Snippets of February

pinterest: tempus regina

 An update on the development of a new look for Scribbles.  For those of you who didn't hear, Bree (of Bree Holloway Blog Designs and also Tea and Bree) is designing the template; she and I have been going back and forth about the look, and let's just say I'm pretty excited about what she has pulled together.  It is much cleaner and more open than the current look, and will hopefully be easier to navigate.  Keep an eye out for its debut!

In other news, the time has rolled around once more for Katie's Snippets post.  This month last year I was about halfway through The Running Tide, writing about ships and the sea, duels and blackmail; now I am firmly wedged into Tempus Regina (I won't actually know how far I am until I finish), writing about assassins and pocketwatches and the seven layers of heaven.  Last year my main character was in the ruins of a theater in Sicily; this year my character is kicking around the wilds of Scotland.  And interestingly enough, I look back on last February's snippets and think, "Has it been that long?  Huh!"

snippets for february

A breeze had begun to stir, turning the leaves belly-up and ruffling the hair that fell, shaggy as a wolf’s winter coat, on [his] neck; it carried the scent of the morning fire to brush Regina’s lips, and it tasted like iron. Distantly she heard the squirrel, still at war with the birds high up in the rowan... 

- tempus regina

Then the tremor ran out. He of the blue-eyes was an awkward boy again, beating a hasty retreat, and the Assassin was loosening from his broad, braced stance and crashing wearily onto a bench beside her. “Shoo,” he said. “I do not know what it is that makes a man believe he has rights to my table. He ate none of your pomegranate, I hope?” 

 Regina stared at him. Pomegranate… “No,” she said, and started when the word broke apart. “No, he didn’t eat the pomegranate.”

- tempus regina

 They made a fire some feet off the road, under a birch in half-bloom; the Assassin remarked, as he gathered great armloads of its dead wood and Regina pulled blindly at Piso’s straps, that the tree’s spirit kept the evil eye at bay. She gave herself a hiccupping laugh and threw a sideways glance at the carver. His was the only pair of eyes she wanted to be free from, and the birch twigs he had found seemed to have no effect on him.

- tempus regina

And she remembered, too, shards of glass on a dirty floor, casting back her reflection as the White Demon cast it back now.

- tempus regina

She dug her fingers into her throat and her elbows into her knees, watching, sick and fascinated, while the Dragon spun from its chain. Clockwise—and back again. Clockwise—and back again. Going one way the garnets laughed; going the other, they mocked.

- tempus regina

 The room had gone silent, the world and its noise buzzing on beyond the flap; they were in their own firelit bubble, she and the Fisherman, or perhaps their own cocoon. She wondered, achingly, if there would be any glorious emergence for them.

- tempus regina

It took him some time, for the whortleberry fought to keep him, but when he was free he sat upright, looked at Regina and remarked, “Ah ha, so you’re awake properly now. Shades, but don’t you look worse by daylight!”

- tempus regina

where are your characters this month?