Nightshade

Nightshade Read Free Page A

Book: Nightshade Read Free
Author: Shea Godfrey
Tags: Gay & Lesbian
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head.
    He had been a kind man and thanked her in a quiet voice, then begged her forgiveness that such a formality was necessary.
    She had not expected to be treated with respect. The man had ignored Joaquin and spoken directly to her. She was uncertain of the reason for the ritual, though. She had never met a man of Arravan and so how should he recognize her? They might have sent a girl from the streets. When she had suggested this to Radha, she had laughed and kissed her cheek.
    In the growing darkness she could see the many campfires of the Arravan soldiers farther along the road and amongst the trees that were blooming to the south. And behind us as well, I should imagine
,
she mused, though no fires signaled their presence. Jessa knew they were allowed very little liberty, and once through the Gap their numbers had become insignificant. These were the Lowlands, and they were a most holy place to both countries. Arravan would protect them at all costs.
    It was said in Lyoness that the world had birthed the First Man within the soil of the Lowlands and that the god named Hamranesh did not like the damp and cold, and so walked west until he found the comforting heat of the desert. There he called forth his wives and servants from the fires of the sand, and thus gave blood to Lyoness. The land he was born of, however, was still sacred beyond all other places.
    The Lowlands were said to have also been the birthplace of the gods of Arravan. Firstborn and most powerful, the god Gamar was said to have roamed these hills and considered the servants he might create and what gifts to bestow upon them. While deep in this contemplation he failed to notice the subtle birth of his cunning sister Jezara or the screams of the earth when his dark brother Amar was born after her.
    That indifference had led to the rivalry between them all, and though Jezara and Amar would bow to Gamar if forced to, both of them were their own entities and decidedly powerful. Or so it was told and Jessa did not dispute the claim. Though Hamranesh was the main deity worshipped within Lyoness, Jessa followed the ways of the Vhaelin and her gods taught respect for all faiths. The Vhaelin were champions of free will; to them nothing was more sacred than to be allowed the devotions of your choice.
    Jessa knelt and set her hand upon the damp earth, closing her eyes. She could feel the pulse and the life, and something deeper as well. Perhaps the blood of their southern gods, coursing through the rivers far beneath the earth. Perhaps the shudder that the land gave when the sun creased the world at the end of the day. Perhaps merely her own pulse. She would have to wait and see.
    It was a holy place, though, and she understood that now, standing upon its soil. The place was rich with life and it was said that those who tilled and worked the soil within the Lowlands tilled the flesh of gods. It was so in Arravan and it was the same in Lyoness.
    The Lowlands were the greatest source of dispute between their two lands, and Jessa realized it was here that the war would be waged for her hand. Arravan had seized the Lowlands several generations past, and in that victory over Lyoness they had endangered what her family held most precious: the assertion that the blood of the Bharjah line hailed directly from the veins of Hamranesh.
    Jessa knew it was a lie, but the claim was a potent one and had been made since the first of her blood had seized power.
    What is the truth of this place? Or did you give birth to all gods, even my own?
    The Vhaelin walked the Ibarris Plains, but where they had come from was a long-standing mystery. In the city of Karballa their followers were scattered and few, but Jessa had learned at Radha’s knee and had known from the start that the Vhaelin were hers to keep and pay homage to, no matter where she made her home. Perhaps it was here, in this most holy of places, that all gods were born and sent out into the world.
    She could not deny her

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