So I was working for a while on two stories at the same time. What writer doesn't? Having finished one in September, the next is ready. The fifth book in the Dark and the White series is Blood in the Mother's Soil. And here is a bit of it...

Awash in the currents of the world, a flutter of black feathers carried the crow on the western winds. She was like a black spear, weightless and ominous from above. Beneath the slow beat of her wings she harbored the many legends of yore. The sun blazed overhead and the tips of the endless mountains rose like the broken teeth of the wild beast. Across the pastures and the towns the crow drifted, seeing all below on the rich green earth as the people toiled and the day began. The rivers flowed, the graceful deer ran, the grass whispered. And the mountains loomed close, closer.
The crow did not come. The crow was sent. Between the teeth she fell with a flap of her wings and a call to the people of the Westland, the fallen would be reborn. A black prayer on a white canvas, she soared downward on the face of a mighty snow capped peak as a messenger from that place betwixt the realms of life and death.
Another bitter shriek to curse the dark places and draw the light from the soil and the rivers. The spirits woke, the ghosts wailed, and in the early hours of the great sun rising, the waters of the White river shone with the tears of the Xana who tasted blood rain from the mountain of the south.
Death had come in the night. On the mid summer's night under the cool of the blue moon rising, blood was soaking in the earth. Screams and torment broke the still of the late hour. War and black murder chased the light away and it sped like a lightning bolt sent from the top of the mountain home to the very heavens above. The temple of the Moon Priestess sent her message to the Goddess “We are coming home.”
And in blood and tears a new river made a path from the mountain side to the lands below. It wound and tumbled ever seeking a way to the lowland places where the people waited. It was a letter written in the life and death of the Temple. For many a long year beyond the memory of all living peoples the Moon Priestess were the guardians of justice and light. And the arc of justice is strong, the people said. The Moon Priestess were sacred, could walk through a battle and emerge unscathed on the other side. All life within the Temple, all who wore the White robe were sacrosanct, until the darkness fell and robbed the people of the light. Justice, you see, was a fragile thing. And once under threat, like a snow flake, it could break in the malicious hand never to return. Never again would the people see it’s like, much like a snow flake it was pure and unique. One day they would need seek another way. That is a long road fraught with struggle and the bloodied hands of many.
And those people In some distant time hence would know from the lips of their frightened elders “We did not fight for it, and then we lost it.”
The crow rose from the rolling green hills of the lands below, carried South on those black wings until she came to the southern wall of the mountains where the hot lands of the Nasser burned the ground to dust. And at the face of the mountain home of the Moon Priestess, she rose again with a pained shriek as she saw with her dark eyes the lesson evil had wrought.
Upon the shaft of a spear buried deep in the smoking ruins of the battle ravaged earth, the crow landed with nary a sound to betray her presence.
Accursed is the land littered with dead.
Her dark eyes roamed the lands of the Temple and took in what would one day be the ruin of mankind. It was to become a story of wanton death and destruction. This was the first chapter in that new story. Beneath the crow the many hundred of the priestess lay scattered like the leaves of the autumn tree, bathed in rust and the slow presence of decay. The invaders salted the earth so nothing may grow again. They lit fires left to burn the ashes of the Temple lore. In their arrogance they left the dying to die in the night, uttering prayer, invoking their vows.
But the crow was sent. And sent on the wings of the prayers spoken by the dead. She wandered the hillside, over dead bodies amid the burning temple and shrine, until she came to the one. A lady, daughter of the high priestess, fallen with a sword in her back from where her life had spilled. In vain she sought to save the life of another. She was the one, this slender woman dared refuse the final rest in the halls of the dead. Something held her back. When the final words in the last chapter of her life were written in blood, this young woman had more to say. Such a fate has only ever been granted to one. The crow watched her carefully, gazed at the contours of her elegant face, saw the echo of her pain. Her skin was ice, her eyes were pale, yet the grim hand of death could not touch her. This was the one.
Life was to rise, one more time. The Lady stirred, her gentle blue eyes came alive with color and the wash of pained tears as she saw all that was laid to ruin before her. She crept forward onto her knees with her hands covering her face. It was to shield her from the horror all around. She cried aloud, giving voice to all the anguish and soul scarred suffering she held within. And then she heard the call of the crow, some way off, amid broken rocks smoldering with the heat from the invader’s fires. To those rocks she dashed, stumbling barefoot without fear or notice given to the pain of bloodied feet on the scorched earth. She was so pale against the backdrop of smoke ruined air and battle. She looked like the lonely ghost adrift among the dead. Amid those rocks, her sister wailed miserably. A young girl with the gift of long red hair. Shoshanna, a sister initiate brought to the Temple one summer ago.
Her lips moved without a sound, lest somehow this be a dream and the noise would shatter her own illusion “Lady Karis,” she whispered, as she held her arms close to her chest where the death blow had fallen. Her white robe was bloodied and her almond eyes were wide, blood freckles sprinkled on the gentle curve of her nose. The girl hung close to madness as sanity was a cruel master this day. She was so young, and before her eyes she had seen a lifetime of horror in mere moments.
“Is it a curse? Surely we are cursed. The halls have refused us for what offense I could not say.” Yao stood shaking her head. Her dark hair was mussed and her white robe turned to waste near the ashes of the fire where her dead body was thrown. Yet steel was in her chocolate eyes as she spoke, first in her mind was the loss of the dead, and second in her heart was the call for justice.
“Our Lady refused the halls,” Karis replied. Those words should inspire, like a flag basking in the sun before the glory of battle. How hollow they sounded now.
Yao stood there with her hair a flutter in the acrid smoky morning breeze for a long time before she said anything , and when she finally did speak she said this “ Never that we were refused, Lady. That is not the curse I speak of. It is a curse upon the living to remain behind to see all that is lost. That is our curse to bear all the long days of our lives yet to be lived. I loved them even if I did not know them yet seeing what I see now I would not trade my place with any of them. Is it a selfish thing, to not want to be here to see this?”
“Lady!” Shoshanna was rocking back and forth in terror “We died. I know we did. I remember the pain and the… the laughter and the screams…”
“Hush child, it was but yesterday and now is today.”
“Lady, today is for justice!”