Deathwalker (WIP)

TBD

An excerpt from my novel-in-progress. It is quite rough. For clarity's sake, Kaya is my main character. Lily is the bar waitress she just picked up prior to this scene, which takes place somewhere in the middle of Kaya's tale. Also, facebook wont let me format or indent it, so the paragraphs are a littlw wonky. Anyway, these are words that I wrote:

        Her name was Lily, and she was beautiful. Kaya felt somewhat silly, watching her lover sleep. She just looked so... peaceful. Eyes closed, lips slightly parted. Kaya watched her chest gently rise and fall with each soft breath for a minute, two minutes, ten, before turning to look at the long-dead fire.

            A sudden wave of pain tore through the young woman's left side and she had to bite down hard to keep from screaming. The pain carried with it the faces of Kaya's father and mother and brothers. She thought of her friends back home: Sara, Benton, Lucya. 'What are they doing right now?' she wondered as she moved to stand beside the open window.

            A warm breeze whispered through the lilac curtains. There, in the silvery moonlight, Kaya's skin looked clammy and pale. Another surge of agony wracked her, this time radiating through her whole body. Her sharp indrawn breath was enough to pull Lily from her slumber. She sat up to see her dark-haired companion near doubled over in pain on the floor near the window.

            This wave summoned unwanted memories of Corinsval. Kaya blinked furiously against hot tears, but they rolled down her cheeks anyway. In that moment, she would have given her staff and her power and all the coin in her purse not to see their faces. She would gladly have given her life back to the gods, if only she didn't have to remember Milo's vacant eyes, to recall the red of baby Martin's blood on Lenda's shirt.

            The sorrow rose like the swelling waves of the sea in storm. It threatened to swallow Kaya whole, and she fell, sobbing, to her knees. The sound of it was awful, enough to break Lily's heart. She did the only thing she knew how to do, what she did on quiet nights when little Jake woke screaming from the night terrors. Lily knelt behind Kaya and wrapped her arms round her front, just above her heart. She rested her cheek on the crying girl's sweat-soaked back. Some unseen fire burned beneath smooth skin.

             Kaya's choking sobs grew louder, harder. Lily began to sway ever so gently. She whispered cooing, hushing sounds as she rocked, and Kaya loved her for it. Several hours later, she awoke in bed, Lily's arm still tight round her. Before she drifted back to sleep, she noticed the wound in her side aching a little less.