True to my word, I started today on the second draft of Aquae, my NaNoWriMo novel. I thought I’d share the first page, and I’d love to get some feedback on it. Does it draw you in as an opening? Perhaps most importantly, how old would you say the narrator is, judging from this scene? I’m a little concerned that I haven’t quite nailed the appropriate voice for his age, so I’m curious.

Thanks for taking a look! (Also, don’t forget that you can still enter to win an ebook copy of His Own Good Sword; check out this post.)

Chapter I

I knew as well as anyone that you were seven kinds of a fool to be caught in the wood after dark-fall. White-haired old Alba, who was pious and cautious and wise with long, solemn wisdom about such things, had labored to drive it into my impious skull: best not to go into the wood at all, because the genii of that ancient place didn’t look kindly upon human trespassing. Ever thirsty for blood they were, now we’d given them the taste for it. If you must go into the wood, Alba said, better to do it in daylight, when the spirits drew back deep into the earth and the water and the stones and the tree-trunks to take their slumber, and better to bring an offering with you—milk, perhaps, or a bit of meal—to soften the offense of your presence.

Stephanos, who was British-born and not so pious, said he didn’t know about the genii; his gods had abandoned the wood during the war and maybe our Roman ones had taken up in it instead, he didn’t know. But there were dangers just the same, hunters and slavers and wild men, and always, always it was best not to go into the wood alone.

I was condemned on both counts. I’d brought no milk or meal, and I was quite alone.

There was still blood trickling from my nose and from the welt over my left eyebrow where Felix’s fat fists had landed. I could feel it wet and cold as I walked. I could feel it dripping on the ground. Alba’s words were loud in my head: ever thirsty for blood, the spirits of this place. Panic took me by the throat. Out came a torrent of frantic prayers: let it be enough. Let it be enough, spirits, and I’ll bring a bowl of goat’s milk every morning to leave on the little stone altar above the east-west road. (I knew that was a foolish vow even as I spoke it: where would I get the coin for an offering?) Let it be enough and I’ll never set foot in this place again, no matter how desperate I am, no matter how close Felix and his mule-headed lackeys come to killing me, curse them—

But there were no answers to my prayers either way, only the creaking of the trees in the wind, and the unsteady puffing of my own breath, and the loud, quick beating of my heart.

I made myself keep moving. I felt my way slowly, cautiously in the dark over the treacherous ground, over mossy downed branches and the long, creeping trailers of ivy stretched out like fingers to snatch me. I’d taken this for a southward slant when I’d started, an hour ago or more; it had been my plan, on entering the wood, to loop around and come out on the road and steal back into the city by way of the west-gate, before Felix and his minions had been any the wiser. That had been my plan. It had seemed simple in daylight. But I’d had no sign of the road yet, as I should have done a half-hour gone, and it was full darkness about me now. Not the city-darkness to which I was accustomed, warm and richly blue and gold-shot with the light of lamps and torches, rumorous with voices. No, this was wood-darkness, deep and black and cold, heavy as an iron weight hung round my shoulders.

It came into my mind, as I went on and on, the time slipping away and the darkness drawing down deeper, that perhaps I’d already crossed the threshold into the spirits’ world. Perhaps I’d wander forever in this void, like the poor shades who haven’t the fare to pay their passage across Acheron.

That was a heavy thought. I didn’t want to be dead, but better by far to be dead than half-dead, caught forever between two worlds, unable to rest, unable to wake.

Curse me for a fool, I should never have come into the wood.

To be fair, it wasn’t really my fault. I hadn’t trespassed willingly. I’d been driven in like a hunted animal. I didn’t know if that made any difference, but I thought it should, if the gods truly cared about justice the way Timon said they must, out of necessity. He hadn’t been talking about wood-spirits in particular, of course, but surely the wood-spirits cared for justice, too, and surely they knew how Felix had forced me to it.

[To be continued . . .]