#SampleSunday Kawilara, Part 1: Chapter 23

I am posting this week’s Sample Sunday tonight, as I work all day tomorrow. This week, I’m posting an excerpt from Kawilara  1…personally, one of my favourite moments from the book…  

“Your Majesty, I know little of these Black Guards…but I have seen what they do. That’s why I’m here. It is too terrible to allow them to continue…” Mauriat said, staring off distantly.

Jaffee nodded. “I agree. Sydow, what are your thoughts?”

“These…Black Guards, who are they? I have no such thing in my country…are they rebels perhaps?” Sydow answered in contemplation.

Jaffee shook her head. “No, Sydow, these men are much more terrible, the vilest scum. They’re witch hunters. More than that, they are misogynists of the worst kind. They would gladly lay hands on your queen, torture her, rape her and burn her alive just because they enjoy the thrill. And if you tried to stop them, they’d kill you too, just as they did with King Terence and Queen Alanis long ago.” She paused a moment and glanced at Noah before she continued. “I’m sorry Noah, he needs to know how severe this is, I wish I knew how to explain it in a way that makes some sense, but there is no explaining what they do or why…”

“It’s about control, power,” Janey said without thinking. “They make a woman confess to the most outrageous things and blow it completely out of proportion, twisting into accusations of using witchcraft for murder, infanticide, or they simply pick up on petty little. They torture it out of her, and if she doesn’t confess…the torture gets worse.”

Silence descended on them before Janey realized what had escaped her mouth. Even Sydow seemed slightly taken aback, though whether it was at her words or her bluntness, she wasn’t sure.

Mauriat shuddered in horror. “And after the torture…”

“They burn her alive. She never has control from the start, they take it away completely. She’s doomed the moment she enters that prison unless she’s damn lucky like I was. But I lost everything so I sometimes wonder just how lucky I really am,” Janey said.

“You’re…positive? I mean, really, it can’t be that bad that witches just can’t live with it,” Sydow said arrogantly, waving it away as if it mattered none to him.

Without a word, Rhiannon stood and harshly slapped the back of Sydow’s head, knocking the beautiful crown from atop his perfect head. The pirate queen’s eyes may as well have been afire when she stared him down with the ferociousness of lightning in a storm. Janey was caught between shocked at Sydow’s ignorant words and Rhiannon’s sudden outburst.

“Live with it, Sydow?  Really?” Rhiannon scolded angrily. “You and your pompous little self, dare to enter this conference knowing the delicate nature of what we are discussing, and you give us that rich boy fickle attitude? Your display of disrespect is sickening. There are real survivors of this ordeal in this room, including myself. Watch your bloody mouth or I swear I will obliterate every single ship of yours that dares sail into my waters.”

The silence that followed would have been awkward, but Jaffee wasted no time in diffusing the dispute. “Rhiannon, please, calm yourself. I cannot have that behaviour in my country. Sydow, as my sister said, do watch your tongue here. As I said, I will have no disrespect here.”

Sydow picked up his crown, glancing it over for any damage. “I thought we were here to discuss anti-violence,” he said almost mockingly.

Janey watched it all quietly, until Sydow said that. Something inside of her snapped with his ridiculing attitude.

“Are you serious, Sydow? Live with it?” she asked, anger on the edge of her voice.

Legend of Kawilara 1 is currently available free on Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/110429 and on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006HJ6XT0

Paperback copies can be ordered from Amazon for $15:  http://www.amazon.com/Legend-Kawilara-Part-Fire-Volume/dp/1478195142

Legend of Kawilara, Part 2: Swords is to be released in fall 2012.