This post is part of an ongoing blog hop hosted by Weekend Writing Warriors.  Every Sunday, participating authors post eight sentences from their current work in progress.  Then we hop to our fellow warriors’ blogs and check out all the fabulous fiction that’s happening! I heartily invite you to participate as a reader, writer, or both.  Click the link above or copy & paste this address: www.wewriwa.com

(If you’re interested in reading what’s come before, Salar excerpts are collected in the Weekend Warriors Snippets category in the sidebar.)

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Curse of Salar

Timon was allowed to leave the palace to visit his dying father and had been gone for half a moon.  Mira was glad to see him but would never show any glimmer of what might be seen as special affection.  Any servant who displayed too much loyalty to him was sent away on some pretext or other, and Mira had been afraid that the story of the dying father had been one of these excuses.  He knew Timon was fond of him, and he also knew that he diligently reported everything Mira said or did to the premier’s watchers. He couldn’t blame him, that’s what he was brought to the palace to do.  The premier recruited servants from other kingdoms or from the rebel states, who had no loyalty to the royal family or any lingering superstitions regarding the divinity of Mira and Alandra.

“How’s your father?” Mira asked without preamble.

“Gone up the mountain to dance with the spirits,” Timon said, bowing slightly.

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Curse of Salar is an m/m erotic fantasy novella, third in a series set in the world of Salar.  Prince Mira, along with his sister, is the last in the royal line of Jahar, a ruling family of powerful magicians. Mira and Alandra are held as virtual captives in their family’s own palace, kept alive to placate the masses of peasants who are traditional royalists and still believe in the fabled powers of the Jahar. Mira chafes under confinement and dreams of escaping.  Rayn Matisse is a soldier in the rebel army. He has no interest whatsoever in seeing the royals reinstated until he meets Mira and begins to fall under the prince’s magical sway.  Rayn’s people were cursed by the Jahar centuries ago, and though long thought to be a myth, the curse begins to assert its powers once again. As assassination and rebellion upset the false calm of the kingdom, Rayn finds himself torn between love and fear of the young man who possesses an uncanny ability to control him.