Violet Moons Excerpt

An excerpt from VIOLET MOONS:

The flames in the cavernous fireplace shimmered violet, crimson and gold. It helped to heat the vast room, but the chill still reached their bones. They pulled their long, shimmering robes closer to their cool bodies and clutched the sinuous fabric tightly between blue-tipped fingers. Their garments did little to allay the barren coldness that had crept, uninvited, into their beings.

The time of Midnight Moons had arrived. It would be desolately cold for many days.
The hard wood of the Balboa tree released a sweet golden mist into the air as it burned. It swirled around them, letting them forget for a moment the reason for this conclave.

But only for a moment.

Dinardo, his violet robe pulled snugly about his thick shoulders, silently shook his head. His long white locks, tied in the requisite dual tails, swayed beside his still-handsome face. Only the shade of his hair and the knowledge in his eyes told of his advanced age. To an unobservant onlooker he would appear many seasons younger than he actually was.

His body, his face and his movements were those of a young man. They would remain that way until death claimed him. Then, and only then, would his body show the true number of its years. Even at that instant, in his fleeting surrender to the realm of the unliving, it would only show for the briefest of moments before his extinguished being surrendered itself to the afterlife in a puff of silver smoke.

“But I do not see how we will get the circlet,” said Dayanara, her voice filled with the passion of her convictions. “It seems that the people would protect it—protect it with their lives if they had to! It won’t be out in the open, waiting for anyone to just walk in and take it. No, the power will be hidden somewhere.”

Her long blood-red fingernails drummed mercilessly on the granite table top. Why couldn’t they see that the only way to secure the circlet was by force? Had they all turned into a tribe of cowards after the last era?

“You’re missing the point. The power will be protected, yes, but we should be able to convince them to give it to us. They will be reasonable; they will see our need. I don’t think we’ll need to take it,” said Alana quietly.

“Take it! Of course we’ll need to take it—you’ve been imbibing too often and too long, apparently, of the boobang bulb if you think we’ll get it any other way. Honestly!” snorted Dayanara. How could they be so naive?

“Just hold up right now…that’s not fair. You don’t need to bring that into it. Besides, I haven’t bathed in boobang bulb juice in…in days. So don’t even begin to act like I’ve been influenced because I haven’t been. I believe you’re going about it all wrong, that’s all,” said Alana. She furrowed her brow, her amber eyes flashing at her sister as she spoke.

We look alike but that’s where it ends. She’s nothing like me—if she was, she’d begin to see this thing logically.

“You’d have a discussion with them, then? Is that the proposal you bring to the conclave?” asked Dayanara. She studiously avoided her sister’s gaze, looking instead at her own crimson fingernails.

“It is. I say we request a meeting and ask to have the power. You may be surprised. They might simply give it to us.”

Dayanara smiled at the other woman’s stupidity. Did she really believe that they’d just hand it over? The one thing that kept all life safe from the voracious appetites of the others? How can she look so much like me, yet be so different, she thought. It’s difficult to believe that she can’t see that the only way to get the power is to take it—by force.

Wathalia had, as was her way, kept her own council. Listening closely to her sisters but refraining from joining in the conversation she could see both sides. Still, she knew that neither sister had a plausible solution for their dilemma.

She felt Dinardo’s probing eyes and when she looked up she found his steely gaze locked on her. She knew what must be done. Wathalia nodded, her long black hair falling over her shoulders as if ready to cloak her in battle.
She knew that the time had come to tell her sisters what their decision should—what their decision would—be. And she also knew that neither of the other two females of the long line of Danizar would like the way things must move forward from this point.

It was no secret that the logical Alana would much rather approach the people of the North, the keepers of the sacred circlet, with an evenhanded, rational proposal. She knew, too, that the people would reject Alana’s proposition outright.

The realization that her headstrong, impetuous sister Dayanara would vow to charge into the midst of the people and take the sacred circlet was obvious to her as well. Dayanara would feel that it was their due, especially since their need for it was fleeting and unable to be ignored—not if they were to survive. She knew that Dayanara’s method would lead to death and destruction. The sacred circlet would be of no use to them if they claimed it in that manner.

Wathalia knew that she had been born into the trio to take the lead in this moment in time. It was her destiny to gain the use of the circlet by means known only to herself and the elder, Dinardo.

It fell to her to tell the others what they had to do now. They would not like it. They would argue with her, but she would not relent.

There could be no other way.