Sword shall guide the hands of men . . .
For over a thousand years the kingdom of Lardan has been at peace:
isolated from the world, safe from the wars of its neighbors, slowly
forgetting the wild and deadly magic of its origins. Now the deepest
truths of the past and the darkest predictions for the future survive
only in the verses of nursery rhymes.
For over a thousand years, some of Lardan’s fractious provinces have been biding their time.
Kyali Corwynall is the daughter of the Lord General, a child of one
of the royal Houses, and the court’s only sword-wielding girl. She has
known for all of her sixteen years what the future holds for
her–politics and duty, the management of a House, and protecting her
best friend, the princess and presumed heir to the throne. But one day
an old nursery rhyme begins to come true, an ancient magic wakes, and
the future changes for everyone. In the space of a single night her
entire life unravels into violence and chaos. Now Kyali must find a way
to master the magic her people have left behind, or watch her world–and
her closest friends–fall to a war older than the kingdom itself.
Excerpt:
The next branch took her unawares and
caught her full in the face. It stung, and she stopped. A hand to her nose came
back bloodied. The realization that she was being a fool came to her somehow
out of the sight of her own blood. Here she was, running from nothing, in the
middle of—
Oh, damn.
In her preoccupation, she had been a very
great fool indeed.
The trees parted just in front of her. Two
men were gaping at her from where they sat on the ground near a smothered
firepit.
Outlaws. And she was
completely alone here.
For a brief instant, not even a whisper of
wind marred the perfect silence, and then one man gave a wild shout, leaping to
his feet. The other lunged at her from where he knelt, a flash of metal in his
hands. She felt the shock of whatever it was as it grated off her vest.
Her sword came free of its sheath and cut
his feet out from under him. His scream was terrible. The rest seemed to happen
as if at some distance—the arc of blood following the sweep of steel, the
bewildered agony on the man’s face as she drove her sword through him. It was
far too easy.
Her own ragged panting brought her back to
herself.
Kyali backed up a step and then another,
and moaned in what she first thought was horror and then realized was pain. At
her side, her blood leaked out. A great deal of it was already soaking the
leather armor.
A very great deal of it.
Not so easy after all, it seemed.
The second man held an old dagger. The
pain, when she let fall her sword and tried to release the side buckle of her
vest, loosened her knees. She dropped to the ground. The locket around her neck
leapt up and swung. She stared fixedly at the Corwynall dragon engraved on it
as she worked at the armor’s catches, hissing through clenched teeth, trying to
ignore the pain, which was rising rapidly past endurance.
The buckle came undone. Her fingers found
the wound at once, and she drew in a ragged gasp and shrieked at the feel of
her hand against it. Unable to do anything else, Kyali pressed both hands
against the outpouring of blood, rolling onto her back.
The peaceful trees grew shadowed, then
faded altogether into a strangely gold-flecked dark.
Interview:
1)
What is your novel about?
Sword is a coming of age high fantasy about a girl pretty
much at odds with everything, including and especially herself. It's set in a
fictional kingdom called Lardan, one with a long history of magic and war, and a
population so complacent they've forgotten that either one ever applied to
them. They learn differently when history begins to repeat itself: there's an
uprising, the kingdom is thrown into civil war, and the royal family, of which
my main character Kyali is a satellite member, is murdered. Kyali, her brother,
and the princess are forced into exile with a small army of refugees. Kyali was
badly hurt during the uprising, and comes out of that a changed person;
unfortunately for her she's now the only person with the training to command
what is left of the army, and her friends need her.
Sword is her story, how she learns to deal with what happened to her
without shutting out the people she loves, and with the responsibilities she
has to shoulder now that the older generation is dead and the kingdom is
overrun. It's about loyalty and love, fate and family and politics. It's also
violent, occasionally sarcastic, and unabashedly sappy.
2) What inspired you to write the story?
I had a very sullen young woman with a battered old sword and no patience
kicking my frontal lobe. As motivators go, it was a pretty good one.
--Ok, so that's a little dramatic, but really not too far from the truth
(except the part about the frontal lobe, of course). Kyali Corwynall started
out as a patchwork of some of my favorite characters from books like Robin
McKinley's The Blue Sword and The Hero and the Crown, and Patricia McKillip's Cygnet,
going all the way back to Barbara Helen Berger's Gwinna, which I
read when I was seven. My brain is like cosmic flypaper: the stuff I like (or
hate) sticks, accumulates, eventually acquires a gravitational field, and
before I know it light's bending around it and I'm up at 3 am mainlining coffee
and my keyboard's broken. Sword was like that. One day I had
scattered pieces, and the next I had a character with layers, flaws, goals,
scars, and a complicated history. Stories always start that way for me, no
matter how cool my premise may be (or how cool I may think it is, anyway) --my
characters inspire and drive it, start to finish.
3) Since your novel is medieval-influenced, can you tell us a bit about your
researching journey?
Wow. How I'd love to give you a list of planned, organized steps I took. It
would make me feel so much smarter!
But no. I stumbled into the research for Sword much like I did
the story itself. I think my research began the moment I realized I had no idea
how heavy a sword really was, or how hard it might be to wear armor and, you
know, walk at the same time. I remember thinking writing fantasy would be easy
(yes, feel free to laugh at me). It didn't take long before I realized it was
very, very obvious when I didn't know what I was talking about. So I went from
looking up Irish baby names online to running to the library after work to find
the Focloir Scoile or The Book of the Sword. I
eventually learned to restrain myself, because research can be a wonderful
excuse for not writing when you're stuck-- but overall, it was great fun.
4) What's your best revision tip?
Remember basic dramatic structure when you're reading your draft(s). It
definitely doesn't always apply, and definitely shouldn't always
apply, but I've found it can be a great lens: I can look at the whole story,
each subplot and character arc, each chapter, and each scene with that
structure in mind, and I'll always find something to tweak. Or
mangle. Or outright kill.
...Revision is a slightly violent process for me.
Born in 1981 to Australian and Maltese parents, Selina lives
in Australia with her husband, her baby girl, an unnamed cat, and
a lorikeet who's far too clever.
