Time for another update. After a week of being so sick I couldn’t even think to dream, I’m back on the work bandwagon. I’ve got lots of great stuff coming down the hill. I have a few new ideas, and I even created a new street team. If that sounds like something you want in on, then drop me a line. Pretty sure you know where to find me.
Here is the latest from this evening’s work on book three, Thread Skein:
Ditani looked out into the desert and nodded. “Yes. Are you sure this is the path we should take?”
Ticca looked out over the desert too. The rolling cream sand was shaped into many, almost frozen, waves by the wind. The heat rolled off, pushing them back towards the mountains with an almost tangible feeling of wishing to be left alone. Still, deep inside, she could feel the pull of something out there; something that held the promise of being a key. The only problem was she wasn’t certain what door that key was for. But, standing there, the pull and promise were even stronger than when she had decided on this course.
“Yes, the key we seek is there.”
Her voice sounded distant and echoed back with a resonance that made her shiver at its power. In her mind, a vision of a tall palace made of a blue marbled stone surrounded by a shimmering city with red tiled roofs and granite walled buildings filled her sight. She stood on a wide balcony overlooking the green valley surrounding the city with its deep blue lake. The wind caused the tall cat tails to wave gently as flocks of birds flew around the lake’s tree line. She wore a crimson silk gown inlaid with silver, its high neck flowing out as her hair cascaded down to her waist in a series of braids held with diamond bands. She lifted her hands to look at them, and there were golden filigree bracers on each arm. Her hands were soft with only a hint of weapon callouses.
“Ticca?”
Ditani’s voice seemed to come from far off to the northeast over the rolling hills carried to her by the wind. It startled her, and she stared in the direction it came from, calling out almost scared. “Ditani, where am I?”
She blinked and was again standing in the mountain’s shadow looking out on the cream colored sands. Her hands held before her were harder with a few scars and callouses. The hands of a warrior.
She looked at Ditani, and he was stepping toward her with a look of concern in his eyes under tightened brows.
Together they stopped and stared off into the desert as her scared voice rolled in from the southwest “Ditani, where am I?”
They waited for something more. When nothing came, she asked, “I was in a blue stone palace when you called to me. What just happened?”
Ditani turned from the desert. “The Gods have forbidden people from coming here because they say it is unstable. Maybe Lebuin can answer your question.” Ditani’s eyes shifted from her, and he looked hard at nothing on the ground. “If he wakes.”
Ticca pointed in the direction she was sure the palace laid. A small stone outcropping broke through the sands. “Mark that stone rise there. That is the direction we need to go.”
Leeland Artra is a bestselling fantasy/sci-fi author best known for his Golden Threads Trilogy. (Facebook http://bit.ly/LArtra ; Twitter http://twitter.com/LArtra ; or Goodreads http:// www.goodreads.com/LArtra)
You can find all of Leeland’s books on Amazon https://amazon.com/author/lartra
