Why yes, I do know it’s not Tuesday. But Tuesday is #5MinuteFiction day and I don’t want to muddle up the order of the posts. So I’m posting today a short excerpt for you to enjoy, and I’ll tweet about it next Tuesday.

This is the prologue to my, as yet unnamed, WIP, a fantasy.

The Curse of Ancestors

Tomin died in battle at nineteen years of age, having succeeded his father, the Duke, by only four days.  Duke Hillian’s body had been taken by the King’s men, to be drawn and quartered and his head hung on a spike of Traitor’s Gate. But Duke Tomin’s men made off with their dying Lord and carried him home to be buried on his ancestral lands.

Duchess Nevin stood at the gate, watching as her only son came home, cold and pale, laid out on an oxcart. She was always a quiet woman, but everyone who remembered that day spoke in hushed tones of the deathly silence that emanated from her like cold off a block of ice.

The cart drew to a stop and as she approached the bier, the overcast day darkened around her. Most say she said nothing at all. Others remember her lips trembling. Only one boy remembered her speaking over the body. Three words: “Villias, nomis, tin.”

But the boy was very young. And he died soon after.