Legacy Incarnate BIV Excerpt

My New Year's gift to y'all, an excerpt from my other work in progress, Incarnate Key. It's been so interesting rewriting this story, but one thing I wanted to keep from the original was the strong bond Sabra and her friend and ward Xenta develop in their journey together. I hope you enjoy reading about their friendship!

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Spring in the Forest of Trio brought with it an unbearable humidity. The sun evaporated the Winter rains, and that combined with the increasing heat made Xenta feel like he walked through a lake wherever he went. When the humidity covered every inch of him in water and sweat, he finally removed his shirt. Some of his male friends did the same as they took a break in the shade. At least it hadn’t grown so warm that not even shade could offer relief from the sun.

Xenta lifted his bow, made from a local wood that could better withstand fluctuations in temperature and humidity than a Tyrellan bow, and ran a piece of beeswax along the sinew string. Therridan had been talking to a few of the other guys, but he came over and nudged Xenta’s shoulder.

“It’s your girlfriend,” he whispered saucily. Xenta chuckled and turned. Caemorr was limping onto the range, and her face lit up when she spotted him. He trotted over with his bow, giving her a hug and a kiss on the cheek, before guiding her to the shade.

“I’ve wanted to show you this place for a while,” he said.

“I have spent much time just trying to stay cool,” she said, glancing at the others as they stood with interest around them. “But I have enjoyed the ranch. The brooders are amazing.”

“Want to give her a shot?” Xenta said, lifting the bow. Caemorr blinked, then looked at the range. There were six targets, each sat at varying distances. Several other people stood shooting already. “I’ve been practicing for the competition at Caravan Days. I’m going to win it this time.”

“I’ll try,” Caemorr agreed. “But I will need to sit; I can’t stand and shoot with the crutch.”

They located a small log and rolled it onto the range to the closest target, a thirty yard shot. Caemorr avoided looking directly at his friends, only sending them odd glances, before she lifted the bow and arrow and pulled back. Xenta ended up watching her rather than where the arrow would go. She needed to work on her stance, even though they had set the log sideways so she could better draw, but she looked absolutely beautiful wielding that bow.

Caemorr released. The arrow thunked into the edge of the round target. She sighed, and Xenta handed her another arrow.

“She needs a shorter bow, sitting like this,” Therridan said.

“I don’t know if she’ll be able to shoot right at all sitting,” another of his friends said.

“Try adjusting your palm on the grip,” said a third, suddenly reaching to Caemorr’s arm. She jerked, letting go of her shot, and the arrow went flying into the grass.

Xenta grabbed his shoulder and pushed him back with a glower.

“Don’t ever touch someone in the middle of a shot!” he hissed. “Besides, she doesn’t understand Charadda yet.”

“Oh,” he said, shrugging away Xenta’s hand. “Sorry.” He looked at Caemorr. “Sorry.”

Caemorr stared down at her knees, knuckles white around the bow grip.

“Just back off a little, guys, okay?” Xenta said. They moved about ten feet back, and he patted Caemorr’s back and switched to Unvaven. “Better?”

“I need to get your arrow,” she said, suddenly standing.

“Nope, not until the quiver is empty,” he said, holding out his hand. “Here, let me try a few shots.”

She handed him the bow, and he shot a few times at the target. At this close range, it was a breeze getting the bull’s eye each time. Caemorr nodded with a smile. Was she really impressed? He bet she had seen expert archers where she was from; maybe Xenta was nothing new in that regard. He glanced around. There was a tree not too far from the sixty yard line with some low branches, and with a grin he sprinted to it. His friends looked at each other with puzzled expressions before following. Caemorr stared, and it was a moment before she followed too.

Xenta unclipped his hip quiver, slung his bow over his torso, stuck three arrows between his teeth, and jumped. He grabbed the lowest branch and pulled himself up.

“What in the name of pickled chilis are you doing?” Therridan demanded.

Xenta wiggled his eyebrows at Therridan and pulled himself onto the next branch, and then the next, one that stuck out further from the tree than the rest. This was going to be great! Caemorr caught up to the guys, brows wrinkled. He walked out onto the thick branch and sat, pulling off his bow and pinching the arrows between the fingers of his right hand. He held out his arms to either side as if he were already presenting himself to the audience of the Archery Meet, and let himself fall backwards.

They gasped. He hung upside-down by his knees, muscles taut. He willed forth his manna and kissed the tip of each broadhead, not paying much attention to just how much of the spell he put into each one. They glowed with white light, ready for their target. Xenta nocked them to the string and pulled back with a smile. Oh the look Caemorr would give him. He bet no shaman archer had done this.
His mind and body adjusted the bow to the target, and he released. The arrows left streams of light, and as soon as they thunked into the target, sparks of light shot out from the tips like fireworks, accompanied by whistles and pops. His friends clapped, and Caemorr smiled. He bowed upside down.

Then the target exploded.

Bursts of energy ripped the target and its supports apart. Pieces of wood and thatching went flying across the range. Other archers scattered from their shooting lines with yells. Xenta stared, jaw closed hard, and an embarrassed chill ran up and down his body. All that was left was a smoldering pyre fit for a funeral.

“I don’t think Jaluc would let you pull that trick at the Meet,” Sabra said.

Goddess! Xenta twisted, losing grip under one knee, and instead of pulling himself up, twisted off the branch, slammed his ribs into the next one, and landed on his back, his breath blasting out of him with hurricane-force. His bow clattered down beside him.

“Xenta!” Caemorr cried, coming to his side at once. He felt like a fish gasping for air. His friends gathered around him, including Sabra the Incarnate. As soon as he looked at her, a fierce headache hit him, and he grimaced. Sabra and Therridan helped Xenta to his feet, and he arched his back as his muscles knotted and protested. He would be feeling that for a while. He rubbed his bruised ribs and bowed his head to Sabra.

“I’m so sorry, your holiness,” he gasped. He thought about explaining himself, but it would sound so foolish, even to his own ears. “I’ll build a new target right away.”

She cocked her head with an exasperated smile. She wore Adel’s unitard, with a light tunic over it, walking barefoot. Even in the heat, she was reluctant to go around without at least some of her armor. She had tied her hair up into a braided bun, and carried her own bow and quiver.

“Let’s have a sit and look at your back,” Sabra said. “We can talk about the target later.”

After Sabra made sure the fires were put out, she met them back in the shade of the trees. Xenta sat, his posture in an awkward angle. He would be a useless archer like this. Sabra crouched before Xenta, resting her arms on her knees.

“Will we do that again?” she asked softly.

“No, of course not,” he growled. “Now I won’t be able to shoot at all.”

Sabra moved behind him, crouched again, and laid her hands on his back. After a few moments of silence, she whispered her healing spell, and warmth spread up and down  his back. He grunted a few times as muscles were forced out of their knots and reset. She patted his shoulders.

“How does it feel now?” she asked. He fished his spine back and forth with a sigh of relief and nodded, smiling at her. “And before you ask, I won’t touch the bruise on your side you’ll get in the morning. Some scars are best left alone; they remind us not to mess up again.”

“Uh, of course, your holiness,” Xenta said, blinking. A few of his friends snorted as they talked about his fall, and Xenta rolled his eyes at them before standing.

His friends bade him farewell for now, and Caemorr said that she had only come to say hello to him before going back to the duplex. His veiti had promised to show Caemorr how to do some of her knotwork. It made him glad that she had taken time to learn new things and make new friends in Crescent Ridge.

They left the range, and he followed Sabra to the thirty yard line.

“I would have done the sixty,” she explained as she strung her bow, “but it is, well, out of commission.”

He smiled at her gentle humor. This was the first time since Sabra found them in the Huth that they had been alone together, and he cherished moments like this, even though he still felt like an oaf. Sabra lifted her bow and took her time aiming. She hit the third ring twice, then the second ring twice, and finally got a bull’s eye.

“I think I’ve only seen you shoot once before,” he commented, sitting a few feet to the side. “What brought you out today?”

“Well, Priest Faerden wouldn’t let me forget that it was my birthday, so I’m celebrating by doing something I hardly ever get to do,” she explained before nocking and shooting again. She didn’t sound angry, but she didn’t exactly sound happy either.

Her last arrows landed outside the third ring. Xenta held her bow as she trotted out to gather up her arrows. She looked to be in her mid-twenties, and moved with the grace of youth. Being in top shape surely helped her with that, but he wondered not for the first time how old she really was. He had never dared to ask, and few actually knew her age. It didn’t seem like something the Incarnate liked to announce to all of Hakor.

Something that he had realized while sitting and thinking in the prisons of the Huth, however, was how little he actually knew about the people he cared about. Now that he was free and back home, his curiosity flared up, and he waited eagerly for Sabra to get back.

“How old are you?” he asked as he handed back her bow. She gave him a stoic expression, and then moved back to the shooting line.

“I’m ninety years . . . I think,” she said, then lifted her bow and shot. Second ring this time.

Ninety! Older than Xenta thought. Of course, he didn’t know much about her past. She was the Incarnate, the prophetess of Hakor, and had gathered people to the doors of the Lunar Temple for at least a few years before he had come. At some point, before she had come to Hakor, she had been married with a family, but she had never explained what ended up happening to them save that her husband died.

“You will be nineteen this year, right?” Sabra said with a smile. He nodded. “And you will be taking your priesthood vows next week. I look forward to it.”

He grinned. Ever since returning to Crescent Ridge, he had worked on fulfilling his duties as a Senior Acolyte and preparing himself for the priesthood, amid his other activities of home-building and catching up with family and courting Caemorr. At the church in a week, in the middle of Caravan Days, Sabra would ordain him a Median, or priest, of the Gospel.

When Sabra took a break and Xenta didn’t feel like such an idiot from his explosion and fall, he took the thirty yard line and pounded arrows into the target. She sat where he had been, observing his shots.

“Do you remember when you came to the Lunar Temple?” Sabra said.

“Yes, clearly,” he said. “It was when I met you.”

He had been about five years old. His parents had traveled with a group of other Tyrellan Unia’a across the sea and anchored in Dagger Bay, just north of the Lunar Temple. It had all been so exciting and strange. His parents had tried to explain the reason for the journey, that he would be helping the god Zarem and living in a beautiful new place, and that sometimes they would need to leave but they would come back often. Xenta had taken it in stride, and though he understood what they said, he lived in the present, and the reality of it didn’t hit him until they finally got to the gleaming doors of the Lunar Temple.

Icariu and a group of other priests and priestesses had been waiting for the caravan. He hadn’t known then that his parents and others had written ahead to the temple of their arrival, and that Sabra had prepared everything needful for the faithful travelers.

Calin and Trent stepped forward to Sabra, presenting Xenta to her. Xenta could only stare at the Unia’a. She wore white armor that seemed to meld with the temple behind her, and her skin held a light golden tan, different from the paleness of his own skin. And her face was just so pretty, especially when she smiled and knelt before him.

“Are you Xenta?” she had asked.

“Yeah,” he squeaked.

“Your holiness,” Calin hissed.

“Your holiness,” Xenta added quickly.

“You have been brought here for a special reason, little one,” Sabra said. “Do you know why?”

Xenta’s mind wandered into memory, and he nodded with his blunt and honest answer.

“I am a gift from Zarem, and a gift to Zarem,” he said. He started bouncing up and down. “I’m going to live here with you!”

Back then he hadn’t known the heartache and trials his parents had gone through just to have him, nor the covenant Calin had made with the gods to give her child to Their service should she have one.

“What good energy!” Sabra said with a laugh, holding out her hand. Xenta took it in both his own. “Me and the others will watch over you, okay? If you need anything, I will help you.”

“Veiti and boba will leave,” Xenta agreed. “But they’ll come back every day!”

Calin and Trent had looked at each other in a funny way, then back and Xenta.

“We are here for the ordinances, Xenta,” Trent said, now bowing to one knee to meet his son’s eyes. “Maybe for a week or so, but then me and mommy must go back on the boat and far away.”

“We’ll try to come back at least every two years,” Calin explained to both Xenta and Sabra, writhing her hands together.

Xenta’s little face scrunched up in confusion.

“Years?” he asked. A year was a long time to a child, even an elven child who understood things like time.

Now Calin knelt beside Xenta and hugged him.

“You’re our little blessing, and you will bless everyone you meet here,” veiti assured. “Zarem has promised us this. Do you believe it?”

“Yeah!” he said, bouncing in her arms. He puffed out his chest as she pulled away. “I am brave Xenta, warrior Xenta. I will help everyone.”

Wow, that had all been so long ago. Now he was almost a priest, fulfilling his family’s promise to the gods. After he became a priest, what would he do? Would he keep living here, or would he be sent away to preach the Gospel? Would Caemorr decide she wanted to marry him?

“Will you shoot anymore, Xenta?”

He blinked, realizing he had stood with an arrow nocked but hadn’t yet drawn, staring across the range. He turned his gaze to the Incarnate, who gave him that same gentle smile.

“You don’t sound too happy to be turning ninety,” he commented before he thought to stop himself. He just wanted to break his awkward pause in thought with a different topic.

Sabra’s expression fell, and she stood as if to leave.

“Hey, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to —”

“I have not taken offense, Xenta,” she said. She stood beside him with a heavy sigh. “I should be saying sorry.”

“For what?”

“I promised your parents I would watch over you like my own son,” Sabra went on. “I loved watching you grow in your tender years… and then I up and left for several more. I abandoned my promise to your parents, torn between my loyalty to the temple and the loyalty to my friends. It was not an easy decision. And not only you, but so many of your friends, so many that died in the Huth.” She wrung her hands about the grip of her bow. “I’m afraid many families left the Gospel because of my failure, their faith broken because of me.”

“I missed you,” Xenta whispered. Her eyes were wet, and she kept her gaze riveted on the target. He laid a hand on her slender shoulder. “We all did, but I never blamed you. I know the gods call you places when They need you. Rescue from the temple, and most especially from you, was my ultimate hope while me and Caemorr were enslaved. I prayed, and the gods answered with you. They brought you back, full circle, and you’re here now. That’s what matters.”

“Thank-you, Xenta,” she rasped, wiping the tears from her eyes and looking at him. “You have wisdom beyond your years. Zarem blessed your parents with a special boy, and I see greatness ahead of you.”

He shrugged with a helpless smile. Sabra held out an arm, and they shared a brief, tight hug.

“If you have questions for me, don’t be afraid to ask,” she said as they pulled away. “It’s a terrifying thing, not knowing if you’ll ever talk to a loved one again.” She unstrung her bow and cradled it against one arm. “After Henry died, birthdays became a burdensome thing for me. I grew up in a society where most sentients never lived beyond eighty, and deep down, no matter how much I denied its reality, I was scared how I would outlive my husband and even my children, who were all human half-bred. The thought still haunts me, but at least I have a father that can share the same long years with me.”

Xenta retrieved his arrows, unstrung his bow, fitted on his shirt, and walked arm-in-arm back to Crescent Ridge with Sabra.

“Who is your father?” he asked as they trod a dirt trail down a hill.

“High Priest Aaron, of Zanoll,” she replied. He started, almost jerking them to a stop.

“Aaron?” he demanded. “The High Priest Aaron?” Sabra gave him a sly smile, raising her brows. “This just keeps getting better and better.”

“Not everyone knows that, so don’t go about blabbering it,” she sniffed. He grinned and pretended to check if anyone was listening.

“Okay, I’ll let that be your little…ah, ‘secret,’” he said. They laughed, their voices echoing through the trees, and disappeared around the bend in the path that led back to town.

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Excerpt from The Legacy Incarnate, BIV: Incarnate Key © 2019 by Sarah Bailey. This excerpt does not necessarily represent the final version of the manuscript.