“What do you want to do for your first night in your unit?” he asks.
“Something I’ve been wanting for a long time,” I say in a husky voice.
He moves closer. “And that is?”
“A shower.”
Niall’s confused expression turns into disappointment.
I laugh. “With you.”
Delight and desire replace his frustration. “Ah, your dedication to your personal hygiene should be commended.”
“Shut up and strip.”
“Yes, sir.”
The shower is as wonderful as I’d imagined. Hot water, soapy skin, and Niall’s rippling muscles under my hands. Steam fills the washroom and we spend a long time just kissing without anyone interrupting us. Bliss. There is no hurry and we don’t plan to rush into anything just yet.
We have all the time in the Galaxy.
THE END.
Q?
The Eyes of Tamburah
Excerpt
Read on for an excerpt from Maria’s upcoming new fantasy novel, The Eyes of Tamburah, available February 2021!
CHAPTER ONE
The heat thickened the air in Shyla’s room to an uncomfortable level. Sweat slicked her skin and dampened her sleeveless tunic. She adjusted the mirrors to better capture the thin ray of sunlight streaming through a single mirror pipe extruding from her ceiling. Moving another reflective panel until it illuminated the ancient map spread over her table, she resumed her work. The faded ink was barely discernable as it crossed the velbloud skin.
The temperature rose another few degrees, warning her that she needed to retreat to the deeper levels before the sun reached angle eighty. Despite being three levels underground, it still wasn’t safe to be this high. All of her neighbors had descended angles ago. But excitement zipped along her spine—she was so close.
Shyla continued to translate the archaic symbols. Nothing but sunlight would reveal the location of the Gorgain crypt and the meeting with her client was scheduled for angle two-ten. The historian had paid her in advance for the information, which was proving to be more difficult to find than she’d expected.
A damp strand of her long pale-yellow hair slipped free of the tie, but she didn’t have time to fix it. According to the map’s legend, the blue line represented the tunnel the grave diggers had used. She traced it with a fingertip, honing in on—
An impatient pounding on her door broke her concentration. She glared at the thick slab of rough sand-coated glass that guarded her room. It vibrated with each knock. There wasn’t time for interruptions, but if it was a client—
“It’s an emergency,” called Banqui.
She sighed. Everything was an emergency with Banqui. As the Water Prince’s chief archaeologist, he believed his projects should be her top priority. But the man had referred her services to his colleagues, helping her establish her business. After a forlorn glance at the map, she unlocked the door and slid it aside, allowing Banqui to enter.
He hustled into her room and stopped dead. “Scorching hells, Shyla. It’s a thousand degrees in here.”
Banqui also tended to exaggerate.
“Hello to you too.”
Ignoring her, he said, “I’ve been looking all over for you in the lower levels. The sun is almost at angle seventy. What are you still doing up here?”
She gestured to the map on her table. “Researching.”
“You need to leave right away.”
“There’s plenty of time before I’m cooked. Before I was interrupted, I was just about to finish up.” She gave him a pointed look.
But instead of apologizing for barging in on her and leaving, he just stared at her in shock. “Shyla, haven’t you heard?”
She studied her best client and perhaps friend. His short black hair stuck up at various angles—probably from running his fingers through it in agitation. He was frequently anxious and stressed by the Water Prince’s demands. But this time fear lurked in his dark brown eyes and his tan tunic and pants, normally impeccable —he had plenty of diggers conscripted by the prince to do his dirty work—were torn and stained with…blood?
“Heard what?” she asked as unease stirred in her chest.
He paced around the table. Tall and lean with lanky legs, it didn’t take him long to make a circuit. Her room was small and filled with the basics—a table, sitting cushions, a couple shelves filled with her trinkets and clothes, a water jug, her sleeping cushion mounded with a fur, and the mirrors.
Banqui made another loop. She stepped into his path, stopping him. “Tell me before you wear a groove in my floor.”
Rivers of sweat streaked down the sides of his face, darkening his brown skin. His gaze settled on the map. “How long have you been working?”
“Two or three sun jumps.”
“And you get immersed in your research,” he muttered then drew in a deep breath. “I found The Eyes of Tamburah. They were in the temple’s hidden vault just like you predicted.”
Excitement warred with confusion. “That’s wonderful. Right?”
“It was glorious. They were exquisite. Crafted from diamonds, emeralds, onyx, and the purest white topaz I’ve ever seen.” His voice held an almost fanatical reverence. “They were magnificent, Shyla. My greatest find in my entire career.”
Considering he’d been uncovering ancient ruins and artifacts for over seven thousand sun jumps—roughly twenty circuits, they must have been impressive. “And then the Water Prince claimed them. You knew that would happen. He finances your digs.”
“It’s worse than that.”
What could be worse? “You lost them?”
“No! They were stolen!” Unable to remain still, Banqui resumed his pacing.
Treasure hunters were always a problem. Despite the Water Prince’s proclamation that all historical items found within Zirdai’s official boundaries became the property of the crown, the richer citizens collected antiquities through a thriving black market—the rarer the find, the more lucrative. And The Eyes of Tamburah were legendary. Rumored to give their owner magical powers, the gemstones had a long and bloody history. No wonder they were stolen by some greedy hunter. They would fetch a staggering sum in any city in Koraha, assuming the thief lived long enough to leave Zirdai.
“Sorry to hear that,” Shyla said. “The Water Prince must be—”
“No words can describe his anger.” Banqui clutched her shoulders. “Which is why you must hide.”
She jerked from his grasp in surprise. “Me? Why?”
“He thinks you are the thief.”
It took her a moment to sort through his words. Did he really say… “Why would he believe that?” Fear coiled around her heart and squeezed.
Banqui’s broad face creased with anguish, flaring the nostrils of his flat nose. “Because I told him you were the only other person in all of Zirdai who knew where The Eyes were located.”
Scorching hells. Shyla stepped back. Perhaps calling him a friend was being rather generous. “But your diggers—”
“None of them were part of the extraction. Only me. I trusted no one with the information.”
But someone had to know. Unless… “Surely you don’t think that I—”
“Of course not, Shyla! You could have kept the location to yourself and retrieved them without anyone the wiser, which is what I tried to explain to the prince, but he wouldn’t listen. I suspect a spy in my crew, but I need time to figure it out and I don’t wish you harmed.”
How nice, but she didn’t voice her sarcastic response. Instead her mind whirled with the possibilities. The heat in the room baked the sweat off her skin, another warning that they needed to go below. “I can go talk to him. Explain—”
“No. He will not listen. You’ll be tortured until he’s satisfied you told the truth and then, if you’re lucky, you’ll be locked in the black cells. And if you’re not, you’ll be staked to the sand and cooked.”
Gee, what a prince. The fear tightened.
“Yo
u need to hide until I can find the culprit. Perhaps the monks will hide you?”
“No,” she said.
“But they raised you.”
“Doesn’t matter. I will not run and hide, Banqui.” She had lived in the monastery for eighteen circuits and refused to run back to them at the first sign of trouble.
“But—”
“I’m going to help you.”
He shook his head sadly. “You don’t have any contacts among the people.” Banqui gestured to the piles around them. “Your expertise is with translating these historical tablets, sifting the facts from the fables.”
True, but she did have other clients. “What about the spy? Do you know who he or she is working for? I can talk to the other archeologists.” And treasure hunters, but Banqui didn’t need to know she’d worked for them as well. His lecture would last an entire sun jump.
His full lips thinned into a scowl. “At first I suspected the Heliacal Priestess.”
She grunted. “If that’s the case, you’ll never get them back.”
The sun neared the kill zone. The mirror pipe blazed with light as the air in her room seared their throats, creeping toward sixty degrees Celsius. Time to go. Shyla grabbed her pack and without a word, they exited to the empty tunnel—everyone else had abandoned this level angles ago. Sliding the door in place, she locked it and they bolted for the closest stairway. It spiraled down into the gloom.
Druk lanterns hanging on the sandstone walls glowed with a warm yellow light. As they descended, the air cooled fifteen degrees for each level. By the time they reached the safe zone at level six, it was thirty Celsius.
At level eight, Banqui grabbed one of the lanterns. “This way.” He headed down a side tunnel.
The temperature on this level reached ten degrees. Shyla shivered and pulled her wrap from her pack. At least it wouldn’t get any cooler unless they traveled past level eighty where the dry air turned damp.
In Zirdai, the popular routes were all well marked with lanterns and symbols etched into the sandstone walls—the others were left in darkness. Druk lanterns were cheap to produce and plentiful. People frequently carried them and left them at various places for others to use. At least one or two druks lit every room.
The special substance inside the druk changed its tint with depth. After twelve levels it transformed to a new color. At the very bottom of their world—level ninety-seven—it shone with a violet hue. The distinctive colors came in handy for those who were easily lost, unlike Shyla, who’d been exploring the underground city since the monks kicked her out about two circuits ago. Actually it had been exactly eight hundred and twenty-five sun jumps ago—there were three hundred and sixty sun jumps in one circuit. Not that she was counting.
A thin layer of grit crunched under their boots as they walked. The dry air held a salty scent mixed with the faint gingery/anise odor of the desert.
“Where are we going?” she asked him.
“Since you won’t go to the monks, you need a place to stay.”
She waited, but he failed to continue. “And that would be…”
“My upper-level work rooms.”
“They will be the second place the prince’s soldiers will look after checking my room,” she said.
“They already searched them. You can hide—”
“I’m not hiding, Banqui,” she snapped, which wasn’t helping. Shyla considered the problem, viewing it the same way she researched lost artifacts. “After you found The Eyes, what happened next?”
He sighed. “I wrapped the marble container with layers of silk and put it into my satchel. I headed back to the entrance and someone jumped me from behind.” Banqui rubbed the side of his head as anger flared in his eyes. “When I woke, my bag was gone. And before you ask, I didn’t see or hear anyone in the temple before or after the attack.”
She mulled over the information. “What about the guards? Don’t you always station them at a dig site?”
“I do. According to them, no one had entered or left since I’d gone in.” He held his free hand up. “They’re loyal to the Water Prince and they’ve already been questioned.”
“Is that code for tortured?”
“Shyla, this isn’t a joke.”
She gave him a flat look. “The Water Prince thinks I’m a thief so I’m well aware of the seriousness of the situation.”
* * *
To read the rest of chapter one go to: https://www.mariavsnyder.com/books/the-eyes.php
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The Eyes of Tamburah will be released worldwide on February 1, 2021!
Thank You
Thank you for choosing Defending the Galaxy, book 3 in my Sentinels of the Galaxy series. I hope you enjoyed reading this series as much as I loved writing it!
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http://www.mariavsnyder.com/news.php
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(go all the way down to the bottom of the page). I send my newsletter out to subscribers three to four times a year. It contains info about the books, my schedule and always something fun (like deleted scenes or a new short story or exclusive excerpts). No spam—ever!
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Acknowledgments
In keeping with my latest trend in doing something fun and interactive on my acknowledgment page, below you’ll find an Acknowledgement Word Scramble of all the people (in random order and first names only) who have helped me and encouraged me and supported me while I was writing this book. Thank you all so very much!
Also I must thank, Ara Yinhexi Lawrence (a.k.a. Lyra Tian Daniels). The Sentinels of the Galaxy series would not have been written without her in my head, telling me her story. She was most insistent and stubborn and would not shut up.
If you’re having trouble unscrambling some of them, read my other acknowledgements for some hints as many of the people I’m thankful for have been with me for the entire series, and some since my first book. However, there are a few newbies, so I’ll thank them here: Chrysoula, for her keen editorial eye, and Jennifer for her expert medical advice.
Have fun!
SMA
MAERE
SANRIKTI
EFJF
ALEACRH
HOJS
ODEYRN
ATN
NNJAE
UIELAR
CHIMLELE
YDIMN
EISELO
RIECRA
HAKTY
UAJLI
AOJNANH
IDRSULFOSNE
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How did you do? To check your score, the answers can be found at: https://www.mariavsnyder.com/books/answers.php
Also by Maria V. Snyder
Study Series
Poison Study
Magic Study
; Fire Study
Shadow Study
Night Study
Dawn Study
* * *
Glass Series
Storm Glass
Sea Glass
Spy Glass
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Healer series
Touch of Power
Scent of Magic
Taste of Darkness
* * *
Inside Series
Inside Out
Outside In
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Invisible Sword Series
The Eyes of Tamburah (coming February 2021)
The City of Zirdai (coming June 2021)
The King of Koraha (coming November 2021)
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Sentinels Series
Navigating the Stars
Chasing the Shadows
Defending the Galaxy
Discover other titles by Maria V. Snyder at www.MariaVSnyder.com
About the Author
When Maria V. Snyder was younger, she aspired to be a storm chaser in the American Midwest so she attended Pennsylvania State University and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Meteorology. Much to her chagrin, forecasting the weather wasn’t in her skill set so she spent a number of years as an environmental meteorologist, which is not exciting … at all. Bored at work and needing a creative outlet, she started writing fantasy and science fiction stories. Over twenty novels and numerous short stories later, Maria’s learned a thing or three about writing. She’s been on the New York Times bestseller list, won a dozen awards, and has earned her Masters of Arts degree in Writing from Seton Hill University, where she is now a faculty member.
Defending the Galaxy: The Sentinels of the Galaxy Page 36
