Rick Riordan Presents: A Touch of Blood from author Sajni Patel is on sale tomorrow! Get your first taste of the highly-anticipated follow-up to A Drop of Venom right here.
And if you’ve already read A Drop of Venom, then maybe this goes without saying, but this chapter excerpt isn’t for the faint of heart!
ESHANI
(Five Years Ago)
Specks of blood and ash floated through the air, reaching as high as the twilight sky, choking what vanishing sunlight remained.
Eshani and her family stood in their courtyard, the gardens she’d tended now bruised and wilting around them. Trepidation grew heavy and dire in their hearts. At thirteen years old, Eshani was saying goodbye to her father. Papa was a scholar, but the warriors were no more. So he laid down his scrolls and picked up a shield, exchanged his white-and-gold kurta for makeshift armor.
Eshani had never seen her father afraid. But when he crouched in front of his three daughters and handed them each the last pomegranates from their tree, his hands quivered.
Manisha was the youngest, at eleven. Once the most carefree, she was now filled with sobs. Sithara, Eshani’s twin and second eldest by two minutes, was immobile, holding back her emotions. Mama stood behind them, her cheeks wet with tears, determination carving new lines on her face.
Tendrils of despair bloomed around Eshani like datura flowers clamoring to unfurl. Slow but sudden, gently but earnestly. She let her sisters take their pomegranates first, and with trembling fingers, she wrapped her hands around the last of the bulbous fruit. Papa’s jaw hardened, but his eyes spoke volumes of fear and sorrow, resolve and pride. He’d hugged all three girls to him. Mama’s weeping was stifled by the padded footsteps of Lekha’s approach.
The five-foot-tall golden tiger made her way through the gardens that had slowly withered as ash loomed above the city of Anand.
Lekha had been a whining cub when Eshani found her and smuggled her into the city, hiding her in the family estate of stone homes carved into the canyons, connected by gardens. She’d nurtured her and bathed her and stolen milk for the cub that quickly grew. When Eshani’s parents had found out, Papa was the first to explain why Lekha couldn’t stay—and the second to fall in love with her.
That day, Lekha pressed her large orange nose into Papa’s palm, purring and whining because she, too, could not bear to see him go. When he stood to leave, the rising dawn at his back, Lekha wailed, nipping at the edges of his kurta, dragging him back even as the other men marched past on their way to battle.
Eshani wrapped her long, lean arms around her friend and comforted her, weeping into Lekha’s fur.
Eshani wasn’t a hero like Papa, who freely rode into the Fire Wars on a water buffalo fitted with armor.
She wasn’t a goddess like Mama, an architect with a love for gardening who’d turned trowels into weapons, throwing her shears with deadly accuracy.
She wasn’t fearless like Sithara, who bristled with indignation.
She wasn’t optimistic like Manisha, who had yet to find her footing in this quickly changing era.
When Papa, and those who went into battle alongside him, failed to return, the women and young ones set out to fight, having trained each day since the looming threat of war.
Merchant carts had long since been stripped for stakes and nails. Metal melted for blades and arrowheads, all dipped in the blood of Eshani’s foremothers. The blood, said to be more potent than a cobra’s venom, had begun to run dry, and Eshani wondered—with wretchedness—if her own life force was lethal like the naga before her. The temptation to cleave open her own veins, if it meant saving her people, was staggering.
Sweat beaded on Eshani’s forehead, mixing with grime as rivulets poured down her temples. Her long dark hair unwound itself from her braid. Soot covered her kurta and leggings. Dirt smeared her dark brown skin. Her lanky body ached.
The last great battle swelled around them, blocking the view of her homeland for the final time. Swords clashed against shields, spears and arrows cut the air, daggers and tridents drove through flesh and bones. Both giants and men fell, the earth soaking up their blood like a parched mouth hungrily partaking of a feast.
Blood and ash freckled Eshani’s face, weighing down her lashes and stinging her lips, as she rode Lekha through the frenzy of a tempestuous battle. The tiger shuddered beneath her, a mass of muscle and fury, a death trap for any who found themselves in the path of her razor-edged teeth. The sway of her powerful head knocked soldiers out of the way left and right. Her weight alone was fearsome.
Outraged soldiers aimed for Lekha. How dare they. With swiftness, Eshani unleashed arrows bearing winter-steel tips coated in her foremothers’ blood. The arrows met their marks, driving venom into soldiers and delivering quick deaths.
Eshani made sure not a single weapon harmed Lekha as the tiger ripped into one enemy after another. Blood dripped from her fangs and fur, and Eshani hoped to properly clean her before any infections set in.
In the near distance, between palls of smoke, Sithara unleashed a mighty cry, driving a spear into a soldier’s skull with all her might. The muscles of her thin arms contracted beneath the torn sleeves of her sullied once-beige kurta. Blood splattered her face, a remarkable glistening red against dirt-smudged brown.
This was what the kingdom had become: grown men slaughtering children, cleaving knives through spines.
At her mother’s urging, Eshani reluctantly left her family behind, riding Lekha through to twilight to find a safe path, for the army had blocked off all other routes. Lekha sprinted across the plains, a golden flash like a firefly carrying secrets.
There, the marshlands awaited, a shortcut to the jungles beyond with a weighty price. Beyond the precipice, one tree blended into another, a menacing wall of darkness melting into the sky. Eshani trembled as the last drops of adrenaline faded, nearly succumbing to sleepiness. Still she pushed onward, sliding off Lekha and admonishing the tiger to stay put. But Lekha persisted, and together they went, walking side by side. Lekha’s warm fur, no matter how sullied, remained a thing of comfort.
Deep inside this strange land, morning light dawned on delicate grass wet with dew. Beyond lay the edges of dark soil and dark trees full of dark leaves. It seemed even light was reluctant to enter the marshlands.
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