Here’s the link to the Weekend Writing Warriors central page, so you can visit all the participants sharing excerpts today…a fun way to sample new books and find new authors! (Also welcome to the Sunday Snippet visitors!)
I’ve switched to an excerpt from a brand new novella set in my version of ancient Egypt, working title Healer of the Nile, which is for a boxed set later this year.
Tadenhut, elder son of a noble house and heir to the Hunting Cat estate, has been gravely injured in a battle against Pharaoh’s enemies and brought home to die. Mehyta, a woman from the estate’s village who has skills as a healer, has been ordered to assist the physicians in his care.
Having used her healer’s magic to assess his injuries, she found herself dreaming of Tadenhut, who remains in a coma in the real world. Her dream took place on a battlefield, after the combat has ended. Now she’s back in the real world, pondering what to do. I’ve edited out some details here just to simplify.
As the first rays of sunlight lanced into the room and across the bed, she took her pouch of fortune-telling beads and sat outside, next to the fish pond. Closing her eyes, she repeated to herself the old proverb, “There is no one who can ignore Shai.” Yes, the god of Fate was the only one who could decide whether Tadenhut was to live or die. But at least Mehyta could ask for an indication of which it was to be and decide what to do accordingly.
She performed an act almost never done in fortune telling, except in an extreme situation—she spilled the entire contents of her pouch across the flat paving stones of the garden. Taking a deep breath, she opened her eyes to read the pattern. The black of death and the white of life lay together, surrounded by other omens speaking of struggle, danger, and hardship. Mehyta reached to touch the green malachite bead, symbolizing hope in this array. It sat by itself in a small indentation of the paving stone directly north of the black and white omens.
As she gathered the stones to replace them in the pouch, she pondered the message from Shai.
I’m not going to do any more excerpts from this story, or at least not until the anthology in which it’s included gets released. Thank you so much for all the comments – I’m really happy people have been enjoying the adventure.
In the meantime, if you can’t wait, you can always read one of my other novels set in ancient Egypt LOL! Maybe Ghost of the Nile for Halloween.
As always, thanks for visiting!
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I’m happy to announce that my novella Healer of the Nile has now been released as a stand alone ebook. It was previously published last November in the Here Be Magic box set.
