So, what's next...?

Hello, hello, hello! Hope everyone is doing fabulous! I thought I’d do a little post, share a little teaser, and update while I have a late night cuppa tea. I’ve been working on a few different projects, exploring various storylines, filing them away, and him-hawing over them.

My eyes keep straying back to the Melier. Specifically, Val’Koy. For the longest time, I didn’t know what his story was, or what it could be. It’s still developing in my mind, but I’m scribbling it down as it comes. It’s also in the very early stages, and no, I don’t have any dates as to when it’ll be finished, but who doesn’t like teasers? :D

In case you're curious about Gi'Ren, his story will come eventually. There's something there about that mysterious, scarred big beastie!

This snippet is from Dania’s POV, but don’t worry, I’m pretty sure you’ll get to see a little something from Val’Koy’s standpoint eventually. This book may be a little grittier than the previous ones in the series, just a heads up.

On with the teaser!

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Dania couldn’t understand anything.

Why couldn’t she understand what the booming voice was saying? She had the latest update to her implanted translator. She knew so because she’d done it herself.

It was darkness behind the blindfold, and she couldn’t see any light at all filtering through the material. Black, that’s all there was. Blackness, and the hissing and barking sounds of something.

What was out there?

The Procurer didn’t give her any details. After he pet her under the chin, he blindfolded her and put her back in the crate. She’d thought to take it off, but sheer fear of what she would see kept her fingers glued around her legs. Her muscles ached with how tightly they bunched and shivered.

A cacophony startled her when the main booming voice finished and her nerves went on the fritz as her teeth chattered together. Nothing was translating. It was a symphony of hissing, barking, grunting, screeching and she could understand none of it.

Had they messed with her translator?

If not, then whatever was out there didn’t frequent Dor Nye. She had the predominant languages of all five trade planets programmed into her translator, including the registered merchant ones. It was a job requirement when working in the capital.

But the universe was vast. Dania knew there were more species out there than she could count, and many who did not conduct trade with the five planets.

She gulped down thick, sour saliva. Where was she?

Her teeth continued to clang together causing her head to pound with the constant jolting as her mind envisioned towering, horrifying species getting their twiggy, spiny appendages on her body.

The sting in her eyes could no longer be ignored, and she felt the wet heat of tears slipping through the lashes of her closed eyes and gluing the blindfold to her skin. Another whimper slipped past her lips that were on the verge of being bitten off by her clashing teeth.

The monsters heard it, making them clamor louder until the glass of the crate vibrated and her ears rung with the nightmarish sounds she’d never be able to forget.

A new sound assaulted her. Silence, and then the loud, jarring howl of a medieval horn. The clang of metal against metal followed instantly, a garbled, wet wail trailed by the roar of a crowd.

She was in the arena. The monstrous buzz must’ve been the fighters. The clanging of metal had to be weapons.

Dania’s fingers shook with the need to see what was happening, who was winning, who would win her.

But she couldn’t. Her hands clenched her legs closer to her core until her chin dug into the tops of her knees.

The mixture of blood and loosened bowels wafted in through the holes of her crate, leaving an acrid taste at the back of her throat that had her gagging. Bile rose from her stomach, and burned her tongue as she tried to gulp it back down, and failed.

Her middle heaved, bile spilling from her mouth as she shakily wiped her lips, ropes of the slime sliding down her chin and chest. It was soon forgotten as the sounds of the clanging metal got quiet, and the crowd erupted.

Her crate vibrated beneath her, the sound of stomping feet feeling as if they were going to shake her apart.

There! A voice she could understand.

“The Emperor’s prized fighter! The Prince of the arena! The liberator of limbs from sector nine, and your victor!” It boomed to the cheering crowd. “I give you, VAL’KOY!”

Dania’s heart skipped, breath hitching.

It’s over.

This was it. These were the last moments of her life, and she was stuffed in a crate, soiled with her own bile, and face soaked with snot and tears.

She couldn’t take it laying down!

In a swift burst of bravery, she pulled the blindfold off, blinking repeatedly to wash the blur away and focus on the hazed, massive figure lumbering her way.

“Take your prize!”

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Mhm, who doesn't like an alien fighter? Off to bed for me. Toodloo!