I’m sorry you haven’t gotten snippets lately. My writing has been really awful (as in, I haven’t been writing) and I wasn’t sure how interesting it would be to give you snippets of worldbuilding (which is mostly what I’ve been working on). But then I ended up started on a rewrite of my novel The Masked Captain, which I’d only written about a chapter and a half of to begin with, so here’s the beginning of that. Enjoy. (And I’ll try to write more in the coming weeks.)
Rynn’s eyes bolted open and she glanced around her dark quarters. All was still. She crept from under the blankets and grabbed her book and dagger from the nightstand, the latter of which she tucked into her belt.
She unlatched and opened her window, climbing onto the ivy that grew all the way from her window to the ground of the courtyard below. It was several minutes before her feet met the ground.
She looked up into the beautiful night with a smile. Stars glittered throughout the sky, like the sequins and sparkles that adorned her dresses.
Rynn walked a few feet away from the wall before lying on the grass and cracking open her book.
*********
Two hours later, when Rynn had finished the book and the sun was barely creeping over the distant mountains, she climbed back up to her room to find her bodyguard in her chair, staring into a crackling fire in the hearth.
“How was your clandestine meeting?” He turned to look at her, a frown showing through his storm blue eyes as much as from his mouth.
“Clandestine meeting? I think you mean clandestine reading.” She lifted her book for him to see.
“Do you know how dangerous it is out there at night?”
“I do, actually. You’ve drilled it into my head for years. There’s nothing like a good book, starlight, and fear of imminent death to ignite the imagination.” She grinned, turning toward her bookcase and searching for the book’s place.
“Princess, I do not think you understand the gravity of this situation.”
“I’m alive, aren’t I? I’m unscathed? Can’t a girl read under the starlight every now and again?”
“Not when she’s a princess and danger lurks just outside the palace walls.”