Elementals
(updated 4.5.11)

I struggled to write this perfect hook...succinct, accurate, poetic, even...

But when normal people ask me, "What's your book about?" I say...

When Princess Glorya cannot be found one day before her arranged wedding, her younger sister Dyana is sent in her place. God have mercy on the groom!

Guess turtles prefer simple melodrama over poetry.

Prologue

(I generally hate these, but I wrote one for Elementals. Go figure.
I've toyed with making it chapter one)

Glorya, first daughter of the royal family, considered it right her last day in the mountain should be spent within the sepulcher. Right, but not desirable.

The Aveesan sepulcher was the heart of the mountain city. All occasions of notice were honored within its hall—births, betrothals, judgments, and most importantly, burials. Carved from living stone—first by water then by the industrious hands of the first Aveesan settlers—the semi-circular tomb reached through layer upon layer of rock until the mountain itself ended and the sky shone through a hexagonal opening above. This was the first of three openings into the sepulcher and not meant for the living to use. The spirits of the honored dead would escape to the heavens through that gate.

The second opening was for the living. Massive doors of imported hardwood invited the faithful to descend steep stone steps into the tomb. Branching away from these steps, tiers of wooden benches circled the walls, facing the icon of the Father Above and the Child of Earth. This sacred sculpture dominated the center of the sepulcher, the heart of the heart. Its base sat on the lowest level and its peak reached almost to Heaven’s Gate. A massive memorial to the spiritual guardians of the Aveesan people.

A grate in the floor at the foot of the icon covered the third opening. The sound of rushing water could be heard faintly, far down its black throat. The spirits of the dishonored dead would sink into the hole and be lost in the water below. Only the Father Above knew which exit a soul would take. 

Behind the sculpture were the burial tombs of the entire Aveesan kingdom. The dead have no rank, so the tombs were arranged in no discernable order, with one exception. The royal family held the tomb closest to Heaven’s Gate. It had always been so.

For as long as she could remember, Glorya had been fascinated by the stone sculpture of the Father Above. Perhaps it was the power represented by the mighty sword in the Father’s left hand or the open entreaty of his right hand, which beckoned the Child to take the Cup of Torment, but she always felt a warm wonder before the icon. She felt ever close to the sacrificed Child, hoping her life would be as well-used as his. She sighed. Her mother, kneeling beside her at the altar of sacred attar wood, nudged her, signaling the need for holy silence.

Glorya wished the sun would hurry. She was to pray before the icon until the sun shone through Heaven’s Gate. Although she obeyed her mother’s request in this meeting, she wished to take one last walk through the real heart of the mountain, the living caverns far below the sepulcher. She loved to roam the mountain’s wild belly, squeezing through tiny openings in the ancient rock, discovering sights no human eye had seen, charting new tunnels. Tonight, she would leave the mountain, her people, and everything she loved. This afternoon she would make time for one last adventure. Then she would meet her fate with courage, as befit a princess of the high places.

For Dyana, the second daughter of the royal family, nothing about this day was right. She also knelt beside her mother and older sister at the altar. She begrudged the time spent within the sepulcher. She had not counted the hours, but far too many of her fifteen  years had been spent in the confines of these stone walls. To be held here on a common day because of her elder sister rankled. To kneel on the cold stone before the altar of attar, stifling sneezes caused by the scented wood because her mother thought them blasphemous, was intolerable. But Queen Anasca, who crumbled like sandstone on any other issue, was granite when it came to religious duty. Dyana would kneel or face her mother’s seldom-seen wrath.

Dyana never found peace staring at the grim face of the Father. Perhaps it was the weight of the massive sword or the way the deep-set eyes of raw ruby seemed to glare at the Child, but she could not long look at the icon without considering sacrilege. With her mother at her side, she still felt the urge to scream and throw one of the ceremonial veils over the Father’s piercing eyes. Though her nurses would have sworn such an emotion was impossible for her, Dyana pitied the Child cowering under the Father’s threats. Her favorite daydream, savored only during the longest ceremonies, was of the Child defying the Father and leaving the old one to solve his own problems.

When she was younger, she feared divine punishment for such thoughts. After so many years without a single lightning strike she almost wished the Father would show himself. Perhaps the ominous silence urged her to greater lengths of mental sacrilege, if only to know someone was listening. She was so practiced at blasphemy she could send her religious instructor into fits with a single question. She giggled at the thought and suffered a sharp jab from Anasca. With a stifled sniffle, she fell silent, breathed through her mouth, and wished the sun would rise faster. At midday, they would end their prayers. Then she could hurry to the eyrie and her flight classes, away from everything calcified, except her flight instructor.

When the sun crept to the zenith, both girls suffered the steep, solemn walk from the altar to the sepulcher doors and a bone-crushing embrace from their mother before racing to their separate interests. Dyana fled to the heights and Glorya to the depths. Anasca, her heart breaking, returned to the altar to weep. 

 
When Princess Glorya vanishes one day before her arranged wedding, her younger sister Dyana is sent in her place. God have mercy on the groom! 

Even for me, catchy beats poetical. 

Cahnar and Dyana with Nlet. I drew this a looooong time ago, before I was even certain what a "compan" was. And before Dyana got a haircut.

This was my first attempt to capture the elder sister on paper. I liked Spidraax, but I wasn't happy with Glorya. So I attempted again...

I liked Glorya better, but Spidraax was now too "chunky (not to mention too white)." So, with the wonders of scissors and mom's copy machine, I attempted take 3...

Ah, well. You get the idea. He's big and scary, she's little and scared.
I drew other scenes but they are far too large to fit in the scanner and no longer in the book anyway. I'll save those for book signings and promotional gifts.