Excerpt: Ring of Thorns

Chapter One
~Kanah~

Crack. Snap. Chink. Kanah’s mind sprang into consciousness as hot pain seared his body. His vocal cords trembled in a scream, but his voice didn’t make a sound. All his ears heard was the soft popping and rippling that ran all around him like pebbles raining, rolling down a dusty mound.
Chink. Plink. Plink. Darkness pressed against his eyes. He snorted in a tiny amount of air tin one nostril. The dust that floated in irritated his nose hairs. He sneezed.
Snap. Crash. Somewhere nearby it sounded like a vase hit the floor. Crash. Another one? He felt no wind. Pop. Smash. What was knocking the vases over? Was someone there? Kanah tried to cry out for help. He felt his mouth hanging open, yet he couldn’t move his lips. Like most of his body, they were compressed by a hard, heavy weight. His brain ordered his legs to run, to get away from whatever held him hostage. All his limbs were forced in place, frozen.
Was this death?
Death. It had to be. Crackling and crashing filled his ears. The sounds of the spirits of the afterlife. They seemed very displeased. After all he’d done, they should be. This is exactly what he deserved. Blind, mute, paralyzed, suffocating, tortured with twisting scorching pain—the perfect punishment.
Pop! The loud bang was so close his inner ear throbbed. Something heavy pulled at the right side of his face. The weight hung off the hairs of his cheek slowly tearing the skin from his flesh. A moment later, it fell away.
Crash! A rush of clean air filled his lungs through his completely open nostrils. He could see through his right eye. He blinked. He was in a room. Brown tiled floor, light blue walls, dim sunlight streaming in from a window he couldn’t see. The ground around him was covered with shattered gray ceramic.
After more crashing, his left arm was free. As he flexed the aching limb, he realized that the crackling and smashing was all coming from him. He was covered in some kind of dried clay or plaster that was falling off his body.
The chunks fell away. A few minutes later, his legs were free. He stood on a sturdy stone pedestal, but all sense of balance was lost. His exhausted body leaned to the left from the weight of his still cast arm. He toppled over landing on the shards of stone. The ceramic binding his left arm shattered at the impact causing pieces of sharp rubble to pierce through his flesh. This time his agonized cry reverberated off the walls of the room.
He had to get out there. He looked up. There were two closed doors on opposite sides of the pedestal. Using the platform as leverage, he pulled himself up. His head spun. Panting from the exertion, he paused to catch his breath. Holding on to the cold stone, he took a few wobbling steps.
He stopped at the sharp corner of the pedestal. Filling his lungs with air and holding it, he let go. His feet shuffled forward a couple inches before his legs gave way. His head knocked against the floor.
White dots floated in the blurred room. Blackness crept around the edges of his vision. He tried to crawl to the door, but had no idea if he even moved an inch as darkness consumed his consciousness once more.

Chapter Seven
~Elorra~

After supper was served and most of the dishes cleaned, Kamaria dismissed Elorra and Yasmin for the night as they had worked late the last three nights. Kamaria never let anyone go to the quarters alone after dark. There were too many overseers, guards, guests, and other slaves who took advantage of the rest. A person could be robbed, beaten, molested or raped between the mansion and the slave quarters. As long as the slave could still work (or be forced to), the lord and lady didn’t do anything about it.
The two women walked out exhausted from long, busy days. Yasmin locked arms with Elorra.
“Do those gloves keep your hands from blistering?” She asked.
Elorra was startled by the question, but only for a moment.
“Yes, for the most part,” she said. “It’s not as bad as it was without them.”
“I think I’ll look in the throw away pile for some tomorrow,” Yasmin yawned.
They were passing through the garden as a shortcut to the slave quarters. Elorra thought she heard… no, that couldn’t be… She stopped.
“What—“ Yasmin began.
Elorra covered her mouth with her hand. Yes, she heard voices and she recognized both.
“Lord Manssa,” she whispered to Yasmin.
Yasmin froze wide-eyed. Except for her brown frizzy hair swirling in the breeze, she looked like a statue. Elorra had pulled at her arm three times before she followed her off the path and into a grove of fruit trees.
They couldn’t see Lord Manssa or his right hand man, Char, in the darkness, but as they crouched behind a tree, they could hear them.
....
The ground softly crunched under footsteps that came closer. Yasmin trembled. It took everything in her for Elorra not to shake with her. The men moved closer. Yasmin let out a small squeak. She immediately covered her mouth with her hands.
The steps paused. Elorra held her breath. Their master was only a foot away. She could hear his heavy breathing. To be caught spying on him (even accidentally) would mean flogging or starvation, probably both.
Then they moved out of the grove and back onto the path.
“Mice,” Char muttered as they walked back toward the mansion.
As soon as she couldn’t hear their steps anymore, Elorra exhaled.
“They’re gone,” she whispered.
At the sound, Yasmin jumped up and bolted out of the trees. Elorra sat, frozen, by the tree. She couldn’t believe Yasmin had taken off like that… alone. Also, leaving Elorra by herself, in the dark.
She had no idea where Yasmin had run off to, probably toward home, but the path was so dark. She could go back to the kitchen. She could tell Kamaria. Yes, Kamaria would come with her to find Yasmin. The kitchen head was strong and Yasmin was her daughter so she’d come. Plus, the mansion was much closer than the far off quarters. But Kamaria would be very angry if she had to leave.
Elorra stayed in her position peeking up and down the path next to her hiding spot, half wishing Yasmin would come back for her. But minutes passed and her friend never appeared. She was sure Yasmin had made it to the quarters, but Elorra didn’t want to have to walk there alone. Several other people walked by going either way.
As she sat, indecisive, there was a crunch somewhere deeper in the trees. It wasn’t like leaves, or pebbles, or dirt. It was like a dog chomping on a bone and snapping it in half. Only, Lord Manssa’s dogs were kept in a pen half a mile from here.
Snap. Elorra shook at the unnerving sound. She heard it again and this time it sounded like it was right next to her. But she saw nothing.
A lion. She was sure it was. One of the crimson lions had followed her and Rence from the mountain. Now that she was completely alone, it had come to eat her.
“Emperor…”
Elorra froze. She hadn’t heard that.
“Emperor.”
It was right in her ear. She stopped breathing.
“Emperor.”
She leaped to her feet and ran. She wasn’t going to be eaten by crazed ghost beasts still doing the biding of a dead monarch.
She ran quicker than she could remember ever going. Her heart beat ten times faster than each foot fall. She was certain she could hear at least one lion behind her. She heard the heavy panting, smelled the fresh blood.
At one moment she felt hot breath on her neck. Sure, she was about to die, she squeezed her eyes shut, but kept going. She couldn’t stop if she wanted to.
When she opened her eyes again, she was heading straight for a man and woman walking a few feet ahead of her. She cried out some thing that made no sense—half scream, half garbled attempts at words. They turned around and she ran right into them.
The woman fell over with Elorra on her. She quickly rolled off. A shadow leaped at her. She covered her face with her arms. Gritting her teeth, she prepared for the end.
But moments later all she heard was the woman cursing and then a light touch on her shoulder. She quickly pulled away, letting her arms down. Only the bewildered looking man and angry woman were around. No shadows. No lions.