From The Lover’s Opalus

Here are the first words from my new fantasy series. I don’t have a target date for completion, but I love this work and will never abandon it. Enjoy and ask me questions!

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Alone in her chamber, staring out at the dense, night-green forest to the East, she felt safe. No one ventured to that part of the palace unless bidden, and Raeche, who cultivated and nurtured and was seduced by her solitude, rarely bid. Even Taritana, her Personal, only came once at Light and once at Dark at which times she waited and monitored, hunger of a different sort in that woman’s eyes, and made quite certain that Raeche took enough food. Pretty but bitter and sometimes choked with jealousy, Taritana watched her indeed.

On this day the Personal had long come and gone, so Raeche was free to do as she always did. She sat at the window with one hand tangled in the thick, embroidered window covering. She watched with manufactured longing the sheltered entrance to the East Forest though it never changed, nevermore produced a dream. Having a thought to be sad about this, Raeche sometimes summoned sorrow. Her throat closed when she realized that the emotion though carefully constructed remained completely inauthentic. Manufactured longing where true longing should have been.

In truth, Raeche grieved not for the loss of a true love. She grieved for the loss of definition. She was nothing of her own, had never been anything of her own. Raeche had always been the Empire.
—

Grayson