Deadly Troubadour

I’ve been working on a sequel to Deadly Troubadours. Curious? Of course you are. Or at least I hope you are. Here is a little bit of a taste:

It was the first few creeping rays of sunshine that woke Demetrius from his slumber. His head felt foggy and full of cotton. Opening his eyes was a trial and rising his head from off the pillow took supreme effort. He did not recognize his surroundings. Across the room was a small bookcase holding a few meager volumes. From the covers they all seemed to be written in some script of swirls that Demetrius couldn’t fathom.

His eyes shut as his mouth stretched into a wide yawn. He was trying to piece together the memories of what had happened last night. He remembered cooking and spicy peppers. He was in Dagger’s house. Karyn’s house. He remembered wood and a brick oven. He remembered her speaking words of caution. Demetrius’ eyes bolted open as he remembered another detail. Fire. He had summoned fire and lost control. He had summoned fire and now she wasn’t here. Had he burned her?

He sat upright in the bed. He was in a bed. He had no memory moving here. He did remember collapsing in the kitchen. If that was where he fell and here was where he awoke, then he must have been moved. Moving him doesn’t seem like something a burned dagger would have concerned herself with.

He dragged himself from the bed, somehow both relieved and disappointed that he was still in yesterday’s clothes. The main room produced no further evidence of Dagger. He gave a frown and peeked his head into the kitchen. It smelled of burnt food and the brick oven was considerably blackened. Regret and shame hit Demetrius hard. He gave a thought to using magic to clean the brick, but decided against it. His head still felt like it was packed with wool and the thought of channeling seemed both daunting and, with his recent loss of control, more than a little scary.

Dagger wasn’t at home. He was as sure of that as he was that he needed to find here and explain. How he was going to explain was something that he had not yet figured out. He knew that he lost control, but he wasn’t sure why.

Oh, wow. mysterious. I hope Demetrius Tate is okay. Guess we will have to wait and find out.