For The Love Of…Memoria Lost excerpt by Artemis Crow

I just turned in Zodiac Assassin book 11, Memoria Lost, to my editor for a December release! So here’s a raw excerpt of chapter one! Enjoy!

Regina ran through the castle, ignoring the startled glances of the guards, the telepathic Memoria flinching away from her unsettled mind as she rushed past them. The long hall connecting the main palace with the Queen’s castle was dotted with counsellors and sycophants all waiting to be heard. The arched openings flashing by revealed the rain pounding the great mountains and the autumn-colored trees of Chaosterra—home of the Memoria and the Light and Dark Fae—but the tempestuous weather was nothing compared to her roiling, conflicted emotions. 

The fate she’d fought had somehow become the only choice she wanted. Today it would be hers.

“Regina,” a soft voice said, rising just above the murmurs around her.

Regina’s arms pinwheeled as she slid to a stop on the stone floor and turned to her best and only friend. 

“Columba, I don’t have time to talk.”

Columba walked quickly, her pale pink, floor-length gown and mauve robe swirling around her legs, a departure from her normally calm, snail’s pace that was all a Memoria should be: wise, tranquil of soul, and mind-numbingly neutral. 

Everything that edgy, scattered, twitchy me is not.

Regina pulled her tangled length of black hair over one shoulder and finger combed it to still herself, to keep from chiding Columba for still managing to be slow. The woman was so even-tempered—another trait Regina lacked as her mother always reminded her—any complaint she made would roll off Columba like raindrops off the feathers of her pet Dodo bird.

Finally, after what seemed to be an entire fall season, Columba reached Regina’s side. 

“I heard your mother called for you,” Columba whispered, her tone flat save for the barest twinge of excitement.

Regina struggled not to twirl and squeal. The staid politicians occupying the hall would no doubt report the ill-mannered behavior to her mother, and she couldn’t afford another black mark added to the lengthy list she’d accrued over her twenty-five years. The damn things weighed her down like a lodestone until she thought she’d never be called to the throne room for anything other than a reprimand.

Not this time, though. She’d kept her head down, her irrepressible nature entirely repressed, no small feat, and one that had nearly undone her every night. The only way she’d been able to survive the rigor of Memoria life was to stifle herself at all times while in public and twirl and squeal like hell at night when she was alone, and the castle was quiet. 

That and the books she’d begged for, books some of the Memoria Soul Keepers had brought her from the world of the paranorms and the humans after they’d completed their most sacred of duties—shepherding the souls of the departed paranorms to be with the souls of their family members. Books about science and mathematics and the gods and goddesses. Books written by humans with made up species and worlds that paled in comparison to the reality humans couldn’t see in their world, or the parallel worlds like Chaosterra they didn’t know existed.

The urge to celebrate cooled and Regina blinked. “Yes, she called for me. Finally.”

“Do you think—?”

“That I’ve been accepted for Soul Keeper training? What else could it be? I’ve been careful to be more like you for months. I’ll go mad if that’s not enough.”

Columba smiled gently and touched Regina’s arm. “I know this is your time. You’ve worked so hard, though it saddens me to witness the loss of your exuberance.”

Regina clicked her jaws shut to keep them from dropping open. “Really? You constantly fussed at me about it.”

Columba leaned closer, her long blond hair falling forward and swaying like a curtain being released. “I’ve longed to twirl and squeal just once,” she whispered.

Regina’s lips twitched but this was not the time to belt out a laugh. “Maybe one day,” she whispered back. “But not today.”

Columba squeezed her arm. “Yes, go. Find me when you’re done so we can celebrate.”

“With meditation?”

Columba closed one eye, almost a wink. “And maybe a little wine.”

Regina’s eyes widened, and her jaw dropped open this time. “Sacrilege.”

“I learned it all from you.” Columba released Regina. “Go, get your mother’s approval. I can’t wait to have you join us in training.”

Regina backed up a couple steps before turning away and resuming her trip down the hallway, this time at a more dignified pace. Stolid, if you ask me, but expected of the Queen’s only daughter and heir to the throne.

She glanced back once more before leaving the hall and steadied when she saw Columba where she’d left her, the slight crease of her gentle friend’s mouth her version of a smile. 

Columba nodded once.

“Here goes everything,” Regina said under her breath.

The hallway exposed to the four seasons ended at a pair of heavy doors, the wood and iron signaling the beginning of the Queen’s castle. The narrower passage felt tight, confined, compared to the walkway she’d left, but its arched, stained-glass windows were a blessing in the chill days of fall and the cold of winter.

Tall, stone pedestals lined the passage, each holding the bust of a Memoria queen going back to the beginning of time. The time of Chaos, before she left her creation in the hands of God and his ilk.

Regina kept her pace slow and steady, her gaze brushing over the faces of the women who’d preceded her mother, the women Regina had tried to emulate—still tried, truth be told—but failed. Comportment, no. Diplomacy, no. Political savvy, not even a little. Strong enough to carry the weight of a queen’s responsibility, she seriously doubted it. Of all her shortcomings, that one hurt the most. 

Regina hoped her mother didn’t see that about her, didn’t know her doubts about her ability to rule, but she feared her doubts were in fact her reality. Worse still, she hated her desire to be other than the queen she was born to be. Not that she knew what that other was.

She was torn, had been since she was a child, but what else could she do? Be in the Memoria guard? Fight the Fae? No heir had ever fallen so low; she couldn’t be the first.

She reached the wide door leading to the secondary throne room, and paused to swallow her trepidation, to push her thoughts to the back of her mind. She pasted a placid expression on her face and opened the door.

May Your Words Flow Freely,

Artemis

The Zodiac Assassins series
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