Crap! It’s Thursday!

How did Thursday sneak up on me so quickly?

As you can see, I’m still woefully behind words-wise on my NaNo novel. It’s still early yet, lots of time to catch up. Possibly. Maybe. Hopefully.

As well as adding a prologue that I re-wrote about three times (a NaNo no-no but it was important to the rest of the book) I also kept changing my mind about where exactly it was going to start. Hopefully now that I’m pretty sure I’ve got that right it’ll go a little quicker, if not easier.

And yeah, I am starting each chapter with a journal entry. Or an excerpt from historic records, to be more precise. It’s actually kind of fun – I don’t even have to come up with an actual prophecy, I can just hint at it.

I was going to use the prologue as my excerpt, but it’s over 1,000 words, which is kind of long for an excerpt. So instead I’ll share a piece from the opening of chapter two (which was going to be chapter one before I decided I needed to start further back).

For those of you familiar with the series, this excerpt is about Kaine, whom we met near the end of An Elemental Water. He was a guard who was in love with Nereida, sister of Kairavini (the water elemental).

For those of you unfamiliar with the series, this excerpt is about Kaine. :-D

It was dark, he was surrounded by it. He couldn’t see, couldn’t move, but he could feel. Loss, despair, anguish – the same feelings that had drawn him to her in the beginning. So much pain, but underlying that an astonishing strength of spirit. The strength of her spirit was such that it had been a shock the first time he’d laid eyes on her, so painfully thin she was more skin over bones than flesh and blood. But he’d known in that moment she was his beloved and that he’d do anything, risk everything, to save her. But in the end she’d left him behind. Alone.

“Not alone,” her voice whispered in his mind. “Never alone.”

He felt the fear, almost overwhelming, hers and the others as he worked at the master lock to the doors, felt the heat as he lead the way through the tunnels of the active volcano. He felt her growing weaker in his arms as they finally reached the shore on the other side. And then he felt only despair as her spirit became closed to him.

“I am with you always, my love.”

A speck of light in the darkness, moving closer, resolving itself into the form of a woman. She was tall and thin, but with a healthy glow to her skin unlike the sickly grey tone he was used to. Her hair was long and flowing, and the eyes . . . the eyes were her eyes.

“It is almost time, my love. Soon we will be together once more.”

“You are not real,” he said, but without conviction.

“Soon, my love,” her voice whispered to him, and she turned away.

He could not help himself. “Nereida!” he called . . . and woke up.

Kaine was sitting up in bed, one hand outstretched as though reaching for her. As he recognized his surroundings his hand dropped and he took a couple of deep breaths. This was the fourth time in the last week he’d had the dream, and it was getting more intense each time.

Throwing back the covers he got out of bed.

“Lights, thirty percent,” he said.

He knew by now there was no point in trying to get any more sleep, what he could use was a drink. Pulling on his clothes from the day before, he ran a hand through his hair by way of combing it, and left his room for the lounge.