grab the kids and run. She’ll grab him too, while she’s at it.
Hmmm. I wonder what heresy she’s inspired to make the mob so bloodthirsty.
She brought the fantasy equivalent of Roman Catholicism to a staunchly Protestant country, and convinced her husband to convert. Not a popular move!
Hmm, I’m wondering a lot of things too. Great snippet, and I hope she takes his advice and runs before things get too nasty!
Run don’t talk!
The king doesn’t have a lot of power, does he? She better get out before the mob gets there!
He should, but there’s something about him that makes people think they can overthrow him.
Yay! I was going to be a Beta reader for you by the way, but honestly, I was spooked by the spoilers! Haha I’ll just have to be patient and pray for Braeden. 😉
Actually, I’ve managed to not mention Braeden at all in this book, so if you can handle the other spoilers I’d love to have you. 😉
She seems to take this far too calmly. A mob is coming and she just asks questions??? Go, lady, and take the kid.
I forgot to sign up, but I still posted my snippet. http://dianeburton.blogspot.com/
I think she should take his advice and run!