The Crow
an excerpt

This is a novel I started several months ago, then my muse abandoned me. I am hoping this will kick start me back into the mode so I can finish it. Consequently, I have started a chapter nine. The 3200 wrds I posted are the beginning of that chapter. This excerpt is the from the first chapter.

The Crow

Wrath

She sat on a large grey stone, the red velvet of her gown draping over the side, the edge dragging in the swift moving current of the Walturn River. Long rose-colored hair whipped around her head as a brisk breeze swept past, and she reached up with her wraith's hand and tried to wipe the stinging tendrils out of her eyes.

He was still laying where the river had washed him up onto the rocky shore. An Etherian. His pale green skin was almost white, the length of his silvery-blue hair matted with mud and debris. Silver eyes, once brilliant with the light of the moonglade, stared sightlessly up into the mauve-colored sky. The green velvet of his tunic was torn and ragged showing the large wound in his chest–the wound she had made when she scourged him with the ionsfrei.

The wound was a dirty grey on his fair skin with a deep hole charred through the bones into the cavity beneath. Where is heart had been there was nothing left but burnt flesh and ravaged lungs. He had put up a valiant effort to defend himself as well as trying to relieve her of her life, but swords and moon-magic were no match for her. He had been foolish to think he could overpower a Mizarakarian on her home soil. The bluish ground and yellow trees fed her energies with the pulse of Therian–the mage king of Mizaric.

"Poor Ethred," Zora said, her tone condescending as she swiped at her hair again. "Whatever will your mother say when you don't return to Cordesac? Will she send your brothers here to search for you, or will she realize you are dead?" Zora laughed and jumped down of the stone. Her small, slippered feet made no sound as she walked over the pebbles. "What would she say, Ethred, if she knew how badly you failed her? Perhaps my killing you was more an act of mercy, considering the cruel reputation of Queen Iodin of Etheria. I'm told the last warrior to disappoint her was drawn, quartered and disemboweled. Then what was left of him was hung from the palace walls for the army and peasants to see. Not a very ‘merciful' punishment for failing to catch a one-handed thief."