Welcome to Excerpt Monday! If you want to join in the fun, you can stop by the Excerpt Monday blog for more information.

This month’s excerpt is a scene from my current work-in-progress, Iconoclast:

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It had been a very long time since Samyazaz was a child. He remembered it as a quiet time, a time of study and learning, marked by the wonder of discovery and the somber honor of his duty. He had never even been so careless as to rip a garment, to his recollection.

The first time Sariel and Baraquiel had brought their young daughter to him, her palms scraped raw and dirty scuffs upon the hem of her skirt, he had been speechless with appalled surprise.

Now, years later, as he ushered her into his workroom yet again, he thought ruefully that he had ceased to be surprised by her. Weary resignation had taken its place.

“I was in a hurry,” she said by way of explanation, and remained standing even though he motioned for her to sit upon his table. “Father said we were having the Council over for supper and I must be well-presented, but I lost myself in the library and before I knew it—”

“You were running,” Samyazaz said grimly, stretching out her arm. The shoulder of her sleeve was in tatters, its edges stained with flecks of blood. Through the rent camisole he could see that her arm was abraded and inflamed. A few long cuts had gone deep enough to break the skin.

“My feet flew right out from under me.” She sent him a sheepish grin, which he countered with stern disapproval. It was not lost on him that she had not rebutted his statement, but had not conceded to it either.

“It is unbefitting a Watcher to run through the halls of her own home,” he scolded her, not for the first time and surely not for the last, as he drew a dagger from his drawer. He turned in time to catch her making a face.

“It is unbefitting a Watcher to come unkept to a supper with the Council, as well, or so my father tells me,” she mocked, her tone light. And then, glancing up at him through her lashes as he began to cut her sleeve off at the shoulder, “Sam—”

He ignored her until she blew out her breath and said, “Samyazaz.”

“Your father is right, of course.” He set aside the bloodied ruins of fabric and turned her wound to the light for a better look. “You might consider that the rest of us manage to arrive at supper on time, and well-kempt, and needn’t rush about and injure ourselves to accomplish it.”

She did not answer, so he turned away and hung a kettle of water on the hearth to boil. Penemue’s gaze followed him as he moved about his workroom, gathering herbs and ointments. He dropped a pinch of slender orange petals into a cup and she said, “What’s that?”

“Calendula,” he answered without turning from his work. He added comfrey and shreds of butterburr, then retrieved the kettle from the fire. The water steamed gently as he poured it into the cup and the petals and herbs floated brightly on the surface. A delicate scent rose from the tisane, comforting, the scent of herbs and healing, of knitting broken bodies back together.

While the infusion steeped, he turned back to Penemue and looked on her unhappily. “How old are you now?” he demanded of her.

She swung her legs and caught her lower lip between her teeth. “Fifteen come spring,” she said at length.

Fourteen. He closed his eyes. It seemed unbearably young. Could he even remember being such an age? Not clearly. He had a vague impression of hours spent in vast libraries, and hauling around books that seemed to weigh more than he did. Certainly he recalled nothing like Penemue’s distressing irreverence, of flaunting the dictates of behavior and being scolded only to flaunt them again.

He opened his eyes and frowned at her. “You’re old enough to know better, then.” He did not know what to make of her. He wished she would behave herself and act like a proper Watcher, but nothing he had said to her over the course of her short lifetime seemed to have any effect at all.

When the tisane was cool enough to touch, he strained the herbs from it and soaked the corner of a cloth in the infusion. Penemue had been a patient of his enough times to know his intent, and she turned her arm to him and held it still while he dabbed the tincture into the wounds. She drew a swift breath, hissing slightly through her teeth, but knew better than to complain.

When he was satisfied that her wounds were clean, he gave it a final wipe with the herbal infusion, then left her side to retrieve an ointment. He saw her gaze on the jar as he returned.

“Meadowsweet,” he told her by rote, working the stoppered cap free. “It’s for–”

“–Aiding healing,” she interrupted him. “And reducing inflammation.”

He looked up at her, startled, jar and lid forgotten in his hands. She sent him an impish smile and glanced away.

“I paid attention.”

When he had recovered his voice, all he said was, “Indeed.” And, “Give me your arm, then.”

She stretched it out, grimacing at the movement, and arched her wings back so that they were not in his way. Samyazaz scooped the ointment up on his fingers and spread it carefully over her wounds. They were already blossoming black and purple, spreading down to her elbow and around her shoulder. The scrapes alone did not seem so bad, but the bruises told another story. A fall that bad could have easily broken bones.

She must have been very late, and running very fast.

If it had not been the floor she’d hit, but another Watcher…

Displeasure made him careless and heavy-handed. Penemue hissed in her breath, and released it with a faint, “Ow.” He glanced at her, then away, and continued wordlessly.

It was prudence that made him lighten his touch, not sympathy. If she could inflict such wounds upon herself without a thought, then she could very well endure their treatment without protest.

“Penemue,” he said when he thought he might be able to control his ire. “Did it not occur as you raced about your home that it might be someone else you injured, and not yourself?”

She looked up at him, stricken, and he had his answer.

“No,” she whispered. “I didn’t think– But everyone would have been at supper, or preparing for it–”

Samyazaz took a roll of bandages from his supplies and began to wrap her arm tightly. He did not speak until he had tied it off, and given her the bandages and the ointment so she could change them herself. As he walked her out of his villa, he hesitated at the front gate and wrapped his hand about her uninjured arm. She stopped and looked up at him, hope dawning beneath the uncertainty in her eyes.

“You are not a child anymore,” he said roughly. “You are nearly a woman. You might consider acting like one.”

Disappointment crushed out the light of hope. She nodded, downcast, and wrenched her arm from him. “Yes. I might.” She turned down the street. “Thank you for your help, Samyazaz.”

He watched her go from beneath furrowed brows, resisting the urge to call out a chastisement as she rubbed at her bandaged arm.

No. He had surely never been like that, as a child. If he had been, he did not know how the others could have ever tolerated him.

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