Woo-hoo! It’s Spring!
Well, it is for all of use who reside beneath the Southern Cross—I know it’s autumn with the dark night drawing in on the far side of the world, which is probably a better seasonal experience for getting into the spirit of Halloween. (Yes, it really is just a few weeks away now.)
Anyway, to celebrate Spring and get into the seasonal spirit, I thought I’d share a few spring-related excerpts from my books—which means Thornspell and The Gathering Of The Lost, because am pretty sure spring doesn’t enter into The Heir of Night at all.
I’ll start with Thornspell, since I always think of it as a ‘spring time’ book:
“The mosaic formed part of the open, bricked circle that was the center of the lilac walk and depicted a girl dancing, with lilac blossoms falling from her upraised fingers and strewn beneath her lilting feet. There were lilacs twined through and around her white gown as well, and crowning the dark fall of her hair, although her face was turned away. Sigismund thought there was a joyful feeling to it, like the return of spring after a long, cold winter, and Balisan seemed to like it too. He squatted on his heels and studied it for some time. “Interesting,” he said after a while. “Do you know who this is meant to be?”
“Master Griff says that she’s the spirit of spring,” Sigismund replied, “but no one knows for certain.”
~ from © Thornspell, Chapter 3 — Balisan
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And The Gathering Of the Lost begins with spring:
“Spring came to the River in a flurry of blustering winds and driving rain that turned the local roads into quagmires and hurled the first fragile blossoms to the ground. Two heralds were blown out of the city of Terebanth with the weather and turned east toward Ij, following the great Main Road that had endured since the days of the Old Empire. At any other season a river passage would have been faster, but the combination of contrary winds and spring floods, fed by snowmelt in the headwaters of the Ijir and the Wildenrush, would keep the merchant galleys in port for at least another month. And unlike the adjoining local roads, the Main Road was well paved and drained and would not turn to mud in the spring rain.
Even so, it took the heralds the best part of a chill and dreary month to complete their journey. The rain continued, steady and unrelenting, and they slept in small wayside inns or camped in the leafless woods. Both heralds were swathed in thick gray cloaks, but they and their horses were equally sodden by the time the first watery sunshine appeared, just before the toll bridge and the great Patrol fort at Farelle.”
~ from © The Gathering Of The Lost, The Wall of Night Book Two: Chapter 1 — The Road to Ij
How about you, though, do you have a favourite, book-derived spring quote—or even a book itself that makes you think of spring?