First 5 Pages July Workshop - Dyer Rev 1

Name: Jennifer Dyer
Genre: YA Fantasy
Title: Blue Serenity

2417 AD


It was the night of my coming-of-age ceremony, the night I would condemn myself to death.


I stepped onto my balcony and inhaled the scent from thousands of white roses. Already, two of our five moons had risen in the western horizon. The ceremony would start soon. Below, healers with dark hair, dark robes, and dark expressions meandered between banquet tables and fence railings smothered in a food and flower invasion. Two scowling ladies tied a small banner to a gazebo that said, “Wellness and peace to Princess Serenity.” They left it hanging crooked.
The pair moved down the hill toward the lake and inspected the path formed by two ropes of white flowers. They stopped on a raised platform, the place I’d take the coming-of-age oath.

The oath would be the end of me.

On one of the patios, a healer elder named Jasen paced, hands crossed over his bony chest, black silk robes swishing. The setting sun slashed red across his face. He barked instructions in his usual nasal whine. “No. Sweets in the garden. Savory on the terrace.”

He glared toward where I stood on my third-floor balcony, his face scrunched up like an old man’s gnarled fist. “What a waste, throwing a party for that half-breed mongrel.” His words rang out, spoken loud enough for me to hear.

I’d grown accustomed to Jasen’s hatred, but the word mongrel burned like hot metal down my throat.

Another healer stomped past Jasen, yanking on tablecloths, slamming down silverware. She paused to pat around her bun, as if the strain of decorating caused her black hairs to stray. A tray of sliced meat must have vexed her because she shoved it aside and knocked several pieces to the ground.

A voice bubbled into my mind like a fizzy drink. Hungry. Smells good.

The voice wasn’t audible, so I couldn’t locate it by sound, but it only took a moment to find its source. One of Jasen’s tiny canines darted around the healer and gobbled the spilled morsels. I pretended I didn’t see it, but it sat, eyes on me, and barked. More, more, more.

The healer stilled, watching the canine watching me. My insides tightened. I scooted back into my room, out of her sight line, but I heard her high-pitched voice over the dog’s barking. “She’s unnatural, that one. Deviant and destructive. Takes after her mother’s people. Mark me, she’ll do something to ruin—”

A mechanical hum sounded, and a shimmering haze dropped like a sheer curtain over my balcony doorway. The outside noises went silent. Master Eli, my protector, teacher, and sometimes warden, stood in my doorway, hand lingering over the audio shield switch on my wall. His wide shoulders filled the wooden door frame. “Serenity, what have I told you about listening to those healers’ poison?”

Not waiting for my answer, he strode past the marble fountain in the center of my room toward my desk, footfalls silent on the stone floor, posture as stiff as his forest-green warrior uniform. He looked over my bed, probably making sure I’d pulled the covers military straight. A band secured his platinum hair in a tight tail and a broadsword loomed over his shoulder.

Unlike the healers who thought of carrying a sharp pencil as living dangerously, Nadiv warriors accessorized with weapons, the deadlier the better.

Master Eli didn’t need weapons to look imposing. His stern expression and muscular stature towering eight inches taller than my five-foot-six frame took care of that. He glared out the window. “I have no idea how a people gifted with the ability to heal by touch can be so intolerable.” He glanced my way. “Present company excluded.”

But the healers’ words rattled in my head: unnatural, deviant, mongrel. “We both know they’ll never accept me, the half breed.”

“You’re worth more than a legion of them,” Eli said.

My stomach felt as though I’d tied it into a knot. “I think they suspect. You didn’t see her staring when the canine—”

“Ignore them. Elder Jasen’s been ill tempered since the war exiled us to this planet, and celebrations make healers irritable.”

“Why?”

“Reminds them of everything the Raphients stole from us.” Typical Eli, he didn’t elaborate but nodded toward the gown hanging on my closet door. “You should be dressed.”

The gown’s sapphire hue matched my eyes and complimented my dark hair. The shiny blue fabric distracted from my too-dark-to-be-a-healer cinnamon skin. Father said I would look beautiful. It was the perfect dress for the perfect healer princess.

More like the perfect imposter.

Needing something to do with my hands that didn’t involve punching, I straightened my bookshelf filled with volumes about famous warriors. Lord Teomir’s handsome face stared back at me from one of the covers. “I wish Father would cancel the ceremony.”

Eli raised a finger, a sure sign a lecture followed. “Remember your warrior training, apprentice? Free your mind. Focus. Face the enemy.”

“Certainly, I’ll storm out there tonight in combat boots and swing a sword around. The healers will be thrilled.”

The sarcasm earned a look from Eli that could pierce glass. “Your father told you to cease your worries about the oath.”

Eli had a talent for not only getting to the point but also stomping on it. The squeeze of discomfort in my chest ballooned into a tourniquet. “No, Father said, ‘Duty first, worry second.’”

“Then you should listen.”

“But if I take the oath, I might as well order my execution.”

“I know!” Eli's words blasted out sharp as swords. I sensed rather than saw a blast of crimson waves crash toward me from his mind—my deviant brain’s way of giving color to his emotions.

I blinked to clear away the intrusion. Sensing emotions in colors wasn’t a healer or prophet trait. Instead, this extra ability was one of my deadly talents I had to conceal if I wanted to live.

Another reason I couldn’t take that oath.

Eli took a long breath and smoothed the indigo silk banner hanging on the wall—one of the few relics I possessed from my prophet mother. Another wave of emotion billowed toward me, this one matching the indigo colors on the banner. Was he angry? Sad? If I were a full telepath, one that could read people’s minds, I’d know. But if I were a full telepath like the Raphients, I wouldn’t have survived this long.

“I wish your mother still lived.” His words came out rushed and hushed, as though he spoke to himself. “She’d give us an idea of what the future holds.” He released the banner, as though it burned his fingers, and cleared his throat, back in the room, back in his role of stern master. “Today, we trust your father.”

Movement outside drew his gaze. He parted the curtains and grunted. “Marvelous. That nature-tender’s been eating mushrooms again.”

Outside, a vine smacked the backside of a healer. A few patio levels down, a lanky male swished his finger around in the air. The same vine, weaving like a charmed snake, yanked on the healer’s hair. He snickered. She scowled. I couldn’t hear her retort, but by the way she stomped on the plant, it wasn’t nice. Two tall warriors headed toward the troublemaker.

Any other day, I might’ve laughed. “I rarely see the nature-tenders in action. They’re amazing.”

Eli pinched the bridge of his nose. “That one’s a tree-talking nightmare. I’d better get out there.”