Thought I’d give you all a break from Song and Sword (I’ll probably come back to it in December) and spend the month posting excerpts from whatever I’ve written for NaNoWriMo the previous week.
I’m working on a prequel to the Academy of the Accord series. The tentative title is Creating Accord and it’s set a few generations before the series.
Boyin and Zin have met for the first time and Boyin has agreed to be Zin’s personal bodyguard. What neither one knows or understands is the bond that is forming between them already.
(In the series it is established that some warriors are “Warders” (I will find a better name for that) who have an instinct to protect wizards. And sometimes a Warder finds his wizard (or vice versa) and they form a special – and very deep – bond. Boyin, however is the first Warder, and he and Zin are the first bonded pair.)
“I will.” Boyin nodded and turned toward the door of the wagon, finding that he was reluctant to leave. This wizard had been on his mind since the first time he saw him and now that he’d found him…
So, I’ve found him, now what? he asked himself, shaking his head. He’s just a wizard, someone I just met, just my employer… He sighed. He wasn’t fooling himself and he wasn’t used to avoiding a problem.
And this wizard was a problem. He had a price on his head and as military… Ex-military, he reminded himself; he was no longer under any obligation to turn the man in, although he could no doubt earn back his commission if he did so.
He couldn’t do it. He knew what fate most likely awaited Zin if the military got their hands on him and he simply could not bear the thought of that happening. He shook his head. He didn’t understand it, but he was a warrior, a soldier. He didn’t have to understand it, just accept the truth of it and act accordingly.
And part of acting accordingly was getting back to the wizard as soon as possible. For some reason he found it almost painful to be away from him.
Novel Notes 
You’ve done a wonderful job showing his internal conflict. I’m looking forward to what happens next.
Nice…I like how you’ve revealed your character’s motive and how it shaped the title and driving goal of the plot in this excerpt.
I like this origin story. You do have him shaking his head – you might give him another action to show his distress. Great snippet, P.T. :)
Yeah, I know. In my first drafts my characters all nod and shake their heads a lot. They’re worse than those bobble head dogs that sit on your car’s dashboard. I fix it in edits.