In Ruszakh, children are taught that they are born of the stars. When a girl first gazes upon the stars, those tiny pinpricks of light from the Great Goddess's embroidery needle piercing through the drape of midnight velvet, the Goddess plants a tiny seed within the girl's heart. When she is married, the seed spreads roots from her heart to her womb and a child grows within the warm cocoon of those entwined, silky strands.
Such are the stories Asiyah's mother told her as child, braiding her silken black hair as they sat outside their family yurt, heedless of their breath fogging the air around them. Their flock of sheep and goats bleated peacefully, soothed by their mistress's voice as she wound stories with each tug of her daughter's hair.
But that was many years ago. Now, Asiyah's silky hair had become greasy, and the warm, animal skin walls of her family yurt were replaced with the hard, cold mud walls of the room she shared with her father and younger brother. The soft sounds of sheep and goats were replaced with the steady roar of the market just outside their wooden door.
Her mother's gentle hands were enshrouded in a goat-skin blanket 6 feet below the cold earth's surface.
Although Ruszakh was a young kingdom, it already had its fair share of poor miscreants surviving on scraps from the newly formed market stalls set up by camel traders from the southern desert and silk merchants from the eastern Empire. Asiyah and her family were but one of many nomadic herders who sought safety within the earthen walls of Ruszakh's capital city and found only poverty.
The stories that had fed Asiyah's heart as a child were now the only thing she had to feed her belly as she wandered the market streets, looking for scraps. Even as her stomach cramped with hunger, she still believed her mother's hope that Ruszakh would be their salvation. After all, the kingdom had formed when two enemy nations, the Northern Rushes and the Khans had joined together through marriage.
What could be more promising than that?
But as she wandered the dusty streets, a shadow followed her. An evil creature, eyes burning red with hate.
"At last," the creature whispered, lips lifting to reveal jagged, bloody teeth. "She's come."
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The Witching Hour (Preview)
FantasyA young woman enters the House Of Astronomy to serve her beloved kingdom, but when she accidentally wakes an ancient monster, she discovers she was destined to destroy the kingdom instead. Preview of an upcoming 2023 Fantasy Romance novel!
