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Patricia Reding
a book bubble about
Ephemeral and Fleeting
Science Fiction & Fantasy
Author Insight
Risks of Deterioration
It was fun for me to write about the twins arriving at the ancestral home of the Select in Shimeron. In some ways, it was like returning home myself--home to portions of the storyline in the first book of The Oathtaker Series. When Mara first visited the palace some twenty years earlier, she arrived with Basha through the underground tunnels that had been built as a means for providing an alternate escape route for the first family. Now, when the twins visit for the first time in their young adult lives, an entourage travels with them.The twins will soon discover that the palace lost some of its prior glory, having been mostly empty since Lilith left there on her mission to kill them as infants. Thieves had visited in the meantime, carrying away valuables. And the elements, no doubt, caused some damage. In writing these portions, I could feel the "wear" that the place experienced while vacant. Without regular care, things quickly deteriorate. That is true of people and their relationships, homes, and even objects. Have you ever experienced that?
Book Excerpt
Ephemeral and Fleeting
After having left behind a handful of Oathtakers in the event that more orphaned children showed up at Vida and Clarimonde’s home in Ethanward, the traveling entourage of Oathtakers and Select finally arrived in Shimeron. Bernard, a longtime doorman at the palace, and the only person who’d resided there for some years, was delighted with their arrival.
It was fortunate that Basha and Therese had visited the palace fairly recently and that they’d cleaned much of it, preparing for the day the twins might eventually move there. Even so, it took days to unpack and to rearrange things so as to accommodate some of the former compound residents.
In the end, they found room in the palace for all of the members of the Select who had made the trip, and their Oathtakers, as well as for Vida, Clarimonde, and their children. With the exception of some household staff, the remaining people who’d traveled with them to Shimeron—for the most part, Oathtakers without living charges—set up camp on the palace grounds. There they’d remain until they could construct more buildings, or make other plans.
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