Today on The Rest Is Still Unwritten is the Threats of Sky and Sea by Jennifer Ellison thanks to Xpresso Book Tours! Yesterday I posted my 4 star review and today I have an awesome excerpt from the book as well as the tour wide giveaway where you can win some absolutely fabulous prizes!
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Desperate to escape before the King’s capricious whims prove her and her father’s downfall, Bree bargains with him: information for their lives. It’s a good trade. And she has faith she’ll get them both out of the King’s grasp with time.
But that was before the discovery that she’s the weapon the King’s been waiting for in his war.
Now, time is running out. To save her father’s life and understand her own, Bree must unravel the knot of her father’s past before the King takes his life– and uses her to bring a nation to its knees.
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.....From Threats of Sky and Sea....
My ladies nod at me encouragingly, and I kneel beside the princess. “Good day to you, Your Highness,” I say.
“Good day,” Princess Aleta says without moving her eyes from her roses. She examines the roots critically and paws through the fresh dirt with her trowel.
This is a different sort of gardening from my herbs, when simple watering and trimming would do. I tentatively reach my trowel into the dirt and sift through it, careful not to disturb any of the roots.
“It’s a lovely day, isn’t it?” Wonderful way to make friends, Bree. Comment on the weather.
Aleta only trims a few leaves from the bushes.
I lick at the beads of sweat forming on my upper lip, trying not to be obvious about it. It’s so hot here in the capital. I’d been thrilled to get out of the confining walls of the palace after spending the past few days holed up inside but hadn’t thought forward to the sweltering heat.
“It’s a bit warm. I’m from the north, you know. It’s probably snowing there now. I don’t know how it’s so warm here.” I feel as though I’m chattering on, but no one stops me.
“It’s likely you passed the Makers’ Margin on your trek. It accounts for the barriers in seasons in the realm,” she says shortly.
“Oh. Yes, I guess that must be it.”
She turns back to her roses, and I rack my mind for something else to say. If I can make a friend out of anyone, it should be the princess. She doesn’t seem like she wants to be under the king’s thumb any more than I do. Though she doesn’t seem particularly eager to be my friend either.
“I thought that roses were red,” I say, a half-question. The flowers that Da middle-named me for look pale and unassuming without the scarlet color to them.
“These are white,” the princess snaps.
A stab of irritation gouges me. “Yes, I can see that,” I say waspishly. She doesn’t have to be so curt. “I wondered why.”
“And, had you asked, I would have answered you.”
I stake my trowel into the dirt and face her. The princess is carefully toeing the line of rude and polite, slipping ever closer to rude. I don’t need friends like her. “Have I done something to offend you, Your Highness?”
“Your very presence offends me.”
Curses rise to my lips, but I stifle them. I had wanted honesty from someone in the castle, and here I’ve found it in the form of a girl who glares at me, the sun shining into her eyes so brightly that they seem yellow.
“You wonder why there is a lack of red in my rose garden. Look around you. Do you see red blossoms anywhere in the king’s gardens? Have you seen it anywhere in the palace decor in the time that you have been here?”
I open my mouth, but close it again, a fish tossed onto dry land. No, I realize. The flowers in the royal garden had been purple, blue, yellow—but none were red.
The look on my face answers for me. “There are two colors to which specific meanings are assigned by the Egrian king. Violet—all shades of it—are reserved for the royal family. Red roses grow only outside the dungeons. Red means death. Murder. Someone who has taken another life.”
No wonder Lady Kat wears the color so often. She’s boasting.
Aleta pushes herself to her feet and nods to the attendant behind her, who hurries to her side with the parasol. She’s ready to leave. I scramble to my feet as well, absorbing this new information. In Abeline, colors are just colors. It’s not a custom—or law, whatever it may be—that’s made it that far north.
“But you must know that, surely,” Aleta says. Her words are an innocent bundle of firewood in a hearth, safe until the wood shifts and the embers still glowing beneath it leap out to burn me. “Your father must don red quite often.”
My ladies nod at me encouragingly, and I kneel beside the princess. “Good day to you, Your Highness,” I say.
“Good day,” Princess Aleta says without moving her eyes from her roses. She examines the roots critically and paws through the fresh dirt with her trowel.
This is a different sort of gardening from my herbs, when simple watering and trimming would do. I tentatively reach my trowel into the dirt and sift through it, careful not to disturb any of the roots.
“It’s a lovely day, isn’t it?” Wonderful way to make friends, Bree. Comment on the weather.
Aleta only trims a few leaves from the bushes.
I lick at the beads of sweat forming on my upper lip, trying not to be obvious about it. It’s so hot here in the capital. I’d been thrilled to get out of the confining walls of the palace after spending the past few days holed up inside but hadn’t thought forward to the sweltering heat.
“It’s a bit warm. I’m from the north, you know. It’s probably snowing there now. I don’t know how it’s so warm here.” I feel as though I’m chattering on, but no one stops me.
“It’s likely you passed the Makers’ Margin on your trek. It accounts for the barriers in seasons in the realm,” she says shortly.
“Oh. Yes, I guess that must be it.”
She turns back to her roses, and I rack my mind for something else to say. If I can make a friend out of anyone, it should be the princess. She doesn’t seem like she wants to be under the king’s thumb any more than I do. Though she doesn’t seem particularly eager to be my friend either.
“I thought that roses were red,” I say, a half-question. The flowers that Da middle-named me for look pale and unassuming without the scarlet color to them.
“These are white,” the princess snaps.
A stab of irritation gouges me. “Yes, I can see that,” I say waspishly. She doesn’t have to be so curt. “I wondered why.”
“And, had you asked, I would have answered you.”
I stake my trowel into the dirt and face her. The princess is carefully toeing the line of rude and polite, slipping ever closer to rude. I don’t need friends like her. “Have I done something to offend you, Your Highness?”
“Your very presence offends me.”
Curses rise to my lips, but I stifle them. I had wanted honesty from someone in the castle, and here I’ve found it in the form of a girl who glares at me, the sun shining into her eyes so brightly that they seem yellow.
“You wonder why there is a lack of red in my rose garden. Look around you. Do you see red blossoms anywhere in the king’s gardens? Have you seen it anywhere in the palace decor in the time that you have been here?”
I open my mouth, but close it again, a fish tossed onto dry land. No, I realize. The flowers in the royal garden had been purple, blue, yellow—but none were red.
The look on my face answers for me. “There are two colors to which specific meanings are assigned by the Egrian king. Violet—all shades of it—are reserved for the royal family. Red roses grow only outside the dungeons. Red means death. Murder. Someone who has taken another life.”
No wonder Lady Kat wears the color so often. She’s boasting.
Aleta pushes herself to her feet and nods to the attendant behind her, who hurries to her side with the parasol. She’s ready to leave. I scramble to my feet as well, absorbing this new information. In Abeline, colors are just colors. It’s not a custom—or law, whatever it may be—that’s made it that far north.
“But you must know that, surely,” Aleta says. Her words are an innocent bundle of firewood in a hearth, safe until the wood shifts and the embers still glowing beneath it leap out to burn me. “Your father must don red quite often.”
Threats of Sky and Sea, a young adult fantasy, is her first novel.
You can find Jennifer online at www.jenniferellision.com, or on twitter @JenEllision.
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Thanks for the great post - Entering at Rest is still unwritten ;)
ReplyDeleteLoved the excerpt! Thanks for the giveaway.
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