This summer, I will be crowd funding the printing costs of my next (yet to be named) book: a collection of novellas set in the world of my fantasy novels The World Between and The Chaos Within. Two of the three novellas tell the story of characters before the reader first encounters them in either book. The third tells the story of what happened in the aftermath of the events of The Chaos Within. Though each story in the series, including the novels, can stand on its own, they all work together to provide a fuller picture of Jamir of Lur-lataer, Marina, and their families (both blood and found). I shared a piece from one of the novellas earlier this year, which you can read here. Below is another excerpt, this time from the story of Marina’s mother.

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She watched the man from her perch in the canopy. He was walking with her mother towards the Hall of The Great Maker. He moved as if he were pained, as if being with her burdened him. Her mother turned her face to him for a moment as they walked. She saw the hint of a smile before they disappeared from her view.

The man, Jamir of Lur-lataer, was odd. His presence filled her with a longing and a hopelessness she didn’t understand. He was full of some deadly darkness, and even though she was terrified of it, she was curious too. Vilthina imagined it would consume him if The Great Maker didn’t sustain him. How could he live with it? Why did he have it? Why didn’t her mother recoil from it? She could feel the deep, chanting voice of it calling to her even from this far. Terrible words. Horrifying words. She wanted to know what they meant.

Vilthina climbed down the great golden tree, jumping from a branch to land on one of the bridges that wound through the canopy. She landed hard in a squat, shaking the entire bridge. Steadying herself before she rose from her crouch, she grabbed hold of the rope railing. The bridge rocked from side to side for a moment more. She peered through the trees again, watching the spot where Jamir and her mother had disappeared. Then she stood, wondering about humans and all the ways they were different from her.

“You shouldn’t do that,” a voice said behind her.

Luthina, one of her cousins from her father’s family, stood on the platform encircling the great tree from which Vilthina had jumped. She had crossed her arms over her chest and wore a disapproving expression. It wasn’t quite a glare, but Vilthina imagined she was one witty word away from seeing Luthina’s frown.

“What?” Vilthina asked, pretending innocence. “Jump?” Luthina’s silence filled the space between them. Vilthina felt her face reddening from embarrassment. She looked away. “I can’t help it. I like watching him.” The admission crawled out of her, feeling like a snake writhing from her mouth.

“You’re a child, Vilthina. He’s a man. A human man, at that.”

Vilthina tried not to let her anger show in her face. “I’ve seen fourteen summers,” she argued. “I’m not a child.”

Luthina clicked her tongue in disapproval. “Even if he did see you as a woman, Vilthina, he won’t stay here.” Luthina could See. She was never wrong.

“What do you know of him?” Vilthina asked, lost in her thoughts of the strange man and the stranger darkness that waited inside him.

 Luthina’s eyes changed, Seeing into the future, peeling back all the layers of time. Vilthina watched in fascination as the power filled her cousin. “He will break the power of lesser gods and watch the world die.” Her voice had grown deep, like the roots of the great trees. She blinked, coming out of the trance, then eyed Vilthina with a warning stare. “He is filled with darkness, Vilthina. It is slowly consuming him.”

Vilthina nodded her head slowly, a weighty sadness settling over her. “I know. I hear it.”

Luthina nearly gasped. “You hear it?” she asked in disbelief.

Vilthina pinched the fabric of her skirt between two fingers. She rubbed the fine fibers nervously. “You don’t?” she asked.

Her cousin slowly shook her head, her eyes widening.

 “I don’t care that he’s filled with darkness,” Vilthina continued, ceasing her fidgeting. “I know it’s silly, Luthina. But it doesn’t stop me from wondering. Or from wishing.”

“Wishing what?” Luthina asked. Her emotions seemed calmer now. Her eyes were not as stunned as they had been.

She watched as a gentle breeze blew through Luthina’s hair, the strands around her face dancing as if alive with power. Luthina was bright and beautiful. Vilthina envied her, feeling again the painful burning of embarrassment. Luthina had seen nearly one hundred summers, and she had courted with many men. Surely, she didn’t have to explain her feelings to Luthina. “That he would look at me,” she admitted, her voice small.

“The way he looks at Velundovil?”

Vilthina’s eyes widened in surprise. She had been spying for moons and had seen only glimpses of the love that Jamir harbored for her mother. She had thought it one of his well-guarded secrets. “You know?”

Luthina shrugged. “I See.”

“Will he ever…” she began but stopped herself. Luthina was giving her a curious stare, one that suggested she should take care when asking questions. “Does she know?” she asked instead. Then, quickly after, “Does my father?”

Luthina shrugged. “Jamir has never done anything worth knowing about,” she said. “Don’t you know that from all your spying?” she asked playfully.

Vilthina looked away for a moment, not enjoying the slight reprimand. “I’d promise not to watch them anymore, but I know it would be a lie.”

Luthina came forward a step, unfolding her arms. “Why do you watch them, Vilthina?” she asked softly.

The truth hovered on her lips. “I told you…I like him.” She hid her face from her cousin.

“Yes, I know. But why him?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Vilthina murmured. She slid her eyes to Luthina’s face. Her eyebrow was raised in a question. Vilthina swallowed nervously. “It’s the darkness,” she admitted softly. “It…pulls me,” she tried to explain. “I feel such sadness for him, Luthina. Isn’t that a kind of love?”

Luthina only offered a soft grunt in reply.

Vilthina cast her gaze back towards the Hall of The Great Maker. Jamir was descending the hill that led to the shrine alone. She watched him—the length of his stride, the way his arms swung at his sides, how his hair moved in the soft breeze. She imagined the sound of his footfalls on the dirt, the rustle of his cloak, the breath that escaped him. She wondered what his shaven face would feel like under her fingers and if his arms were soft and comforting like her father’s.

“You should not dwell on him, Vilthina.”

Vilthina drew her gaze from Jamir reluctantly. “Why?” she asked, irritated at Luthina’s insistence.  

“He is dangerous,” Luthina replied, gazing into the future again, her eyes wide and unfocused.

The words slid out of her before she could stop them. “Dangerous in what way?” Vilthina whispered.

“Vilthina…there will be a child,” Luthina answered with surprise in her voice, her brow creasing in confusion.

“A…child?” Vilthina repeated, too stunned to ask anything else.

Luthina nodded her head, eyes wide. Her face was carved into a terrified expression. She looked on the verge of panic.

“What do you See, Luthina?” Vilthina pressed, stepping near her cousin and taking her hand.

Luthina’s gaze softened. Her eyes searched Vilthina’s face. She hesitated. “You with a human man,” she answered, “and a half-human child.”

Vilthina’s mouth worked awkwardly for a moment, on the verge of speech, but without words. “Jamir’s child?” she finally managed to ask.

Luthina shook her head, seeming not to understand what she Saw. She looked away for a moment. “That’s all I See, Vilthina.”

She blinked in confusion. “How can that be all you See?!” she exclaimed.

Luthina shrugged. “I don’t See everything.”

“Then what’s the point?”

“Only The Great Maker sees everything, Vilthina,” Luthina replied tenderly.

Vilthina dropped Luthina’s hand, huffing in frustration. She looked down through the canopy, to where Jamir had been walking, but he was gone. A heaviness settled over her. Why didn’t The Great Maker show this to her? Why reveal it to Luthina instead? She listened for his voice, but as usual, she heard nothing other than her own swirling feelings.