Hey folks, it’s November again, and that means Snippets!

If you’re new this year, every November I pause the serials to give myself a chance to catch up/build a buffer, and to share snippets of upcoming stories/story ideas I’m playing with.

As always, if there’s something you REALLY want to see, comment, email or DM me to cast your vote.

The Grasslands

I snippeted The Grasslands during Snippet Week in August. Have a different snippet.

** prologue
Aghya sat patiently, waiting for the long winded formalities to be over. Next to him, his wife of three years sat, holding their daughter. Chana was tense. She knew that his choice to wed her had hurt his chances today.

Not that his chances had ever been good. Like all candidates, he had the ability to control and harness the magic of the land, but he was very far from the best. It was only his training and the preference of Emperor Cyucha that had brought him to this place.

Finally, the officials were done. He was summoned to the cleared area in the center of the hall. Aghya bowed first to the Emperor, then the council, then the gathered audience. He would have preferred this humiliation be… more private. But he would do his best and hope it was enough. Hope he did not disappoint the Emperor who trusted him and his family who stood by him.

Closing his eyes, he reached out and touched the strands of magic that filled the air. There and not-there, they brushed his hands like gossamer. He kept his breathing even, his feet firmly planted. Slowly, he gathered those impossible threads. Only a few at a time, always careful not to lose those he had already in his need for more.

He ignored the rustle of cloth and muttering of the watchers. He was taking too long, and new it, but better slow than rushed and mangled.

Finally, he had gathered enough to impose his will on it. Opening his eyes, he forced himself to ‘see’ the threads take form, to make reality match the vision he held up to it. Slowly, so slowly, a sword coallesed in the air before him. It flickered, there and not-there. It’s shape shifted one moment to the next.

Aghya swallowed and took hold of the sword — /tried/ to take hold of the sword. It slipped right through his hand like smoke.

The mutterings were louder now. Even those who didn’t understand what was supposed to happen could see he was failing. He was losing his focus, losing the sword, losing…

A great splash echoed through the hall, followed by screams. Aghya heard Chana’s screams among them and whirled.

Standing, dripping, alongside the stream, were three of the lizard men of the inner sea. They stood shorter than a man, barely the height of a full grown horse at the withers. Scales in dull greens and browns covered their entire bodies and their hands were tipped with sharp claws over an inch long. They had flat noses over wide mouths, that stretched almost from ear to ear. Instead of hair they had a dozens of low horns, looking almost like pebbles, covering their heads, and a ring of spikes ran down their necks and backs.

Aghya had seen the lizard men before. Fully as intelligent as men, but living as much in water as on land, they held the inner sea and it’s islands as the **name** held the grasslands.

And none of that mattered compared to the fact that these three were here, now, attacking Aghya’s family and emperor.

He didn’t stop to think. His hand closed on his sword and he flung himself at the attackers. As he ran, he grabbed a throwing knife and threw it off-handed at the lizard closest to Chana. The knife took him down and then Aghya was in sword reach of the other two.

The emperor’s guards were moving also, but they were stationed around the room, not in the middle of it. Cyucha was on his feet, had conjured his sword of state. But he took up a defensive stance and allowed Aghya to confront the attackers.

Aghya allowed himself one moment to grateful for his trust — that the emperor could deal with the assassins was beyond question, but he stayed back, safe, and allowed Aghya to do so.

With magic, Aghya struggled. But he was a master of the battlefield. The lizards were taken by surprise, not expecting such a quick response. A second went down before they had redirected their attacks. The third got a single swing, their claws striking Aghya’s cheek and bringing searing pain. But Aghya did not flinch, and his return stroke sliced the lizard’s arm off before reversing and slicing their throat.

There were no more enemies. The guards were trawling the stream and searching the room, but Aghya knew they were gone. He could feel it.

Reflexively, he cleaned his sword and went to sheath it. It was only then he realized — he had no sheath.

For he’d had no sword, no throwing dagger. He had carried no weapons, it was forbidden during the testing.

The sword in his hand glowed a moment, before fading awak, back into the magic from which he’d made it.

Bewildered, he looked to the emperor. “See to your family,” Cyucha said quietly. “Everything else can wait.”

It took only a moment to ensure himself that Chana and the child were unharmed. But Chana was glassy eyed with shock, his daughter crying — though that last probably as much from the screams as the attack itself.

He could not hug them as he wished, not covered in blood as he was, but he took Hannah’s hand and squeezed it. “You are well wife. It is safe now.” Chana was not of the grasslands, had never fully adjusted to the harsh life, though she held her own in spite of that.

As she did now. Taking a shakey breath. Then another. A third. “I will be having a fit of vapors tonight,” she informed him calmly.

He grinned and bowed slightly. “I would expect no less. Shall you also berate me full subjecting you to this and throw crockery at my head?”

“No,” she laughed. It was shakey, but real — as was her promise of vapors. “But if you can convince Chaem to play babysitter tonight, I may be persuaded to cry into your shoulder for an hour while you sing to me.”

“I shall see to it,” he promised.

“Go,” she said, “Deal with politics.” She sighed. “Cychu Emperor will need help preventing a war.”

Aghya’s mouth tightened. “We cannot allow this to pass, Chana. There will be war.”

“No,” she said, “No. Aghya, don’t. There is something wrong here.”

He opened his mouth to argue, then stopped. Chana did not understand honor and the demands of honor. Usually, he could not consider that a good thing. But sometimes, he had learned, it let her see clearly what the demands of honor blinded him too.

“What do you see, wife?”

She swallowed and shook her head. “Aghya, if you were to send assassins–”

“I would–”

“Listen!” she interupted. Those around him gasped as her rudeness, reminding him they had an audience.

“Wife.”

She shook her head. “Always, I am told you are a master of war. If you were to send assassins, husband, would you do it like this?”

Aghya gritted his teeth. She had been among them long enough to understand how she had just insulted him. But she almost never called him ‘husband,’ prefering her own traditions of naming people constantly. His wife needed him to hear her.

He took a deep breath and another breath. And tried to truly think of her question.

When he saw it he hissed.

“They were meant to fail.”

Chana nodded, ghosts in her eyes for more than just the death in front of her. “They were meant to provoke war.”

Careful of blood covering him, he leaned forward and kissed her forehead. “You are a blessing to me, wife.”

When he pulled himself away from her, the council and Emperor were huddled together. Nearby, nearly forgotten, was the head of the electors, those who had been called to judge Aghya and decide his fitness.

“We will adjourn to the council chambers,” the emperor said. “Court is dismissed.”

As the herald announced the Emperor’s decision in a ringing voice, Cychu said more quietly, “Aghya, if your family is well you should come with us.”

“He is not–” one of the councillors started to object, biting his tongue a moment before giving insult. They had been so sure they would see him humbled today, but the test was incomplete and who knew–

“He is.” The voice was almost a squeak and everyone turned with surprise to the head of electors. “Aghya has passed his test, demonstrating not just mastery of the magic of the grasslands, but the ability to use it with skill and wisdom at need. The electors of the clans of the *name* name him Aghya Chomaegh, crown prince of *name*.”