Today’s Excerpt

An excerpt from today’s editing work. A noble lady is reunited with some old companions.

Polite conversation does not ensue:

“Wake up, my lady.”

Rachel blinked open her eyes. “Is it morning already? I…”

Sir Roger Gravesend stood in her doorway, a cold-faced serving girl at his side.

“Good-bye, my lady,” said Sir Roger, laughing. “You ought to have wed me when you had the chance.”

“What?” said Rachel, flinching. “Get out! Mazael will have your head for this! Get…”

She fell silent in terror.

The serving girl had the eyes and fangs of a serpent, of a San-keth. She was a changeling, the sort of monstrous half-breed Skhath would have planted in Rachel’s womb, if Mazael had not rescued her from the dreadful cult. Rachel sat up, trying to tear free of the blankets.

Something moved, a green glow flooding the darkness.

A headless human skeleton stood at the foot of her bed, green fire writhing in its joints.

Rachel screamed in remembered terror.

The coils of an enormous, black-scaled serpent clung tight around the skeleton’s spine, the wedge-shaped head rearing up in place of the skull. Cold, reptilian eyes cored into Rachel, the forked tongue caressing the air. From one skeletal hand dangled a corroded brass urn, swinging from a rusted chain.

“Lady Rachel,” hissed the San-keth cleric, its voice rasping. “I am Blackfang, servant of great Sepharivaim. It pleases me to taste your scent at last.”

-JM