Excerpt: I Have Only Gone Mad

We are skipping ahead for this excerpt. Today I felt like writing very much out of order. I won't give any more clues about what's going on here. As it stands, the only spoiler is related to a character's existence, so I don't think this one warrants a spoiler tag. I selected the passage carefully so as to avoid major spoilers. And I'll talk about this character, Astlyr, a lot. So here's your first glimpse of her, interacting with Euryale, who we'll hear from now:

I am gasping for lungfuls of air, the world is spinning on its head, and nothing will ever be the same again. The wet, slick accumulation on the ground chills my feet to burning numbness. I plunge my hands in, too, as I sink to my knees. Face to the earth, my stomach heaves, but nothing comes up. I have eaten nothing since the night before, I remember, and had very little to drink since then. The cold swirls around me like a mad dancer, and I rock back on my heels after the spasms have subsided. It has been only moments since I bolted, and Astlyr is beside me now, her face a shrine to worry. She is holding a thick cloak which she wraps around my shoulders, helping me to my feet and back inside. My glimpses of Rania’s face as she busies herself tending to me give me the impression that my actions have marked me as possibly unhinged, but entirely pitiable. Her concern does her credit, but I am hollow and afraid. 

They have sat me in a chair by the hearth, the one I think usually reserved for Rania’s uncle Sjurd, and I can feel the warmth begin to spread through my extremities only by the sharp pain of biting cold facing and falling to the heat of a roaring fire. Astlyr’s face floats in front of mine. Her hand touches my cheek, my temples, my chin; she lays it against my forehead, feeling for fever. I am not ill. I have only gone mad. I shake my head, trying to tell her, but my tongue is lost in the caverns hollowed out beneath my skin. My hand fumbles under the cloak as I try to lift it to take hers. 

“Astlyr,” I whisper through the fogging haze around my mind. “Lie to me.”

Status report! Today I wrote over 1,500 words just for the story - not counting the earlier blog post. A very satisfying day of hard work. I feel like I am improving, if slowly. There will be off days, I know. But there will also be days like today, and I think that will be good enough for me.