I‘m starting to drum up some interest for this book. Here is the first couple of pages, for those who are a bit more than mildly curious about it.
And yes, in exchange for a read and review, currently you can get a physical ARC! Just let me know! Contact me through the comments below, or send me a message on Twitter @k_villoso, or Goodreads, or Facebook.
Chapter One
The Legacy of Warlord Tal
They called me “bitch”, the she-wolf, because I murdered a man and made my husband leave the night before they crowned me.
Hurricanes destroy the villages and they call it senseless; the winter winds come and they call it cold. What else did they expect from my people, the Oren-yaro, the ambitious savages who created a war that nearly ripped Jin-Sayeng apart? I almost think that if my reign had started without bloodshed and terror, they would have been disappointed.
I did not regret killing the man. He had it coming and my father had taught me to take action before you could second-guess yourself. My father was a wise man, and if the warlords could’ve stopped arguing long enough to put their misgivings behind them, he would have made a great king.
I do regret looking at the bastard while he died. I regret watching his eyes roll backwards and the blood spread like a cobweb underneath his wilted form, leaking into the cracked cobblestone my father had paid an Osahindo builder a remarkable amount of money to install. I regret not having a sharper sword, and losing my nerve so that I didn’t strike him again and he had to die slowly. Bleeding over the jasmine bushes—that whole batch of flowers would remain pink until the end of the season—he had stared up at the trail of stars in the night sky and called for his mother. Even though he was a traitor, he didn’t deserve that pain.
I also regret not stopping my husband from walking away. I should have run after him, grovelled at his feet, begged him to stop. But I watched his tall, straight back grow smaller in the distance, his father’s helmet nestled under his arm, his unbound hair blowing in the wind, and did nothing. A wolf of Oren-yaro suffers in silence. A wolf of Oren-yaro does not beg.
Almost at once, the rumours spread like wildfire. They started in the common room in Oka Shto Palace when I arrived for my coronation, dressed in my mother’s best silk dress—all white, like a virgin on her wedding day—bedecked with pearls from Natu and gold-weave from Sutan, and no husband at my side. My son stood on the other side of the dais with his nursemaid, also in white. Between us were the two priests tasked with the ceremony—a priest of the God Akaterru, patron deity of Oren-yaro, and a priest of Kibouri, that foreign religion the Ikessars favoured, with their faceless Maker and enough texts to make anyone ill. They could pass for brothers, with their long faces, carp-like whiskers, and leathery skin the colour of honey.
It was clear that my husband’s absence was making everyone uncomfortable. For my part, I was bored and restless, and I didn’t want to wait a moment longer. I turned to the priests and opened my mouth. Before I could utter a single word, the doors creaked open.
“Crown her,” one of my advisers said, breaking into the hall. His face had the paleness of a man who had looked into a mirror that morning and seen his own death. His sandals made clicking sounds against the polished earth floor. “Prince Rayyel Ikessar left last night.”
You could hear the weight of the words echo against the walls. In the silence that followed, I thought I could make out the rising heartbeats of every man and woman in that room. Not a day goes by that I am not reminded of what was lost to my father’s war; even bated breaths could signal the start to that old argument, that old fear that I, too, may one day plunge the land into blood and fire once more.
