One day left. I’m so close to the end I can taste it. But today, I have the third and final excerpt from my NaNoWriMo novel for you to read. Normally I have four by the end of NaNo, but this year, due to how busy I’ve been, I only have three.
You may stone me if you wish, but I warn you, I’m rock proof.
If you would like to go back and read any of the previous excerpts, you can do so here:
Excerpt one and excerpt two.
This scene is between Symon and Rachel. Symon is talking to Rachel about his former bride-to-be, Beth, who had been killed at the start of the first book, The Priest of Tears.
Once again, like all the other excerpts, please remember that this is a vomit draft, and thus may have a lot of problems. The only editing I did was just enough to make sure it’s readable for you. Please enjoy!
Symon saddled up Stormcloud and got the horse ready for a hard ride. He mounted the steed and offered Rachel a hand up. She accepted it and after she was hoisted, she put her arms around his waist. He rode to the stables and helped her down so she could get her own horse out.
As she was doing that, Symon ran to the tavern and paid the tab he owed Haynk, which was a considerable amount of chils. Symon said goodbye to Small Sal, the only one of his friends who was in the tavern at the time.
“Tell Culder I said thank you,” Symon said.
Sal promised, gave Symon a big hug, and then went back to drinking his ale.
By the time Symon returned to the stables, Rachel was ready to go.
He nodded to her then they rode away, veering onto the Crown’s Road. They started off on a hard ride but slowed down for the horses’ sake. Symon was sure to stop for meals, especially since he was traveling with someone. At dinner time, as he was setting up camp and Rachel was cooking the rations he had bought from the Green Sky, Symon looked over at her.
“I never thanked you for coming here.”
“I don’t think thanks is necessary,” she said.
“I do.”
“I just stepped in for one of your knights because I wanted a small adventure.”
Somehow Symon didn’t think that was completely true.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said since I woke up. “I think it’s what I needed to hear.”
Rachel smiled. “Sometimes people need to be reminded of what’s important. Tell me about her. Beth.”
Symon sat down next to the fire and smiled at the memory of her. “She was beautiful. And I don’t mean for a common girl. She could have put some of the nobles to shame. She was funny; she always made me laugh. She was strong-willed. She knew how to handle my nonsense. She’s the only woman I ever met who could drink me under the table. She was kind and charitable, though she didn’t have much money. She loved to help people. She loved to work. She liked my friends, which was a deal breaker if I ever knew of one.”
“How did you meet her?” Rachel said.
Symon’s smile never went away. “I knew of her my whole life. Everyone in Tiddleway did, it’s a small village. But we only started speaking when her mother got ill and she needed to do the shopping for her. We became friends through our chats in my store. I didn’t fall in love with her instantly. It grew over a few years. When I couldn’t deny it any longer, I asked to go out with her. She told me she had been waiting for a year for me to ask. We were engaged to be married a year later. Due to her mother’s illness, which she recovered from, we put the wedding off for about a year. You know the rest, she was killed by the Priest of Tears on the eve of our wedding.”
“She sounded like a wonderful woman. A perfect fit for you.”
“Perfect is the wrong word. She had her flaws, Rachel. She could annoy me at times. She wasn’t perfect, she was complete. A complete woman. She was happy all the time. I loved her for that.”
There was a long silence, the crickets chirped their song.
“That’s what you need to remember about Beth, Sy. Who she was. Don’t regret what didn’t happen, remember her life. Never forget her. Just move on from the tragedy. Live how she would want you to live.”
Symon watched the fire dance, the light cast shadows on the surrounding trees and the horses. He didn’t want to admit that she was right. “It’s not easy. I wish every day I could bring her back.”
Rachel nodded. “Yes, that’s loss for you. You grieve, you remember, then you live.”
Symon poked a stick into the fire, letting hundreds of ember fireflies loose into the air. “Maybe.”
They ate, then they crawled into their separate tents and fell asleep. It had been a warm day, but the night was chilly, so he he got up, walked over to her tent, and gave her his spare blanket. She was fast asleep, so he just laid it on her. He didn’t need it. He could feel the chill in the air, but by being a Mythic Cleric he was able to ignore it and it didn’t bother him.
-Excerpt from The Wayward Witch; Chapter 13, by Andrew Ronzino
That will be the last excerpt this year. I like this scene very much and Rachel’s words, “You grieve, you remember, then you live,” come into play later in the story and has a profound impact on Symon.
Current word count for The Wayward Witch: 65,256/50,000!
Until tomorrow,
Andrew Ronzino, X-Files Fan
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I am still pursuing publication for other projects. In fact, I’m going to focus more on short stories and really working on my name as an author. I’m very excited for what the future holds.
Andrew Ronzino
