The fifteen minute novel writing experiment is a attempt to write a complete (and very rough) draft of a novel by writing for fifteen minutes each day. I have taken a timed writing from one of the daily prompts done in 2021, cleaned it up a little and used it as my jumping off point into a story. Each day I will take the last line of the story written the day before and use it as my sentence starter and write for fifteen minutes, growing the story as the year progresses.
Day 40: And it certainly never glowed before.’
And it certainly never glowed before.’ Anya was certain if her birthmark glowed, she would have remembered it. ‘Even if I was small, someone would have made mention of it to me.’
The fact that no one ever said anything made Anya fairly certain that this was a new occurrence. ‘After all once they noticed it and the mark never did anything, people forgot about it.’ She didn’t think a flashing mark would be forgotten.
Anya finished dressing but still heard no sounds from outside of her room. The hallway was still quiet. Anya moved to the window. The curtains were still drawn and she pulled them aside, peering out into the world.
It was a world composed of stone. The day was too newly begun for there to be much movement and shadows still reigned. In fact there was less light form the partially risen sun than there had been when the moon was high. It was the darkness before the dawn and nothing moved.
‘No, something is moving,’ Anya realized. There was someone in the courtyard. He moved stealthily through the shadows. He made certain to stay in the deepest parts as though he feared being seen. This place may have been strange, but Anya didn’t think this was typical behavior to the town. Fearing the worst, Anya felt her heart rate speed up. She shifted to the side so that she could not be seen looking by the man shaped form gliding down the street. To Anya’s relief, while he passed by the building called the House of the Star, he didn’t spare it a glance. He was coming from further up the street and seemed intent on going much further down.
‘Towards the gate,’ Anya thought. ‘He could be letting someone in.’
Anya’s heart leapt to her throat. What if the person this man was letting in was Lord Mathias or someone he sent? She swallowed hard, trying to shift the lump in her throat. The man glanced behind him and Anya caught sight of his face. She didn’t recognize him but that didn’t mean much. She was certain she passed other men once she entered the town, but the only one she recalled was the guardsman.
‘Guardsman,’ she recalled. ‘Someone will be at the gate.’
Even as she thought that, she recalled the guardsman she saw had been on his own. There was no contingent of guards placed there as they were in her dreams. Even as she realized this, the man outside stopped. He looked around and seeing no one, pressed a carving in the stone. It was too dark to see what the carving was or if he did anything but push, but next to the carving the shadows deepened.
‘A door way,’ she thought as the man stepped through. The lighter stone returned as the doorway closed and the dark interior once again hidden. Anya wasn’t sure what to make of it. ‘It’s not the gate house though.’
That thought calmed her. The others said that the mountains were carved in a network of tunnels and inner city streets, most of which were blocked off. She didn’t know if they connected to the main gate. Even with that as a possibility, her fear faded under the curiosity.
Ten til Midnight 