Empire's Daughter by Marian L. Thorpe - Book Tour + Giveaway
Empire’s Daughter (Empire’s Legacy, Book I)
For twenty generations, the men and women of The Empire have lived separately, the women farming and fishing, the men fighting wars. But in the spring of Lena’s seventeenth year, an officer rides into her village with an unprecedented request. The Empire is threatened by invasion, and to defend it successfully, women will need to fight.
When the village votes in favour, Lena and her partner Maya are torn apart. Maya chooses exile rather than battle, Lena chooses to fight. As Lena learns the skills of warfare and leadership, she discovers that choices have consequences that cannot be foreseen, and that her role in her country’s future is greater than she could have dreamed.
Purchase Link
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Excerpt
Excerpt
Prior to this
excerpt, Casyn a soldier of the Empire, has arrived at the women’s village of
Tirvan to ask the women to learn to fight, to protect their Empire against
invasion. When the village votes to accept, the protagonist Lena’s partner Maya
refuses, choosing exile from Tirvan.
In this scene, the
women are learning to handle weapons. Casyn is introducing them to the secca,
the throwing knife.
"This is the
secca, the throwing knife," he said. "You saw how it spun when I
tossed it. It is balanced to do that." He threw the knife at a butt. It
turned in the air, flying straight and true to the target, embedding itself to
the hilt.
"You will learn
to do this," he said bluntly. "The knife is the thing that can save your
life, either from a distance, in the throw, or in hand to hand fighting. This
is the one weapon that you all, all," he emphasised, "even Casse,
even Mella and Ranni, must learn.”
I gazed at the secca
with bile rising in my throat. Six inches of metal—the size of the knives we
used to debone a fish or to cut line—and Maya chose exile over it. Anger rushed
through me. I took a deep breath to keep myself from screaming. Tice glanced at
me, raising an eyebrow in question. I shook my head, re-focusing on Casyn’s
lesson.
He sheathed the
secca and brought out a wooden knife, banded with metal. "Like the
swords," he explained, "these are for practice. They are weighted so
as to spin and fly like a secca but are less dangerous. When we learn close
combat, the points will be guarded, but we will first learn to throw them.”
He divided us into
groups of five. Each group had one practice knife. It was all he had time to
make, Casyn explained. "Now," he said, "this is what you will
do, for the rest of this hour. Hold the knife with the tip pointing into your
palm, grasping the blade from the top, and flick it upward. As it tumbles back
down, catch it by the hilt." He tossed the wooden secca and caught it. I
saw a hint of a grin on his face. "The first group to have all its members
catch the knife correctly five times in succession wins the first lesson at the
target tomorrow.”
Someone whooped, and
suddenly the seriousness of the afternoon disappeared. The lesson had turned
into play. We spread out. Laughter and curses rang over the field as we tossed
and dropped the knives, scratching ourselves before we began to catch them
properly. Groups began to shout their scores. As I threw and caught the knife
for the fourth time in a row, my group chanting encouragement, the pain inside
me receded, just a bit.
We lost to Dessa’s
group, but we threw second the next day, and I fell over my sword less.
Gradually, as spring gave way to summer and we spent our afternoons with sword
and bow and knife, my muscles and nerves learned the skills, and my swordplay
went from clumsy to competent. I learned the guards and the strikes; I could
hold my own when we moved on to practice fighting. All around me on the field,
I could see similar transformations taking place. Mella, her belly huge now, could,
with a bird bow, hit the red centre on the target nine times out of ten from a
hundred paces. Casse learned to throw the secca with deadly precision,
delighting in learning something new at her advanced age. Casyn watched,
corrected, sometimes chastised, and with his grave good humour kept us working
through the long summer afternoons.
Author Bio –
Writer of historical fantasy and urban fantasy for adults. The Empire's Legacy series explores gender expectations, the conflicts between personal belief and societal norms, and how, within a society where sexuality is fluid, personal definitions of love and loyalty change with growth and experience.
The world of Empire's Legacy was inspired by my interest in the history of Britain in the years when it was a province of the Roman Empire called Britannia, and then in the aftermath of the fall of the Roman Empire. In another life, I would have been a landscape archaeologist, and landscape is an important metaphor in the Empire's Legacy trilogy and in all my writing, fiction and non-fiction.
I live in Canada for most of the year, England for the rest, have one cat, a husband, and when I'm not writing or editing, I'm birding.
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