Snippet Time! Check out the #01 the First Snippet from Shade of Honor!

<Unedited>



The desolation was complete. It looked like God had reached out a hand and flattened the entire village. Building walls were toppled, roofs were broken, and the normal structure of their daily village life had been totally destroyed. It would’ve been impossible to determine from the current scene that only a short number of hours before this it been a village of over 4000 people. One teaming with the normal life of a small village.

 Zhanna stood with her hands balled into fists, staring around her. The sick feeling in her stomach was overwhelming. She didn’t know whether to fall to her knees, crying torrents of tears or to scream her rage to the heavens. Stuck between grief and anger, she was frozen. 

How could have come to this? The muted sound of soft sobbing filled her ears, and she turned to her left. Curled protectively around two small children, an older woman in the traditional head covering, or babushka, stared blankly at what remained of her home. It was Baba Marta. Zhanna knew that probably meant that the two crying children were Gregor and Anna, but she couldn’t see for sure. The sound of the children’s soft, frightened sobs told her both that they were alive and kicked off an unconscionable rage. How could it have come to this? 

Zhanna had seen other places where disasters had happened. There was always a bustle of people trying to rescue and repair. Men rushing around, caring stretchers, comforting their families. But all that she could hear and all that she could see was a frozen aftermath of a horrible disaster. There was no bustle, no rescue. No men. There was the main problem. There were no men in the village right now. They were all out on contract. Without the men’s mercenary work, there would be no food, no shelter. The entire village was dependent on having the best, and the brightest spend huge amounts of time away from their families.

 Her dark thoughts were rudely interrupted. <<I suppose you just going to stand there and look like a thundercloud waiting to mess up a nice day,>> sniped through her thoughts. 

She looked down into the brilliant eyes of her cat, her familiar. Dascha stared back at Zhanna with a wicked glint in her eye. The cat was gorgeous. The deepest gray coloring and the black undertone of the fur seem to glow in the sunlight. Almost too dark for a Russian Blue, Dasha looked more like a Russian Black. Looking at her cat, Zhanna felt the blast of astonishment that occurred whenever she thought of how she had ended up with such a beautiful, powerful, impressive familiar. She must’ve stared too long at the cat because the next thing she knew her ankle was pricked by a set of very sharp claws. 

 <<Stop staring at me! Aren’t you going to do something useful?>>

 <<I was planning on it if you’d stop drawing my blood!>>

 <<Well, think faster because standing here until you grow roots isn’t going to help the people that are hurting or bleeding. So, get your act together, girl, and let’s do something useful.>> 

Zhanna drew a deep breath and straightened her spine. Forcing a calm look unto her face, the young woman walked toward the older one who was still clutching the crying children, calling out as she walked, “Just a moment, let’s see how you’re doing…”